by Calista Skye
“That's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen,” Frox exclaims, his eyestalks pulling his head forwards. “The sheer femininity!”
“Sure.” Of course I feel it, too. Every male sentient would. The humans have a quality to them that can't be expressed in words, but which makes you almost desperate to mate with one and have her give you offspring.
Still, for me it's a distant sensation that never gets urgent. My duty mostly gets in the way of me mating or breeding. And anyway I wouldn't want to buy the mother of my children at any auction.
The various aliens start bidding, and soon the amount reaches a level so high that you could buy a decent-sized moon for it.
The Bululg club the highest bid, and the first lot is brought backstage again, struggling and screaming angrily.
More lots are brought out, one after the other, each one quickly sold for huge amounts.
Frox is visibly trembling. “To think I spent fifty thousand on all this trash, when I could have bought one of those females!” His tentacles indicate the metal ribbons hanging from him.
“Fifty thousand wouldn't even get you a quarter of a human female,” I inform him.
“No, and it's not like I necessarily want one. But you see what I mean. If only I'd known…”
The vaguely wheel-shaped Frox is pretty exotic even by alien standards, and imagining him trying to mate with one of these stunning Earthlings almost makes me smile. Though of course he might breed one. There are ways to make the conception successful, even between very different sentient species.
Those aliens who have had successful bids start to leave the room, eager to inspect their purchases.
“Now,” the Bululg say in decent Interspeech, “our final lot. A young Earth female, approximately twenty-two planetary cycles old.”
Another female is pushed into the light, and I do a double take.
Now that is a female! She has a luxurious, ample shape and skin with a warm, golden glow to it. Her hair is black and long, her face finely drawn with dark lines above each eye. And even though those eyes are dark, they shoot fire in a way that none of the other females did. She yanks at the chains that hold her and yells something in a bright voice that she somehow manages to make furious-sounding.
To my surprise I find that I can't take my eyes off her. She's incredibly spirited. Oh, and that shape...
“Very round and feminine,” the Bululg continue, “with only one small scratch that may well self-repair. And: she's believed to be a member of the Resistance movement!”
My mouth is dry with lust, and those words ignite more than just idle interest. A resistance fighter? A small woman like that?
She's almost entirely naked, and only flimsy garments hide her feminine charms.
Suddenly, her fiery eyes focus on me, and I forget time and place.
“I think you like what you see,” Frox says into my reverie.
“What?”
One of his eyestalks sends a glance to my crotch. “I know what that means.”
I look down. Hmm. There is some swelling going on, definitely. None of the other females caused it. It's because of her.
What in space is going on with me?
The bids keep climbing to record heights.
4
- Mila -
“Let me go right now!” The crowd of weird aliens stuns me for a moment before I remember what's about to happen. I find some of my old anger and do whatever I can to resist being pushed out on the stage. “I don't consent to any of this!” I try again, using my halting Spaceish.
But I'm being dragged by the chains around my ankles and wrists, and I have no way to stop it. I also have no way to kill myself or anyone else. The other Earth girls that are being sold are all kept separate. Well, there will be chances later.
There are spotlights on me, and the aliens stare at my almost naked body. The noise level in here if off the charts, but I get the feeling they're all jeering at me.
It's all extremely degrading, but I'm more mad than hurt about it. Especially because I haven't seen Emma anywhere.
I still have the cellphone taped to my back, and Ingrid translates what's being said on the speakers. But I understand enough Spaceish to get it. They're auctioning me off, and the bidding seems to be pretty frantic.
Tentacles wave and weird voices call out numbers. The crowd of alien flesh is pressed up against the stage I'm on, and I shrink back as best I can. They all seem to be crazy, with wild eyes and open mouths as they bellow bids.
Except one.
He's by the wall, tall and with sky-blue skin. He's wearing a robe with a hood, but still I can see that he's staring at me. His eyes are a vivid yellow, and for some reason that one alien gaze makes me feel more vulnerable than all the others combined. It's like he sees right through me and uncovers all my secrets without even trying. He gives me the strange feeling that it's only him and me in here, nobody else matters.
It's actually kind of creepy the way he stares. I don't know if he wants to kill me or eat me or pin me to a wall like a dead butterfly. Because it has to be something like that. He has lethal danger written all over him, like a tiger. And still there is something vaguely familiar about him.
I don't know how interested he really is. He's not even bidding on me, as far as I can tell. Did he come here just to look, like a voyeuristic creep?
The noise in the room reaches a fever pitch, and then the leading Bululg says something and a hundred alien groans echo from the walls.
I think I was just sold.
“You have no right to do this!” I yell as I'm being pulled back from the stage by the chains and by two burly aliens. I'm still trying to fan my anger and not give in to the hopelessness that's lurking right under the surface. “Let me go right now!”
It's no use, of course. Before I'm pulled behind the curtain, I notice that the yellow-eyed freak in the robe is still staring right at me, except now he's frowning, too.
“What the fuck are you staring at, creep?” I manage to yell, but it's drowned out by the noise.
The next few minutes are a blur of relentless activity as the aliens keep me totally helpless with alien chains while they strip me naked, spray me with chemical-smelling water, blow hot air at me, and then spray me down with a white liquid that immediately becomes an insanely form-fitting suit, like latex that’s been painted on. The aliens then drape me in thin, yellow fabric with a giant bow at the front, like a present being wrapped.
I yell and curse and yank at the chains, trying to hit and kick all the aliens that come within range. But they easily avoid all my blows without even reacting to them. It's like I'm an object or an animal being led to the slaughterhouse. Nobody takes any notice of me, and it's downright scary how efficient the process is.
The Resistance has calculated that about twelve thousand women have been abducted from Earth since the invasion. So these fuckers have had a lot of opportunity to perfect this sales process.
My arm suddenly stings, and I realize that they removed the chip in there when they put a skin-colored patch right where it used to be. I guess Population Control doesn't need me to be electronically tagged anymore.
That's when it sinks in: I've been taken from Earth, and my abductors don't expect me to ever return there.
I guess they'll take the phone, too—
An alien barks something.
“They will let you keep me,” Ingrid chirps. “I can translate the commands your new owner gives you! They will deliver you to him now, and they suggest you behave well. Obedient girls tend to live the longest, they say.”
Shit. Everything has happened so fast I haven't had the chance to keep up. But now, wrapped like a present and being led through the corridors again, some of the defiance has gone out of me and the hopelessness is setting in.
Okay, maybe the instructions to kill myself and take as many as possible with me won't be so hard to carry out now. Mentally, anyway.
I'm forced to sit down on a low bench, just wa
iting while the aliens step back. Finally a Bululg comes up to me and inspects the work that's been done. Then I'm marched on some kind of leash down long hallways until I round a corner and spot a small group of gangly, gray aliens standing by the end of the corridor.
“Your owner,” the chief slaver says when we come to a halt in front of them. “Baron Pantoflir. My Lord, here is your slave. This female is not good for hard labor, but she will make perfect breeding stock for you.” He hands over the leash to the ugliest creature I've ever seen.
If I'd seen this type of alien in a movie, I would have laughed, knowing they were meant to be comic relief. But I've never been further from laughing than now. The baron's skin is hanging off his skeleton like loose fabric, and although he has two legs and two arms, I can't identify which part of his head is the eyes.
He makes a thin sound like from a whistle.
“This female was expensive,” Ingrid translates. “It better be undamaged and in perfect condition.”
“It has one small scratch, as was noted during the sale,” the Bululg replies. “Apart from that, there should be no issues.”
Another whistling sound, and the baron turns around and pulls me with him by the leash.
“There better not be.”
A large hatch opens in the wall and the baron enters, then pulls at the leash, whistling.
“Come into my ship, female,” Ingrid translates.
I resist as much as I can. “I do not agree to come with you!”
Ingrid translates to whistling, but it has no effect. I grab hold of the frame around the hatch and try to yank the leash out of the alien's hand.
At the same time, there's movement at the end of the corridor. It's that creepy guy with the yellow eyes. When he sees me, he stops and stares again.
Then I'm pulled inside, the hatch closes with a metallic bang and I'm a captive in my owner's spaceship.
No, I will not think of him as my owner. He's a criminal and a human trafficker.
It's a large room, round and weird and a bland beige color that manages to make the inside of this alien spaceship look dull and even old. There are windows in the floor, and through them I see stars and a little sliver of Earth.
Shit. I'm in space for real. And now I notice that I feel heavier than usual. There must be some kind of artificial gravity here that's a little stronger than on Earth.
There are control panels everywhere, and the baron's lackeys get busy with them.
I'm still bound on hands and feet in a way that makes it almost impossible for me to do anything other than walk with short steps.
“I protest against this treatment,” I try again. “You have abducted me. This is a serious crime. I demand to be let out right now.”
The baron whistles again, making the disgusting folds of loose skin down his front shake like Jello.
“There is no such thing as a crime in space,” Ingrid translates. “I bought you, fair and square. Don't worry. We'll have many good moments together, you and I.”
“I promise you that we will not. Take me back to Earth and let me go, and maybe you can come out of this still alive.” I have no idea what to say here, but they say that fortune favors the brave.
The alien makes many thin whistling noises in succession.
“Laughter,” Ingrid translates unnecessarily.
Yeah, I didn't think it would work. I yank at my chains and try to break them, but they dig into my skin and seem impossible to break.
“Why so restless?” the baron whistles. “It's a good life as a breeder. I will mount you, and then some time later you will give birth to my offspring. They will be a wonderful mix. With my face and your roundness, they'll be irresistible!”
I look closer at his head, which looks most of all like a stack of ill-shaped pancakes. But I can just about see a darker band with some humidity, so I assume that's his eye. At least when I look further down on him, there's no obvious excitement.
“Yes, you are allowed to admire me,” the revolting alien continues through Ingrid. “The process will be pleasant for us both. I am a renowned lover. And it seems that our slight differences in genetic makeup will mean that we must couple many, many times until there is a result.”
“There will never be a result,” I state. “We're too different.”
“We are somewhat different,” the alien agrees. “But scientific advances have made it possible for just about any sentient to mate with another and produce offspring. Leave that to me. In fact, I think we should begin right now.”
A metal table whirrs up from the floor. It's X-shaped and has a cage-like structure mounted across it. Someone could easily be locked onto that table. Say, a resistance fighter with a little bit of heft to her shape.
I try to pull back. “I'm not getting on that.”
“But you are,” the baron counters, standing up. “How else can the first coupling be completed?”
Two of his friends sneak up behind me and grab my chains, then use those to drag me over to the table, lift me, and put me down onto it.
I kick and hiss and try to bite them, but I'm too tightly restrained to move much. Thirty seconds later, I'm spread-eagle on the table with the cage locked securely around my upper half. Only my legs are outside it, and I realize that I'm in a perfect position for someone to take advantage of me.
The baron comes over and looks down at me. And now his excitement is obvious – there's definitely something unpleasant-looking peeking out from between the hanging drapes of loose skin.
“It might be somewhat painful the first times,” he whistles softly. “For you, I mean.”
He has a short knife in his hand and easily cuts away the ridiculous yellow wrapping. Then he puts the edge under the latex-like suit that was put onto me, ready to cut it off.
“I will kill you if you do this,” I hiss, and I have never said anything I meant more. “And then I will—”
Suddenly, the ship is filled with a blinding, blue light and a sound like water pouring into in a red-hot skillet.
A round piece of metal falls to the floor, barely missing the table I'm on. A dark hole has appeared in the ceiling.
There's frantic whistling all around me for a second. Then someone jumps down from the hole and lands softly right beside me. He has his back to me, and from this angle I can't see what kind of person it is. But it has to be an alien.
“I claim this female,” a deep voice says in Spaceish.
There is silence for a moment. Then the whistling reaches insane levels as the baron and his friends try to argue. Ingrid can’t even keep up with it.
“I know you bought her,” the newcomer says calmly. “You can consider this an act of piracy if it makes you feel better about it.”
Then he turns.
Fuck. It's the creep who was staring at me. Now the hood is pulled back from his face and his yellow eyes are even more impossible to escape.
He snaps open the cage, throws it away, and lifts me off the table as if I weighed nothing more than a down pillow.
I'm too stunned to think straight. But anything that gets me off that forced impregnation table has to be a little bit good, at least.
The blue guy stands under the hole in the ceiling and easily tosses me up through it. I squeal, but I'm caught by something soft up here and I soon find myself standing on another floor with the same gravity as Earth.
The new alien lifts himself up onto the same floor and gently pushes me out of the way, then ducks his torso back down the hole, sprays something down there, and then comes back up.
A round hatch slides shut, and the whole floor shudders so I have to steady myself on something. And the closest thing is the blue alien. I reflexively grab hold of his arm until I regain my balance.
“Sorry.” I withdraw my hand, but it is with some reluctance. His skin is blue and has white spots, but it's warm and silky smooth to the touch. And the muscles underneath are massive.
He doesn't reply, just opens another hatch above us, jump
s up, and reaches a huge, blue hand down to me.
I have no choice, so I grab it and am immediately pulled up into what has to be a main room in this new spaceship that I'm in.
In here it's much brighter and warmer than in the baron's unpleasant craft. There's even some kind of alien music playing in the background – strange, but pleasant.
There are windows or possibly screens on one oval wall, and outside is the same starry blackness I spotted from the baron's ship.
Before I can look around more, the blue guy comes over, grabs my chains, and snaps them in his hands. They fall to the floor with a metallic rattle.
Then he just stands there and frowns at me.
I frown right back. He's huge. Seven feet tall and built like a tank, with muscles all over the place and shiny pants under that robe. As blue as the sky in summer, with white spots that kind of look like clouds. A set of hooked spikes run down each upper arm and make him look more dangerous than I realized. His movements are calm and confident. He doesn't have any hair on his head, but there are squarish protrusions like on an alligator, making it look almost padded. His face is pretty alien, with strong features that aren't too weird, but extremely striking.
Those yellow eyes are as intense as two suns, piercing me with some weird magnetic power that feels more primal than alien. And I realize that I can't take it anymore.
“Thank you,” I say. And then, on the weirdest impulse, I go up on tiptoes and kiss him on the cheek. Except the ship lurches at the same moment, so I miss and put my lips square on his.
I withdraw immediately, but I have time to realize that his lips are softer and more welcoming than they have any right to be. His scent is fresh and manly.
“Sorry,” I say again. “I didn't mean to…”
He stares me down again, but this time I think I see a little smirk at his mouth. He might be blue with white spots and dangerous-looking hooked spikes on his arms, but he's a lot more relatable than that grotesque baron. If that is in fact a smirk, of course.
“You saved me from the… the other ship,” I state lamely. Why isn't this guy saying anything? ”Ingrid, why are you not translating?” I hiss.