Either she can handle this, or she’s a great actress, Eegor thought.
“The Eeeepps got Antaska to visit them, and they tried, but she got away from them. All she got was a bite on the neck from Iiooonaa. That’s how we were able to track her here, but that comes later,” said Eegor.
He was starting to feel somewhat relieved. Pweet had now heard the worst of what he’d done, and she hadn’t run screaming from the room or anything like that. Maybe this would be OK after all. She’d only been here for a few hours, but already just the thought of losing her tore a hole inside him.
It’s not just that’s she’s so incredibly beautiful, he thought. Tilde and Antaska were both beautiful, but they didn’t make me feel the way I feel about her. Like she’s so right for me. Like she’s the one. The only one for me. And I’ve never felt this way before about any female, he realized.
Eegor also realized that he had been silent for a while without speaking. He ate a few bites of his food, and then went on.
“Since that didn’t work, and Antaska was about to leave for outer space, Iiooonaa had another idea. ‘Passive aggressive harassment,’ she said. She knew the other Earthlings Antaska was going to be traveling with. She contacted them on SpaceFace and told them what to do to Antaska, and they did it. Do you know what passive aggressive harassment is?” he asked Pweet.
“Yes, I know what that is, and I think it’s pretty crappy and cowardly,” Pweet answered. “Scummy, really. It’s a sneaky way people can hurt other people and still act like they’re innocent and great people. But everyone will say the person they’re hurting is a crazy loser if that person complains about it. Yes, I know exactly what that is.”
Pweet stopped eating and scowled at him.
Wow! thought Eegor. I didn’t expect her to get so mad about this part after she listened to the other parts without getting mad.
His emotions clashed in confusion. Someone had hurt Pweet! Eegor wanted to kill them, whoever they were. But at the same time, he had done the same things, and worse.
I hate myself, Eegor thought. I hate who I used to be.
“You’re right,” he said to Pweet. “I agree with you. Now I know what I did was really bad, but I didn’t understand that then. I hope you’ll believe me when I say I’m a different person now, but I understand if you’re worried about me—about the terrible things I’ve done. You know people can change, right?” Eegor asked.
“OK. I know that’s true,” said Pweet. “I just get really mad when I hear something like that. Because it happened to me too, and that’s part of why I ended up here. But please tell me the rest of the story.”
Pweet hoped her food would be able to digest after all the upsetting things she was hearing at this meal. But her new, stronger body demanded more food, and she kept eating.
“Where was I?” said Eegor. “Oh, right. We tried to harass Antaska. The plan was for the other Earthlings to keep at it for the whole trip—about a hundred years. But that didn’t happen. After just one day, she got kidnapped by a Woogah slaver. Maybe it was the same one who got you if he kept talking about her.”
Pweet thought it must have been Marroo too, but she didn’t say anything. She wanted to hear the rest of the story.
“So I was pissed off again because I felt like she got away from us,” Eegor continued. “I was really mad at the Eeeepps. Then Iiooonaa videoed me and told me she had a new plan. Me and two of the Eeeepps would take Master Meeepp’s space ship, the one you saw parked outside, and go after Antaska.”
“How could you do that?” asked Pweet.
She knew it couldn’t have been that easy to steal a space ship from a Verdante and then just fly away in it.
“That’s what I asked too,” said Eegor. “Iiooonaa told me she and the Eeeepps would handle getting the ship, and all I had to do was fly it.”
“You’re able to fly a Verdante space ship?” Pweet asked him.
This was surprising. Pweet knew that only Verdantes could fly those.
“Yeah. That’s when they told me about my gene contributors. My real gene contributors,” said Eegor.
His mouth narrowed into a bitter line.
“Iiooonaa Eeeepp told me that my master and mistress, the people I thought were my owners—you know how Verdantes own humans as pets, right?”
Pweet nodded. She’d learned about that from Marroo even before she got into his restricted videos.
“Well, I found out that those people were actually my primary gene contributors. I’m part Earth human, but I’m actually also a Verdante,” Eegor said in a grim tone.
“You’re a Verdante!” Pweet exclaimed.
“Yes, I’m a Verdante,” Eegor repeated.
Then he dropped his handsome head forward and sat in silence.
Something clicked deep inside Pweet’s mind. A buried compulsion activated and took control.
“Kill! Kill the Verdantes!” said the compulsion over and over.
All thoughts except one were wiped from Pweet’s mind.
“Kill the Verdante! Kill the Verdante!” the implanted hypnotic suggestion repeated over and over.
But how? Pweet knew she wasn’t strong enough to kill this big man in a fight. She looked around for weapons, but there were none. The table knives weren’t sharp enough. Sharp! She remembered the stilettos she was wearing. They had knife-sharp metal heels. Those would work. She reached down and pulled a shoe off one foot.
Pweet stared at Eegor, planning her next move.
“Do you want to hear the rest now?” he asked.
“Kill the Verdante!” the words blasted in Pweet’s head.
Pweet lifted the shoe and prepared to throw it. Her hand shook as some buried part of her tried to push back against the order. But the mental compulsion was too powerful to resist. It won the battle and took over her mind. It was as if she was no longer the same person. She was only the command that ruled her.
Shoe in hand, Pweet drew back her arm. She tightened her genetically enhanced muscles. Eegor stared at her as if puzzled by what she was doing.
“Kill the Verdante!” Pweet screamed.
But it wasn’t out loud. It was a telepathic scream.
Eegor clutched his head in his arms and screamed too just when Pweet released the shoe. The metal stiletto flashed and spun through the air at deadly speed. It struck Eegor and penetrated deep into the arm he had just thrown across his head. Blood dripped.
“Kill the Verdante! Kill the Verdante!” Pweet kept shouting telepathically over and over.
Completely taken over by the compulsion to kill, she reached down and grabbed her other shoe.
“Arrghh! Why are you trying to kill me!” Eegor yelled out loud.
A large, low weight tackled Pweet down to the floor. Someone grabbed the second shoe from her hand and threw it across the room.
“I’ve got her,” she heard the body holding her down say out loud. But nothing made any sense to her anymore except the order to kill.
“Don’t hurt her!” Pweet heard the Verdante say out loud.
She couldn’t stop screaming telepathically. “Kill the Verdante! Kill the Verdante!”
“Why is she yelling ‘kill the Verdante!’ in my head?” the Verdante asked the two others.
“Can you hear that? I don’t hear anything,” said the one who took away Pweet’s shoe.
Pweet twisted around and saw the shoe over on the side of the room. She squirmed to get to it, but her captor held her fast.”
“You must be telepathic now, Eegor, like Iiooonaa said,” said the one holding Pweet down. “Remember, she said you might become telepathic. That’s why you were able to fly the space ship.”
“Oh, great,” said the Verdante. “I don’t really care, but what about Pweet? What’s wrong with her. I thought she liked me. At least, I thought she didn’t hate me after I told her all kinds of bad things I did. But all of a sudden, she started trying to kill me. And she keeps yelling ‘kill the Verdante’ over and over in my head.”
“It sounds like a hypnotic compulsion,” said the shoe taker. “It has to be. Like the Woogahs used on the females to get them to work in the factory. Only that was a love spell. This is different, but I bet that’s it.”
“Right. That’s why she looked normal when she came in here,” said the one holding Pweet down. “They didn’t put the love spell on her, someone gave her this hidden order.”
“And I bet that someone was Nestgorm!” said the other small heavy one. “Looks like we’ll have to go check on him.”
“If it’s a compulsion, can you take it off her?” asked the Verdantes. “You guys can put people into a trance. Isn’t it the same thing?”
“No. It’s like the same thing, but it’s different,” the shoe taker answered. “We can put people into our kind of trance and take them out again, but not this one. It’s different because it’s alien to us. The same way different species can’t understand each other’s technology. It’s alien.”
“OK. I get that, Pooquali,” said the Verdante. “But isn’t there anything you can do? I really care about her, and I can’t stand seeing her like this.”
At those words, in between two beats of her heart, Pweet’s awareness surged. But it was pushed back down with the next beat.
“Kill the Verdante!” she shouted telepathically again.
“We can do something,” said the one on top of Pweet. “We can put her into our own kind of trance to settle her down. Her mind will back away to a quiet place, and she’ll be like Nestgorm out there. Do you want us to do that, Eegor?”
“I don’t want you to do that, but I don’t know what else to do,” said the Verdante. “Maybe we’ll be able to figure this out before too long. At least she won’t be screaming. She can’t be happy like this.”
“OK. We’ll do it,” said the shoe taker.
He approached Pweet and put his face beside the face of her captor. She looked at the two of them. Her eyes were caught in their yellow reptilian stares.
“Kill the Verdante!” she screamed.
The black lines inside the yellow eyes started to spin. Pweet tried to look away, but she couldn’t. Bright yellow light flashed out of the eyes and into her eyes, into her head.
“Kill the Verdante! Kill the Verdante!” the order played in her head, but she stopped screaming.
The blinding yellow light in Pweet’s mind grew stronger, and the mental command to kill grew smaller and smaller. It went back to whatever deep place in her mind it had come from.
Pweet’s own mind also went to some faraway place, and it stayed there. She watched herself lying on the floor, but her thoughts were numb and few. Very few. Then she felt someone lift her up and carry her away.
Chapter 33
Potat floated in the air near a view screen on the Integer’s bridge. The Jalapeno was sending the Integer the images and audio it projected from inside the work plant. Potat could hear Pweet’s telepathic screaming too. She watched with the others when Eegor carried Pweet into the bedroom next to his and laid her down on the bed.
Potat expected to hear from Murrie in the other ship any minute, and she did.
“It’s time for us cats to go in,” Murrie spoke to her in the cat telepathic language. “Do you agree? Are you ready?”
That big cat Wawuul was listening too, but Potat ignored him. This mission wouldn’t involve him.
“Yep to both,” Potat answered. “Are the disguises ready? Did you tell your humanoids yet?”
“Disguises are ready, and I’m just about to tell them,” said Murrie. “Did you tell yours?”
“Just about to,” said Potat. “Tell them to open the door. I’ll be over there in a few minutes.”
“Roger. Out,” said Murrie.
That little cat really gets into his military role, thought Potat. As long as he realizes I’m the superior officer here, that’s fine.
Time to start her next task—telling the humanoids, Antaska and M. Hoyvil, what was going to happen next. Potat knew they’d argue, but she’d get her way in the end. She just hoped it wouldn’t take too long. She hovered in between the two of them in zero g.
“No. You’re not going in there,” said Antaska telepathically.
She’s becoming much too good at guessing my plans, thought Potat.
“Of course she’s not,” said M. Hoyvil.
Wawuul stayed silent. The big orange cat floated lazily in the air as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
He knows better, thought Potat.
“I know you two don’t want me to go in, but I have to. That little cat Murrie’s going in. He’s hardly more than a kitten. Would you let a little kitten go in there by himself?” Potat was skilled at laying on the guilt.
The big cat Wawuul made a disrespectful yawning noise.
“How do you know he’s going in?” asked M. Hoyvil. “Captain Kamphone gives the orders over there, and I’m sure he’s not going to allow it.”
“Nope. You’re wrong,” said Potat. “I just talked to him, and he told me he’s going. He adopted that Earth girl. That’s why he came along with them to save her. They knew from experience that they needed a cat for that. Captain Kamphone won’t tell him not to go in. They even made disguises for us. So don’t worry, we’ll be perfectly safe. Just like last time when they sent me in there disguised as a skunk, remember?”
“I remember, but it was dangerous,” said Antaska.
“Well, do you think it was OK for me to risk danger to save you but not to rescue this other female?” Potat asked.
She looked back and forth between them, staring them in the eyes for maximum guilt effect.
“No, of course not,” said Antaska, who usually caved first to the guilt.
“I guess you have a point,” M. Hoyvil admitted. “But we’ll wait and see if Murrie’s really going in. They might have disguises, but they might not think this is an emergency yet. If he is going in, then I guess you should go to.”
Potat sighed inside.
Why do these humanoids always think they can give a cat orders? she asked herself.
“Good,” said Potat. “Is our door facing their door? Get ready to open it when they contact us.”
M. Hoyvil turned to the ship’s control console and pressed some keys. The curved walls of the bridge and M. Hoyvil strapped in his chair started to rotate. But the rotation didn’t affect the three others who hovered in zero g. Except to cause dizziness and nausea.
“Whew!” said Antaska. Wawuul grumbled. Potat kept her cool. M. Hoyvil checked some data.
“OK. We’re lined right up with the Jalapeno’s door,” said M. Hoyvil to Potat. “When it opens—if that happens—anyone who’s out there will see the two doorways floating in the air. So you have to jump through fast. But I know Captain Kamphone, and I still don’t think he’ll agree to this.”
“Hail the Integer,” Lieutenant Dweeemm’s voice filled the bridge. “We’re about to open our door. Are you sending your cat over?”
“Hah!” said Antaska to Potat. “Was this some kind of a trick?”
“Trick? No trick?” said Potat. “Unless you call watching out for a young person of my species and rescuing another person of your species some kind of trick.”
“You know I just don’t want you to get hurt!” said Antaska.
She grabbed Potat from out of the air and hugged her tight. Potat could tell Antaska was worried, so she didn’t squirm right away, but she needed to get going.
“Just remember, I’ll be watching you in there. And if you get into any kind of trouble, I’m coming in,” said Antaska.
Wawuul flashed a mental image of himself bounding through the door to the rescue.
“Or me and Wawuul will both go in,” said Antaska.
M. Hoyvil muttered something under his mental breath. His long green fingers moved across keys on the control board, and a door on the side of the bridge opened.
Just outside the door, less than a foot away, was another similar but smaller door. Potat
could see into the doorway, but the outside of the other space ship was invisible. The young black cat Murrie hovered inside the door, and an adolescent Verdante floated behind him.
“Come on!” Murrie said telepathically. “Jump in!”
“Got to go now,” Potat said to Antaska.
Antaska was still holding on, so Potat had to squirm out of her arms. She flew over to the Integer’s open doorway.
“Be safe, kitty!” Antaska said.
“Keep hidden, and don’t’ take any risks,” M. Hoyvil ordered.
Potat jumped across and through the door to the Jalapeno fast before the two humanoids had time to change their minds.
Chapter 34
Eegor sat on the luxurious ancient-Earth style chair he’d pulled over next to the enormous plush bed that Pweet lay on. The bandaged wound on his arm throbbed, but he didn’t notice it. All he noticed was Pweet. The downy pillow under her head tipped it slightly forward. She stared straight ahead with fixed eyes, lost in the trance induced by the Eeeepps.
How did this happen? Why did this happen? Eegor asked himself, but he had no answers. After more than a hundred years, I meet the woman of my dreams—the only woman for me. And right away, she’s taken from me.
Is it because of the terrible things I’ve done in my life? he wondered. Is this how I’m being punished for that? But why should Pweet be punished? She hasn’t done anything. I know she hasn’t done anything as bad as what I’ve done. Is seeing her suffer a cruel part of my punishment? This isn’t fair. It can’t be right.
Those thoughts and others of the same type circled around and around Eegor’s head. He stayed in the chair looking at Pweet. It was as if he couldn’t do anything else. He longed to talk to her again.
Can she even hear me if I talk to her? he wondered.
Eegor decided to try it. He still needed to tell Pweet the rest of his story. So he told it. And mixed in with the storytelling, he couldn’t help saying some other things.
“Can you hear me, Pweet? Please come back to me. I want us to be together forever, if only you’ll come back. The truth is, I love you Pweet,” Eegor confessed. “I know you want to kill me right now, but even if you want to kill me for the rest of my life, I’ll still love you.”
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