The Forgotten One

by Part One (lit)

  Kiel swallowed a little convulsively, trying to focus his mind on his predicament and not the feel of the warm, soft globes filling his palms. There was no getting around the fact that he had a weapon beneath his chin, though, or that he'd been so focused on examining their find that he had failed to consider disarming a potential enemy.

  "What did it say?"

  "How the fuck would I know?" Kiel snarled. "I do not speak whatever tongue that is! I will tell you this much, though. It is not an 'it'. It is a female, very definitely a female, and it-she-is angry … about something!"

  * * * *

  Danielle had blacked out on impact. She had no idea how long she'd been unconscious, but it didn't seem to her that it could have been long. She could still hear the hissing and creaking of the ship as it settled fully into the grasp of gravity. She could still hear air rushing and the gushing sound of escaping water.

  Panic clawed at the back of her mind with the certainty that she'd destroyed her ship, partly at that thought alone and partly from the anxiety that the ship might yet explode. Her thoughts were rambling, though. She discovered that pain seemed to encompass her and sorting through the morass of thoughts and impressions her mind was struggling with seemed impossible. Into the chaos, however, came a sound out of place, a sound that she instinctively knew was a threat.

  Despite the adrenaline rush that surged through her in response, though, she discovered she couldn't find the energy to leap to her feet and flee, even though the thought of doing so played through her mind. By the time she realized she was too battered and bruised to try to escape she'd also assimilated that the sound of approach that had scared her was closing in and she was out of time.

  There was no escape. Something was just beyond the door of the cockpit, cutting off any possibility of escape, and she was in no condition to fight.

  It took no great effort of thought or acting ability to feign dead. When she heard the door torn off of the cockpit, every ounce of strength she had left to her seemed to abandon her instantly. In point of fact, she was as close to swooning from pure fright as she'd ever been in her life. She was afraid for many moments even to try to open her eyes enough to see what it was hovering over her. She sensed something massive. She could hear it breathing.

  And then she heard it speaking. She couldn't understand what it was saying but that was definitely a sign of an intelligent being and it was definitely not the language of the Nubiens.

  That realization didn't make her feel a lot better, but she was at least a little relieved to know it was a sentient being and not a wild beast.

  It occurred to her as the being unfastened her restraints and lifted her from the chair that she'd caught a glimpse of a battle just before she'd crashed. She supposed the crash itself had rattled that right out of her mind, but it wasn't exactly comforting to recall it.

  They had to know she wasn't their enemy, she told herself! Whatever they looked like, the odds were very much against the possibility that they would look like her!

  The arm that encircled her waist seemed oddly human-like, though, banishing that half hopeful thought.

  If it was humans, though, they would've been speaking one of the human languages. She certainly didn't claim to know all of them, but she was pretty sure they weren't speaking one of them.

  She was completely certain it wasn't Nubien, either, which was some relief.

  They could and probably did still see her as an enemy. As Gertrude had pointed out, the ship looked like a warship. However behind they might be technologically, she had a bad feeling that they were war-like enough to recognize weapons when they saw them.

  Incautious, though. The being that had picked her up hadn't even searched her for a weapon. Her pistol was still strapped to her thigh so she wasn't completely helpless, she told herself.

  What did that say about them?

  She couldn't command her mind into any sort of order to figure that out. She caught a brief glimpse of her captors as she was pulled from the wreckage of her craft-a glimpse that thoroughly confused her. The impression of humans was strong, but stronger than that was the impression of a lot of huge men closer to naked than clothed. Primitives?

  Oh god! That was almost as bad as animals, maybe worse!

  She was still trying to decide on a possible scenario of escape when she felt her flight suit opened. A mixture of uneasiness and hopefulness went through her. If they were examining her, they mean to help, right?

  She clung to that thought right up until the moment the being grasped her legs and 'made a wish'. Contrary to the thought that instantly leapt into her mind, though, he didn't decide to insert something just because he found a hole.

  Instead, he grabbed two handfuls of her breasts!

  Her reaction was instinctive-probably stupid-but beyond her rational control. Rape leapt to mind and she wasn't about to lie still for that! Snatching her pistol from her holster, she shoved it under the alien's chin and opened her eyes to give him a deadly glare.

  The jolt that went through her froze her for a split second. Fortunately, it froze her in attack mode while her mind scrambled to catch up.

  Human, her mind screamed! Almost as quickly as the thought popped in her mind, though, she realized he wasn't. Every feature on his surprisingly handsome face looked almost human but different enough that the overall impression in her mind seesawed between identifying him as human and non-human.

  He certainly understood the significance of the pistol barrel beneath his chin, however.

  Like a flash of lightening, so fast she barely saw more than a blur, he caught the barrel and jerked it from beneath his chin, wrenching her wrist and shoulder in the process. Her hand went numb.

  Glaring at her ferociously, he lifted the weapon he'd snatch from her and studied it.

  Danielle felt a wave of cold crest over her when she saw the pistol was bent nearly in half. It gave her the adrenaline rush she needed to scramble to her feet, but she didn't get further than that. The moment she was on her feet she found herself facing a wall of flesh. She was completely surrounded and not one of them looked shy of six feet in height. In point of fact, most of them looked closer to seven.

  After gaping at the men surrounding her-towering over her-for several moments, she threw up her arms in the universal, she hoped, gesture of surrender. "Peace! I just crashed! I wasn't attacking or anything!"

  The men didn't even move. They were all staring at her as if completely stunned.

  Actually, about half of them were staring at her groin and the other half were staring at her boobs. Uneasiness wafted through her. "Gertrude!" she called out in a quavering voice. "A little help here!"

  "They appear to be hostile primitives," Gertrude responded helpfully.

  "No shit!" Danielle gasped, dividing her attention between the swords in their hands and the 'blades' tenting the front of their loincloths. "Uh … is that what I think it is?"

  "Swords," Gertrude affirmed.

  "Not the fucking swords!" Danielle snapped. "Loincloth?"

  "Erect penile tissue. They all appear to be male."

  "That's so fucking helpful! I can see they're male, damn it! What language are they speaking?"

  "Unknown."

  Danielle crossed her legs and folded her arms over her boobs. It got their attention. They lifted their heads and stared at her face. "They act like they've never seen a woman," she muttered.

  "Unlikely," Gertrude responded. "Correction. Very possible. I am detecting some sort of metal alloy chassis. I apologize. I cannot categorize these … beings. They are part robot and part living tissue."

  "They're robots?" Danielle repeated, relaxing fractionally before a thought occurred to her. "If they're robots, why the hell would they have erectile tissue? And why is it waving at me?"

  "I cannot collect sufficient data to ascertain that."

  * * * *

  Kiel was so fascinated with the creature that many moments passed before it finally filtered into his mind
that she wasn't merely chattering in an attempt to communicate with them. She was conversing-with something. The ship?

  Unlike the female-and he had yet to decide whether he found her strangely high voice pleasing or annoying-the other voice was deeper and oddly stilted. It did not take long to connect that to the robots that served their community, those that had the ability to communicate verbally, at any rate. Jerking his head at Jalen in silent communication, he sent him back inside the ship to investigate.

  It seemed to alarm the female. She began to chatter even faster, to bounce around, and gesture wildly with her hands.

  * * * *

  "Oh hell! They either heard you or they've figured out I'm not talking to them! Shut up, Gertrude, before they decide to shut you down!" Transferring her attention to the robot heading toward the opening in her ship, she danced as close to him as she dared, trying to divert his attention. "Hey! Wait! You don't need to go in there! Really! There is nothing in there you need to worry about!"

  Jalen stopped abruptly when the female darted between him and the door of the ship, watching the bounce and sway of her breasts with absolute fascination for several moments before he recalled Kiel had ordered him to find the source of her communications. He discovered fairly quickly, though, that the female had every intention of barring his access to the ship. Disconcerted, he glanced at Kiel for instructions.

  Kiel, he discovered, was studying the woman through narrowed, assessing eyes. "I think she is communicating with a computer onboard, but it would be wise, I believe, to be certain she is not communicating with others of her kind."

  Jalen frowned, struggling with an odd sense of disappointment. "Do you think they are enemies of the Danu?"

  Kiel's gaze flickered over the wreckage of the ship. "This is a war machine. If it had been built for anything else, it would not be so small. There is no place inside to carry cargo or others of their kind."

  "That only means that her people are at war with another," Dolf, one of the group surrounding them, spoke up angrily. "It does not mean she is our enemy or that she means any harm to the Danu."

  "It is our duty to protect this colony for the Danu," Kiel retorted grimly. "We cannot know that she not an enemy or that there are not others out there, waiting to attack!"

  Jalen brightened. "You think there are more females?"

  Kiel scowled at him. "Of course there are more! She is a living entity. There would be male and female of her race, I am certain, just as there are male and female Danu. You saw that she has reproductive organs to match a male and she has mammary glands to feed her young! She would not be formed as she is if there were not male counterparts, and that suggests many more."

  Jalen considered that for a moment. "If that is true, why not wait to see if more come down?" he suggested hopefully.

  "You have fried your logic circuits or suffered brain damage in the war games!" Kiel growled irritably. "Because they may come with the intent to destroy the colony! It is our duty to guard the colony!"

  "Yes, but, we could rebuild the colony. It is not as if we ever have much to do, after all!" Adir exclaimed in disgust. "There have been no beasts nor any primitives to slay in nigh a month!"

  "Yes, and it is completely illogical to build another city when the Danu have not even come to fill the first! Mayhap they will never come! Have you thought of that? I have thought of that, Manuta's circuits! And what are we to do with what we have already built if they do not? Manuta said that we would fill the city if the Danu did not come and I do not even see the point in that!" Nail said angrily.

  There was a general rumbling of agreement with his assessment from the soldiers gathered.

  "He has a very good point!" Talor agreed. "Manuta said that it would produce females of the Danu race if the Danu did not come themselves and we would reproduce to carry on the race, but it has yet to do so. Why not use this female's race, that is what I would like to know?"

  Kiel frowned thoughtfully, studying the female. He thought he would have had a fair notion of the direction their thoughts had taken even if they had not spoken them aloud. He had not, at first, realized that the strange heat wafting through him seemed to be entirely from studying the female, but he had felt the urge to plant his phallus in her receptacle the moment his brain stopped sizzling and identified the purpose of it. It seemed logical that they would have had the same reaction.

  He wasn't entirely comfortable making the decision himself, however. Manuta was the creator. Only Manuta had all of the plans of the master race. "I will take her to Manuta," he said decisively. "Manuta will be able to determine if she is suitable and if she is, then we will be able to formulate a plan based upon Manuta's recommendations. In the meanwhile, the rest of you will remain here-half to guard, the others to thoroughly examine it and learn what you can from it. Whether she was communicating with a computer onboard or others of her race, there will almost certainly be a computer of some kind. Jalen, you will attempt to access the computer and download whatever information is available."

  He turned to study the female thoughtfully, trying to decide whether he could successfully communicate to her what he required and finally decided that it would most likely be futile even to attempt it when he did not know her language. He discovered, however, that she was not inclined to cooperate. Not only was it almost immediately evident that she was not suffering from any sort of debilitating injury from the crash, but she proved that she was surprisingly nimble, dashing around wildly in circles in an effort to escape and then, instead of giving up when she saw it was useless, diving toward the door of the ship. It took him almost ten mini-sects to capture her and no amount of soothing could convince her to stop pounding on his head and shoulders with her fists.

  After some consideration, he decided that, perhaps, a mild show of aggression might convince her where the soothing words had not. Carefully calculating so as not to actually cause injury, he popped her soundly on the ass and told her, firmly, to stop since she giving him a headache.

  It didn't have the desired effect. She did stop pounding on his head and shoulders, briefly, rearing straight up and uttering a scream that sounded more like a challenge than either fear or capitulation to his superior size and strength. Then she bent over his shoulder and slapped one cheek of his ass with the palm of her hand hard enough it made his eyes sting.

  He dropped her abruptly, not from the pain, but from surprise at the attack, which was completely illogical given the fact that he had just demonstrated his superiority in strength. Her arms pin-wheeled and then she sprawled out, gaping up at him from the ground in stunned surprise.

  He pointed his index at her and then at the city walls. "Go! If you are determined to walk, then you may have it your own way! But you will go, by Manuta's circuits, or I will carry you!"

  He thought at first that she must have understood him or at least grasped his anger and his gestures. She surged to her feet, made some sort of gesture to him in return with her fingers that he strongly suspected must be insulting from the expression on her face, and then took off-not toward the city walls but across the field, heading toward the hills. When he caught her the second time, he decided to carry her under one arm. The cheek of his ass was still throbbing and his head and shoulders, as well.

  Not that he wasn't well accustomed to dealing with the pain his biological makeup made him subject to, but he did not like feeling it even if he was accustomed to it. Dangling from one arm, she was in no position to pound on any part of his anatomy that was capable of registering pain-which was all of it.

  When he reached the gate to the city he was still brooding over the many disadvantages of having flesh. It sweated and then stank, and registered pain and discomfort whenever he was injured, when all of the other androids had the protection of having their workings beneath a thin sheathe of the same nearly indestructible metal used for their chassis.

  Baen, who was on watch, promptly leapt from the wall to land beside him. "What is that you have?"
r />   "It is the sentient being that fell from the sky," Kiel responded tightly.

  "Is it Danu?"

  "Nay."

  "That is disappointing. I was certain when I saw the skyship that it must be the Danu. You are certain?"

  "Yes. You are supposed to be on guard," Kiel reminded the soldier that had fallen into step beside him.

  "Your entire platoon is upon the plain! Is this an enemy then?"

  "I do not know."

  "What do you know?" Baen demanded testily.

  "It is a female."

  Baen stopped dead in his tracks, too stunned to think for several moments. Realizing that Kiel hadn't stopped, he hurried to catch up. "You are certain this is female?"

  "Yes."

  Baen studied the creature hanging limply from his arm. "How do you know?"

  "I examined it. It has a phallus receptacle, therefore it is female."

  Baen looked it over. "Let me see it."

  "She seems very hostile about that."

  "Why?" Baen asked blankly.

  "I do not know why! I only know that she tried to blow my head off only because I was examining it!"

  Baen frowned. "She seems subdued enough now. I believe I will have a look."

  Irritation flickered through Kiel, but he stopped. Baen crouched behind her, grasped her legs and pulled them wide for a look. The moment he released his hold to examine the genitals with his fingers, however, she swung her leg back, caught him under the chin with her heel, and knocked him off his feet.

  "Did you see that?" Baen demanded indignantly.

  "I did," Kiel said, not without a good bit of satisfaction. "I did tell you she reacted with hostility at being examined."

  Baen got to his feet. "Well! I do not understand that at all! I am merely curious, gods damn it! I have not seen female genitalia before!"

  "You have seen one now," Kiel said shortly, striding away from him.

  Baen got up and followed. "Yes, but I did not see it well and I was not finished examining it! Do you think she will allow it if I ask?"

  "How the fuck do you intend to ask? You cannot speak her language!"