My heart was pounding in my chest as I pushed at it, my pulse skittering like a frightened rabbit’s. The sleeves of Sarden’s black shirt had unrolled themselves and they kept getting in the way as I tried to get a grip on the damn thing.
“Let me go,” I muttered under my breath. “Let…me…go, you bastard!”
And suddenly, it did.
I dropped to the bottom of the tank like a stone, the weight of the sodden shirt pulled me down.
“No!” I tried to say but I sucked in a mouthful of the yellow liquid which was more viscous than water, and choked it out again. I looked up, clawing to find a way out but the sides of the tank rose around me, slick and high and unclimbable. I thrashed as hard as I could, the glowing yellow tank mixing with the vision of the murky blue pool in my past to make a confused vision of horror in my head. Angie, I thought. Angie, I’m so sorry…
Suddenly the slimy black tentacle grabbed me and lifted my head above the water again. I took another ragged, gasping breath and coughed it back out again, trying to rid my lungs of the horrible liquid, which tasted like mud and blood mixed together.
Then, as if things couldn’t get any worse, more tentacles appeared and started tearing at the black shirt I was wearing.
“Hey…hey, stop that!” I gasped as they managed to get it open. Two more tentacles stripped it off my shoulders, leaving me naked and flailing in the slimy liquid. What the hell was going on? What were they going to do?
I found out sooner than I wanted to.
Two thin, shiny black tentacles suddenly appeared right in front of me, their tips pointed at my chest. I looked down at them stupidly, unable to move since the thicker tentacle was still wrapped around my waist.
As I watched, the end of each tentacle began to grow and change until, instead of a blunt tip, they had both turned into starfish-looking appendages on the end of the long black arms.
Before I could wonder what the starfish-hands were for, both of them surged forward and plastered themselves to my boobs.
“Hey! Hey, stop it, you perverts!” I began to thrash even harder, trying to get away from the awful things. But they were stuck on me like suction cups. And speaking of suction, it seemed like they were determined to suck my nipples right off my breasts. In fact, it felt like someone had put a vacuum hose against each of my boobs and flipped the switch to high.
It hurt like hell and felt perverted at the same time. And then another tentacle brushed at my inner thigh.
“Oh, no,” I said, kicking out at the thing as hard as I could. “Oh, Hell no, I don’t think so—get away from me!”
I was shouting at the top of my lungs—dimly I could hear my own voice echoing in the vast chamber. But there was no one to hear—no one to save me. Was this how my story ended? Could I really die like this, molested to death by some creepy alien creature, like some hapless schoolgirl in Japanese hentai tentacle porn?
“No!” I screamed as the tentacle brushed between my legs again. “No—no, you son of a bitch! Get off me!”
And then the main tentacle around my waist yanked me down again. My mouth filled with the awful yellow slime and I couldn’t shout any more…
Chapter Eleven
Sarden
I didn’t care for Count Doloroso—there was something strange about him. But I told myself he was just an odd male with a weird Assimilation obsession. What could it hurt to let him buy the medical instruments in my hold?
We made the deal, to be finalized when he came to my ship for the Assimilation equipment in a few standard hours. Though Gallana isn’t actually on a planet, it orbits around a star and its rotation is paced to mimic the thirty hour day of Femme 1, where the Empress lives. Since the day is long, it was still just mid-morning. I should still have time to find a mechanic to replace my panel after Doloroso made the pick up—I hoped, anyway.
Doloroso and I took one last drink on the deal and I left The Suck Hole, the thought of Zoe still in the back of my mind like a nagging song that won’t leave your brain.
“Call the ship,” I told Al, who had been keeping silent in his travel form during the negotiations. “Check on Zoe—make sure she’s well.”
“Don’t you wish to hear what I have found out about the local services and mechanics, Master?” he asked. “I have one you might care to visit but—”
“Not now,” I snapped, quickening my pace. “Check on Zoe.”
He was quiet for a moment, humming softly on my shoulder.
“No answer, Master,” he said at last.
“What? What do you mean, no answer?” I frowned. “She’s probably sulking because she wanted to go with me.” As if I’d bring her to a place like The Suck Hole! “She’s probably just refusing to answer.”
“No, Master—I don’t think so.” Now Al sounded worried as well—if an Artificial Life-form can be worried. “I’ve scanned her room twice now and I don’t detect a heartbeat or breathing. Either she is not there. Or…”
He didn’t finish and I didn’t need him to. I remembered Zoe’s big blue eyes, filled with tears she refused to shed last night when she’d begged me to take her home. Frozen Hells of Anor! What if she’d hurt herself in order to avoid being traded? What if she’d decided it was better to die than to live the rest of her life away from her home planet? What if she’d…?
I couldn’t let myself finish the thought. I sped up until I was almost running, drawing concerned looks from the Majoran Peace Keepers stationed in the docking area. I didn’t give a damn though—the worried feeling that had been tugging at me almost the entire time I’d been making my deal had worsened into a sick dread in the pit of my stomach. I hadn’t known the little Pure One even an entire solar week yet but somehow the idea of losing her was unbearable.
I tore into the ship, barely giving the hidden side panel door enough time to open before I was squeezing inside. As I pounded down the main corridor, I feared what I would find when I came to her room.
“Al, unlock her door,” I ordered, my boots thunk-thunk-thunking on the metal floor.
“No need, Master—it is already open. Look.”
Sure enough, as I skidded to a halt before the bedroom I had assigned to Zoe, I saw the door standing wide open. A quick look inside the room revealed no trace of her. My own door was unlocked as well but she wasn’t in there either.
“Frozen Hells of Anor!” I swore angrily, coming out into the main corridor again. “Where is she? Al—scan the rest of the ship.”
“Yes, Master. Scanning.” He hummed softly, still in his travel form on my shoulder. And that was when I heard it—over the quiet humming of Al’s processing, a faint splashing noise, like water sloshing in a tank.
And then a single, piercing scream which was cut off abruptly.
“Fuck!” I pounded down the corridor as fast as I could, feeling like my heart might burst. I didn’t know how in the Frozen Hells I’d known it or how she had gotten out of the Force-Locks and escaped her room, but my uneasy feelings had been correct—Zoe was in trouble.
The splashing sound came again from the back of the ship. But what was she splashing in? There were no personal cleansing pools located in the hold, where the sounds were coming from. So how in the hell…
Suddenly an image rose to my mind’s eye—the holo projection of the sensitivity tank Doloroso had been so eager to buy. The yellow liquid with its nest of black, writhing tentacles, the sensu-pods. “I imagine they will be quite hungry by now” he had said…
“Zoe!” I shouted, running for the door to the hold which I could now see was standing wide open, as were all the other doors along the corridor. She must have opened every one, looking for a way out. “Zoe, where are you?”
A faint splashing and the noise of liquid sloshing onto the ground was my only answer. I reached the darkened hold and started shoving my way through the medical equipment stored there, not giving a damn if I broke any of it or not. Up ahead I could see the yellowish glow of
the tank and something was writhing inside it…black tentacles were whipping around like some creature from the Great Deep gone berserk.
And then I saw her—her long, red hair floating like a corona around her still face, the filthy tentacles wrapped around and around her smooth, pale skin.
It was Zoe—and she didn’t seem to be breathing.
Chapter Twelve
Zoe
I don’t remember much about what happened after the last time the shiny black tentacles dragged me under. The putrid yellow liquid filled my mouth and lungs and everything started to go gray.
Vaguely I thought I heard someone—some familiar voice—calling my name. But the voice was too deep to be Charlotte or Leah. Could it be my ex? But no, I hadn’t seen Scott in nearly a year and besides, he hadn’t had a very deep voice for a guy. My father had, but he’d been dead for the past five years—he had passed in his sleep only a month after my mother had died of cancer. He just couldn’t stand to live without her.
Whoever was calling me sounded like that—like he couldn’t stand to live without me. But there was no one in my life who felt that way about me. No one I knew of, anyway.
The next thing I knew, someone was unwinding the choking tentacles from around my waist and pulling them off my lady bits. Then he hauled me out of the glass tank and started pounding me on the back.
I began coughing and choking, trying to get the awful blood-mud tasting stuff out of my lungs. It burned like fire coming up and several times I thought I might pass out from the pain.
“Zoe? Zoe!” someone said in my ear. “Can you hear me? Tell me you’re well.”
“’s aw-right,” I said, my stubborn tongue slurring over the words it refused to pronounce. “’m fine.” Which was a total lie but it’s what you always say, isn’t it? Even if you’ve just been half drowned in alien slime by molesting tentacle monsters, you still say you’re fine.
I do, anyway.
The person who’d hauled me out of the tank clearly wasn’t buying it.
“Little, liar—you’re not fine. Not even close to it,” he growled and then strong arms were lifting me and taking me out of the dark room while the black tentacles thrashed in their yellow tank, angry to have lost their prey.
“Lay some cloths on the bed. She’s soaked in this Gods-damned stuff,” the person carrying me commanded.
“At once, Master,” a prim and proper voice replied. It sounded familiar and memories began to come back to my oxygen-starved brain.
“Al,” I mumbled as I was laid on a cool surface that seemed to rock gently, cradling me in comfort.
“Yes, Lady Zoe?”
“Lady Zoe? Not…’m not…” I choked again, my eyes still closed. I wanted to open them but they felt glued shut by the sticky slime that still covered me.
“Zoe, look at me,” the deep voice ordered. I wanted to ignore it—now that I was finally out of the tentacle-tank I just wanted to rest. But there was an authority in his tone I couldn’t ignore. “Zoe,” he said again.
Reluctantly, I pried my sticky eyes open to see the Devil, complete with red skin, horns, and glowing golden eyes, staring at me anxiously. No, not the Devil—Sarden, a little voice in my head reminded me. I was lying on one of the silver, floating hoverbeds and he was standing over me.
“I’m okay,” I said and then I started shivering uncontrollably.
“It’s all right, little one,” he murmured, pulling me close. His warmth and the spicy campfire scent of his skin was comforting, and I felt my heart do a funny little flutter.
“The t-tank,” I whispered, my teeth chattering. “The t-tentacles…they p-pulled me in.”
He frowned. “I’m sure they didn’t reach all the way from the hold to your room. How did you get out of the Force-Locks anyway? And why did you go back there?”
“I p-pressed them with my n-nose,” I managed to say. “They turned g-green and unlocked. Then I u-used them as a k-key to explore. I was l-looking for a way out.”
“I see. Although why they worked for you I have no idea. They’re supposed to be keyed to Vornish DNA and I know you don’t have any of that—you’re a Pure One.”
“I was almost a d-dead one,” I told him. “The liquid…the slime…I was d-drowning.”
The memory of the yellow, slimy stuff closing over my head made me want to retch. It made me think of Angie again…of how I couldn’t save her…of how I nearly died trying.
Her face swam in my memory and a sob burst out of me before I could stop it. I clamped my lips shut against the next one that wanted to follow. I hadn’t cried for Angie in a long time. I didn’t want to start again now.
“Zoe? What is it?” Sarden still looked concerned.
“N-nothing. I’m f-fine.” But my teeth wouldn’t stop chattering and my heart was doing that flutter thing again. I put a hand to my chest, trying to calm it down. I didn’t like the way it seemed to be jumping around in there like a Mexican jumping bean.
“What is it?” Sarden asked again, more urgently. “Tell me!”
“N-nothing.” I glared at him defiantly. “My heart just s-skipped a b-beat—that’s all.” Actually, it was still skipping beats but I told myself that was only because I was still so upset from the trauma I’d just been through.
“Your heart?” Sarden frowned at me.
“Master,” Al, who was in his dragonfly form, spoke up. “Didn’t Count Doloroso tell you that the liquid in the sensitivity tank was toxic to most sentient beings?”
“Frozen Hells! He did,” Sarden growled. “Come on.” He lifted me again, as though I weighed no more than a doll.
“Where…where are we g-going?” I whispered. By now my heart was pounding in such an erratic rhythm I felt sick and it was hard to breath.
“To the PPC,” he said grimly. “We have to get that slime off you now.”
“What? You mean the weird purple bathtub thing? No!”
Despite the fact that my heart was going crazy and my teeth wouldn’t stop chattering, I somehow managed to twist out of his grip. Probably the slippery slime on my skin helped. Anyway, I fell to the ground with a thud, landing bruisingly on my knees. It hurt like hell but it was better than going in over my head again in yet another vat of alien liquid.
“Look, I know you’re frightened of being submerged but you have to,” Sarden said, bending to try and scoop me up again. “The slime in the sensitivity tank is toxic—we have to get it off you.”
“No,” I said stubbornly, scooting away from his seeking hands. “I d-don’t care—put me in the mister. I won’t go in that drowning-tank. I w-won’t.”
“The mister won’t get it all off,” he objected. “It’s not strong enough.”
“Well I’m not strong enough to g-go through another n-near drowning,” I said, glaring up at him defiantly. “You d-don’t understand. My…my little sister…”
I couldn’t go on but I didn’t have to. Sarden hunkered down on his booted heels beside me, looking me earnestly in the eyes.
“I can see there’s a story here—a reason you’re afraid,” he murmured. “But I’m not just going to throw you in the cleansing pool, Zoe. I’ll come in with you.”
“You…you wh-what?” My heart was pounding in an irregular rhythm, the sound filling my ears and I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right.
“I’ll go with you,” he repeated patiently. “After all, I’ve got the slime on me too—we’ll get clean together.”
“Will…will my head have to go under?” I asked at last, tremulously.
“Only for a moment,” he promised. “I’ll hold you up and I won’t let you fall—I promise. If you go under, I’ll go under too.”
“Well…” My heart was going crazy now, stopping and starting, making me feel like someone was squeezing it mercilessly in an iron fist.
“Listen to your body,” Sarden urged me quietly. “You’re going into cardiac shock—you need to get that damn slime off your skin so
it can start beating properly again.”
I looked at him uncertainly. There was anxiety but also patience in his golden eyes. If he’d wanted to, he could have picked me up by sheer force and thrown me into the vertical bathtub—he was certainly strong enough to do what he wanted with me. But he didn’t—he waited for me to make up my own mind to go with him. To trust him.
Chilled to the bone, teeth chattering, and heart pounding I made my choice.
“All r-right,” I said at last. “As long as you p-promise not to leave me.”
“I promise,” he said gently and scooped me into his arms.
Sarden
She felt so light in my arms and I could hear how erratic her heartbeat had become. It scared the hell out of me and I wanted nothing more than to rush her into the cleansing liquid of the pool. But the fear in her eyes told me I had to take things slowly, no matter how worried I was.
I cradled her close to my chest as I pressed the switch on the side of the vertical tank. The door slid to one side—the force field holding the cleansing liquid in place—and I stepped into it, holding Zoe high to be certain it didn’t go over her head.
“Sarden,” she whispered and I felt her shaking—not from cold but from fear—as we got fully inside. The warm liquid was up to her neck, though it was only up to my shoulders, and her eyes were shut tight, as though she didn’t want to look.
“It’s all right,” I assured her, holding her closer. I felt the slime from the Gods-damned sensitivity tank beginning to melt away at once. Good—I’d been feeling somewhat shaky myself. Doloroso had been right—the tank was no good as anything but as part of a collection. The slime inside it was much too strong and the sensu-pods were far too aggressive to use on a living sentient being.
I wondered again how in the world she’d been able to get out of the Force-Locks and use them to get back in the hold in the first place. She obviously had no Vornish DNA—maybe it was because she was a La-ti-zal. But could her gift really be that strong, even with the inhibitor in place?