The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Sarunya Siriratsivawong was born in a small rural village in Thailand. She had exquisite lips and long, lusciously black hair. At the age of twelve, her parents, desperate for money to help support their large family, callously sold their daughter to a passing “recruiter” from the city. She ended up in a dance club/brothel in Bangkok, where, by the time she was eighteen, she had become an old, old woman. Sarunya retained, though, despite the hardships of her life, something of her fine and delicate lips and her long, beautiful hair. These features attracted the interest of the Colonist Unit Brothers Sandra Pitzler once referred to as “Tweedle-Dee” and “Tweedle-Dum.” A deal was struck. Pavla Twerzakowna, on the other hand, was acquired by Frank, Bennet, Weschler, and Marx’s own in-house Slaver, as he had done the Russian girl formerly known as Ilya Tikhomirov. Pavla grew up in the Ukraine and was attending the University of Chernivtsi when she read an ad on the student union bulletin board looking for competent English translators. Pavla was a more than capable student. At the time, she spoke five languages, including English. Seeking opportunity, and dreaming one day about becoming a translator at the United Nations, she went to see the man who had posted the advertisement. Her friends and family never saw her again. She disappeared, much as Emily Lussier, from Red Deer, Alberta, disappeared while vacationing in France. No elaborate strategy was staged for Emily’s abduction. She was not on any approved and licensed list provided by the Firm. She was, much like Sandra Pitzler, merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. “Tweedle-Dummer” was scouting in Paris, saw the short, lovely blonde with the ample bosom passing by, and, seeing nobody to witness him, simply projected her to a cell he and his Brothers had waiting for that purpose. One moment Emily was calmly sightseeing along scenic avenues in Nice. The next she was naked in a cell outside of Chicago.

The Colonist clones Dr. Pitzler knew as Tweedle-Dee, Tweedle-Dum, and Tweedle-Dummer—they were really Citizens Aard Jorg 23, Aard Jorg 24, and Aard Jorg 25, respectively, of Jorg Colony—had intended these girls and others for sale to an entertainment complex on their own world. Blessed with uniformity among themselves, the clones prized diversity in their leisure activities. Celestra’s poaching changed these plans, however. Now, while Aard 25 burned in permanent paralyzed lust, and his Brothers 23 and 24 served as punkboys in a carnal gymnasium on Leekron Colony, Sarunya, Pavla, Emily, and Ilya—although they would more accurately be referred to as sarunya, pavla, emily, and ilya, and even more accurately as slaves DX379/1, DX379/2, DX379/3, and DX379/4—knelt nakedly for inspection in a yellow-and-black sex chamber in the Governor’s residence on Dern Prime Colony.

Ohh, this slave hopes her Master comes soon, the slave ilya fervently, though silently, wished. The waiting slaves hadn’t needed instruction. They were quiet because no one had spoken to them in hours, and slaves here did not speak unless spoken to. This slave is burning so. She is burning so hotly.

The Russian girl—she no longer remembered Russia nor anything about her life prior to receiving her second-stage slave programming—rested comfortably on the balls of her feet, squatting with her knees wide and her hands outstretched on motionless thighs. Her chest was pushed forward, her back was curved, and her head was held low so her eyes stared continuously at the floor. She had been in this awkward yet standard slave position for some time, though she felt no discomfort aside from the constant sexual craving her lowly condition imposed upon her. Her slavebody had been modified since the Base auction, her flexibility and durability enhanced considerably, and she could hold virtually any position for any amount of time. She had been thoroughly tested, as any tool might be tested for quality. She had been hog-tied, twisted, held with her elbows touching behind her back, and so on for days on end with no damage to her muscles or bones. It was the least of the examinations she had been put through of late. The ilya sat like a statue, hardly even blinking anymore. She barely even breathed.

She had been resequenced to be the perfect sextoy.

Or so this final examination would determine.

Oh, please, Master, please, ilya pleaded behind her expressionless face. This slave needs to be Fucked. She needs to be Fucked so badly.

Master Swren, the yellow-clad Master who had effected the ilya’s purchase weeks earlier, paced back and forth nervously. The ilya slave wanted to comfort Him. Actually, what she really wanted to do was Service the Man, give Him a nice Suction and Tonguing with her slavemouth, Massage His delicious Male Member in her slavecunt, or perform any number of other erotic manipulations her programming made her expert in. Of course, she could do none of that.

The ilya slave was under Orders from a Master. That always took priority over her own desires.

Ilya, Master Swren had said upon bringing them to the sex chamber. Kneel there. Position Six!

Yes, Master, she replied. She had never assumed a Position Six before, but that hardly mattered. Her slave programming made such little things instinctive. The ilya had crouched, spread her knees, and rested her hands in the proper way before she even consciously tried to assume the submissive pose.

That had been hours ago. The ilya did not know what was going on, only that a demonstration of her skills as a sextoy would be required. The slave was looking forward to that very much. She knew her feelings were shared by her sister-sluts as well. Though physically different—they had each been processed a different way—they all had received identical two-stage slave programming. She knew that for certain, for ilya remembered these sluts from the cell on that planet. They were all Earther girls.

She did not remember the Earth, but ilya knew her base genetic stock came from that Property World.

Under Master Swren’s instructions, the slaves of Lot DX379 were individually processed, trained, and eventually shipped to Dern Prime Colony, the Colony World Swren called home. She wasn’t sure what had happened to DX379/5, DX379/6, and DX379/7, the slaves margaret, hoshi, and nabeesha, no more than she knew what had happened to her sister-slave sandra. No doubt they were Serving in joy and pleasure elsewhere. The ilya had only been reunited with emily, pavla, and sarunya a day ago in Master Swren’s residential sex chamber, where he had personally tested each slut’s pleasure-giving abilities to the utmost. The slaves had compared experiences in the brief periods when not in Use, either by Master Swren or his staff. They had done this not for their own selfish, personal reasons—slaves were not permitted selfish, personal motivations, like friendship or camaraderie—but because sharing experiences ultimately Served their Owners. They could teach one another the little things that Pleased their Masters but which were not included in their slave programming. It was a custom among slaves to do this, a habit which in itself was part of their encoding. Though her memories went back only a few weeks, ilya was inundated with slave mores going back to the beginnings of time.

Finally, after what had been ages subjectively to the four boiling sex slaves, the doors to the luxurious room irised open and two figures walked in. Under strict discipline, none of the slaves moved so much as an inch. The first man was dressed much like Swren was, in brightly shining yellow-latex from head to foot. The room’s color scheme favored the exact same shade; the two men blended with the walls and could all but disappear when seen from the right angle. The only difference between them was that the newcomer was an older man. The person with him was a woman. The slave ilya recognized her. It was one of her earliest memories. The woman was one of Mistress Celestra’s Bitches, a medium-sized brunette in black leather-and-latex thigh highs, hotpants, and bustier. Her hair was drawn upward in a tight peak, unlike most of her fellow Bitches who wore their hair in emulation of Mistress Celestra.

The woman was exquisitely beautiful, desirable, and savage. The black-lined lips of her sneer seemed permanently engraved on her face. The slave ilya desperately wanted to Serve Her. She desperately wanted to Serve the older Master-in-Yellow. She wanted to Serve Anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Swren met the new arrivals.

“Governor, I’m glad you could arrange this meeting out of your busy schedule. Mistress Bitch Dewal, thank you for coming.”

“I haven’t as yet,” the latex-clad woman said, sniping at him. “But I’m looking forward to. Shall we proceed?”

“Yes,” Swren said. He walked the two of them over to the waiting slaves.

“These are the Earther girls, Governor, acquired by Mistress Dewal’s organization. Each has been individually resequenced to show you their full potential. And, as you can see, they do have potential.”

The Governor said nothing committal as Swren stepped between sarunya and ilya and lifted their chins for his inspection. The arousal both girls felt, already simmering hotly, immediately blazed even hotter.

Denuded by their preliminary processing, their hair had been forced regrown from cloned cells. Their skin was silken smooth and intricately decorated with permanent skin dye, tattoos, and piercings. The sarunya’s hair was once more a rich, ebony black. So was her mouth now, dyed a glossy dark color that contrasted sharply with her bleached pale features and high cheek bones. Blue-and-purple swirls lined her cheeks and joined with stems along her neck, arms, and hands. Her pubic area was similarly tattooed with a filigree of interweaving dark lines, as if a flower were growing from her groin and extending its vines along her stomach and legs. Small silver balls hung from the slave slut’s nipples.

Most striking of all were sarunya’s eyes, though. They were a solid black, without whites or other colors. It was a purely cosmetic change; her vision was completely unimpeded, but it looked fantastic, especially given her skin’s otherwise ivory complexion. She looked like a porcelain doll come to life.

The ilya’s modifications were of a similar nature. Her eyes were a pure white without pupils, surrounded by silver studs that outlined the optical orbits of her skull. These studs extended in dual lines along her cheekbones to similarly surround and enhance the look of her slavemouth. Tattooed bands of ivory and gold flowed down the outside of each arm and leg, like racing stripes. Horizontal bands curled around the ilya’s abdomen. Her hair and fingernails were a light gold. No dye had been involved with these changes. Gold was her new biological color, which grew naturally from the implanted buds on her scalp and hands. The slave was hairless everywhere else and forever would be from now on.

Her skin, where it was not covered in bands of white and gold, was a rich and healthy coffee. Special glands secreted an oilless yet equally slick body coating. The ilya gleamed slightly under the room’s lights. She too looked like an animated doll, though less one of porcelain as of soft rubber and plastic.

Please, Master, please, ilya begged. Her burning need to Serve was nearly blinding.

The Governor felt the two sluts up, probing their breasts and thighs, both sets of lips, and their precious asses. He was an expert Slaver. “Open your mouth, girl,” he ordered ilya, and she complied, showing the Man its toothless interior. Instead of teeth, two soft bridges of organic material filled out her jaw, the set perfectly designed for the insertion and maximum pleasuring of a Male Organ. Her tongue was ridged and textured for similar reasons. Her slavebody had been redesigned by experts in the business.

Aside from the tattoos, which all four girls wore and were an idiosyncrasy of Dern Prime, ilya and sarunya had been transformed into common pleasure models of a type favored on a hundred different planets. These Colony Worlds, like the Property Worlds, were all owned by the Clients. Unlike the Property Worlds, though, the Colonies were fully aware of the existence of their voyeuristic sponsors. The Property Worlds remained ignorant because it took the enjoyment out of their omnipathic overlords’ experiences if their subjects knew they were being observed. Some Clients, on the other hand, did like knowing their subjects knew about them—it lent a zest to their telepathic perceptions—and, so, on their planets, species from all over the universe gathered together, lived, and conducted their alien affairs all the while mating as often as possible for their benefactors’ vicarious pleasure.

These Colony Worlds traded among themselves, naturally, and, among the human-populated planets at least, a fairly homogeneous, and extremely carnal, human civilization had evolved.

The Colonies set up Bases for trade, trading in Client tools, other technologies, information, occasionally tracts of real estate, and, of course, slaves. They practiced an extensive slave trade. While many Clients favored consensual pleasures, a sizable minority did not. Slavers from the Colony Worlds therefore preyed on the Property Worlds to gather merchandise, though they were under strict supervision so as not to disturb the sexual harmonies of interest to these worlds’ particular Clients. Poachers like Mistress Celestra also operated; the Clients did nothing to stop them. Perhaps they were appreciated for their random input. More likely, they were too insignificant for the Clients to notice.

Since they existed, though, so too did a market for their goods have to exist.

The slave ilya knew she was a part of a larger economic negotiation about to commence.

The trio of Slavers moved on to the next slave to be inspected.

“I think you’ll appreciate this feature, Mistress Bitch Dewal,” Swren said. “We had it designed specifically for you.” His hands stroked the smooth, fragrant cheek of the pavla kneeling beside him. He put his fingers under the slave’s chin, tilted her head back sharply, and squeezed.

The dominatrix hissed appreciatively.

A perfectly formed penis projected from the pavla’s lips. It quivered softly beneath the leather-clad woman’s inspecting touch. The Governor made an impressed sound himself. The pseudo-male organ extended outward from a tongue-like stalk thrusting between the biomodified slave’s thick and luscious lips. The pavla smiled as best she could around her juicy surprise, though it was admittedly hard to tell.

“The hard part, if you’ll forgive the pun,” Swren said, “was reknitting the affected muscles. They are very, very strong now. The slut can vibrate her tongue-penis at a variety of different speeds and frequencies to satisfy that, ah, special itch.” He smiled at the dominatrix. She ignored him.

“Can she still speak?” the Governor asked.

Swren shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. We had to remove the slave’s vocal cords to accommodate the space necessary for the implant. She can extend her tongue quite a ways, you see.”

He squeezed pavla’s cheeks even harder, and the slave obliged by thrusting her pseudo-male organ out further and further. “At maximum length, she can touch her toes and give herself a foot job with it.”

“With no loss of erectile strength?”

“None, Governor. None. She can push open doors with it.”

“I have to say,” Mistress Dewal said. “I am impressed by you men. This is most… intriguing.”

Observing nearby, the ilya thought her slave-sister had a lovely penis. The ilya hoped pavla was pleased with it. The pleasure the slave could give and derive with the organ, she knew, was every bit as good as that generated from her delicious slavecunt. Still, ilya preferred having her slavetongue and mostly empty mouth. Unless an Owner decided otherwise, she liked sucking on Penises too much to want to give that up.

“If you don’t mind, men, I would like to ride this slut.” Casually, Dewal reached down and slipped off her latex hotpants. Swren and the Governor moved aside, and the pavla fully extracted her organ.

Dewal grabbed the slave by the head and pressed her face to her groin.

“Now, slut. Now!”

There was a moist, fleshy sound. Dewal’s eyes lit up, her back arched, and she squeezed the slave’s head even more tightly. The men observed her for a few moments, then went on to the next girl.

“Ah, this one is for me,” the Governor said, approaching emily. At a gesture from Swren, the slave stood and thrust her breasts upward for the older man’s inspection. All female slaves did that. It was a programmed response. But not all female slaves had such an awesome rack to present for inspection.

The Governor was right. Swren had had this girl designed especially for his well-known tastes.

The slave emily’s breasts were enormous.

No, not just enormous. Enormous was too insignificant a word. It was too small a word.

The slave emily’s breasts were mammoth. They were colossal. They were the size of inflatable beach balls—medicine balls—round and firm and beautiful as only something thoroughly artificial could be. Her breasts weighed almost as much as the rest of her body put together. They stretched from the top of her chest to the bottom of her navel. The slave had obviously had to undergo a massive restructuring of her spine and muscles to support the gargantuan bosom. They were gigantic. They were dionsauric.

The nipples were literally the size of a man’s fists.

“Very nice,” the Governor said, nonchalantly, reaching up (and up!) to squeeze those sensitive nipples.

The emily squealed in pleasure.

“I wanted to demonstrate the adaptability of their bio-forms, sir,” Swren said, adjusting his yellow-latex suit. “The planet they originate from boasts a rich genetic diversity. Even severe modifications such as these are rendered easy. And, as you can see, like all lower forms, they take to encoding naturally.”

“Yes,” the Governor said. “What are you, girl?” he asked the slut he was fondling.

“This slave is a slave, master,” she whispered. She kept her hands to her sides. With her breasts in the way, they weren’t long enough to reach the object of her affection. “This slave is only a slave, master.”

“Yes,” the Governor repeated. He glanced over at sarunya and ilya standing nearby. “I’ll take her,” he said, pointing to the former, “and this one,” indicating emily, “and let you know my decision afterwards.”

“Yes, Governor,” Swren said and snapped his fingers.

The slave sarunya immediately ran over and knelt at the elder man’s feet. She kissed his feet. “My cloak,” he said, and the slave stood and began removing it, kissing at his shoulders, back, and buttocks as the yellow latex was peeled off. He pushed emily forward, and the girl, in spite of her enlarged mammaries, gracefully fell to her knees, then went to her back as the Governor climbed on top of her.

The sarunya removed his pants, and immediately he began thrusting himself through up emily’s breasts, to her squealing delight. His other sextoy crouched behind him and began tonguing into his anus.

That left only ilya still burning in her need. Saying nothing, though, for she knew well her Purpose was only to Serve, she looked upon her Master, her slaveface full of invitation and emotion.

Master Swren slowly undid His own jacket and pants. The slave went to her knees and prepared herself. Although nowhere near as enhanced as slave emily, Master Swren’s Organ was much larger than the ordinary (Although ilya found none of them really ordinary. She loved all Penises). He had, despite the customs against it, had His already magnificent Body modified for His pleasure. His naked Organ quivered with strength and potency. With one Hand still holding that Magnificence, the Master reached out and pulled ilya’s head closer. She ran her slavetongue along the Shaft’s underside, teasing the Tool before taking it entirely within her slavemouth. The taste of His Fluids almost made her swoon.

When she had him really hard—really really hard—the ilya drew back. She let her tongue glide off of the massive Organ leaving a thin thread of saliva and Semen to connect them. Growling savagely, ilya’s Master grabbed her hips and pulled her to her feet. Quickly, barbarically, he flipped her around.

Oh, the ilya had been so looking forward to this!

The Master grasped ilya’s slavehips and thrust His glorious Penis up into her. She gasped in blissful pleasure. Swren’s thick Member slid deliciously along the slave’s slick internal walls. Her vagina bulged to accept the massive intruder, and she screamed aloud in ecstatic pain. Swren was so large, so incredibly huge! it felt for a moment as if the ilya might be split in two. But she was a well rebuilt slut. Within moments she could feel the resequenced bones and muscles of her slavebody shift accordingly.

He filled her utterly. Her slavebody clenched around His Tool. Breathing deeply, the Master began to thrust with His Hips, pulling His Shaft out a little way and then pressing forward again with the strength of an industrial engine. He reached around and squeezed His fucktoy’s enlarged clitoris, compelling the first of the ilya’s use orgasms. Electric fire immediately blazed through her veins. Her mouth drooled. Her hair seemed to stand on end. The orgasm flashed in her mind, drenching her slavebody with rapid-fire bursts of rapturous pleasure. She quivered and convulsed. Nevertheless, not for a moment did she lose sight of her True Purpose. Her Master must be pleased! With a concentration no unmodified human could duplicate, the ilya joyfully accepted her crushing orgasms while at the same time rotating her lower body in a precise and deliberate series of motions. Each movement was calibrated to match the majestic thrusting of her Use-Master and increase His amusement in her. Her vaginal cavity rippled like a caterpillar drive, tickling the sensitive nerve endings in Swren’s enhanced Member. The ilya’s breasts jiggled and the nipples pulsed with blood under her Master’s expert manipulation.

Swren climaxed, grunting heavily. The potency of His enormous Erection went undimmed, however, and, unstoppable, He continued pumping into His toy, to her delight and His. Her cries of submissive happiness challenged the equally euphoric cries of her fellow slave sluts as they too were so agreeably Used by the Governor and Mistress Dewal. Minds already pulled apart and softened with slave programming exploded again and again in fantastic, multisplendored eruptions of elation.

The bliss of their slavery was much upon them.

Nothing was better than slavery. The ilya blessed her Masters for her transformation and degradation.

How she wished everyone could feel the miracle of her blessed state! But, then, who would be left to Use and Master them if all were made slaves? And, too, the idea of Masters and Mistresses like Master Swren—Oh, that was so good, Master! Please, please, squeeze this slave like that again!—Mistress Dewal, and the Governor being slaves was impossible for her puny slavemind to conceive.

She was a silly slut for trying to think anyway.

She should be Fucking.

Fucking was her true and only Purpose in existence.

The ilya was only barely aware of anything else.

“How is your slave, Swren?” the Governor asked after a bit, His Mouth free for one brief moment.

“Not bad at all, sir,” ilya’s Use-Master said, and happiness surged through the slave to compete with her flashing mega-orgasms. It was a delicious compliment.

“If you have no objection, I would like to keep this one for a while. She has a tight cunt and rectum, and her fellatio is superb.”

“Certainly, certainly.” The Governor wasn’t really paying attention. The sarunya had lifted herself and was now straddling the Master’s Face, her delectable, perfumed slavethighs to either side of Him. The slave lowered herself onto His Tongue. His Eyebrows lifted at the fabulous taste of refined slavepussy.

“And when I get bored with you,” Master Swren went on, though this time he was addressing his personal fucktoy, “I’ll ship you off to a brothel-barracks. Have you any objections, my slut?”

“None, Master, none. Thank You, Master. Thank You!” Indeed, that sounded quite wonderful.

“And why is that?” her Use-Master asked. His pumping into her never ceased. He was a Machine.

“This slave can have no objections because this slave is a slave, Master.”

“Very good.” He closed His Eyes and started a fresh and even more vigorous series of thrusts.

Dewal eventually disengaged herself from the pavla. She flipped her legs over her slut’s head and kicked her away. She stood and ran her hands over her trim backside. Then she waited and watched critically as the Governor finished with his entertainment. He raised his head from the emily’s awesome bosom and lounged back as the slave worked quietly at his genitals with her mouth. Behind him, the sarunya arranged herself as a pillow for his back and head while stroking his arms and shoulders.

“Satisfied, Governor?” the dominatrix asked. “As you can see, these Earthers are very adaptable.”

The Governor considered. He put a hand atop the emily’s blond locks and scratched.

“Tell me honestly. Can you really deliver that many slaves at once? Of this quality?”

Dewal sneered. “Why should I lie to the likes of you? Our numbers are guaranteed, man.”

Swren at last pushed his use-slut to the floor and whispered to her. While he went to confer with his superior, the ilya lay belly down on the floor unobtrusively. The Governor listened to Swren, his eyes narrowed, and after a moment he made his decision.

“Very well, Bitch,” he told Dewal. “Dern Prime will purchase fifty thousand of your new Earth slaves at the price we agreed upon. If you can deliver them within our next solar cycle.”

Encoded slaves, contrary to the popular belief, are not entirely stupid. They can’t be, not with the huge amounts of slave knowledge and experience they have to process. They are not stupid, merely other directed. The ilya understood therefore the exchange that had just taken place between Mistress Dewal and the Governor. Her wish had been granted! They were going to make slaves out of more of her genetic base stock! That was wonderful! Incredible!

More people were going to be blessed the same way she had been blessed.

And how wonderfully blessed she was, the lowly slave slut that she was, that in some small way she had helped these Masters make Their Decision!

For a moment—a very brief moment—pride surged through her slavebreasts. Almost immediately, though, the ilya remembered that she was nothing more than a willing sex toy, and her nascent self-respect was trodden under. This slave has merely fulfilled her Purpose, she thought. This slave has Served her Owners. There was nothing else. She felt shame at her momentary presumption, and an automatic emotional mortification routine forced tears to her slave eyes. She was a slave, nothing more.

Still, it was, objectively, a good thing that more slaves would be joining her in slavery.

They would be programmed to Serve too. More Earthers would be sharing her debased existence.

The ilya could think of no better kind of life. She could think of no better kind of reward.

Then Master Swren took her by the hair and flipped her over again, and all thoughts fled in that lucky slave’s sole desire to Please her blessed Master.

The girl’s fingers brushed Gordon’s as he handed the device over.

“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” she said. Rosalie Pitzler glared at the Associate and walked back to the other side of their shared room. She didn’t like being near him. Those times she had to, she did so quickly and got out.

“I can’t do it myself,” Gordon repeated. “Men are second-class citizens in Celestra’s organization, if that. I’d never get close enough, certainly not the way you could.” He looked at the teen critically.

She was young, but, with the right makeup and outfit, he believed, she might do it. She would have to do it. There was no one else. “Your accent’s still off. Try this.”

Gordon opened his mouth and trilled out a string of liquid syllables. Biting back a nasty comment, Rosalie repeated the sound back to him as best she could. Gordon had had the devil of a time finding an encoding program for Language without any linked behavior modifiers. He had almost as bad a time convincing the girl later to let him download it into her brain. To convince her, he had had to use the encoder on himself first. The Associate winced. The headache he now had was almost as bad as the brand still blazing across his face. He had received a similar download for Language when he first began working for the Firm. The parallel programming was not settling in at all smoothly.

At least the swelling in his groin had gone down.

And at least she was in pain, too, suffering her own headache. Gordon watched Rosalie’s throat work the alien sounds. As calmly as he could he offered advice for improvement. The translation program had not been the best, which was probably the real reason the top of his head felt like it had been peeled open and the insides stirred with a spoon.

“Again,” he trilled at her, putting on an encouraging smile. Bitch, he thought.

He could have used a standard first-stage slave programming on her, of course, or picked up any number of substitutes from the Base emporium, but, dammit, he needed this girl in her right mind!

If Rosalie were slavishly submissive, Celestra’s Bitches—Bitches with the capital ‘B’—would pick up on her in seconds. Gordon hated having to rely so much on her, but he had told her the God’s honest truth. As a man, he had no chance of infiltrating his way into Celestra’s organization the way she could. He was just glad he had more time here, on Base, to train her than he would have had back on Earth.

Even so, he knew they were rapidly approaching Celestra’s deadline.

“I’m tired,” the teenager said suddenly, in a cock-eyed combination of English and Language. She pressed a pair of fingers to the middle of her forehead. Gordon smiled. “My head hurts.”

Yours and mine both, sweetheart, Gordon thought, hiding his grin with his hand.

“That’s too bad,” he said. He made a sympathetic noise.

Rosalie raised the projector he had given her. “Show me what I’ll have to do again,” she asked, and Gordon came over at once. At least she knew the score on that part. One screw-up, and they’d both be screwed, literally. He gently gripped the silvery device and tilted it around so she could see the controls.

“This is the trigger,” he pointed out. “It works like a gun, in a way, or a camera. Just point and shoot.”

He tapped a small set of readouts.

“This is where the chronal coordinates are input. It’s all automatic… idiot-proof.” He looked at her. “No offense.”

“None taken,” she replied coolly. Then she asked, “Chronal?”

“Time,” Gordon said. “Read Einstein. Everything in the universe is constantly in motion. I guess, if you know when something occurs, you can figure out where it’s going to be.” He shrugged. “The Clients don’t tell us how these things work, really. They just do.” He tapped the readout again. A complex set of eleven-digit numbers rapidly flashed across the small screen. “Everything’s preset. All you have to do is touch this,” he pointed, and the touch sensitive screen changed, “adjust the mass ratio, and press the trigger. Both you and the relay will be teleported back here instantly.”

“How do I do this?” she asked, tapping another set of controls, and Gordon patiently explained.

The plan was simple. Rosalie would disguise herself as one of Celestra’s soldiers and infiltrate the Auditorium. Once inside, she would use Gordon’s projector to teleport herself back to Earth, specifically to wherever Celestra had her relay equipment stored. This could only be done inside the Auditorium; the blond giant had apparently had the chronal frequencies leading to this place segregated, exactly as the Partners back at the Firm had done with their offices.

Getting back to Earth wasn’t the problem, as he had explained to Rosalie.

Getting to the right place on Earth—Celestra’s outpost—was.

Once there, though, Rosalie would find the poacher’s relay—God only knew where she had stolen one, though Gordon had his suspicions—and, somehow, get close enough to it to teleport both it and herself back to Base. Without the relay, Celestra’s scheme would fall apart.

No relay, no projection field, or at least none strong enough for interplanetary use.

Gordon thought now that the Partners of Frank, Bennet, Weschler, and Marx, or most of them, at any rate, had been eliminated. There was nowhere else Celestra could have grabbed a projector relay. Whether that was the case or not, though, once he had the relay he would use it to teleport to a more familiar Base or Colony, one where his own Client had interests, and get help. Celestra would be finished, and he, the returning hero, would be promoted to Partnership status.

It was a good plan. A simple plan.

It would have been perfect if only he didn’t have to depend so completely on this stupid slip of a girl.

“She’ll give me my mom back,” she said, a second later, not asking Gordon but confirming what they had talked about earlier, and he nodded at once. “An exchange. The relay for her… only you’ll use it to get friends before then.”

Gordon nodded again. That was what he had told her.

“And without the relay, Chicago will be safe,” he added. “That’s the important thing.” He met her eyes. “I know how you feel about your mother, but I won’t lie to you, Rosalie. It’s the planet I’m worried about.” He saw hatred in her glance, distrust too, but also acceptance, grudgingly.

“What Celestra did was illegal, Rosalie,” he said. “We’ll fix what she did to your mom.”

She nodded, having no other choice but to believe him.

He hoped for God’s sake she wouldn’t be this gullible when she was in disguise.