The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Candaes and Csina followed the small group, captors and captives, down long curving tunnels.

The composition of the walls changed; became less grey and more green. Small, feathery green fronds appeared in patches. The luminescent patches in the ceiling which had been long strips were replaced by round panels, pools of light puddled on the ceiling. And there were fewer of them.

It grew darker.

There was less foot traffic and Candaes began to worry about standing out. The antennae women might turn and see them, and without other women nearby to provide cover, she and Csina would draw their attention.

They passed another group of the floor orifices like the one she had used to leave the pod room. Then the ceiling dipped in the center of the corridor; it almost touched the heads of the jelly-suited women. To either side, the walls of the corridor seemed to recline, leaning back to a sixty degree angle. The cross-section of the hallway was no longer an ‘O’, but closer to a fat ‘V’. Moments later, Candaes and Csina entered the new area. The air felt more humid.

They walked a bit further in the dim, greenish dark. Something caught Candaes’ eye and she risked turning her head to look at the right-hand wall.

There were women lying on it.

They lay motionless against the wall, spaced about a meter apart. Their eyes were closed, their hands still at their sides. They seemed to be lying in niches, human-sized, a handsbreadth deep; as Candaes and Csina continued down the hallway, she could see that one in four indentations was empty. The corridor was now lined with sleeping nude forms in identical postures, somnolent yet still at attention.

The ten women ahead of them stopped.

Candaes kept walking, meaning that now she and Csina were closing the distance to the group at a frightening pace. But if she stopped the antennae women would be sure to look at them, what else could she-

She stopped. Turned in place. Two long strides brought her to the left wall. She rotated slowly around.

And reclined into an empty alcove.

If she was very lucky, nothing would plug into her or sedate her or gas her...

Csina walked by, then stopped a few paces down the corridor. Turned, stepped, rotated in place, and leaned back into an empty alcove on the other side of the hall.

It was dark enough that Candaes thought the antennae women couldn’t see that her eyes weren’t closed. The group stood in a slightly better-lit section of corridor, ten meters away; several of the floor orifices surrounded them, and on either side were wall membranes rather than sleeping females.

One of the membranes nictated open. The two women with jellies atop their heads turned in place and walked into the opening.

The antennae women followed them.

Candaes stared. Suddenly, their odds were better. Two jelly-suited warrior women against Candaes and Csina.

Still insurmountable, but better. Until the antennae women re-emerged from the room they’d entered.

But those women in the suits were so big, so strong. Even in an unfair fight, Candaes saw no way to defeat them bare-handed. Although fleet engineers were excused from martial arts courses past grade two, Candaes had kept up her training and had been due to test for her black sash a month after the attack on the Berengaria. Nonetheless, she could see the glossy muscles on the slug-suited women—and she had seen their eyes, the fervor that glittered there...

Csina moved. She rose out of the niche and back into the corridor. Turned, and approached the small group.

Candaes didn’t follow. They couldn’t possibly overpower the suited women, so what was Csina doing? If Candaes followed and they both were captured there’d be no hope, so she stayed in the dark side alcove and waited.

Csina walked right up to the jelly-suited woman on the right, and touched her arm.

Both women turned to face her.

Csina said something to them. Candaes couldn’t hear what it was, but the two suited women looked at each other. Then back at Csina.

The one on Csina’s right had brown hair and pale but ruddy skin. She looked back at the other suited woman, who was much darker complected, her full breasts capped with shining, nut-brown nipples. The two of them looked back down at Csina a second time. Neither of them had said a word.

The rosy-skinned woman opened her mouth, emitting a torrent of clear glop down between her generous breasts, and licked Csina on the cheek.

Candaes stared. The woman’s tongue must have been almost half a meter long.

Csina somehow didn’t flinch.

Then the woman raised her arm, and from the clear flesh adhered to the back of it Candaes could see a long needle emerge. She brought it down towards Csina, whose shoulder was already in the grip of the woman’s other hand. The woman was smiling happily as she pushed the long spine down.

Csina struck like lightning, deflecting the fist with the needle, using her other arm to punch the woman’s exposed belly, once, twice, all while twisting away...

The woman’s smile never wavered. If anything, it widened a bit as she watched Csina strike her stomach. Nor did she lose her grip on Csina’s shoulder, and Candaes could see Csina’s wince of pain as she was forcibly turned back to face the jelly suited woman.

“Nithe moves,” the woman said. “You will sehve the Hive well.”

She jabbed the needle into Csina’s shoulder.

Candaes went cold. What could she do? If Csina had no chance against these woman, she had less than none. Why the hell had Csina walked over there? What did she think she could do? Trick them? Dammit!

Csina had gone limp and the woman gently let her slump to the floor. She and the other suited woman looked at each other yet again and Candaes could have sworn that they were speaking, but that half-meter tongue had slithered back inside the ruddy woman’s mouth and they both kept their lips firmly closed.

Then, with a glance down at the unconscious Csina, the rosy-skinned woman walked away, the wall membrane opening to receive her.

The dusky woman looked at Csina, unconscious on the floor, then looked at the other four women standing with her. Two of them stared mindlessly ahead; the other two looked from Csina’s motionless form up at the suited woman, then looked away again.

Candaes rose up from her alcove.

She knew she was crazy as she did it. The woman in the jelly suit watched her approach, had seen her step forward. Doubtless she had already deduced that Candaes was no drone. Was probably in cahoots with Csina.

The woman watched Candaes approach with inscrutable dark eyes.

“I’m going to need,” Candaes said loud and clearly as she drew near, “A helping hand. Actually, a helping leap. Two of them.”

Because, of course, she and Csina weren’t alone. Candaes had only just recognized it: the two women with the jellies wrapped around their bodies had minds of their own. Not realizing that had been a mistake.

If she was lucky, they spoke English.

Candaes calculated her angle as she approached the woman in the suit, circling a bit to approach her from the left side. The dusky-skinned woman watched her come, not moving as Candaes strode right up within arms reach. Candaes looked up at a beautiful, implacable face.

“Hello,” Candaes said.

And dropped to the floor.

Dropped to the floor, pitched forward, and grabbed on. Grabbed both of those black-and-clear hooves with all her might. Clenched them together.

“Now!” she screamed. “Hit her as high as you can!”

If she was wrong this was going to be over very fast.

But she was not wrong. The two women jumped on, against, into the woman in the suit. Candaes held her hooves together and felt her toppling, felt her coming over-

Her legs were impossibly strong and suddenly Candaes was propelled through the air and into the wall. Fortunately, it was soft wet flesh and striking it didn’t quite knock the wind from her.

The clear-suited woman caught herself—she had never really been in danger of falling—and tossed the other two women down to the floor. Candaes looked up as needles emerged from the back of the woman’s hands, and she stepped forward toward Candaes and reached down-

-and the sphincter in the floor pulled her in.

The woman had time for her eyes to fly open in surprise, but her feet were taken and then her legs and then her midriff, and she glared for an instant at Candaes and then she was gone.

Candaes leapt to her feet and winced at the sudden pain.

“We have to go now,” she shouted. “She’ll be back in seconds.” She pointed at the two women wearing the jellies. “You,” she said to the busty one with red hair, “grab her,” she indicated the leftmost of the mesmerized women. “You,” she said to the slimmer one with the honey-toned skin, swinging her arm around, “you take her,” pointing to the other woman staring blankly into space. “I’ll take Csina.”

“Where are we going?” the slimmer woman asked.

“Down the rabbit hole,” Candaes grunted as she picked up Csina’s boneless form. The fact that Csina was so tall and strong was now a bit of a drawback.

Three holes, no time. Candaes stepped to the one deasil from the hole she’d tricked the guard into, and with Csina over her shoulder, stepped on and sank down into it.

Her legs ached; her shoulders were on fire. Stupid... heavy... marine...

She touched the membrane, which flickered open. Beyond it, the room was quiet but not dark; the light was pure white radiance from long strips in the ceiling, the same as the first areas Candaes had found herself in.

Piled up in the center of the room were what looked like empty pods, a heap of deflated grey-green lumps five meters across and three tall, surrounded by waist-thick pillars rising to the ceiling. Candaes had no idea what those were for.

Candaes stumbled inside.

Behind her, the other two women struggled in with their burdens. Neither of the mesmerized women had come to; they had been equally dead weight during the helter-skelter flight.

But not equally heavy. Csina was a third again as large as either of them.

Candaes walked around to the far side of the room, putting the pile of crumpled podflesh between herself and the doorway. Muscles weeping for mercy, she slid Csina roughly to the floor.

The other two women, panting, followed suit; but their burdens didn’t slide bonelessly to the slick-fleshed floor. Lowered to their feet, the mesmerized women stood erect and motionless exactly where they were placed. Hands at their sides, staring blankly ahead.

One of the mesmerized women was blond, with a smooth, solid torso and a cute freckled nose; the other was quite dark-skinned with curly black hair and voluptuous lips. They stared placidly at nothing.

Candaes leaned against one of the pillar-things and tried to let her breathing calm down. She looked at the other two escapees.

Closer to her was the black-haired, honey-toned woman. She was gasping raggedly, but when she looked up Candaes could see a glint of... hope? will? revived determination? in the woman’s eyes.

The woman with the dark red hair and lightly freckled skin was flushed red; her cheeks and her chest were bright red and covered in sweat. Her chest was remarkably large underneath the milky grey slime that coated it, her breasts heavy torpedoes that called out for a brassiere.

But no clothes here. Both of them wore the strange grey jelly-like “swimsuits”, suits that revealed more than they hid. Candaes could see now that the slime was actually all connected, three large blobs with two thin lines of material connecting them. The womens’ breasts were cupped as though by hands, the breast blobs attached to finger-width trickles running in a ‘V’ shape down to the circular patch covering their crotch and inner thighs. Their sides and back were as nude as Candaes’. And sweating.

“So,” Candaes finally said. She gestured at the two mesmerized women. “When are they going to snap out of it?”

The other two women looked at her. “No idea,” the dark-haired one said.

“Do you know them?”

They shook their heads.

Candaes paused for a moment. “I’m Candaes,” she said. “Candaes Curry.”

“Wei-Li Hu.” The dark-haired woman smiled crookedly. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

“I’m Anni Cartwright,” said the redhead.

“I’ll go first,” Candaes offered. “I woke up maybe a day ago, in some sort of pod thing. Csina here rescued me when I ran into one of those antennae women. A little while ago we saw you being marched off to... to whatever fate, and Csina demanded that we rescue you.”

“Which you did,” Wei-Li observed, “quite remarkably.”

“Thank you so much,” Anni added. Her brow furrowed. “The first thing I remember was walking down one of those hallways. This was maybe three days ago. I just stopped; I couldn’t remember what I was doing or where I was. Then Wei-Li found me.”

The other woman nodded. “I have slept five times since I awoke. Also in a pod, like you. A few days later I was walking around when I saw Anni come to her senses and pulled her aside before any of the instructives could notice her.” The two women shared a look and Candaes had the sudden impression that there was a connection there, some emotion...

She looked down at Csina.

“So what about those two?” Candaes asked.

Wei-Li shook her head. “We had just met them, a few minutes before we were all captured. I don’t even know their names. She-” she gestured at the not-quite-stocky blonde “- was a colonist. And the other woman was on the station with me.”

“Which station?”

“Washington Station. My best guess is that that’s where we are now. On board the Omphalid vessel that ate the station.” She saw Candaes’ quizzical expression, and held up a hand. “From the beginning: I was captured on Washington Station. I had been on the outside, observing, when a giant Omphalid vessel attacked and, for lack of a better word, ‘ate’ the station. Completely engulfed it.” She pointed at the mahogany-skinned woman standing mindlessly nearby. “She was down in engineering; from what she implied during our brief conversation we are still in that giant Omphalid vessel, which itself is still surrounding Washington Station. And there’s still some resistance in there.”

Candaes blinked. Resistance? A human space station?

Maybe she had found a purpose after all.

Something else popped up. “Wait, you did say Washington Station?”

“Yes. That’s where I, and apparently she, was captured.”

“You’re Americans?”

“I’m a Corporate. She’s American.”

“I’m American too. But... but Washington’s years inside human space.”

Wei-Li looked at her. “Not so many years. Where did they catch you?”

“I was on the Berengaria.”

The other two women looked at each other, and Wei-Li shook her head. “I don’t know the name. But I’m not fleet, I’m an accountant. Oh!” she suddenly exclaimed.

“What?”

Wei-Li moaned and arched her back. “This... suit. It’s... stimulating...” she broke into a series of sharp pants, then wailed softly. “Oh. Oh. Oh!”

Candaes looked at Anni. “This stuff,” the redhead said, gesturing at the grey slime on her body. “It... it touches you. There. It... strokes, and...” She tapered off. “And it tries to... to guide you.”

“To guide you?”

Anni nodded. Wei-Li moaned deeply and her hands clapped down over her slime-covered pussy.

“It’s got a mind, kind of,” Anni said, “and I can... I can feel what it wants. And it strokes me when I do what it wants, or sometimes to distract me, or... whenever.”

“It... it masturbates you?”

“Yeah.” Anni’s cheeks, which had returned to their normal color, turned reddish again. “And it feels... it’s really good. When it’s working on me it’s almost impossible to think.”

Wei-Li moaned again. She had rolled away from them, and her hands were squeezing the blob between her legs.

“How long have you had that on you?” Candaes asked.

“Since they caught us. Maybe a day ago. The four of them—these two and the other who got the head-blobs—came running down a hall and Wei-Li and I pulled them into our hiding place. It was a room with a waterfall. We thought we were safe but then a bunch of the demons came in-”

Candaes interrupted. “Demons?”

“The women with hooves. They look kinda like demons, don’t you think? With those hooves?”

“Sure, okay. Go on.”

“Well, they came in and caught us all—they are so strong!—and some of the insect women came in with some bugs and they put those jellies on the heads of two of the women, and the insect women hypnotized these two, and then they put the jellies on us. I thought she was going to put on my head and I kind of flipped out, but then she laughed and cupped it between my...” Anni swallowed, and stopped. Her eyes widened.

“I’m sorry, Candaes, but it’s... ooh... it’s stroking me...” Anni bit her lip and closed her eyes, and one hand rose to clutch at a pendulous breast. She moaned.

“They... do this... have done it several times.” Anni’s eyes were glazing over. “While we were... marching. It’s so... good. Can’t... think...” Her eyes closed and she groaned, plucking at the grey goo coating her nipples. Her other hand slipped between her legs.

Candaes stared at Anni, then at Wei-Li. The golden-skinned woman was still panting, her hips twitching upward in short, erratic jerks, her eyes closed and her hands kneading her own more normal-sized breasts.

Candaes suddenly felt voyeuristic. Watching these two women... Wei-Li suddenly gasped and moaned deeply, obviously having an orgasm. Candaes looked away.

She realized that she was horny. It was inexplicably, compellingly erotic; trapped here in an alien storeroom, her only conscious companions controlled by alien slime that was masturbating them... Candaes restrained her own hand from drifting downward.

“Where the hell are we?”

Candaes rolled around with a surge of relief.

Csina’s hand was pressed to her head, and she pushed herself into a sitting position with her other arm.

“You’re okay!” Candaes gushed.

“I’m... kind of surprised by that,” Csina replied. She groaned with an entirely different inflection than the sounds coming from Candaes’ other side. “Where are we? What’s going on? What’s happening to them?”

“Well, you got stabbed with some sort of drug that knocked you out. The guard that put you down went into the room that the antennae women went into, which left only one guard watching you and the other women. I realized that these two women were not hypnotized, and the three of us knocked the last guard into one of the floor holes. Then I grabbed you and we all jumped into a different hole, and ran down a hall, and took another hall, and then went through a membrane, and then down another tunnel, and... well and a lot of other passages, and then we came in here.” Candaes looked up from her hand, on which she’d been counting of the turns they’d taken. Pinky, middle, and thumb. Twenty-one. “I have no idea where we are now.”

“And what’s with them?”

“They’re Wei-Li and Anni. Those slime suits they are wearing are... well, you can kind of hear what they’re doing.”

Csina nodded slowly. “Will they stop?”

“I think so. They were both pretty normal when we were running down here. Anni was telling me that those things were put on them when they were captured and have done this a couple of times before. So I think they’ll snap out of it.” Anni moaned and hissed something that sounded like ‘yes’. Candaes shrugged. “At some point.”

“Better than having that stuff on your head, I guess.” Csina stared at the two shuddering women. Anni gave several high-pitched yelps as she came. Candaes looked over her shoulder at the two women, both now flat on their backs, both squeezing the bulb of material between their legs.

Candaes turned to look at them, then back to Csina.

Csina was looking at Candaes with a strange expression. Behind her, Anni’s voice sank back into slow, measured moans—but Wei-Li suddenly whined with pleasure.

“Candaes...”

Candaes felt her heart accelerate. “Yes?”

“You saved me.”

“I... of course I did. I had to.”

“You didn’t have to. Candaes, you came with me. I went to do something stupid and you came with me anyway.”

Candaes was suddenly aware of Csina’s dark eyes. They were pulling her in. “I... payback...?”

Csina leaned towards her, and Candaes felt the warmth of her breath. “I... need to... thank you, Candaes,” she whispered. “I want to... I feel...”

Candaes felt it too. Her tongue dabbed her lips, she inhaled, leaned forward...

“Where am I?” one of the mesmerized women asked.

She was J’anna, a colonist from New Troana—one of the corporate treaty worlds. Solidly built but not fat, she looked like the archetypal farmer’s daughter. Dishwater blond hair, cornflower blue eyes.

“I was in some sort of... egg thingy. Clear, full of goop. I got out and there was this weird mouth-door thingy that let me out into a hallway full of zoned-out women.”

She stopped, looking at Candaes and Csina. “Go on,” Candaes prompted her.

“I didn’t want to stick out, so I started walking. I found a room with some water, and then there was another room with... well, it was a bathroom. A really weird bathroom. With these things that... And there were these pink women—I mean, not European, but like actually pink, with these huge breasts and really big butts and white eyes. Anyway I was walking down a hall when she-” she pointed at the other woman, still staring into space, hands at her sides “-and the other two women who were with her suddenly stopped. They had been naked and walking like all the other women and I hadn’t even noticed that they were different, but then one of them pointed at me and said ‘Her. She’s freewilled.’ and then... well they told me that they have a place, part of a space station that this slugbug ship has swallowed up, and there is some sort of human resistance there. And they were up here rescuing women and taking them into the station.”

Candaes and Csina looked at each other. Csina’s eyes were wide.

Candaes nodded. “Wei-Li said something similar. Before that stuff started working on her. Go on, J’anna.”

“Well, so then suddenly a bunch of the bug women and those women in the clear demon suits showed up, and chased us, and we met those two-” she pointed at Anni and Wei-Li, who appeared to be calming down, though their eyes were still closed “-and they hid us in a room but the bug women found us and the demon suit women grabbed us and held us while they put those slimes on the other four, and one of the bug women stared at me and talked to me and... and...” her eyes glazed for a moment, but then she shook her head. “She hypnotized me. And I don’t remember what happened next. And now I’m... here...”

“You’re safe. For the moment,” Candaes said. “I’m Candaes, and this is Csina. We rescued the four of you from some of the bug women and their guards.”

“Instructives,” Wei-Li said. They all turned to look at her. She glistened with sweat and her hair was unruly, but the light of reason was back in her eyes and her hands were at her sides. “The women with the black eyes and the antennae call themselves ‘instructives’. Because they give instructions to the other women. And the women in the clear suits are ‘motives’. I’m not sure why.”

“What do they call the rest of the women?”

“Drones.”

Anni sighed deeply and opened her eyes. She looked up to see them all looking at her, and flushed a deep red.

“It’s the slime,” she mumbled. “It’s... so good.”

“Why?” Csina asked. “Why did they put those on your... on your bodies? Why not on your heads?”

Wei-Li shook her head. “We don’t know. It seems to be some sort of behavior modification; I can sense what the slime wants me to do. And you can see how it will reward me, if I obey it. But why they put these on us...” she shrugged. “That I cannot say.”

“Were you obeying it, just now?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Then why was it... doing you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does it have an eye?” J’anna asked. “Like the other ones?”

Both Wei-Li and Anni involuntarily looked down between their legs, but the slime was unblemished pearlescent grey.”

“Maybe it’s on the inside...” J’anna whispered.

“J’anna says,” Candaes broke in, “that she and her and the two we didn’t get were headed back to the station when they encountered the two of you. That this woman and the two we lost had come from a human-controlled area to rescue or free or... well, to bring back women who weren’t yet drones. J’anna, did she tell you the name of the station?”

J’anna thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think so. But my memory’s all fuzzy.”

“And you think it’s Washington Station,” Candaes said to Wei-Li.

“It must be. The coincidence is too great. I know her from the station,” she said, gesturing at the entranced woman with the coffee bean skin. “Not by name, but I had seen her there. Before.”

“Then we appear to have some chance of escape. Temporary, perhaps, but...”

The statement hung in the air, like a faint, evocative scent which reminded one of a faraway and happier time and place.

Candaes leaned back against the pile of pod skins. Hope. Purpose. She had left the pod room where they’d stored her with her only intent a negative: not to be caught. Not to be pulled back in. But now, she had a goal. A positive. To find the other free women. To escape this nest of Omphalid slaves.

And after? It didn’t matter. Escape from the Hive itself was unthinkable... but one step at a time. One step at a time.

“How long is it going to take her to snap out of it?” Csina asked.

No one had an answer.

“J’anna has already snapped out of it and she was mesmerized at the same time,” Anni volunteered. “It shouldn’t be that long.”

“We seem to be safe enough here,” Candaes said. “For a little while longer at any rate.”

No sooner had she said it, than she heard the soft wet snap of the door-membrane popping open.

It was an antennae woman. Not just any antennae woman, either.

It was Terry.

The short woman with the pageboy brown hair and the cute smile—and a tight little body, Candaes couldn’t help but notice—stepped into the room and looked around with her glossy black eyes.

They were all on the floor; Csina had grabbed the mesmerized woman and dragged her down to the floor as well. Csina, Candaes, and Wei-Li peered through the heaped pod sacs.

“Hello,” Terry-instructive called. “Hive tells me that you are near. You really should give yourselves up, girls. Obedience is pleasure. Slavery is your destiny. Submit to it and know true bliss.”

Terry-instructive’s words stirred Candaes in her heart and between her legs. Obedience. Pleasure. Suddenly she realized how much she wanted that.

“Come out,” Terry called again, her voice bright and cheerful. “Submit and obey. Candaes. I know you are here. Come to me, Candaes.”

Csina gave her a look and Candaes bit her lip. She didn’t move. She was wet between her thighs.

“Wei-Li. Anni. Your guides have already taught you how it feels to obey. You are drones. Obedience is your purpose and your identity. Submission is pleasure unbounded.” Terry-instructive raised a hand, and Anni barely stifled a gasp. “Come here. Join us. Submit to me.” Her fingers curled.

Wei-Li slid down to the floor and pressed her hands over her mouth. Anni’s eyes were shut tight and her hips were already jerking, but aside from the air racing from her flared nostrils she made no sound. Her eyes were porthole-wide.

The instructive lowered her hand. “Well. Perhaps you are not here. We will find you, and you will become obedient drones. That’s not a threat, it’s a promise. A wonderful promise. Come out, girls. Submit and obey.”

None of them moved.

The small woman with the antennae looked around the room again, then stepped out into the corridor. The membrane flicked shut.

Anni moaned. Wei-Li joined her.

The others started to breathe normally again. Candaes rolled onto her back and squeezed her legs together.

“Why,” the coffee colored woman asked, “am I on the floor?”

Her name was Perrix DaSilva. She was an engineer on Washington Station.

She had never been in a pod.

“Yes, I remember you,” she told Wei-Li. “You were a civilian. Saw you a couple of times. You were... older.”

Suddenly it was obvious. Perrix was in her late thirties, had some grey in her short hair, had smile lines around her eyes.

None of the rest of them did. They all had the bodies of twenty-year-olds. Whatever else the pods had done to them, they had performed rejuvenation treatments that bettered the best available human technology.

A tradeoff some women might be willing to make, thought Candaes. Youth, for slavery.

“How long has it been since the station was captured?” Wei-Li demanded.

“Eight months. Eight months and four days.”

“And you’ve been holding out ever since?”

Perrix nodded. “About a hundred of us. Aaron Hardway did something to the shielding on the fusion core and now it’s putting out Roentgen radiation in a couple different bands. The radiation does something bad to the slugbugs, they become disorganized and confused if they get near the core. We can kill them easily.”

“How did he know to do that?” Candaes asked.

Perrix shrugged. “Read it somewhere as a theoretical article. We can’t ask him. He’s dead.”

After a moment, Csina asked “Do you think we could weaponize it?”

“If we could somehow get out of the giant blob that has engulfed the station and back to human space? Maybe.”

Wei-Li was frowning. “How long will the fusion core continue to operate? It must be running low on fuel.”

“Not hardly. It’s good for ten years. Maybe more.”

“Isn’t radiation bad for you?” J’anna asked.

Perrix replied with a nod. “It is, but this is just X-rays. We have some shielded areas where we spend most of our time, and we strictly control how much time anyone spends in the unshielded areas. We have to guard those areas or else the slugbugs would turn off or destroy the reactor. Doctor Shankuna figures we’re probably tripling our risk of cancer, but not much more than that.” She laughed without humor. “If we can get back to human space they can fix the cancer. They can’t fix becoming a slave.”

The statement sent a secret thrill through Candaes, and she frowned.

“How are your other supplies?” Csina asked.

“What is this, the inquisition? We still control some of the major organic tanks and a couple of fab units. We should have food and water, and even ammunition, for years.”

“So why are you here, then?” Anni asked. “I mean you, personally. Here with us.”

Perrix hesitated. “That’s... a good question. Short answer is, there aren’t enough of us. We can hold the station core, at least until the sluggies do something unexpected. But we have nowhere near enough people to escape. Last month, a woman made her way to us, came up from down here, and we realized that this... ship is full of captured humans. And that some of them aren’t mind controlled yet. If we could bring them back, bring you back—then one day we could have enough people to have a chance of maybe making it to the surface. Of escape.”

“You have weapons?” asked Csina.

“More than we can use.”

“So how do we get there?” J’anna asked.

“Up,” Perrix replied.

“Up?”

“The slugbugs simulate gravity with spin, same as we do. So down is towards the edge of the vessel, up is towards the middle. Washington Station is the middle.”

“Don’t they have gravity lenses?” Wei-Li asked.

“I don’t know. But they’re using the station as the focal point of their rotation. we’re at maybe one-third earth normal inside the station; one of the other engineers calculated the size of the slugbug vessel assuming their outer shell is at one G. It’s... large.”

“How much gravity is there right here?” J’anna asked.

“Maybe three fifths. I guess.”

“So how far do we have to go?”

“I really don’t know.” Perrix smiled wryly. “I don’t have a good sense of where we are. I’ve been a little distracted.”

“Okay, so...” Csina had stood up and was pacing in small circles. “We can pretend to be drones, and make our way up. Perrix, can you lead? Determine which directions we should go?”

Perrix hesitated.

Csina looked at her. “You want to go back for them.”

“No. I... yes. I do. But the five of you are worth more to us than... than one... than Yashina.” Her eyes were suddenly wet. “We’ve been losing people... have lost people. The slugbugs raid us every few weeks. But to see her face disappear under that... thing.” She closed her eyes.

“What could we do if we did go back?” Wei-Li asked. “We are naked. We have no tools. We can’t even remove-” she gestured at the grey slime that cradled her private parts.

“I know.” Perrix nodded. “I know. I’ll...”

“We will come back for her,” Csina said firmly. “Not now. But we will come back. Once we have tools, weapons. We will come back.”

“If Yashina is from Washington Station, who is the other woman?” Candaes asked.

“Her name was Sharashtra. A freewilled captive, same as you. The first one we’d found. Yashina wanted to go back with her, but I said we needed to save... more...” Perrix looked away.

There was a moment of quiet. Csina looked at Anni. “So that stuff doesn’t come off?”

Anni looked down at her great breasts and the grey goop capping them. “No. And I can sense its... displeasure, at the idea. When I tried to pull the stuff off, it hurt me.”

“So we need to cut it off when you’re asleep.”

Anni shivered. “Don’t... say that. Out loud.”

“If you want to try pulling,” Wei-Li said, stepping in front of Anni, “try me.” She winced. “But quickly.”

Csina looked away—and then lunged, grabbing at the grey goop surmounting Wei-Li’s right breast. Her fingers curled and she dug at it from both sides. Wei-Li grunted, then began to whimper, but pulled backward, bracing her feet on the floor. Her chest distorted enough to make Candaes wince.

Csina let go and Wei-Li stumbled backwards.

“No,” Csina said, “It’s not coming off. That stuff is on like uberglue.”

Anni had put an arm around Wei-Li’s shoulder and Wei-Li turned into Anni’s embrace. She was still gasping. Anni wrapped her arms around her.

Candaes noticed that Csina was looking down at her hands with a strange expression. Suddenly, she worried that the slime had spread—but she walked over and found that Csina’s hands were dry and normal.

The others were still focused on Wei-Li. “What is it?” Candaes asked quietly.

“I’m... stronger,” Csina said in a low voice, still looking at her hands. “Than I was before.”

“Well, we’ve all been rejuved. You’re a marine, maybe they did something extra.”

“Yeah, maybe...” Csina replied doubtfully, flexing her fingers.

“We should go,” Perrix said. “That instructive may come back, and we need to find some food and water in any event.”

“I am ready,” Wei-Li said. Her right breast was red.

“So let’s go,” Csina chimed in.

They went.

The frustrating part was not being able to speak to each other.

Rather than walk together as an identifiable group, they were strung out, a loose line where each woman could see only two or three of the women ahead of her. None of the drones they walked amongst spoke a word, so they dared not either. The drones and pink rubberdolls passed without comment. The antennae women and slugsuits did as well, they discovered after a first tense encounter; but the alarm seemed not to have gone out, at least not generally. The antennae women and slugsuits they passed made neither motion nor comment.

They found a sustenance room quickly—only ten or so minutes after they had left the room of empty pods. Drones were entering and leaving in large numbers, and the six of them simply walked inside.

For food and water, there were long teats on the wall.

It felt as creepy as it had the first time, standing with her face to a blank wall, sucking on a half-meter green tube. A tube that dozens or hundreds of other women had sucked on before her. But the water was cool (she had half-expected it to be body temperature, coming as it did from a flesh wall) and Candaes had sweated up a tremendous thirst during her panicked flight—with a heavy woman on her shoulder.

The nutrient goop was delivered the same way, from an adjoining tube just beneath the first. It was the texture of tapioca pudding and tasted just slightly like chicken.

Finished, Candaes turned in place and almost froze as she discovered an antennae woman suckling on the teat immediately next to her. But the woman’s eyes were closed and she didn’t move as Candaes finished her rotation and walked out of the room.

They regrouped by the trick of walking slower or faster (the same pace, but differing lengths of stride) in the hall outside, until once again they were all more or less together.

And then they walked.

Surrounded by the silence of the drones, Candaes became aware of other noises. Soft noises, wet noises; feet on fleshy floors, fluids moving behind the walls. Other sounds she could only guess at.

Going “up” was harder than it sounded. The sphincters in the floors might lead to higher rooms, higher corridors, but they were always set in the floor or the lower walls, and there was no way of knowing where they led. There were no stairs or ramps or vertical shafts.

But Perrix led them with confidence; in an empty hall they closed ranks for a moment and she told them softly that all of the passages actually sloped, that moving forward invariably meant moving up. Or down, one might think, but Candaes put her faith in Perrix.

Perrix was out in front, where Candaes couldn’t see her. Csina was behind her, then J’anna, Wei-Li, Anni, and Candaes was last. It didn’t bother her; snatching people from behind didn’t seem to be the slugbugs’ style.

Although she kept expecting that the alarm would be raised, none of the women they passed reacted to their presence at all. The drones were near-mindless, the rubberdolls as well; but they walked by a fifth and a sixth and a seventh antennae woman and none of them so much as glanced at either Anni or Candaes.

Nor did the slugsuited women that they passed. Half a meter taller due to the hooves enclosing their legs, they seemed incredibly powerful to Candaes. And some of their faces almost showed emotion. Humor, sometimes; one snub-nosed woman clomping past made soft noises through her nose that sounded almost like laughter.

Candaes had been zoning out, thinking of nothing in particular when she realized that she was catching up to Anni. Which meant that Anni was slowing down. Wei-Li was not in sight.

There were two drones in the hall, legs scissoring in perfect unison, but they were just drones so Candaes risked catching up to walk alongside Anni and ask what the trouble was. She kept expecting to see Wei-Li ahead of the voluptuous redhead, but there was no sign of her.

Anni stopped. She slowly started to turn around. Candaes looked around quickly; only the two drones in sight. She stopped.

There was a distant look in Anni’s eyes. Her tongue pushed out and slowly licked her lips. She took a step towards Candaes, then another. But her eyes were vague and unfocused, and did not see Candaes at all.

Anni began to walk, eyes blank, hands at her sides. She passed Candaes and Candaes could just barely hear Anni’s voice:

“Yes. yes. yes.”

Anni walked away.

Candaes spun around. No, no—not on her watch. She set out after Anni at double-time, caught up to her, took hold of her shoulders. Anni tried to take a few more steps, then stopped. Candaes turned her around.

Anni’s dark brown eyes stared placidly.

“Anni,” Candaes hissed. “What are you doing?”

“Obedience is pleasure,” Anni murmured. “It feels good to obey. I will obey. I will enjoy pleasure.”

Candaes slapped her.

Anni looked up, surprised, and raised her hands. Then her eyes widened.

“Oh no...” she breathed.

“Anni. Anni, it’s me. You’re okay.”

“Oh, oh. Candaes.” Anni focused on her and her mind once again glittered in her eyes. “It’s this stuff. I can... sense what it wants. And I was just walking, not thinking, and I guess I kind of fell into a trance...” Anni swallowed.

“Thank you,” she rasped, and then embraced Candaes.

Having those mammoth breasts pressed against her sent Candaes’ mind to all the wrong places, but she didn’t resist. Anni didn’t let go, and she smelled... good...

Anni looked into Candaes’ eyes, so close, and Candaes suddenly very much wanted to kiss her, to slide her tongue between those parting lips... she could see Anni’s arousal as well, see the naughty, wonderful thoughts blooming inside that beautiful head...

Anni let go.

They both stood quietly for a moment.

“Candaes...”

“Yes?”

Anni looked at her, eyes wide.

“I... I’ve been in trance for a while. Where are the others?”