The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

‘Compromise’

(mc, f/f, sf, nc)

DISCLAIMER:

This material is for adults only; it contains explicit sexual imagery and non-consensual relationships. If you are offended by this type of material or you are under legal age in your area, do NOT continue.

SYNOPSIS:

The alien Sthil have brought the Federacy to its knees. Why have they agreed to peace negotiations?

* * *

‘Compromise’

Part Five

* * *

“Come in.”

Ling pushed the door open. The room beyond was dimly lit by a glowing sphere atop a metal folding table. The shape of the room was odd: narrow, perhaps only three meters across, but it ran off away from the doorway into darkness. More like the entrance to a corridor than a proper chamber.

Ilaria Toligiani was standing at the table with an open valise in front of her. Gopi Ashalawalpindi and Yvgeny Corso were standing to either side. The men turned to watch Ling enter the room; the dark-haired woman looked up from the contents of the case.

“Officer Wu. Good. Please close the door.”

Ling did so. Toligiani took out a small item from her valise, pushed a button on it, and set it on the table. There was a feeling like a sudden static discharge.

“Let us get started. Ms. Lane-Tennant is unable to be here,” Toligiani said, “but I have briefed her separately. I assume you have all spoken with your principals and they are supportive of your being part of this endeavor. If not, please say so now.”

No one spoke.

Toligiani went on. “Good. There is a theory—a worrisome theory—that we must put to the test as soon as possible. To that end, Common Security has developed these.”

She removed from the case a small stack of what looked like clear plastic squares, perhaps six centimeters by six, only a few millimeters thick. She put the stack on the table.

“These are surveillance devices of a very specific sort.” She looked at each of them in turn. “These are medical imaging scanners. They scan and develop a three-dimensional image of the interior of the human body. In this particular case, obviously, what we are concerned with is the brain.”

“These obedience lobes,” Corso said.

“Precisely. We need scans of as many enslaved humans as we can get. I will be planting these around the station interior in every location that the Sthils’ slaves are likely to visit. I would like you to do the same; then, after the Sthils’ minions have been present, collect the scanners and return them to me. Do not take these into the conference rooms, the risk of them being discovered is too great. But any time the Sthil come to dinner, be sure there is one of these adhered to a wall, ideally near the ceiling.”

Ling looked at Corso, then at Ashalawalpindi. “I will do this,” she said, “but I would like to know more about this theory you mentioned.”

“Yes, composition of obedience lobe is important, clearly,” Corso added. “But what is theory?”

“No.” Toligiani shook her head. “Not yet. Let’s see what’s in there, first. Don’t fret, I’ll be sharing the complete results with all of you. We need to know if those things in their heads are cybernetic, biological, xenological, or what. Once we get some information, I’ll share our next move.”

“And theory,” the Konstrovan pressed.

“And that.”

With a fingertip, Toligiani smeared the stack sideways, like toppling a deck of cards.

“Each of you take three. And I must stress—do not tell anyone about this. Not your friends, not your superiors. Everyone knows the protocols involved in Common Security, they shouldn’t even ask. Outside of the five of us, no one is to know what we are doing. Do not be seen placing the devices, or removing them. Do not place them where anyone will see them—if in doubt, do not risk discovery. But above all: Do. Not. Tell. Anyone.”

She looked at the three of them. “Are there any questions?”

* * *

Ling lifted her glass and looked through the amber liquid at the stars.

They had inflated the blister. Tilde station had several—at least a dozen—of these clear-sided observation posts on the exterior of the planetoid. All of them had been deflated, airless, at the time the Marshal Hui arrived. Not worth the maintenance for the skeleton crew normally living on the station, keeping a thin-skinned and otherwise pointless space inflated and air-tight, when there was no atmosphere to ablate micrometeorites.

But apparently Commander Inokwo had gotten his crew working to refurbish this one, and about ten hours ago it was declared habitable. Shortly thereafter, the club had moved from its previous interior space up to the room with a view.

Ling sipped at her drink. She was sitting at a table with Mary, and Noor, and another Run-Ha-Lanni, a man named Jake. Euro-orig, like Mary, with a neatly trimmed beard.

Noor was giving Jake a slightly predatory look, but he seemed oblivious.

“Do you think they have any xenos in there?” he asked, gesturing across the planetoid’s pitted surface at the shape of the Heart of Iron. It crouched, a few thousand meters away, familiar and menacing at the same time.

“I don’t see why they would,” Mary replied. “It’s a human vessel, designed for humans. And they seem to have no shortage of human slaves.”

“I bet there are xenos up there,” Noor said, looking up. The Gthaaa was not visible, but her meaning was clear. “Maybe even some of the Sthil themselves.”

“Wonder what they look like,” Jake mused. “Bugs? Lizards? Those fuzzy cloud-things that they get on T.B. worlds?”

“One of our compatriots speculated that the lobes themselves are the Sthil,” Noor replied. “That they are a parasitic worm which lives in the brain.”

“That is downright disgusting,” Jake replied. “Mary, what do you think? Parasitic worm overlords?”

“Hm?” Mary turned from looking out the window. “Oh, uh, no, seems unlikely. Incompatible biology and all that. The Sthil control dozens of—well, several at any rate—other races; I doubt they are biologically compatible in a broad-spectrum fashion. Nothing else is.”

“So what’s your theory then?”

“My theory,” she said, draining her glass and setting it down, “is that I have no idea what the hell they are.” She rose to her feet. “Ling, there’s something I’d like to discuss with you, if you have a moment. In private.”

Ling looked at Noor, then Jake, then she downed her drink and stood up. “Certainly. If you’ll excuse us.”

* * *

The room was one of dozens of small multi-purpose rooms in the Federacy section of the station; a table, four chairs, a functional couch, a vidwall.

Mary closed the door behind them. “Have a seat,” she said.

Ling sat in a chair while Mary walked over to tap the vidscreen. She fished a datacube from her pocket and set it on the table.

“Give it a moment to work out the encryption with the screen,” Mary said, sitting down next to Ling.

After a few seconds, the screen sprang to life; terminal windows, sheets of slowly cascading numbers, flow diagrams.

“You know that I’m a systems specialist,” Mary said.

“I thought you were a bodyguard.”

“That too.” Mary pointed at the screen. “What you’re looking at are real-time spectrum analyses of pretty much anything on the electromagnetic spectrum that can penetrate a few inches of rock. I’ve been running these since we got here, and I’ve noticed some interesting things.

“First, the Sthil aren’t using anything we don’t know about. Obviously that comes with some big caveats—I don’t know what I don’t know—but as far as I can tell they are only using the frequency bands that we use as well. Not a huge surprise but interesting. Among other things it means they’re probably just using our equipment, or stuff much like it.”

Mary leaned back in her chair. “Second, they aren’t using any of the known Federacy ciphers or anything we might have already had keys to. So for the moment at least, from here, we’re not able to break their encryption.

“And third, and this is the interesting part, they most definitely have someone both here on the station and over there on the Heart of Steel that is trying to break into our systems.”

Ling pursed her lips. “Interesting, but not unexpected.”

“As you say.” Mary stood up and walked over to the vidscreen. “You can see here,” she said, guiding a finger across the display, “where our network is receiving bogus transmissions. There are definitely brute-force attempts going on here.”

“Which would indicate that our efforts to revise our security since the battle of Brisbane Star have been successful.”

“Hopefully. This could be a smokescreen but I’m not detecting anything suspicious within the Run-Ha-Lan network. I’d very much appreciate it if you were to run your own security diagnostics, and let me know where Penyang stands. Who’s your systems engineer?”

“You’re speaking with her,” Ling replied. Truth be told, she was only somewhat skilled in network security, but no subject matter expert had volunteered to come. “I will check on our diagnostics and let you know if anything flags itself.”

“Great. I’m speaking with the other delegations as well,” Mary added, walking away from the vidscreen and back to the table. “So far analyses are bearing out my assessment—they’re trying to hack in pretty aggressively, but have achieved nothing so far.”

“How long—” Ling found herself looking almost straight up at Mary, who had come over to stand behind her chair “—how long do you think it will take them to crack in?”

“Hard to say, obviously. We’ve got cycling ciphers and pretty strong encryption, so I’d think we’d be secure for at least the time we are here. Give them a year and they’d have a chance.”

Ling looked back at the vidscreen. “I thought that our encryption was strong enough to last unbroken past the heat death of the universe?”

Mary laughed. “Only if you believe the vendors. Or, in your case, the Penyang Technologies Directorate. They do claim that, yes. I wouldn’t stake much on it.”

Ling watched the stream of characters cycling down the screen.

She felt Mary’s fingers slip down the front of her shirt.

“You didn’t get me in here, alone, just to talk network penetration, did you?” Ling said quietly.

“No,” Mary breathed wetly in Ling’s ear. Her fingertips circled Ling’s nipples.

Ling turned her head, opened her mouth, and let Mary’s tongue slip inside.

* * *

The delegation stepped neatly down the hallway.

LiShen was in front, followed by Lady Li-Hwa and WuFei, and Ling brought up the rear. Usually she was in front, but for the sake of interest they would occasionally mix things up. And interest was in very short supply.

Twelve days.

Twelve days of standing idly for hours while the Sthil delegation droned on and on about irrelevant minutia. Ling was a little proud that the intense monotony had not creased her edge, which remained as sharp as that of her uniform. Toleration of boredom was an incontrovertible prerequisite for a diplomatic guard.

Although Sthil-induced boredom was proving to be a bit over the top.

LiShen saluted the guard at the door to the negotiating room—one of the Maconites—who returned the salute and then turned to leave.

Ling watched him walk away as her charges entered the room. Although none of the passages between the Sthil quarters and the Federacy quarters were ever left unguarded, neither did any of the Federated Worlds really want someone from another world listening at the door during negotiations. Even “negotiations” as insipid and pointless as these.

A hundred and twenty years ago, Penyang and Macon’s World had engaged in a brief war over some uninhabited systems halfway between them. Though the incident was papered over to everyone’s satisfaction, relations had never been warm.

The Federacy was like that, Ling thought, as she watched the Maconite reach the end of the hall and exit stage left. Anherabad liked Penyang but did not trust Ii Lao, Konstrova got along with Macon’s World but did not trust Run-Ha-Lan, Terril did not trust Penyang but got along well with Brisbane.

Had gotten along well with Brisbane.

The Maconite gone, Ling executed her own neat pivot and entered the negotiation room. Slave shuu was already there, flanked by the other Sthil slaves. Their bald heads, obedience lobes rising in the center, gleamed in the overhead light.

As Lady Li-Hwa and WuFei sat down, Ling took her position adjacent to the door.

Another six hours of tedium.

She stared at the wall opposite. The female slave pressed the button on the Sthil recording device, slave shuu began her droning recitation, and Ling let her mind go blank.

* * *

Ling yawned.

“That’s what passes for attention on Penyang?” Suren asked.

Ling shot her a mock-annoyed glance. The two of them were standing guard outside one of the meeting rooms; it was of course empty, the Run-Ha-Lan negotiators having left an hour before. Currently the Federacy delegations were holding their joint meeting.

Ling checked her armpatch—no messages. The joint meeting was still in session.

“A lengthy meeting, this time,” Suren observed.

“It does appear so.”

They stood in silence a while, flanking the door. Ling thought about her sidearm; she hadn’t practiced with it since leaving the Marshal Hui. It would be good to get some range time. Perhaps somewhere in Tilde station would be suitable—she would ask Inokwo.

“Could be worse,” Suren said. “We could be negotiating.”

Ling snorted softly. “Indeed. The negotiating sessions are incredibly boring.”

“Yes, the negotiating sessions are incredibly boring,” Suren echoed.

“I am unable to concentrate on them,” Ling added.

“I am unable to concentrate on them,” Suren agreed.

“But that is perfectly fine,” Ling concluded.

“Yes, that is perfectly fine,” Suren agreed.

Ling yawned again.

“You available this evening?” Suren asked.

Ling thought for a moment. “No,” she said, “we have one of those social dinners with the Sthil this evening.”

“Ah. What is the purpose of those, anyway?”

Ling shrugged. “I’m not sure. To desensitize us to the whole human-slave concept? If so, I don’t think it’s working. It’s still pretty Buddhamn unnerving.”

“Indeed.” Suren stretched.

A man came walking down the corridor; In’bere Hoskins, from the Terril delegation. He nodded at them as he passed, but didn’t say anything. Ling nodded in return. She watched as he walked away the other direction.

“Do you think we are being divided?” Ling asked Suren.

“I find it highly unlikely. Who would agree to separate terms with the Sthil? They’ve enslaved all of Brisbane.” Suren shook her head. “No, I think if the Sthil think they will manage to find some form of disunity, they will be disappointed.”

“You’re right,” Ling said. Another thought occurred to her. “Are we going to tell everyone?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, currently only this delegation, and the recipients of the message drones, know what we know. About the Sthil. About Brisbane. Do you think that the government will tell the citizenry?”

Suren laughed. “Ah, my friend. I forget sometimes that you are from Penyang. I can guarantee that on Anherabad the people already know. In New Mumbai they are probably rioting as we speak. The government would not last if it were discovered that information of this... magnitude were kept secret; and the government is not capable of keeping secrets at any rate.”

Ling clucked her tongue. “How your people get anything done remains a mystery to human-space.”

“At least my people can fart without needing a permission form filled out in triplicate.”

Ling looked at Suren, who winked at her.

“Federacy Unity?”

“Federacy Unity.”

* * *

Ling had to admit, despite what she’d told Suren, her fear had started to lose its edge.

They were dining with slave shuu—who was clearly their liaison, so far they had not met with any Sthil without slave shuu present—as well as a different euro-orig female slave and a genes-well-mixed male slave. All three were of course shining bald.

Glancing at those long bulges on the slaves’ heads still tightened Ling’s stomach, but after more than a week of unspeakably boring meetings, the Sthil were simply not the immediate threat she had feared. Sure, they were trying to break into the Federacy networks—but that was actually reassuring; had they wanted to simply overrun the station and enslave all of the diplomats, little could have stopped them. Had that been their aim, Ling and all her companions would by now have skull ridges of their very own.

The idea of being enslaved, an obedience lobe implanted and pulsing in her own head, gave Ling a strange and oddly sexual thrill. She stifled it.

“The salad is excellent,” slave shuu said.

“Noor prepared it,” Lady Li-Hwa replied. “It is a specialty of the Ropang district.”

“Ah yes, i remember,” slave shuu observed. “i was stationed in Yulong for three years when i was young. A pleasant time.”

“My family is from Yulong,” Noor said. Her cheeks flushed slightly.

“You do credit to your culinary heritage,” slave shuu replied. She took another forkful of greens. “Would it surprise you to know that we slaves still practice and value diversity, including originality in cooking?”

Noor seemed at a loss for a reply, and Lady Li-Hwa smoothly stepped in. “Why should that surprise us? You are still human beings, are you not?”

“Indeed,” slave shuu said, smiling. “we are, in fact, perfected humans. we are as we were before, only better. What we were meant to be. What we were all meant to be.”

“Some might disagree.”

“Oh, of course. Humans who have yet to embrace obedience will, naturally, look askance at my Masters’ gift. i am simply telling you of my perspective. Which is, coincidentally, the truth.”

The old proverb popped up and appeared on Ling’s lips without her even considering it: “The direction towards truth bends as one’s feet move.”

Slave shuu nodded. “Just so. But only until one reaches truth; then it is the same for all.”

“And you feel that you have reached truth?” Lady Li-Hwa asked.

“i know it.” Slave shuu looked at her companions. “we all do.”

* * *

After dinner, LiShen, Bolin, and two guards from Macon’s World escorted the slaves back to the Sthil section of the station. WuFei returned to his quarters to update their report; Noor and Lady Li-Hwa retired to review the following day’s activities.

Ling carefully stood on a chair and peeled the brain scanner from the wall.

* * *

“So,” Ling said.

“So,” Toligiani replied.

By coincidence they were in the same multi-purpose room to which Ling had retired with Mary several days ago. The vidscreen was active, the door closed.

“Let’s have a look,” the Corvette-Captain added, arcing a finger through the sensor field of the datacube.

Images appeared; monochrome brainscans, popping rapidly from the center to the corners of the vidscreen. Topology, cross-section, vein pattern, thermal variation. Monochrome images fused into color; still images swarmed together into time-lapse. The moving pictures stacked atop each other like playing cards.

The dark-haired CS agent made non-committal noises as she watched the imagery flip onto the screen.

Ling stared. “It’s real, isn’t it?”

“It sure seems that way,” Toligiani answered without looking at her. “This matches what I’ve gotten from Corso and Lane-Tennant as well. And fits what the Sthil themselves are telling us. That,” she pointed at a particular image, which took center screen and enlarged itself in response to her attention, “is what appears to be a new part of the brain, embedded right down the middle of the cerebrum—and taking up a bunch of space that used to be part of the frontal lobe.”

“An obedience lobe.”

Toligiani waved a hand. “That’s what they call it.”

“Is it...” Ling’s eyes flicked around the screen. “Is it working?”

“Well, it’s definitely doing something. The neurons in it are firing—in fact, it’s a lot more electrochemically active than the rest of the brain. As though it’s doing the bulk of the thinking.”

It was impossible to look away. “What... What’s it made of?”

Toligiani shrugged. “It appears to be human flesh, as far as I can tell, although until we can get one out and dissect it we won’t know for certain. No cybernetics, nothing xeno. How they got it to grow is beyond me. How they designed it...” She shrugged.

Ling felt slightly dizzy. “So they’re—the slaves are—actually, physically enslaved. Their brains have been altered. The lobe is doing their thinking for them. They... can’t disobey. Can’t even want to.”

The agent was giving her an odd look. “I can’t speak to the second two conclusions, but the brains you and your colleagues have scanned have without question been altered. Substantially altered. This data needs to be analyzed by a good team of neurologists, but I think we can move forward on the assumption that ‘obedience lobe’ is not just a metaphor.”

Ling looked at her. “So what now?”

Toligiani gestured at the screen. “This is important,” she said, “and Federacy agencies need to have this information. In fact, my previous scans are already on the way to them; I’ll add these to the next message. Until they get back to me, we just hang tight. When I get further instructions, I’ll be in touch.”

* * *

Ling watched the slaves walk into the conference room.

Slave shuu was in front, followed by the nameless man, and the nameless woman. Ling made a mental note to ask slave shuu what their names were, the next time they were in an informal setting.

As a guard, of course, it would have been a great breach of protocol were Ling to speak unprompted. She held one hand behind the other and let her body appear decorous but prepared.

She stared at the long, smooth ridge atop slave shuu’s head. Underneath it, the woman’s very brain was different than it had been. Ling could picture the graphic in her mind, the rotating brain, that swollen new thing firmly seated in the center, dominating the other parts, the lesser parts. It was the core of slave shuu’s brain, now. All her thoughts went through it, were made pure by it. Slave shuu would obey. It was all her mind could do.

The other female slave placed the recording device on the table. For a moment, it distracted Ling from her focus on slave shuu’s brain. Why was it so large, so obvious? Everyone knew what a datacube was. No one on Brisbane had used something that anachronistic.

No. Ling was not curious about the recording device. It was a recording device. It did not merit thinking about.

She looked at the other female’s head instead. Did her lobe just pulse, or was it a trick of the light? What about their skulls, surely opening a skull was a bad idea... structurally? But if it was still bone under that ridge of flesh, it couldn’t pulse...

Lady Li-Hwa was speaking, but Ling didn’t pay attention. Her name didn’t come up. She was focused on the pink woman’s lobe. There. It did pulse. So what if she hit her head on something? Would it damage her brain? Her obedience lobe? She hadn’t thought to ask Toligiani to look at the skull...

Ling had a momentary vision of simply thwacking slave shuu with the butt of her sidearm and watching the woman collapse twitching to the floor.

No, there had to be skull over it. The pulsing was probably just... who knew. She’d have to ask Corvette-Captain Toligiani what was going on with the slaves’ skulls. Those scans would show.

Ling roused herself enough to take in the words coming from slave shuu’s mouth.

“...bipartite accord, which, although lasting only four standard years, saw an eighteen percent increase in trades of processed foodstuffs, notably alcoholic beverages and branded comestibles. Following the modification of the accord by the six-body committee...”

Everything was as it should be. Ling relaxed, and let her mind go blank.

* * *

Ling stood quietly, quiescently, at attention.

All was as it should be.

The door between the conference room and the Sthil section of the station slid open. A woman walked in, dressed in a simple white robe. She was followed by another woman, then a man, then another man.

The first woman, bald, obedience lobe large atop her head, walked over to Ling. She had a faint smile on her lips, and her eyes were glassy and distant.

She stopped in front of Ling and held out her hands.

“This is a dream,” she said quietly.

Yes, this was a dream.

All was as it should be.

Ling slowly let go of her left wrist with her right hand, then raised both hands in front of her, letting the woman take hold of her hands.

“This is a dream,” Ling said.

“Yes, this is a dream,” the woman responded, gently squeezing Ling’s hands. “You will follow me.”

“In my dream, I must obey,” Ling replied. “I will obey.”

The woman released Ling’s hands and turned around. She walked around the table. Ling noticed, then immediately forgot, that Lady Li-Hwa and WuFei had stood up and were speaking quietly with other Sthil slaves dressed in white.

Ling followed the woman around the table, and out through the door into the Sthil section.

All was as it should be.

* * *

END

part Five