The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Y

Part Four

22

Y’s calendar had the advantage of artificiality. Prior to the terraforming space age, when humanity was confined to the one planet, calendars were organic. They were the inevitable consequence of observing the sun, the moon, and the stars. Y’s calendar was similarly based but had the distinction of having been handed down in its entirety when the first people settled that world, a finished product that, because it worked, had remained inviolate despite the passage of centuries. Using standard measurements, Y rotated on its axis once every 31.4 hours and orbited Indi every 3.81 years. Locally, simply, the day was divided into thirty-two hours, each of a slightly lesser duration than the standard.

The year was 1,063 Yn days. The age of majority for most cultures on Y was five local years. When males reached this age, they were challenged to their first life-or-death duel. When females reached this age, roughly equivalent to nineteen standard years, they were enslaved and sold from their birth families.

Terms like weeks and months are irrelevant when a year is so lengthy. Y’s calendar employed ten “brawls,” each brawl consisting of exactly one hundred “fighting” days. These spans, each combined with a six or seven-day “accord” period afterwards, the only times the city-states of the West and the Matricharate of the East were not at war with somebody, was a Yn year. Like the language, a knowledge of this calendar was encoded in the Brahma conversion. As such, as he thought of it, one year and three brawls after the destruction of the Centauri Independence, a lone Yn warrior strode into Minaal looking for his lost love.

A quartet of guards lounged outside the city’s main gates, two by each of the massive pylons framing them. They were laughing over something and sunning themselves in the mild northerly climate, casually keeping an eye on the people and carts moving twixt them. Minaal was a coastal city-state. It was also several hundred kilometers north of Tolaam and Sooshr. Indi’s orange glare actually felt warm against the warrior’s bare back. Neither pair of guards stopped him as he walked through, though he saw them do a double-take at his sword, his sandals, and his furry loincloth, made from the skin of a purple, bioengineered postbear. The garb and weapon design were distinctive and indicative of his tribe.

He was a Shumaet. He was far from the wastelands of the absolute south.

The warrior nodded in respect toward the guards. The guards nodded at him. Honor was appeased.

It apparently wasn’t too unusual to see Shumaet tribesmen in Minaal. Probably there was a lot of mercenary work. The warrior had in fact just finished fighting for pay in a small war between Boon and Soodr, along the Ohmadz Plains to the east.

The conflict had lasted up to the accords at the end of the brawl. The festival season came, though, and everyone put down their weapons and embraced. Where the day before they had been hacking and slashing at one another brutally, the next they were celebrating together, drinking, and enjoying slave sport. The warrior himself had passed several pleasant and boisterous hours with a man who, not so long previously, had tried, with much determination and vigor, to remove his head from his shoulders.

The warrior had been a Yn for five standard years, and he felt he still didn’t entirely understand them.

There was a refreshing tang of salt in the air. The warrior, one hand held casually on the hilt of his sword, strolled through the crowd of movers and vendors, trying not to look too much like a hick.

Not far from the main gates was a bazaar, and he made his way towards it. The heavy work was of course performed by men, but most of the merchants and traders he saw talking, laughing, buying fruits and vegetables, haggling over goods, and moving carts, were women. His cock stirred, but he paid it little mind. After so long, he was accustomed to his bullish sexual appetites. Unless he was actually using a slave at the moment, he had grown used to carrying around a semi-hard at most times.

The Minaalese slave-women had a standard dress. Most city-states did. A loose and silky wrap-around partially covered their ample tops, exposing only the delicious undersides of their bosoms. A short skirt covered their hips. There were variations in the costumery—a number of the girls were even naked—but always at least their midriffs were bared and the studded sign of their bondage plainly visible. The warrior conferred a glance on each girl, though he really had no hope of finding the one he wanted so easily. He smiled at them to show he presented no threat. They in turn smiled at him and were sluttishly kindled by his attention.

Their bosoms lifted. He could smell their arousal.

Not far from the bazaar were the city’s ports, where actual sailing ships, and not hovercrafts, were docked. Y’s sky was yellowish, and the shining water reflected that color partially, rendering golden waves stretching out to the horizon. It had taken the warrior a long time to get used to the Yn color scheme. He heard birds singing, lifted his gaze, and was surprised to see several gulls in the air. He laughed. They were the first birds he had ever seen on this planet. They were white and beautiful.

The heart of Minaal was the citadel of its rexus. The warrior soon found the central avenue that led to the city’s center and followed it from the port, making sure he was in the middle of the street and clearly visible to any passersby. He wanted no one to mistake him for a skulking assassin or irate warrior intent on destruction. If the guards protecting the citadel thought he was up to no good, they would, as the saying goes, shoot first and inquire later. If he made a misstep now, he would certainly be killed.

Away from the bazaars, he passed barracks and taverns as well as the first of several private residences. Western cities were arranged like the military camps they essentially were. Trade was conducted on the outskirts of the city, enclosed by high walls and outer defense garrisons. Further in were the homes of merchants and the citizens of the city-state, each with their own private stakes squeezed in where they could fit. In the middle were the more prosperous citizenry, with the palatial homes that were their due and their own barricades, themselves making a protective ring around the largest pyramidal structures, the headquarters and homes of the city’s elite. The flat-topped buildings grew monolithic the further in the warrior went, the shadows they cast on the street deeper and deeper.

Minaal was spoked like a wheel. It was easy to navigate.

Away from the fringes of the city, his presence became gradually more noticeable. He knew he was being watched. Soon enough, a soldier approached the southern warrior, emerging from a guard alcove set in a corner of one stone edifice. The soldier held his weapon loosely. Across the street, the warrior observed a second guard watching them both from another alcove. This fellow was holding a rifle, and though it wasn’t precisely aimed in the warrior’s direction, it wouldn’t take much more than a swing of the man’s shoulders to accomplish that feat. The first soldier halted the warrior a pace or two away.

“State your business, please,” he said. Martial cultures were often polite. Everyone in them was armed.

“I seek an audience with the Floran ambassador to Minaal.” The warrior’s feet were planted firmly on the pavement. His chin was uplifted. He met the guard’s eyes squarely. The warrior did not want to start a fight, but he wanted to show that he could engage in one if necessary. For a Yn male to appear intimidated was not only unmanly, it was frankly dangerous. Contrary to logic, it invited confrontation.

The guard’s brow furrowed. He probably had expected the warrior to ask to see a recruiter, or, if he had business, one of the rexus’ lieutenants. Hardly anyone came to see the Florans.

“Stay here,” the guard ordered, and he walked over to the man with the rifle. They conferred for a moment out of earshot, and then a third man stepped out of the alcove and started running down the street. The first guard returned to the warrior, who had stood by patiently.

“I will escort you,” he said. “A runner’s been sent to inform the Ambassador. It will meet us.”

“Thank you,” the Shumaet warrior said. He had been polite even before his Yn transformation.

Back on Saqlawiyah, he had been raised in a Hereditarian household. His parents had hoped he would join the priesthood when he was grown and learn about the Sacred History and the True Earth. His family had had the heavily edited memories of their Forerunners downloaded into his consciousness as a child. He had grown up with the images, and the occasional voiceover, of his ancestors in his head, providing him the built-in role models intended to ensure a moral existence. It didn’t take. The Solarians had occupied the Betan worlds during the warrior’s formative years. The atrocities they committed drew the young man towards a militancy of which his family could not approve. In time, the Occupation ended, but his parents still abhorred his decision to fight. It wasn’t long after that that he reenlisted, this time in the Expeditionary Force. The thing with the E.F., they wanted only people with little or no attachment to home. He had fit right in, as had the woman with whom he had fallen in love.

The guard said nothing more to the warrior, leaving him with his thoughts. They went up the central avenue, veering north of the citadel, and eventually arrived in a suburban area surrounded by high walls.

Between two nearby stone houses was a field of grass. Two men, probably the houses’ owners, were wrestling on the joint lawn. It wasn’t a vicious fight. It was play. They were carrying on like a pair of young boys. Near them, on a bench, two very pregnant Yn women chatted. Every once and a while, the slaves would glance at their respective masters knocking each other about on the head and giggle girlishly. They carried their babies low. Their labors would be soon. They looked radiantly happy.

The warrior waited. The guard waited beside him.

Gradually, a gathering of people began to form, perhaps thirty or forty people, all with an excited look in their eyes. Somebody spoke to the wrestlers. They stopped, still sitting on the grass, and stared at the Shumaet tribesman standing in their street. The pregnant slaves also stopped chatting and stared at him.

The warrior said nothing, and neither did the guard. He started to wonder what was going on.

A fairly large crowd of people followed the small, multicolored Floran when it arrived a few minutes later, as many slaves in the group as men, and all looking as if headed toward the circus. He’s completely unchanged, the warrior thought. Even the Floran’s fancy robes were the same. The way the creature changed color even seemed almost nostalgic now. The warrior swallowed his anger.

It had taken him brawls to locate this seemingly inoffensive, hypocritical creature. The Floran embassies shifted from city-state to city-state on some arcane schedule of their own. More than a Yn year ago, this two-faced creature had been assigned to the embassy in Tolaam.

Everyone was watching the warrior with great anticipation. Even the Floran, it seemed.

They were clearly expecting the warrior to do something. He just stood there.

The crowd grew silent. It was like something out of a nightmare, when someone dreams he is going to address a large crowd and then forgets what he is going to say. The former Betan remained stoic.

After a minute, with all eyes on him, it dawned on the warrior what everyone was waiting for.

As a whole, while Yn culture held both the Brahma and the Florans in high regard, they really didn’t like either of them. The Florans controlled three planets in the Indi system, wielded scientific powers beyond comprehension, and at one time were the owners and masters of the entire Yn race. Still, Yn men found them too womanly, Yn women found them less than manly. As for the Brahma, while they too possessed great powers, provided the Yn both health and longevity, and were ultimately responsible for creating the planet Y itself, they were still obviously slaves, their feminine forms notwithstanding.

Most everyday Yn ignored both. Among governments there was slightly more contact. Since the Florans held diplomatic relations with every city-state in addition to the Matricharate, they were useful for passing messages. The Brahma too could be called upon to heal those Yn of a certain standing. It was one of the reasons Yn warriors so often fought with such savagery and utter disregard for their own safety. If they achieved a high enough fame through their exploits, they would not only be healed but rejuvenated. Not all dealings with the two space-going Indi species were so businesslike, however.

There was, for instance, a particular form of suicide practiced on Y in relation to the Florans. A warrior with nothing to live for, and seeking posthumous fame, would sometimes charge and attack a Floran when he saw one, always in public. The results were generally spectacular and invariably provided amusement to those in witness. Some attackers would spontaneously burst into flame. Others would be hurled bodily by an invisible force into the upper atmosphere. Electrocutions, freezings, bloody burstings: whatever happened, the Floran always provided an interesting way to go. (Such attacks were almost never conducted against the Brahma. The voluptuous drones would seize all would-be martyrs, resequence and reverse their genders, and, in cooperation with local authorities, arrange for these new women’s sales in the most public manner possible. Such was the difference between Floran and Brahma: one invited spectacle, the other sought to avoid distraction and get along with business.)

The warrior smiled ruefully. The guard had drawn the wrong conclusion about the purpose for his visit.

“Sorry to disappoint you all,” he said softly, in Centauran. “No sudden immolations today.” I hope, he added to himself.

The crowd watched with keen anticipation as he strode to the small, bejeweled entity. There was a discernible groan of displeasure from the attendees, male and female, then, when he didn’t unloose his sword and strike.

“I would have words with you, Ambassador,” the Shumaet said, towering over the Floran.

The two pregnant woman sighed and reluctantly went back to their chat. Their owners shrugged and started wrestling again. Traffic gradually resumed. The crowd dispersed. The guards spoke briefly to the Floran, nodded, and left, looking at the warrior with regret.

The Floran ambassador turned its head toward the warrior.

“Do I. Know you. Sir?”

“You should. You betrayed us. I was Senior Lieutenant Eben Halc.”

The Floran did a slow blink at the transformed Betan. Its coloration shifted in an upward spiral, orange, green, and purple, before settling on an ivory white with black, squiggly lines still moving slantwise across its exposed face. The flatness of its features, combined with the continual multihued display, made reading the Floran’s expression difficult.

“I perceive. You are. Indeed. A transformed. Betan. But you. Mistake me. For another.”

“You were once the ambassador from Tolaam, weren’t you? I tracked you to this city.”

“That would. Be a. Correct. Assessment. But I. Am not. The same. Individual. You met. In tolaam. My predecessor. Passed away. He was. Ten years. Old.”

Eben was nonplussed. “Only ten?”

“That is. A respectable. Age among. Us what. Can I. Do for. You senior. Lieutenant halc?”

Finally. “I want to find someone,” Eben said simply.

* * *

The Shumaet rejected the authority of the city-states. They saw little difference between the immoral, dictatorial rule of the Rexes and that of the abnormal, female-in-authority domination of the Imperatrix.

Both, they claimed, divided the Yn man from his birthright. The Matricharate was more blatant about it, but the same crime was perpetrated against the men of the West by their so-called “sovereigns.” They both stole the essential freedom that was a Yn’s. They both sapped his masculine vigor with meaningless laws, arbitrary rules, and idle luxuries. They both prevented a man from living on his own, with only his claimed woman at his side and those ties of friendship he allowed: peers who were his equals and not chained by or obsessed with insignificant ranks, possessions, and “civilized” vanities.

The Shumaet were a tribe of peers. Each man was his own rexus, each man’s woman his own slave.

When Eben was found and first taken in by the tribe, he knew none of this. He had been centimeters from death, delirious, and completely oblivious. He was, perhaps, fortunate, for he had no reckoning at the time of how close the tribe of peers came to abandoning him in the wild.

The debate was a furious one. The Shumaet men were almost evenly divided on the decision. He wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t a peer. He was his own man. Better it would have been, many said, for the hunters that had found Eben to have left him in the snow. The former Betan had two things in his favor, though, and these saved his life. First, the Shumaet were true friends of Y. Having deliberately cast themselves from the corrupting influences of the cities and civilization, they had rediscovered compassion. They knew pity. Second, and more importantly, Eben had impressed them.

These rugged individualists, who lived on the desolate edges of the Great Glacier, knew how precarious life was in the absolute cold of the south. The Shumaet remembered their past; they were not primitives; they knew their bodies had been genetically designed to resist low temperatures. But there is cold, and then there is cold, and Eben’s will to live, burdened so by his injuries, was seen as a sign of strength.

Too, so far as the tribe-peers knew, Eben was the only man who had ever escaped from the Brahma.

This was a remarkable feat. The Shumaet were aware that the West sent only its cowards, deserters, and drunkards to the Brahma, and this did not reflect so well on Eben among the peers, who recognized where the skyship was from. But whatever his crimes, he had escaped! he had managed to do what no one else had ever done! he had redeemed himself, and so the Shumaet considered his past cowardice to be just that, the past. He would be judged by what they saw in him, not by “civilized” standards.

He was allowed to stay. No Brahma was called to heal him, however. The Brahma were a corruption of civilization. This man would recover from his injuries, or he would not. And if and when he recovered suitably, he would be challenged.

Individualists or no, the Shumaet were still Yn. Competition—especially in fighting—was good.

And so, in the end, Eben fought. And won.

* * *

The wrestlers tenderly picked up their pregnant slaves and carried them indoors. After the crowd had dispersed enough, the Floran too took Eben inside a building. The choice was apparently made at random. It was the closest entryway to them. Later, Eben thought it wouldn’t have made a difference which door they had gone through. On the outside, the structure chosen was the same unadorned, harsh Brahma stonework the Yn favored. The inside was radically different.

Eben stumbled over the threshold. Bright, glaring orange light fell upon him.

The sounds of Minaal were cut off like a switch and replaced by a dead silence so complete it was, in its own weird way, deafening. A powerful aroma sank into Eben’s nostrils: rich, heavy, flowery.

Without exaggeration, it was like entering another world. Even the gravity on the other side was different—he felt at least two-thirds lighter than he had been the moment previously—and Eben’s anger at the Ambassador only increased. Would it have killed the Floran to give a man a warning!?

A table and chair coalesced out of the air. Holographic projection? Matter-energy conversion? Just how advanced were the Florans? The brightly robed figure invited the former Betan to sit.

“We will. Not be. Interrupted here,”

the creature said in its singsong voice.

“Why did you abandon us?” Eben accused. Despite the altered scenery, he had eyes only for the Floran.

“You were. No longer. As interesting. On an. Aesthetic. Level.”

Eben was not the typical man of Y. He was an experienced interplanetary, even interstellar traveler. Moreover, he had grown up in a society where holographic projection, very realistic three-dimensional imagery, was commonplace. And yet even he, with his experience, was shaken. Is this really one of the Flowerworlds? he thought. Had he actually been whisked from the surface of Y to one of the inner planets of Indi? Impossible. He had to still be on Y. What he was seeing and experiencing had to be an illusion. But he wasn’t sure. He just wasn’t sure.

From outside in the Yn city of Minaal, Eben had stepped through a random doorway . . . outside again, on another planet. Y’s sky, when not dense with clouds, was yellowish. This planet’s sky was a pure, almost incandescent shade of amber. Eben hadn’t yet taken the Floran’s offer to sit. His chair and the table, made of conventional Yn wood, rested on a glowing mauve platform set amidst a riot of gigantic flowers, a kaleidoscope of bright, energetic flowers, stretching off to the horizon in all directions.

It was the most realistic projection Eben had ever experienced. The warrior could actually feel the Flowerworld’s warm, humid air on his face. He could smell the musky, almost intoxicating scent of the plant life. The scent was making him dizzy, in fact. Was he being attacked?

Eben tried to pull his sword free. It wouldn’t budge. Despite his earlier wishes not to, the Yn passion in him was too strong. Instinctively, he tried to attack the little alien ambassador. But he . . . couldn’t.

His arms wouldn’t make the necessary motions. His legs wouldn’t carry him the necessary distance.

Eben fell into the waiting chair heavily.

“You are. In no. Danger,”

the Ambassador reassured him, smiling with its ever-shifting and merciless mask-face. The expression was grotesque, an unnatural distortion in the otherwise flat perfection of its features.

“Not . . . interesting?” Eben slurred out. The strength had left his limbs. The scent in the air was intoxicating.

“Consider. Senior lieutenant. Halc the. Exquisite joy. We artists. Felt at. The astonishing. Arrival of. Your starship.

“The equally. Superb despair. We felt. At its. Destruction.

“The comedy. The tragedy. You were. Inspiring a. Stimulation to. New. As well. As ongoing. Creative projects.”

If he comprehended right, the Floran was saying his people, the Artist-Princes, had more or less made the Centauri Independence into art. “I don’t understand. What does this have to do . . . ?”

“Life is. Short. The art. Is long. Opportunity fleeting. Experience misleading. Judgment difficult.

“Blame a. Short. Attention span. The thought. Of you. Was more. Interesting. Than the. Real you.

“You were. Forgotten.”

“You . . forgot about us!” Eben blazed. His Yn-fueled anger was enough to snap him out of his half-stupor. He sat up in his chair. He wanted to kill this little monster! But though he could move, he still couldn’t lift his hands to perform the desired task.

“That would. Be a. Correct. Assessment. What do. You want. Of me. Senior. Lieutenant halc?”

Eben controlled himself with great difficulty. As much as he would have enjoyed throttling this thing until its eyes popped out, that wouldn’t get him what he really wanted. “Tell me where Serry Garrant is.”

The gaudy creature just stared at him.

“Why?”

it asked.

“Because I want to find her,” Eben replied. It was a vague answer, and to his credit he knew it.

“You fail. To discern. Senior. Lieutenant halc. Why should. I. Help you?”

“Because you owe us, you monster. You owe her! You forgot about us, damn you!”

He took a deep breath and coughed from the overly flowery air. “You,” he started again, “were the point of our entire mission. We crossed nine light years to visit you, and this is how you treat us?!”

“We did. Not ask. You to. Come,”

the Ambassador said bluntly, albeit in its florid Floran style. Eben glared at the smaller creature. The Floran was content to let him. Like their Solarian peers, these genetically self-engineered freaks had “evolved beyond” human compassion. It was their loss. His too, maybe, if he didn’t switch strategies.

He had an idea. In order to get their help, he would appeal to their interests.

“All right,” Eben said after a minute. “Answer this question at least. Do you know where Serry is?”

“That would. Be an. Incorrect. Assessment. However. All living. Beings. Do carry. A unique. Chemical. Signature.

“We can. Scan for. This signature. Therefore. I can. Locate her.

“The question. Remains. Why should. I help. You?”

“Art,” Eben said.

The Floran stood there facing him. Gradually, its coloration shifted to a uniform black.

“Explain please.”

“Art,” Eben repeated. “Drama. You like art, don’t you? You and your people?”

The Floran nodded. “Well, think of the story you’ll be able to tell if you help me find this girl.” He had leaned forward while speaking, as if to push his thoughts and desires onto the Floran. When he saw the creature’s multicolored display had begun darkening to its purest black, he knew he had it hooked.

“Explain please,”

the Ambassador said again, this time with a obviously needy tone to its singsong voice. Liked art? They were obsessed with it!

“Well, as you said, consider. Think of the potential for drama. For that matter, think of the drama you’ve already missed, Ambassador.” The Floran shuddered.

“There were six of us, originally, out of thousands. The only humans left in your entire planetary system. I dare say, we were without comparison.”

The Floran had turned an absolute white.

“Our situation was epic. We were lost. We were helpless. We were facing a horrible transformation.”

Green. The Floran had shifted to a total green.

“One by one, though, we were cut down. Transformed. Now, there’s what? Only the two of us left, right? One man, one woman, of that original party, on this entire planet.” He sat back in the chair.

“To interfere. With this. Drama. Would be. Unaesthetic,”

the Ambassador stated. It had, however, turned a solid mauve, almost blending in now with the platform upon which it stood. Eben understood. Its purest colors were a sign of the Floran’s interest.

“You’ve already interfered,” he said. “You started this with your neglect. Think now what only a little push in the right direction might accomplish.” He leaned in again. “Just consider what might happen.

“The fun.

“The excitement.

“The potential for drama. Aren’t you the least bit interested to see what happens?”

“Why. Do you. Want to. Find. Commander garrant?”

Eben hesitated only a second. “Why ruin the surprise?”

The Ambassador retained its pink color. Its face remained unreadable. Eben stood up, deliberately turned away from the curious monster, and said nothing more.

“It is. A small. Thing. To locate. This girl.

“Please. Tell me. Why. Do you. Want to. Find her?”

Eben didn‘t turn around.

“You are. Mistaken. In one. Part,”

the Floran eventually said, and without explaining what it meant, it agreed to locate Serry for Eben.

The Floran left, and the Shumaet warrior sat down again. He put his hands to his head and sighed.

In truth, he didn’t have an answer to the ambassador’s question. He didn’t know why he searched for Serry. Do I want to free her from bondage, he asked himself, as he had done many times these long Yn brawls, or claim her as the luscious, loving, and eminently fuckable piece of property she has no doubt become?

As a human being, a Betan, and a Centauri Force officer, Eben saw Serry as a helpless victim.

As a Yn, a warrior, and a man who had by now used many a slavegirl, he saw her as a woman he very much wanted to make his own.

When he found Serry, what would he do with her? Free her or fuck her?

He honestly could not say. And indeed, why ruin the surprise?

. . . to be continued (22 of 28)