Spider Bight [Deep Space Mission Corps 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (13 page)

“And you can see how much the males enjoy doing it. It is no small sacrifice for the males, even though some of the males who have been privately owned for long periods of time tend to think they are above servicing ferals. But for a female?” Mauri shuddered. “It is a disgrace.”

* * * *

Apparently, Moran females had the equivalent of a vagina and an anus. Only unlike humans, one passage was used only for reproduction and pleasure purposes. The anus was for both liquid and solid wastes. Moran males’ penises were also used only for pleasure and reproduction. But unlike the females, their anuses were self-lubricating. Mauri proudly boasted it was the result of countless generations of careful breeding to get them to that point.

As Emi listened to Baltin and Mauri talk during the return walk to the Imperial Home, it became more clear to Emi why they felt the way they did. When a woman was sentenced to feral service, she was used and treated just like a male. Anally.

While not a big deal to humans who enjoyed it, it was a very big deal to Moran females. It had been years since a female had received such a sentence. It also wasn’t uncommon for females who were sentenced to feral service to kill themselves rather than live in disgrace.

A bit of an overreaction in Emi’s mind, but then again, she wasn’t raised in Moran society, either.

She was, however, eager to return to her own men.

“I really appreciate the tour, Mauri, but I would like to get back to my crew.”

“Ah, of course. But you still haven’t seen our agricultural division yet. And I insist on you joining me for dinner this evening before you return to your ship. All of you, including your men. Could you grant me just a few more hours of your time, Doctor Hypatia? I would be most honored.”

All Emi wanted to do was return to the
TB
with the guys and get the hell out of there, but she remembered her orders from the DSMC to indulge diplomatic relations.

“Thank you. That would be very nice.”

Baltin escorted Emi back to the welcome center where Aaron, Caph, and Ford had uncomfortably spent their time sitting nearly naked and locked up in the holding room and being stared at like fish in an aquarium.

“I will take you to your quarters,” Baltin said. “Mauri wants you to experience our facilities.”

“Quarters?” Aaron asked Emi.

Emi gave a quick shake of her head. They followed Baltin to a building next door that reminded Emi of a hotel from the outside. Apparently, that’s exactly what it was. A clerk at the front desk gave Emi a key after eying the men.

Baltin said something to the clerk, who immediately smiled.

“There you are, Doctor Captain,” the clerk said.

“Captain Doctor,” Baltin quickly corrected.

“Just Doctor is fine,” Emi said after shooting Ford and Caph a quick shut-up look when Ford snickered and Caph pressed his lips together.

The clerk looked confused. “Just Doctor?”

“Yes. Just Doctor.”

The clerk’s eyebrows raised and she shrugged. “Very well, Just Doctor.”

Aaron stepped on Caph’s foot in warning to stifle his laughter.

Apparently unfazed by the petty antics of males, the clerk continued. “Do you need boarding arrangements for your males, Just Doctor, or will they stay with you?”

Baltin started to correct the clerk again, but Emi forced a smile and laid a hand on her arm. “It’s all right.” It was starting to sound like a bad old-Earth comedy sketch, and all Emi wanted to do was get somewhere private with her men and decompress. Her nerves felt tightly wound.

It didn’t help that all three of her men were dressed in nothing but collars and the less-than-concealing banana slings. After the sights she’d seen, she wouldn’t mind getting them totally naked.

She wondered of the Morans would let her guys keep them when they left. She wouldn’t mind making them wear them on occasion in the privacy of their ship.

Baltin helped Emi find her room. “I shall return to take you on the agricultural tour after I requisition a cart and take care of some things. That will allow you some time to refresh yourself and rest.”

“Thanks,” Emi said. “I’d appreciate that.”

“Would you like me to order you and your males a meal?”

“A snack would be great, thanks.”

“I will have something sent up.”

When they were alone in the room, Emi flopped back on the bed. “What a fucking place.”

“So?” Aaron started. “What’d you see?”

“Ha! You ain’t going to believe this.” She detailed the stables and the breeding session she’d witnessed. As she talked, the twins’ jaws dropped lower and lower until their mouths hung open.

“You’re kidding?” Ford asked.

“Nope.”

“No shit?” Caph commented.

“No shit.”

Aaron, however, frowned. “I really want to get back to the
Bight
as soon as possible.”

“You and me both.”

“No, I mean I have a really bad feeling about all this. Especially what you were saying about the pilot.”

“If you’ll recall, I was the one who didn’t even want to come down here in the first place. I was perfectly willing to say fuck regulations and fuck orders, but you sort of overruled me.”

“Next time, feel free to remind me of that.”

“We will,” Caph and Ford chimed in.

* * * *

Baltin returned to Emi’s quarters about an hour later. “Are you ready to go?” Baltin eagerly asked.

Emi nodded. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

Baltin had brought a motorized cart with her this time. She led Emi to it when they left the hotel. Apparently their destination wasn’t within easy walking distance. Emi held on and prayed the Moran didn’t wreck them. The open cart didn’t have any restraint belts and either there were no speed limits, or Baltin completely disregarded them. Fortunately, there didn’t appear to be many other carts in use, the citizens using an extensive public transportation system of trams, or simply walking.

Finally, something to take her mind off what she’d witnessed at the stables—fear of death or dismemberment in a Moran cart accident.

“We carefully expand our agricultural lands as our population and needs increase,” Baltin cheerfully explained, raising her voice to be heard over the sound of the wind. “We alternate orchards with fields in such a way as to prevent erosion or overtaxing the land’s ability to support the crops.”

“Uh-huh,” Emi said through clenched teeth as they hit another bump. She tightened her grip on the railing. Apparently road maintenance in this area wasn’t as high on the Moran priority list as erosion prevention and keeping their feral males well-fucked.

“The area we are heading to is in the process of being added. We wall in the section first. Then, once we have thoroughly prepared the area, we can remove the dividing wall and properly develop it for our needs.” They were approaching a barricade. To Emi’s immense relief, Baltin slowed and stopped, putting the cart into park.

“Here we are, Doctor.”

Emi forced a smile. “Great.”
Thank the Gods!
On wobbly legs, she exited the cart and followed Baltin over to a guarded, sealed access port in the wall.

Baltin turned and pointed at a field behind them, which was being worked by several males, some of them apparently ferals from their collars. “You see over there is where we have already annexed the prepared land. This is why the wall around the city is not…as you say, straight. We add on in the most appropriate area to suit our needs. It makes it irregular.” She spoke to the guard, who nodded. The guard gave Emi a quick bow, opened the port, and stepped aside for them.

Baltin smiled at Emi. “This section is scheduled for final clearance and is to be opened in a few days.” She motioned for Emi to follow her inside.

The guard sealed the entrance behind them. Emi stared around, the new section of wall extending past them several kilometers into the distance through a wide, cleared swath that stood in stark contrast to the thick, lush vegetation they were looking at.

“What will this be used for?”

“Once it goes through final clearance, it will be cleared for farmland.”

Emi frowned. “Why not clear it before you wall it in?”

“Oh, we would never put our males at risk like that.” She turned to speak in her native tongue to someone who’d approached them. Emi couldn’t tell if the person was female or male because of their heavy, protective clothing that covered them from head to foot. The headgear muffled the person’s voice. Emi suspected it was a Moran woman, from everything else she’d seen.

Baltin turned back to Emi. “They are not quite through yet with this section, but it should be safe. Come. This way.” Baltin followed their guide, motioning for Emi to come with.

Emi felt her nerves tingling, on edge. She wondered what was so bad that heavy protective clothing like that was needed.

And she wondered why she didn’t have a suit of her own.

Baltin chattered on about the agricultural operation as they followed their guide down the path. They came to a clearing, where several four-legged, furry animals that reminded Emi of goats grazed next to a small pond. Each animal wore a collar with a sensor on it. Instead of hooves, like goats, they had fingered paws that looked like a cross between a dog and a monkey. The animals also had thick, bushy crowns of coarse hair on their heads.

“These are
dau’phnalin
,” Baltin explained as she reached out and petted one of the brown animals. “They help clear the area because they are immune. They are the only animal on the planet immune.”

Emi couldn’t stand it any longer. “Immune to what?” She suspected the “what” lay behind the reason for the heavy protective suits. She felt like her skin was about to crawl off her body, even worse than she felt when the jump engines were engaged.

“To the
tals’tophk
. I am sorry for the confusion, Doctor. I thought I made that clear.”

Emi vaguely remembered hearing something about that at some point in her holding-on-for-dear-life ride out there in the cart. “But what
are
they?”

“What?”

“The…tals-whatever.”

Then one of the not-goat critters let out a horrific, ear-splitting shriek that made Emi jump. The others joined in, making Emi cover her ears. From out of nowhere, several other workers garbed in protective clothing suddenly converged on them. Four of them surrounded Baltin and Emi, facing out and on high alert.

Two of the workers seemed to be paying attention to the now-screaming animals. They carefully watched where the animals all had their attention fixated. Then one of the workers produced a small metal wand. They touched a button on it, and with a
click
it expanded into a long spear. The two workers advanced on the focus point of the animals, a section of vegetation at the base of a tree on the edge of the clearing. The one with the spear pounced, jabbing it into the bushes.

Whatever was there started screaming even louder than the animals, who were now cowering around the four workers protecting Emi and Baltin.

The worker with the spear dragged their prey out of the bushes. Emi added her own horrified cries to those of the not-goats. Impaled on the end of the spear was something that looked like a ten-pound spider with a lot more legs. It struggled, shrieking.

The other worker produced a rectangular rod and reached down. The unmistakable sound of an electric
zap
filled the air.

The beast let out one final shriek and fell still, its legs curling up around it.

Immediately, the not-goats stopped their yelling and went back to peaceably grazing as if nothing had happened.

Apparently, the thing was dead, whatever it was. Baltin, who’d never lost her composure during the encounter, smiled at Emi as the four workers went back to their business. “Their venom can kill an adult in seconds.”

“Holy crap!”

“Would you like to see it?”

“Um, no thanks. I’m good.”

“It is safe once they are dead.”

The worker with the spear helpfully stepped forward and held it up for Emi’s inspection.

Emi took a few steps back, waving her hands in front of her. For good measure, she put one of the grazing critters between her and the dead-spider-thing-kabob. “No, seriously, thanks. I’m good.”

Baltin smiled, but Emi didn’t sense any smugness behind it. “I understand. They can be quite frightening if you are not used to them.”

“
Huuuge
understatement.”

Baltin said something in Moran and the technician took the corpse away. “You now see why we have to clear sections before we allow our male workers in.”

“Yeah.”

“We do value our males. We do not wish them dead. They are important parts of our society, but they have a different place and role than your males do.”

“What about the beaches and stuff? How do you keep those things away from there?” Emi resisted the urge to constantly look around, including into the canopy above them, for any more of those things.