“Do you think she liked me?” said Magarce.
Benseln sighed. “Kitten, we can’t get into this again…”
“Into what?” demanded Magarce, petulantly.
Benseln turned, on his way to the ship’s cockpit, and picked up Magarce in his large, powerful hands, his thumbs tucking underneath her breasts and his fingers nearly reaching around to her back. It was becoming a habit of his, as the diminutive Nerre claimed this turned her on so much that she could not scratch him while being held this way. It was a lie, but it was a lie he liked, and found useful.
“I’ll tell you, darling.” he said, and kissed her nose. “We’re not getting into my knowledge of Faisand. It won’t lead anywhere good.”
“But I want to know about her!” protested Magarce.
“No, love. You want to know about me being with her, something I cannot offer you.” Benseln looked away when he said this. Magarce didn’t press him on it, for fear the magical kitty-stretching late nights might be called off.
“I didn’t say that. I really do want to know about her. Nobody ever said there were Nerre living on… Benjen, right in the middle of Verss there’s a big sign with her on it! Why don’t they tell us about that?”
“She’s an outlaw, that’s why. I’m not surprised they don’t. I’m careful not to mention her- in fact, thank you for bringing her up, I have to reacquaint myself with the things not to say when I’m on Ause.”
“Am I an outlaw, too?”
“I’m not sure. Faisand publically broke with Ause culture to come and work for the Runge. Or, ah, work and come for the Runge.” Benseln chuckled.
“She kissed you.” accused Magarce.
“I’m sorry. She took one look at your reaction and beat it, if that’s any comfort…”
“She kissed you like she was your lover. Like you had something special for her.”
“Mags, honey, that’s her JOB. I refuse to answer any more incriminating questions…”
“She kissed you like she’d HAD you.” said Magarce.
“Oh, honey.” said Benseln despairingly. “She has so many lonely Runge. Let it go. Please.”
Magarce relented, looked away. “I just… she gets to do that? As a job?”
“Yeah, but she can never return to Ause. It’s not safe for her. She burned all her bridges. Nerre know that she can’t be obeying protocol all the time, not with hundreds of drooling wolves pounding her pussy.”
“Eep! Hundreds?”
“Maybe thousands. No, not all at once…” added Benseln, too well aware of Mags’ tendency to get lost in mad fantasies. “Be grateful that you haven’t offended Nerre culture like that.”
Magarce said nothing. She suspected she might be in the same boat, considering that her last two Nerre lovers were torn apart before her eyes by a vengeful Hse-Nerre, and considering that her cover story might have fallen a bit short. It was possible that she had offended Nerre culture even worse… but there was no sense worrying Benjen.
“Okay.” she said. “I will!”
With that, Benjen put her down gently, and continued on to the ship’s cockpit. Mags scampered along. “Whatcha doing?”
“I have to punch in a landing approach. Want to go back down to where I found you?”
“Oooh, romantic…”
“Control.” said Benseln. This wasn’t a statement of intention, or a plea for Mags to settle down- he was on the radio, addressing the Nerre space traffic network.
“Please state your landing approach, ‘aons.” said the Nerre voice over the radio. Nerre did not demand visitor intentions during landing approach- the traffic controller wished only to know which spaceport Benseln was aiming for, at first.
“Sennsi.” replied Benseln.
“Maurrte?” came the voice, inevitably, with the expected great deference, charm and courtesy, and Benseln had a bit of a problem.
If you were making a landing approach on Ause, you would speak Nerre. Not to do so would cause the greatest alarm and lead to a very cautious reception, up to and including being held at gunpoint. Nerre treated guns like fire extinguishers- distasteful, unfashionable objects normally overlooked and stored in appropriate spots, resorted to in serious emergency and ignored otherwise. Invasion by offworlders who didn’t know protocol was considered a serious emergency.
If you did speak Nerre, you’d know that ‘maurrte’, expressed as a question, dragged out in cutely exaggerated manner with the little flip at the end on the ‘te’, was the politest possible way of saying, “Who the hell are you and what are your intentions here?”. It was invariably phrased in the most saccharine, endearing-sounding way possible because it was an imposition- they had to ask, but the saying came from situations in which a stranger was being barred entry to a village, so it was emotionally loaded for Nerre. It was stressful for them to repeatedly say, in essence, “Say who you are or I won’t let you in”, and so the tone of voice always hit high marks for charmingness- yet the question had to be answered.
Benseln knew he was going to identify himself, but there was a phrase to add that roughly translated as “also, X, who shall rejoin our harmony”, and was to be used as an honorific to celebrate the return to Ause of a Nerre. For a False, the overtones of the phrasing suggested “to be soothed by our harmony”, while a returning True got “rejoice the return of our harmony that has been weakened by their absence”.
Benseln didn’t know which category Magarce was considered to be in, but he was god-damned sure you didn’t get to be True while getting screwed by a colossal Runge who was pretending to be asleep and not asking any permissions or saying any protocol things. Plus, even without that, Magarce had joined him on the run from some terrible problem she wouldn’t talk about. It just wasn’t going to be a good idea to bring that stuff up.
The Nerre controller waited, and Benseln realised he’d paused.
“Uh- Benseln Jens. Delivering imported foodstuffs.” He always said that, though it was what he took away from Ause that made the money. Sometimes the controller perked up and mewed questions about what sorts of delicious treats he was bringing, as it served as the opening gambit of a conversation, and they were always eager to get past the ‘or I won’t let you in’ stage and reassure him of his welcomeness. It was cultural.
This one didn’t take the bait. He’d paused too.
“Repeat, again, …aons? Ah, vraonse?”
“Benseln Jens, delivering imported foodstuffs. ‘aons.” Odd that the fellow had become awkward, even spelling out the long form of the constant, ‘if that’s alright with you’ protocol softener, ‘aons.
“Yes, please proceed to your destination, ‘aons.” came the voice. Benseln struggled to make sense of the guy’s tone. Not hesitant, not anything like that. Kind of excited. Firm? Definitely more authoritative than usual, but it wasn’t to warn him away, it was giving permission to do what Benseln had asked to do in the first place. Surely if they’d figured out his smuggling activities, they’d have asked him to leave? He always kept enough spare fuel that he could at least make orbit if denied an approach. Other Runge smugglers had been politely asked not to land, with much verbose fluffery just serving as froth to obscure the central point that they were not welcome.
Benseln swooped downward, toward the desired spaceport.
Approach to the runway was clear. Taxiing to the hangar was clear. The way to the traveller concourse was clear. Too clear.
“Where the hell is everybody?”
“Is it wrong?” asked Magarce.
“Oh, I don’t know. Could be just chance- but I’m sorry, this is just weird. There’s nobody in sight. I’ve never seen this place so empty. I’m just…” Benseln trailed off.
“What?”
“I’m trying to think if I’ve ever heard of a ship coming to this planet and just disappearing.”
“I thought you said they’d turn you away while you were in orbit!”
“Um. No, baby. It’s more like- guys I’ve met said that’s what happened to them. I know they can tell you not to land. I don’t know what happens if they let you land and then… like I said I’m trying to remember if anyone’s ever just not come back from here.”
“You’re making me nervous!” whined Magarce, her ears back. “Can we just leave again?”
“I’M nervous. But you’ve given me an idea. Here… I’m leaving the ship on, in fact let’s turn her around so if we have to bolt out of here, you just hit the throttle here, get her on the runway, lift off…”
“Okay, why can’t we do that now? You’re scaring me.”
“Honey, we can’t- we accepted their invitation. If there’s nothing up, if they’re not on to me, well then I can’t just leave or I’ll never be able to come back here again. You can’t just do a weird thing like take off and run away. We’ve got to brazen it out. Remember, it’s gourmet foodstuffs. We’re here on legitimate business, and if they come in you can’t let them look at the fridges because there’s five times too much capacity for what I’m bringing in, and I haven’t cleaned number four properly yet…”
“Benjen!” mewed Magarce. “Stop it!”
Benseln grabbed Magarce, lifting her and staring her in the face. “Listen. This is the reality, okay? Don’t fuck up. You can do it. If it all goes to hell on us, play dumb and pretend you’re just a passing fucktoy, you look like a kid anyway. But do not, do NOT fuck this up on me unless you really seriously have to. Come on. You can play innocent for five minutes. Just give me that, and then the next five minutes, and the next…”
Magarce’s eyes were wide. “How should I act?”
“No, don’t be stupid. Don’t act at ALL. You don’t know anything, you’re madly in love with me or whatever, you’re just following me around as I sell my gourmet foodstuffs…”
“What kinda foodstuffs?”
“That’s right, we never even talked about that, did we? I’ve got Estrai stuff. Freeze-dried drommal, peurent lhor…”
Magarce twisted her little muzzle in disgust. “Ew. I’ve had that, it’s horrible.”
“That’s great! You just do that. I make my money selling import lhor, but you can’t see the point because you think it’s yucky. Do that! The sincerity of it, that’ll cover everything else. Give people a little taste of real sincerity and they’ll miss half your bullshit. Let’s go…”
The Hse-Nerre met them as they walked down the gangplank and headed toward the concourse, and everything became moot- because they were not interested in Benseln Jens at all.
He smiled at them with worried eyes, hoisted his sample case laden with drommal and lhor. “Couldn’t wait, huh?”
The Hse-Nerre saw Magarce, who was rather cowering behind Benseln, and one said “Yes.”
“Yes what?” said Benseln, who clasped the sample case to his chest.
Both Hse-Nerre pulled guns. “Stand aside, sir. Apologies. Do not take it personally, ‘aons.”
“I don’t…”
“Vrironste.” said both Hse-Nerre, their eyes going green in battle readiness.
Benseln Jens could have done a number of things. His sample case was armored. It was fairly heavy, and he could have thrown it at them. He could have backed up, trusting Magarce to stay directly behind him. He could have offered her to the Nerre guns, and saved himself.
What he did was whirl around and cover Magarce with his own much larger body, the armored sample case pressed tightly between them.
What the Hse-Nerre did was open fire and try to shoot Magarce directly through him.
Magarce shrieked. Benjen was clutching her so tightly, too tightly, his body jerking- there was a horrible clanging, the sample case ringing and whacking at her. It was all happening too fast in a hail of bangs and whacks and Benjen’s fingers digging in, hurting her- and then slackening, as the sound died away.
Magarce backed away a pace, taking Benjen’s hand. He stared at her in anguish. Tried to speak, but only blood came out. Fell forward- and much of his back wasn’t there anymore. The Hse-Nerre had emptied their guns into him until their bullets were gone. For a moment, they and Magarce were frozen staring at what they had wrought.
And then Magarce was fleeing up the gangplank, hitting the emergency close, running to the cockpit, slamming the throttles to full. Not both at first- she managed to whirl the ship on its axis, killing one Hse-Nerre with the engine blast and gravely injuring the other. That was all the vengeance she could manage, for the time being. She saw the screaming Nerre and his dead companion, came close to trying to run them over with the ship, realized it would run her into a building, and swerved away, heading for the runway and then simply taking off at right angles to the runway, dreadful thumps and clangs coming from the landing gear as it traversed a rough field instead of pavement.
The ship dragged itself into the sky, and took off on a steeper and steeper trajectory, as if trying to escape the planet by the most direct route possible. Magarce knew nothing of piloting- when the ship wanted to slow, she just threw on more power. When that wasn’t enough, she found a switch marked ‘Emergency Power’ and threw that. She departed the atmosphere without even raising landing gear, without building speed and establishing an orbit, with nothing but sheer determination to escape, and she didn’t stop once she achieved escape velocity, because she didn’t know what that was. She was in a sort of hypnotized state of existential fleeing, her whole psyche locked in to the roaring of the engines as they took her farther and farther away from the horrible planet, the remains of her attackers, the corpse of her lover…
The noise sputtered, coughed, stopped. The trance was broken. Magarce looked up, to see nothing but space and stars outside. The stars rotated slowly, for the last bursts of engine thrust had set the ship turning, and there was no fuel to operate the stability thrusters. A display blinked on the dashboard. It was just a light to Magarce, and then she realized there were words, and they said:
EMERGENCY POWER: 0 OF 17 MINUTES AVAILABLE
Very slowly, Magarce began to weep.
Eventually, she ran out of energy even to do that. She lay across the control console, staring dumbly at a light too near her eye to focus on. Her mind was no better than a torn spiderweb of pain over a great absence, a void where any motivation had been.
She had to pee. Magarce considered this. What difference could that possibly make? Yet the feeling nagged. Reality was pressing in on her tortured mental state. She might have to blink, to get up, to move. She would have to remember how this was done. It was impossible- she was utterly nonfunctional, staring at the console from a distance of one inch.
A more powerful twinge, a feeling of impending skirt-wetting (a skirt bought on Benjen’s home planet, that he’d said she looked ravishing in, and she’d flicked her tail up revealing her little rump- another flash of memory-pain) and before she knew what she was doing, she was no longer frozen in despair. She was up and moving, her body automatically carrying her through the corridor, on the way to appropriately deal with its need.
Pissing into the business end of the wastewater reclamation system, Magarce took stock of her situation. Adrift in space, with no hope, no lover, no destination, but once more in control of her body, able to walk around, to think after a fashion, to plan but with no possible plan worth having.
Perhaps the idea of possible plans was overly ambitious, when cast adrift in space and doomed. Perhaps under the circumstances, impossible plans would be more the thing.
Very well- murder all Nerre, horribly. She could still see the faces of the Hse-Nerre as they looked upon the wreckage of her lover whom they’d killed. They seemed dismayed, as if it would have been all right so long as she had been slaughtered as well, as if they’d both made a mistake. She wished she could have stayed and watched the corpse and the screaming, burned one for longer. Kill them all.
No… not even counting herself, there were some she’d spare. Morc was dead, but he’d been good while he was alive- he could be counted on for many things, he’d stayed loyal to her until the end. Not only that, there was that whore in Verss, Faisand. She could not steal Benjen away anymore- perhaps she too would be hurt by his loss. That kiss she’d given had been a scorcher.
Magarce wandered back to the cockpit, where the stars still lazily panned past the window as the ship slowly revolved. She stared out into space. Faisand, yes. She should befriend Faisand. A Nerre who could never return to Ause sounded like the right sort of friend to have.
There was a clock among the instruments. Thinking about Faisand used up three minutes. Magarce noticed it. It was interesting- it moved, or at least changed. It changed in a way that was different from the blinking of the ‘EMERGENCY POWER:0 OF 17 MINUTES AVAILABLE’, different from the endless movement of the stars through the window.
Not that they were moving through the window. They were sitting there, apparently very far away from her limited understanding of it, and she was in a ship that was r…
Magarce found she was clutching the edge of the control console, keening, her ears back and her tail bristling. Just for a moment, she’d got a flash of where she really was- rotating sedately in a little bubble of air in the middle of a vast, endless void. She was going to die- eventually. There was no telling how long it would take. Benjen had never said anything about that, other than keeping a reserve in case Ause turned them away.
Nothing continued to happen. The stars lazily panned. The clock ticked over another minute.
The clock ticked over another minute.
The clock ticked over another minute.
Magarce realized she was freaking out to the point of catatonia. Nerre of her bloodline, with the grey point markings on paws and ears and muzzle and tail, sometimes got that way. There were other bloodlines known for being twitchy, but Tentresery were known for being predictably twitchy. Some of their renown came from maintaining True status in the face of this.
The thought-distraction helped Magarce cope, and she looked around, maintaining a brittle composure. There was the control console. There were those damn stars. Emergency power was still g
The clock ticked over another minute, and Magarce jumped. She stared at it, then glanced back at the emergency power indicator, for out of the corner of her eye she thought it had said
EMERGENCY POWER: 0 OF 17 MINUTES I HATE YOU
But it clearly did not, no matter how hard she stared at it, or how often she looked away and glanced quickly at it.
Magarce began to get nervous.
Fighting this nervousness, she poked at buttons near the clock indicator, not sure how to operate anything but prepared to try. Some buttons with up and down arrows provided different information from that readout, such as a fuel indicator that confirmed fuel was zero, and some sort of engine temperature readout that gave a temperature in a scale Magarce didn’t know, and a timer that wasn’t currently doing anything and also read zero.
And then she hit a readout that stopped her cold. It flipped between just two messages.
LIFE SUPPORT AT CURRENT USAGE: 3617.2 HOURS
ELAPSED SINCE LEAVING ATMOSPHERE: 1.7 HOURS
Not even two hours and she was seeing things and fighting off madness.
Magarce began to get… terrified.
Time… passed.
ELAPSED SINCE LEAVING ATMOSPHERE: 1.9 HOURS
Magarce is pacing the cabin, wringing her paws, her tail ruffled and half-bristled.
ELAPSED SINCE LEAVING ATMOSPHERE: 2.4 HOURS
Magarce is trying to sleep, the image of Benjen’s cratered back tormenting her mind.
ELAPSED SINCE LEAVING ATMOSPHERE: 7.2 HOURS
Magarce has found things in a storage locker. Some tools- a hammer, a wrench, a data reader that plugs into the control console. Some books that she cannot read, because they’re Runge books. She has avoided doing much with the control console, for fear she would press some button and open the ship to space. This can’t happen, due to safety interlocks, but she does not know that.
ELAPSED SINCE LEAVING ATMOSPHERE: 33.1 HOURS
Magarce is eating ship’s rations. She considers how tired she will be of them, not knowing that if they ran out she would beg for them without irony. They are Runge rations, lacking certain Nerre nutrients that would help her emotional stability. Magarce will develop a taste for Runge food, doing this, and will not maintain a healthy diet for many years.
ELAPSED SINCE LEAVING ATMOSPHERE: 57.5 HOURS
Magarce is screaming, having awakened from a dream in which she is adrift on a spaceship far from any life or sun. She claws at her own arms, trying to wake up again, but only succeeds in becoming a gray, white and red Nerre. Eventually her screaming stops, and she just stares.
ELAPSED SINCE LEAVING ATMOSPHERE: 72.1 HOURS
Magarce is not sure if she is talking to herself or just thinking to herself. She is eating more Runge ship’s rations. She has cleaned up her arms, and is telling herself how pretty they are now, in a strange, lilting voice, while her tail flicks about agitatedly.
ELAPSED SINCE LEAVING ATMOSPHERE: 74.0 HOURS
Magarce is masturbating with the handle of the hammer. It’s a bit shy on girth, but she grasps it and rams it within her clenching, quivering vagina, and writhes about on the bunk while thumping her cervix fiercely in Nerre fashion. She shrieks her release and sags, fevered and limp, a nagging soreness beginning to throb within her. She will not be able to resist returning to the hammer’s handle before properly healing, but does not quite match the frenzy of her first session with it.
ELAPSED SINCE LEAVING ATMOSPHERE: 97.1 HOURS
Magarce is staring again at the Runge book she cannot read. Before long, she resumes pacing.
ELAPSED SINCE LEAVING ATMOSPHERE: 113.9 HOURS
Magarce is eyeing a water bottle that looks to be about the size of Benjen’s knot, remonstrating with herself. She is telling herself there are no doctors in space, and if there were, they’d be in little ships as well and wouldn’t be able to reach her, now would they? They wouldn’t exist. Perhaps nothing exists. Perhaps nothing else had ever existed. Benjen…
ELAPSED SINCE LEAVING ATMOSPHERE: 160.2 HOURS
Magarce is weeping, pounding the floor. Above her, the control console blinks, essentially unharmed except for the loss of some button caps and trim. Magarce has attacked it in a fit of madness, striking it over and over with the wrench, until noises elsewhere in the ship caused her to think it was opening itself to space and killing her. In fact, she has inadvertently struck the landing gear button, shattering it and knocking its cap off, but actuating it, and she has heard the landing gear retracting. It seals itself with a muted thunk, and the noises cease, except for Magarce’s gut-wrenching wails.
ELAPSED SINCE LEAVING ATMOSPHERE: 417.6 HOURS
The hammer is named Morc. The water bottle is named Benjen. She talks to them, carries them about, and spends hours hugging the water bottle and explaining to it that she does love it, but she cannot make love to it like she does Morc, because it is the wrong species… Magarce pets Morc’s shiny metal head with a tenderness she has never shown to any living thing, a mad light in her eyes. She has nightmares of Morc smashing the controls, and always gently refuses to bring him into the cockpit. She spends hours making love to him and apologizing about the cockpit thing.
ELAPSED SINCE LEAVING ATMOSPHERE: 801.9 HOURS
Magarce is in the cockpit. She’s on edge, because the food is getting low, and because Morc the hammer is back in the bunk, asleep, but she is in the cockpit with Benjen and he wants to be with her. She is sure she’s acting dangerously, but her lifetime seems to be ticking away with the dwindling food, and Benjen’s lifetime as well (she imagines them eating with her), and her passion has grown to where she must share it with him and give him what he craves.
Benjen’s cap parts Magarce’s pretty labia, and the shoulder of his imposing girth presses hard into her. She is riding him kitty-on-top style, moaning drunkenly as her desire overtakes her, and her trim hips writhe lewdly. Her head tilts back, and she feels her body sinking onto him, and the pain and pleasure are both almost unbearable as Benjen’s plastic bulk press irresistibly into her, prying her too wide, stuffing her gloriously too damn full. There is no chance he will reach her depths. It doesn’t matter. Magarce explodes with climax, crying out until her little voice is hoarse and raw.
ELAPSED SINCE LEAVING ATMOSPHERE: 802.1 HOURS
Benjen is stuck. Magarce curses him dreamily, her pelvis crammed full of plastic water bottle, as she patiently tries to work him loose. She will find that in future, she can take Runge with less trepidation, as her polyamorous relationship with Morc the hammer and Benjen the water bottle end up leaving her fit for nothing less…
ELAPSED SINCE LEAVING ATMOSPHERE: 1013.4 HOURS
Magarce lazes on the console, her object lovers napping in the bunk. They have developed a homosexual relationship, which she finds hilarious, not threatening, as they always have time for her. She nibbles on some rations, reminding herself to do it sparingly so there will be enough for Morc and Benjen when they wake up. She counts the stars, remembering to count twice- no, three times, for the growing speck.
ELAPSED SINCE LEAVING ATMOSPHERE: 1013.4 H
growing speck
ELAPSED SINCE L
Growing speck?
PROXIMITY: 47876 FEET
Growing SPECK!
The readout switched over to a proximity indicator, and Magarce froze, staring at the speck, as it dropped out of sight each time the ship revolved away from it, and then came into view on the other side of the window, larger. For a moment, she utterly panicked, not sure if it was going to disappear between sightings. Instead, it was there again, larger and larger, revealing portholes and windows of its own and metallic glints from nearby stars, and it wasn’t an accident- she saw it firing its jets, adjusting its course, and then there was a clang from the hull.
It had fired some sort of magnet, to reel her in.
Whatever was out there… was coming aboard.
