Chapter Nine

Talia spent the next three days in a vast suite of rooms high on a building in the middle of Tentos City, alone. The Tentacons had made some effort to decorate it to human taste, adding traces of color that they would not have tolerated in their own dwellings. The suite opened to an enormous balcony, from which Talia could survey the city all around and look down at the streets hundreds of feet below. Talia was not allowed to leave the suite, but she was well cared for. Noids regularly delivered meals, which were surprisingly tasty. Her appetite had tripled, and they brought food to her many times a day.

She sat on the bed when a chime rang at the door. She was surprised. She hadn't heard that sound before. Usually, the Noids entered without waiting for her acknowledgment.

Talia approached the door and opened the view screen. It was Tracy, dressed in a long dull-blue tunic, similar to the one Talia wore. Two robot guards stood behind Tracy. Talia opened the door, and Tracy ran into the room and hugged her.

"Tracy!" Talia cried. They embraced and held each other for a full minute. They pulled apart, and their eyes searched each other.

"What happened to you?" Talia asked.

"The same thing that happened to you," Tracy said. "Let's talk." The moved to the sofa and sat. Tracy spoke.

"They took me away the last day of negotiations, just like you. Sedated me. I woke up in another lord's chamber. He . . . had sex with me. That's what happened to you, right?"

Talia nodded.

"I figured. I wanted to see you, and I asked them if I could. I was surprised they let me come here. I guess they figure they have us now, and they don't care.

"Let me tell you what I learned," Tracy added.

"What?"

"My master told me some things about what we are doing here. He told me he probably shouldn't, but it didn't matter because there was nothing we could do about it. This whole thing with you and me and Stenvo was a setup. The Tentacons never cared about Transit technology. They stole it years ago. They have agents working for them on Earth. One of them is Gadber Hines, the man who recruited us. He didn't want me for my knowledge of biology, or you for your languages. He recruited us as women. As mates. They searched earth for the right candidates for the job, and they chose us."

"My god," Talia said.

"Yes. Gadber Hines works for the Tentacons, not for Dars Stenvo. He's betrayed Stenvo, and he's helped the Tentacons put their plans into action.

"Your master didn't just have sex with you, Talia," Tracy said. "He impregnated you. Your children are growing inside you as we speak."

Talia cried out. She had felt something in her belly, but she hadn't let herself contemplate what it might mean. The possibility seemed too awful and too insane.

"We can't let this happen, Tracy," Talia said. "Do you know what they plan to do?"

"I know," Tracy said. "They think they're going to take over the galaxy with our children. It's destiny, they think. Did your master tell you they want to share knowledge with humans? That's a lie. They want to conquer us. They want to take over all the inhabited planets. With our children. I

"I felt the same way you did, the first day I found out. My master liked to talk. When I found out, I felt I had to stop it. I thought about killing myself. I thought about slicing myself open and somehow removing . . . whatever it is. But I had nothing in my room that I could use to do it. I assume your room is the same way. You probably have no tools, either."

"I don't," Talia said. "But we have to do something. What do we do?"

"Nothing, for now." Tracy smiled.

"What do you mean?"

"Talia, listen to me very carefully," Tracy said, her voice urgent. "I don't know if they'll let me talk to you again, and you need to hear this. You think you can resist the Tentacons. You can't. Think about the pleasure you felt. You need more of it. Admit it. You can't resist it. You think you'll fight it, but you won't. You'll give in. Your master will do with you what he wants to. He controls you."

Tracy looked at Talia, no doubt in her face. Then Tracy looked away, eyes scanning the ceiling and walls, as though concerned about someone eavesdropping on them.

Tracy looked back at Talia. She leaned closer. She spoke barely above a harsh whisper.

"But your master doesn't control your children."

Talia didn't understand.

"I discovered something," Tracy continued. "With the seed of my master inside me, I could reach out with my mind. The Tentacons' telepathic ability passed to me, in some way -- I don't know how -- after my master impregnated me. I could feel our children -- my children. I counted them; I have 47 inside me. I can feel every one of them, right now. I can feel them, as their mother. I'll bet you can feel it too. Try it. Search for them. Search for your children, inside you."

Talia did not understand what Tracy was asking her to do, at first. But after a few moments' hesitation, she let her mind open, as she had when she was with the Tentacon lord. She sought connection with the children inside her. She felt her consciousness expand and drift like a cloud, until its edges connected with something new, something she had not felt before. And then she felt them. Her children. Inside her womb -- growing and developing. She felt their bodies and their minds -- minds that would mature into something different from, and greater than, the minds of humans or Tentacons. The contact hit her like a wave, enveloping her. She needed to know how many there were, and her mind reached out to count them.

109. A prime number. 109 children, hybrids of her own species and of the Tentacons, grew inside her womb.

She had a connection to each and every one. She felt it. She felt all of them. And somehow -- she didn't know how -- she knew that Odorin, their father, did not have the connection with them that she did.

"Do you feel it?" Tracy asked. "Do you feel the connection to them?"

"I do," Talia said.

"Talia," Tracy said. "I checked your profile. I've reviewed your DNA. You don't know shit about biology, but your intelligence is greater than mine. Your fertility is greater than mine. Your athletic ability and immunity from disease are greater than mine. Your master is stronger and more intelligent and more powerful than mine. I know because of the way my master spoke about yours. He is the first in their council. Your children will be extraordinary.

"Listen to me. Your children will combine all that is best and strongest in the human and Tentacon species. And they'll answer to you, not to your master. If you and I work together, our children will rule the galaxy. We can get payback against the little men that sold us into this servitude, and through our children we can take control over the Tentacon masters who think they can control us. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Talia had no time to think about Tracy's question, because the whir of a shuttle engine sounded suddenly outside the door to the balcony. Talia looked toward the source of the noise, and a freighter shuttle she didn't recognize had landed on the balcony. The door slid open, and Jod Perry and two men dressed as security guards ran out the shuttle door toward them. All three men carried laz guns.

"Jod!" Talia called out. "What . . . what --"

"There's no time," he said, urgency and fear in his voice. "We found out what happened to you, and some of us came back. We need to get you out of here now. We have only a few minutes, if that. Our shuttle is disguised, and I don't think they've picked us up yet. If we go quickly we may get beyond the city boundary before they discover us. Let's go. Now!"

Jod took Talia's hand, and one of the other men took Tracy's. They were too stunned to move immediately, but after a few seconds they regained their wits and followed Jod's lead. They ran through the doors onto the balcony. The open shuttle door beckoned, only thirty feet away. One of Jod's companions was first to the ramp. Before he got to the door a bright light flashed and his neck burst open, a spray of red fanning in every direction. He fell to the ground.

Talia looked up and to the side of the balcony. A hover transport had appeared out of nowhere, and Noids and Tentacons were jumping off it onto the balcony floor. All were armed.

"Run to the shuttle!" Jod yelled. He pointed his laz gun at the approaching Tentacons. Talia saw another burst of light and a Tentacon fell. Talia looked at Tracy. Despite Jod's urging she didn't move. Instead, she squatted to the ground and gestured for Talia to do the same.

Another burst of light, and Jod screamed in pain and fell, a gaping wound in his chest pouring blood. The last of the three men raised his gun to fire back, but he was hit too, and the laser slug spun him partly around before he got a shot off. He fell to the ground and lay still. The Noids and Tentacons surrounded them. Talia held out her hands to show she had no weapons. She looked at Tracy to see what she was doing. Tracy squatted, motionless, with a strange expression -- puzzled, with her mouth open. She turned to Talia, and when she did Talia saw the wound in Tracy's side, where the security guard's final, mis-aimed blast had hit her. Tracy looked at Talia with pain and regret.

"Don't forget what I said." The words came in a rasp, and then Tracy's eyes rolled up. Tracy fell over. She was dead.

Events lost focus, for Talia. She crawled on her hands and knees to Tracy and hugged her. She cried. The Noids and Tentacons stood around her, neither touching her nor hindering her. They let her weep over her dead friend and her final chance at escape.

Epilogue.

Talia stood on the balcony of her room, undressed, hands on the rail, overlooking the blue-gray gloom of the vast city around her. Security drones hovered in the air above. There would be no more rescue attempts, even if there was someone left to try to rescue her.

She no longer wished to be rescued. She knew what was coming. She had accepted it, reluctantly at first, but each day gave her a greater sense of confidence and conviction. Tracy's words played in her mind, again and again. Talia missed Tracy. The Tentacons treated her well; they were extraordinarily solicitous of her, and they tended to her every need. But it would be better to have a human companion.

"I remember what you said," she whispered to herself.

Talia pressed her hand against her belly. Only a week had passed, but already her belly bulged against her outspread fingers. She smiled, and contentment washed over her nude body. She liked the roundness in her tummy and the novel plumpness of her breasts. Inside her, the seed grew.

The seed of a new empire.