Expectant World
Vina stared up at the Talosian sky, wishing on each star she counted. She barely noticed the barren world she called home. Tonight, she was looking up, not around her. Each twinkling, distant light added to the excitement felt by everyone on Talos IV.
Morpheus may be a little too fond of the stick, but, hot damn! He’d found her a mate who commanded a starship and looked like a movie star. A mate, she was told, who was sure
to find her attractive. This Christopher Pike looked strong enough to carry her across the threshold, and virile enough to carry her upstairs and kick the bedroom door shut.
She gazed at the stars a long time before going back underground.
The Keeper rarely smiled. But he did so now. “Our last hope of salvation speeds toward us.Let’s go over the details of the experiment one more time, Dr. Tova. … Tazz, your attention is required.”
“Why, Magistrate? Why should we? You’re in professional hands. Mine. It can’t fail.”
“You can afford to be optimistic, Chief Rewarder. I haven’t the same luxury.”
“Then be a pragmatist. It must work, so we’ll make it work.”
“Vina’s dream man is going to be my nightmare. He’ll require a firm hand.That may mean afflicting her to get him to co-operate. Worse
, she’ll go along with it just to get him.” He shrugged. “So be it.”
“You mean punishment. I wish you wouldn’t. I’ve looked over these settings. Rigel VII, the hometown picnic, and the glistening green girl, can be handled by my staff. You don’t need the Chief Rewarder for these dull settings. Now, if you need something truly fantastical, say, Miss Vina as queen, with a castle in the clouds, and drop-dead gorgeous man-slaves to adore her, I’m your man.”
“The green girl is pretty damned exotic.”
“Oh, please. Arabian Nights. Big deal. I wouldn’t put my name on any of these stick drawings. Mundane, mundane, mundane. There’s nothing compelling enough to induce a healthy, active starship captain to stay here under your boot heel, But something fantastical might do. Let me dazzle them.”
“We don’t have time for a honeymoon with the creature. We must know now whether the male can be conditioned to accept the life we offer.”
“Also known as punishment.”
“I’m being a pragmatist, as requested. Whatever works.”
“Magistrate, really, why make the female so servile? I object to this whole plan.”
“But you’re going to carry out your duties as you agreed. You object to man serving us, yet you await a pet, also known as a devotion slave. You can’t talk.”
“Not the same thing, and you know it. If you don’t need me, I’m off to the surface.”
“Walking with no place to go,” the Keeper scoffed.
“Walking is a good aerobic exercise. You might try it. Do we want our species to survive or not?”
“Who said we didn’t?”
“Off hand, I’d say chipping a little girl’s hand with an explosive device that triggers when, as a woman, she’s with child is a good indication.”
“Leave my sister out of it! You both knew the rules. Nardis was my responsibility. I should have … Just go, will you? Just go.”
Tazz stood shakily. “She was my bride.”
“I said go!”
Tazz glared at his boss. “You can’t save your species with just your mind alone.”
“If you say so. Just don’t let your mind go soft, assuming it’s not too late for you already.”
“Before I go, consider this. They didn’t start the war that nearly wiped us out. The whole burden of saving ourselves shouldn’t fall on them. Not to mention the fact we’re luring them into service. They should be well paid for their services.”
“They will be as long as they co-operate.”
“You’re asking a healthy, active starship captain to cheerfully give all that up to live on this rock?”
“He’s tired of it. He wants out.”
“He needs a rest. Were I wearing that medallion, sir, every creature we lured into service would be given Paradise. I certainly wouldn’t reduce them and demand they like it. It’s no use to talk to you.”
Tazz strode out of the Council chambers.
Morpheus watched Vina pacing. If all went well, there would be children soon. Not Talosian children, because their intellect and their increased life-span meant they didn’t need to procreate much. He and his generation would have time to develop the slave community. With any luck, he’d be too old when it came time to replace their numbers.
Procreate. The word disgusted him. The animal stench of copulation, the emotional roller-coaster ride lower animals called love, left him and everyone else who was normal cold, if not sickened.
Except for that damned pervert, Tazz, and little Nardie,who’d paid the ultimate price, because of her hot blood disorder, which he’d taken advantage of.
Now the degenerate wanted to mate with a lower creature. The same species as the caged human female. Had the man no decency at all?
No matter. The female watering Tazz’s mouth was clueless. She’d be the Chief Rewarder’s plaything, pet and slave. All they had to do was meet.
Morpheus turned his mind to something else. Anything else.
Tazz knew well the emotions of the specimens he’d rewarded down through the centuries. Through them, he’d experienced the tastes and textures of food and drink, courting, mating, and the joy of new offspring.
Now, as he exercised, a routine of hope he’d held to for decades, his own happiness and gratitude threatened to overwhelm him.
Yesterday, while searching space for a suitable mate for Vina, he’d bumped into a sweet, little mind. Astonished, he’d stopped deep breathing and focussed his entire mental gaze on that which had touched him. The music she listened to, and the emotional high it took her on, swept him away, too. He beheld a rich imagination, and such warm emotion. Such sensuality, and a longing for a real love to shower all that sensuality on.
Lacking that, she took out a small device, and puffed on it like a cigarette. That longing suppressed for a while, she danced to twenty-first century rap. He watched her dab from the vape pen, and enjoyed the alterations in her consciousness. It kept her from feeling the sharp pain of not having a dance partner. Why a female like that had to resort to fantasy, he didn’t know. But he was grateful it was so.
Intriguingly, this mind had no perception of sight. With senses so delicate she could be an artist, a fascinating array of textures replaced the colors she’d never seen. This mind was forever in quest of beauty wherever she could find it. In her mind, shapes and textures shifted. His heart went out to her. She relied heavily on the substance in that vape pen. It concerned him.
Maybe he should mete her in her dreams tonight. She was an adept lucid dreamer. If their minds met, maybe he could show her a color, like purple or baby pink—something she couldn’t experience on her own.
The captain was still Objective Number One. For the governing Oligarchy, an experiment which would, if successful, allow them to build a happy servant class. The Regime didn’t need the Chief Rewarder for that. So he was free to concentrate on his pretty little SweetMind.
He hoisted boulders, tossing them hand to hand, working out the details, he’d kissed the Regime’s ass, hurt his conscience, just to get her. She would help him forget. They would leave him alone. She and him, alone. He’d be God, and she his little angel. She would never know what it cost him to get her. As Chief Rewarder, he was part of the Oligarchy, and he would have to support the damned regime to keep her, and his job
But how to make sure she beamed down? Ah, he had it. The survivors needed an empathetic therapist. Of course, he couldn’t force the captain to do it, but a strong subliminal and a double-quick image of her face did the trick.
All he need do once she beamed down was separate her from her handlers.. He walked and thought about the problem.
The order was real, the long conversation illusory. While the captain had no clue he was being influenced, little SweetMind had caught on, and he was delighted with the cunning little rascal.
The yeoman assigned was ideal. Flighty, easily diverted. Her jailers wouldn’t be so easily distracted, though if he could keep the Vulcan off balance long enough, he could lure her away. Piece of cake. He licked his lips in anticipation.
Last, not least, the dear pet herself. How could he get close enough to win her trust, and carry her off?
He rehearsed some possible scenarios. Having made a plan, he threw a boulder into the canyon, and did a jig. Oh yes, he had this. Once she got a taste of him, she would never want to leave.
Now he could relax, be high on her. The stars twinkled their approval, while she sped to his arms, and had no idea her life was about to change.
Vina’d never seen the Talosians smile. It didn’t improve their appearance, but it did mean no punishment. Now, one of them was grinning like an idiot, offering a glass. Well, why not? Who didn’t like bubbly?
“It’s official. Our species will survive!”
“Calm down, Tazz.”
“Pay no attention to Morpheus, Miss Vina. We’re having a party.”
Illusion addicts lifted their huge heads, rubbed their eyes, filled with hope and a euphoria Vina was sure warmed and elevated everyone on the planet. Someone created a bar. Someone else turned up the music. Another created a pool table.
“Sit down, sonny boy,” Tazz told his boss. “I’m buying, you’re drinking. You might even join us in song and laughter.”
“Allow me, Miss Vina? Pink champagne.” He filled her glass.
It went down far too smoothly. The Talosian with the idiot grin kept refilling her glass. Such merry eyes, an all-consuming grin gave her the notion he’d never punished anything in his life. When she looked at this man, she didn’t see his diminutive size or his huge, weird head. She saw a little boy waiting for Christmas. He was hiding a happy secret she couldn’t guess at.
She learned he was Dr. Tazz Tova, Chief Rewarder. The Keeper said he couldn’t punish anything to save his life.
“We went to school together,” the Keeper said. “You know those gorilla creatures with the warthog faces? We practiced on them.”
“Yes. We had Brightside for R.E., that’s Rewarding Experiences. Garsd was master of Correction and Punishment, and the dour-faced Magistrate here very interested in punishments.”
“At least I’m not a pleasure whore.”
“I wouldn’t trade places, boss.”
Tazz sat beside Vina the next time he refilled her glass. They clinked.
“Feels like the whole world’s in love, doesn’t it Everyone happy and connected.”
“Is this a holiday of some kind?”
“It might just be, Miss Vina. I bet one day, we’ll call this Salvation Eve, or something of that nature. I also await the arrival of a special human. My lovely SweetMind is on the same ship.”
“SweetMind?”
“Well, that’s what I call her. I’ve called her that since my mind touched hers across space yesterday. Such an array of sensations and cognitions. Sometimes delicate as fireflies, sometimes more vibrant than the gem-flowers of Ali’I VI. It’s said the gem-flowers
Are a wonder to behold. An amalgam of plant and mineral. Like walking through gardens where you can pick jewels off trees. By this time tomorrow, at the latest, my love and I will stroll those gardens, picking living sapphires and rubies and diamonds. Wooing madly.” He refilled his glass.
“I don’t think she’ll go for you, sir. You don’t look like a human male, which is probably what she wants. Besides, once she sees that head … no offense, but I don’t think she’ll go for you, sir.”
“And I think she will, sir. To my beautiful SweetMind, Not forgetting your very special human, arriving tomorrow. Here. Let me top that up. You can’t toast with an empty goblet. Save me a dance, won’t you?”
“Sure, if I can still stand.”
Later, after they danced and were seated at the bar, Vina said, “I must say I’m curious. I can’t wait to see what turns an anti-sexual Talosian into a hunk o’ burning love.”
He winked. “One hell of a female?”
“Must be. I can’t wait to meet her.” Point her out to me tomorrow.”
“I can do more than that. Want too see her now?”
“Yeah, you know it.”
“Sorry,” said the Keeper. “We haven’t time. The party’s over. That ship will be here in a few hours. Bed. That’s an order.”
“I’ll point her out tomorrow. Good night, everyone.”
The whole bar shimmered out of existence.
1 Tactile Writer 