Journey to Year 1,000,000,000 Ch. 06

"You are most welcome."

Teldoc stared at Victor for a long moment, and then his smile faded.

"What's wrong?"

"The experiments... on your friends... are reaching a critical stage."

"What does that mean?"

"Intense pleasure is being applied to make them break. Very... intense," said Teldoc. "What's more, I have been ordered to return you to the main group tomorrow."

"Oh."

"I'm sorry," said Teldoc.

"I understand," said Victor. He thought furiously. "Teldoc?"

"Yes."

"Is there any way you can help me and my people?"

"I cannot help you escape, Victor. I just can't," said Teldoc.

"I wasn't thinking about escape, not precisely. More of an idea I've been nursing along for the past few days. To convince the Keepers that we have Xetan, just as they do."

"We have talked about this, Victor. I see no way to convince the Keepers that you have Xetan."

Victor thought again how Teldoc had won over Celesta. "What if we could convince the Keepers that instead of playing their game, that they were playing ours?"

"How....?"

"All I need is for you to relay a message to Captain Taylor. Could you do that for me?"

********

Elizabeth dreamed of Michael Taylor.

They were allowed to sleep again. Sort of. They were pinned, in the air, so that they were standing a few inches above the ground, and leaning forward. It quickly became unpleasant, but if they could fall asleep like that, they could.

Elizabeth fell into uneasy dreams. At one point she dreamed of Taylor.

He was on board the Devonshire, with the crew. He ordered a head count. "Is everyone here?"

"Yes sir," said Jennifer Hale, looking sharp in her dress uniform.

No, Elizabeth wanted to cry. I'm still a prisoner on the planet!

"Then let's embark. Suki, take us out to the Black Box."

No!

She quickly awoke, feeling the pain in her back from bending forward. But fatigue drove her into an uneasy sleep, where she dreamed again.

Taylor was kissing her. They were sitting in open grasslands, and he was kissing her repeatedly on the lips.

"How is that?" he asked. "Do you like it?"

"I don't know," said Elizabeth.

Taylor pressed his lips against hers again. "How can you not know?"

"I am wood."

"What?"

"I am wood."

And Taylor looked at her, and sure enough, Elizabeth was a piece of wood, carved to the finest detail of her likeness. Her breasts, even her pubic hair was wood. He pressed his lips against her wooden lips, and felt nothing, nothing but--

And then she was awake again, and Almoxin was standing there before Midge Wells.

"Do it!" Almoxin yelled, her big egg yolk eyes blazing.

"No!" said Midge Wells. She looked so insignificant, dressed only in a slave collar and black panties. She was short, and skinny, and her breasts were so small that they barely pointed down. Midge was holding something in her hands. "Please, not that! I'll do anything else you say!"

Suddenly Midge's collar lit up, and she collapsed to the ground, screaming in pain.

Almoxin turned to Barbara Wells. "Do it!"

"I... I can't," said Barbara.

Elizabeth wondered what was so terrible that they wouldn't do. They had already declared themselves to be slaves. What could be worse than that?

Barbara's collar lit up, and she collapsed to the ground, tugging at her collar as she screamed.

Elizabeth saw that all the slaves were all on the ground, writhing in agony. All except Vincent.

Almoxin turned to him. "Do it!"

Vincent bit his lip. He approached Elizabeth. He had something in his hand. Long, black, with a handle... no. It couldn't be.

"Once?" said Vincent. "Will once be enough?"

"Do it!" Almoxin commanded.

Vincent looked at Elizabeth. "I'm sorry, Elizabeth."

Sorry? For what? No!

Vincent flicked his wrist, and the whip flashed as it wrapped around Elizabeth. She cried out in pain.

It was an electrowhip.

"Again," said Almoxin.

"No, Vincent, don't," said Elizabeth, with pleading eyes.

Vincent matched gazes with her, and she saw fear in his eyes. He raised the whip again, and lashed out. Elizabeth cried as she felt the sting of it.

"Again!"

Wade Tanner and Bruce Anderson were restrained just as Elizabeth was. Wade roared and tried to free himself, but he was pinned to the air. "Stop that! Stop that or I'll-" he cut off as Vincent gave him a taste of the whip.

"Good," said Almoxin. "You are beginning to understand." Almoxin turned to Vincent. "Vincent, you may resume Elizabeth's training."

Elizabeth, her eyes wide with horror, watched as Vincent raised the whip again, biting his lip as he flicked it backwards....

********

Elizabeth was in agony. She had whip burns all over her front and back. Her shirt and pants had been cut to pieces, and after her shirt went, her bra straps didn't last long either. Survey Service bras were rugged and durable, designed to protect the titties of female Service officers from the harsh environments of outer space, but even they couldn't endure this kind of punishment.

And so, in the irony to end all ironies, she found herself topless in front of the one man who couldn't avoid staring at her breasts. Vincent was staring at them now, with a wicked little smile on his lips, as he grew more and more confident in what he was doing.

Vincent looked at Elizabeth's B cup breasts. In her stress position, they hung straight down. While not huge, they looked soft and squeezable. Vincent yearned to touch them, to caress them, to play with them. He felt excited and frustrated. After all these years he could finally see them! And yet he still could not touch them. In a way, Vincent was being tortured too. He tried to avoid Elizabeth's titties, to spare them the lash, but the whip was not an instrument of precision, and more than one stroke fell on them, causing Elizabeth to cry out and stare at him with amazement and betrayal in her eyes.

She had long since ceased asking him to stop. She just looked at him, with her eyes, with deep pleading as he whipped her again and again. Every time Vincent would pause, his body almost as sleek with sweat as hers; Almoxin would order him to resume, and he would, with great anguish written all over him.

Finally it became too much for her. "Please, no more," she cried.

"Did you say something, Doctor Shaw?" Almoxin asked.

"I believe Doctor Shaw was trying to say something," said Terratin.

"Vincent, pause for a moment," said Almoxin.

Vincent gratefully took a step back. He felt terribly conflicted. He hated being the instrument of pain for Elizabeth. He hated every stroke of the whip. And yet... seeing her half naked, with her breasts glistening with sweat, hanging straight down like terribly ripe fruit, desperately needing to be picked, and hearing her cry out with every stroke... it made him shamefully hard. Shamefully excited. Vincent had never been with a woman, and he found part of this terribly arousing, as he realized this was the closest experience to sex that he had ever had. Was this... was this how people felt having sex? he thought.

"Do you have something to tell us, Elizabeth?" Almoxin said.

Elizabeth was silent for a moment.

"Please, Elizabeth," Vincent whispered.

Something in his voice, in his eyes, moved her. "I... I concede," Elizabeth said, with a heavy wince.

"You concede what, Doctor Shaw? What are you?" Almoxin asked.

Vincent whispered, "Tell them you are a slave. Tell them, and the pain stops."

Elizabeth looked fearful.

"Please, Elizabeth, please," Vincent whispered. She saw the desperation in his eyes.

"I... I am a slave," said Elizabeth, wincing.

"Who do you belong to?"

"The Ascended."

"And what will you do for us?"

Elizabeth winced and bit her lip. Again Vincent was there, by her side. "Come on, Elizabeth. You're almost there. I can feel it. Just say the words, just say them."

Elizabeth looked at Vincent, and drew from his strength; the strength needed to betray her own values, to betray herself. Although he had been her torturer, they had formed a kind of bond, a bond she couldn't deny, or even properly define; it linked them together, in a way beyond hate or love or lust, linked them in a certain kind of... connection, that Elizabeth had never experienced before. As he held her, his hand brushed by one of her breasts, accidently, perhaps, or perhaps not accidently at all, and there was an electrical moment between the two of them which startled them both.

Elizabeth looked up at Almoxin. "I'll do anything. Anything you ask," she sobbed, with tears in her eyes.

Suddenly she found herself released from her restraints, and Vincent was gently laying her on the ground, and he was removing the remainder of her pants, and then her Survey Service standard issue panties, the smooth kind, issued only to midranking and senior female officers.

"Noooo," Elizabeth moaned, as Vincent started to put on her black slave panties.

"You have to wear them, Elizabeth. You are a slave now, just like the rest of us." Elizabeth groaned as the snug panties fit tightly around her groin. Her eyes widened in horror as Vincent reached up with the slave collar. "No, Vincent," she whispered."

"I must," Vincent whispered back. "I'm so sorry, my dear, dear Elizabeth," he said, and then Elizabeth flinched as she felt the cold collar around her neck, and jumped slightly when she heard the click of it closing around her.

Vincent looked up. "It is done," he said sadly.

"And so it is. Help Doctor Shaw up, slave." Almoxin ordered.

Vincent helped her to her knees.

"Tell us again, Doctor Shaw. What are you?" Almoxin asked.

"Your slave," said Elizabeth dully.

"And how will you serve me?"

Elizabeth blinked back tears. "I... will do anything you ask."

Almoxin smiled. "Finally! You are to be congratulated, Doctor Shaw."

Elizabeth just stared at her.

"You lasted eight cycles longer than Head Scientist Regina Tang of the Aurora. You are to be commended for setting a new resistance record."

Elizabeth nodded dully.

"But now you must help us with other matters," said Terratin. "Did you really mean it when you said you would do anything we asked?"

Elizabeth nodded again.

"Vincent, help Doctor Shaw up."

Vincent helped Elizabeth get to her feet.

"Now give her your whip."

Elizabeth's jaw dropped as Vincent gave her the whip.

"Your colleagues Doctors Tanner and Anderson are obstinate. You must persuade them to comply, as you have," said Almoxin.

Elizabeth looked at Wade Tanner and Bruce Anderson, still locked in stress positions, suspended in midair. She moved the whip slightly. It crackled with energy in the air. They looked at her with horror. Bruce Anderson mouthed 'no' silently.

"We are waiting, Doctor Shaw. Please begin," said Almoxin.

No. Elizabeth heard that word come from somewhere inside of her. It was bad enough to break her, to turn her into a slave. But to use her to turn other people into slaves? To be forced to whip her own colleagues into submission?

That is what being a slave means. Doing anything you are told to, she told herself.

Then I am not a slave, she concluded.

"No," said Elizabeth.

"What did you say, Doctor Shaw?"

"No," said Elizabeth. "I am a scientist in the scientific branch and a Commander in the Survey Service. These are officers in the United Survey Service. I will not torture them." And she stood there, topless, whip in hand, wearing black panties and staring defiantly at the keepers.

Almoxin and Terratin looked at her with surprise written all over their faces. Elizabeth steeled herself for the inevitable pain. She felt a pillar of strength within her that she hadn't known was there.

Almoxin raised a hand... and then she disappeared. Elizabeth simply vanished.

********

Taylor and his imprisoned crew heard the voices of their keepers.

"The results of this experiment should be fascinating, shouldn't it?" Senderock said.

"I suppose," said Arnack, with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

"You are just jealous that I broke the Lowers before you did," said Senderock. "How many do you think will voluntarily accept slavery?"

"Most of them, I imagine," came Prelnick's giggly voice. "All except the Captain and the other one, perhaps. You are brilliant, Senderock."

"I know," said Senderock. His voice grew louder. "Good morning, Lowers! Have you decided whether to accept my offer?"

"We have," said Taylor.

"What say you?"

"We say no," said Taylor, with great satisfaction.

"No? All of you?" The surprise was embedded in his tone. "I don't think so." A light shone on Suki. "Human, what say you?"

"No."

"No? You would rather endure the pain of these experiments?"

"Yes," said Suki.

Senderock questioned them all, one by one. All gave the same answer, even Rudy Garrett. "Something is very amiss here. Something has changed radically since the last session."

"Nothing has changed," said Taylor. "We have simply decided to stop pretending."

"Pretending?"

"Yes," said Taylor. "It has been a fascinating study. We have been observing your own level of restraint."

"Our levels of restraint?" said Senderock.

"By studying what experiments you select to perform on us. By observing how aggressive your behavior was during testing. By watching your reaction to our simulated performances."

"Simulated performances?"

"You were our prime subject, Senderock," said Taylor. "When we rewarded you with positive results, it was fascinating to observe the breakdown of restraint between you and Prelnick."

"No... no... it cannot be," said Senderock.

Prelnick laughed derisively. "It sounds like your experimental subjects had more Xetan than you, Senderock."

"No!" Senderock cried. "These are lowers. They cannot have Xetan."

"We are not lowers," said Taylor. He stood tall. "We are the finest officers and crew of the United Survey Service, with the highest level of Xetan to be found in our era. I myself recently conducted an experiment on tens of thousands of lowers, where I pretended to be their deity, and subjected them to all sorts of fascinating experiments involving restraint."

Taylor saw the doubt and confusion in the Keeper's eyes. He drove home his strongest point. "And while you have been torturing us, we have been exhibiting the ultimate in Xetan. We have tolerated your torture. How much more Xetan could anyone exhibit?"

"He makes a good point, Senderock," said Arnack.

Senderock could see from Arnack's tone that he was losing this argument. "Do not listen to them! We must continue the experiment."

"Fine, continue! By all means!" said Taylor. "It is all the same to us! We will give you more simulated results. We are anxious to observe your reactions to them," said Taylor.

"Yes, please continue," said Bill Carey.

"Please, proceed," said Suki.

"No... no... this is a trick," said Senderock.

"I can prove what I am saying is the truth," said Taylor.

"How?" Arnack asked.

"Put me in the pain experiment with Senderock. Let us see who has more restraint, who can keep themselves from sending pain to the other."

"No!" Senderock cried.

"It seems very reasonable, Senderock," said Arnack. "Or do you concede that the test subjects have more Xetan than you?"

"No! I will do it," said Senderock. "But the pain levels must be doubled! And he must go first!"

"Agreed," said Arnack, before Taylor could respond.

There was a flash of light, and Senderock appeared in the center chamber, with a podium in front of him. Senderock's giant egg yolk eyes stared at him.

A podium also appeared in front of Taylor.

"Are you ready, Captain Taylor?"

"Yes," said Taylor, gritting his teeth.

His podium lit up. Taylor steeled himself. Arnack would be inflicting double the pain of last time. The pain had been terrible enough during the last experiment. Could he endure twice as much? He would have to. He willed himself not to touch the button.

And then suddenly he felt pain wash over him. He instinctively screamed. And yet...

The pain wasn't so bad.

In fact, it wasn't nearly as bad as yesterday.

It wasn't comfortable. It wasn't fun. But it was bearable. Quite bearable, in fact.

Taylor suddenly realized what Arnack had done. Instead of doubling the pain, he had halved it. But Senderock didn't know that....

Taylor yelled out as if he were in agonizing pain. He screamed and dropped to his knees. When it was over, he was nearly sobbing.

"Concede, human," said Senderock. "Concede, and this will end."

"No," said Taylor, slowly using the podium to get up. "I can continue."

And then he saw the most beautiful sight in the world.

Senderock's podium lit up. Fear was written all over his face. He saw what had just been done to Taylor. There was no way he could endure it.

He only had three seconds to decide. He slammed down the button quickly.

Taylor was bathed in moderate pain again. The hardest part, though, was not smiling.

When it was done, Senderock yelled, "That was not fair! That was not a fair test!"

"The test was extremely fair, Senderock," said Arnack. "We used your exact specifications."

"We must continue the experiments!" said Senderock. "I can still break them!"

"Then you may continue," said Taylor indifferently. "We have endured your torture with extreme Xetan and will continue to. But I wonder what the First Keeper of the Circle of Trilesta will say when he learns that you are experimenting on beings with far greater Xetan than your own."

"No," Senderock whispered. "You have no way of communicating...."

"Wait, I'm sorry," said Taylor. "I meant to say, I wonder what the First Keeper of the Circle of Trilesta will say when SHE finds out you have been experimenting on us."

"No... it can't be...." Senderock whispered.

"You have our sincerest apologies, Captain Taylor," said Arnack. "We confused you for Lowers. It was all accidental, wasn't it, Senderock?"

"Yes... yes, it was an accident, an unfortunate error."

"What is it you desire, Captain Taylor?" Arnack asked.

"To return to my ship. With my crew. All of them," said Taylor. He saw Jennifer beaming with pride as he said it.

"It shall be done."

And then, in a wink of an eye, they were back on the Devonshire.

********

They were in the cargo bay, all of them. Taylor's jaw dropped when he saw Elizabeth. She was topless, wearing a slave collar, and black panties.

And she looked stunning. Although she had whip marks on her front and back, her small breasts were perky with bright red areolas. Elizabeth was surprised by the lust and attraction in his eyes. She had never thought that Taylor would show any... could ever be attracted... not the Captain....

"Elizabeth! It's good to... see... you," said Taylor.

Elizabeth, suddenly realizing she was half naked, reddened and covered her breasts with her hands. "And you, Captain Taylor."

"I have to get the ship out of here," said Taylor, torn between that and the desire to ask more questions.

"And I need to get some clothes on," said Elizabeth, with a small smile.

She was flirting with him! Or was she?

"I'll... I'll see you later," said Taylor.

"Count on it," said Elizabeth.

********

Taylor immediately launched the ship into a high orbit around the Earth, far enough away, he hoped, to be out of immediate danger from the Ascended. Then he gave the crew a few days of rest. They all needed it. Especially him.

The first thing he did after coming aboard was to check the chronometer. He assumed they had been down there for weeks or even months. He was surprised to discover it had only been eight days.