World Travelers Ch. 06

I missed my little green critter that night. Missed her snuggling up to me, missed the little sounds she made as she slept, I even missed taking her to the cleansing pool in the middle of the night to wash her poop off of me.

Yes, I understand she isn't mine, but I still miss her.

"You have a decision to make," the Jungle said after administering the next morning's gift. "Do you wish to continue your life of leisure, or do you want to learn more about my planet?"

'I'd like to learn more.'

"Are you sure? Once you continue down this path, there is no turning back."

'Do you promise to answer my questions truthfully?'

"I have never lied to you and never will."

'Then lead me to the truth.'

I spent the next week working my way through the Panternian child rearing process. Each morning path led me to a different age group of Panternian kids.

The first three days I learned that Panternian toddlers were not near the pain in the ass as their human counterparts. After their first circuit on the planet (which seemed to be equivalent to a year on Earth, give or take a month or two), they switched from being breast fed to vine fed. More importantly, the Jungle also assumed potty training duties.

'When do they start school?' I asked the Jungle after receiving my gift one evening.

"I'm not familiar with the word 'school'", it said.

'It's a place young people go to learn.'

"Learn what?"

'The things they will need to know later in life. Like reading, writing, and arithmetic. Not to mention science, philosophy, and history.'

"My Panternians have no need for any of that. In my experience, the so-called educated species are the most dangerous. The Panternian adults teach the young to talk and listen. Once the children master those skills, they are taught the way of the Jungle."

'Which means you brainwash them into becoming mindless sheep without the ability to think for themselves.'

"They are happy, healthy, and safe. They are also equal. Each Panternian receives the same amount of food and pleasure each day. Can you say the same for your people?"

'Isn't there more to life than a full belly and the occasional orgasm? What do they have to live for? Why wake up in the morning if you have no specific goal for the day?'

"Your questions prove my point. Thousands of living species inhabit both my planet. The beasts that roam the plains, the birds that fill the skies, the fish that populate the waters... none of them ponder their purpose. Likewise, my trees, ferns, bushes, and vines never wonder why they exist. They just do."

'How about you? Have you ever considered your purpose, the meaning of your life?'

"I am the Jungle. I am here because I am."

Two nights later, after a day of herding six pink haired pre-teens down their appointed paths, I got another chance to talk with the Jungle.

'How big are you?' I asked.

"I extend from the far mountains, through the valley, down to where the land rises into the grassy plains."

Having no idea where the mountains, valley, or plains were, I asked the question a different way.

'If I started at one end of the jungle, how long would it take me to walk to the other end?'

The cock vine hummed inside my recently satisfied puss and the stamen of a nipple sucking flower gently caressed the underside of an empty breast while the Jungle did some ciphering.

"Five or six days, if you were to walk at my pace," which I assumed was the speed its bushes moved when opening a path.

I was fairly sure the Panternian day was shorter than a day on Earth. Assuming eight hours of walking at three miles per hour for five days - if my mental math was correct - I estimated the Jungle to be somewhere between 120 and 150 miles long and perhaps equally as wide. Not the Amazon rain forest, but also not your neighborhood woods.

'How many Panternians live in your jungle?'

"Approximately 3,000 females and 250 males."

'You have twelve times as many women as you do men. Why?'

"Mature Panternian women release one egg every 28 days. Men produce millions of sperm cells every day. The Jungle is best served with a population of 3,000 females. I could easily maintain that level with 100 males, but I keep 250 just to be safe."

'You only need Panternian men for their sperm?'

"They do no useful work, eat more than women, and tend to be harder to control. Have you not come to the same conclusion on your planet?"

Actually, I had. Although it was a minority opinion.

'But that doesn't explain why you need 3,000 women, or why you need the Panternians at all. From what I've seen, the women also don't earn their keep.

'Listening to you describe your jungle, it appears to be a mutual symbiotic relationship. Each species pitches in for the betterment of the whole. Bees pollinate flowers which in turn feed the bees. I see what the Jungle does for the Panternian women; the eels wash their hair, the minnows shave their legs, the spiders make their clothes, and you feed them. But what do the women give back in return? Are they nothing but pets or do they have another purpose?'

"The women are not pets. Everything in my jungle has a function."

The Jungle seemed hesitant to continue, so I asked the obvious question.

'What is their purpose? What do the women of Panternia give you in exchange for your loving care? Is it sex? Is that why you keep them? Do you enjoy getting your rocks off twice a day with three thousand women?'

"I receive no enjoyment from pleasuring your body or those of your Panternian cousins. Delivering my gift to women is just another daily chore I must perform. Stroking your clitoris and weeding the flower beds are both mundane tasks required to maintain the health and safety of my jungle."

Well, shit. If the Jungle's harem of green skinned, pink haired, big breasted, toothless women didn't exist to satisfy the lord and master's overactive libido, then why keep them?

Both the Jungle and I remained silent for several minutes as I contemplated what I had to be missing. After considering several different scenarios and quickly dismissing them, one kernel of information crept to the front of my cue of consciousness.

The first time I directly communicated with the Jungle. Right after I ate the apple, it asked what I was. When I said I was a human from earth, the Jungle said something that, at the time, I thought inappropriate but also unimportant.

"Great. Just what I need. Another fucking biped species from some minor rock, circling an insignificant star, in a distant galaxy."

That's what the Jungle said, and now, many days after that first encounter, I finally realized the significance of its words.

'Am I the first alien to enter your jungle?' I asked.

The Jungle's vines and tendrils stilled for just a second before it answered.

"No. There have been several off-planet visitors before you."

'Did they come in peace?'

"Those were their words, but when they realized their technology was far superior to mine, their true intentions became apparent."

'What did they want?'

"The normal things. Food to feed their people, minerals to make and power their machines, land to house their expanding populations. They needed access to our natural resources because they had used up those of their home planet."

'What was your response?'

"I offered them something better."

'Your women?'

"Yes. In exchange for a few hundred women, the aliens, who were predominately male, agreed to stay out of my jungle. It was a bargain for both parties. The outsiders got the playthings they desired; I got the peace I needed."

'How often did they demand more women?'

"That varied with the intentions of the different aliens. Those that tried to populate the planet asked for more women once or twice a circuit. Since the original Panternians had already stripped the planet of its resources, those aliens moved on after a hundred or so circuits, usually never to return. Others would visit every ten or twenty circuits, asking for more women as they traversed between other systems. I don't know if they used them for trade or for their own consumption but maintaining a small herd of female Panternians in the Jungle has saved us from suffering the fate of the rest of the planet many times.

"As the millennia passed, our extrapanternial visitors became less and less common. Yours is the first in over a thousand circuits. However, since you have found me, I expect it is only a matter of time until others of your type do as well.

"Do you expect more of your kind will come? Your striking similarity to my women in both features and function suggests that Panternian females would be highly coveted by human males. Should I increase my stock of women?"

'A herd of females? Your stock of women? You act like these innocent girls are nothing more than a commodity. Cattle to be sold to the highest bidder knowing full well what will happen to them once they leave your maze of clearings and paths. They have no idea what the rest of the universe is like. They've never even seen a man before.'

"Everything you say is true. However, the inflexion of your thoughts suggests I upset you. I have never been outside of the Jungle, but I have spoken with many who have. The aliens and returning Panternians spoke with pride of the large herds of mammals they raised for the sole purpose of killing and eating them. They told me about houses full of captive birds, consuming the flesh of the males and the eggs of the females. One particularly vile species routinely decapitated their bushes. They sliced off the budding flowers at the prime of their existence and placed the unfortunate beauties in vessels, just for the pleasure of watching the treasure of their gardens wilt away in a slow death.

"I have raised millions of Panternian women. A great majority of them lived their entire lives without pain or need. The only danger to my current and future generations is predatory species like yours. When you and your type finally realize the universe was not formed to serve your personal needs, I won't be forced to sacrifice a few spoiled women to save the billions of other lifeforms that make up my jungle."

As was the Jungle's way, it separated its vines and tendrils from my body before I had a chance to rebut.

It was three more days before the Jungle spoke to me again. Three days of ushering hormonal teenaged Panternian girls down their appointed paths, listening to the constant clatter of nonsensical conversation, repeatedly refusing to explain why they couldn't accompany the older women down their breakfast and dinner paths.

Just when I thought the Jungle had given up on me, it re-established our connection for what seemed to be the last time.

"You've just witnessed the final stage of the child rearing process. Once these girls are fully developed and have been in the Jungle for at least eighteen circuits, they will join a group of women, begin milk production, and receive their first complete gift. Do you have any further questions before I return you to the general population?"

'One more question, if you don't mind. I have seen how Panternian babies are made and raised. I experienced the day-to-day life of the Panternian women. But what happens next? I have yet to meet a woman who looks significantly older than me. Where do your senior citizens live? How are they cared for?'

It wasn't an audible sound but, if a plant could sigh, the Jungle just did.

"Tomorrow morning, I will show you."

Yeah, I knew I was being a pain in the ass. The Jungle had 3,000 women, 250 men and, in its words, billions of other life forms under his control. I was sure it had better things to do than give a stray alien a guided tour of its palace. But it offered and I was a scientist.

I actually had thousands of other questions for the slightly grumpy, God like entity. "How many conversations can you carry on at one time", would be next on my list, closely followed with "who planted you?" But, understanding the entire Panternian life cycle, from cradle to grave, was my top priority.

My morning path was longer than normal. Much longer. It wound through a section of the Jungle that, considering the different fauna, I'd never explored before. The comfortable, moss-covered trail slowly devolved into a marshy surface until I was soon wading through ankle deep water. Even though we rarely experienced direct sunlight in the Jungle, the further I walked, the darker it got, as if an extra layer of canopy was turning day into dusk. At one point, when the water rose to knee level and the mostly solid bottom turned into a mushy mixture of mud and sand, making each step laborious, I tried to turn around and go back to my starting point... only to discover that, like always, the path had filled in behind me and I had no choice but to continue forward.

The trail ended abruptly, leaving me in an extremely confined space. The bushes which surrounded me were less than a foot from my body in any direction. A single piece of black fruit hung over my head.

The two vines which encircled my wrists and lifted my arms above my head shouldn't have been a surprise. It wasn't the first time the Jungle handcuffed me. Likewise, when I felt snakes slithering around my legs, I should have known they were only another set of vines, spreading and then securing my legs to the jungle floor.

With their victim properly positioned, the pussy plunger, anal explorer, chest molesters, and throat choker all assaulted me in a coordinated attack. In other words, it was a normal day in the Jungle, until a battalion of slightly familiar looking arachnoids appeared out of nowhere and, in less than thirty seconds, ate the silk dress off my body.

'Are you there?' I asked the Jungle.

"I am always here."

'What's going on?'

"You asked about the next step and I'm showing it to you. This is the final phase of the life cycle. The last path a Panternian follows.

"As we discussed before. A Panternian woman's only purpose is to appease possible invaders. For reasons I don't understand, aliens prefer younger women and are unwilling to accept women your age or older. Since you offer no other benefit to the Jungle, it makes no sense to continue feeding you."

'Are you kicking me out of the Jungle? Feed and fuck me one last time, strip off my clothes, and banish me to whatever lies beyond?'

"Certainly not. That would be cruel. There is nothing but evil beyond my borders. My plan for you, and all the creatures in my jungle, is to keep you with me, return you to my core, assimilate you into a part of me."

'You're going to kill me?'

"All living things eventually die. When outside of my jungle, the later circuits of the Panternians' lives were filled with misery, both physical and mental. At the same time, the useful Panternians' were forced to toil all day long, collecting food for not only themselves and their young, but also for their aging parents. I don't know if it is the same on your world, but the final circuits of the early Panternians' lives were filled with unthinkable pain as their bodies and minds slowly deteriorated.

"I save them from that. I let my Panternians live full lives and, just before the deterioration process begins, I gently return them to the soil, to my roots, allowing the cycle to start again."

'You're going to turn me into fertilizer?'

"I am bringing you home."

I was going to die. Like in the next thirty minutes. Drug into an alien swamp while getting fucked by an egotistical banyan tree. The water/mud mixture was already up to my belly button, climbing towards my chest. My pussy and ass were still being serviced by long, thick appendages. The flowers had already emptied my lactating boobs but continued to suckle my nipples, changing from the "baby getting fed mode" to that of a lover teasing my tits. And a green slimy thing spread my lips, coated my tongue with a pleasant taste, and wormed its way down my throat. Whatever it was feeding me was affecting my brain.

I should have been terrified. I should have done everything in my power to escape the Jungle's grasp and fight my way to freedom. I had teeth. I should have used them, if for no other reason than to punish the Jungle for what it was doing to me and for what it had done to millions of Panternian women before me. Yeah, it would have been a useless act of defiance, like throwing a pebble at a charging rhinoceros, but it would have been something.

Instead, I orgasmed. Hard. Sending shock waves the length of my body, like an electric current was coursing down my spine towards my toes and then back to my brain... over and over again.

As the physical sensations of ecstasy increased, I found myself powerless to resist. My eyes watched as the water level rose above my chest. I could smell the odor of decay as it surrounded my neck. I could hear a slight gurgle as my body slowly descended into nothingness. My head instinctively leaned back, placing my mouth perhaps an inch higher, delaying the inevitable for a few scant seconds.

Yes, I was dying. Murdered in a strange land by a rogue intelligence. But whatever the Jungle fed me, turned my mind into a casual observer... as if the deed was done, my heart had already quit beating, my lungs had taken in their last breath of air. There was no fear, just a bit of sorrow.

No one will know. None of my family on Earth or my compatriots on Mars will ever know what happened to me. Even David Greene, the only other human within trillions of miles, the man who was supposed to protect me, the man who is most likely a rotting corpse floating in some Panternian sea... even if he is still alive, he won't know what happened to me, and probably wouldn't care if he did.