He gestured to Qad, then held up his hand to stop him at the formal five paces distant.
“I want to see what I’m getting for my patronage. I might decline, if I’m displeased.”
If that stipulation was in the proposal, Qad had forgotten it. But he could hardly object; it would do him no good.
“Show me,” the Executive said.
“May I know your name, first?”
“No. Don’t be too audacious in my presence, young adventurer.”
He knew Qad’s name, from the council meeting, but had never used it. This interbreeding would belong to the Executive’s lineage alone.
“Show me,” he said again.
Reluctantly, Qad loosed the bow of his modesty apron. He had never revealed himself to another person. He had expected – intended – for the little sisters to reproduce their lineage with him alone, to keep him pure.
Face and neck flushing hot, he pulled the apron aside, leaving its edge to conceal his eldest. Agitated by Qad’s reaction, the little sisters writhed and stretched, showing their teeth.
The Executive grabbed the apron and yanked it from Qad’s body. The frill of its neckpiece parted with a sharp rip, and the apron fluttered to the floor. Qad’s eldest little sister craned outward, fluttering smudged eyelids, snapping sharp teeth.
The Executive looked from one little sister to the next, beginning with the youngest, passing uninterested over the middle two, and fastening on the eldest.
“Names?”
Qad had never named the little sisters. It never occurred to him to do so. They were part of him; why would he name his own parts? This must be another fashion, like the modesty apron eye-slits, that he had never heard of. He turned the situation to his own advantage.
“No,” he said. “As you decreed, we aren’t exchanging names.”
The Executive laughed. “Well played, young adventurer. So. You neglect this one, which I will take and you will not miss.”
He nodded at the eldest little sister, whose teeth – smeared with misplaced red paint – snapped in a vertical line, who was most robust, most fit for the taking.
“This one –” Qad did his best to keep his expression neutral, failed, and gestured to the youngest. “This one is younger. Fresher.”
The Executive smiled. “One I will leave for you to raise.” He looked closer, inspecting the bruise Qad had left when he corrected his youngest. “And train to your will. The eldest has a longer benefit of absorbing your audacity, and perhaps your discipline in curbing it.”
Another new-fangled idea, that a little sister would learn from example, would learn from anything. Qad knew better than to argue, for the Executive had made his decision.
He had come close enough to rip off Qad’s modesty apron. Now he was even closer, pressing his belly against Qad’s stomach. He reached behind himself and loosened his trousers, allowing them to fall away from his skinny thighs, his boots, his skinny ankles and delicate feet. He kicked the silken clothing away, leaving only boots and sword-belt.
Possessed by terror, Qad reached for his own sword. The Executive snarled, grabbed his wrists, and powered him to the floor. The fur of the rug turned steely and wrapped itself around his arms and legs, pinioning him spreadeagled. On his knees, the Executive straddled him, straightened, and wrapped his arms around his own belly to pull it out of the way. His prehensile ovipositor writhed from his body, extending from his crotch.
All four of Qad’s little sisters snapped their teeth and craned toward it, but its attention focused on the eldest. It brought its tip to the little sister’s orifice and plunged inside.
Qad cried out in apprehension. The force opened him – his little sister – and extended along their tangled nerves. The ovipositor flexed and bulged, propelling the ovum along its length. The bulge reached the little sister’s orifice, pushed, failed to press past the teeth.
The little sister bit, severing the tip of the ovipositor. Lubricated by blood, the ovum squirted into the orifice. The Executive screamed and shuddered in agony and triumph.
The ovipositor dragged itself slowly back into the Executive’s body to regenerate.
Horrified, Qad felt his own ovipositor clench and writhe below his belly, aching to push out of his body. Groaning, holding himself, he managed to repress it.
The Executive rose. He gazed at Qad.
“You may leave,” he said, as if they were back in the council meeting. His docked ovipositor vanished into his body, leaving blood spatter on the Executive’s legs, on the rug, on Qad.
The rug’s restraints retracted, returning to fur, releasing him. Qad staggered to his feet, clutching his torn and stained modesty apron. Holding it against him, covering himself, he stumbled after the leader light, back to Glory, as his little sister moaned and keened and finally fell silent.
He slept.
He had no idea how long he remained insensible in his pod. When he awoke, a faint light permeated Glory’s center. His body ached.
“Glory?”
“Sleep.”
Desperately grateful for the sounds of his ship’s voice, he obeyed.
He could barely move. He hurt all over. Glory’s bulkheads glowed, more brightly than the last time he came out of his fugue. He pushed aside the material of his pod – clean now but much rougher than normal.
The eldest little sister protruded from his belly, a curve of taut skin, with a faint silver scar where the orifice had been. The other little sisters had retreated into him, leaving their sharp teeth snapping in defense and disappointment. He was ravenous. His arms and legs had shriveled to bone-thin appendages, fat and muscle absorbed to nourish the Executive’s growing interbreed. He tried to call for food, for wine. An Artificial Normal approached him – an unfamiliar one, not belonging to Glory.
It must be the Executive’s, Qad thought, here to watch and keep me.
He asked it for wine.
It extended an appendage and snapped him hard against the forehead. He fainted. After that, he no longer begged for wine. He submitted to the discomfort, even to the pain.
When the Executive pounded on the access hatch, Qad wept with relief. He struggled out of his pod, clasping his hands beneath the enormous bulge of the little sister – no longer a little sister, but the Executive’s interbreed. If he let go, it bounced uncomfortably and kicked from inside.
He found the foreign Artificial Normal scratching and probing at the clenched sphincter, insensible to the damage it inflicted. He pushed the Artificial aside and opened Glory by hand, as gently as he could. He imagined that his ship whispered appreciation.
The Executive entered, striding on stick-thin legs, cupping his belly in his long arms. Qad imagined that he carried even more little sisters than before. Their eyes sparkled and blinked at him from beneath the modesty apron. The Executive smiled, baring long teeth beneath cadaverous gums. “It is time?” Qad asked.
“You have plenty of time.”
The Executive guided him back to his pod, waited while he settled in, and sat on a chair produced – how? Qad wondered, and realized that the Executive’s patronage gave the Executive authority over Glory’s resources.
He slept and woke again and again. He lost track of time. A nutrition tube crawled down his throat, assuaging his hunger but leaving the aches untouched, the discomfort of the interbreed increasing. Always when he woke he found the Executive watching him. He tried to speak but the tube gagged him and kept him silent.