Centaurs (Parallel Worlds) Page 10
"Then they’re all aware of their ultimate fate?" Arvin asked.
"Yes, but unfortunately they can’t express themselves to anyone in order to stop the butchery."
"I doubt that the monsters would’ve cared if they could talk."
"Probably."
"How did you find out these details of the Gogians' history?"
Jenny chuckled. "From one of their scientists who begged me to let him fuck me on the sly, which I did willingly because I thought I could glean highly important information from him. Which I did."
"Must’ve taken a lot of courage for you to do that, Jenny."
"Yes, but it was worth it because then he told me that their scientists were finally successful and that they’re raising a new Gogian generation on the mainland. Which I didn’t believe since he was quite dumb, and gullible enough to believe it. I suspect that they caught him fraternizing with us and did something nasty to him in the end because I never saw him again."
"How large a population did they originally have?"
"We have no idea."
"That's not too important right now because we have to deal exclusively with Maggog for now, which we'd calculated is what was called Crete in our time--which is one of the larger Greek isles. Which, if we're right, can't support a population any larger than fifty-thousand. How long-lived are they?"
"Around one-thousand years. But what's it got to do with what we're talking about, and why d'you think the scientist may have been telling the truth?"
"Please be patient, Jenny, because I require a lot more information to assess our situation. Okay?"
"Sure, go ahead."
"So, considering their war losses and the fact that about four-hundred years had passed since the bio agents were introduced here, I'd assume an attrition rate of forty percent of the survivors had occurred here since then due to natural causes."
Elwood whistled in amazement. "That's about right but you failed to consider an important population factor, that their society was split about evenly between their elites and the lower caste, whose life span was only half that of their elites. So their current population here hover at only about thirty-thousand."
"Thanks for the information, Elwood. Now, before I go any further I need to know how you ended up here and how you were turned into centaurs."
Chapter 10
Jenny closed her eyes momentarily as her mind returned to a three-hundred year old past, then smiled at Marty and Nick when she opened them again. "I imagine that being highly educated people as you seem to be you are familiar with the history of eighteenth century England."
"We sure are." Nick said.
"Then you know about living conditions at the time--unsanitary, filthy, and disease-ridden, with short longevity for everyone including high-borns. So there we were, myself and all my compatriots here as well, living mostly a happy life as upper class Londoners because we didn't know any better. I was twenty-eight and a mother of two, having already lost three infants, and infected by some incurable disease that as a physician I knew was fatal. Then, about two days before my estimated time of demise, my husband brought home a man who had a real weird proposal for us."
"Was he a Gogian?"
"Yes, one of the lower class ones and apparently longer lived than the rest of his kind. I guess they sent him over since he wasn't too big and easily merged with the general population. His proposal was a heady one--he'd pay my husband a tidy sum of money for allowing him to take me to a hospital in Italy where a group of renowned physicians might be able to cure my illness. And he was quite clear about my becoming a test subject and that I might not survive, which increased his credibility."
"And you accepted his offer because what the hell, you were about to crap out anyway so why not leave your husband and kids in a good financial status?"
"Exactly. So I agreed to be experimented on without asking too many questions and waited for him to pay my husband while holding tightly on to both my babies. Once the transaction was consummated he pricked the vein in my arm with a needle, after which I lost consciousness almost instantly."
"Which to a certain degree was what had happened to all of us who were young, well-educated, and in dire health conditions. As well as in child-bearing age and having produced children in the past." Arvin said.
"So what happened next?"
"We, twenty women and twenty men, all found ourselves here looking the way you see us now."
"How did you react to it?"
"We were shocked by how we looked yet most of us were elated to not just be alive but very young."
"How do you think they'd accomplish that?"
"It took us a long time to figure that out but after a while we managed to piece it all together. The conclusion we arrived at was that our repaired or revitalized human trunks were grafted onto centaur bodies of similar genders. And that our reproductive structure had been enhanced and connected to our centaur bodies while our hormone producing glands had been altered to fit our task here--reproduction."
"We resented it terribly and decided to abstain from having sex but our resolve was negated a short time later when all of the females entered into estrus and conceived immediately. And it's been like that for us ever since, except that at first we kept our babies until they grew up and joined the community, which went on for fifty years until the current procedures had been established. It's been a hellacious kind of life, and a few of us had ended theirs by committing suicide."
"Which means that those who didn't are as tough as can be."
"Maybe cowards is a more appropriate term."
"Not from our point of view."
Everyone sat quietly for a while until Arvin asked. "So what was it that you meant, Marty, when you suspected that the Gogians had succeeded in finding a solution to their women's barrenness?"
"I didn't say that exactly, only that I suspected that they probably are raising a new generation who possess the ability to propagate themselves."
"How could they do that when everything they tried had failed?"
"By creating a new Gogian species, not replicating themselves as they used to be but one that walks on four rather than on two legs but is neither horse nor centaur."
Arvin thought for a moment before blurting out. "So that's what the bastards need our embryos for, to graft their upper bodies onto them so they'll survive to live another thousand years. Is that what you'd come up with as the reason for our existence?"
"I'm afraid so. It makes sense that they would after successfully grafting all of you onto centaur bodies and then had you produce children, which they are now using as their own hosts once they mature--near perfect replicas of themselves."
"I think I'm going to be sick." Jenny started heaving but stopped quickly. "I was never a violent person but right now I wish I could stick a knife in the heart of whoever came up with this idea because I'm quite sure that your conclusions are correct."
"I'd like to ask all of you for a favor, to keep on living just as before without telling anyone about this conversation because I intend to work on solving our predicament about living as cattle that are used to produce new bodies for the Gogians' survival."
"What kind of solution, Marty?"
"One that'll exterminate these vermin to the last one. And if you doubt that I possess the ability to do so, ask Nick about it."
"It's not that we doubt you, Marty," Elwood said. "It's just that one person in literal bondage pitting herself against a thirty-thousand Gogians inhabitants of this island is a bit ludicrous. Especially if they can call the mainland for help if it's needed."
Nick burst into laughter. "You haven't seen Marty in action so you've no idea of what she's capable of. So let me reassure you that if she says that she's going to annihilate the Gogians, you can bet your ass that she will regardless of any help they may be able to get."
"I get the impression that you both mean it," Arvin said. "So let's assume that you'll succeed, then what do we do afterwards?"
"I'd like that very much, Marty. So what should we do next?"
"Like I said before, we must keep everything secret for now, particularly since estrus is almost upon us. But once it's over I'll need to do serious research by penetrating the Gogian main computer and gleaning all that I can from it."
"Sounds like an excellent plan, Marty. But you got two problems--one is that you will need access to all their secret codes, which is much more complicated than what Paula and I possess. And the second is that all their writings are in Greek, which none of us can understand."
"But I do, not because I'm so learned but because just about every language that any of my ancestors spoke is embedded in my mind. It's called racial memories, and both Nick and I have it since at some point in time our forefathers lived in Greece. As to my ability to find the passwords necessary to penetrate their computers, I'm probably the meanest and best computer hacker, as we used to call it, in this or any other universe."
Jenny grinned. "Is there anything you hadn't done to perfection, Marty?"
"Yeah. I'd never gotten into estrus before in my life so as much as I hate to have it forced on me, I'm looking forward to the experience. But I promise you that it's gonna be my first and last time, as well as for everyone else here."
"I'm looking forward to it, Marty. So what would you like us to do now that you'd decided on a course of action?"
"Have lunch, then go to our apartment and start looking into the computer system until I have to stop."
"We'd like to join you at the cafeteria if you don't mind. And you won't have much time to work on the computer because just before dinner time all females must move to a special building where we stay until after we stop releasing our scent."
"You mean until we conceive, a fact that makes me quite sick. So at least I'll make a good start on my work. Oh, Nick, and once we leave here please reactivate the listening devices so whoever checks the tapes will think that we left a while back without saying anything much."
"I'm on it, Marty."
"Then let's all go stuff ourselves."
The dining room seemed even more subdued than during breakfast since everyone seemed under the effect of the impending estrus. Marty's impression was validated when she saw the backsides of the other females, which seemed to be in various stages of swelling, and that their breasts and teats were greatly enlarged.
Has my butt gotten bigger, Nikki?
Considerably so, and your titties and udder as well--just like all the females. Which, if you'll notice, is why they're all using the standup tables while the males all congregate together on the recliners.
Interesting.
Marty went to their apartment right after lunch while Nick stayed with the board members since he wished to gather more information. Yet, despite her plan to work on the computer, Marty felt so lethargic that she lay down on the freshly made bed and fell asleep instantly. She could see through the window that it was dark outside when she woke up, and then saw Jenny's smiling face looking down at her.
"Well, sleepyhead, it's about time you woke up. Feeling better now that you got a few hours' sleep?"
"Much better. I really felt like hell after lunch and had to lie down."
"Which is the norm for a first-timer."
"I hate to have my body and general behavior controlled by other people but I guess that'll change once I find a way to stop it." She responded while voiding over the trough. "And maybe also not doing my personal stuff in front of others any longer."
Jenny chuckled. "It's a bit tough to have it any other way when you possess a body as large as ours is. We didn't have a problem with it, though, because in our time people didn't have the privacy that you implied people have in your time."
"We sure did--toilets, running water, and general sanitation. But mostly it was in our personal freedoms. Not everyone, though, because even in the twenty-first century we still have areas on earth where people live under primitive conditions and are terrible oppression by their rulers."
"Human nature, I guess, which in reality isn't that much different than with our own rulers."
"So it seems, but I'm not going to accept it without fighting them with all I can and know how to. The only thing that bothers me about my rebellion is that it may adversely affect your people."
"We'll have to consider it seriously before you do anything that'll change our lives once you come up with a plan of action." Jenny said as they walked out.
"Where are we going?"
"To the passion complex as some of us call it, where we'll each settle in our own cubicle after dinner."
"Where a bunch of feminine scent-crazed males are going to fuck us non-stop for at least seventy-six hours? Oops, sorry I used such a vulgar expression."
"Apparently you come from a good family or you wouldn't apologize for it."
"I do, but it comes more from a lifetime of being a Marine officer."
"Marine? Are they posted on ships to fight the enemy like in my day? A cousin of mine was a Marine captain in the Royal Navy and was killed in the war against Spain."
"That's right, but by my time Marines were mostly used as land and invasion forces. And suddenly my earlier belief that we come from the same world became stronger."
"Just because we're both connected to Marines? I'd say that it's a remote possibility when there are so many similar worlds around us."
"An infinite number, actually. As to the possibility that we're from the same one, I have a theory that might explain it."
"Then please tell me about it."
"What made me reach this farfetched notion is that the Gogians who'd brought you here from London did so by generating a tear in the boundary between the two worlds and created a tunnel between them. And then, when our minds were in peril and sought new bodies for us to occupy, they travelled through this same passage and entered the brains of two horse-like creatures that they'd considered inhuman. Fortunately for us but not for them, the possibility didn't even occur to us that they might be sentient beings or we wouldn't have done it."
"It makes a lot of sense about the tunnel between both worlds. But are you such highly moral people that you would have rather died than kill two centaurs minds?"
"That's who we are, Jenny, despite my old occupation as a warrior."
"All of which increases my trust in you and Nick and assures me that you'd never allow any harm to come to us because of a personal agenda on your part."
"Thanks for your trust, Jenny."
"Which I intend to convey to Elwood and Arvin and explain my reasons, a factor that should make our decisions about your proposals that much easier."
The building that Jenny brought Marty to was just over the hill from the apartments complex, which made sense because this way the males could not get any whiff of the female's scent. It was large and round, resembling an arena with cubicles that opened to the outside, and a central hall that served as a dining room. It was the first time that Marty saw all of the farm's women at one time, including what Jenny explained were infertiles that worked in the fields, all of whom were to help direct and control the males once the estrus process began. Their numbers astounded Marty, five-hundred each of fertile men, women, field workers, infertiles of both genders, and under-aged youths.
"So your population numbers over twenty-five hundred, which was started by just forty people. How significant is your rate of attrition?"
"Very low because we never get sick, mostly just a few accidental deaths over the years. But most of our original group had suicided in the first years when they couldn't bear the kind of life we lead. All of which were replaced quickly."
"Understandable. How about the men?"
"None had ever suicided, I guess because life here suites the male psyche rather well."
"How d'you prevent any in
cestuous pregnancies from occurring?"
"We run a listing down to the fourth generation, which we give the process monitors to insure that it doesn't happen."
"I got one more question before we sit down, Jenny. Why do you all use first names only?"
"Because it prevents us from identifying our family origins in the old country, which could set someone in a position of responsibility without earning it. So our only true identification mode is the serial number given us by the Gogians."
"In other words you don't base positions on any of the old gentility? Which makes you utterly democratic people."
"Never heard the phrase but I can guess what it means. Anyway, let's join one of the tables once we load up our trays."
The table that Jenny chose was occupied mostly by older looking women who greeted Marty warmly despite her youth and urged her to participate in their conversation, which she found very interesting.
After dinner Jenny took her to a regular size room with the normal amenities, which surprised her as she expected to stay in a small cubicle. When she asked Jenny about it, she explained.
"Oh, that's where you're supposed to sleep, rest, and wash. About the cubicle you'd expected, let me show it to you and explain how you'll be using it." She opened a door in the back of the room, which led to a corridor that ran the length of the building, and pointed across it at row of open stalls that were bordered by steel pipes. "That's where you're going to spend most of your time in the next few days, Marty."