Apocalypse (AU,CC,MATURE) COMPLETE - 9/5/14

Finished stories set in an alternate universe to that introduced in the show, or which alter events from the show significantly, but which include the Roswell characters. Aliens play a role in these fics. All complete stories on the main AU with Aliens board will eventually be moved here.

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ken_r
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Apocalypse (AU,CC,MATURE) COMPLETE - 9/5/14

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Title: Apocalypse: A tale of Two Planets
Apocalypse

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Author: ken_r AKA ken242 AKA Kenneth Renouard
Rating: Mature
Genera: AU with aliens
Couples: CC
Disclaimer: Not claiming any of the characters as mine.
Summary: In the old days, science fiction usually had a moral or a theory or a warning to go along with the story. In a time of entitlement and world government, spreading the wealth around endangers the whole system. Does a foreign culture, a foreign planet, offer more opportunity?

No matter how you feel about politics, it is obvious that eventually, every society and government will fall. The only political stand I am taking is that there is a lot of corruption with any politicians.

Our characters are taken from a dying Earth, is there a place for them on a different, but much older planet? Or, do they just find different problems? Earth is approaching its second recorded “dark age” while the monarchy of Antar has suffered through uncountable collapses.

They do encounter different meanings of words and ideas. Translations are culturally biased. Thus they are almost never completely accurate, especially when the languages evolve in totally foreign worlds. Antar has a totally different socio-economic structure. One challenge is to see that what Antar calls slavery is not that much different from the large company work forces back on Earth. If they are examined in actions instead of intent, a cubical is a cubical Antar has been studying Earth for millennia. What they know about the history and science of Earth doesn’t exactly fit what was taught to Earth children.

Some of the predictions in this story can be taken allegorically. They all are meant to be food for thought. I will be glad to answer any questions as to where the predictions came from.

Author’s notes: This story has dark moments, but it implies better futures. If you can stick with the story, then… hope for a happy ending.

Hitler claimed his empire would last 1000 years. Isaac Asimov wrote about the collapse and rebirth of a galactic empire. This also took a thousand years. Looking at present history, I don’t think it will be that slow. When world governments fall, anarchy reigns and very quickly we are back in the dark ages. Recovered faiths, relics and maybe, unforeseen leaders all can hasten this recovery.

Author note 2: My greatest fear is that every morning when I read the news, I see something in my story which has just happened in the real world. I want to write a story not a prophesy. We do live in troubling times.

Story: Apocalypse: A tale of Two Planets

It had been two years after arriving, before Liz met the man who held her contract. Two years at what had been much like the hardest classes back home. Now, her boss seemed nice enough. Nice enough! He was the ruler of much of the nearby universe! That blew Liz away. When she had made her contract, they had not named who she would work for. Taking this contract had been difficult for Liz. Liz had been the one with the big plans. Taking this contract had been one of the lowest times of her life. She could see her failure as being forced to sell her future to a stranger. Now, she found out that she would be working for a man with more power than anyone on the planet Earth. The smallest of small Earth girls was now the assistant to a king. …

-----------------------

Maria quit singing, but continued to play. Finally, she said, “My name is Maria and I am your birthday present.

Michael frowned. He hated surprises and Isabel was continually trying to give him a surprise, anyway. Maybe, she had some guilt for not being what he needed as a companion. “You play and you sing. What else do you do?” Michael asked. …

-------------------

Last night when Maria was sitting on the blood red bed sheets at Michael’s home and playing her newly acquired guitar, her music was all that kept her from melting down in fear. Maria had suffered almost everything men could do to her and she had been forced to do almost everything men had demanded of her. Where was that damned prince who was supposed to save her by riding in on his white horse? Now, she needed him. …

How did the two women we all know get here? Well first we must look at a dying Earth and read a little history lesson.


Introduction and history

It was always foretold that democracies would crumble when the aristocracy who ran the democracy that is, the politicians, could vote themselves unfettered wealth. With leaders who began to hold hereditary positions, wives taking their husband’s place, fathers passing their station on to their sons or daughters, families were created that had the appearance of political royalty. Instead of representing the people, they were representing their dynasties. The masses of citizenry saw themselves little different from those of third-rate dictatorships. With no examples of pristine democracy left, a push was started towards a single world government.

In the middle of the twenty-first century, mankind was dragged into the Age of Equality kicking and screaming. The last nation was dissolved and pulled into world government. In Mexico, the states of Compeche and Yucatan started a rebellion. Soon, they were joined by the states of Quintanaroo, Chiapas and Tabasco in this rebellion. That, in itself, was not surprising, Since the 1800s, different factions in this area had rebelled against the distant Mexico City who didn’t completely understand their Mayan ancestry. They renamed themselves Nuevo Tikal even though the original Tikal was in what used to be called Guatemala before the One World Order. Dissidents of this area had even in the mid-twentieth century, tried to secede and join the Estados Unidos way up north. At times, the Mexican government found that collecting taxes in this part region might be worth your life. Other countries in Central America were often at odds with Mexico. They either helped the new fledgling country or, at least ignored Mexico’s request for help to put down the soon to be symbolic rebellion. Many people living in the southern part of Central America with Mayan ancestry flocked to the revolution hoping to have their own new country. Like many of the world’s other countries, Mexico was impoverished. It bankrupted itself trying to defend its sovereignty. Nuevo Tikal had a short-lived glory. Mexico fell quickly after the dissolution of the United States. Say what you want, both the legal and the illegal markets of the states had been supporting the Mexican economy for decades.

The United Nations Peace Corps marched down from what was once Canada, through the former United States and the suffering shell of what once was Mexico. They invaded the newly declared Nuevo Tikal whose remaining population was less than fifty thousand people after the bloody war. The small country had had its birth from the desire of an indigenous people to maintain their heritage and culture. The secession from Mexico had been a bloody affair. They won, mainly because like much of the rest of the world, Mexico had neither money nor credit remaining. The small country of Nuevo Tikal had shown its wiliness to fight to the death and the mother country soon found that it couldn’t afford the price of another soldier taking combat pay. You might say that after paying a high price in blood, Nuevo Tikal won by default even though it was standing on wobbly knees.

Now, when the blue helmets of the United Nation’s Peace Corps formed on the borders, the citizens of Nuevo Tikal prepared again to fight. The cries from the leaders to defend the infant country to the last man fell on deaf ears. The prime of their youth had already given their lives and for what, a short-lived honor of helping create a fresh government. The blue helmets marched into the capital with hardly a shot being fired. The president and congress of the new country were taken out and shot for their affront, of developing another democracy. The United Nations proudly proclaimed that now the entire world was under the New Order of Equality. Ninety-five percent of the Earth’s population were now promised the equality that bards had sung about for millennia. You can’t work, you would be promised government support until you found a job, forever, if necessary. Hungry, the government promised food rations equally for all. Of course, variety was out. Variety would lead to elitism. We, now, were a world of equality.

Equality promised unemployment subsidies, food subsidies, free housing, free health care along with free drugs, free contraceptives and free abortions. With the power of trade unions, which to their own surprise, were now usurped into the arms of the One World State, ninety-five percent of humanity now lived in a utopia. There might be downsides, but they could be overlooked for the greatness of the “New Order.” Among the ninety-five percent, births declined. Who wanted the responsibility of raising children in this time of total freedom? Marriages declined as the need for establishing a family vanished. The few births that inevitably did occur were taken at a young age to the shadowy sister of the World Government, Free Education. A belief had festered during the first half of the twentieth century, stating education could be a tool for actively forming a society. It was in the middle of the twentieth century when this carbuncle erupted into the history and civics classes. Into what the society would be formed, was a guarded privileged plan, kept close to the educationalists. As with most educational issues, the mandate constantly was changed, never considering what the people as a whole wanted.

Up to the age of 16 or until you failed out, all education was free and mandatory, that is, until you failed out. When you failed, you could work if you could find employment, a thousand applicants for every job, or you could melt back into the masses of equality. Education also was free to those who didn’t fail until it was deemed that the individual was ready to face the miniscule job market or again, they had failed the system. Of course, “being ready” was the decision of the educators.

The stated goal of humanity was to pass the union initiations and enter the job market, remembering that the unions were all now arms of the world government. From here on, there were no guarantees. If you made it this far and were lucky enough to become employed, you had a chance of entering the five percent that had not only reached equality, but had surpassed it. The first level was the Dons. The Dons had position, they had vocations and they had paying jobs. They were allowed to have families. They learned that there was a difference from having kids and establishing families. They were those who kept the other ninety-five percent going. They were security and they were programmers for the robotic factories. They became the professionals, educators and doctors.

The last and most elite groups were the politicians. They had become completely free from all restraints, rules or law. They were the new royalty. The politician’s paths were different from anyone else’s. The world Government had become their limited oyster. The politicians were free from all laws and taxes. Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution, of the old United States, which states:

“They [Congress] shall in all Cases, except Treason,
Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from
Arrest during their Attendance at the any Session
of their respective Houses, and in going to and
returning from the same; and for any Speech or
Debate in either House, they shall not be
questioned in any other Place.

This part of the old order was followed with impunity.

They were the ones who decided what was treason or felony so their freedom became ultimate. Why restrict themselves to law when they needed the freedom to explore laws and customs? Why tax themselves as they were going to receive the tax money anyway? Their depredations against the populous were excused as misdemeanors considering the greater good they did for the state. It was the politicians who blurred the line between themselves and the state. There was a 1950s comic called “Little Abner,” One of the politicians stated:

“He makes the rules
And he intends to keep it thataway
What’s good for General Bullmoose
Is good for the U.S.A.”

In the middle of the twentieth century this was satire. Now it was gospel.

It was for the Dons to spread the wealth around. Wealth became meaningless as the class of equality grew and grew, making more demands on the limited resources. Somewhere in this mess, the entire gold supply at Fort Knox was misplaced or stolen, the unisex law of 2016 was passed and modesty, ethics and morals became remnants of the old order, no longer relevant.

This was declared the ultimate democracy. Even in the ninety-five percent, ward leaders were elected. It could be seen that the ward bosses were the mob leaders of the past. The 19th and 20th centuries had taught them well how to control crowds. Like the “shoulder strikers” of the past, their only function was to keep their wards in line. From the group of ward bosses, they elected district leaders. The district leaders elected division leaders and so forth to the ultimate council bosses or the congress. It was argued that distancing the leaders from the public eliminated radical swings of opinion. Those in congress were responsible for directing the human population. It was clearly shown that everything was fairly done by popular election, no matter how far the election was from the Masses of Equality. What was not stated, not even whispered, was that the politicians continually came from the same families. The population was not allowed to see that there was very little change in the faces of politics from what had been there before. Mankind lived in the ultimate utopia. But, in words from “Snowball the Pig,” of “Animal Farm,” (George Orwell) “Everyone is equal, except there is a small cadre who are more equal than the rest.” Or, maybe, Snowball meant receiving more resources than those at the bottom.

Many youths took their education seriously. This was the only “sure promise for success,” or so they thought. Yes, a ward leader with tremendous charisma could rise to the council by politics, which was highly unlikely, having too much charisma, was frowned upon by those in real power always above. “Doctor Peter’s Principal” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle) was to allow advancement until the level of incompetency had been reached. This protected those above.

Security and educators were the largest groups of the employed. Security offered the largest and easiest union to join. Security was responsible for seeing that the masses were continually given their entitlements. Security was the largest union, but it also was the most insecure. They were continually being purged of wrongdoers. Security was the constant whipping boy for the politicians to say they were fighting corruption. There were so many places in security for graft, that only by using extreme care could an individual avoid falling back, failed into the void of the masses. If someone is stealing, it better be someone from the top.

Educators were chosen much later in the pathway of education. They were those who showed three abilities, one, of learning and preserving knowledge and two, imparting this knowledge to others. The third was, the undying faith that they alone knew what was best for the population. Of course best was decided by close talks with the politicians. These educators were only employed by the government run schools. The little one room schoolhouses where the teachers taught lessons of both the three “Rs” as well as lessons of life were over a hundred years behind. Home schooling would send the politicians into apoplexy. Can you imagine letting parents teach their children; parents who weren’t regularly required to pass the loyalty tests of the state? Failing a standardized “Knowledge and Content” exam could be forgiven, but even a low grade in citizenship and loyalty to the state would immediately call for dismissal and retraining. Now, a teacher taught classes of hundreds of students at a time, standing behind glass screens, for their protection, while acolytes walked among the students. The acolytes slapped their rulers against gloved hands, noting progress or lack there of, from the students in the vast classrooms. Courses of study were always government proscribed. The educators looked on with pride as every classroom in the world had the same curriculum, each subject was always on the same page, no matter, how bright or slow the students were. Citizen ship was included every year. Citizenship was a series of redundantly taught choruses, singing the praises of the New Order. Education was no longer for the students, it clearly was to support the state in what ever the state believed at the moment. The acolytes were constantly reminding the students that the masses of equality were the greatest goal for a citizen. Failure at any point wasn’t failure but simply a redirection in the pathway of citizenship, a redirection to the masses of equality.

Membership to the Dons was found by the discovery of individual skills in, engineering, accounting, medicine, manual skills, mechanics, architecture and technicians, all demonstrated during the years of notes taken by the acolytes. The Dons vigorously protected their positions, their children were allowed to live at home, the Dons had families. The Dons were able to maintain private tutors for their children so their families could retain these positions. They could do this for only two children. If by chance, they produced a third child, the child would automatically be scheduled to the equality and life of the masses. Since the employment for most of the Dons was fairly secure, they only had some of the free services of the masses. They were expected to pay for everything else. They were expected to support the massive society of equality. Except for the politicians, who, of course, exempted themselves from any taxation, every household earning over a certain amount was expected to pay high taxes. The limits of earning and the amount of taxes changed continually.

There was a path that education could take citizens. It was one of secrecy. Citizens who entered this path were constantly under scrutiny. Even the most adamant protagonists of the New World knew that they needed some sort of measuring device to account for tweaking in the system and demonstrate their progress. The vocation of historian was strictly ruled like a secrete society or lodge. The initiation was rigorous and the rules were ridged. Once a citizen became a member, he had little contact with the rest of humanity. The council saw the need of a politically correct history to proclaim the greatness of the new order. They also saw the need of a separate history to account for what actually was happening. This second history was the most secret document of mankind. It would never do to allow this information to be leaked to the masses.

The council knew that there were many dissidents who never seemed to accept equality. As long as these dissidents were local and did not threaten the council it was ignored for the most part. The historians did track these outbreaks and report to the council in secret. There were always those who worked to circumvent the equality act and better themselves. At first, the council retaliated harshly. After the second cleansing of the citizenship where masses were taken out and executed, the council decided to allow these deviations to occur unless the council decided great public unrest would follow. Like the free drugs, some men needed the outlet of minor rebellion.

The final vocation was the military. The official line was that this was a world which put warfare in their past. The reality was that there were always small outbreaks that the council decided it could not ignore. Religious outbreaks were tolerated unless they became too large or showed signs of spreading. The official line was that God was the State and the State was God. You didn’t pray to some nebulous being for your needs, you asked the State for them. If the State decided you did not need that for which you made supplications, then praying to this nebulous entity was treason. It was seen that these outbreaks occurred mostly in areas where the religions had found their birth in the first place.

The great religions of the world were quickly attacked. They discriminated against each other and, also, against those with less popular beliefs. Discrimination against others, quickly spread from any beliefs, which were not held by everyone else, to that which was accepted by the government. Everyone was equal and religion created belief in something bigger than the state. This was unpatriotic because it might challenge the state.

Yes, the State gave the citizens their needs and yes, there would always be some who felt they deserved more. If this group grew very much, the military quickly was dispatched to remove and or re-train the disgruntled.

The reward for twenty years of military service was a chance to join the Dons. If the time serving in the military developed skills that the State deemed valuable, the veterans (like those who entered from the halls of education) were given a chance to become Dons. The savings and pension the veteran had at their disposal gave them this chance. If, by the time, the savings and pension were depleted and the vet had found no useful position, the vet would again join the equal masses with the promise that the State would supply all their needs. Both men and women took advantage of the military in attempts to better themselves. The life was rigorous and because of the many funding cuts, the percentage of survivors to twenty-year retirement was few. This was not common knowledge, usually only realized by those who had miraculously reached this time and looked around to see so few of their peers were still surviving.

There were other ways the equal masses bettered themselves. As long as this didn’t endanger the council, the council tolerated these paths. From the time Ogg approached Ugg and attempted to club her into submission, Ugg had wisely stated, “Forego that clubbing and promise me a tiger striped dress and I will go with you for a time and do whatever you want,” the oldest profession had flourished. Casual sex became a commodity. Women and men could contract themselves to Dons and Council members as companions. Both Dons and Doñas who arrived at this position by education or skills could employ concubines and mistresses or whatever you wanted to call the male version. Legal children were only produced from registered unions between two people. Children produced by any other liaison, immediately found themselves down in the equality masses to rise by their unassisted wits. It was understood that occasional mistakes were probable, but do this many times and the couple could find themselves without position and all that they had, redistributed back to the state. Many young Dons and Doñas in their latter days in education took advantage of this custom. It allowed social relief without entanglements. Payment was in credits and tuition. This was not official, but it did offer a backdoor for an enterprising member of the masses who wanted to climb up. The promise that kept them going was still finding some useful position after graduation. Casual sex among the masses of equality became the norm. It was an animal instinct and nothing else.

It wasn’t noticed with all the regulations and posturing for position, that romantic love was a casualty. Yes, romantic love disappeared, but rampant sex remained. Casual sex had a calming effect, so said the leaders of the state. Casual was the key as long-term sexual ties were frowned upon. Long-term ties were too much like an alliance. Long-term affairs were too much like marriage or family. The only ones who could afford a family were the Dons. They could be controlled by taxation. With improvements in birth control, casual sex had fewer side effects. It wasn’t in the interest of the state to produce more children to feed the masses of equality.

This was the situation when men, not of this Earth appeared. Men, not of this Earth were magnificent to look upon. Mankind had lost most of their religion, but these were truly children of God. Fair, blue-eyed blonds, with the bodies of Adonis, these men were almost frightening in their perfection. Tall and dark with curly black hair and black eyes that searched a human’s soul stood beside their lighter complected brothers. The men not of this Earth came in as many shades and colors as did the humans. The difference seemed to be that there was no prestige of preference for the skin tones.

Contact and bribery with the council allowed the strangers to clear out enclaves among the masses for proper remuneration, as they set up structures “Centers of Education,” as all were informed. Those who were privileged to be near these miraculous other world creatures, saw that there were also women not of this Earth. Likewise fair or dark, they seemed to be cold examples of perfection. What these people, with so many natural gifts, wanted with Earth was unknown.

The council sensed power, power greater than anything now on Earth. Some of the masses said that these giants were the children of the gods of old. These citizens were watched carefully, the council did not want to anger the other world creatures, but they didn’t want the interference of religion to become re-established either.

Into this world was born a child. Her name was Elizabeth. Her government appended 2005 to this name, but traditions had shortened this to Liz among those who knew her. Liz could not wonder about the giants. She could not worry about the beliefs around her. Liz had to survive and excel in the paths of education, which were before her. At the age of three, Liz was taken from her parents and placed in a public school. Liz showed little interest in the actions around her. There dressed in the light blue jumper with a white blouse of the New Order, Liz only knew that to avoid the equal masses, which at this stage she had been warned by her parents were the true boogeymen, she had to excel in all her studies. At first her education was general. Even if she ended down in the masses, there were central ideas of the New Order that it was deemed she should know. Some degree of reading, ciphers and approved history, was needed by all the population. Any classes showing her talents, were always followed, by classes of citizenship. How else did you assure that citizens properly understood their place in the world of equality? Yes, she could be a genius in any subject, but it would be a genius for the state. Finally, she was prepared to enter the mysteries of science. If she showed promise she might rise to the position of researcher. In the early years, Liz had a friend. That friend was named Maria. Liz met Maria during the general education of childhood. At this time they dressed identically, both in the light blue jumper and the white blouse of the One World Government. Liz found Maria in the “Period of Contemplation,” or maybe “free time” as some of the children called it. Maria was crying. “There is no way I can learn these lessons,” she sobbed.

They had little in common, but Liz helped Maria in her studies and Maria gave Liz permission to dream. No one could call Maria dumb. She didn’t have enough background to comprehend the lessons of “Citizenship.” The little girl, Liz, never before had a chance to dream of giants, princes and castles. No one had ever told her stories about fairies, dragons and handsome princes. There was some wild rebellion in the little girl, Maria, which must be kept hidden. Even at that tender age, both Liz and Maria realized that. “Liz, when the prince from high up on the hill comes, he will take us away, no more studies, no more acolytes with their gloved hands. We can breathe clean air and see the far mountains.” That dream helped Liz for a time when she thought all was lost. Eventually without Maria, this dream became almost lost, also.

When Maria and Liz were about 12, there came a time when Maria disappeared. Liz found no information about what had happened to her friend. Liz had invested a lot of her soul in this friendship. Maria had come from a single person family and, consequently, in the times when her mother was busy trying to afford raising her tiny child, Maria felt free to dream. Liz came from a two-person household, even though it was only for three years, as early as she could remember she was told, “Education is the only pathway to success.” Liz’s success would justify the effort her parents had endured bringing her into the world. Maria was looking for her dreams to lead her to a goal that could be acceptable by this society.

Liz did the unthinkable. She asked of the acolyte in charge of her division, “What happened to my friend, Maria?”

This question could have spelled her immediate failure and return to the masses. Asking questions of the State was showing immense disrespect. If the State had wanted you to know about the existence of another citizen, the State would have informed you. The acolyte was not a novice. She understood the curiosity of a child. She also, knew that this child could be someone special. The acolyte knew that knowledge of the subject, Maria, could likely be as dangerous as the question itself. The acolyte looked at the computer record of this Elizabeth 2005 and saw she was on track to researcher, a place where questions would be encouraged. The acolyte knew “this student” might be derailed by an adverse reaction to her question. The acolyte had given up the dream of being a teacher herself, and now, she was growing close to the time when she could retire to a step slightly higher than the masses. A step created when the State discovered that they needed some reward for faithful service from those not reaching the level of a professional. The acolyte named Jane 15,002, now knew that the position of Don was not reachable, but she looked forward to a time when she might be afforded a room to herself, the ability to accumulate a few possessions and a peaceful death at the end allowed by the State.

“Elizabeth, paths divide,” she kindly answered. You have assisted Maria since you were children. Now, Maria must go on her own into the area of her ability. The State feels that her interest in music and art might best be developed if she was immersed into the friendships of others like herself. The state thanks you for supporting Maria and I am sure that Maria thanks you, also. You made it possible for Maria to develop until her talents were distinct enough to be recognized.” A like answer would be given to anyone not having official need to know.

Liz could only hope that Maria was a bit closer to those mountains.

Liz sighed. Maria had, at least, avoided what both she and Liz had feared, failure and being cast back into the masses. This very real threat was frightening to a child. Maria did love music and if she succeeded, she could reach the level of Doña on this path. Liz did miss her first and only friend.

The competition for position was getting higher. Liz, now wearing the light brown jumper of a science student, was spending every minute of her life with her studies. She had been told that she was under consideration for entrance to the school of research. A researcher had a broader education than almost every other student. As the pressures of puberty developed, Liz saw some of her competitors take on contracts of liaison. A child over 16 could contract them selves to a Don’s family. Here the student could afford a tutor and the only cost was to be a companion to some young man or woman, who were assured of their social position. Liz saw many of her competitors fall by the wayside. As the studies became more difficult, being a concubine to an up and coming Don, offered the student a chance for assistance. Sometimes, this liaison became permanent.

Liz had been assured that if she failed, there were chances that a failed researcher could get picked up by a Don and given a position in whatever vocation that Don was directing, but she knew the truth, that failure was only a slow decline to the level of equality.

It was in Liz’s fourth year of advanced education. She was at the ripe age of 16. It wasn’t her mind, which failed. It was her body.

In the time before the Common Era, it could have been said that Liz’s soul had gone on “walk about.” In the time of the “Common Era,” Liz would have been diagnosed to be having a nervous breakdown. In the “Time of Enlightenment,” it was simply said that Liz had failed. The tools of measurement were no longer good enough and Liz was not important enough for them to see that she had fallen from exhaustion. Liz, now, almost through her secondary education, had failed. Now there would be investigations into what potential she could use to serve the State. Unless something was found, Liz would finally collapse into the masses of equality. This could be a severe disservice to Liz and also a waste of resources for the state.

There were other things that were happening, known to the council and to the historians, but for fear of reprisals, they had not been disclosed to the masses of equality nor to the Dons and politicians in general. For millennia, Earth had been off limits to men from out there. Space was vast and places like Earth had been marked as barbaric. They were places neither worthy of alliance nor plunder. True, there had always been stories of random abduction and even some returns after abduction. The “Men not of this Earth,” had done their best to crush these stories, with their own people, within Earthly governments. Now, they were official trade partners with Earth. They assured the populace as a whole that their intentions were definitely of peace. With the official landing of the “Men from out there,” the enclaves of spacers scattered throughout the universe, opened Earth for pillage, especially when the spacers learned that the Monarchy of Antar was contracting with humans for service. If one group of spacers could approach humanity for contract, then other spacers could approach humanity as a treasure of plunder. Space pirates had began to establish a slave trade.

The morality of slavery always fell on those who impressed the slaves in the first place. In the early 1800s it was the tribes of Africa themselves, who through war, captured their enemies and sold them as slaves. Once impressed, those who transported and sold the slaves professed to believe that they were only offering more promising conditions. Official slavers paid tribute to Antar and were registered. They became a step up from the rogue pirates. It would be later when it was learned that even pirates had levels of ethics. The rogues were another kind of pirate who conducted their business with much more violence.

At first these pirates, (I mean slavers,) being wise and registered, used human men of avarice to obtain their booty. It would be Earth’s own leaders who chose those to sell off. Once again out of the masses of equality came a new scam, a new way to purchase the pathway to become a Don, another way of making politics pay, that of selling human beings. At first, the number of humans sold was small compared to the masses of equality. Those sold were the ones who had no chance in the system. Fail on Earth and be anchors dependent on society or go to another world for another chance. The number of those procuring them was, also, small and again, regulated. The council had decided that not enough damage was being done to warrant a show of force. It was also, noted that the council probably didn’t have enough force to protect the masses from these attacks, anyway. The cry against war had been fulfilled by ridding itself of an army strong enough to face anything bigger than the small groups of dissidents. Later, as more and more politicians turned to the trade in human flesh, they would know that they were no longer skimming those without promise from Earth’s population, but selling off whole neighborhoods for the promise of their personal greed.

There were many holes in the utopia of mankind once it got started. In the past, children under 18 were deemed to be under the protection of someone with citizenship. Children were forbidden certain vices, such as drugs, alcohols and sex. The call was that at one time, women were under the same protection. There was a time when women could not own property, have fortunes or even vote for democracy. Most of the before and after, the beginning of the “Common Era” time, held to this. It was the end of the “Common Era” that women were raised to citizenship with the rights and responsibilities as all citizens. Weren’t children citizens? They should be declared to have all the rights of adults. Drugs, contraceptives and abortions had been declared legal for any citizen. Only the State, not the parental authorities were allowed to guide the young citizens and if the state so deemed it correct, youths of any age could enter into legal contracts. It was the state, which declared children had full rights of citizenship. Except for the Dons and politicians, parental rights were a remnant of the dark time of religions. The trafficking in children became a safe and lucrative proposition. The Benevolent Government saw fit to declare certain groups of those in education as not having immediate value to society. They became another market for the slavers.

Children having the ability of signing contracts also opened a way for the spacers who were not pirates to deal in human flesh. As Liz, now at the age of 16 and worried about her prospects in the future, received a proposition, an invitation for a spacer contract of companionship.
Last edited by ken_r on Fri Sep 05, 2014 11:06 am, edited 38 times in total.
Good teachers are born that way, not made. No! Good human beings, are born that way. Some of them become teachers.

Of course, life is not fair. You shouldn't expect it to be fair, but you should expect it to be ironic.
JKR 1981-2001
History is made of wars, recovering from wars and preparing for the next war.
JJR 1975-
User avatar
ken_r
Obsessed Roswellian
Posts: 861
Joined: Wed Oct 04, 2006 11:34 pm
Location: New Mexico

Re: Apocalypse, CC, mature, Nov, 30,2013

Post by ken_r »

begonia9508: Like trying to deal with a health care which tells me that i should take their type of medicine rather than what i am taking now. Like dealing with an educational system which expels a kid for drawing his arms like shooting a pretend bow. A universe of rules is made of idiots which have no brain.

keepsmiling7: It is getting harder to write. There are fewer and fewer readers of Roswell. I have a friend who reads my manuscripts even before Carole edits and corrects them. This friend says that the ending is a sweet tear jerker.

HypnotiqBlueEyes: I am taking this story a long way as Antar is a place where they have had many dark ages, collapsed cultures, lost histiries and rebuilt many times.


Chapter 1

Growing up, Elizabeth had been a slender slip of a child. She always wore her long brown hair, carefully brushed and pulled back into a ponytail. Her only clothes were the uniforms from the Department of Education. She had large soft brown eyes and to those who were old enough to see past childhood, she promised to be an attractive young lady.

Her whole lifetime had been dedicated to excelling in her classes. At first, Liz had been first or at least, found in the top one percent of her studies. Liz had learned that she excelled in learning. Her tutoring of Maria had told her that she would have made an excellent teacher. As her studies progressed, Liz saw her interest being expanded. No longer did she look forward to only science classes, which had fascinated her at first. Soon, Liz was looking forward to all her studies. As her position in all the studies rose to the top percent, word came down that she was slated for the education of researcher. The state was taking notice of her abilities and they were directing her to where they felt she would be of the best use. The world government did not have time to study the frivolous wishes of the students. Can you imagine what would happen if students were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up? Why, you might have an over percentage of students wanting to be football players or maybe, cheerleaders. Sports were important as well as those who were chose to cheer them on. Better far for the state to keep balance with studies of abilities catalogued by the acolytes. Liz would make a wonderful researcher. Don’t talk to her; just look at all the comments on her charts.

With this revelation, her methods of learning changed. No longer was she quizzed about the knowledge she learned, but more and more she was encouraged to question everything. To the all-powerful state, this was like giving a baby a loaded machinegun, so students like Liz were being given a great compliment. They were also monitored very carefully. Any weaknesses they showed were instantly noted. Knowing this also, produced tremendous personal stress.

For the first time in her life, Liz was encouraged to question the answers of her fellow students. She was encouraged to question the text books and finally, she had been given more and more incorrect information to see if she could look past what was presented. Liz had found her self in a very special position. Liz clearly was the darling of her class. She became the one to beat.

Always questioning things, even when she was sure that she was right, developed a strain on Liz. Teachers might present their curricula, to classes numbering several hundred, but the individual students were managed by the acolytes. Some of the acolytes were teachers in training. They were being judged as well as judging the students in their care. They, like the students, were constantly in competition with each other. Having the top student, like Liz, became an obsession. Preparing Liz was more than just helping Liz in her life; the acolyte also had her own reputation riding on Liz’s achievements. If Liz was weak and failed, it was paramount that she be removed and another student take her place. This was little help for a girl who needed encouragement and security.

The signs that Liz was reaching her breaking point were either ignored or maybe missed. The morning when Liz woke up and could do nothing, but cry was when finals were scheduled. The testing schedules were very ridged. There was no flexibility for non-participation. Having a nervous breakdown was not acceptable. As far as the school was concerned, Liz as a candidate to be a future researcher was over. Liz had failed the state. Hadn’t she just proved she couldn’t take the pressure? No mention would be made that, maybe, Liz wasn’t cut out for the stress of researcher. Now it was too late to retrain her. Look at her charts. No, the state couldn’t be wrong, it was Liz who failed, not the system.

Liz would remain in school for some time, allowing other disciplines to view her achievements and make offers. The fact that she had acquired the guarded training of reseacher and had not completed it, frightened the establishment. Offers were few to none in coming. More and more they found their ranks crowded by those who had already enrolled for that discipline. A new comer, no matter how much promise was not welcomed. That was when the word came down that she had an interview with the spacer. The system sighed a sigh of relief. Liz was now viewed as a liability. The intellectual rebellion that they had purposely created, would not do to find itself in the masses. Let the spacers deal with her. The spacers were truly a gift from… Not God as the state was god. Anyway let her be off and good riddance.

Liz was in the midst of confronting the fact that she had finally failed. No more could she look to a certain future. She believed that she must keep up her studies as there were still chances, ever so slight, for other disciplines to pick up her contract. Fat chance that! In the last year, students in other disciplines had been advancing their narrow paths of knowledge. Liz, on the other hand, had been diversifying her knowledge in preparation to enter the multitudes of opportunities as researcher. Liz was living in a time where useful employment was at a premium. The invitation to interview with the “Men not of this Earth,” was very plain. The paper was only a folded postcard. The printing was simple block in style. Who she would be interviewing with wasn’t even listed. “You are invited to interview,” was ended with a simple four-digit number. All knew that such invitations were from those not of this Earth.

In her entire life, she had never wished for the company of Maria as much as she did now. Maria would have known what to do. Maria didn’t think like someone from academia. Maria thought with her heart and soul. That was the problem Liz had always in trying to tutor Maria through the years. Now, Liz did not have a logical problem. Liz had seen many of her class sell their contracts to young Dons to continue their education. Liz had heard that sometimes, the Don wanted help in his studies. Sometimes he wanted a companion and other times, the young Don made it clear that he wanted a convenient concubine. The contract always spelled out that the contractee would always be given the same time as the young Dons for their own studies. They would receive the same chance for private tutors as the Dons. No matter what their obligation to the Don would be.

Liz had no idea of what those not of this Earth would want on a contract. She had heard stories about space pirates and the trade in slaves. To her, that was more frightening than the fear of masses of equality. Liz wanted to be assured that there would be some guarantee of her safety.

Liz was still permitted to wear the jumper of a science student. Her hair, usually pulled back in a ponytail, was hanging loose. Some of the girls in her dorm had stated that looking as best as she could, wouldn’t hurt her chances. She walked to the building in one of the enclaves of education, as directed, a little girl of 16 making a decision for the rest of her life. In the eyes of the world of equality, she was an adult with the privileges and responsibilities of the same.

Liz had always been a small girl. Now just past 16, she still was only a bit over five feet tall. The security at the gate was strict. Liz had been fingerprinted, asked for a blood type and subjected to a retinal scan. This accomplished, she was directed to a door set in a very plain wall of marble. The door opened to a large hall at the end of which, was a desk and, again, the same security measures as before. Liz was given directions and finally she entered a modest office containing one free chair and a secretary. The secretary was tall and dark. She had sparkling eyes, but they could also be hard. A door behind the desk bore the name of Mr. Summers. Liz was directed through that door.

The room contained a large desk behind which was seated a man, tall dark and handsome as they say. In front of the desk, was a single chair. “Please be seated, my dear,” the man instructed.

The man was reading a file labeled, Elizabeth 2005. Do you dream, my dear?” the man asked.

Liz sucked on her lower lip. A habit she had picked up sometime in her life. “Sometimes, I do. At least, I think I do. The path to an education is very hard so most of the time, I am too tired to dream,” she finally settled on.

The man, named Mr. Summers, or at least Liz thought that must be his name, sighed, “There was a time when humanity dreamed all the time. Earth was a reservation protected so these dreams could flourish. That was when humans were young and vigorous. Now, most of humanity only wants its comforts and feels they are entitled to the same.”

Being on the track to research, Liz was more forward than many humans would be. “You offer me a contract. What do you want in return and what value does this contract have for me?”

Mr. Summers smiled. She was scared, but not completely intimidated. Humanity was planning to waste this entity by tossing her on the trash heap of equality. The people he represented were not pirates. They would offer her conditions, more than fair. If her luck held, she might rise to a great place in the galaxy. Could she bring her self to take the conditions? “We offer you a contract for twenty years. You will be required to expand your education and during this twenty years, you will offer your self as the companion of an Antarian aristocrat.” Mr. Summers (of course this wasn’t his real name,) waited as she assimilated this information. He had done this may times. Mr. Summers even knew to a letter what her next questions would be.

“A companion, does that mean I would be his mistress?” she asked, with some askance, her voice quavering a little.

“Men and women working together do at times become lovers. This would only be with mutual consent. Elizabeth, believe me when I say, you would have much fewer chances of being raped working for Antar than you would have in the equality of the masses. For reasons of security, I cannot tell you who is in line for your contract, but I assure you he is a man of integrity and honor. If you were to sell your contract to a Don, what would be your chances of needing to return sex for his protection and aid? People of Antar may not be as hung up on sex as those of Earth, but we are much more respectful concerning sex as a subject and act to be shared between two free people.” (Later, Liz might remember the words, between “free people.”) Mr. Summers tapped his pencil as he had done so many times before, this child, who was declared adult by her society, would be subjected to much worse than rape if she remained on Earth. She had the misfortune to fail at the moment when there were so many applicants for so few positions of researcher. Her masters had been looking for a failure, a chance to whittle down the number of students who must march until their number reached that of the available positions.

“What would be the education you mentioned? Liz asked.

“The trip to Antar would take one of your years. While traveling you would be subjected to language lessons. You would study Universal Antarian and several dialects that you might come in contact with, while serving your contract. You would be taught our history and the history of many races near your new home. You would have to relearn many things of science, which are untrue as we see the universe. You would be instructed in the art of advisory, that is, how to be a competent assistant. You will maintain your own finances and grow your fortune as your skills provide. At the end of twenty years, you will be returned to the masses of equality, where perhaps, you can buy a position or you might continue as a citizen of Antar,” Mr. Summers explained.

Now, it was for Liz to regret Maria’s absence more than ever. Liz remembered a story Maria had showed her many years ago called “To Serve Men,” by Damon Knight. Maria found this story when she and Liz first heard about those not of this Earth. In the short novel, Maria had discovered, “To Serve Men,” had been a cookbook. She and Maria, even as children giggled how meanings of words could be so different and treacherous. http://perrylocal.org/mostova/files/201 ... ve-Man.pdf

Mr. Summers would have been mortified if he had known the thoughts that Liz was entertaining now. Mr. Summers usually knew everything there was to know about the applicants, he hadn’t run across this one before. The very thought that the Antarian monarchy might be considered as running a meat market for some exotic creatures would have shocked him. The Antarians were not vegetarians, but the idea of consuming creatures of intellect would compare in the Common Era as committing some despicable act on that strange painting called the “Mona Lisa.” Intellect was revered. Intellect was valued. Yes, there was a market for intellect. There was a market for humans, period. Mr. Summers was well aware of the slave trade, but this market just proved the fact that Antar valued sentient creatures.

Once past the fear that she might be signing up to be someone’s dinner, Liz had other considerations. Most of these considerations were the choices that she had on Earth. Selling a contract to a Don had no guaranties. Yes, the letter of the contract would be followed and Liz could receive additional tutoring and help, but even with this help could she stand up to the rigors of her vocational direction? On Earth he price a Don would demand, was not one of those doubtful events. Liz was now in her fourth year. If she failed, what was the chance that she would be picked up by a vocation, which thought she had something of value to offer? Deep in her heart, Liz thought taking a spacer contact insured that she would never see Maria again. Many times, Liz scanned the news to see if there was any word of Maria’s luck in the performance arts.

Mr. Summers did not hurry the young lady. She was only sixteen and twenty years at that age seemed to be an eternity. Many times when Mr. Summers found himself in this position, he wished he could scream out. “Lady, the mass of equality has failed you. The history known to any well brought up Antarian could show numerous experiments in government, similar to that of Earth, which had always been doomed to failure.”

Sentient creatures had to understand that equality means that every citizen must be brought down to the base level. The base always had more inertia than the peak. When you have a massive base of indolence depending on a narrowing superstructure of achievement for support, collapse is assured. “Spreading the wealth around is like spreading manure, the stink just gets bigger.”

For Liz, as it probably did to most applicants, the decision came down to a known or almost assured dismal future, against a totally unknown adventure, which if the Antarians could be believed, would lead to an exciting, fruitful life.

Liz signed the contract. To her surprise she was immediately ushered through the halls of the Antarian complex. Liz did not even go back to her dorm. She was given a health exam and issued proper clothing. Liz would never again touch Earth soil, or so it would seem.

Liz, no longer wore the jumper of an upper class mate. Now she was clothed in light tan slacks and white tee shirt of the education ministry of Antar. The tee shirts of the several boys and girls all had different decorations. The one on Liz’s shirt was a dark blue double spiral. Some of the designs on other shirts were not as easily identified as to geometric shapes. Clothes were issued as needed and the applicants always bore the same logo.

The classes were only slightly different from those she had left on Earth. There were no classes on citizenship. Liz had been promised that she would be tutored in several languages. She had been told the starting class was in Antarian. The study was intense as visual, audial and intellectual approaches were taken as vocabulary was built and syntax was learned. It was subtle when the lessons turned to history, always by way of expanding language.

Maybe, it was the way of all transport, but Liz could only marvel at the cleanliness of everything. There were showers twice a day and clothes placed in a laundry hamper, reappeared in the private duffel of the students cleaned and pressed. There were periodic blood tests, which Liz was never a party to their results.

Science and mathematics were totally strange. Logic was taught as having three values. Yes, no and maybe where the value of the maybe, was always changing. She could liken this to the calculus of moving points, she had been taught in her fourth year. When they got to physics, Liz was totally lost. When she applied Physics as she learned it, it was invariably the wrong answer. The Antarians were almost obsessed with the transfer of energy and the conversion of matter to energy and back without loss. Once when stressed by her lack of concepts, Liz was told by her instructors, “These are things that we learn from infancy.”

Liz found more distress as she learned that the teachers were interested in why she didn’t see the concept, what did she see in discussing the concept and if she perceived something they had not thought of. This was a terrible way to run a school. For a girl who had stressed her achievements, it was ridiculous that her mistakes were what interested her teachers. Liz had no idea of how much information was being collected about her ideas.

Biology was better since the theories of Antarians were not that different from those of humans. There were several classifications that had no parallel on Earth. The Antarians were well into cloning. There were classes of ethics and regulations. The Antarians were comfortable with the mechanics of cloning, it was the discussions about the results of indiscriminate cloning which were under consideration.

Cosmology and history, Liz had to take the Antarians word for things. Liz could look for parallels in her own history, but the school history she had been taught by humans, was not realistic to those of Antar. They had monitored Earth for millennia and what Liz had been taught did not equate with their notes. Of course, of their own history, she only had their word as truth. To creatures who had roamed the universe Liz felt that she was, but a child.

Only the teachers noticed as the students slowly changed from their human tongues to those surrounding Antar. There were many other humans in the classes with Liz. She didn’t talk about what she had studied, her inadequacies rested heavily on her shoulders. Liz felt that she had failed the government and land of her birth. She imagined that many of the other students had like feelings. It wasn’t until later that she met a person who believed that the system had failed him and that was his reason for migrating.

Liz had received a packet of provisional citizenship papers. She had an account opened in her name and deposits had been made from the day she signed her contract. Liz had been promised that when they arrived at the monarchy of Antar, she would be introduced to the person she was to work under and they would further discuss her duties. Little did she know that there would be another two years of study, before she actually entered into her employment as promised.

------------------------
Stories by Ken
Good teachers are born that way, not made. No! Good human beings, are born that way. Some of them become teachers.

Of course, life is not fair. You shouldn't expect it to be fair, but you should expect it to be ironic.
JKR 1981-2001
History is made of wars, recovering from wars and preparing for the next war.
JJR 1975-
User avatar
ken_r
Obsessed Roswellian
Posts: 861
Joined: Wed Oct 04, 2006 11:34 pm
Location: New Mexico

Re: Apocalypse, CC, mature, ch1 Dec 8, 2013

Post by ken_r »

LovelyPOM83

HypnptiqBlueEyes:

LuckyMiss: Remember Liz was sure what Earth had in store for her, but Antar was completely unknown

Natalie36: Things get worse and so do the Earth parallels

begonia9508: Thank you for so many years

keepsmiling7: Since 2008, thousands of Icons, especially Christian Icons, have been removed from public

Author's note: The four human characters from Roswell are going to reach Antar indifferent ways. Each will have a different roll in the world of Antar when they arrive. selling out citizens has always been done for personal gain. After the Korean Police Action no questions about war prisoners would not be asked so political oowers could be maintained, Same with the Vietnamese war.

Visiona of the art class are from an interview of Charlston Heston and from several students when i was in school. We don't have the unisex dorms yet, but we do allow boys to choose which restrooms they want to use in many of our schools. I haven't heard of girls choosing boys's bathrooms. Movie "Star ship trooper" gave me visual about unisex showers. Morality and its importance are a culture thing. Remove all prohibitions and then what do you have left.

Prison system and the military are both slave based. I used to watch soldiers mowing officer's lawns and washing their cars. The bail bond system and the rules for skip chasers go back to runaway slave chasing.

Chapter 2

Maria’s story.

They had come for Maria late at night. Those of the Educator’s Union had stated that children were easiest to move at that time. A large man had picked up the sleeping Maria and carried her to the waiting transport. The thin, small girl with her blonde hair brushed back was not a heavy chore. The chosen girls had been carefully drugged the evening before. Maria woke up in a strange dormitory. After showers, Maria found a strange green jumper set out for her. Now, Maria was in the secondary class studies of the Fine Arts. There were tears, but these were wiped away by promises that she would, again, see her friend at graduation. Until that time, Maria had way too much work to indulge in unnecessary friendships.

Maria had no idea where she was. The few times she saw the dark sky, the stars looked somewhat different. Maria wasn’t a science student so she couldn’t explain for sure what the differences were. Her first year, of course, was composed of lessons in citizenship along with general fine arts training. The second year, drawing and visual arts had disappeared and Maria was studying drama and music. As her teachers decided her future, her studies slowly were turned to music theory, singing and instrumental practices. Also, as she progressed in the classes of the arts, Maria noticed that there was less supervision in their private time. Where until the end, Liz had been under strict supervision, concentrating on her studies, above everything else. Maria found Fine Arts students more and more experimenting with life. Instructors in the arts department encouraged this. Art is a depiction of life, whether real, surreal or abstract. The quicker the students learned about life, the quicker they could learn to show it in their art. Of course, contraceptives were free for everybody. Surprisingly, Maria was a holdout. Billy Jo 49,336,540 with no promises, just couldn’t compare to that prince on a white horse who would some day pluck Maria from the masses of humanity.

In the third year, music theory was still there along with singing lessons and practice on stringed instruments. Living conditions, also, changed. With the sexual equality act of 2016, dorms, restrooms, showers and changing rooms all became unisex. In this third year, students were expected to accept and embrace these changes. After all, this was just learning more about life. Maria had learned to shower in front of the boys in her class, but she still held out for that prince when it came to more than a peep show.

Maria had one more year to endure until she would be in upper studies of what she hoped would be singing along with her guitar as accompanist. It was during the time in upper studies that the state had to decide how to use its limited resources. Maria wasn’t competing with those in her district or country; Maria was competing worldwide. Maria didn’t know it, but she had surpassed her friend from long ago by two years. Maria was 18 and very uncertain about her future. Her friend Liz, had already traveled in a space ship for a year and been on Antar for another year and she still hadn’t met her employer. A real historian might have thought about the bush leagues, in the early twentieth century, where thousands of young men found vocations in baseball. As baseball grew into a national sport, with the exposure of national teams, the smaller leagues fell to the wayside. Towards the end of the common time, only a few hundred men could find their way into this sport. Maria, and all those with her, showed great skills. What Maria couldn’t yet understand was that there were those from all over the world who had not great, but fantastic skills and they would be the ones the school would choose. Maria at 18 waited to hear what her future held.

Mr. Williams said, (of course this wasn’t his real name as Antarians had trouble with people who didn’t know or learn the Antarian language, so they adopted human names.) “Ah, Mr. Schmidt, I am interested in procuring a number of young women with entertainment and refined Artistic skills.”

“Ah, Mr. Williams, I understand. There will be, perhaps, a number who will not make it to the next level. Those failing will regress back to the masses, having no promise of employment, at great cost to the state. Perhaps, you could find remuneration for the state’s investment and you would provide these women positions in your society,” Mr. Schmidt replied. Now, Mr. Schmidt was his real name and he was completely human and a politician involved with education.

“Very good, Mr. Schmidt. If you could gather these young women together, we will make choices as to the available positions at our disposal,” Mr. Williams said.

Now, it could be seen that the two protagonist were dancing around the subject that Mr. Williams was offering Mr. Schmidt a tidy sum of money for a group of women who no longer had great value to the state. Mr. Williams was a slaver. Of course, it was the Earthman, Mr. Schmidt, who chose the girls for sale. Ethically, it was Mr. Schmidt who placed them in slavery. If the state ever saw any of the money transfer, it would be in a laundered tax return from Mr. Schmidt. If anyone had bothered, they would have seen that throughout history, slaves were usually served up by their own people as a way to gain riches and to rid themselves of those whom they wanted to displace. Mr. Schmidt would believe that they had all been marked for failure; let the spacers find places for them and there was a lot of money transferred. This, also, was an excuse throughout history, that the slave’s life would be improved somewhere else. Mr. Williams, in his mind, only helped the girls find a better life.

Once again, someone came for Maria and many others after midnight. Being more than five years older, the women were marched into an auditorium completely bewildered as to what was happening. They sat on bleachers, still groggy from the late time of the night or rather early morning, as one by one their names were called out and they disappeared behind a curtain. Once behind the curtain, Maria was as close to a spacer as she had ever been. The man, not of this world, reached out to touch her. She couldn’t take her eyes off his strong face and well formed body. Maria was seated beside a table and she remembered not a thing after that.

For the second time, Maria woke up in a strange dorm. She was dressed in a simple shift and Maria could feel that she wore nothing under it. Maria had no idea what had happened or where she was. There was a humming that pervaded everywhere she went. The women were marched to the showers, marched to the cafeteria and fed breakfast. Then, they were marched again to a place where each woman was placed in a separate room. It was a tiny room, barely a closet. Maria was seated in the only chair and a man entered. This would be her second encounter with a man from out there, again, the phrase “tall dark and handsome,” applied. Maria tried to speak to him, but the only reply she got was in a language she did not understand. A golden bracelet was placed on Maria’s right wrist. Try as she might, Maria couldn’t see how it opened nor how it could be taken off.

Later, the women were marched back to their dorm. In this dorm, there were twenty women allotted to the twenty bunks found there. As they marched down the hall, Maria felt that there were many other dorms as well. She had no idea how many women and men were on this ship. Maria approached the bunks in her dorm and she noticed a number, “Six lower,” appear on her bracelet in standard English. She finally found bunk number six and sat on the lower bed.

Everyone looked at the others. They were all dressed in the same simple pull over. They all wore golden bracelets on their right wrists. Some of the women were from Maria’s class, but several of the others were strangers. They were all about the same age. Finally, one lady said, “We might as well learn who we are with. My name is Connie and I am studying drama.”

This went on around the room. They came to Maria and she replied, “I am Maria and I study music, both writing and performing.”

One of the ladies named Lisa, who was a dancer, asked, “Does anyone have any idea of where we are and what is happening?”

There were several minutes of silence as each girl came to the same conclusion that they had all been fearing, “I think we are on a slave ship,” Maria voiced what was in all their minds.

Everyone had her own ideas of what a slaver would be like. They already had a taste of being marched to breakfast, marched to the room where they were given bracelets and then, being marched back to their dorm. This wasn’t that much different from school back on Earth. Old stories from the common era told of dirty rough men who impressed humans like cattle into tight boxes as they traveled the seas to ports which would accept the slaves. None of the women had seen this. The ship was spotlessly clean. The fact that they were marched to showers this morning, showed they were not going to live in filthy squalor. Their dorms were, if anything, better than what they had had back on Earth.

The next question was what would be done to them. There had been no chains and no signs of whips. These women were all third year students in an advanced Fine Arts school. The state schools had done all they could to modify the morality of these students. For reasons of artistic expression, they had been encouraged to seek out experiences of life. Old sister Ruthie had stated, “You have to experience angst before you can write about it.” This held the same for music. The blues played by the first year students had no meaning, but to those students who had loved and lost, they were the ones who could bring tears with their music. The state had hoped that these women had embraced what had been offered. The state still didn’t have any immediate use for them in labor markets.

Maria had, many times, posed for the drawing class as a nude model. Students of the performing arts were encouraged to do this to offset tuition. She had heard the teacher cry, “You must create lust. She is a sensuous young woman. Show this in what you draw! The first time Maria had posed she had a certain trepidation as she walked onto the round stage dressed only in a robe. The stage was bathed in light while the audience, except for the lights on the drawing easels, was in the dark. Maria looked out and couldn’t see any of the artists, so she could convince herself that she was alone except for the professor. Madam Sikes was a famous artist in her youth and now, she was in charge of finding young replacements. The Madam held out her hand to take Maria’s robe. It vanished into the darkness beyond. The madam then seated Maria on the stage and carefully arranged her arms, head and legs. At first Maria thought the arrangement was for erotica, but she was soon to learn that Madam was posing her so she could endure the almost hour of the pose. The stage slowly turned until Madam commanded “Start,” and each student by luck of where they were sitting attempted to show the model from the position in which, she was displayed. This served as both a lesson for student and model.

In the writing department, Old Harding could reduce a student to screaming tears and then, when the student thought they could suffer no more, Old Harding would hand them a paper and say, “Describe every thing you felt.” Yes, students found experiences of angst and soon, they lost unnecessary modesty. By sound, form and word, they learned to place their emotions on display. Soon, they learned to create emotions on command. They were students of the arts. Their jobs would be to share their emotions with others. They lived under a different modesty and morality.

Maria was still a dreamer. She believed in romance and was holding out for that prince Charming to sweep her off her feet. Then, she would open her body and soul to everything he wanted. Maria had argued just days ago with one of the acolytes that life didn’t have to be filled with pain. At that time, Maria was sure that fortune was just around the corner. Now that it was clear she was on a slaver, Maria wasn’t so sure. Pain might have many expressions she hadn’t found yet.

They had been studying for about a week. Most of them could speak and understand rudimentary Antarian. Maria didn’t know what had been happening to the other girls, but it was after supper one night, that it happened to her. “Maria,” came the call from the doorway. As long as she could remember, when called, Maria had gone. Maria and Liz both talked about Maria’s rebellion, but it was a secret rebellion and not one of overt action. Those who chose public demonstrations of rebellion disappeared.

To Maria’s surprise, it wasn’t an Antarian, but a human who waited for her at the door. It was a very attractive human. She was older than the other girls that Maria had seen and she was wearing a business suit, not the plain shift that the girls wore. She had her hair done up in a style that many of the Doñas preferred. Her dark blue jacket was over a white blouse. Her skirt was right at her knees and she was wearing high heels. She also had a golden bracelet on her right wrist, just like the other girls. “Maria, shower quickly. We have things to say and they don’t like being made to wait.” The woman handed Maria a clean shift made out of very soft material. She, also, had a pair of hose and a pair of high heels. Maria showered and dressed and sat by the woman outside the communal showers.

“Maria, have you had a lover?” the lady asked.

Maria didn’t like the way this was going, but she shook her head, no.

“Well, understand these men have been in space for over a year. You are being sent to a young man. Don’t ask his name and only answer what he directly asks of you. Do what he says and do not resist. Maria, we are slaves. Our own government gave us up as expendables. There is no way out. There is no rescue. There are ways we find power and you must learn to survive to find these ways.” The woman bent over and kissed Maria on the forehead. “Be strong, Maria.”

Maria, herself, was surprised that she so easily followed the instructions of the woman. Over 15 years of public school conditioning to follow orders was ingrained deep within her. Much like the command, “Hold hands while crossing the street,” long ago, Maria found herself doing what she was commanded.

As she walked down the hall clutching a slip of paper with a number scribbled on it, Maria wondered what would be expected of her. Her fantasies kicked in and she thought of handsome young men wrapping her in their loving arms while showering her with kisses. Then, she thought, in her fantasies, these handsome young men had always plied her with promises long before she undertook the long walk to their rooms. In her mind, she saw the long walk as a symbol between the kissing and the actual physical acts of sex, which at this time, she hadn’t experienced. Whether this long walk, be from the front seat to the back seat of a car or from the commons room in the dorm to his bedroom on the next floor, it always came after the promises.

She was dutifully going to the room of a man she had never met at the orders of another slave who promised her that there was no rescue. What would be expected of her? She shyly knocked on the appropriate door, she heard a young voice say, “Come in.”

Sitting on his bed, she saw a young man slightly older than she. He was dressed in his Merchant Marine skivvies (under shorts.) Maria quickly learned that this young man had little more experience than she, in affairs of sex. “Take it off,” he commanded in a voice, which didn’t hide his own nervousness.

Because she knew or thought she knew what was to come, it was slightly more awkward than when she had posed nude at school. In the art classes, the darkness and the many easels had seemed like barriers between her naked body and the audience she knew was out there.

Maria crossed her arms and removed the one-piece shift over her head. She dropped the shift onto the floor. The man made circular motions with his hands and it seemed like eternity as she slowly turned and he lay there gazing at her. Finally, he stood up. He removed his shorts and held out his hand and she came to him. This might not be the first time she had seen a naked man, but it was the first time that she saw a naked man knowing what surely was next to come. His body clearly showed his intention. This was different from watching the boys, in her unisex dorm, shower.

The young man, to whom she had been sent, showed little interest in her person. He was interested only in her body and how he could use it. Just out of curiosity, Maria wondered who he was and where he was from. The warning stayed with her and the young man gave her no opening for conversation. When he was through he stood, still naked, then he scooped up her shift and tossed it to her. “You may go,” were the only words spoken. Like the words, “class dismissed,” “You may go,” sent her out of the room. This left her to walk down the hall, just like she had done in school. She was feeling like something monumental had happened and there should have been more to it. Here, she met the woman, who clearly was in command, even though she herself was a slave. “Maria, shower and prepare for bed,” were her orders.

The first week was hard on Maria. Maria was sure that this perfectly dressed lady who, also, was a slave, had sold her soul by providing, or better pimping, the girls for the crew’s service. Later, returning from a session, Maria heard moaning and a muffled cry from a partially closed door that led to an officer’s room. Peeking in, Maria saw the lady she knew so well stretched out before a tall man. She was at his will and by the sounds as his hands hit her, her session was painful. Maria saw, heard and in her mind felt, the slaps the tall man dealt the lady. The lady, who Maria learned was named Margret was not a quisling who sold out her fellow Earth girls; Margret had the same responsibilities as the rest of them.

It wasn’t that Maria was a prude about sex; that had disappeared with the end of the common era. Maria had held on to her chastity by being a romantic. In her dreams, she hadn’t minded sharing a bed with a man, but she preferred flowers, candy and maybe, a night of being told how beautiful she was. Her present reality was unsettling.

The first time wasn’t that bad. This young man, only slightly older than she, was not mean. He was anxious, but he did not push her. He made no consideration for her, either. That night, Maria lost her virginity and many of her dreams. The words of the woman who cared for her rang over and over. “Maria, we are slaves. Our own government gave us up as expendables. There is no way out. There is no rescue.” Maria was to hear over and over, that there was no rescue for any of them.

As time dragged on, lessons in the day and trips many of the nights, Maria learned that there was no typical man. Since she still had all the institutions of school instilled in her, Maria began grading herself in tasks done. That one went well, that one went poorly; her schooling forced her mind to ask how could she do better. In that first week, there was one crewman who was quite a bit older than Maria. When she entered her room, he shouted, “Show me a innocent little school girl.”

Maria had just taken off her shift. She was standing there naked for him. How was she supposed to appear shy and innocent? Maria knew, and she was sure that he knew, that he wasn’t the first man she had serviced on the ship. Maria crossed her arms and attempted to cover her nakedness. “Yeah, that is right. Now, you have been very bad. Go to the headmaster’s office.”

Maria was sure that he didn’t want her to go outside his room so she thought, “He is the only one here besides myself, so he must be the headmaster.”

Maria walked toward the man. As she walked in that awkward manner still covering herself with her hands, she looked at him. Her first man had been young and had a well formed hard body. The other men she had seen that week had, also, been only slightly older than she. This man was balding and hairy. He had the start of a beer belly or whatever made the men from out there loose their shape and form in a middle aged spread. When she got close, he reached out and grabbed her arm. Not violently only firmly. “You have been a bad little girl and you must be punished. Go to my bed.”

The sex hadn’t been violent or excessive. Actually, compared to the younger men, he seemed to tire and finish more quickly. As the man lay there panting, he waved his hand, “You may go,” he commanded.

Maria quickly pulled her shift back on and left to walk down the hall until Margret met her and, as always, said, “Maria, go shower and get ready for bed.”

For the first time, Maria felt the need to talk. “Margret, what about disease?” Maria asked as they walked down the hall.

“Every spacer coming back from leave is checked daily for any foreign diseases. The girls have been examined daily and treated when necessary. Lord help any man, who manages to get by inspection and introduces something contagious into the ship. Disease in a slave ship could destroy the entire cargo. Disease in any ship could ban it from any port. A man could be deep spaced for bringing such a disease to a ship of commerce,” Margret explained.

“Well, then, what about getting pregnant?” Maria asked again.

“Child, we are all fed birth control medicine along with aphrodisiac to keep us sharp,” Margret explained again.

It would be towards the end of their journey that Maria found herself again, sent to this middle aged man who liked roll play. Maria was now considerably more experienced. She softly knocked and when commanded to enter, Maria poked her head in the door to look around.

“Enter, child. Take off your clothes,” he commanded.

“Oh, no sir. I couldn’t do that in front of a man I hardly know,” Maria’s voice quivered and she started to cry. In her mind this was a gross contradiction because this man was already stripped naked and his not so handsome body was sitting on his bed.

His voice was louder, “I said, ‘take off your clothes.’ You know that you have been bad and have been sent to me to be punished.”

Maria, ever so slowly crossed her arms and lifted the shift, all the time stifling back sobs and tears. The bottom of the shift slowly rose traveling up her thighs, past the tops of her hose and past her middle to finally uncover her breasts. Then with a shake, she brought the garment over her head and dropped it on the floor. Looking up as if it was the first time that she realized her was watching her, Maria turned sideways and covered herself with her hands and arms. “Oh please don’t look at me,” she cried.

“You have been very bad and need to go to the headmaster’s office to be punished,” he said.

As Maria crabbed towards him, she cried, “Oh, no, no, please don’t punish me.” The tears now were coming in rivers.

“No, you must be punished,” he said in a harsh tone as he pushed her down on his bed. His action wasn’t that much better than it had been the first time. During the whole episode, Maria, of course, sobbed that she was sorry about what she had done. This time, before he dismissed her, they lay in bed as he panted from his exertions. He raised up on one arm and looking at Maria’s face and not her body he stated, “Girl, you are the best lay I have had in years.”

Once out the door, Maria quickly composed herself. As she walked down the hall, Maria thought, “Is this what I have become? The best lay they have had in years. If it hadn’t been for the music lessons every day, Maria might have thought that a ship’s whore might be all she would be allowed to be from now on. She kept thinking that they must have a reason for continuing her lessons. Blinking back tears, she imagined herself in the place of Margret, leading young girls to their fate while knowing that she still had to visit the captain before her duties of the night would be over. Maria knew that the captain had a reputation for being rough and sometimes cruel. Maria, as cargo, would never be sent to such a man as the captain.

In the weeks that they traveled, there had been one crewman who was rough. Fortunately, she learned that this was rare. Maria returned from his room crying while the obvious bruising on her arms and legs was turning an ugly shade of blue. She later learned that the crewman spent the rest of the voyage celibate. The young newly impressed girls were too valuable to be treated harshly. Even later, Maria learned that those who hurt Margret were not punished. Maria was a commodity to be protected and later, sold. Maria learned that Margret was owned by the ship. Margret was just a possession.

Maybe now, Maria understood so much better what little she remembered of her mother. Her mother had no chance. Maria didn’t want to believe that her mother was a whore. Someone must have made promises to her mother to have slept with her. Maria’s mother had no skills and no education and whoever had been with her was long gone. Her mother had refused to give the baby up to an abortion. Maria’s mother, Amy, hadn’t even finished secondary school. Maria wondered what had the man who seduced her mother promised, when he made Maria? The three years Amy took care of Maria canceled any chance Amy had for further schooling. What if her mother had been a whore and slept with men to keep Maria for as long as she could? When her mother entered Maria into public school, Maria’s mother had quietly slipped back into the masses of equality. Now, Maria wondered what was her mother doing to stay alive? Did she use skills in bed to keep alive? How much worse was Maria’s future going to be than what Earth held in promise for her? How much worse was it to be for Maria than it had been for her mother? Maria has always heard the clandestine stories of the masses. In theory, in the masses, men and women lived totally free. They were, also, free from much, if any, law. The state was obligated to house their citizens, to feed them, but by a law from way back in the twentieth century, the state had no obligation to protect its citizens.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/polit ... .html?_r=0

Once in the masses, what happened was of little concern to any government, much less to one which was failing.
-----------------------
Stories by Ken
Good teachers are born that way, not made. No! Good human beings, are born that way. Some of them become teachers.

Of course, life is not fair. You shouldn't expect it to be fair, but you should expect it to be ironic.
JKR 1981-2001
History is made of wars, recovering from wars and preparing for the next war.
JJR 1975-
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ken_r
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Re: Apocalypse, CC, mature, ch2, pg2, Dec 16, 2013

Post by ken_r »

keepsmiliing7:

begonia9508:

L-J-L 76: We will be back with Liz next chaper


Chapter 3

Maria now walked in her high heels to her classes. She had wondered at the women who had appeared in these stylish shoes. The spacers like their women tall. As each girl was called for her first time, she returned in these high heels. It was like a uniform for those who had graduated to the next step in their lives.

The hose were of a strange material. They needed no support to remain in place. The daily wear included underwear of very soft cloth, but as usual, when the nocturnal trips down the hall were made, the women only wore a plain, undecorated shift, hose and heels.

The study time was not that much different from the school left far behind. They did get more individual time from the teachers. For Maria the lessons had changed to include her music. Maria studied theory, voice and instrumental every day. She was being critiqued daily, but she was never tested to see if she was good enough. With criticism, she was also given drills to perfect what her teacher felt was weak. With this help, Maria could have finished her finals back on Earth. “Back on Earth,” those words sounded so sad. They would never see the crowds of Earth again. Here, their talents were blooming, but they were all slaves. Some of the women, in free time, had argued, was this worse than what might have been expected back home? A shot at being a Doña was always so slim. The student musicians, singers, actors and painters, were all good, but so were so many others. Most of the girls now agreed that back on Earth most of them would have spent considerable time flat on their backs.

Another women spoke, “Back home, I would place my ability now, beside any of those at school; the place of Doña would be mine.”

“Can it Sophie, you will never see back home. Don’t you understand that it was all rigged? It didn’t matter how good you were, there were always those of influence. Don’t tell me about equality. That is just window dressing to make us hope and thus, be quiet. When they couldn’t keep us in school any longer, they sold us to the first dark and handsome spacer who came by. That was a lot cheaper than sending us to the masses of equality. I heard that police still walk in areas of equality in groups and they aren’t shy how they bang heads. If these spacers sell me to a man, I am going to make him forget any spacer bitch he has ever had. I am going to make him cry for more and more is what I am going to give to him and he is going to take care of me forever. I am quite through with Earth and their equality. These spacers have it right. I am going to show a skill that will assure me whatever I want.” Even now, many of the girls had some faith that they would find a way to succeed.

It would be later when Maria was trying to organize a school for the arts that she wondered if the women she had traveled with had reached their goals. These would be the women she would need to set up her school.

Maybe, they were right. To what little history Maria remembered, their condition had almost reverted to medieval times. To times when some women didn’t find power in equality, but still learned to use their wiles and sex to survive. Maria had a lot on her mind. Maria would have loved to have Liz to talk to. That wasn’t right because then Liz who had so much promise would be a slave, also. Still, Maria wished Liz could see how well she was progressing in her lessons. Even as a slave, Maria could take pride in her accomplishments. Her ability with the guitar was a point of pride and the same with her singing and music writing. Liz must be in advanced school now. She was almost there the last time Maria had heard anything about their age group. Maria didn’t have any thought that Liz would not excel in all that she did. She didn’t know that Liz had preceded her to the world of the spacers by two years.

It wasn’t every night that she was called; even spacers get satiated eventually. As her experience grew, Maria spent nights with several different officers. Since she didn’t ask, she didn’t really know anyone’s rank. No longer did Maria see magic in the handsome prince on a white horse riding to rescue her. Maria saw that she only had her body, her talents and her mind to carry her on. Oh yes, she needed a lot of luck, also. Maybe, this was less luck than what she would have needed back on Earth.

There were a few times when she was met with flowers, candle light and dancing. Normally, Maria was wearing her simple shift and the men were naked or sitting in their shorts. The times, with the flowers and such, the men were dressed in their best uniforms. There seemed to be romance in the air. Maria remembered the first time that the man, as they were dancing, kept whispering, “Darlene, Darlene,”

At first Maria was of the mind to correct him; then, the warnings of Margret were remembered. Maria kept quiet and soon the dancing gave way to kissing as the man stripped off his uniform. He walked naked in front of Maria, as he crossed the room and hung the uniform up in his closet. In Maria’s mind for a flash, it was almost as if they were old lovers or married. They sat in his bed as he gently lifted her shift. He gently rolled her over and their period of sex was longer than any other of the men she had visited. It was very late when he stood naked and helped her back into the shift and at the door, he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her fervently.

“Margret, is it possible for a slave to fall in love?” Maria asked her mentor.

“As long as you are owned by a corporation, the answer is no. I have been with that man many times. He wasn’t holding Maria anymore than he was holding Margret when I was with him. The whole time, he was with Darlene. He hasn’t seen his wife or girlfriend for a long time. You were never there in his mind. You were only a surrogate, someone who stood in place of his true lover,” Margret explained. “If you are with a single owner instead of a corporation, who knows?” Margret added the question wistfully. Margret knew that, she would always be owned by a corporation. Maria learned another lesson of game play. She even became a favorite of those who favored this gentle love. The next time she was met with flowers and wine, she participated in the conversation about the children, relatives and deep personal secrets as if she was that other woman. There were also periods of tears as the men loosened their dreams on the young surrogate. Yes, Maria became quite adept in carrying out her orders.


Eventually, there was great stir within the ship. The constant hum, which they had lived with so long that they learned to not notice it, was silent. They had arrived somewhere. The next thing that was going to happen was near. For several days, the nightly trips stopped, but everything else went unchanged. They were moved from the ship down a passageway to another set of dorm rooms not much different from what they had left. For several days, the only breaks were the daily lessons. Then Margret, the lady who saw Maria that first night, returned. “Maria, follow me please,” she said.

It seemed for Maria that they had walked for miles. The high heels were killing her feet. Maria had no other possessions; everything else had been left behind. They came to a very small room. It had a dressing table and a bathroom. “Maria, please shower,” the lady commanded. This was almost like the first time Margret had separated Maria from the others.

The shower had a slightly antiseptic smell. The force of the water was much stronger than it had been back at the ship. At first it burned the skin, but soon the feeling was euphoric. The water, finally, turned off automatically, That was good as Maria was unsure that she could have stopped it herself, the pleasure was that great. Maria stepped out of the shower and a strong, warm, wind quickly dried her. When she walked out of the shower room, the lady was holding a silk, or something like silk, robe. Maria kept reminding herself that nothing here was really like it was back home. The lady fastened a gold chain about Maria’s waist and then she pulled the robe about Maria and made her sit at the table. Two creatures came in. They almost looked human, but there were many odd things about them. They were both very small, like children. They were covered with a light tan fur. The lady, Margret, spoke in a strange language and the two creatures busied themselves preparing Maria. Her hair was brushed and curled, her body was rubbed in perfumed oils and her face was done in a manner that Maria had never experienced.

The creatures, now finished, were holding hands, making many squeaks of satisfaction as they departed. The lady stepped behind Maria and looked at the mirror to view the results with her. “Maria, you will be one of the most beautiful women there.”

A light blinked over the mirror and the lady said, “Well Maria, as they would have said if you had continued in school, it is show time.” Then Margret turned Maria so Maria had to look her in the eye and seriously said, “Maria, dear, the next two hours are going to be the most important of your life. How goes the next hours, will be how goes the rest of your life. You are a woman with many talents and a good brain. Today, that is not what is on sale. Your body is what men will pay for. After that, it is up to you how far your talents will go.” Her seriousness was emphasized by Maria’s memory that Margret had to serve the officers on the ship like any first time girl. Margret seemed to be promising her a chance for more.

They stepped out on a stage and Margret led Maria to one small cubical. “Sit down, Maria and don’t say or do anything except what they ask you, good luck,” she whispered.

There were bright lights on Maria. She had the impression that there was a sea of spectators out there beyond the lights and many other slaves on sale, beyond her sight. All the time, there was a rumble of unintelligible sounds. Maria could imagine that there were men of several races speaking several different languages. This was what the lady, who was after all a fellow slave, meant. Someone from this sea of creatures would take Maria home as their slave. Three young men stepped up to her cubicle and she heard them arguing. The language was one of the dialects Maria had been forced to learn. One of the men had a tablet and he was making rapid calculations. By the gesticulating and what few words she could pick up over the noise, Maria thought, “They want to make a group purchase of me.” From out of nowhere the slave Margret whispered, “Maria, you are one of the highest commodities here. These three men are trying to arrange financing to purchase you.” “Now Maria, stand up,” Margret her angel whispered.

Maria stood and felt her angel remove the robe. “Turn around slowly, Maria,” was whispered.

Maria slowly complied. It was difficult as she could see the three young men staring at her with their mouths agape, but Maria had the feeling that there were hundreds more on the other side of those bright lights. The difficulty wasn’t any longer standing naked before an audience. She had done this many times for the drawing class. Maria was sure that here there were many more here than had ever attended the drawing classes. The art students striving to draw Maria were only vying for their grades. Here, it was Maria whose future depended on the outcome. The difficulty was the small stage, the command to slowly turn brought a fear that she would someway fall off the stage and thus, loose the best chances for her future. In Maria’s mind a girl who was clumsy did not promise to raise high stakes. High stakes, in Maria’s mind, meant better treatment.

The three men walked away still arguing. “Maria, they are going to try to get a forth party to join. They don’t have enough wealth to afford you, yet,” Margret whispered.

Margret would disappear from time to time. Maria was sure that Margret had other girls to over see. Whenever anyone showed Maria extra attention, Margret would appear from nowhere, answering questions and giving Maria advice.

“Highest priced commodity, not enough wealth to afford you,” these were sayings applied to the little girl who was one step from washing out back home. Home was a word the girls in their conversations had learned to avoid. There was not and never would be, a back home. That last week at the Earth school had been a grind. Maria attended many recitals and she had to admit that many of the other women had more native talent than she. Of course, now, she was spacer trained. Maria’s voice had been a whisky alto and now with the daily lessons, she had doubled her range. The scales and exercises she practiced on the guitar, had hardened her fingertips and made her fingers have minds of their own as they flew across the strings. The electronics of the instruments allowed her to make sounds she never thought were possible. That final inspection Maria made in the mirror, before she had left her dressing room, had caused Maria to almost not recognize herself. Maybe, just maybe, the angel, Margret, was right. Maria was the highest priced commodity present.

Some smaller groups of youths arrived and the angel asked her to stand and the robe was removed, Maria slowly turned for the pleasure of her audience.

“Those are just young nobles. They do not come close to having the financing for you. It never hurts to always treat such with respect as no one knows how far they will progress in their future stations,” the angel whispered.

There was a noise and Maria saw the three young men had returned and they had a fourth. There was much arguing as they tried to persuade the fourth to invest in their venture. There were many gestures and pounding on the tablet of figures.

A few older men came by and one asked the angel if he could feel Maria’s musculature. He peered into her mouth, checked her teeth and then, stretched forth her arms as he watched for muscle tremor. His hand went to her thigh and squeezed as he tested her muscle tone, all the time looking into Maria’s eyes to see her reaction. Several women walked up to her and one of them asked that Maria stand and turn as she had done for the men. One and all seemed to be fascinated with the girl until they calculated the price of the commodity. Maria had begun to think that maybe she was too highly priced. The three young men appeared again with a different fourth. Again, the arguments as the new man showed his skepticism, leaving Maria to wonder what they were promising him.

Maria noticed that the men and women who studied her were of many shapes, sizes and shades. The angel whispered, “This sale of Earth women has attracted citizens from many planets.” She smiled at Maria as she continued, “We have become in great demand.” Later, Maria would wonder, was it fortunate to be in demand?

The three randy young men were dauntless in their design, but they couldn’t manage to put the finances together. Soon, a tall lady appeared. Even Maria, with as little knowledge as she had of spacers, saw that this woman was noble. Her clothing was regal of some rare and strange material. She was blonde, but Maria wasn’t sure that this coloring was natural. A much shorter woman with golden hair and skin like milk closely followed her. Maria noted that the second women was a slave, by the golden bracelet that she wore. “Good day, your highness,” Maria’s angel respectfully said.

The tall woman was talking in a voice that was almost chilling in its impersonal tone. The woman was directing her request to the angel, not Maria. “Please ask the subject to stand and turn. The angel quickly obeyed as she helped Maria to stand and the angel took the robe. Maria felt moments of fear as she thought, “What would two women buy her for?”

Again Maria slowly turned as the two women looked at her body and the tall one asked, “What think you, Teresa? Do you think Michael would like her?”

Again, the chills as Maria thought, “They are buying me as a present for someone.”

Maria found this confusing as the small woman, who Maria took as Teresa, thumbed through several papers and answered, “The abstract says she can write music, play and sing. Michael has a troubled soul. Maybe, she would be what he needs.”

Here you had a woman who was clearly noble asking another woman who must be a slave, for her opinion and apparently valuing it. If it hadn’t been for the bracelet, Maria would have believed the two women were equals. Either woman could have taken first place in a Miss Universe contest. If Spacer women all looked like this, why were they buying Earth girls? Maria wondered how much was native raw creature and how much was presentation? Thinking of that last glance at her mirror, Maria thought it must be both. In some way, all women on Antar must have the advantage of superb beauty care.

The two women did not converse any more with the angel, rather they turned to someone just beyond the lights. “We will take her. Prepare her for travel.”

“We will take her. Prepare her for travel.” There had been no question at the price. There were no questions for Maria. Those two sentences made the next change in Maria’s life.

By now, Maria was fully versed in Antarian, plus the several dialects in the area. The two women sat in the front of the vehicle and Maria sat alone in the rear seat. The lack of conversation did not bode well in Maria’s mind. The word commodity rolled over and over in her thinking. Her angel had been encouraging, but in the cold light of day, Maria was a possession. She would be forced to do as she was commanded. At first, this hadn’t sunk in, but now, it was more and more clear that the bubbly Maria would be a person of the past. What the two women wanted of her was beyond her imagination. They had mentioned someone named Michael. Maria wasn’t sure that names followed sex distinctions on Antar. Who Michael was, she had no clue. The small one had said Michael had dark times in his life and that Maria would be one who could cheer him up. Did Maria understand the pronoun correctly? Did they say him as in the male sex? Her years in advanced Fine Arts school and her year on the slave ship did show Maria a lot about handling men. Who were these two women? The horny threesome had dissolved when the tall woman appeared. No one wanted to bid against her. She didn’t haggle over the price so she must be a woman of wealth as well as power. Maria had left everything she possessed back at the slave emporium. All she was given, as she was prepared for travel, was the golden bracelet, the gold chain around her waist and her high heels with stockings. They had dressed her in a simple shift, which in the mild weather was sufficient clothing.

They entered a gated and guarded compound and soon arrived at a large house sat back in the hills. The two women got out carrying many packages. The slave market was not their only shopping. Maria was surprised that they didn’t try to pile all the packages on her. After all, she was the slave. Wait a minute, the smaller woman also wore the golden bracelet. So far, for Maria, Antarian society became very complicated. The woman of power walked beside the woman who obviously was another slave. They carried packages that apparently they had each purchased. The new slave, who had nothing to carry, was allowed to follow them into the living quarters.

Once in their living quarters, the tall woman turned. “My name is Isabel. I am the clone of the sister of the king.” Maria could tell that Isabel was a woman of authority and used to being obeyed. “This is Teresa, she is a political slave from the Antar Four system.” Isabel explained this without regard to any feelings from the second woman. “According to your papers, you are Maria, from Earth. I purchased you as a gift for the birthday of the second in command to the clone of the king. His house has been closed for many passages of the slowest moon. It will be some time before it is up and running properly. Once the household is functioning, we will prepare for the birthday of the king’s second in command.”

Maria was sure that the princess, if that was what she was, was being extra careful in her speech. They, as yet, had no idea of how well Maria could speak or understand. Maria was taken to a spare bedroom. Eventually a wardrobe trunk was brought in and set up in a corner. There was no one to tell her not to, so Maria’s curiosity got the better of her. She opened the wardrobe and saw dresses, gowns, slacks and jackets all sized for her. Looking at Teresa, Maria saw that the Antarians didn’t stint on the clothes they gave their slaves. In one drawer, Maria found a book of poetry. She found several sheets of music manuscript. There also was something that resembled a computer, that Maria had no idea how to use and paper, pens and ink. They had high intentions for Maria.

Isabel entered the guest room and looking at Maria said, “I expected you to change from that ridiculous dress and put on some comfortable shoes. It is the men of Antar who like tall women, women of Antar just want to be comfortable.” Isabel went to the wardrobe and took out a pair of slacks, underwear, a tee shirt and some comfortable shoes. “Put these on and we will talk.”

Maria quickly changed with the two women looking on. Then, taking a seat on the bed, she faced Isabel and her other slave.

“Michael is a good man. At one time, it was said that we would be mates. We were lovers for a short time. Neither of us could give the other what we needed. Originally, I purchased Teresa for my brother. It was to be a surprise and that is what it was. My brother announced that he had entered into contract with an Earth woman. I offered Teresa to Michael, but they never even got to the bedding stage before Michael told me to take her back. I am afraid he was a bit rude. Teresa was terribly hurt. Now, I have bought you,” Isabel stated.

Michael was rude to the slave. Why did the princess feel that this information was important? What were her feelings toward the slave Teresa and thus, what would the princesses’ feelings be toward Maria? “Maybe Michael should buy or get a woman on his own,” Maria suggested more bravely than she actually felt. Maria was still reeling with confusion as to her own position in Antarian society.

Isabel laughed, “I think this time, with you, I was right. You may be the one who will stand up to Michael and give his life meaning. Left alone, Michael would continue to fight my brother’s wars. He wouldn’t ever get anywhere. He would be satisfied with the women he picked up at some pleasure house. Just because we can’t be lovers, doesn’t mean I don’t think a lot of Michael. Yes, I think you will do. That is, you will do, if you do your part.”

Maria looked down. This didn’t make sense. “Isabel, I am a slave. I can’t make anyone do anything they don’t want to,” Maria replied.

Isabel laughed again that laugh that reminded Maria of bells, both musical and commanding. “Maria, by location of birth, you are human. By genetic chance at conception, you are female and by your records of training, you should be able to make any man do whatever you want. You just have to learn how. I am asking you to make Michael happy,” Isabel acted like what she was asking would be easy.

“How, Isabel? I am not sure that I can make myself happy in this situation. Being a slave is a pretty bad thing,” Maria said.

“Maria I don’t intend to belittle your predicament. I don’t pretend to say, as the sister of the king, I understand where you are coming from. I do say that to an extent, slavery is a universal condition. You just came from the worst depths of slavery I can imagine. We were taught that there are over seven billion people on Earth. You dedicated your life to something you had little chance of obtaining. Over seven billion people on Earth and how many do you think can achieve status or occupation through education? You were destined from birth to live in the slavery of equality. Here, I can assure you that your conditions will be better than what was to be your fate on Earth.”

Maria looked at the princess. “Do I have any choice in my fate?” she asked.

“More than you ever would have had on Earth. Maria, Earth only needs a couple dozen singers,” Isabel continued. “Take any vocation. What chance does any one person have of being successful? You strive, you work and you fail. You weren’t good enough. There were powers of influence. Judges were bribed. You are, then, condemned to the masses of equality after you had enslaved your life for a dream. You soon learn to do what you have to survive. Students like you keep being condemned to those masses until the workers and upper crust can no longer support them. Then, Maria, the balloon breaks. What do you think will happen to both men and women when this occurs? What skills in school did you learn to stay alive? What would you do then for a crust of bread when you are hungry? I assure you that if you are accepted by the king’s second, a crust of bread will be your least problem.”

Isabel frowned as she waited for her words to sink into Maria’s mind. She again continued, “To forestall that collapse on Earth, groups of students about to fail are sold off as slaves. You financed, for a time, those of equality. You, also, brought wealth to the men who conspired to send you into slavery. Earth washes their hands of all of you and someone else finds things for you to do. Maybe, those things are not so pleasant. Did you ever think that if you had been successful back on Earth that you still would have to grace the beds of the barons to get permission to sing, to publish, to perform? Now, I want to send you to grace the bed of a man I think is great. He is a man I still love. Whether you find this pleasant or not, is up to you. If you want, you can use your relationship with him to help rule this world. Remember, as you do, that, I couldn’t satisfy him.
I will be alone in a cold bed because of this failure and in my station, I haven’t found anyone, yet, to grace my bed. Tess is alone in bed because I made a mistake and tried to plan for my brother, the king. Maria, we all do what we must to wake up and see another day, perhaps a better day.” Isabel finished explaining and left.

Maria knew that she would be moved as soon as this Michael’s home was prepared. Apparently, Michael had been away from his home for some time. Maria had a lot to think about. How could a girl, not yet out of school, rule a prince? The second of the king, he must be a prince. What did being owned, by this prince, mean? What would he expect of her? All her life she had been waiting for that prince to come for her. Now, Maria had been brought to the prince. Maria understood the sex part of being a personal slave, she had been schooled in that the whole trip from Earth. The way Isabel talked, Michael would expect and need much more.

Then, what did Isabel mean, when she said with emotion that, she would have to sleep in a cold bed because she had failed with Michael? If she had failed, what chance did a dropout like Maria have to succeed? What was it with these spacers, so noble to look at and, seemingly, so unable to find satisfaction for themselves? Isabel had left her with a challenge. Maria could try to change Isabel’s prince into being a great prince, a man of compassion and wit, to be a man who could rule beside the king. Maybe, Maria could make him a man who could rule with her at his side. The princess had implied something like that. The spacers wanted something from women like Maria. Otherwise, why had Maria commanded such a great price? Everywhere Maria looked, she saw women of great beauty. Margaret said that men would buy her for her looks. Maria, had been bought by a woman, apparently, a woman of power and distinction.
-----------------------------
Stories by Ken
Good teachers are born that way, not made. No! Good human beings, are born that way. Some of them become teachers.

Of course, life is not fair. You shouldn't expect it to be fair, but you should expect it to be ironic.
JKR 1981-2001
History is made of wars, recovering from wars and preparing for the next war.
JJR 1975-
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ken_r
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Location: New Mexico

Re: Apocalypse, CC, mature, ch3, pg2, Dec 22, 2013

Post by ken_r »

begonia9508: The meaning of freedom is debated throughout most of the story.

HypnotiqBlueEyes:

Natalie36:

keepsmining7


Chapter 4

Catching up with Liz

It had seemed like years since Liz signed the contract. The time had been spent in training and education both on the trip and, also, once she arrived on Antar. Unlike Maria’s trip and arrival, Liz had no time for sex, romantic or otherwise. It had been two years after arriving, before Liz met the man who held her contract. Two years at what had been much like the hardest classes back home. Now, he seemed nice enough. Nice enough! He was the ruler of much of the nearby universe! That blew Liz away. When she had made her contract, they had not named, who she would work for. Taking this contract had been difficult for Liz. Liz had been the one with the big plans. This had been one of the lowest times of her life. She could see her failure as being forced to sell her future to a stranger. Now, she found out that she would be working for a man with more power than anyone on the planet Earth. The smallest of small Earth girls was now assistant to a king.

So far, he kept her near with little conversation, as he tended the chores of office. Others had told Liz that she was to learn as much as she could about what he did. She would be required to anticipate his every move and assist him in every way. She had been warned that he was a man of moods. She and the king had scarcely spoken to each other. At first, she thought he was rude and arrogant. How was she supposed to learn about such a man? Now, Liz decided that the king was shy. She was sure that he was not weak, but most probably, shy working closely with strangers. Give him a blaster, a sword or a ship the Max she saw could destroy a system, killing thousands of people. Later, she would learn how true this was. In Liz’s mind, she could see her king in uniform shouting, “Surrender or face no quarter when I attack.” It was much later when Liz had time to contemplate, since when had she used the term, “My king.” Then, she wondered a little about her own safety.

Liz worked for the king, but it was Isabel, the king’s sister, who explained Liz’s duties. There was nothing shy about Isabel. Isabel was third in line to the throne. Isabel was very vocal about not wanting that position. Isabel was the one to bolster the king’s position and to assure his success. “ If Max goes to a government ball, he is likely to disappear gazing at the possibilities of a billiard table, to be found only when it is time to go home. This isn’t acceptable for a king. A king is the one the people look up to. A king is the one who the people see as a sign that every thing will be good,” Isabel explained.

As his trusted assistant, Liz was exposed to the king’s tantrums, yeah, and those of his sister right beside him. Several times, Liz found herself between the conflicts of these two. “Liz, flocks of biddies, all of them wanting to be impregnated by the king. How can I rule, if I have to dodge paternity suits all the time?” he pleaded. “I know what Isabel says, she says it to me often enough. I am the king. I should be able to tell those with designs to back off. Facing people I command is easy. Facing those who want personal things from me is hell.”

“But, the king must be seen as strong. There is trouble in the kingdom. Max must be seen as strong by everyone,” Isabel quickly said. The ease of the king is what the people look at to believe that the kingdom is strong.

To Liz, it seemed that she had been interjected between the quarreling factions of Max and his sister. “Max, Isabel says that I am to constantly be your consort. It should be part of my job not to allow you to be pressured by those who do not have your best interest. You will have to tell me when their attentions are desired and then, I will step back and retire. Until then, Isabel says that I must put myself between you and those you wish weren’t there,” Liz stated. Privately, Liz wondered how a simple Earth girl, not a warrior, could turn away those represented by the powers of Antar. Here was the quandary; Liz had been hired as the king’s assistant. To do this, she must take on the office of his consort. She must be a consort of convenience as she was sure the king had liaisons of his own. Liz couldn’t imagine a man of such power not having whatever women he desired. Liz must always be ready to step aside at his command. Any romantic notions she might have felt must be squashed. Anything he required of her must stay in perspective. This wouldn’t be that hard as long as their relationship was strictly professional. How would Liz handle requirements that to her might be of a more personal nature? There were only brief flashes of her really being the one with the king.

Liz was met the next day by the king’s sister. Liz had no idea what the king had told Isabel. Something had made the sister angry and it looked like she was mad at Liz. Isabel stared at Liz for several minutes “Were you trying to gain favor in the mind of the king?”

“Isabel believe me. I am fond of Max. I work for him, but I would never push him in any action that might be viewed incorrectly for my benefit. Believe me, I know my station.” Liz stated. Now, she had done it. Liz was learning how easily the nobility of Antar might see an implication in any suggestion. When you are king or even sister to the king, you see enemies on every side. The problem was that Liz didn’t know all the meanings of the Antarian language. Had the king seen, some improper implications in the definition Liz had given of her duties? “You told me that for Max to hide during royal social situations was unacceptable. I had intended to offer myself as a shield to insulate him from unwanted advances, keep him from hiding, nothing more. I thought that was what you wanted,” Liz explained.

Isabel studied Liz for several minutes. “You didn’t attempt to seduce the king, telling him that you would be the one seen with him so others would turn away?”

“Isabel, I only meant that unless he wanted the attention of others, he could use me as a shield. He could always say that he had a consort and he had to attend her rather than listen to the prattle he wanted to avoid,” Liz explained. I have never considered myself as anything but his assistant.

Isabel calmed down as she studied Liz. “Maybe, it is me who jumps to false conclusions. You were told during your interview that men and women working closely together might lead to them being lovers. If such leads you and Max together, Antar must be sure that the feelings are real and mutual. Max is the clone of the king. He can’t afford to embroil his emotions in anything frivolous.”

“Isabel, those words again. You say that you and Max are the clones of the king and his sister. What does that mean?” Liz inquired.

Isabel became very serious. “Max, myself and his second in command are clones of those kept in the fortress. If something happens to one of us, we would be replaced by another clone or set of clones. We rule the kingdom, but the royal bloodline is protected from being broken. More about those in the fortress, we are not encouraged to know. We know that they protect the bloodline, nothing more.”

Liz nodded and said, “That is why the genes of the king must not be spread around in a frivolous manner.”

Isabel nodded. “It is a lot of responsibility. As clones, we can be replaced and the bloodline continues forever. That is the reason for my display of anger. For a minute, I thought you were attempting to interrupt the blood lines for your own gain.”

“Isabel, I took the job of being at the call of the king. We have a saying, back on old Earth, ‘I ride for the brand.’ This means, taking remuneration for my contract binds me to support and defend the man holding the brand,” Liz finished. Later, Liz wondered where she had heard that expression. It sounded like a cowboy expression, but as a student, Liz hadn’t had the time to waste on trivial subjects such as romantic history. It might be later when Liz thought of the price of riding for the brand.

Isabel granted one of her rare smiles. “Quaint expression. See to it and you might be the one we have been searching for. Humh, Ride for the brand. Now that might be a new motto.” Then, Isabel made an even rarer move as she picked up a letter opener and raised it high. “I, Isabel, sister to the clone of the king. I ride for the brand. Don’t thwart me, don’t doubt me.”

With Isabel’s warning, Liz was circumspect as to her actions with the king at work, but she noticed that he opened up more to her and he began to ask her about her feelings and her opinions more. Was this about what she had said to him before or were they naturally reaching that comfort range in their association? Again, Liz reminded herself that she didn’t think this was what the interviewer meant when he said that sometimes coworkers formed closer relationships. She was sure that he had no idea of who wanted her contract. If Mr. Summers had been shopping for a consort for the king, wouldn’t he have chosen a much greater person than Liz? Liz was sure that the genes of the king were not to be mixed with those of an Earth girl.

Some of the things the king asked were how his actions would be received by those around him. This wasn’t the science Liz had prepared her life to expound. “Max, once when I was very young, I had a friend who believed we all had the right to dream. I guess she is back on Earth and I really hope she found that dream. Some of the things you ask me, I have to mentally ask, how would Maria answer?”

Max made a rare smile. “You were taught to accept, then to question. That dichotomy is what I need. I need someone close to accept what is and then, ask questions to guide me so I can make the best decisions.”

It had been a while since Liz had thought this much about Maria. Liz wondered where was Maria now. How would Maria have answered Max if he had asked questions about his decisions?

---------------------------

Maria was sitting on the bed prepared by Isabel and Tess. The bed had two bright red sheets. “Isn’t that a little too suggestive,” Maria had asked.

Isabel looked at Tess and they both broke into smiles. “Sometimes, Michael has to be hit over the head before he takes a hint,” Isabel remarked.

Maria looked a little perplexed. “What if he goes into a temper tantrum and takes it out on me,” Maria whispered. Maria knew the answer. She was a slave and the two women might have regrets if something happened to her, but would they really lose any times thinking about this? Maria voiced this mostly to her self. Maria looked at how Isabel and Tess worked together. She still didn’t have a grip on this slave business. It wasn’t rights she was looking for. Maria was accepting that now she was a slave, she had no rights. Maybe she was wondering what behaviors were proper or acceptable for her to have? As a living entity she had a drive of self-preservation. This was tempered by the fact that she wasn’t a free being. The things she had done, so far, had not always been of her choosing. They hadn’t been that threatening either. The time on the slave ship, when Maria was at the call of the crew and officers, now fell to the level of doing what she needed to survive. Maria didn’t know Michael. Both Isabel and Tess did know him. A curiosity grew in Maria. She wondered if she dared to ask. Finally, Maria heard her own voice as if from somewhere else, “Tess, Isabel said you and Michael were set up to be lovers, but it didn’t go well. Do you mind telling me what happened.”

For the first time since Maria had known the two women, she saw that Tess deferred to Isabel. This was the first time she had seen evidence that Tess wasn’t a free woman. Maria saw that Isabel nodded giving permission and Tess began.

“Sometimes two people are like oil and water. You can shake them up a bit, but they always part to go their own different ways. Isabel always said that was Michael and her self. It had been said that Valandra and Rath, the originals back in the fortress, had been lovers. When their clones, Isabel and Michael, came together they felt that they had to at least try each other out, investigate the possibilities. Since then, we have all heard more about the originals. Valandra spreads her legs and love without limits. There are many reasons for keeping Valandra, the original, locked up where she can’t do any harm. Michael, the clone, is the second most important individual in the ruling of Antar, after the king. We don’t know much about Rath, except for his time with Valandra, back in the fortress. Clones don’t act exactly like their donors, they do have inclinations to, maybe, be similar.

I was a political hostage sold into slavery to cement a treaty and pay a debt. Isabel saw me as possibly a mate for her brother. We know how far this got. I have hardly ever met the king. Then, Isabel decided that the second most important man to her life being Michael, I might be the one to bring peace to him. Isabel and Michael were like oil and water. They mixed together, then, quickly pulled apart. Michael and I were like fire and water. If pushed together, I would turn to steam and float away and Michael would turn to ash and blow away. I am a person of steady passion. I can’t blow hot and cold. I need a source of steady passion that doesn’t change. Michael is moody. You will need to learn, see, feel and then, sculpt these moods. When he is in strong passion, you need to return this passion. As this mood changes to depression, you need to show understanding. You must be his lover, his mommy and his care giver. I couldn’t do it. Hopefully, you can.”

Maria thought for several minutes. She didn’t have the right to ask, but she couldn’t help it. “Did Michael ever strike you?”

Tess gave a little laugh. She, more than Isabel, could see where Maria’s question was coming from. “Heavens no, Maria! Michael will never strike you. Michael wouldn’t see you as an enemy. If angered about you, Michael might strike out at Isabel verbally. He probably will blame every thing that aggravates him about you on her, but Michael would never strike someone of the family.”

“Am I of the family?” Maria tentatively asked.

Isabel, now, laughed. “Maria, you are probably the most expensive member of our family.”

Isabel didn’t see how her comment hurt Maria, bringing Maria’s social status back to her mind. She surely didn’t intend to hurt Maria. Tess did understand and she put her arms around the Earth girl. Maria had another question that was more practical and that was, “How am I going to tame Michael when he gets in his depressions?”

Isabel pointed to the outside and Tess departed. Minutes later, Tess returned carrying a large guitar case. Maria had played the electric guitar back in school and she had a great love for the instrument. She wondered how the Earth instrument could be hooked up on Antar. Antar had an electrical system, but Maria was sure that it must be very different from back home. Back home, that was something else that she was going to have to quit thinking about.

Isabel spoke up. “With his friends in the military, Michael listens to the worst music you can imagine.”

Tess interjected, “Something like two of your wild Earth creatures in a garbage can.”

“I think what Tess is thinking about is what you would call wildcats. Yes, that is a good description. I have been with Michael when he was feeling lonely. Then his choice of music is soft and very natural folk music, things that have all, but been forgotten of our society. Earth was rich in folk music in the common era.” Isabel said as she took the case from Tess and opened it.

Maria could hardly believe her eyes. It was a wooden acoustic guitar, but that was like saying apple crates are the same as carved dining room chairs. It was a Pimentel handmade guitar from the late twentieth century. Maria caressed the strings. “It has been tuned by computers,” Isabel stated.

Maria strummed the strings as she was slightly turning several of the tuning nuts. “You don’t want it in perfect tune, Isabel. The player tunes the strings to beat as they feel. This is a twelve-string model so every note will have depth.”

“I am glad you like it, we had to rely on the advice of others. Sometimes that is not good,” Isabel said with satisfaction.

Time was drawing close to when Michael would return. Tess went to the door again and called out in some strange tongue. It was a language that Maria had not yet studied.

Two creatures came in. They were like those who tended Maria at the slave sale. They were mammalian and they were definitely female. “Ech and Och will tend to you. They are experts in preparing couples for copulation. When they call us, we will send Michael home.”

Maria stripped, mostly directed by motions made by two creatures. They combed her hair and wove small flowers in the strands. Her toe and fingernails were painted in the same hue of red. Her face was lightened by some foundation and a blush applied to give it appeal. They hung a robe around her body and taking her to the red-sheeted bed, they pulled back the top sheet and sat her on the other one. The creatures carefully removed Maria’s robe from her shoulders, pulling it down to rest on the bed under her. Placing the guitar in her arms, the two creatures stepped back making many squeaks and clicks as they expressed their satisfaction. They quickly left and Maria guessed they called Isabel.

Sitting and waiting for, she knew not what, Maria strummed the beautiful instrument. In school, Maria had learned a soft French love song. She didn’t have the foggiest idea of what the words meant, they just hung so well together. Maria was playing and softly singing when the door burst open and Michael strode in to his house. For many minutes, he stood there taking in all that he saw. Maria looked up to see a tall, well built young man. As Michael stood, Maria sat strumming and singing, she was studying what she saw. If this man was angry, he would do serious damage. Maria saw that Michael’s eyes were running up and down the body before him.

Maria quit singing, but continued to play. Finally, she said, “My name is Maria and I am your birthday present.

Michael frowned. He hated surprises and Isabel was continually trying to give him a surprise, anyway. Maybe, she had some guilt for not being what he needed as a companion. “You play and you sing. What else do you do?” Michael asked.

Maria spoke quietly, “Neither of us will know until we try.

In two strides, Michael was standing in front of Maria. Michael leaned over and taking the guitar he placed it on the table. Her accent, her appearance, Michael was sure that Maria was an Earth slave girl. Michael reached out and grasped Maria at her waist. Instinctively, by reflex, Maria grabbed his wrist. Michael lifted her off the bed and held her in front of him as one might do a puppy. The fleeting thought went through, Maria’s head of a video she had seen long ago in class, about puppies. Truly, herself, Maria had never seen a puppy. Michael turned her one way then the other as he gazed on her body. Maria, her feet some distance above the floor wondered, what did he have in store for her, next? She shivered in fear, the women had promised that Michael would never hurt her. When they said that, all three of them had their feet planted soundly on the floor. Held at arms length above the floor, Maria had many worries. Michael was a soldier and the strength he showed as he lifted her could promise a difficult time. Back on board the slave ship, Maria had been slapped and the man who slapped her was cut off from any sexual favors for the duration of the journey. Here, Maria was sure that there was no one to stand up for her. No matter what happened, Maria was on her own. Finally, his curiosity satisfied, Michael placed her back on the bed. Maria breathed a sigh of relief. Flat on her back in bed, Maria knew how to handle men.

He stood up and slowly took off his shirt, all the time looking at the woman before him. Maria gazed at his body; none of the men she had known on the ship had this good of a physic. Michael undressed slowly, watching Maria all the time. When he kicked off his boots and dropped his pants, Maria thought she might be in for a slightly rougher time than before, but it wouldn’t be anything she couldn’t handle.

The naked Maria shifted slightly on the bed leaving room for him. Now, Michael was down to his shorts. Standing in front of her, he dropped his shorts. This time when Michael leaned over the girl, she placed her arms around his neck. Together they climbed back further on the bed. The fear she had before slowly dissolved.

---------------

“Don’t you ever learn your lesson, Isabel? The last time you did this, you hurt both Michael and Tess. That is twice you have hurt Tess. This is the reason I hired an Earthling to be my companion. Isabel, you are the one who most needs a mate. You should concentrate on yourself and leave others to their own fates,” Max raved.

Liz was embarrassed at this outburst. She in fact agreed with Max, interfering in other’s lives was dangerous and hurt people. Privately, Liz saw that Isabel, behind all that, cold exterior, was a caring person. She was sister to the king and somehow that gave her drive to worry about others in this family. Liz would wonder what her place was in this family.
----------------------------------
Stories by Ken
Good teachers are born that way, not made. No! Good human beings, are born that way. Some of them become teachers.

Of course, life is not fair. You shouldn't expect it to be fair, but you should expect it to be ironic.
JKR 1981-2001
History is made of wars, recovering from wars and preparing for the next war.
JJR 1975-
User avatar
ken_r
Obsessed Roswellian
Posts: 861
Joined: Wed Oct 04, 2006 11:34 pm
Location: New Mexico

Re: Apocalypse, CC, mature, ch4, pg3, Dec 28, 2013

Post by ken_r »

begonia9508: The clones and the attitudes on what Antarians translate as slavery are the two questions in this story.

keepsmiling7: At this time Liz does not know what is expected or rather hoped for with her life. Fallacy in cloning is that somehow some greatness is preserved. Clones are not exact copies of the original. Here we will learn what is expected with the clones.

HypnotiqBlueEyes: With Maria and Michael, it is Maria who is worried about their relationship. With Liz and Max Liz does not have any stronger idea other than putting in her 20 years and returning to Earth.

Natalie36: Soon they will meet.


Chapter 5

Last night when Maria was sitting on the blood red bed sheets at Michael’s home and playing her newly acquired guitar, her music was all that kept her from melting down in fear. Maria had suffered almost everything men could do to her and she had been forced to do almost everything men had demanded of her. Where was that damned prince with the white horse, when she needed him?

Maria was not a tiny woman, but the strength of Michael when he raised her up from the bed, made her feel like a child. Their first night of carnal sex was not that much different from the way her life had been going since she had been removed from Earth. The marked difference was that when Michael finished his enjoyment of her body, he didn’t dismiss her to travel back some hallway to her own cold own bed. Curling up with a man who had satisfied his lust was an entirely different sensation for her.

It was his long-tailed white shirt that he threw to her as she emerged from the shower on their first morning and later, when he again placed her new guitar in her hands and leaned back to listen, that showed her a giant new step had been taken in her life. The shirts were given for her wear in his presence alone. Later, she would see her trademark golden gowns that he brought her, which were for audiences with others. Of course, by then, Maria learned that everything of fashion she had received had been from Isabel. Isabel did that for Michael’s pleasure as he sat looking at Maria.

Last night, Maria thought of the men who had refused to see her for who she was and called her the names of their sweethearts. That had been as close to love as Maria had ever been. She had been loved, but not as Maria. She had been the object of love for another woman, a woman who was light years away. Any pleasure she gave her partner would be locked away as a guilty memory to never be allowed to surface into his life again. Maria, after all, was just a Surrogate.

This morning as she walked about Michael’s apartment there were little things, like the caressing of her bare bottom, as she walked by him. The first time it happened, Maria froze expecting other demands. His hand remained caressing her body, but there was no movement to call on her for anything further, no movement to pull her to his lap or to travel his hand further up under the shirt. Eventually, Maria understood that any touching Michael did was an appreciation of her presence. Michael was not a man of words. At this time, his refusal of Tess and inability to make it with Isabel were still fresh in her mind. The only interest she saw was his eyes following her about the room. Back in the slave ship, Maria had started the ridiculous grading of each sexual encounter. They didn’t all come out great. Then, she had marked it up to experience, but now, Maria was taking her final test. Education in language and music had all been coached to improve her performance. Would Michael coach her in bed or would he send her back to Isabel as not being worth his time.

It wasn’t the first day, but several days after, as Maria moved about her perceived duties. She had been given to Michael. Maria couldn’t see her self as just a manikin to grace his bed. If she had been given to Michael, then, she should be useful to his life style at all times. The word wife hadn’t surfaced in her mind, but “useful domestic” had found its place. By now, Maria had become acustomed to his caresses as she passed by. Touching her butt, like he did, had even begun to stir feelings within her body. These feelings had never developed on the slave ship and she had nothing from Earth to compare. This time as she was picking things up about the room, Michael watching her said, “Stop.” Maria froze worrying about what would come next. “Turn,” Michael instructed. Maria was used to this. Why did men want their women to always turn so they could see her entire body? Maria did as instructed and when she was again facing Michael, he said, “Take off the shirt.” Okay, this had, many times, preceded demands for sex, so Maria disrobed and stood looking at him, waiting for his next command. For several minutes, Michael sat looking at her. Maria couldn’t read what he wanted. He made no demands, no motions of movement for his amusement, no further activities. Finally, Michael looked back at what he had been doing and said, “You may get dressed.” Maria slowly picked up the white shirt and put it back on. She never did understand that Michael was still amazed at his good fortune. Isabel had done herself proud.

The shirt was a convenience, as Michael knew almost every thing about her body by this time. Maria wondered when he would think that she did know enough other than, singing and playing the guitar, to be worth his time. Failures hung heavy on Maria’s mind. For all purposes in her mind she had failed at school. Someway she must have failed at being a free woman because that gold bracelet assured that she would always be a slave. To be rejected by Michael would tally up to all her failures, but (and this was a big but,) if Michael considered her a success, Maria’s life might have made a turn. Michael was a powerful man, both physically and politically. Maria’s future had been hooked to his. Was this one of the promises Margret had told her about?

----------------------------

Isabel signaled that she wanted to enter Michael’s home. Michael had left hours ago so Maria was the only one home. “Yes, Isabel,” Maria said as she opened the door.

The sight of Maria in Michael’s shirt promised that the nights were going well. In Isabel’s mind wearing that shirt, which barely offered Maria cover, was a sign that Michael was going to keep her, at least for a while. “Did Michael get off this morning?” Isabel asked.

“Yes, he said he had a meeting with the king,” Maria replied.

“Ah, it was a private meeting so only Michael and Max were to attend. Those always worry me. There is unrest throughout the monarchy and there is always danger when they go off alone. One strike could take out both the king and his assistant, leaving only me to hold the government until a new clone could be prepared. I have been trained to do this, but I prefer the training to remain in theory. The people could get a new king and second in command, but I could never get a new brother or best friend,” Isabel explained her worries.

“Isabel, since you are here, do you have time to talk?” Maria asked.

“Sure, what’s on your mind?” Isabel inquired.

“Its this slave thing,” Maria explained. “Tess is your slave yet, you both seem to be friends. I don’t understand that,” Maria stated.

“It is simple Maria Tess was sold into slavery by her family to cover debts that accumulated over generations. I bought her. I am not the one who placed her on the slave dock. I am not the one responsible for her situation,” Isabel explained. “I hope to help her make the best of the situation.”

“Forgive me if I speak bluntly, Isabel. If there weren’t people like you, then, her family wouldn’t have found the solution to place her in slavery,” stated Maria. For a minute, she forgot her position. It was the old Maria peeking forth.

Surprising to Maria, Isabel didn’t show any anger. “Perhaps, she wouldn’t be sold and then, perhaps her family and much of her race would be wiped out in a terrible war. People do frightful things over debts, actual and perceived. Maria, I bought you. I hope someday you will consider me your friend. Again, it was your world, your government, your school, which sold you. If I hadn’t decided on your purchase, then, there would have been somebody else. Those three young guys were practically salivating over some scheme they were trying to organize to purchase you. Suppose they had succeeded. They were way over their heads in that sort of financing. Whatever organization they put together would have, eventually, burst. Then you would have been, once again, on the block and probably for a much lower price. Many men were looking at you and if you were offered at a lower price, be assured that someone would have picked up your papers,” Isabel told Maria.

“Okay, then, I was lucky that you were there and in the mind to buy me. I think Michael is a good man and we will wait until we see how I handle his dark moods. If, as you say, music can sooth the beast within, then, we will have a good life together. It is still the slavery question. Isabel in the Common Era and before Earth had slavery. Slaves were beaten and ripped from their families. The life of a slave was a living horror. I have been told to do things, not of my choosing, but so far, no one has threatened me with punishment if I failed to comply,” Maria stated.

“Oh, my, Maria, your people used to beat and punish lower animals if my history is correct. Your people still punish those who do not meet the goals of the masters. You would have been punished if you had been left there. You were to be punished because there were others who could perform better than you could. You might have found a Don who would offer you a contract. Then what? He would keep you and show you off to his friends, maybe even offering to share you. The World Government, acknowledges the contracts with the dons, but they offer little oversight. When the contract had been fulfilled, would you have had anything left to assure success? You would be older and could find yourself down with the masses of equality. There, you would have been given that which you needed to live, but there would have been little joy at what life offered you. The chances are, that you would do many things to survive there. All would have been worse than anything you have faced so far. If you had reached the success in your music, don’t think that once there, you wouldn’t have had to do things not of your choosing? Maria, you would have had the talent, but to use that talent, many demands would have been made of you. Michael would never beat you. He would never punish you. He might argue with you, especially in his dark moods, but Maria, don’t ever fear that he would harm you. Michael is a properly brought up Antarian prince,” Isabel said.

It had been said that creatures of Earth had a fierce individual streak before the coming of the ‘Age of Enlightenment.’ Could Michael hold this creature and not break that streak? Michael appreciated beautiful things, though as a soldier, he could live very simply. His home had been chosen on the royal compound, but it was separate from the king’s main house. It had been furnished by possessions that Michael had obtained in his campaigns across the universe. Now, Isabel had contributed Maria, the guitar and Maria’s talent. Maria couldn’t help herself, but play beautiful music. Isabel hoped that would bring peace to Michael. Michael needed something other than being the king’s strong right arm.

Isabel was sure that this was the reason her brother had chosen an Earth woman as his companion. At this time, Isabel had no idea how deep the search for this companion had gone. Isabel had no idea how Max saw her actions as trying to derail the search that had already been started. Max hated to hurt the Antar Four princess’s feelings, but he already was engaged in finding the one he was looking for. Max didn’t want a companion who would bolster his ego. The milksops at the councils could do that. Max wanted someone who would see things that he missed. Max needed someone who would stand up and tell him if he was wrong. Isabel was his sister and she often told Max what she thought. He was too used to her. His companion would be a new source checking his actions. If his companion and his sister agreed, Max would be a poor king if he didn’t reconsider.

If Maria felt strongly, maybe, she would do the same for Michael. Michael’s dark moods were slowly consuming him. If he couldn’t be saved, the king would have to banish Michael and find another clone to play the king’s second. Maria seeing things through the eyes of an artist, might find ways to bring Michael back and eventually, banish the place his soul ran to hide.

The problem was in word meaning. To Maria, being a slave was to be made a dumb animal. A dumb animal, which looked to punishment, not reward, in her training. What could you expect from their educational system. Imagine, testing students until they fail and then, putting the failure on the student, instead of the method of education. In the time they were transported from Earth to Antar, both slaves and contractees learned more than they did in years of their Earth education. In her studies of Earth history, Isabel saw that many humans had a fantasy idea of total freedom as something to work toward. Maybe, they found this in the equality of the masses. Here, they had found freedom from work, freedom from necessities and freedom from humanity.

Maria’s voice brought Isabel back from her musings. “Isabel, do you mean to tell me that no one on Antar beats their slaves?” she asked.

“Of course not and I don’t mean to tell you, that men and women don’t beat their mates either. Antarians are not perfect. Lord help the man who the king hears who beats either his mate or his slave. Resorting to violence in domestic differences and training is highly frowned upon,” Isabel answered.

“Okay, what happens if a slave refuses to do what they are told?” Maria posed the question.

“Maria, what happens if an employee refused to do their job, back on Earth?” Isabel returned with a question of her own.

“I guess the employee would be fired. They would have to look for a new job,” Maria answered.

“And, if there were no other jobs, what then?” Isabel returned again.

“I guess the employee would be consigned to the equality of the masse,” the Earth girl responded.

“And, if the masses were no longer supported?” Isabel proposed.

“I… guess, they would have to turn to family or to do the work they found objectionable…” Maria murmured. Isabel was meeting her questions with questions of her own.

“Right, so they were not free to refuse to do what they were told in the first place,” Isabel concluded. Then, she added, “Maria, you have to get past the meaning you are attaching to our word slave. You will find that we have different value systems and we don’t agree that what we demand is as demeaning as you might. It doesn’t mean you are to be treated like a dumb animal back on Earth.” Isabel was thinking of the riding steeds she kept in her stable. Many times, they were better cared for than sentient populations on poorer planets.

“Isabel, in the history of the common era, it was said that there were documents of human rights. Do the people, even the free people, have anything like that here?” Maria asked.

“Maria, we have been studying earth history for many years. It was true that even before your common era, there were arguments about individual rights. Much of the Common Era history is made up of defending those rights. Documents would be written down and produced. Then, those rights would be bartered away for security and profit. There was one government, which paraded what it called the ‘Bill of Rights,’ before the world. Many other governments copied various examples of these rights into their own laws. Politicians trampled those rights with regularity because the same people who wrote them were not diligent enough to enforce them. Leading up to your one world government, these rights were slowly eroded by executive orders, congressional declarations and finally the desire for popular security at the cost of freedom. Soon, the rights were what the government said you were allowed. Then under world government, human rights gave way for the good of the state.”

History lesson over, Isabel stood up. “Maria, Michael and Max expect us to meet them at noon. Isabel went to Maria’s wardrobe and started to sort through her clothes.

Soon if things kept going right, Isabel and Tess would have to help Maria move all her possessions into Michael’s house proper. “Maria, what is your best color? You need to pick out a skirt, jacket, blouse and hose.

---------------------

Tess had just entered Max’s home. To be on call, Liz had an apartment near Max’s quarters in the main house. Isabel had assigned Tess to pick up Liz and make sure she arrived on time to the luncheon Max had planned. “Tess, Max left before I even got up this morning. Is there a problem? Liz asked.

“Isabel says there is always a problem when they have those secret meetings. Secret means meetings that Isabel is not invited to. I guess that, also, means meetings Max does not take you to either,” Tess laughed.

“Tess, what is the relationship between Isabel and yourself, if you don’t mind me asking?” Liz asked.

“Isabel is my friend and benefactor. Her reasons for my purchase were very altruistic. She purchased me as a gift for her brother. He turned me down. At that the time, I was hurt, but now, I think it was probably for the best. Then, she made me a present for Michael, the one other man she loves, but I cannot love in the way he needs,” Tess answered. “That didn’t go so well, either. Max didn’t want me and the stress of being what Michael might have wanted would have been too great.”

Don’t you resent being a slave?” Liz asked, again.

Tess was silent for a time, “Maybe, sometimes, I think of what might have happened if I was free, but then I ask, what is freedom, except for nothing left to loose? I was raised with the knowledge that my sacrifice was necessary to cover an unfortunate dept. I don’t blame Isabel for purchasing me. I could have been picked up by a high-end establishment of pleasure, but they usually like slaves who have proved to be incorrigible. They say that the difficulty in following procedures prolongs spontaneity as a sex object. I could have been picked up by some elderly Antarian and I imagine, that my life would not been as exciting as it has been with the king’s sister. It might have been nice if Michael and I would have worked. Being the consort to the number two man on Antar might have proved exciting. That just wasn’t to be. I couldn’t handle Michael’s mood swings. We would have destroyed each other. Michael, Max and Isabel finally agreed, so here I am. To some, it seems strange, but I am friend and companion to the sister of the king,” Tess explained.

That struck a note with Liz, but there was something else first. “What happens to the incorrigible ones at the house of pleasure?” Liz asked. This was the first sign she had seen as a weakness in the Antarian psyche.

“If the slaves refuse to take on patrons, then, they don’t eat. It is simple. People work when they have to. We don’t have a welfare system like Earth,” she answered.

“You mean that if they won’t take the men to bed at the house of pleasure, they are punished by not being fed?” Liz inquired.

“No, we see it as they haven’t earned the right to eat. Nothing is free in life. It is rare that anyone ends up in one of these houses unless they have not accommodated to more than two other assignments,” Tess explained.

“You mentioned that you could have been picked up by a high end house. What would you have done if that had happened?” Liz inquired.

“With the purchase price Isabel paid, I could have demanded a large cut in what any man would pay for my company. I could purchase my freedom, but what would I do with it. I could also purchase the house of pleasure and run it for my own profit,” Tess explained.

“I see your answers, but I am not sure that I understand,” Liz finally answered. “What are your duties to the sister of the king?”

“I accompany her when she goes places. That is all,” Tess answered.

“If you are willing to tell me, does Isabel make other demands of you?” Liz asked.

“If you mean are we lovers, the answer is no. Isabel needs a man, the king has told her often enough. It would be nice if, some day, I had a man, even if it was only occasionally. Isabel says that the meaning of slave in your world is very different from what it is in ours. Our word ‘slave’ doesn’t translate very well to those with Earth backgrounds. These are the only answers I can give.” The blonde lady went to Liz’s wardrobe closet and asked, “What do you think you want to wear to lunch with the king and his court?”
----------------------

Chapter 5

Last night when Maria was sitting on the blood red bed sheets at Michael’s home and playing her newly acquired guitar, her music was all that kept her from melting down in fear. Maria had suffered almost everything men could do to her and she had been forced to do almost everything men had demanded of her. Where was that damned prince with the white horse, when she needed him?

Maria was not a tiny woman, but the strength of Michael when he raised her up from the bed, made her feel like a child. Their first night of carnal sex was not that much different from the way her life had been going since she had been removed from Earth. The marked difference was that when Michael finished his enjoyment of her body, he didn’t dismiss her to travel back some hallway to her own cold own bed. Curling up with a man who had satisfied his lust was an entirely different sensation for her.

It was his long-tailed white shirt that he threw to her as she emerged from the shower on their first morning and later, when he again placed her new guitar in her hands and leaned back to listen, that showed her a giant new step had been taken in her life. The shirts were given for her wear in his presence alone. Later, she would see her trademark golden gowns that he brought her, which were for audiences with others. Of course, by then, Maria learned that everything of fashion she had received had been from Isabel. Isabel did that for Michael’s pleasure as he sat looking at Maria.

Last night, Maria thought of the men who had refused to see her for who she was and called her the names of their sweethearts. That had been as close to love as Maria had ever been. She had been loved, but not as Maria. She had been the object of love for another woman, a woman who was light years away. Any pleasure she gave her partner would be locked away as a guilty memory to never be allowed to surface into his life again. Maria, after all, was just a Surrogate.

This morning as she walked about Michael’s apartment there were little things, like the caressing of her bare bottom, as she walked by him. The first time it happened, Maria froze expecting other demands. His hand remained caressing her body, but there was no movement to call on her for anything further, no movement to pull her to his lap or to travel his hand further up under the shirt. Eventually, Maria understood that any touching Michael did was an appreciation of her presence. Michael was not a man of words. At this time, his refusal of Tess and inability to make it with Isabel were still fresh in her mind. The only interest she saw was his eyes following her about the room. Back in the slave ship, Maria had started the ridiculous grading of each sexual encounter. They didn’t all come out great. Then, she had marked it up to experience, but now, Maria was taking her final test. Education in language and music had all been coached to improve her performance. Would Michael coach her in bed or would he send her back to Isabel as not being worth his time.

It wasn’t the first day, but several days after, as Maria moved about her perceived duties. She had been given to Michael. Maria couldn’t see her self as just a manikin to grace his bed. If she had been given to Michael, then, she should be useful to his life style at all times. The word wife hadn’t surfaced in her mind, but “useful domestic” had found its place. By now, Maria had become acustomed to his caresses as she passed by. Touching her butt, like he did, had even begun to stir feelings within her body. These feelings had never developed on the slave ship and she had nothing from Earth to compare. This time as she was picking things up about the room, Michael watching her said, “Stop.” Maria froze worrying about what would come next. “Turn,” Michael instructed. Maria was used to this. Why did men want their women to always turn so they could see her entire body? Maria did as instructed and when she was again facing Michael, he said, “Take off the shirt.” Okay, this had, many times, preceded demands for sex, so Maria disrobed and stood looking at him, waiting for his next command. For several minutes, Michael sat looking at her. Maria couldn’t read what he wanted. He made no demands, no motions of movement for his amusement, no further activities. Finally, Michael looked back at what he had been doing and said, “You may get dressed.” Maria slowly picked up the white shirt and put it back on. She never did understand that Michael was still amazed at his good fortune. Isabel had done herself proud.

The shirt was a convenience, as Michael knew almost every thing about her body by this time. Maria wondered when he would think that she did know enough other than, singing and playing the guitar, to be worth his time. Failures hung heavy on Maria’s mind. For all purposes in her mind she had failed at school. Someway she must have failed at being a free woman because that gold bracelet assured that she would always be a slave. To be rejected by Michael would tally up to all her failures, but (and this was a big but,) if Michael considered her a success, Maria’s life might have made a turn. Michael was a powerful man, both physically and politically. Maria’s future had been hooked to his. Was this one of the promises Margret had told her about?

----------------------------

Isabel signaled that she wanted to enter Michael’s home. Michael had left hours ago so Maria was the only one home. “Yes, Isabel,” Maria said as she opened the door.

The sight of Maria in Michael’s shirt promised that the nights were going well. In Isabel’s mind wearing that shirt, which barely offered Maria cover, was a sign that Michael was going to keep her, at least for a while. “Did Michael get off this morning?” Isabel asked.

“Yes, he said he had a meeting with the king,” Maria replied.

“Ah, it was a private meeting so only Michael and Max were to attend. Those always worry me. There is unrest throughout the monarchy and there is always danger when they go off alone. One strike could take out both the king and his assistant, leaving only me to hold the government until a new clone could be prepared. I have been trained to do this, but I prefer the training to remain in theory. The people could get a new king and second in command, but I could never get a new brother or best friend,” Isabel explained her worries.

“Isabel, since you are here, do you have time to talk?” Maria asked.

“Sure, what’s on your mind?” Isabel inquired.

“Its this slave thing,” Maria explained. “Tess is your slave yet, you both seem to be friends. I don’t understand that,” Maria stated.

“It is simple Maria Tess was sold into slavery by her family to cover debts that accumulated over generations. I bought her. I am not the one who placed her on the slave dock. I am not the one responsible for her situation,” Isabel explained. “I hope to help her make the best of the situation.”

“Forgive me if I speak bluntly, Isabel. If there weren’t people like you, then, her family wouldn’t have found the solution to place her in slavery,” stated Maria. For a minute, she forgot her position. It was the old Maria peeking forth.

Surprising to Maria, Isabel didn’t show any anger. “Perhaps, she wouldn’t be sold and then, perhaps her family and much of her race would be wiped out in a terrible war. People do frightful things over debts, actual and perceived. Maria, I bought you. I hope someday you will consider me your friend. Again, it was your world, your government, your school, which sold you. If I hadn’t decided on your purchase, then, there would have been somebody else. Those three young guys were practically salivating over some scheme they were trying to organize to purchase you. Suppose they had succeeded. They were way over their heads in that sort of financing. Whatever organization they put together would have, eventually, burst. Then you would have been, once again, on the block and probably for a much lower price. Many men were looking at you and if you were offered at a lower price, be assured that someone would have picked up your papers,” Isabel told Maria.

“Okay, then, I was lucky that you were there and in the mind to buy me. I think Michael is a good man and we will wait until we see how I handle his dark moods. If, as you say, music can sooth the beast within, then, we will have a good life together. It is still the slavery question. Isabel in the Common Era and before Earth had slavery. Slaves were beaten and ripped from their families. The life of a slave was a living horror. I have been told to do things, not of my choosing, but so far, no one has threatened me with punishment if I failed to comply,” Maria stated.

“Oh, my, Maria, your people used to beat and punish lower animals if my history is correct. Your people still punish those who do not meet the goals of the masters. You would have been punished if you had been left there. You were to be punished because there were others who could perform better than you could. You might have found a Don who would offer you a contract. Then what? He would keep you and show you off to his friends, maybe even offering to share you. The World Government, acknowledges the contracts with the dons, but they offer little oversight. When the contract had been fulfilled, would you have had anything left to assure success? You would be older and could find yourself down with the masses of equality. There, you would have been given that which you needed to live, but there would have been little joy at what life offered you. The chances are, that you would do many things to survive there. All would have been worse than anything you have faced so far. If you had reached the success in your music, don’t think that once there, you wouldn’t have had to do things not of your choosing? Maria, you would have had the talent, but to use that talent, many demands would have been made of you. Michael would never beat you. He would never punish you. He might argue with you, especially in his dark moods, but Maria, don’t ever fear that he would harm you. Michael is a properly brought up Antarian prince,” Isabel said.

It had been said that creatures of Earth had a fierce individual streak before the coming of the ‘Age of Enlightenment.’ Could Michael hold this creature and not break that streak? Michael appreciated beautiful things, though as a soldier, he could live very simply. His home had been chosen on the royal compound, but it was separate from the king’s main house. It had been furnished by possessions that Michael had obtained in his campaigns across the universe. Now, Isabel had contributed Maria, the guitar and Maria’s talent. Maria couldn’t help herself, but play beautiful music. Isabel hoped that would bring peace to Michael. Michael needed something other than being the king’s strong right arm.

Isabel was sure that this was the reason her brother had chosen an Earth woman as his companion. At this time, Isabel had no idea how deep the search for this companion had gone. Isabel had no idea how Max saw her actions as trying to derail the search that had already been started. Max hated to hurt the Antar Four princess’s feelings, but he already was engaged in finding the one he was looking for. Max didn’t want a companion who would bolster his ego. The milksops at the councils could do that. Max wanted someone who would see things that he missed. Max needed someone who would stand up and tell him if he was wrong. Isabel was his sister and she often told Max what she thought. He was too used to her. His companion would be a new source checking his actions. If his companion and his sister agreed, Max would be a poor king if he didn’t reconsider.

If Maria felt strongly, maybe, she would do the same for Michael. Michael’s dark moods were slowly consuming him. If he couldn’t be saved, the king would have to banish Michael and find another clone to play the king’s second. Maria seeing things through the eyes of an artist, might find ways to bring Michael back and eventually, banish the place his soul ran to hide.

The problem was in word meaning. To Maria, being a slave was to be made a dumb animal. A dumb animal, which looked to punishment, not reward, in her training. What could you expect from their educational system. Imagine, testing students until they fail and then, putting the failure on the student, instead of the method of education. In the time they were transported from Earth to Antar, both slaves and contractees learned more than they did in years of their Earth education. In her studies of Earth history, Isabel saw that many humans had a fantasy idea of total freedom as something to work toward. Maybe, they found this in the equality of the masses. Here, they had found freedom from work, freedom from necessities and freedom from humanity.

Maria’s voice brought Isabel back from her musings. “Isabel, do you mean to tell me that no one on Antar beats their slaves?” she asked.

“Of course not and I don’t mean to tell you, that men and women don’t beat their mates either. Antarians are not perfect. Lord help the man who the king hears who beats either his mate or his slave. Resorting to violence in domestic differences and training is highly frowned upon,” Isabel answered.

“Okay, what happens if a slave refuses to do what they are told?” Maria posed the question.

“Maria, what happens if an employee refused to do their job, back on Earth?” Isabel returned with a question of her own.

“I guess the employee would be fired. They would have to look for a new job,” Maria answered.

“And, if there were no other jobs, what then?” Isabel returned again.

“I guess the employee would be consigned to the equality of the masse,” the Earth girl responded.

“And, if the masses were no longer supported?” Isabel proposed.

“I… guess, they would have to turn to family or to do the work they found objectionable…” Maria murmured. Isabel was meeting her questions with questions of her own.

“Right, so they were not free to refuse to do what they were told in the first place,” Isabel concluded. Then, she added, “Maria, you have to get past the meaning you are attaching to our word slave. You will find that we have different value systems and we don’t agree that what we demand is as demeaning as you might. It doesn’t mean you are to be treated like a dumb animal back on Earth.” Isabel was thinking of the riding steeds she kept in her stable. Many times, they were better cared for than sentient populations on poorer planets.

“Isabel, in the history of the common era, it was said that there were documents of human rights. Do the people, even the free people, have anything like that here?” Maria asked.

“Maria, we have been studying earth history for many years. It was true that even before your common era, there were arguments about individual rights. Much of the Common Era history is made up of defending those rights. Documents would be written down and produced. Then, those rights would be bartered away for security and profit. There was one government, which paraded what it called the ‘Bill of Rights,’ before the world. Many other governments copied various examples of these rights into their own laws. Politicians trampled those rights with regularity because the same people who wrote them were not diligent enough to enforce them. Leading up to your one world government, these rights were slowly eroded by executive orders, congressional declarations and finally the desire for popular security at the cost of freedom. Soon, the rights were what the government said you were allowed. Then under world government, human rights gave way for the good of the state.”

History lesson over, Isabel stood up. “Maria, Michael and Max expect us to meet them at noon. Isabel went to Maria’s wardrobe and started to sort through her clothes.

Soon if things kept going right, Isabel and Tess would have to help Maria move all her possessions into Michael’s house proper. “Maria, what is your best color? You need to pick out a skirt, jacket, blouse and hose.

---------------------

Tess had just entered Max’s home. To be on call, Liz had an apartment near Max’s quarters in the main house. Isabel had assigned Tess to pick up Liz and make sure she arrived on time to the luncheon Max had planned. “Tess, Max left before I even got up this morning. Is there a problem? Liz asked.

“Isabel says there is always a problem when they have those secret meetings. Secret means meetings that Isabel is not invited to. I guess that, also, means meetings Max does not take you to either,” Tess laughed.

“Tess, what is the relationship between Isabel and yourself, if you don’t mind me asking?” Liz asked.

“Isabel is my friend and benefactor. Her reasons for my purchase were very altruistic. She purchased me as a gift for her brother. He turned me down. At that the time, I was hurt, but now, I think it was probably for the best. Then, she made me a present for Michael, the one other man she loves, but I cannot love in the way he needs,” Tess answered. “That didn’t go so well, either. Max didn’t want me and the stress of being what Michael might have wanted would have been too great.”

Don’t you resent being a slave?” Liz asked, again.

Tess was silent for a time, “Maybe, sometimes, I think of what might have happened if I was free, but then I ask, what is freedom, except for nothing left to loose? I was raised with the knowledge that my sacrifice was necessary to cover an unfortunate dept. I don’t blame Isabel for purchasing me. I could have been picked up by a high-end establishment of pleasure, but they usually like slaves who have proved to be incorrigible. They say that the difficulty in following procedures prolongs spontaneity as a sex object. I could have been picked up by some elderly Antarian and I imagine, that my life would not been as exciting as it has been with the king’s sister. It might have been nice if Michael and I would have worked. Being the consort to the number two man on Antar might have proved exciting. That just wasn’t to be. I couldn’t handle Michael’s mood swings. We would have destroyed each other. Michael, Max and Isabel finally agreed, so here I am. To some, it seems strange, but I am friend and companion to the sister of the king,” Tess explained.

That struck a note with Liz, but there was something else first. “What happens to the incorrigible ones at the house of pleasure?” Liz asked. This was the first sign she had seen as a weakness in the Antarian psyche.

“If the slaves refuse to take on patrons, then, they don’t eat. It is simple. People work when they have to. We don’t have a welfare system like Earth,” she answered.

“You mean that if they won’t take the men to bed at the house of pleasure, they are punished by not being fed?” Liz inquired.

“No, we see it as they haven’t earned the right to eat. Nothing is free in life. It is rare that anyone ends up in one of these houses unless they have not accommodated to more than two other assignments,” Tess explained.

“You mentioned that you could have been picked up by a high end house. What would you have done if that had happened?” Liz inquired.

“With the purchase price Isabel paid, I could have demanded a large cut in what any man would pay for my company. I could purchase my freedom, but what would I do with it. I could also purchase the house of pleasure and run it for my own profit,” Tess explained.

“I see your answers, but I am not sure that I understand,” Liz finally answered. “What are your duties to the sister of the king?”

“I accompany her when she goes places. That is all,” Tess answered.

“If you are willing to tell me, does Isabel make other demands of you?” Liz asked.

“If you mean are we lovers, the answer is no. Isabel needs a man, the king has told her often enough. It would be nice if, some day, I had a man, even if it was only occasionally. Isabel says that the meaning of slave in your world is very different from what it is in ours. Our word ‘slave’ doesn’t translate very well to those with Earth backgrounds. These are the only answers I can give.” The blonde lady went to Liz’s wardrobe closet and asked, “What do you think you want to wear to lunch with the king and his court?”
-------------------
Stories by Ken
Good teachers are born that way, not made. No! Good human beings, are born that way. Some of them become teachers.

Of course, life is not fair. You shouldn't expect it to be fair, but you should expect it to be ironic.
JKR 1981-2001
History is made of wars, recovering from wars and preparing for the next war.
JJR 1975-
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ken_r
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Location: New Mexico

Re: Apocalypse, CC, mature, ch5, pg3,Jan 5, 2014

Post by ken_r »

begonia9508: Dominant societies have always seen themselves as paternal when enslaving strangers. To a limited extent that is true, they are. The Hebrews are an example. Their time as slaves of the Egyptians organized a band of shepherds into a nation. The Romans enslaved the Greeks and the Egyptians taking much of their architecture, art and science. Much of what we know about the Greeks is from the Romans. The enslaved individuals had bad times, but the enslavement contributed to the advancement of mankind.

keepsmiling7: Me too, but no government is good government is the only other solution and anarchy ain't that good either.

Natalie36: lunch was good.

Chapter 6

Tess summoned their transportation. Liz noticed that Tess had been dressed in a simple dress that reached her knees. Over the dress she wore a short jacket, the sleeves short enough not to cover up her gold bracelet. With Tess’s help Liz had chosen a suit with skirt. “This shows that you are a lady of position in the administration,” Tess remarked.

Liz wasn’t used to the distance between the cities and the places where the king, his sister and second in command always lived. In the cities of the One World Government back on Earth, everything was so crowded. Liz had heard stories of lands far outside the cities back on Earth, but in her mind, they must be fantasies. Here, Liz saw that this distance from the king’s compound and the city where the government was located, was one of the worries Isabel held as they traveled back and forth. Liz did notice that their transport was much faster than that of the other vehicles on the road. Once in the city, they had a police escort. They exited the vehicle under a heavy porch. Liz didn’t know it, but the porch could turn a fairly heavy blast.

“I have to find Isabel. Go to the hostess and tell her that you are with the king’s party. She will seat you,” Tess said.

The hostess was polite as her occupation demanded, but when she had looked Liz’s ID up on her lists, she was almost fawning. “Yes, mi‘lady, please follow me,” the hostess purred. Following the hostess, Liz threaded her way through the crowd. They entered a smaller room set off from the main dining room. There sitting, playing with a drink sat a familiar woman. Liz had not seen this person since she was twelve years old. The baby fat had given way to curves and the trimmed ponytail had given way to cascading curls of gold. The last time Liz had seen Maria, they had both been wearing the blue jumpers of the world government. Now, Maria was dressed in a simple blue dress with the skirt about mid-thigh. Her hose were shimmering gold to match her carefully prepared hair. This was topped with a jacket much like that of Tess. The jacket was darker blue and the sleeves short enough to show the shimmering gold bracelet.

“Maria, is that you?” Liz cried out.

Maria looked up. She had never expected to see her childhood friend again. It was several seconds before her mind could process it. “Liz, … is this truly you?” she asked.

“Maria, how?” Liz asked.

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Maria replied.

“Oh, Maria, I didn’t make it. I got sick and failed. My only choice was a contract. A contract with a Don would not assure me of any success. At least my contract with Antar has a twenty-year promise. I am advisor to the king,” Liz explained.

“I was told the king had a new advisor; maybe, it was said that she was human. I don’t remember, but for that advisor to be you is too much to ever hope for,” Maria gushed.

“And you, Maria, how did you get here?” Liz asked anxiously.

Maria lowered her eyes and glanced over at her right wrist. “I was sold to slavers,” she answered simply.

“Slavers, how Maria? How did they take you?” Liz asked.

“Liz, I was sold by our own government, the leaders of our school. I was in the top of my class, but the competition was fierce. The school leaders declared me expendable; I think that is they way they put it. No one ever faced us to tell us directly. On the trip here, one of the girls said that she thought the whole system was a farce to keep us out of the job market; maybe, to keep jobs open for the teachers. The winners of all the positions may only go to those of influence. All that work was for nothing; we were going to be sent to the masses of equality no matter what,” Maria said bitterly.

“Do you really believe that?” Liz asked showing great pain.

“More every day. I was on the slave ship for one year. In that time, I learned half-dozen languages and dialects, expanded my singing, and perfected my guitar playing. If I could have turned around and tested fairly with the other fourth year students, I could have aced the first position,” Maria almost raged.

“What has happened to you? How are you holding up?” Liz quizzed.

“Liz, I won’t kid you. The first few weeks were rough on the slave ship. No, we weren’t punished, but we did have to do things I never thought of doing back home. Thinking now, I wonder what I would have done to keep my position in school. If it had been necessary, would I have tried to seduce one or more of the scholarship judges? Many of the girls in my class ended up signing on with some of the young Dons. I wondered what they did to keep up their contracts?” Maria asked.

“Maria, what is happening to you now?” Liz queried.

Maria gave a little laugh. “Liz, would you believe that I was one of the most expensive commodities at the slave market? I was bought as a birthday present for the second to the king!” Maria exclaimed.

For several minutes, Liz and Maria just sat looking at each other. No one could compute the chances that they not only would see each other again, but the closeness of Liz’s employer and Maria’s master made them able to maintain a closeness not available since school.

There was a noise at the door and the king, Michael, Isabel and Tess arrived. Max spoke up. “I see you two have met,” he stated.

Liz looked up at Max, “Max, this is Maria, my friend since the first level of school. We last saw each other when we were twelve,” Liz announced.

As they sat and talked, Liz noticed that the subjects of conversation were the reunion between the two friends and other trivia that Isabel brought up, but nothing was said about the meetings Max and Michael had attended.

They all left to their daily duties, Maria on Michael’s arm, her gold bracelet gleaming under the red sun of Antar, Isabel and Tess off to their own devices and Max and Liz back to the office Max maintained in the city.

Once in the office Liz asked, “Max, can a slave buy their freedom? Tess mentioned something about that this morning.”

Max thought for a few minutes, “In theory they can, but to what ends? Antar is a very static society. Unless the slave had some skill that they could use to support themselves they could not survive.”

“Can someone else buy the slave’s freedom?” Liz asked

“I suppose you mean yourself and Maria. Liz you are to be well paid for your services to me. To buy a slave’s freedom, you would have to have the owner’s permission. Isabel might be in trouble, true. She over-extended herself in buying Maria. You would probably have to bondage yourself for the whole twenty years to get the finances. Even then, if Michael is happy with Maria, Isabel probably wouldn’t budge in releasing Maria’s papers. You might want to wait until you see what Maria wants. Now, Maria is under Michael’s protection. She is owned by the sister of the king and thus under my protection. If you purchase her freedom, that could place her in danger as well as compromise your contract. But I forget, if you went into bondage to free Maria, then, you would be a slave and Maria be free, but without much future. Liz, you are my advisor, but please listen to me this time. Wait and see what happens between Michael and Maria,” Max said.

Max leaned back and taking out several reports he said, “We have other problems. Antar Four, that is the planet, which sold us Tess, has changed its government again. Those deemed responsible for the debt have been executed. That includes most of Tess’s relatives. It is thought that there might be a contract to kill Tess as the only remaining member of her family. The monarchy of Antar operates on a system of limited democracies. Within reason, each planet chooses its own government and pays taxes to Antar for protection. Within reason that is the measuring rod. Antar Four wants to set up a monarchy, or maybe, a dictatorship, perhaps in competition to my monarchy. In either case, one primary family wants to be the boss. The question is, does this decision reflect the entire population or is it a power play by this family. They were hereditary enemies of Tess’s family who incurred the debt.”

Liz picked up the reports and read while Max sat back and looked at her. They were still at the professional level that they had been in at the beginning. Max wanted a close companion. He wanted a lover. Eventually, he wanted a mate. Could he ever consider an Earth girl as a mate? Could this Earth girl ever consider herself as the mate of a king?

Max’s sister had always tried so hard to help everyone else, forgetting herself. That had been a problem. Tess was a beautiful woman. She wasn’t stupid either, but to sit beside a ruler, Max wasn’t sure how much help she would be. Michael had assured Max that he was having enough trouble keeping himself going, taking Tess would only add to his stress. That, he didn’t need. Well now, it was to be seen what Maria did to Michael. Max had already informed Liz that she was to be his date or maybe, better said as his companion at a formal party given by those who wanted to take over Antar Four. Isabel had promised that none of the other women would come near him when they saw Liz. Isabel was an expert at this. The beauticians she employed for herself and Tess were a testament to that.

“Max,” Liz spoke up not realizing the daydream Max had been making about her, “I think this is a case where you proceed very slowly. Are you able to control when the elections will be held?”

“Yes, to some extent,” Max answered.

“Then get them push back as far as you can. The people are angry about the debt made by Tess’s family and the selling of their princess to settle this debt. Somehow, they need to see their princess as an important person in your kingdom. Now, they see anyone against the family of the princess as heroes. Let them rule under the guidance of a regent. Then maybe, their true colors will be seen. Who knows? They may be the best party, but a dictatorship or a monarchy can be difficult to remove,” Liz suggested.

Max nodded, he had been leaning that way and more time could let him return some of his troops. He said as much.

“Max, where do you send your troops?” Liz asked.

“Right now, I have the Isabella II patrolling off Earth. Liz, Maria came here in a licensed slave ship. Tess was brought here by her own people. There is another kind of slaver, which fits your vision of a slave pirate. These are rogue ships. They sail under no country or government. They have seen fit, a few times, to challenge some of the outlaying colonies of Antar. Usually they have been made to pay such a price that no planet will allow them harbor. It is felt that soon, they will feel safe enough to attack Earth. Essentially, Earth has no security. Their drive to forgo war has stripped them of a real fighting force.” Max stopped for a minute. “Liz,” he started up again, “Everything we say here is confidential. If Earth is a target, then any belief that they have a weakened security would hasten an invasion to despoil what is left. The one world government will fall of its own weight, too many supplicants and not enough producers. Part of the legitimate slave trade is to preserve Earth culture. Maria was made a poster child of this group. She attracted the eye of the king’s sister. The other women were sold to professors and educators to help perpetuate their arts. Eventually, we may have to conquer Earth for it’s own protection. Of course, if I bring the Isabella II back, it will allow Earth to loose its protection. This may be a necessity to solve the Antar Four problem.”

---------------------

When Michael and Maria entered their home, Maria quickly picked up her guitar. This had been a stressful day, for Michael, who hadn’t yet said anything about what had happened today, and for Maria, who saw her first and best friend for the first time in ten years or so. The guitar wasn’t a lute, but with twelve strings, it could make mournful sounds. Maria laughed inwardly; she could speak to many foreign races across the universe, but of the languages from back home, she knew only standard English. She had only memorized the words to he songs in other languages of Earth. She didn’t understand anything about what they meant. She played some songs from Ireland and from France. Not knowing their meaning, the words, to her, sounded like other instruments. It was late in the day and the red sun was setting. Michael sat there watching her as she played. He made no move to turn on any lights. Finally Michael stood up and walked over to her. Maria stood and felt Michael unfasten the things that held her dress together. Maria had to shake a few times to get the dress to properly fall. Then, she stepped out of the dress and in her undies she returned to the couch to sing until almost bed time as Michael sat and watched her.

Finally, Michael led her to their bed and carefully placed the guitar on the dressing table.

It was later when Maria whispered, “Can I do enough to have you keep me around?”

Michael responded, “For the moment, but what else can you do?”

“We won’t know until we try, will we, lover?” Maria was afraid that this word “lover” might have been a little too premature, but Michael pulled her closer and kissed her until they both fell asleep.

Maria woke before Michael. She lay still as she felt her soft curves pulled against his muscular body. The question running through her mind, was the things that she had done most of the nights recently with Michael that different from what she had done on the slave ship? The ships crew had demanded sex and Maria had been ordered to supply it. Without making any orders, Michael, also, had been demanding sex. Maria had complied on the slave ship, because she was so close to the training of obedience of her schooling. With Michael, Maria still thought it must be different. First of all, Michael had to be that prince she had so long looked for. There didn’t seem to be any other candidates standing in line for the chore. Secondly when they were through with the sex, Michael didn’t tell her she was dismissed, as did the crew. “But, what else can you do?” was the question that promised Maria that, they would be together for a long time, if for nothing else, to find the answer.

-----------------

Max and Liz were dead tired when they finally got back home. Dinner was quickly prepared by the staff and they barely finished before Liz excused herself and retired. Max sat thinking before his fire. Most of Antar couldn’t afford a real fire, but Max had insisted that this was one perk that he really wanted. Other kings had demanded a retinue of mistresses and liquors from far planets. A simple fireplace and the right to burn a log or two looked like a cheap date in financing the king. The problems of state were not what was on Max’s mind. Twice today, Max had seen emotion that could well be dead on Antar. Once when Liz and Maria saw each other; the other time when, Liz was contemplating selling herself to gain freedom for Maria. Max had seen men who were willing to give their lives for a cause, but this wasn’t giving up a life; it was willingly entering servitude out of friendship. As the fire danced, Max pulled his “Ragg hair blanket up around himself. The Ragg was an animal raised in the coldest regions of Antar. It was extremely intelligent and for the care the natives gave it, it willingly gave them, every spring, a bountiful harvest of hair to weave into garments. It was said that the Ragg hair blanket could bring a frozen man back to life. Scientist refuted this citing insulation coefficients and such. That didn’t faze the natives of the cold reaches. They loved their Raggs and didn’t bother with facts. Max knew that he always felt warm and loved when he wrapped up in this treasure. The natives loved their Raggs and somehow the Ragg hair blanket seemed to love Max in return.

In dreamland, Max saw himself approached by a nymph. She had dark hair and seldom agreed with him, but he only loved her more and more.
Good teachers are born that way, not made. No! Good human beings, are born that way. Some of them become teachers.

Of course, life is not fair. You shouldn't expect it to be fair, but you should expect it to be ironic.
JKR 1981-2001
History is made of wars, recovering from wars and preparing for the next war.
JJR 1975-
User avatar
ken_r
Obsessed Roswellian
Posts: 861
Joined: Wed Oct 04, 2006 11:34 pm
Location: New Mexico

Re: Apocalypse, CC, mature, ch6, pg4 Jan 11, 2014

Post by ken_r »

HypnotiqBlueEyes: as you will learn,Max's interest has a long history

begonia9508: Once at a sheep shearing, i was explaining to my boys that the sheep gave its wool in the spring to pay for its care through the winter. In a strange land it is always good to find someone from back home. there is a question about who is really free?

keepsmiling7: Please remember Max's feelings toward Tess. It is very important toward the end of the story. Next week you will learn that not only Earth girls, but earth men bring something back to Antar.

Natalie36:

L-J-L 76: There is a lot more to the Max and Liz relationship to be learned later.


Chapter 7

Liz had put herself under the direction of Isabel and Tess. She had showered and now they were working on her hair. The two creatures introduced as Ech and Och were dressing and weaving her hair. They had spread their wares across Liz’s bed. Every so often, one of them would squeak and make hand signals to the other. Tess and Isabel were looking at several dresses that Liz had never seen before. True, she had never had time to completely explore her wardrobe, but definitely she hadn’t seen their like.

Liz wasn’t Maria. The classes in science didn’t have time for lessons of life. In fact, Liz had lived under a strict curfew code most of the time she was studying. The “Unisex” law of 2016 had been bypassed for reasons of concentration and diligence of the students toward their studies, not for any moral reasoning. She wasn’t comfortable stripping before a group. Only under the assurance that it was perfectly proper to stand naked before the two creatures standing only three feet tall as they maneuvered their stepladders around her, kept Liz going. One of the creatures took an item from Tess as she handed it to the creature. The creatures pulled the item apart and indicated for Liz to step into panties made out of some very strange material. They fitted her with a bra and again with squeaks they seemed to look at their product.

“They are a little confused; usually, they prepare a couple for copulation. I told them that you were only going to a business party. I think they usually have some spells of enchantment which they are not sure they should use,” Isabel said.

Liz giggled, “Tell them not to waste the spells tonight. There might be other nights, later.”

Liz did not see the frown on Isabel’s face. Tess didn’t miss it. She would talk to Isabel later. Personally, Tess was satisfied that Liz might be perfect for the king.

When the creatures were through, they both faced Liz and started a myriad of squeaks and squawks. Tess laughed, “Liz, I think they decided that you needed a spell anyway. Beware of getting cornered by any dark strangers.”

Liz had gone in a vehicle with Max. Tess turned to Isabel, “Izzy, I think she might be perfect for the king. She is beautiful, smart and quick-witted. That is what the king needs.”

“The other Earth creature is clear. She knows she is a slave and it will be to her advantage to support Michael. This one is, maybe, too smart. I don’t yet trust her intentions,” Isabel replied.

“You had to put Maria on blood red sheets to make sure that Michael knew what he was supposed to do. Liz better have intentions unless you want the rule of the king to be cold and celibate,” Tess stated.

Isabel and Tess both removed their clothes and took their showers. On getting out, they stood while Ech and Och worked around them. Someone had once asked, “Why do the women of the king look so beautiful? Ech and Och would never tell. They stood before both women and said squeaky spells,

--------------------

The delegates of Antar Four were out in force. Each delegate had four escorts. They had their best daughters and harlots. Sometimes, they were the same persons. The instruction to all the women was, “Get close to the king.” They included several young men who were determined to get laid by the king’s sister and her slave attendant.

The first to arrive was Michael and his Earth slave. Earthmen and women were still a novelty on Antar. Someone whispered, “She was the most expensive item in the auction!”

Another whispered, “A night with her would be worth a year’s wages.”

“I hear her voice is hypotonic.”

“Is she a spy for the king?”

“Giver her plenty of room. The prince is very jealous and being near her might bring you under her spell.”

“They say that on Earth she was called a witch and they sold her because they feared coming within her power.”

Maria’s hairdo had streams of golden curls. Woven into the curls were sparkling crystals. Her dress was also gold, the front hanging on pert breasts and the back opened to the waist. The front of the dress was split to half way up her thighs and her golden legs were seen as she walked. The fact that Michael was in full dress uniform wasn’t even noticed.

Isabel and Tess arrived next. There were several murmurs about two beautiful women on each other’s arm. All the people gathered knew that Tess was a slave. Eyebrows were raised because too many young nobles had made plays for the sister of the king and failed. Now egos were soothed. That was why they couldn’t get anywhere.

Like before the whispers. “Does the blood of the king run cold with respect to his sister? Why else would she appear with a woman as her consort?”

“Men have tried for years to get into her bed. There must be reasons she turns them all down.”

“The princess of Antar Four cut a wide path in society. A shame she is a slave for the sister of the king.”

“Her family was weak. They sold her to the king and this is what he chose to do with her.”

“Her family are all dead, she has no one to ransom her.”

“If the king falls, sister and slave both should be executed.”

“Yes, the whole royal family should be blasted to atoms in public.”

The king arrived with his advisor. They all remembered the small woman who had recently given her contract to the king. Liz was wearing a white gown. This set off her golden skin. Liz’s hair was hanging loose, but there were sparkles in it similar to that of Maria. Ech and Och had plenty of crystals. Many of the ladies had been prepared to make a pass at the king. A night in his bed or, maybe if lucky, a pregnancy would give them plenty of leverage when the talks came up about the election.

“See the king. He arrives with his assistant. She is of Earth, but she isn’t a slave.”

“The king could have taken a consort from any of the great houses. Who is that Earth girl?”

The winning side wanted to strike while the debt was still fresh in the people’s mind. The king had demanded a cooling off period to let heated feelings settle. The former family who had been blasted were not necessary evil. They had been lax in watching their members. Several of the petitioners sought out Tess. If they could get a comment from her, especially since she had paid the price for her family’s foolishness, maybe the people would be even more angry. If they could prove that Tess had been forced into an unpleasant liaison with the king’s sister, that would further anger the people.

The only time Liz left the side of the king was when she went to the lady’s room. If she had thought, Liz would have asked Isabel or Tess to go with her. Liz hadn’t had any trouble with Antarians before and she wasn’t expecting it now. Liz had always been a small woman even for a human. Many Antarian women ran closer to six feet. One, a Princess Rulian (a distant relative of Tess’s) stopped Liz. “Earth woman, what are your intentions to our king?” Rulian asked.

At first, Liz was frightened. She was not trained, nor looking for a catfight. Liz did not feel that such behavior would look well for the king. She was his representative. “My intentions are the king’s business,” she said with more bravery than she felt. Several of the women from Antar moved away. Liz had made a good impression on them and they respected the king’s wishes. The dissidents were all of Antar Four. Rulian was still on a roll. “Go back to Earth, human.” The way she said it, made the word human a curse. “Earth is only a fit place for the slave trade.”

Liz took a deep breath and said, “Then you should buy a cadre of good workers. Lord knows, Antar Four is in need of better help.”

Rulian’s father had put her up to most of this. Rulian had not seen that several women from Antar had slipped out to petition the king. Rulian soundly slapped Liz. Liz’s skin darkened as the blood rushed to the surface.

Liz calmly said, “You have struck the aid of the king, that means that you have struck the king himself.”

This made most of the women pull back. Rulan had committed treason. Did she have the sense to pull back? No, as you train the child, the woman will grow. That was a saying on most sentient planets. She slapped Liz again. Liz was furious, but she remembered her station. That was when the king and his second entered the women’s room. “What happened, Liz?” the king asked. Liz hung her head and said nothing. Nothing needed to be said, the bruise on her cheek told all. The fact that her arms had been hanging at her sides, showed that Liz wasn’t one of the combatants. Michael motioned for the two sergeants who had followed him to take the girl Rulian. They led her away in chains.

The crowd moved out of the lady’s room in case someone needed to use it for other reasons and back to the ballroom. The first person the king sought was Rulian’s father. Max was very formal as he loudly addressed the diplomat. “Your daughter is in need of a lawyer. Be sure to get the best you can afford.” With that, the party broke up and they all left.

-------------------

They were back at the king’s house. Max was sitting on the couch with Liz. “Max, what will happen to that girl?” Liz inquired.

“She struck the representative of the king. That is treason. I imagine that her father’s lawyer will argue her punishment down to loss of citizenship and she will be sent to the slave auction,” Max stated.

“Max, does it have to be that way?” Liz asked.

Liz, the punishment for treason is always death. Her father will ask for leniency. Then, that is when the court will decide to condemn her to slavery. Liz, you were the one struck. Even if you had struck the first blow, the representative of the king is to be respected,” Max said with his arm around Liz.

------------------------

Maria found that being with Michael was a pleasure in itself. She once wondered if she had remained back home, could she have found a mate and been given stability, especially in a land where the only stability was stagnation of equality? Stagnation on Antar was different, but Michael wasn’t anyone’s equal. As his personal slave, or maybe it was concubine, whatever, Michael gave her status. She just had to calm the beast within when it came again.

Liz was working with Max as there was great unrest on Antar Four. At first Rulian’s father had petitioned the court for leniency. All had expected that. Tess was a distant relative of the imprisoned girl. Tess made a visit to the prison to talk to the prisoner.

“Are you here to gloat?” was the first word from Rulian.

“No, I am here to see if there is anything I can do,” Tess answered.

“You know they are going to kill me,” The girl whispered.

“Maybe not, your father has asked for leniency,” Tess explained.

“That was when he was talking like a father. Now, I imagine that he is talking and thinking like a rebel,” Rulian sobbed. Rulian grabbed Tess’s arm. “Have you ever seen an execution?” she cried.

“No,” Tess answered. “I hope this doesn’t come to that.”

“You know that my father executed your family, don’t you?” the sobbing girl asked.


Max told me that my family had been executed. He didn’t give any more explanation,” Tess answered.

“They made me watch. Even though I was taught to hate your family, it was horrible,” Rulian cried as she tugged at Tess’s arm. “They did it with powers, you know,”

Tess was clearly uncomfortable with the turn of this conversation. “No, I didn’t know. I don’t think I even wanted to know,” she mumbled.

“Hate me, that is the only way I can go if I know you hate me. Three elders stand in a triangle and use powers on those in the middle. I told you, you would hate me. Tell me that I deserve what it going to happen.” Rulian was not coherent as she talked.

“Rulian, get hold of yourself. There is still a chance that your life can be spared. I entered slavery and I am still alive. I thank everyday that I was given this chance of life.”

“But look at you. You are the consort of the sister of the king. She dresses you in great robes and shows you to the world as if you were still a princess. If I should enter slavery, who would take my papers? I was told that even the local places of pleasure don’t want to bid on me. I guess my days would be spent on the rim of the Antarian Monarchy,” Rulian softly cried.

“Who is telling you all of this?” Tess asked. Clearly, someone was making a bad situation worse.

“The guards, they come at night. If I am to be executed, no one should object to a little play they have, and if I am a slave, I don’t have an owner, a protector, so no one cares either,” Rulian explained.

“Have you seen your father?” Tess asked.

“No, the guards say that they think he doesn’t want the family name to be dragged through the mud if I am sent to the rim of the monarchy,” Rulian ended.

Tess hurried back to the king’s home. She went to the house of Michael and Maria. “Maria, what was it like when you were first impressed?” Tess asked. Tess’s situation was so different. When her family decided that she was at majority, they washed her, dressed her in simple clothes and traveled to Antar. She guessed the sister of the king had already made her bid. When she arrived, it had been settled that the sister of the king would take her papers. Now, Tess wanted more information and the only one she was free to visit was Michael’s concubine. She was pretty sure that Maria had reached that status finally.

“Tess, the first few weeks were pretty bad. Some of the other women had already learned that sex buys favor. I had been stubbornly resisting this idea. Back home, I was determined to make my vocation on my merits. As soon as we learned the language, we were sent out many nights to service the crew and officers. I think others adapted better than I. It wasn’t dirty or anything, the men were clean and we were always cleaned before and after. It just wasn’t what I wanted to do. That bothered me. By the time Isabel took me to Michael, I was resigned to my fate and as one of my angels told me, I was determined to learn to find success in what I was doing. By this time, all fantasies of escape and rescue had been removed from my thinking,” Maria explained.

I think things are a little worse for Rulian. She says the guards are using her and in her situation, it isn’t pleasant,” Tess said.

________________

The trial was dragging on. Liz couldn’t understand why it was taking so long, but Max told her because of the importance of the prisoner and of her family many points were being argued out. This was all driven out of Liz’s mind as word came that a rogue slaver had attacked Earth. An Antarian ship of the line, the Isabella II, had met the slaver and stopped it. There was a problem because the cargo had been duly sold by Earth and there was no legal status for the cargo. The ship of the line was heading to Antar and the courts would then have that problem to sort out. This even eclipsed the trial of Rulian.
-------------------------
Stories by Ken
Good teachers are born that way, not made. No! Good human beings, are born that way. Some of them become teachers.

Of course, life is not fair. You shouldn't expect it to be fair, but you should expect it to be ironic.
JKR 1981-2001
History is made of wars, recovering from wars and preparing for the next war.
JJR 1975-
User avatar
ken_r
Obsessed Roswellian
Posts: 861
Joined: Wed Oct 04, 2006 11:34 pm
Location: New Mexico

Re: Apocalypse, CC, mature, ch7, pg4 Jan 19, 2014

Post by ken_r »

HypnotiqBlueEyes:

keepsmiling7:

begonia9508:

L-J-L 76:

Natalie36:


Chapter 8

Kyle

Men in the new order had to redefine themselves. The old order stated that the man was the father figure; he was the one to slay dragons and terrify bad boyfriends. The man of the house was the one who cared for his family. It is true that men, as a whole, had abdicated this position way before the time of enlightenment. Kyle came from a family of dinosaurs. It was his mother who bailed right after his birth. Kyle was raised, if you can call the age of three as being raised, by two men, his father and his grandfather. These two men’s lives traversed the common era to the time of enlightenment.

Kyle was only allowed these three years before he was placed in public education. Neither of his protectors had the riches to further contact or influence Kyle. There is a lot of speculation of how much stays with a three year-old child, but when Kyle was still a baby, his father who was called with some affection, “the sheriff,” took baby Kyle’s hands and said many times, “Son, don’t hardly matter what this world tells you, your fortune, your life, are not determined by the government. What makes your future is these hands. These hands, boy, and that thing you have on top, your head. L isten to me boy, your hands and your head are the things that will serve you. You just pray that the government stays out of your way.”

Kyle’s grandfather had even been involved in one of the experimental crashes of the Antarians. You do something often enough something is going to happen. You fly low enough, sooner or later, you are going to strike a tree. You are going to hit something that is going to bring you down. The aliens had been secretly dealing with the humans for centuries. When the crash happened, the cleanup squad arrived. Politicians, they are the group with which aliens always deal. Greedy, stupid and egocentric, politicians, if the remuneration or the threats are right, will swear the sky is green and the earth is blue. They are the one group, no matter human or alien who have no honor. With their help the years of early contact did not prepare the one world order for the men from out there, but successfully kept the citizens safe in their views that Earth was all there was.

The question, of how much Kyle remembered, could not be known. He always did have a streak of rebellion. Elementary education, Kyle did make it. His grades were anything but spectacular. At this point the system determined that Kyle was not yet a candidate to drop out. They still saw something in this headstrong child. When Kyle left the light blue jump suit of the World order, he graduated to the bright red of athletics, security and maybe, the military. At first, Kyle’s determination kept the bright light of success on the willful child. As he approached sixteen, others grew bigger, stronger and more skillful. The fact that Kyle lasted as long as he did was due to the fact that Kyle didn’t know when to give up. Pile five of those apes on top of him and Kyle would still be struggling to reach the goal even though, technically, he was out. The gladiatorial event, which is what modern athletics had become, didn’t have room for heart. Brute strength, maybe, was what the world looked for. That meant over six feet and a weight of over two hundred pounds. Maybe he could have arisen in the ranks of security, but Kyle wasn’t into being a bully and that is what security had become. No longer did security protect, now security enforced the myriad of rules on a population that was too dense to accept. This wasn’t for Kyle. He took the only way he could see. Kyle dropped out of public education and joined the military.

“Storming, fighting, Kyle,” that became his name. Go out on a mission with storming, fighting, Kyle and you would return, beat to hell, but there was a better than average chance you would return.

Kyle’s story:

The paths of education were now closed to me. No, I wasn’t going to ever make it to the cover of “The Enlightened Sports Illustrated.” There were too many apes who out weighed me and too many tall, randy geeks who out ran me. The word was coming down and I would find myself back into the “Masses of Equality.” Before this could happen, I was found at the office of the local recruiter. There had always been something in me which helped me to survive. I didn’t know then, but now I understand actuary tables, they came from a science that was almost dead. The military was supposed to put down signs of rebellion, but they were also to incur large losses. For me that streak of self-preservation kicked in. No one wanted these men and women to survive their twenty years and return to the domesticated masses. Survive I did. Storming fighting Kyle, that was me. I took it all on. Hook up with that Kyle guy and you would come home. Yeah, a lot of them came home over a teammates shoulder, but they came home. I didn’t know how I was scaring the commissioners of equality. The situations became worse and worse. Instructions were that we were to be sent into more and more dangerous situations. One commissioner stood up and said, “Imagine what insurrection could foment if even a few of these types returned to the more and more unhappy masses of equality.” That was when the word went out to “Kill Kyle.”

There was this Lieutenant Jefferies who was hated by everyone. When the lieutenant took out a squad, you could count on at least 90% losses. Of course these losses never included the lieutenant. He was never one for the, “Follow me, lads,” approach

One night over a drunken period of bravado, Lieutenant Jefferies made the brag, “I have a sergeant who can beat any other enlisted man in the service.” Another product of the Dons, Lieutenant Sanders, took him up on this brag.

World wide the military took sides. Gambling was high. Even politicians joined. On this first event, I would be fighting for the “Championship of the World.” The finances of the world were resting on the outcome of this match.

Jefferies produced trainers, women and tried to find what it was that made me go. In the end, it didn’t matter, I disappeared one night from a system that kept track of everyone of the seven billion members, world wide.

In school, the politicians, the public works of the historians, the world opinion in general, said this was a time that mankind had finally rested in peace. The reality of soldiers who were still able to think for themselves saw that the world was a hot bed of rebellion and scofflaw. Some of the masses didn’t want equality. They were engaged in a perfectly run free enterprise. An enterprise which did not include any recognition of the government or its leaders. Farmers were ordered to plant and harvest quotas of their crop, but it would be a poor farmer indeed who couldn’t hide a few hundred bushels from the college boys the government sent out to supervise. What to do with this excess harvest? The government had made available an alcoholic drink of approved strength of fifty proof. It was grown, brewed, taxed and distributed by government sources. The old moonshiners of the common era could easily reach well over one hundred proof. If you really needed to drown your troubles, this was the way to go. The government produced cannabis and opiates to be freely distributed at a reduced level. An agronomy student who failed the system could breed a much more potent product, in a few years and sell it to established lines of trade. Thus he was supporting himself and contributing to those whose pain was not assuaged by the government issue and grants.

That is right, the failures of the system were the ones who were now its greatest dissidents. The system no longer offered them any hope of reward and the masses offered them no consolation. Free enterprise was in flower, so to speak. Security, distribution and other needs fit men like me. Poison the world, so what. The world had wanted to see my blood run, or see me make some other slob’s blood run, just for fun. Security, a different kind of security, not some gang making the crowds satisfied with the bread they were given. Protecting the product from the government, itself, that was a snap. I had been responsible for some type of security since I left the schools. The excitement of running unauthorized vehicles, the old days of the rumrunners were in full swing. Again, it was the failed engineers, mechanics and others who failed to meet the goals of the system, who were ultimately the system’s greatest enemy.

Lieutenant Jefferies found a way to rid at least the part of the failures who bothered him most. Lieutenant Jefferies sold a rogue slaver the information and security to take me, and many of those who followed me and transport us off Earth for good.

I woke up stripped to my boxers in an isolated cell. The ship still didn’t have the appearance of the slavers of the Common Era. Sanitation was still imperative to allow any ship to have access to any of the safe harbors of the universe. The threat of plague was always a fear for those who met several different worlds and races. I was marched to showers twice a day and some effort was made to teach me Universal Basic and Antarian.

The captain was a real bastard. The guards dragged me to his quarters. Here the old queen offered to make things better if I would cooperate. Cooperate, hell. I lowered my head and charged the son-of-a-bitch.

Yeah, I charged him and went flying in the opposite direction against the wall. That was “jake” with me as I hit the wall running. I had no idea of what he hit me with, but he kept pointing his open hand in my direction and I kept flying against the wall. I was wearing him down. Pretty soon he was so tired that he had to call the guards to carry me back to my cell.

Later as my Antarian got better, there were other officers who requested my presence. I think I logged more airtime flying back against the bulkhead than the old drop troops we used in the jungles. There had to be something in the water these rogue pirates drank to make them this horny.

Aliens were not into beating their slaves, but for me, they made an exception. The year of transport to Antar was going to go badly. Then all of a sudden the ship stopped. I got a chance to look out a port and it looked like we were parked along side an artificial moon. I thought the ship I was on was big, but it could be stuffed in the trash container of what I saw outside. Later, I learned that I was looking at a ship of the line, Isabella II. Atarian ships were technological marvels.

The slaver captain’s commanded us to go down to the last man. That was cut short as soon as his crew slit his throat. With blood running down the captain’s front, the crew quickly surrendered.

I don’t know how many of us there were. A ship like the Isabella II could hide battalions. My Antarian still wasn’t very good, but I understood that Earth had washed its hands of us and we could never return. If that was so, I asked, “Were we any better off than before?”

Medical facilities were better. Most of the rest of the trip I spent in the infirmary. It wasn’t like any infirmary I had been in before. They were more into some sort of heat treatment and touching nerve points than in any chemicals. Somehow, the office of Sergeant still hung about my neck. They dragged me out and sent me to some big honcho.

The spacer dragging me, well, he wasn’t really dragging me, he was trying to keep me from falling flat on my face. Someone called him Michael.

Shit, they had security even tighter than we had back on Earth. Even this Michael was given the once over. You can imagine what they were doing to me a total stranger. They checked brain waves, heart waves, retinal scans and blood tests. Someone was making a hefty folder on one Sergeant Kyle 4,800,201.

Finally this Michael drags me, carries me or assists me, whatever, before this king guy. I guess he was the biggest honcho around. He didn’t look like no king, no crown, no robes. He was just a guy of medium height who was wearing a suit. But, standing beside him was this dame. Beside a spacer she looked like a child. She had long chocolate colored hair and soft brown eyes. She had a dark business suit on and I saw that she was wearing some sort of shear dark stockings. She ended in black or maybe dark blue high heels; remember, my vision wasn’t that clear. I had this black iron thing on my wrist. I think that was what labeled me a slave. I didn’t see no such object on her. I kept wondering, what was she to this king fellow? The king approached me and I thought, oh no, are these spacers all horny? I backed into a corner, but when he touched me I sort of passed out.

When I came to, this king fellow was supporting me and the dame was moving a chair for the king to prop me up in.

The king spoke and his words were strange. “My assistant rides for the brand. Earth no longer wants you, so if you can ride for the brand, I have a place for you in my household.”

I could see it now, “Slave Kyle, fix the faucet. Slave Kyle, take the garbage out to the curb. Slave Kyle, the vacuum cleaner is acting up again.”

My world looked pretty bleak. That was when that Michael guy led me out to their ground transport. “Hey, soldier, you look a lot better,” this Michael said.

I hadn’t noticed, but the many bruises on my body no longer ached. Later I would learn, “The hands of the king are for healing.”

I guessed we had the racecar version of ground transport. We were passing every one along the way. The king’s compound was a walled mansion. As usual, we passed every sort of security as we had at his office. Entering the compound, we passed this babe dressed all in gold. “Hey, Michael, don’t be late,” she called out.

I had to put my eyes back in my head. That assistant of the king was as cute as a bug, but this dame in gold was flat out gorgeous! I looked up at the Michael guy and saw the look he gave me. Apparently, ogling this golden dame was not to his liking. If they didn’t kill me first, I had a lot to learn in living with these spacer folks.

Michael led me to an apartment and pushed me inside. “Isabel, Max says to check this guy out and see if we can use him. He thinks he is pretty tough, so be careful.”

“He thinks he is pretty tough, so be careful.” What did this Michael think I was? I wasn’t into making trouble on pretty women, spacer or not. Yeah, I had seen some pretty women die back on Earth, while in the military. That bothered the hell out of me. I couldn’t remember my da or my grand-da, but I bet they would have said, “Don’t go killing any pretty women, Kyle. There ain’t enough of them to go around.”

I hadn’t yet seen this Isabel person, but I was sitting in my cell. If it was a cell, it was a hell of a lot better than any other jail I had been in. I tried out the bed. It wasn’t the usual bunk or slab of foam that most prisons used. It was soft and as my hand sank down I felt warmth. There was an upholstered chair, a small desk and another table and two chairs. First thing I had done was to try the door. Of course, it was locked. I was sitting on my bunk and wondering what I had gotten myself in for. Of course, I hadn’t anything to do with my situation that, had all been done by others.

There was a knock on my door. Now, that was funny. The door was locked. I couldn’t open it so whoever was on the other side had all the controls. Why the request to come in if that is what it was? That was followed by a voice, “May I come in, please?”

“If you have the key, I certainly don’t have it, do as you please,” I answered.

If I’d known what or who was on the other side of the door, I would have scratched a hole in the door with my fingernails. The door softly opened and a small woman entered. She was shorter than any spacer I had met. She was blond and her golden curls were streaming down her shoulders. Her eyes looked like blue diamonds. She was wearing a soft coat of some fuzzy material and it was buttoned to the neck. Working my way down, the coat went to her knees and below it she was wearing some sort of shear pink stockings. This all ended in bright red high heels and all I could think was, “I have died, gone to Oz and come to me, Dorothy.”

This woman was clearly used to being stared at. She stood and waited for my approval. Hey, I had been beat to a pulp over and over trying to convince randy pirates that I didn’t swing their way. This was the closest I had been to a woman in over a year. The first words out of my mouth were, “Shit, don’t they have no ugly women on this planet?”

This did produce a frown. “Is that what you want, an ugly woman?” the apparition in front of me asked.

Saints preserve me. “No,” I quickly shouted. “Baby, don’t move an inch. If this is a acid trip, I don’t want to loose it.”

This did bring forth a smile. She went to the door and placing her hand over the opener, she did something. “Now, we have locked the door from this side. We won’t be disturbed,” she said in an almost whisper.

I know I have died and I don’t care. That woman walked slowly towards me as if she was afraid I would panic. Well, panic I did, but I didn’t do anything to show it. That woman began to unbutton her coat and saints believe me, she didn’t have a stitch on. Well, that wasn’t quite so, she did have a gold chain about her waist and she still had on the pink stockings and red shoes.

I couldn’t believe it, but she was sitting beside me on my bunk. I was now glad that the bunk wasn’t the usual jailhouse appliance. I didn’t mind leaning over and while kissing her, I pressed her backwards onto the soft mattress. I quickly jumped up and began to pull off my shirt and remove my pants. Something like this couldn’t be real and if it was by chance real, I didn’t want to loose it. I could just hear some Bozo like that Michael fellow shouting at me, “What do you think you are doing, asshole?”

Let him shout. I was going to get as much of this woman as I possibly could before someone came by to rudely pull me off. The lady still had her feet on the floor, so I gently lifted her up and placed her in the middle of the bunk.

I don’t know how to describe what happened next. On time years ago I got caught down wind of a burning pot plantation and I saw some mighty strange things. I had gone on all night benders with some of that Moonshine we were selling to the minions of equality and had many dreams. Nothing prepared me for this night with my angel. I saw things of Earth that had to come from history books and I saw space as I didn’t have a chance to view it in the pirate slaver. I saw stars, which were dying and stars being born. I wasn’t fucking, I was making love and I loved the experience. A man can only take so much. I passed out. Me, Storming Fighting Kyle, I fainted like a third level schoolgirl getting it on her first date.

I woke up in the cell alone. I thought it must have been a dream. Then, I looked at the sheets on my bunk. If it was a dream, it was a wet dream and I had been fairly active. Some of the sheets were ripped.

They came for me, a man and a woman. Now she wasn’t in the league of my dream, but she would certainly turn heads in any bar scene. And, I mean any bar scene in the early hours when men still had their wits about them not the closing time scene when any woman becomes an angel because of desperation.

They both wrinkled their noses and I sniffed. I smelled musk and a faint whiff of perfume, so last night wasn’t completely a dream. Someone else had to have been with me last night and it might as well have been my dream girl. “Shower,” the woman directed and since in my present condition, they both could probably knock me on my ass, I turned to the corner where the shower head was located. Neither of them appeared to be inclined to leave to give me any privacy. I was already naked, so I pulled the handle and felt the hot streams cover my body.

The water shut off and I felt a warm blast of air, which dried me off. I turned and saw the two guards still staring at me. They were both looking me in the eye so, I guess they weren’t impressed with what else I had to offer. “Come,” the lady guard said. I approached them not knowing what to expect. She placed her hands around my waist and I felt a golden chain fastened around me. She took my right arm and placing her hand on the iron bracelet she closed her eyes and the iron dissolved into a powder. She opened a package and I felt a cool antiseptic spread where the bracelet had been. She then took an open circlet of gold and clamping it about my wrist, she again closed her eyes and it closed.

The man who had been standing by chuckled. “Your records say you do not like to be touched by men, so we thought a female guard would cause you less trouble.”

Well, he had that right, but I still didn’t know what was to happen to me. I was given shorts and trousers of some very strong material; they were very similar to the cargo pants I wore as a rebel. The boots were soft, but the soles, I am sure, could have turned any Punji stick, even one made of steel. A pullover shirt and a light jacket made up my wardrobe.

They led me out of the room and down the hall. We made so many twists and turns that if I escaped, I wouldn’t know where to go. Escape, who was I fooling?? I am sure that they had placed locaters in everything I wore. I was here for the long haul. I might as well try to discover the best way to conduct myself. We approached a door and the male guard knocked softly. “Come in,” a voice said.

There was a tall woman who was pure spacer. She looked at me and wrinkled her nose. “What do you want, Earthman? Did I hear you say you wanted an ugly woman?”

Oh man, what a way to get started. The tall one was tanned, with blond hair. Up close, I saw her soft brown eyes. Soft, well right now, they were sort of hard. “No, Ma’am. I only remarked that every woman I have seen since I got out of that garbage scow has been knocked down gorgeous. There was that assistant to the king. She was as cute as could be. Then, there was that golden woman I saw when we arrived. That Michael fellow didn’t like that much, me looking so bug-eyed and all. Some sort of dream girl was in my cell last night. Then, begging your pardon ma’am, you would never get thrown out of bed eating crackers,” I answered.

Her eyes went up. “I guess, I am glad you wouldn’t want me to leave a bed for eating, what did you call them, crackers,” she declared. She made a motion and another woman entered.

Looking at the other woman, I saw she wore a bracelet like mine, made of shinny gold. Her skin was like looking at breakfast cream and her eyes were blue diamonds. She had been my dream woman, if that really happened.

“What do you have to say, Tess?” the taller woman asked.

“Well, he is strictly heterosexual. Says here in his words that he had the crap beat out of him every day by that old queen of a captain, on the pirate ship. Captain of the Isabella II says that he spent most of his time in the ships hospital until they brought him before the king.” Then, the small blonde closed that folder and opened another. “I observed he is healthy, has good musculature and good endurance. Over all, he is in remarkable health knowing he spent almost a year in space.”

There appeared a strange smile on the tall woman’s face, “Well, Tess, looks like we are going to have to learn a new language the way he butchers the Antarian vocabulary.” The tall blonde spacer woman turned to me. “What do we call you, Earthman?”

“Oh, sweet cakes, you can call me anything except for late for dinner,” I replied. I don’t usually go on like that, but it was intoxicating being among so much beauty.

The tall one said, “You may call me Isabel.” She pointed to the shorter blonde and said, “She is called Tess. It says in your file that you are named Kyle. Then, they say something about Sergeant. What does that mean?”

“Oh, baby, Kyle is the name they gave me at birth and sergeant is what I was called in the military,” I explained. I still wasn’t sure what my relationship with these women would be. I take it the first golden girl was off limits, especially if that Michael was around. There was that assistant to the king. Her accent sounded Earther. What kind of assistant was she? Was she a free woman other times. Yeah, free woman, as if I would be free. That damned gold thing on my wrist told everyone what I was. The shorter blonde, I already knew, if what I believed was true.

The tall woman, still looking very stern replied, “Kyle it is, if we want your company and we will call Sergeant if we have an emergency. I am the sister of the king, called Isabel. She is Teresa or Tess. She is a political slave from Antar Four. That golden woman you saw is strictly off limits. There would be no stopping Michael if he thought you might attempt to trifle with her. She is an Earth slave like you. The lady you met earlier is a contract woman from Earth. I don’t know what the king’s intentions to her are, so I recommend due care,” Isabel stated.

Oh Lordy, I thought, I am living with the two women who do not seem to be already taken. I hope I don’t use the wrong fork or something.
-------------------------------
Stories by Ken
Good teachers are born that way, not made. No! Good human beings, are born that way. Some of them become teachers.

Of course, life is not fair. You shouldn't expect it to be fair, but you should expect it to be ironic.
JKR 1981-2001
History is made of wars, recovering from wars and preparing for the next war.
JJR 1975-
User avatar
ken_r
Obsessed Roswellian
Posts: 861
Joined: Wed Oct 04, 2006 11:34 pm
Location: New Mexico

Re: Apocalypse, CC, mature, ch 8, pg5 Jan 25, 2014

Post by ken_r »

HypnotiqueBlueEyes:

Lucky Miss:

Roswelllostcause: The military has always been one form of slavery

begonia9508:

Natalie36:

Keepsmiling7:


Chapter 9

Like it or not, the king had to attend social-political meetings and a bad one was coming up. The trial of Rulian was still on going. It didn’t look like a trail, because the two sets of lawyers were still playing shuffle board with court dates. Rulian hadn’t been out of her cell for months. The only visitor she had been allowed was Tess and that mainly at the request of the sister of the king. The abuse of the guards had lessened, or maybe better said, gone under ground. The king’s sister had requested an investigation and that was not to be ignored. Rulian’s legal status didn’t give her any protection. The prison system still held to the fact that if she was to be executed, what happened to her was of no consequence and if she was to be a slave, she, at this time, didn’t have a owner/protector. Rulian’s father had returned to Antar Four society, wiping his hands concerning his daughter. The social review was an attempt to bring his suit for independence for Antar Four to the councils of the monarchy. The council of the Monarchy was vast and far reaching. It included the humanoid races near Antar proper, as well as other sentient races out toward the rim. The representatives of Antar Four wanted the fate of the girl to be sealed and forgotten. They had a rebellion to ferment. Most of the council didn’t understand what was the reason for this stance or, maybe, better, they didn’t care. The monarchy had been mostly a volunteer assembly of cultures for mutual benefit. The physical improbability of a possible enemy near the center of the confederation brought many fears. The ruling party of Antar four had executed all of Tess’s relatives and this was their right. It was an internal rebellion against the party who had gotten in so deep a debt that they had to sell the princess to satisfy their lack of any other acceptable collateral. What was disturbing was the fact that the opposing party wanted to create a rival monarchy to that of Antar. This would severely unbalance the Monarchy of Antar

How Max handled himself would go a long way in his quest to hold his monarchy together. Liz was spending most of her day boning up on Antarian history and the more recent history of the monarchy. History was her least studied subject back home. Liz had been a student of the sciences, but here she had to be prepared to advise the king no matter what was happening. Liz, Isabel and Tess had gone over the last disastrous gathering. Liz saw that it was a mistake in word meaning to label these gatherings as diplomatic parties. They were duels of force, deadly in their results. Liz was determined, this time, not to find herself singled out and alone.

----------------------------

The story of Alex

Alex had been born with a fantastic memory. He also, had been born with an inquisitive desire. He excelled at almost every study he attempted. The Commission of Education had been considering directing him to the Department of History. Alex being as inquisitive as he was, learned that this could lead to sequestering as a historian and that was not to his liking. The Commission of Education didn’t take well to being questioned so Alex had to show great ability in something else and that was law. This ability brought him to the attention of the One World Commission and that superseded everyone else.

Unlike Liz or Maria, Alex didn’t find study hard work. Not even like Kyle who had more or less drifted into what he believed he could do, Alex had strong plans for his life. The One World Commission was where he could do things and make changes. That was Alex’s target.

The little boy Alex changed jumpers faster than any of his classmates. Primary studies, secondary studies, history, advanced history, oratory and debate. Alex was constantly younger than any of his class. He quickly reached the level where he was almost equal with the dons. He was promised a job and since the job direction he wanted hadn’t opened yet, he was assigned as a representative for the defense of those challenging the authority and commands of the establishment.

Alex had a position and this was better than 90% of any class he had excelled in. When subjects challenged the decision of the commission, they were granted a hearing. Alex was to represent them. It became kind of discouraging as Alex had been told to make his best defense, but the decision of the council had already been made. Those he represented always thanked him for his hard work, but to Alex, he hated to loose every time. Earth had sold Maria into slavery when they decided they no longer wanted her. The Earth hadn’t objected when Liz, a failure in their eyes, interviewed with the spacers. Kyle had been targeted and removed as a cancer to the masses of equality, but the state had a lot invested in Alex. When he decided to look to the men not of this Earth, he had to do that in secret. He could easily be imprisoned for embezzlement of educational funds if he tried to go off world.

Prisons in the “Time of Enlightenment” were not much better than charnel houses. They were places of death. Sentences might be made in any number of years, but the truth was that few if any, ever were released from prison. Alex told nobody about his change of plans. That is why when he had been handed a folded card with a number and time, sealed with the spacer’s seal, he acted in secret. He was granted an interview, but if they turned him down and earth found out about it, Alex was a dead man.

As Alex approached the Impound of Education where the spacers lived, he saw that, miraculously, the area around it was almost deserted. The crowds who normally prowled about the spacers compound were notable in their absence. Avoiding recognition by anyone, Alex approached the first desk. He immediately was directed down that same long hall that Liz had traveled. Here he underwent the series of examinations that Liz had endured. Alex didn’t know that the spacers had forgone the examinations at the first door most applicants had to finish. They wanted Alex out of view of the Earthmen as fast as possible.

Mr. Summers stood as Alex stepped up to his desk. Alex didn’t know that Mr. Summers was always on duty. Whoever sat at this desk was named Mr. Summers. It was not as if any spacer was going to become drinking buddies with any of these applicants. “Alex, welcome to the Department of Men Not of this Earth,” this Mr. Summers greeted. There was no Department of Men Not of this Earth. These Earthers seemed to like the formality.

Alex was soon on a path that would never touch the land of Earth for at least twenty years. The training surprised Alex. First there was body building. Alex had avoided sports activities all of his life and now as he learned basic and advanced Antarian language, Alex found himself pumping iron and running treadmills. Alex hadn’t understood, but his new tee shirts all had the same double spiral that had been on Liz’s. Three months on the Antarian ship and Alex didn’t recognize himself. He had gained forty pounds of solid muscle. Now, he was in a class of what he guessed was personal defense. They all worked out alone, but they practiced on different movements for hours. The rest of his day was taken up with history of the Antarian Monarchy and a very different history of Earth than the Education Ministry had ever given him.

Near the end of his journey, Alex was given one on one exercises by his coach. Alex found uses for those hours of movements he had studied. “Wax on and Wax off,” from the classic video, “The Karate Kid,” finally had meaning. His language lessons had been intensified and Alex found that he was trained in the use of several instruments. Alex guessed they were some type of recorders.

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At this time, Isabel was exercising her new slave, Kyle. The king’s compound was vast. It encompassed miles and miles of hills, forests and fields. It was the custom of Isabel and Tess to run several miles every morning. Maybe it was a superiority of the sexes or maybe, some contrary notion in Isabel, or maybe, even a suggestion from Max, which was the same as a command, she decided that Kyle was to accompany them.

Kyle did admit to being a bit out of shape since he had left the regimen of the military. In the military, Killing, Kreaming, Kyle ran several miles every morning in full kit. Of course, that wasn’t the name he had then. Kyle had decided that a new life called for a new short name. Full kit had consisted of food, ammunition and weapons he might be called on to use in any confrontation. Now only in his shorts, a gift from Isabel, he was breathing heavily to keep up with the two girls. The first three days were bad, but Kyle crashed the wall on the fourth day. Thinking that his body could do no more, Kyle called on that thing which had protected him all during his military service. Running just behind Isabel, Kyle would disappear and then catch up to them somewhere further along. He embraced the pain and it became his friend. Kyle could be seen crossing the hills to their left and constantly looking for incursions through the king’s borders.

All noble Antarians had, to some extent, the powers demonstrated on Kyle while he was arguing with the ship’s captain. As the party ran through a pass between two hills, three men stepped out. Isabel stopped and shouted, “You are trespassing on the lands of the king.”

It could be seen that the men smiled as they kept coming. Isabel and Tess went into defense mode, while Kyle stood at ease, his hands hanging by his side. He clearly had no idea of what was to happen. There was a whine and Isabel dropped her hands to hold her head. Tess did likewise. Someway, these men were defeating the use of natural Antarian powers. When the men came abreast the small group of runners, Kyle grabbed the nearest man and using him as a fulcrum, he swung himself horizontal and bring his knees up to his chest he struck another of the men in the face with a power kick. The girls were now kneeling on the ground screaming with agony. Whatever the device that affected their powers, was only annoying Kyle. Killing, Kreaming, Kyle was back in action. None of the intruders expected any opposition. The weapon they had used had been tested to cancel out psychic abilities in Antarian nobility. One of Kyle’s kicks must have disabled the weapon as now, Isabel could stand. The first man Kyle had kicked was still on the ground, his head hanging at a ridiculous angle. One of the men standing was hanging his head down on his chest as if he knew what was to come. The now, standing Isabel went to him and opened his shirt. Strapped about his chest was a mechanism, its wires hanging down; its case broken. Isabel held her hand to his chest and his stiffened and quickly died. Going to the remaining man, he pulled back. Only the strong hands of Kyle held him. Isabel smiled, “You knew the penalty going in didn’t you?” she asked.

“Yyyesss m’lady, but they said it was a sure thing,” he croked.

“A sure thing, disable two Antarian women and capture or kill them. That was your sure thing.” Isabel hit him with a vengeance.

Kyle looked up, “no trial, no presenting of evidence?” he asked.

“Kyle, Antarian warriors are difficult to incarcerate. They can manipulate most locks. We knew their intention, we took care of them,” Isabel said simply.

It would be later as Kyle learned about the punishments of Antar that Kyle would wonder if Isabel chose the only way or the one which fit her temperament at the moment?

Kyle learned a new thing about Antarians, stripped of their life force they disintegrated. Later, it would be explained that their ability to manipulate matter was what held them together. Only their life force kept most of their bodies together. Looking around he saw the man he had killed by breaking his neck, had finally turned to dust and was blowing away.

Kyle had proved himself with the two women. The only disappointment he had was that he had no more private time with the woman Tess. She seemed to be friendly enough, but she refused to talk about that night in his cell. When he tried to cut her off from others, she always slipped away. Either that time in the cell was a dream or Kyle hadn’t measured up to her expectations.

It was a welcomed surprise when he was notified that his presence was wanted in the part of the king’s house where Kyle knew the princess and her slave were housed. It was a total surprise when he opened the indicated door and found not Tess, but the princess, herself, waiting. The light was dim, the room was warm, soft music was playing from somewhere and before him stood Isabel clad in a gown that barely hung on her breasts and clearly showed that she wore nothing under it.

This wasn’t the person Kyle was expecting, but the golden bracelet reminded Kyle that he was at the call of the princess at any time. In a way, he wasn’t in any better position than he had been with the pirate captain. He was asked to do something he wasn’t sure he wanted to do. Looking at the body of the princess, no, the objections he had with the pirate were not the same with the princess. Kyle, the soldier, had always taken it where he found it. Here, unless she wanted to tease him to death, the princess was offering her body.

Kyle was to learn that the Antarians couldn’t tolerate alcohol, but they had a strange fruity drink, which brought both calm and slight hallucinations to any who drank it. It was obvious that the princess was several glasses ahead of him. As they sat, Kyle was looking at the low cut of her gown. Isabel knew this and she closed her eyes and thrust her breasts towards him to allow him to see down the front of her gown.

Kyle was now looking at the straps holding up her gown. They were bow tied. It would only take a single pull on each side for the gown to completely fall into her lap. Kyle took another drink and a fog developed in his mind. He shook his head as a vision of Tess formed instead of the princess. Kyle reached down and pulled the gown up over her knees. She didn’t object, so he figured this was what she wanted. With his hand on her thigh he squeezed and felt her muscles tremble. The princess’ head was resting on his arm as he cradled her head and bent down for kisses. Kyle pulled first one bow, then the other. The front of her gown fell to her lap baring her breasts and hard stomach below. Kyle caressed her breasts and she responded. He dropped his hand down to the firm flesh below. As he was digging to the area between her legs, suddenly Isabel sat up. She carefully removed his hand and lifting her gown, she retied the bows.

Standing, Isabel shook her body and the gown dropped to it’s rightful place. “I am sorry Kyle. I thought I could do it. Go to Tess, she loves you. I know I own you and I have the right to make any demands of you I want. I also, own Tess and I have the right to take from her anything I want, but I am the princess, the sister of the king. I don’t have the right to bring pain to any of my household.” With that, Isabel took Kyle by the arm and led him to the hall. “That door across the hall that is the one you want and the door hides the one who most wants you.”

In almost a trance, Kyle walked across the hall. Standing before the door he looked back at Isabel framed in the lighted doorway of her apartment. The back light showed her naked body under the gossamer gown. As he turned, Kyle thought he heard a sigh from Isabel. Kyle took a deep breath and knocked on the door indicated. Tess opened the door.

Tess was wearing the simple shift of a slave. Her eyes were red and tears were streaming down her face. “It was her right to take you. She could have even offered to share you with me, but Isabel is a great lady. She knew that after that first night, I loved you and as a great lady she couldn’t be cruel and take you away from me. I hope she finds who she is looking for. I will always love her as my friend,” Tess cried.

There were no candles, no music and no drink. Kyle didn’t need any. The shift quickly came off and the naked Tess led Kyle to her bed. There was no seduction. They did what was natural. For the first time in his life, Kyle was in love. For the first time since her parents had brought her to the court of the king, Tess felt that she was complete. Yes, at any time Isabel could take Kyle away, that was her right. Isabel was a great lady and Tess hoped Kyle would remain with her for a long time.

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Alex found himself in the office of a man who was introduced as the king. To Alex’s Earth mind he didn’t look like a king. There was an Earth woman working as his assistant. For the near future, Alex was to be her assistant.
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Stories by Ken
Good teachers are born that way, not made. No! Good human beings, are born that way. Some of them become teachers.

Of course, life is not fair. You shouldn't expect it to be fair, but you should expect it to be ironic.
JKR 1981-2001
History is made of wars, recovering from wars and preparing for the next war.
JJR 1975-
Locked