The furry layers Sir had synthesized for me were baking hot, but that was only because I was wearing them all at once. And also, probably, because I had gotten used to running around naked—which was not something I would have ever guessed I could get used to back before he had bought me from the Commercians.
The first layer he’d made me was a kind of bodysuit made of fine, ultra soft fur. It was stretchy and thin and I had been delighted to put it on. It felt like a mink coat against my bare skin—sensuous and sexy. It brushed against my nipples and my bare pussy mound in a way that made me wiggle with sheer delight.
But then there was another layer and another and another and even more after that! There were also three sets of socks, a special pair of boots, three pairs of gloves and one pair of mittens that went over them. And Sir also synthesized me a furry scarf and a face wrap as well as a fur hat that tied under my chin.
Once I had all of it on, I looked like a furry bowling ball and felt like I was baking. How cold was this damn planet, anyway? Weren’t we going to be inside a building the whole time? It just seemed like overkill.
But Sir wouldn’t budge when I whined and begged to take off a layer of two. He insisted that I was “too delicate” and that he had to protect me from the cold.
“It’s so frigid on the surface of O’nagga Nine, you would freeze to death in mere merns,” he told me, frowning. “I refuse to risk my precious pet in such extreme temperatures.”
“But we’re not going to be on the surface, are we?” I asked. “Or at least not for long. I thought we were going to be parking right across from Baron Vik’tor’s building and going right inside.”
“Even a few merns on the surface can be dangerous for one with a delicate constitution and a body that is unable to self-regulate its temperature,” Sir said. “If you want to come with me and partake in the feast, you must wear everything I have synthesized for you.”
I saw he was putting his foot down and wasn’t open to negotiation on this point, so I sighed and nodded.
“Fine,” I grumbled. “But we’d better get to the planet quickly. If I have to stay in these furs inside the ship for much longer, I’m going to have a heat stroke.”
Sir frowned.
“Is this something that often happens to humans?”
“It does when they overheat,” I said. “And I’m getting really overheated right now.”
He shook his head and muttered something about primitive people who couldn’t control their body temperature.
“Hey—just because I can’t set my own temperature doesn’t mean I’m primitive!” I exclaimed, putting a hand on my hip—which I could barely feel through eight layers of fur. The outer coat was the worst—it was three times as thick as the others and it fell to my ankles. I felt like a walrus in this getup! All I needed was a tail, some tusks, and a big set of whiskers.
“You’ll be glad for every one of those layers once I open the door to the ship and we step out,” Sir told me. “Which I am about to do now, because the ship has landed. Come here to me, little one.”
He motioned to me and I came to stand obediently by his side. Sir was also dressed in layers—though not nearly as many as me. He looked rich and important in his long synthi-fur coat. It was velvety black which made his gray skin look even more like expensive, imported marble.
“Get ready to move quickly,” he said. “We need to get from the parking area to the Baron’s building as fast as possible.”
“I’m ready,” I assured him.
He frowned down at me.
“Adjust your scarf and face covering, little one. Not a bit of your skin must be exposed to the elements.”
I sighed and did as he said—no easy task with the triple layers of gloves and the mittens covering my hands. At last Sir seemed satisfied because he nodded at me.
“All right—let’s go.”
Then he opened the door and a gust of wind so cold it took my breath away swept into the ship.
“Come on.” Sir had me by the hand and the ship’s shiny silver door was closing behind us almost before I could react.
I gasped and wished that I hadn’t—the icy wind went down my throat like a sword made of ice. It was so cold it burned and breathing it made my lungs ache. Also, ice crystals formed immediately on my eyelashes, which was something I had never experienced before—not even in the coldest Virginia winter.
“Little one? Are you all right?” Sir demanded, looking down from his great height. “Shall I carry you?”
He had wanted to do so, but I had talked him out of it earlier, saying I could handle myself. Now, I wasn’t so sure. Still, I shook my head stubbornly. I didn’t want to be carried around like a baby or a pet—especially not when we were about to meet someone important.
“I’m okay. Just…getting used to it,” I assured him.
Taking tiny sips of air to get myself acclimated to the extreme temperature, I concentrated on keeping up with my Master’s long strides.
The ship had landed on a large black square of land that was coated in some kind of rough asphalt. Several other ships were parked nearby—at least, I thought they were ships. They were all covered in thick tarps which showed nothing but vague outlines.
“Hey, do we need one of those for the ship?” I asked, nodding at them and looking up at Sir.
He shook his head.
“I’ve left the ship running to keep it warm. But if we were staying for more than a few arns, then yes, we would need a heated tarp.”
“But…should you really leave it running?” I asked. “Won’t somebody steal it?”
Sir frowned.
“How could they? My ship responds only to me—I have only to touch it and it will open for me but it is permanently locked against anyone else. Now hurry, little one, we must get to the Baron’s building.”
He pointed across a broad street where I saw very few vehicles driving, to an enormous, towering building which seemed to be made of glass. But then I remembered that Sir had told me all the buildings were made of ice on O’nagga Nine.
Was that really possible? The building soared overhead, as big or bigger than any skyscraper I had ever seen on Earth. It seemed to be built on pillars of ice—each one as big as an entire house in its own right. There was a set of steps that led from street level up to the front doors, which were also made of ice, though they appeared to be coated in some kind of non-stick surface.
Sir and I walked briskly—well, it was more of a jog on my part, trying to keep up with him—across the street, dodging around the slow-moving vehicles which lumbered up and down the road.
There was no snow or ice on the road, though it seemed like there should be in a place like this with such extreme temperatures. Maybe it was heated or treated with something to make it ice resistant, I speculated. I was glad that my feet in their new boots didn’t slip or slide around at bit.
There were, however, huge drifts of dirty gray snow on either side of the road between buildings—some of them ten or twenty feet high. There was also an icy wind blowing which made me glad of the furry face coverings Sir had insisted that I wear. I was pretty sure my nose would have been frozen off without it. And even with the face coverings, my face felt stiff—like I was wearing a mask made of ice.
I wondered what time of day it was. The sky was a uniform gray which seemed to indicate some kind of twilight but the sun was still out—I could see it glimmering faintly when I looked up. Maybe it was dim because O’nagga Nine was so far from its sun, I speculated, remembering that Sir had said the planet was located on the far edge of the solar system’s habitable zone.
At last we reached the broad steps of the building. There were other buildings clustered around it, but it was definitely the biggest and the most ostentatious on the block. The ice pillars that supported it had been carved with all kinds of designs and decorations and there was also some kind of script that must be the Naggian language. I wanted to see if I could decipher it, but Sir was already pulling me up the stairs.
We went up quickly and found ourselves in front of a vast set of double doors. There were more carvings on the framework around them and this time I had time to let my eyes do their thing, where the alien language looked like gibberish at first and then resolved into letters I could read.
“Honor, Integrity, Hard Work, Candor, Independence,” I read aloud, scanning the frame.
Sir looked down at me in apparent surprise.
“Can you read Ancient Naggian too then, little one?”
“Is that what it’s written in?” I shrugged. “I guess so.”
“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, given your facility with languages,” he murmured. “Well, come on—we must go in.”
I was all for getting out of the biting wind—which felt like it would like to claw my face off if it could—so I followed him quickly through the double doors and into the huge ice building.
There was a little entryway where we took off our face coverings—Sir said it was rude to wear them inside—and then we pushed through another set of doors, into the main part of the building.
Inside it wasn’t nearly as grand as I had imagined it would be. I had expected to walk into a vast lobby, like something you might find in an expensive hotel. Instead, we seemed to be in the middle of a warren of tunnels, with different hallways leading off in every direction. People were rushing back and forth, coming out of one tunnel and going into another, all of them with their heads down and intent looks on their faces.
“What’s all this?” I asked Sir, frowning and looking around. “I thought this place was supposed to be fancy.”
“This is only the bottom floor,” Sir told me. “The Baron’s building has a central location and it serves as a hub—a place where the tunnels and walkways that lead to all the other buildings in the city converge. You see, they’re all connected—all the buildings, I mean,” he explained. “That way the residents can keep out of the elements as much as possible.”
“But I thought they could regulate their body temperature to keep themselves warm,” I protested.
Sir nodded.
“They do. But though they do not feel the cold as you do, it can be bothersome trying to get through mounds of snow and ice which accumulates during their cold season—which lasts most of their year.”
“Huh…okay, that makes sense.” I looked around with more interest. The area we were standing in did seem more like a crowded subway station than the lobby of a grand hotel. Apparently people could park their ships or vehicles across from the building, like we had, and then enter here and use a connecting tunnel or walkway to take them to whatever building they needed to go to.
I had been hoping it would be warmer inside, but it was still extremely cold and I didn’t want to take off any of my layers. Still, we were out of the biting wind, which was a big improvement.
“Come along, little one—I believe that’s our lift at the other end there.”
Sir motioned to a shiny ice elevator that was rising slowly upwards at the far end of the lobby.
“Okay,” I said and we walked briskly through the crowds of pedestrians. All of them were Naggians and looked like the vampire merchant we had met at the spaceport—the one whose knife I had used to cut my leash. They all had long black hair and white skin. And I don’t mean light tan like a really pale human—I mean white—as white as snow or paper. It made their masses of hair look even blacker, like midnight clouds swirling around their faces.
The fashion seemed to be to leave their hair down and since they were all looking at their feet as they walked along, it was hard to see what their eyes looked like. But every once in a while I would catch someone looking at Sir and me and they never had very friendly expressions on their faces when they did. Some of them even bared their long, curving fangs at us. Clearly we were interlopers here—not wanted on their planet.
We got to the elevator and Sir pushed the button. But since it had already been on an upwards journey, it looked like it might take a while to come back down. To pass the time, I continued to people watch.
Around the edges of the central space there were merchants set up with little stalls filled with goods. Some of them were selling things to eat—I saw a stall that seemed to be selling little pies of all different colors—pink and blue and green and purple. It made me wonder what the fillings were and my mouth started to water.
The stall beside the little pie shop had big pots of some kind of steaming liquid that might have been the Naggian version of hot chocolate or coffee. People would stop and drop a coin in the jar and the merchant would hand them a cup full of the sweet-smelling stuff that they could sip as they went on their way.
Some of them, however, didn’t seem to have a coin on them. Instead, they would speak to the merchant briefly and he would pull out a glass jar that seemed to be half full of dark blue liquid. The prospective customer would press their index finger to a sharp little spike at the top of the jar and wait for a moment before pulling away. Then the shop keeper would give them a cup of the steaming stuff and they would go on about their business.
It took me a moment to realize that they were actually paying with their blood. I was thrown off by the color, but then I realized the Naggians must have blue blood. They were pricking their fingers and letting a few drops of blood fall into the jar to pay for their morning coffee!
It seemed really weird, but in a society where everyone had to drink blood to survive, I supposed it made sense. I looked over the other stalls, wanting to see if they had similar arrangements. Sure enough, every one of them seemed to have one of the glass blood collection jars, though from the amount they had collected, I gathered that the food displayed cost more than the steaming hot drink I was coveting.
Speaking of the food, there was another stall that was selling some kind of crispy strips of brown meat on a stick that looked a lot like bacon and smelled divine. I wondered if the feast we had been promised would include any of that—I certainly hoped so!
As I was looking longingly at the meat on the stick stall, I happened to notice something else going on behind it, near the mouth of one of the far tunnels. There was a group of girls gathered around and most of them seemed to be waving their hands in the air.
Or maybe, I thought as I looked more closely, they were waving their wrists. Because they all had on gloves and long sleeves but they had pulled the sleeves up to show their long, white arms. They were dressed all alike—all of them wearing ragged furs that had been dyed a vivid shade of poison green Was it some kind of cult? I edged a little closer, trying to figure out what they were doing.
As I watched, a Naggian man approached the mouth of the tunnel where the girls in green had stationed themselves. Immediately, several of the girls came up to him, waving their wrists in his face.
“You want a bite, Mister?” one of the girls asked boldly. “Fresh, luscious blue blood—my prices are the best you’ll find!”
“No, no…” The man waved her off uneasily. “I have a wife—I’m happily mated. I don’t need to drink from another fount.”
“Bet your wife won’t give you what I can,” the girl purred. Pulling back her curtain of long, black hair she bared her snow-white throat for him. “I’ll let you drink from my neck—and you can breed me while you do it.”
The Naggian man’s face went red but he didn’t try to chase the girl off. Instead he muttered,
“How much?”
“How much for a fuck and suck? Well, why don’t we take a little walk to my burrow and we can talk about the price?” the girl purred. Hooking her arm through his, she led him into the mouth of the tunnel and they disappeared into the gloom inside.
“Are you watching the Blood Whores, little one?” Sir rumbled, surprising me.
“Is that what they are?” I looked up at him and then back to the group of girls dressed in green furs with interest.
“I believe so.” He nodded. “They are women who live on the edges of Naggian society selling the only thing they have to offer—their blood.”
“As well as other things,” I murmured.
Just then there was a muted ding and Sir took my hand.
“Come—our lift is here. We must hurry if we’re going to be on time for the feast the Baron has prepared for us.”
“All right.” I nodded and followed him to the lift, which also appeared to be made of ice. I wondered that it didn’t melt and then thought it was probably because while it was slightly warmer inside the building than it had been outside in the howling wind, it was still plenty cold enough to keep anything made of ice frozen rock solid. I could see my breath coming out in a cloud in front of my face every time I exhaled.
As we were stepping into the lift, I turned for one last look at the “Blood Whores” as Sir had called them. I felt sorry for them—what an awful life, selling your blood and your body because there was no other way to scrape up enough money to live!
And then, just as the door was closing, I saw her. Standing there at the back of the group of girls in green was an Earth girl!
Once my eyes fastened on her, I couldn’t understand how I’d missed her before. Yes, she was wearing ratty green furs like the rest of them, but her skin wasn’t pale white—it was a warm, lovely brown. And her hair was curly rather than being long and straight. She was clearly as human as me—what was she doing here?
Just as I was watching her, the girl looked up and her eyes met mine. I saw her eyes widen as she took me in and realized about me what I had realized about her—that we were both human! My heart jumped in my chest and, without thinking, I started to get out of the elevator and run to meet her.
But then a big hand clamped onto my shoulder and pulled me back inside just as the doors closed.
“Wait, little one—what do you think you’re doing?” Sir rumbled, frowning down at me as the lift began to rise.
“A girl! One of those Blood Whore girls—I saw her!” I exclaimed, almost too excited to make sense. “Sir, she was like me—she was human! From Earth! Please, can’t we go back and talk to her? I’m sure she needs our help.”
Sir shook his head.
“We cannot wait a moment longer or we’ll be late for our meeting with the Baron. Tardiness is considered the height of rudeness in the Naggian culture.”
“But she’s human and she’s stuck here!” I protested. “We need to take her with us.”
Sir frowned.
“She is probably owned by some Naggian male who bought her from the AMI the same way I bought you, little one. I cannot take another male’s property just because she happens to be your same species.”
I looked up at him in frustration. He wasn’t getting it! My Master had many good qualities, but he still felt it was just fine for one person to own another—probably because he didn’t consider that anyone besides his own species could really be classified as a “person.”
“But she might be trapped here—alone and cold and scared,” I tried again. “What if that happened to me, somehow? Wouldn’t you want some kind stranger to come along and rescue me?”
“I would never let such a fate befall you, little one,” Sir said, drawing me close to him and putting one long arm around my shoulders. “You are under my protection—I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
Again, he wasn’t getting it. I wanted to stamp my foot in irritation but just then the door of the lift gave a muted ding and slid open.
We stepped out into a far grander area than the hub of tunnels down below. There was a rich, velvety red carpet on the floor that led down a long hallway. But just as we stepped onto the carpet, a Naggian man I hadn’t seen standing there suddenly appeared before us. He was wearing some kind of dark uniform and his long hair was combed severely to one side.
“Names, please,” he said, frowning up at Sir.
“I am Sir Barinthian Ver’Toklar the Fourteenth, Lord of the Realm and Overlord of the Northern Continent of Korrigon Four,” Sir said. “And this is my pet, little one,” he added, indicating me. “We are here at the request of Baron Vik’tor who has invited us to a feast.”
“Ah yes.” The Naggian man who must be the Baron’s servant or butler nodded and gave a short bow. “You are expected. May I please take your wrappings?”
I started to say no, he couldn’t, when I realized that it was warmer up here than it had been down on the lower floors. Oh, it was still plenty chilly, but I could no longer see my breath when I exhaled.
“Yes, you may,” Sir said, allowing the servant to help him out of his long black fur coat.
The servant hung Sir’s coat on a hook on the wall and turned to me.
“And the lady? May I help you divest yourself of your garments?”
“Just the outer one, please,” I said and let him help me out of the bulky fur coat. After that, I felt much lighter, even though I still had plenty of layers on.
“And now, will you take us to the Baron?” Sir asked.
The servant nodded.
“I will indeed, but first may I present you with these sigils, which you must keep with you at all times when you are in the building.”
He withdrew a rectangular, flat box from his uniform pocket and opened it to show us two long gray wires. He picked them out of the box and tapped them smartly together.
“Oh!” I exclaimed involuntarily as the ends of the wires burst into red sparks. They looked like the sparklers you get at the Fourth of July—you know the kind you play with as a kid? I always held those damn things too long and then when they burned down to the end they scorched my fingers.
“Here you are—sigils of the Baron’s favor,” the servant said, trying to hand one of each of us.
Given my history with sparklers, I held back.
“Er…will it burn me?” I asked uncertainly.
The servant gave a polite chuckle.
“Not at all, my lady! The pyrotechnics are all simulated—thought they do make a dazzling display, do they not? With one of these in your hand—or even poking out of your pocket—everyone will know you’re under the Baron’s protection. They won’t dare to lay a finger on you!”
“Oh, well—thank you, I guess,” I said, taking the stick with its brilliant red sparkles gingerly from his hand.
“Thank you,” Sir said, taking his as well. “Do we need to wear these in the presence of the Baron?”
“Not necessary,” the servant said. “They are simply for you to carry as you move about the Baron’s building.” He hesitated. “Do forgive me—I was supposed to meet you at the front doors of the building to give them to you as soon as you entered. I hope you did not encounter any problems without them?”
“None whatsoever,” Sir assured him.
“Ah, good! Then everything is well.” The servant looked vastly relieved. “I am so glad no one troubled you.”
I snorted.
“Of course they didn’t. As if anyone is going to start trouble with someone who looks like my Master!”
Sir gave me a warning look.
“Now, little one…”
“Well, it’s true,” I pointed out. “You’re ten feet tall, extremely muscular, and you can break things with your mind! Nobody with half a brain is going to start trouble with you.”
“Be that as it may, I believe it’s time we put away our sigils so that we can meet the Baron,” Sir told me.
He looked slightly uncomfortable and it occurred to me that maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned his “Mental Abilities” as he called them. He seemed to have a slight complex about them and I had never seen him do a single thing with his mind—other than regular things like piloting the ship and using the Matter Synthesizer—since the incident at the spaceport.
“Sorry, Sir,” I murmured.
Sir nodded forgiveness.
“That’s all right, little one, but we don’t want to be late.”
“Okay—I’ll hurry,” I said.
I wasn’t sure what to do with my sparkler—or “sigil” as the servant called it—but Sir went to the hook where his long black coat was hanging and tucked his into the lapel.
I supposed I should do the same, but I didn’t have any good place to put it on my own coat. In the end, I just slipped it—still sparkling and fizzing and hissing—into my coat pocket.
I watched it anxiously for a moment, wanting to make sure it wasn’t going to set anything on fire. But when no smoke came out of my pocket, I decided that the servant must be telling the truth—the red sparks shooting out of it were just for show. So I gave my pocket a final pat and hurried to catch up with Sir, who was already following the servant down the long hallway.
But as I went, my mind kept returning to the face of the human girl I had seen down on the bottom floor. Something told me she needed help and I was determined to do something for her before we left the building.