The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

‘Compromise’

(mc, f/f, sf, nc)

DISCLAIMER:

This material is for adults only; it contains explicit sexual imagery and non-consensual relationships. If you are offended by this type of material or you are under legal age in your area, do NOT continue.

SYNOPSIS:

The alien Sthil have brought the Federacy to its knees. Why have they agreed to peace negotiations?

* * *

‘Compromise’

Part Nine

* * *

“It has started.”

Ilaria Toligiani stood at one end of the darkened room; the side of her body was illuminated by the vidwall she stood in front of, a glowing scene with a half-dozen people frozen in the act of walking down a corridor.

Ling looked at Yvgeny Corso, seated on her right. He didn’t return the gaze, keeping his eyes fixed on the Corvette-Captain. Behind them, Mary stood against the wall with her arms crossed. Gopi Ashalawalpindi, seated just beyond Corso, flicked his eyes across the Konstrovan, and Ling, then back to the front of the room.

“Here,” Toligiani said, stepping slightly to the side and flipping an index finger at the vid on the wall; the image snapped into motion. “This is the Terrillian delegation, on their way back from last night’s formal dinner with the Sthil.”

Her finger extended to touch the wall, drew a circle around a woman walking with the delegation. She was smiling, turning her head to talk to her companions, laughing at a joke. Ling recognized In’Bere Hoskins, walking with another Terrillian a few steps behind the woman at the tip of Toligiani’s finger.

“Plenipart-Speaker Cleo Tuzang.” Without turning Toligiani reached upward and tapped the wall just above the video image. A three-dimensional model of a brain appeared.

“This was her brain two days ago.” Toligiani reached out and a second, identically sized model appeared. “And this was her brain last night, returning from her dinner with the Sthil.”

The image was the same save for one detail: a thin, smooth, lamprey-like cord was lying right down the longitudinal fissure of Tuzang’s brain. On the right, it wasn’t there at all. On the left, there it was, snuggled neatly between the hemispheres of her brain.

Ling watched the smiling, chattering woman walk down and past the camera.

“An obedience lobe,” Ashalawalpindi breathed.

“It appears that way,” Toligiani replied.

“Do they all have them?” Corso asked.

“No. Just her, and a man from the Macon’s World delegation—they were also at the dinner that evening.”

“Who?” Ling asked.

“Christopher Bland. A guard.”

“Why only some of them?” Gopi asked. “Why not the whole group?”

Toligiani shrugged. “I could only speculate.”

“Then speculate.”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t have enough to go on.”

Ling looked at her companions, who looked back at her. Their faces seemed almost fearful in the dim glow of the vidscreen.

Mary came away from the wall, gripped the back of Corso’s chair. “So what do we do?”

Everyone looked at the Corvette-Captain.

“Nothing,” Toligiani said.

“Nothing?” Corso demanded. “While they enslave us?”

“What would you do?” Toligiani replied. “Panic? Arrest Plenipart-Speaker Tuzang? Sergeant Bland? What would the Sthil do then?” She cut a hand through the air. “No. We have one and only one advantage, and that is that the Sthil do not suspect that we know what they are doing. When we are safely back in Federacy space, we can—and we will—act. Until then, we must pretend that we suspect nothing.”

“But what if they get us?” Mary asked. “Us in this room?”

Toligiani sighed. “Then we are in trouble. Plans will have to be changed. And so, I would ask each of you: do what you can not to enter the Sthil areas of the station. If you are invited to dinner, let the rest of your delegation go, but you should decline. Do not risk your mind.”

“Pfah! And send our comrades to risk theirs?” Corso stood up. “I will be careful. I will be suspicious. But I will not be coward.”

Toligiani’s perpetual frown deepened. “As you like. I can’t stop you. But the word is that we will be able to leave here in just a few days. The Sthil are wrapping things up. The calendar indicates that the Terrill and Macon’s World delegations aren’t going to be in the Sthil part of the station again before we leave—meaning that they’ll only have had a chance to implant those two, which means they probably aren’t planning to implant us all.”

“’Probably’?” ventured Ling.

With a shrug, Toligiani waved a hand and the lights came on. “Probably. Hell, they might storm over here in the next fifteen minutes and enslave everyone, I don’t know. But I make decisions based on evidence and reasonable conjecture, and those tell me that they are only implanting some of the delegates and that we’ll be off of this station before they get all that many more.”

“I am uncomfortable with this,” Ashalawalpindi said. “With keeping silence. What you are recommending means that we will let more of our people be enslaved. We should warn them.”

Toligiani turned and pointed at him. “We already did. Yount did. Anyone going over there should know to be on their toes. Don’t get separated. Don’t let them get you alone. What additional warning would you give? ‘But seriously, we mean it, we’ve seen them implanting people’? No, Emissary, the knowledge that we have actually seen these secret obedience implants can not leave this room. I don’t want to threaten anyone—that’s a spiral that won’t lead anywhere productive. But I must receive assurances from each of you that you will tell no one at all—not your head of delegation, not the rockside bartender, not your cross-delegation lover, no one at all—about what I have shown you here.”

The four of them looked at each other.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Mary said.

“We are going over there this evening,” Corso replied. He stopped for a moment, the room hanging with quiet. “I will be going. I will keep my people safe. No horrible worm will be drilled into Konstrovan brains.”

“You will tell no one,” Toligiani told him in a flat voice.

“Yes, yes. I will tell no one.”

“I won’t tell,” Ashalawalpindi said. “Much as I dislike keeping silent. And we, my people, are going back there tomorrow.”

The four of them looked at Ling.

“I won’t tell anybody,” slave ling promised.

* * *

Someone was following her as she walked down the corridor; Ling let herself slow down so that the person could catch up.

“Hey,” Mary said, putting a hand on Ling’s shoulder.

Ling stopped and made a half-turn. “Mary. What is it?”

Mary raised her hands, palms up. “What was that? Back there?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Look...” she trailed off. A man was approaching, one of the station staff; he nodded his head at the two of them. Ling nodded back; Mary gave a tight smile.

“Here,” Mary said quietly as he disappeared down the corridor. She waved a hand at a door panel. The door slid open, revealing a small room, mostly empty, some metal crates lining the rear wall.

Ling followed Mary into the room; an overhead light came on as the door slid shut behind them.

“So what do you mean?” Ling asked.

Mary started to speak, paused, then turned away. When she turned back her hands were clenched. “You’re okay with this? With... worms being placed into people’s heads?”

Ling shook her head. “They’re not worms, they’re brain implants. And no, I’m not okay with it, I hate it. But what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know—tell people? Tell Yount, get us the hell out of here? Come on, Ling, letting them... implant people, while we do nothing... no. Forget what I promised Toligiani, it’s wrong. We to tell people. We owe them that.”

Ling closed her eyes, lowered her head for a moment. She exhaled, then looked back up at Mary.

“Mary. Mary, this is why we’re here. We’re.... we’re sacrifices. Just like those people on the Nepenthe. I don’t know why you came, but I came here because it was necessary. Because the Sthil demanded it. I didn’t know what I was getting into but I knew what I was getting into, if that makes sense. I knew that this was the risk. We all did.”

She took a half-step closer. “I don’t like this any more than you. Those are friends being enslaved out there. Maybe permanently. I don’t know. But Toligiani is right; we need to stay quiet and not let the Sthil know we’re onto them. Protect our people as best we can, and then once we’re away... take action. But we don’t want to call their bluff, Mary. We leave in a huff, it mean fireballs raining down on Run-Ha-Lan. Everyone here knows that.”

Mary stared at her with wide blue eyes.

Ling stared back.

Mary turned away. “You- fuck. You’re right. I hate it.”

“I’m sorry,” Ling said. “I hate it too.”

Mary looked at her again, then waved a hand at the door. It slid open.

“Be careful,” she said as she stepped out the door.

“Extra careful,” slave ling promised.

* * *

Ling allowed herself to shoot a sideways glance at LiShen.

They stood flanking the door, inside the negotiation room once again. Li-Hwa and WuFei were seated; WuFei was tapping his fingers silently on the dossier they had brought.

slave ling wondered if slave lishen was as eager as she.

Soon she would be with Slave Moira again. There might be sex, which slave ling hungered for, but simply being in the presence of her mistress was reason enough for euphoria. In her mind slave ling could picture her mistress, her golden-pink skin, her wide, freckled face, her golden eyes...

For the moment, she waited.

The Sthils’ door opened. The male slave entered, and the female, and behind them came slave shuu. slave shuu did not smile at them, as she had earlier; her eyes were fixed, her face expressionless.

The three Sthil negotiators seated themselves and stared across the table. slave ling realized that the recording device was not present.

“These are your proposals?”

It took a moment for slave ling to realize that it was not slave shuu who had spoken, but rather the female slave on her right. From the delay in her reaction, Lady Li-Hwa had also been taken by surprise.

“Ah, yes. Yes, those are our... proposals. Shall we discuss them?” At a motion of Lady Li-Hwa’s hand, WuFei flipped the dossier open.

“We shall discuss them later,” the woman said. “Once the restatement of fact has been completed, we shall review your proposals for their suitability for presentation to our Masters. That will come later. Now, you will listen to slave shuu.”

Their attention returned to slave shuu, who had said nothing. slave shuu’s eyes were glassy; she was staring into space at a point somewhere between slave ling and slave lishen. her voice was toneless and robotic.

“You may relax,” she said.

“Everything is as it should be.”

slave ling smiled, and waited.

“Li-Hwa,” slave shuu said, “please exit the room and accompany slave tomiko. she awaits you.”

“Yes,” Li-Hwa said in a dreamy voice. “Everything is as it should be. I will accompany slave tomiko.”

slave ling watched as Li-Hwa stood, and walked around the table, and out the door into the Sthil area.

slave shuu had not turned her head, nor moved an iota.

“slaves,” she said robotically. “your controllers will collect you now.”

A nude, bald, obedience-lobed man leaned into the room. “slave lishen,” he said. “come with me.”

“Yes, master,” slave lishen replied. she hastened to round the table and leave the room.

A moment after slave lishen left, a woman—short, dark-skinned, with short dark hair, the front of her obedience lobe visible on her high forehead—stepped into the room. “Come, slave wufei.”

“Yes, my mistress,” slave wufei replied, rising from his chair and hurrying around the table. he followed her swiftly from the room.

Then Slave Moira looked in. slave ling’s heart melted.

“Come with me, pet,” she said.

slave ling could not go to her fast enough.

* * *

Colors, swirling colors, sliding across slave ling’s brain...

The colors faded into darkness. There was a hiss, the sound of static, and then that too was gone.

slave ling was in darkness, and silence.

her head swam. Things were happening inside it, things that were correct and yet things that she was not party to, things that she would accept and obey and embrace without ever being aware of what they were. her mind felt like a swamp filled with sunken buildings, the water only just covering their roofs, marsh grasses waving above unknown golden treasures.

The darkness moved away, pulled away, and resolved itself blurrily into a vidscreen that had almost been touching her forehead. Earpieces left her ears with soft popping noises.

she was in a room, a familiar room, the programming room. her arms were raised on either side of her head. There were needles taped into them.

Slave Moira stepped in front of her. Her beauty made her glow.

“i love you” slave ling blurted around the tube in her mouth.

Slave Moira smiled her wide smile. “you’re sweet, slave. Let me get that.” She gently pulled off the tape from slave ling’s lower lip, then slid the tube out from her mouth.

Then Slave Moira replaced the tube with her tongue, leaning forward to kiss slave ling deeply, lingering, nursing at slave ling’s mouth with her own.

slave ling’s hands rose, almost of their own accord, and lifted Slave Moira’s heavy breasts, cupping them, squeezing gently.

Slave Moira licked slave ling’s lips teasingly as she broke the kiss. “you like those, don’t you,” she asked, looking down.

“yes,” slave ling admitted.

“They’ll be getting bigger,” Slave Moira observed. She must have seen slave ling’s brow furrow—slave ling’s mind was still blurry, wavering, slow—because she laughed lightly.

“No, it’s nothing that the Masters are doing—well, not directly. They have their aesthetics but big tits aren’t necessarily in them. No, my tits will be swelling naturally, because i’m pregnant.”

slave ling blinked stupidly. “C-con...?”

“Why thank you, slave.” Slave Moira took a step back, ran her hands down the sides of her nude body. “It’s actually very flattering; the Masters’ breeding experts recognized at once how suitable my body was for breeding, these big round hips, the nice big pelvis between them. And then they learned about my family history.”

Slave Moira stepped closer again, and reached for one of slave ling’s arms. “Multiple births. i have twin sisters, my uncles were a set of triplets.” She pulled the tape gently from slave ling’s arm and slid out the IV needle; hung it on the apparatus. “Apparently the human rate of reproduction is not what our Masters would like it to be,” she said, turning to slave ling’s other arm, “so they’re going to breed us to increase it.”

She slid out that needle as well, hung it up, paused to look in slave ling’s face. “my family history is perfect for that effort, and with a body like this i’ll probably be kept pregnant until my eggs run out. my progeny...” Slave Moira took a deep breath, her eyes alight with fervor. “The breeding experts tell me that within ten generations my descendents could be throwing litters. Providing the Masters with human slaves at a fantastic rate. It’s... well, it’s such a deep way to obey that it makes me feel somewhat awestruck.” She beamed. “i can serve my Masters so well, with my body as well as my mind.”

slave ling tried to smile back. “The man... h-husband?”

Her smile glittered as Slave Moira laughed. “Of course not, silly. Some genetically appropriate male was found and we were placed together for a few days of fucking. i don’t recall his name. Actually, i think there were two of them—twins, of course. i put up with it. Anyway, marriage doesn’t really exist any more, not between slaves. Serving the Masters is our only commitment. And if I were in a long-term relationship, it wouldn’t be with my former husband. None of us are heterosexual any more.”

slave ling must have looked confused again, because Slave Moira laughed some more. “Oh, dear, my pet, you are just delicious. It’s really a shame you will be serving the Masters back in the Federacy and won’t be coming home with me. The civilization our Masters have gifted us with back on Brisbane is just wonderful.”

Slave Moira looked down, then slowly knelt down between slave ling’s legs. She looked up across slave ling’s sweating torso. “They don’t want any unplanned breeding, of course, so when our minds are corrected and our obedience lobes installed, our sexuality is re-oriented as well. Unless of course you were gay to begin with.”

There was a soft sting as Slave Moira removed the needle from slave ling’s right leg. “At any rate, i haven’t seen my pre-correction husband since the conquest. i’m sure he’s happy, assuming he didn’t get killed.” There was a matching sting as the other needle slid from slave ling’s left thigh.

Slave Moira looked up at her. “Now, there’s something we want you to see, but—” and she looked down at a wrist for a moment “—it’s not due for half an hour or so. So we have some time to kill. What were we talking about just now? Ah yes, lesbian sex...”

Slave Moira looked down; a dozen centimeters in front of her was slave ling’s wet pussy, still splayed open by the programming apparatus’ dildo. “So wonderful...” she breathed softly, then leaned forward to lick.

slave ling whined in pleasure and closed her eyes.

* * *

they were entwined on the floor when Slave Moira’s subdermal implant beeped.

slave ling pulled her mouth from Slave Moira’s pussy, and looked down the length of their belly-to-breast bodies to find Slave Moira’s wonderful face looking back at her.

“Time to go, slave,” Moira said with a glistening chin. She rolled away onto her back, and sat up. “We needn’t bother getting dressed, but i think a quick shower is probably in order.”

The two slaves rose to their feet. Slave Moira led slave ling from the room. Only a few paces down the corridor, the hallway widened into a room, an intersection where eight corridors came together in a small chamber with a table, some chairs, a dozen closed cabinets against the walls. Between two of the cabinets was a clear shower tube.

“you first,” Slave Moira said. slave ling waved a hand at the shower tube door, which swung open. It closed behind her and the tube filled with the spray of warm water; it felt delicious. slave ling turned slowly, tapping a wall dispenser for foam cleanser, rubbing her nude body.

she looked outside the tube to see Slave Moira watching her, pleasure glittering in her eyes. A blue-skinned guard walked by on the far side of the room, and the guard’s head swiveled to look at slave ling as she slid her hands over her wet body.

The water spray cut off and Slave Moira waved the door open—she had taken a towel from the neighboring cabinet and she handed it to slave ling as she stepped past her into the shower tube.

slave ling dried off as Slave Moira quickly showered. she was slowed a little by the irresistible urge to ogle Slave Moira’s voluptuous form. Her pregnancy was not obvious, not yet, but the wide curves of her hips had slave ling hungering to grip their smooth flesh in her hands while she buried her face once more in between.

The water cut off and Slave Moira opened the shower tube door. Suddenly, slave ling realized she should have fetched a towel, and reached for the cabinet.

“No, no, i’ll take that one,” Slave Moira said, sliding the used towel from slave ling’s hands. “Plenty of dry left in it, and it’s the next best thing to rubbing your body all over me directly.” She winked at slave ling.

* * *

Nude, the two of them walked through several corridors and clambered down two sets of ladders.

“i think you will find this interesting,” Slave Moira said at the bottom of the second ladder. She pointed at an open doorway. “we will go in there and observe. Be completely silent; save your questions for afterward. Do you understand?”

“i understand and will obey,” slave ling confirmed.

The two of them entered a room divided into two sections by a large floor-to-ceiling window. The light in the room had a reddish tint. On the side with Slave Moira and slave ling were several other humans, all with obedience lobes, some male and some female, none nude. Slave Moira moved to stand next to the large clear pane, and motioned slave ling to stand next to her.

On the other side of the glass was a large device very like the programming chair which slave ling so frequently found herself in; a padded chair, reclined at an angle, with forked rests for the legs; here however the chair also had arms, which the occupant of the chair was currently resting her arms on.

It was slave lishen.

she was staring blankly at a point on the ceiling; her eyes were wide open and glassy. slave ling could see the IV tubes attached to her forearms. Just above her head was an armature with a number of instruments and devices emerging from it. At present, one thin metal arm was lowered, gently touching slave lishen in the very center of her forehead.

A man entered the room, dressed in a white apron. He carried a small, cylindrical bag. Pausing for a moment, he nodded at the dozen or so slaves standing in the other half of the room, then placed the bag down on a table next to slave lishen’s chair.

With a wave of his hand, a nearby wall sprang to life with displays; columns of text, graphs, numbers; some fluctuating, some static. The man read them for a few moments. Then he turned to slave lishen.

With one hand he reached behind her head, and made adjustments to something. Then, with the other, he began to pull the slim metal arm away from the slave lishen’s forehead. To slave ling’s surprise, he pulled the metal away not upward, but straight out.

He pulled, and pulled, and pulled... after almost a minute, the arm was free—trailing a long thin tube or thick wire, which slave ling realized had actually been penetrating slave lishen’s head from front all the way through to the back. A single drop of dark liquid fell from the wire’s tip.

The man pushed the arm with the wire up and away, and reached up to lower a different instrument from the armature—this one looking like a machine for filling a glass bottle, only the bottle was attached at the top and its neck pointed downward. The man maneuvered the metal tip of the instrument down to the same place on slave lishen’s forehead that the wire had emerged from, leaving the glass ‘bottle’ rising above her like an ornamental plume on a show pony.

Then he reached into the bag he had brought, and took out a half-meter long clear tube. Within it was a long, fleshy, wormlike thing, the thickness of a finger and just under half a meter in length.

slave ling suddenly recalled the image of Plenipart-Speaker Cleo Tuzang’s brain, and realized that she was now looking at slave lishen’s obedience lobe.

The man reached up and carefully inserted the tube into the bottle-shaped portion of the device; the greyish flesh within was pulled by some gentle suction until the tip of it was down within the metal pressed against slave lishen’s forehead. The man withdrew the clear tube and put it aside.

slave lishen stared blankly into space while above her in the device, her obedience lobe glinted in the reddish light.

The man reached around behind slave lishen’s head again, spent a few moments making adjustments to whatever device was there. He straightened and looked carefully at the displays on the vidwall.

Then, after a quick nod, he touched a button on the forehead device.

The obedience lobe jerked once, then slowly but steadily began to slide downward into the device—and thence into slave lishen’s skull. It was being... threaded... into her brain.

It took only three of four minutes before the entirety of the greyish mass was gone from sight. slave lishen’s vacant look never altered.

The man reached behind her head and fiddled with the machinery; then he slowly swung the device up and away from her forehead. A raised bump, like the bite of a mosquito, was the only sign on her forehead that anything had penetrated it at all.

Then slave lishen’s face changed, her mouth opening, her eyes stretching wider; not in a quick jerk but swiftly, smoothly, as though she had come to a sudden, surprising realization. her gaze remained distant, unfocused, but her head slowly pivoted on her neck, slowly left, slowly right, her mouth hanging open. Then it tilted back, and came to rest against the chair’s headrest.

her eyes, and then her mouth, slowly closed.

Slave Moira gently took hold of slave ling’s shoulder, and pointed towards the room’s exit.

With a last look at slave lishen’s placid expression, slave ling obeyed.

* * *

“she will need about an hour to recuperate. That gives another forty minutes before you all need to be back in the negotiating room.”

they were seated in a small side room, a hemicircular cutout along a corridor. There were two chairs, and a table, and a small vase with some form of dangling moss growing from it. The moss struck slave ling as incongruous.

Slave Moira crossed her legs. “i want to know if you have any questions.”

“Mistress,” slave ling said, “they know. The Federacy knows about the brain implants. There is a Common Security operative on the Admiral Hui who is aware that the Sthil are implanting obedience lobes secretly into Federacy personnel. She has brain scanners set up in the station. She will catch slave lishen quickly.”

“Yes,” Slave Moira nodded. “we know.”

slave ling blinked in surprise. “You know?”

“we do. Ilaria Toligiani is part of our plan.”

“i... oh.”

Slave Moira reached across the table and took one of slave ling’s hands in her own. “Do not worry yourself, slave. What you must do is only what you have been instructed to do. Pretend. Remain undercover. Behave as Officer Wu Ling would behave. your mission is long term. you will assist Li-Hwa’s new slave personality to grow in strength, and when it is ready you will help it take over her mind entirely. Until then, your focus must be on remaining undetected. Do not worry about slave lishen. she is fulfilling her purpose as directed by our Masters. her discovery is intended. If you obey your programming, you will be acting as our Masters desire you to.”

slave ling nodded. “Yes, mistress. i think i understand.”

“Good! Have you any other questions?”

“What... where did the obedience lobe come from?”

“It was grown here, from slave lishen’s own tissue. Were she not already our slave, it would not serve to control her; however, she rejoices in its presence and will eagerly embrace its direction of her thinking.” Slave Moira waved a hand. “These... covert obedience lobes are inferior to the true flesh such as i have been gifted with, but they serve their purpose.”

“To enslave in secret?”

“That is one of their functions.” Slave Moira smiled. “i would expect that you yourself will be installing more than a few of them, once you are well ensconced on Penyang and secretly building a cult of Sthil worship there.”

“Do they... how are they different, from your obedience lobe?”

“My obedience lobe... is me. Is the core of my mind. All my thoughts originate within it, or are approved by it. The integration is seamless—it is my brain. What i am now is what i was always meant to be, a corrected human. The covert lobes... are separate. Those implanted with them must and will obey, but they can tell that the lobe is a distinct thing within their mind, something they serve and obey but not truly part of them.”

Slave Moira looked down to idly trace a finger around her breasts. “One day, all humans, including you slave ling, and all those fitted with covert lobes, will be corrected with true obedience lobes and will serve as they were meant to. Until then... we work for that day. The Masters play a long game.”

The man who had just implanted slave lishen with her covert obedience lobe walked past down the corridor. slave ling watched him pass by and allowed herself a sense of enormity, of the scale in which the Sthil were altering the universe, and her own very small place in that plan.

“Any other questions?” Slave Moira asked.

slave ling permitted herself a small smile. “i do have one further question. what shall we do to entertain ourselves during the forty minutes before i must return to the humans?”

Slave Moira’s wide face lit with her white grin. “i think i have an idea,” she said, uncrossing and spreading her legs.

“Kneel.”

* * *

slave shuu rapped the papers on the table.

“Very well then,” she said.

Lady Li-Hwa shook her head slightly.

The slaves among them—slave ling, slave lishen, and slave wufei—had re-entered the meeting room wide awake. There was no reason for them to be in trance, no deception was necessary for eager, obedient slaves. They took their positions in the room, resuming their roles in the careful charade for the benefit of Lady Li-Hwa, who was led in by the woman in the white dress, and carefully seated at the table.

slave ling easily suppressed the wicked smile she felt, as Lady Li-Hwa awakened.

“i see nothing objectionable within these proposals,” slave shuu intoned. her voice was still monotone, her gaze glassy and fixed. “we will present them to the Masters, and they will reply to you through Their ambassadors.”

“Am...bassadors?” Lady Li-Hwa said.

“Yes. The humans who were presented on board the Nepenthe have all been corrected and have now fully joined with their obedience lobes. they will be returning to the Federacy with you to act as our ambassadors to your worlds. The same information is being presented to all of your delegations. Further communications with the Sthil shall occur through these ambassadors.”

“I... I see.” Li-Hwa shook her head again. “I suppose we... have no choice in this matter.”

“None,” slave shuu replied. “You will accept the ambassadors and you will communicate with our Masters through them.”

Li-Hwa did not reply.

“It has been seven hours,” slave shuu stated, “and this meeting is concluded. i shall observe that this was our penultimate meeting. we shall meet with you once more in two days; subsequently we shall leave, to bear your proposals to our Masters.”

slave shuu and the other two Sthil rose from their chairs. “Two days,” slave shuu stated woodenly, then rotated in place and walked stiffly from the room.

* * *

End

Part Nine