The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

It was warm in the sheets. Margot reached back to find Xiulan’s arm, but it wasn’t there.

She frowned. The bed was too comfortable to open her eyes, but she wanted Xiulan...

“Hey. Sergeant.”

Margot’s eyes snapped open. She blinked and the blurry form standing over her resolved... into Liqin Junipero. Margot groggily shook her head.

“Hey, Sergeant, the Captain sent me in to wake you up.”

Margot looked around. She was lying on a mattress on the sitting room floor, under a thin blanket. Light was coming in between the boards which had been nailed across the windows.

“What... what time is it?” she asked.

“Not quite nine. Cruzado-Liu and Han-Harris were up early to start working on the AATGV, but Stone said to let you sleep. Hey, there’s hot water if you want to take a shower, and there’s coffee and biscuits and bacon in the kitchen.”

Margot could smell the bacon, and she hadn’t bathed since... Saints, since it happened. The mattress was still warm and comfortable, but coffee? Bacon? She pulled the blanket aside and stood up. “That sounds wonderful,” she said, stretching.

There was in fact hot water, and the showerhead in the upstairs bathroom was gloriously generous. Margot washed her hair and luxuriated in lathering herself with soap. Someone—probably Miss Wen—had put a stack of clean towels on the sink counter. It was almost a crime to get back into the camo fatigues she’d been wearing; but it was quite obvious nothing which fit Lillana’s small frame would fit Margot, and nothing other than the largest of the clothes from storage—the sweatclothes which Margot had been sleeping in—did either.

She came downstairs and piled a plate with bacon, eggs, biscuits and jam, even fruit. No one else was in the kitchen, so she sat at the trestle table and tried to read a printed magazine, enjoying the taste of food that hadn’t come from a can or a bag.

The door to the sitting room opened and Tsugerloi and Wen came in. “Ah, Margot, you’re up,” Tsugerloi said. “Lillana here was good enough to prepare breakfast, as I see you have discovered; when you’re done I’ll see to washing up.”

“It’s delicious,” Margot said with crumb-specked lips. “Thank you so much.”

“I am happy you enjoy it,” Lillana replied.

Tsugerloi was filling a glass from the kitchen tap. “So your Specialist and Bekka are working on the, what was it? ATVG? Your armored vehicle. The Captain took the other two with her to set up a patrol around the buildings.”

“I should join them,” Margot said, spearing another slice of bacon.

“They should be back in ten or fifteen minutes,” Wen said. “The farm’s not that large, unless they’re heading out into the fields, and I did not get that impression.”

“I was wondering,” Tsugerloi said, “if I might talk to your prisoner. The one named Cora.”

“Go ahead,” Margot said. “I’m sure she’ll be happy to talk to you. I don’t think she’s dangerous, she’s just... on their side.”

“Would you mind chaperoning?”

“Not at all.” Margot scraped the last of the eggs into her mouth. “Meff Mo.”

In the foyer, Cora and Doctor Vanderbruk were sitting quietly, Cora on the settee, Vanderbruk on the sofa. The room was dimly lit by sunlight stabbing in through the boarded up windows.

Cora looked up as they entered.

“Hello, Margot. Hello, other people.”

“Hi, Cora. This is, uh, Doctor—”

“Helen Tsugerloi,” Helen said. “I’m a veterinarian. I live in Savoy.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Cora said.

“If no one minds,” Doctor Vanderbruk interjected, “I really need to visit the restroom.”

“I’ll take her,” Lillana said; Margot hadn’t even noticed that she’d come with them into the foyer. “Where are the handcuff keys?”

“Stone gave them to me,” Helen said. She unlocked Vanderbruk’s cuff, and the doctor rubbed her wrist, then stood up. “Thank you. I cannot see, so if you could lead me?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Lillana took Vanderbruk’s raised hand. “This way, please,” she said, and led Vanderbruk into the kitchen; the downstairs restroom was on the far side.

“Would you like something to eat?” Tsugerloi asked Cora.

“Would I ever,” she replied. “The breakfast you made smells fantastic.”

“I’ll get it,” Margot said. “Go ahead and ask your questions.”

She went back into the kitchen and apportioned more food onto a plate, and filled a glass with water.

When she walked back into the room, Tsugerloi was leaning right over Cora, ten centimeters away from her face, staring into her eyes. “So you say you can see perfectly well?” she asked.

“Oh yes,” Cora said. “Better than before—I used to wear glasses. Quite nearsighted and with an astigmatism. My new eyes... colors are different. But I can see just fine.”

“And these... veins,” Tsugerloi said, craning her neck and peering at Cora’s neck and throat. “What do they signify?”

Cora shrugged. “I can’t see them. The next time you let me near a mirror, I’ll have a look.”

Tsugerloi continued to bob her head around, examining Cora’s head. Her eyes widened as she found the ragged black patch at the whorl of her hair. “What is this?”

Cora’s mouth quirked. “What am I, your specimen?”

Helen pulled back. “I’m sorry, am I being insulting?”

“No, I’m just joking. It’s only natural to be curious about your destiny. That’s... I guess you could call it my stem. Yes, I like that. My stem. Or maybe my brain’s belly-button.”

“That’s where the xeno... where it poked through your skull,” Tsugerloi said with an exhalation of breath.

“Yes. That’s where the seeding drone inserted the seed into my mind.”

Tsugerloi dropped down to her haunches and leaned forward to examine Cora’s eyes again. “Does it hurt?” she asked.

“Does what hurt?”

The veterinarian waved her hand, indicating all of Cora’s head. “This.”

“Being a drone? No. On the contrary, it feels extraordinarily good. It was a little uncomfortable when the seeding drone pierced my head, but there aren’t a lot of nerves in your brain. And once I embraced my new role... I love what I am. You will too.” She looked aside and up at Margot, who was holding the plate of food. “Is that for me? Oh, thank you.” Cora took the plate with her free hand, put it on the settee next to her, and stuffed a biscuit into her mouth. “Oh, mmpf,” she said. “Gerb.” Margot handed her a fork.

Tsugerloi walked over to the lacquered wooden gaming table and picked up a chair, which she brought back and placed at the end of the settee. She sat down and watched as Cora ate, wolfing down the food.

“Thank you for the food,” Cora said, when her mouth was momentarily empty. “I’m sure Doctor Vanderbruk could use some as well. And I know I’m your prisoner and all, but could I maybe have a shower? I promise I won’t do anything naughty. Well, unless you ask me to,” she added with a wink.

“I can keep an eye on her while she showers and uses the facilities,” Tsugerloi said. “Unless you want to.”

“No, that’s... just be sure that if Cora is uncuffed, Doctor Vanderbruk is cuffed, and vice versa, okay? And have Lillana with you. Let’s make it a rule to never be alone with them.”

“As if I could overpower either of you,” Cora chipped in. “And I’ve promised to be good. But that’s okay, sooner or later you’ll all join us anyway.”

At that point, Vanderbruk came back into the room, Wen guiding her by the arm. “I needed that,” she said. “Could I trouble you for a spot of food, and something to drink? And I’d kind of like to take a bath or something. I haven’t gotten a chance to wash since you rescued me from Arc of Sands.”

“That’s what I was saying,” Cora said, pointing a finger at her. “Take a number, sister.” She looked at Margot with her liquid black eyes. “Oh, sorry. Of course, it’s up to you, Margot. You’re calling the shots.”

Margot shook her head. She needed some fresh air. “Doctor Tsugerloi, Miss Wen, I’m going to leave these two to you. It should be fine for them to take showers—one at a time. Keep the other one cuffed. If they give you any difficulty I’ll be just outside.”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” Tsugerloi replied, brushing her hair back. “Since Vanderbruk is uncuffed, let’s have her take a shower first and feed her after.”

“Aw, c’mon, I asked first,” Cora said.

Lillana shrugged. “Back upstairs I guess,” she said to Vanderbruk.

Margot went through the kitchen into the sitting room, and then out through the rear mudroom to the yard. The nearer of the large metal sheds had its doors open. The AATGV had been backed out partway, and was now half in, half out of the opening. Margot walked over towards it.

The vehicle’s hood had been taken off and the engine had been lifted up via a chain assembly, itself part of a big metal framework which Margot saw had been wheeled over to straddle the AATGV’s front end. A large rectangular folding table stood nearby, covered in parts; fasteners, hoses, clamps, cans of spray lubricant, belts, and a sparkling array of tools.

She heard voices in the shed and peered into the interior darkness; the light from the door and the dusty windows was enough to show Cruzado-Liu and Han-Harris conferring at a workbench along one wall.

“We could fab it, but without the right calipers I don’t think we’d get a good fit.”

“It’s built for field service, the tolerances can’t be that tight.”

“You know Zergon AG shit, it’s touchy as fuck. Defense market or not, if we fuck up the fit it’s gonna rattle out after five hundred klicks. If that happens when you’re going over thirty...”

Cruzado-Liu sighed and ran her hands through her hair. “Double fuck, you’re right. But this one is really fucked, it’s probably more micro-fracture than not. We can pressure patch but even so...”

“So let’s do both—we’ll cast a new best we can; and we patch this one up. If it breaks, you jack up and—” Han-Harris noticed Margot and turned to face her. “Help you?”

“I, uh, just looking around,” Margot replied.

Han-Harris dipped her chin and turned back to Cruzado-Liu. “What do you think?”

“It’s going to take a while to sort out those pig guts back there anyway, I think you’re right. Can we program the fab without power?”

“Naw, we’ll have to wait. When the combots are fully charged, we can run the fab and then the caster. Should have enough time for that before the sun goes down.”

“Hey, Sergeant,” came a voice from behind Margot. She turned around to find Junipero approaching. “Good to see you’re up. Captain wanted me to show you the perimeter.”

“Great,” Margot said. “Lead on.”

Junipero waved a hand and started walking, turning to pass between the farmhouse and the shed. Margot followed. They stopped at the edge of the yard, looking south across a large open field. “We’ve got good fields of fire,” Junipero said with a wide gesture, “though nothing really in the way of fortifications. But during the day it will be hard for anything to sneak up; the fields have been grazed down below ankle-height for at least a third of a kilometer in every direction.”

She turned to point back at the silos. “Those silos—the tallest one has a catwalk all the way around at the top. Han-Irinov is up there right now. We brought a couple noise guns from Naigurh, so if she sees anything...”

Margot waved at the figure at the top of the silo, who waved back. “Where’s Captain Stone?” Margot asked.

“I think she went inside. Wanted to talk to Miss Wen about equipment, supplies, stuff like that.”

They resumed their walk, circling clockwise around the farmhouse. The whole house except the side facing the yard had a wraparound porch, with a gravel walkway in front of it; the grass of the fields ran right up to the walkway.

As they turned the front corner, Margot looked off to the southwest. Savoy was only a few kilometers away, but she couldn’t see any sign of it.

Junipero could tell what she was looking for. “There’s a downslope when you get near the coast. Savoy is right on the ocean, so we can’t see it from here.”

“Hm,” Margot said, then stopped suddenly, her hand flying to her pistol.

At her feet was a crawler—but it was dead. Looking around, she could see more of the black crablike creatures, all of them mangled corpses.

Junipero stopped, puzzled, then saw what Margot was looking at. “Oh, yeah,” she said. “They said that a bunch of the little ones attacked two nights ago. There’s a bunch of those bodies around—combots got them. I think they piled up the ones that were killed on the house over there.” She pointed.

Margot’s pulse was racing more than she’d like to admit. She shook her head. “Right. Any big ones?”

“Yeah, actually, two. Combots got them too. Speaking of...”

Rolling around the northwest corner of the house came one of the combots. Almost three meters tall, tripod legs with full-sphere wheels, sporting two armature-mounted twenty-millimeter autocannon on a torso that was mostly ammunition housing. Margot hadn’t gotten a good look at them last night; the lights had prevented that, and then they’d all gone inside.

This combot was painted in the Imperial Colors of Serak XXIII, who’d been Emperor almost two centuries prior. Its sensor ball was painted to look like a stylized mustachioed face.

“Ever seen one before?” Junipero asked.

“Yeah. We trained with some, although they’re pretty much reserved for active pacifications and I was only ever assigned combat duty in pacified territory.” Margot remembered those exercises; watching the combots storm through concrete walls and ravage anything less than Ogre-class field armor. The infantry mission was ostensibly fire support, knocking down asymmetrical threats like rebels with rocket-propelled explosives. In reality, the combots moved so quickly that the infantry was challenged to even see anything before the combots vaporized it.

The combot rolled towards them. “I’d never seen one,” Junipero said. “It’s... intimidating.”

“It will fuck you, your squad, your platoon, and your entire town, all the way up,” Margot said. “And then down again. Hell, if we’d had one at Arc of Sands...” The xenos would have stood no chance.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Ammunition was finite, after all.

It approached them, passed by, and turned to proceed around the farmhouse. “That one’s an antique,” Margot said. “Although even that doesn’t quite explain how Mr. Wen was allowed to own it. As far as I know combots are totally forbidden outside of direct Imperial service.”

“The other one’s charging in the workshop,” Junipero said. “The farm has both solar and wind generation; they’re only using the power to charge the combots for now.”

They resumed walking. “Makes sense,” Margot said. “With those things active it would be extraordinarily difficult for the xenos to overrun this place. Certainly not without paying an extremely high cost.”

She thought of the pile of crawlers in the Arc of Sands garage. She thought of Xiulan.

They walked by the corpse of one of the big xenos, crumpled on the ground. It hadn’t been blasted into confetti; the carapace was mostly intact, although with multiple head-sized exit wounds. That was good, the combots weren’t wasting ammunition.

They kept walking in a straight line, passing the yard on the north side. The disturbing lumps that were the bodies of the farm’s cattle were distributed randomly across the fields.

As they passed the silos and turned south, Margot looked upward and waved at Han-Irinov again. The Corporal raised her hand in acknowledgment.

The southeast corner was the big metal-sided barn, still closed. They turned back west past the mechanical shed, and a right turn back to where their walk had started. Junipero had been right, there was little way anything could sneak up on the farm buildings; it was grassy fields in every direction.

Margot wondered if there were xenos that could dig.

The two of them walked back through the yard and into the farmhouse’s back door.

Stone was seated in the kitchen, drinking a glass of water. She looked up as they entered.

“Those combots are something,” she observed. “You get a look at them?”

“One of them,” Margot replied. “As long as they have ammunition, I don’t see any of the xenos being able to get past them.” She had a thought. “Do you know what they’re targeting on? I can’t imagine that there’s a combatant profile for any of the crawlers, large or small.”

Stone shook her head. “We’ll have to ask Wen or Han-Harris. They did a good job on both sizes of those fuckers, though.”

“So what’s the plan?” Margot asked, filling a glass for herself. “Fix up the AATGV, then what? Just head south, avoiding Savoy? What about these three? Bring them with us?”

Stone put her glass down. “Now seems like a good time to ask,” she said.

The three of them went into the foyer. Wen was in the corner reading a book; Vanderbruk was cuffed to the sofa again and sitting quietly. Tsugerloi was sitting in her chair an arm’s length from Cora, whose hair was wet. Tsugerloi cut off what she was saying as they walked in, and turned towards them.

“Ah, you’re back. Miss Flannigan here was just telling me about your attempts to escape Arc of Sands, before she had enlightenment forced upon her.”

Margot blinked. She realized that she had never learned Cora’s last name.

Tsugerloi continued. “I take it you never found out if there was an access tunnel? In the basement?”

“Er, no,” Margot said. “They took me outside and I spent the rest of the time before the rescue tied up.”

Tsugerloi nodded.

“Since we’re all here,” Stone said. “I’d like to know your thoughts on what will happen once our AATGV is repaired. Do you want to come with us?”

Tsugerloi looked at Wen. Wen shrugged.

“Well...” Tsugerloi began.

“Excuse me,” Cora said, “But you’ve got visitors.”

They fanned out from the farmhouse’s back door, weapons in hand. Tsugerloi and Junipero went to the shed to fetch Han-Harris and Cruzado-Liu. Stone, Wen, and Margot walked around the house to collect the patrolling combot. Wen gestured at the thing, and it immediately turned in a sharp curve to fall in ten paces behind her.

Combot in tow, the three of them walked towards the long front driveway.

Stone’s walkie-talkie crackled. “We have vehicles inbound,” Han-Irinov said. “I’m assuming from the fact that everyone came out packing that you’ve already seen them?”

“Flannigan told us they were coming.”

“Who?”

“Cora.”

“Oh.” There was a pause. “Well, I guess we know who’s driving, then. You be careful.”

“Will do. Thanks, Pearl. They may try to infiltrate from a different vector while we’re distracted. If they do, hit the noise gun, and feel free to open up with that rifle. Keep an eye out.”

“Consider it kept.”

Margot looked over her shoulder. The combot followed ten meters behind, a loyal, lethal hound. Margot looked sideways at Wen. Who was she, that she possessed that kind of highly restricted—if ancient—high-end military hardware? Then Margot looked at her again.

“Miss Wen?”

“Yes, Sergeant? Call me Lillana.”

“I just saw your sidearm.”

“Yes?”

“I can’t help but notice it’s not a ballistic weapon.”

“That is correct. It’s an energy pistol.”

Stone looked over with surprise. Margot let a note of incredulity enter her voice. “Just who was your father?”

Wen tilted her head, indicating the approaching vehicles. “Let’s discuss it later.”

Several vehicles were approaching slowly down the gravel drive. In the front was an aircar—more accurately, a hovercar, factory installed with a governor to keep it below thirty meters. Behind it was a large groundcar fitted as a van, with room for possibly twelve people. Behind that were two flatbed trucks, dust rising from their large tires.

At twenty meters, the vehicles stopped. A woman got out of the aircar.

Stone, Wen, and Margot walked closer. Margot looked over her shoulder, saw the other four women on the porch. Han-Harris and Tsugerloi had shotguns, not much use at this range, but Junipero and Cruzado-Liu were carrying their 88s.

The woman from the hovercar walked towards them. She had her hair done up in a chingon, which gave Margot an odd feeling; the infested apparently still did their hair. She was wearing a snug black shirt and matching black pants, and black track shoes.

Her black eyes matched her clothes.

The woman stopped, as did the three of them.

“Good morning,” she said. Her skin was paler than Margot’s, and the black curves of the alien veins were visible at the edges of her face, on her throat, her neck.

“What do you want?” asked Wen.

“We do not want to fight you,” the woman replied. “We would like to collect the corpses of the drones you have slain.”

“That’s a lot of truck for just those bodies,” Wen said.

The woman nodded. “We also wish to collect the bovines.”

“You want my cows?”

“That is correct.”

“The Imperial government purchases grown steers for seven hundred credits a head. What’s your offer?”

Margot expected the woman to be nonplussed, but instead she laughed. “Very good, Miss Velcado. If you wish credits, we will be happy to provide them. They are, of course, worthless now.”

“Well then. Why should I allow you on my land?”

“Because you do not seek trouble. We give you our word that we will do nothing other than to collect that flesh which we have come for, and then leave.”

“I still don’t see why I should allow this.”

The woman shrugged. “The bovine pods will shortly hatch. Surely you would prefer that they are not so close to you at that point?”

“What precisely will they hatch into?”

The woman smiled. “More of us.”

Wen looked at Margot and Stone. “Stone, Belangier? What do you think?”

“I don’t think we can stop them,” Stone replied. “I think they will simply start collecting what they want, and then we’ll have to decide if we want to shoot at them.”

Wen looked at Margot. “And you?”

“I expect the Captain is right,” Margot said. “But they have taken the time to ask. Since you’re here,” she said, turning to the infested woman, “Let me ask you this. When are you planning to assault this farm?”

The woman shrugged again. “I do not know, and even if I did, I would not tell you.”

“If we allow you to collect the dead xenos and the cows, unmolested, will you agree not to come back to this farm for a week? No attacks, no infiltration by the little crawlers, just leaving us unmolested for a week.”

The woman appeared to consider the idea. “Hm,” she said. “Hm.” She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she nodded. “Three days,” she said. “None of us will enter the property for three days.”

“A week,” Margot replied.

“Three days,” the woman said. “Otherwise we will, as Captain Stone observes, simply begin collecting what we want and you may use your ammunition upon us if you wish.”

“And no one—nothing—comes near the buildings.”

The woman nodded. “It shall be as you say.” She turned to face the vehicles, then turned back around. “If you like, we will wait to begin until you are back at your house.”

“That’s okay,” Wen said. “Go ahead.”

“Very well,” the woman replied.

Behind her, the van’s side door slid open.

A woman stepped out. She was nude, which was not surprising. But whereas the woman they were speaking with, like Cora, had black veins on her neck and throat and at the edges of her face, the woman emerging from the van had them over her entire nude body; it was as though her circulatory system had been lightly traced on her skin in black ink.

She walked towards them as behind her another woman stepped out of the van. Margot was still looking at the first. She was watching them with liquid black eyes as she approached—but she also had black lips, glossy black, and her nipples were black, and her hands... her hands and feet were also black, and seemed... stretched.

More women were coming from the van. They were walking in pairs out into the field.

“We will want to move the truck closer to the house, to pick up the seeding drones’ bodies,” the initial woman said to them; Margot’s attention snapped back to her. “If you would please step off of the road.”

The first woman from the van walked past them, heading towards the house, and Margot was unable to resist staring at her once more. Her hair was black, cut into a short bob. Her skin, which had probably been a golden tan only a few days ago, was now ashen; the dark traceries of black veins were strongest on her arms, her legs, her neck; fainter but still visible on her torso and breasts. Her nipples seemed almost swollen, and were nearly as black as her lips and eyes.

The woman stared back at Margot as she walked by.

“Of course,” the woman in the dress said, “if you would like to join us, we are happy to have you. We can take you back to Savoy immediately. Submitting to the brood is immeasurably pleasurable.”

“That’s okay,” Wen said, a strange note in her voice. “We’ll be going back to the house now.”

“A pleasure speaking with you,” the woman said. “I look forward to your joining the brood.”

Wen put a hand on Margot’s arm and she twitched, blinked, came back to her senses. She turned and caught Stone’s elbow as she did so, and the Captain also shook her head and focused. Margot forced herself to look at the combot, put one foot out, then the other, and started walking.

The woman from the van, and an equally nude companion, were ahead of them now. Her backside was flawless, her ass striped with a matched pair of branching black veins. Her lower legs... it looked as though she was wearing low-cut black boots, and Margot realized that the skin of both her hands and her feet bore a strong resemblance to the carapace of the crawlers, black and chitinous. Her hands looked like they were in forearm-length black gloves, skin-tight; and her fingertips seemed... pointed.

The two women turned away to the right and approached one of the stricken cows. One walked to the rear, the other the front, where the head, tongue out and eyes rolled up, lolled unnaturally to one side.

They bent over, and picked it up.

“Those cows weigh four hundred fifty kilos,” Wen said quietly.

The infested women didn’t even appear to be straining as they carried the swollen carcass back towards the trucks.

Margot, Wen, and Stone walked back to the house. The other four women were waiting on the porch.

“The fuck happened to them?” Cruzado-Liu asked, pointing. “They’re all...” she shook her head. “The fuck?”

“Focus, Specialist,” Stone said, “Or it will happen to you. How many are there?”

“Twelve of them, Captain,” Junipero replied. “And one of them’s a man.”

Margot looked at Junipero, then followed her pointing finger out into the field.

One of the trucks had remained where it had initially stopped; the other had come closer to the farmhouse. That one had stopped about twenty meters away, and pairs of the infested were carrying the bloated bodies towards it.

Sure enough, one of them was male. Flat chest, broad shoulders, and between his legs swung a black set of male genitalia.

“Looks like they didn’t kill them all,” Tsugerloi said.

Wen stepped back down from the porch. “Hey!” she shouted. A half-dozen liquid black eyes turned towards her. “Any of you step onto this gravel,” she indicated, waving her arm to point at the walkway around the house, “you get murdered. I expect you to stay away from the house.”

None of the infested humans replied; after a moment, they all returned to their work.

“All right, let’s make sure that they don’t do anything untoward,” Stone said. “Belangier, you take that corner of the farmhouse. Specialist, you’re over there. I’ll watch the exterior of the sheds. Miss Han-Harris, if you would accompany me? Han-Irinov can see the rest of the area from the silo. Miss Tsugerloi, Miss Wen, if you’d move around and keep an eye on all of us. I’m not sure how long it will take them to get what they came for, but it shouldn’t be more than an hour. Be sure that someone else can see you at all times. No one should be out of sight for any amount of time at all.”

They spread out as Stone repeated the dispositions into the walkie-talkie, for Han-Irinov to hear. Margot walked to the corner of the porch; she could see everything to the north and west in almost two hundred seventy degrees. The combot which had accompanied them down the driveway now stood immediately in front of the western facing of the house, just down from the front door, between the house and the flatbed truck.

Margot watched the infested women—the man was now further out in the field, and carrying his bodies to the further truck—as they carried the dead xeno warriors and all of the crawler corpses over to the truck. All of them, save only the woman who had spoken with them, had the black hands and feet, the ashen skin, the traceries of black veins. They neither approached nor even looked at the farm house.

There was a rocking chair, so Margot sat in it.

“So,” came Lillana Wen’s voice. “You wanted to ask about my father.”

Margot turned to find the young woman approaching down the northern porch. She nodded.

“Your father was General Velcado,” Margot said. “The Hammer of Austerhaut.”

Lillana nodded. “He was. Wen is my mother’s name; for obvious reasons, I chose to use it when I went off to school.”

“Rygan was an idiot to dismiss him,” Margot observed.

Lillana shrugged. “He feared my father’s popularity. And he wished to do as he pleased, without being advised that his plans were poorly made.”

“And so he had your father retired here to Strand.”

“My father chose it. He had come here once, as a young man. He liked the climate. Farming suited him.”

“Things would have been better for the rest of us, had he remained a general.”

“Perhaps. Life here was good.” Wen watched the activity in the fields. “Until recently, of course.” Wen bowed her head for a moment. “I thought things had were bad when father died. This is of course something much worse.”

“What kind of... who does this?” Margot asked, gesturing at the infested slaves clearing the field. “Who could this possibly serve?”

“I don’t know,” Wen replied. “It seems like insanity. But then, what are a few million people, more or less, if they buy you... I don’t know what. Knowledge, maybe.”

“It still doesn’t...” Margot waved her hands. “A rebel world, perhaps. One of the old colonies, too many mouths. But Strand? I mean, it’s just crazy.”

“Hey! Belangier! Wen!”

They both turned. Stone was walking—no, jogging—towards them.

“We have a situation,” she said.