Their Human Vessel Page 2

  Corrie rolled her eyes. She was the only passenger. How the hell could she exit in a disorderly fashion?

  There was a hiss as the seal decompressed and the door opened.

  Immediately, the heat of the Terramaran atmosphere hit Corrie like a punch in the face. She hadn’t been expecting that. The darkness of the planet had given a false impression of coldness, but Terramara was actually quite the opposite. The air was hot and stuffy. Almost instantaneously, beads of sweat began prickling along her skin.

  Shit. Hopefully the glue of her latex prosthetic mask would hold.

  Corrie picked up her carry-on, stepped out of the craft, and began descending the stairway down to the tarmac. The man in the cowboy hat was now standing at the bottom, looking up at her, respirator squeezed firmly against his flabby jowls.

  Jesus, this guy was a real piece of work.

  He had removed the black cowboy hat and was holding it now by the crown, fanning his face with the brim. His thinning salt and pepper hair was plastered to his scalp with sweat. He was wearing a long-sleeve white shirt with pearl buttons, and as she made her way down the steps, Corrie could literally see the progress of the growing stains of sweat spreading around his armpits. The man’s collar was cinched tight around his thick neck by a bolo tie with a lump of turquoise the size of a baby’s fist, and his sizeable belly lopped over the top of his too-tight dungarees, which were tucked into a pair of honest-to-God black cowboy boots.

  Corrie smirked behind her respirator.

  She certainly hadn’t expected her greeting party to be Wyatt-frigging-Earp.

  “Mike Peterson?” the portly cowboy drawled through his respirator.

  Corrie nodded as she reached the bottom of the stairs. Michael Peterson was the alias under which she had falsely applied for the job position.

  “Waylon Burgess,” the man said. “I’m the plant manager here at Juvanis Station Seventeen. Glad as hell to meet you.”

  He vigorously shook Corrie’s hand, which all but disappeared inside the manager’s meaty grip.

  Corrie’s pulse quickened. Her hands had been one of her biggest concerns. Small and slender, they were a dead giveaway of her femininity. She had experimented briefly with prosthetic gloves designed by the same artist who had crafted her mask, but they had proven too clumsy and unwieldy.

  But if Burgess noticed her small hands, his eyes betrayed no sign of it. If anything, he seemed to enjoy grinding Corrie’s bones in his crushing grip. Despite his apparent friendliness, Burgess seemed like the kind of guy who enjoyed physically intimidating his underlings.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Burgess.”

  “Please, call me Waylon,” he said, thankfully releasing Corrie’s hand. “We’re not big on formality around here. Now, how was you flight, Mike?”

  “Can’t complain, although it was a bit lonely.” Corrie’s voice came out deep and masculine. “I’ve never ridden on an empty star shuttle before.”

  Burgess’s chuckled and clapped her shoulder a little too hard, leading her away from the ship and toward the blocky buildings of the facility. Corrie wheeled her little carry-on behind her.

  “Yep. Unusual circumstances, Mike. Unusual circumstances. We’re sure as hell glad you were able to get here on such short notice.”

  Corrie knew that was bullshit. They’d surely had no shortage of willing applicants.

  Jobs at the Juvanis facilities were pure gold. Even the most menial positions payed four times the industry standard. The computer technician position she had applied for was only temporary, but it was still a foot in the door. There were thousands of men who had been competing for the job, but she had made it through with her carefully crafted fake resume. Plus, she had called in a few favors for her personal references.

  “It’s my pleasure, Waylon. I understand there was some sort of…unfortunate accident. An animal attack or something.”

  Beside her, Burgess tensed visibly, and for a moment, Corrie feared she had misspoken.

  “It’s too bad that information got out,” Burgess drawled. “But it’s true, Mike. The fact of the matter is that there’s some dangerous wildlife on this here rock. That’s why we recommend not straying too far from the facility. You stay within the perimeter here, and you’ll be safe and sound.”

  “I guess that’s why women aren’t allowed on Terramara?”

  Corrie felt that she was pushing it a bit. She didn’t want to come off as though she was grilling this guy, but her instincts as a reporter were getting the better of her. After all, a few well placed hints and questions couldn’t hurt.

  Burgess laughed and clapped his heavy hand on her shoulder again, nearly knocking her over.

  “Don’t you worry about women, Mike” he laughed. “We’ve got something even better.”

  He had clearly misunderstood the nature of her question.

  Burgess leaned over until the brim of his hat was nearly bumping Corrie’s forehead and whispered conspiratorially.

  “Pleasure droids. Top of the line. They’ve got tits and ass, but they won’t give you no lip, if you know what I mean.”

  Burgess guffawed, and Corrie forced herself to laugh along with him.

  “We like to take care of our people,” Burgess said. “And I know men have needs. Hell, I mean, I’m a man after all, ain’t I? That’s why we’ve got a whole little harem of pleasure droids to take care of our workers after their shifts are over. They’re extra durable too, so you can really smack ’em around if that’s your thing. Good way to relieve stress. You know what they say: a happy worker is a productive worker, right?”

  His eyes darted to the wedding band on Corrie’s left hand. Real gold. Fake ring. It was all part of Corrie’s disguise. She had heard that for the most part, only married men were hired here.

  Burgess let out a skeezy chuckle.

  “And since the pleasure droids aren’t real women, you can keep a clean conscience, Mike.”

  Corrie noticed, with a twinge of disgust, that Burgess was wearing a wedding band too.

  Creep.

  So Galen was supplying artificial females to keep the men on Terramara from getting antsy during their long working season. That was a little sleazy, but hardly surprising and definitely not the kind of news story that would put Corrie back on top. What she really wanted to know was the reason women weren’t allowed planetside in the first place, and even more important, why this far flung world was the only source of Juvanis.

  “Come on,” Burgess said, sauntering toward the glass entrance of the nearest building. “Let’s get out of this damn heat. I’ll give you a tour of the facility.”

  “Hang on a second, Waylon,” Corrie said, drawing her phone out of her pocket. “Before we go in, I’d like to get a selfie with you. You know, just to send the wife and kids back home. They’re always interested to see where I’m traveling.”

  Burgess turned on his boot heels and waved his hands.

  “Whoa now, no pictures of the facility. Industry secrets and all that, you understand.”

  “Of course,” Corrie answered calmly. “Actually I just wanted to get the landscape in the background. Those mountains over there look pretty cool with that green lava and those big crystals.”

  Burgess shifted his eyes nervously.

  “Well...yeah, I guess there’s no harm in that.”

  The plant manager shuffled over beside Corrie. He obviously thought the request for a selfie was a bit weird, which it was, but it was the only thing Corrie could think of to get what she needed. As they stood side by side, Corrie raised her phone.

  “Say cheese.”

  Burgess chuckled at the joke. There was no point in smiling with respirator masks covering their mouths.

  There was a faint click as the picture took. She checked the image on the screen. It looked good enough. Hopefully the general dimness of the planet coupled with the shade from Burgess’s ridiculous hat wouldn’t cover up the details of his eyes. She needed a clear shot of his iris patterns.
r />   Corrie immediately sent the image to her data tablet for later use.

  Had she looked more closely at the image, she might have discovered something peculiar—something in the distance that looked like a pair of glowing green eyes watching from afar.

  But she didn’t notice. Instead, she dropped her device back into the pocket of her slacks, not wishing to arouse further suspicions from her new boss.

  “All right, then,” Burgess said with a shrug. “Let’s get on inside. I’m sweating like a nun at a pickle stand out here.”

  When they reached the entrance, the big doors slid open for them, and they stepped inside the glassed-in antechamber and paused.

  “Air lock,” Burgess said. He pointed at the transparent walls. “Armored glass. Strong enough to stop a rifle round. None of that dangerous wildlife is getting in here, that’s for sure.”

  Corrie gave her best manly nod. She was trying to speak as little as possible, fearing that the vocoder might malfunction and give her away. Now that she was in this situation, everything about it was stressing her out.

  Burgess nodded toward her wheeled carry-on.

  “Light traveler, I see.”

  “I packed all I could on short notice,” Corrie answered. “I’ve got another trunk coming in a week or so.”

  The truth was, she didn’t plan on sticking around until then. Corrie was only going to be here as long as she needed to dig up the dirt on Galen and Juvanis, and then she was going to skeedaddle.

  There was a beep, and the next set of doors opened, letting them into the main lobby of the building. A rush of cool air washed over them both as they stepped through.

  Burgess removed his respirator mask, letting it hand around his neck, and Corrie saw that he had a long, bushy Yosemite Sam mustache underneath.

  Of course.

  Corrie removed her on mask too.

  She had been more comfortable with it on because it covered most of her face. But again, if Burgess saw through her disguise, he didn’t show it.

  “Alrighty, follow me, Mike. I’ll give you the express tour, and then I’ll show you to your living quarters so you can drop off your stuff.”

  “Sounds good.”

  As they made their way through the wide, echoing lobby, shoes ringing on the pristine linoleum floor, Corrie glanced down a side corridor and noticed what looked like a massive steel blast door lined with yellow and black warning stripes. It was the kind of thing you would expect to see on a military base or a nuclear bunker.

  “Say, what’s down that way, Mr. Burgess?” she asked.

  Burgess’s stride hitched slightly at the question. He produced a hanky from the back pocket of his too-tight jeans and started mopping his sweat-sheened brow.

  “Oh that?” he said nervously. “That area is off-limits. Authorized personnel only. Nothing to see there anyway. Waste by-product. Nasty-ass stuff. You definitely don’t wanna go down thataway, Mike.” He gave a fake friendly chuckle. “And please, call me Waylon.”

  “Sure thing, Waylon,” Corrie said with a smile.

  Her smile was genuine. In fact, it took a conscious effort to keep from breaking into a broad grin. If there was one thing she had learned as a reporter, whenever somebody told you “nothing to see there” it meant they were hiding something.

  Corrie had only been here a couple of minutes, and she already knew where she was going to find her story.

  It was just a matter of getting through that door.

  CHAPTER 3

  Grekh crouched naked behind a boulder. His skin, which was a shade of blue so dark it was nearly black, camouflaged him against the shadowy terrain. Behind him, beneath a sky bruised and swollen with dark clouds, the desert stretched away to the far horizon where the jagged ridge of a mountain range lay like the spine of some great dragon. It was striped with a few narrow threads of green lava.

  In front of him, however, the stark but majestic beauty of his planet was marred by the human facility—ugly, square buildings stacked up like children’s blocks with no regard for the natural order of things.

  One thing Grekh had learned—humans cared little for nature.

  And there was no better example of this than the spaceship that was swooping down from the sky, the blue-white flames of its propulsion systems aimed downward to slow its descent as it approached the scorched landing pad.

  Grekh could not remember a time before the human ships, but his brother could. According to Vorne, once they had started to arrive, it had been like the rain—first a drop here and there, then a slow drizzle growing by degrees until it was an unrelenting torrent.

  Most of the ships that came and went were the gargantuan freighters, arriving empty and leaving with their supply of Terramara’s most valuable resource—the precious substance that Grekh himself carried within his own body.

  But this craft was a much smaller transport ship.

  Perfect. Even more filthy humans arriving here on Terramara. That’s just what this oppressed planet needed.

  The flying machine set down on the landing pad amid a great welter of vapor and swirled dust.

  Grekh had to admit, the flying machines were the one human invention that impressed him. Ever since he was young, he had dreamed of two things. The first was to fly like the leathery-winged windriders that soared over the deserts and canyons scavenging for food.

  The second thing he dreamed about were females from the stories that the old Listener told.

  When the hatch of the ship opened, Grekh was surprised to see only a single human disembarked. Usually the human workers came in droves—at least a hundred at a time. But not today.

  The solitary figure was small and fragile looking. Not that human males were particularly strong in one-on-one combat. But this specimen looked especially weak.

  Grekh sneered with disdain.

  It was humiliating that his race of once proud warriors had become enslaved to soft, squishy creatures such as this. The humans had only been able to conquer Terramara through treachery, deceit, and cowardice.

  But soon the tide would turn.

  Soon he would free his brothers.

  Soon there would be war.

  The small human descended the stairway leading from the spaceship to the flat expanse of the landing pad. Another figure strode forward to greet him. It was the one with the hat, the one who seemed to be in charge of this facility.

  The two figures, tiny in the distance, seemed to be speaking. Even though they were far away, by focusing carefully, Grekh could make out the sounds of their voices. But the rumbling of the spaceship’s idling engines made it impossible to pick out any actual words. That mattered little. His knowledge of the humans’ language was rudimentary at best.

  But something quite unexpected happened.

  As the two men were crossing the pad toward the main building of the facility, the wind shifted, carrying with it the odors of their sweating bodies. The scent that invaded Grekh’s olfactory senses was one that he had never encountered before, but he recognized the aroma instantly.

  Grekh’s cock recognized it too.

  His member engorged with blood, instantly growing erect and rigid as steel. His dangling sac, heavy with his fluid, tightened against his body. A sudden pulse traveled up his shaft and erupted from his tip, sending a long, pale rope of semen streaking onto the ground, only to be followed by another and another in quick succession.

  The freshly spilt fluid glowed faintly against the dark, dry soil. Grekh steadied himself against the boulder and grunted as his balls emptied their store of seed into the dirt.

  It was not until the last of his fluid had been depleted that Grekh’s mouth was able to form a word, and when it did, the word came out as a hoarse whisper.

  “Female.”

  The new arrival on the planet was not a man at all. Based on outward appearances, Grekh would have never guessed the difference, but the scent was unmistakable. It spoke to his body on a primal level.

  Gathering himself, G
rekh kicked some loose sand over his milky spillage. He didn’t want any of the greedy humans gathering up his prized seed if they found it. That was, after all, the whole reason the bastards had come to this place.

  Then, without another moment’s hesitation, Grekh turned and set off toward the grotto. He had to find his brother. He had to find Vorne and tell them what he had seen.

  What he had smelt.

  For the first time in a generation, there was a womb on Terramara.

  CHAPTER 4

  Corrie loitered in front of the humming vending machines, feigning indecision about what overpriced snack to purchase. In reality, however, her eyes were angled down the brightly lit corridor toward the massive steel entrance to the off-limits area. A pair of technicians in white lab coats had just emerged, and now they were standing in front of the door conversing.

  “Come on,” Corrie muttered under her breath. “Go shoot the breeze somewhere else, guys.”

  A moment later, her wish was granted. The two men casually strolled away in the opposite direction, and Corrie made her move. She tried to strike a balance between moving quickly and not being too conspicuous.

  It had been two hours since the end of her first training shift. She had spent the time holed up in her cramped living quarters, making the necessary preparations.

  The most important piece of equipment that she had brought along was the biometric pattern duplicator. The device was designed to look like an ordinary portable computer, but it was so much more than that.

  Using the ultra high detail selfie photograph that Corrie had taken with Waylon Burgess on the tarmac, the device had been able to read the plant manager’s irises and generate a pair of contact lens with an identical color and pattern.

  Those very same contacts were now stinging Corrie’s eyeballs as she marched toward the mysterious door.

  Now it was time to see if that expensive duplicator device was really worth the money she had dropped on it.

  Corrie glanced briefly to the left and right, trying her best not to look shady. There was no one else around, so she leaned forward, pressing her face into the eyepiece of the scanner beside the door. A wave of light pulsed across her vision as the machine scanned her eyes.