Chapter 13
IT WAS, GRIMES SUPPOSED, a recreation room—although it would have passed muster as an indoor jungle. There was the moss-covered deck, pillars so thickly covered with flowering vines that they could have been trees, real trees the uppermost branches of which brushed the deck-head and, in the center of the compartment, was a seemingly haphazard piling of smooth rocks down which glistening water tinklingly trickled. And there was Baroom’s crew—a scattering of bejewelled princesses, a rather larger number of gaudily caparisoned drones, a horde of comparatively drab workers.
The two humans were dragged to the pile of rocks, up it to a platform on the top of it. The drones returned to deck level leaving a princess there with them. Suddenly a bright spotlight came on, playing over their naked bodies. The princess extended one of her upper arms. The taloned “hand” at its extremity touched, first, Tamara’s left breast, then her right, then descended to her groin. It hovered there briefly, then moved to Grimes’ penis. Instinctively he tried to swat the claw away but, with lightning rapidity, another claw caught his arm, scratching it painfully.
“Do not struggle,” said the princess. “You will not be harmed. We are instructing our crew. And now you and the female will perform for us your generative functions.”
“Not a hope in hell!” snarled Grimes.
“I do not understand. Please to repeat.”
“No,” said Grimes definitely.
“You mean that you will not perform for us?”
“Yes.”
“It does not matter,” said the princess. “We have obtained certain records from your ship. Perhaps you will find it amusing to watch. We shall find them instructive.”
Records? wondered Grimes—and then he remembered.
Not only his prominent ears were burning with embarrassment—the angry flush spread over his entire body.
To one side of the circular chamber the wall was clear of vegetation. It glowed suddenly with light—not the red illumination that was the norm for this ship but bright, white, with splashes of color. The scene was the cabin of Little Sister. There was a cast of two, Grimes and Tamara Haverstock. There was hardly any dialogue but there were gasps and little screams. There was an intertwining of naked limbs, an undignified, vigorous pumping . . .
“You bastard!” whispered the woman—the actual woman, not the one on the screen—viciously. “You bastard!”
“I can explain . . .” muttered Grimes.
“There are questions,” said the princess. “Not many of our crew are familiar with humans and their ways. There are those who ask how many eggs the female will produce after the mating.”
“You bastard.’” repeated Tamara Haverstock.