Desert World Savages: The Complete Series (4 page)

"Yeah, well, you are lucky Cax here found an extra one for you. Jaal will flip out if one of them dies."

Grenta shrugged. "Genetic manipulation always has some risks. And Cax is a good assistant. Much better than you, Bris."

"Where do you want them?" asked Bris.

The doctor took a small device from his pocket and two lights hit tables near the center of the area.

"There, on those beds."

Bris laid the woman he carried on a metal bed that only had a thin pad. He unfastened her pants and started to pull them down. He then looked at Rev, who was still holding Tracy.

"What is your problem today? I've had to ride your ass all day. Get her on that bed and strip her clothes."

As Bris yanked down her slacks, the doctor walked to him and glanced over the first mate's shoulder. "What did you bring me? More Terran women?"

"Yes, is that a problem?" said Bris.

"No. Not for me. Sometimes their genetics aren't compatible enough for the modifications. It's always a gamble with humans. You never know."

"Well, does it work a hundred percent for Casta?" snarled Bris.

"I've told you—"

"Yes," said Bris. "I know. No genetic modification is one hundred percent guaranteed." He said those words tonelessly as if he heard them hundreds of times.

Rev swallowed hard as he listened and worked the clothing of the woman he laid on the table. Genetic modifications? No wonder trackers had a hard time gathering evidence. To get close enough to an operation to gather information would risk fatal exposure, the same sort of exposure that put his brother in danger.

The tracker managed to pull off her shirt, though her undergarment presented a challenge. Did he need to take off the bra? He tossed a glance over his shoulder and found that Bris removed the other woman's. Her breasts lay exposed under the harsh examination lights.

"You didn't harm her, right?" said Grenta in a warning tone.

"No," said Bris. "Just did the testing, per usual."

Grenta gave him a suspicious look, but stood in front of Bris with a scanner. "Open your mouth," he said.

Bris did, and the doctor moved the scanner inside his mouth.

"A good sample. Her DNA and yours are present. You, Cax, came here."

It took Rev a minute to remember he was Cax, and he turned, not knowing what to do. A scan would reveal he wasn't Cax.

"Sorry. I didn't—"

"You mean you just brought her?"

"Well you needed the extra woman. She was available," said Rev.

Bris chuckled. "Check his dick. He had her sucking it."

"Shut up," snapped Rev.

"Enough! I can't use that because the proteins in his waste products will contaminate the DNA. I'll just take a direct scan and compare it to the database. Next time, Cax, follow the protocols."

"Yes, doctor," replied Rev. He turned back to his work of undressing the woman on the table. She started to groan.

"Restrain her," said Grenta dispassionately.

Rev closed his eyes a second, and then did what Grenta instructed, securing her wrists and ankles to leather cuffs chained to the table. He didn't like this, but he had to see the entire process so he could testify later. The woman opened her eyes and started thrashing.

"Calm down," said Rev. "If you hurt yourself, they'll have no further use for you, understand?" Rev hoped the language translators in his holo suit worked well enough to get this message to her. On the planet they didn't seem to work well.

The woman looked at him with wide and fearful eyes, but she nodded yes.

"Where's Carol?" she asked.

"The next table over."

"What are you going to do to us?"

"Cax, damn it!" said Bris sharply. "What have I told you about talking to the subjects? Go help Grenta with the examination of the other one."

Bris stared moving towards Tracy.

Rev intercepted Bris as he made for the other woman's table.

"Don't touch her," Rev said.

"You don't—"

"He's right, Bris," said Grenta. She doesn't need you touching her. Go. Go back to your other duties. Cax is enough help."

Bris scowled at Rev, but left the room.

"Finally," said Grenta, "we can get some work done."

Rev stood, conflicting thoughts inside his head, watching Grenta put his fat hands on Carol and touching every inch of her skin.

"Not so different from a Deneb, eh, Cax? Just smaller." He looked at his scanner. "Not enough of a DNA match to pass her off as an undersized Deneb though. We wouldn't get much for her on the home world."

Rev just grunted, unwillingly transfixed to this show.

"How does that happen," said Rev, "that species can look so similar, but not share the same DNA?"

"I didn't say we didn't share DNA. I said we didn't share enough DNA." Grenta rubbed Carol's nipple and watched as it contracted.

"Hmmm," he said. "And we don't know. There are some theories that say an ancient race colonized the galaxy, but evolution and adaptations to various planets changed us so that interbreeding was no longer possible."

"But," he said tracing his hand down Carol's legs, "We can tweak DNA to what we want, at least for a little while. Her bones are study."

Grenta went to the other woman's table. She screamed when he got close to her, shaking.

"Cax, get over here and calm her down, though I'm surprised your temporary language patch still works. They usually break by now."

Rev went to the table and bent over the table. "Please," he whispered. "I don't want you to get hurt."

"I'm plenty hurt, bastard, and when I get out of thing, you'll be hurting too."

"I'm sure I will be," said Rev. "But for right now, please keep calm. What's your name?"

She turned her head away.

"Look, I can't keep calling you Sweet Thing in my head, so a name would help."

"You bastard," she spit.

"You have every right to call me that. And more." He leaned over closer, "Right now I'd like nothing more than to get you away from here, but I can't. Not right now. But I promise. I'll do what I can. Just be patient. And go along with the doctor."

He gave her an earnest look, and he hoped that she'd see he was telling the truth.

"My name is Tracy," she said very quietly. "Tracy Walsh. Please don't let him hurt me or Carol."

He gave her a slight nod of his head. "I'll do what I can," he said. "But I'm only one in a crew of a fifty. Just do as I say, okay?"

She nodded her head.

"Good."

He turned back to Grenta, who was withdrawing a metal thing from between Carol's legs.

"She's small, but she can bear children," said Grenta. He picked up a syringe.

"A language chip will make this all a little easier." He plunged the syringe into her carotid artery. He held the injection spot down with his finger on a small bandage.

"There, that will do it."

Rev was glad Carol was still unconscious. He'd hate for her to suffer the fear that Tracy was going through right now.

"Now for the other one."

Grenta moved towards Tracy, holding the device in his hand. Rev took a deep breath and knew he could not stop this examination.

He looked at Rev. "Did you manually examine her while you were on the planet?"

Rev flashed back to him inserting his fingers into Tracy.

"Yes," he said.

"And did everything seem normal and in the proper place?"

Rev took a deep breath, but Grenta misinterpreted it.

"I know that she's an alien, but—"

"No, everything was fine."

"Good. I'll leave it at that. I hate to examine the ones that are awake. So much screaming. With the modifications things will change anyway. So we'll just give her the language translator."

Tracy lay rigid on the bed, her eyes filled with fear, but she didn't fight as Grenta administered the small piece of hardware that would connect with the language centers of her brain. When he pressed on her neck, she drew in a breath, but made no other sound.

Grenta dropped the syringe on a metal tray. "Good." He forced her mouth open by pressing each side of her jaw with his hand. Then he inserted the small scanner and pulled back.

"Now I can grab some dinner while I wait for the results of the bio-scans. Clean up here, Cax. Once we get the results we'll put them in the tanks and flush those drugs Bris uses out of their systems. Can't do any modifications until that happens. "

Rev wondered what kind of drugs Bris used. There was one to make them lose consciousness, and maybe another to heighten sexual desire? The tracker wasn't sure, but he felt very sick to his stomach now. It hit him that Tracy's response to him planetside was the result of chemicals. Vomit roiled in Rev's gut and he wanted to do nothing more than to get out of this damned place. But he couldn't do that yet. Rev had to see to the women's safety.

At that moment a hissing sound flew up from the back of the chamber, and a warning alarm sounded.

"Damn it," swore Grenta. "Cax, let's go!" He raced straight ahead, past several large hulking shapes in the dark to the back wall. He flicked on the lights which illuminated a wall filled with stasis tanks. One of them was fuming and leaking liquid. Swearing, Grenta ran to a closet on the left, dragging his bad leg behind him, and pulled out two biohazard suits. "Put this on," he said tossing one to Rev.

Rev had plenty of training in donning biohazard suits, so he donned his quickly, and helped the struggling Grenta with his. Rev didn't know what to do with the leaking pod, so he thought it best to leave it to the doctor. Now protected in a suit, Grenta approached the chambers, slipping on greenish liquid. Rev steadied him with an arm. The doctor punched some keys on the keypad, and the warning noise stopped, but the smell and the mess continued to ooze out of the tank.

Grenta opened the chamber.

"Here, help me."

Between the both of them they hauled the sloppy body out of the chamber and lay it on the floor. If the body had once been a woman, you couldn't be sure now. The face was melted, and the skin oozed in sickening folds over the bones.

"Total cellular breakdown."

He sighed.

"I guess that proves it. You can't change Argulans to Kerdos. There just has to be some basic incompatibility that the scans can't pick up. Let's just hope your humans don't have the same incompatibility. Cax, clean this up, and dispose of the body."

Rev looked at him coldly, unable to comprehend how any man could be so callous about sentient life. This wasn't just abduction and selling of women. This was wholesale genetic assault that had tragic consequences for the victims. He never wanted hurl his fist into a man's face more than he wanted to now.

He had to wait, until he could get to his superior and give a deposition about this shipmaster's and his co-conspirators' crimes.

Grenta didn't see Rev's stare because the mask of the biohazard suit hid his face. Grenta turned and shuffled off, leaving Rev to clean up the mess.

TRACY

Tracy lay naked on the flat, uncomfortable bed. Her arms and legs were strapped down and she had been left alone for a long time. She had no way to measure the time so it felt like she had been there forever.

This was a nightmare, a freaking nightmare.

Where was she? Why was she here? What were they doing to her? When she got free, she'd do some damage.

She didn't work in newspaper circulation for nothing. Tracy worked on the streets in the middle of the night because she had gumption. People who worked with grumpy, sleep deprived and dissatisfied independent contractors had spunk. And she certainly didn't deal with upper level circulation management more ruthless than a school of piranhas without knowing how to defend herself. All she needed was an opening, and she'd deal with Mr. Tall and Hunky, giving him something to remember her by.

She had to be smart. Tracy would play along, but ask for something. Yes, the bathroom. They couldn't let her piss or shit on herself, could they? Having a a plan in place calmed her down. She always felt better when she had a plan.

Mr. Hunky came by her bed again, stripping a red suit off his body. His hair was in disarray, strands handing down his forehead. and he had the saddest expression on his face.

"What's wrong?" Tracy asked.

He picked up the red suit and tossed the trash with a snap of his wrist.

"Nothing you can do anything about," he said.

"Why am I here?" she said.

"Because you got mixed up with some very bad men," he said.

"Are you one of the bad men?"

"It sure feels like it right now."

"Hey," she said gently, "What's your name?"

"If I told you, I'd have to kill you."

She laughed then, the clichéd words in juxtaposition with her current situation.

"You might do that anyway," she said.

He turned rapidly on her. "Don't you say that, never that." He spoke with heat and advanced on her, glaring at her prone and vulnerable on the bed.

"Hey, I'm just saying the facts." She wriggled her manacled hands in their restraints.

"Gods help me," he said turning away. "She's making a joke out of this."

"If you can't laugh, then you're going to cry."

He turned once more to her; his face gathered in a heartbreaking arrangement of compassion, rage and frustration.

"I swear, Tracy Walsh, I'll get you out of this one way or another. I just don't know how yet."

Maybe it was a trick of the light, but Tracy thought she saw something more in his eyes than just concern for her. It was a strange thought to have in this weird situation. She blinked it away. In another time, she might be very excited about the promise she saw in his eyes — if he wasn't a bastard. At this moment, despite his protestations, she couldn't be sure if he was a bastard or not.

The nasty looking white haired man returned.

"How are they doing?"

"The one called Carol is still unconscious, Doctor Grenta. The other one's name is Tracy. It seems the language implant is working."

"So soon?" Grenta said with surprise. "Tracy, do you understand my words?"

Tracy turned her head toward him. "Yeah, you jerk. I understand you."