A Pair of Dice: Tragan

Act 2: Scissors

Tragan went into the control room for the fifth time; he knew he was acting like an impatient child, but he couldn't help it. Stuck in the blank void of hyper, you didn't feel like you were out in space: you felt like you were hanging in a room and the walls were closing in.

"Are we there yet?" he asked. Again.

Avva's voice was light and sweet – by severe if invisible effort. "Breakout within one hundred seconds, sir."

Again Tragan looked around the tiny control room. "You might have a place for a passenger to sit."

"Sorry, no extra room to waste. I could send the video in to the vidscreen."

He leaned over her, ignoring the waxy smell, and said, "Thank you, I prefer to watch from here."

The ship was filled with that phantom riffling noise, as though a thousand feathers had brushed your ears and gone. The viewscreen lit up.

"Ah, there we are," said Avva proudly.

Tragan looked out, filling his eyes with the sight: the thousand thousand stars, each a flaming beacon, each seeming to say freedom, freedom, you are free!

"Stars … it's been a long time since I saw them. Where are we?"

She looked down at the instruments. "We're on the major ship route between Parakon and Toovoo, that goes on to Arx. Good, data flow is starting, we can get caught up on the news. I want to proceed along here until the Flea is registered by some of the detection buoys, then back into hyper."

Tragan scowled and asked, "Why would you want your ship to be recognised?"

"Correction, sir: I want the transponder signal that we are sending out to be recognised."

Impressed, Tragan replied, "Ah, very clever. Tell me, how did you get your ship attached to that large red one on Parakon? During repair work, or-"

Avva said, "In free flight, sir."

Tragan said, very slowly and deliberately, "Now we both know that's impossible."

She looked up at him from her seat with another bright smile. "Do we? Well, the Flea doesn't. She can jump and skip and hop onto a starship and off and never raise an electronic shiver. We decoupled while you were in the bath, did you notice?"

He hadn't actually. "No, but-"

She interrupted, "Do you want me to prove it? We're moving in parallel to several large heavy lifters, I could skip over and-"

Tragan forcefully said, "That won't be necessary. I believe you."

Avva murmured, "Now we both know that's impossible."

"What?" Had he heard her correctly?

Without looking, her fingers started to dance over the controls in front of her. "You couldn't possibly believe me without a demonstration. Watch this."

The viewscreen seemed to dip downwards as the ship rotated, and Tragan was suddenly confronted by an endless wall of metal pods and girders skimming by, another starship under them, and close – too close!

He half-shouted, "Move, move woman! That ship is right under us!"

Her voice sounded smug and relaxed. "I know."

Tragan felt heat running through his bones, fear cramping his muscles and his belly. He stammered, watching the wall of metal come closer and closer, "It's - oh no. Stop. Don't!"

The damned Pilot sounded like she was pulling out a splinter as she cooed, "This won't hurt a bit, just"

The entire ship bonged softly, the unmistakable sound of metal brushing metal.

She crowed, "Touch, you're it!" Her fingers flew over the controls again; with great relief Tragan watched the other ship roll out of view as the Flea skipped away. She continued, "And away we go. That's an unmanned freighter, they probably will think we were a meteor."

Tragan paused a moment to collect himself, and another to keep from wringing his Pilot's neck on the spot. With all the control he could muster, he said, "You...you should not play with your life like that. You should not play with MY life like that."

Her head cocked. "Didn't you find it a thrill? No? Half a thrill?"

His lips felt stiff and numb as he said, "I prefer thrills that don't involve annihilation in a cloud of hot plasma."

* * *

Over his next meal, Tragan started putting parts of his plan together. Pilot Avva was to be an integral part of the plan, for a certain amount of time, but persuasion was going to be the tool he used to get her to do what he wanted, rather than fear. For starters.

He said, "I am quite certain my accounts on Arx were untouched. It would only be a minor change in course."

Avva disagreed, "I would prefer to go straight to my employer, sir."

Tragan looked at her with a careful mix of disbelief and pity in the colours of his expression. "Do you have to go there first? Is it imprinted into you, I wonder?"

She straightened in her seat. "No, of course not."

Tragan spoke persuasively. "If I could access my accounts now, I would be in a position to reward you at once for my timely rescue. An advance payment for your own personal services might be in order as well."

Avva only stirred her dish, and said, "Hm."

Tragan pressed on. "And I would also be in a position to start planning my future investments. I am most impressed by the gravity plane, thank you for letting me examine one, and if I knew your company was bringing it onto the market in the near future, I would certainly want to invest in the O Corporation."

"That verges on insider trading, sir."

In an almost-coy tone, he asked, "Going to report me?"

Avva frowned. "No, but I don't know when the gravity plane is going to be marketed, if ever. It makes a most interesting tool for sneaking people out of tight places. Thanks to its use, you are dead-"

Tragan had been taking a sip of water, and he coughed.

Avva waved a hand in apology and explained, "I mean, the Naglon who took your place apparently did have a grudge against Mudspit, and blew him up with a bomb secreted in his rear aural cavity."

Tragan cleared his throat and asked, "How did he extract it before detonating it?"

"He didn't," she said. "That's why I said, you are believed to be dead."

* * *

The next time mealtime arrived, Tragan didn't.

Avva waited at the table for a decent amount of time, then peeked in his room. Door unlocked, room empty. He must be in the storage/media room.

She debated bringing in the food on a tray, but decided she should check his state of mind. Like as not, he'd send her out wearing the bowl if he was grumpy enough. So she knocked at the door and asked, "Mr. Tragan? Food's ready."

No reply.

"Computer, is this door locked?"

The computer speaker in the main cabin droned, "Door is unlocked." She touched the control and it opened, and she went in.

Inside, the screen was lit, showing a slightly blurry frozen picture of a ripe-looking man, apparently talking to reporters. The Corporation logo in the corner of the screen was prominent. On the couch, her passenger sat and stared at the man with an expression of – loss? Regret?

She said, quietly, "That's an old Parakon Corporation news release. And that's Chairman Freeth, isn't it?"

Tragan nodded; apparently he had heard her come in, he just hadn't said anything. "Yes. Sorry, but I really don't feel like eating, can't you just put it in stasis?"

She could of course, but she didn't want him sulking in here until he got sick. Better judge his mood.

She asked, "Was he a friend?"

Tragan rubbed his fingers together again. "He taught me a lot, we shared many of the same tastes. We worked together for years. No, he wasn't a friend. But he deserved better than to be eaten by a Giant Butcher Toad! And to think I used to like those Toads. I'll never be able to look one in the eye again."

Avva looked upward and then down, and said "Neither of us could look one in the eye without a small ladder, I think. I might have – L'Index, keyword search, Giant Butcher Toad, indicate title location."

She turned and removed the flashing box from its shelf; Tragan didn't turn to look. She held the box out where he could see it, and he looked, but did not take.

Avva said, "Here it is: Care and Feeding of your Hoopa Moss Spider. I remember that the Great Butcher Toad happens to eat these as a staple of its diet in the wild."

Tragan still didn't move to take the box. "So?"

"So, there's a scene in here where a Toad falls into a whole nest of Moss Spiders, and they turn the tables on it, so to speak. Cocoon it, drain its blood, and kill it. Very, very, very slowly. Maybe you could watch it, might cheer you up."

Tragan paused, then reached out and took the box from her hand. "It might."

She decided that counted as dismissal, and went to the door. As she opened it Tragan said, "Pilot?"

"Sir?"

"Thank you," he said.

She smiled, though he could not see it, and answered, "My pleasure, sir."

She hoped that would be enough to jolt him out of his funk, but as it was, he ate the next two meals in his room. She was just doing some calculations on an alternate approach to Arx – not that she was necessarily going to go there, just for practice – when Tragan stuck his head in the control room.

"Pilot? I just realised the interplanetary Jut Ball Championships happened while I was in confinement, and I never heard who made the finals."

Avva started to suppress a smile, although he couldn't see her face. "The Chambs and the Trens, sir."

"The Chambs and the Trens – that's ridiculous!" he said, coming up behind her. "How could they even play on the same field? And who won?"

She turned and let him see her smile. "I believe that I won't tell you."

Tragan frowned, puzzled. "What? Why not?"

Her voice was smiling too when she said, "I'm not going to tell you, because I have a recording of the last game here, and I think you should watch it with an open mind."

Tragan stared at her hard, then seemed to dismiss her. "Nonsense. Computer-"

Fast she said, "Computer, ignore passenger Tragan!"

Tragan looked up at the little receiver over their heads. "Computer?" There was no response.

Avva said, "A little safety feature. Computer, L'Index, indicate Jut Ball Championships, this year, after loading play, no titling."

She took Tragan by the elbow and steered him back to the storage room.

"Now just go sit, watch the game, and tell me when you're done your opinion of it. I'll leave the doors open so I can hear."

"I can't believe you won't just tell me!" Tragan complained as he took his seat and dropped the flashing box into the bin.

Avva was actually smirking when she said, "Because you'll hate me forever if I told you. Sit. Watch."

She went back to the control room. And waited. She worked on the course, and listened. The second fifth plays got the appropriate whoops. The third and fourth were dead silent. She concentrated a little too hard on her math, and lost track of the game, but was brought back by the muted sound of her passenger's shouts of dismay.

"No, you fools! No!"

"Sounds like it's wrapping up," she murmured to herself. Then the final yelp confirmed it.

"Augghh!"

Tragan's footsteps were a thunder that ended behind her.

"I can't believe it!" he panted, distraught.

"Told you so," she said, and tried not to gloat. And failed.

Tragan spluttered, "But that referee, it was clearly illegal, and then … but …and the bird! And. And!"

Avva looked at him and rolled her eyes. "Would you have believed me if I told you?"

Tragan almost shouted, "Never!"

"Are you glad that I didn't tell you?" she asked, reasonably enough.

Tragan slumped. "Well yes all right, I am glad. But, that was painful to watch!"

Avva nodded in agreement. "That it was. Oh, Computer, stop ignoring passenger Tragan. It was a great game until that last fifth. The ball handling in the second was particularly deft. Pann really has her passing routines down pat."

Tragan cocked an ear in curiosity. "Most Jut Ball fans think she's a hack who was brought in just because of her hand size."

Avva waved her own hands dismissingly. "No, no really, she's made some very interesting changes to the game. I'm sure you can appreciate …"

And after that, the conversation faded into radial comparisons, and whether salt or fresh water made that much of a difference.

* * *

Tragan was immersed in a particularly lurid ER scenario – who knew you could do that with a vegetable strainer and frozen carbon dioxide? – when the sensory stream faded. The crackling noise of withdrawing from the program rang in his head.

"What-?" he said, and suddenly heard the real world, the ship, where the engines were screaming the way they never should in space.

Over the intercom, Avva's voice shouted, "Tra – VALFUYOSNITZ!"

Tragan's mouth hung open. THAT word was so obscene that he'd never heard it spoken, and only seen it written in the lowest of places. He leaped to his feet and headed for the control room, wondering what stupid stunt she was trying and failing at.

He opened the door and said forcefully, "What did I say about your gutter-"

But he stopped; Avva was ignoring him, tense over the controls, and the stars were wheeling in the main screen. Clearly the Flea was doing some fast manoeuvre, and probably not just for fun. Suddenly the whole ship shook, and there was the sound of the ship itself groaning, metal on metal.

Without looking at him, she ordered, "Be quiet, we've got trouble and you can't help."

"What trouble?"

The ship engines wailed again, and the stars jumped; he caught a flickering view of a massive ship with an open space bay pointing towards them, like a cold mouth, and then it rolled out of view.

"An automated lane clearer," said Avva. "It's decided that the Flea is a piece of debris and is trying to pick it up."

Tragan was confused. "So? Broadcast that you aren't."

"I did," she said grimly, "and it's ignoring me. I don't think it's a lane clearer, I think it's an unmanned abduction machine. Goes around sweeping up whatever it can catch, then goes into hyper and back to its maker, who sells the cargo for scrap or holds it for ransom, whatever is more profitable."

Ignoring the jinking of the viewscreen, he leaned over and muttered, "Are you sure they don't hold it for a ‘liberation fee'?"

Avva sounded offended when she replied, "Hey, I gave you a chance to back out – more than one, as I recall. Now find a place to sit down, or if you must stay here, grab those straps behind the chair and hang on. I'm dropping the gravity and sending the power to the engines."

He held on and watched as the ship dodged left, right, spun, but whatever she did the abduction machine moved into their path, trying to suck them in.

Out of nowhere, she asked, "You aren't going to be sick, are you?"

Tragan frowned. "Sick? Why? Is this abduction machine sending some virus towards us? How?"

"Be sick as in to purge, to throw up, to-"

He snorted and said archly, "Naglons don't do such things."

"Great, neither do Sast. So this shouldn't upset your stomach…"

The controls flicked under her fingers too fast to follow, and suddenly they were diving towards the pursuing ship, wiggling, spinning.

She murmured, "Almost there…now!"

The maw rushed towards them, then the Flea somehow twisted to one side and missed it; there was a grinding shriek of metal on metal from the hull, the engines wavered, and then all noise was cancelled out by the hum of the gravity plane.

Avva sat frozen; Tragan whispered, "What did you do?"

In a normal tone she replied. "Sheared off their left front sensor, then turned on the gravity plane. If we can stay in the empty space in their sensor grid while we back off, it's as though we vanished into thin air."

"Why didn't you vanish into thin air? Go into hyper?"

"No time to calculate. Shhhh…"

Her fingers marched again, and the abduction machine reappeared, moving in a straight line under them – and away.

"It's staying on course…it's moving away. OK, I'm laying in an automatic course to get us up and out of this space lane, then I can start the final hyper calculations for Arx."

Aha, thought Tragan. Aloud, he said, "So, we are going to Arx?"

She pushed back from the controls and rubbed both hands over her face. "You've convinced me. Right now, I need a drink."

She looked up at him and asked, a bit wistfully, "And I suppose Naglons don't drink?"

He looked thoughtful. "Depends on the drink."

"Vacuum packed Orl wine, ten years old?"

Tragan smiled and said, "We drink."

* * *

Things were progressing nicely, Tragan thought. The ship was going to Arx, he had done his gravity plane experiments, his times of 'needing to be alone' had let him work out his rages and work on his schedule in private, and now the Pilot was getting friendlier. Definitely friendlier. He supposed he shouldn't have snubbed her so harshly at the beginning of the trip, but he hadn't known he would be trapped with her for ten days.

Right now she was telling a story about pets, and he admitted to himself that it wasn't much of a chore to smile and follow along. The wine helped.

Avva said, "And then the security forces came in, and I gave them the Spider."

Tragan chuckled. "So instead of your passenger, they arrested your pet?"

"Yes, you know how they can puff up in low-g. But I still had to get my passenger through Customs, so I-"

Tragan could picture exactly what happened next, and almost bent over with laughter. "No, oh, no, don't say it!"

She ignored him, gesturing with both hands, one holding the wine.

"I loaded her into the spider's cage, and wheeled her through Livestock. Nobody knew what a Hoopa Moss Spider looked like, and fortunately my passenger had the right number of legs. I've never heard anyone swear so eloquently while saying nothing but hoopa, hoopa, hoopa – because that's the only noise a Moss Spider makes, after all."

Tragan gestured his approval with his own glass – raising a phantom toast to her. "So you have had pets."

Avva sighed. "Sometimes. But it's a hard life, space. I want to be able to give them the sort of attention they need, and I can't always. You have to choose your pets carefully, something that won't get underfoot at a critical moment."

"True, true," Tragan nodded in agreement. Then he changed the subject.

"It has occurred to me that I have been monopolising the entertainment centre. Is there something you would like to see?"

"Thank you sir, actually there is. I picked up the latest of one of my favourite series on Parakon and haven't had a chance to watch it."

"Well," said Tragan, settling back in his chair, his eyes never moving from Avva's, "perhaps we could watch it together."

"Um," Avva's eyes seemed frozen to his, while her hands beat a nervous dance on the table edge. "It's erotica, actually. It might not be to your taste."

"I would be happy defer to your tastes for an evening. Indeed I should thank you for introducing me to the works of Elhh Morinii and Haeyseus Frahnkow, I'd never heard of them before."

She said with a faraway tone, "They are not appreciated by the general public. Acquired tastes, as it were." Their eyes met with understanding and – attraction? Maybe, maybe, thought Tragan to himself.

She still hesitated.

"Come now, Pilot," here a carefully calculated pause, "Avva, if you know Naglons you surely know that our anatomy does not lend itself to, ah, imposing on other species."

She replied with a hitch, "Um yes, and that other species are not – generally adaptable to you."

Tragan was silent a moment, and then he said, "You're blushing, aren't you?"

"Yes," she almost-whispered.

"Your stripes are turning quite black, it's a striking contrast." Tragan took another sip of the wine, rolled it around in his mouth, and swallowed.

Avva's visible embarrassment grew, and Tragan watched the reaction with pleasure, tasting it as though it were wine as well.

She said as though to herself, "Maybe I could watch it after you leave."

"But I've spent so little time with you on this voyage," Tragan said, and let his voice warm.

She looked at him, startled. "I felt that was by mutual agreement."

"Well, over time my opinion of you have become more my personal opinion of you, and not just of your species. I've had time to relax and become – more myself."

Avva straightened, and adjusted the neckline of her tunic.

"Well then." She dropped her spoon to her bowl, and looked at him – challengingly? Oh yes. "Shall we?"

He nodded with agreement. He was getting through to her, enjoying every tiny crack he found in her armour, or that she let open to him. He looked forward to ripping it wide and letting the precious treasures inside pour out into his hands – soon, soon.

Now for the evening's entertainment.

"Does this have an ER channel?" he asked, settling himself on one side of the couch, across the room, Avva fidgeted with a box in her hand blinking red.

"Um? Yes, it does but … I only have one headset."

Tragan calculated. If she was immersed in the ER, surely it would be a matter of moments to…but no, the ship's course to Arx was not yet fully calculated. So, this would just be a preparatory step. Testing the waters, so to speak.

"Well, hardly fair for me to take it all for myself. Let's use only our own senses."

Avva dropped the title into the translation bin and sat down on the couch beside him. He could feel the faintest warmth from her hip, close to his. And once you got used to it, her waxy smell wasn't all that bad. She spoke to the computer.

"L'Index. Commence program."

It opened with a rather pleasant looking green jungle glade, and a humanoid running across it. Female apparently, smooth-skinned with dark hair and eyes. The soundtrack was naturalistic, animal shrieks and rustling leaves. Then the camera cut to a scuttling insect and – no. The insect came into the shot, chasing the girl, and it was clear that it was on the same scale as her – or bigger.

"That insect chasing her, is it sentient?" Tragan whispered to Avva.

"No, it's an animal," she answered. Her eyes were locked on the screen, which gave Tragan plenty of opportunities to look at her and see her reaction.

"It's considerably larger than she is," he said.

She moved a bit closer to him on the couch. "She's been given fear inducing drugs, otherwise she might turn on the insect and damage it, and that would be a different sort of film entirely."

He rather enjoyed the chasing parts: the hooked barbs along the creature's front legs scratched at the girl's skin in a most enticing manner. Her screams of desperation and panting exhaustion were also quite pleasant.

He peeked at Avva's face and saw her rapt with concentration.

"It looks very vicious, whatever will it do when it catches her?"

"Watch," she whispered.

He turned and saw the insect clawing at the girl, who screamed and fell and rolled and ran again.

"Ah, it almost had her there!" he gloated. "She's bleeding, it won't be long now."

Finally the girl collapsed in another one of those suspiciously well-lit jungle glens, and the insect approached and began to couple with her.

"Mating?" asked Tragan suspiciously. "It can't think that that's a female of its own species, the colour is all wrong.

Avva's head moved closer to his as she said, "It's been drugged too, it would mate with a rock if the rock ran away from it. And then –"

Tragan wasn't particularly interested in this part, the girl seemed to be enjoying herself far too much, raising her hips to the thrust of the beast's ovipositor, writhing and moaning, so he took the opportunity to slip his arm around Avva's shoulders.

She relaxed into his embrace, and said, "For someone who doesn't want to impose, you're being awfully forward." Her eyes never left the screen.

He was watching the screen too, out of the corner of his eye, as he leaned over and breathed into her ear, "Just because I don't want to impose doesn't mean that I can't be sociable."

She sighed and leaned close, and he nuzzled at her, casually enjoying the feel of her body heat, the trusting way she bared her neck so close to his teeth.

"Ah yes," he said. Her near hand stirred, slipping under his tunic, under his shirt. Not that he would get any pleasure out of it, but it seemed best to play along.

He sighed, "Ah yes, oh," and froze. Her hand was doing something, something that shouldn't be happening. He gasped, "But, what are you doing? No!"

Avva's hand paused, but the excitement from it on him grew. "No what?" she asked. "Do you want me to stop? Is this touch unpleasant?"

Tragan was shaking, because what he was feeling was impossible. It was the wondrous, delicate, tickling pull of a Naglon female, but it was coming from Avva's hand on his abdomen

He gasped again, "You can't be doing that! Only another," but then the sensation grew too intense and he couldn't talk, just breathe.

His eyes opened wide, just as the beast on the screen leaned close and took a large meaty bite out of the girl's breast. Blood spurted over its green compound eyes. The girl screamed, shrill and loud, and Tragan gave a little scream too, because what he was feeling was impossible.

Helplessly he panted, "Ah, it's biting her, it's tearing her off in pieces, the insect is eating her, and you, and you!" It couldn't be happening but it was: helplessly he felt himself start to extrude, slipping out, moving inbetween her fingers.

She rolled over and her other hand slid under his clothes, rolling them up, baring his stomach. Now both her hands were … they were …

At the same time, she leaned over him and whispered, "If you want me to stop, I will."

On the screen the beast had captured the girl's arm in one armoured claw, as she screamed and tried to escape its impaling organ. It started to rip her fingers off, one by one, and the joints snapped wetly as it fed.

How could he ask her to stop? He was coming out, out into her hands, between her fingers, that impossible touch that only another Naglon could give, it had been years since he felt this. His own hands were shuddering on Avva's sides without direction. Her hands moved deftly, knowing exactly how to do what they couldn't possibly be doing.

He said desperately, "You're not a Naglon. No, don't stop, but, oh it's so good, it's been," and again he had to stop and catch his breath. It was wonderful and it was terrifying, because his most tender parts were not slipping inside another Naglon's delicate orifices, but between humanoid fingers strong enough to crush and tear.

"Ah, you can feel it can't you? That wonderful tickling, calling you out?"

"Be careful, please, don't, don't pull!" he gasped.

"I don't have to, here you are, all of you," she said, her own voice wet with pleasure. "My my, two hands' worth. Look at you all spread between my fingers now, this must feel good, and how about this?"

He couldn't answer right then, it was too tight inside him. On the screen, the girl's screams continued, as the insect proceeded with its mating and feasting. He continued, every pearl of him slipping out until they were held tense between her fingers, that somehow were moving on him in some impossible way.

"It's devouring her bit by bit, bite by bite. What are you doing? How can you-" and the pleasure rushed over him, so strong that he couldn't see. He started to hyperventilate, gasping for more air, and her mouth came down on his, tasting his breath, whispering in his mouth, blotting out the view of the screen where the insect was rasping the flesh from the girl's ribs with its mandibles.

"I do what pleases you. And later you can please me."

The meaning of the words was lost in the pressure that was starting to build deep inside of him: extruded fully, now it was time for him to withdraw, to pull in. He had to, had to, but he was afraid. His tongue trembled under hers; all of him trembled. He was out, in the cold air, and he didn't enjoy that at all. But the wet busy fingers on him were tugging, stretching him just a tiny bit, twisting, and he could feel every tug moving deep inside him, as the muscles tensed, preparing to pull.

His eyes closed as he heaved, moaned, "Oh please, yes, now, please let me!"

Her mouth left his, whispered in his ear, "Go on, go on, do it now, I'm ready..."

And as the great insect ripped the head from the girl and bathed in her blood, slurping it up, licking the twitching stump, Tragan cried out as he slid, between her fingers, slid in, all the way, and her fingers chased after him and rubbed and rubbed and rubbed until he shuddered and batted her hands away.

"No more, no more!" He wrapped his hands around hers and shoved them aside, held them behind her back...and stared into her eyes.

She stared back.

She whispered, "I didn't mean to trespass."

He leaned close, and pressed his cheek to hers, not knowing why, suddenly flooded with warmth. "Oh, oh you didn't."

Behind them, on the screen, the insect was ripping the last shreds of meat from the girl's bones, gnawing at them, cracking them to suck out the marrow.

Slowly, to the sound of the girl's brain being licked from her skull, Tragan took one of Avva's hands from behind her back and looked at it. In the flickering green and red light from the screen, he examined it.

It looked like any other humanoid hand, four fingers, nails, a thumb. But that couldn't be all they were. He whispered, "Show me your hands."

She spread her gleaming fingers wide and the skin between them – split.

No it didn't; it parted, and Tragan could see something moving in the part.

"Look here between the fingers," she held her hand in front of his face, between him and the screen, "what looks like skin, it's"

He finished the sentence, "It's cilia, just like a female Naglon has on her – vestibules." He could see the myriad hair-fine tentacles waving now between her fingers, then lacing themselves together and drawing in, looking like patches of normal skin.

His eyes rolled back to her face, astounded. She smiled, said lightly, "You should see me repair a micro watch with them," and kissed him on the nose.

She went on, "I told you I worked in Naglon space. A few little adaptations like cilia made my leisure time there ever so less tedious."

"I," Tragan swallowed, "you, must not have gotten very much out of that."

"Oh no, the pleasure was all mine." She smiled at him. "If only all my passengers were so open-minded. And asymmetrical."

Later that night, Tragan lay in his bed and did a perverse thing.

He took the gift that he had been given, a wonderful and loving caress, and twisted it into defilement in his mind. He turned her eyes, bathing in the pleasure that she gave, into leering eyes, mocking eyes, spying eyes. He imagined her waiting, preparing to crush him between her fingers, her horribly filthy stinking unclean fingers touching his most intimate parts. He imagined her telling the story of what she had done to him, over and over again, and it following him like some dead carcass chained around his neck, to the end of his days.

He was working himself up for tomorrow. Tomorrow when the program to Arx would be laid into the computer, needing only the stroke of a button to send him there.

No need for Pilot Avva Omet-J after that button was hit.

* * *

The next morning he was all polite attentiveness while his Pilot worked her magic at the controls, until she finally pulled down the shields over them and stood up.

"And there," she said, satisfied. The whuffle of hyper ran through the ship, and they were gone from normal space. "And we're out in six days subjective, a day in normal space to enter Arx orbit, it's a clean system and even the regular autopilot could probably get us in, and then you are free to contact your bank."

He followed her out of the control room, talking. "Six days. However shall we pass the time?"

She turned on one heel, her pale eyes widening. "Oh. Do you have any suggestions? We could discuss Jut Ball. Look at my etchings."

She was standing still but he kept moving, coming right up to her, standing over her and looking down into her eyes. "I thought that perhaps we could play some little games."

"More interesting than Pinch the Pilot?"

Tragan gave a little laugh. "Oh, much more interesting. More elaborate. Something to fully engage all the senses while we are here in hyperspace, unable to contact anyone."

"It sounds like I should get prepared for this – game. What ever shall I wear?"

"Oh, what you have on is fine. Because we're starting now," he said, shoving her to the floor with one hard blow. He knelt over her and slapped a gravity plane to her chest, and turned its control dial several notches to the left. The hissing noise of its function was considerably louder than it had been last time.

Avva gasped, and her hands flailed at the carpet, but the gravity plane was holding her securely against the floor and incidentally weighing considerably more than she did. "I…can't…breathe…" she managed to whisper.

"Half a moment, and we shall be all prepared," Tragan chortled, as he went into his room and came out with a fistful of insulated wire, a bit too stiff for his tastes but still quite adequate for binding. Bind her he did, dragging her into place (he had leverage, she had none), raising the dining table out of the floor under her, and strapping her down. She hadn't quite passed out from the crushing pain on her middle before he said "There now!" and turned off the gravity plane.

Avva inhaled so hard that the plane slid off her and thunked on the table. She tested her bonds, making the wire creak, but he knew what he was doing and she was quite secure. "What…do you always start your games so – abruptly?"

"Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But I wanted to surprise you," he said, smiling down at her. He leaned over the table companionably, one elbow resting by her head and that hand supporting his head, while he sent his other hand to lightly stroking and caressing the tender ridges of flesh that ran down her face.

She asked, a little breathless still, "And how long have you had this wire, which just happened to be cut in just the rights lengths for binding, on hand? And a gravity plane ready to hold me down?"

"Oh, a little while, a little while."

She breathed in deeply again, and her wattles under his fingers warmed and started to flush. Tragan whispered, "I've been reading up on your species, the Sast. And now that I have you all to myself, I'm dying to do some personal investigations."

Avva whispered back, "Well, as it happens I'm all tied up at the moment, so be my guest."

Ah, he loved this, the trust with which she placed herself in her hands. "I've read that these ridges on your face are very sensitive parts of your body, am I correct?"

"Yes," Avva said in a shuddering voice, her eyes going out of focus and then locking back on his face. Tragan leaned closer, until she could feel his breath on her face.

"Erogenous zones, in fact. That flush is a mating display, isn't it? And they are getting warmer under my touch, yes, definitely warmer," he said softly, taking one of the loose lobes of flesh that hung from the edge of her jaw and twisting it, tugging at it gently. She pushed her shoulders back against the table, arching her back, and his hand started sliding up and down her chest.

Not that he left her face unattended: it was now his lips that feathered over her, caressing her, feeling the slightly rough flesh glowing with heat. Her face was pale, making the proud purple-black ridges stand out even more. He watched a bead of sweat roll down the side of her face, and sent his own narrow black tongue chasing after it, flickering against her and bringing a deep moan from her throat.

By her ear now, he whispered, "You're almost hot under my lips, do you know that?"

"Oh, Tragan…that feels…"

"And these lobes are supposed to be particularly vulnerable to attention. Let's find out."

His lips were at the edge of his jaw, and he drew one of her lobes into his mouth. Gently, he sucked it in, pressed it flat against his teeth, teased it back and forth with his tongue. His free hand was now busily making its acquaintance of some of his captive's other erogenous zones.

He raised his face from hers just a little, stretching the bit of flesh in his mouth, tilting his head back enough that he could see Avva's face. Her eyes were closed, lips parted in ecstasy.

"Yes," she sighed in delight. He pulled his face back a bit further, clenching her between his teeth, and heard the sharp intake of her breath as the pleasure became diluted with pain.

"No, oh no," but still she sighed it, still she writhed under his hands in pleasure.

He paused for a single delicious instant, watching her balanced perfectly between those two sensations.

Then he set his teeth and started to pull, hard. Her eyes flew open and she screamed, he felt her jaw flex as she tried to pull herself loose, tossing her head. He clamped both hands to the sides of her face, holding her still, and kept biting.

She howled, "Stop, stop that hurts, stop!"

The tough flesh under his teeth began to break, and he tasted her blood in his mouth for the first time. It was sweet and sugary and delicious, and he looked forward to tasting more. He sucked hard at her bleeding flesh, and kept biting. She kept screaming. He stared into her fear clouded eyes so close to his own, savouring her taste and her terror together.

All good things must come to an end, alas: his teeth finally met in her flesh, and as he pulled there was one last stringy tug between his teeth, and the lobe was loose.

Avva was flat on the table, staring at him, frozen with horror. Deliberately, he leaned over her, chewed slowly and carefully at her severed flesh, and then audibly swallowed.

So did she.

"Well," he said, watching the sick terror rising in her eyes, pulling back a little to watch her arms and legs fight uselessly at her bonds, "that certainly was an opening game move that neither of us will forget. Ever."

He smiled, and his teeth were stained with her blood.

She said unbelievingly, "You – bit it off! You bit off my lobe!"

"Yes. But you have plenty more for me to give my attention to."

Her hands fought her bonds again, and her face went still – too still, too flat. Her voice was flat as she ordered, "Tragan, let me up, right now, untie me."

He leaned close, watching her flinch away, and said, "No, I don't think so."

Her eyes darted around the room – looking for a weapon? – and she said, too loudly, "I need to check our course, I think I might have set the emergence point too close to the-"

An obvious lie. "You set it perfectly, I know. You wanted plenty of uninterrupted time with your passenger. I also wanted time with you. My own special play time."

He could see the frustrated anger rising in her face. A fighter, good! Her facial stripes were paling, stippling with pink as she said, "Tragan, let me up now. There's no way you can land the Righteous Flea yourself."

He actually allowed himself to smirk. "I can access my Arx accounts from space, then I can hire a pilot to ferry out and take me down."

"My employer will not take kindly to you abusing me," she said coldly, "let me up now Tragan, right now or you will be very, very sorry." She was ignoring the bonds and the blood still trickling down her neck. Still trying to give him orders.

So he slapped her. Hard, feeling her ridges under his palm, knocking her head to one side. Considering how sensitive those ridges were, that should hurt quite a bit more than slapping the average humanoid.

Her gasp had an extra bite of pain in it, and he gloried in it.

He stared into her watering eyes and started to explain exactly what was happening.

"I am beginning to think that you are not appreciating the position you are in. You are in hyperspace, so you cannot call for help; you are tied down to a very sturdy table; and you are in the total control of a Naglon who has been without his games for a very, very long time."

Her expression changed, from anger to – regret? Quietly she asked, "Did my hands on you offend you that much? I asked you if you wanted me to stop."

He hit her again. And again, again, rolling her head left and right, slapping with both hands. Then he stopped himself, he had to or he would have slapped his hands raw.

She shrieked, "Stop hitting me!"

He leaned over and snarled in her face, "Did I ask you to put your hands on me, your hands in me?"

She snarled back, "You sure extruded like you wanted me to, you said it yourself, Naglons don't impose on others, and you can't impose on a Naglon! Tragan, stop this game, let me go!"

He stood up straight by the table where she was bound, and said simply, "No."

"I trusted you!" She blinked the tears from her eyes.

"More fool you."

She was still trying to stay in control, find the words that would make him release her. "Red light, Tragan. End of line. End of the routine. Disconnect, safe word, end word, end of game, Avva says let me go, happy birthday."

Tragan recognised the terms of course, but he had no intention of letting her go. "It's not my birthday."

Here eyes searched his face, looking for something. In a little voice, a meek voice, she said, "Please?"

So fast? Tragan found he couldn't object. "Ah now, that's better," he said, as he smiled into her frightened eyes.

Quieter and quieter, her voice squeezing down to a squeak, she said, "Please let me go, please, pretty please with sugar and flowers on top."

He leaned closer, following her voice down, encouraging her. "Go on…"

And she lunged up from the table, her neck stretching several inches father than it should have, and her jagged teeth set and tore in Tragan's face. With a cry, he stumbled back from the table.

Avva shouted, "Computer! Ignore passenger Tragan! Table retract!"

Nothing happened, except for the blood trickling between Tragan's fingers on his cheek.

"Damn," she said regretfully.

Tragan felt the white heat of anger starting in him, and realised that there was no reason to hold back now. The colour rose in his face. "You bit me, you actually drew blood! And I'll have you know, girl, that I deactivated the microphones in here while you were setting the course changes. It's all on manual controls now, and I'm the one in control. I am the master. Of this ship. And of you. And you are going to be sorely sorry that you ever bared teeth to me, you little insignificant Sast creature."

Still she shouted. "Untie me! Now!"

He flung his own blood in her eyes, making her blink with the sting of it. "I am going to break you, every part, body and soul. And by the time I am done, you will beg to call me Master!"

Still she fought the bonds, still she shouted, "Never!"

He started slapping her again, carefully and methodically, saving his hand strength, until her cries of anger were hoarse.

* * *

Now he could begin.

* * *

He let her wear herself out with screaming, let her collapse into exhaustion and finally sleep.

After she seemed nicely settled, he shouted in her ear, "Wake up!" and followed this up with a slap; she came gasping out of sleep looking appropriately terrified.

Ah, lovely.

He looked down at her and said, in a deliberately conversational tone, "I've been examining your machine shop, very nicely stocked, all sorts of clever little drills and burrs and abrasive wheels. And your medical cabinet, what interesting probes and stimulants it has!"

She let her eyes wander over the cabin, ignoring him.

He went on, "But, to tell you something personal about myself, Avva, Avva?

She blinked and acted as though she had just noticed his existence. "Sorry, you were speaking?"

Tragan smiled and said, "You'll regret that insolence. But personally, I've always liked working up close and personal. My hands are my finest tools."

He held them up, displaying them to her, the hard bony knuckles, the short nails and calloused palms.

With elaborate ease, she yawned. Sleepily she murmured, "Wake me when it's-"

Her words were cut off as Tragan slapped one large hand completely over her mouth. Her breath came fast through her nose.

Tragan squeezed her head a little under his hand, and told her, "I am the one who decides whether you wake or sleep now, girl. And whether you breathe or – stop breathing. Do you know how painful it is to be smothered? Let me show you."

With his other hand he pinched her nostrils shut.

She tried to stay still, to be calm, but the urge to breathe was too overwhelming; in seconds she was bucking and heaving, tossing her head, trying to get loose from the wire and from his hard hands over her face.

"My, how you writhe," he said, enjoying every bit of it, even her mouth gnawing against his palm, trying to bite.

Later, he propped some printouts against her bare side, and read from them aloud. As he read, he feathered one hand over her torso, palpating here and there, as though looking for soft spots. He found some too, that hurt when he pressed them, from the way she gulped.

He said, "I've always wanted to read my own obituary, and now I can. I do like this bit about ‘unrepentant monster who tainted half a hundred worlds with his presence,' though. I think it makes a good epitaph. Still, I daresay I have some more tainting to do in the future. What do you think, Avva?"

At the mention of her name, her muscles pulled against the wire, making it creak, but she did answer. Ah, she was learning.

"I'm thinking about the O Corporation, and how every one of its agents, employees, subsidiaries, and sentient drones are going to be out for your head."

His fingers found a particularly soft spot, and dug in. "Oh no, Avva. I have friends on Arx, friends who will be more than eager to help me change my identity and emerge a new Naglon. I intend to escape without paying your employer her blood ransom – or if there is a blood ransom to be paid, I think that you will be paying it."

Her stomach muscles were tense, trying to fight off his invasion. "Big words from a little man."

He withdrew his hand, stood and wandered casually around the room, watching as her eyes followed him. He stopped by the manual control panel.

"I've always admired the flexibility of embedded furniture. Did you know, for example, that with a merest flicker of my fingers, I can start that table you're tied to rotating, or tilting, or say, extending its four corners to make it longer and wider – very, very slowly?"

His fingers moved over the controls, and the table started to move, getting larger, as though extra guests were coming to dinner and room was needed for all of them. But as it moved it stretched Avva, out and across and down, her hips and shoulders taking the pressure first and tensing, fighting it; and then the pulling going on and on, not stopping, very slowly, until he thought he could hear her spine creak. The wire bonds steadily gave their little song of resistance, and so did she, panting through her teeth, silent, tendons standing out in her neck from the pain.

"No screams?" he asked.

Through her teeth, she answered, "I'm saving them for when you do something impressive."

He smiled. "Ah. I do so enjoy a challenge."

* * *

He covered her face while he went into her cabin, closed the door, and did some manual labour; when everything was arranged to his satisfaction in the main cabin, he uncovered her and started the table rotating upright, so that she was in a standing position.

She gritted her teeth as her weight was suspended from her painfully lacerated wrists, but her tone was falsely casual as she said, "You know Tragan, with this table rotated upright, I'm taller than you."

Coldly, he ordered, "Look down."

Avva kept her eyes locked on the wall. "No."

He stepped to the table and took a grasp in her cropped black hair, pulling her head forward and down; she resisted, and he could feel the hair sliding through his fingers. Damn, she was slippery! Maybe a good scrubbing with a mild acidic solution.

He ordered again, "I will pull your hair out by the roots, girl, if you don't look down!"

With an abrupt lack of resistance she did, and he bent his own head to see the perfect look of horror on her face. Ah, exquisite.

She gasped, "Oh. No, you can't. No, Tragan, put them back, back in their cases! Not those! Not my scrolls!" He took a step forward, deliberately, and she out and out howled, "Move your feet, you oaf, you're standing on one!"

Tragan laughed.

She went on desperately, the words spilling out, ignoring the hand still locked in her hair, "Tragan, they're priceless! Gallmian only did eleven of them! They're art, they're for all the world, I've left them to the museum on Alchema Four when I've, when I am dead! You could sell them for a fortune!"

Deliberately, Tragan ground his foot into the scroll, crinkling the heavy reed paper. His eyes never left Avva's tormented face.

"Nothing you own or touch could ever be of the slightest value to me."

Her eyes left the scroll and darted to his face, hard and angry. "Including yourself?"

He slapped her, then held himself back. He hadn't meant to do that.

But her eyes had returned to the paper on the floor. "You can't damage them, it's unthinkable!"

Tragan let the words roll out now, let himself enjoy the way they washed over her and drove her frantic. "Oh, I'm not going to damage them. You are. You are going to hang over them and you are going to drip, little girl, ruin them with your tears, your sweat, your blood; you are going to void yourself on them, destroy them utterly, and then I am going to burn whatever is left and make you eat the ashes."

She screamed – and then froze, her eyes stretched wide, desperately trying to contain her own tears. He watched in deep pleasure as a single tear grew on the surface of her eye – and fell, and a line of script started to smear.

"And now, just to get the juices flowing, so to speak…"

He got to work with the whip he had crafted out of judiciously frayed wire, striking underhand, and soon more than tears were spattering the papers.

* * *

Screams, screams, lovely screams, that resolved themselves into an electronic alarm as Tragan hauled himself from sleep. He shouted, "Alarm, off!" and there was silence.

He stretched in the soft sheets, enjoying a last moment of leisure before the day's work began – not that it was day. "There's not much time left, I suppose the sacrifice of a few sleep cycles is worth it for the," he yawned, "quality of the final result."

As he rose and started putting himself in order, he continued to talk to himself. Too bad Freeth wasn't here; he would have been someone to talk to. "And she's ever so much more frightened when I wake her late at night."

He stopped before he opened the door, and growled, "But still she refuses to call me Master. Let us see if I can change her mind tonight."

In the main cabin, the only noise was the wheeze of her breath; she had damaged her throat with her screams, and it was swollen.

Softly, Tragan said, "Can you hear me, Avva?"

She didn't move and he slapped her; she still didn't move, but the wheeze of her breath sped up. Then her bleeding lips slowly parted.

"You can just…go to Hell, Tragan…I'll be waiting there for you." Again her limbs pulled at the wire, and it creaked. He was getting rather fond of that creaking actually.

"Now now, don't sound so depressed. I have the loveliest little game in mind. Open your eye and see."

Her remaining eye stayed stubbornly shut. Quite calmly he said, "Open it or I'll cut off your eyelid."

It opened and he smiled down into it, seeing the pupil contract at the sight of his face. "That's better. It's these little dice I found, quite adorable." He held them up between his fingers, one white and one black. "I'm going to roll them and let them decide what happens to you next. You see, every number on this die has been assigned to an action, and every number on this one to a part of your – present anatomy. So, rather than let myself fall into the rut of the same old, same old, I can add a delicious note of random chance, of unpredictability, to our little game. Won't that be special?"

She spat, accurately; a fragment of one of her teeth shot out and bounced off the dice.

Tragan beamed. "And still you rebel, still you are determined to fight me! Delightful."

He moved his hand beside her head; helplessly her face turned to follow it, trying to focus on the tiny dice.

"Now let's see," he said, and rolled them; one got stuck in a puddle of blood, but both still did land with one face up, so he charitably decided that it counted.

He pretended to consult with a list he pulled from his pocket. "Seven and eleven, and seven is…and eleven…oh my, how diabolical! These dice certainly have it in for you, little Sast."

He smiled tenderly. "But I should allow you to be involved in the process as well."

He reached out and took hold of her forearm, feeling her flinch. "I know most of the tendons in your right arm have been pulled loose, but I think you can still rotate the wrist, yes? So let's put the dice in your hand now, you won't be needing any fingers, and just tilt it…"

He guided her flopping hand to release the dice; they clattered along the table and came to rest against her side. Of course, she could not see them there, and she strained to raise her head.

Tragan made a face of feigned horror. "Oh, these dice really don't like you. How dreadful!"

He reached into the tray of metal tools that sat at the foot of the table, and heard Avva's breath rasp in and out faster and faster…

Ah, those dice were a lovely frisson to the game: again and again he rolled them, one and two at a time, on the table against her side, across her torn and bruised torso, on the floor behind her head so she could not guess what the numbers were, before he used them to guide his terrible, hungry hands at their work.

At a later time, after she had escaped him into unconsciousness, he methodically pinched her until she roused again.

"Wake up, Avva," he said, pinching, pinching.

Only her lips moved as she whispered, "Tragan…someday….a Sast will kill you for this." Her limbs were too weak to fight the wire any more.

Ignoring her useless threat, he announced, "You know, I can't remember the last time I had a nice, well-done steak."

Her lower lip shook; she bit it to keep it still.

"Oh now girl, don't bite your lip like that, it deprives me of the pleasure of seeing it quiver with fear. There now, let go, that's better." He leaned forward and pinched her lip, pulling it, stretching it loose from her teeth so that he could watch it move, then stepped back and continued. Her eye opened and she stared at him, too frightened to close her mouth; her lip shivered deliciously.

"And it occurred to me, that right here on the dining table I have a lovely selection of the tenderest, most succulent steaks imaginable."

He showed her the saw he had found in the medical kit, tilting it back and forth, admiring the lovely sheen of finely balanced sharp metal.

"Can you see this saw I'm holding? Very nice balance to it. But then it occurred to me, why would I need to remove the steaks before cooking them?"

He showed her the blowtorch, lit it and sent a gout of flame blasting across the room, and the screams began. Those lovely, lovely screams.

* * *

But finally, the time came. He rose from the floor where he had rolled the dice and walked around the upright table, admiring his work.

What was left of Avva was barely recognisable as humanoid: limbs shorn and cauterised, lying in a circle of dried body fluids, deep belly wounds leaking their acids down to the hopelessly stained rug, head lolling on one shoulder (he had severed the tendons at the back of her neck). She smelled of rot and her own personal reek. She was like a deeply flawed gem, bruised and broken, in a steel frame.

Her breathing was laboured, hitching. Her heartbeat was failing. Poor circulation, her colour was very bad. She was dying.

He slapped her, ordering "Wake up. Wake up Avva," but he didn't expect her to respond. She could no longer hear. Her wheezing breath continued, labouring, unchanged. But this time, even when he pressed a soldering iron to her cheek and heard the flesh sizzle, she did not react.

"Avva? Ah, I do believe you have stepped out of my reach. And so I am the only one here to appreciate what a magnificent job I've done."

He enjoyed telling her about the mutilations she could not see, only feel, and kept on reflexively talking about them, even though she was beyond response. "I'm particularly proud of your face, do you know that? I burned off every inch of your wattles, I took your eyes and your teeth and your ears and your tongue. It's like a raw wound on the front of your head. It goes nicely with your stumps."

He touched his lips to the patch of unmarred flesh between what had been her breasts, and whispered so she could feel his mouth moving on her, "Oh but still alive, after all I've done!"

He spoke to her intimately. "And I listen to your heart, and I can hear it faltering, hear it failing, but still your spirit defies me. Such a pity that we couldn't spend more time together, I do believe we could have gone on like this for ever so long. But now-"

But now…now he spun the narrow blade between his fingers, and impulsively pressed the flat to his own lips, before sending it to its task.

He slid it accurately between her ribs, up and in.

"With this blade, I kiss your heart," he whispered.

He pulled the knife loose, and listened again as she went into her final struggle, her heart pumping away her life with each contraction, the hot blood coursing down her side.

Again and again he filled his hand with her heart's blood and smeared it over his forehead and cheeks, over his neck, bathing in it, luxuriating in it, licking her life from his fingers. "Ah, and I shall miss this, the feel of your blood on my face, the smell of it, you do know it's the most pleasant smelling thing about you, the taste of it on my lips." All while listening to her heart beat slower…and slower…and a final flutter.

And silence.

"Goodbye Avva," he smiled, and kissed her still chest.