Rescue From Planet Pleasure (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-three

The flying saucer disappeared behind the trees.

I stared at the spot where I’d last seen the ship, my imagination racing ahead to where I saw myself sitting at the saucer’s controls as it raced to earth: Carmen, Jolie and the chalices safely onboard. I was missing a lot of the details in this plan, but at least it was a plan.

I went back inside and returned to the kitchen. Jolie and the chalices were at the counter making dinner, chopping cuts of beef and vegetables before dropping them into a stockpot. Cassie threw a glance over her shoulder at me and scooted over.

I wasn’t in the mood to help. My mind tingled with excitement as it sorted through the question of how to steal a flying saucer. First, how to get one? Next, how to fly it? Could it make the journey to Earth? Wouldn’t the Nancharm try to stop me?

The missing details piled on top of each other like pieces of a 3-D puzzle too enormous and intricate to fit together. An impossible task. I might as well be wishing for a pair of magic ruby slippers.

But I was a vampire, which meant my existence alone was an example that the impossible was quite possible. Plus we had arrived on D-Galtha. The New Agey transcendental astral physics and quantum mechanics sleight-of-hand we used would make any rocket scientist bang his head on the floor in a conniption of disbelief.

I wandered to the other end of the kitchen, toward the bar, and decided on a vodka martini. Reaching for the Belvedere, I noticed the seal on the bottle hadn’t been broken. A cursory appraisal of the other bottles told me most of them hadn’t been opened either. Couldn’t understand why. I hadn’t been here longer than a few hours and already I needed a stiff drink to cope. If I’d been stuck here as long as the chalices, I probably would’ve crippled myself with liver failure.

Thankfully, the bar was stocked with the other necessities for civilization: ice, olives, and a cocktail shaker. I cracked open the vodka, poured a measure into the shaker, added ice and a splash of vermouth. The rhythmic sound of ice sloshing in the shaker prompted the chalices to turn and look at me, eyebrows lifted in surprise.

I emptied the drink into a martini glass and dropped in an olive. Cupping the glass, I raised it to salute my fellow prisoners. I sipped, and the alcohol made the idea of stealing a flying saucer more plausible.

I leaned on the bar and meditated, confident that little by little the details of commandeering a flying saucer would present themselves. It was a matter of time. If I could stall the Nancharm from Nurse-Ratcheting my brain, then eventually, we could escape.

The door into the kitchen opened. The doorway stretched to accommodate Moots as she glided through. Carmen trailed behind, her face pinched with what I was sure had to be troubling news.

The Carmen I preferred was the upbeat snarky bloodsucker with a reputation for gaming any situation to her pervy advantage. Here, she carried herself like the captain of a doomed ship striving to save her crew.

Moots entered the kitchen and swiveled her head to take in the busy work. “Excellent. I love to see you all gainfully occupied and happy. Happy! Happy! Perhaps, we should sing!”

Carmen groaned. Her eyes rolled in my direction.
Have mercy.

Moots reached up and touched the side of her translator/cap. It emitted a single tone that played steady for a moment. Carmen and the chalices hummed to match the note. The cap next produced a cacophony of chirps and grunts that barely followed a melody. A metallic crashing, like garbage can lids used as cymbals, accompanied the noise. Carmen and the chalices joined Moots in a chorus of atonal confusion. Jolie winced.

Thank goodness for the alcohol. Everything—even this din—sounded better when filtered through booze.

Moots waved her hands. “Aren’t we all happy!” She hesitated and her head jerked from side to side. The song kept blaring from her cap, and Carmen and the chalices kept making noises. Moots faced me and shot across the floor to within an inch of my nose. “What are you doing?”

“Getting happy.”

Her arm lashed out and smacked the glass from my hand. What was left of an acceptable cocktail spattered on the bar. The glass bounced off the counter and shattered against the floor.

“No drinking for you,” Moots exclaimed. She reached up to her hat again, touched the side, and the music stopped. Carmen and the rest closed their eyes and sighed in gratitude.

Moots aimed one long slender finger at me. “You already said that you haven’t been in the mood. I’m not going to let you come down with a case of whiskey dick.”

“I was drinking vodka.”

She extended an arm and her fingers grasped my face. Her touch was firm, warm and leathery. “You want to drink?” Her other hand pointed at my crotch. “Then first some magic from your wand.” She let go and glared.

Carmen stepped around her. “I’ll handle this.”

It looked as if Moots had drooped her shoulders in resignation. She turned, patted Carmen on the head, and glided out of the kitchen.

I grasped a towel from the bar and began to clean up the spilled booze. The martini dripped from the edge of the counter like tears.

“You’ll have to cut Moots some slack,” Carmen said.

Little chance of that.
Besides ruining my impromptu happy hour, I saw Moots as my number-one obstacle in escaping.

“She’s under a lot of pressure,” Carmen explained, her voice low. “Her boss expected a breakthrough by now. She’s getting a lot of heat from their higher-ups. Even among the Nancharm, shit rolls downhill.”

She continued, “Moots is disappointed in you. She was excited to have a male vampire to study. Convinced that surely, you’d deliver the macho goods.”

“Wouldn’t be my first time to disappoint a woman.” I blotted the last of the spilled cocktail from my shirt and dropped the towel in the bar sink. “Tell Moots that if she guarantees I won’t be sliced open, then I’ll do my best to put on a good show.” I slid my arm around Carmen’s waist to signal I could be coaxed into performing.

She pulled away. A surprise because her libido was always spring-loaded into the
sex-me-now
position. But I didn’t take her rejection personally. She had priorities slamming her from all directions.

“Moots has been given a deadline,” Carmen said. “Either produce results—and soon—or the project is done.”

Jolie stepped between us and asked, “What does that mean?”

“Nothing good,” Carmen replied. “No matter the results, the Nancharm will auction us to recoup the expense of the research.”

“Then we better hurry,” I said.

“With our experiments?” Carmen asked.

“No,” I replied. “With an escape.”

Jolie blinked. Carmen’s head rocked back in surprise. Her eyes slid back and forth and then fixed on me. I waited for her to smile in approval and ask for more details, but instead she whispered, “Later.”

The chalices resumed chopping at their cutting boards.

Carmen whispered to Jolie, and I leaned in to listen. “I need you to distract the Nancharm. Get frisky with the chalices.”

“Which one?”

“Take your pick. Any or all of them. Dealer’s choice.” Carmen grasped my arm. “Meanwhile, Felix is going to explain how he intends for us to make a break for it.”

Jolie saluted. “Aye, aye, captain. I’m prepared to shiver some timbers.” She spun on her heels and retreated to the kitchen counter. She swatted Irsan and Toby on their butts and pulled them close.

Carmen led me from the kitchen to the bedroom. She slipped out of her cloak and gathered it in her hands. Naked—and I mean NAKED! If you had only one woman to see in the buff, it had to be Carmen—she opened the dresser, stuffed in the cloak and unfolded blue yoga pants and a yellow tank top. She slithered into the pants and top, and the image of her choice bits—and the way they were packaged—lingered in my retinas.

I lowered my gaze and cleared my throat.

Carmen chuckled and when I brought my head up, she was smiling mischievously, quite aware of the effect she had on me. Her eyes slid from a second door to the bed as if teasing me with the choice. She started for the door, and I stepped beside her, promising myself that when the time was right, I’d show Carmen who was boss in the sack. We entered a hall.

“The problem is that I’m fighting a lot of obstacles,” she said, turning the conversation back to business. “Physiologically, the Nancharm aren’t that easy to figure out—”

No argument from me. I had yet to tell the difference between the Nancharm men and women.

“—and their erogenous zones are elusive as butterflies in a tornado. It took me a while to find out what excited the women, and
they
were willing. The men?” Carmen shook her head. “Even as they face annihilation, they have a tough time accepting advice from an extraterrestrial. Culturally, the Nancharm remain convinced they are superior. Plus, in spite of the certain danger of self-extinction, the Nancharm fear that if they divert too many resources to this process, the other planets may seize upon that distraction and attack.”

“How likely is that?”

“I don’t know, but you can imagine they have plenty of enemies waiting to settle scores.”

“And you’ve had no success hooking up with the Nancharm?”

“I never said that. Like I said, the Nancharm women are willing.”

“And…?” I drew out the question. “Have you had sex with Moots?” I couldn’t help chuckling.

“Not with her. She’s very professional in that regard. Feels that her participation in the studies might taint her judgment.”

“How was it?”

“Sex with a Nancharm?” Carmen chuffed softly. “The experiment was very clinical. Most of the time, the women need a lot to prime the pump. Conversation, touching, foreplay.”

“Most of the time?” I asked.

“Once in a while, the subject demands a quickie. When things get going, they really dig the Kama Sutra, modified of course. Their favorite is position 42. Goat Climbs Tree.”

I pictured a goat bleating high in a tree and couldn’t see the analogy.

“The Nancharm women are surprisingly flexible and it’s easier than you think to get under their carapace.” Carmen tipped her head and raised one hand like she was holding up a car hood to inspect the engine.

“What did you do?”

“I used a tool.” She rocked her hand. “A heated vibrator-thingy. The Nancharm women are into sex toys. That’s what kept them smiling while they waited for their men to come around.”

We turned the corner and approached a spiral staircase.

“What about companionship?” I said. “There’s more to a relationship than sex.”

“Did
you
just say that?” Carmen exploded with laughter. “They made do. Apparently, Nancharm men are a real pain in the ass to live with. Not having sex with them didn’t become an issue until the population problem.”

I still couldn’t see their men completely dismissing sex. I’m a vampire and though making babies was out of my equation, giving up sex would be like giving up drinking. Thankfully, we are sterile and procreate by fanging and turning victims.

“And you’ve had no success with the men?”

“None.”

I supposed I needed an explanation of Nancharm physiology, although I didn’t really care. However, some Nancharm boners might buy us time, time enough for me to steal a flying saucer.

Carmen climbed on the first step of the staircase and made room for me. When I stood beside her, the stairs automatically ascended like a corkscrewing escalator. But the process didn’t seem mechanical like the turning of rigid components but more like the metal changed shape to lift us.

“Are the chalices practicing safe sex?” I asked. “A successful experiment would mean that Cassie and Juanita get pregnant.”

“When conception happens, the Nancharm use sonic waves to coax the fertilized egg through the uterus in a way so it won’t implant. Definitely not pro-life.”

We arrived on a mezzanine overlooking the gigantic main room, where Jolie and I had landed earlier in the day.

Carmen proceeded toward a narrow slit in the wall. It widened to let us pass and we emerged onto an outdoor balcony to face a twilight landscape. The air smelled fragrant. The green rolling hills faded to gray. Lights twinkled in the distance. A band of greenish yellow rimmed the horizon. The planet’s ring shined bright as gold wire against the jewel-like stars and an iridescent nebula of shimmering purples and blues.

“Hate to admit this, but D-Galtha can be quite beautiful,” I said. “This planet could be a great tourist destination.”

Together we stood against the balcony wall.

She wrapped her arm in mine. “Tell me about your plan.”

“If you could call it that. At this stage, it’s more like wishful thinking.” I glanced around us. “Aren’t you afraid of the Nancharm listening in?”

“The only thing they care about is sex. Besides, what chance do they think we have of pulling off an escape?”

An alarm rang. Carmen let go my arm, and I looked about in unease.

A spectral shape floated in the air and Juanita’s face materialized before us. “Carmen,” she exclaimed, her eyes wide with distress, “come to the kitchen.”

“What’s happened?”

“Toby tried to kill himself.”

***

Chapter Twenty-four

The walls blinked in cadence with the alarm. Carmen and I rushed back to the stairway and bounded down the steps to the ground floor.

Juanita waited for us at the door to the kitchen. My mind pinged at the smell of fresh human blood, and my fangs instinctively snapped into place.

Toby lay on the floor, his head resting in Jolie’s lap. His wrists were wrapped in blood-soaked towels. Two streaks of blood trailed from the dining room to his body.

Cassie and Irsan stood beside him, both holding clean towels. I suppressed my thirst for blood and withdrew my fangs.

Carmen ordered, “Alarm off.”

The walls quit pulsing, and the alarm fell mercifully silent.

Jolie said, “I heard Toby fall in the next room, and when he didn’t answer, I checked on him and found this.” She opened her free hand showed us a bloodied paring knife.

Toby’s eyes seemed to spin in their moist, red-rimmed sockets. Sweat on his face mingled with tears cascading down his cheeks. “I’m so sorry,” he repeated between sobs.

Carmen knelt beside him and cupped the back of his head. He grasped her wrist, pulled himself from Jolie and pressed his head against Carmen’s thigh. She ran her fingers through his moist hair.

“I didn’t want to do it,” he wept. “I knew if I offed myself then Irsan would be the next one to be cut open.” Toby’s crazy eyes swept the kitchen and locked on Irsan. “But I can’t stand this misery anymore. Take me home. Take me home, please.” His gaze broke from Irsan and speared me. “You, tough guy, find a way. Save us from this hell.” He raked the air with his bloody crooked fingers. “Take us home!”

His despair pressed against me, and I had to take a step back. My responsibilities weighed heavily on my shoulders, but I felt dumb as a trapped beast.

Carmen and Jolie replaced the towels on Toby’s wrists with makeshift bandages, then helped him to his feet. His knees buckled, but they held him steady. Irsan and Cassie began wiping the blood-spattered counter.

The kitchen door stretched open. Moots and another Nancharm, this one shorter and stockier, rode side-by-side on one hover scooter. Moots and her partner slid off the scooter and floated to the floor.

The tendrils on the shorter Nancharm flailed about, and a baritone voice boomed from the translator/cap, “You assured me this was not going to happen again.”

Again.
I remembered that Carmen mentioned that human captives had a limited shelf life—they tended to kill themselves.

Moots’ face was a hard, featureless mask, and her eyes opaque as alabaster stones. Yet I sensed her distress. She pointed at the other Nancharm. “This is Doctor Fastid … my boss.”

I assumed from his deeper voice that he was male. The last time I had seen two of the Nancharm together, one was tall and lean like Moots. The other was shorter and stout like this guy so I supposed this size difference was the easiest way to distinguish between their men and women. His face was more square then hers, and his eyes almond-shaped. His mouth was wider. His speaking tendrils were thicker, which may have accounted for his deeper voice … or not.

Though he was shorter than Moots, Fastid was still close to ten feet tall. He slid across the floor and stared at Toby. “You have no idea what this does to our budget.”

Toby dipped his head in shame.

Carmen motioned toward his injured wrists. “He’s going to need medical attention.”

“The iatric team is on the way,” Moots said.

Fastid turned to Moots. “Explain to me how this happened? We …” he stabbed a finger in her direction. “
You
are supposed to be in complete control of this research. Self-destruction by a specimen is completely outside the test protocols.” Toby’s spilled blood seeped across the floor toward the doctor and he retreated out of the way.

Moots kept quiet. She leaned ever so slightly from side to side and drummed her fingers against the side of her carapace.

“Maybe, we should confine them in pens,” Fastid said. “Take away a few of their amenities so they can focus on the task at hand.”

“That won’t work, and you know it,” Moots replied defiantly. “Humans are complex.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Fastid waved his hands. “The humans are complex. The Dacheen are complex. The Ekwistas are complex. Every species we’re studying on D-Galtha is complex.”

“And so are we,” Moots noted. “The men especially.”

Fastid’s tendrils puffed but nothing came out of his translator/cap.

Fastid glided back to the hover scooter. “I want a report on how and why this happened.”

“I can tell you why,” she replied. “He’s unhappy.”

Fastid’s tendrils shook, and his translator/cap bellowed, “He’s unhappy? We’re all unhappy! Tell me who isn’t unhappy on this miserable rock? Planet Pleasure my ass.”

Fastid levitated and slid onto the hover scooter. His head swiveled to pan the kitchen, and I caught his disgust with us. The scooter rotated and disappeared out the doorway. The doorframe shrank back to normal size, and the door slammed shut.

“Asshole,” Moots muttered. She approached Toby, Carmen, and Jolie. “How close are you to expiring?” she asked of Toby.

He raised his bandaged wrists. “Not close, not anymore.”

“Fastid and the Erection Analysis Committee were hoping for plenty of sex, but I’m going to tell them you’ll need time to let this trauma pass.”

“How much time?” Carmen asked.

“How much time do you need?”

Carmen looked past Moots and at me. Her eyes asked
A week? A month? A year?

I had no clue. It all depended on getting my hands on a flying saucer. I shrugged.

Carmen wrinkled her nose in displeasure and answered Moots, “I don’t know.”

“Figures,” Moots replied. “Our motto should be, ‘We don’t know what the fuck we’re doing.’” She paused as if distracted, then thumped the center of her chest. Her tendrils wiggled and odd, squeaking sounds came out of her cap. She kept quiet for a short moment, replied in more squeaking sounds, and tapped her chest. “That was the iatric team. They can’t make it here, which means I have to transport Toby to the infirmary.”

“How?” Jolie asked.

“In one of our shuttles.”

“The flying saucers?” I asked.

“Flying saucers?” Moots chuckled, sounding surprised. “I guess if that’s what you want to call them, sure. We’ll be going in a”—she made air quotes—“
flying
saucer.”

“Then let me help you with Toby,” I replied.

***