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Copyright © 1999 by Cleo Kraft. All rights reserved.

Perplexity (The Pirates of Moray)

by Cleo Kraft

Perplexity
(Or: The Pirates of Moray)
by Cleo Kraft
--------------------
Scoundrels, that's what they were for what they did to my outpost and
my men. Dirty cheats and liars. Common pirates, that's what they were,
and way out here on the fringes of the asteroid belt there was little
I could have done to prepare for something like that.

I was only gone for a few days, you know. Just an ordinary little run
up to Neptune to drop off some cargo and check on things in the office.
All the big mining operations had offices at Gamma Station now and even
though I was hardly running the biggest mining operation, I wanted to
keep up with my competition, at least by making myself somewhat known
by having my own office to show I was with the in-crowd.

I suppose now that I look at it, I'm pretty lucky to have started up
that little office on Neptune. Otherwise I would have wound up like
the rest of my men and been either killed or captured by those rotten
pirates.

Those that were killed were killed in the initial assault against the
Outpost of Moray, so at least they died with a little dignity. As for
the others I can only imagine what horrors they're going through at
this very moment aboard some pirate ship heading for god knows where.

Conversion to slave girls most likely. It's what most pirates and thugs
are up to these days. It's big business actually, turning male prisoners
into submissive slave girls and selling them on the black market somewhere
like Mars or more probably Neptune.

Ironically the kelleniualite I've been in the business of mining has
likely contributed to the problem of the same abused technology that
these pirates are notorious for using upon their victims. Kelleniualite
is the material almost soley responsible for the new sciences, such as
bioalteration and several branches of anti-life and rebirthing fields.

I stood there in the control room on Moray after a long and extensive
search for survivors, of which there were none, and I looked at one of
the remaining undamaged viewscreens and examined the long list of
damages done.

Of the seven barracks, only one survived completely intact after the
bombing, and with their cave-in went over half the tunnel system on
this asteroid. Amazingly however, only twenty-six of the three hundred
miners had apparently died. The rest had vanished, most likely taken
by the pirates or buried alive under hundreds of tons of rock.

I didn't know whether the dead would pity or envy the survivors, for
on the one hand life is better than death, but on the other hand there
are sometimes worse things than death that one can suffer in life,
especially at the hands of wicked pirates.

Under the circumstances I could really only do one thing now, and that's
send out a distress signal back to Earth and hope the Feds would take
a look into this mess. In the meanwhile I'd go back to Gamma Station and
try and file the insurance reports on this mess and try to somehow piece
together what had exactly become of my men. Perhaps I'd even go after
those pirates myself and see if I could pay them back for what they've
done. It's not uncommon in this part of space for mine owners to go after
pirates personally while the old Feds and insurance companies took their
own sweet time sifting through the aftermath of the initial attack.

So I sent out the distress call and headed right back to Neptune in
my cargo ship, the Zepher Delton.

___-----___

Gamma Station was once the great capital of research and development
but that soon moved on to other places like Mars and the inner-outworlds
of the Centauri Region. Now, Gamma Station was mostly offices, casinos
and a few scattered remnants of new-science clinics. The real fun, of
course, was still pretty much back on Earth and Mars. There you could
get a full body transformation done - for a price of course.

I called in the number on the vidphone and a dark haired man wearing
a white overcoat turned around on the screen to face me.

"Why hello there Fred!" he greeted me with a smile.

"Hello again Dr. Aronson," I said. "There's been a bit of trouble out
on Moray and I was wondering if you had time to assist me."

"Pirates?"

"Yes."

"I see," he said scratching his chin.

I saw a young redheaded woman behind him sit up into view on a table.
"Are you sure you can reverse this, Doctor?"

Aronson turned around to face her and said,"Yes, yes, but not now my
dear. Can't you see I have a call?"  He turned back to face me and
said. "I'm sure we can continue this discussion later, Fred. I'd be
glad to help you out but in a limited fashion. I'm not much in the
mood for spaceflight again."

"Oh come on, Aronson," I said. "It'll be like old times. What do you
say?"

"Will you get the rest of the crew together?" he asked, thinking it
over.

"What do you think I'm doing right now? Of course I'll get the others.
We're a team, remember? One for all and all that jazz. Remember our pact.
Any one of us that gets into trouble gets help from the others. It's
our sworn oath, remember?"

"I'll think it over," he said. "Right now is not a good time to discuss
this any further. I'll call you back later."

Click.

The screen went black and I quickly voiced in another number.

The picture changed to that of a spunky young auburn haired woman
in a one-piece pink bathing suit and white tights and tennis shoes.
She was riding an exercise bike out on a wooden patio deck as the
camera zoomed onto her face for better focus.

"Well if it isn't old Fred," she said stopping her exercise and briefly
drying off her face with a white towel. "Hey there Freddy old boy, what's
news?"

"Brad?" I asked, not realizing at first who I was talking to. "Brad?
Is that you?"

"Yeah," she said and the camera zoomed out to show her full figure.
She stepped off the bike and stood there with arms crossed under her
breasts. "Like it? It's the new me. I've gone to the other side, my
friend."

A little girl in bluejeans and a white t-shirt and pink sneakers
ran quickly past the woman.

"Trisha, you be careful now," the woman said.

"I will mommy," came back the reply.

"So . . . You've even got a child," I said.

"Three actually. Two girls and a boy, but enough about me, Fred, what
have you been up to all these years?"

"I bought a mining outpost from a nice married couple out here on the
fringes of the belt. Pretty good sized operation until some pirates
decided to come by and tear the place apart."

"Oh, I see. That's too bad about the pirates, Fred, but you know I warned
you not to get into the mining business."

"Yeah, yeah, but I did and I learned my lesson the hard way and now I
want you to help me find those pirates."

"What on Earth for? You know that doesn't solve the problem."

"Yeah, yeah. I realize that but this isn't about free-space or finders
keepers laws, this is about getting my men back safe and sound. I owe
them at least that. I can't let them remain in the clutches of those
evil pirates, not when I have friends like you that can help me out."

"You know I'd really like to help out, Fred, but as you can see I have
a family now. I have other obligations and responsibilities. I can't just
leave my husband and children and go off on some adventure."

"But it's PI-RATS," I said breaking the word out slowly in two syllables.
I knew Brad absolutely hated pirates, especially after what they did
to his two older brothers, selling them off as slave girls on Neptune.

"It's tempting, Fred. Really it is, but I have a family now."

"I thought the team was your family."

"Yeah, well things change, Fred. I'm a woman now - a wife and a mother
even, and I can't just abandon my family. I'm sorry, Fred, but you're
on your own this time. Give my regards to the others, will ya? Especially
Joe. Tell him I miss him and his silly clumsiness, would ya?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'll tell him."

"Goodbye Fred. Don't be a stranger," Brad said waving back at me.

The screen blanked out.

"You too, Brad. You too."

___-----___

Joe was a bit more difficult to get ahold of. His last known whereabouts
were on Mars somewhere near the old rec-coms (or recreational communities).
It turned out he, like Brad, was more than curious about what it was like
to be a member of the opposite sex.

I tracked Joe down to an all girl rec-com nestled within Cavers Canyon.
The rec-com was simply named Girl's Town, and it was clear by the fences,
barracades and signs around the place that only girls were to be admitted.

Dr. Aronson, being a good friend of mine, provided me with the necessary
girl pills I'd need to sneak in through the gates.

Some advancements had been made in technology recently. One of which was
an improved girl pill that, unlike previous examples, did not render the
male subject sterile upon return to normal form. Additionally the length
of stay as a girl was increased from twelve hours to nearly twenty hours
before one reverted back to male. There were still the half day doses as
well as the one hour sampler pills but the ones I'd need were of the
longer duration just to be safe.

Additionally there were semi-perm girl pills that would in effect transform
a man into a woman permanently unless a similar semi-perm boy pill was
used. For my purposes, I almost always opted on this method because there
was no fixed time limit before I could take a reverser pill and change back
again. The problem was, these pills had what is known as chem-mark locking
signatures that matched the respective reverser pill. If you ever took a
semi-perm girl pill and then lost or misplaced the boy one, you were almost
certainly stuck that way for good because of the chem-mark lock. Simply
popping another type of boy pill wouldn't work because you'd always revert
back to your "locked" form. These pills were highly dangerous and very much
illegal to posess but Dr. Aronson helped develop them and since he's a
good friend of mine I happened to convince him of my need for this particular
product.

Still, I could never get more than one semi-perm girl pill and its
accompanying reverser (or semi-perm boy) pill at any one time, and even
then I only asked him once before, though never used the pill on myself.

For safety reasons I decided not to carry the reverser pill with me and
left it tucked in a bottle of aspirin which was in the back of a medicine
cabinet in my stateroom aboard my ship. I didn't want to do time getting
caught with one of these illegal pills so that, I thought, was a fairly
safe place to store it since it blended in well with regular white aspirin
tablets. It blended in so well that I knew I'd have some difficulty figuring
out which one was the reverser pill.

After a three hour shuttle ride to Inglet Town, which was about as
near Girl's Town as I was going to get in my male body, I checked
into the Redridge Hotel and went up to my room on the ninth floor.

I set my luggage down on the floor beside the bed, then I went in the
bathroom and got a glass of water and quickly took the girl pill.

I went back out to the bedroom and sat there flipping through the
vidio channels.

About ten minutes later I felt a bit dizzy. Then my vision got all
blurry and my stomach knotted up.

In the past, these types of pills would make you collapse to the
floor and possibly even pass out but these new pills were much more
improved and after a bit of dizziness and blurred vision, and a bit
of tightness in the stomach, the rest was a piece of cake, in fact
it was rather pleasurable to experience, or so I heard and was now
learning firsthand as this was my first time using this girl pill.

Even the tingly sensations the old pills reportedly gave were
gone and replaced with what I can only describe as drunken giddiness
with wave after wave of numbness followed by non-numbness as each part
of my body transformed from male into the more appropriate female
configuration as the pill instructed my body, cell by cell, even atom by
atom to change.

I felt a rush of new sensations pass through my body as each part
of me was essentially rewritten with a new DNA pattern, and my old
pattern was stored in what I understood to be some sort of cipher mixed
in with my new DNA. Only the reverser pill could break this cipher and
return me to normal once this transformation was complete.

The numbness began at the furthest points of my body and worked inward
from there. First my feet and hands turned numb, then un-numb, followed
by my ankles and wrists, calves and forearms, and now even my nose and
ears got all numb like I'd had too much alcohol to drink or something.

Now my knees and elbows lost sensation for a moment along with most of
my face and neck. The wave cascaded up my arms and legs, meeting up with
another pair of waves travelling from my neck down and from my hips up.

I was six foot one before this all started but now I stood there at
perhaps just under five feet in height. I must have looked like a little
kid playing grown-up or something because my tan long sleeved shirt now
hung there on me quite loosely and my black trousers slid effortlessly
down to my ankles in a heap, revealing my new sexy, smooth girl's legs.

I felt one or two more jolts of numbness in my crotch and then it was done.

I was a girl.

Before I had blond hair but now I had long black hair that
stretched down to the base of my back and also hung there a bit
over my shoulders and across my ample chest which I was eager
to look at since it was still hidden within my baggy shirt and
I was curious to see how complete the transformation was.

I unbuttoned my shirt and let it drop to the floor, then I stepped easily
out of my now oversized men's dress shoes and walked in the bathroom to
have a look at myself in the mirror.

As I walked, I noticed my socks still clung to my feet, though a bit
bunched up loosely about my ankles now. I also noticed my balance was
all different than before. I swayed my hips as I walked, not even able
to help it as I did so. It was just natural for my hips to sway now in
this body.

I walked up to the sink and looked at my new self in the mirror.

Gone were my old blue eyes, replaced now with soft brown ones with
pretty eyelashes.

I still had on my white jocky shorts but they were a bit stretched now
that I had a larger butt. I looked down at my breasts and parted them
with my hands so I could get a better look at my tummy from this angle.

Not a sign of fat anywhere, just nice smooth sexy girlness everywhere
I looked. Before I had a bit of a beer belly, but not any more. Now I
was a thin, beautiful sex goddess.

I looked in the mirror and tried to guess what age this new body might
be. My old body was forty-eight but this one seemed no older than
eighteen but still carried with it a hint of being a little younger,
perhaps sixteen. It was hard to tell.

At any rate I'd done it. I'd broken the law and used a semi-perm girl pill.
I felt thrilled and somewhat excited about how naughty it was for me to
be standing here like this, in this body, and knowing that it wasn't one
of the legal transformations I'd used, but a highly illegal and more
untraceable one.

If a whole panel of government scientists gave me a full medical and
battery of tests, they'd never know this body could ever have possibly
been a man's body before. In fact, I was assured by Dr. Aronson that this
particular pill was so good that doctors would swear I'd always had this
body.

I was a real woman now and forever unless I used that reverser pill I
left back at my ship.

"This isn't happening," I said, listening to my first female words come
from my mouth. "This feels too weird . . ."

I'd never been female before. I'd always avoided it mainly because it
just didn't interest me all that much. The only reason I was doing this
at all was to get to Joe at that girl's only rec-com that apparently
didn't believe in allowing outside vid-calls. As soon as I got an answer
from Joe on whether or not he, or rather she, would help me, I planned
on getting back to my good old male body as soon as possible.

I got out of my underwear and socks and walked back in the bedroom.

I dug through my luggage and found a small parcel that Aronson gave me
when he gave me the pills. I opened the parcel and held up a skimpy
black dress that obviously wasn't designed for warmth but rather to
show off plenty of skin.

I set the dress down on the end of the bed and pulled out a crumpled up
pair of black nylons and set them on the bed too.

I couldn't believe what I was doing. I was actually laying out clothes -
GIRL clothes!

I pulled out a silky pair of black panties and, without trying to think
too much about what I was doing, I quickly pulled them on and then
turned around and picked up the stockings from the bed and put them on
too.

I suppose as a man I'd have one heck of a hardon right oubout now if
I was watching this, let alone dressing up in this girl stuff. The more I
thought about it, the more I realized it would be kind of a turn-on if I
tried this stuff on in my male body but strangely this body was sending
me no signals like that. It was just normal clothes to this body, that's
all. It was uncanny. Oh sure the stockings and panties felt smooth and
fit just right and everything but no real turn-on that I was aware of.
Of course as a girl I suppose I'd have to figure out for myself what
turns on a body like this. On second thought, I think I'd rather not.
I'm not doing this for fun and entertainment. I'm doing this so I can
sneak in to that rec-com and ask Joe if s/he'll join me on my quest to
save the miners of Moray.

I walked back in the bathroom to get a good look at myself now.

Though the clothes just felt like . . . well, clothes, the sight in the
mirror was absolutely breathtaking. Just a simple pair of stockings over
panties and nothing else and yet it looked absolutely incredible. No,
correction, *I* looked absolutely incredible!

As I looked my body over again I realized that it wasn't necessarily the
stockings and panties that made me look sexier than before but it seemed
to be my own perception that was misleading me into thinking so. In reality
this body would look good in any old rags I might happen to put on. I mean
it's all in the curves, right? I've got great curves. That's what it is.
Well that and a now lifetime supply of female hormones to keep those curves
looking their best.

I turned around and walked back out of the bathroom and reached down in
the parcel and pulled out a black bra which, fortunatly for me, had the
clasp in the front. I think it's one of those nursing bras or something
but Dr. Aronson said it would be simpler for me to figure out how to put
this one on rather than the traditional one that attaches in the back.

He was right. I just slipped my arms through the hoops like I was putting
on a jacket, then I just carefully pulled the cups up over my breasts
and fastened a tiny triple prong of hoops around some little hooks and
it was done. Simple as that and no fussing with anything on my back.
                                       
The only reason I'd even known somewhat the order of putting these girl's
clothes on was I'd seen a few "how-to" videos at Aronson's office while
sitting in his waiting room a few times in the old days when I'd wait there
for him so we could go to lunch or go out on an afternoon of golfing or
something.

The next thing was the dress which I knew came before the half-slip or
whatever it was called.

I pulled the dress on and was thankful the material was stretchy enough
that I didn't need to worry about a zipper or buttons in the back.

I looked in the parcel and found a black satin slip and put that on next,
stepping into it and pulling it up to fit nicely over my hips. It had
an elastic band about it so, like the bra, it was pretty simple to put on.

I found some black flats in the parcel and put those on next. I told
Aronson that I had no intention of trying to learn how to wear high heeled
shoes for a little mission like this one. I just wanted everything to be
simple as can be. No troubles, just a quick change into female form to get
into the rec-com and ask Joe to join me on my quest, then a quick change
back to normal after that.

Makeup was another thing I didn't want to hassle with, but Aronson included
some red lipstick because he thought that would be simple enough for me
to manage without botching things up.

I took the lipstick and walked in the bathroom and stood before the mirror
to apply the stuff. It took me ten minutes to figure it out and even then
it wasn't as easy. When I was a kid I had a heck of a time learning to
draw within the lines in coloring books but trying to apply lipstick and
keep it just within the boundaries of the lips without coming back to wipe
off the excess with tissue paper was much, much more difficult than I
thought. Several times I wound up looking like a clown with that stuff
but I eventually learned to just wipe off the extra with a tissue.

I walked back and got a brush from the parcel and not really knowing what
to do with my long straight black hair I just brushed it and brushed it
until I gave up and decided it looked fine the way it was.

I found a small black purse in the package Aronson gave me. I put my
hotel card key, ship's key, and lipstick in the purse and slung
the purse-strap over my right shoulder.

I took one more look in the mirror.

Yep, was ready all right. I was absolutely a dream girl.

"Hey good looking," I said to my body. "Don't you dare go and get me into
trouble now. I'm just here to talk to Joe. That's all. No funny stuff, so
don't get any ideas. This is just temporary and then it's back to normal.
As far as I'm concerned, girl, you don't even exist so you'd best not get
us into any trouble, okay?" I squeezed my puny biceps with my hands and
added,"I sure hope I'm not going to need my old strength while I'm stuck
this way . . ." I held my right hand about a foot up over my head to gauge
how tall I used to be compared with my current height and added,"Or my old
height for that matter. Man this is just too strange . . ."

I looked down at my side and double checked the contents of my purse just
to make sure I wasn't forgetting anything. Then I resealed the purse flap
and turned around and headed out of my hotel room.

There was a man waiting out at the end of the hall by the elevators. He
turned around and looked at me as I approached. It was one of those quick
looks where I could tell he was getting an eye-full. He saw me look him
in the eye and he quickly turned around again to wait for the elevator.

The elevator arrived and we both stepped in. I saw him press the "L" button
(for lobby) and I kept myself in the corner farthest from the man because
quite honestly I didn't trust this guy. It's probably just my new instincts
or something because I've got a smaller, weaker body now than before and
I saw how he looked at me and that probably added to my fear.

The elevator arrived at the lobby and I waited for the stranger to step out
and be on his way before I took the courage to step out myself.

I walked to through the lobby and got occasional glances from the men
as I passed. My walk really had a bit of a sway to it but I couldn't help
it. It was the way this body was built. Those larger hips HAD to sway.
I couldn't help it.

I also noticed I took tinier steps now and walked with a sort of dainty
little one-foot-in-front-of-the-other kind of walk instead of my normal
wide strides I used to take as a man.

All this time I thought women walked the way they did to purposely look
sexy, but in reality I was learning it's just the normal way for a girl
to walk. I imagine high heels would amplify the effect quite a bit but I
had no intention of testing that theory out.

A doorman held the door open for me as I walked outside onto the sidewalk.

It wasn't long before a hova-taxi came floating in under the red and white
striped canopy in front of the hotel. I hopped in and told the driver
my destination.

"I'm sorry miss, but I'll only be able to take you as far as the main
gate to that place," he said. He was a scraggly old man with gray hair
and a dusty old blue suit.

"That will be fine," I said and after I punched in my bank account access
code into the debit-box, we were on our way.

___-----___

The driver dropped me off by the main gates of Girl's Town and bid me
a safe stay before he drove back the way we'd come.

I walked up to the gatehouse window and was surprised to see a couple
of male security guards sitting inside behind the desk.

"Yeah?" one of them asked.

"I'm here to visit a friend of mine," I explained.

"You a girl?" the other one asked standing up from his desk and peering
out over the window to get a good look at me. Apparently his eyes were
focused on my cleavage.

"Of course I'm a girl," I replied. "Now can I please go in?"

"Yeah, yeah," the other guard said handing me a form to sign. "Just sign
in right there and indicate who you're here to visit in that other box
right over there." He also handed me a pen.

I signed and then handed him back the pen and form.

"Great," he said and pointed to a little white cylindrical booth on
the opposite side of the gate. "Now go and stand in there."

"What's that for?" I asked.

"To see if you're a natural girl or one of those wanna-bees who keep trying
to sneak in places like this."

This is where the semi-perm girl pill would really show me whether or not
it had done its job and made my body one seem one hundred percent female
without a smidgen of a trace of any maleness left behind.

I stepped in the booth and turned around to look back at the guard shack.

A red circlet of light passed slowly up and down my body, pausing especially
upon my crotch each time.

A green light went on on the side of the door and the guards motioned
for me to step out.

I walked back to the little window and waited.

"She's real alright," one of them said.

"May we inspect the contents of your purse please?" a guard said holding
out his hand.

I handed him my purse and he emptied the contents out on the window sill.

"A key to a spacecraft eh?" the other guard said holding up one of the
keys. "Mind if we run this through our computer to check the registration?"

"Uh, no," I said nervous now that they'd find the key belonged to a man,
not a woman.

After a few minutes one of the guards put the key in a wall safe in the
back of the guard house.

I kept quiet as they each said what they had to say.

"It says here that this key belongs to Fred Tilsley. Now isn't that
funny? And of course even though Mars has fairly better rights for women
than Neptune, it's still fairly rare for a woman to carry around a
ship's key without proper permission paperwork on her person."

"Hey Brad, I ran a check on the other key and it's the same guy's hotel
key. Now isn't that strange? The guy only checked in an hour or so ago
and now you show up with his hotel key and the key to his cargo runner.
If I didn't know any better I'd say either you mugged the guy, which is
highly unlikely, or else you and he are one and the same person."

The other guard took the hotel key and added it to the contents of the
wall safe and said,"Uh, Nick, you want to do the honors while I contact
the spaceport inspection team and then the hotel manager to check around
for the return pill?"

"Yeah Brad," Nick said and looked me up and down. "You know, if they don't
find the return pill then you're innocent and free to go. However we still
will keep your two keys because they clearly do not belong to you. Now I'll
give you a chance to explain if you'd like, so if you're guilty then now's
the best time to confess. You might get a lesser sentence that way. 
Do you know how many years of prison you'll get if they find the
return pill and match it against your current DNA? Do you? You'll
be behind bars for so long you won't see the light of day for at least
the next twenty years of your life. Now on the other hand, if you confess
then you might get only five years. You wouldn't believe how many guys
try sneaking into Girl's Town just to peep at all the beauties we've got
and to find out what it is that's so secret about this place."

I'd forgotten how Martian laws were concerning women. It was not nearly
as bad as Neptune, but it was still pretty bad here compared with the
freedom women enjoyed on Earth and other planets.

Here on Mars it was almost unheard of for a woman to own a hova-car, let
alone a spaceship, and if they did then they had to carry around a signed
permission slip from the governor or someone. It was unfair and it was
the one thing I should have researched a bit more before trying this
little adventure in womanhood.

I waited in a small room in the back of the guard house while outside
agencies went about their task of searching my hotel room and ship.
I had nothing really else to do now but sit and watch some vid-shows
and occasionally sulk at how bad I botched things up.

Finally the door opened and one of the guards came in and said,"We're
really sorry about this, Miss, but it turns out they didn't find any
reverser pill, so you're free to go after all. Sorry about all this.
We've seen similar situations happen time and time again where it really
was a man trying to get in Girl's Town by using illegal semi-perm girl
pills. The hotel key is being returned to the hotel, and the ship key
is being returned to the spaceport authorities so if your friend, Fred,
asks just tell him and tell him to be careful next time not to give out
his keys to women while he's visiting Mars."

That was it. They kept me here for almost eight hours and all I got
was a cheap apology and that was it.

I was thankful though that they hadn't found the reverser pill because
then I'd really be up a creek.

They escorted me out to the gate, gave me back my purse and lipstick
and I watched as the huge iron double doors opened inward to let me pass.

I walked in and on the other side were two female guards in their own
little guard house who simply smiled as I walked up to their window.

"I'm looking for a Josephine Roberts," I said to them.

"Just a moment please," one of the guardswomen said as she typed in
something on her computer. "She's in Delta Nine, room five o'three.
That's down that street there and on the left."

I looked back in the direction she was pointing and nodded and said
thank you, then walked across the street and was onto a moving sidewalk
which carried me the rest of the way to the building.

I stepped off the moving sidewalk and made a small note of the nude
male statue that stood there before the building. My new body trembled
briefly at the sight and I realized suddenly what it was that turned on
this body and what I should have known all along - men!

As soon as I walked past the statue and up the steps I felt a wave of
relief pass through me. Relief that I no longer felt what I was feeling
a moment ago. I tried to feel sick about it or at least guilty about how
I felt a moment ago while looking at that statue but for some reason my
feelings were kind of . . . well, smug and content with what had happened.
It was like my body had a mind of its own and felt good about having seen
something that turned it on, and dispite my inner detest that I wished to
express somehow, my body only seemed happy. I think I even cracked a smile
as I walked in through the lobby and up to the elevator.

It was embarrasing! Other young women in the lobby were bustling about
and a few of them saw my reaction to seeing that nude male statue and they
grinned or even winked at me, accepting my reaction as the norm.

As I waited for the elevator to arrive, the image of that marble statue
kept appearing in my mind. It got to me so much that I had to turn around
and look out across the lobby and out at that statue once more.

My body trembled once more and my knees felt weak. My heart beat faster
now and I let out an audible sigh.

"He IS hot, isn't he?" a woman asked beside me. I didn't hear her approach.
My mind was too into that darn statue to be bothered with other things at
the moment.

"Yeah," I said nodding, not realizing fully the word that just came from
my mouth until I heard the elevator doors open behind me and I shook my
head to regain my senses once more.

Aronson warned me about something like this. That my reactions to
situations might be drastically affected by the natural inclinations
built into my new female form. I thought I could handle it. I thought
I could control it, but apparently I was wrong. It seemed as though I
should have believed Aronson, at least that way I would be more prepared
with my reaction to seeing that male statue.

I turned around and walked in the elevator and pressed the "5" button.

I was alone in the elevator and quite frustrated at how little control
I seemed to have over my reaction to a silly thing like seeing a nude
male statue. My face betrayed my real inner feelings by displaying a
smile and a far away look in my eyes. I could see this because there
was a mirror on the inside of the elevator doors.

I couldn't handle it. I wanted to feel disgusted at what I'd seen but
instead my body was totally in acceptance of it.

I pounded my fists on the wall in my anger and frustration but then
when I looked in the mirror again I was all smiles as the image of
the statue filled my mind once more.

It was sickening!

What's happening to me?

The elevator arrived on the fifth floor and I stepped out into a red
carpeted hallway that was lined with doors on both sides here and there.

It was also lined with paintings of what I considered "girl things." You
know, cats, horses, flowers, that sort of stuff.

Normally I wouldn't take much notice of paintings like these but from time
to time I'd stop and stare and my heart would fill up with joy and
happiness and I'd nod and continue on my way down the hall.

It was something totally out of character for me to do, just like my
reaction to that statue, but here I was in what I had to admit was
really someone else's body, and apparently not only the exterior had
been changed but also my mind. Somehow my mind had undergone a transformation
all its own and I'd been foolish enough to think these latest girl pills
were at all like the ones I'd read about in the old days. No, these pills
would make you into a real woman, not just the outside but on a mind level
too. Oh I was still the same old me deep down but that same old me had
little it could do to say against what the new me felt came naturally.

It did feel natural to get excited at looking at that male statue, but
only natural from my new mind's point of view. The old mind felt sickened
by the reactions I was having, but could do little or nothing about it.
Aronson mentioned something about this to me once before but I'd forgotten
about it. Apparently I have to learn and study my reactions that I feel
are different to things now before I can fully control them.

Aronson explained it to me like this once. "Just like a child seems to
over react to things as it explores the world and objects in the world
for the first time, I wanted to develop a girl pill that would also
give such opportunity for my patients to learn how to control and
accept their reactions to their own new world," he said to me. "At
first the subject seems to think they no longer have full control
over their own reactions but this is not so. The reactions are
strongly felt at first until the subject learns to cope properly
with the situation. Until that time, the subject may feel lost
in perplexity. This is natural. I want my patients to fully learn
tod develop their new feminin tendencies to fully compliment the
bodies they come to me to obtain for themselves. I want to make
men who want to be women become REAL women. If I can achieve this
in one of my girl pill formulas then I feel I will have a one hundred
percent success rate in transforming men into not only real women, but
women who have no desire or tendencies to behave like men or desires
of ever changing back again."

What have I done to myself?!  I've taken the wrong type of pill!
Dr. Aronson gave me one from his newest batch! I'm done for. I'm
finished now. If I don't get back to that ship soon and take the
reverser pill I'll NEVER be able to have the guts to change back!

I walked up to door number five o'three and rang the bell.

"Yes?" a male robotic voice asked over the speaker.

"I'm here to see Josephine," I replied.

"She's taking a nap."

"Can I come in and wait for her to wake then?"

"One moment please."

The door clicked open and a seven foot tall male-droid stood there
towering above me.

I walked in and the droid closed the door behind me.

"Have a seat," he said and I sat down on a white sofa nearby while
he just stood there in the middle of the room with his arms crossed.
"What do you wish to see Josephine for?"

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Her guardian."

"Oh."

"Now what do you wish to see her for?"

"I'm an old friend of hers. I just came to see if she's interested in
going with me on a little vacation from all this."

"A vacation?" the male-droid asked. "She is already doing that right here."

"I know that but this is a different sort of vacation I'm talking about."

I heard someone sniffle and turned to see a sleepy-eyed little girl
standing there in the doorway on the opposite side of the room. She
rubbed her eyes with her little hands and then looked at me, revealing
her cute little blue eyes. She had auburn curls that hung down to her
shoulder and besides her white nightgown, she wore little pink bunny
slippers.

"Daddy," she said and pointed at me. "Who's that?"

"Now see what you've done? You've woken her," the droid said to
me and turned to reply to the girl,"She claims to be a friend of
yours, my dear."

The little girl walked around another sofa and table to stand there
before me. She looked up at me and yawned and shrugged. "I've never seen
you before. What's your name?"

"You're Josephine Roberts?" I asked surprised that my friend might not
only have changed sex but reduced his age as well.

"Yeah, so? Who are you?"

"I'm . . . ," I said and paused to look up at the male-droid. It wouldn't
be good to give out my real name here with that walking chattermouth
standing nearby. I winked at the girl and said,"You know I can't say
that here. I've come to round up the old gang for a little adventure.
Aronson and the others are still hesitant to go but I know I can count
on you . . . Joe."

The girl's eyes got real wide and her mouth dropped open.

"Fre-!" she started to say Fred but changed that, saying. "Fran!"

She opened her arms and I leaned down and gave her a quick hug.

"So. Will you?" I asked.

"Sure," she said and pointed her thumb back behind her. "That lunk-o-junk
won't mind. Just sign me out. You've got an ID card, right?"

"Uh . . . Well that's part of the problem," I said. "And the other part's
getting back to my ship without a key."

"You lost your KEY?!"

"Yeah but don't tell the other guys, I'm too embarrassed about this as it
is. Anyway what do we do?"

Joe was one of the masterminds of our old team. If there was a problem, he
was the guy who could fix it. I kept getting into trouble in the old days
and old Joe would come up with a way to get me out of it again.

"I'm just a three year old little girl now, Fran," she said sadly as she
looked down at her bunny slippers in dissapointment. "I can barely even
tie my own shoelaces anymore without help, let alone figure out your
problems anymore."

I had to do something. She wanted to go with me on my adventure but
she also clearly was in no situation to freely accompany me on my way,
at least so long as I had no ID card to sign her out of this place.

"Well, what should I do?" I asked. "Want me to leave you then?"

"No," she said putting her hand briefly on my knee, then realizing how
silly that was because I probably thought of her still as a man, so
she quickly retracted her hand again. "What I mean is . . . Old klunk-pot
is probably thirsty and needs a glass of water first if you know what
I mean."

She winked at me and I knew she meant that I had to find a way to
short-circuit the male-droid if I was ever going to get her out of here
right now.

"See?" I said winking back at her. "You're smarter than you think, Joe.
I'll get your guardian here a nice big glass of water."

"I do not require water," the male-droid said as I headed out for the
kitchen.

The male-droid cautiously followed me, just to make sure I wasn't up to
anything because after all it was his job as guardian to protect the
little girl.

"Water," I said to the food dispenser and a cup dropped into view and
quickly filled up with water.

I grabbed the cup and walked back in the living room. The male-droid
kept its distance from me just in case I tried anything.

Joe walked slowly over to the front door and stood there waiting for
me.

"Why, what's that behind you on the floor?" I asked the male-droid
as I pointed to a potted plant behind him.

He turned around and bent over to look. Then I splashed him good right
across the back of the neck were there were some exposed circuits. His
head jerked to the right and left and rattled about.

I smashed the now empty glass over the back of his head.

"Cheater! Liar!" the male-droid called out, waving its hands about
wildly in the air. "Scounderl! Fraud! Pest! Intruder!"

He stood fully upright again but now smoke and sparks spewed out from the
base of his neck and he kept bumping into things as if he had no eyes at
all.

I hurried over to the door where little three year old Josephine was
standing on tiptoe trying to reach the handle.

"I got that," I said opening the door for her and picking her up in
my arms. "Come on. Let's go."

I hurried out to the elevators and pressed the down arrow.

A loud siren sounded. It was coming from the male-droid!

"Stop the intruder! Stop the intruder!" he cried out inbetween the wails
of his siren.

Doors opened up on both sides of the hall now and other male-droids
peeked their heads out and looked this way and that. One of them walked
over to Joe's door to see what exactly the problem was. A moment later
the droid looked right at me and pointed and cried,"Stop that woman!"

Now all the male droids bustled about in the hall, hurring towards me
as their clankety legs moved not at a run like I expected but more
slowly and cautiously like at an old man's pace.

"We got you now!" the male-droids chanted in unison as they made
their way towards me at a snail's pace. "We got you now! We got you now!"

The elevator doors opened up and I quickly hurried inside with Joe
still in my arms.

I pushed the "L" button and the doors closed and we descended.

In the silence, Joe looked up at me and smiled a nervous little smile.

"How do we get you back to normal?" I asked her.

"Huh? Oh, I hadn't thought of that," she said and shrugged. "Oh well.
Can't do anything about it now."

The elevator arrived at the lobby and I ran over to the doors.

"Hey! Stop it right there!" a woman said from behind a guard desk. "You're
not going anywhere with that child unless you have a pass."

I ignored her and continued on outside and down the steps.

My heart skipped a beat as I passed the statue but I didn't have time
for silly girlish feelings right now. I ran down the moving sidewalk
towards the main gate and then hopped off and climbed in behind some
bushes.

"Now what?" I asked.

"Well, you'll have to get them to let you out," Joe suggested. "Then I'll
see if I can run out after you while the gate's opened."

"Good plan," I said. "But what if it doesn't work?"

Joe shrugged and said,"What else? I'll be punished. They'll probably
ground me. That means no playground time basically, which isn't so bad.
I'll just play with my dolls I guess." I looked down at her and just
stared in shock at what she said because it wasn't like old Joe to talk
about playing with dolls or anything. "Sorry," she said blushing. "Can't
help it. Been this way too long I guess."

"Okay," I said. "Here I go. I'll go out there and get them to open the
gate. You try to edge your way along behind these shrubs here until you're
close enough to the gate to give you a good head start run, but what about
when we're outside?"

"Oh. Well, we'll just work that out later."

I went back to the moving sidewalk and stood on it for a few seconds as
it carried me to the edge of the street. I wanted it to look natural, like
I was just getting off the moving sidewalk (as opposed to just right out
and walking out from the shrubs and over to the guard house).

"Well, that was a nice visit," I said approaching the guard window. "Think
I'll go home now though."

They hit a button that opened the gate up and I casually walked on through.

Josephine was quickly at my heels and then alarms everywhere went off.

I picked her up and ran past the outer guard shack and down a row of
utility vehicles.

"Still remember how to hotwire one of these things?" I asked her hopeful
of the reply.

"Think so," she said.

"Then better make it snappy," I said as I picked a vehicle and climbed in,
setting her down beside me. "The guards are coming!"

She fiddled with the wires for a bit and looked up at me with a strained
look on her face and said,"It's no use. I must have forgotten it."

"Well try again! Hurry!"

She ducked down below the steering column again and jiggered a few wires
and the vehicle clunked on and I heard the hova-fans kick in and we were
afloat.

"Good girl!" I said as she climbed up onto the passenger seat. She looked
back at me like I'd insulted her or something and I realized I called her
a girl. "Oops. Sorry."

She smiled back.

I pulled the gear into reverse and the vehicle rumbled backwards, knocking
a few guards down in the process.

Then I wheeled it about and headed out full speed towards the docks.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"The ship of course."

"They'll have cops out everywhere in that direction now. We've got to
go somewhere else."

"Where to, Joe?"

She stood up on her chair and looked out over the dashboard then she sat
down and looked around from side to side, biting her nails.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"The only other way is through the caves. There's monsters in those caves."

"Oh nonsense. That's your little girl's mind talking. There's no such thing
as monsters."

"Monsters with big teeth. Huge monsters. Gigantic ones! They'll eat you
alive!"

"Enough of that already. Where's this cave?"

___-----___

Girl's Town was located in a place called Cavers Canyon, and it was no
wonder because hundreds of caves were scattered about through the canyon
walls. The largest of the caves was named Kransurian Major and it was
just close enough for us to slip inside hopefully without detection
from the authorities.

The great orange mouth of the cave stood over one hundred feet in height,
the width was nearly twice that, and inside we had to stop for there were
too many complex rock formations for the hova-truck to continue much
further.

There were some space suits on the back seat but nothing small enough
for poor Joe to wear. She put one on anyway and, let the oversized arm
sleeves and gloves drag behind her as she followed slowly behind me.

My own suit was also a bit loose but only because it was built for a man
about a foot taller than myself. It was nothing to really complain about
compared to what poor Joe had to deal with. Her pair of oxygen tanks were
too heavy for her to carry upon her back so we split them up so she only
had one tank, which I carried myself to ease her burden.

Still, it was a fairly heavy oxygen tank which made matters worse because
I had a pair of them on my own back to worry about too. I suppose if I
were still a man this would be like nothing but my body was definately
weaker now and I had to stop every few yards or so to set the tank down
and take a break.

"Are you sure this is even going to work?" I asked Joe. "Where are we
going anyway, and what happens when our air runs out?"

"There's an ancient city down here somewhere and a small abandoned
science outpost near that. If we can make it there, we'll have all
the oxygen in the world," she said. "However if the monsters get us
first then running out of air is the least of our worries."

The light quickly got too dim for us to see too well so we switched on
our headlamps and coninued climbing down the rock formations.

After about an hour of this we finally reached level ground and there
sprawled out before us was a massive ancient underground city of stone.
Twenty yards to our right stood three huge silvery tubelike structures
connected together.

"That's the science outpost," Joe said pointing to the structure. "But
there's a monster right THERE!" She pointed to a cluster of boulders
but I didn't see any monster.

Never-the-less I was scared out of my mind and hurried my pace faster
than before now in order to get to shelter and fast.

When we got inside and finally removed our helmets, Joe was laughing her
head off at me.

"You fell for it!" she laughed. "You should have seen your expression!
Man you really fell for it! Ha-ha! Monsters! Ha! I got you that time,
Fred. I got you good!"

"You little brat!" I said but dispite my anger I couldn't bring myself
to harm her. "You stupid little brat!"

I found myself actually hugging her now. It was completely out of character
for me. If I was a man, this wouldn't be happening. I'd have slugged Joe
for tricking me like that but instead I was laughing with her and hugging
her.

Then I actually kissed her on the forehead and scruffed up her auburn
curls a bit.

She looked as surprised as I wish I looked, but again I couldn't express
my shock at this because this was just the way this body reacted to this
situation. It was certainly not the way my old self would have reacted.

"Why Fred," she said taken aback by my actions. "I didn't know you had it
in you. If I didn't know any better I'd swear someone's been coaching you
on how to act like a woman."

"I wish that were the case, Joe, really I do, but it's this new girl pill
I took. Aronson put some extra work into it to practically force whoever
takes it into behaving like a real woman. It's driving me crazy actually.
I just wanted to slug you one for tricking me but instead I hugged you.
Isn't that weird? And the worse part is I can't help it. It's like I'm not
in control even though I am. It's hard to explain. It's like it's retraining
me into doing things the way a girl like this ought to do things. I've got
to get that reverser pill before I get to the point where I actually like
it this way."

"Okay," she said. "I understand. Well why don't you tell me about this
big adventure of yours you boasted about back at Girl's Town."

Over the next hour or so, I told her the whole story from the pirate
attack on Moray to the recent mess I'd gotten in by loosing my ship's key.

"Sounds to me like you could have saved yourself some trouble and just
hired a couple of mercenaries, Fred," she said at last.

"For a three year old, you've still got your smarts, Joe, but I didn't
want to get outsiders involved this time because I wanted the old team
back together again. It just wouldn't be the same I guess, and I figured
you hated pirates so much and seem to love adventure so much that you'd
never turn down something like this. So what made you want to be a little
girl anyway, Joe? I mean, an adventurer like yourself . . . as a three
year old girl? What's up with that?"

She blushed a little and shrugged, then said,"I guess I thought it might
be fun to grow up different than before, and believe me, Fred, I've had
my share of adventures as a little girl. Once a few other girls and I
lit a couch on fire and when the sprinklers came on all the male-droids
just fizzled and died right where they stood. Then we had the whole run
of the place for the next few hours. It was great!"

"Yeah, yeah, but come on now . . . that's not the same as hunting down
pirates or going on real adventures like we did in the old days."

"I see. Then you just don't understand because you've never been a little
girl. I bet if you saw things my way you'd know that it doesn't take much
for a kid to have an adventure. You were a kid once, Fred. Admit it. What's
your idea of fun anyway? Hunting pirates? That's fun for grown-ups, but
for a kid that's not fun, that's just dangerous."

"Yeah, you're right. It all depends on your point of view. Well now what?
If you're going to be of any use to me on this adventure, we've got to
find a way to get you back into your old male body, or at least a grown-up's
body, male or female."

"What do you think part of the reason for us coming to this old abandoned
science outpost was for anyway?" she asked. "There's an old swappery on
one of these levels. I'll get a new body there."

Good old Joe, always thinking ahead.

We got out of our space suits and left them by the airlock. Then we
headed down the corridor. She looked absolutely ridiculous in that little
white nightgown and pink bunny slippers but my mouth formed a smile
as my new state of mind turned "ridiculous" into "cute and adorable."

"How did you even know about this place?" I asked.

She pointed to herself and said,"Where do you think I got THIS from
anyway? This is where the underground sent me to get me a real girl's
body and get me into Girl's Town. The only way I could go back then
was body swap because they didn't have semi-perm girl pills like the
one you took."

"The underground?"

"Yeah," she said.

"So then this place isn't entirely abandoned after all."

"Duh!" she said. "Like, what do you think they do, ship oxygen down
here to support an abandoned science outpost? Of course someone's
living here. This just happens to be the underground swappery
headquarts of Mars."

"And no guards?"

"Who's gonna guard something like this? They've got a few guards up
at the lab, sure, but no sense in putting an army in here. If they
think we're dangerous, believe me, we'd have known by now. They've got
cameras all over the place watching us. To them we're just a couple of
girls, one of which is too little to be of any harm anyway."

"But will they swap you? What about money?"

"You've got your bank account access number memorized, right?"

"Yeah."

"There you go," she said. "I'll pay you back later."

"How much is it?"

___-----___

"One hundred thousand plinkets!" I cried as Joella climbed into a
sleep chamber. "This is outrageous!"

"Hold it," a guard said to another man who was helping Joella in her
chamber. The other man pulled the girl out again. "If you've changed
your mind you better let us know now before we carry out the procedure.
It's no skin off my back if she stays a little girl but if you want her
to get a male body then the cost is one hundred thousand plinkets."

"How much was it the other way around," I asked Joe.

"A thousand plinkets," she said blushing.

"That's right," the man said. "That's how we make our money. Once the
looser figures out life ain't so grand as a little girl, we nab 'em with
a six figure bill if they want back to normal again. For the few times
it doesn't work, the times that it does is what keeps us in business.
Curiosity, as dey say, killed the cat. After two years in Girls Town
under our special program, they're just dying to change back again."

"Says who?" Joella asked angrily stomping on the man's foot. "I'm happy
as can be to stay just the way I am, thank you very much. Come on, Fred,
we don't need this type of treatment. Let's go."

"Ow!" the man cried, grabbing his sore foot now. "You little twirp! I
oughta-"

"Hold it right there, Lou," the other man said and turned to face
me. "Look, one hundred thousand is our price. If you don't like it then
good luck to ya elsewhere."

"Okay, I'll pay," I said keying in my account access code and debiting
out the amount requested, crediting it to these thugs. "Now switch her
back to normal."

"In ya go, you little twirp," Lou said shoving Joe in the chamber and
shutting the glass lid.

They pressed a few buttons on the side of the chamber and I heard a mass
of air hiss out from the sides as the chamber filled up with fog.

The glass cover quickly frosted over with ice crystals and then another
switch was thrown, which made a clunking sound. Then a loud warble-warbling
noise came next.

Warble-warble-warble-warble . . .

Hummmmmmmmmmmm . . . .

Clunk!

"It's done," Lou said and pointed to the next chamber over where the lid
was now slowly opening.

Fog escaped the other chamber and up sat the old Joe that I knew well.

Same old blue eyed, dark haired, black moustached old friend of mine
I knew so well.

He was in his same old black leather jacket and brown shirt. A single
gold chain hung there about his neck and he turned and smiled at me.

It had been years since I saw that gold toothed grin of his.

Something overcame me and I rushed into his arms for a hug.

"There, there," he said and took me by the face and held me back from
him a few inches for a better look. "Now who's being a silly girl, huh?
Come on, Fred. Your turn next."

"But this IS my body," I said. "All I need is that reverser pill and I'll
be fine."

He scruffed my hair a bit and said,"That's okay. I like you better this
way anyway . . . GIRL."  He smiled proudly as he said that. Proud that he
was more man now than me. In the past even though he was the one with
most of the smarts, I was the stronger, more macho man of the team, but
not anymore. Now I was a weakling compared to Joe.

He stepped out of the chamber and stood there towering a foot or so above
me now.

"Huh," he said and poked each of my breasts through the material of my
dress. "Those new? Funny I didn't seem to notice 'em before. Oh well."
He was such a tease!

He took me by the hand and led me towards the lab exit. "Nice doin'
business with you guys," Joe said. "But now me and my girl have things
to do and places to see. Come on, Fran, old Joe's in charge of things
now."

We got back to the air lock area and we started putting on our space suits
once more.

I was happy to have the real Joe back again, but now my body was feeling
funny again just like it did when I saw that nude male statue.

My hands quivered a bit and my heart beat faster and faster the more I
kept taking quick glances at my friend, Joe.

I tried to reassure myself that this was just nervousness from all that
had happened lately or that it was just my happiness to see my old friend
the way I remembered him.

In reality though, I knew good and well what was going on. In reality
this woman's body I now wore was strongly attracted to Joe!

I don't know whether I did it delberately or if it was really an accident
but the next thing I knew I tripped over one of the oxygen tanks on the
floor and Joe caught me in his arms.

I looked up at him with longing in my eyes and he looked down at me and
we just stayed there like that for a long time. I saw in his handsome eyes
how he was trying to figure out what to make of my obvious attraction to
him. Then his eyes seemed to scan mine for permission and I closed my eyes
and opened my mouth . . .

He kissed me!

I opened my eyes as it was happening now and he saw me look and he kept
right on kissing me like I was really his girlfriend or something and this
was all natural.

I felt him holding me tighter to him now and I wrapped my arms about his
back but this was so new to me I didn't really know what to do and so my
hands fumbled nervously back there for some imaginary bra strap and then
remembered things were switched around now as far as my perspective of
how a kiss should work.

He paused the kiss and held me back a few inches from his face.

I just looked up at him and smiled.

"Of course you know, this complicates things a bit," he said and
kissed me again, then broke off once more and added. "I mean, I thought
you wanted to change back."

"I did," I said licking my lips and relishing the memory of our recent
warm kiss.

"And?"

"And I still do in a way," I admitted. "But it's so hard, Joe. What was
normal for me before isn't normal for me now. Oh Joe, it's so hard to
fight what I'm feeling. I think Aronson's girl pill has actually succeeded
and turned me into a real woman, inside and out. Oh Joe, kiss me!"

He did, and it was even better than before now because I could tell he
was as much in love with me, or this version of me anyway, as I was with
him. My crotch got all tingly wet and my nipples got real hard and I felt
little goose-bumps running up and down my spine as his tongue entered
into my mouth and danced about inside, twisting and turning with my own
tongue. Now the passion was strongly all his and I just let him kiss me
and feel me and hug me and I just laid there in his arms and enjoyed
every moment of it.

What I considered numbness before in the new configuration of my crotch
turned into sparkling jolts of intense pleasure and warmth. Before I knew
it, I was on the floor and on my back and Joe was making love to me one
hundred percent. The penetration was absolutely thrilling to experience
and the more and more he slid in and out of me, the wetter and more excited
I became down there.

Again my hands didn't really know what to do so I clumped them into fists
and punched at the air and then clawed at the floor and then grabbed Joe
for a quick hug, then smoothed my hands down along my sides. It was
incredible! I'd never felt such intense pleasure before, and now he was
done and I was done, only my body kept rocking with orgasm after orgasm
even after he pulled away from me and resumed putting on his space suit
as I just lay there on my back.

"Oh Joe," I said still mesmerized by the whole experience. "Oh Joe . . .
. . . Have you ever felt what I'm feeling right now? Have you ever done
it as a woman?"

"Once or twice," he admitted. "Though it wasn't so great. I think the
body I had at the time was rather unresponsive to sexual stimuli so I
didn't get much out of the experience. Why? Are you . . . ?"

"Yeah," I said nodding my head and closing my eyes as another blast
rocketed through my body. "Yeah, Joe, I am. Lot's of 'em, and it feels
soooooo good!"

When it finally stopped I'd lost count of how many orgasms had rocked
through my body from just that one experience.

I finally sat up and continued getting into my space suit.

Joe was in his by now but held off on the helmet so he could talk to
me.

"You know, Fred," he said. "Like I said before, this complicates things.
You know, you make a good woman and everything but-"

"So you want me to change back then?"

"No, no, no!" he said waving his hands. "Not that. No. In fact I'd be
absolutely heartbroken if you did. Fact is, Fred, I think you've finally
found your true calling in life. You really are a much nicer person as
a girl, you know, but a real friend would see that this is all just a part
of that enhancement Aronson added into his girl pill and know to not take
advantage of the situation."

"But you already have, Joe. You already have, and I LOVED it!"

"Do you? Or is that the pill talking, Fred? I'm not so sure you're even
sure what your true feelings are anymore. How do I know your sincere about
this?"

"Oh but I am, Joe. I am."

"Yes but you told me before it was hard for you to fight it and that's
what worries me. If you were even trying to fight it and now you're
embracing it, then there's something wrong about that."

"There's nothing wrong, Joe. I'm happy with what this body wants."

"But you can't fight it."

"Why should I anymore? If it makes you happy, Joe, then that's what
counts."

"I thought what counted most was saving the miners of Moray."

"It does, Joe, but we can have both. Don't you see? We can have both."

I still couldn't believe my own words. I never intended to stay more
than a day or two in this body and now here I am actually pleading with
my friend to let me stay longer.

Yeah the real me was screaming for help inside and cringing from all
my recent actions but maybe Aronson didn't do such a bad job after all
by adding in a little perplexity for me to sort out and come out a
real woman in the end.

"We'll see," he said. "We'll see. Right now I think it's just the pill
talking, Fred, and not the real you trapped inside. I want you to be
happy though, but now is not the time to make such decisions. We've got
to get you back to your ship and then when you have the reverser pill
in your hands, then we'll see if you're brave enough to stay a woman
or strong enough to will yourself out of that pill's spell and change
back into a man."

We grabbed some fresh oxygen tanks and headed through the airlock and
back inside the cave.

I thought we would head back to the hova-van but Joe had other ideas
and instead led us towards the ancient stone city.

___-----___

After a short walk through the city, we arrived at the edge of an
underground river bank. There were several old boats docked here and
Joe led me onto one.

"You stay below deck. It'll be safer for you there," he said and I nodded
and headed downstairs.

After a minute or so I felt the ship swaying gently a bit and I knew we
were on our way downstream.

I spent most of the time sitting on one of the bunks and studying my
face in a little mirror I found lying on one of the tables.

Even through the glass of my helmet I could tell I was a very attractive
young woman. 

I couldn't get over the eyes. Pretty, pretty brown eyes. They seemed far
to pretty to belong to me but as I looked and looked at myself in the
mirror, the reflection seemed more and more natural for me to accept as
my own. My old face seemed like a bad memory now and though it still
disturbed me a little, as did other signals this body was sending me,
it felt like this was my normal face after all, or was I just discovering
what I should have already known all along?

I knew I was a woman alright, a real woman, but I also knew a part of me
kept trying to fight it. Oh by now the fight was lost to my feminine half
almost assuredly, but all the same there was this frustrated little cry
that kept surfacing in the back of my mind. A cry for escape from this
body, but it kept getting harder and harder to hear that cry anymore.

Soon there would be no turning back. Soon I won't even think about the
possibility of turning back.

I closed my eyes and thought about how much I'd really changed since I took
that girl pill. I thought about how my reactions to things were different
now that I was a woman. I remembered the moment when Joe first kissed me,
and I remembered how wonderful it was to have him hold me and make
passionate love to me in that airlock. How good it was to feel so soft
and pretty all over and to be held and kissed. I remembered how great it
felt to be mounted and loved so deep inside where it felt all warm and
tingly and slippery wet with mind-numbing sensations and tremendous wave
after wave of yummy little orgasms.

I opened my eyes and looked again in the mirror and saw again my pretty
face. It was perhaps too pretty a face for me to deserve, considering
all the rotten things I'd done in my life as a man. Ironic as it sounds,
there was a time when I was no better than those pirates who attacked my
mining outpost and stole off with many of my men to make them slave girls.

There was a time when I'd sooner kill or torture a man than spare him.

That was before I met up with Aronson and the others. That was before we
formed our team and went about on our adventures though the solar system
and beyond.

It was my dirty money after all that provided our first ship, The Dazzler,
and it was my dirty fighting which kept us the winner of nearly every battle
instead of the looser.

Sure, Joe was the brains of our operation, but I was the brawn. I was the
tough guy alright. The strongest one of the bunch when it came right down
to muscle size and hand to hand combat skills. Yeah I was one heck of a
mean pirate myself once, and a down right sneaky businessman later on when
I practically stole Outpost Moray from its previous owner after I cleverly
funded my own blocade to bring the poor guy to his knees.

After that I'd let my old life wither away and die as I turned into
a fat old lazy owner of that mining outpost.

I looked in the mirror and cried.

I didn't deserve to be this pretty.

I didn't deserve to be a woman.

___-----___

The boat stopped awhile later and Joe came down and told me to follow him.

I followed him out onto the deck and it appeared we'd come to a stop along
the side of a huge cylindrical stonecut sewer system. A small hatch was
open in the side of the wall on our port side.

Joe climbed in first, then I followed after him.

The tunnel was lit with blue ambiant lighting under some thin sliverlike
panels in the ceiling so we didn't need our headlamps.

My air tank was getting kind of low now so I felt pretty anxious to get
out of here and to wherever we were going and fast.

Joe crawled through a wider hatchway and I followed him, sliding down
into what appeared to be some sort of spherical airlock.

He shut the hatch behind us and pressed a green button on the wall and
I heard air hissing into the chamber.

He walked over to the other side and unscrewed a hatch over there and
then cautiously removed his helmet to test if the air was safe to breath.

"It's fine," he said at last. "Go ahead and remove that helmet. The air's
fine, though a bit smelly from that sewer."

I removed my helmet and felt a blast of cold, rancid air rush into my
sinuses.

"Man this place smells awful," I said plugging my nose.

"I know. All the more reason to get out of here as soon as possible.
Go ahead and lock that helmet on your back like this," he said showing me
how simple it was by snapping his helmet onto the back of his left
shoulder. I quickly did as he instructed and marveled briefly at how
clever it was to help free your hands from carrying around a helmet when
you didn't need to.

He climbed up into the next tunnel which was wider than the previous one
so Joe was able to turn around and give me a hand climbing in there with
him.

"My hero," I said teasingly.

He tried not to show his embarrasment at helping me, the former tough guy
of the team, and instead quickly turned around to lead the way again
and said,"I'm only helping you like that because you're a woman, you know."

"Sure thing . . . lover."

"Come on," he said annoyed as he crawled away ahead of me.

I followed him.

We came to a stop where the tunnel ended and another one began in the
ceiling above us. A metal ladder attached to one side of the wall loomed
upward into the seemingly infinite glowing blue tunnel above.

"You first this time," he said helping me up onto the first step. I felt
him give me a gentle shove on my butt and I wasn't sure if it was to help
me onto the first rung or if he was showing genuinely attraction towards
me. All the same I grabbed the first rung and looked down at him and
smiled a great big happy smile before continuing on my way upwards.

"Why did you want me to go first?" I asked after climbing for a few yards.

"It's in case you fall," he replied. "I might be able to catch you."

I turned to look down at him and said,"Why, Joe, I didn't know you cared."

It came out more teasingly than I intended. I was actually pretty flattered
that Joe would be so considerate to me, to be honest. Of course he wouldn't
have dared let me go first if I were a man. It would have been every man
for himself if that were the case.

"It's nothin," he said. "I'd do the same for any woman and you know it.
So would you if you were still a guy. Now let's stop this talking. You're
making me really uncomfortable."

Now that I think about it, I think he's wrong that I'd let a woman go
first. I was such a selfish man that I almost never let ANYBODY go first
in situations like this. I didn't treat women all that great to begin with.
Oh I didn't hit them but I didn't give them much courtesy either. I'd got
tired of it after so many girls turned me down when I asked them out in my
old teenage days. I got so sick of it I treated women pretty much like
cheap throw out boy-toys. That's partly why I didn't want to stay a woman
too long to begin with on this trip to Mars. It creeped me out to be the
object of my own desire and ill-treatment but now things have changed,
thanks mostly to Dr. Aronson's adapter formula I inadvertantly took when
I took that girl pill.

I don't deserve to be a woman.

I cried again as I continued to climb up the ladder. This time Joe heard
me.

"What's wrong Fred?" he asked concerned not that his old friend was crying
so much as he was concerned that a woman was crying. "Are you okay?"

"I-I'm fine," I said sniffling. "Don't bother me. I-I'm f-fine . . ."

It was embarrasing.

As a man I'd never shown tears like that openly, and it especially was
embarrasing that my friend Joe, whom always knew me as a big macho type,
was seeing me now in my weakened state and all broken up into tears like
this.

"Okay," he said, not really knowing how to handle the situation anyway.

Joe was fine with taking advantage of a lady, sure, but when it came to
dealing with one who was all emotional and in tears, and insisted to be
left alone dispite her apparent trama, his smarts didn't do him much good.

All the same I wish we weren't climbing this stupid ladder so I could run
into his arms and let him hug me and comfort me, but again I knew I didn't
deserve it. I didn't deserve to have such nice things as that because I
was terrible as a man and this was, in so many ways, so wrong.

I knew it was wrong for me to play like I was a real woman, yet whatever
Aronson put into that pill has convinced me that I'm more woman now inside
than a man, and definately all woman outside which only confused and
frightened the real me buried underneith it all all the more.

Do I deserve to be a woman like this?

No. A thousand times, a million times no, but here I am and what can I do
about it except embrace it because of Aronson's acceptance formula?

Should I stay this way? Should I stay a woman even though I don't deserve
such a nice life?

No. If anyone didn't deserve this, it's me, and yet the longer I remain
in this body, the more and more difficult I know it will be for me to
return to being a man again.

Can I be a man again?

Now that is an interesting one because I'm not sure I'll ever be the
same after an experience like this. I truely wonder how much of my old
self will be left of me if I decide to change back again. Certainly I'll
never look at women the same way again after this, nor treat them as
roughly and unfairly as I did in the past. Certainly this is, if anything,
a positive learning experience I've been going through. If I do change
back into a man, I know I'll be better than I was. I just know it now,
but can I? Can I really do it? Can I change back even if I have the
reverser pill right there in my hands?

I don't know.

All I know is I don't deserve to be a woman but that doesn't make me want
to be one any less, or make that part of me that still fights this ever
give up fighting. It's perplexity, that's what it is. I'm cursed with
perplexities that I can't possibly hope to grasp. The only way out is to
blindly make a decision and then stick with it.

I looked at my hands gripping the rung above me . . .

. . . and let go in tears.

___-----___

"Wake up," a man said to me.

It was a nice sounding voice.

It was Joe's voice.

"Come on, now. Wake up," he said.

I opened my eyes and there he was, standing beside me as I lay there in
bed in one of my staterooms aboard my own cargo ship, the Zepher Delton.

"What happened?" I asked still feeling a bit light headed from the
experience, though no bruises or broken bones, thank goodness.

"You fainted," he replied setting a wet washcloth on my forehead. "Lucky
I was there to catch you or you would have fallen to your death."

Lucky? Lucky to still be a girl, he probably meant.

I doubt if he'd have lifted a finger to save me if I were a man. He knew
he'd inherit alot of my estate when I died, and if Joe's as greedy as he
was in the old days, if I were a man I'd be dead right now. Of course if
I were a man I wouldn't have fainted either, but all the same I really
wondered about Joe. I wondered if he really loved me, I mean loved loved
me now that I'm a pretty woman.

"Thanks," I said weakly.

"No problem," he said. "You don't remember the first time you woke two
minutes ago though?"

"No. Why? Did I faint again?"

"Yep, but don't worry. I gave you some aspirin before you passed out this
time."

Aspirin? Oh god, no! The reverser pill was in the aspirin bottle! I forgot
to tell him that when I told him the rest of the story. I just said I hid
the reverser on the ship, but I didn't dare tell him exactly where.

"Aspirin?" I asked.

"Yeah. I took a few myself. I think that sewer air gave me a bit of
a headache."

"You did WHAT?!"

Should I tell him?

Does it matter now if either of us took that reverser pill?

I guess not, but if he took it, nothing will happen anyway. On the other
hand, if I took it, I should be changing back any moment now . . . and if
neither of us took it, then I still have to make a decision.

"Hey, don't be so touchy about it. It was just an aspirin you little
tightwad. Just to make me feel a little better."

"Yeah, yeah," I said, nodding in agreement, though really in shock at
the potential horror of the situaion.

Yeah, that's what it was. Just to make HIM feel better now that I'm probably
stuck this way forever.

"You really ARE upset I took a stupid little aspirin from you, aren't
you? God what a tightwad." He was really angry at me now. "And to think
I saved your life!"

He walked into the bathroom and I saw him open the medicine cabinet and
take out the bottle of aspirin. He held it up for me to see and then
he unscrewed the top.

"Here's where you can stick your stupid aspirin!" he said moving out of
view now.

I heard a bunch of plopping noises as the aspirin tablets hit the surface
of some water, then I heard a toilet flush.

Oh god . . . what did he do?!  What are the odds that he gave me the
reverser pill first?

Oh god . . . I may be stuck this way! And never to be given the chance to
decide for myself if I wanted to change back or not!

He came storming out of the bathroom and threw me the empty plastic bottle
which just missed my head and bounced off the wall behind me and tumbled
to the floor.

"Stupid woman," he muttered as he stormed out of the room. "I should have
known you'd never REALLY change."

I reached up and picked the wet washcloth off my forehead and threw it
at the door after him, but he was already gone.

I was shocked and angry and upset now, and my hands trembled all over at
the thought that I was most likely stuck this way for good.

I pulled down the sheet from my chest and saw I was still wearing my
black dress, though not my space suit any longer. Joe must have removed
that for me.

I looked down at my ample chest and cupped my breasts with my hands
through the material of the dress.

They weren't shrinking.

I wasn't changing back.

I was still a woman.

Before it felt intriguing to have breasts like these, but now it felt
oddly cold and unreal to sit here cupping my own breasts, feeling the
hard lumps that were my nipples, pressing against my palms through my
tight bra and the silky thin material of my black dress.

My hands reached up and grabbed at my long tresses of soft black hair
that dangled over my shoulders.

I held a bit of hair there before my eyes in total disbelief that this
was forever the new me now. That this was my natural hair from now on
and I'd have to learn to cope with it because there was no longer anything
I could do but cry . . . . And cry I did. Big long hard bawls, like those
of a child who'd just had candy taken away or something.

I let my hair fall back into place and just stared at my hands as I held
them there before my eyes and cried.

I lifted my sheets up and took a look at my still black stockinged legs
that stretched out from under my dress and ended at what I thought were
impossibly small feet compared to what I knew before as a man, but
were just perfect sized feet for a young woman's body such as this.

I rubbed my knees together and clasped my legs tight feeling nothing
but nothing there between them there in my crotch. Nothing but a slip
of a slit but even that was like numbness in its current unstimulated
state.

I dare not reach down and touch it with my own hands, for fear of driving
me into a complete fit of anxiety.

I cried.

There wasn't anything else I could do, so I just lay there and cried.

___-----___

Joe wouldn't even talk to me about how he managed to get the ship's key
back and get me on board without the authorities catching us.

He was still angry with me, and I figured so be it because I was a bit
angry with him too. After all, if he hadn't opened that aspirin bottle
I wouldn't be stuck here permanently as a woman in the first place.

Of course, if I hadn't insisted on going to Mars and taking that girl pill
to go ask Joe to join me on my quest, I wouldn't be stuck this way either.

The deed was done though, and I was a woman for good unless Aronson had
some way of undoing this, which I doubted. Semi-girl pills are really
perm-girl pills in disguise. The only difference is you get one chance
to change back with semi-perm's and that chance was blown for me now.

I was a woman for good.

Part of me was indeed happy about that, but after my near nervous breakdown
when Joe flushed the rest of the pills down the toilet, I think a large
part of my old self resurfaced out of pure anger and anguish.

I now KNOW I should have changed back into a man again. I know it for
a certainty but now there's nothing I can do to change that. I'm a woman
now whether I wanted this or not.

The acceptance formula didn't die out like I thought it would after a
few days. Instead it came right back at me in full force and I was
completely helpless against it and before I knew it I was again head
over heels in love with Joe.

Joe and I made up pretty fast then, and though Aronson and the others
didn't join us on our quest after all, I was all the happier just to
have my Joe all to myself.

We made love again and again and again, and in between that I got all
wife-like on Joe and cooked and cleaned for him while he took care of
keeping the ship on course as we scoured the solar system for signs of
those pirates.

Then one day we found them.

They were on a huge rock in space, not too unlike Outpost Moray. The
thing was all mixed in with the other rocks in the asteroid belt near
Mars but we found it anyway. Like I said before, Joe was a pretty smart
guy. He knew the pirates would be in this area of the asteroid belt
because it was smack dab in the middle of where many pirate attacks
happened, but not so exact in the middle anymore because the asteroid
had moved orbit because the pirates used thrusters to maneuver it sometimes.
Old Joe was smart enough to figure out where the new orbit should be
in relation to a few recent raids and sure enough, there it was. A
monster sized asteroid armed to the gills with camoflauged guns
that blended in with the brown and gray rock almost to the point
of invisibility.

Huge caves dotted the surface here and there and it wasn't hard to
imagine that a fair sized pirate fleet hid not too far beneith the
surface there.

"They haven't detected us yet," Joe assured me as he double checked
the readouts coming in from the latest scan of the surface. "Boy oh boy,
would ya look at all those guns! Whoooo-weeee! Those are some big
mammas aren't they? Probably enough there to take on over half the
Fed's Gold Fleet, and that's not counting all the ships still not
showing up on the scanners that are hidden inside that thing."

I wished now that Aronson had joined us. He would find a diplomatic
way to deal with these pirates, but Joe was so confident of his
own smarts that it scared me sometimes.

He looked at me and winked and said,"Ready to give them something to
think about?"

Then he pushed one of the cargo pod ejector buttons and the ship trembled
for a moment. Then I looked out the main display screen and saw the pod
hurtle down towards the asteroid and vanish in one of the caves.

Bee-beep-bee-beeep!

"They've noticed us at last," Joe said and pressed a button.

The display screen quickly changed from the view of the pirate base to the
view of a brown eyed man with a short and neatly trimmed beard of the same
dark color as the hair upon his head. A large dark scar ran from his right
ear to the bridge of his nose.

"I'd know that man's face anywhere," I said amazed.

"Captain Hollandsworth!" exclaimed Joe, equally surprised as I.

"I'm glad to see you both know your history books," the pirate replied
in a burly old voice.

Hollandsworth was the man who discovered the great catacombs of Mars
and the core pyramids of Edokka. He was also the man who left behind
one particular treasure he himself hid so well that he was unable to
locate it again. The fabled Gems of Ordon. Yet that part of the story
I was never quite sure about and thought it more myth now than fact.
All the same it was both frightening and amazing to see him for myself
there on the screen.

After all, the man was supposed to have died quite some time ago, and
yet there he was.

"I don't believe it!" Joe said. "Y-you're . . . Y-you're supposed to
be . . ."

"Dead, yes I know," the pirate finished for him. "Isn't it a pity for
you that I'm not? Ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa!"

It was the same evil laugh I'd only read about in books. To hear it for
myself was just absolutely chilling! This was the same laugh he was rumored
to use originally while killing a hundred men with his bare hands! He was
a monster!

The screen went black and then went back to our first view of the asteroid.

A giant misshappen hunk of metal came slowly out of one of the caves
below.

It was a Vector-class H-destroyer!

"What'll we do?!" I cried.

"Whoops," Joe said and pressed a red button.

Down in the cave below where the cargo pod had been jettesonned there now
came a blinding flash of light as it exploded.

It wasn't the same cave as the H-destroyer came from but the explosion was
enough to cause cave-ins all over the place, including around the destroyer.

The pirate ship halted and I saw several flashes of light from about it
as the thing was rocked with explosions.

"One down," Joe said and took us down at breakneck speed AWAY from the
surface. "Now's where the real fun starts . . . "

"What was in that cargo pod anyway?" I asked.

"I thought you knew," he said and explosions came at us as the pirates
started using their big guns on us.

"Knew what?"

"It's the kelleniualite, Fred. All this time scientists were using it
for the new sciences, mostly to transform people and stuff, but when
you hurtle a mass of it at a rock that size there's bound to be an
explosion."

"But kelleniualite doesn't explode on impact like that."

"Not with regular matter it doesn't, my girl, but that's not made of
regular matter. A good portion of those caves are lined with a type of
armor built from strange matter. Sort of like anti-kelleniualite. Mix
the two and ka-BOOOOOOOM! I just sent the pod in there to position itself,
then when the right time came I pressed that button there to send it on
its way to mamma. That explosion came from nearly the exact center of
that asteroid. I'd say those pirates are about finished, wouldn't you?"

"But . . . but my MEN!!"

"Oh don't you worry about them. I intercepted a signal from one of their
ships that's headed for Edokka. Tell me . . . how many men vanished from
Moray anyway?"

"Well, about twenty-six died. There were three hundred total, so I'd say
about two seventy four."

"Now isn't that interesting," he said scratching his chin. "Because from
that last transmission I intercepted, that's just the same number of
slave girls they're shipping off to Edokka."

"I love you for your mind," I said hugging him. "But your body's nice too."

Kiss-kiss.

KA-BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

The asteroid behind us vaporized in an enormous flash of white light.

Bee-Beeep-Beeeeeee-Beep!

"It can't be!" Joe said checking the readouts. "There's a ship following
us! Nothing could have survived that explosion!"

"What is it?" I asked looking at a big blip on the scanner screen.

"Whatever it is its huge," Joe said. "And it's coming right after us!"

"Damn it babe, I don't know if we can outrun it. Oh god, I hate to do
this to you but it's your only chance and only one of us can go."

"Huh? What? What are you talking about? Abandoning ship?"

"Not me. You. I want you to get in one of the cargo pods. We're making a
pass by Neptune here shortly and its your ownly chance. I'll get into
a low orbit and then when I give you the word, brace yourself because
I'll jettesson you right towards one of the cities below. Someone should
see you and rescue you if you miss your target."

"But what about you???"

He grabbed me and kissed me once more and then said,"Don't worry about
me, my friend. I'll lead them on a good chase for awhile, then when I've
seen they've caught up to me, I'll surrender if they'll let me, or I might
take them with me. Who knows? Just you get yourself in one of those cargo
pods, now. I won't let them get you. Goodbye Fran."

Fran was my new name now, and to hear him say it in parting just tore
me to tears.

I kissed him once more and ran as fast as I could down the corridor to
the cargo bay.

___-----___

"Ready?" he asked.

"Ready."

"Goodbye Fran. I know Neptune isn't the best place in the solar system
for a woman, but I want you to know, I'm giving you my smarts. There.
You've got 'em. Now use 'em good and get yourself off Neptune and save
your men. Perhaps I'll see you on Edokka where the pyramids look so
beautiful during the inner-world sunset. Goodbye for now my darling
sweetheart."

"Goodbye, dear Joe."

"Here we go then. Brace yourself."

Boom!

The cargo pod jolted violently away from the ship and jolted again
against the sideways friction of high velocity from the motion of the
main ship.

Then another jolt as the gravity of Neptune took hold and brought
the cargo pod downward towards one of the asteroids in old Neptune's
city grid that hovered there in orbit about the planet.

Retro rockets kicked in automatically as the pod sensed it was getting
close to the surface.

Then there was a clunk and the engines shut off.

I had arrived.

The lights dimmed as the ship's power conserving circuits kicked in.

Then the lights went out altogether.

I sat there in the cold darkness for what seemed like hours, even days,
but then someone came in through the airlock and the lights came
on and I was saved.

It was two men and a woman and they all wore red tiger fur coats
and carried large backpacks and blaster rifles.

The taller of them stood forward. He was a black haired, black bearded
man in his early forties perhaps and he looked at the otherwise empty
cargo pod and then at me and smiled a big menacing smile and said,"Why
what do we have here? A present? For meee?"

I got up off my seat and fell backwards nervously and inched myself
away from them but there was nowhere to run or hide.

"Allow me to introduce myself," the leader said. "I am Gurron Harrkar,
and these are my two assistants, Gwendelin my cook, and Kepler my chief
at arms. It seems to be my day, doesn't it, Gwendelin? First I lose two
of my slave girls, and then one comes tumbling down from heaven to replace
them. Oh, and what a replacement you shall be my little angel from above!
Above . . . Above . . . Dove. Yes, yes. That's what I'll call you. From
now on your name is Dove. See to it, Gwendelin, that she is taken to
Doctor Karbak for in-processing treatment. We'll want to make extra sure
this one doesn't get away like the others. After in-processing, have her
taken to one of the princess chambers. I want to make a few copies of her
so she'll have someone to keep an eye out on her every thought and action,
if not then to have a few more pretty faces around to look at."

Gwendelin came up to me and grabbed me by the arm. She was shorter than
I but she carried a blaster rifle and I was clearly outnumbered. She was
about eighteen years old in appearance and black haired like myself, but
the way she carried herself about it was clear she was much much older
and perhaps kept young looking by some youth drugs or something.

"Come on," she said in a bossy tone. "You're coming with me."

___-----___

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