SHIPMENT
The programmable unit blank was part of a large shipment that had to be
prepared before they could be loaded aboard ship. It was a basic appliance of
crude design, at least by Tutro standards, produced in a local factory solely
for export. The simplicity of the unit made it ideal for both mass production
and special orders. The blanks were simple to produce, and they were easily
customizable to the end user's specifications as to form and function. They
manufactured them by the billions and had advanced so far beyond their
competition they basically had none. The Tutro supplied all of known space.
Once produced the blanks were left unfinished and unprogrammed and
stored in bulk until ready for sale. Blank units earmarked for shipment were
immediately culled from the rest. The units were controlled via simple
electrochemical commands and those culled were kept in a dormant state during
processing. Two simple chemical compounds were all it took to shut down their
higher functions and retract their appendages tight against their frames to
reduce the likelihood of accidental damage during packaging and transport.
The blank in question was lifted from its storage slot by a mechanical
arm. Maintenance tubes automatically disconnected from valves installed in the
unit at the time of its culling and it was deposited onto a conveyor belt which
rolled into the automated processing facility. It was lifted from the belt and
positioned on a frame which allowed easy access to the unit's projecting valves.
Articulated arms moved in and plugged hoses into the valves. The unit was
systematically flushed until the computer determined its innards were free of
any loose material. The blank hummed as it was flushed out and the computer
quickly doublechecked it to make sure it was still dormant. The hoses were then
detached and new ones were moved into place. These new hoses filled the unit
with a lubricating gel which initially would cushion it against high-g forces
sometimes encountered during shipment. Overfilled it, actually, but the
internal pressure would stabilize the unit during turbulence. Over time a small
amount would bleed out of the unit and form a cushioning layer between it and
the soon-to-be applied protective shell. Filled blanks displayed noticeably
rounded frames, but the installed valves would bleed off some of the gel if the
pressure got dangerously high. Blanks weighed fifty kilos, give or take four
percent, and the gel added another fifteen kilos to their gross weight, an
important consideration when shipping in bulk.
While in the cradle, being flushed and filled, two simple rings were
affixed to the unit's frame, top and bottom, using temporary adhesive. Once the
unit was filled with gel a cable dropped down and was hooked to the upper ring.
The unit was lifted out of the cradle and transported into to the vat room where
it was submerged in sealant. The unit was lifted from the black liquid and in
just a few seconds the solution had hardened into a glossy protective coating.
The unit was given a second, then a third dip until optic lasers gauged the
shell's thickness at just under a centimeter. Only the valves and rings
protruded from the glossy black surface.
The valve tubes were then sheared off flush with the protective coating.
Half their length, including the internal valve, was still inside the unit and
the computer quickly checked that there had been no leakage, then the unit was
dipped again, twice. The valve halves were now plugs until the shell was
cracked open.
In its shell the unit could withstand the vacuum of deep space
indefinitely, and the gel would keep it from freezing solid even when exposed to
absolute zero. The extreme cold of an uninsulated cargo hold would help keep
the unit dormant during the long voyage. The unit was transported to a shipping
container where it was secured via the two rings into its own compartment. The
container held five hundred units and was being filled at the rate of six per
minute.
The twenty shipping containers were shuttled up one at a time to the
huge transport ship in orbit and secured inside its cargo hold. Once the last
one was in place the Tutro transport moved out of orbit and headed for the first
waypoint.
Be'lal was the pilot of the transport ship and its sole crewmember. His
first stop was a mining colony on the edge of the ore belt, a section of space
filled with mineral-rich planets.
It took the ship four months to reach the fourth waypoint. The computer
did the actual navigation and burn time calculations but regulations stated the
Tutro had to monitor every action. Once through the last wormhole the Tutro
would have another eighty standard days, first accelerating and then
decelerating, before it reached the colony and could deliver their two thousand
units.
Past the fourth waypoint and back in normal space, the Tutro activated
his sensors and immediately detected the unmanned drone. It had been sent by
the miners to await his arrival at the waypoint. Be'lal brought the drone
onboard by remote and then went down into the hold to examine the drone's
contents.
As expected, it was the finishing instructions for the colony's two
thousand blanks. They wanted the blanks, externally at least, to display a
great variety. As for operational programming, including memory, their requests
held no surprises. They'd included specific coding sequences to be helpful, but
compared to what the Tutro had at its disposal the colonists' data was beyond
crude. Be'lal recorded their specifications but discarded their programming
sequences. Included in the list had been an inordinate number of special orders
that the colonists weren't sure could be filled but had included anyway. Be'lal
saw these types of special orders a lot from isolated colonies. Not only could
the Tutro fill the special requests, but as the colonists had provided no exact
specifications the Tutro was able to go beyond what they had envisioned into
what they would probably view as the impossible. This was one reason why the
Tutro were the leaders in the field.
From the bridge Be'lal brought the temperature of the shipping container
containing the colony's order gradually up from absolute zero to twenty-five
degrees centigrade. This could not be rushed, as rapid changes in temperature
could damage the blanks.
Eight standard days later monitored core temperature of the blanks was
24.4 degrees centigrade, high enough to begin the next step. The compartment
was filled with a gaseous reagent which went to work on the protective shells
covering the blanks. In two days, although their appearance remained unchanged,
the shiny black coating around each blank had softened.
Armed with coding material for the blanks a drone moved into the
container. It introduced the material into individual blanks via a simple
needle which pierced the now pliant black layer. Each blank was also implanted
with a microscopic monitoring probe.
The softening of the hard shell surrounding each blank was necessary as
many of them would soon be changing size or shape as dictated by their new
coding sequence. Be'lal loosely monitored the blanks' progress as the ship made
its way toward the isolated colony. They were still dormant, and would remain
so until delivery was made. The gel filling them was fat laced and protein
enriched and would provide whatever energy was necessary during this time.
The blanks which required the most extensive programming were still
finished five days out of orbit. Be'lal examined each and every finished unit's
readout via the implanted probe and did not contact the colony until it was
satisfied.
The delivery went smoothly, and after activating several units for
evaluation the colony representatives seemed very satisfied. Be'lal rode the
now empty cargo shuttle up to the transport and set a course back to the nearest
waypoint. The next delivery was over five months and six waypoints distant.
As near as they could determine, the Tutro race was over half a million
years older than humanity, and in that time had evolved accordingly. Part of
evolution is specialization, and while in some ways this benefited Be'lal's
race, in other ways it was a hindrance. Tutro lived to be close to three
hundred standard years old, but they did not relish the boredom of space travel
any more than other races. As they did not sleep, as humans understood the
term, the time seemed even greater. Soon after leaving its homeworld the Tutro
culled its one allotted blank and set about warming it up. Not long after the
third waypoint, twelve and a half weeks into the voyage, the unit's complicated
sequencing was complete. Be'lal removed part of the unit's softened shell and
its upper valve assembly. It reattached the two lower maintenance hoses to the
valve halves still installed in the unit, and rehardened what was left of its
shell.
The Tutro traveled in zero gravity and so was able to attach the unit
directly to itself without having to worry about its weight pulling it free.
The maintenance hoses were connected to floating reservoirs which would fill up
with processing byproducts and need to be emptied every week or so. Once the
unit was in place and operating properly the Tutro could relax and concentrate
on its duties without the distraction it had been suffering since leaving its
homeworld. It only disconnected the unit during deliveries as the g-forces in
the drop ship would be problematic.
Frank Garsen, Governor of Kete's Landing, eyed the Tutro nervously.
He'd only seen pictures of the creatures before and being inside a closed room
with the gangly thing had him a bit on edge. It was almost seven feet tall and
all angles. Tutros were best described as two-legged anthropomorphic
grasshoppers that walked upright. They were light green in color and appeared
to have exoskeletons, but that was only an illusion-Garsen had read enough to
know it was only hard bony outer armor, covered in a thin layer of tough flesh.
All of its joints looked like they could bend two hundred and seventy degrees in
any direction. Rumor had it that all six of the Tutro's limbs - two legs and
four arms - as well as its head, contained sex organs, but if that was the case
Garsen sure would like to know what the hell that was hanging down between the
alien's legs. It looked very phallic, although if it was a sex organ it was
proportionately huge, as long and thick as a human male's forearm and fist.
The Tutro wore a small box around its head, a mechanical translator so
they could understand its speech. In one hand it held a small inventory
computer. It waited patiently for the humans to finish their inspection.
Garsen found it interesting that the alien wore no clothes. In fact, of the
four known sentient species, humans were the only ones who did.
Poat Miller, the colony's burly security chief, hovered in the corner,
but even his presence wasn't enough to calm Garsen's nerves entirely. There was
a secure perimeter between the medical suites and the landing pad, guarded by
Miller's men, but still the situation had all three men on edge. It wasn't just
the presence of the alien, it was his cargo as well.
Milton, the colony's chief medical officer, eyed the first form he'd
randomly selected from the Tutro's dropship. This would be a first for him and
he was nervous as well as somewhat excited.
"Open 'er up," Garsen told his friend, studying the shiny black surface.
Milton grabbed a sonic knife, adjusted its settings, and stepped up to
the item in question, which was sitting on top of an examination table. To his
eye the black form looked like a dead, curled up bug. He glanced over his
shoulder at the two others he'd picked resting on nearby exam tables, then
turned to the one before him. With his free hand he touched the black surface
and was surprised at how warm it was. There was also more give to it than he
would have suspected.
"The shell is approximately one point two three centimeters thick," the
Tutro said through its translator.
Milton nodded, readjusted the sonic knife, and put it to the shiny black
material around the form's head. He cut all the way around, and then up to the
crown in back, before shutting the knife off and setting it down. He was able
to get his fingertips into the vertical cut and slowly pulled the rubber-like
material apart. There was a sucking sound as it peeled away.
Milton pulled the soft shell toward him, revealing the form underneath.
As he kept pulling the valve came into view, sliding out of the unit. It
dripped with undigested insulating gel. As soon as the small section of shell
was off Milton dropped it to the floor and looked at what he'd uncovered.
Even coated in a thin layer of gel the woman's face was pretty, although
her long brunette hair was a mess. The valve which had plugged her mouth had
left a red circle which was already beginning to fade. Her head dropped forward
and her mouth hung open, drooling gel. The woman's eyes were still closed.
Garsen hadn't been sure what to expect, even though the Tutro received
nothing but glowing recommendations from all of known space. He was reassured
when he saw what looked like a normal human female. "Nice," he said
approvingly, nodding.
For his part, the doctor thought the slimy woman looked disturbingly
like a newborn infant; it was an accurate description, as far as it went, but
she was no tiny newborn. Milton grabbed a handheld monitor and checked her
vital signs. They were there, and even, although so depressed as to be nearly
undetectable. Whatever the Tutro used to keep them dormant worked beautifully.
The woman's knees were pulled up tight against her chest, arms clenched
in close as well, her whole body covered in a shiny black layer over a
centimeter thick. Milton had her propped against one wall to keep her from
falling over but that wouldn't do. The Tutro understood at once and handed him
a small needle containing the appropriate reactant. Milton stuck the woman in
the neck and after only a few seconds her limbs relaxed.
The doctor arranged her so she was sitting upright on the exam table.
He ran the knife around her waist, up her back, and down each arm. With only a
little difficulty he was able to peel the soft shell from her upper body,
revealing a figure that was lean and compact but for her breasts.
Garsen whistled. "Nice tits."
Her breasts were perfectly shaped, but slung low, and hung nearly to the
tops of her thighs as she sat on the table. They were massively oversized and
resembled overripe fruit that hadn't dropped from the vine.
"She a special order?" the doctor asked, starting at her chest. He
began palpating her limbs, then her torso, checking for muscle tone and
abnormalities. The scanner shouldn't miss anything, but he'd always trust his
hands more than a machine.
The Tutro checked its records. "Negative. It's requested features fell
within standard specifications."
"Features?" Garsen said with a smile, eyeing her chest.
The Tutro looked at its readout. "Large breasts that will lactate when
it is activated," it said, the translator making everything it said come out in
an expressionless monotone.
"Is she pregnant?" the doctor asked.
"Negative. She is order number 1756 on your list. A basic unit, with
all the standard features you requested -- Level 7 sexual drive, extreme
flexibility, programming free of socio-cultural sexual inhibitions. Lactation
was specified in ten percent of the standard units, as was-"
Garsen waved a hand. "We'll see what she can do," he said, smiling.
Milton shook his head at the word unit. "We need to wake her up," he
told the alien. The Tutro handed him two small adhesive pads the size of a
fingernail and gave him instructions. Milton stuck one on the woman's neck,
leaned her back against the wall, and stepped back.
A few minutes later the muscle contractions began. The female began
violently expelling the gel that remained in her lungs and throat. The doctor
had to grab her to keep her from falling over, and almost lost his grip from the
thin layer of gel coating her skin. Garsen spent the entire time watching her
enormous breasts judder and shake, in speechless awe. The projectile vomiting
was soon over, leaving glistening strings of gel trailing from her lips and
nose. Her eyes never opened.
Milton leaned her back against the wall and affixed the second pad to
her neck. The three men and one Tutro watched silently as the woman slowly
awakened from the dormant state she'd been in since leaving the Tutro homeworld.
Her respiration increased, and her monitored heartrate rose from three beats per
minute to fifty. Her hands twitched, and her eyelids fluttered. Finally, after
five minutes, her eyes opened. She slowly blinked, and licked her slimy lips.
It took her a while to get her eyes to focus, but after a few more minutes she
could see the men before her.
"Is this Kete's Landing?" she asked. Her voice was a little rough, and
she cleared her throat.
"It sure is," the Governor told her, a big smile on his face.
She stretched, a big long one, arms above her head, and gave a huge
yawn. Her armpits were hairless, Milton noted, and remembered they'd all been
ordered smoothbodied, as that was the fashion. Her muscle tone was impressive.
The three men couldn't help but stare at her massive breasts as they lifted and
swayed. She noticed them looking at her, and looked down at herself.
"I'm a mess," she said, wiping at the strings dangling from her nose.
She licked the stringy gel from her palm without thinking about it, swallowed,
then looked back up at them and smiled unselfconsciously. She reached her hands
up and touched her hair. "Ugh."
"How do you feel?" Milton asked her.
She cocked her head and thought about it. "I'm not sure," she said
finally. "Weird, I guess. A little stretched, if that makes sense. Can't say
as I enjoyed the trip."
The doctor observed how the woman made no move to cover herself up, but
he thought maybe it was too early to conclude anything from that. She was
obviously still slightly disoriented. Milton had her lay back on the examining
table.
"Do you know your name?" Milton asked her. Now here's the real test, he
thought.
She looked at Milton and smiled. "Kelly Robbins, from Sydney,
Australia. I'm sure you know that already." She watched the doctor as he ran
the scanner over her again, checking her vitals.
"How'd you end up here?" Milton asked, studying his scanner. She was
ridiculously healthy.
She smiled. "Young and impetuous, I guess. I've always wanted to go
offworld but could never afford it. But I kept reading about how exciting
things could be on outer colonies and I finally decided to go for it.
Adventure, excitement, romance, you know." She spread her legs a little on the
table and rested her palms on her flat stomach.
"Really."
"I still couldn't afford to bring any of my things. All I could afford
to bring was me," she said with a smile, gesturing at herself. Garsen and
Miller looked at each other at that, but said nothing. Garsen looked over at
the Tutro and nodded appreciatively. "I suppose that's the way it is for a lot
of girls."
Garsen was staring at the woman with a big smile on his face, and Miller
seemed very curious about her story, but observing their reactions seemed beyond
the young woman. She appeared a bit dazed, which was perfectly understandable.
"How old are you?" Garsen asked her. She looked back at him.
"Nineteen," she told him. "I know, I know, I'm young."
"Do you have any family?" Milton asked her.
She nodded. Her breasts rolled back and forth with the movement. "My
mom's still in Sydney with my younger brother. I've got an older sister in New
York but we don't really talk." She twisted her head back and glanced around
the room, then looked down at her body. One of her hands on her stomach pressed
and kneaded..
"I feel sort of bloated," she remarked.
"You were pumped full of protective gel for the journey," the doctor
told her. That's the slimy stuff covering you, he wanted to add, but didn't.
The hand massaging her stomach slid tentatively down between her legs, which had
spread even further apart. The doctor watched her squeezing the shiny black
coating over her sex.
"I feel stuffed," she said, cupping her mound. Her fingers rubbed at
the material. She almost didn't appear aware she was doing it. "I really like
these pants," she said after a while.
"They've got built-in plugs to keep the gel from leaking out," Milton
told her.
"Oh," she said, still squeezing her crotch. "Do you think I can keep
them?" she asked the doc.
Milton glanced at Garsen, then at the Tutro. "I, uh, think I can get
them off in one piece, but getting them back on might be a problem," he told
her. "Like I said, they've got plugs built in." He decided to be very
specific, to see what her reaction might be. "Two of them, an anal and a
vaginal/urethral plug."
She either didn't understand, or maybe she did, he couldn't tell. "Can
I sit up?"
"Huh? Oh, sure. You're in perfect health. Perfect," Milton told her.
The girl known as Kelly Robbins looked at Garsen. "Who are you?"
The men quickly introduced themselves in turn. They mostly spoke to her
breasts but she didn't seem to notice. She also didn't seem to notice the
Tutro, which Milton found odd. She hadn't even glanced at it once. It was like
it was invisible to her.
"Are there a lot of single men here?" she asked them.
"Single men?"
She smiled a little. "I read mining colonies are full of single men,
and with the bonus checks they make good money."
"Looking for a husband?" Garsen asked with a big grin. She looked at
him and grinned back.
"Eventually," she said.
"That's all we've got is single men," the Governor of the colony told
her. "About twenty-five hundred of them."
"How many women?"
"Before today? None. Until the mine was up and running the Company
wouldn't spend any money on non-essential personnel, and mining's a rough
business. They work three on and two off and still they're damn near exhausted
all the time. Haven't found a woman yet that could do it, or even wanted to."
"No women?"
"Main group's been here thirty-nine months. We're producing now - hell,
we're thirty percent over quota - and so the Company's come through on our
bonuses."
"Bonuses?"
Garsen quickly covered it up. "Extra money, plus they've allowed
beautiful girls such as yourself to emigrate."
"You've all been up here three years with no women?"
Garsen continued talking to the young woman while Milton picked up the
sonic knife and walked over to the next table. The talkative female still
hadn't commented on the two forms on the nearby exam tables. The doctor wasn't
sure what to make of that either.
He quickly cut open the black layer and peeled it away from the curled
body. This woman was blonde and slender, with a classically gorgeous face. The
doctor used another pad to relax her limbs and reclined the still comatose
female on the exam table as he peeled the black layer from her body.
This time he removed the black protective coating from the entire body.
Underneath, this woman was covered in a thin layer of the gel as well. Her
breasts were healthy, although they looked tiny in comparison to Ms. Robbins'
monsters. She had a gorgeous, shapely body, perfectly proportioned. What
surprised the doctor was the penis and testicles he found between this woman's
legs. He hadn't been expecting that.
Milton grabbed his scanner and determined that even though the form
before him on the table had male genitalia, genetically it was female. Knowing
the legendary Tutro expertise, he was sure her male equipment was fully
functional, although another, more in-depth scan showed she would be infertile
when revived. She was well endowed, that much was obvious even in her current,
flaccid state.
The doctor looked over his shoulder at the Tutro, which had moved closer
during his examination of the second female.
"Can I assume this is a special order?" he asked the alien.
"Yes." it replied in its strange monotone.
"How many females are we getting with male genitalia?" Milton asked it.
Garsen had had final approval of the order, and hadn't consulted him except on
general terms.
"One hundred fifty."
"That many? Is that all the special orders?"
"Negative."
"Really? What are the . . . never mind. I'll find out myself when I
crack them open." Without reviving the second female the doctor moved to the
third and last and began cutting open its protective cover. He quickly revealed
a voluptuous, almost chubby brunette with wide hips and heavy breasts.
Unconscious, at least, she appeared unremarkable, but he knew most of the
differences between these clones and natural-born human females were behavioral.
Garsen knew his hardworking men had no use for frigid or unpleasant women and
had placed his order with the Tutro accordingly.
Milton looked over his shoulder at Garsen to ask him a question. Garsen
had Kelly Robbins bent over the table, her black dipcoat 'pants' down below her
ass, and was enthusiastically fucking her.
"Oh God, oh God," she gasped. The valves were sticking up from the
black material between her thighs and a continuous rain of gel dripped down onto
them as Garsen thrust into her. Her huge slimy breasts swung back and forth,
slapping loudly each time they impacted her ribcage. She grunted loudly and a
gush of the clear gel splatted on the floor between their feet, soaking Garsen's
pants, which were around his ankles. Miller looked on expressionlessly from the
door.
"Are the units satisfactory?" the Tutro asked Milton.
"What? Oh, uh, Frank? Frank!" Garsen stopped in mid-stroke and looked
over his shoulder. "Are we satisfied with the order?"
Garsen looked at the angular alien with its hose-like appendage swinging
between its legs. Before he could answer Kelly thrust her hips back at him and
squeezed her inner muscles, wanting him to keep thrusting. Garsen grinned like
a fool.
"You're damn right we are."
The Tutro returned to its transport in orbit, locking the empty dropship
down in the docking bay. It hurried to the bridge, stripping off the
uncomfortable translator on the way. It had been with the humans, and away from
its ship, for almost eighteen standard hours. Not a long time by some
standards, but it had quickly grown accustomed to having its own unit attached
and tending to its needs.
The drive to reproduce was the strongest instinct humans had, but by
Tutro standards their crude forms were so poorly evolved for that task Be'lal
wondered how they'd managed to avoid extinction. Not only were their
reproductive systems inefficient, their organs were so poorly designed for
pleasure that most Tutro wondered why they even bothered.
Female Tutro had four sexual organs, two external appendages and two
orifices. Males had eight; three primary appendages, one secondary, two
orifices, and two tertiary appendages only used when engaging multiple partners.
Only one of the primary organs in each gender was used for reproduction. The
others existed solely to provide pleasure.
Reproduction required two members of each sex. When not concerned with
reproduction the gender of their sexual partners was not a concern to the Tutro.
When sexually active the Tutro spent approximately forty percent of their time
so engaged. Utilizing the unit onboard ship had awakened this drive in Be'lal
that had lain dormant for so many weeks, and it had had trouble concentrating
during its dealings with the humans. It was glad to be back.
Be'lal found the unit floating above the bridge deck in the zero-g,
tethered in place by its drainage hoses, which Be'lal had hooked directly to the
wall during its absence. It unhooked the hoses, reattaching them to the
reservoir, its body clenching uncomfortably with desire.
Be'lal found the unit, while very effective, still repulsive to look at.
The human female blank at first glance appeared unchanged. Be'lal had removed
the black coating from its face but otherwise left it encased. Its knees were
pulled up to its chest, arms tucked in alongside. The female appeared
unremarkable and was, in most respects, still dormant. It had never opened its
eyes and Be'lal preferred it that way - those glistening slug-like orbs made him
queasy.
Be'lal touched an electro-chemical activator to the unit's exposed skin
and a few seconds later the female's jaw unclenched. With a sigh of relief the
Tutro slid its primary sex organ into the widening orifice of the human blank.
This organ was the one that hung between its legs. Not only was it the Tutro's
largest appendage, it had the most pleasure receptors and was the organ used for
reproduction as well.
During sex this organ grew to half a meter in length and over twelve
centimeters in diameter. For the blank to accommodate an organ of this size its
programming had to include physical modifications, but these were easily
accomplished. So was the continual rippling suction that began as soon as its
organ entered the female. The only thing that took some time to effect were the
alterations to the female's digestive system.
The unit needed energy to suck at the organ continuously, so the Tutro
redesigned the female's digestive system to subsist solely on its sexual
secretions. The byproducts of its digestion of those secretions exited the
valves in the unit's body and were deposited in the reservoir on the end of the
attached hoses.
Be'lal looked down at the distended human female's face as it sank the
last few centimeters of its organ into what might been her mouth had she been
programmed to develop normally. Externally her lips appeared normal, but past
them the entire geometry and physiology of her body had been altered to not just
accommodate but continually massage the Tutro's proportionately large organ.
The entire passage that encased its organ rippled and swirled and twisted.
Be'lal could see the human's swollen throat moving, but her eyes remained closed
and there was no other external sign of life from her.
Be'lal hissed as the first relaxing wave came over it. Its organ
delivered a half liter of ejaculate in one long gush to the cavity at the end of
what had been the unit's throat. That unit immediately began digesting its sole
source of energy.
Be'lal affectionately patted the female on the top of its head and moved
toward the control panel. He had a course to plot. His journey would take him
another eighteen months, and he had three wives waiting for him to return home.
He would be allowed to keep this altered unit and he knew his wives would enjoy
playing with it for a while. The homecoming sex would last a week or more.
When they tired of the human he could either sell it or eat it. Human clones
were plentiful in his city, so she wouldn't be worth much as a servant or sex
toy, but he didn't know how tasty she'd be after eating only his essence for
eighteen months. It might give her meat an unpleasant flavor. Oh well, he'd
make that decision when the time came.
