Chapter 13: The Ambassador's Compliance
The holographic connection flickered, resolving into the warm, softly lit interior of what Marcus vaguely recognized as the Terran Deputy Ambassador’s private suite.But the human deputy was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a young Veth-Kor matron with a confused tilt to her head filled the frame.“Ambassador Xylara? The frequency is for the human liaison office, but—”
“Put me through to my daughters, dear,” Xylara said, her voice smooth as poured honey. She had shifted Marcus in her lap, his back now against her chest, his head lolling on her shoulder. One of her hands was splayed possessively over his bare stomach, fingers drumming a soft rhythm just below his navel.The matron nodded, flustered, and the image dissolved into static before reforming.
The scene was one of serene, opulent decay. The twins—Lenara and Selara—were there, their figures even more luxuriant than Marcus remembered, their skin glowing with a healthy, milk-fed radiance. They lounged on a mound of cushions that had once been tasteful Terran decor but were now stained with unfamiliar, pastel fluids.
“Mother!” they said in unison, their smiles bright and genuine.“My darlings. You look vibrant.” Xylara’s eyes scanned the room behind them.“I need to speak with the human Ambassador. Is he available?”
The twins shared a look.It wasn’t conspiratorial, just… practical. Lenara, on the left, spoke softly. “Illy doesn’t… he doesn’t really like speaking to anyone but us anymore. He gets anxious.”
From off-screen, a faint, petulant whimper echoed.“Please, my loves. It’s very important for the harmony we’re building.Just for a moment.”
Selara sighed with theatrical tenderness. “For you, Mother.” She reached to the side of her cushion, her fingers disappearing from view. There was a soft, wet sound of suction breaking, followed by a louder, desperate mewl. She pulled her hand back, and with it, she gently guided Ambassador Ilya “Illy” Petrov into the frame.Marcus, through his hazy contentment, felt a jolt.
Petrov was a ghost of the stern, grizzled diplomat Marcus had seen in news briefings. His face was puffy, his eyes half-lidded and unfocused.His lips were slick and glistening. He was naked from the waist up, his torso soft and hairless. His pants were unbuckened, hanging open. And he was visibly, overwhelmingly erect, the flushed tip of him still peeking from the open fly.
“He was just finishing his lunch,” Lenara explained matter-of-factly, pulling the front of her own gown closed.
Illy blinked, disoriented, his eyes struggling to focus on the holographic image of Xylara. He made another small, lost sound, his body swaying towards Selara’s concealed breast.
“Ambassador Petrov,” Xylara said.Her voice changed, not in pitch, but in texture. It became the aural equivalent of a warm bath, a sonic blanket that wrapped around the room, even through the hologram. Marcus felt its effect immediately, a fresh wave of drowsy peace washing over him. Illy’s frantic searching slowed.His eyes locked on Xylara’s golden ones.
“Hello,” Illy slurred.“Hello, sweet boy. Are you being good for your caretakers?”
He nodded slowly, like a child.“I… I try. I get hungry.”
“Of course you do. It’s important to keep your strength up.” Xylara leaned forward slightly, the movement jostling Marcus.“I need your help with something very special. Would you like to be a special friend to the Veth-Kor? To do something that would make your mothers and me so very proud?”
The man’s face crumpled with the force of his eager nodding.“Yes. Please.”
“Good boy.” The praise seemed to physically inflate him. He stood a little straighter.“Now, think carefully.You have authority in the Colonial Administration. What would it take… to send a transport ship on a mission?A long mission. Back to the Sol System.”
Illy’s brow furrowed.The effort was palpable. Marcus watched, a detached part of him recognizing the synaptic struggle.This was a man who had once negotiated trade treaties. Now, he was digging through the mud of his own mind for a basic procedural answer.
“A… a mission profile,” Illy stammered.“Needs… needs a Council member’s authorization code. For resource allocation. Security clearance.” He blinked, a flicker of something—confusion, a shred of his old self—crossing his face.“Why go back? There’s nothing there we need.”
“There are people there, Illy,” Xylara murmured, her voice dripping with compassionate concern. “People who are lonely.Who need the comfort and purpose you’ve found. We want to share our gift.”
The confusion on Illy’s face smoothed out, replaced by a beatific understanding.“Oh.That’s… that’s good.”
“It is. Now, this Council member. Who is currently on-station and has such code authority?”
Illy didn’t even hesitate this time. The information was closer to the surface, administrative details apparently easier to access than personal will.“Vice Chair Althea Riggins.She’s here… oversight tour. Depot C-12.Leaves tomorrow.”
Xylara’s smile was a slow, radiant bloom. Her fingers on Marcus’s stomach ceased their drumming and pressed down in a firm, satisfied gesture. “Thank you, Illy.You’ve been perfectly helpful. You may go back to your lunch now.”
Before the transmission cut, Marcus saw Illy tumble back out of frame, a frantic, grateful movement towards the waiting comfort of the twins, their laughter gentle and approving.
The hologram vanished, leaving the soft, pulsing light of Xylara’s office.
Silence hung for a moment, thick with implication. The scale of it, the cold, efficient machinery of it, cut through the warm fog in Marcus’s mind. He saw it now, not as a series of bizarre personal moments, but as a system.A procurement process.Illy was a resource. He, Marcus, was a resource.Sol System was a… a target market.
A tremor ran through him.A last, skeletal rattle of defiance.Xylara felt it. She made a soft, shushing sound directly into his ear, her arms tightening around him. “You see?” she whispered, her lips brushing his skin.“You’ve already helped so much. Your simple human knowledge.You’re the key that opened the door, my darling. Now we walk through it together.”
She didn’t ask if he wanted to.The assumption was absolute.
“This Vice Chair,” Marcus breathed, the words tasting like ash. “You’ll… you’ll do to her what you did to him?”
Xylara tilted her head, her expression one of mild, loving correction.“We will offer her a choice.The same choice we offer everyone. A lifetime of struggle and isolation, or a lifetime of nurtured purpose.We never force, Marcus. We simply make the right choice… irresistible.” Her hand slid lower. “You, of all people, understand that.”
He did.God help him, he did. He felt the truth of it in the weakening clench of his own muscles, in the way his body already arched subtly, seeking more of her touch even as his mind recoiled.“Now,” she said, her business-like tone returning. She tapped a command into the arm of her throne.The wall across from them lit up with a personnel file. A stern-faced woman in her late fifties, steel-grey hair in a severe bun, stared out with impartial authority.Vice Chair Althea Riggins.Stats, biography, schedule.
“We have a reception to plan,” Xylara mused, her golden eyes scanning the data. “A small, intimate welcoming committee.She’s human. She’ll expect protocol, a certain… formality.” A slow smile played on her lips. “We’ll need to put on our best face.”
Her hand, which had been resting low on his abdomen, moved. Not to arouse him further, but to possess.To claim. Her fingers traced the faint, shimmering lines now permanently visible on his skin—the echoes of her own bioluminescent patterns, a side effect of the infusions, a biological copyright.
“You’ll be there with me, of course,” she said, as if discussing the weather.“My dedicated cultural liaison. My proof of concept.” She leaned down, nuzzling his hair, inhaling his scent—now permanently altered to complement her own.“You’ll look perfect. And you’ll be so, so quiet.”
Marcus closed his eyes.The fight was gone, drained out of him along with everything else. All that was left was the warm prison of her embrace and the terrifying, seductive knowledge that his purpose, however dark, was now etched into his very cells.He was the key. And a key doesn’t ask why the door is being opened; it only knows it is being used.
He nodded, a shallow, defeated dip of his chin.His silent assent.Xylara smiled against his temple. “Good boy,” she breathed, the words settling into his bones like a final judgment. “Now, let’s get you cleaned up. We have a very important guest coming.”