Fantasy The People Makers

"People started disappearing. As first they were taken from ships, but soon people started vanishing from Earth as well," said Andrea. "We found they were using cloaked ships. But then you got taken, Michael. That stirred up the Admiralty. Admiral Chellina in no uncertain terms ordered the Scientific Branch to find a way to pierce the cloaking technology, and put me in charge of the mission. It wasn't long before the Relentless was able to pierce their cloak-"

"You're still in command of my old ship?" said Taylor.

She showed him her teeth. "It's my ship now, Michael! And it's been that way for some time! Just be glad that the Admiral held the Immortal for you. It's waiting for you back on Earth. Where was I? Yes, we breached the cloak of one of their ships, partially, anyway, and traced it to this star cluster. We lost the trail for a time, but would have found you eventually, but our search speeded up when we got your signal with your coordinates."

"What signal?" said Taylor. He looked at Sophie.

"Frog," she said. "It must have been Frog. She came through for us."

"A frog?" said Andrea, looking confused. "Anyway, we arrive here to find everyone in white hair dressed... like this." She looked disdainfully at Taylor's white jumpsuit. "Michael, what's going on here?"

Taylor rapidly told her a condensed version of their situation, how they had been kidnapped by mind controlling aliens for a massive breeding program. He could tell from Andrea's expression that she had trouble believing a lot of it, especially the part about the aliens made of yellow light and their ability to travel through time.

"You say these aliens... were breeding human beings to create a colony on the planet below," said Andrea.

"That's right."

"Michael, we've scanned the planet. There's no intelligent life on it," she said. "No sign of any civilization."

"It's in the future," said Taylor. "Their base of operations is in the future. They use the time portals created by the confluence of the two suns of this system to travel in time. Surely you detected them when you arrived here."

She gave him an odd look. "Michael, we did a thorough scan of this system when we arrived. There are no signs of disturbances, temporal or otherwise, within fifty million miles."

"That's... that's impossible," said Taylor.

She looked around. "Where are these aliens?"

"They are in the Central Core."

"Can you show me?"

"I can try."

They found the hanger bay door open and guarded by a pair of Space Marines. A shuttle from the Relentless, also guarded by Space Marines, was a welcome sight in the bay. Then Taylor turned to the yellow door which led to the Central Core. It opened as he approached. They entered an elevator, which led them upwards.

As they stepped out, they saw the large chamber was exactly as Taylor remembered it, with the giant glass tube housing the millions of Federationista lifeforms.

Except the tube was completely empty now. It was simply transparent glass.

"They're gone," said Taylor. He turned from Sophie to Andrea, who had a very skeptical look on her face.

"They?"

"The... The Federationistas. The lifeforms. Millions of them."

Andrea frowned and put her hands on her hips, causing her large melons which Taylor knew all so well to stick out even more. "We'll get this all sorted out, Michael. I want you and everyone here to be seen by Medical. After that we'll get you settled in on the Relentless. Dinner with me tonight, Michael?"

She said it so casually, so easily, that one who didn't know her well might have missed what she was really saying. Then she notice Sophie's stare. "You're invited too, Sophie, of course."

"Of course," Sophie responded.

Sophie snuck into Taylor's quarters that night on the Relentless. It felt odd being in his old ship. His ship, yet not his ship. Taylor had told Sophie that they needed to hide their relationship once more within the Service, and so couldn't sneak around like this, but when Sophie snuck into his quarters anyway, saying, in a pleading voice, "Just one night? Please!" and he found he couldn't resist.

As they lay together in each other's arms, Sophie said, "I think Andrea doesn't believe us, at least not all of our story. It makes me wonder as well. As a Passive Observer I am trained to only believe what I actually see. I never actually saw a colony of human beings on the planet. Do you think, somewhere in the distant future, a new human race based on our DNA exists?"

"Yes," said Taylor simply. "I believe it."

"In a way it's so exciting," said Sophie. "Just think of it, Michael. We were made for each other! They tried to years to create the perfect human race with thousands of others and failed. And we did it on our first try! We were made for each other!" She repeated, snuggling against him tightly. "We created an entire species, a mix of your and my wonderful genes." She paused, thinking about it. "I wonder what our children are like. I wonder what are grandchildren are like. I wonder what our great, great grandchildren are like."

"If they're anything like you, they're adorable and brilliant," said Taylor.

That earned him a kiss. "And if they're anything like you, they are handsome and brave and wise."

"Yes," said Taylor. He frowned. "But they're slaves. They are all slaves."

"I know," said Sophie. She thought for a long moment. "But maybe some good will come from it."

"What good?"

"The Federationistas control their bodies, but say they are influenced by their hosts. Maybe over time our descendants will influence the Federationistas."

"Maybe."

Sophie stared into the darkness. "Maybe over time our descendants will make the Federationistas see that controlling other people's bodies are wrong."

Taylor chuckled. "You think they'll just give them up?"

"No," said Sophie. "But maybe over time they'll be content to inhabit bodies without controlling them. Sort of like Passive Observers."

"Sophie, you've changed," said Taylor. "When I first met you, you were cold, hard, analytical. Now, most improbably, you've become an incurable romantic."

She kissed him, pressing her vagina against his flaccid penis. "If I changed, it was because of my love for you. Just as our descendants may cause the Federationistas to change." She wrapped her arms around Taylor, and fell asleep, dreaming optimistic thoughts.

Two nights later, Taylor stepped out of Captain Andrea Farber's quarters. He looked furtively in one direction and then another while adjusting his dayshirt. Then he rounded a corner and almost ran into Sophie Astor.

"Why?" There were tears in her eyes. "Why did you do this to me?"

"Sophie...." Taylor struggled to find the words. "Andrea and I have a long history together-"

"No," she shook her head vigorously. "That's not it. That's not it at all. You did this to me purposefully. You wanted to be found. You wanted me to catch you in the act." She paused, giving him a chance to deny it.

He didn't. His face said it all.

"Sophie, I love you but-"

"I don't want to hear but!" she cried. "I'm sick and fucking tired of buts!" She found herself crying as Taylor took her in his arms. "Why, why, why?" she cried.

"We can't do this!" said Taylor. "It will be the end of both of our careers once we get caught.!

"We won't get caught!"

"We will," said Taylor firmly. "You know that. It's one thing to have an occasional dalliance with a fellow officer who serves on a different ship. The Service looks away from that. But if I have a sexual relationship with an officer under my direct command, sooner or later a disgruntled crewmember will report us, and that will be the end of our careers."

"But, I don't want it to end," she said, her eyes pools of wetness.

"Neither do I," said Taylor. "But we can't always have what we want."

"We created an entire species together, you and I," said Sophie. "And now you say I can't have you?"

"I'm sorry," said Taylor gently.

"So am I," said Sophie, pushing away from him. "I want a transfer."

"What?"

"I want a transfer," said Sophie. "When we get back to Earth, I'm going to file for an immediate transfer." She turned and walked away, leaving Taylor there with his mouth wide open.

Twenty two days later they were back on Earth. Sophie started to develop some persistent indigestion. After several days she went to see a Survey Service medico about it.

"It's not a stomach problem," said Dr. Labian, her short hair making her look very lesbianish.

"No? Then what is it?" Sophie asked.

"Look for yourself," he said, showing her a body scan.

Sophie's eyes went wide.

Three days later Sophie was lying totally nude on a Procedure Table, her legs spread wide, as a Spanishy staff gynecologist named Dr. Perez Pena removed the fetus out of her vagina using robotic probes. Sophie watched the bloody dripping wet fetus as it was extracted. It was so tiny!

"There, that wasn't so bad, was it?" said Dr. Perez Pena. "You're numbed up so you shouldn't have felt a thing."

"Not a thing," Sophie repeated dumbly.

"Now, would you like to donate the core to the tissue bank?"

Sophie paused for a moment, staring at the slick bloody fetus. "No. I want it frozen."

"Frozen?" said Perez Pena. "That will incur a monthly storage cost. If you donate it to the tissue banks, you'll get 120 virtue points on your World Government Social Credit Score-"

"I want it frozen!" said Sophie. "You can reimplant it later, right?"

"Of course. If you wish." Perez Pena gave Sophie an odd look, but pressed a button which had the robot arm put the fetus into a tiny tube which was instantly sprayed with white frost. He looked at Sophie's sexy body. Her implants had been regenerated giving her firm, juicy breasts once more, and her vagina, even bloody, was still very sexy. I wish I had been the one to plant it inside her, he thought wistfully.

"All right dear, you can get up now," he said.

Sophie bit her lip and sat up. She was beginning to feel sore now, in more ways than one. She would probably get rid of the fetus. After all, her relationship with Taylor was over, wasn't it?

But there was no need to rush things.

There was always tomorrow.

​

The End

*********

Author's note, 12/13/23​

This story had a lot in common with my novel Sleeping with Hitler's Wife in that for quite some time I had the idea for the story, about competition for genetic survival, but I also had no idea what the specifics of the story would be. I knew it would be a story of men competing to have sex and reproduce with women but at first I didn't realize how I could make it interesting and varied enough to justify a full length novel.

The answer, of course, came when I started creating interesting characters. Haggis O'Leary is based on Patrick McGoohan's character in The Prisoner. Assada Najibulah is named for the brutal dictator in Syria and a brutal Soviet backed dictator in Afghanistan. Craig Cobin is based on the kind of womanizer that many of us have encountered. Tessa Hetford is based on a combination of women I have met. Sophie Astor is a little like T'Pol from Star Trek Enterprise. Hot Dog and Hamburger are based on the end of an old Bugs Bunny cartoon on a tropical island where two starving people see each other as food. Once I had enough interesting characters, the story almost began to write itself.

The theme of this story about mating and passing down genes is very much like my novel Darwin's First Law, which of course is a reference to"Survival of the Fittest". In real life men and women do compete for the best women and men in part to create the best kind of children. I just formalized it into a structure controlled and manipulated by aliens. I thought it would be interesting to show how different personality types could produce different kind of descendants. The best part of the story, though, was the chase and seduction of the men and women in the story.

I wanted to make Taylor, Sophie, and Tessa characters in the story, but first I had to set up the love triangle. The setup became longer and longer as I added more and more detail to it and before long the story within the story became a full fledged story on its own. The result is a book with two different stories of two different genres, romance and science fiction, which are welded together in an unconventional way. It's not something I've seen done before but this is the way I felt this story had to be told.

The cover of this book is by far my most explicit one ever. Part of the reason is that since I have stopped selling books on Amazon I have felt enormously liberated in what I say and do as a writer. So many times I have had to fudge and redo book covers to meet their sensitivities. The cover for this story, showing a gorgeous fully formed woman being disgorged from an enormous alien vagina, is very sexually explicit, but I felt it fit the concept of the story perfectly. It reminds me a little of the old Galaxy Magazine covers which didn't find sexualization of science fiction to be an automatic crime. I feel so glad having the liberty to write and say what I want to. I hope you enjoyed the story.​