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“Day three here on Salacious Delta,” he said. “The Smart-metal of my ship is almost done healing itself and I’ve finished making repairs to the hydrogen-scoop drive. I should be ready to take off for the Mother Ship by tonight—tomorrow at the latest.” He sighed and Thrax thought he looked fucking exhausted.
“Everyone here has been kind—if extremely condescending. “The females I encounter when I go out into the city for supplies keep asking me where my ‘Queen’ is. At first I didn’t understand, but it seems that’s what the males here call their mates.
“I’ve had a very difficult time making any kind of transactions, even though they accept standard credits here and I have plenty of them. It seems that males aren’t allowed to make major purchases here unless they have a female with them.
“They also aren’t allowed to have bank accounts or own domiciles, apparently. I’ve been asked several times where I was staying and if I had a female guardian like a mother or a sister to ‘look after me’ since I’m unmated. I don’t think they liked my answer when I told them I was on my own, in my ship. But it’s none of their damn business anyway.”
Commander Kier’s voice dipped to a growl.
“They’re just lucky I’m shut up tight and shielded from the moonlight since one of their three moons is almost always full at one time or another. If I didn’t have Giant blood in my ancestry, my Beast would have come out a dozen times over already.”
He rubbed a hand over his face and sighed.
“Goddess, I’m tired! Just want to get home to the Mother Ship. I’m sick of being treated like a second-class citizen just because I’m male! I don’t like?—”
Suddenly a hand covered his mouth.
Because the holo projector only covered a small area, it was impossible to see who the hand belonged to, but Thrax could tell it was a female’s. The fingers were long and tapered and slim with well manicured nails at the tips.
“Mmmph! Mmmph!” Commander Kier’s eyes grew wide and it was clear he was struggling but someone just out of sight of the projector was holding him in place somehow.
“You’re a big one, aren’t you, pretty boy?” a smooth, feminine voice purred. “I bet you’re a big producer too. Why don’t we go find out?”
The voice sent a hard shiver down Thrax’s spine and he sat upright in his chair all at once as though someone had jerked him into place.
“Fuck!” he growled before he could stop himself. That voice—it sounded like…but no—it couldn’t be. His mind was playing tricks on him—he was certain of it.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Andi shooting him a worried look but he ignored her and forced himself to focus on the holo-projection again.
At this point Commander Kier was dragged away—out of the range of the projector. All they could hear were his muffled shouts for help and then the recording cut off and there was nothing but silence in the room.
“Looks like he was kidnapped,” Andi remarked. “But by who? And why? What did the kidnapper mean by ‘you’re a big producer?’”
Commander Sylvan looked grim.
“We’re not certain, but there have been rumors of an illegal male seed harvesting operation located on Salacious Delta’s southern continent. What some call a ‘milking farm.’”
“A milking farm?” Andi frowned. “What in the world is that?”
“It’s exactly what it sounds like,” Commander Sylvan told her. “Males are kidnapped and stimulated—forced to produce seed which is then sorted by the sex chromosomes present and sold to various conception centers.”
“Is that really a thing, though?” Andi objected. “Who needs all that extra, uh, seed, anyway?”
“It’s how the females who live on Yonnie Six reproduce,” Thrax told her flatly. “It’s the fashion there to choose ‘exotic’ male seed for your heir.”
Or at least it had been during his brief but memorable stay there, twenty cycles ago—but he pushed the memory quickly out of his mind.
“But they only want female children—only daughters, right?” Andi asked. “So what good is, er, Kindred seed to them? Isn’t ninety-five percent of it male?”
“Actually, no,” Commander Sylvan said mildly. “Just as in humans, Kindred warriors produce seed that is about half male and half female—however, the motility of the male sperm is so much greater that a sperm carrying an X chromosome has almost no chance to make it to the egg before about a million sperm carrying Y chromosomes reaches it instead. That is why our offspring is almost all male—and another reason we value female life so highly. Every baby girl produced is a miracle—a nearly hundred to one chance come to life.”
“I’ve always appreciated the way Kindred treat women,” Andi remarked. “It’s one reason I quit my job in the Tampa PD and moved up here to the Mother Ship. Down on Earth, women are second class citizens in a lot of different places.”
“Well, you heard what Commander Kier was saying—the exact opposite is true on Salacious Delta,” Commander Sylvan remarked. He looked at Thrax. “I hope that’s not a problem?”
“No problem, Commander,” Thrax assured him. And he was positive that was true—as long as he didn’t have to wear a pain collar or be restrained, he would be fine—he was sure of it.
“You want us to infiltrate Salacious Delta society and see if we can find out who took Commander Kier and where they took him—which is possibly to this, er, ‘milking farm’—right?” Andi asked.
