AWARD FOR THE WICKED

At first he tried not to scream; he looked at me with the eyes almost black with dilated pupils - and tried to give his stare an expression of defiance. He prepared himself for pain, stuck his teeth in the bottom lip of his bruised mouth. He knew what was going to happen; his gaze followed my hands that floated unhurriedly over the board. But when I turned the lever, he couldn't keep silent.

His eyes became desperate, blood came out from under his teeth - and he cried out and couldn't stop crying as the jolts of current went through his body. I watched him convulse, his body spread and cuffed on wrists and ankles. I could see bluish veins stand out on the smooth skin of his legs and arms as a long spasm arched him. His head tossed back, he seemed to try to escape pain and the bonds that held him; both things were equally impossible.

"It's just the beginning," I said knowing that he didn't hear me. I didn't hear my own voice behind his screams. I threw the lever down and his body went limp. "I want you to tell us the names of the other conspirators," I said quietly.

Weak, wet and shaking, he didn't look so antagonistic any more, so sure in his ability to resist. The waves of pain washed off his superficial self-confidence and made him what he really was: a little more than a child - a hurt child - a pretty green-eyed child with a tangle of shoulder-length yellow smooth hair. A naked boy strapped to the interrogation machine in front of me.

"I won't tell you fuckin' nothing."

It apparently would take more that what I'd done to eliminate his stubbornness. Well, I expected it. And I knew how to deal with it.

"Then you'll hurt again."

"Whatever." He could've pretended he didn't care or was ready to take it but I knew he was not. No wonder; everyone who tried the sting of Ash Amir'ah would feel the same. Ash Amir'ah - the award for the wicked... Hagenti could be such poets sometimes.

I switched on the current again - and listened to the boy scream - and this time I let it go on for a while longer. There was some blood coming from his nose and ears when I stopped. He sobbed and tried to stifle this sound.

"You know we'll go on until you talk," I informed him. "Nothing can save you from it. You'll bleed more but you won't die. Eventually you'll break - so, what's the point? Spare yourself - and spare me from the efforts. It is all the same for your comrades, anyway - they are all dead."

A ripple of pain distorted his bloodied, tear-streaked face.

"Yes, they are dead," he whispered. "Why do you want to know about them?"

"It's my work," I explained. "I need to file the facts. For the trial - and for the archive."

I saw another grimace on his face as he listened to the strange, vibrant sound of my voice. I didn't know if he knew where it came from, knew about the implant in my throat - or it just irritated him, in a hurt, exhausted state as he was. He sighed before talking again:

"You have no shame. It ain't a work you do, it is a betrayal."

I shrugged.

"I serve the Hagenti. I just do what I have to - and I am here not to discuss it with you."

"Because you don't want to be reminded that you betrayed your own kind?"

"My kind. Why ever would 'my kind' deserve my loyalty?"

I reached for the lever again. The narrow metal hoop around the boy's head scintillated slightly as the current ran through it. The boy screamed - long enough for his voice to go raw and his breath shallow. When too gone with pain, he sounded not like a human, more like a growling animal, wailing incoherently. I wondered if he had any strength left for more insults when I switched off the machine.

"How..." His voice was broken - and yet he found it necessary to ask me that. "How can you serve these... monsters?"

"They are not monsters," I answered flatly. "They are the new rulers of the world - and you are a fool if you try to turn back time. Nothing will be as it was before the Hagenti. Accept it."

"Nothing will be as before if people like you serve them. If people don't fight them."

Fight. Stupid. No one could fight Hagenti. It was just senseless. As successful as trying to sink a battleship with a harpoon. I just wished they understood it.

They must've conspired for months, another group of spoilt, stupid kids with too much time on their hands - and then, yesterday, they struck - trying to assassinate two of the Hagenti leaders. Six more lives sacrificed in a mindless attempt to do what was impossible to do. When would they learn that the aliens were indestructible? At least for the weapons that could be gathered after our planet was cleansed.

Five boys and one girl turned into barely identifiable corpses that night, with Hagenti coldly unimpressed with the attack. The boy was taken alive, tried to kill himself and failed. I wondered if it was his broken wrist or a tiny moment of faintheartedness that stopped him from pulling a trigger. He paid dearly for it now, anyway.

"I won't betray them..."

"You already betrayed them - by staying alive."

"No! It's you who is a traitor!" The boy's voice rose in pain that I caused him by saying that, became high-pitched, childish. His eyes, dark, hateful, caught mine and, before I could step away, he spat in my face, wet and warm. The back of my palm smeared red as I wiped my face.

"I don't know what you wanted to achieve by that." I reached for the levers on the board again.

"Don't make it personal, Kaiti."

The voice was so soft, the shunt of breath, no more - and yet it seemed to reverberate through the air and through my ears for seconds and seconds. I turned to the stairs.

He was there. So tall, an undeniable presence once you saw him - and yet never for all those years I learned to overhear his approach. It was incredible how a body so hard and huge could make so little noise.

And how someone without a smooth curve in his appearance could have a voice of such softness.

Rameesh; the Hagenti; one of those two they'd tried to assassinate yesterday. My master. His face, thick epidermis and bone plates that formed blunt, sparse features, was placid - the long eyes with transparent eyelids cold and tranquil. As usual. Serenity was the first expression Hagenti gave - and the last one. Serenity that I could never feel next to Rameesh.

He made a few steps down the stairs - and for some tiny moment his appearance transformed - a vision - but the one I knew was as real as anything else could be. Another face, another body in place of the bulk of the alien. A man of breathtaking beauty, all slender limbs and floating hair and smooth golden skin and translucent, calm eyes.

The other "face" of Hagenti.

It was gone in a moment and, as always when it happened, I felt empty and dazzled, feeling like rubbing my eyes and trying to make sure I was not sleeping or mad.

But of course, I was not. I knew the boy had seen it, too - as he turned away, spitting some more blood.

"Lying bastards. They don't deceive anyone any more with their angelic faces."

Ridiculous; the Hagenti didn't try to deceive anyone. It was just the way they were, the way they liked to be.

"Shut up!" I reached my hand to the lever again.

"His words don't have to touch you, Kaiti, any more than they touch me. He is just another spiteful human. Another one to be wasted. We had been prepared to waste as much of your population as it would be necessary for the rest to accept us - and we did it. Now just some polishing is left to do. A person here and there - until every chance of resistance will be eliminated."

"You'll never... never..."

I hit the button to stop the boy from talking. He must've bitten his tongue when the current hit because more blood spurted out of his mouth. I stopped looking at him and looked at Rameesh instead, at the perfect impassiveness of his inhuman face. There was no joy in him as he stared at the suffering of the enemy who'd tried to kill him; no compassion either.

"Fuck... fuck you!" The boy's words were slurry when I stopped the current, blood overfilling his mouth and leaking out. His eyes dashed from me to Rameesh and back, like he didn't know whom he hated more, whom he wanted to accuse.

"Worthless," Rameesh sighed out. "Worthless, and wretched one. Why don't you use mind control on him, Kaiti?"

I managed not to shudder, just my hand trembled slightly, as I put it on the lever.

"The mind control will render him incapable for the trial, sir."

The smooth eyelids covered the clear eyes slowly and then rose again.

"Who said anything about the trial?" A moment later he continued, his tone of a patient teacher explaining things that his silly student should've already known. "Our policy changed. We don't have interest in another trial. We don't want to intimidate anyone any more. What we are going to do is to crush the resistance completely. And then no one will prevent the loyal citizens from enjoying the order we created for them."

The loyal citizens, I thought. Where did he think these rebel kids came from? I looked at the boy - he must've been born already after the invasion. He hadn't known another life apart from under Hagenti - and he still hated them.

Perhaps Hagenti, even Rameesh, couldn't quite comprehend it. With their life span so overwhelmingly long, they couldn't imagine the lack of experience that the humans had, the lack of respect to their own life. People like me - people who were so far from our race that it was almost difficult to say who we were - we were fathomable for Hagenti. And easy to rule.

"Control him, Kaiti. Take whatever information you need right from his mind and let's be over with it. I have different work for you to do."

"Yes, sir."

I pushed the levers again - and this time there was no scream; there was nothing, just the boy's eyes going wide and confused - and then acquiring dreamy, almost blissful expression.

"So, tell us about the assault, human," Rameesh sing-sang.

It was so easy; and this easiness rendered the agony of Ash Amir'ah pointless, rendered everything the boy was through pointless, too. He started talking; he didn't fight it any more, didn't even know he had to fight. It was not important what he said, just the places where they met, the plans they made. Perhaps the information was going to be analyzed by Hagenti computer to prevent analogous attempts; or, most likely, it would just go to the files - to the huge archive of Hagenti's history gathered on planets all over the galaxy.

Hagenti had a history that we couldn't even imagine. They were experienced; they knew how to bend the new planets to their will and destroy those who didn't submit. They knew what was good for these planets and gave it to them, whether they were ready to accept it or not. No wonder we didn't stand a chance when they had come to us.

The boy's quiet voice trailed away and he just stared in front of himself, the long dark eyelashes barely fluttering over his eyes. Blood still trickled from his nose but very sluggishly, and he licked it away from his lips without noticing it.

"He looks so peaceful this way, doesn't he?" Rameesh said, walking along the desk. "Look at him, Kaiti. No hatred, no spite - just the pure surrender. Just what we want every one of you humans to be."

His hand slid over the boy's thigh, the tips of long fingers brushing against his skin. The boy didn't flinch, nothing even changed in his eyes at this touch. The control device held him well.

"It was easy for him to surrender, wasn't it? It's such a pity he hasn't done it before committing his crime. If he did, we wouldn't have to waste him eventually."

Rameesh's ridged palm moved along the boy's body, from his groin over his abdomen and to his chest, the touch casual, almost affectionate, and yet leaving a trace of red abrasions on the skin. The boy's pupils were small, unexpanded, his gaze calm.

"You humans are such awkward beings," Rameesh continued and I felt something knot inside me with recognition of the words he'd said to me years ago, when I met him for the first time. I was not mind controlled then, just had nowhere to go. All open for him to touch, to do whatever he wanted. "You behave as if you are invulnerable, as we are - but you aren't. And yet I have to admit there is some appeal in the way you are constructed."

His hand kept travelling, unhurriedly, not lingering at any place of the boy's body, threading through the blonde strands of his hair, then returning to his chest. The boy's nipples were hard, with cold and with rough stimulation as Rameesh traced his fingers over them.

"You have such available bodies, as if designed specifically for sex. What other race has both male and female specimens equally possible to be taken? What race has only flimsy clothes to cover their reproductive organs?"

He didn't add that it was the only thing he really enjoyed during his stay on our planet; he'd told me that, though.

"Maybe, your fixation on sex is going to be the undoing of you, humans."

His hand thrust between the boy's legs, under his balls, as if checking the entrance. The motion was brutal enough to hurt if the boy could feel it. As it was, even his eyelashes didn't fall.

"Release him, Kaiti."

"What?"

"You heard."

For a split second the alien face of my master became human, the one of blinding beauty and deadly threat. I couldn't afford hesitation; I couldn't afford anything but obedience. The cuffs clicked softly, unlocking on the boy's wrists and ankles.

"Get up, little worthless one. I want to look at you."

The boy obeyed, like a sleepwalker, no surprise, no struggle in his face. His motion as he rose on his feet was smooth, gracious. I hadn't seen him a lot before he was cuffed - and at that time he was like a struggling animal - but probably this smoothness of movements was the normal way his body acted.

He stood in front of Rameesh, the glimmering hoop of the control device on his head his only clothes. His stance was calm, relaxed, his bleeding hands loose against his sides.

I looked at Rameesh as Rameesh watched him, the bare hint of interest in his eyes, as he took in the boy's narrow, tallish frame, the smooth lines of his body and the smooth silk of his flaxen hair. His mouth, even bloodied and with his lips split, still looked full and generous - and the unfaltering serenity of his stare was strangely appealing.

The boy's eyes were green; a joyous, fair green color that reminded me something. Then I understood - it was apple green. Like those small, unripe apples that my friends and I picked up from the trees when walking to the river. How many years passed since then? Twenty? Suddenly I could feel that juicy, sweet and acerbic taste in my mouth.

I knew those apple-trees existed no more; neither did the river or my friends. And the apples - should anyone be able to get any fruit now, it would cost half a fortune.

The Hagenti gave us so many things. Food for everyone; peace; certainty that someone else would take care of our future. They took just a number of things; my hometown among them - it happened to be located in the part of the world that was to be eliminated. A small price to pay for security and stableness.

"He is good-looking," Rameesh said.

"Yes, he is," I agreed.

Years ago, invading the planet, the Hagenti had taken an image of beauty from our minds and created their other face in correspondence with it - just as they did on all other planets apparently. I wondered if it helped them to succeed or if they just enjoyed it. The boy had the same kind of beauty - willowy, long-limbed, smooth-skinned, with long bright eyes and a wide, lively mouth.

"And he is young," Rameesh added.

"Eighteen, I think," I confirmed.

Eighteen... Have I ever been this young? It seemed to be ages ago - but was probably just ten years ago. At eighteen I met Rameesh. It was twelve years after the invasion and the things were a mess. Such a mess that I sometimes wished I had never escaped death in my native town, had never moved to the outskirts of the port to survive by stealing and selling whatever I had, including myself.

I had been arrested for a minor offense and Rameesh was the one who judged me. He didn't promise me anything - but he'd given me everything; he'd given me a second chance.

"Kneel down, little human," Rameesh ordered.

The boy obeyed immediately; his body slid down graciously, his eyes never leaving the point somewhere out there.

"Look at me."

As Rameesh reached to his face, the impression of the angular limb blurred slightly, giving out a picture of a male slim smooth arm, long, thin fingers caressing the boy's face slightly before Rameesh made him raise his face a little.

"Kaiti, you see this perfect obedience? There is nothing he won't do that I'll tell him."

"Nothing," I echoed.

A little puppet on his knees - and Rameesh was the one who pulled the strings.

"I want him to do things for me." There was no special expression in Rameesh's voice, nothing more pronounced then ever - but the meaning of the words slammed into my mind, the implication of them absolutely clear. "He is too handsome to waste him without taking everything he can give to us."

The Hagenti; both poetic and pragmatic. Every thing must be taken to every possible use.

"I want to do things to him, too," Rameesh added after a small pause. "And I want you to take care of it, Kaiti. I want him to feel it."

"Restrained but responsive?" I asked.

"No, I want him willing."

I could do it; as successfully as I'd made him a dummy who followed Rameesh's orders without a trace of emotion. Just some different levers flickered. There was no place for hesitation in what I did, no argument I could or wanted to put up.

I ran the fingers over the levers, attuning the boy's mind to the state Rameesh wanted from him. And yet the change, fast and undeniable, almost shocked me.

The boy made a little sigh, as if he just woke up, a little shake of his head almost disbelieving. His eyes stopped on Rameesh slowly, without any animosity, rather with recognition. I knew it would happen - I had caused it myself, with a motion of my hand - and yet it mesmerized me to watch how the boy's face acquired a resigned, completely absorbed expression.

He looked at Rameesh as if there was nothing else he would ever like to look at.

Wasn't it what Hagenti always wanted from us?

"Amazing..." There was something barely perceptible in the level, soft sound of Rameesh's voice - something almost breathless?

The boy put his hands on Rameesh's hips and closed his face to the alien's belly. The blink of Rameesh's eyes, just a tiny moment longer than usual, was the only sign that gave him away.

"So, little human. What do you want to do? Show me."

It was a silky whisper, an apotheosis of intimacy - that meant nothing except for a peculiarity of Hagenti's larynx. A shiver ran through the boy's body - and his cock, limp before, started hardening steadily, until it stood upright against his belly.

"Yes, that's right," Rameesh whispered. "That's how you want me. So, touch me if you want. Do what you want."

With a strange, silent concentration the boy reached to Rameesh's bottom belly, pressing his mouth to the bone planes of the alien's groin, cutting his lips against the sharp ridges but not feeling it. There was no pain for him - nothing he could do to himself or Rameesh would do to him could hurt him.

The warmth of the boy's breath matted the shiny surface of the armor of Rameesh's body - and the boy's tongue, licking and lapping, made it clean again. He licked the hard planes as if they were warm, responsive flesh of a loved one; his hands curled convulsively, clutched on Rameesh's hips - the fingers digging gently into the scales that no bullet or knife could harm.

With all my experience of Ash Amir'ah, I still didn't quite know how the device worked, whether now the boy could see the other, beautiful cast of Rameesh. I supposed, however, that it was not that way. Most likely he saw what there was in reality - everything he'd hated so much - the bulky silhouette, armored limbs and bristled scales - and it seemed unbearably, irresistibly beautiful to him.

The straightness of Rameesh's back didn't falter for a moment as the boy kept kissing him. There was nothing as plain and rude as triumph in the alien's eyes, no a joy of seeing his bitter enemy crushed and on his knees, plastering himself over his body. But there was something - something I could barely believe in.

"I see how much you want it, little human," Rameesh said quietly, almost thoughtfully. "Should I give it to you?"

A breath was caught in my artificial throat at these words. I regained control almost immediately and still it was enough to attract Rameesh's attention.

"Do you want to say something, Kaiti?"

"No, sir." My eyes were cast down, my voice having the hollow, jolting sound in it.

"You'd better not, Kaiti. Do not question my actions - ever."

"It never occurred to me."

"Oh yes, it did." The quietness of his voice made his words sound kind. I knew they were not. I looked at the floor pointedly and still felt his eyes on me. I hoped he would look away soon.

"Look at me, Kaiti," he said instead. I obeyed. "And keep looking."

I looked at him as the planes that shielded his groin started moving apart slowly, the shiny bones sliding away to bare the purplish flesh, pulsing with blue plasma through the under-surface veins. I had seen this happen a number of times - and yet the impact of seeing it was so overwhelming that I was not sure I would be able to look away even if Rameesh wanted me to. I didn't know if I found the sight beautiful or repulsive. It stunned me, in any case, to witness the breach opening in the perfect cast of Rameesh's armor.

The reproductive organ of the Hagenti - the only part of their body that was not of scaled or covered in bones ridges. Perhaps it was made this way because they were supposed to use it just once or twice in their lives, when the need for propagation occurred - and apparently even that was not a case for many Hagenti.

I didn't know if to come to the idea of doing it with other species, doing it *not* for propagation demanded a twisted mind. Perhaps Rameesh was twisted, by Hagenti's measures. But he'd done it to me - and now he was going to do it to the boy.

I should've expected it. Since the moment when he took interest in the boy - and yet I didn't quite believe he would go this far, would be aroused enough to remove his planes, to bare his most intimate part of the body.

"Keep looking, Kaiti," Rameesh reminded.

I kept looking, didn't dare lower my eyes. I watched Rameesh's cock emerge from the creases of flesh, the skin that covered it so thin that it almost seemed transparent. Inch after inch of the column of flesh, perfectly round. Perfectly smooth except for the gentle lines of the expanded veins.

The boy eyed the solid pale shaft with a concentrated, absorbed expression. His hands reached to it tentatively and fell down like helpless birds.

"Oh yes, little human," Rameesh hissed, interpreting this gesture unmistakably. "Don't be afraid. It's all for you. Take it."

Suddenly a realization struck me - that with his cock out and erect, the human, beautiful appearance of Rameesh had never slid in front of my eyes.

But for the boy it didn't matter; his eyes could see all the beauty he needed.

His hand reached for Rameesh's cock, incongruously gently, and guided it to his mouth. For a few moments I thought he wouldn't be able to take it in, it was so thick, there was just no place there. But the boy's wish to please was stronger than protective reflexes of his body.

It was going to tear his throat. I knew that all too well. I also knew that the boy was not going to feel it. He strained, trying to accommodate the width. The corner of his mouth ripped as the head of Rameesh's cock slid inside - and then deeper into his throat. I could see it as he struggled with his gagging reflex.

I saw a thin flow of blood run over Rameesh's cock from the boy's mouth - right before the boy's lips swallowed the length.

"That's it," Rameesh said. "I knew you would love it. You are what you are supposed to be, whore."

Whore. The boy's movements were so precise, so bold, full of experience he didn't and couldn't have - and yet not the ones of a whore; but of a passionate lover. His head ducked up and down along the shaft. Yes, of a lover... if not for the wet sound of blood slurping in his torn throat.

"Don't race so." There was something incongruous in these words, in the fact that Rameesh had to ask him not to swallow him so hard and fast - but there was no trace of irony in Rameesh's voice. The boy followed the order unquestioningly. "I want more of you. I want all of you."

The boy looked up at him, Rameesh's shaft still in his hand. His throat moved convulsively and he expelled some blood, without feeling or realizing it.

"Get up," Rameesh said.

The boy's motions were both eager and dazed; he lost his balance slightly - and Rameesh caught him, almost as if caringly, and turned him around. I didn't know if the boy knew what was going to happen; I knew. I also knew that whatever happened, it would be only joy for him; the machine assured it.

"Bend over," Rameesh whispered.

There was no preparation - no need in it. One moment the Hagenti' pulsating organ, glistening with the boy's spit and blood was set between the boy's narrow buttocks - and at the next moment he was in, buried to the hilt in one powerful thrust.

The boy's body arched with the strength of invasion, his head thrown back, his shoulders twisted behind - but there was no sound he made as the huge cock tore its way inside him.

Rameesh didn't have to worry about hurting him. And even if he did, the alien wouldn't care all the same. But the damage was done, whether felt or not - and blood that slicked Rameesh's path so well was from the boy's ruptured insides.

I knew it. Rameesh knew it, holding the boy's slight, thin body in a lock of his arms, almost cradling him.

"Warm," Rameesh whispered against the boy's hair - and the boy moved as if trying to get closer, to merge himself with the alien. "Oh you little criminal, move on. Show me how much you want me."

The boy's body reacted to the order immediately, violently. With a sigh he shoved back, impaling himself deeper on the cock. Rameesh nodded in agreement.

"I'll give you what you want," he promised.

He started thrusting. It sounded strange - so wet - the noise of blood inside the boy's body. I knew the rhythm so well - too slow, too heavy for a human, each movement like a knife stab. And yet the boy's cock was still hard as he murmured something, in pleasure that based nowhere in his body but in his abused, raped mind.

We'd done to him what pain failed to do - made him a traitor and a whore for someone he hated more than anything else.

I watched Rameesh sheathe himself into the boy's body, listened to the little sounds they made in their copulation and thought about my own ruined larynx, my ruined rectum - destroyed years ago with the same kind of invasion, by the same creature. By Rameesh who had entered me and possessed me - and nearly killed me.

Only he didn't let me die. Instead of being left to bleed to death, I had the plastic implants inserted to replace my torn organs. Rameesh said I was even safe for sex since then, he could've used me as many times as he wanted, without a danger of killing me. Only he didn't want to - just a few times, when he was too bored. He said plastic didn't feel good, didn't feel real.

The boy was real; warm and tight and opening to the invading shaft and oh-so-responsive at every thrust of Rameesh. I looked at his empty, lost face, at his mouth quivering in passion, as he accepted the alien inside himself. I didn't know if I envied him, if I hated him.

Rameesh gripped on him, pulling him into an upright position, closer to the scaly chest. There was blood now, leaking where the harsh surface scraped against the boy's skin. I wondered if it was the warmth of the human's body Rameesh sought or this slick warmth of blood - and couldn't find an answer. My own scars didn't give me an answer and I hardly was to get one watching.

"You are mine, little criminal," Rameesh whispered against the boy's ear. He got no reply; he didn't need one. What else could the boy say that would mean more than the painful, fluttering gasps he made and meaningless tears than ran from his eyes?

"I want him to come, Kaiti."

I saw Rameesh's hand wrap around the base of the boy's shaft, squeezing, sliding up and down slowly. A small tremor ran through the boy's body at that. These ridged fingers, so hard - I knew how they felt. I knew the pleasure they promised and gave, even as they flayed the tender skin of the cock on their way.

I was not sure the boy really needed more intervention of the machine at this moment; his broken, wet breath became frantic, almost sobbing, as he thrust into the ring of Rameesh's fingers. But Rameesh wanted me to keep controlling him, so, I did.

My fingers flew over the board, flickering the levers, and a heart-wrenching gasp the boy made told me that I'd done it right. His passion-swept face froze, his tangled hair, wet with sweat, spilled over Rameesh's chest, as his cock spurted the white come over Rameesh's hand. In unison with his climax, Rameesh slammed into his body, in bruising, damaging strokes. A bitter, shocked cry escaped the boy's mouth.

"Oh, you are so perceptive, little human," Rameesh whispered.

I watched the boy convulse in Rameesh's grip, still impaled on Rameesh's organ - and the long seconds of the boy's climax were like a déjà vu for me. It had happened before; it has happened to me. I didn't know if I regretted these times. But the slow hot melt in my mutilated insides that I felt now had nothing to do with the overwhelming agony of pleasure I remembered.

At the next moment the boy's body went limp, almost as if he was already dead - or as if the strings that had kept the marionette alive and dancing were cut off abruptly. Rameesh untwined his fingers from around his cock, red of blood and white of cum slicking the dark-brown of his flesh. Rameesh's body was still, almost like he felt nothing - but I knew this stillness, I knew how his body worked. It was the stillness in the eye of a storm.

My body resounded with the gut-wrenching pain, the phantom pain, as Rameesh pulled the boy off of his cock and turned him around. He let the boy slump on the floor, on his knees, in a crumpled heap of long limbs and long hair.

"Make him functioning."

I nodded to the soft, hissing voice and fumbled with the levers. The boy shuddered violently, the sound that escaped him almost the one of pain. It was not that - he couldn't feel pain.

He sat up and tossed his hair back reflexively. Rameesh waited. The boy reached his fingers to the purple, pulsing flesh of Rameesh's cock and direct it into his mouth again.

This time he didn't gag. The huge column of flesh slid into his throat effortlessly. He buried his face against the protective planes of Rameesh's groin and, on the outward movement, with just the tip of Rameesh's cock in his mouth, he managed to look up - and I knew that his eyes looked at his alien enemy with love and adoration.

I watched Rameesh's face - how the total blankness of it that I had learned so well over those years was cracking almost imperceptibly, the smoothness of features destroyed with the ripples of pleasure. It told me how close he was - how pleased; how far gone. His hand lay down on the boy's head carefully, the long fingers almost touching the steel hoop around his forehead. The hand gave him away even more than his face, gripping on the blond hair, moving jerkily, violently. Looking at this hand I felt the shame of a voyeur for the first time - witnessing my master's orgasm, my master's loss of control.

"Here, here, I know you love me." The butterfly-light voice soared through the air, resounding in my head as I reached to the lever and pushed it down, switching off the power.

I was sure Rameesh didn't see my movement. But he must have seen it as the boy's clear eyes, the green shining of them, became black.

Rameesh saw it; and yet he kept thrusting into the boy's mouth - once, twice more. As if he didn't care.

Maybe, he could care for nothing else but the seizure of ejaculation - which made the alien go completely rigid, with the only alive, moving part of him his cock spasming in the boy's mouth, fountaining jets and jets of slimy, bluish fluid.

He came into the boy's throat yet there was so much of it that it trickled out of the corners of the boy's mouth - and, mixed with blood, out of his nose. The boy made a low, agonizing sound of anguish

And at the next moment, with a movement that had to be trained into automatism, repeated countless times, he reached his hand to Rameesh's groin and sank his fingers into the vulnerable flesh.

The only place in the alien's body that was not protected, the one that they were so reluctant to ever open - it was soft like butter. The boy's fingers entered there, dressing into a glove of shiny plasma and purple flesh, and clasped. And, with the motion as fast as a tearing of a linchpin from a grenade, he yanked his hand out, with the bleeding core of the alien's insides in his fist.

Rameesh didn't make a sound. It was fast; it was probably painless. His eyes became surprised for a moment, like he couldn't even regard this variant of the actions from an outrageous human - and then the surprise was gone, together with everything else. I thought that I was always wrong, thinking that Rameesh looked serene while alive. There was nothing that could compare to the complete blankness of death in his eyes.

He was the first Hagenti I'd seen dead, I thought. Maybe, he was the first Hagenti any human had seen dead.

His body crumpled, folded like a house of cards, the hardness of the carcass of it suddenly gone - and he was falling in front of the kneeling boy. A sweeping image, an apparition of unearthly beauty, appeared for a moment and was gone, too.

Dead, the Hagenti looked like a thing, like a too huge skeleton turned into a heap of bones - not a creature of mesmerizing power and beauty that I had known and hated and loved.

"I did it."

The whisper was almost voiceless, just a sigh, reminding Rameesh's voice so much that for a moment I thought a ghost talked to me. And then I saw the boy's bloodied lips move as he kept repeating:

"I did it... I did it..."

"Of course, you did." I was almost surprised to hear my own voice kind and sad and joyous - because I didn't know I could express it with my artificial throat.

We did it. It was a long way - but we'd walked it.

The boy turned to me, sweeping the yellow flood of his hair away from his face. His pupils were huge, leaving no place for the apple green of his irises - but he moved easily, as if there was no pain in his ruined, defiled body.

I wished there was no pain for him.

I reached my hand and he gripped it in his blood-slick palm - and as I tugged him up and close, his eyes, dizzy with happiness, looked into mine. His mouth was torn and blue with bruising, his face covered in his blood and Rameesh's come - and yet his eyes shone.

He could be happy. He'd done well, he managed to go through everything and didn't fail, on no stage of the plan. He had the right to be exultant.

"Kaiti. Thank you for your help."

His wet fingers touched my cheek, marring it with Rameesh's blood; marking me. He shared his victory with me, relinquished a part of it to me.

"I wish I was the one to do it." My vibrant voice didn't break on these words.

"I know," he said. "Maybe, it should've been you. But keep working, okay?"

"I'll do," I said.

I took the hoop off of his head. It was evidence, a proof to what I was going to testify: that Rameesh, too engrossed in sex, pulled the controlling device off accidentally. I hoped the Hagenti would believe me; after all, I had served to a Hagenti longer than any living human did.

The ring of metal rattled on the floor - but I didn't pull away from the boy, still looked in his radiant eyes. My hand cupped around his face, getting him closer. I tasted the bitter, icy tang of Rameesh's sperm in his mouth as I kissed him.

He didn't feel the electric gun in my hand press against his chest; at least I hope he didn't feel it. His eyes went wild when I shot; a sharp, pain-racked cry escaped him as he slumped on the floor, too hurt to move and too hurt to keep silent. It didn't matter.

He had known I would do it, had to be prepared to it. It was a part of the plan. We couldn't risk another mind control on him if Hagenti wanted to get the truth out of him. I hoped he didn't feel as if I betrayed him.

He screamed as I shot again and again, blood welling on his lips and leaking out of his nose and ears as his bones snapped in convulsions. It was a long death; it was a messy death. We couldn't do it in any other way.

Then at last he was silent - as silent and still as my master was next to him.

I put the gun away and walked out to call for help.

THE END