Warnings: sci fi, M/M, NC, tg, medical, extreme body modification, castration,
male pregnancy.

Kael Garon, the supreme overlord of the Krill empire, stepped off the transport and walked the short distance down the gangway. He hesitated a moment at the air lock before entering the space station and leaving his pride behind, a casualty of war. Inside, Garon scowled at the spare, utilitarian decor. The air itself seemed to taste foul here, even though he was equipped with an environater that adapted the atmosphere to his own biological needs. To find oneself in such humbling circumstances could be nothing but a bitter experience, especially for the leader of a race as fierce as Garon's own.

Of course, it was his people's war-like nature that had ultimately led to this moment of disgrace. Under his father, who had been Kael before him, the Krill had set out to conquer as much of the galaxy as they could lay their hands on, and they had been stunningly successful. World after world fell to their superior technology and ferocious love of battle. They had not been gentle conquerors, either. For thirty years, the Krill Empire had drained the resources from vanquished worlds and turned other races into veritable slaves. The Krill people began to believe they were invincible.

Perhaps this was the ultimate cause of every great empire's destruction--blind arrogance. In the case of the Krill, their undoing had come from the most unexpected source. It was humbling, really, to know that a species so inferior in strength could prove such a formidable foe.

They were called the Vilasians. Their planet lay at the farthest reaches of known space. The Krill's string of conquests had brought them all the way to this distant outback. Little was known of the Viasians, but victory was an addictive pleasure. Garon's father had insisted on invading, despite the lack of intelligence on the species.

As it turned out, the Vilasians were poorly prepared for an attack. They were winged, gossamer creatures, ethereal souls with a pacifist nature, so very easy to crush. The sleek black columns of Krill soldiers, tall and powerful, their body armor glinting in the pale pink light of the Vilasian sun, marched on the capital. They made quick work of destroying the government and brutally ending the sovereignty of the Vilasian people.

Perhaps, the Vilasians would not have exacted such a terrible revenge if the occupation had been less bloody. Perhaps, if they had simply pillaged and not raped, the outcome would have been different. But the Krill warriors found the filmy softness of the Vilasians irresistible, and sex was a spoil of war they had come to expect, even to demand.

The Krill pursued their pleasure with lusty abandon, but the delicate Vilasians were not designed for the rigors of such physical passion. The hapless victims who fell into their conqueror's clutches were quite literally fucked to death. After little more than a month of domination, the race was on the brink of extinction.

Apparently, they thought it only sporting to return the favor.

No one among the Krill realized these meek, fragile beings had such a taste for vengeance until it was far too late. The Krill went on with the usual business of conquest. They carried the riches of Vilasia back to their own world and prepared the planet for colonization. When the last of the Vilasians died out, the majority of the ground forces were sent back to the Krill home world. The soldiers came home to their wives, eager for the joys of the marriage bed. There was nothing that complemented a warrior's glory in battle like siring a child upon his return.

It took months for their doctors to realize that all the desperate women flooding their offices shared a common problem. The Vilasians had given their rapists a going-away present, a genetically engineered virus that somehow eluded medicals scans. It caused no symptoms in the men, but when the women contracted it through intercourse, it shriveled their sexual organs and left their wombs small, hard stones. No offspring would ever grow inside them. To make things worse, the virus mutated into an air-born pathogen. Soon, even women whose husbands had not been on Vilasia could no longer conceive.

That was twenty years ago. Despite their scientists' best efforts, no child had been born to his people in all that time. They were a dying race.

It was this desperate need that had forced them to turn to the Marak, the only power in the system that rivaled their own. The Marak were an artificial life form, created by some long forgotten race. They had been designed as servants, but some twist of fate had freed them. There were various stories about how that happened. Some versions held that the master race was wiped out in some cataclysm, a plague or a natural disaster. Others insisted that the Marak had risen up against them and slaughtered those who had given them life.

Whatever their origins, they had evolved into an efficient, logical, highly organized society of scientists. They functioned as the think tank for the entire sector, solving problems for a price. This was the source of their power. They had a truly miraculous gift for invention, and their services did not come cheap.

Garon himself had promised them half the worlds in his empire to save his race from extinction. And remarkably, they had proven successful. The first infants had begun arriving on his world a few months ago. His doctors had given the children thorough examinations to make sure this was not some form of trickery. But they were exactly what they appeared to be, healthy Krill offspring.

It was now time to settle the bill. Garon had come to sign over control of the promised planets--but not before he saw for himself how the Marak had accomplished in less than a year what the best minds among his own people had not been able to do in two decades.

He looked around the receiving area where he had disembarked. Of course, no one was there to greet him. The Marak did not much concern themselves with the niceties of life. They deemed things like protocol and good manners to be irrelevant. If they had grown occupied with some experiment, they might leave him waiting for who knew how long.

Garon folded his arms across his chest and sighed. He would far prefer to lead troops into battle than to be stranded here in this godforsaken place. He despised its monochrome sterility, its efficient plainness. The Krill were a vibrant people, passionate and proud. Their culture was ancient and rich, full of color and beauty and liveliness. This space station and everything else about the Marak affronted his sensibilities. The Marak defied everything he stood for and believed in.

Garon waited for some time until finally the heavy metal doors opened, and one of the Marak entered the receiving room. They were ovoid in shape, and their movements gave the impression of rolling rather than walking. No matter how much contact he had with them, they still managed to unnerve him.

It was not that they were artificial life forms that disturbed him so much. He had traveled this part of the galaxy extensively. He had seen other cybernetic races. But the Marak were a hybrid of biology and technology. Their inner structure was mechanical. Their intelligence came from circuits and chips. But their outer covering was living tissue, silver and glistening with some sort of natural lubrication. Their faces were smooth and expressionless, each one indistinguishable from the next. He did not know if he had dealt with this particular one before. He had no idea if it was male or female. In truth, he did not know if they even had such a thing as gender.

He suppressed a shudder and gave a formal half bow, as demanded by the customs of his people. "I bring you the greetings of the Krill empire," he said.

"Kael Garon," the creature said. "I am Toorah, the director of research on your project. I will be showing you our facilities and explaining our methods."

"I appreciate your taking the time to meet with me," he said.

"It was reasonable to request a project review before making final payment. We saw no reason not to comply." The Marak moved toward the door. "Come this way."

Garon tamped down his irritation. On his world, it was an insult to show a guest your back. Apparently, the Marak had no such compunction. He strode forward and rejoined his host.

"Your case has proven most interesting," the Marak said. "At first glance, it seemed to offer no challenge. We believed we would be able to reverse the affects of the virus, but the bioengineers who designed it were quite thorough. Still, your males produce the zygote within their own bodies. That has not been affected by the pathogen. It is only the females' ability to accept and nurture the zygote that has been disrupted. So we needed only to find a suitable environment in which the microspawn could grow to maturity. We thought we would be able to construct an appropriate incubator."

"And that proved successful?" the Kael asked.

"It did not, I'm afraid, quite contrary to our hypotheses. So we began searching for a compatible species that could act as a surrogate. This also proved difficult. We experimented with many races without finding a suitable match."

Garon was growing impatient. He was the client. He had no interest in hearing how difficult the assignment had proven. "But you did eventually find a viable surrogate, did you not?"

"Six months ago, we discovered a new species, previously uncatalogued. They have proven a most efficient surrogate. To date, we have delivered 126 healthy, fully developed offspring to your world."

"What is this species? Where did they come from?"

"We refer to them as Species #4587. They are settlers from a distant part of the galaxy. Their own planet has grown overcrowded, and they set out on a long range mission to colonize a new world."

"So you attacked them and took them prisoner?"

The creature's expression remained blank. "They entered our space without authorization. They are not covered by any covenant of cooperation. According to the articles of stellar law, the ships and all their contents rightfully belong to us."

Garon could not suppress a sneer. There was nothing he despised more than a race that hid behind the law to do its dirty work.

"There was more than one ship?" he asked.

"We have recovered several, and more continue to arrive. The first ships deployed beacons to guide the rest. We project an adequate supply of surrogates to meet the demand."

"And these females are able to carry our offspring?"

"The females, no. Their biochemistry proved incompatible. The female hormone disrupts the microspawn's development and results in severe birth defects. We have found other uses for them. However, we have been able to modify the males to carry the offspring."

The Kael frowned. "Both sexes carry the young in this species?"

"No. But the male biochemistry is conducive to the growth of the offspring. We have been able to adapt the lower section of the digestive tract, the rectum and anus, to serve as womb and birth canal."

Garon blinked, too stunned for a moment to react.

"You--" he sputtered in outrage. "You are growing my offspring in a shit hole!"

"Kael, I assure you there is no need for concern," the creature said, with a hint of distaste in its voice at Garon's emotional outburst. "What is waste to one biological entity is fuel to another. If we provide the surrogates a carefully controlled diet, their natural metabolic processes break down the nutrients to create energy for themselves, along with a substance that provides the appropriate nourishment to the offspring. The natural membrane that surrounds the offspring as it grows provides the needed atmosphere. It is a logical and symbiotic approach to the problem."

Garon took a deep breath and tried to calm down. "And how are they born? If the males do not normally give birth."

"The muscular action that normally expels waste is powerful enough to deliver the child. We use a drug to stop this reflex while the surrogate is pregnant. When the offspring is sufficiently mature, we stop the medication, and the surrogate is able to give birth."

"I'd like to see these surrogates."

"Of course. The laboratory is only a little further."

"I want to see everything," he said.

There was a challenge in his voice, but the Marak responded without emotion.

"Order is always our objective, Kael," it said. "We will not bypass any step of the process during this review. There is a new shipment of this species just arrived. You will be able to see the modification procedure the males undergo in order to become viable surrogates. This way."

The Marak punched in an access code, and a door slid open, leading to a large cargo bay. Garon followed the creature inside. A Marak shuttle sat on the landing pad.

"The ship has just docked," the Marak explained. "You can see the future surrogates as we unload them."

As if on cue, the heavy titanium cargo door of the ship swung open with a loud metallic groan. Two Marak lumbered down the gangway and took positions at the bottom of it. They were armed with lightning rifles, the perfect weapons to control behavior, designed to cause excruciating pain without inflicting any actual physical damage.

The first prisoner appeared at the top of the gangway. He blinked in the bright light, disoriented. A Marak guard quickly pushed him forward. He stumbled a step, regained his balance and made his way down the rest of the gangway. At the bottom, Marak guards instructed him to stand off to the side. He meekly obeyed, his head down, his hands crossed in front of his lower body. He was a good head taller than the Marak, muscular, superior by far in physical strength. But Garon suspected he'd already felt the blast from the lightning rifle and realized that his strength meant nothing in the face of the Marak's superior technology.

The rest of the captives began streaming out of the shuttle in an orderly procession and lined up on the tarmac. They all appeared intent on covering themselves, just as the first one had.

Garon could not understand how this feeble attempt to shield themselves was going to do them any good. They were the most oddly vulnerable looking species he'd ever laid eyes on--soft, fleshy and exposed. He'd never seen anything quite like it. And yet, they did not appear weak, exactly. Although they were by no means as large or as physically powerful as Garon's own race, they were still quite physically impressive. They held themselves straight and proud. Whenever they moved, there was the play of well-developed musculature. It was a most interesting contradiction.

"They have no exoskeletons?" he asked his host.

It shook its head. "Only an epidermis."

"What protects them in battle? Or from the elements?"

"Normally they wear garments made of plant and other types of fibers. We remove them as a matter of security and to make it easier to monitor their physical condition."

"Why do they hold their hands in front of themselves like that? Is it a military stance?"

"Apparently, it is taboo in their culture to be seen by others without wearing garments. It seems especially important to them that the genitals are covered."

The Marak motioned to the guards, and the guards ordered the prisoners to drop their hands to their sides. The captives hesitantly obeyed.

This species' delicate looking genitals made them seem even more vulnerable. Garon found it oddly arousing, the way this being's sex was so prominently and openly displayed.

"The phallus has no carapace to protect it?"

"No. It is always exposed. When the being is sexually aroused, its phallus becomes engorged, as does the male phallus of most species. Otherwise, the phallus rests limply between its legs."

"And what is that hanging beneath the phallus?"

"The male gonads. This species has them on the outside of the body."

"You have to be kidding."

The Marak regarded him with a look of confusion. They did not have the concept of humor in their culture. It had no idea what it meant to say something in jest.

"How do they protect themselves in battle?" Garon wanted to know. "Would they not be constantly at risk of an enemy trying to destroy their ability to bear offspring?"

"We found children among them. And there were no males whose genitals were not fully intact."

"Very strange."

Garon stared at them. They were so very different from his own people, but beautiful in their own way. He began at one end and walked down the line, inspecting each one. The creatures kept their heads bowed, their eyes lowered. He could hear their nervous breathing. He could feel their fear.

Near the end of the line, one particularly caught his attention. He stopped to take a closer look. These creatures came in many different shades. This one was pale. He had a tousle of golden hair on top of his head, a patch around his genitals, and a light dusting all over his body. He put a hand against the creature's chest. He could feel its heat and the wild pounding of its heart. He tilted the man's chin up so he could see his eyes. They were pale blue with dark centers, wide and bright with fear. He lightly stroked the man's cheek with his thumb. The man trembled. His skin was the softest thing Garon had ever felt.

"The next step is modification," the Marak said. "You can watch as we perform the procedure on this one." It indicated the golden-haired captive.

Garon nodded. "Yes, I would like to see that."

The Marak gave a sign to the guards, and they pulled the golden-haired man from the line. They held him tightly beneath the arms, making escape impossible. He tried a different tactic, sagging heavily, making his body dead weight, trying to resist being taken away. The guard quickly jabbed the lightning rifle into his ribs. This made him much more cooperative. The Marak dragged him from the room, down the corridor, to the medical bay. Garon and the researcher followed.

Inside the operating room, the guards ordered the captive to lie on the table on his stomach. They restrained his arms and legs and then pushed a button on a nearby console. The table shifted so that the captive's legs were spread and his buttocks positioned high in the air. A Marak doctor stepped over to him, carrying a long, slender probe made out of some sort of shiny silver metal. He parted the captive's cheeks and introduced the probe into his anus.

"Hey!" the captive yelped with outrage. "Get that out of me. What the hell are you doing?"

The Marak doctor did not answer or stop what it was doing.

"They always resist having anything inserted into the anus," the Marak researcher explained to Garon. "The males even more so than the females. We believe this may be another taboo in their culture."

Garon rolled his eyes. The Marak were the most brilliant scientific minds in the galaxy, and yet, they couldn't grasp the simple emotional fact that having something forced into your body against your will was a violation, no matter what your culture.

The doctor pushed a button on the control panel, and the instrument buried in the captive's anus started to hum. The man's eyes widened, and then he began to shriek.

"This enlarges the anus," the researcher explained. "So that it can accommodate a Krill phallus without tearing, and also to make birthing easier."

"It must be painful."

"We block the nerves to prevent the worst of the sensations from registering. But there is no way to completely avoid discomfort. They can feel what is happening to them, and it causes distress."

The man's face had turned bright red from his screaming.

The procedure went on for several more minutes. When it was completed, the doctor removed the probe from the man's anus. From his vantage point, Garon could see that the opening was much larger than it had been before. It was really rather a grotesque procedure, but necessary to prevent another disaster like the one they'd had with the Vilasians. At least, these beings would be able to withstand intercourse with Krill males.

The man lay crumpled on the table, his back heaving. The doctor allowed him to rest for a few moments before instructing the guards to turn him. They positioned him on his back, with his feet fastened in stirrups, his legs spread wide. They again restrained his arms again and added a strap across his chest to keep his upper body stationary. The man's belly rippled with fear.

The doctor ran a scanner over his torso. The instrument mapped his internal organs. When the doctor found the correct spot, he took a device and held it against the man's skin. There was a flash of red light as the instrument made an incision. A moment later the light flashed again, and the incision was closed. The man did not flinch. At least this procedure was not painful.

"A gland was just implanted in its bladder. It will turn the surrogate's liquid waste into nourishment for the offspring. Now, there is just one final step remaining."

The doctor moved between the man's legs and positioned what looked like a black box around the sack that hung below his phallus.

"What is that for?" Garon asked.

"Too high a level of the male sex hormone in their blood can cause miscarriage. We amputate the gonads as a preventative measure to protect the offspring. This instrument removes the outer structure called the scrotum along with the testes."

The black box made a faint buzzing noise. The doctor put its hand beneath the man's body, pulled away the machine and caught the severed gonads with a soft plop. The man strained to sit up to see what had been done to him, but the bonds kept him in place. Garon wondered if the anesthesia blocked all sensation or if perhaps he could feel the loss of that soft weight between his legs.

The doctor carried the amputated scrotum over to the sterile work area. He weighed it, punched some data into the computer, put the scrotum into a container for cryogenic storage and tagged it with the man's identification number.

"You don't just discard the sex organs?" Garon asked.

"That would be wasteful," the Marak replied. "Perhaps we will find some use for them."

A cold chill went down Garon's spine. It was true that he had done many things in the heat of battle that he could never speak of in civilized company. There was a great deal of blood on his hands. But he had always honored his opponents on the most basic level, as one man pitted against another. He had always treated them with the dignity his warrior's code demanded, offering the defeated a quick and merciful death. Whatever else might be said of his people, they did not torture or mutilate on the battlefield. And while he might need the Marak to save his race from annihilation, he could not watch the cold and calculating way they harvested this man's sex organs without a wave of revulsion coming over him.

The doctor carried the clear container with its grotesque contents over to the cryo unit. The man on the table frantically turned his head to watch, trying to see what the container held. The doctor sat it down on the counter while he punched in a code to open the freezer. This gave the man a plain view of the receptacle.

Garon could not imagine what that must be like, to find out that you had just been castrated by seeing your dismembered gonads prepared for cryo preservation. He shuddered at the thought. He had never been more relieved that his own sex organs were buried deep in his pelvis, shielded by bone and muscle and body armor.

The golden-haired man stared at the container for several long moments. Garon could not imagine what a monstrous reality that would be to wrap one's mind around.

The man began to shake his head. "No," he moaned, as if in physical pain. "No. No."

The doctor placed the container into the cryo unit, secured it and closed the door. The whooshing sound of the hermetic seal caused the golden-haired man to flinch.

"No!" he said, more loudly, with greater determination, refusing to accept the loss of his sex organs.

He thrashed his head back and forth and pulled frantically at his bonds, desperate to sit up, to check between his legs.

"No!" he yelled. "You fuckers! No! You bastards! You-- Aaaaaah! No! No!"

The researcher looked perplexed. "The nerve impulses are blocked. There is no discomfort. And yet, they always scream."

"He's just been emasculated," Garon said dryly. "That's not something a man accepts without a rather passionate objection."

The Marak blinked at him, without comprehension. Garon thought they really must not have gender. They probably just constructed more of their own kind in one of their workshops whenever they needed them. They had no idea what it meant for a man to be unable to spread his seed, to know that his line would die with him.

"Whatever objection he may have is perfectly pointless," the Marak said dismissively. "The procedure has already been performed. He is a surrogate now. He has now choice in the matter."

Garon doubted that the golden-haired man would have been comforted by such logic. He watched the man flail and scream until he exhausted himself. Then he began to cry, huge, trembling tears that spilled down his cheeks. Garon had to turn away. He couldn't watch such misery and know that he was the cause of it.

He couldn't afford to feel anything for these creatures, not when using them in this way was the key to his people's very survival.

The doctor called the guards back. They released the restraints and hauled the man off the table. Garon half expected him to lash out in rage. But the Marak jailer pressed the lightning rifle against his back. The threat was clear. The golden-haired man sagged in defeat as they dragged him from the room.

"Where will he be taken?" he asked.

"To a holding cell. He will finish healing overnight and be ready to begin service tomorrow."

"I'd like to see these cells."

The Marak nodded. "Of course."

It started for the door, and Garon followed, resigned by now to always being on the heels of his host. They went down several long corridors. The Marak stopped at one of the doors and punched in the access code. The door opened, and the noise from inside the room hit Garon like a slap across the face. Aisles of cages, stacked three high, lined the room. Each was filled with a newly castrated male. Their collective wails reverberated off the metal walls like a desperate requiem.

Garon walked the aisles, looking for the golden-haired man. The faces of some of the captives were red and swollen with fears. Others were pale and drawn with shock. All were profoundly distressed.

Garon located the golden-haired man near the back of the room, huddled on the cold floor of his cage, cradling his mutilated genitals in his hands. He sobbed uncontrollably. Garon watched him for several moments, but the captive was too distraught to notice. Finally, Garon turned away and went to rejoin the researcher, feeling weary and saddened.

The Marak was talking into a comm device when he returned.

"Kael, this review will have to be terminated for now. My attention is needed elsewhere. We have prepared quarters for you. We can reconvene in the morning."

Garon was in need of a break, so this change of plan was not entirely unwelcome. And yet, the Marak's presumption rankled him.

"That was not our arrangement. And I do not have time to waste," he snapped.

"Nor do we, I assure you. But this cannot be helped. You may stay, and we will continue in the morning. Or we can terminate the proceedings altogether."

"Is this how you treat all your clients?" he asked.

The Marak stared at him blankly.

He sighed. "Very well. Have someone show me to my quarters."

The Marak nodded, and then spoke into his comm device. A moment later, another of its kind appeared.

"Come this way," it said.

The guest quarters were down a level, at the end of a long corridor.

"There is a food dispenser," the Marak told him, indicating a panel on one of the walls. "The computer should be able to provide you with anything else you require. But if not, there is a comm device here." It pointed to a button by the door.

"Thank you."

It nodded and left. The door closed automatically.

Garon looked around. The accommodations were much as he had expected--adequate and depressing. He scanned the menu list on the food dispenser and found a traditional Krill stew. He pressed the button, and the food appeared. He took the bowl and sat down in the most comfortable chair the room offered. Of course, the stew tasted as if it had come from a food dispenser. The flavors were muted. The consistency was all wrong. But he was hungry, so he ate.

Afterwards, he lay down on the bed to think. He wasn't sleepy, and there was little else to do. The Marak apparently considered entertainment to be irrelevant.

He thought about the golden-haired man, his creamy skin, his eyes that were the same bright blue as the great mountains on Krill. To his shame, he felt the telltale tightening in his groin, the heat of arousal in his belly, and then his penis began to uncoil from its carapace.

Garon liked to believe that he was a very different sort of Kael from his father. He had never found it proper to take pleasure in another's suffering. Under his command, the excesses of his soldiers had been reined in. They kept order on the conquered worlds, but they did not ravish them. Garon understood what his father had never been able to see. Forced slavery, unnecessary violence, casual injustices perpetrated against vanquished worlds--sooner or later, these things always came back to haunt you. Garon had vowed there would be no more Vilasias under his rule.

He had to wonder where all his high-minded philosophy had gone when it came to species #4587.

He didn't wish them ill. If it had not been a matter of survival, he would have let them come and go in peace, with safe passage through Krill space. But it was a matter of life and death to his people. And surely, that took precedence over any notion of justice. Didn't it?

And why did just the thought of the golden-haired man heat his blood and make his penis stiffen?

Garon sighed. Was it simply because this was such a lonely place that he could finally admit to himself what a lonely man he had become?

This had not always been the case, of course. He had been young once upon a time, filled with hope and prospects. He was next in line to become Kael, and that had placed the world at his feet, many worlds, in fact. His was a carefree existence. The only pressure, if you could even call it that, had been the need to choose an appropriate mate, a female of good reputation and prominent family who would be able to carry out the duties of Consort with grace and dignity.

He found it a most agreeable obligation.

He had gone from reception to party to ball to festival, meeting and flirting with every young women of marriageable age and noble birth. It had been like wandering through the most wonderfully verdant garden, and he was the lucky gardener who could pluck any blossom he chose. All he had to do was reach out his hand and take what he wanted.

His father had given him the traditional coming-of-age speech. He had passed along to him the knowledge of how men and women coupled. He had also given Garon some advice about love. He had said that Garon should not try too hard to find a wife. He would simply know the right woman when he saw her.

Garon's father had proven so very right. Garon could still remember that moment as if it were yesterday. He had walked into the reception room in her father's house and saw Jaina standing there by the window. Sunshine streamed into the room and made a halo around the sleek, dark planes of her face. He lost himself in her loveliness, totally, gratefully.

He forgot his manners completely and neglected to greet Jaina's father or to send his own father's compliments. He had not waited to be presented to the family. He had gone straight to Jaina's side and introduced himself. She was more delicately built than most females of their kind, and he towered over her. Something about that touched an erotic place in him. She really was a flower, both fertile and fragile, and he had never wanted anyone more than he wanted her.

She smiled at him, bemused. Her eyes were wide and dark and mysterious. He stared at her, and she didn't look away. Flower that she was, there was a spark in her, too. She was not dazzled by him or his status, as so many others were. She kept her back straight, her gaze level. She understood her own worth, and she would not downplay it, not for a future Kael, not for anyone. It only intensified his passion for her.

He took her hand and clutched it, far more passionately than was proper for a first meeting, holding onto her slim fingers much longer than protocol allowed. And that finally did cause her to lower her eyes, not out of shyness, but with a sense of embarrassment for his unseemly zealousness.

In that split second, he knew beyond any doubt that this was the woman who would be the mother of his children.

It had been so sweet, after the many days of wedding ritual and revelry, to finally be able to lie with her in the marriage bed. He had held her and soothed her and entered her with extreme gentleness and care. And it had been so good, the exquisite connection of being inside her, feeling her heat, having her completely surrounding him, the safe haven to which he would entrust his little seedling. When he had come inside her, she had cried out, the tears streaming down her face in surprised joy. This was the moment all Krill females waited for, when she would accept her husband's offspring and carry it for him in her body, when she would truly be a woman.

When the doctors came the next day to check on Jaina, however, they found that she was not pregnant. Jaina looked crushed, but Garon was not entirely disappointed. It meant that he could take his pleasure with her again, something that would not have been safe if she were already with child. He quickly sent the doctors away and took Jaina to bed again, savoring their lovemaking, believing it would be their last for many months, until after she had delivered and weaned their first child.

But Jaina still did not get pregnant.

A few months later, they learned the devastating truth. Jaina, like every other Krill woman, had been rendered incapable of conceiving.

After the diagnosis, Jaina would not let him comfort her. She would not speak to him, would not allow him touch her or even to remain in the same room with her. It quickly became clear that she would never forgive him. It didn't seem to matter that he had never been to Vilasia, that he had not infected her, that she would have been barren no matter whom she'd married, that it was his father's military policies that had brought such terrible destruction, not something that he himself had done. She had suffered the loss of the most sacred thing a Krill woman could ever hope to gain, the thing that gave a woman's life its most profound meaning. She had to blame someone.

They had never been intimate again. Under the circumstances, intercourse would have been an affront to her. They never spoke about her infertility, not once in twenty years. She would not confide in him about her suffering. She did not trust him to understand, even though he, too, had suffered the loss. Even though he was just as devastated.

Jaina had managed to hold herself together for a while, at least enough to discharge her duties as Consort. The two of them made the required public appearances. They held hands and pretended to be something they weren't. Jaina gave speeches to Krill women's groups and urged them to have courage, to stand by their husbands, to wait for a cure. To anyone who didn't know her, she seemed the perfect model of long-suffering patience.

But eventually the strain became too much for her. She slowly lost her mind. No matter how many doctors or counselors he called to the palace, no one was able to stop her steady decline. For years now, she had been locked up in a suite of rooms in a distant wing of the palace. Every month or so, he forced himself to check on her. She no longer recognized him when he stood by her bedside. When he looked into her eyes, they were dull and blank. The spark he had loved so much had long since been extinguished.

Garon had not touched a woman since that last time with Jaina. With no hope of offspring, it would just be sex, and he would not demean his wife's suffering for the trifle of physical pleasure.

He had not even felt the stirring of desire for as long as he could remember. But now, just remembering the golden-haired man's pale softness, his mountain-colored eyes, his warm, musky scent made Garon's penis stand erect and fully aroused. He ran a finger along the length of it and shuddered. It had been so long

He began to stroke himself, even though he practically never indulged this way. It had been drilled into his head since he was a child that his seed was precious. Each microspawn he wasted masturbating or having frivolous sex with an incompatible alien was a future Kael that died before it had a chance to live. A thought that morbid tended to put a damper on a man's libido. Garon was impeccably disciplined when it came to his wants. There had been perhaps three or four times in his life when he'd brought himself to orgasm, and each time he'd felt the most intense guilt afterwards as he cleaned the wasted seed from his belly, knowing it was a child that would never be born.

For similar reasons, he had never dabbled in sex with other men. It was not taboo in his culture, as it was in many others, for members of the warrior cast to take their pleasure with submissive males. Even a Kael could indulge such tastes, as long as he fulfilled his manly obligations by marrying and creating offspring. But Garon had never understood the allure of man-love. He preferred the soft, pliant nature of females, their delicacy, their mysteriousness.

But the golden-haired man-- well, there was a softness to his species that touched on all Garon's erotic hot spots. He imagined having the beautiful surrogate beneath him, naked and fertile, legs wide flung, eager to take Garon's cock, the pale, receptive body ready to accept his seed and shelter it while it grew into a precious child.

It was the thought of impregnating the golden-haired surrogate that finally sent Garon over the edge. He gripped his cock, closed his eyes tightly shut and came in shuddering waves. As his orgasm subsided, he flopped back down on the bed and rested while his breathing slowly returned to normal. He felt his penis soften and retract. His belly was sticky with semen. He sighed and used a corner of the bedclothes to clean himself.

He commanded the computer to shut off the lights, and he turned onto his side. He had been sleeping by himself so long that even a night spent on the Marak space station could not make him feel more desolate than usual.

Early the next morning, the Marak came to his quarters, so they could continue the tour. Garon had already dined on what passed for breakfast, and he was eager to finish the inspection and be on his way.

"We will begin with the breeding suite," the Marak informed him and turned to lead the way.

The Marak showed him into a small control center. It pushed a button, and the visor on the observation window retracted. Garon could see into the large room. There were rows and rows of surrogates in the process of being bred by Krill warriors. The surrogates were bent over padded benches, legs spread, their wrists and ankles cuffed to the supports of the bench, their posteriors high in the air for easy entry. The men flailed futilely at their bonds. They screamed and begged to be set free, their faces bright red with strain.

Garon watched his warriors in various stages of coitus. Some were just getting hard, their phalluses unfurling from their protective carapaces, glistening with natural lubrication. Others were holding their surrogate's cheeks apart, positioning their cocks for entry. Some were riding hard, holding their surrogate's hips as they pistoned in and out of them. Others were yelling out, their faces distorted by pleasure, as they climaxed and filled their surrogates with their seed.

This was the ultimate reward for courage in battle--to be sent here, to have the chance to replicate one's genes. However, the warriors would have no legal claim to the resulting offspring. The children would be placed with the oldest and most respected Krill families, with all due consideration given to those who had been politically useful in the past. Such was the reality of governing so large an empire. The downside to this arrangement was that the warriors felt none of the usual attachment a Krill male felt for his mate. There was no room for tenderness con in this Marak assembly line. So the warriors went about breeding the surrogates as if it were a visit to a bawdy whorehouse.

And the surrogates all screamed in terror.

The Marak seemed to sense Garon's unease. "They are not being physically harmed," it said. "Perhaps there is a little discomfort, but no pain. From what we've gleaned, it is taboo in their culture for a male to be sexually penetrated. That is why they scream."

Its voice was flat, emotionless. It saw nothing wrong with a mass rape, as long as its objectives were served. How could a creature like this possibly understand what sex was supposed to be? What the act of procreation meant to Garon's people? The Marak had its job to do. That was all it understood, all it cared about.

But Garon could not pretend he did not know how very wrong this was, how completely un-Krill-like. A Krill man did not treat the mother of his child like a cheap prostitute. The connection between a man and his mate was tender, respectful, a life-long bond that was mutual and loving. New life should not come from an act of degradation. The future should not be created by force.

"These circumstances don't help matters," Garon said.

"What do you mean?" the Marak asked.

"Why do they have to be chained like that? Why do they have to be positioned in such a humiliating and uncomfortable way?"

"The surrogates refuse to cooperate, so the restraints are necessary. This position is the most efficient for guaranteeing pregnancy."

"Couldn't there at least be some privacy?"

"That condition is not necessary for successful procreation."

"But it is necessary to keep this from being a traumatic experience for the surrogate."

"That is not our objective," the Marak said. "The emotional state of the surrogate is of no interest to us. We only care that they produce healthy offspring."

Garon sighed. He had known that the Marak would say just this, but it was still frustrating. Sometimes, talking to Toorah was like talking back to the computer console, a totally fruitless waste of time.

At the bench nearest the observation window, the Krill warrior roared as he came inside his surrogate, a dark-haired man. He pulled out and stumbled back a step. A Marak security officer led him away. A Marak technician hurried over to the surrogate and pulled his cheeks wide apart to examine him.

"When they become pregnant," the Marak explained. "The anal ring turns bright red."

"Stop it!" the surrogate screamed. "Get your fucking hands off me." He thrashed helplessly.

The Marak removed its hands. Apparently, the surrogate had not been successfully inseminated. The technician signaled the Marak security officer at the door. Another solider was shown in, his thick cock already unfurled, bobbing lustfully in front of him. The security officer pointed out where he was to go. The soldier strode eagerly over to the surrogate and mounted him without ceremony. The dark-haired man sobbed pitifully as he was once again ridden hard.

Two rows away, another technician unbuckled a surrogate who apparently had been made pregnant and led him away. Tears trickled down the surrogate's face. Seminal fluid ran down his legs. He walked gingerly and held a hand to his butt as if he were in pain.

"You said they could accommodate a Krill phallus," Garon said, accusingly.

"They can," the Marak answered. "That one is simply sore, not injured. Not every surrogate is compatible with every Krill male. We went through six of your warriors before we found one who could impregnate this particular surrogate."

"You made him have intercourse with six men, one right after another?"

"Yes."

"That's barbaric."

The Marak looked annoyed, if that was possible. "Kael, I assure you that if we could perform some diagnostic test to predict which Krill would be compatible with which surrogate we would do that. As you know, we prize efficiency. But we have not been able to identify the factors that determine compatibility. Until we do, our only recourse is trial and error."

The door opened, and security officers dragged in the next surrogate to take the place of the one who had just been escorted out. It was the golden-haired man Garon had fantasized about the night before. Two security officers held him tightly by the arms, but he still fought, cursing and spitting at his Marak captors. One of the security officers held a lightning rifle against his neck and sent a jolt of white-hot pain through his body. The golden-haired man screeched loudly and sagged in their arms. Garon admired the man's courage for fighting back, but it was pointless to try to resist the lightning rifle. It used your own pain receptacles against you, spreading the worst agony imaginable throughout your entire body.

The security officers dumped him onto the bench and began securing the restraints. Somehow, the golden-haired man found the strength to try to kick them away.

"He has spirit," Garon remarked.

"From their ship's records, it appears that his function was to help defend the people onboard."

"So he is a warrior."

"He was. Now, he is simply a surrogate, like all the rest."

The security officers finished securing the golden-haired man. On both sides of him, there were others of his kind, perhaps men he had known, perhaps even friends, screaming as they were taken against their wills. The golden-haired man shouted insults and fought futilely against his bonds. He watched over his shoulder as another Krill warrior was admitted into the room and pointed in his direction.

"Fuckers! You stay the hell away from me," the golden-haired man screamed.

Garon found himself tensing as the warrior strode over to the surrogate. The Krill warrior began to fondle the man's ass to arouse himself, so his penis would emerge and harden.

The Marak noticed his reaction. "You have some interest in #04631?" it asked.

"I-- Well--"

Garon could not frame the words. He did not enjoy talking business with this creature. He certainly wasn't about to admit his most intimate sexual feelings.

"We could make this surrogate available to you if you wish," the Marak said.

"What will it cost me?" Garon asked, sarcastically.

"Nothing, Kael. Consider it a gesture of good will between our people."

The Marak spoke into its communication device. A technician hurried over to the golden-haired man and directed the warrior about to penetrate him to another surrogate. Security officers unbound the golden-haired man and dragged him from the room.

"He will be kept in the holding area until you have returned from the tour. As I mentioned, not all surrogates are compatible with all Krill males. If you wish to stay another night, we could bring him to your quarters this evening, and if he proves suitable, we will prepare him to depart with you tomorrow."

"And that's it?" Garon regarded the Marak with suspicion. "You won't want anything in return for this-- goodwill gesture?"

"Only that you remember the source of your good fortune when this surrogate provides you with many offspring."

"What would your terms be to release all the surrogates to me?" Garon asked.

The resources of his people were already strained, but he could not bear the idea of leaving the mothers of their children here in this baby-making factory, the slaves of these cold-hearted things.

"That is not open for negotiation," the Marak told him.

"I would be willing to make a generous offer. Surely, there are other assets of the Krill Empre that you've admired?"

The Marak shook its head. "This species has proven itself very versatile. We are investigating future uses for them. We project they will have produced enough offspring to rebuild your planet's population in ten years, and that will fulfill the final terms of our agreement. This species' longevity is much longer than that. We believe there will be many other opportunities to generate profit from them."

The Marak's bland, matter-of-fact voice as it discussed the future exploitation of this species made Garon ill. But there was little he could do. He needed the Marak to restore his people's future. He would have to make his peace with the fact that the mothers of that future would never be an honored part of Krill society, would not enjoy loving and respectful relationships with the fathers of their children.

"But the golden-haired one is mine, right?" Garon said.

The Marak nodded. "Yes. We will make this one surrogate a gift to your people, but it will be the only one."

Garon sighed. "Fine," he said. "Now, can we move on? I've seen enough here."

"As you wish, Kael," the Marak said.

It closed the iris on the view screen and led Garon out of the control room and down the hall.

"The next step in the process, of course, is gestation," the Marak said. "The surrogates are housed in communal dormitories. We find it efficient to group together first-time mothers with those who have already been through a pregnancy. They are able to educate one another and help with the adjustment process."

The Marak punched in an access code, and the door to yet another control room opened. Garon followed the researcher inside. The Marak spoke to the technician seated at the console. It hit a button, and a display screen flickered on. It showed a large room with rows of cots. There was a common food dispenser and eating area, as well as a place to exercise and bathing and toilet facilities. Everything was in plain view of the Marak monitors. There was no such thing as privacy for these surrogates.

"We have ten dormitories, each one with its own observation center. From here, we can monitor the daily activities of the surrogates. They follow a carefully designed regimen of exercise, rest and nutrition, to ensure the health of the offspring. Gestation takes six standard interstellar months. It encompasses three distinct phases which we call bimesters 3;"

The Marak continued to talk, but Garon was not paying attention. He could not take his eyes off the screen.

In every art museum on Krill, the walls were filled with representations of fertility, images of nude figures, their bellies beautifully swollen with approaching motherhood. The focal point of every Krill house was the family altar, on which proudly stood as statuette of the Goddess, in all her bounty, her figure lush and ripe, powerful with life-giving energy. There was nothing more sacred to the Krill people than the ability to bear new life.

During the past twenty years, these icons had seemed to mock his people. Garon himself had stopped meditating in front of his own household altar. It made him too bitter, given everything he had been through with Jaina. But now, the Krill were fruitful once more. Garon had never seen anything more beautiful than these mothers. It didn't matter that they were not of his own kind. Their round bellies filled him with the most intense joy. If it had not been for the Marak, he would have let his tears flow freely.

The surrogates were all at different stages of gestation. Some were hardly showing; others were clearly approaching term. They all seemed much less afraid than the new arrivals Garon had seen the day before. They chatted companionably amongst themselves as they went about small housekeeping chores. Those most pregnant rested on their cots. They possessed that serene glow that Garon had always associated with pregnancy, something he had not seen for many years. It moved him deeply.

"The surrogate you witnessed being successfully bred will join this community. You will be able to observe how the surrogates assist one another in adjusting to their new station in life. This species is highly social. We have found studying their interactions most fascinating."

Garon frowned as he noticed an extremely young looking surrogate rush to the toilet area, bend over the bowl, and begin to retch.

"Is he all right?" Garon asked with concern.

"Yes. His health is perfectly satisfactory. Nausea is a symptom during the first bimester of pregnancy. The surrogates may also experience fatigue, light-headedness, back aches. These symptoms are normal and temporary."

An older man knelt beside the young surrogate and rubbed his back in comforting circles. He murmured to him in a low, soothing voice. This tenderness amazed Garon. There was a saying among his own people: "No room is large enough for two pregnant Krill females." It seemed the surrogates had no such trouble getting along with one another.

Another group clustered around a surrogate who was feeling his baby kick for the first time.

The surrogate's face was bright with wonder. "Oh, my God!" He pressed a hand to his belly. "Feel! It's moving!"

The other surrogates each took a turn feeling the baby move and offering the mother congratulations.

"They seem--" Garon shook his head in disbelief. "Happy."

"There appears to be a chemical process that takes place sometime during the second bimester, a hormonal reaction of some sort, but we haven't been able to isolate it. This creates an emotional bond between the surrogate and offspring."

Garon watched the surrogate tenderly stroking his pregnant belly, enjoying the feeling of the child moving inside him.

"They love their children," he said, his throat constricting with raw emotion.

"Whether they love their children or not is of no concern to us," the Marak said, dismissively. "The emotional bond is simply a convenient side-effect, one we had not foreseen, but are happy to exploit for our purposes. It motivates the surrogates to be scrupulous in following their prenatal program. And that enables us to provide you with healthy offspring on schedule."

Garon did not look at the Marak. It was the only way he could keep from strangling it. Instead, he watched the mothers. They did love their children. That was clear to him. And Garon was abandoning them here to live under the tyranny of these things who honestly believed that a mother's love was irrelevant.

Garon forced himself to push away the thought and focus on the surrogates, on the wonder of pregnancy.

"What is that swelling in the chest area?" he asked.

"It's another side-effect of pregnancy," the Marak said. "In the females of their species, this is where the glands are located that produce nourishment for their offspring. When they are pregnant, the glands swell. Their infants feed from those darker structures on the chest, called nipples. For some reason, this swelling also occurs in the males, although they lack the glands the females possess."

Garon frowned. "Is this where our offspring are supposed to feed?"

"We considered that option," the Marak said. "But it was too difficult to adapt those structures to the needs of your offspring. The nipples are too small and the wrong shape to suckle a Krill infant. As you remember, we implanted a gland in the surrogate's bladder to convert its liquid waste into nourishment suitable for Krill offspring. After the gonads are removed, the surrogate's phallus shrinks. By the time the surrogate delivers, it is the perfect size for the offspring to suckle. You'll notice that the phallus is swollen and appears erect the surrogates who are approaching term. They start to produce nourishment in the third bimester."

"It's just amazing," Garon said. "It looks almost exactly like a Krill female's nursing organ."

"Yes, the similarity is quite remarkable," the Marak said. "It's the correct size and shape, and even in roughly the same area of the body. This is yet another reason the members of this species make such effective surrogates."

The Marak's comm device buzzed, and it spoke into it.

"The new surrogate is ready to be introduced into the community," the Marak informed him.

Inside the dormitory area, a bell sounded. The surrogates all jumped to their feet and hurried to form a line.

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