Page 2 of Meat

Back on Earth she had been an obstetrician. Top of her class in medical school and the youngest too. Her parents would have been proud if they had been around to see it.

Afterward, however, there had been problems. Alyx’s conscience had gotten her into trouble.

Due to the severe overpopulation on Earth, the global government had put strict limits on the number of births. Mandatory contraception. One child per household, and only certain households qualified. When that didn’t work, even stricter laws were enacted.

Termination of all unauthorized births.

As an OB, this was supposed to be one of Alyx’s functions. She was supposed to report all illegal pregnancies immediately and redirect the women in question to the termination facility. But when the first illegally expectant mother had broken down in sobs, begging not to be turned in, begging for help, Alyx had caved.

She had told herself it would be just a one-time thing, but soon she found herself helping dozens of women illegally give birth. Then hundreds.

Her conscience had continued to gnaw at her. Was she doing the right thing? Or was she just contributing to the overpopulation problem? It didn’t matter. She simply couldn’t bring herself to put an end to a wanted pregnancy like that.

But somehow the government caught wind of her activities. After that, so-called justice had been swift.

Police station. Courtroom. Nith cargo ship.

The authorities hadn’t wasted any time.

Now look where that conscience of Alyx’s had gotten her. Naked. Stripped of her dignity. A barcode tattooed on her right hip. Over night, she had become nothing more than a commodity riding to her fate on an alien world.

The ship jolted and there was a loud clank of metal, signalling that the spaceship had landed. They had arrived.

But where exactly?

A nith guard strode down the central aisle of the cargo hold, casting glances left and right at the human chattel.

The alien creature was vaguely humanoid—it had two legs and two arms like a man, and the proportions were roughly the same. The main difference was the head. It had an elongated snout like a crocodile’s, and its mouth bristled with sharp fangs. Its skin was jet black and reptilian. Its eyes were beady and inscrutable.

As the nith came in line with Alyx’s row, those alien eyes fell on her, and the ugly creature let out an unpleasant snarl.

“Kzikkuzkkekzt!” the nith shouted.

The alien’s lipless mouth made its speech hideous and guttural. Alyx had no idea what it was saying, but she knew the creature was talking to her, and she could tell it wasn’t happy.

With a growl, the nith barged down Alyx’s row, beating the other naked humans out of its way. When it got to Alyx, the alien looked her nude body up and down, rumpling its snout with what seemed to be disgust. The nith grabbed her feeding tube and shook it in her face, shouting once again in its incomprehensible clicking language.

Alyx’s heart skipped. She tried to swallow past a dry throat.

Alyx had some idea what this nith was trying to communicate. It was upset that she had not been feeding, which must have been obvious from the skinny shape of her body compared to the other humans in the hold.

But Alyx had no way to answer. She simply shrugged weakly and shook her head.

Like all the other humans on this slave ship, Alyx’s only article of clothing was a black leather collar fastened snugly around her throat. Muttering angrily, the nith guard took a leash from its hip, uncoiled it, and clipped one end to the metal ring on Alyx’s dog collar. With a violent jerk, he yanked Alyx from her bench and led her roughly down the central aisle to the front of the hold where a sealed door was opening amid a hiss of steam and a glare of dirty sunlight.

Alyx was getting her wish. She was finally getting off the ship.

Suddenly that seemed like a mixed blessing.

CHAPTER 2

The nith guard yanked Alyx through the open door of the ship and into the outside world. A breeze wafted across her bare skin. It was only marginally cooler and less foul smelling than the interior of the ship.

Standing at the top of the boarding ramp, Alyx took in her surroundings.

The ship was parked in the middle of a wide, propulsion-scorched tarmac. The sunlight was gray and ugly, filtering through a sagging underbelly of dark cloud overhead. Off to one side there stood a massive structure of pitted metal and concrete, like some kind of nightmarish cathedral. Wide, iron buttresses flared from the walls like the ribs of an enormous beast. Tall, narrow smokestacks reached skyward like steeples, belching noxious fumes into the air.

The atmosphere was laden with the stench of death and the iron-smell of spilled blood. Alyx recognized the odor immediately.