That signaled danger.
Afina scoffed at him and then looked at her hands. “Her tests have returned the same results as the other females. A repressed desire to be dominated. It is sexually stimulating to her to be ‘spanked.’ You have seen this with your own two eyes.”
“Yes.”
“But she does not submit fully.”
“No.”
“What are you doing differently, Rychor?” Afina asked, stepping closer to him. In his connective tissue, he could feel the tentacles of her mind probing, forking and attempting to feel him out.
“This human appears to have greater intelligence than—”
“She does. That is not in question.”
“Perhaps she requires a more… intellectual approach.”
Afina tilted her head and looked down her nose at Rychor, assessing him with keen, hawkish eyes that missed nothing.
“You propose…?” she prompted at last. Her thoughts encircled his, poking, testing. He had long ago disciplined himself against just such an invasion, but Afina was no fool. If she was unable to read him, to read something, she would become suspicious.
“I propose that we listen to her verbalized requests,” he said, carefully allowing Afina to feel the sentiments the idea brought about inside him.
“As opposed to her actual psychological profile,” Afina mused. Her probing thoughts retreated again, and Rychor was left in darkness, blind to her thoughts in every way. He didn’t chase after them.
“I disagree,” she said, after consideration. “As has been the case with the other specimens, I believe she will respond best to her subconscious instincts. Human sexuality is very basic.” She sneered this last part, and then looked at him, probing forcefully. “You have not yet shown her the submission of others. This was a very effective method with the humans from her clan.”
“Afina, I do not wish to contradict you, however—”
“Then do not contradict me. Do your duty, and obtain the consent of the human as quickly as possible via the method I have instructed you to use.”
“And if she doesn’t—”
“She will have an insight. As the others have. If you disagree with me, Rychor, you are of course free to log your disagreement officially.”
This was delivered with an icy tone, matched only by the ice of her feelings. Afina held the individual intelligence of any species, including her own clan, in little regard, and the humans’ even less so.
If he logged his disagreement officially, the matter would be subject to a deliberation by the entire clan. Afina proposed it because she knew perfectly well that the clan would agree with her. They always did.
“If you are not submitting your proposal for review, then you will comply with my command. And if you cannot do that, Rychor… there are many, many males in line behind you who will happily perform your training duties.”
Ah, yes. There was always an ambitious male, nipping at his heels, desiring to attain his position in the hierarchy, to have his choice of females from among any of the crops they harvested.
Rychor kept the boiling anger inside him tamped down the best he could. He bowed slightly. “As you command, Afina.”
She dismissed him with a jolt of icy contempt and not a single word.
Only when he was away from Afina’s chambers and the many prying programs that circulated in her mind stream was he able to put up a sufficient barrier to her and think his own, individual thoughts.
Since her arrival—actually, since the moment of her capture—he had sensed something different about this human. A matched intelligence: not in the sense that humans had achieved anywhere near the level of intelligence that the Ryvokia had, but thekindof intelligence.
She was curious, and her curiosity had been the only thing that had allowed him to capture her. She was unable to stop herself, even in the face of great danger, from turning around to look at him. And the endless questions.
The others had not asked questions the way that Sonya did. They had sobbed and huddled in a corner, accepted their fate readily, submitting without much of a fight.
Of all the compatible female species they’d harvested, these were, in spite of being incredibly small and weak, the most physically close to Ryvokia. And while their species had long ago accepted the fateful reality of their reproductive cycle, specifically, the need to mate with creatures that were not necessarily attractive to them—all the Ryvokia males had responded to the humans with a primal lust that mimicked their own natural desires.
Afina was at first very displeased by the reaction of the males. The raw sexual desires of Ryvokia males had long ago been attenuated by the reality of their situation; their need to be almost parasitic in their methods required them to be cooperative among themselves and suppress their own desires. Individual desire was a cardinal sin.
