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FINE PRINT
"Oh my God!" Kimmie covered her mouth and laughed. "You're kidding, right?"
"No, I'm not kidding, don't laugh." Jayme scowled at her best friend.
"You're serious? How can you be serious?"
The two were sitting at a table in the food court at the mall, both sucking on Karberfruit smoothies. They'd come straight from the salon where they'd both had their hair done in the latest craze. Their hair was now embedded with sparkles so that it shimmered under the lights. Jayme had gone with blue, and Kimmie with pink. The pink matched her cheap, disposable, stick-on plastic bra top. Kimmie loved the stick-ons, but didn't get to wear them much. 'Too distracting', the school board had said, which was just stupid. Today she was wearing a demi-cup squeezer that just barely covered her nipples and pushed her tits close together. Stick-ons, being strapless, didn't provide much support, but she didn't need it. Not much to support. Maybe someday, if she could afford it. . . . For some reason stick-ons looked sluttier than going topless, which she didn't mind. Besides, you couldn't go topless in the food court, and they'd known before they left their house they were going to eat here. That's the only reason she'd put the shorts on over her J-Hook, because they didn't allow bare buns on the food court seats.
With shorts on the J-Hook wasn't necessary, but she wore one almost all the time. A lot of women complained at how uncomfortable they were (even though they kept putting them on because of the way they looked, they were the hottest thing) but Kimmie liked they way they felt, especially when she was walking or sitting down. J-Hooks were simple, U-shaped pieces of plastic with flats at either end. The wearer fitted themselves, affixing however much dermal adhesive they liked onto the flat ends. The larger, flat Y shape pressed against the pubic bone, then narrowed into a finger-wide strip as it passed between the wearer's legs. It flared out again into a smaller flat which was affixed to the small of the back. Kimmie just wished she could afford those J-Hooks with built in catheters so she didn't have to take it off to pee.
"You know how much I want to get away from my mother," Jayme said. "I've wanted to go to Aries my whole life. There's no way I could afford to do that on my own, my mom can barely pay the water bill. How am I going to afford a TS ticket?"
"You could get a job." Kimmie rolled her eyes and sucked on her straw. Not that she had a job, or wanted one.
"Making what, minimum wage? My grades suck, there's no way I'll ever be able to afford to relocate offworld on what I can earn working, not if I save for twenty years. Maybe if I win the MegaDraw . . ."
Kimmie was shaking her head. "You could marry a rich guy." She smiled at the thought.
"Oh please." Jayme snorted. "Where am I going to meet a rich guy? At the mall food court? Dressed in an outfit that costs less than my smoothie? Besides, fucking a rich guy and getting him to marry you are two separate things. You hate school even more than I do. Why are you so against this?"
"It's creepy. Being pregnant . . . ick." The young woman shuddered.
"Didn't you ever think you were going to get pregnant?" her friend asked her. "You been fucking every guy in sight since we were twelve. I know you've got the implant, but there's still a chance."
"Oh please. It's not the same thing."
"It is too. Well, almost. Like getting pregnant and then giving your baby up for adoption, that's what the lady said during assembly."
Every year the junior high and high school girls had to attend an assembly extolling the merits of the HUMACE program. Kimmie wondered if it was so great, how come they had to keep advertising it? She said as much to her friend.
"Because there aren't any girls around who've been through the program to talk about how good it is," Jayme explained patiently. She'd obviously been thinking a lot about it. "They're all off-world. That's why they joined in the first place, to get the fuck off this planet."
Kimmie seemed unconvinced. "That lady was weird," she said.
"You're just saying that because she was so tall and gorgeous," Jayme said. Kimmie wasn't even five feet tall. Kimmie stuck her tongue out.
"I don't even know why you're thinking about this now," Kimmie told her friend. "You can't even sign up until you're eighteen."
"Were you even listening during assembly? You can sign up at fourteen if you have your parents' permission and you pass the physical. I'm going to go down to the recruiting office tomorrow after school. Come with me."
"I don't know."
"You've got nothing else to do. C'mon, maybe this time you'll actually listen to what they have to say."
"You're such a bitch sometimes."
"Jealous."
The HUMACE recruiting station was an unremarkable space decorated much like other government agencies, with off-white walls and spartan furniture. Jayme pushed through the door with butterflies in her stomach. Even though she'd secretely decided to do it months ago, and knew she'd be able to get her mom's permission, she was still a little nervous to be actually going through with it. That was one of the reasons she'd wanted Kimmie to come with her—moral support.
Kimmie glanced around the drab office warily, not quite sure what she'd been expecting. There was a lot program material scattered about, vids playing on the flatscreen, a few pictures of pretty young ladies on the walls holding cute Lingan joeys. They thought of that still made her feel decidedly weird.
"Oh, they're so adorable," Jayme said, peering at the joeys.
"Good afternoon ladies. Come on in." The recruiter was a plain-faced woman in her thirties dressed in a conservative suit.
"Hi," Jayme said hesitantly.
"Interested in the program?" the recruiter asked them with raised eyebrows and a warm smile. Kimmie ignored her, continuing to look around the room.
"I am," Jayme said.
"Well, come on over and sit down and maybe I can answer any questions you might have. You girls know what the program is, right?"
"We just had our school assembly," Kimmie told her.
"Well then, you know that the Human-Marlingan Anti-Extinction Cooperative Effort is perhaps the most important endeavor we humans, as a race, have been involved in. The Lingans discovered Earth, and us, some sixty-odd years ago, and the whole world changed. They were so much more advanced than us, they could have conquered the planet in weeks if they'd wanted to. Luckily, they're a peaceful race and, in a way, they needed our help.
"The Lingans are an old race, compared to us. They were flying around their galaxy before humans discovered fire. But there were never that many of them."
"We heard all this at the assembly," Kimmie said. She was wearing a clear rubber two-piece ensemble, the kind you shrunk to fit yourself, with colored inserts that covered her nipples and pubic area. They were all the rages at the clubs, and cheap as dirt, but they weren't allowed to wear them in school either, even with the inserts, which was just dumb.
The recruiter glanced at Kimmie's outfit and clear matching high-heel pumps but didn't change expression. A lot of the girls that ended up enlisting in HUMACE dressed the same way. The program seemed to draw them like flies.
"Well, then you know that they were never very fertile. Their numbers have been declining for two thousand years. And their declining numbers have caused an increase in what we would call inbreeding, which has in turn lowered their fertility rates even more."
Jayme nodded her head as the recruiter repeated what she'd already heard a dozen times.
"It was human scientists who discovered just how close we were to the Lingans genetically. Nearly as close as humans are to monkeys, even though you wouldn't know it by looking at them.'
Both girls nodded. Lingans looked like nothing so much as kangaroos. BIG kangaroos, that stood six feet tall resting on their haunches, and nearly eight when on outstretched legs.
"Most people think they look like Australian kangaroos, and they do, but if you ever saw one next to a real kangaroo you'd have no trouble telling the difference. They make kangaroos look like tame bunny rabbits."
"Have you ever seen one?" Jayme asked her.
"In person?" The recruiter nodded. "I spent six months at the Jupiter space station. There was a small Lingan delegation there, but they tend to keep to themselves. That's why you rarely see them on Earth. They hate crowds, and our atmosphere's a little thin for them."
"What are they like?" Kimmie asked, displaying her first sign of curiosity.
"Very polite and well-mannered," the recruiter said. "And big. When they squat down, on their heels, they're still as tall as a man. They weigh between three and four hundred pounds, you know."
"I keep thinking they're smaller than that," Jayme said.
The recruiter nodded. "Like they're kangaroos. Well, like I was saying, genetically we're very similar. And it was our scientists, working with their Lingan counterparts, who came up with a solution to their fertility problem. They technology we've received in return . . . ."
"HUMACE," Jayme said, pronouncing it 'hummis'.
The recruiter nodded again. "Doctors figured out a way in which they could splice Marlingan DNA onto human ovum which, when fertilized, would produce a normal, healthy, Marlingan joey. Still, however, Marlingan reproduction was such a low-yield endeavor that the great majority of lab-grown Lingan fetuses died before becoming viable. Only by eliminating all the artificial elements in the gestation cycle were the scientists able to consistently bring joeys to term."
"Surrogate mothers. Humans," Jayme said.
"Exactly." The recruiter smiled. "And that is what we're talking about here today. Tell me, what would you two ladies like to get out of the program?"
Kimmie just frowned as Jayme blurted out, "I want to live on Aries."
The recruiter figured it was something like that. "I've heard it's beautiful there. Here." She flipped open a nearby e-notebook, and swiveled it to face the girls. The entire screen was covered in fine print. "Here's one of our standard contracts." The recruiter hit the page down button several times, then pointed with a finger at a paragraph.
Upon successful completion of her Terms Of Service, the enlistee will be entitled to the following compensation:
All expenses paid transportation to any non-hostile planet in the Confederation.
A one-time, tax free settlement sum of 20,000.00 standard credits to be used for settlement and/or property relocation costs to the off-Earth location of their choosing.
"That's pretty much the standard deal," the recruiter told them. "As you probably know, a TranSpace ticket costs a minimum twenty thousand credits, so in effect you get forty thousand credits out of the deal."
The recruiter leaned back, taking her hands off the notebook. Kimmie pulled it into her lap and began skipping through it. It was at least a dozen pages long, filled with long, legal-sounding words she didn't understand.
Once accepted into the program, the enlistee will be considered to have completed the terms of service when she has successfully delivered one (1) healthy Marlingan litter.
"How long are you pregnant?" Kimmie asked the recruiter, who'd been watching her.
"Three months from fertilization to live birth," the recruiter told her. "Compared to nine for a human baby."
Kimmie went back to the contract, skipping forward and backward through the fine print.
By signing, and therefore entering into this contract, the enlistee agrees to be modified as HUMACE sees fit for the express and sole purpose of improving the chances of fertilization and successful gestation.
Kimmie looked up suspiciously.
"Of course," the recruiter told her. "You have to agree in writing to let them splice Lingan DNA into your eggs. As a bonus, you'll be given that Lingan drug I'm sure you've heard all about. It reduces the odds of miscarriage, but it'll also make you healthier than you've ever been in your life, and probably help you live longer, too. Most women grow taller after taking it."
"Really?" Kimmie could hardly bear to believe it.
"Didn't you see how tall that lady was at our assembly?" Jayme said to her. "That's why you thought she looked weird. She was so healthy she practically glowed."
The recruiter was nodding. "That's the truth. They want to make the drug available to the general public, but that's going to take a few years. The advanced biotechnology the Marlingans have shared with us to make our program possible is not cheap, not at all, and most of it is still classified Top Secret. Once you've successfully completed your terms of service, assuming you do join up, there will be electro-chemical urge-blockers implanted in your brain stem to guarantee non-disclosure of those secrets, but that shouldn't concern you ladies, you both seem responsible. You'll find that in there as well," she said to Kimmie, who was skimming the contract again. There were legal definitions of the terms used in the contract: enlistee, fertilization, litter. Kimmie could hardly understand the definitions. She skipped over them to the next section.
"Does this fertilization," Kimmie said, peering at the notebook, "take place in a lab?"
"It takes place on a military base off-world, in very controlled conditions, so as to ensure the greatest chance of success," the recruiter told her. "HUMACE employs the finest medical professionals you're ever going to find."
"So if I signed up, what would happen?" Kimmie asked. Jayme raised her eyebrows and looked at her friend.
"I thought this whole thing creeped you out," Jayme said.
"It does, but what the hell am I going to do here, especially after you're gone? Keep hanging around the Tasty-Bite until the manager bans me because I've been banging everybody there but him? Or I get knocked up? You're not the only one who wants something better."
"How old are you girls?" the recruiter asked them. They told her.
"The first thing that has to happen is you need to get your parents or guardians permission. They need to come in and sign an authorization sheet, once you've signed a contract. Once that happens, you'll be given an exhaustive medical exam to make sure you're healthy and suited to the program."
"I'm healthy," Jayme said.
"Do you have any genetic abnormalities? That's what they're talking about, not if you've ever had a broken bone or the flu. Your genes need to be healthy for this."
"Oh."
"Once you pass the physical, you'll be sent to one of our prepping facilities, then shuttled up to one of the big cruisers in orbit."
"Really?" Kimmie was wide-eyed.
"Yes. They're even more amazing up close. Even using one of the Lingan ribbon drives the trip to the fertilization facility will take six months, so you and all the other girls will be placed in an induced coma in a gel-cap."
"What's that like? Do you know?"
"Sure. The Jupiter station is too close to use a ribbon drive, so you have to use the standard gravity drive for the trip. It takes four months. I was in a gel-cap for three, both there and back. It's just like sleeping, only you're covered in inertia-dampening gel."
"Oh."
"You, on the other hand, will do something I didn't. You'll wake up a different woman."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean right before they induce the coma and put you in the gel, you'll take the Lingan health drug and a few others. Lingan DNA will bond with your unfertilized ova while you sleep. When you wake up it'll be like you're a different person."
"Taller?" Kimmie asked her hopefully.
The recruiter looked her straight in the eye. "Definitely," she said.
It felt like swimming upward through a sea of mud, her limbs weighted down as she struggled through the murky gloom toward the dim light ahead. Slowly it grew brighter, larger, ever so slowly, until finally she was there.
"Easy there. Watch it, she's a noodle."
Jayme kept blinking her eyes but they wouldn't focus. Finally she realized that was because they were coated in the gel covering the rest of her body, and she was sitting up inside her opened transport capsule.
She opened her mouth to speak, and her body just then decided to rid her lungs of the gel that had collected there over the one-hundred and ninety-one days she'd remained in her induced coma, submerged in the gel.
When her coughing eased the vomiting began and she felt the gel filling her bowels squirting out of her with every clench of her body. Soon her stomach was empty of the gel as well.
The capsule was on its side, the section with the observation window removed so she could sit up. Jayme sat waist-deep in the gel, her nude body glistening. The gel slowly obeyed the .53G inside the decelerating ship and slid down toward the capsule.
Jayme shivered as her body fought to regain a normal temperature, and she wiped at the gel coating her face. She looked left and right, seeing a dozen other young women being awakened and helped from their transport capsules.
"I'm cold," she said, teeth chattering.
"We'll get you into a hot shower, wash that gel off, and put some clothes on you," one of the technicians told her. Jayme let the two earnest techs help her from the capsule and stood beside it, shivering hard enough to splatter gel drops on their white coveralls. She was surprised at how short they were, but lost her train of thought as they herded her by both elbows into the ship's communal shower. The steam-filled room was filled with glistening, shivering bodies, and Jayme joined them, huddling under a jet of hot water that slowly worked the chill from her bones.
"I'm five-eleven!" Kimmie squealed in delight when she was finally reunited with her friend. She peered up at Jayme. "Oh my God, look at you! You're a giant!"
Jayme nodded. They'd all had post-capsule physicals. All the girls had grown, some just a few inches, others, like Kimmie, almost a foot, until there was hardly anyone under six feet. Jayme'd grown six inches while in the capsule, and was just a hair under six foot six. Most of the girls seemed about the same height, with a few substantially taller, and a few, like Kimmie, substantially shorter.
"I feel too tall," Jayme said, almost pouting. She was at least two inches taller than the biggest member of the crew, even though he outweighed her substantially.
"Don't you dare," Kimmie scolded her. "You look great!"
Kimmie was right, she did look great. They all did. Their skin was smooth and pimple free, their hair was uniformly thick and glossy, their bodies nearly glowed with health. The growth spurts had left all of them slender but curvy, which was quite a welcome change for several of the girls. Apparently genetic health didn't necessarily translate into skinny or feminine, but the Marlingan drug had taken care of that.
"I feel great," Jayme told her. "Look at me, I hardly recognize myself in the mirror. My face, yeah, but my body . . ." She waved a hand at herself. "Look at my hips." She made a face.
Kimmie gave her a disappearing look. "You're skinny as a rail, and always have been. The drug just gave you a woman's hips, that's all. Happened to all of us. Look, my hips are wider than yours, and I'm a lot shorter. If anyone should be complaining, it'd be me, but there's nothing to complain about. You could put my eye out with your hipbones."
They both wore baggy flightsuits that hid just about every aspect of their new bodies, although their hips were difficult to miss, but they had plenty of time to compare their bodies with those of the other girls in the communal showers. Most of the girls were still, even two days out of the gel-cap, wearing diapers. They'd been in the cap long enough for the gel to have completely filled their digestive systems, and with sometimes spotty control over their bodily functions (a common side-effect of extended gel-cap travel) the diapers were a smart precaution.
"I didn't know there were going to be this many girls on board," Jayme said, looking around. They were just inside the cafeteria doors, and watched the line of jumpsuit-clad women snaking around the room toward the row of Auto-Chefs. The tables were filling up quick.
"Yeah, neither did I," Kimmie said. "There's got to be two hundred girls here. C'mon, let's get in line, I'm starving. I want to be sitting down when the orientation starts."
"Good evening ladies, I'm Doctor Trotman. As you can see from my uniform, I'm also a Colonel in the Confederation's Navy. This brief presentation is designed to reduce the shock and confusion you're bound to experience upon meeting your first Marlingans." Trotman's picture was replaced by an image of an adult Marlingan.
"Shortly after your arrival at the breeding facility on Zinta, you'll be introduced to several adult male Marlingans. You should take this opportunity to familiarize yourself with how they look, how they smell, what they sound like, their physical mannerisms. You'll be working in close contact with them for several months, so it's important to get over any uneasiness quickly.
"The first Marlingans you meet won't have those translators you might expect to see around their necks. They find them uncomfortable, and the whole point of this initial meeting is our continued reassurance to the Marlingans that we are happy to be equal partners in this joint endeavor. I'm sure you understand. That is also why we insist on your being without clothing for this first meeting. As you can see from this vid, the Marlingans do not wear clothing, and find it disconcerting when they see it on humans. Don't let this upset you; they find our lack of body hair equally disconcerting. Their nickname for us is 'pinkies'." That got a laugh from the room, although most of the young women looked a bit apprehensive. "That's also why we have not issued razors to any of you young women. Those of you who haven't undergone laser or other type of body hair removal should just continue to let it grow naturally, as you see it has during your time in the gel-caps. It might be a little disconcerting at first – I know it's definitely not the fashion back home, but it is here. You'll quickly get used to it. It is natural, after all.
"I know how fast this must seem to be going to all of you but don't worry, you'll be well taken care of. The staff and employees of the Zinta facility will make sure of that. Just remember, upon successful completion of the breeding program, you all have a free ticket to anywhere in the Confederation waiting for you." A cheer went up around the room.
"Are you watching this?" Jayme asked, pointing at the vidscreen on the wall. It was showing a documentary on the Marlingans made specifically for HUMACE volunteers. From the bunk below her came a grunt.
Kimmie was having a hard time remembering what she'd looked like before, which seemed strange to her, and every hour that passed made it harder. She was glad, though, that she'd undergone laser hair removal—those girls who hadn't, it wasn't only the hair on their heads that was growing thick and fast. Seeing hairy armpits in the showers next to her was one thing, but some girls' legs were getting so hairy they looked like guys. Ick.
Kimmie was noticing that more than just her height had been altered. Under the blanket her hands slowly roamed her body. Her nipples had grown in the gel cap, of that she was sure, but by how much was a little fuzzy. They were certainly tougher—she could pinch them until her fingers ached and it didn't hurt at all. She supposed that had to do with her body growing and maturing under the drug's influence. There were other changes, too, between her legs, but with the substantial proportional increase in the width of her hips she supposed it would be strange if things hadn't changed somehow down there. Still, she wasn't exactly thrilled—all the boys had loved how tight she was before, and now she could slide four fingers in dry and wave them around without even feeling stretched.
"They're marsupials, did you know that?" Jayme said around a yawn, blinking sleepily at the vid. "Just like our kangaroos. How weird is that?"
Her vision blurred as the narrator began discussing Marlingan social customs. While a group of lions was called a pride, a group of Marlingans was called a harem.
"Huh. That's weird. Hey Kimmie, what's polyamory mean? Kimmie, you awake?"
Jayme, Kimmie, and another young woman named Banda disrobed together in a kind of locker room, hanging their clothes on numbered pegs. All three of them were nervous but trying to hide it, flashing each other strained but encouraging smiles. Banda had thick black hair, and was one of the many unfortunate girls on board who'd never had her body hair removed. After six months in the gel cap and two weeks on board the decelerating ship, her black triangle was spreading up her belly like a storm cloud with a line running straight up to her navel. There was enough hair on her legs to look like they were in shadow, and thick tufts peeked out from under her arms. Banda wasn't happy about it, but what could she do? At least she wasn't alone. Kimmie's body, on the other hand, was still smooth, but the hair on her head was getting so thick and long it looked like she had a mane. The same held true for Jayme, and her dark brown hair seemed to have grown two inches since she'd awoken from her induced coma.
After stripping, the three young women were led by a technician down a short flight of stairs to an elevator.
"Get in, and the doors will close. You won't even have to push any buttons," the helpful tech told them. She smiled reassuringly. "When the doors open, there'll be a few Lingans there, or they'll be there shortly, and you can get accustomed to one another. Relax, everything'll be fine," the middle-aged lady told them.
The elevator doors closed behind them with a hiss and the girls felt their ears pop even before the car began to descend.
"So far I'm not too impressed with Zinta," Kimmie said. All they'd seen of the planet since exiting the ship was one room after another where they'd been scanned, weighed, and otherwise processed. They hadn't even seen a window they could look out of yet.
Kimmie shivered in the cool air and felt her knobby nipples harden. Both Jayme and the other girl had really big nipples too, confirming Kimmie's suspicions that the change was deliberate and perhaps was related to her body getting ready to become pregnant.
The elevator stopped, but the doors didn't open. Instead, the vid screen beside them flickered on. It was Colonel Trotman, from the orientation vid on the ship.
"Ladies," he began, "I want to thank you for what you're about to do on behalf of all humanity. You are all going to have to do so much more than you thought you were. Your task won't be unenjoyable, but that doesn't lessen your sacrifice.
"What am I talking about? Well, I'm sure you remember that at some point, either before you signed your contract or after, you were given an explanation as to why Marlingan fetuses can't be grown in a lab. Too low of a success rate, because of the artificial element. Well, I'm sad to say the same has been proven true for artificial insemination. The problem isn't with you, it's with the Marlingan males; only through persistent sexual stimulation while in the presence of female Marlingan pheromones can they produce sperm, or their equivalent. We tried alternatives for years, but there's no way around it.
"You may remember a phrase from the contract you all signed: '. . .the enlistee agrees to be modified as HUMACE sees fit to improve the chances of fertilization and successful gestation.' What does that mean to you? To begin with, it means that your bodies have been engineered to give off the same pheromones-sexual attractants-that female Marlingans do when they are in estrus.
"Not only do your bodies now emit female Marlingan pheromones, you have been engineered to respond to male Lingan pheromones. The car you are in is hermetically sealed; that is because once you've become exposed to the male pheromones, you will enter into an accelerated state of estrus that, unfortunately with our current technology, is irreversible. This action will have consequences, of course, that is its purpose, and so we have done what we can to make your experience here on Zinta as enjoyable as possible. You may have noticed a widening of your hips and other pelvic alterations during your time in the gel-caps. This was done for two reasons. The first, of course, was to reduce the risk of injury and provide you some measure of comfort during intercourse."
"Intercourse?" Banda said stupidly, blinking at the screen. She didn't want to hear any more.
"The second reason was to facilitate your post-partum role as surrogate mother. Marlingans are a marsupial species, and we could not alter that. This will be explained in much greater detail as events progress, and if you ever have any questions, there will be a staff member close at hand eager to assist you. Again, on behalf of all mankind, I want to thank you for what you're about to do."
The three young women felt the car drop another short distance and with a loud hiss, the doors opened. The elevator was filled with a warm, wet-blanket smell, and in the middle of the room before them waited three adult male Marlingans.
"What's estrus?" Jayme asked, too shocked to think. She hadn't yet taken a deep breath of the warm air. Kimmie had.
"Heat," Kimmie said, her voice low, almost a growl. "We're going into heat."
"Oh God," moaned Jayme, having taken her first full breath. Beside her, Banda started to pant loudly. None of them had noticed the air flowing past them as fans inside the elevator pumped its pheromone-laden air toward the waiting Lingans.
"This can't be happening, this can't be happening," groaned Jayme, as her body flushed and tingled. She tried to deny the sensations, but instead found herself staring at the Lingans intently, trying to see between their legs. She saw their pointy ears twitch, and their hindquarters shift, as the girls' altered pheromones finally reached their snouts.
"Oh my GOD," Kimmie breathed, staring. There was no way that was going to fit in her, there had to be some mistake.
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