"The Lorr imposed upon the survivors of The War what we call `THE EDICT'," Princess Janis Jord of Dularn told me. Telling me that under "THE EDICT" that Mankind was limited to the technology of an era now over thirteen centuries in the past! "There are exceptions in the fields of medicine and such, but for the most part Men must now live as their forefathers once did in `The Dark Ages' after the fall of Rome". Her voice bitter as she finished speaking and shifted to a more comfortable position there beside me on the leather covered sofa we were sitting on. The warm sea breeze now wafting through the open stern windows smelling of the sea. The heavy iron ring set into the wood and the chains there on the deck a ready reminder of Janis' earlier captivity before my skill with a sword had unknowingly freed her from being a nearly helpless "plaything" of the Ronda's cruel vicious captain.
I thought her a beautiful woman, her blonde hair, iron gray eyes, well shaped mouth and lips making her a delight to the eye. She also had very nice well shaped legs, which the briefness of her earlier attire had well displayed, Janis having worn when I first met her nothing but a strip of blue silk around her hips. Now she was wearing a brown leather kilt and a vest, both taken off the body of a dead man who had no further need for clothing. I had to admit that she certainly did look a lot better than I did, what with my torn and bloody dress that was really nothing more than a tattered rag that only half covered me! She had a beautiful figure, long lovely legs which I envied. I wear long flowing skirts for a good reason. I am not beautiful and I don't have a sexy figure. I do, however, have on quality that no other woman has, and that is my skill with a sword, which is something else entirely! Something that has made me a "living legend" now!
I had been rather amused by her choice of attire, Janis having made no attempt to cover her breasts from me when we first met, although she had stopped to select a sword belt to strap around herself to carry the sword she had selected to be hers from those here in the captain's quarters. On the other hand as I was to learn she would have been embarrassed to be seen without the beautiful golden nipple covering disks that she wore, such being part of the culture to which she belonged as a member of royalty. The disks being fitted to her pierced nipples in such a way that they were similar to earrings. Janis feeling that a woman who did not wear such "jewelry" was of a lower class and not really someone who she would be interested in "associating" with! This seems to be a characteristic of both Dularnian and Californian civilizations and is I suppose just one of those things that are hard for one of the 20th Century to understand. On the other hand some 20th Century fashions such as "see- through" blouses are only thought suitable for public wear by "hip-swingers" (street-walkers) here in the 26th Century! The same would be true of mini-skirts on adult women, although with some exceptions, that being Darlanis Marden, the Empress of California, who often wears rather exotic brief golden attire that reminds me so much of some comic book heroine from our own time!
The fashion of wearing nipple coverings (clips) appears to date back to the 21st Century before The War as there are surviving photographs of women wearing such fashions back then. Apparently they were worn beneath sheer blouses and such, although it is hard to tell, as the only photographs that have survived are in such poor condition that it is very difficult to tell much. There are references to women wearing "clips" and "straps", the "strap" being a mini-thong that was usually worn on the beach like the 20th Century bikini, although once again the references to these items are not really all that clear as to just when and where these items were actually worn. Here in the 26th Century the "strap" is a common piece of attire, almost unisexual, as is the shaving of the female's pubic hair among the upper classes (castes) of the two civilizations. The slave girls here aboard the Ronda naturally were all "unshaved", as is common among slave girls everywhere as a mark of their own "animal" status!
"But The War took place over five hundred years ago!" I protested when Janis told me about THE EDICT, which one disobeys at the risk of your life. The Lorr constantly now patrol the Earth, both by spaceship and by telescopic observation from Deimos orbiting a thousand miles up in a polar orbit about the Earth and woe be to any who disobey, for "The Light That Burns" will seek them out and leave only ashes behind! It is somewhat like a laser, but also electrical in its effects, being a directed beam of almost pure energy that can destroy anything it touches. They also possess a weapon that fires projectiles that explode on impact with a force that nothing can withstand. I understand that the bullet or shell is composed of material that has been "altered" so that it becomes atomically unstable by alteration of the electron orbits around the nucleus. I have seen such a weapon in the form of a handgun firing a small caliber high velocity bullet that explodes on contact with the force of a 20mm shell! Their human servants are sometimes so armed, although they also possess other weapons such as a neuron whip that can used to punish you as they wish for periods of time. The Lorr themselves also possess a paralyzing sting in their mandibles which can be quite lethal to humans if you receive too much of the venom into your bloodstream. I have been "stung" twice myself and can assure you that it is not a pleasant experience either!
"The Lorr have not forgot what we did to them," Janis answered with a grim smile. "They are not like us. They neither forgive or forget that we once killed them by the millions." Neither has Man ever forgotten that the Lorr killed his kind by the billions in return. There is much hatred burning between the two races, but perhaps someday, there will be understanding. I and Raspa have done our parts to bring that day a little bit closer. Twice now she has saved my life, both times at risk to her own. I owe her much, and love her as a friend despite her hideous appearance, Raspa, like all the Lorr, looking much like a common carpenter ant scaled up about a hundred and fifty times! They are not actually biologically insects, despite their appearance, but they certainly do look horrid enough, being like something out of a 20th Century drug-addict's worse nightmare!
"Lorraine!" Sharon cried, bursting in, and that is really the proper term here, for she very nearly knocked the door off its hinges in her haste to tell me what was happening outside! "There's a flying saucer following us, and it's so big it fills the whole sky!" The last was a bit of overstatement, but Raspa's flagship is pretty big, being about a thousand feet in diameter! "You've got'a come see it! Right Now!" Sharon cried, almost jumping up and down there in her excitement there before us!
"STRIP! BOTH OF YOU! EVERYTHING!" Janis barked instantly, "Those `Things' could kill us all like ants if they find what I think they are out here looking for!" The look in the Princess' iron gray eyes leaving no doubt in my mind that she meant exactly every word of what she said!
"Just try to behave like a couple of slave girls," Janis said, snapping a pair of empty collars around our necks so that we stood chained in among the other women, all of whom were completely naked and terrified of the great silvery disc that now floated nearly overhead. The craft being, I thought to myself, a full thousand feet across, if not more as it blotted out the Sun!
"And keep your yaps' shut!" she warned, strolling off, the long cloak she now wore along with the rest of her trappings making her look like the captain of a ship like this one. Janis having warned everyone that we would be all "fried" if the Lorr discovered who we were. Actually, as I later learned, the Lorr would have done nothing of the kind, but I suppose at the time it seemed a wise move on Janis' part to have us behave as slave girls. The Princess no doubt fearing that we might both be taken to Mars for questioning and then kept there as their own slaves. A fate that I muchly feared considering what she had told me too!
"You will heave to and prepare to be boarded for inspection," the metallic voice came from the great disc, the soft hum of its anti-gravity generators seeming to come from everywhere at the same time. Once again we felt that tingle I had felt before, the effects of its anti-gravity generators at close range. I thought of the hundreds of thousands of tons floating there above us in that gleaming featureless smooth surfaced disc and shuddered. Even the greatest battleship that ever sailed the oceans of Earth would have been as helpless as the Ronda beneath such Power, such awesome Alien Power as now floated there above us!
The first mate quickly barked the orders that brought the Ronda up with a flapping of the sails into the wind, Janis standing just behind him wrapped in the late captain's cloak. Her words to him, as I later learned, having been few, but in a tone that had doubtlessy left no doubts in his mind what so ever of her "intentions" if he even attempted to betray us to the Lorr!
"Lorraine, I'm scared!" Sharon trembled, clinging to me. "You're not the only one," I assured her as the women on either side of us knelt. I did the same, dragging Sharon down with me. The silvery disc a thousand feet across floating over our heads leaving no doubt that we were in the power of creatures with a technology far beyond anything Man had ever produced. A technology that once carried them across the trackless infinite depths of interstellar space to our solar system some fifty thousand years ago. They had come in their silvery gleaming shining discs when Man had been but a shambling brute back in the Old Stone Age, stooped and hairy, peering out over his world from beneath the heavy brows of primitive and brutal Neanderthal Man.
"I know you're scared," I answered, giving her a smile and holding her close, fighting down in my own heart the terror that sought to overwhelm me at the very thought of meeting the Lorr face to face! Adding as a lovely pair of azure eyes met mine, "Just remember what Janis said and don't speak to them." Knowing well that our accents could very well betray us to the ant-like inhabitants of Mars as being from another time! The horrid alien monsters that now ruled the entire Earth ever since The War five hundred and eighteen years ago!
From the giant disc came two pale beams of light that made the Ronda shudder as it was seized and held, the craft sinking down a bit over us, hiding even more of the sky with its great bulk. The shadow, I noticed to myself, was over a thousand feet across! I thought of the technology, the awesome knowledge it took to build such a craft, and felt much like the first Neanderthals must have felt fifty thousand years ago when they first laid eyes upon the Lorr and their awesome craft!
From beneath the giant disc I saw great doors slide open, and then a smaller craft descended towards us, the smaller craft perhaps no more than thirty odd feet in diameter. The smaller disc quickly settling down alongside us, with its rim just touching the Ronda's rail, an exit ramp then being extended to touch the deck with a gentle bump. A doorway or portal then opening up, and before my eyes I watched three Lorr descend it to the deck. Their movements slow and measured in Earth's oppressive gravity. Their awful heads turning, watching, their bodies encased in some sort of a transparent armor, devices mounted on their backs, with some sort of weapons mounted between their antennae as they stood there on their six legs, black shining ALIEN HORRORS from another star system many light years away now!
The Lorr, unlike humans, are bred for specific tasks. They are all females, the males of the species being extinct for many thousands of years. They reproduce by means of asexual reproduction that is somewhat similar to cloning, but with the use of a system of genetic control that speaks of an awesome technology.
There are three general types of Lorr, the first being what we would call "The Princess", about ten feet long, which is the most intelligent and is usually in command of their activities. The second type is "The Warrioress", about eleven feet in length which has been bred for fighting, their bodies being modified so that they are perfect fighting machines. They are not as intelligent as the "Princess", but are quite "fearless" and will fight on despite the odds against them. The third type is "The Worker", which is somewhat smaller, about nine feet, and performs all the tasks that would be required in their society. They also have their human servants, which outnumber them somewhat, these women being able to do tasks that the Lorr find difficult due to the structure of their forelimbs. The Lorr having only a claw at the end of their leg, not hands like we do. They once had a sort of humanoid servant back thousands of years ago, but these went extinct when the Lorr found that human women were better servants than the little ape-like creatures that they used before. The "Sevitors" are well treated and usually think of Mars as being their "home" just as we consider Earth "home". They can withstand Earth's gravity to a degree, and do act, I believe, sometimes as "spies" to see that THE EDICT is lived up to, although the Lorr prefer to employ native Earth women for this task whenever so possible as more than one Servitor has returned to Mars impregnated, such women often being "easy marks" for Earthmen!
"Want do they want of us?" I heard one of the women mutter, the tone of her voice showing the terror she felt as another Lorr, this one escorted by a young woman, descended from the smaller disc floating alongside the Ronda. She was blonde, about 5'8", very beautiful. Attired in a dark blue form fitting jumpsuit, a wide black belt around her waist with a pistol of some sort there in a holster, and carrying some sort of weapon that looked somewhat like a flashlight there in her right hand. It was my first glimpse of a neuronic whip, one of the punishment devices often used by the Lorr to control and discipline humans.
Three of the terrifying Lorr Warrioresses now stood upon the deck of the Ronda, two facing us, the third facing Janis and the crew. Their antennae waving slowly, such being a sense organ for their sixth sense, which is somewhat like a short range radar from what I have been able to determine, the Lorr having a "radio-radar" sense that is utterly unlike anything us human beings possess! Their bulging black compound eyes, now unshaded thanks to the protective shadow of the spacecraft overhead, were like multi-faceted black jewels that missed little. Their shiny black bodies, completely hairless, covered by a natural horny armor so thick that a sword could hardly cut into it, added to their terrifying appearance. The young woman and the giant ant-like horror pausing for a few seconds before then coming over towards us as we knelt among the naked slave girls, trying our best to look like only another pair of naked sluts that would be supposedly soon be sold in Sarn! I could feel Sharon shivering in terror as I held her close, feeling utterly helpless!
The pair then stopped before us, the blonde beauty an utter contrast to the horror that now regarded us from its multi-faceted eyes. The young woman quietly regarding me from lovely gray- blue eyes while holding her weapon, for such I suspected it to be, at the "ready". I noticed then that she wore some sort of what appeared to be a common "over-the-ear" type of hearing aid there beneath her golden hair as she brushed it back, which rather surprised me considering her youth. It was my first glimpse of the means by which the Lorr, being incapable of speech, use to communicate with other human beings through their human servants.
The Lorr's long antennae extended forward like a pair of slim black whips us as we knelt there before it. The terrible mandibles opening wide as the nightmarish horror then extended a clawed forelimb towards us. Sharon trembling in terror there in my arms as I held her close, her head against my shoulder as we knelt naked and helpless among the slaves. Feeling utterly helpless to protect her from the horror now standing there on its six insect-like legs before us! Then the young woman suddenly said to me, nearly shocking me out of my skin! "Raspa, First Princess of the Lorr, extends you greetings, Doctor Lorraine Marie Duval."
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