PRECIOUS CARGO @Copyright Maureen Lycaon, May 2002. Permission granted to distribute this story freely by electronic means as long as it is unaltered and there is no charge, and to make two hard copies for personal use. All other rights reserved under the Berne Convention. This series contains themes of voluntary sexual slavery, BDSM, furries and science fiction. The furries involved have signed themselves into slavery of their own free will. (But there's no sex in this chapter, just simulated violence. Lots and lots of simulated violence.) If you shouldn't or don't want to be reading this, please don't. Feedback is welcomed: send it to maureen_lcn@yahoo.com. More of my stories, including other chapters of Precious Cargo, may be found at my Velan archive at: http://members.vclart.net/Maureen/index2.html Part 33 The spectator benches were filling up now, charging the air with a tense live-wire expectancy that was heightened by the adrenalin-laced odors of hundreds of furs. It was a different atmosphere from that of yesterday's slave auction, hinting not at sex pheromones but bloodlust. Though the house rules specifically forbade it, Fodessa glimpsed furtive side bets being made in the rows around them. She also noticed raised hackles and other aggression signals. Soungmai and Mya definitely didn't share that excitement. The sambar stag's face still showed that prim disapproval, muted now. His ears turned in every direction and his nostrils flared as he sought to pick out any specific threat that might be lurking in that sea of aggressive excitement. Soungmai couldn't stop his tail from twitching. The rows were nearly full now . . . The holoscreens flickered into life. There was a collective roar, and the crowd stood up as one. Fodessa and the crewmembers stood up with the rest of them. As she watched, her holoscreen's picture resolved, to display an improbable gate of intricately wrought black metallic- looking stuff, soaring up into the heavens until it was lost to sight. Standing before that gate was the nilgai bull of the photo, Vingam Shevar, dressed again in that unlikely blue armor. The other four -- the jaguar who led Team Litan, a muscular black bear, a hard-eyed red deer hart and an equally deadly-looking striped hyena -- stood with him, posing for their admirers, grinning and lifting unlikely ornate hand weapons (and, in the hyena's case, a futuristic-looking bow) into the air. All of them wore the same blue armor. There was, of course, no reason to believe that the players behind those avatars looked anything like their appearance on the holoscreen. Cybergladiators risked arrest on Federation planets and at least public censure on some of the Open ones. Normally, they created fake identities, but the rules of the sport required each player to stick to one such identity and make it that of a real species. A gong sounded, and the gate soundlessly opened. The Team Litan furs ran through it, followed by the cyberspace "camera", into a corridor whose walls, floor and ceiling were flowing dark silver. They slowed to a walk as they passed through a dark, featureless entranceway to the multidimensional maze where the match would take place. Their first task was to find one of the four opposing teams. The maze was not simply a series of empty tunnels; normally its rooms and passageways simulated some sort of recognizable scenery -- scenery that offered cover for ambushes. This one looked like a cross between a warehouse and a crystal factory. Team Litan cautiously worked their way through shadowy rooms half-filled with crates and boxes and oddly shaped equipment, ears perked, weapons at the ready. Every now and then, they'd enter a tesseract and seem to disappear, only to end up in another room. They emerged onto an open platform beneath a dark far-distant ceiling. There were no guardrails, no safety barriers of any kind, only a few small crates scattered around the platform. A narrow silvery-metal walkway bridged the gap between the platform and another platform in the distance. Like the platforms, the walkway lacked any sort of guardrail or handhold. Looking down over the edge with the players, the camera revealed what looked like ornate piping and less describable objects, some of them glowing with white or pale blue or green light . . . far, far below. The members of Team Litan did a quick reconnaissance, and then ran out onto that treacherous walkway in single file, racing for that distant platform. They weren't a moment too soon. No sooner had the last member of the team, the striped hyena, stepped off the walkway onto the rusty metal of the far platform than a large trapdoor in it opened. Heads emerged, and then five bodies -- the gladiators of Team Melang, clad in bright red armor. The two teams roared at the sight of each other, then charged, crashing together. Only the hyena and a little four-horned chowsinga antelope from Team Melang hung back from that clash, and in a few moments it became apparent why they had. The hyena, concealing himself behind a plastic crate, readied his elaborate bow and nocked an arrow that glowed like the pipes below. Meanwhile the chowsinga, crouching behind another crate, readied what appeared to be a hand-held hybrid between a crossbow and a catapult. They eyed the roiling mass of the other combatants, each one searching for an enemy he could safely shoot at without hitting a teammate. Meanwhile, the other gladiators clashed in swirling combat. Blades glittered; a scythe held by the Litan jaguar cut a flashing swath through the air before taking off the head of a Melang chital stag; a fantastically barbed spear impaled the Litan black bear. Blood spattered on the dark metal of the platform. Fodessa was jumping in place, shouting with excitement, tail lashing so hard it struck Windrunner several times. She was barely aware of the other excited, yelling furs around her, shaking fists and hooves in the air, neck fur bristling, eyes and fangs glittering in the reflected light as the cybergladiators cut each other to pieces. Mya kept a tight lid on his revulsion. Appalling, he thought, that civilized furs could revert to this level of semi- carnivorous savagery -- but that had no bearing on his task tonight. Most of the furs around and behind him were totally engrossed in the simultaneous battles on the holoscreens. But a few white-clad furs simply roamed the aisles, their eyes and ears and questing nostrils as watchful as his, and he didn't miss the professional air about them, like unto his own. Kangbai security. That made him feel only slightly better. On the one paw, the kangbai would firmly discourage any real violence in their establishment, either from rival kangbai or from freelancers. On the other paw -- unlikely though it might be, what if *they* had been paid to see to it that Captain Fodessa and her crew didn't leave the Sambezi Whischest alive? He watched the guards with a practiced eye, but saw no suspicious attention directed at his charges. Even so, his nerves quivered with tension. Address comments and criticism to: maureen_lcn@yahoo.com . See above for the URL to my archive.