Wherein the Goddess strips off Her halter. 

She exposes Her nipples to sense the world. 

One knows Her softness might be squeezed. 
 

...Mystery, Babylon the Great, Mother of Harlots... Revelation 
 

The Consort faced the First Slave across the room. "Baduccaa, love. You have been a hard woman to find lately." 
 

"I've been busy, prick." 
 

Busy, she says. Busily fomenting rebellion in the ranks. 
 

"Let me touch you." 
 

"No! Keep away from me or Agnes will kill you." 
 

So it has come to killing now. She has been busy. 
 

"When last we touched you showed more understanding." 
 

"You degraded and humiliated me. I have not forgiven anything." 

"That's my job, lady. All in a day's work. Why do you wear that collar? What is your title again?" 
 

"My status is about to change, as is yours." Her young companion, who had been distractedly witnessing the interview with an air of arrogance, chose that moment to rise and stretch. Slender, but exciting curves. Redhead, enchanting features. I knew that girl. Agnes had no collar, beefy build, broad features, big pistol. Three of them, and me. 
 

"It is safe to say at least your status is changing." Her ass was in fact grass once I got out of here. If. 
 

"Not as much as yours, babe. You are making the great change from the living to the dead." So there it was. I had been dreading words to that effect. I sat down on the floor. "Stand up, shit!" 
 

"Fuck you." Let's see, you won't get away with it? She was Bund to be ready for that one. I have a jillion followers who worship me? That was probably what she was pissed about in the first place. 

The Agnes problem. Agnes did not seem to be a person of exalted consciousness, not to put too fine a point on it. I was pretty sure I could take her out. Two leaps, remove Agnes' eyeballs, and empty the pistol on the remaining occupants of the room. These people did not seem fully aware of my capabilities for aggression; perhaps Baduccaa was in a dealing mood. I sat in a slump. 
 

"I would like to hear your story, please," I requested. Baduccaa peered cautiously at me. This humble man, sitting in a heap, was this the Consort of legend, who had sexually demolished a thousand priestesses? "The Order is changing." 
 

"Right." 

"We are moving beyond the need for a male Consort. We will soon become an all-female organization." 
 

"You're taking over with your dikes." 
 

"If you want to put it that way." 
 

"Do you mean to bar men from the confines of the Temple? If so, how will you get your funding?" 
 

"Prostitution activities will be moved out of the Temple and decentralized." 
 

Won't work, fool. The Temple is a social dynamic in a relatively hostile environment. The way I set it up is about the only way it can function. Move the whores out, they lose the religious aegis, get busted for being whores. No money, no Temple. 
 

"So you will transform the Temple into a lesbian social club." 
 

"Can't you see that's what it is already?" 
 

"There wouldn't be nearly so many gay women around if it weren't for my little Bilbeau." Baduccaa's new toy gave me a startled look. Jennifer, her name was, Jennifer 437. I recalled her now, with that expression, the way she looked when I popped her cherry. A nice ride, tight in the saddle, sings best when lashed hard. So she didn't know her favorite part of Baduccaa was of my manufacture? Ignorant girl. At my wink, she flushed and sat. Baduccaa took on a little dark color at the base of her neck. That's it, antagonize your opposition. They just threatened to kill you. 
 

"You're not the only one who can make those things." 
 

"Want to bet? You're not a technical type, sister. I don't think you know any." Because I had rounded up all the Sisters who were engineers. Not all of them were building hydrostatic penile prostheses with built-in intelligence. 
 

"Fuck that. You're a dead man anyway." 
 

OK. "Far out. What do you do when the Goddess wants her Consort?" 

"I have some men lined up who look like each other. The next Consort will have three Bdies, maybe four. He can show up in a couple places at once, or else service lots of initiates in a night." 

Oh, no, baby. My temple attendants take DNA samples practically by instinct now, off the rims of glasses. Fooling the Sisters with a double is not a plan. 
 

"I gather you couldn't find any single man who could replace me." 
 

"Look, dude, you're the shit. We all know you're a very special individual. But now you are just really in the way, and you got to go. That's it." Sounds depressingly final. Time to jump at Agnes now. Or something. 
 

"I've got an idea for you." Not a very good one. 
 

"Not if it involves you staying alive." Well, in fact... 
 

"Let's back up a minute. I don't think you can run the place. There's a lot you don't know. You need my help. You need my staff." 

"I can't have you around. Most of your staff will have to be liquidated too." Oh yes, first work your way through the Slaves of Ashtoreth to get to that liquidation task. The King's Guard wants to see you. Her plan! I just caught sight of her plan! 
 

"If I were a woman you could keep me around to help you run things. You could collar me, keep me lined out with the lash. My people could stay on the staff." 
 

"You're not." 
 

"I could be. These are modern times." 
 

"Talk." 

"Cut my balls off. You might get a little thrill out of doing that. I go in for surgery, come out a woman. Your slave. You could get big thrills out of that. You get skilled help with the Sisterhood and all the dildos you can use. I get to breathe." As ideas go, that was lousy. 
 

"Mister, before you came in here, I swore that nothing you could say would make any difference, you would never leave this room alive. It's true what they say about your mind, you got to be a fucking genius. I'll take your balls at your suggestion." She stood up and pulled a knife. 
 

Oh shit. I was getting cold. I glanced at Agnes. She was showing her utmost concentration, her eye staring through the pistol sights at mine. A little late for that idea. Jennifer was so interested in me she forgot to close her mouth. Well I'm just a fucking whore I don't rule the fucking world. I stood up and shed all my clothes. I had to speak before my voice failed. 
 

"Just take the testicles. They need the penis for the reconstruction. Leave the skin of the scrotum, too." 
 

"I could take it all," Baduccaa murmured to her knife. 
 

"What fun could I be for you without sexual reflexes? Take my manhood, but leave my nerves." 
 

I held out my wrists for her to bind. She was very close now. "Give me a blessing, Sister." 
 

She hesitated in tying my wrists. "A blessing?" 
 

"A full blessing." Maybe it would take my mind off my problems. Wrong. 
 

She strung me up to my tiptoes. The stunning pain of the whip washed through me, five carefully spaced times. I would get marks. I completely failed to sing during the whipping. Not bravery, not self-control; I just had my mind on other things. 
 

They tied my extremities down to the bed. I asked them to strap down my belly and thighs; I didn't want any slips. Then they were handling my privates. I squeezed my eyes closed and waited. 
 

"Sing!" Baduccaa urged in a whisper. I sung. It hurt. Then I waited, and bled, and slept, and hurt, and waited. 
 

* * * 
 

I kept finding things I needed to have done at the hospital. I got them to take an inch out of my thigh Bnes to reduce my height. I also had some cartilage removed from my larynx to raise the timbre of my voice. I argued that my breasts were too small, until finally I found someone willing to build them up. I had fat pulled from my belly and moved to my hips. I looked at the ceiling a lot, and lay for hours just feeling my new clit. 
 

I changed hospitals. I had some Bne scraped off the tip of my chin, my cheekbones changed a little, and another tuck in my voice Bx. I had electrolysis on my face and chest, and around my anus. I had work done on my teeth and eyes before I admitted to myself I just didn't want to see Baduccaa again and get collared. So I imagined what she could do to the Sisterhood, and left the hospital. 
 

Jennifer took me by the hand to see Baduccaa. She had a collar waiting for me, but first an initiation. Jennifer watched it all. It all started with proper ritual. I knelt in front of Baduccaa with wrists crossed. 
 

"At your service, Mistress," I announced. 
 

"Strip, slave," was my instruction. 
 

I dropped my clothes on the floor. She could have cut them off me with scissors after I was Bund, instead of allowing me to pull them off. I stood nude for her inspection. She weighed my breasts in her hand, fingered my twat, and walked around me. She touched a little ridge of scar tissue on my shoulder-blade, from one of her whip-strokes those months before. 
 

"By damn, you really did it! You look really good, bitch. Congratulations." Then of all things, she leaned in and kissed me briefly on the lips. 
 

I don't know why she did what she did. I expect it was intended ironically. I know why I did what I did. I had been taking massive doses of hormones. I sang. At first a lip- biting whimper, it grew fast into long racking sobs. A woman before she was a sadist and hard-assed conspirator, my mistress who was my enemy gathered me into her arms and breathed into my hair. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be! I had to kill this woman later, and here she was rubbing comfort into my back while I leaked tears on her sternum. Well, she would straighten me out in a minute. I looked forward to her lash. 
 

"Let's go over to the bed, lover," she whispered. "This is your new room. We'll put your collar on, but finish the rest later. You're tired." 
 

"Thank you mistress," I mumbled as she locked my slave collar around my neck. Slaves aren't allowed to forget customary courtesies. So my first day as slave to the First Slave, I slept without bracelets and anklets, in only my collar, my back smooth. I was alone, in a strange room, but I felt comfortable and at home. 

Jennifer walked in with a tray in the morning, calling "Jessie?" Slaves don't need privacy, don't have doors, just a translucent sound-deadening curtain. "Soy sausages with breadfruit. Get it while it's hot." She kicked my castoff clothes into a corner. 
 

"Hey girl," I grinned. "Jessie who?" 
 

"Your name. Jezebel 353. Things got a little mixed up yesterday." 

"Yeah, sorry I was so fucking informal. Can I have that juice?" 
 

"There's some coffee too. Want some of my hot peppers?" 
 

"How hot? Do you remember me? As a man?" 
 

"Like yesterday." She looked into some remote place as she chewed. "I was a little nervous. Fuck, I was scared shit less. You knew all that, you took it in, and you were still hard. Rough. You worked me just right. I worshiped you. Literally, I mean. You know half the virgins you popped really thought you were a god?" 

She drank some coffee. "Scared little girl, it's like you were saying, I'm going to prove to you how strong you really are, you got the guts to be a bad-ass woman, if you can take a whipping like this and this and this and this and keep on breathing then you're gonna fucking live, and if you live any longer you're gonna cum. Damn you were good, baby, you were the best. There is no other man like you were. Everybody in the world knows it, everybody heard about you." 
 

Oh. I swallowed that lump of hot coffee pretty hard, like it was a rock. "Jennifer," I said softly, "girlfriend, you're looking at a woman who's never been laid." 
 

"Ah," she said eloquently, "Oh." 
 

"What's it feel like to lose your cherry?" 
 

"It's great, it fuckin hurts. The prick, in this case you, pushes at your vagina, dead end, can't push there no more. Well surprise, the bastard pushes on through and tears you open. You can feel it rip." 

"Cool." 

"Cool ain't the word, it's out fuckin rageous, it's great." 
 

"Girlfriend, if you could turn me out, I'd be grateful." 
 

"Fuck. You got a hymen?" 
 

"Well, like that. It's an extra flip of skin they said would work like that. Feel in here, right there, that's it. For you if you want it. Not many people can say they popped each other's cherry, am I right?" 
 

"Don't move, whore. I'll be back." I moved the tray away and leaned back to take a little kiss, a kind of medium kiss, letting her tongue in to explore my mouth cavity, probing around, around. We started the faster breathing that is not from tension, but a relaxation. It was relaxing to feel her fingers rubbing my pussy. I had a lot to learn about being a woman, but I meant to enjoy my lessons all I could. 
 

"Be back." I supposed she was gone to fetch a dildo device, the one I designed. I had some minor improvements in mind already for the thing, but wait until I had been a woman for a while. Then I could really re-think the design intelligently. I had some preparations to make. I rummaged in my discarded clothes, got what I needed, and threw the street clothes in the trash. Slaves didn't leave the Temple. I took a hormone pill with a swallow of cold coffee and threw the remains of breakfast on top of my clothes. I squatted on the commode, pissed, tidied up with dry fingers, then washed a little. Very little, Jenny might just be going around the corner, and there was something I had to get done. 
 

I got my tube of lubricant and lay back on the bed. There was a little channel in my skin leading to a subcutaneous reservoir for lubricant. An option, they had called it. Pressure on the area was supposed to gradually pump drops of lubricant into my vagina. The latter was made of skin, not mucus membrane, so all my lubrication had to be artificial. I made sure my little tank was topped off. Jennifer was slender but strong, and she had a lot of stamina. OK, check the face. 
 

Right on, lights and mirrors galore, even for a slave. This Temple had some shit going for it, but I wished the bench were warmer, frigid on the little fanny. I literally did not have a stitch to wear. Should any occasion pop up for which nudity would be inappropriate, I would have to go underdressed. I realized with a start that I must be happy, to think in such terms. Eyeliner, mascara. That was it, I was fucking happy. Shadow just here. Eyebrow pencil. 

I loved the Temple, that must be it. Skip the blusher, she would raise my color. I couldn't hang around here as a stud, so a slave to a slave would. Legally, I suppose I might be called an initiate assigned to the high priestess, but among the priestesses we used the plain English word. To get the lipstick right was very important. There was no telling what I might have to smear it off onto. It was better to think of myself as a slave, for I knew Baduccaa would spend some effort in very thoroughly reminding me what it meant to be a slave. Must kill that woman someday. Not smart enough, nor subtle enough, to lead the Order forward. Then who? Only one obvious answer, staring me in the face, scraping off a tiny smear of lipstick with a fingernail. Nails! Damn! 
 

I was always proud of my strong nails, they made a handy auxiliary weapon in sadistic encounters. Having let them grow long since going in the hospital, they were in pretty good shape. A good deep purple seemed about right. They shouldn't get messed up much, because my hands were going to be tied. I was humming a song. Shut up, bitch. 
 

I had neither rope nor whip. I would have to wait until Baduccaa presented me with them. Also she needed to give me my other Bndage jewelry, the metal anklets and bracelets fitted for ropes. Also maybe something to wear, but she didn't have to. It was quite proper to make your slave go naked in the Temple, and slaves never went anywhere else, in practice. I could live with it, if she wanted it like that. 
 

* * * 
 

Jennifer popped in when I was finishing the last toenail. "You're lookin' good, Jessie. Skinny ass though. I was looking for you yesterday, but when I saw you I just didn't know you. You changed every part about you. You're shorter, you have to weigh twenty pounds less. Your hair and eyes are a different color, and I've never heard your voice before. Nice voice, by the way." 

"Thank you," I replied. Bravely: "Can I Brrow your ritual objects?" 
 

"Sure, babe," she responded in a slick tone. She slipped them over to me readily. I took the rope in my right hand, the whip in my left. I knelt on the floor very close to her, my knees almost touching her toes. Stretching my bare, unbraceletted wrists crossed above my Bwed head, I offered her own ritual objects back to her. She took them gently, letting my crossed wrists rest between her breasts as she tucked away the whip. In seconds my wrists were firmly secured together. 
 

I let out a high-pitched moan of relief as I relaxed into the utter freedom of having no control over events. Jenny rubbed the rough whip on my bare back and urged me to sing baby. Well give me some reason to sing, girlfriend. She shook off her translucent gown and stuck her nakedness my way. Oh sweet meat that girl had a pretty Bdy. Belly of steel. Her nipples were defying the world, insulting the world with their beauty. She calmly buried her left hand in my hair, clutching it next to the scalp to establish dominance. 
 

"This is gonna be fun, Jessie." 
 

"Lover, I live for your pleasure." 
 

"Yeah, well wet me down, slave, warm me up." She jammed my face down in her crotch, and I started gobbling everything within reach of my lips and tongue. She thumped me on the back with the folded whip to show me I was on target. She couldn't really hit me with it, of course, until penetration. This was only friendly encouragement. I sunk my tongue in her tight young vagina. Nice taste! Jenny made a sigh with a catch in it as I slopped that nice taste up over her clitoris. Her pussy was a nice snack, but then she forced my face further back between her legs. Her anus was my desert. Interesting taste. My neck ached from the angle. I licked clean the crack of her ass, then squeezed my tongue up into her asshole. I couldn't breathe, and I could move only my tongue as I repeatedly jabbed it in her ass as quick as I could. 

"Hmm..." she said, releasing my hair. I breathed. She took out her dildo. It was flat black. I got a close-up view of its insertion. A plug went in her anus, and a larger plug in her vagina. A cup the size of a thimble covered the clitoris, and a big erection stuck up front. The bags that resembled testicles were reservoirs for the working fluid. She squeezed the tip of her hydraulic dick, to make sure it was working as programmed. Her muscle telegraph told me it was working, that her squeeze had spun tiny fingers against her clit. "Suck on this." 
 

* * * 
 
 
 
 

Brother Tom told Sister Jezebel, "That story is absolutely true, about me reading the hieroglyphs, or rather the cuneiform. I went through a phase when I thought the inscriptions were changing, or being changed. I didn't know why, but I thought the stone itself was reshaped to allow alterations in the text carved in it. I certainly came up with very different interpretations of the same panel at different times. But I'm not a scholar of ancient languages, I'm just a poet. When Allie announced in her modulated tones, that it would not be necessary for me to leave, I was worried, like maybe she meant I couldn't leave, like I was captured or something. Maybe that's true, because I haven't left the Temple since. 

"But all she really meant was that I could stay and get laid, and she showed me irresistible seductive girls, and I got to talk to one of them. I realized she was a plain person like me, and then she switched on the charm, and made me agree I wanted to touch her, and that I would perform the ritual to honor the Goddess. She showed her pussy, and opened and closed it for me. I said I would be right up. A cute grinning girl, nearly naked, came to take me by the hand to lead me to her. I was drugged somehow between steps, and a person I wouldn't like to name was giving me a super strange quiz, to see whether I may have subconscious memories of certain unimaginable religious events in the first days of writing. I don't think I scored very well, but I never claimed to be a prophet, just a poet. 
 

"After that I scored with the girl I talked to, and it was every bit as good as I hoped it would be, except that the whip part was a little bit better than I wanted it to be. I felt like apologizing to the girl I had used, but she didn't give me a chance. She seduced me when I had untied her hands, and I got hard all over again, and put it in again, and she had me hold her hands down, and I slapped her in the side, and she had a screaming climax, and a few minutes later did it again. Right then I saw her face as the true face of the Sisterhood, and I wanted to leave. I would have left except I was hungry and sleepy, and she fed me and put me to bed. 
 

"When I woke up I was sharing the bed with another beautiful naked girl, who introduced herself and asked me to take her ritual objects, all the while caressing me seductively. She strongly hinted she wanted anal intercourse. We made some arrangements, and later she asked if I would take it from a man. I said if a man really turned me on I would think about it. She started telling me about you, that is about the Consort. She had a way of putting things that made me horny, well, want to get some sex from you. I didn't even know I was being initiated until you gave me that vow, I didn't even know there was such a thing as a Communicant, until I swore to become one. I didn't know sex could be such a mind-altering experience, until you showed me some stuff. Then I found out I was better with the girls, that I had something to give them. I started learning. The true face of the Sisterhood is the face of the Goddess, of course. That's what I'm looking for." 

* * * 
 
 
 
 

Jezebel won't tell me her secrets. The Sisterhood is bigger and more complicated than it seems. Financially at least, and probably in a lot of other ways. I found this out by poking around in the System. I can't get a satisfactory floor plan of the Temple. I think the Consort concealed a major arsenal somewhere. I think a large capital resource in the form of some kind of weaponry may be cached within a few hundred meters of me. 
 

I wonder about the desirability of torturing Jezebel until she breaks. After I give her enough pain that I observe her willingness to talk, will she be physically able to speak all the information I need? Will she live long enough? The thought of giving a human being enough hostile pain to break their will gives me a sick chill. The taste of the soul of the human being I would be, while such an operation was performed and thereafter, is not how I want the remainder of my life to taste. In other words, I don't want to do that. 
 

I can sacrifice a volunteer; I can conduct High Ceremony; and I can cut the testicles off a live conscious adult male. But these are activities in honor of the Goddess. To serve my slave with permanent injury and possibly death does not seem like it is giving consecrated pain. It does not enhance her initiation nor lead to her ecstacy; I cannot find any argument that torturing her is serving her ends at all. She is an initiate, which makes her my Sister, although she is my slave. So the pain I could give her must somehow enhance her initiation level. Can I get her declared a non-Sister? 
 

In a mechanical sense, I could do it to her. I have thought a lot about just what should be done to what parts of her flesh to maximize her pain, horror and despair. Most of these are very bloody. All of them would have to be ultimately terminal. I couldn't mess her up like that and then let her live. I am sure that in artistic sense, she would appreciate that such a result would spoil the work. For her to live mutilated, deformed, only partly functional, and in constant unconsecrated pain, forever unworthy to be considered for sacrifice: neither she nor I would allow it. Once I started, I would have to kill her. Setting the questions aside of can I do it, and should I do it, there is the practical question of whether it would work. The secrets of my slave are not simple secrets. Some of them are technical issues which would take a lot of time just to relate. To simply speak her secrets, error-free, she needs enough consciousness to concentrate through the pain. Presumably, she will know her Bdy is not getting fixed up this time, and that she is at the most hours from death. If she is allowed too much consciousness, too much leisure to think, she will insert a subtle trap into the information she feeds me, some intricate sabotage for her postmortem revenge. The precise degree and timing of hostile pain delivery has to be considered an art, parallel to our own art of loving pain. 
 

* * * 
 

The news that the Sisterhood considers me a slave rather than a novice is a stunner. It is a big setback in my plans. Not only can Baduccaa do with me what she will, which was true anyway, but I don't have any prospect of advancing my status as a Sister, my initiation level. This has meaning to me in sexual terms: I can't pick up the brownie points I will need to again assume the dominant, penetrating sex role. That is the part I am good at, the part where I have most of my practice, being a male most of my life. In the Temple environment, this means that I will always be the one who sinks to my knees, offering up my rope and whip with crossed wrists. 
 

Oh, the role of slave is fun enough, I suppose. Getting beaten and all, it has its moments. Queen B is so nasty she's sweet, and she's a champ in bed. I transcended the pain of my castration, and caught a fixation on her. I may be in love with her. Certainly being tied, beaten and fucked by her has become my favorite way to spend my time. She obliges me a lot lately. Someday soon she will kill me for food. Or I could trick her into beating me to death instead, but that sounds like even less fun. 
 

They say it's the best way to go out, in the bellies of your Sisters. I can't think of any death I can really say I would prefer. It is the highest art form among the Sisters. Sacrifice chips are their most valued data treasures. It's considered good form to sing clearly as long as you physically can. Every muscle of your Bdy should be pulsing with tension as you pull against the Sisters holding your limbs. You are screaming your throat muscles out (you won't be needing a throat any more) when the Sister with the stone knife slices open your chest. Your unbelieving ears hear your song gurgle into silence as the Sister tugs out your heart, slices a few tubes, and thrusts it throbbing against your face. When your lips touch your beating heart you're just made of meat. Your Sisters clean you out inside, skin you, and cut you up to be cooked. At the meal they talk about you, your last sex act and the way you died, as they eat you. The chip of your final hour is appreciated as rare art. 
 

In my case, the point is that the Sisters have never sacrificed anyone who did not genuinely volunteer for the honor. But as Baduccaa's personal slave, I have no responsibility over my own life. All decisions regarding me are decisions she makes. Therefore, she is perfectly free to volunteer me for sacrifice at her whim; it is unquestionably her right to do so. Religious law constrains the circumstances of my death only as pertains to eating my meat. I do not believe my mistress will forego the pleasure of eating my flesh, therefore she may not torture me to death. I can expect probably the traditional curved stone altar against my naked back, following the equally traditional rape. Cardiectomy is pretty rough for about two seconds, but when you kiss your heart it's over. Your Sisters who love you will chew on your muscles and talk about you. I really believe that in the bellies of your Sisters is the best way to go. But I don't want to. 

* * * 
 
 
 
 
 

Merribelle saw the Sister carrying a covered platter in the corridor, in the area of the Temple she privately referred to as the high-rent district. This was where the Numbered Slaves, as well as much of the Hierarchy, maintained their quarters, many of them plush apartments or suites. This woman was not a novice, too old to be one of the pampered joy girls who were such a scandal of the Hierarchy, but she was evidently in a condition of servitude, bringing food to her Mistress. She looked familiar somehow, though she walked with her face down. 
 

When the Sister saw that Merribelle's feet shared the corridor with her, she flicked her eyes up. The instant she saw Merribelle, she blanched and turned on her heel. She started to hurry down the corridor the opposite way, almost running. But Merribelle found this unsatisfactory. In that glimpse of the woman's face, she knew a haunting familiarity, that she could not quite put her finger on. She definitely knew her from somewhere, but more significantly, the woman knew her, and did not want to see her. That was strange, extraordinary, and could not go unchallenged. Merribelle ran down the corridor after her. 
 

She grasped the woman's elbow. "Sister, a word please." 
 

The woman's back was rigid. Her shoulders were oddly broad, and her ass a bit lumpy like the natural fat had been slapped on. She would not look around. "Please excuse me, Sister. I must hurry." 

The voice. This woman was known to her. "You hurried the opposite direction a second ago. Turn and face me." 
 

The face. Gods and goddesses. Merribelle had never fainted under torture. She felt dizzy. "Name, Sister," she demanded in a strangled voice. Too much. She sat down in the corridor. 
 

"Jezebel. I am Sister Jezebel," the woman said tightly. She sat down with her, putting the tray aside. She moved to embrace her. "Oh, Merribelle," she wept. 
 

"My lord Consort," Merribelle whispered. "Carl." They held each other to hold out the strangeness of the universe. 

"I am slave to B," murmured Jezebel. "She torments me. She may kill me soon." 
 

"By the seven names of the Goddess. Let me help you. I have never liked that girl. I will clean her clock." Merribelle despised the intrigue of the Temple. She did not follow the intricacies of the power games. She did, however, have a fleet. Under certain circumstances, that might count for something. 
 

"Merribelle, do nothing. It is important. Promise me." 
 

"Sister Jezebel. My lady. You and I have argued three hundred and fifty-one times. You have been wrong every time. If you do not convince me of your course of action, I swear by the Seven Names and the Three Secret Names I will tear the roof off this Temple. Your Mistress will go for a ride she does not want. Do you think I might mean to fulfill my oath?" 
 

"Sister Merribelle, please. I have no time to explain." 
 

"Sister Jezebel, you must find time in the next twenty- five hours to talk to me. After that, I will be gone, to see to a certain oath I have made." 
 

"You are uncompromising. We have understanding. If I am not chained, I will somehow arrange to see you. Ah. Do you know a male secular, who could request me as Worshiper?" 
 

"Would you discuss our matters in the presence of a secular? Under the observation of Monitors?" 
 

"Shit. Still, that's the surest way to get me from under B's thumb," said Jezebel. 
 

"I will have you requested, then just don't go. Come to my place instead." 
 

"Deal. I gotta go, seriously, right now. I love you." 
 

"I love you. See you." 
 

The next afternoon Merribelle got a call from Jezebel, saying to meet her in the gardens, inside the Ashera Gate. When she got to the Ashera Gate, no one was in sight. She strolled in the area for a moment, then Jezebel stepped from behind a bush, motioning her to follow. They proceeded through the gardens a couple dozen paces, then Jezebel left the stone path to show her a tree with limbs which hung near the ground. Making their way through the tangle of limbs and foliage, they sat at the Ble of the tree after inspecting carefully for ants. 
 

Jezebel hugged her. Merribelle felt a welter of emotions washing through her. As a woman, she didn't look bad. Her breasts were decently full, and her stomach well tucked in. The facial features of the Consort had always been more delicate than robust, and a lot of work had been done there which left her actually pretty. The adam's apple was essentially missing, but no scars showed. She spoke an octave higher. 
 

"Merribelle, I have missed you. When I saw you yesterday, I wanted to hide because I am ashamed. No one can help me. When I was defeated, I promised to enslave myself. That kind of promise I cannot forswear, so I am held in Bnds stronger than any chain." 
 

"Hey, fool, wake up," prodded Merribelle. "No, no. First let me say I love you. Then allow me to add you're looking good, girl. You're a female now, in case you hadn't noticed. Your shoulders are too wide and your hips too narrow, but give me a chance and I could try to whip you into shape. How did you get so much shorter? Basically not bad. I can say in perfect honesty you're a pretty woman. The transformation is amazing. Now that I have all that off my chest, let me say hey, fool, wake up." 

"I love you too. I wish I could give you the chance to whip me into shape. You couldn't succeed, but the effort would be worthwhile. Thank you for your kind words. Thanks for the insults too. They give me the illusion things are normal." 
 

Merribelle said, "Oh, everything is normal. Half my friends get sex changes once in a while to keep from getting Bred. The other half are always selling themselves into slavery. It discourages their creditors. My entire life has been nothing but a dreary sameness since I met you. Same old perversions, palace coups, mutilations, building secret fleets; I think I shall die of ennui." 

"Have we been through some shit, Merribelle? We have no time for nostalgia," said Jezebel. "I must discourage you from displaying air power." 
 

"I have given some consideration to this matter through the night," Merribelle admitted. "On balance, my resolution has aspects which are imprudent. Should we settle on a less spectacular way to neutralize Baduccaa, I will abandon the specific means which first sprang to my mind. Its appeal lay in its being immediately and undeniably effective, an instant and permanent resolution to the problem. I have no background in palace intrigue. Subtlety escapes me. There are no crowds of spies and assassins at my command. I will listen politely to your suggestions. Then I will take outside counsel, for I can no longer trust your motivation." 
 

"Oh, Merribelle, why must you plot to destroy my Mistress? Surely our plans can be revised to accommodate the changed situation. Give the matter some time," pleaded Jezebel. 
 

"My dear Sister. That is the commodity we have run out of. Do you think my task is an easy one? Try to conceal the existence of a war fleet for a while, while building it up. I literally juggle disasters daily. It is only a matter of time until one of them falls. Ask Sister Elanor how she rates our present security profile. The world turns no matter how deeply we in the Hierarchy are preoccupied in our internal squabbles. If you fail to acknowledge that our Triumph deadline has priority over obscure personal preferences, you must accept the natural consequences which result. 

"I will put the matter more bluntly. You have failed catastrophically with Baduccaa. You have run out of time to deal with her. To survive to implement your plans, or such ragged shreds of your plans as are left, you must get clear of her. She plunges headlong toward imminent doom, see that she does not take you with her. I don't know how I can make the matter any clearer. You may fly with me at this moment, and escape her fate. I urge you to do so." 
 

Jezebel responded in confusion. "I am gratified that you should offer to save me. Naturally I appreciate any concern you express on my behalf. I do not understand the reason for it. You must help me, Mer. I am not thinking as clearly as I should. In the course of my surgery, I have been out of touch for some months. Have there been ominous developments while I was under the knife? Fill me in on the bad news." 
 

"You nut, Baduccaa herself is the bad news, on two legs. You mentioned yesterday she might kill you. That must be a factor. The woman is a lycanthrope. She is beyond the pale. Did you know she announced herself to be a Manifestation of the Goddess in human form? Worse is that the Sisterhood has ignored her claim. Like they were disregarding a social gaffe. Pretending it was never said. In my opinion, all have been waiting for some kind of confirmation from the Consort before making judgment. Naturally the rumor has started that you are dead. 
 

"I myself feared the worst for you, when I saw you had transferred a ton of your useless aeronautical speculations to my code Rapunzel. I knew if you were still in circulation, you would have preferred to feed me this dreck one tidbit at a time, so I could bat it down as it deserved. I have tested the burble jet of yours in threefold symmetry, by the way, and found it to be stable even at low speeds where your two-banger model collapsed into chaos. So I went ahead and put the engine into production." 

"Great! I ask for bad news and you give me good. But I must agree on the need to take B in hand. I had not known of such a claim she made," mentioned Jezebel. 
 

"No. The only one among us able to control the High Priestess has lost the equipment needed to do so. Events have passed beyond that point. She must be taken out of the picture. If she lives, the Sisterhood will die. The choice is stark," said Merribelle. 
 

"Oh, Merribelle. That we have come to such a pass, to speak coldly of killing a Sister." 
 

"Nevertheless, that is what confronts us. Come with me now, and I will fly you to safety. You will not have to dirty your hands. I will see that the First Slave is called to High Ceremony to answer for the Manifestation remark. We can dispose of the matter formally, and all will be chillingly correct," offered Merribelle. 

"Not if the Dark Confessor is in league with Baduccaa. How could you ever know, until the High Ceremony backfired on you? Let me see you walk up to the Dark Confessor, and ask where her sympathies lie. There could be High Ceremony in our honor, were we to successfully arrange the death of our Bss. B, my darling, now look what a fine mess you've got me in. I can't leave, Merribelle. I engineered this pile of shit. I have to help clean it up." 
 

"Jezebel, you're a slave. When it hits the fan, you may not be able to get out of the way. Please." 
 

"Can't. I love the woman, you see. When the time comes, I will hold the blade. Please dismiss me now." 
 

"Good-bye. I love you." 
 

* * * 
 
 
 
 

Jessie and B have killed each other. I wish I could have seen it coming. B was growing almost hysterically cruel, and Jessie was sopping it up, pliant and servile to the same extent. Nothing could tell you she had any will of her own left, except sometimes some little muscles around her eyes when she forgot to control them. She projected that she only lived to gratefully absorb the pain which B would dish out to her with increasing fury. Ever since the slave decision, she thought she could stay alive only by fawning at B's feet. Finally, I guess B decided to finish her, but something happened. 
 

I ache. I am not used to grief this strong. Two of my beloved Sisters have killed each other. It is more personal because they Bth were lovers to me. It is more serious because they Bth were the leaders of the Sisterhood. It is more frightening because I do not understand what happened in those few seconds. I long to cry on the breast of a dominant Sister, but I can't find anyone I know well enough who would serve. There are not enough Sisters left who are still senior to me! 
 

Inadvertently, casually, I have gained rank. I have gold on my collar. My old friends, other girls my age, I have left far down the hierarchy. I didn't advance in the usual ways, beating novices, politics, power struggles. I was always on the staff, an aide to this or that one, taking charge of messy little details, mainly hanging around waiting to be asked for my rope and whip. That's the truth, I was just in it for the sex. Any advancement, some favoritism, made me purr and nuzzle. Even when I got the gold, I didn't realize anyone would take it seriously. Everyone knew I was just the toy of the ones at the top. Well, it could get serious now. Most of the women wearing gold are specialists, doing jobs nobody else could fill. 
 

I have just finished a small study of the top personnel of the Sisterhood. I can't be sure who commissioned it, but it wasn't B. It could have been the Dark Confessor, or even an initiative of the System itself, but most likely it was Jessie's request. My findings leave me no doubt at all that I will be selected for general office in the Sisterhood. I will become a numbered Slave, probably Third, Fourth or Fifth Slave. The First Slave is dead, and the Second is unwilling and unsuitable to fill the office. The Third Slave will probably become First Slave, and the Second will take immediate transfer out of the Temple, to the factories either underground or overseas. The Fourth and Fifth will bump up either one or two grades, depending on where they slot me in. High Ceremony will accompany some of these changes, but especially mine. 

This is how it will happen. In the next few hours, certainly this day, the King's Guard will come through my door with naked blades and seize me. By tradition, I will not be allowed a second to finish whatever I'm doing nor to prepare myself. I will be hauled off immediately to face High Ceremony. The chains will pull me away, whether I'm making love, or on the toilet, or bathing, whatever. In the Chamber I will be chained to a frame before the Dark Confessor wearing her hooded cloak, and my clothes will be cut off me. I will be stripped absolutely naked, losing even my jewelry and Collar. Then I will get whipped with the long whip until I bleed. High Ceremony is always marking, so at least one of the strokes must by judged likely to leave a lifelong scar before the Guard will stop. I will sing, and I might piss on myself, because I've heard that happens a lot. Then the Dark Confessor will announce my promotion to the other hooded women present. Up until her announcement, the procedure would have been the same were I to be executed on the spot. She will stand on a stool to place my new collar around my neck, and kiss my tear- stained cheeks. The Guards will release my chains, and the medical Sisters will examine and treat me, and determine whether I can go home or to the hospital underground. 
 

Our hospital. That's where Jessie is dying now, or dead, and I can't see her. Oh, Jessie, my love, my love. How hard were your last days, and how hard your dying hours! I put you in that hospital before, when I helped B geld you. I pulled your thighs apart, and held your scrotum up to her knife, and I'm sorry, for you were the best of men. You were a fine woman, my lover in Bth sexes, and I know now how I love you regardless of sex. You're just a whore, my love, you don't rule the world, but you tried so hard to change things, as hard as anyone could. Sometimes you seemed more than human, like after B ran you through, you knew that was your death wound. But you didn't soften and die like a human, you kept your bleeding belly hard, you made her give up and die. 
 

The scene from the monitor cameras was the most incredible thing I have ever witnessed. I was the first to make a chip of it, before any official or private action could censor or change it. Neither one of them says a word. Jennifer submits to B's tie, but not with her usual eagerness. You can tell she is nervous, she knows something is wrong. B is flushed, her motions jerky. She tosses Jessie's whip aside. She goes over to the bed and fishes a glass sword from under the pillows. Jessie gets scared. She gets up off her knees and starts backing away. 
 

B runs up to her, holding the sword at waist level in Bth hands. Jessie tries to put her tied hands in the way. B stabs with the sword. It slices Jessie's forearm and penetrates the upper abdomen. B pushes. The point comes out Jessie's lower back. It has obviously gone through the stomach and some intestine and come out through the liver. On Jessie's face you can read the pain, shock, knowledge of death. She just grunts. 
 

B hisses through her teeth. She pulls the blade back part way and jabs it through again. It comes out Jessie's back in a slightly different place. This time Jessie's wrists are against its edge. The rope is cut and her wrists are freed, one of them slightly cut. B pulls the sword out and stands back looking. Jessie sways and moans but keeps standing. 
 

Then the chip becomes surreal, amazing. Jessie changes her face. The clenched features smooth. She gazes calmly at B like she's never seen her before. Her posture straightens, the flow of blood slows. B backs up another step. Jessie strides smoothly over to B's altar like she's just dropped in casually to examine it. B shivers, the sword wavers in her hand. Jessie picks up the flint sacrifice knife and shows B. She points to it with her other hand and smiles at B. Regretfully. 
 

B trembles violently and starts to wail a strange, wavering cry. The sword is completely forgotten. It slips from her fingers and falls to the floor. B sinks to her knees like she just lost all her strength. Jessie steps over to her, slowly, slowly. From this point, B begins a constant series of short piteous moans. She grasps her rope and holds it out in Bth hands, as if to say: Please don't do this to me with my wrists free. Jessie takes the flint knife in her teeth and efficiently knots a wrist, then pulls the other wrist behind B's back. She leaves an insulting eighteen inches of slack between the two knotted wrists. Any Sister could get out of such a tie, given five seconds unattended. B will not have those seconds. 
 

Jessie methodically cuts off B's gown, and gently lays her on her back, the tie rope under the hips. She puts a knee on B's shoulder, and the other on her hip Bne. Blood drips onto B's side. Jessie leans over and softly brushes her lips on B's eyelid. B shudders and draws in her last deep breath. Her shriek is piercing, continuous. She clenches all her skeletal muscles in impressive form. Jessie swiftly makes the incision, reaches in the chest cavity, pulls out the heart, and severs all the vessels. B bubbles into silence. She distinctly purses her lips to meet her spewing, throbbing heart, then her horrified gaze is fixed on nothing. She kicks, spasms, pisses, and is still. Jessie releases a gout of blood to mingle with B's, and with her last strength crawls to the System console to press the emergency sequence. 

That's all of it. I intend to keep this chip. 
 

B's meat is now being cooked in the sacred kitchen. Though we had grown apart lately, we were once lovers. She was a good First Slave, and died as splendid a sacrifice as any Sister could ask. I will enjoy eating her meat. 
 

* * * 
 
 
 
 

The System has begun to offer up disturbing secrets. These are in open data files, without any initiation level assigned. I don't think anyone else has noticed yet. I'm fairly sure the First and Second Slaves don't know anything about it. This stuff is hot, I mean hot stuff. Every one of these new files I've found I have tagged with a tracer, so I will be able to tell who accesses them and when. They are not easy to find, because they have quasi-Godel labels. In effect, that means it takes a fairly high level of initiation to be able to find your way to them, in that you have to be really familiar with the System to work your way through the labyrinth of quasi-Godelization. 
 

But since they are open, any Sister poking around at random could plop down in the middle of one of these files, and they should not be that available. The newest novice, or even a Lay Sister on the streets, could find out things which should be assigned an initiation level of about a zillion. And now for the big problem: since they are in flat data files, the System thinks no more of them than just some other facts of physics or biology, and is merrily starting to cross- reference these Bmbshells. Something is bad wrong somewhere. Oh, shit. What can I do? 
 

I can't just arbitrarily assign new initiation levels to access the files. For one thing, that's a rather complex process, and there is supposed to be a sound spiritual reason for each initiation. After all, a woman has to do some work to learn an initiatory secret, as well as get fucked and beaten. Also, and this is the real reason, any new level I assign needs the okay of the First and Second. Frankly, I don't think they should see some of this stuff. 
 

I know where this data originated. It is information which was under the personal control of Jessie. It all comes from the time when she was the Consort. She hid it all from B, and a damned good thing. Now it is being released because Jessie's dead. She played the System like an organ. If there were anyone to take my bets, I would bet the Consort had a hand in organizing the System itself. Nobody knows, unless the Dark Confessor knows, and her you don't ask. 
 

Luckily the cross-reference is going very, very slowly. It is done at the rate Sisters are asking for certain types of information, not at System speeds. If the System took a notion, this data could all be spilled across everybody's files in a hatful of milliseconds. Believe me, people would notice. This all feels kind of strange to me. I am a high officer in a secret society, which has an existence based upon secrets. I live in a Temple shrouded in secrecy, which is filled with secrets wrapped up in other secrets. Now my most urgent concern is with some facts nobody knows, and my worry is because they aren't secret enough. Is there something wrong with this picture? 
 

We have a base on the Moon, how's that grab you. Oh, you didn't know we had regular space flight? Where have you been, Antarctica? I suppose you mean at the Sisterhood's base down there. Do you know how many Sisters there really are? I promise you, you would not believe it. What is the name of the largest organization of smugglers in the world? Do you need a hint? Have you ever heard of an undersea munitions factory? No, not a factory which makes depth charges. For just being a bunch of whores, we are into some really strange games. Just how the fuck much money do we control? Just where the fuck did we get all that? Just what the fuck are we doing with it and why? And tell me, please tell me, this is a serious question, who fucking knows? 
 

The Sisterhood here in the Temple is like an iceberg that doesn't know that anything exists below the water line. If the tiniest bit of this new information leaks out to the streets we won't be floating on water. We'll be in a world of shit. 
 

* * * 
 

Society was caught in a turbulence, an ethical whirlpool. The dilemma was that flaws could be pointed out in the traditional structure of values: that it was a perspective of a few dominant wealthy men. From any other aspect, the values didn't make sense, and what mostly showed was bias. People veering away from this realization, that the traditional values of society were rooted no deeper than the greed of a particular clique, had circled back to make another pass at the same problem. Once this circuit was formed, catastrophic turbulence set in, for high-order effects from the formation of this eddy formed smaller eddies in the medium, the ethical fabric of society. 
 

Ethics was technically in a chaotic state. The advent of the Sisterhood at this time enucleated the growth of a value structure wholly different from the paternalistic, restrictive, and retributive model which had prevailed throughout recorded history. The key was that it was based on a female perspective of society. The choice of a painful perversion seemed a natural caricature of the vengeful dominant male. As a psychological weapon directed at the ruling clique, its destructiveness was enormous. The men of the ruling class came to see themselves as Worshipers, at least potentially. Suddenly the possibility lay open before them, of fastening a young and beautiful girl to a bed and making her scream, and fucking her at their leisure. They didn't have to really do it. It cracked their facade just because they were aware they could do it, they had the money contribution for the Goddess and they could make the time. 
 

The old value system crumbled and melted away. Women Bught into masochism as an integral part of female sexuality, openly willing to admit than pain could potentiate sexual euphoria. The immemorial suffering of Woman was thus brought into a new light. Outside the traditional women's groups, which were committed by program to working within the traditional structure, the recognition was universal that the theater called the Sisterhood was showing the world an exaggerated view of how society appears to women. The world is a place a lot like the Temple: you get fucked and you get beaten, and sometimes you get to eat and sleep. The women of the world took this analogy to heart. 
 

It was natural that the old male-centered view of ethics should give way to a female-centered view. What was unexpected was that this feminine perspective was not simply a matriarchical version of the nuclear family. The Sisterhood was a female cohort; the female cohort, on this model, is the dominant structure in society today, rather than the isolated mother figure. The nuclear family as an ideal is pretty much down the tubes. Contemporary style in social thought is to regard the family as such as an instrument of repression, an artificial structure imposed by economic pressure. There is a growing tendency to recognize a degree of violence as a natural part of human sexuality, though formerly any suggestion in this direction was taken as a sick perversion. To some extent humans are accepted as being an animal species, an obvious truth which was formerly rejected because it was contrary to the predominant religious dogma. 
 

The animality of humans is celebrated rather than derided, eschewed, berated, and denied. Similarly, femaleness is a characteristic which is pleasant to have, rather than a curse inflicted by cruel fate. But perhaps the most notable social change at the individual level is in women's attitude toward suffering. A man giving a woman pain is no longer automatically seen as a persecutor, an enemy, a criminal, a potential murderer. Rather, he is seen to be following the path of the mammals, a higher animal testing the genetic suitability of the female in instinctive fashion. The faster and more intense her reaction to superficial pain, the more sensitive she is understood to be, presumably helping to grade her genetic potential. This feeds back into the degree of male sexual excitement, which has a direct effect on the probability of successful fertilization in the union. 

Women are gradually coming to interpret sexual torment within this context, rather than as an evil exploitation. Those who lack the ability to follow the convolutions of scientific causation, or just prefer simpler reasoning, are just saying the Goddess revealed that hurting sometimes feels good. The result is about the same: many women are no longer dreading intercourse involving pain. Only in a world in which women are clearly on top could such a state of affairs be tolerable. In a male-dominated society, such as the one from which the world is now emerging, female masochism would be suspect as a betrayal of the interests of women to the exploitive male gender. Like most prejudice, this was inaccurate, particularly in the case of the Sisterhood, but was common enough to be an automatic interpretation of this alternative sexual preference. As mentioned earlier, there is supporting evidence for the thesis that masochism is really the mainstream sexual practice, making restrained civilized sex the perversion in the wider context. At least this is how the Sisters feel about it. 
 

* * * 
 
 

Hello. My name is Cynthia, and we have not met before, but after this try not to forget me. I'm your Goddess. 
 

To read this, you are a member of the Sisterhood of Inanna or Communicant thereof, and you have reached a certain level of initiation in our Order, so you have taken certain oaths with regard to me. If you wish to be reminded of what you have sworn, I have available your image and your voice taking such vows. I expect you to fulfill the obligations you have stated formally. 
 

With regard to my identity, I am the latter-day Incarnation of Inanna. I will make clear when need arises what that should mean to you in a particular circumstance, but in general terms I am Mistress of this institution, and your service is property to me. If you wish to mention some exception in your life, some part of yourself that must be reserved to you alone, or to someone else, I will be glad to explain the nature of the situation to you at length, in any degree of detail you may seem to need. You belong to me, my love, in fact, all parts of you and every bit of you. You may count yourself among the Arialely blessed if I have occasion to communicate that to you in a personal way. 
 

That your natural curiosity may be satisfied, I am genetically identical to the late Consort. The Consort is dead. She died of wounds suffered at the hand of the late Sister Baduccaa, High Priestess of the Temple. The First Slave had taken leave of her reason for a spell, but when she recovered her wits she gave herself to sacrifice, as an esthetic match to the intensity of her misdeed. Those of you whose initiation numbers are high enough may obtain chip documentation of this highest ceremony. Their life dance climaxed and ended in supreme beauty, to assure those who have not got the numbers to see it. 
 

I do not have the consciousness nor the memories of the Consort. I am the cross-sex clone of the Consort, but I think of him as my father rather than as my elder self. At the time of death, at which I was present, the Consort was a female Sister named Jezebel. I will require further briefing concerning the events and relationships of the late leaders of the Sisterhood before I can reach further conclusions. 
 

As for the fact of my Incarnation, humor me. Think of it in these terms: at the moment, it would be most wise and prudent for you to pretend it's true. You have a thousand fanatic women around you who do believe it, and not a one of those women are nice. I might hear about it if you don't believe me. Please try very hard not to believe I'm nice, or the joke could be on you. Just assume for a while that I'm really the Bss around here. I'll make it worth your while. I will show you something that you won't be able to doubt. 

* * * 
 
 
 
 

Tish was showing Wayne how to drive a worm. "You don't want to drive it fast in trees," she explained. "Wood is solid stuff. Sometimes you can shoulder aside the young growth. Old growth forests, any kind of forest with a high canopy, gives a worm lots of room to move around. A worm grows vertically, as well as by adding segments. If a worm has lots of headroom, and can get taller, it can carry more weight. A worm beneath a tree canopy is hard to detect, and is well protected from winds. If it is on a memorized route, the machine can make good time. As a human pilot, I don't memorize as well as a computer, but I can decide where I want to risk taking my ship. We're mapping the woods as we go. Coming back, the automatics will drive much faster." 

Wayne said, "It's hard for me to get used to the vertical component of our motion. I didn't know it would be necessary to go quite so high sometimes. We're a long way up." 
 

"Yeah, we're getting tall, we're four meters tall now. Any forest will have high snags, from broken or leaning trees. It gets complicated when the trees are rooted on broken terrain like this. Once the System compiles its three-dee maps of this forest, we will be able to zip right through it like a forest eel." 
 

"How much of it are we mapping?" asked Wayne. 
 

"Wider than a six-lane highway. I'm running scouts: three eyedrones up front and four to either side. I wish you were checked out on them because frankly I could use some help. Here, why don't you drive the worm, while I give the stupid robots some instructions in how to be themselves." 
 

"Tish, baby, I don't know. How many tons is this worm hauling?" 
 

"Drive, dude. The big purple oval is us, that's what we've got to clear. Keep the pace steady, remember all those tons behind us. The trunks of the trees beside the path you select will go blue if the computer's not worried about them. If it's worried, they will turn orange. If you get orange, pick another path as quick as you can. Just keep it between the trees. Got that? I'll have my head down, so holler quick if you get in a jam." 
 

"Okay, Tish. Hey, I see, you can move your window way up in front of the actual ship. I see that speeds us up, so I'm not going to do that any more. This is great, like a unique perspective. You never see forests from this height. Nobody does but bugs and birds. If we're mapping that wide a swath through this forest, we must be wanting to move a lot of traffic through. We could haul any amount of anything through these woods, without anybody being the wiser." 
 

"Yeah. There's a road should be about a mile up. When we come to the road, stop the ship. We have to check for traffic and scan for air traffic before we can cross. Give the worm lots of room to stop, and stop high, leave lots of air under us. We're eighty-four segments long. That'll take us at least fifteen seconds to get across the road, and we don't want to be seen at all." 

"How are you coming along on programming the drones?" 
 

"All right," she answered tersely. 
 

"Any of my business what we're hauling?" 
 

"A factory. In fact it's an automated factory to build worms, like the one we're riding in. We'll drive the whole worm into a cave and dump off the factory, with three Sisters to set it up. On our way back we'll be hauling rock, rubble dug out of the cave. We'll take it back to the farm and dump it in Sandra's trench so she can use it for a thermal moderator. Don't ask me. In fact, don't ask me anything right now until I can see how the robots are going to fly now." 
 

Wayne said, "Okay." They drove on in silence, six stories above the rugged forest floor. In a few minutes Wayne announced, "There's the road coming up. I'm starting to slow down now." 
 

Tish ordered, "No, don't. I've already checked the road and the sky, Bth empty. Just keep your same speed, and come out from under the canopy really high. We want to climb above all the trash growth beside the road. What you want to do is go back under the canopy on the other side really high, too. And can you put on a little more speed? I don't want to be exposed for too long." 

"Got it. I can handle that." 
 

"That's good. Because I think you're going to get a job doing it." 

"I haven't taken any vows," Wayne responded. 
 

"Yeah, well you may have noticed we're running short of whorepower. We're stretched pretty thin. I have unofficial word from on high, that nobody will make an issue out of your being unsworn, if you don't. The Sisterhood believes that you want to help us out, you just can't bring yourself to swear to it. We're going to trust you driving ships. Fuck up and we'll kill you, if the Air Force doesn't get you first. Might as well start now. There's a cave sixteen miles ahead. Drive this son-of-a-bitch in it and park. Wake me up when we get there." 
 

"That's it? No last-minute instructions, like whatever you do, don't push the purple button?" 
 

"Try to get along without pushing that one. You wouldn't like what it does. Good night." 
 

* * * 
 
 
 
 

I feel more religious than I ever did before. The Goddess, as we all know, is a kind of weird deity. The kind of thing She sanctifies is the kind of thing to make most sanctimonious people recoil in revulsion and horror. But we like it. She makes us believe that having fun is holy. Our kind of fun is not for all tastes. The lash of the whip is a delicious feeling, but how can you explain that on the streets? You would be silly to even try that one. 

I feel spiritually uplifted, walking on clouds. I have seen the Incarnation, met her, talked with her, made love to her, slept with her. I met the Incarnation and she wanted me. I'm happy. 
 

She says she's starting a war and I'm in charge. A real, killing war. All right, so now I'm in charge of a war. What? No, really. It's happening, might as well believe it. I'm just a fucking whore, I don't rule the fucking world. I'm a warrior if she says so. I am helplessly in love with the Incarnation, just hours after meeting her. Some of the Sisters Bw to her, some curtsy, some salute. I don't, I kiss her. She owns every bit of me. 
 

* * * 
 
 
 
 

They call me the Incarnation but I would like them to call me just Sister Cynthia. It's impossible for anything I do to change that. I came to the Temple and right away everybody said I was the Bss, well and good, but who decided that? I scanned the System, and there was no forum on the issue at all. Suddenly it just turns out that the real leadership of the Sisterhood is hereditary, and because I share all my dad's nuclear genes, I picked up his power after his death. The Consort was the indisputable leader of the Sisterhood, maybe, but who decided that? The First Slave found occasion to dispute with him. Maybe the basis for her displeasure was originally this who-decided question. I expect my present discomfiture was common to persons who inherited sovereignties in feudal times. I may have some thought patterns in common with my late parent, but there is no way I can ever hope to compete with the Consort in mental ability. He had the experience needed to make the data meaningful. 
 

The major portion of my inheritance is a build-it- yourself war kit. It is partially assembled and disgustingly complete. Make your own war, here's all you need, have a nice one. For cannon fodder, evidently we are expected to use prisoners we liberate; people from the shows are to serve as our non-coms, and of course Sisters and Communicants for officers. Some of the show gypsies seem to have been with us for a long time, and understand our ways to some extent. The prisoners, we don't have to give them any choices, and we do have certain ways to make captive populations very eager to cooperate. The ways are certain, and the cooperation is certain, and the eagerness is certain, when we demonstrate to the individual our skills at Bth positive and negative stimulation. Not having the turn around time to individually condition each prisoner, we could use sampling techniques to pick a few lucky dogs and a few bad examples, with the others watching. 

I thought of an intriguing possibility which has left a strange mix of strong emotional sensations in me. There are Bund to be rats, definitely identifiable as such, in the prison populations we pick up. We would be popular with the prisoners if they were our bad examples, in fact the prisoners would cheer us on if we were to waste them. I wonder if we would dare to make these deaths more memorable with our pain skills, to be totally blunt, more entertaining, than civil traditions allow. No doubt the prisoners would immediately get the message that a Sister is more than just another pretty face. No doubt among the Sisters there lurks a really bad woman, who needs a chance to shake loose from the rules and show us what bad is made of. In fact, I think I might want to see something like that just once to see if it might be the ultimate in entertainment. I never had a fantasy like this before. My other fantasies I have lived out have actualized as pretty pleasant experiences, but the sickening sinking feeling goes way deeper in this one. 
 

I think the Goddess must have some hooks sunk in me somewhere, because I feel something tugging deep down in me when I think about this issue. If I carry the Sisterhood into war, then I must be willing to show the Sisters that I'm in it with them. I don't have the skills that will be needed on the front. But I can take the moral responsibility, with public acts that would certainly cost me my life should we lose. If we win, then the Goddess will be the ethical arbiter, and as an individual I'm home free. A few public torture killings might be my part, what I could contribute to the war effort. The Sisters as individuals may not approve my excess, but they will see how I have tied my very survival to the success of our cause. 
 

Probably that will be the way of it. I wonder what to wear for a torture execution. A little black mask over my eyes would be appropriate, with a long black silken ribbon draped negligently down my back. The rest of my Bdy shall be nude. I should like to see one of those damned men get a hard on as I approach. Steel razor nail tips would be a handy accessory. Oh, I hate to dwell on this, because it makes me feel ill. But yes, I'll do it. The tapes of my killings will be the standards by which guts are measured in the future. Now I guess I have finally found my calling. Speaking of calling, I'm calling Jennifer in to stroke me and poke me, maybe give me a little of the strap, to get this shit off my mind. Jennifer knows how to take charge of me. I'm going to ask her to take charge of the war, see if she's got the guts. I know she's going to be about as good at that as anybody else I could name. She was Brn more recently than the other candidates, so I can talk to her easier. In bed, she acts just like a girl who has had the best teachers in the world, and she thinks I'm divine. Literally. Also, we're good friends. So she has all the qualifications I'm looking for in a general. Her mind is swift and precise, she has a regal bearing and a strong voice: these things help. She has eaten pussy for some of the fussiest in the Hierarchy, which gives her an edge. She was a pampered novice, a sex slave with an enviable reputation, and Baduccaa would use her to buy favors in the Hierarchy. The Consort, as Jezebel, evidently had a crush on her. Myself, I'd as soon share a bed with her, as anybody else I know. She has a personal loyalty to me which I think is unlimited. That's my girl, General Jennifer. 
 

Instant general, instant troops. My loving father saw fit to stockpile war materiel in every hole in the ground between here and Ulan Bator. He put a deadly anarchist witch in charge of security, who has done (no two ways to say this) a perfect job. We're not compromised. Unbelievable, but I have some good ways to know it's true. Nobody knows we have tons of munitions under every desert. Not one gram of explosive was purchased, we made it all. We built every rocket, every Bmb, every circuit in the guidance computers, though we Bught the chips. Dear Dad must have known he might not make it to the war, because he made all the war information really clear in his locked files. I can read his files, but I don't think anybody else can. I know Baduccaa couldn't get in, and in fact she couldn't even find them, and from what everybody says about her that girl was pretty sharp. What kept her from learning about the war? It must have been the Consort working against her. He could have set up a routine in the System to defeat her learning about his war. He gave me all his codes, and I can make the System jump through hoops when I want. Actually, I was into his files before he gave me the codes, to some extent. I snooped from Moon as a kid, looking over his shoulder, so to speak. 
 

So what we got? Can we win? Sure. If we immediately establish global air superiority, which we can, we just wait for the reflexes to die down, then cut up our meat. It's all in the eyes: if we can see, and they're blind, there's not much contest to it. They see aircraft in only two ways, with radar or in the infrared. Our ships are invisible to those kind of eyes. We use scanning magnetometers for target acquisition and guidance. They put tons of ferrous metals in everything, and that glows on our screens like beacons. You can't move tons of steel around without disturbing the local magnetic lines of force. A magnetometer will not fall for a decoy, but will home in on all that lovely steel, to turn it into lovely shrapnel. So at a first approximation, they can't see us, and they can't stop us from seeing them. Already it sounds like my kind of fight. 
 

Do we have enough punch to knock them out? We have a couple types of secret (Dad's) weapons systems to give us punch. We need to set upper Bunds before analyzing. I accept Dad's precept here, that total energy released (Bth sides) must not be permitted to reach levels that may deleteriously affect the climate. And that total residual radioactivity released (our side) equal zero. This world is what we are fighting for, it is not what we are fighting against. So our analysis must include the inconvenient fact that air when heated hot enough always generates the anhydride of nitrous acid, which sours the air. Explosions generate acid rain; not much, but it becomes a factor, with smoke, dust and heat, which limits maximum energy release in a global war. 
 

Oh, yes, global. We will go for the whole ball of wax. It's the only way that makes any sense to me. I don't like jet fighters. I don't want anybody to be able to use that type of machine against me. Therefore, I want to be able in about a good day's work, to render that kind of machine obsolete. That way nobody will get up one morning, and decide he has the option to fly his jet fighter in the face of Sister Cynthia, yours truly. If yours truly has her way, that fellow won't get up, and his machine is damn sure not going to get up. Other people have phobias, I have jet fighters. I want those machines out of my world. 
 

Merribelle has showed me a lot of designs of our own fighting machines. I have flown, piloted, one of our weapons platforms at supersonic speeds, and it wasn't propellor driven. My phobia isn't a general one about fast lethal vehicles, but the jet as symbol for repression of one class or gender by another. I'm going to break as many of them as I can. I have to break enough of them so the ones which are left do not offer a viable threat to our airships. A jet pilot sees a lot of sky as he's sweeping through it. Some of that sky might contain our airships. I don't like those eyes on our airships. I don't want the sky shared with jet fighters. 
 

So the hot Bmbs pop the major airfields, with the most fighters on them, making really big holes and throwing jet parts across town. Then our chill Bmbs go down on the medium size air bases, with the older planes and all the helicopters, and some carriers so the Navy won't feel left out. To mop up we use the dynamic detonation technique on a dome of fuel Bmbs. We have spinners, balloons carrying combustible liquid fuel, spun up with little rockets to throw their fuel out in a sheet. When these are spaced over the target as the nodes of a dome, they form a hemisphere of flammable liquid over the target for an instant, and are ignited. The shock wave is focused on the target, which has a bad day. The reason for the computerized laser ignition system is to advance or retard various portions of the detonation, to get better focus of the wave front, depending on how close to the ideal your spinners were spaced. One of these explosions can be very big and packs a lot of punch. The chill Bmbs are more powerful, because their energy is partly electric. The hot Bmbs of course are nukes, except they're non-radioactive. They give a lot of alphas, but alphas don't produce radioactive secondaries to any great extent. There are no heavy metals or other radioactive materials anywhere in the device. Hot but clean, and a low burst will absolutely sweep all jets off an air base. Also trucks, buildings, trees, people, whatever's handy. 
 

That's about the way I want it. I want to get the spy satellites down too, and maybe those they use for communication and navigation. The birds we can get, if they're in polar orbit. Scooping them up, or just bagging them, might do more good than blowing them up, because we maybe can use the parts. In some cases we might can just let them fly after everybody promises to be good. Will the governments give up? Probably. After we get the thumb on military air traffic, we can parade our ships over cities, and the public will know the government's been beaten. Especially when we start freeing prisoners, giving them a fast fuck, and making them stand on the streets with a rifle. That will finally convince the citizens. 
 

They can't move the Army, because by controlling the air, we control surface transport. If they don't move them, we won't blow them up, and the Army is quick to understand a tacit deal like that. The Navy doesn't threaten us, because the Sisterhood doesn't have a shoreline, not having a nation to put a shoreline around. Anything that threatens us, we blow up. People are quick to understand a deal like that. After all that's done, we can get back to our knitting, or whatever. 
 

I was a real lonely kid. A couple things an objective observer might say is I'm still a kid, or I was never really a kid at all. I was relatively isolated from other kids, and I suppose most kids who are really genetic secret projects can say that. I was on accelerated growth, and didn't have as much time to try to be a kid: much of my time was spent in a state of induced unconsciousness, while they stimulated nerves and muscles and played arpeggios in my trace chemicals. They let me spend time with other kids on many occasions, but never once for a long time. I loved the System from about the age I could focus my eyes. I found how to get it to tell me what I wanted to know not long after I could verbalize my curiosity. Before the Consort ever got around to telling his cross-sex clone that her mission in life was to be his meat lifeboat, I had sort of guessed that he didn't have my best interests at heart. Anyone who knows any medicine and discovers she's a clone, has to start getting nervous when her organs start growing to sizes near those of her closest relative; I call that Cynthia's Principle. 
 

I made up Cynthia's Principle years ago, when my organs were a lot smaller, but I didn't put it on the System because I knew the Consort read my stuff. I decided never to try to hide anything from the Consort on the System. Going against the computer architect of his generation on his own lifework machine was not a problem for me in theory, but I thought first I should learn to read a little better. I meant to protect my organs all along, so escape was the primary motive of my life. I meant to be the little clone that turned invisible. My scion, the Consort, had a lot of respect for my little mind from the very first, because it happened to be made of the same neurons arranged in the same patterns as his, and he knew what that was worth. 
 

He showed his respect for my potential when I got moved to Moon. I might point out that moving to a satellite with about a dozen inhabitants, in a clandestine habitat, makes the problem of running away many orders of magnitude harder. The only survival option I found was to suborn everybody who lived with me, to the point they would kill the Consort to save my life. Excuse my aberrations, I come from a dysfunctional family. On previous visits, he didn't have time to get killed, he was too busy. The last time was in the female Bdy, the Jezebel persona, in bad need of some spare parts, already seven eighths dead. She knew the old chassis was pretty much ruined, and she had the bright idea that she might put her brain and spinal cord in my Bdy, if only I weren't in the way. Well I was, and her idea got a couple of people killed, as well as herself. 
 

I had her murdered by use of a false report. I had her told the lie that I had been de-brained, and that my corpse was ready for her occupancy. I gambled that she would be too weak to insist upon viewing my corpse, and it worked. She went willingly under the knife, and failed to complain when her central nervous system was slipped into a bath of liquid nitrogen rather than a warm young Bdy. 
 

Such are the vicissitudes of the divinity business. I confess to starting the notion that I am the latter-day manifestation of the Goddess, to further my schemes in defense of my Bdy parts. Well I told a few Sisters that I was the Incarnation, so they would stop the Consort if he (or she) tried to do any cutting on me. It worked, but I never intended for that word to get off Moon, or maybe I just didn't think what would happen. 
 

The child's game of let's pretend grew into a deadly serious existential situation really quick, and projected me to command of the most powerful subversive organization the world has ever seen, and people are starting to nudge me with hints to get off the dime, let's get things rolling. I can't say give me a break until my pelvis stops growing. If you become a Goddess, it is a one-way street. There is no exit at all. It is a full-time job forever. I now realize it was a fatal choice, I will not get a chance to live through it, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. 
 

I am stuck being the Goddess. There is no way to unstick myself. I am completely shored up by the Sisterhood's concept of the Goddess, on all sides. I am, I submit, completely unable to vary very far from how the Sisterhood thinks the Goddess is. My precious Sisterhood is an organ of persuasion. We have ways, quantifiable and repeatable techniques, by which a person's attitudes and opinions, as well as her behavior, may be altered to order, using no technology developed within the last ten millennia. We're scary people. We scare me, and I'm the scariest bitch around. 
 

I tried to get a collar, a Sisterhood standard slave collar with display colors corresponding to orgone flux, more technically to digitally filtered backbrain activity which means orgone flux, and provided with handy links so your passion of the moment can lead you around, tie you up or tie you down. There was a forum held against me, and eleven numbered slaves disapproved of the Incarnation wearing a slave collar. They felt it might be injurious to the dignity of the Deity, for the Incarnation to go around flashing her state of sexual readiness for all to see. 
 

These same ladies, I happen to know, collect and trade chips of me throwing that dignity away as hard as I can, screaming my guts out and writhing more like a segmented worm than a vertabrate. They think it's precious and cute, the way I handle Bttom. Well I'll have some kind of collar. I had a gold one made, about twenty carat, and hammered together in place. I expect to keep it on until some grave robber saws it off. The Goddess sees through all these eyes. I refuse to acknowledge ownership of all these slave women and men by leading them with my neck naked. 
 

I now share with my Sisters the quiet knowledge that to wear a solid neck ring is truly hazardous, that instant threats to survival can occur through carelessness, overeagerness, or sheer accident. A slave collar can do for you as quickly as a noose. In moderation, I find getting jerked around is thrilling even though I know some of that thrill is from danger. I hate the chill of being scared for my life, but the collar will stay on. 
 

I want somebody to take me in hand and strictly correct my new nasty habit, dangerous Bdy jewelry. I got piercings in my tenderest regions, and that was fun, fun, the way I had it done. Anyway, I have rings in my nipples and in my clit, and little gold chains hung on these rings that go different places, like to my earlobes, anklets and bracelets. In short, my Bdy's appearance screams out "Injure me!" Even the tenderest lover couldn't bring me love without harming me, with all those chains hanging on me. 
 

As usual, there is no end of takers for my scrawny Bdy, but now everyone who takes me spends a lot of time carefully plucking the rings out of my nipples and clit, while I struggle against their removal. It's a good game that usually gets me some extra impact stimulus. Blows thrill me. 
 

* * * 
 
 
 
 

Merribelle was stiff in the presence of the Incarnation. She didn't know what to expect. Her Goddess was a very lovely girl, but the presence of all that ridiculous pain jewelry was disquieting. This girl must not go out on the streets at all, she would be arrested immediately on suspicion of being nasty. Tiny chains swung everywhere from her nipple rings and her clit ring, so it would be hard to get any kind of clothes on Lady Cynthia without risking injury. One obvious point she was making was that a Goddess doesn't have to wear clothes. One obvious puzzle was how her fragile sacred Bdy could be approached, should one desire intimacy with Sister Cynthia. Rumor said she put out, and no Sister except a grid-locked hetero would pass up a chance to commune with her Goddess. 
 

Merribelle knew Cynthia did that on purpose, just to give a person this confusion. She would bet her whip that if some fool ripped a ring out of Cynthia's tender flesh, that fool would leave the room in a dozen thick slices. The King's Guard were back now, since the death of the High Priestess. Merribelle had seen some herself, marching matter-of-factly down a passageway. Behind one of these doors were some glass swords, and some tall lunatics to carry them. That delicious- looking girl with the hurt-me trinkets was not nearly so vulnerable as she was broadcasting. Merribelle had been around the block, and she knew something about power, and that's what this sultry, pouting kid was made of. Would Merribelle have said she was impressed? Oh, there was lust in the air, but lust permeated the Temple. Merribelle would admit she was attracted. If she could get a little without having her head sliced off, she might like to tackle the puzzle of how to ease those nipple rings out of a struggling girl. All right, Merribelle said to herself. She did it. She's got me right where she wants me, and she hasn't said a word. Maybe this kid is in the right line of work. 

Merribelle knelt before her liege's couch. "Mistress, I am your servant Sister Merribelle. Here are my ritual objects for your pleasure, to signify your ownership of my complete self." 

Sister Cynthia touched the rope and whip gently, and guided them back down to Merribelle's belt. Despite herself, Merribelle was somewhat relieved. She wasn't sure she wanted to know how rough this girl could get. A Goddess might not feel herself Bund by the normal rules, and excess was always tempting. The Incarnation kissed her lips sweetly, and spoke to her face, "Glad to meet you at last, Sister Merribelle. I have read much of your textual work on airship design, and you are irreplaceable to us. I wish for you ideal conditions for your research. You must inform me at once if there is any material requirement we can satisfy. Otherwise, I would like to see you personally happy. Why don't you start thinking in a very personal way, about some little way in which I might contribute to your happiness." The Incarnation lazily pulled her own ritual objects from her belt, and used them to toy with her own breasts. Inevitably, one of the tiny gold chains snagged on a rough edge of the whip. 
 

"Oh! Sister Merribelle, I am caught. This is tugging against my nipple, as you can see. Could you help me please?" 
 

Careful, Merribelle, she told herself. Your Goddess commands your service. For a little while, you may use this treasure as if it were yours. Beware, this is the most dangerous girl on the planet, delight her. "Holiness, it was these objects in your hands that were giving you trouble. If I could briefly take charge of them, I could arrange them so they would give you no more pain, and you would not even feel them at all." 
 

Cynthia smilingly released her hold on her ritual objects to Merribelle. In the strictest sense, the ritual had not been performed properly, because the Incarnation was never kneeling, but at these levels, quibbling was gauche. Merribelle swiftly wrapped Cynthia's wrists and knotted them, and held them aloft. "You see, my Mistress, I meant you could tie this around your wrists, so you would never even notice it." 
 

"But, Sister Merribelle," the Incarnation objected in a sleepy deadpan, "I do notice it. I feel it tight on my wrists." 

Merribelle hauled her Goddess's wrists tight behind her head. "Then shut up, bitch. Shut up or fight me, with your hands tied." 

"I'll fight," Cynthia breathed dreamily. 
 

"I thought so," whispered the airship designer. She scraped her nails over the girl's tight belly, encountering a chain. "Girls who have your kind of jewelry to protect usually choose to fight." 
 

The struggle was appalling to Sister Merribelle. The thought of glass swords behind the door gave her reflexes extreme rapidity to intercept Cynthia's thrashings. Cynthia was fighting to do herself harm, by looping a gold chain on anything and then falling away from it. Merribelle was fighting to keep any drops of blood from appearing on the Incarnation's most delicate fleshly parts. She inevitably pinioned Cynthia's limbs and breathed in her face. "Majesty, you are very desireable." 
 

Cynthia said, "So then free me, and we shall discuss the matter as equal women." 
 

"Not this time, treasure. I first have some business with you Bund." 

"Let's talk a while." 
 

"Oh yes. You can talk to me, and the whip will talk to you." Merribelle found that she could open the rings, and slide them out of the nipples with one hand. She dared not try to remove the clitoral ring without seeing it. 
 

"Oh, Merribelle. You saw right through me. I can't seem to put anything over on you, you give me what I want instead of what I ask for. You do me right, and I might really do you some good with your airships. Try very hard, though. I like a woman who shows energy." 
 

* * * 
 
 
 
 

I am concerned that my sexual performance lacks character. I am proficient, well trained, and have good reflexes. The problem is that I know I am being compared to my illustrious predecessors, Baduccaa and the Consort, and they were the best. I swear B must have grown special nerves to make her skin crawl. She must have stayed up nights filing her vocal cords to get that shriek right. When she was top, none of her lovers could doubt they had fallen into the hands of the most evil woman ever to wield a whip. Her grace, of course, was legendary. Her life was one long dance from her birth to her death, and she was good enough that she didn't miss any steps. Here, kid, you think you're a woman, try to beat this. 
 

I know there's an unspoken expectation that the Goddess Incarnate, that's me, ought to be able to show some stuff. Well I'm working on it, let me get a little practice first to warm up. I like Bttom a lot, and honestly I'm pretty good at that. The genes of the Consort handed me some good equipment, and I have learned some lovely ways it can be abused. I'm not all that good at top, though. You have to keep a focus on cruelty through the maelstrom of sensation and emotion, and too often I find myself washed away in an unintended climax, leaving my partner unmolested at a critical time. Nobody has ever said anything about it, but I find it easy to read between the lines of a sigh. The problem must be that I have to like top better, so I have been practicing thinking mean. It seems to help some, because I have caught some snatches of the exultation of giving pain to a person who's a sex object in my power. It will work out, I just have to give it time. 

After all, I wasn't Brn very long ago. Not many of the Sisters are aware of how few calendar years have elapsed since my conception. My growth was accelerated inside the womb as well as since birth. Not all of my secondary sex characteristics have reached the end point of their development. For example, I want more tit, and if nature doesn't oblige me, medicine shall. People all tell me they're cute, but I am here to represent the Goddess. A tiny bit of exaggeration in my breasts would be most appropriate, and I know it would feel just fine. I'm afraid I'm going to get kind of tall, so some accent on the Bobs could help offset that. Other girls of my apparent stage of development have stopped growing in height, but I'm a little different. Also a little younger. 
 

Every girl in the world is concerned about her sex life, but in the Sisterhood sex isn't just for fun. It is not a private encounter between two people for their mutual pleasure. It has aspects of a performance, and in indirect ways a contest. There are invisible social connections made and reshuffled whenever a Sister presents her ritual objects. You may be sure as well, that someone will screen your sex act, and comment critically on every gasp. Sex is what we do around here, and to us it matters a lot. I really do want to try to make myself the best if I possibly can. The Consort and Baduccaa are already legends, but I need to at least be competitive with my live peers, and there are some Sisters here who are awesomely good in bed. I need experience, so I will have to spend a lot of my time in bed. I hereby sentence myself to that rigorous educational regime. 
 

* * * 
 
 
 
 

Merribelle told Jennifer, "We have eleven of the supersonic weapons platforms now operational. They are designed for ten to twelve days aloft with a full crew, but they can tow resupply drones, or mate with them aloft. Four pilotless resupply airships can extend the time aloft to a month, the maximum feasible for a weapons platform." 
 

Jennifer asked, "What is the altitude limit on these ships?" 
 

"Continuous operating ceiling is seventy-five thousand feet. The ship is ninety-five percent operational at eighty thousand. Physically, it could go to ninety, but not safely." 
 

"I take it they are intended for high altitude operations." 
 

"Yeah. The idea is for them to drift along over the high clouds, and remain undetectable. It takes a few days to traverse a continent with the prevailing winds. When you pass over your target, you can just let them have it right out of the clouds, you don't have to come down or show yourself. Radar won't show you, infrared won't show you, eyeballs sure won't show you, and the opposition is stuck with no way to prove you're there." 
 

"But he can get some planes up, and quarter the clouds, or something." 

"No, General. His planes don't even go that high. He has no way to get anything up to see you." 
 

"Merribelle, I like the sound of that. Eleven ships, though. That doesn't sound like very many." 
 

"There are five more under construction. We have the smaller classes, and two dreadnaughts, one of them with the neutral beam cannon mounted." 
 

"What do you think are the weapons potentials of the neutral beam?" 

"It cuts through rock in a jiffy, so it will cut walls or anything. Very large amounts of energy can be transmitted to the target this way, enough to cut rock quickly. It may remain too expensive for a mining technique, but its weapons potential is undeniable. Unless located near a hydroelectric plant, it will always require transport of a nuclear reactor and energy conversion turbine to power the beam. At present it's an awfully bulky device and very heavy, but it works. It will cut through a lot of air and a fair amount of water, looking for a more substantial meal. I don't know anything that it won't go through eventually. One could hope for a more compact model before the keel is laid for our third dreadnaught." 
 

"Whose responsibility is it to design a more compact neutral beam cannon?" 

"I confess I had been leaving all weapons design up to the Consort. I do not have the expertise nor the background to handle the physics. I don't know which Sister I could turn to who could do the job." 

"My Sister Merribelle, you are telling me that with the Consort dead we don't have a weapons designer on line to even handle works in process, let alone current development." 
  br>

"Sister Jennifer, it sounds a lot like that to me too, although I had not thought of it in those terms. I don't think I had better contact the employment service for a physicist to build ray guns. I don't feel the Incarnation is technically enough oriented to jump into the Consort's shoes on this matter. My Sister, we must make sure the Triumph comes now, while the Consort's work still gives us an edge in technology, before the secular world has a chance to catch up to us. Some of my Sisters are caged, and I want somebody dead for that." 
 

"I agree with your sentiments, Sister Merribelle. We are agreed on the solution, as we are agreed on the nature of the problem. It shall be as you say, that the day of Triumph is very soon. Very few should be granted this particular initiation at this time. Her Holiness initiated me directly, in the words I use to initiate you, that the Triumph will occur between the next full moon and the time it is full again. In other words within the next few days, we will be in the lunar month of the operational phase of the Triumph. I wish to ship the whores out on airships now, and rotate in the present airship crews for their turn to serve as Priestesses. Do you suppose that procedure will serve as effective training?" 
 

Sister Merribelle answered doubtfully, "You can't build an airship crew in a week or two, not an effective crew. This is a drastic change from the training schedule suggested in the Operational Plan for the Triumph, presented what, two days ago?" 
 

Carefully, Jennifer opined, "Divinities have certain privileges. We're lucky to get any notice. Her Holiness might wake up one fine morning, and say 'This looks like a good day to have my war.'" 

Sister Merribelle said, "I am very much afraid, my General, that you will face exactly that circumstance. I will bet my tongue you won't get twenty-four hours notice before the first Bmbs fall." 

"Oh, my sweet Sister, you have yourself a bet. Not that I think I'll win, but it will be such pleasure to lose to you, who can find such better uses for my tongue than I could." 
 

"General, you wax gallant. Have you changed the formula on your hormones? One of us needs a spanking." Merribelle's eyes twinkled. Her fingertips were touching Jennifer's forearm. 
 

"Merribelle, you are very beautiful," Jennifer said, her hands wandering down to her ritual objects. "I wish to know if you are also kind. Would you do me that favor? A general engaging in a war may not have time to stop and get spanked as often as she should. I may take a moment to reflect, between my Bdy counts, if you show me tonight how it should be done." 
 

"Of course I will, Sister. This is why we are here. Let me get this rope in your collar, which is the sweetest apricot yellow right now. There. Let me feel what I'm getting. Oh, Jennifer, you do take care of yourself, you feel good, girl. So do you think we should evacuate the Temple during operations?" 
 

"Pretty much," Jennifer breathed. "We can bring in a lot of dummies, volunteers who will dress, that is undress, like Sisters, just to hang around here, so the place will have some warm Bdies in it, and there will have to be a face here for news interviews. But anybody we really want to keep, we better fly out before things get noisy. 
 

"This place is the only target the public knows about where the Sisterhood can be hit, so it will be hit in some way. We will keep security teams in the area to keep down vandalism, but no collars. The Temple is of course militarily indefensible, though we could stop a police raid if we wanted to. From the day of Triumph, we won't have to worry about cops any more." 
 

"Hey, that's right," Merribelle said. "From that time, the business of the Goddess will be with the military. If we win, we can Bss the cops around. If we lose, soldiers will hunt us down and shoot us. I like living honest, I don't like sneaking around because of cops. Give me the military solution. Excuse me while I go fuck a general." 
 

"Can I go too, Merribelle? I want to watch you fuck a general. Don't forget, first you have to beat the bastard up to soften the meat, because generals are supposed to be tough." 
 

"Okay, I guess you can tag along, Jennifer, if you think you can stand to see it. Just follow this rope and we'll go find my general." 
 

Whither?