Some treasures are hard to find, and harder to hold onto.

by Cleo Kraft

Chapter I

Shiny green metal rings surrounded the tall building just outside the window and I felt a hand grip me on the knee and I turned to face Gina, my date.

She was an attractive young brunette woman, mid twenties, five foot six, and dressed in a long red gegrothin. You know, the kind of outfit that clings only to the curves. Just the kind of gegrothin that girls wear on the outer worlds. The kind of outfit that shows no mercy to onlooking men.

She smiled at me and climbed up into my lap, causing some other patrons of the Mondar Kri restaurant to stare at us as if they weren't already. Gegrothin's attract the attention of men pretty well, especially if the woman wearing one is as beautiful as my date.

The restaurant slowly rotated, revealing a barren amusement park down
below as I glanced out the window for a moment.

Mondar Kri was the name of the world's biggest wooden roller coaster. It was built over forty years ago but it's closed now, of course, because of some laws passed a decade ago that prevents potentially life threatening rides from running anymore. So amusement parks all over the country closed up their thrill rides and some, like Martians Cove right here, turned their old roller coasters into museums and stuck fancy restaurants on top each wavy summit.

Mondar Kri is a pretty popular place for dates though, and also one of my favorite spots on Mars. I used to ride the old red and white painted coaster that lay below this multicolored neon rotating restaurant. I still remember the terror and anticipated excitement I had the first time my dad took me on that coaster.

I do miss those days.

I miss the good old days when roller coasters and ferris wheels were permitted. Sadly enough, there were just enough deaths over the years on those types of rides that many governments decided to put an end to it once and for all.

Now Mondar Kri is just a ghost ride. It's cars turned into dining booths and placed in restaurants like this one. Mighty flagpoles once stood here atop the crest of the biggest wooden roller coaster ever built, but now it's just a restaurant overlooking a dreary old amusement park that's more museum now than anything else.

"What are you up to now?" I asked her as she wrapped her arms about my
neck and kissed me briefly.

"Why don't we go back to my place?" she asked looking at her dainty silver watch.

"What's the hurry?" I asked her. "We had sex already this afternoon. Why don't you sit back in your own seat and eat your dinner? Come on. Get off my lap. You're making a scene. It's quite embarrassing you know. You shouldn't carry on like this in a place like this."

She climbed off me and sat down in her own chair and pouted with arms crossed.

"Now what's the matter?" I asked.

"I've only got another two hours," she said pointing at herself. "It's a rental, remember? God, Jack, if you paid two months salary for twelve hours in a body like this, you'd want to get the most out of it too, right? Come on. Anybody can eat dinner any time they want. Let's go back to your place for one more quick one. What? Why are you looking at me like that? I told you before, I'm not going to waste a good time. Look, I don't see what the big deal is. We've had sex twice today already. Once more couldn't hurt you, could it? Come on. Pay the check and let's go."

She was going by the name of Gina simply because that's the name of the body she rented, but her real name is Todd Angle. A guy that works in the auto shop with me. It's a long story, but basically the guy saved my life one day when the lift broke and a three ton car nearly crushed me to death. So I owed him a favor and today was his birthday so he came collecting. Oh, sure, I would have paid for the body rental but all he wanted from me was a good time as a woman for half a day. He says he's transgendered, which I think basically means he wants to be a woman. Well, he did save my life so what the heck. Besides, I was having sex with a woman, not a man, right? So at least I can still live with my conscience, at least on that level. All the same, I don't think I'll ever see Todd in the same light again after today.

Funny how a guy working at a body shop would go to another type of body shop to cram his mind into a woman's body. Old Doc Akorbson kind of got a kick out of it. We even swapped business cards just for laughs.

"Kile B. Akorbson, M.D. Biogenetic Neuroscientist - Transgender Specialist." That's what the card read, and the logo imprinted above his name was two blue and pink circles intertwined with a pair of brains with cartoon lips kissing one another. I don't know why they just didn't call him a swap doc, because that's what everyone else seems to call his profession.

I called the waiter over and paid the check. Then Gina and I headed out to my car.

"Why my place?" I asked her.

"Because, silly," she said. "You're place is closer to the swap doc. We'll have more time to fool around."

It was true. The swap doc was literally just around the corner from my house, though all these years I didn't care or pay it any notice until Todd came up with this idea for his birthday present.

We got in my car and headed off down the street. I pulled the throttle back and we lifted up into the air lane and zoomed off to my place.

___-----___

The sex was great, but I still felt kind of guilty about it afterwards. I mean, after all, Gina was really Todd, my co-worker down at the shop. The body was really a natural born woman's body alright, but the mind inside was a man's and that kind of creeped me out every time I thought about it. Like I said, the sex was great though, so it kind of balanced out my feelings of guilt after awhile. I just ignored her words as we had sex, that's all. If she'd just shut up about how good it felt as a woman, it wasn't so creepy. So I made good use of the situation and had my fill of sex but when it was time to turn in the rental body, the poor woman was about pleading me to go criminal and help her steal it, but I talked her out of that. After all, she was just overcome by her feelings. The whole experience was just too much for Todd's old mind to handle I guess.

I sat on a sofa in the waiting room while Todd went in to see the body doc to get exchanged back to normal.

A woman sitting next to me holding a baby tapped me on the shoulder.

"Would you mind holding my little girl?" the woman asked. "I have to use the restrooms. If my husband comes back.... oh, forget that - he won't be back for ten minutes at least. Just please watch my little girl until I come back, okay?"

I looked around but nobody else was available in the waiting room to watch the infant, so I guess I had no choice. I didn't really want to hold a baby. I'm not really good with children, you see, and they make me uncomfortable, so I try to avoid even talking to them. So holding baby really made me nervous.

The woman quickly handed me her sleeping daughter and hurried off down
the hall to the restrooms.

The infant couldn't have been more than two years old at the most. She was dressed in a little pink cotton t-shirt with a frilly collar and sleeves and wore a plastic diaper and pink booties. Though asleep, she was sucking peacefully on a pacifier.

The baby yawned and the pacifier tumbled out onto my lap and bounced into the chair beside me.

Her eyes opened up and she looked right up at me and then to the left and right, looking for her mother.

"Don't scream," the baby girl said to me and I about jumped right out of my seat when she said it.

"You can talk?" I asked surprised.

"Yeah, so what's the big deal?" she asked. "Ain't you never seen re-born before?"

"I heard of it but I thought it was illegal, just like cloning," replied.

"Illegal to norms like you," she said involuntarily kicking her legs up and stretching her arms. "But guys with the know-how who got the dough can rig up an infant clone and swap for the right price and circumstances. Especially guys on the most wanted list if you catch my drift."

"You're telling me you were a GUY before?" I asked raising my eyebrows at the child.

"Yeah," she replied swinging her arm at me and slapping me in the stomach. "You're catchin' on quick, stranger."

"Well, why an infant?" I asked. "Why not just swap with an adult?"

"Adults can be made to talk," she answered. "But ain't no cop gonna give a two year old the third degree, right? So even if they suspect, all I got to do is bawl my head off and they'll think I'm just an innocent two year old girl. Perfect hide-out, eh?"

"But how do you know I'm not a cop?" I asked her.

"Trust me," she said. "I can tell. You ain't no cop. You're hands are too scratched up. You're a mechanic, right?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "So why are you bothering to blow your cover and tell me all this?"

"Just this," she said. "I've been hiding out for almost a year now, and I'm tired of being stuck this way and I want out. Now if you help me, I've got some money stashed away from a bank job I did awhile back and I think I can make it worth your while."

"So what am I supposed to do?" I asked. "Kidnap you or something?"

"No, stupid," she said. "My buddies will take care of that. You got a pen and paper handy? I have a number I want you to call. Tell them Vin Xentrok want's out of hiding. Got that? Now write down this number and code message . . ."

I held the infant in my left arm and pulled out a pen and a business card from my coat pocket (since I had no paper, a business card was going to have to do the job).

I wrote down the number she gave me and stuck the business card and pen back in my coat pocket.

Just then, the girl's mother came walking back into the waiting room.

"Oh, I see Holly's awake," the woman said walking over to me and taking the baby from me. "Was she behaving herself okay?" The woman reached down and picked up the pacifier off the chair beside me.

"Fine," I said nodding. "Just fine."

"Good," the mother said. "She's pretty good with strangers, don't you think? Kind of a shy and quiet little girl, but that's much better than how her older brother Jeffery was at her age. My husband's returning body he rented out to do some heavy lifting around the yard. We had to cut down and prune some trees and his back is just not fit for that sort of thing, and he is much too proud to ask someone else for help. Insists he does everything himself, so he rented an athletic body for the day. Kind of expensive if you ask me, compared to hiring help, but Jason's got to do things his way. Now I suppose he'll have body-lag and stay up all night. What's a woman to do? It's bad enough I've got one baby to deal with all night, now I've got my husband's body-lag to deal with for the next few days. Oh, here he comes now, pardon me. It was so nice of you to watch Holly for me. Thank you again, sir, but I must be going now."

A short man in a gray business suit came over and kissed his wife, then they both walked out the exit. As they did, I noticed little Holly giving me a thumbs up with a wink.

Todd came out next, looking kind of depressed.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"You wouldn't understand," he said sadly as we walked outside.

I knew he appeared happier when he was in that woman's body, but couldn't begin to imagine know how awful it made him feel having to change back to his own. I just knew it wasn't something I was comfortable talking about, so I let it rest.

___-----___

I woke up the next day, Sunday morning, alone in my apartment.

Some of Todd's female clothes were still lying about on the bed beside me. He'd brought over a whole entire wardrobe of lingerie to try on and apparently left some of it behind in our haste to return to the body doc before the deadline.

I sat up in bed and thought about what the little girl, Holly, had told me last night about wanting to escape from her current situation.

On the one hand, I thought I might be able to get a reward for turning her in, but she only gave me a phone number and a strange cryptic message, so I didn't know where Holly actually lived, only the number to her accomplices. Besides that, Holly was right - if anybody turned her in, she'd just play like she was a real two year old girl and nobody would be able to prove anything. Perfect hide out but at the expense of freedom. She might as well be doing time in prison because her current situation is about the same thing anyway. I wonder if that goes through her mind when she's put in her crib and stares out through the bars.

I guess I can kind of understand why a crook would go for re-birth instead of just swapping with an adult body. The body cops are pretty good at catching swap criminals, but I've never heard of a swap criminal caught that was hiding out in a child's body. The laws that protect minors also protect swap crooks who'd rather trade up on adult life and take their chances as children than get caught and do hard time in prison.

Legally, only adults can swap with adults, and even then only for high price and limited time period. The governments around the world pretty much agreed to handling it that way to give people the technology they demanded as well as a certain measure of control the governments felt necessary to keep body swaps from getting out of hand.

I switched the vid-phone on sound mode only and dialed the number Holly gave me.

"Hello?" an older woman's voice answered on the other end of the line.

I read off the code message,"Can Johnny come out and play?"

"Oh, hang on a sec," the woman said and I heard her talk to someone else in a lowered voice. "Guy's using an old code. What do you want to do? . . . okay." She cleared her throat and then said,"Look. I don't know where you got that code from but it's changed."

"Well Vin Xentrok just wanted me to pass on the message that he wants out of hiding," I explained.

There was laughter on the other end of the phone, then the woman said,"Is that a fact? Well you ought to know better than to take the word of a baby. Vin wanted rebirth and that's what we delivered. Now unless you have something more important to tell me, I'm going to hang up."

"He said there was alot of money involved," I added.

There was a pause and then I heard the woman talking to someone again. Finally a nervous little boy's voice came back on the other end of the line and said,"Give me that code message, buddy."

"Can Johnny come out and play?" I said.

"Right," he said and paused to speak to the woman. "Betty, analyze that voice pattern, would ya?" Then he said to me,"You want to talk more about this, then meet me at Grant Park at noon. Bring an umbrella. Bye."

He hung up.

I hung the phone up and stood up and looked out the bedroom window. It was bright and sunny outside. Not a cloud in the sky, and yet this kid wants me to bring an umbrella?

Shrugging it off, I went out to my kitchen and ate some breakfast, then I got ready to go to the park.

___-----___

I got there early. There was a soccer game going on in the field before the park bench I sat on. Junior league game I think.

There was a light breeze blowing through the oak trees to my left and right and some pigeons gathered along the bumpy asphalt trail, begging for scraps from passers by.

I sat there with a black umbrella lying on the bench in the seat beside me.

Off on the horizon over some more trees and the brown haze of the city, I saw a stream of busy air-cars dashing to and fro along the expressway.

An old fashioned air liner streaked across the sky towards the Hargron Mountains. Probably a nostalgia flight to Casino Keep.

I watched the soccer game for an hour or so and got up and walked over to sit on the ground under one of the oaks.

I set my umbrella beside me, this time leaning it up against the tree, and I nodded off to sleep.

___-----___

I woke up as someone poked me with the end of my own umbrella.

I saw three children of about five to seven years of age. Two were blonde girls dressed in pink Sunday dresses, white socks and black flats. The other was a brown haired little boy who wore bluejeans, sneakers, and a black t-shirt. An old aged gray haired woman stood behind the children and waited.

"He don't look like no gangster," one of the little girls commented.

"He don't look like nobody important at all," her twin sister added.

"Hey buddy," the little boy said jabbing me in the ribs with my umbrella. "Give me the signal again."

"Can Johnny come out and play?" I said.

"Okay, okay," the boy said waving his hands for me to lower my voice. "Not so loud. You don't want everyone to hear, do you? Even an old code is still dangerous in the wrong hands. Now get up and pretend you know us. Like you're an uncle or something. Then we're all going to walk slowly to granny's car and I don't want you to say a word until I say so. Got that?"

I nodded and stood up, picking up my umbrella.

"You'd better give that to granny," the boy said taking the umbrella from me and handing it to the old lady. "She collects 'em."

We walked slowly down the asphalt trail, the two little girls leading the way, while the little boy walked beside me on my left, and the old woman to my right.

"Gretchen, pick up your feet, would ya?" the boy asked the girl on the left. "Loose that stupid strut. You're supposed to be a girl now, remember? And Emily, for God's sake, loosen up a bit. You're not Frankenstein's monster you know. Just act natural."

I turned to look at the old woman and she smiled at me and kept her head down as we walked along. She was wearing a white dress with little rose petal patterns all over. Her shoes were simple gray flats and she wore a wide brimmed gardener's sun hat.

"Body cop up ahead," the boy warned.

"He's got a scanner," the old lady said worriedly. "He'll catch me for sure. I knew I shouldn't have come along."

"He won't bother us," the boy assured her. "Now shut up and keep walking."

The body cop, dressed in a typical white uniform, waved a scanner rod back and forth as we approached him.

"Hold on there a second," the body cop said to us. He waved the scanner over the children's heads for a moment, then over mine and finally granny's.

"Anything wrong officer?" Granny asked as the body cop tapped the side of his scanner readout box.

"I don't know," the officer replied switching the device on and off and rattling it around a bit. "Battery must be going dead."

"Well, I hope you get that fixed," the granny said. "Those body thieves have to be stopped you know."

"Yes, yes," the officer said scratching his head. "Well you folks have nice day then."

"We will," granny assured him as we walked on towards the parking lot.

We walked up to a white hover-van and everyone climbed inside and the doors closed in behind us automatically with a hiss. The van rocked back and forth like a boat as it floated there and then granny pulled back the throttle and we accelerated up into the airway.

"I think introductions are in order," the boy said. "My name is Johnny Ergrond, and these two girls are Gretchen and Emily, my sisters. We're into the body exchange business and do alot of work for the Mob. Granny is just our driver, escort, and legal guardian but don't pay her no mind. Us kids are the real heart of this operation. Now who are you and what do you have to tell us about Vin Xentrok?"

"I'm Jack Larnstrom," I said handing him my card. "I also work in the body shop business, only not exactly the same type of work as you're doing."

"What did Vin tell you?" Johnny asked.

"He just wants out is all, and he said he's got some money stashed away from a bank robbery or something," I explained looking out the window at the cityscape stretched out below us. "I think he's tired of the situation he's in and wants to be an adult again. He said to call you."

"We can help," Johnny nodded. "But we can't just kidnap the infant. Her new father is pretty high up in the Government, you know. We rigged it that way to protect Vin the most. It's not going to be easy to get her out of there, let alone even get near her. We can swap her back, if that's what she really wants, but it's not going to be easy and we'll need someone to take her place." He stopped and looked up at me with smile,"You wouldn't be interested in volunteering would you? . . . No? Well then, we'll have to find someone else then."

"If you want my opinion," Gretchen said. "Leave Vin alone. He was too much trouble as a gang leader. I like his replacement, Ted, much better."

"That's right," Emily agreed nodding. "If Ted finds out we're even thinking of bringing Vinny back, he'll kill us all."

"But there's the money, too," Gretchen reasoned. "We sure could use some good money right now. Things have been kind of dead around the shop lately. Some new cash would be great about now."

"Money nothin'," Emily argued. "Vin's not worth it for the money."

"We could trick him into telling us where it's hid," Johnny suggested.

"Yeah!" Gretchen exclaimed. "That would work! Vin's easy to convince. We'll just trick him, that's all. We'll tell him we want to see the money first and THEN help him change back, but when he tells us, we'll just keep the money all to ourselves and leave him stuck there where he belongs, as helpless baby girl. Give him what he deserves. Trick him and leave him stuck the way he is. That's what I say."

"We'll think of something," Johnny assured everyone and turned to me. "Well, Jack, looks like we can take care of things from here. Since you gave me your card, here's mine. I think this bit of information you've brought us entitles you to a body swap or rebirth, free of charge."

I took his card and examined it. The logo was a stork with an eye-patch carrying a pair of infants surrounded by the lazy-eight infinity symbol. The card had the same phone number I'd been given already and it read: The Stork Inc.

"There's a new code message scribbled on the back," Johnny said. "I advise you to memorize it and destroy the card. Now I think our business is finished, so we'll let you go. Oh, and if you tell the body cops any of this, we'll find you and make your life miserable. Now good day, Jack."

The hova-van pulled back into the parking lot beside Grant Park and let me off.

I stood on the sidewalk and watched the van fly off back into the airway and disappear into a blur of traffic.

A hand gripped me on the shoulder and I turned around to see a redheaded teenage girl looking up at me with concern.

"What do you want with the Johnny Mob?" she asked stepping back and aiming her red purse at me as if it were a gun or something.

"Nothing," I lied.

She was wearing bluejean cutoffs, a pink t-shirt and some white ankle socks and sneakers.

"I'm giving you one more chance," she warned. "Now tell me what you want with the Johnny Mob."

"Nothing," I lied again stepping back and bumping into someone who stood behind me.

"Hose him," the girl said and whoever was behind me stuffed some pantyhose over my face and sprayed some rose scented perfume up my nose.

I got dizzy and passed out.

Some treasures are hard to find, and harder to hold onto.

Gems of Ordon

by Cleo Kraft

Chapter II

I woke up lying naked on top of a bed in some sort of cabin room aboard a space liner. I could tell it was a space liner because of the familiar rumble and low gravity, not to mention the room decor that only space liners were known for. Blue and red sparkled wallpaper, white beds, orange velcro floor, emergency pressure suits hanging on the wall beside the door. It was obvious I was now on my way to some unknown destination.

I sat up and looked out the porthole and saw stars outside, confirming for a certainty that I was no longer on my homeworld, Mars.

I looked around for my clothes but they were gone. Whoever did this to me not only wanted me off Mars, but also wanted to humiliate me on top of it.

I glanced over at the pressure suits and realized I'd look almost as ridiculous wandering around the ship wearing one of those as I would walking about in my nakedness.

No clothes, no wallet, nothing, and probably half a million miles away from my homeworld to boot.

I figured a pressure suit was better than walking around my stateroom
naked, but my captors didn't leave me with a very good selection. There was a green suit but it was for someone half my height, and that left only a pink suit . . . a woman's suit as was evident by the narrower waist and double cup design in the chest.

I squeezed in the pink suit as best I could. Luckily the waist stretched both outward and upward to compensate for differing height and girth. Even still, it was a tight fit and extremely uncomfortable, let alone embarrassing.

I put on the helmet and lowered the black sun visor to disguise my face. At least people would think I was a woman, even if they still thought was crazy for wearing a p-suit on a star liner.

I opened the door and walked out into a red hallway.

Some women passed me, laughing at me as they continued on their way.

I turned and walked out into a grand lobby filled with hundreds of young beautiful women walking about to other parts of the ship.

I walked down the great spiral staircase to the next level and stood beside a huge marble fountain. Everywhere about the room there were women, and they were laughing and pointing at me like I was some kind of freak for wearing a p-suit.

"Hi, I'm Tanya. What's the problem, honey?" a woman staff member asked. "If your room is too cold, all you need to do is call the main desk and we'll fix it for you."

A few other women laughed at that.

"Um, I'm lost," I said. "I think I got on the wrong ship. Where are we headed?"

Tanya looked at me with raised eyebrows and asked,"What's the matter with your voice, dear? Not to be rude or anything but through your suit speaker it sounds almost mannish, but that's impossible, right? This is a private cruise for women only, and where we're headed is Neptune."

"Neptune?" I asked in horror realizing now I was on some sort of slave ship. No women ever go to Neptune voluntarily, at least none that I've ever heard of. This was some kind of slave ship bringing new slave girls to one of the most notorious parts of the solar system.

"Yes, dear," Tanya said placing her hand on my shoulder. "Neptune. Now why don't you run back up to your room and take off that silly pressure suit, okay?"

"But-"

"But what?" Tanya asked.

"But someone stole my clothes and things," I explained.

"Very well, what room are you staying in?" she asked.

"Two-fourteen I think," I shrugged.

"We'll send someone right up with some courtesy clothes and makeup. How's that? Better? Okay, now run along dear," Tanya said turning me around and patting me on the back.

I walked back up the stairs and back to my room. Luckily the door was unlocked, but I guess on a slave ship like this you don't really need locks on the doors anyway.

I walked in the bathroom and shut the door and waited there because I knew sooner or later someone was going to ask me to remove my helmet and they'd catch me. Better to hide in the bathroom and let the delivery girl just drop off some clothes and things for me. Too bad they can't also drop off a wig but I'll have to make due with what I have if I want to get out of here.

"Hello?" a woman called out. "Anyone home?"

"I'm in the bathroom," I replied through the door. "Just leave the things on the bed."

"But I have to know your size," she called back.

I opened the bathroom door a crack and stuck my arm out and said,"I'm this tall, and about this wide . . . from here to here."

"Huh?" she asked puzzled.

"Oh, and my bust size is about out to here," I said gesturing from the edge of the door outward a bit, then quickly pulled my arm back in the bathroom and shut the door. Then I opened the door and stuck my leg out and shook it about and pulled it back in and shut the door once more. "That's for my shoe size."

"That's silly," the woman said. "Don't you know your own clothing sizes?"

"Um . . . fine, how are you?" I said pretending to mistake her question.

"I'll just leave the makeup here on the edge of your bed then and come back with the clothes," the woman told me. "Anything else?"

"Uh . . . You wouldn't have a blonde wig and a razor would you?" I asked hopefully.

"A wig?" the woman asked.

"Um . . . Hair loss . . . Bald spots. You know. Standing too close to the microwave antenna when dusting the rooftop. You know how it is. Nasty stuff, those microwave transmitters, you know. Nuked part of my brain too," I said konking my helmet several times against the bathroom door.

"What in the world is wrong with your voice?" she asked. "Oh, nevermind, it's not worth it. Okay, so you want one blonde wig and some razors. Very well. I have to go back to the supply room for the clothes anyway. I'm going to take a guess at your bust size if you won't tell me. If it's wrong, just ring the front desk and they'll send someone right up help. Anyway, I'll be back in a jiffy."

___-----___

Sometime later after the woman delivered the rest of the things, came out of the bathroom and looked over the goods.

Three dresses, all red, but slightly varying lengths, the longest coming to just below the knee from my guess.

Several pairs of stockings, panties, and bras lay folded neatly in little piles beside the dresses and three pairs of high heeled shoes, all black but varying heights, lay on the floor beside a box of makeup and what appeared to be not a razor but some sort of permanent hair removal wand I'd seen on commercials before. Beside the dresses sat a long blonde wig.

Whoever kidnapped me and stuck me naked on a slave ship for girls, was definitely not on my happy list, that's for sure. Even if I managed to get all dressed up in drag to somehow fool the women on board this ship, I still didn't know how in the world I was ever going to get back to Mars without my wallet, and if the slave Lords caught me snooping around their girls like this, I can't imagine what they'd do to me. Bottom line is if I ever see that red headed girl who was involved in kidnapping me and sticking me on this cursed space liner, I'm going to be so mad with rage, I won't be responsible for my actions.

It's just humiliating, that's all. Having no choice but to get dressed up in drag just to hide my male identity - it's completely humiliating.

I looked at the dresses once more and realized it could be worse. It could be gegrothins instead. That would be really humiliating if I had to wear a gegrothin. Humiliating and painful. Those things have a built in crotch grabber that's designed to pull tightly against a woman and . . . well you get the picture. It's designed not so much to hide their sex, but to reveal it as through a second skin. If a man ever wore something like that, it would crush the life right out of him. Might as well shove a bear trap up between your legs because that's about the same effect a man would get from wearing a gegrothin.

Pure, excruciating pain.

Literally women are the only ones that could ever wear a gegrothin. Chalk up one more thing women can do that men can't, I guess. It's no wonder that Todd Angle wore one last night while in that rented female body. Even I'm a bit curious as to how something like that might feel like sculpted right up snug against a woman. I hear it's a constant turn on for women wearing gegrothins. No wonder Todd was horny as hell as a woman yesterday, even in the restaurant.

I reached down and picked up the hair removal wand and walked in the bathroom.

I got out of my p-suit and stepped in the shower, bringing the hair removal wand with me.

I hesitated for a moment because I knew this was going to be permanent hair removal. If I used it on my legs, I'd never grow hair there ever again. It would take special medication to grow hair again, and even then it wouldn't ever be quite the same. I had rather hairy legs that I was proud of. It showed how much of a man I was when I'd wear shorts to the beach or to the gym. Hairless legs just wasn't manly to me, probably one reason why I never wanted to become an Olympic swimmer.

I still didn't know if I could stand to zap off all my leg hair for good, just in a crazy attempt to disguise myself as a woman and somehow escape this slave ship and return to Mars where I belonged.

What has to be, has to be.

I flipped the "on" switch and the hair removal wand hummed loudly as waved it up and down my legs just inches over my skin as it vaporized the hair with some mysterious, invisible energy beam.

I quickly finished my left leg and ran my hand down my thigh, realizing the wand not only removed my leg hair but also tightened and toned up the skin into perfect smoothness. I couldn't even see the tiny holes in my skin where hair used to grow from. It was gone completely.

I waved the hair removal wand up and down my right leg and then decided to do the rest of my body, save the hair on my head and my eyebrows and eye lashes. I even waved the wand over my face to remove all hint of beard growth. I couldn't grow a beard or moustache now even if wanted to. It was gone forever.

I turned off the hair removal wand and stepped out of the shower, placing the wand back in the bedroom on the edge of the bed.

Then I went back in the bathroom and took a quick shower.

I realized that drying off after the shower was now a much quicker job without all that leg and body hair. Most of the water just dripped right off me before my towel even had a chance to do anything. It was amazing.

I went back in the bedroom and took another look at the clothes lying on the bed.

With a sigh, I picked up a pair of white cotton panties and pulled them on. They were a bit loose on me but the elastic band held them in place fairly well.

I picked up one of the bras and fumbled with it for awhile, trying to figure out how to put it on. After a few minutes I managed to get it into place, but it, too, was loose on me other than the elastic straps that held it close to my chest. Obviously I'd have to stuff this thing with a whole lot of something in order to make it look like I had any breasts at all.

I walked back in the bathroom and found some toilet paper and stuffed what seemed like rolls and rolls of the stuff into my bra. Then I walked back out to the bedroom and examined the pantyhose.

There were several different colors and styles to choose from, but finally I decided on a pair that was so black they might as well have been tights than pantyhose. I quickly pulled them on and in my haste I created several runs in the stockings.

I discarded the black stockings and found some dark tan ones that I thought would work fairly well. This time to avoid ripping the stockings to shreds, I carefully rolled each leg of the stockings up into little doughnuts and placed my feet inside, slowly unraveling the stockings up my legs until they were snugly in place.

The material felt silky and extremely stimulating as I practiced walking about the room in my stockings just to get used to them.

I picked out the longest red dress, which came to just below the knees, and put it on. The zipper in the back gave me no end of trouble but after about ten minutes or so I finally got the thing all zipped up.

The dress was really tight on me. I heard once that clothing companies started sewing automatic corsets right into dresses and this one was no exception. Almost as soon as the zipper in the back was fully locked in place, the built-in corset pulled my stomach painfully inwards. I wasn't really overweight to begin with but the corset obviously thought I needed to loose a good many inches off my waistline, pulling tighter and tighter until I had a thin, almost dainty waist.

Breathing became immediately difficult with that torturous dress on but I adjusted by taking shorter, quicker breaths than I normally did. I again walked about the room to get used to the clothing a bit and finally got to the point where I hardly noticed my breathing had changed at all. Kind of like getting used to the strong scent of roses in a garden. At first the smell can be almost overwhelming, and then you kind of forget about it and just enjoy it. That's how it was with this dress. Kind of overwhelming at first, but after walking around the room for a few minutes, I got used to it.

I carefully picked up the makeup box and walked in the bathroom, setting the box down on the counter by the sink.

Women's makeup applicators had changed considerably over the years, and as a man, I had really no idea what any of the stuff did anyway, which only made it that much more complicated for me as I rummaged through all the bottles, powders, lipsticks and creams.

I about kicked myself when I discovered at the bottom of the box was one of those full face makeup applicator masks. I'd seen these in commercials before and sure enough, it was fairly simple if you could figure out what all the dials and knobs were on the side control panel.

I set the eye shadow control to medium blue haze, whatever that was, and the lipstick for pretty pink. Then I set some sort of base applicator control to medium. In fact, I set most of all the settings on medium because I didn't want to overdo it, nor underdo it.

Once the controls were all set, I lifted the bulky silver mask up to my face, I closed my eyes, and I clicked a button on top. It worked sort of like how a camera works actually.

I heard a beeping noise but nothing else happened.

I pulled the mask away from my face and turned the darn contraption over this way and that in my hands until I saw the readout display. It said something like "lipstick cartridge empty . . . base makeup empty . . . paper jam . . ." and so on.

I finally figured out that you had to plug in about twelve different cartridges into the thing. It was now twice as bulky as before and now I wondered if it was really such a great scientific advancement compared to just putting on makeup manually.

Once again, I put the mask up to my face, closed my eyes, and pressed the button.

The mask got real warm and I felt it rippling against my face in warm, liquid waves of pulsating energy. Something rubbed against my lips and traced over them, leaving a slick substance behind. I felt tiny little combs grab my eyelashes and carefully run through them, painting them with what could only be mascara.

A bell rang and the mask popped off my face with a hissing noise as powder shot out all over the floor and counter.

Amazingly enough, as I set the mask down and looked at my face in the mirror, I realized the mask did quite a good job on me. If it weren't for my slightly larger nose and squarish chin, I was sure I was looking at the face of a woman. Not really too pretty, nor too ugly, but kind of a plain woman's face. Just an average girl I guess.

As good a job as the mask did on my face, it did an even better job on my dress with all the powder that now spotted up my outfit.

I'd have to remember to wear the dress last next time.

I went back out to the bedroom and removed my dress, then getting into a shorter one that came up two inches above the knees. At least my knees weren't really bony or else this wouldn't work at all.

I took the blonde wig and put it on, then walked over to the bathroom mirror to adjust it so it looked somewhat natural.

I looked in the mirror at myself and saw that the wig enhanced my girlish disguise considerably.

I went over and sat on the edge of the bed and tried on the shoes.

This is where I ran into trouble because none of the shoes fit me at all. My feet were just too long. There was no way I was going to fit in any of these shoes.

I decided to call the front desk. At least I looked more like a woman now than a man, so I knew this time I wouldn't have to hide from the delivery girl.

A few minutes later, a woman came in the room and glanced at me sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Oh, I see you've tried on some of the clothes I left you," she said and looked down at my feet. "Well, the shoes didn't fit, huh? Okay, those look like they're in the beta class, no offense."

"None taken," I said in my best girl's voice, which wasn't really all that convincing.

"Your voice sounds stranger than ever, girl," the woman said.

"Microwaves, remember?"

"Oh my," she said looking at my face and studying it for a moment. "You weren't kidding about getting too close to a microwave transmitter, were you? Oh, my poor girl. This just won't do. We're gonna have to do something about your looks if you're going to bring in any money at the auction block. Come on. Stand up for a sec, would ya?"

I stood up and she looked up at me.

"Oh my," she said. "This won't do at all. How did they ever pick you, you poor child? You're much too tall. Much too much too tall. We can fix that, and your face when we get to the space station. They've got cures for this sort of thing and we don't want the slave Lord's to get angry, do we girl?"

"There's something you don't know-"

"No, no, my girl. We'll talk about this later," she said reaching up and taking me by the chin, turning my face to the left and right. "Oh feel so sorry for you, girl. We'll get you fixed all nice and pretty and petite, don't you worry a bit. We'll fix that odd little voice of yours too. No, wait. I've got a better idea. It's a bit unorthodox since the slave Lords prefer original bodies, but I think what the slave Lords don't know won't hurt 'em, right? I'll phone ahead and have someone prepare princess clone. We'll just do a quick old fashioned body exchange on you, darling. Now don't you fret. We'll make you the prettiest girl in the entire auction and you'll make the slave Lords very, very rich, and some lucky new master very, very happy. Now lets just forget about the shoes for now, okay? We'll get you all fixed up at the station. So just stay here in your room and if you need anything, just give the front desk a ring and I'll be right up. My name's Sharla."

"And I'm . . . Jeanette," I said using the name of one of my ex-girlfriends.

"Jeanette?" she asked looking up at my wig. "Hmmmm . . . Seems like more of a brunette's name than a blonde. How about I set up a brunette clone? . . . That is, unless you'd prefer a blonde."

"Uh . . . brunette's fine," I said gulping, realizing now I had to find a way to escape more than ever because if I didn't, I'd soon find myself living the life of a real slave girl.

She turned around and left, waving happily at me as she closed the door.

___-----___

I searched in my mind dozens of ways I might escape from this mess, but in the end I realized there was really no way I could escape this unless somehow while I was on the station I could manage to get out of my female disguise. In all likelihood that situation wasn't going to happen. Slave girls may have free roam on a ship like this, but such freedom for slave girls wasn't known on Gamma Station, if that's where we were headed. They'd post at least two guards on me at all times if what I'd seen on different news programs about the slave trade was true.

If I blew my cover at Gamma station, I could take the chance of escaping to freedom as a man, or getting thrown in some slave Lord's prison for masquerading around as a woman on board his slaver vessel.

If I let them swap me into a real woman's body, I'd be trapped for sure whether I wanted to be or not.

There was one other way, but it meant almost certain death if it went wrong. I could try and get to an escape pod and hope that it would land me on Neptune near one of the big cities. The problem with that idea is if the pod didn't land near a big city, I'd be stuck in the middle of nowhere with oxygen running out and not much food or water to live on. Plus, if the pod didn't get to Neptune, I'd probably just drift off into space and die anyway as the life support gradually failed.

There was also the problem of Neptune itself. The entire city structure of Neptune was composed of both asteroid grids interconnected with gravity attractor discs to hold them in place all around the tops of the clouds of Neptune. If the pod were to pass the high altitude population grid and plunge deep into the atmosphere of Neptune, the enormous winds would tear the pod apart. Failing that, if the pod should travel even deeper inward, the atmospheric pressure would almost certainly be too great for the pod to stand up against, and if the pod made it all the way to the surface of the core, the boiling, poisonous liquid would finish the pod for sure.

The escape pod idea was about the only chance I had to escape this ship before we got to the space station, but I was too afraid to risk almost certain death if the pod went too far off course. Oh, there were distress beacons built into the pods, sure, but I don't want every slave Lord on Neptune coming to my rescue considering they'd be able to trace where the pod came from and that would put me in an even worse situation than I'm in already. Slave Lords are known for being pretty harsh to guys that mess with their precious cargo ships.

As I sat there on the edge of my bed thinking about my options, I realized there really was no way out of this mess. If I got out of my disguise and gave myself up, the slave Lords would kill me. If I didn't, I would be body swapped into a princess clone, probably one of the immortal models. You know, the kind that are set at age eighteen or twenty-one permanently. I'd be stuck literally forever as a beautiful young slave girl with pretty low chances of ever going back to who I was before.

I got up off the bed and walked over to the bathroom mirror.

I was six foot tall, but no doubt I'd loose at least six to twelve inches off my height if they stuck me in a girl's body.

My hands were kind of rough from my years of being a mechanic, but they'd be changed to soft, delicate girl's hands if I went along with this fiasco.

I had over thirty thousand plinkets worth of credit card debt, but by becoming another person, it would be wiped out. I'd start off with clean slate. Of course, I'd also never be allowed to own property as a slave girl, so there was that price to consider as well.

As a guy, I didn't really do too much with my life. I was a workaholic, spending more time at the shop or working on my own hovacar than trying to actually go out and live my life or have any fun at all. As a girl, I imagine I'd become a sexaholic instead, and though I wonder what that would really be like, I'm not sure I'm ready to find out, but do I even have a choice? That's the real question. Do I really have a choice in all this, or did the redheaded girl back at the park screw my life up forever all because I wouldn't answer her question about the Johnny Mob?

Obviously, whoever that girl was, she wanted me out of the picture for some reason, and I just can't imagine why she'd do this to me just because I failed to answer one simple question. I wonder if she was onto the whole thing about Vin's secret money stash? Probably not. The only one's that probably even knew were Vin himself and the few people I talked to in that hovavan. Still, if I ever get ahold of that redheaded girl that did this to me, I won't be responsible for my actions.

___-----___

Sometime later the door opened in my stateroom.

"Knock-knock," Sharla said peeking her head inside and then stepping in the room. "Are we ready? Come on, it's all set. You're new body's waiting for you. Leave that junk here, we'll be back for the trip down to the planet. Come on, now. Follow me, Jeanette."

I silently followed Sharla down the hallway. She was wearing a white dress with a gold belt. A little white cap adorned her head. Her whole uniform matched that of all the other staff I saw as we headed down the spiral staircase and into the main lobby.

People stared at me, probably because they each secretly guessed I was not who I appeared to be. I was not a woman but a man in a fairly bad disguise. A few women chuckled to themselves as I passed by, while others only stared, and still others took no notice of me at all.

I wondered if my disguise was really all that bad, though. It certainly seemed to fool Sharla anyway, or did she only pretend I was a woman for other reasons? What if she was in on that redheaded girl's little game and wanted to change me into a woman as part of some evil little plan of theirs to get me out of the picture for good without actually going through the trouble to kill me?

But changing me into a woman would be nearly the same as killing me anyway. The person known as Jack Larnstrom would cease to exist.

I lined up behind three other girls and Shawna and two guards dressed in black body armor escorted us down a red carpeted gangplank and onto a moving sidewalk that quickly sped us along, deeper into Gamma Station.

The girls standing in front of me must have been going in for body swaps as well. One of them was even taller than I was, and the others were just a tad overweight in spots. Obviously we were all going to be swapped into newer and better bodies to better impress the slave Lords. I wondered how it was that these minor imperfections in the girls were overlooked in the first place. Probably didn't matter much to the cargo runners if all it took was an illegal body swap into a princess clone to correct such things.

The moving sidewalk ended in a red carpeted hallway with white marble pillars along the walls.

We marched forward through an open doorway and Shawna produced her identification badge to a guard standing in a small entryway.

We continued through and into a small waiting room.

A short, chubby man wearing green Neptunian Army fatigues stood there to greet us. "Welcome to Gamma Station, ladies," he said looking at us and then looking at his clipboard. "I'm afraid you won't be enjoying your stay here too long. Point of the matter is you're here because your bodies are unacceptable as they are. Ugly women aren't acceptable as slave girls on Neptune, and boy are you ladies dog ugly. However, because of your looks, you were cheaper to purchase, but we'll fix all that in a few moments, my ladies, and place you in more expensive bodies that we feel will serve both your new masters well while also easily make up for the added risk and cost of this procedure when you are finally sold on the auction blocks. Now in order to be fair, we'll take ugliest first and move right along."

"Ugliest to the front!" one of the guardsmen ordered.

Another guardsman looked right at me and said,"That means you. Now move it."

A nurse stepped in the waiting room from a door on the far wall and said,"We're ready for the first patient now."

I looked down at my stockinged feet, trying to think of some way out of this.

"Move it, lady," a guard said jabbing me in the ribs with his phase rifle.

I walked forward, surprised that all the guards remained behind to watch the others.

"This way please," the nurse said and I followed her through the door and down a white hallway and into a large room.

There were suspended animation chambers lined up like coffins to my left and right as I followed the nurse up to a platform that held two additional chambers, one of which was occupied by a sleeping brunette woman dressed in a black bikini.

"Please get in," the nurse said gesturing to the empty chamber.

"What will become of my old body?" I asked gulping, wondering if now was a good time to make a run for it. To my knowledge, there was only one way back out of this room and that was the hallway that led to the waiting room and the guards. No way of escape. I had no choice but to go along with this and hope I'd find some way back to normal later.

"Archive and eventual deletion," the nurse replied. "You won't need your old body anymore anyway. Now please get in. There are others waiting."

I gulped once more and carefully climbed in the empty chamber and lay on my back.

The glass lid closed above me and a hissing noise filled the chamber as cold fog surrounded me.

This was it. I knew I was going to die. Jack Larnstrom was going to die now.

No matter who or what I became after this, it didn't matter because the person I knew myself to be will no longer exist.

I heard about these suspended animation chambers, but never knew they used them in combination with body swapping.

Amplified cold. That's what this stage was all about. In a few moments I'll soon feel the chamber rumble from my feet up to the top of my head and final wave of icy fog will blast across my body, placing me in a deathlike sleep. After that, I suppose they'll do the mind transfer. I guess it was better this way, at least for the poor clone. She will never have a single waking moment of awareness on her own. Her body was made simply for others to occupy. She will never become a conscious individual. Her brain was reserved to place another's memories, thoughts and consciousness inside. That is why swap clones were made illegal, but laws only really seem to restrict the general population, while giving crooks a monopoly over a technology that was never meant to be.

Poor clone. They'll swap us and then kill her in my old body after archiving my DNA and structural pattern for some library computer somewhere on Gamma Station.

Archival and deletion. I'd heard of it before but only on animals. It wasn't ever meant to be used on humans. Once again someone came along and misused science to achieve their own selfish ways.

The chamber started to rumble.

This is it. My male life is about to be over with.

The rumbling gripped my feet and I felt a stabbing pain shoot up through my legs as the suspended animation process accelerated.

The whole chamber vibrated wildly and the cold jutted up through my legs, abdomen, chest, neck

Everything went black and silent.

Some treasures are hard to find, and harder to hold onto.

Gems of Ordon

by Cleo Kraft

Chapter III

I woke up but everything was a blur and I shivered from being cold and wet all over.

Someone helped me up out of the chamber and I nearly stumbled to the floor in my weakened condition.

A towel was wrapped around me and I walked along, trying to focus but my vision blurred in and out and I felt dizzy and as weak as a newborn kitten. The floor felt really cold on my bare feet as I stumbled along, guided by some kind woman I could barely focus on. I was so dizzy and disoriented I just looked down at the white tiled floor and let the woman guide me to wherever it was she was taking me.

She helped me sit down in a chair in some strange white hallway and just huddled there shivering and pulling my towel closer to me for whatever warmth I could obtain.

Everything was really confusing so I closed my eyes and tried not to think of what was going on or what happened to me.

Awhile later I opened my eyes and my vision started to clear.

I saw there was a girl sitting beside me with a white towel wrapped about her body. She just sat there with her head hunched between her knees while she shivered and quaked. Her wet, tangly blonde hair trailed down to the floor and she coughed every now and then as she trembled from the cold.

My vision finally cleared all the way and I looked past the girl and down the hall to the suspended animation room I'd been in awhile ago. The nurse was helping another girl out of one of the booths.

A hand clasped my left knee and I turned to see Shawna sitting there on my left.

"Feeling better, Jeanette?" she asked letting go of my knee.

I nodded a "yes."

"Good," Shawna said admiring the new me. "You're a lucky, lucky girl. What I wouldn't give to have a princess model for my own body . . . and the best part is you'll never age now. Well don't thank me. If you hadn't called me up to your room for some new clothes, you'd still be stuck in your old ugly body. You'll fetch much more money now, and I'm sure both you and your new master will be more than pleased with the results. Oh, and even better still, I've been told these new princess models have some sort of regenerative ability, so you'll never run out of eggs. That means you'll be able to have babies forever if that is your master's wish. You're a lucky, lucky girl."

I heard feet shuffling to my right and I turned and saw the nurse escorting another girl to sit down on one of the chairs nearby.

"Another waker," the nurse said shaking her head back and forth like she was just tired of her job already.

"Will I ever be able to get my old body back?" I asked Shawna hopefully.

She looked at me like I was out of my mind for asking such a thing.

"Girl," Shawna said to me. "You're must still be delusional from this experience. You can't honestly want your old body back, can you?"

I shrugged and said,"What if I wanted to though?"

Shawna turned to face the nurse and said,"Nurse when is the deletion set for on the old bodies?"

"Tomorrow morning," the nurse replied.

"Would you do me a favor and have it done within the hour?" Shawna said.

"Certainly," the nurse nodded. "No problem at all. I'll page the maintenance boys."

The nurse headed over to a phone nearby.

"See?" Shawna asked turning to smile at me. "Now there's nothing for you to worry about, is there? So get those silly thoughts out of your head, girl. This body is a gift. I advise you to forget about your old body and start accepting this wonderful gift I've given you."

"Done," the nurse said to Shawna while hanging up the phone. "Someone's on their way right now to take care of it."

"Good," Shawna said standing up. "Come on, Jeanette. Time for you to head back to the cargo ship where you'll be nice and safe now. I've had some new clothes laid out for you in your room. One of the guards will escort you back to the ship. Come on. Follow me back to the waiting room."

I stood up and wobbled a bit as I tried to get used to balancing my new body.

Nervously I took a step, and then another, and realized it wasn't so difficult to adjust to walking at all. My hips swayed some, but I guess that's to be expected now that I'm a girl. Other than that, my new walk was pretty easy to adjust to.

My breasts didn't bounce about like I expected. They were firm and trim and held in place quite snugly by my bikini top. Still, they did tend to sway from side to side a bit as I walked. Not overly large breasts, nor too small, but kind of medium. Perfect, I suppose, for a body like this.

The hair on my head was long and still a little wet. It's soft, tangly strands tickled across my back as I followed Shawna down the hall and into the waiting room.

"Guard," Shawna said to one of the men in black armor. "This princess model is through here. Please escort her back to the ship and return here for the others."

"Yes, maam," the guard said and took me by the arm. "This way, girl."

___-----___

Back in my stateroom alone, I sat on the edge of my bed and cried as I looked at my face in a small hand mirror.

My familiar masculine face was gone now and the strange hormones in my new body gave me the ability to openly cry out of control and I did.

In the mirror I saw the face of perhaps an eighteen year old woman with brown eyes, a slight little button of a nose, and ever so kissable lips. My hair color was dark, dark brown, almost black, and some of it kept getting in my eyes and I had to brush it aside every now and then.

I touched my face in disbelief and ran my hands along it's features. Smooth cheeks and chin, soft little nose . . . smoothness all over.

There was also the constant baby skin kind of smell. I smelled new and fresh. I smelled like a girl, and it was inescapable. Just sitting here crying at myself in the mirror, I could smell the girlness all about me. Though it was a nice scent, I began to understand one of the reasons women wore perfume to variate it a little.

I set the mirror down with a sniffle and picked up a bottle of perfume in the box of makeup sitting on the bed beside me. I squirted a little perfume here and there on my neck and arms until I smelled a little bit like some sort of flower garden.

I set the perfume down and brought both my legs up on the bed and spread both legs out to my left and right until I was doing the sideways splits.

If I was my old self and walked in the room right now and saw this pretty girl sitting on her bed doing the splits, I think I'd be so turned on I'd have to walk back out of here crouched over to avoid showing the hardon in my pants. However now there was nothing. This wasn't turning me on at all and it really disturbed me because I thought girls would always be turned on by their own actions, but nothing stirred within me at all. It was almost like being sexless. There just wasn't anything happening down there between the legs now.

I pressed both hands between my legs flat up against my new sex and still there was no apparent sexual stimulation at all. I rubbed my hands up and down against the outside of my bikini briefs and nothing seemed to happen. It felt good, like a massage, but other than that there weren't any fireworks going on.

I put my hands on my bikini top and rubbed my breasts a bit. My nipples got hard and a little tingly, but the feeling only filled me with repulsion and shame. I rubbed my breasts all over and jiggled them about but nothing came of it. It was easy to tell that as a woman, I'd be pretty useless at turning myself on. I'd heard of this though. I'd heard that some women rarely ever climax except a few times in their whole life, if at all. I wondered if I was going to be one of those women. I hoped not. If I had to be a woman at all, I wanted everything to work the best that it could. I realized though that this situation was just all wrong. Who was I kidding? I was born male and that's where I belonged. Not here in a woman's body.

I stopped fondling myself because it just wasn't working, and I picked up the mirror again and cried, wishing that I'd never gotten into this mess to begin with.

After awhile, I glanced at the new clothes left for me on the bed and wondered what I'd look like in them. Anything was better than sitting around half naked in a bikini.

Before they'd given me three red dresses, this time I got two dresses and one gegrothin, all black.

I picked up the gegrothin and dangled it there before my face. It looked like someone took a body stocking, sewed a short skirt on it and then ran the thing through a gigantic hole puncher until it looked like Swiss cheese.

I lifted up the skirt portion of the gegrothin and felt the soft, warm material in the panty-area. Though I couldn't see or feel any mechanism built in the material, I knew the famous crotch grabber of the gegrothin was there. I think they called it "smart fabric" or something. It looked like normal material but if you put the thing on, it would grab hold tightly until it became like a second skin. Supposedly the effect was pretty erotic for a woman wearing this, though I'd heard it didn't affect all women. Probably like the orgasm thing. Some could, some couldn't. Kind of sad but I bet I was the kind of woman that couldn't.

I got up off the bed and stood there holding the gegrothin, pondering on whether or not I should try it on.

I decided I'd give it a try.

Since my black bikini matched, I left the top on as a sort of bra, just as an experiment, but I took my bikini briefs off.

There wasn't any zipper or anything in the back of the gegrothin, so the only way in the thing had to be through the neck. I discovered the neck area was pretty flexible and I took both hands and stretched the thing wide enough to slip both legs inside. I placed my left foot in, then the right and tugged the material up until my legs slipped all the way in.

My right foot accidentally stopped in the crotch grabber and the material grabbed my toes and let go. It felt oddly enough like a kiss. I guess the crotch grabber could tell the difference between my foot and my crotch and let go after realizing what it grabbed ahold of.

I slid both legs down into the stocking portion of the outfit and even before I could pull my arms into the sleeves, the crotch grabber started doing it's job and pulled tighter and tighter up against me between the legs. If I were still a man, I'd be in considerable pain right now, but oddly enough the sensation was quite pleasant, even comfortable. The silky material simply snuggled up close and grabbed on tight like glove. It fit perfectly like a second skin just as it was designed to do.

I pulled both arms though the sleeves of the gegrothin and the rest of it just slid into place.

I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror.

I had to admit, the gegrothin not only looked nice, it felt nice too.

I guess now that I've tried on a gegrothin, I've finally done what could never do as a man - survive the crotch grabber in this thing.

___-----___

I felt the rumble of the ship as we departed the space station and began our approach of Neptune's population grid.

Since life on Neptune was out of the question due to high winds and poisonous atmosphere that ranged from below freezing temperatures in most of the upper atmosphere to boiling temperatures at the core, scientists early on devised a way to both harness the wind power and provide a means of supporting life by herding hundreds of asteroids into low orbit just above Neptune's fast moving clouds. The asteroids in most cases were hollowed out to extract metals and also construct cities and bases inside.

During the asteroid harvesting, the asteroids were placed in a safer, higher orbit in preparation for connecting them together with invisible gravity fields using new technology obtained from the discovery of a remarkable new substance found in the asteroids themselves. That material was called kelleniualite and changed the course of science forever.

Once the gravity discs were in place, and the underside of the asteroids were fitted with enormous steel windmills, the asteroids were carefully lowered into place above the clouds of Neptune and the gravity discs activated, keeping the giant web of cities securely in place.

The windmills, once in place in the incredibly high winds of Neptune, would provide more than ample means to supply the cities with a virtual eternal power source. Energy without waste matter.

Even better, the cities disposed of their own trash by ejecting it into the core of Neptune where winds tore it apart and gravity took it down to be melted into nothingness.

Originally, scientists considered Jupiter for the first stratospheric population grid, but after careful evaluation it was decided that Neptune, being a smaller gas giant, would be an easier undertaking.

I've never been to Neptune before, and this was going to be my first visit to a stratospheric population grid. Unfortunately whatever excitement I had was replaced with fear because I wasn't going to Neptune for a mere visit, I was going there to be sold as a slave girl. Something I wasn't at all looking forward to.

___-----___

Sometime later Shawna came to my room and informed me we were beginning our final approach to land on Neptune.

"You'd better come with me down to the main cargo hold," Shawna said. "You'll find the conditions aren't as nice as this stateroom but Neptune slave Lords insist their women are treated as cargo. Us traders try and be a bit more civilized for most of the journey to Neptune, but we must put on a show for the slave Lords, so to the cargo hold you go."

I followed her out the door and down the hall.

"You know," she said. "When your old body was being archived, one of the nurses discovered something unusual and reported it to me. Would you by any chance happen to know what they found?"

I gulped but didn't answer.

"The nurse told me that she discovered a man's body," Shawna said shaking her head like she couldn't believe it. "Now I know the lab's entitled to make a few mistakes every now and then, but not anything like this. Do you, by any chance, happen to know what the slave Lords would do if they found out one of their new princess models was walking around with a man's mind inside?"

She stopped and turned around to look at me with her hands on her hips.

"They wouldn't be happy," I guessed.

"Darn right they wouldn't," she said and handed me a card. "We found this . . . along with some male clothes stashed away in a maintenance locker just after we departed Mars. At the time I didn't know about it, but after what the nurse told me about finding a male body in your shunting chamber, I checked with security and found out. It seems to make sense considering you had no clothes in your stateroom, right?"

"Let me explain-"

"No," she interrupted, holding her hand up. "Let me guess. A red headed girl in the park, right?"

"How did you know?"

"Because this is the third time it's happened," Shawna replied. "But the other two men simply called the front desk and we dropped them off at Gamma Station. Look, I don't care why you crossed Imlari or her gang, but you would have saved me and yourself alot of trouble if you just came forward to begin with. Now it's too late. The chips are already on the bidding table and someone's already interested in purchasing you. Now there's nothing I can do to save you now. You're going to be sold as a slave girl and it's all your fault for not coming out and telling me the truth about yourself. Now I've had the nurse spare your old body from deletion, so you owe me one, but it's going to be up to you to to get back to Gamma Station on your own if you want to get swapped back ever again. Oh, and there's going to be a hefty fee you're going to have to pay for causing all this trouble. Princess models aren't exactly cheap, you know."

We walked in an elevator and the doors closed.

"Cargo hold seven," Shawna called out and the elevator descended.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't know this was going to happen. Thanks for saving my old body though."

"It's alright," Shawna said smiling at me. "You probably won't ever see it again anyway. Once you're sold at auction, you'll probably be lucky if your new master ever lets you out of his house. Now body storage costs money, so you've got thirty days to get to Gamma Station before they figure you're not coming back and they delete your old body for good. Don't look so shocked, they were going to delete it after a week, but convinced them to extend it to a month."

"Thanks," I said. "Honestly, I didn't know what to do. I'm sorry."

She looked at me and shook her head and said,"You don't know what's going to happen to you, do you? You don't even have a clue. Do you realize what your new master is going to ask you to do? You're going to be some guy's sex slave. Are you prepared for that? I don't think you are. Look, I'm really tempted to save you from this, but it could cost me my job. What you've done really makes me sick though, and I don't know whether to save you because I feel sorry for you or let you go because you make me sick. For one, you're treading in territory no man was ever meant to tread. How dare you come along and think it's okay to masquerade around as a woman? You have no right to know what we know or feel what we feel. Why you're no better than a peeping Tom."

"I didn't know. I was-"

"Just shut up!" Shawna ordered, crossing her arms.

The elevator stopped and the doors opened. We walked out into a massive cargo bay where hundreds of other women were huddled about...naked.

"I'm sorry," I said as Shawna pushed me away from the elevator.

"You have thirty days," she said remaining behind in the elevator. "Good luck, for what it's worth, girl."

I guess she decided not to save me then. I guess I deserved that, though, for letting her think all along that I was a woman.

The elevator doors closed and she was gone.

"Clothes off!" a black armored guardsman ordered. "Remove your clothes and discard them in that laundry chute."

I slowly got out of my gegrothin.

My arms slid out easily enough, and so did my breasts and stomach, but the crotch portion wasn't budging. It was locked on tight.

"I said NOW!" the guard demanded.

"But I don't know how to . . ."

He walked over and grabbed me right between the legs and squeezed and the gegrothin relaxed it's hold on me.

The guard let go of me and I quickly finished removing the gegrothin, tossing it in the laundry chute.

"Stupid woman," the guard said to me. "Didn't your mommy ever teach you how to undress? I bet you never wore a gegrothin before in your whole life."

I suppose that was true, but I never took one off a woman before either, so how was I to know that you had to squeeze the crotch to get it to release?

I pulled off my bikini top and threw it in the laundry chute.

"Over there with the others," the guard said gesturing with his rifle.

I hurried over into a crowd of young naked women.

"Oh, oh!" a brunette said waving at me. "Another princess!"

She and two other girls, one a blonde, and one a redhead, hurried over to greet me.

I realized their bodies were identical to mine, except the hair color was different on two, but that brunette could have been my twin sister now. These were the other three women that went with me to get body swaps. We all got basically the same clone princess models.

"Hi," I said. "I'm Jeanette."

The girls giggled.

"Don't get used to your name too long," the blonde said. "You'll be assigned a new one once you're sold."

"I'm already sold," the brunette boasted adding. "To a man named Guron
Harrkar. I was sold on video auction just last night. My new name's Lacey. See this pink earring? It's the receipt. I'm not supposed to remove it though because I'm already sold, but you're the same princess model as I am, Jeanette, so why don't we play a fun game on the slave Lords and trade places? Nobody'll know except us girls. What do ya say?"

"Well I don't know . . . ," I said.

"Come on," Lacey urged. "You're just gonna be sold to some other creep anyway. What's the difference to you or me? It'll be our little joke on the slavers, okay?"

I guess it really didn't make any difference. Plus it would save me from the humiliation of being placed on an auction block in front of bunch of strange men.

"Okay," I agreed and Lacey took off her earring and put it on me.

"Good," Lacey said laughing. "This'll be a fun trick, right?"

"Sure," I shrugged.

"Okay, slaves," a guardsman said. "When we land the facilities at the auction will be limited, so . . . bathroom line, NOW!"

Before I could react fast enough all the women rushed to the sides of the cargo bay and got lined up beside some bathroom doors.

I walked over to one of the lines while tugging gently on my new earring.

It felt weird to be wearing an earring. I'd never worn one before. It kind of just hung there and jingled a bit. I guess earrings must have been for more than just looks. It was probably kind of a girl's way of reminding herself of her pretty ears. The gentle pinching was indeed an almost constant reminder that an earring hung there on my right ear.

By the time I got in the bathroom I could hear the outer cargo bay doors opening and I realized we'd landed.

I hurried up so fast that I couldn't really react to the new sensations of using the bathroom in my new gender. I just did what I had to do and got out of there.

I saw the girls lining up to depart the ship down a ramp and into some hova-trucks.

Shawna walked past me and pulled one of the princess clones out of the line. It was the brunette one! Shawna must have thought Lacey was me!

The two walked back past me and I heard Shawna say to Lacey,"Shut up.
No questions. I'm saving your ass, now be quiet and come with me."

Lacey turned back and looked right at me and gasped with a wide eyed expression of shock and confusion and she turned back around and followed Shawna back to the elevator.

I reached up and tugged on my earring, realizing Shawna must have seen it on me and determined immediately that I was the other brunette princess clone.

Shawna was going to take Lacey back to Gamma Station . . . They were going to swap the wrong princess clone into my old body!

"You there!" a guardsman said jabbing me in the ribs with his rifle barrel. "Where do you think you're going? You're already sold, now get down that ramp and into that car over there."

I walked down the cargo ramp and out onto the dirt. Bright artificial sunlight beamed down from anchor pods under a gray rock roof some two or three hundred feet above me.

A green scaled Ventrusian man grabbed me by the arm and shoved me in the back seat of a nearby hova-car and closed the door. He got in the front seat and pressed a button that locked the back doors.

"Who are you?" I asked.

He pressed another button and a steel divider quickly sealed off the front seat from the back.

I turned around and looked out the back window at all the other girls being marched into slave trucks. Marched right in the back of slave trucks as if those girls were cattle.

Then I turned back around as the hova-car took off.

From here on out, I guess I'm on my own, just like Shawna said.

Some treasures are hard to find, and harder to hold onto.

Gems of Ordon

by Cleo Kraft

Chapter IV

The hova-car took me into the underground garage of the house and palace of my new master, Gurron Harrkar.

Before I had a chance to say anything, the driver parked the car and yanked me out of the back seat, clamped his hand over my mouth and hurried me along into an elevator.

The elevator ascended up a few floors and I was led down a white corridor and into a room filled with strange and horrifying devices that looked like a cross between torture gizmo and high tech experimental gadgetry.

A doctor in a long white lab coat stood there waiting for me. "Oh, the
new princess model," he said. "Wonderful news, Gribsly. You are dismissed."

"Thank you, Doctor Karbak," the driver, Gribsly, said bowing as he backed out of the room, closing the door on his way out.

The Doctor took me and placed me in an iron body cage and closed the door.

"What are you going to do to me?" I asked worriedly.

The Doctor picked up some sort of scanning device and started waving it slowly up and down my body, just inches away from my naked flesh.

"Standard things," Karbak replied smiling at what he saw on the scanner display window. "Just standard things, my dear. Your new master will be pleased. A genuine princess clone. Not many people can spot them on sight like Gurron Harrkar, you know. That is why you were picked out and brought here without having to go to the auction house with the others. Harrkar has a particular fondness for princess clones, you know. You ARE an
original, I presume, and not mind swapped?"

Not knowing what was the best answer, I took a guess and said yes.

"Double good," Karbak said clasping his hands together. "Then there are two orders of business that must be attened to before I turn you over to your master. A pattern lock, to prevent chemical body alteration methods, and a mind lock, to prevent some greedy mind swapping fool from trying to steal your beautiful, immortal young body."

"Is that really necessary?" I asked gulping. If the Doctor did lock me into this body like he was suggesting, even if I escaped, I'd be trapped like this forever. An idea that wasn't at all pleasing to think about right now.

"Necessary?" the Doctor asked laughing. "Why, my dear, I should think you'd be thanking me for what I'm about to do for you. Besides, your master is a jealous man with picky tastes. If he were to find out someone stole the mind or altered the body of one of his slave girls, he'd be furious. So yes, my angel, mind and body locks are quite necessary for princess clones and indeed all of Gurron Harrkar's servants. Now don't worry, this isn't going to hurt a bit . . ."

He pressed a hypo up to my arm and I felt a slight pinch as a DNA pattern
locking chemical was injected in me.

He set a mind locking cap atop the body cage I was in, and I heard humming noise come from above my head and I felt dizzy for a moment but the sensation cleared up fast.

"There we are," Doc Karbak said smiling at me. "All done. Now wasn't that easy? Now you're a protected investment."

He opened up the body cage and let me out.

"One more thing," Karbak said. He took me by the left wrist and placed golden bracelet on it, clamping it shut. "This identification bracelet will forever mark you as slave girl Lacey, property of Gurron Harrkar. Once worn and the clasp shut, the bracelet can never be removed. If you try to escape, you won't get far. All the spaceports on Neptune have scanners for this certain type of bracelet, as do most other public places on the planet. If you are in a place you do not belong, the bracelet will sound an alarm and reveal you as a runaway slave girl. You will then be brought back here and punished. Additionally there is a way we can track you down with a homing device that locates your bracelet. So you see, running away is a useless endeavor and I urge you
never to even consider it. Now if you'll please step outside, one of the guards will escort you to your new master."

Karbak opened the door and led me out into the hall where a black robed guardsman stood there waiting.

"Come with me," the guard said grabbing me by the arm and leading me down the hallway.

We walked through a low doorway and down some marble steps and out into a large room. A skinny, forty-something black haired man sat at a great oak desk and looked up at me.

"Is this her?" the man asked looking greedily at me.

"Yes, master Harrkar," the guard replied. "Slave girl Lacey, just as you wished."

"Slave?" Harrkar asked with a raised eyebrow. "Bah! I have many slaves, Korby, and many toys, though this one shouldn't be treated much different from the rest, however I think for the most part this new girl will become my new hunting companion." He turned to face me and continued,"I'm told you're quite skilled with the crossbow. Is this true?"

Now I realized why Lacey was bought before going to auction. She had skill probably few other slave girls possessed, and certainly a talent had never even considered before. The crossbow? I never even handled any kind of weapon before in my life. What was I going to do now? Tell Harrkar I wasn't skilled at all in hunting, or should I lie my way out?

If I told him I was no hunter, what would become of me? Would I be reduced to scrubbing the floors with the other slave girls or would Harrkar have me executed instead?

If I lied and said I was skilled in the use of the crossbow, then what would happen to me when Harrkar found out otherwise out on a hunt?

Fortunately I didn't have to come up with an answer because my new master waved his hand to one side and said,"Bah! Such talent might come in handy in case of an emergency, my dear, but you can be rest assured I won't be trusting you to handle any weapons for quite some time. At any rate, none that are loaded. You will however be trained as a spotter, and of course assist the cook from time to time at each camp." He looked at me and laughed, saying,"I bet you never knew Neptune had a wilderness, did you,
nor mountains covered with snow, but you see my dear, this asteroid that hovers over the dangerous atmosphere of Neptune isn't really Neptune at all, nor was it even close to being earthlike as it is now, but I have accumulated great wealth, my dear, and purchased this little hollowed out rock and turned its innards into a vast mountainous paradise of snow and pinewood forests. An asteroid no longer, but a world, my dear. A world populated by many dangerous creatures. Have you seen or heard of the red tiger of Mars, the two headed lions of Africa, the abominable snowman of the Himalayas? I have them all, and more than that, some of them have been
genetically altered into more ferocious beasts than mankind could ever have imagined possible, and you, my dear Lacey, you will accompany me on the greatest hunt of all hunts, for we're not just hunting animals, my dear, we're hunting through them on our path to find something even more rewarding than the mere taking of a life." He paused and addressed the guardsman standing beside me. "Korby, you'd best leave now."

"Yes master Harrkar," Korby, the guard, said backing out of the room and closing the doors behind him.

Alone now with me, Gurron Harrkar continued,"Lacey, my dear, please have a seat here beside me." He gestured for me to sit on a stack of pillows beside his throne and I did as he instructed, then he went on. "In my business I don't often get a chance to make friends, Lacey. The servants all fear me because of my occasional temper, and I must admit that though I've never killed a slave before, I've come pretty near close to it, so this time I wanted to do things differently. I wanted to obtain a slave girl skilled in the hunt and saved from the horrible experience of the auction blocks so that I could personally mold her into the perfect hunting companion, and hopefully, some day, something more than that."

He pressed a button on his armrest and the platform we sat on rotated about one hundred and eighty degrees and black curtains parted before us, revealing a fantastic scene through a huge rectangular window.

We sat there looking out from the top of a snow clad mountain and down past rows and rows of pine trees into a vast, forested valley below. The sky was overcast and patches of fog huddled low inbetween the trees here and there as far as the eye could see.

"This is my hollow Earth, Lacey," he said. "Or rather, my little bit of
Neptune. The deed to this asteroid says it's called Ordon, but I like to call it my hollow Earth. Some time ago, just after the asteroids were assembled as they are now over the atmosphere of Neptune, a Captain's journal was discovered among the ruins of an ancient alien city at a place called Moray, I believe. I think the place is mainly just a kelleniualite mine at present, but was once home to an alien civilization. Anyway, the journal was written by a man called Sam Hollandsworth. You must have heard of him. I believe he discovered the catacombs of Mars and the core pyramids of Edokka. I was able to obtain Captain Hollandsworth's journal just after the great assembly of Neptune's stratospheric population grid. When
discovered in that journal that a particular asteroid called Ordon
contained some of Hollandsworth's buried treasure, I had to purchase this chunk of rock to see for myself if I could find the loot. Since my father was a fairly wealthy man, the owner of seven kelleniualite mines, I was fortunate enough to have the means to obtain Ordon for myself. This asteroid was not hollow originally, but I had it mined so thoroughly that it became hollowed out. In the process, I had the foresight to have it terraformed internally and mountains were sculpted as the mining continued. For ten years this went on and no treasure was ever discovered. Finally the main brunt of the mining halted, and obtained animals to populate my little hollow Earth so that I could gain
at least a little pleasure in hunting lives to console me in my continuing quest to hunt treasure. Now, my dear Lacey, my world is littered with unfinished mining tunnels that I've converted over into vastly complex caverns. On my hunting trips I bring with me several servants to prepare my meals and care for my needs. I also bring with me a team of miners and some musicians. We hunt until we get to a cavern, and then I let the miners toil and work for awhile to see if they can help locate the treasure. Then we turn back and hunt once more until we all arrive back here in my little castle. Now you will accompany me on the hunt, Lacey, and perhaps bring me some much needed luck. I have done almost everything imaginable to find this treasure. I have even sought out fortune teller, and that is why I have sought out you, Lacey, because I was told things that eventually brought you to me. `A woman skilled in the hunt . . . Someone who lost everything' . . . Ah, but the details of what the fortune teller told me are unimportant now. What is important is I have you now, Lacey, and together we must find the treasure."

"Lost . . . everything?" I asked. "Skilled . . . in the hunt?"

One out of two wasn't bad I guess.

He nodded and took my hand and said,"Lacey, you must help me find the treasure. You must accompany me on the hunt. Prepare yourself. We leave at once."

___-----___

"Snow boots, my lady," Gwendelin the cook said as she handed me a pair of white knee-high fur boots and buttoned up my blue tiger fur jacket. "Keplur was right, my lady. Master Harrkar was seeking a new hunting companion."

"Who's Kepler?" I asked as I put on my boots.

"Why, he's the head hunter," she replied tossing me a backpack. "That is, he was until Harrkar fired him."

"Head hunter?" I asked.

"Oh, my!" Gwen exclaimed with her hand up to her chin. "Certainly not THAT kind of hunter, my lady. Though we do have some savages about the wilderness to add to the games Master Harrkar likes to play, though not any head-hunters that I'm aware of. What I mean to say is: Keplur was first in charge of the hunting parties, that is, under the Master of course, and until you replaced Keplur's position. Though I wonder what Master Harrkar wants a slave girl for. Such responsibilities belong to men like Keplur, not to a common slave girl such as yourself. You must be a fine hunter, my lady, to be so lucky to be chosen for this. A fine and wonderful hunter."

"How long have you been here, Gwen?" I asked.

"Oh, since the start," she replied waving her hands at me like it wasn't a big deal. "Oh, but after the first few years you get used to it. That is if you live long enough. If the beasts don't kill you out on the hunt, you still have to survive the Master's fits of temper. Why, Kepler alone has been nearly killed twice ten times already if it's been a dozen. Oh, but don't you worry about a thing. Nobody's died at the hands of our Master and besides, Dr. Karbak is good at bringing the dead back and around again as long as the body hasn't been dead for too long and everything is pretty much in one piece."

Though I was short, Gwen was even shorter still. She looked like a pretty eighteen year old woman with long black hair draping down her back and over her shoulders, but the way she talked it sounded like she was much older than that. Perhaps she was in a permanently youthful body such as mine and confined to slavery forever.

She wore an outfit similar to mine. A tiger fur coat, only hers was red, as were her boots.

"When do we leave?" I asked.

"Right now," she said ushering me down some stairs and through a pair of double doors and out onto a snow packed clearing beside some trees.

To my left stood ten miners wearing gray pressure suits without helmets. On their backs were heavy black backpacks with mining tools strapped tightly in a crisscross assembly.

On my right stood another ten men in green tiger skin fur suits and black boots. These were the hunters and they carried a wide assortment of weapons from spears and rifles to plasma grenades and razor sharp skabuls (or whips). Certainly these hunters were not slaves or they wouldn't be armed so heavily. Perhaps they were friends and associates of Harrkar, invited along for the sport of the hunt.

Gwen and I stood among eight other servant girls that were coming along for various duties from cooking to tent pitching.

Ten more men marched out from the doors of the gray stone castle walls. These were the musicians. A small marching band wearing bright yellow tiger fur suits and shiny white boots. Apparently Harrkar wanted live music to accompany us along on the hunt, though I don't understand why because such an assembly of instruments would almost certainly frighten
away even the most ferocious beasts before anyone had a chance to do any killing.

"What are THEY for?" I asked Gwen while pointing to the musicians.

"The celebration," she shrugged. "Though we've never celebrated much. I think the Master is reserving them for something special. Perhaps rare beast that hasn't been killed yet. Who knows? You'll hear the drummer probably, and perhaps Henry, the vocalist, but don't expect much from any of the others."

Gurron Harrkar marched out of the castle and walked past us to stand at the lead. He wore an armored silver pressure suit with his helmet strapped to his back. In his left hand he carried a long, black blaster rifle. In his right hand was what appeared to be a compass, though what good that might do in a hollow world was beyond my understanding.

"Hunters split up," Harrkar ordered and they formed a V-formation with five on each side and Harrkar taking the lead. The band arranged themselves in two columns of five each to the left and right of the slave girls (including myself), and the miners brought up the rear in two rows of five men each.

"Half-core rightwards," Harrkar said speaking to his compass and the thing leapt from his hand and darted down through the trees and stopped about ten yards away, hovering there, waiting. He turned to all of us and said "this way!" and started marching knee deep in the snow towards the compass.

We followed Harrkar down the gradually sloping mountain and towards the valley below.

"Half-core forward," Harrkar ordered his compass and it sped off down
a snow-packed meadow. He turned to face me and handed me a pair of binoculars. "You're the spotter, Lacey. Get used to it. Let me know when you see anything moving out there, and that includes the natives."

"Natives?" I asked.

Harrkar laughed and replied,"I hired two tribes of Indians to make things more interesting around here. One tribe's friendly, the other isn't. I'll let you guess which is which."

"You don't actually kill the-," I started.

"Kill the Indians?" Harrkar asked. "No. I'm cruel but not that cruel. Though they have the right to try and attack us if they want. At least one tribe does, that is. The other tribe assists me sometimes by sending out scouts to look for our prey and warn us of the hostile tribe."

"Then this is all some sort of elaborate game?" I asked as we continued to march along through the snowy meadow.

"Yes," Harrkar replied. "You could call it that. Like I said before, though, this is just something to make the treasure hunt more interesting. If you've been hunting for this treasure as long as I have, you get to appreciate games like this. It makes the days more interesting, don't you think? Anyone can dig for buried treasure, but this way I've made finding the treasure half the fun in my little hollow Earth."

I put the binoculars up to my eyes and scanned up ahead through the trees. There were three gray wolf-like creatures dashing inbetween the trees up ahead. The wolves were coming right for us.

"Wolves I think," I said lowering the binoculars and pointing forward.

"Let me see," Harrkar said taking the binoculars from me and having a look for himself. "Those aren't wolves . . . those are sharbolvs. I had them specially engineered. Cross a shark's jaw with a wolf and a bear's body and you get sharbolvs. Nasty creatures, but not as bad as some of the others." He handed me back the binoculars and turned to the hunters on his left and called out,"Sharbolves!"

A hunter to my left took aim with his grenade rifle and fired at the beasts. A small explosion sent the creatures flying apart in little bits and pieces in smoke and flames.

"Next time save one, Zabston," Harrkar said angrily to the man who fired the grenade. "Those are expensive hides you just obliterated, you know."

"Yes sir," Zabston said lowering his weapon and looking down at the ground in shame. "Sorry, sir."

"That's alright, Zabston," Harrkar said. "You didn't know. It's your first day but from now on reserve those grenades for the Oltdarneth if we ever run into one."

"Yes sir," Zabston said.

"And that goes for the rest of you," Harrkar commanded. "I want hides intact if possible. Is that understood?"

"Yes sir!" the hunters cried out in unison.

I scanned the forest up ahead as we continued to march onward across the snowy meadow.

"Nothing up ahead," I reported, lowering my binoculars.

"Check again," Harrkar instructed, pointing to a motionless blue spot crouched atop a fallen log some hundred yards away. "Now take a hard look at the jacket you're wearing."

I looked down at my blue and black striped jacket. It was the same material as the creature stalking us up ahead.

A blue snow tiger.

"Snow tiger!" Harrkar called out to the men. "This time I want the hide!"

The drummer started beating his drums and while we all marched on, two of the hunters ran off ahead with their rifles aimed at the tiger.

Two shots were fired, then another, but it was too late. The tiger fled back into the woods. A few snow covered trees shook here and there, scattering snow to the ground up ahead as the beast hurried off away from us.

The two hunters returned to rejoin us, disappointed they failed to shoot the snow tiger.

"That's alright," Harrkar said. "There's plenty more where that one came from. You'll get your money's worth, men, if you're patient enough." He turned to me and said,"Let that be a lesson to you, Lacey. Sometimes even binoculars aren't as good as the naked eye. Try and use a bit of both, would you? Thanks."

We continued walking through the meadow and towards the forest.

"You're new here, aren't you?" a blonde slave girl asked me from my right. "My name's Nina."

"I'm . . . Lacey," I told her, still feeling a little squeamish about my new name that reminded me I was a woman now and no longer a man.

"You're a princess model," she said in almost a whisper. "I know all about it. My friend got to be a princess model. I hear they sometimes use a swap. Did that happen to you?"

"I don't want to talk about it, Nina," I replied and looked once more through my binoculars.

"So it did happen to you," Nina guessed, speaking softly so only I could hear. "I see . . . Well, we can talk about it later if ya want. Just don't let the Master know. He'd probably get real upset if he knew you were swapped. I bet you miss your old body. I bet you weren't as ugly of a girl as they told you before you swapped. Anyway, talk to you later, Lacey."

___-----___

We made it down the mountain and into the valley where Harrkar led us into a cave and we setup camp.

Harrkar and the miners continued onward into the cave to go dig for treasure somewhere while the hunters remained just outside to stand guard. The musicians quickly put up their tents as us women were just finishing our own.

Gwen quickly began preparing a few camp fires and started the dinner.

"Come on," Nina said taking me by the arm and leading me off through a narrow side passageway. A small torchlight in her other hand helped guide us around and down the passage and out into an underground pond.

Nina removed her boots and then her fur coat.

"Come on," she said wading into the pond.

"I'm not going in there," I said looking around for the others. "It looks too cold."

"The water's just fine," Nina assured me splashing some water at me. "Come on in, fraidy-cat."

"Without any clothes on?" I asked. "Without a towel?"

"Live a little," she said splashing me again as I stood there on the black gravelly shore.

I pulled off my boots and then quickly removed the rest of my clothes.

The cave was surprisingly warm, even though a cool breeze blew in every
now and then.

"Are you sure?" I asked. "Is it safe?"

"Come on," she urged. "What are you waitin' for?"

I took a few steps into the water and realized it felt pretty warm.

I lowered down into the three foot deep water and looked at Nina and asked,"What are we doing this for?"

"What do you mean?" she laughed. "Don't you KNOW???"

"Know?" I asked puzzled. "Know what???"

"You're the new girl," Nina said tilting her head down and raising her eyebrows. "The new girl . . . get it?"

"Get what?"

"Do I have to spell it out for you?" she asked making a circle with the thumb and pointer finger of her left hand while sliding the pointer finger of her right hand in and out of the circle. "New girl . . . get it? What do you think old Harrkar bought you for anyway? Do you think he wants to have sex with a sweaty, dirty slave girl? Come on. Don't tell me you weren't briefed about this. Look, tonight's supposed to be my turn with him, but since you're new, he's going to want you as well. That usually means you're going second, but that's not so bad. In fact, you get to sleep with him the rest of the night. You lucky girl, you. Anyway, try and wash up as best as you can. You don't want to make a bad impression on the Master."

"Look," I said standing up in the pond. "I don't want any of this. just want out of this deal."

"Don't we all, Lacey," Nina said and sighed. "Don't we all."

"I mean it," I said angry and frustrated now. I didn't want to be here. I didn't want to be a woman, and I didn't want to have to go through with sex from the other side no matter how curious I really was to find out what it's like. "I mean it, Nina. I'm not supposed to be here. I want to escape."

"Oh my!" she exclaimed. "Don't let the Master hear that or you're finished."

"I can't have sex with him," I insisted crossing my arms under my breasts. "I won't do it."

"Maybe he'll be too tired once he's through with me first," Nina joked.

"It's not funny, Nina," I said. "I can't do it."

"Of course you can, girl."

"No," I said. "I mean it. I'm not going through with it. This isn't even
my body."

"I know that, dear," she said. "You're a princess clone. You've been
swapped, but really now, Lacey, compare your old body with you're new one and you'll see you're a pretty lucky woman. Why, do you realize there's at least a million women who'd die to have that body you've got right now?"

"But I'm not a woman."

"What?" she asked.

"I said, I'm not a woman," I repeated. "I'm a man. I got shanghaied and when I woke up I was on this slave ship - oh, it's a long story. Anyway, they made a mistake. This wasn't supposed to happen. I'm a man, not woman, and I can't have sex with another man, and you've GOT to help me escape from here!"

She was quiet for a moment while she pondered over what I said.

"You know you'll never be able to prove that to me now," she said. "I think you'd better just forget about it. Whoever you were before can't possibly make any difference to you now, even if you were a man, which I don't believe by the way, and don't even think about telling Harrkar any of what you just told me because he'll kill you whether it's the truth or not."

"But it IS the truth," I assured her. "My real name is Jack Larnstrom, not Lacey. I was born male and I'm in the wrong body now. I got all dressed up as a disguise until I could figure a way off that slave ship but then they thought I was so ugly that I needed to be swapped into a prettier body, so then I did, and I couldn't get out of the mess, and then it got worse. This girl named Shawna realized I wasn't a girl at all before because someone found out about my old body. Anyway, I was supposed to get a second chance. I was supposed to be able to get my old body back but another princess clone who had the same model body as me got mixed up in this and she took my place. Anyway, if I don't get back to Gamma Station and clear all this up, I'll be stuck like this forever."

"You're forgetting one thing," Nina said. "You already are stuck like that forever or didn't you get the full treatment at Dr. Karbak's lab when you arrived?"

"Then . . . that pattern lock and body lock . . ."

"Are very real," Nina finished for me.

"And this princess clone body

"Is virtually immortal, yes," Nina said nodding. "Almost all princess clones are immune to the effects of aging. You're stuck at that age for good. What are you, a twenty-one? Yes, I think you're a twenty-one chronohalted princess clone. A brunette too. Oh well, nobody's perfect. Well if you want to be a blonde like me and have more fun, there's some bleach back at the castle, or you could just dye it blue to match your jacket over there. Hmmmm . . . Ordon blue . . . yes, I think we've got that in stock."

"What'll I do?" I asked looking around for some secret exit out of here.

"I'd bleach it blonde if I were you," she replied.

"No," I said. "That's not what I meant. What'll I do to get out of this mess? I can't stay this way forever. I've got to get my old body back."

"Well good luck, Lacey," she said. "You're stuck pretty good, aren't you? I'd just get used to it if I were you. Get used to your new life and forget who you were before because there's nothing you can do about it so don't even try."

"I'll make a run for it then," I said snapping my fingers once. "I'll grab one of those grenade rifles from the hunters and I'll find a way back to the castle and off this rock, that's what I'll do. I'll escape."

Nina pointed to my left wrist and said,"I'd like to see you try. With that gold bracelet you're wearing, you won't get far and when you're returned back here you'll have to answer to your Master for running away. I'd hate to see what happens to you then. Man or not, when Harrkar get's through with you, you'll be nothing but a mindless little sex slave, whipped into submission and locked up for good in a tiny little dungeon cell. I've seen it happen before to a few of the other girls. You don't want to suffer the same fate. If you really were a man before, then welcome to the other side, but I know you couldn't possibly have been a man. A real man would have tried to escape back at the body swap machine right? So then what are you doing here in that body, huh? Tell me that. If you're such a man then why didn't you put up a fight to keep your old body? Either you're lying to me or you went along with it because you knew you'd like being a woman. Tell me I'm wrong . . . You can't, can you? Know why? Because you know I'm right and you can't prove otherwise, so get used to your new body, girl, because you'll be living in it for a long, long time."

She was right. I was just panicking now because she said I'd be expected to have sex with Harrkar tonight and I wasn't prepared for this. Initially went along with the body swap hoping to find a way to escape on Gamma Station but there just wasn't any opportunity for escape. Oh Nina was right, I could have fought my way out of there if I really wanted, but what if they killed me for impersonating a slave girl? I guess deep down I was curious about what it was like on the other side of humanity but certainly it was subconscious then because I really was afraid for my life. I didn't know how to get out of the mess I got in, so I just went along with it and let them swap me into this girl's body.

Then there was the gegrothin I tried on after the swap back in my quarters aboard the slave ship. I was curious to find out what it felt like to wear one because only women could ever physically get away with wearing gegrothin because the crotch grabbing feature in the material would just cripple a man if not kill him outright.

I tried on the gegrothin back then because I was curious and when I put it on, I was excited by how it felt. It was a wonderful and comfortable experience. Something no woman could ever really describe to a man. It was exotic and thrilling to wear that gegrothin. I realized then that there might be some little advantages to being a woman and wearing a gegrothin
was certainly one of them.

I may not have consciously wished to be a woman, but now I realized it must have been a mixture of the subconscious and fear and an undeniable bit of curiosity and the ability to let someone else make that decision
for me. In a way, it was Shawna who made the decision for me. All I did was go along with the whole thing. I could have told her who I was. I could have pleaded with her to help me out of the mess I got in, but in the end I was satisfied at least on the subconscious level about going along with the swap. Perhaps even more than that. Perhaps even on the conscious level to a reasonable degree. After all, I let it happen, didn't I? I let them do this to me and I never put up a fight. Not even once.

Did I really deep down wish for this? Did I actually want to be a woman
and not a man?

If Nina was right, and I knew she was, then I wanted this. For some reason I wanted to see what it was like to be a girl. I let it happen and now here I am. Female forever.

The mind lock and pattern lock certainly must be reversible. What if they realized a mistake like this had happened and honestly wanted to help me change back to my old self? I know it's unlikely that I could ever expect such cooperation from Dr. Karbak or Gurron Harrkar but I've been told that every action must have an equal and opposite reaction so therefor there must be a way to reverse all this. There must be. If not then the best could ever hope for is to somehow escape and make my way back to Mars and though I'd still be stuck as a woman, I'd at least be a free woman with more options in life than I currently have now.

I sat back down in the pond and looked down at myself, then at Nina.

"If it's the sex you're worried about, I'll try and keep Harrkar busy longer than normal tonight, okay?" Nina offered. "I can't promise anything but I'll try. Though you'll have to face him sooner or later anyway, I'll see what I can do."

"Thanks, Nina."

"Don't mention it. The least I can do for a new friend is get screwed for her, right?"

___-----___

It was pretty obvious that Harrkar and his band of miners didn't locate the hidden treasure. They were all disappointed and gloomy during dinner and then everyone went off to their tents for the night.

Nina and I shared a tent together, and the other girls paired up in their own little tents.

It wasn't long before Harrkar came by and took Nina off to his tent on the other side of the cave.

I lay there in my sleeping bag and listened to Nina's moans which gradually got more and more frequent and excited while I also heard Harrkar's tent rustle a bit every now and then.

No matter how I tried, I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about how it was my turn next to have sex with my new master. The thought was repulsing to me, but as I lay there and listened to Nina's excited moaning and the crisp, rhythmic rustling noises coming from my master's tent, I started to get oddly turned on by it all. Whatever Nina was doing or whatever master Harrkar was doing to her began to sound more and more like fun and became more and more curious to experience it for myself, to see what it was like.

I realized it was almost like waiting in line for a roller coaster you've
never been on before. I was both frightened and excited, and I was next in line. As soon as Nina rolled back in the station, it would be my turn
on the roller coaster ride.

My first roller coaster was one of those old wooden one's on the boardwalk. Waiting in line made me nervous and afraid, but I wanted to ride the roller coaster because it sounded like fun. Oh, but it didn't look like fun. The whole structure looked dangerous and rattled about as the cars zoomed up and down the hills and drops and around the twists and turns. The screaming cheers of fear and excitement faded in and out somewhere in the distance and I got more and more afraid of what I was about to do. Waiting in line for my first roller coaster was much like what I felt right now.

I felt really afraid but also curious and excited about it all at the same time, and being next in line and hearing what was going on to Nina was just like being right up there in between the yellow gates, gripping onto the guard rails for dear life as my knees trembled and my stomach filled up with butterflies.

Nina moaned and paused, and moaned and paused. It was just like listening to those riders of the roller coaster as they went up and down the hills.

The master's tent rustled and shook every now and then and it was just like that old wooden framed roller coaster rattling above me as I realized the current riders were nearby and would soon be returning to the station.

My turn was next and when Nina parted the tent flaps and came back in
our tent, I knew I was up next.

"Your turn," she said smiling at me and shrugged. "He insisted. Sorry."

I didn't want to go. Just like when I was a kid and it was my turn to get in the roller coaster car, I wanted to turn back and run back down the line and to safety, but it was too late now. It was my turn and it was just too late to back out and there was nowhere to run.

"You're next," Nina reminded me. "What are you waiting for? You don't want to upset him. Go on. If it's going to be too much, you might want to close your eyes and it'll be over with before you know it, but I'll bet you want to go again after it's done. You'll see. Harrkar's quite a ride, despite what you might think."

I got up out of my sleeping bag and wrapped my fur coat around me and crawled out of the tent.

I quietly walked over to Harrkar's little tent and parted the tent flaps.

"Come in, Lacey," he said in the dark. "I'm over here."

I crawled towards his voice and he quickly grabbed me by the arms and pushed me over onto my back on top of a sleeping bag.

"What-"

"Shhhh," he said covering my mouth with his hand while removing my fur coat with his other hand.

I was naked now, and even in the dark I could tell he was straddling there above and around me on his hands and knees.

He pulled my legs apart with one swift movement of his feet, then he found my arms and pinned them to my sides.

`Keep your hands and feet inside the car at all times,' I thought.

Even though it was too dark in the tent to see, I closed my eyes anyway and lay there, just waiting for this to be over with.

I felt him kiss me right on the mouth . . . I kept trying to imagine that I was being kissed by a woman and not a man but it was no use, I couldn't fool my senses. This wasn't the way a woman kissed. At least not that remembered anyway. This was much stronger and more forceful.

Then before I knew what was going on, he was in me. Both in my mouth with his tongue and up between my legs with a part of him that I didn't want to think about.

This was it. The first drop of the roller coaster.

He let go of my arms and I quickly brought them around so they were lying there on a pillow behind and above my head.

First drop and my stomach really felt it as he slid in and out of me.

I felt like I was flying.

I cried out and tears formed in the corner of my eyes.

It really was like a roller coaster!

First drop done, and now up the next hill

He gently caressed my breasts, sending chilling tingles throughout my body and I knotted my hands into fists as I anticipated the next drop.

Second drop and it was just as exciting as the first and I felt like I was soaring high in the air like an eagle and diving quickly down onto a lake.

It felt really wet between my legs now.

I didn't want the ride to end, and yet I didn't know how much more of this I could possibly take. My heart was beating so fast now, I thought it was going to stop and as my new master continued taking me further and further on this wild and wonderful ride, I realized that even though it was a bit rough just like my first ride on a wooden roller coaster, it was worth every moment just to be here right now experience this.

It went on and on and though I thought I couldn't possibly get any better, it actually did. It got more and more intense as the moments went by and I was moaning and laughing and yelling and squirming and the ride continued on and on. I kept waiting for the climax but it seemed like it would never arrive and then when I was about ready to claw my fingernails and rip the walls of the tent to shreds, I felt a rumbling through my body. A definite and uncontrollable rumbling through my body and suddenly it was like taking the whole ride and cramming it all into that one rumbling sensation
. . . and then there was another . . . and another . . . It kept continuing even though Master Harrkar was clearly done and already rolling off from on top of me.

I opened my eyes and through the darkness I saw bright colors. Reds and blues, pinks and yellows, greens and whites. Balls of light flashing there before me like some insane fireworks display. I closed my eyes again but the colors were still there and my body continued to feel the wonderful rumbling.

It was like getting off the roller coaster and getting excited all over again as another train rumbled and shook high above the station, but this was also like being on that train even though my body was clearly not. felt like I was flying through a sky full of fireworks that made by body tingle all over as I flew through them.

"Out," Harrkar said coldly. "I've changed my mind. I want to be alone the rest of the night. You're body might be nice to look at, Lacey, but you're just terrible in bed compared to the other girls. Now get out of here and leave me alone."

But the climaxes weren't over with. I didn't want to move. It was all so engrossing.

"I said get out of here," Harrkar said tossing my fur coat at me.

I slowly got up and wrapped the coat around me and crawled out of the tent on my hands and knees as climaxes continued to jolt through my system, forcing me to pause in mid-crawl every now and then.

I got up out of the tent and slowly walked back to my own and crawled inside.

Nina was already asleep so I just quietly removed my fur coat and snuggled back inside my warm sleeping bag.

I stayed awake for awhile as my mind obsessed over the intense climaxes I experienced tonight.

Then I fell asleep and dreamed of roller coasters filled with princess clone passengers, all identical to myself and all along gratefully for ride after ride after wonderful, magical ride.

Some treasures are hard to find, and harder to hold onto.

Gems of Ordon

by Cleo Kraft

Chapter V

"Wake up, Lacey," Nina said shaking me. "And quit saying that."

"Saying what?" I asked opening my eyes and yawning.

"That stuff about `Can I have another book of tickets' that's what," she replied shaking her head back and forth like I was a useless case or something. "You sure you weren't really a blonde before? I mean, talk about weird. Who asks for tickets in their sleep? What happened, were you dreaming about getting a traffic ticket or something? You got thing for cops?"

"Huh?" I asked rubbing the sleep from my eyes. "Oh, that. It's nothing."

"Come on then," she said. "You've got to help with breakfast, then we're heading back to the castle. Oh, by the way, how was it last night? Did you please your master?"

"I don't know," I shrugged. "I don't think so. He was kind of angry at me afterward. I think you must have worn him out just a bit too much before he got to me. He was real upset."

"So you didn't please him then. That's bad for a new girl. You'd better watch it or you'll wind up in the dungeon, or worse . . . you could get sent back to the auction blocks."

"I wonder," I said. "You think Dr. Karbak would have to undo the mind and body lock he put on me then? I mean, that is, if I was sent to the auction blocks."

"Don't count on it," Nina replied as she finished getting dressed in
her fur coat and boots. "Once locked, always locked. You're stuck that way. The only thing that they can change now is who you call `master.'"

I sat up and pulled the sleeping bag down, unzipping it as I climbed out,
naked.

Nina left the tent and for a moment I paused to take a good look down
at my body. Last time I took a really good look at myself was back in
my stateroom aboard the slave ship. I was amazed then, and looked at myself mostly with disbelief that I was a woman, but now, after having had sex in this body last night, I looked down at my seemingly weak body admiringly.

I was about five feet tall, where before, as a man, I was about up to six feet tall. I felt even shorter than I looked now, and weaker and a bit more insecure than I ever was as a man. My manhood gone now, felt a great loss of more than just the anatomy between my legs. I felt like a part of my mind and a part of my confidence was gone now. It was just like some mad brain surgeon snipped a part of my well being away and instead of bothering about replacing it, he tweaked up my emotions while turning up my fear and insecurity and dowsing out everything male about me except for the memories of who I was before.

I've seen and slept with women before and knew their bodies well . . . from a purely external point of origin. I'd heard that many women
don't climax during sexual intercourse so I'd always thought that the vagina they had between their legs was just a numb piece of flesh, almost like I'd imagined it might feel like for a man to have his penis cut all the way off. Just a numb bit of flesh, but this was different than I'd imagined. It was sensitive, and all over too. I'd certainly found that out last night with Harrkar.

When I'd first seen myself naked in this new body, I was amazed, but now I'm even more amazed now that I know more about what this body is capable of experiencing . . . And the breasts - I'd been told by one of my ex-girlfriends that she never understood why men were so obsessed with breasts. After all, breasts were designed mainly for providing milk for infants, right? Oh, it's true, last night I understood a bit of what my ex-girlfriend was talking about. Harrkar jiggled my breasts around and fondled them, sure, but that didn't turn me on at all. Even when he fondled my nipples it didn't do anything really . . . until he hit dead on in the center of my nipples right on those tiny little buds of button heads. That's where it sent all my alarms off in my body. Hardly a small percentage of the breasts, and all concentrated in the very center of each nipple, and yet all my time as a man, I just never knew. I never knew that only those tiny spots were where it felt good for a woman. The rest was just all skin. Soft skin just like everywhere else on a woman's body, but skin none the less.

So on two counts I was wrong, or at least backwards. The breasts erogenous zones are mainly in the center of each nipple, not the whole breast itself, and I was way off on what it felt like between the legs. It wasn't numb at all. It's . . . it's really indescribably wonderful.

I can't believe it, and all this soft skin all over my body, and everyone who see's me, see's me as a beautiful young woman. They don't see me as anything other than the woman I am right now. It's actually quite amazing to be accepted like this without having to really try. People notice me and I don't have to go out of my way to get noticed.

. . . and there's so much about me to notice too! Shapely legs, nicely rounded breasts, soft creamy white skin all over, long brunette hair and soft, pretty brown eyes, full red lips, and a delightful almost singing quality to my voice when I talk. It's really quite amazing.

I can't believe it. I'm a woman . . . and I actually LIKE it!

Just yesterday I wanted my old body back and now even though I'd still like to escape from here, I've developed a keen appreciation for this delicate, wonderful female body. All because of that roller coaster ride of sex had last night. If it wasn't for that experience with Harrkar, I'd be hating life this morning.

"Lacey," Gwen, the cook, called to me. "Come on and help me with the breakfast, dear."

I put on my blue and black striped fur coat and slipped on my boots and headed out of the tent.

I walked over to stand beside Gwen who stirred some scrambled eggs in a black pan over one of the campfires.

"Finish stirring this, would you, Lacey?" Gwen said handing me a wooden
spoon. "Thank you."

___-----___

We packed up camp and headed out of the cave after breakfast.

Harrkar seemed angry at me still, either that or he was still frustrated over not locating the treasure yesterday.

The air was cool and the snow felt cold on my feet even through my thick boots. A light fog shrouded the ground in knee-high patches about us and we marched back toward the castle high upon the mountain off in the distance.

"Snow tiger, sir," I said pointing to a blue beast I spotted off in the woods before us. "By those trees over there. He's about forty yards away."

Something growled and roared nearby to the left of me.

Someone cried out and I turned and saw another blue snow tiger ripping at two of the miners on my left. The hunters were too slow and now there were five more tigers attacking us from behind. Everyone panicked, even
Harrkar who nervously fumbled with his rifle as a tiger pounced on
hunter nearby.

It was a complete disaster. Everyone ran in different directions and the tigers kept up their assault, mostly going after the larger men and leaving the women alone.

I saw a discarded blaster rifle beside a bloodied body and I took the weapon and hurried back up the mountain towards the cave.

The drummer ran past me, so did a horn player who uselessly played his horn in some attempt to either warn others about the attack or else hopefully frighten off the tigers by the noise.

I hurried over to hide behind some trees nearby and waited a moment to catch my breath.

With all the armed hunters, I was surprised at how few gunshots actually heard. Only one or two shots had been fired so far. It seemed the huntsmen were too busy fleeing for their lives than trying to stand bravely at close range and get off a few shots at the tigers.

"Lacey?" a familiar woman's voice called out to me nearby. It was Nina. She walked up to me with blood everywhere on her clothes. After quick inspection I was relieved to see it wasn't her blood. "Lacey, we've got to get out of here before it's too late . . . Come on. There's an old mountain trail up that way. You can't tell because of the snow, but the trail's still there alright. Come on."

"What about the cave?" I asked following Nina up the slope through the trees.

"Forget about it," she said. "If we get cornered in there, we're finished for sure. We've got to get up that trail. We don't have much time. If you really want to escape, now's your chance. Come on."

"Escape from the tigers?" I asked.

"No," she said. "Escape from Harrkar. That's what you really want, right? His men will eventually gather up their nerves and kill those beasts, so that'll keep them busy for awhile. For now, if you really want to escape, this is your chance."

"But I thought there was no hope of escape, right?" I asked, following her out of the trees and across the base of a cliff that stretched up before us. "The bracelet device, remember? It'll give us away."

"Not necessarily," Nina said. "There's always a slight chance when given
an opportunity like this. We're out far enough from the castle that one of the Indian tribes may be able to help us but we've got to keep moving. Come on."

We walked through the snow up a little hill and around into a high canyon that split outward into other valleys and a larger mountain on the right.

We walked for a mile or so along the snowpacked canyon floor and then
came to an intersection where the canyon continued forward but also split off into a small meadow to the right.

I heard a horn blowing behind us and Nina and I turned around to see several men way off in the distance back the way we'd come. They were like tiny black silhouettes against the bright glare of the snow filled canyon. Some figures on horseback appeared beside the men.

"It's Harrkar," Nina said looking sick now. "We've made a horrible mistake. They've got trackers now. Indian trackers. There's nowhere to run. We've come as far as we can go. Now we've got to face Harrkar and take what punishment he doles out to us."

"We'll just say we were running from the tigers," I suggested. "That's all. We'll tell them we ran because of the tigers. They won't suspect we were trying to escape Harrkar himself because of the tiger attack."

The horn blew again and the men started making their way towards us.

I turned around and spotted some footprints up ahead of us and some more footprints that went the other way up the small meadow on the right.

"Those footprints," I said pointing. "We could follow them. Perhaps we can find help like you said. What if those are the footprints of someone that can help us?"

"We won't make it," Nina said giving up and sitting down in the snow.

I turned back around and saw the men on horseback coming towards us at pretty good pace. They were still about a mile or so away but were making good ground.

I looked down at Nina who just sulked there, awaiting to be recaptured by Harrkar and made his slave again.

"We can escape," I said confidently. "The meadow right there . . . It leads around over to those rocks. We can mix our footprints in with the others already there. We might fool Harrkar and his trackers that way."

"No, Lacey," Nina said. "You go if you must. It's no use though. You won't get far. They've got horses. The Indians know these mountains better than
us. There's nowhere to run."

"I'm going anyway," I said at last. "Good-bye, Nina."

She said nothing and just sulked there while I walked away.

I tried the best I could to run in the snow but it was useless. The best I could do was walk at a fast pace taking the biggest strides I could as made my way up the small meadow.

The meadow itself was rather bumpy even though it was covered in one to two feet of snow. I stepped in a small stream by accident and the cold bit right through my boots to my feet. Despite this I kept moving onward through the meadow.

I followed the footprints up to the high edge of the meadow and looked back for a moment.

I saw Nina still sitting there in the canyon waiting patiently to be recaptured by Harrkar.

With a sigh, I turned and followed the footprints around a bend to the left along some huge boulders.

Trees on my right, and giant rocks on my left. This area of the wilderness was pretty peaceful. Some birds were singing nearby, almost like they were cheering me on, urging me to hurry and escape the evil Harrkar and his men.

I heard the horn blowing again behind me, getting closer now.

The snow was only a few inches deep at this point, much to my relief, but now it was packed down so much it was almost a solid sheet of ice along the trail.

I followed the footprints up the now visible trail and then the trail suddenly bent to the left and stopped between two boulders where there stood something that to my knowledge shouldn't belong here at all.

It was a gray set of double doors.

Beside the doors there was a little red button imbedded in a rock wall.

"Lacey!" I heard a man call out to me in the distance. "Lacey! Come back! Where are you going, my girl?"

I pressed the button and the double doors slowly opened up, revealing an elevator inside.

I walked in and spun around in disbelief at what I saw.

The walls were covered with hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of rubies, emeralds, sapphires and diamonds of nearly all shapes and sizes and colors imaginable.

The Gems of Ordon!

I looked closer and saw there were little numbers imprinted in the metal walls. Hundreds and hundreds of tiny numbers everywhere.

The horn blew again outside and I knew I only had moments left before my pursuers would arrive here.

I quickly scanned the wall to the right of the open doors and saw buttons numbered from one hundred down to one named "L." I looked up at a lighted display above the doors and saw this was level one hundred, so I decided "L" must mean lobby or something.

I pressed the "L" button, which was a large white diamond.

The doors closed up just as Harrkar and his Indian trackers arrived in view nearby. They were too late to do anything but stare at me in the gem coated elevator car with wide eyed, gaping mouthed expressions.

The doors closed up and I felt the elevator lurch once and then slowly descend into the heart of the mountain.

A moment later the elevator slowed to a halt and the doors opened.

Bing-Bing!

The scene opened up into what appeared to be some sort of mini-market.

An icey-juice machine stood there on the other side of a white tiled isle beside some chips and candy.

I walked out of the elevator and stood there looking around me in total disbelief at what I saw.

It was a mini-market. You know, like the kind you'd find on the corner of a city block or at an electric car refilling station somewhere on
one of the inner planets.

I walked past the cookies and looked up at a skinny man standing behind the counter. He was black haired and had white skin, and one of his eyes had a patch over it. "Can I help you, sir?" he asked.

Normally such a scene wouldn't have been a big deal to me, but who puts an elevator at the top of a mountain, and for that matter, who puts an
elevator in a mini-market? And why, of all places, should a mini-market be found at the center of a mountain on an asteroid over Neptune?

"Th-the . . . ," I stammered, unable to find the words to say.

"What is it?" the clerk asked. "There are others in line, lady. What do you want?"

I pointed behind me to where the icey-juice machine stood.

"You want a juicey?" the clerk asked. "Help yourself, then come back here to pay."

"N-n-no," I said pointing and pointing again and again to the elevator.

"Cocoa Bar?" the clerk guessed. "Come on, man. I don't have all day."

"E-e-elevator," I said gesturing at the elevator.

"What elevator?" asked the clerk. "Look, man. You need help and I've got other customers, so go gather up your senses and decide what it is you want."

A short, bald headed old man looked up at me and shook his head and said,"Too much icey-juice."

"But the elevator," I said walking over to it and pointing. "See? Did you know you've got an elevator that goes to the top of a mountain?"

"Mountain?" the clerk asked and nodded to his right. "Take a look outside, lady. There's no mountain."

I walked over to the store window and saw a city street outside. I walked out the doors and stood there on the sidewalk and looked up at the blue sky above me. I turned around as I looked up and then I had to sit down
on the curb because what I saw was just too much to handle.

High above the mini-market, past wide open clear blue sky, sat a gigantic mountain atop some small wispy little clouds. It just hovered there whole mountain just hovered there and none of this made sense at all. What was a mountain doing hovering here? This place looked like a city somewhere on Earth. The blue sky gave that away anyway. There's no hovering mountains on planet Earth.

How did I get from Neptune to Earth so fast? And was this really even
Earth at all? How did an elevator move between that mountain up there and open air to land in this mini-market down here?

I stood up and took another look at the hovering mountain way above my head, then I walked back in the store and said,"M-m-mountain! . . . E-e- elevator and a mountain . . . What's going on here? Don't you people see this stuff?"

"Lady," the clerk said. "Look, there's no elevator over there, and there's
no mountain outside either."

"F-floating mountain," I corrected.

"There's no floating mountain either," the clerk said annoyed. "Look, why don't you go see your doctor. Want me to call an ambulance for you?"

"No," I said looking around at the store. "No. No that'll be okay. I'll be fine. I'll be alright."

I walked over to a teenage boy who was filling up a cup of soda beside the elevator.

"Um, tell me," I said to the boy. "Don't kid with me, okay, just be honest. Is that an elevator right there or am I going crazy?"

"Elevator?" the boy asked raising his eyebrows as he turned around. "That's an ice cream freezer. What? You never saw an ice cream freezer before?"

He reached in the elevator and pulled out an ice cream bar out of thin
air and handed it to me.

"See?" the boy said. "Ice cream. It won't bite. It's vanilla."

I set the ice cream down on the soda drainage tray and scratched my head, trying to reason this all out.

It must be a multidimensional teleportation device of some sort, but why can't these other people see the elevator, and why can only I see that floating mountain outside? The elevator or whatever it was must have done something to me so that only I can perceive certain things.

This was more than just the discovery of a treasure lined elevator, the Gems of Ordon were part of a multidimensional machine of some sort. device that for all I know could have closed up it's doors for good back on top of the mountain. Harrkar would be pretty upset at watching his treasure vanish into solid rock I bet.

I entered the elevator again and pressed a red ruby button at random.

The doors shut and the elevator moved . . . sideways!

I felt the elevator move to the left at a rapid pace and then the doors opened up again.

I walked out into a small pink bedroom and paused to examine a painting of a clown that hung on the wall beside a closed door.

"Hey lady," a squeaky child's voice called out to me. "Where the hell did YOU come from?"

I turned around and saw a little baby girl lying on her back in her crib.

"Yeah," the baby said waving her rattle at me. "I'm talkin' to you. Where the hell did you come from?"

"Vin?" I asked recognizing who I was talking to now. "Vin Xentrok? The mafia boss?"

"How the heck did you know that?" the infant asked dropping her rattle. "Are you here to snuff me out of existence? If you are, I wanna know who's the dirty rat that sent you."

"We've met before," I explained. "The clinic, remember? Only I was a man
back then. Your . . . mother - walked away for a moment and you decided to talk to me. You told me you were one of the re-born. You said you had some money stashed away and that if I helped you, you'd give me some of it. Well, I don't know how I got here really, but I'm here. Now you want out of that body still or what?"

"Funny," the girl said. "But you know what? I was just thinkin' of you a second ago just before you walked in here out of nowhere. Yeah I want out. You think I want to be called `Holly' the rest of my life? Now get me out of here quick before the bitch comes back to check on me."

I picked her up and cradled her in my left arm while I picked up a small, soft blanket in the other. I wrapped the blanket about her in such a way that her whole body, even her head, was covered. I didn't want her to see what was in the elevator because if she saw those gems, she might get greedy or something and not tell me where her money was hidden.

"Say, what's the big idea?" she asked from under the blankets as I carried her aboard the elevator. "Where'd the lights go?"

"Just hush up," I said pressing a blue sapphire button. "Now I have hunch on something here so just think about where your old body is being stored, okay?"

"Sure," she said. "But why?"

"Nevermind that," I said as the elevator doors closed. "It doesn't matter. Just think about where your old body is stored."

The elevator jolted backwards a bit and then I felt it moving rapidly to the left.

We stopped and the doors slid open again.

Outside was a warehouse of some sort with hundreds and hundreds of coffin-like suspended animation booths laid out in row after row along a huge concrete floor.

I stepped out of the elevator and pulled the blanket off the baby's face.

"Here we are," I said to her, walking past some glass booths. "Now where's your body?"

"Hold me up so I can see," she instructed and I held her up under each of her tiny arms and let her have a look at each body in each chamber as I walked slowly along the path.

"Oh, cripes," she said after a minute. "I'll never find it in this place. There's just too many of 'em. Just stick me in one of those returning chambers along the far wall over there and pick one of these at random. I don't care who you pick, as long as I'm an adult again."

I carried her over to a black booth that stood on end beside one of the warehouse walls. I placed her inside and closed the glassfront door with the press of a button and listened to the cold air hissing it's way inside the chamber.

There was a button marked "transfer" beside a grid of buttons in a strange little numeric keypad.

I didn't know really how to work the device but it seemed simple enough with the few buttons that were there on the control panel.

I pressed in the numbers six, four, five and then pressed "transfer."

The booth glowed from within and it rattled about a little.

I heard another booth some twenty yards away or so rattle as well.

I walked over to the other booth just as it's lid was opening up automatically. Cold mist spewed out and over the sides and a black haired
nude man sat up and stretched his arms.

He climbed out of the chamber and stood there on the cold concrete floor and shivered a bit as he stretched his arms and legs.

He about forty years old and fairly well muscled. He also was a good foot taller than me now.

"Now then," he said cracking his knuckles. "How about you tell me how the hell we traveled a thousand miles away so fast from a bedroom that had absolutely no teleporter booth installed in it?"

"It's a secret," I said shrugging nervously. This guy could easily overpower me now. I didn't count on that but now I wished I had. "Anyway it doesn't matter. I saved you, right? Everything's okay, right? We're buddies now, right?"

"Buddies?" he asked grabbing me by the wrist and smiling down at me. "You're a man in that body, right? Why'd you change into a woman for? You want to insult me or something? I'm the biggest boss there ever was and you want to insult me by rescuing me as a woman? I ought to kill you."

"But . . . you were a girl too," I pointed out. "A baby girl at that."

"Wasn't my choice," he said letting go of my wrist. "They double crossed me. How was I to know I'd wind up a girl? All I asked for was to be hidden
and they did a pretty good job of that. A two year old girl, but it wasn't my choice. They did this for laughs I think. Anyway you did save me, so I'm still willin' ta give you a share of the loot if you want. Now you tell me how we got here so fast."

"First I changed my mind," I said. "I don't want the money. I just want you to help me find my old body, then we're even. Okay?"

"Sure," he said laughing. "It's your loss babe. Where's your old body?"

"That's just it," I shrugged. "I don't know. Gamma Station maybe, or even somewhere on Mars. It's a long story. To make it short, I got stuck in this body and sold into slavery. First you have to help me get this bracelet off my wrist, then help me find a way to undo a brain-lock and body-lock."

"Brain-lock?" Vin asked laughing at me. "Baby, there isn't any such thing. They must have told you that to scare you. Same goes with body-locks. They don't exist, at least not that I know of. If you want, I can swap you out of that female body into any one of these ice-men here and just get it over with."

He reached over and examined my bracelet, then he twisted it about my wrist and I heard a click, then the bracelet opened up and fell down to the floor.

"Twist-offs," Vin said patting me on the back. "Greatest insult they could give you. Childproof twist-offs, that's all. You'd never have thought it could be so easy to remove your bracelet and escape, right? Well, that's just what your master wanted you to think. I know because I used to own
a few slave girls myself. Oh a few girls figure it out after awhile but that's rare. They usually pull at the bracelet instead of thinking to just twist it. Now I think we're even. You've got your freedom and the pick of any one of the bodies in this warehouse. Just let me know which one and I'll swap you."

I looked down at myself. I still wore the thick fur coat and backpack.

I reached down and picked up the bracelet and put it in my backpack.

"Souvenir?" Vin asked surprised. "You know they'd track you down
eventually if you keep that thing."

"I know," I said. "But I want to keep it. It may come in useful in the future."

"So what body do you want?" he asked gesturing about to all the suspended animation chambers.

"I'm not so sure I want to change back into a man," I said honestly. "I said I wanted you to help me find my old body, not change back into it. I never said I wanted back. I just want to find my old self. Then I'll decide what to do from there."

"Well, I'm no body hunter, lady," Vin said shrugging. "I don't think I can help you nab the location of your old body. That's going to be pretty tough no matter who you get to help you. Look, this means we're
not really even, so is there anything else you might want from me?"

"Yes," I said realizing the answer. Only a mob man could possibly help me out on what I really wanted now. "Are you pretty good at convincing governments to undo their laws?"

"Sometimes I've been able to help influence their decisions. Why? What do you mean?" he asked.

"Vin Xentrok," I said. "Have you ever been on a roller coaster?"

His eyes lit up and he knew at once what I wanted.

"Consider it done," he said rolling his head way back and laughing happily. "Consider it done, my friend."

___-----___

Shiny green metal rings surrounded the tall building across the open air as I sat there aboard the Mondar Kri.

I felt a hand grip me on the knee and I turned to face Todd, my date.

"What are you up to now?" he asked me bringing his left hand up off my knee and around the back of my neck to rest on my left shoulder.

He kissed me briefly as the roller coaster clicked and rattled it's way up the first slope.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "You're the one making a move."

"As always," Todd said. "But this time you're the girl. Why don't we go back to my place after this?"

"Why not the Gems of Ordon?" I asked.

"Sounds good," he replied. "But first my place. I'll push your buttons if you push mine."

The roller coaster edged over the first hill past the American and Martian flags that waved proudly in the air and we plunged downward into screams of happiness and dreams come true.

THE END