Planet of the Titans

Chapter 8

Darian and Zima stood looking into the habitation module as the six captives who had arrived on the Thunderbolt mingled with the thirteen new captives who were recently acquired on Arcadia.

"So how many captives do I get to keep out of the captives I won for you, Darian?" Zima asked.

"How many do you want?' Darian asked.

"If you're giving me a choice, I'd like at least five of them," Zima replied.

"I'll let you keep three!" said Darian. "But choose carefully, try to pick three who are skilled enough to win more captives for you."

"Leo!" said Zima. "Try to figure out which captives have the most skill out of the new guys we just put in there, okay?"

"No problem!" said Leo, and the two giantesses left the area so Logan could try to investigate the new captives and find their skill levels. Leo approached a man who was in his twenties.

"What sports are you good at?" Leo asked him.

"I'm not really the athletic type," the man replied, "but I've gotten better at handball since getting stranded on Arcadia."

"Do you know who out of these captives is the most skilled in athletic competitions?" Leo asked.

"Brody Seger," the man replied. "He's not as good as Tyler Chen, but he was a tennis champion on Arcadia for a long time. He was on his way to the semi-finals, until he got beaten by Tyler."

Leo had the man point out Brody to him. Brody was in his late thirties, talking to Natalie Red Hawk, Nolan's half-sister.

"Well, he sure doesn't waste any time!" said Leo. "He goes straight to the hottest chick in the room!"

Leo approached Brody. "I'm Leo Tanner, pilot of the Thunderbolt." Brody and Logan shook hands.

"That giantess named Zima put me in charge of finding out which one of you is the most skilled athlete, and you were pointed out to me by another captive. So they say you're good at tennis?"

"What good will it do me if I tell you," said Brody, "just to have you rat me out to that giantess?"

"It will work out in both our favor if I let her know," said Leo. "She's already swallowed three captives that she recently acquired, and if you ended up in her possession and she didn't know you were good at tennis, you could end up being next!"

"Well, since you put it that way," said Brody, "I was a tennis coach back on my version of Earth."

"Since we're all from different versions of Earth," said Leo, "I think most captives just refer to it as their home world."

"Yes, well, on my home world I was a skilled tennis coach. I was able to pay my rent and my bills that way. Of course, I'm not nearly as good as someone like Tyler Chen, that's why I eventually got beaten by him. But I would've made it to the semi-finals if I hadn't gone up against Tyler!"

"How did you end up here on Thanatar?" Leo asked.

"I was a passenger on a private jet flying over the Bermuda Triangle about six months ago," said Brody. "I was on my way to an island in the Caribbean for a vacation with my wife and two of my students, when we got pulled through some kind of a space-warp to Thanatar! And you?"

"Same scenario," Leo replied, "but we were on a point-to-point suborbital space-plane. We had just briefly left the upper atmosphere when Darian used a space-warp cannon to pull us into this universe. So far, myself and my fellow crew-member and my four passengers are all intact. How is your wife doing?"

"She is with my former mistress," said Brody. "My original mistress used her as bait to keep me in line, so I would keep winning tennis matches. When I lost to Tyler Chen, I went with Darian and my wife stayed with my old mistress."

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Leo. "Can you point out two more skilled athletes out of the thirteen of you who just arrived under Darian's power?"

"I have two students whom I personally taught, and they played against Tyler and lost, too." said Brody. "They're really you're best bet, anyone else is just a couch potato who ended up training on a fly-by-night kind of arrangement."

"And they're good?" Leo asked.

"They're not as good as me, but they're highly skilled." Brody replied. "They actually trained beginning students back on my home world, and they're probably the best you'll find among captives from Arcadia."

"Can you introduce me to them?" Leo asked.

"Anthony! Johnathan! Come over here! There's someone who wants to meet you!"

Two young men not a day older than 21 approached Logan and Brody.

"This is Leo Tanner," said Brody, "he is going to hook it up for us so we get special treatment from an evil giantess who normally swallows captives left and right! As long as she knows we're real athletes, she'll spare us! As long as we're hand-selected by her, we should be okay. Right Leo?"

"She wants to use you guys to win her more captives," said Leo. "Any captives who are less skilled than you, she'll swallow; but as long as you keep winning tennis matches, you should be okay! I'm going to summon her right now!"

Logan yelled in the direction of the top of the container, and called out Zima's name. Zima approached, and her face could be seen above them.

"Have you found any athletes yet?" Zima asked.

"I've found Brody Seger and his two students, Anthony and Johnathan! They're the best tennis players you're probably going to find!"

"If they're so good, why did they lose to Tyler Chen?" Zima asked.

"Tyler Chen is a tennis champion!" said Logan. "There's no way they could win against him, but if they went up against any average player on the game boards, they're bound to win!"

"You did a good job, Leo!" said Zima as she moved her hand down into the habitation module, palm-side up. "Brody, Anthony, and Johnathan! I command you to surrender to my hand!"

Brody and his two students stepped onto Zima's palm, and she lifted them into the air. She cupped the three of them with her other hand and spoke to Darian.

"I think we need to go back to Arcadia so I can register them in my name and play them against someone!"

"Then let's go!" said Darian. "I can train the passengers of the Thunderbolt to serve drinks while we're there. Can you carry the habitation module to the shuttle cruiser?"

"No problem!" said Zima, as she shoved her three tennis-playing captives into a pocket of her blouse and zipped it closed. She grabbed the habitation module right after pushing the button that sealed the dome that enclosed the top. Once onboard Darian's shuttle cruiser, they ascended into the sky and headed back to Arcadia for the second time in one day.

The space station was on the view screen, and from a great distance they could see a lot of traffic flowing around the station. Darian listened on her headphones to the traffic controller.

"There's going to be a wait," said Darian. "At this time of day, Arcadia is filled to capacity. But we've been given a voucher number, and when more people exit the station, we will be able to park on a first come first served basis."

"We can take this time to get to know the captives," said Zima. She pushed a button on the main control module of the habitation module, and the dome slid open. Zima also unzipped her blouse pocket and produced her three latest conquests. She held her three captives firmly but not hard enough to hurt them.

"Let's get to know each other!" said Zima to the captives in the habitation module. "Do you have anything to share?"

Leo was the first to speak up. "Brody has a wife who is owned by his former mistress. Do you think you can try to win her back?"

Zima and Darian both laughed. Zima replied to Logan: "First of all, Brody's wife is a 'that,' not a 'who,' she's not a person, she's a game piece! All of you are game pieces now! Don't ever forget that!"

"I apologize, mistress!" said Leo.

"Well, don't let it happen again!" said Zima. "Don't forget something, to us, you're no better than inanimate objects! At best, to an owner who has kept you for a number of years and assuming you scored a lot of victories for them on Arcadia, then you would be elevated to the status of a beloved pet! But ninety-nine percent of all Earth people end up in the bellies of their owners, sooner or later! It's just a matter of time!"

"What about the other one percent?" Leo asked.

"Like I said, if they don't get swallowed by their owners, it's because they became beloved pets. You can't count on that happening to you! As far as Brody is concerned, I consider him and his two tennis students to be an investment! He's going to win me a lot of captives, and all of them are going to end up in my belly sooner rather than later! The only reason Brody and his two students are being spared is because they will help me acquire more captives!" Zima sat back in her seat and discontinued looking at the captives, whose habitation module was in the area between the pilot and co-pilot's seats.

Nolan, Leo, Mason, and Tyler all thought Zima was attractive. "I wonder who she would go for if she were our size!" said Nolan.

"Why don't you ask her?" Leo asked.

"Okay, I will!" said Nolan. He looked up at Zima and yelled. "Zima!"

Zima tilted her head to look down at the captives. "What do you want, pawn?"

"If all of us were the same size, which one of us would you go out with?" Nolan asked.

"What's your name?" Zima asked.

"I'm Nolan Ward!"

"I'd probably go out with you if you somehow became our size. You're kind of cute!" Zima smiled after finishing her sentence, and Nolan felt like he had scored. "Looks are all that matter to me!"

"Yes! I knew she'd go for me!" said Nolan.

"We have clearance to dock!" said Darian. "Our number came up."

Darian piloted her shuttle cruiser and docked with the Arcadia space station. Zima returned her three tennis players to her blouse pocket and zipped them up, then she carried the habitation module as she walked along with Darian. They went straight to the registration office and made an appointment. Zima unzipped the pocket of her blouse and set the three tennis players on the desk in front of her.

"These three belonged to her, she won them in the games," Zima explained, "but she gave them to me, so I want them registered in my name."

The receptionist said it wasn't a problem, and they were out of there within minutes. Darian and Zima got good seats in the stadium where the tennis matches were being played. There was a drink dispenser and Darian set Leo, Nolan, Carmen, and Natalie on top of it and taught them how to serve drinks for people.

"The switch has been designed so someone on your scale can operate it. You just pull back on the switch when people order their drinks, see?"

The four of them quickly caught on and Darian left them to go send Mason and Tyler to the games. Mason had to drive a race car in another stadium, so she left Tyler with Zima as Zima set her three tennis players against other less experienced players.

"I think I should get my own racquet!" said Tyler. "One I can keep!"

"If you win all your matches today, I'll buy a racquet for you!" said Zima. "How does that sound?"

"Okay!" said Tyler.

Brody and his two students were set in three matches with obviously less skilled opponents, and Tyler Chen was set against someone who was better than Brody's opponent, but not quite a match for Tyler, who was a tennis pro. The games were virtually identical to tennis as played on Earth, with the exception of the racquets, which formed an energy net instead of the being made from plastic like Earth racquets. The ball itself was also made of energy, and it took a lot of skill to stay ahead in the game. When Tyler won his match, Zima went to collect the losing captive for Darian.

"I think that's unfair!" said the giantess who owned the losing captive. "My captive told me your captive was a tennis pro back on his home world!"

"That's the way the dice falls!" said Zima with a smile on her face as she collected the losing captive.

Meanwhile, in the other stadium, Mason Lewis was driving like a bat out of hell in the hovercar he was driving. It functioned much like an ordinary car back on Earth, with the exception of the repulsor fields it used for propulsion instead of wheels or tires. Racing wasn't so much a game of who could drive faster so much as it was a game of skill, involving negotiating the track better than your opponents. Mason had been a successful pro stock race car driver back on Earth, so much so that he had made millions of dollars that he had used to buy his own jet airplanes and learn how to pilot them in his spare time. He had been such a good race car driver that his fans had adopted a slogan about him that had entered the pop culture lexicon: 'Mason Lewis can't lose.'

None of this hype could help him on Arcadia; however, his immense skill from spending most of his life racing proved to be an advantage. When Mason came in first, the only person who wasn't surprised was Mason himself. Many people had been betting on the favorite, a race car driver from an analog of Mason's universe. This man had been some kind of a champion, but if they had met on a track on Mason's world, Mason would've smoked him easily. In the biggest upset of the night, Darian collected Mason and the supposed champion who had been favored to win, but instead of collecting the other losing racers, Darian let her opponents keep them and collected the cash equivalent on her gaming debit card instead. This way, there would be less captives for them to deal with.

Darian carried Mason and his opponent back to the stadium where Zima was gambling with Tyler and Brody, and Brody's students. When she got there, she was surprised to see Zima with close to ten captives.

"Again?" Darian asked.

"Leo wasn't lying when he said Brody was good!" said Zima. "He won three matches in a row! His students all won three matches each, too!"

"So you've got nine more captives?" Darian asked.

"Yes, and Tyler beat three opponents, so there's three more captives for you, also!"

"How are my drink servers?" Darian asked.

Zima and Darian walked over to the drink dispenser, and Darian ordered a drink.

"I'll take a light beer!" said Darian.

Carmen and Nolan struggled with a lever that was bigger than they were, but they managed to operate the device and a glass was filled with beer. Darian took the beer when it was full and took a swig from it.

"Ahh! The taste of victory! Zima what are you going to do with all of your captives?"

"You don't even need to ask!" Zima replied. "Brody, Anthony, and Johnathan are all safe, they're going to win me more captives, but if I find out any of my captives have no athletic skills to win me more captives," Zima lifted her blouse to reveal her light brown stomach, and pointed at her belly button as she licked her lips. Zima and Darian burst out laughing.

"What about my racquet?" Tyler asked.

"I promised Tyler if he won all his matches tonight that I'd get him his own racquet," said Zima, who turned and walked to the concession stand to buy him one. She returned several minutes later with a tiny (to her) racquet that was built on Tyler's scale.

"It's good that you got him that," said Darian, "because now he can practice back on Thanatar!"