Chapter 37: Return to the Present

Darla and Sondra finished the last disc recording and hung their heads as tears made their way down their cheeks. Morganna was a monster and they had unwittingly set her free. Morganna had destroyed an entire race of people.

What could she and Darla do to destroy this monster? Sondra wondered.

The two women began trying to think of ways to destroy Morganna.

Morganna had injected the growth stimulant into a number of the impregnated cat and wolf women to increase her number of subjects. The numbers of the horse women and Kangaroo women increased dramatically because Morganna kept the female adults constantly pregnant. At last she had to slow down because the adults could not take care of any more eggs and infants. The adult population now numbered almost fifty and there were hundreds of eggs and almost as many infants.

Morganna was very happy and well satisfied with the devotion and attention her subjects showered on her. The adult males were delicious to taste but she had learned to restrain herself from draining them completely. She also had enough adult males now that she did not have to drink from the same one each week and weaken him. She still treated herself by draining the occasional infant male completely though. She could hardly wait for her growing population of devotees to get large enough so that she could resume her blood baths again although she reminded herself that she would have to use restraint here also.

The reproduction of her subjects had been halted for now while they waited for the toddlers to grow to teens. They would then resume laying more eggs. Morganna waited until all danger of her subjects having Eroctin in their systems was gone and then she began to let chosen males and females pleasure her.

One night Darla and Sondra snuck onboard the disabled Dancer in their continuing efforts to find some way to defeat Morganna. Morganna had directed the robots to make the ship incapable of flight and they had removed all the flight controls. A quick inspection showed Darla and Sondra that all the weapons had been removed also.

The two women almost jumped out of their skins when suddenly a voice came over the radio speaker.

"Dancer this is Racer do you read me?" A voice asked.

Once they had recovered from their original surprise and shock the two women looked at each other.

"Dancer this Racer we have your locator beacon fixed. Your radio must be inoperative since we are receiving no response. We will break orbit on next pass around planet and begin descent," the voice continued.

The same thought occurred to both women at the same time. They could not let the Racer come down and fall victim to Morganna. But how were they to communicate since neither of them could speak. Darla raced to the communications screen and activated it while Sondra desperately searched for a piece of paper and something to write with.

A picture flashed into being on the communications screen. Kevin's image looked out at Darla.

"Darla! Is that you Darla? It's great to see you. Why didn't you answer our calls before? Are you having radio problems? Is your ship disabled?" He asked one question after another.

Darla slammed her fist on the panel beside the screen in frustration and then began to make sounds though they were unintelligible because of her lacking a tongue.

"What was that? Say again. Your transmission was garbled," Kevin said.

"No matter we will be down there soon enough," he continued.

Darla screamed her gibberish again as tears rolled down her cheeks. Just the Sondra rushed to her side. She began hurriedly writing with a grease pencil she had found on a black cutting board she had found in the galley.

"Don't come down," she scribbled on the board and held it up to the communications screen.

"Please don't come down there is danger here," she wrote again when she had rubbed the original message off. They removed the board and then one by one they leaned close to the screen and stuck out the stump of their tongues.

Kevin's expression went through a series of transformations. Confusion, disbelief, shock, pity, horror but it finally settled on one of anger.

"Who the fuck did this to you and where are Felix and Duane?" He asked and then waited as Sondra wrote the answers out.

"Morganna. Dead," she wrote in brief answer to both questions.

"Morganna did this to you and Felix and Duane are dead?" Kevin asked and the two women nodded their heads vigorously to let him know his understanding was correct.

They continued their communications until it started to approach dawn. Darla and Sondra explained that they must go before they were spotted and for Kevin and the crew of the Racer to remain in orbit until the following night when they could talk some more and make a plan.

The two women exited the Dancer carefully hiding any trace that they had been there and slunk quietly back to their home. Once behind closed doors they faced each other and tears of relief started to run down their cheeks. Darla and Sondra began to rack their brains for a solution to putting end to Morganna's existence and at the same time preventing a massacre of her followers. These new people that were a combination of animal and human may have been created by Morganna but they were innocent and did not deserve to be simply destroyed.

They knew no other way of life than worshipping Morganna and Darla and Sondra were sure they would defend her to the end. How to separate Morganna from her followers was the question that Darla and Sondra asked themselves as they entered their home for the day. The two women slept fitfully during the day and then crept back to the Dancer late that night for further discussion with Kevin. Kevin suggested simply evacuating the two women and leaving but Darla and Sondra would not even entertain that idea.

Finally they arrived at a plan but it would take several days to put in practice. Kevin had spotted a clearing several miles away where he could set the Racer down unobserved from the city. Several nights later the two women made their way through the dark woods hoping they would not meet up with any of the vicious carnivores that inhabited the forest. The carnivores would not attack though because of the two cat women that shadowed them.

Darla and Sondra at last found the clearing and saw the darker shadow of the Racer landed in the middle of it. As they walked across the clearing a voice suddenly shouted at them hit the ground. Without thinking thanks to their training the two dropped immediately and saw the flash of a rifle on the ramp of the Racer. They then heard the crash behind them. They rolled and sat up to defend themselves as best possible but there was no need.

Kevin approached and asked if they were ok. They noted that he wore night vision goggles. He walked past them and over to the two bodies that lay in the grass behind them. Darla and Sondra got back to their feet and joined him and it was only then that they saw the two cat women that lay motionless in the grass.

This is what we wished to avoid, Sondra thought with a sob as she viewed the two motionless bodies. They boarded the Racer and Sondra was furnished with a writing pad.

"These two creatures are a part of me. They may be genetic mutations but they are also my offspring. I care for them even if I was raped by the beast that sired them. It was not his fault either. The blame rests solely on Morganna," Sondra wrote out sobbed again.

"Then it is a good thing I did not kill them," Kevin stated.

"What?" Sondra wrote out in question.

"This is one of the stun guns that I am planning on giving you. They are not dead they are only knocked out," Kevin said.

"Now what are we going to do with them when they awake? We can't just tie them up and leave them out here to be eaten by predators now can we? At the same time we can't let them return to the city and warn the others," He finished.

They decided to tie up the cat women and take them on board the Racer even though it would be of greater risk to Gareck who was to lift off onboard the Racer and watch from above incase things did not go according to plan. The robots were summoned and the two cat women were placed in two of the recliner chairs where they were secured.

"I hope that holds them," Gareck said as he finished securing the last bond. "I certainly don't need two pissed off cats on the loose while I'm trying to fly and watch you," he finished dubiously.

Kevin and the other two members of his crew went with Darla and Sondra on their return to Shademm. They arrived just as it was getting light and dropped the two guards that were on patrol during their approach to the palace. Each morning Morganna held a ceremony in her honor and insisted that all her subjects except two guards and two watching the nursery attend. They were gathered in front of her throne on their knees with their heads bowed to the floor when the five people entered the room.