"Cat food."
"Witnesses?"
"None. As before."
"That will do."
"Aye-aye, Commodore."
"Continue herding operations. Report any anomalies."
"Aye, sir."
Closing the cell phone, he laid it beside the terminal. His eyes went to the screen.
And there, like a beacon, glowed a New Message prompt line.
To: Commodore@net.org From: Kali@yug.net Subject: Call me instantly
But the message area was only blank space.
"Bitch!" he muttered.
He had been warned never to call, never to visit, without being summoned first. No one gave a man of his stature orders, and that was part of the thrill, of course.
He punched out the number from memory and waited with pounding heart and an uncomfortable rising sensation in his crotch.
"If you dialed correctly, you know my name," her cool contralto voice said. "Speak."
"Mistress."
"Commodore."
"Er, I have your message."
"All is well, I trust," she said coolly.
"As well as it can be with the current situation."
"Still conducting tests?"
"Er, yes. We had an accident this evening."
"You must tell me all about it." It was not a polite invitation, but a firm command.
"Be glad to."
"In person."
"I would be delighted. Shall I bring something?" Her voice dripped with contempt. "Bring your obedience, worm." And she hung up.
He changed from his stained pajama pants into fresh trousers and sped through the sleeping city to the place he knew as the Temple.
It was unlocked. He stepped into the anteroom and through double doors beside which danced barbaric carvings of bare-breasted females with ripe lips, lascivious hips and multiple arms poised to please. In the preparation room he removed his clothes down to the last stitch.
His manhood was already rising. He swallowed hard, presented himself to the mirrored door of one-way glass. He saw himself. Behind the obscuring glass, she was looking at him, he knew. He could feel her blazing blue eyes upon him.
Her cool question floated through the barrier. "Are you prepared to enter my presence?"
"I am, Mistress."
"Then assume the position of approach."
Falling on hands and knees, he crept toward the door, bumping it open with his head.
Like a scuttling crab, he entered the room.
He kept his eyes on the polished floor because the penalty for doing otherwise was severe, and it was too early in the encounter to expect the corporal delights to be visited upon him.
He stopped when his head bumped her stiletto boots and one lifted to press its steely pointedness into his bare back.
"Tell me," she said flatly.
"Anything."
"Tell me what happened tonight that disturbs you so."
"Another U.S. fishing vessel stumbled onto a test. It had to be disposed of for security reasons. Crew and vessel are no more."
"Very wise."
"No one will ever know."
Her tone turned sarcastic. "Except you and I and everyone involved. That is how many individual persons?"
"I imagine thirty, all told," he stuttered.
"Thirty people in on a secret that could ruin your career, if not your life. If only one percent of them tell one person, how big a leak is that?"
"Considerable," he admitted.
"How big?"
"Disastrous."
"That's better." Her voice shed its bitter sarcasm, though it could hardly be said to soften.