“Attention passengers, this is your Captain speaking.” With a start Rixie’s eyes snapped open as the officious baritone of the Captain’s voice over the speaker broke into her dreams. “We have arrived in the system of our destination world, and will be docking with Valhalla station shortly.”

Rixie groaned and buried her face into her pillows. “Don’t want to leave!” She moaned childishly, “I like it here!” She felt a tickle on her nose and cracked an eye open to find Alex standing beside her head.

“What are you doing?” He asked, shaking his head ruefully.

“Pouting.” Rixie admitted with a smile as she rolled over and sat up in the bed, the sheets slipping off her shoulders and down her torso, revealing her breasts. “I’ve had so much fun on this trip. I hate to see it end.” She scooped Alex into her hand and deposited him on top of her knee where he found himself at eye level with her chest.

“Well, we’ve still got a bit before we reach our destination right?”

“True.” Rixie smiled wickedly. “One last chance to use that awesome shower at least, right?” She picked Alex up and dashed into the spacious bathroom attached to her suite. The bathroom was done in soft blue colored tiles, in the center of the room stood the massive shower that was (to a Titan) the size of a large Jacuzzi, to Alex it was the size of a small lake. The floor of the tub could be adjusted in several ways, flat for a regular shower, panels could be extended so people could sit around the rim and soak, like a hot tub, or it could be contoured so one could sit in it like a recliner.

This was the option Rixie went with. As she settled into the seat, she programmed the bank of shower faucets protruding from the ceiling so that the water fell from everywhere. In a moment it felt like her naked body was being massaged by a warm spring rain. She set Alex down on top of her breast and giggled as she watched him slide down her slick skin to her belly.

She palmed the controls on the side of the tub, and the downpour lessened until it was more like a fine mist, just enough to leave a sheen of moisture on her skin. She grabbed a bottle of purple gel off the rim of the tub and squirted a dollop of the substance into her belly button.

“Do me a favor and rub that soap around for me, will you?” She sighed contentedly and lay back on the headrest, as if she hadn’t just given Alex a monumental task. “And don’t take too long, you still have my backside to cover.”

Alex stared incredulously at the pile of sweet-smelling soap that was almost as big as he was. Was she serious? Finally he shrugged, threw himself into the goop and began using his entire body to spread it around. He did this for about five minutes before Rixie opened her eyes and looked down at him with a smile.

“Aren’t you done yet?” She asked impishly. Alex looked around and realized he’d only managed to soap up a small area around her abdominal muscles.

Rixie let out a fake sigh of frustration. “I guess I have to do everything around here.” She pressed another button on the edge of the tub and her “recliner” collapsed back into a flat floor as she pulled herself to her feet, wrapping her fingers around Alex.

She used her other hand to scoop up what was left of the soap, and then mashed her hands together until she had a sizeable pile of soapy foam in the palms of her hands. She plucked Alex from the center of the mountain of bubbles and held him by one arm as he spat soap out of his mouth and tried to clear it away from his eyes.

“You could’ve warned me you were going to do that!” Alex scolded as foam dripped off his body.

Rixie giggled. “Well, you might want to keep your eyes and mouth closed for this next part then.” She dunked him back in the soap and began to use his tiny body as a washcloth.

Alex took her advice, for the most part. He kept his eyes closed and enjoyed the feel of sliding across her slippery wet body. Every so often he’d crack one eye open and find himself rubbed against the sole of her foot, sliding between her breasts, pressed against her ass, or face to face with her clitoris.

She seemed to spend an awful long time cleaning there.

Eventually Rixie decided she was clean enough, and so was Alex, that she readjusted the tub to “recliner mode” and settled into it. She had plugged the drain earlier so there was a decent amount of warm water in the bottom.

With a sigh she settled into the warm water and put Alex on top of her breast, which made him feel a little like he had his own private island. He could feel her heartbeat beneath him. After a moment Rixie’s breathing slowed and he realized that she was asleep.

He leaned against her nipple for a moment, listening to her cacophonous snoring. After a moment, Alex stood and jumped into the water. He ducked under the surface and swam along her abdomen and resurfaced next to her thigh.

Taking a deep breath he dived under the water again and swam between her legs and underneath her knee. Suddenly the leg fell down on top of him, trapping him underneath.

Alex fought down the urge to panic, and began working his way out from underneath her leg as fast as he could. Fortunately, he had just taken a breath of air right before this had occurred, so he would have a few minutes of oxygen.

He began to try and wiggle his way out from Under Rixie’s leg, he was making progress, but it was slow going. He might not be able to work his way out before he ran out of oxygen.

Another few seconds past, his vision began to blur and his heart pumped furiously. Panic was getting harder and harder to stave off.

Rixie stretched languidly as she sat up. “Oh, Alex, I think I fell asleep there. I hope we’ll have enough time to get ready to disembark.”

She looked at her breast and realized that Alex was missing.

“Alex?” She looked around frantically for her little human, before she realized there was an odd tickle in the pit of her knee. She jumped to her feet and watched, wide eyed, as Alex’s broke the surface of the water gasping for air.

“Alex what were you doing down there?” Rixie demanded as she bent down to gather the human into her hand and raise him to her face. He was slumped in the palm of her hand, coughing heavily as he tried to regain his breath.

“I was just going for a swim. I didn’t think I’d get trapped under your ass.”

Rixie’s eyes narrowed. “It was my knee.” She smirked. “If it had been my rear, I doubt you’d have survived.” She smacked her rear to emphasize her point.

Her eyes softened. “Are you okay?”

Alex nodded a rueful smile on his face. “I’ll be okay; I just need a chance to catch my breath…” Rixie could tell he was lying, he was shaking in her palm and she doubted it was just because he was cold. But, she decided to let him go on fooling himself, even if he wasn’t fooling her.

She grabbed a towel, wrapped it around herself and tucked Alex into her cleavage, where she could be sure he’d be safe. “Come on, you can warm up while I get us ready to disembark when we dock with the station. Maybe we’ll order food since Pryvani is paying for all of this.”

*.*.*.*.*.*

With a bag slung over one shoulder and Alex perched on the other, Rixie walked down the docking tunnel from the transport ship to the station. She glanced around as she exited, not entirely sure where she was supposed to go.

The station boardwalk was crowded by passengers, security personnel, and dust-covered miners from the planet’s surface.

“Rixie Tam?”

Rixie turned around and found herself face to face with Pryvani’s assistant, Trell.

“Yes. It’s nice to see you again, Trell.” A moment of silence fell between the two women as they sized each other up, again.

Trell smiled, although it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Well, if you’ll follow me, we’ll be able to transport down to Avalon.”

“Avalon?” Rixie turned the strange word over in her mind, completely unsure of its meaning.

“Pryvani’s moon. What, you didn’t think it was just called ‘Pryvani’s Moon’ Did you?”

Rixie rolled her eyes. “Obviously not.”

*.*.*.*.*.*

“Pryvani is in a meeting for the next few hours, but I can show you to your new room so you can get settled in. We’ve made arrangements for your things to be dropped off.”

The two titans walked down the corridor of the compound towards the crew living quarters. Alex felt Trell’s gaze on him the whole way, and found himself progressively moving closer to Rixie’s neck. Her eyes seemed to burn a hole in his head. Alex couldn’t wait until she was gone, her presence was extremely unnerving.

He wasn’t entirely sure why though.

Soon enough, however, they had reached their destination. Trell handed Rixie a security pass. “Here you are. I’ll leave you to get settled in shall I?” She smiled, but her eyes remained cold. “Unless there’s something else you need?”

“No, I think we’ll be fine. Thank you.”

Trell nodded and departed without another word.

Alex shuddered again. “She gives me the creeps.”

Rixie turned her head and eyed the human on her shoulder, surprised. “Why?”

Alex shrugged. “I don’t know. She looks at me funny, as if she’s mentally calculating how long it would take to rip my skin off in one long piece.”

“Well, that’s a rather gruesome image. However, I do see your point. I don’t really trust her either.”

“So, do you think she’s the mole?”

Rixie swiped the security badge through the door lock, which opened with a click.

“Pryvani seems to think so.”

“Why doesn’t she just get rid of her then?”

“Titans have an old saying: ‘You can’t get stabbed in the back by someone you’re looking in the eye.’”

She pressed the button on the security console and the door whooshed open to admit them.

Before being sent into the military, Rixie had grown up in an orphanage run by the State, where she’d had to share her living space with as many as twelve other children, then she had gone into the military where (until she was high enough rank) she’d had a bunk in a crowded barracks. Even as an Imperator, she’d only had a small apartment to herself.

So it was a tad bit overwhelming when she stepped into the living space she’d now been allotted. The living room, (something she’d never really had before,) was bigger than the entirety of her quarters back on Titan Station.

“Wow.” Rixie muttered. “I should have gone into the private sector years ago.” She stepped through the door and into the room.

“Hey! Look at that view!” Alex pointed to the large glass doors that led out to an attached patio. The view outside was of a large lake with a mountain range in the distance.

Rixie stepped into the bedroom and flicked on the light switch. The bed was, from Alex’s perspective, about the size of an athletic field, which was of course more than enough room for Rixie.

Folded on the foot of the bed was a set of clothing that looked a little like Rixie’s military duty uniform, only instead of being black it was a medium grey. On the floor was a pair of knee-high leather boots with a substantial platform and a spike heel. Stuck to the toe of the left boot was a note that read “For Alex.”

“I don’t think they’ll fit me.” Alex muttered confused.

Curiously, Rixie picked the boot up and examined it. After a few seconds, a mischievous smile formed on her face. “Oh, actually I think it’ll fit you fine.” Before Alex could react, she plucked him from her shoulder and dropped him into the mouth of the boot. She held the boot at an angle so he slid down the side and into the heel section.

“Hey! What was that…?” His protestations trail off as he noticed a hole, roughly a foot and a half in diameter in the heel of the boot. Alex jumped down into the hole and realized he’d fallen into the platform part of the boot.

The platform was about seven and a half feet high, and right in the center, roughly where the ball of the foot would be situated, was a chair. The chair looked like a combination of the driver’s seat in a racecar, and a recliner. With a five-point harness and a neck restraint, it looked rather comfortable, actually.

Alex rolled his eyes. Of course, Pryvani wouldn’t have been able to resist getting one last dig in at his expense.

“You’d better strap in little man, I want to try these on.” Rixie’s voice was muffled but still audible. The boot titled again and Alex tumbled to the floor. He took a half-second to regain his senses before quickly scrambling into the seat and strapping himself in.

“You ready? I hope so!” Alex had just clipped the last buckle when Rixie took her first step. The momentum forced him deeper into the chair and he was grateful for the neck restraints. The experience was rather like being on some kind of strange carnival ride. He looked up and realized he could see the sole of Rixie’s foot, just like when he’d been trapped in Pryvani’s shoe.

At least this time he wasn’t being slammed into the walls with every step.

Rixie took a quick stroll around her new apartment, as she got used to walking with the added height the platform boots afforded her. Already being rather tall, Rixie never felt the desire to artificially add to her height with lifts the way some other people did. However, she did have to admit that the extra boost did make her feel rather powerful.

However, she was glad that these were not her uniform boots. They would be almost impossible to run in. She decided that the boots were fun, but definitely not for everyday wear. Rixie figured she would reserve them for the times she felt the urge to tease Alex, or perhaps to reward him for being a good boy.

Some days it was hard to tell which was which.

Eventually, the boots started to make her ankles hurt, so she returned to her room and put Alex back on her shoulder.

“Hey, look, I think this is meant for you too.” Rixie carried Alex over to the wall of her bedroom where a miniature version of her apartment had been replicated inside a glass enclosure, and set into the wall. She set Alex down on the shelf set into the wall outside of it, where he walked over and opened the door.

“Oh good, that means you won’t be trapped in there!” Rixie smiled as Alex stepped inside to explore his new home.

Alex looked around, awestruck. It was if he had just walked into luxury apartment back on Earth, the kind he only ever saw on TV and would never have been able to afford himself. Pryvani had apparently spared no expense in every detail and part of him was genuinely touched that she’d even bothered.

There were working lights, which he could turn on and off with a push of a (admittedly rather large, but not unmanageable) button, and real plumbing in the bathroom. This he was especially grateful for; he didn’t really want to dwell on the ways he’d had to… relieve himself on Titan station. He was also thankful that the bathroom was completely closed off from the outside world.

Everything worked exactly as it would have if he had been back on Earth. Well, almost everything. The kitchen wasn’t real, but Alex supposed that was understandable. Where would he get food, except from Rixie anyway?

He stepped back out of his “apartment” and stood on the shelf. Rixie bent down to his level.

“What do you think?”

Alex beamed. “I love it. We could even put a railing along here, and then I’d have a patio too.”

“Sure. Although I think my view is better than yours.”

Alex found himself staring down Rixie’s shirt. “…I don’t know about that.”

There was a beeping noise coming from the living room, which Rixie excused herself to investigate. Alex, meanwhile, stepped back into his “apartment.”

It was tad surreal, like he was back on Earth again, everything was built to his scale. He could sit in a real chair, sleep on a real bed, the illusion was almost perfect.

That is, until he turned around to find a pair of giant green eyes staring in on him.

“That was Pryvani. She said she wanted to meet with me right away. Are you going to be okay here by yourself?”

Alex smiled. “Of course, I’ll be fine. Tell Pryvani I said thank you, will you?”

Rixie smile. “Of course.”

Alex looked around his new home again, feeling genuinely grateful to Pryvani for providing it; it felt like he now was able to have the best of both worlds.

*.*.*.*.*.*

Pryvani led Rixie into her office. Out the massive wall-spanning windows, Rixie could just barely see the shadowed form of the mountain range in the distance, and a trail of stars over their peaks. The room was lit softly from sconces along the ceiling and around the frame of the window. In the opposite corner from where Pryvani’s desk sat there was a holographic sculpture of Earth being projected above a dais.

“First let me officially welcome you to Avalon. I hope your stay aboard the Empress was satisfactory.”

Rixie nodded, crossing her arms over her chest. “The accommodations were very comfortable. As are the rooms I’ve been assigned down here.” She smirked. “Alex was particularly pleased with your little… gift.”

A small chuckle escaped Pryvani’s lips. “Good. I’m glad.” She stepped around her massive desk and lowered herself into the chair behind it. “Please, have a seat Rixie. We have much to discuss.”

Rixie pulled one of the other chairs in the room over to the desk and sat in it, adjusting herself until she was reasonably comfortable. “Is this about the… secret project you’ve been working on?”

The heiress leaned back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap. “Not entirely. Are you at all versed in the work of Shonda Har?”

Rixie shrugged. She was moderately familiar with the philosopher who had lived two centuries ago and had gained a modest following, culminating in a minor revolution of social reform inspired by his teachings. His texts had been required reading at the academy. “Somewhat. I’ve read a few of his books, but that was years ago.”

Pryvani nodded a faraway look in her eyes. She remained silent for a moment, and then abruptly rose to her feet. “One of Har’s teachings was the concept that every sapient race had a collective ‘soul’ for lack of a better term.” The young woman walked as she spoke, crossing to the far side of her office, stopping next to the hologram of Earth. “And at the center of that soul was a core virtue, a primary quality that drove that species, allowed it to rise from the primordial and gaze upwards.”

“Obviously, Har was speaking in generalities… not every member of a species would embody that virtue in equal amounts. He also believed that it was entirely possible for that quality to be twisted into a vice, and that horrible things occur when that happens.”

Rixie was silent for a moment, contemplating the sudden turn the conversation had taken. “It’s been too long since I read his work, what did he claim was our ‘driving force’?”

Pryvani smiled softly, “We’re protective.” She cupped the holographic image, holding the Earth gently in the palm of her hand as if she really were the goddess she pretended to be. “I know you’ve felt it with little Alex. You want to keep him in your pocket at all times so you know he’s safe.”

Her smile faded. “Of course… ‘Protective’ can all too easily get twisted around into domination, patronization, and subjugation.” She swiped her hand savagely through the projection, causing the image to waver and then dissipate in a cloud of blue and green sparks. “You’ve no doubt felt that too, haven’t you? The sometimes overwhelming need to hurt Alex, just a little, just to prove you’re the one in control.”

Rixie shifted uncomfortably in her seat, a blush creeping up her cheeks as she remembered that first night with Alex, and that regrettably pleasant feeling she’d gotten when she did whatever she wanted to him, whether he liked it or not.

Rixie cleared her throat, staring down at her own feet. “Why are you telling me this?”

Pryvani was silent for a moment as she watched the image of Earth reform before her eyes. “Because, I need you to understand. I never do anything for only one reason, Rixie. All of this;” She gestured towards the window and the landscape it depicted. “Was for a purpose. I know what they say about me, about my family. That we’re a bunch of eccentrics with more money than we know what to do with, so we wasted our time building a zoo on this moon and being obsessed with a backwater planet full of primitives.”

The young woman paused and smiled again. “All of which is true, I suppose… but even that had a secondary purpose.”

Rixie arched an eyebrow, and took the cue. “Which was?”

“Well for one thing it is far better to be underestimated than the opposite. As for the other, well, to answer that I would need you to ask me the obvious question- that you haven’t yet asked.”

“Which is?”

“’What’s at the core of Humanity’s soul?’ Of course.” Pryvani crossed her office and sat in the chair behind her desk.

“And the answer to that is equally obvious: curiosity.”

“What?” Rixie shook her head in confusion. “What makes you say that?”

“Observation. Humans are an intensely curious species. Nature only allotted them ten, maybe fifteen years of life so they have an innate need to learn as much as they can before their time expires. Unfortunately they too have their darker aspects. Short-sightedness for one. Because their lives are so finite, they don’t always think of the long term consequences of their actions. They also have trouble focusing and are often easily distracted from important matters by trivialities.

“This wasn’t so harmful when they lived in small tribes and their actions only affected their own immediate surroundings… but now they’ve developed the technology to completely obliterate their planet if it is used incorrectly.”

“So this moon of yours, and the colony of humans living on it… it’s like, what, a back-up for humanity?”

Pryvani smiled, delighted that Rixie had worked it out for herself. “Precisely. If humanity can manage to pass through the particularly perilous times they’ve found themselves in and emerge on the opposite side a little wiser, that very drive to understand the universe could be a boon to the entire galaxy. It only took them about ten years to go from powered flight to walking on the surface of their moon, did you know that? Ten years, Rixie.”

Rixie stiffened and sat up involuntarily. “Are you saying they’re smarter than us?”

Pryvani shook her head. “Not at all, but I don’t think we’re any smarter than them either. Not really. Ignorance and stupidity are two different things, after all. We just have different methodologies. We have the luxury of the time needed to carefully consider ideas and the potential consequences. They don’t.”

“I’m still not sure I understand what the point of all of this is, though.” Rixie confessed, shaking her head in confusion. “Even if the humans did manage to destroy their planet, there are plenty of humans out here in the rest of the galaxy; they’re in no danger of going extinct.”

Pryvani shook her head. “Haven’t you noticed the difference? The humans we have, the ones we bred… they’ve regressed. That spark of curiosity, that essential core that makes humans what they are… it’s been completely bred out of the ‘pet’ humans. “

Pryvani shook her head ruefully. “Without challenges to overcome, the humans we raise have become simple creatures. They are full of joy, of course, they are happy… But there’s no drive to understand anymore.”

Rixie crossed her legs at the knee and her arms over her chest. “And what of the humans in that city of yours? Hasn’t the same thing happened to them?”

Pryvani nodded, as if she’d been expecting that question. “It hasn’t, not yet. My people still work to provide food for themselves, they still strive to overcome obstacles. Their ‘spark of humanity’ has been preserved, frozen, and they advance slowly, because of my care, but they do advance. They are still human.”

There was a moment of silence as the two women mulled over the conversation. Finally Pryvani stood and crossed to the window.

“Now, I suppose I should tell you about this secret project my company has been working on.”

Despite herself, Rixie leaned forward in anticipation.

“Make no mistake, Rixie Tam, if this project is allowed to go forward it will irrevocably change the way the galaxy is run. And if it is allowed to fall into the wrong hands, the enemies of the Empire, it could doom us all.”

Rixie wryly marveled on the younger woman’s flare for the dramatic.

“It’s a project we’ve been working on for years now,” Pryvani pressed a keypad set into her desktop and a holographic image appeared above her desk.

It looked like a large metal ring, in the center of which appeared a strange vortex of multi-colored light.

“I don’t understand.” Rixie shook her head. “What exactly am I looking at here?”

Pryvani smiled. “This is a gateway. A tunnel through space. This will allow spaceships to cover interstellar distances in a mere fraction of the time it takes now. A journey that used to take weeks could be traversed in a day or two.”

Rixie’s eyes widened. “That’s amazing.”

Pryvani shrugged. “It has its limitations. The range between any two gates is only about ten light-years, so in order to be effective a network of them would have to be created. Also the physical forces and power needs pretty much preclude these things being put in a system that is inhabited.”

“So how long until these gates are operational?” Rixie asked, still slightly in awe of the idea.

“They already are.” Pryvani smiled.

“Then why haven’t you…?”

“Because I refuse to unleash something like this on the galaxy until we can discover a method of blocking them. Once these go public it won’t be long until other races and powers figure out how they work, and without a method of jamming them- of keeping unfriendly ships out of our territory…”

Rixie nodded. “I see.”

“And that’s why I wanted you here. I’ve set up as many security seals as I can on the prototype and the blueprint files, but no security system is complete. I know there’s a mole in my company, I’m also reasonably certain I know who it is… but I can’t act without proof. I can’t act until they do.”

Pryvani slumped in her desk chair again. “Unless a way to protect ourselves from these gates can be found, the enemies of our Empire will be free to attack us at our most vulnerable places.”

Rixie raised an eyebrow. “You mean the Capita, of course.”

Pryvani smirked again. “Yes, the Capital. And Earth.”

Rixie nodded. If the Titan Empire fell, then Earth would follow soon after, the Empire hadn’t spent the last several hundred years protecting it for nothing, after all.

Rixie stood and leaned against Pryvani’s desk. “So what do you need me to do?”

*.*.*.*.*.*

The glow from the computer terminal bathed Trell’s face in an electric blue light. She peered at the figures on the screen, her brow furrowed in frustration as she glared at the input on display.

She’d been searching, fruitlessly, for the plans to Pryvani’s secret project. She spent the majority of the past year tearing the company’s mainframe apart looking for those files, to no avail.

“It has to be here somewhere!” She muttered savagely to herself as she typed furiously at the keypad. She systemically broken every security measure Pryvani and her technicians had put in place, but every one of them had led to a dead end. It was if Pryvani had been toying with her this entire time, but there was no way the fool could possibly know what Trell had been up to, could there?

Trell sat back in her chair and wiped a hand over her face, a low growl escaping her lips. She wished idly that she had a human she could torture. Something she could take her frustrations out on, but the only humans about were Pryvani’s livestock and the pet human of that ex-soldier.

She wasn’t desperate enough to risk her wrath.

And of course Pryvani’s dollhouse city was currently beyond her reach, protected as it was by the inexorable force of gravity, there was certainly no way she could hack her way past that.

Wait a minute… Trell sat up suddenly as an idea hit her… could it possibly be that easy? Was Pryvani even close to being that clever? There was only one way to find out.

She began typing again, a devious smile on her face, now that she had a plan.