Planet of the Titans

Chapter 9

Before Darian and Zima were ready to leave Arcadia, Zima whispered something in Darian's ear, and Darian chuckled. The two women collected the captives and walked to the registration office. Both Darian and Zima pulled out their identification cards, and Zima pulled Nolan Ward out of the habitation module and addressed the receptionist.

"We would like to transfer ownership of the captive named Nolan Ward from Darian Wagner to me!"

"And what is your name?" the receptionist asked.

"Zima Zamora!"

"Can both of you slide your cards into that device? Transfer of ownership will begin as soon as you insert your cards!"

Darian and Zima did as they were told, but inside the habitation module, Natalie was panicking.

"Why is my brother being transferred to being owned by Zima? She'll swallow him for sure!"

When the transfer was complete, Zima unzipped the pocket where she kept Brody and his two students, and dropped Nolan in, then zipped it closed again. Darian and Zima were silent as Darian piloted the shuttle cruiser back to the Crestwood University campus. After parking, Zima carried the habitation module back to the lab.

"I'll leave you alone for a while," said Darian. "I know you have plans, Zima! The lab is yours, see you tomorrow!"

After Darian left, Zima unzipped her blouse pocket and pulled Nolan out.

"How would you like to become one of us for a day?" Zima asked.

"What do you mean by that?" Nolan asked.

"In this lab, we have the technology to enlarge little people like you and make you our size. I think you would make a good sex slave, so I want to make you big like me so I can take you home with me!"

"Sounds good to me!" said Nolan.

"You do realize that when we come back here tomorrow, I'm shrinking you back down to size! Do you agree to these terms?"

"Absolutely!" said Nolan.

"First I have to give you something to swallow," said Zima, and she fished around in a drawer and pulled out a blue pellet. She placed it in a chamber and pressed a series of controls, and the pellet was miniaturized down to Nolan's scale. Zima picked it up and handed it to Nolan.

"Swallow this!" said Zima. "It will allow me to locate you and shrink you back down to size from a remote location if you ever manage to escape from me!"

Nolan took the pellet from Zima and dry swallowed it. Zima picked him up and placed him on top of a device that reminded Nolan of the transporter pads from Star Trek. Zima entered her University identification card into a slot in the control console that controlled the strange machine that was going to enlarge Nolan. Zima pressed a sequence of buttons, then pulled a lever. Nolan began to grow, slowly at first, and then quicker than the blink of an eye. When he was done growing, he was at the same proportionate height as one of Zima's people, about half an inch shy of six feet tall. He was now taller than Zima, who ran up onto the enlarger pad and threw her arms around Nolan and kissed him on the lips.

"Welcome to our world!" said Zima, with her arms still around Nolan. "You're one of us for a day! Let's see, what should we do first?"

"We could go to your place," said Nolan.

"Eventually," said Zima, "but first, let's go shopping and get you some different clothes!"

Nolan followed Zima out of the lab, and watched Zima lock the door behind her. They used public transportation because Zima didn't have her own shuttle cruiser yet like Darian did. They went into several men's clothing stores, until Zima found what she thought would look good on Nolan. He was dressed in a semi-futuristic outfit when they left the store. Zima had purchased the clothing with one of her credit cards.

"How did this society get created?" Nolan asked. "Is there an explanation for how this universe came into existence?"

"Our universe was created by someone your size," said Zima. "At least, someone who was the size you were this morning."

"Really?" Nolan asked. "Why would someone from Earth create a world of giants?"

"He was a macrophile," said Zima. "He was sexually aroused by the concept of giant women. He lived in a world tens of thousands of years more technologically advanced than your world. Maybe hundreds of thousands of years more advanced. He wanted to create a world of giants, so he found a universe that was an analog of his own, and went back to before the Big Bang when this universe was created, and he seeded the primal atom that would eventually become this universe."

"He seeded it?" Nolan asked. "With what?"

"I don't know the specifics because I'm a psyche major, not a physicist," said Zima, "but he manipulated the sub-atomic structures of all the atoms in this universe so they would be seventy-two times bigger, and to avoid violating the square-cube law, he developed a way so that anti-graviton particles compose the matrix of all subatomic particles. That's why the gravity on Thanatar seems no different than the gravity of Earth to you and the other tiny people!"

"What's the square-cube law?" Nolan asked.

"That's a geometric principle that states that every time you double the height of a person or object, their mass, volume and weight increase eight times. So if you had a statue that was two meters tall and weighed five hundred pounds, if you used technology to make it grow to four meters tall, it wouldn't weigh double five-hundred pounds, it would weigh five-hundred multiplied by eight, so it would weigh four-thousand pounds."

"How did you add that up so fast?" Nolan asked.

Zima pulled out a small flask. "This is a drug that stimulates the left side of your brain. It's for people who are artistic and good at English like me. I think mostly with the right side of my brain, so I've never been good at math, so I take this whenever I have to take a math exam. I had a calculus exam this morning."

"Tell me more about this guy who created this universe!" Nolan asked.

"We know a lot about him because eventually we rose up and conquered his civilization," said Zima.

"If he was so advanced, how was that possible?" Nolan asked.

"After he created this universe, he went back to Neolithic times on this world and established a civilization that was as advanced as his own. Once our population got into the tens of billions and we colonized the nearest planetary systems, our ancestors set out to find him and conquer him. It's in our history books, and there's a statue of him in our capital."

Zima and Nolan arrived at the monorail station. Zima bought two tickets, and the next tram arrived less than a minute later. The two of them got onboard, and the tram took them to the station close to Zima's dorm. When they arrived there, Nolan was surprised at how small the dorm was. He was accustomed to thinking of these people as giants, but from the perspective of one of these people, it was just an ordinary dorm.

"Do you want some enchiladas?" Zima asked.

"Yeah, after eating those protein bars three meals a day, that sounds great!"

"Actually," said Zima as she got the enchiladas out of the stasis chamber, "they contain a blend of protein, complex carbohydrates, and monounsaturated fat. Everything your body needs to function properly!"

"Yeah, but those things have no flavor!" said Nolan. "Cardboard would have more flavor than those nutrition bars! Hey, what's that thing you just pulled the enchiladas out of?"

"It's a stasis chamber. It keeps the food in a state of perpetual suspended animation. The food doesn't even need to be re-heated, because whatever temperature the food was when it went into the stasis chamber, that's the temperature the food is when you shut down the stasis field to pull the food out."

Zima scooped some enchiladas onto two plates, and grabbed some glasses and filled them with milk. The two of them sat down at a table to eat.

"So what else did that guy do?" Nolan asked between bites of enchilada. "The guy who created this universe."

"He created other universes of giants before he created this one," said Zima. "He created a world where blonde-haired, blue-eyed people were on the same scale as us, but all other people were normal size, that is, they were tiny like your people. But he kept that world primitive, to this day, their technology level is equal to that of 18th century Europe."

"So this guy was a Nazi?" Nolan asked.

"No," said Zima, "he wasn't white, he was a Latino scientist. He created these worlds out of a lust to worship giant people. He happened to like blonde women, that's why he created that world I just mentioned. He had brown skin just like mine!"

"What was his name?" Nolan asked.

"Octavian Ortega," said Zima. "We owe our entire civilization to him. I'll show you a picture of his statue on the computer monitor." Zima got up and told the computer to show the statue. Nolan got up and looked at the picture. A Roman style building with Corinthian columns surrounded a statue of a man that was life size. He was obviously Hispanic, and was dressed in futuristic clothing.

"So because this guy had a fetish this whole world of giants was created?" said Nolan.

"Yes!" said Zima. "He was swallowed alive by a woman he was in a relationship with. He chose to remain at his normal stature, while she was over three hundred feet tall. Of course, that was several centuries after our society was established."

"Several centuries?" Nolan asked. "How long was his life span?"

"We're not sure how old he actually was, but after establishing our society he lived here for several centuries before he was killed. The people of our society don't die from aging; we can only dies from accidents like getting pulled into a blackhole by a navigation error on a starship, or if a reactor blew up and killed people who were nearby."

"You people don't die?" Nolan asked. "If you live forever, how can you so callously disregard the lives of the tiny people you conquer?"

"Our brains work differently than yours," said Zima. "Ortega made the women of our race into control freaks, and the men are submissive. I wouldn't even know how to have sex with a man from your world who was considered normal. Are you submissive?"

Nolan looked away from Zima, embarrassed.

"There's one way I can find out, I have a mind scanner that will tell me how the psychosexual portion of your brain functions." Zima got up to go get the mind scanner from her bedroom. When she got back with it, she said, "Go ahead, put it on!"

Nolan was reluctant. He had knowledge that Logan had a device that had been given to him by a giantess that could allow all of them to escape. He didn't want Zima to find out that he knew about it, and a mind scanner might reveal that information.

"There's things I like to keep private," said Nolan.

"I'll tell you what," said Zima. "I'll turn off the consciousness retrieval protocol. That will make it so the thoughts in your conscious mind remain hidden from my scan. I'll only be able to sift through the parts of your mind dealing with your sexuality. Zima thrust the device toward Nolan. He was still reluctant.

"Is there something you're trying to hide from me?" Zima asked. "Because if you are, I'll take a full mind scan of your brain without your consent! Now, what do you have to hide?'

Nolan took the device, and put it on. It was similar to a pair of headphones. After putting them on, Zima activated it, and held a device in her hands that displayed the results.

"You are submissive!" said Zima. "Just like the men of my society. That will make sex with you much more interesting. Come on, let's go to my bed." Zima took Nolan by the hand and led him to her bedroom. There was a changing screen in front of her closet, and Zima took off her schoolgirl uniform.

"I'd like to get into something a little more comfortable, what would you suggest? Oh wait, nevermind, I'll just view your mind scan results." Zima looked at the hand held device that displayed the results. "So, you'd like to see me dressed up like a barbarian princess from a Frank Frazetta painting, huh?"

"Yeah!" said Nolan.

Not long after that, Zima emerged from behind the screen looking precisely like that. She had on an outfit that looked like it belonged in a Conan the Barbarian movie, complete with golden armbands and bracelets, and leather sandals that reached to her upper calves. She looked like either an Aztec princess, or some kind of a goddess from the barbarian days. Nolan sat on her bed, and she sat in his lap facing him, and pushed him down on the bed, so he was lying flat on his back.

"How do you like the girl to be on top?" Zima asked.

Meanwhile, Darian had returned to the lab on campus to find a new way to torment the captives.

"Guess what?" said Darian. "One of you is going on a journey to my belly today!" Darian took out a gold coin and held it aloft for them to see."I want those of you who arrived in the Thunderbolt in two groups, the women on one side, and the men on the other!"

The captives did as they were told. Darian held the coin up. "Heads I pick the men, tails I pick the women!" Darian flipped the coin, and when it landed, it was tails. "Heads I pick Carmen, tails I pick Natalie!" Darian flipped the coin, and it landed heads. "Carmen it is!"

As Darian reached for Carmen, Leo yelled out, "No! take me instead! I've got nothing to lose!"

The heroic type, huh?" said Darian. "I can take you instead, I guess it makes more sense. With you out of the picture, there would be nobody to pilot the Thunderbolt back to Earth!"

Darian picked Leo up and held him up to her mouth. "Say goodbye to Leo, everyone!" Darian dropped him into her mouth, and forced him to the back of her mouth with her tongue. Several moments later, she swallowed him alive. Darian stuck her tongue out to the captives and said, "All gone!"