This work is copyright 2000-2003 by Xaltatun of Acheron (A Pseudonym). It may be posted on the Internet to any free forum, provided it is not modified in any way, and provided that this notice is included in its entirety. It may not be sold, or included in any compilation that is sold, or posted on any forum that requires a fee for access, without my written permission. My permission will require payment, terms to be negotiated. For purposes of this notice, sites guarded by Adult Check or similar packages are considered pay sites. Posting on any site must include this copyright notice.
Adult Content Warning - this story contains adult themes, including non-consensual bondage/slavery and forced sexual acts. If you are under the lawful age for such materials (18 in most jurisdictions) or if you would find such material offensive, please go elsewhere.
Safety Warning. This story may contain descriptions of practices that are decidedly unsafe, either in general, or if performed by someone without adequate training. There are a number of good books available on safety in the BDSM scene. Most large cities, and some not so large ones, have organized BDSM groups that will usually welcome a newcomer. I'm not going to point out which practices are safe, and which aren't. Any practice is unsafe if performed by someone with inadequate training and experience, or if performed when not paying attention. Please think before you act. Don't make yourself a candidate for a Darwin award.
This work is copyright 2002, 2003 by Xaltatun of Acheron (A Pseudonym). It may be posted on the Internet to any free forum, provided it is not modified in any way, and provided that this notice is included in its entirety. It may not be sold, or included in any compilation that is sold, or posted on any forum that requires a fee for access, without my written permission. My permission will require payment, terms to be negotiated. For purposes of this notice, sites guarded by Adult Check or similar packages are considered pay sites. Posting on any site must include this copyright notice.
Story codes: (MF, FF, ponygirl, SF)
Adult Content Warning - this story contains adult themes, including non-consensual bondage/slavery. It could also prove highly disturbing if you think our current socio/political worldview is the only one that exists. If you are under the lawful age for such materials (18 in most jurisdictions) or if you would find such material offensive, please go elsewhere.
There are (currently) two stories in this series:
1. Read What You Sign (currently 5 parts)
2. Jill's Ponygirl (in preparation)
The name New Babylon has no relationship to any other use of the term by any other author. No connection should be assumed, either derivative or as a base for parody.
Safety Warning. This story may contain descriptions of practices that are decidedly unsafe, either in general, or if performed by someone without adequate training. There are a number of good books available on safety in the BDSM scene. Most large cities, and some not so large ones, have organized BDSM groups that will usually welcome a newcomer. I'm not going to point out which practices are safe, and which aren't. Any practice is unsafe if performed by someone with inadequate training and experience, or if performed when not paying attention. Please think before you act. Don't make yourself a candidate for a Darwin award.
OK - now on to the story -------
This is the seventh part of the story. If you haven’t read the first six parts, here’s a bit of a synopsis. If you have, just trot on down to the first chapter (which happens to be Chapter 28 – that’s what you get for starting in the middle!)
Our focus character, Yvonne, is the daughter of an up and coming businessman who is desperate to be accepted among the top flakes of the upper crust. She’s at a posh private school, being snubbed by all the other students, when suddenly she’s expelled and dropped in the slums. About all she knows is that her father’s company flamed out, and he came home, shot his wife, missed his son and then committed suicide. After a couple of months of fending for herself, unable to contact anyone who can help, she discovers a storefront offering jobs.
It is, of course, a recruiter for New Babylon. She signs a contract with them without reading the fine print (or any print at all, for that matter – she’s kind of desperate,) and gets whisked away to their private resort on Maui, 26 thousand years in the past. She thought she was going to do five years as a sex slave, and then be returned with a cool 100Gs.
Instead, she finds herself in a ponygirl stable, being trained to be a ponygirl. Even worse, her hair falls out to be replaced by a mane, she grows a tail, and her feet change into hooves. Yvonne 8 (which is her new name – it says so right on her collar, which was cast in place around her neck when they shoved her through induction) doesn’t seem to have much choice but to go along with all of this.
Eventually, they think she is ready, and she’s sent out to join the ponygirl herd that services the golf course. She discovers what being a bag girl is all about. She strikes up a slight rapport with a Mrs. Sindler, who’s a reasonably good golfer, and she also discovers what grooming a golf course entails. In between all of this, she finds out that ponygirls have something else in common with horses other than the mane, tail, hooves and job description. She’s a herd animal, and no fooling.
Her riding instructor rides her into the forest, where she discovers the joys of being ridden. It’s highly addictive. Really. On one of the treks, her trainer brings down a wild girl with a bolo, and they have a highly enlightening talk, which confuses Yvonne further. We may meet the girl later if I ever get her story off of my hard disk and to Sir Jeff.
Some time later, Mrs. Sindler returns with her daughter, Sally. Sally turns out to have been Yvonne’s old college roommate! Oh, embarrassment.
Sally takes the situation in stride, and some things are clarified. It turns out that Yvonne didn’t know what Daddy did for a living. She still doesn’t, but whatever it was, it wasn’t exactly kosher. However, Sally wants Yvonne back; she had been using her as a housekeeper and general assistant in return for helping her with her studies. Sally has a bit of a temper, and has fired the last three assistants her mother stuck her with; at least she can get on with Yvonne.
Yvonne, on the other hand, is doing the Hamlet thing. She doesn’t quite know what will happen if she comes back and they can’t turn her hooves back into feet. Mrs. Sindler, however, is quite certain that she doesn’t want Yvonne to have the chance to find out.
Next, Yvonne’s aunt and uncle track her down, and she finally makes up her mind to come back. Her collar is replaced by a set of implants. We get to see various legal maneuvers by the law firm New Babylon retains for its uptime affairs: Dewey, Chatham and Howe. They seem to specialize in settling complicated estates swiftly.
The legal matters settled, Yvonne and Sally settle into their college, and pick up a new associate, Trina. They get registered for the new school year, and investigate the stables and bridle paths. Needless to say, everything does not go smoothly.
Yvonne listened to the babble of the little waterfall at the head of the stream that made its way through the little clearing in the wooded park. This was one of her favorite get-away-from-it places when she had to catch up on studying without the distractions of her college. While she liked her roommate and rider, Sally, the constant chatter of the social whirl tended to preclude really studying. So Yvonne had found this out of the way nook and appropriated it as her private spot.
A few minutes after arriving, she shed the boots she used to protect people’s floors from her steel shod hooves, and neatly folded her skirt and top over them. She stretched luxuriously as she felt the gentle breeze play over her bare skin. If there was anything she missed about New Babylon, it was the opportunity to ditch the clothes. Of course, she considered with a bit of an internal chuckle, she hadn’t thought so then!
A few minutes later, she had her work table set up on the green, and settled in front of it, sitting on her hooves. She spread her book and notepad out on the desk and quickly became absorbed in the attempt to find the simplicity behind what the textbook author insisted on obfuscating. So far, he was succeeding admirably.
A slight “pop!” startled her for a moment, then she felt a prick in her shoulder. She reached back to scratch it, and felt something. A moment later, she looked dully at a feathered dart. Then she fell over on her side, out cold.
“Now that’s what I call an easy collection,” a tall man said to his companion as they hurried out of the woods to their prize.
“Let’s not count her before we get away,” the lithe brunette responded. She bent down and slid a pair of plugs into the girl’s nose; then she put a leather helmet over the sleeping ponygirl’s head and drew the opening tight around her throat.
The man picked Yvonne up in a fireman’s carry, and walked to one of the forest paths as his companion hurriedly shoved all of Yvonne’s belongings into a sack and then looked around. She slung the sack over her shoulder and followed her teammate out of the meadow, picking several small electronic monitoring devices off of trees as she passed. Those monitors were key to getting away safely: they would have told the pair if anyone stumbled into their path, either accidentally or on purpose.
The path ended in a small parking lot. The monitors had done their job. The only car in the lot was the SUV they had come in. The woman dropped the sack and opened the back, and then opened the lid on the floor. They put their prize into the space beneath the floorboard, and shoved the sack in next to her. The woman bent over for a few moments, attaching various tubes and other instruments to her sleeping charge, and then stood back up. “Well, close it up and lets get going,” she said.
“About time,” he responded.
“So, you always get itchy. We’ve got everything covered.”
The pair got into the front seat, and then he drove it off down the access road toward the highway.
The man drove a while, finally going up the on ramp of one of the computer controlled highways. He punched in a destination, and the car maneuvered itself into the traffic flow, settling down to a steady 150 kph.
Half an hour later, the black SUV with its drugged ponygirl traveled out of range of the last of Yvonne’s base stations. An alarm showed up on a monitor screen in a ready room. The operator looked at it irritatedly, and then dismissed it as unimportant.
Sally sat at her desk, head propped on both hands staring at the lesson on her computer screen as if a baleful expression would cause it to yield up its secrets. Where was Yvonne when she needed her?
Her phone buzzed.
“Sally?” Trina exclaimed. “Do you know where Yvonne is?”
“Huh?” Sally answered. “She’s not here, and I want her. Now!”
“Well, she didn’t show up in her Finance 130 class, and we were wondering if anything happened. She’s got such an, interesting, slant on things. And she isn’t answering her phone, either.”
“That’s weird. She’s real anal about that.”
“Tell me about it. Not showing up without telling someone just isn’t like her.”
“True. I’ll see what I can find.”
A moment later, Sally had verified that Yvonne’s system didn’t know where she was either. All it knew was that she had gone out of range several hours before, and it couldn’t contact her implants using the regular wireless network.
Sally frowned, and then dug out a number from her address book.
“New Babylon Security. How may I help you…?” the bored professional voice answered the phone.
“I’m Sally Sindler,” she told the voice. “One of your people, Yvonne Livingston, seems to have vanished, and we’re worried. We can’t pick her up either on her locator or the network.”
“Just a moment,” the voice said, no longer sounding bored. After a pause she heard a bit-off expletive. “Sorry about that; she certainly does seem to be off our network. Let’s see…” he trailed off.
“Damn. The log shows she may have been drugged. In any case, she dropped off the wireless network a good half hour before she got out of range of ours, a few minutes before the medical incident.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“Oh, it isn’t,” the security tech agreed. “We’re on it now, and we should have her back shortly.” He didn’t finish up with “I hope;” it seemed to be superfluous. “You’re her roommate?”
“Yes.”
“Well, notify whoever needs to know that she’ll be away for a few days, and we’ll take care of finding her.”
“Thank you,” Sally said, relieved.
The black SUV traveled onward at a speed that would have been unthinkable before the days of computer control of the expressway system. The man and woman lounged in their chairs, alternately watching the countryside pass by, reading and watching the 3V. Occasionally they stopped to refuel, stretch and relieve themselves.
When they passed Boston, Sally’s implants showed up briefly on New Babylon’s locator. The monitors noticed, and notified one of the security team.
An hour later, they had a car a kilometer behind the SUV, traveling in the exact lockstep that the computer maintained on the expressway. Since they weren’t an authorized emergency vehicle, the computer wouldn’t allow them to shift around in the traffic flow.
“Now what?” Billi Holliday asked her team, looking for inspiration. “We’ve got her located, but we can’t get her without causing a scene.”
“At least we know she was kidnapped,” Neil said. He was the security technician who had handled the original call. “The medical monitor is quite clear on that.”
“True, but we don’t want the national police to know about out capabilities.”
“Besides,” Jeannette said, “by the time we got a warrant, they’d probably be wherever they’re headed.” Jeannette was a middle-aged blonde who got called in when they needed to act quickly but without causing a fuss.
“Which gives us the opportunity to find out who ordered it.” Jeannette grinned nastily. “We need to start putting together a rescue squad. They can’t be too many hours away from wherever; the country just isn’t that big.
“Then again, we may not need a squad. Whoever set this up is clearly a professional.”
“And most of them roll over with their little feet in the air when we talk,” Billi added. “Let’s hope.”
A few hours later, an alarm went off in the SUV, and the pair woke up, noting that they had crossed another three states while they slept. They stopped at a rest area that rented showers to professional travelers and freshened up. After another hour or so, they got to their off ramp, and the man took over the controls. They didn’t notice the green sportster that came off the expressway right after them.
The SUV traveled down a twisty series of ancient two lane blacktops until it arrived at a dirt side road that led through an opening in a fence, apparently no different from any of the other fences that kept cattle and sheep from wandering off their owner’s property. The vehicle rumbled over the grate and shortly vanished from sight of the road around a small hill.
Once it got around the hill, it pulled up in front of a much more businesslike fence, with a gate and a guardhouse. The only thing different about this guardhouse that separated it from the many similar installations that protected various facilities was the bored looking naked woman sitting on her heels in front.
Well, an almost naked woman. She wore a tight waistband that connected her to the shafts of a chariot, and a leather binder that kept her arms crossed behind her back. She also had on a thick black collar. A workmanlike bridle and bit encased her head, with the reins loosely draped over the chariot seat. The little bells that hung from her ears and nipple rings complemented the ring in her nose.
She turned to look incuriously at them as they drove up, and then turned back to gaze at whatever had caught her interest on the sage covered hill.
A man stepped out of the guardhouse, and then waved the SUV through. It was clearly expected. His ponygirl turned her head to watch it vanish down the road around another hill, and then looked back at the sagebrush with a small sigh.
“So this is what a real ponygirl looks like,” Nora said, running her gaze up and down Yvonne’s bound frame. Yvonne had been released from her imprisonment beneath the floorboards of the SUV, and now stood in front of the little group, her arms bound above her and her head encased in a bridle and bit. The lead rope on the bridle went to a ring on a nearby post. They’d also put cuffs on her legs to force her to keep them apart and prevent her from kicking anyone.
Nora took her time inspecting her newest acquisition. She ran a hand through Yvonne’s mane, tracing the line from her brow across her head and down to the point just below her shoulder blades. Then she looked at it closely. “It doesn’t look cut,” she mused. “However did they get it to grow that way?”
She walked around and fingered the girl’s breasts. “Good, solid set of breast rings,” she noted. “Not nipple rings, though.” She flicked one and noticed that it swung back and forth easily, as if it was loose in a shaft drilled through the flesh of her breast.
She squatted so she could examine the tail. She tried to run her fingers through the silky chestnut strands, and watched as it flicked out of her way. “That,” she said almost accusingly, “looks like a real tail!” She pointed at the base of Yvonne’s spine and spoke to the man squatting on Yvonne’s other side. “It feels like the spine just keeps on going.”
“It certainly does,” he agreed with her. “That light coat just above it is a nice touch.”
“Now, this hoof,” Nora said as she wrapped a hand around one of Yvonne’s legs and gently tugged upwards. Yvonne obediently brought her hoof up as far as the restraint allowed.
“That’s a real hoof,” she said. “Where’s a hoof pick?”
A girl standing by her side fetched one from the wall and handed it to her. She spent a moment probing into the hoof. “A real hoof,” she said almost as if to herself. She stood up and brushed herself off.
“Why do I have a bad feeling about this?” she asked.
Yvonne snorted behind the bit. The other two remained silent.
“I asked a question!” she snapped.
“Because whoever lost her is going to want her back?” the blond girl hazarded.
“Of course they are Terri,” she said caustically. “So what? That’s never been a problem before.”
“Creating her had to be a lot of work,” Terri responded hesitantly.
“That’s true. I’d love to know how they do it. Or maybe I wouldn’t,” she continued with one of her mercurial mood changes. “It’s probably horribly complicated.”
Nora was the owner of Nora’s Hideout, which was, to all outside interest, a hobby ranch that raised a few head of cattle and a small herd of horses. She entered the horses in various local races, where they upheld her reputation as somewhat of a dilettante. They were good enough to avoid the dog food factories, but they seldom managed to show, let alone win a race. All in all, exactly the kind of racing pony that the track managers loved to have to safely fill out a card. No real danger of winning, and the long odds attracted the bettors that should know better.
“Put a collar on her and see if you can get her calmed down enough by this afternoon so I can take her out for a workout,” Nora told the man who had helped her inspect the suspended filly.”
“Shouldn’t be much of a problem,” Wally, the head groom, answered. “Looking like that, she’s probably quite well trained already.”
“Oh, she’s undoubtedly trained,” Nora said. “What it looks like she needs is a firm reminder of who’s boss. Which shouldn’t be at all hard once you get the collar activated,” she added, looking at Yvonne meaningfully.
“It’ll be so much easier on her once she figures that out. Wasn’t it, pet?” she asked the naked girl squatting by her side. The girl squatted with her knees tucked up under her breasts, and her two paws flat on the floor in front of her. She wore some kind of a glove or mitten on her hands that made them look like cat’s paws, and a helmet that gave her a muzzle and pointed ears. Her long, furred tail curled around her body to her left.
Nora had clipped her pet’s leash to a loop on her belt, where it curved down to attach to the thick black collar around her neck. Her pet looked up at her mistress, and stretched to rub her head against Nora’s thigh as she gave a credible imitation of a purr.
Yvonne looked back at Nora thoughtfully. The last half hour had been confusing, as she had come out of the drugged haze to find herself strung up and being pawed over by a bunch of strangers as if she were a piece of livestock. She’d now regained her mental equilibrium, and didn’t particularly like what she was discovering.
She’d done some exploring of the ponygirl scene with Sally, and found that it alternated between being fun and being boring. The people were nuts, but at least they weren’t particularly harmful. This group, however, seemed to be more nuts than usual. Oh, well, she thought, right now the best thing would be to roll with it; things should clarify shortly.
Especially as she seemed to be in range of a base station. She focused her attention and began the mental exercise that would allow her to send a message via her implants. It wasn’t the swiftest process in the world, but it was definitely better than nothing. A short time later, she got a response.
The man who had examined her with Nora ran a tape measure around her neck, and then walked over to the wall, whistling tunelessly. He looked at several thick black hinged collars hanging open like figure threes, and selected one.
He took it and slid it around her neck, closing it with a definite click. Yvonne’s mouth twitched as she frowned in concentration.
Nora walked over to a computer display set in the wall, and pressed a series of buttons. The screen showed a complicated looking status display. Suddenly, most of the items on the display turned red, and a flashing red message appeared: “Critical Fault.”
“What’s that mean?” Nora asked.
“Something just burned it out.” Wally replied.
“Equipment,” Nora said disgustedly. “Never obeys when you want it to.” She spun as Yvonne gave a most unponylike snort of laughter behind her bit. She looked at the suspended ponygirl suspiciously.
“You couldn’t have…” she muttered.
“Well, get on with it. Try another one.”
Wally unlatched the failed collar and found another one on the wall. A moment later, it adorned Yvonne’s neck.
Nora pressed the buttons again. The monitor showed it’s display, and then the red “Critical Fault” screen appeared, followed a moment later by a blue screen with a grinning skull in the center.
“I do not fucking believe this,” Nora growled. “Any ideas?”
“Why not ask her if she did it?” Terri simpered. Yvonne looked at her with a frown. That voice didn’t seem to be quite able to make up its mind whether it was a low alto or a high tenor. She looked more closely at Terri and a lip quirked around the side of the bit. It wasn’t like transsexuals were exactly unknown. At least half of the supervisors around the ponygirl stables were true hermaphrodites, and most of them could give a girl a much better time sexually than the true males.
Nora rounded on the girl. “That’s the most asinine suggestion I’ve heard.” Then she smiled in spite of herself. “Good work. You’re getting the blond bubblehead bit down perfectly.”
Terri shrugged her shapely shoulders, blond hair falling in artful disarray. “I meant it seriously,” she said.
Nora stared at her. “Humph! Ponygirls should not be allowed to talk. You know that!” Then she shrugged. “It’s my rule.” She walked over and yanked the bit out of the suspended girl’s mouth.
“So, talk. Did you do that?”
“Yes.” Yvonne said simply.
“How?” Nora asked.
“I’m afraid that’s proprietary,” Yvonne said regretfully.
Nora’s face set in a scowl. “So I’m just going to have to break you the hard way,” she said.
“Don’t be stupid,” Yvonne said. “What makes you think I’d let you?”
Nora smiled like a tiger. “And who’s going to stop me?”
Yvonne shrugged as the suspension cuffs fell apart, releasing her hands. “I am.”
Nora stepped back as Yvonne’s hands came down. “How’d you do that?” she managed to get out.
“Proprietary,” Yvonne said, grinning like a shark spying a hapless swimmer.
“Let’s be serious for a change,” Yvonne continued. “You wanted a real ponygirl. Now that you’ve got one, I’d think it would be a good idea to find out how she works.”
Nora backed up another step and scowled at her.
“Calm down,” Yvonne said amusedly. “You need to know what I’m about, and I’d like to avoid being damaged in the process of your finding out. I take it you’ve never visited New Babylon?”
“Is that where you’re from?” Nora asked. “I usually don’t pay much attention to my competitors. So what is up with you? I always thought the idea of secret genetics labs turning out horrible mutants was claptrap.”
“As far as I know, it mostly is. New Babylon does a thriving business in fixing genetic illnesses, but we’re the only new species they’ve turned out. I’m told nobody else is even close to their level of capability, and in any case, I’m the only ponygirl uptime.”
“So, what can I expect out of you?”
“Well, for one thing, we, that is ponygirls in general, are really only happy if we’re doing hard work that benefits their owner or community. And we’re designed so that we feel that hauling things in harness, or being ridden, is perfectly natural. In fact, it’s enough of a high that I arranged to be ridden every day.”
“So if I harnessed you to my chariot, you’d give me a good ride?”
“Probably. I don’t have a lot of experience with hauling people conveyances; when I pulled things around, it was mostly agricultural equipment.”
“This is too easy, and you’re too confident by half. What aren’t you telling me?” Nora asked suspiciously.
“New Babylon knows where I am. You’re going to get a call shortly from someone who wants to discuss this with you. I don’t know exactly when. Day or two, maybe later today.”
“Those two guaranteed me you couldn’t be traced!” she said angrily.
“Well, it’s not their fault, really. There are things we don’t advertise. I’ve got an implanted communication device using a proprietary technology, and it also has a direct link to my brain. I know when I’m in or out of contact, and a few other things. Right now, I’m in contact, and it’s telling me that they’re arranging to talk to you shortly.”
Nora looked at her suspiciously. “How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”
“Wait. They’re not going to take all that much longer. Meanwhile, if you want to take me out for a spin in a pony cart, feel free. I’d really like some exercise after being drugged that long.”
“It’s still too easy,” Nora said.
“Why? Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly. Ponygirls like to be ridden and pull people around. The designers didn’t create us in a vacuum; they knew exactly what they wanted us to like doing.”
“The things I get into,” Nora muttered to herself. “OK. Let’s do it. I do want to find out how you handle in a chariot.”
“This ought to do,” Yvonne said, “but I think I’ll wind up preferring my usual tack. Although I do admit it looks pretty.”
Yvonne’s harness consisted of a solid black leather waistband, held down by a crotch strap that they’d had to hurriedly modify to avoid her tail. Thick black leather straps that crossed both in front and in back held it up; the front straps crossed between her breasts. Another strap ran around her body just above her breasts; a pair of shoulder straps with thick pads topped off the entire assemblage.
She stood between the shafts of a small sulky. More thick leather straps fastened the shafts to her waistband. Her hands rested lightly on the front of the shafts; they had discussed having them cuffed to the shafts, but decided to leave that detail of tack for later.
The front part of the sulky shafts ran horizontally, and then dropped at an angle to where they were level with the large bicycle wheels.
“I think so,” Nora said as she stroked her ponygirl’s mane. She smiled to herself when she noted that Yvonne leaned slightly into her strokes. This, she thought to herself, might actually work out.
She climbed into the sulky and sat, noticing the way the harness took up the strain. Wally handed her the reins, and she flicked them lightly. “Giddyap!” she said.
Yvonne leaned into the traces, the sulky following obediently behind.
“Nice start!” Nora called, as she pulled the right rein lightly. Yvonne obediently turned to the right. Nora spent a few minutes turning her steed one way and then another around the yard, getting a feel for how Yvonne handled. Then she turned the ponygirl to a path that led out of the yard to the back part of the property, and flicked the reins again. “Trot!” she commanded.
Yvonne fell into the ground-eating stride she could keep up for hours.
Nora admired the ponygirl trotting ahead of her, with the breeze playing with her chestnut mane and tail, and her muscles rippling under the skin with the look of smooth power. She shook her head. Suddenly, all the girls she’d trained seemed clumsy by comparison. This wasn’t the patchwork job that was a staple of the 3V horror shows, this magnificent animal showed an altogether admirable attention to detail.
Animal? She snorted at the thought. If she managed to keep her, they would have to come to an agreement! It did rankle a bit to ask livestock for its opinion, and she wasn’t going to change her attitude there if she could help it. She had a suspicion that she wasn’t going to have any choice, though, and that did rankle.
For right now, though, the magnificent chestnut pulling her sulky promised to be the high point of a day that had more than its share of frustrations.
She came to the marker that was as far as she usually took her ponygirls. Any farther, and she ran an unacceptable risk of being seen by people on the adjacent property. She chuckled again as she pulled on the reins, bringing Yvonne to a halt. To tell the truth, this was as far as she usually came with a pair; one ponygirl simply wouldn’t have made it with enough strength to come back. This one, on the other hand, didn’t even seem to have been working hard!
She turned her pony back and brought her up to a trot. They came to a straight stretch, and Nora frowned in thought. Then she smiled and shook the reins. “Gallop!” she commanded. Yvonne broke into a run, almost jerking the sulky enough to unseat her surprised passenger. “Slow down!” Nora called as they passed the copse of trees that marked the end of the easy path. Yvonne dropped back to the gentler trot she had been using, this time making sure that her passenger wasn’t jerked around.
A half hour later, they arrived back in the yard. Nora climbed out of the sulky and walked around to look at Yvonne.
“You’re not even sweating after that run,” she said, accusingly.
Yvonne took the bit out of her mouth. “That’s one of the changes,” she said almost apologetically. “We don’t sweat. They engineered in a different method of dumping excess heat. It’s a lot more efficient, and saves water.
“Would it make you happier if your grooms unhitched me?” Yvonne asked the nonplussed woman. “I’d like to get out of this harness and shower down after the run. Then if I’m going to be here for a while, I suppose someone needs to assign me a stall.”
Nora shook her head. “Terri!” she called. A moment later the boy-girl came running up. “Groom her and put her in her stall. Find out what she needs to eat.”
“And you,” she turned back to Yvonne. “Keep your mouth shut around the rest of the ponygirls. I don’t want to upset them.”
Yvonne whinnied at her, amused.
New Babylon’s negotiator, Nora thought, definitely looked the part. Not too tall, not too short, and solidly built. Those shoulders looked, well, comforting. She idly scratched her kitty-girl behind the ears as she considered him.
Yvonne, on the other hand, definitely looked different dressed up. Somehow the narrow waist and flared skirt disguised the width of her hips so she looked mildly erotic rather than overweight. And it made her tail look like a fashion accessory. If she came out of this, she definitely wanted the name of her designer!
“Well, enough chit-chat,” she said. “I suppose we’d better get down to it.”
“That would be best,” Edgar said, placing his cup precisely in the center of the saucer.
“What’s got me baffled is why we’re sitting here acting civilized. You got me dead to rights for kidnapping, if nothing else.”
Yvonne shrugged. “I can’t say that I liked being kidnapped, and if you’d been nasty you’d be in real trouble. As it is, I’ll just write it off as an eccentric invitation to make a sales call.”
“Sales call?” Nora said, confused.
“You want ponygirls,” Edgar said. “We have ponygirls, and when it looked like you weren’t going to damage the merchandise, we gave you an opportunity to see for yourself what our product is like.”
“You’d sell me some? How much?”
“Let’s just say that we want to explore the opportunity. There are some, ah, circumstances that might give you a bit of trouble.”
“Yvonne is certainly a good deal more forward than I like. Hopefully your regular product is more disciplined.”
“Well, that’s part of it, certainly. You don’t expect dogs to act like cats, or horses to act like birds. Our ponygirls do their own thing; there are a lot of ways they don’t act like humans. They don’t normally act like horses, either, although we train them to fake it. It’s good for the tourists.”
“Now you’ve got me confused. Yvonne told me she liked pulling me around in my sulky!”
“Of course,” he grinned at her. “Horses aren’t the only animals we use to pull things; they’re just the most convenient. They aren’t the only animals we ride, either. Ponygirls like to pull things and they like to be ridden. That’s the way they were designed, but that doesn’t make them horses in other ways.
“One way they are like horses, though, is that they are herd animals. A ponygirl by herself is probably not going to be real happy.”
“Well, there are exceptions,” Yvonne added, “but by and large it’s true. You won’t find me going off by myself for days on end. I need people around most of the time.”
“So what you’re saying is that I can’t buy one ponygirl from you. I’d have to take a dozen.”
“Well, half a dozen. And we’d have to throw in a couple of grooms and trainers as well to keep them balanced.”
“Humph. With all of that, I suspect I’m going to have to compromise. There’s something I’d like, though,” she said, scratching her cat-girl behind the ears.
“Oh?”
“Could you turn Bouncy, here, into a real cat?”
Bouncy, Yvonne was amused to note, stiffened suddenly and then relaxed again. Her tail twitched in the universal cat signal for “don’t even think about it.”
“I see you’ve got her very well trained,” Yvonne said. “She doesn’t like the idea at all, but she’s not showing it.”
“Yes, we had to work on it, didn’t we, kitty?” Nora said.
Bouncy’s tail twitched again, but she showed every evidence of being delighted with the arrangement, going so far as to rub her head against Nora’s leg and give a fake purr.
“I don’t see why you’d want to turn her into a real cat,” Edgar said. “What do you have in mind? I can ask, but I don’t know how far you’ll get. I’ve never heard the slightest interest in anything other than our ponygirls.”
“Real ears and a real tail. That’s an amazing piece of equipment I got for her, but it took a long time to train her to use it, and it breaks down occasionally.”
“Well, mine’s as real as it gets, and it took me a while both to grow it and to learn to use it,” Yvonne said. “It’s actually prehensile, which a horse’s isn’t. It’s just too short to be very useful.”
“I’d also like her to have claws, fur and fangs. And fix it so she’s four legged.”
“The fur shouldn’t be hard,” Yvonne said. “They’d have to research the claws and fangs. I think walking well on four legs is more a matter of leg length and hip configuration than anything having to do with the brain, so it probably wouldn’t be that hard either. I take it you’d like that pose she’s in right now to be more natural?”
“Definitely. I’d also like to be able to ride her.”
Yvonne laughed. “A pony-cat-girl? Or on all four paws? I’d think she’d need to be a couple of sizes larger than a lion for you to manage that! On the other hand, a real riding cat would be striking. Add a wild girl outfit, and oh, wow!
“One other thing we could add to the mix. How’d you like for Terri to be a real hermaphrodite? Fully functional male and female sex organs.”
“There’s got to be a catch,” Nora said. “Well, let’s think it over, I’m finding the proposition intriguing. But I’m wondering what you get out of it. Besides a lot of my money, of course.”
“Well,” Edgar said, picking up his cup for a sip, “you’ve got a nice, out of the way place where some of our up-time personnel can come now and then. Yvonne was quite interested during our preliminary discussion in having a ponygirl herd handy.”
“It will also give our researchers an opportunity to see how a herd functions under different conditions,” Yvonne added. “They’re chomping at the bit for the opportunity.”
“Are you sure you aren’t from one of the tongs?” Nora asked, a slight smile playing around her lips.
“Not the tongs,” Edgar said. “But it does my heart good to know that there’s still someone who doesn’t know how New Babylon negotiates. Granted, we don’t advertise, but the word does get around.”
“So you’re like the legendary Bill Gates. It doesn’t matter what the contract looks like, somehow it works out to your favor.”
“Very perceptive comment, young woman,” Edgar said. “We do work at it.”
“Well, just add those two sweeteners, and you’ve got a deal,” Nora said, standing up.
“Deal,” agreed Edgar, also standing up. “Well be back in touch for the arrangements. We’ll probably change Terri around first. It will take a while for Bouncy, though.”
Bouncy the three of them leave the room. Then she lifted a paw, licked it and began brushing one of her ears. As far as she was concerned, they could take all the time they wanted. Forever would be just about right.
The staff, Yvonne reflected, had provided her with a very nice interview room, tailored to her requirements. Her chair was probably the oddest thing about it; unlike a standard executive chair, it had a separate seat and back, with a wide opening for her tail.
The office receptionist knocked on the door.
“Come in,” she called.
“Your appointment is here, Ms. Livingston,” she said, ushering a man and a woman into the room.
They made their introductions. The couple was Jeff and Suzy Franks; both of them had been indentured slaves on New Babylon, which is where they had met. When they left, they had decided to get married and raise a family, and were having difficulty with the latter.
“So,” Yvonne opened the conversation, “I understand you’ve had a great deal of difficulty starting a family.”
“We have,” Frank said. “The doctors are finally admitting that they don’t know what is going on. They started out telling us that the gene modifications wouldn’t be a problem.”
“After all,” Suzy said, “They shouldn’t be. We both have the same ones. Or do we?” she suddenly sounded suspicious as if the idea had never occurred to her before.
“You have the same changes,” Yvonne told the couple. “There’s only one set. They prevent you from being fertile with unmodified humans, which is part of the problem.
“It’s fairly unusual for any of our ex-slaves to meet and marry in the first place, and the few that do have just accepted the fact that they can’t seem to have children. You’re not the first couple that’s pursued it with enough determination to get here, but you’re in a very small minority.”
Suzy’s brow furrowed. “Why do I suddenly have the notion that there’s a lot that nobody told us?”
“Because after what you’ve been through, you’re justifiably suspicious,” Yvonne told her. “You’ve been persistent enough to make New Babylon grant you an interview, and you discover that it’s with the only ponygirl that’s uptime. That’s probably enough to make anyone suspicious.
“There is more going on, though, and you’ve got a choice. If you want to know about it, I’ll explain. But you’ll have to sign a non-disclosure first. I assume you’re aware of what’ll happen if you break it?”
The two of them nodded.
“If you don’t want to sign the non-disclosure, I’ll just do what’s needed for you to have a baby, and that’ll be the end of it. What’s your choice?”
Suzy frowned slightly. “Is there anything else besides keeping our mouths shut?”
“Smart girl! Yes, there is, but I can’t tell you any details before you sign. All I can tell you right now is that there’s nothing that you’ll be obligated to do; you can still just forget it and keep quiet, and there won’t be any repercussions.
“On the other hand, it will open up some possibilities that you might find you want to follow up on.”
Suzy looked at her husband. “I’d rather know what’s up, even if I can’t talk about it,” she said slowly.
“So would I,” Frank contributed.
Yvonne got two sets of papers from a file and slid it across the desk. “Here’s the paperwork.” She looked on while the two of them read through it. Then she handed them a pen. They signed, and she put the agreement back into the file.
“Well, the big issue is that the changes are extensive enough to make us a different species. We’re calling ourselves Homo Equus for starters. Without going into a lot of detail, any member of our species can change sex or change from hominid to pony or back at any time.”
“Whoa!” Frank said. “You mean we’re the same species as you are?”
“Exactly. What it means is that you could trade off on which one of you gets pregnant with each of your children, or you could decide that one of your children will be a nice little ponygirl foal.”
“I don’t think the neighbors would approve,” Suzy said, wide-eyed.
“Exactly the problem,” Yvonne nodded. “That’s one of the reasons we had you sign the agreement.
“Another part of the changes is that we’re herd animals to a much greater extent than normal humans. That’s quite obvious with ponygirls, but it applies to you as well, although to a lesser degree. That’s one reason why a lot of our ex-slaves decide to come back to us, or never leave New Babylon in the first place.
“Part of that is that herds have herd councils, and it takes a member of your herd council to do certain things with you. Those things include allowing you to become pregnant.”
“I think I see,” Suzy said thoughtfully. “You’re saying that we have to become members of a herd, and then the people in charge can induce pregnancy? Why is that?”
“I’m told it’s population control. The designers didn’t like the way humanity tends to expand to where it overstresses its environment. Since you’re not part of a complete herd at the moment, you’ll become part of mine. As the herd authority, I can turn you on so you ovulate, and so a male’s sperm becomes fertile. Part of the package is that you’ll spend the next week or so madly in lust with each other.”
“I see,” Frank said. “That’s why they told us to arrange for a vacation.” He frowned. “It seems very cold-blooded.”
“It does, doesn’t it? I don’t know all the reasons for why they did it that way.” She shrugged and spread her hands. “It’s just the way it’s been explained to me.”
“What’s being part of your herd involve?” Suzy asked.
“That’s where it gets interesting. On one level, not a whole lot. We need to keep in touch and see each other occasionally. On another level, quite a bit. We turn on your implants and train you to use them.”
“Implants?”
“Yes. There’s a bit of a story behind that. Back when New Babylon started, all the equipment was in the slave collars, just like you were told. Later, they found a way to implant the equipment directly in your skull, where it doesn’t show on most types of scan. They’re gradually transitioning from the collars to using the implants; eventually those slave collars will mostly be for show; the implants will actually do everything. All the slaves that have left in the last half dozen or so years have a full set of implants. They’re reset on exit so that you’re off the network and so that the herd instinct isn’t all that overwhelming.
“There are a lot of capabilities there which you were never told about. After you come back from your week of wild lust, if you want to explore what they can do for you, I’ll activate them and show you the basics of how to use them. Then you can practice on your own.
“The basic consideration is that you’ll be back in the New Babylon network. That’s got good and bad points. You get access to the telly, and some communication and scheduling things. It’ll never replace a really good PDA, but it’s better than the runner up. The downside is that you’ll have to maintain regular contact with the other herd members. Some people like it, some don’t, but you don’t have an option once the implants are activated.
She saw them look doubtful. “I really recommend it. I’ve been kidnapped twice by idiots that thought a real ponygirl would be a nice addition to their stable. The link in my implants let Security trace me promptly. Besides, it keeps the insects off.
“I could go for the telly,” Frank said thoughtfully. “It’s got the same courses?”
“And more,” Yvonne confirmed. “There’s a lot of stuff that only makes sense here.”
“So, what do we need to do?” Suzy asked.
“Decide what sex you want you new baby to be. I’ll do the rest. There’s no ceremony involved.”
“It seems like there should be something more,” Suzy said. “The stork just pops in and waves its beak? Somehow, it’s an anticlimax.”
“Well, there’s no one to have a ceremony with yet. Once you get acquainted with the rest of the herd members, we can do something meaningful for your second child, though, and we can do the usual baby shower and birth ceremonies.”
“Why do we have to choose?” Suzy asked. “I’d kind of like not knowing until the doctor tells me.”
“I could let it be random, but there’s no way to do half measures. You’d have a fairly large chance of getting a pony foal rather than a human.”
“That could be fun,” Suzy said a bit regretfully. “But there’d be too much conflict with the neighbors.” She turned to her husband. “How about a girl first?”
“Fine by me,” Frank said.
“Let’s do it,” Suzy answered him as she pulled him over and planted a lingering kiss on his lips.
Yvonne frowned in concentration while the two lovebirds were kissing.
“It’s all set up. Now go and have fun making sperm meet egg.” She shoved an envelope at them. “Here are your reservations.”
Frank opened the envelope and looked at them. “Wow! Couples Playground is expensive!”
“It’s not like we’ve got enough of you to even show as a minor budget item,” Yvonne smiled. “Consider it a conception present.”
“Thanks,” Suzy pulled Yvonne in for a quick hug. “I just wonder what it would be like to be part of a herd.”
“If you’re still wondering, ask me afterwards. Right now, you’ve got an assignment. Go make a baby.” She moved to herd the two of them toward the door.
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