Hypnosnatch Read online

  “Oh please! Danger on the Verdante planet! Right. And so nice of you to care!” said Zapop, no longer trying to keep his voice down. He leaned forward on the edge of his chair and swayed toward each of them while he spoke to the group.

  “For your information,” said Zapop, in an intense voice that rose louder and louder, “I will never run off to space and abandon Mistress Bawbaw in order to escape from any danger, real or imagined. Especially if there may be danger, I will stay by her side. She needs me! No one cares about her more than I do. Not Master Meeepp. He takes her to Earth sometimes, but most of the time, he’s going back and forth to the space station where she can’t go, and she’s left alone here. He doesn’t have to do that. Most Verdante men his age stay on the home planet.

  “And I doubt if those Eeeepps really care about her. They’re barely humanoid after all. But no matter what happens, I will stay by Mistress Bawbaw’s side. No matter what the danger. I would descend to the deepest depths of this planet for her, no matter what evil lurks there! I would lay down my life for her in an instant!”

  “Oh, that is so sweet! So noble!” said Antaska, clapping her hands together and also forgetting to keep her voice down.

  Tabxi sniffed and dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief.

  “Bravo!” shouted Vorche, pumping an elderly fist in the air.

  “Darling, I think the humans are getting agitated,” Antaska heard a loud and powerful male telepathic voice say. She recognized the voice of Master Meeepp. “Should we send them out of the room?”

  Antaska looked over at Master Meeepp and Mistress Bawbaw. The other Verdante man was gone. Master Meeepp was sitting across from Mistress Bawbaw in a gigantic chunky chair made from fabricated wood slabs. The two Verdantes were staring into each other’s eyes. Mistress Bawbaw’s body was tilted toward Master Meeepp.

  Mistress Bawbaw’s telepathic voice spoke. “No, I don’t have the heart to do that to Zapop. He gets so jealous of the time I spend with my other pets as it is. Let me handle this another way.”

  Then Antaska heard Mistress Bawbaw’s voice again, but now it was speaking inside her head!

  “You are getting very tired. Relaxed and tired. Your eyelids are getting heavy. Very heavy. They are closing.”

  The telepathic voice was gentle, soothing and insistent. Antaska looked at the other humans. They were leaning back in their oversized chairs, heads resting against the upholstered wings, eyes closed. Small snores escaped from the noses of Tabxi and Vorche, and all three appeared to be asleep.

  Antaska, so relaxed and comfortable, started to feel tired too. Her body grew limp. She leaned over sideways and rested across her chair’s ample side wing. Her eyes closed, and she saw darkness. Into the darkness, a pale green mist appeared and solidified. Sea green foam floated in the side of her mind nearest to Mistress Bawbaw. Inside the green foamy mist, a woman’s face formed and then pushed forward deeper into Antaska’s mind.

  “You are tired. You are sleepy. Sleep now. Sleep,” said the face.

  Mistress Bawbaw is using telepathic suggestion to put us to sleep! Antaska thought fuzzily.

  She wrestled against the irresistible crush of sleep. But she fought in vain. Sleep was closing in.

  “Sleep, sleep, sleep,” the face of Mistress Bawbaw repeated over and over in her mind.

  Wait a minute! Something is familiar about this! Where have I seen this before? Antaska wondered.

  A suspicion began to form in her mind. Her mind sharpened and focused on the suspicion, and the sea green foam faded and vanished.

  Antaska’s mind was wide awake! She jolted up out of the chair, but her body wasn’t fully awake, and she landed on the cushiony floor with a muffled whump. Now her body was awake too.

  She didn’t look over at the two large Verdantes, but she heard their mental speech.

  “There’s something odd about M. Hoyvil’s new pet,” said Mistress Bawbaw. “She didn’t seem to respond normally to my sleep orders.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you’re imagining that, my dear,” said Master Meeepp. “She’s just very clumsy, constantly fainting and falling down. She probably fell asleep too close to the edge of the chair.”

  Antaska got up and began to stomp toward the exit. The floor’s deep cushioning muffled her stomping. She stomped harder, but her swaying skirts rustled louder than the stomping.

  “You’re right, she seems to have many flaws, and she makes a lot of trouble. Do you really think she’s the best human for M. Hoyvil to take to space?” asked Mistress Bawbaw.

  “I have my doubts too about her, but it’s M. Hoyvil’s choice. We can’t make it for him, but of course, we can try to influence him,” said Master Meeepp.

  “Yes, we’ll have to work on that,” said Mistress Bawbaw.

  Antaska heard the fading telepathic voices as she stomped away down a long, curved hallway.

  Chapter 2

  Around the same time, another conversation about Antaska was taking place.

  Antaska, Potat, and M. Hoyvil were not the only travelers who had just arrived on the Verdante planet. Master Mytaar, a Verdante martial arts instructor, and his human companion Eegor, a fitness instructor, had arrived too. Master Mytaar confined Eegor to his residence as punishment for assaulting Antaska on the trip from Earth. Eegor accepted the punishment from his Verdante Master, but inwardly, he seethed and longed for revenge. He couldn’t leave the residence, but it would have been cruel not to allow him any form of communication with other humanoids, so he was allowed to send emails and make video calls.

  Eegor knew that Antaska would be staying in the same residence as Iiooonaa Eeeepp, a humanoid created by M. Hoyvil’s primary female gene contributor, Mistress Bawbaw. He wasted no time in contacting Iiooonaa. A 3-D image of Iiooonaa, with the other Eeeepps surrounding her, displayed on the wall of his room.

  “Oh, Eegor, you poor, abused male,” Iiooonaa dripped syrupy sympathy after she heard his version of what had happened between him and Antaska.

  “Of course we’ll help you get revenge on that inferior Earth human slut. We genetically enhanced must stick together,” said Iiooonaa.

  “Sticky, sticky,” hissed the other Eeeepps in the background.

  “It is delicious to see your yummy rugged face!” continued Iiooonaa. “We Eeeepps are always thrilled by the mere sight of you and your so beautiful and so former mate, Tilde. Most of the time, you beautiful people act as if you’re too good for us less human-looking but still perfect creations. But we’ve got a lot to offer if you just give us a chance. It’s such a shame that you seem to prefer boring Earth human females like that useless specimen, Antaska.”

  Wearing a dull, bored expression, Eegor listened and looked at Iiooonaa, who gazed out hungrily at him through his computer monitor. A long, skinny, blue-gray tongue came out of her mouth and licked where her lips would have been if she had them. Eegor stared at the blue veins visible through the semitransparent lumpy surface of the pointy tongue. He made a feeble attempt at hiding his disgust, but one nostril lifted of its own accord.

  “Ahh!” said Iiooonaa Eeeep. “I can’t smell you, but I can see I have affected you by the look on your manly face. Oh, the power! Yes!”

  The other Eeeepps moved in close around her and began to stare at Eegor and make panting noises.

  “Can we just get on with this?” Eegor growled.

  “But Eegor, you are the one asking for something from us, and there will be a price--starting now. So do not interrupt.”

  Eegor’s feelings of disgust grew as he examined the reptilian genetic influence in the faces and bodies of the six lab-created semihumanoids. Used to getting his way in most things, he had never learned to hide his feelings from others.

  “Eeuhh!” escaped from his mouth as he watched drops of saliva appear at the mouth corners of two of the Eeeepps. It dripped slowly down the sides of their shiny (or slimy) grayish faces.

  “Now here’s what we’re going to do for you,” said Iiooonaa, squeezing her mouth muscles up in the shape of a smile that did not look at all friendly. “We’ll tell our Mistress to bring Antaska to us for a little visit. Mistress is always willing to accommodate our wishes. She’ll tell M. Hoyvil, that pathetic skinny green excuse for a Verdante adolescent, to deliver the pet to us. Mistress will be in the main room, but we have ways of keeping her distracted. Then we’ll grab the Earth human scum and drag her into our grotto, and there we will enjoy her sweet suffering. When she complains to the Verdantes, we’ll say it was all her idea--she teased us and threw herself at us. How does that sound?”

  “That’s perfect,” said Eegor, with a smile.

  “It will be even more perfect if you can provide some helpful information about her,” Iiooonaa said. “Is she attracted to men, or is she attracted to women?”

  “Why should that matter?” asked Eegor.

  “Oh, it matters! You’re probably not much of a historian, so you may not know that in ancient Earth times, in the century before the great apocalypse, many young humans were driven to commit suicide by the practice of gender preference ‘conversion therapy.’”

  “Cool! I love it!” said Eegor. “How does that work?”

  “Well, the work of the ancient Earth psychologists was child’s play compared to what we do,” said Iiooonaa with smug superiority. “Whichever gender she is not attracted to is the one we will use to violate her. That’s the best way to get the maximum suffering out of your victim. It makes a deep cut--a psychological cut without the knife.”

  “Mistress doesn’t let us play with knives,” sighed one Eeeepp sadly from behind Iiooonaa.

  “Silly rules!” said another. And all six made some high squeaky sounds that were giggles.

  “That’s fantastic!” said Eegor, “That’s just what she deserves for pretending to be interested in me and then pretending not to be later--or something like that. Do you think she’ll kill herself?”

  Iiooonaa chuckled. “We can only hope. And I thought you’d like it because I’ve heard that you, naughty boy, share our taste for the sick sweetness of making others suffer.”

  All of the Eeeepps hissed in agreement.

  “No, no, I’m not like you,” Eegor insisted, shaking his head and swaying his ice-blonde hair from side to side, which created a wind-blown effect.

  “Whatever. We don’t really care whether you admit to that or not. But you haven’t told us yet what her sexual preference is.”

  “Well, obviously she was attracted to me, as all women are, so she must prefer males,” answered Eegor with inconsistent logic.

  “Very well, we’ll use both, just to keep everything covered. So do we have an agreement?” asked Iiooonaa.

  Eegor nodded at the Eeeepps on his monitor. He was starting to feel that enduring this disgusting communication was a reasonable price to pay for their services, but it turned out that the Eeeepps had something more in mind.

  “So, since we’re doing this for you, we expect you to do something for us in return,” Iiooonaa Eeeepp continued. “After the deed is done, we’ll expect you to attend a similar soirée in our grotto.”

  “Yesss,” hissed the other five Eeeepps eagerly.

  “Oh, well, I’m afraid that’ll be impossible,” answered Eegor, for the first time appreciating the confinement that was his punishment. “You know I’ll be restricted to my Master’s residence for seventy-five years.”

  “Oh, yes, we know that, but with good behavior, you’ll be allowed out in only about twenty-five years. We can wait that long for such a tasty treat. Is it a deal?”

  “Fine, I agree,” said Eegor while crossing his fingers behind his back.

  “And in case you change your mind and decide not to come to our party, we’ve recorded this video conversation, and we’ll take it to Mistress Bawbaw. She’ll show it to your Master, and you’ll be confined for at least another seventy-five years, I’m sure,” said Iiooonaa.

  “But you’ll get in trouble too if you do that,” argued Eegor.

  “Oh no, we won’t. We are perfect beings who can do no wrong as far as Mistress is concerned. She always finds a way to blame it on the inferior pets of others.”

  “Whatever,” he answered in annoyed defeat, not bothering to attempt politeness at this point. “You are not nice people...things...whatever you are,” he said, passing judgement although he himself had been guilty of so much behavior that had harmed others.

  “Oh we’re bad, we’re real bad!” said Iiooonaa Eeeep, saucily echoing the words of a long-dead ancient Earth king--the King of Pop. She thrust her broad hips toward the screen, and all the Eeeepps made the loud, squeaky noise that was their laughter.

  “Video off,” said Eegor, closing the communication in a voice that was not amused.

  Chapter 3

  On the soft round bed in Antaska’s room, tiny Potat woke up grumpy from her long nap. Finally, after seven hours, she had heard the complete one-word-per-hour message the planet’s telepathic trees had insisted on sending: “WHEN THE TIME COMES, SEEK THE JALAPENO.”

  What’s that supposed to mean? Potat wondered. No sane cat would seek that cursed spicy vegetable! It figures the trees would send such a cryptic but nonsensical message, as if to awe me with their prophetic powers.

  She hissed and spat.

  Potat thought about going back to sleep to ask for an explanation, but too much sleep made her feel almost as bad as not enough sleep. And she was already two hours over the ideal daily sleep time. Besides, her pet Antaska needed her. Left to her own devices for too long, Antaska got into all sorts of trouble.

  Potat yawned and stretched. Oh well, Antaska was on her way. Potat sensed her moving closer to their room. She sat in the basic all-knowing cat sphinx position. Potat fixed her stare on a point on the curved wall of the bubble-shaped room. A seamless opening appeared exactly where she had been staring, and Antaska came stomping through. She marched to the edge of the round bed and glared down at Potat, hands on hips, bright pink head fur puffed out with static electricity and indignation.

  Potat knew how to handle this situation. She flopped over onto her side. She lifted her head and yawned her biggest cat yawn until her small gray-topped white head was almost nothing but a C-shaped yawn wearing pointy ears.

  “Did you hypnotize me and put me to sleep?!” Antaska demanded out loud.

  Uh oh! Time for something more effective than the yawn. Potat rolled all the way over onto her back, showing her cute snow-white belly and lifting all four of her white-tipped gray paws. She waved her matching white-tipped gray tail hypnotically back and forth.

  “Look at the cute kitty. Look at the cute belly. The tiny cat is cute and innocent,” Potat spoke the subliminal message telepathically to Antaska’s mind.

  Even though Antaska was capable of telepathic speech, she almost always spoke out loud to Potat. “That’s not going to work. You know I’m telepathic now, so don’t even try that stuff on me, you cute little thing.”

  Ah ha! She’s falling back under the spell of my cuteness, thought Potat.

  She batted at an invisible something with her front paws to amp up the power of cuteness even more.

  With a sigh, Antaska sat down on the bed next to Potat and began unlacing the old-fashioned ancient Earth-type boots.

  “Well, did you?” Antaska asked again.

  Potat rolled back over onto her paws and padded to the edge of the bed. She peered down at the action happening near the floor. The fascinating shoelaces, so wiggly and worm-like, were squirming in every direction beneath Antaska’s hands. Just begging for attack by a ferocious cat. Potat’s tail, with a mind of its own, attempted to imitate the wormy wiggling. With effort, Potat pulled her attention away.

  ‘I’ll get those shoelaces later when Antaska is asleep,’ she promised herself.

  “If you mean did I put you to sleep just now, then no I did not. That was someone else who did that, or tried to anyway,” Potat answered Antaska telepathically. All Potat could say out loud was “mew”--limiting but often effective.

  “You know that’s not what I meant. Did you put me to sleep at any time, whenever that was?”

  Potat paused to clean her teeth with her claws before answering. Good dental hygiene must come first after a nap.

  Antaska remained calm during the teeth cleaning, so Potat decided she was ready to hear the truth without too much of an emotional meltdown.

  “Of course I put you to sleep sometimes. Cats have always put their humans to sleep. Sometimes humans have too many things on their mind and can’t sleep, so we help you with that. It’s one of the many services we provide for you. It makes you happier and more content. It doesn’t hurt you--just a little hypnotic mind control. Even though you don’t realize we’re doing it, that makes us more valuable to you. It’s necessary for our survival. Otherwise, you might not keep us and take care of us.”

  “That’s not true,” insisted Antaska. “I’d have taken care of you even without that stupid hypnosis or mind control or whatever you call it.”

  “No,” said Potat in a small, sadder voice. “Don’t you remember we first met? When I broke into your human dormitory in the space school and found you?”

  “I remember,” said Antaska. “You were so little that I thought you were a kitten, but you never grew any bigger.”

  Potat gave a tiny telepathic chuckle, then spoke. “I was planning to move in with you, but you kept saying, ‘You’re such an adorable kitten! But I’m going to space in a few years, and I don’t think I should take a cat with me. I’m going to have to take you to the animal shelter.’ I had to keep putting you to sleep, or you were going to put me in cat jail!”

  “So that’s why I was taking so many naps around that time,” said Antaska.

  She lifted Potat up and hugged her gently. A single tear dripped onto Potat’s fur, but she didn’t complain. The soothing rumble of a purr grew louder inside her little cat throat.