Front sections.

Bianca called on her combined strength and blood lust, to haul her latest victim through the ship. He’d go quiet for a while, perhaps building up his own strength, before lashing out with a flurry of kicks and violent twisting. It had little effect on his captor and only added to his scratches and bruising. At one point he resorted to biting Bianca on the arm. She spun around and hissed at him through sharp fangs.

“Oh, you like to bite too?” her eyes shone. “Well, you and I will have a lovely time. I may even let you bite me some more.”

Her prey settled for a while after that.

Where they had to climb through small gaps one at a time, she’d shove him on ahead. Only once did he try to make a run for it on the other side of the gap. When she caught him, she slapped him across the face, hard enough to give him a bloody nose. He stared at her in terror as she licked his blood from her finger and shook in delight.

Soon they made it back within Mary’s sensor range.

“Mary, are you there?” Bianca asked.

“Yes, Bianca.”

“I caught one that should last longer this time. Look.”

“Yes, I can see that. Provided you don’t assault him anymore.”

“Well, he wasn’t too keen on coming with me.”

“I can’t imagine why not.”

Predator and prey walked, climbed and stumbled on through the night. Finally they reached the well-lit sections and the end of the obstacles. Bianca shoved her prey into the blood bank and noticed Campbell was missing.

“Mary! Has my other one escaped? Shit!”

“No, Sebastian has him on the bridge.”

“He what?” She shouted, storming towards the elevator.

When the doors slid open, she took in the sight of her brother, dressed in a green ball gown, dancing with a very depleted Mister Campbell in a suit. Ancient ballroom music played from the hidden speakers.

“What the hell?”

“Oh, Bianca, love!” Sebastian enthused. “Would you like to cut in?”

“I’d like to cut something!” she fumed. “We don’t let humans anywhere near the bridge. What if they escaped and told the others? They live and die in the blood bank. You know that. What were you thinking?”

“I wanted to dance. No, I needed to dance.” Sebastian replied in a singsong voice.

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Bianca covered the distance in a few long strides, her bloody dress in shreds, and grabbed the human by the neck.

“Well, you’re lucky. This one is dead anyway.”

“What?” Sebastian held his dance partner’s arm high and dropped it. The arm fell, lifeless.

“Oh shame, well, that explains his two left feet, I suppose.”

“Sebastian, you are unbelievable. Now go throw him out the airlock. Then come help me with the new one. And no more dancing!” She stormed off. “Hey Mary?”

“Yes, Bianca?” The AI answered.

“I think Sebastian is losing his mind. Is there a way you can tell?”

“Well, he did try to dance the Viennese Waltz to the accompaniment of Ravel’s Bolero. Is that what you mean?”

“Never mind.”

***

Sebastian dragged dead Mister Campbell through the corridors to the nearest airlock.

“Mary, can you remind me how to operate this thing?” he asked, staring at the control panel.

“Of course. I mean, why break the habit of a lifetime and remember something you’ve been told?”

“Well?”

“Put your palm on the sensor panel.”

Sebastian dropped Campbell’s body in a crumpled heap and palmed the sensor panel.

Mary’s voice took on a more formal tone.

“Caution. You are about to open stage one of airlock A13. Are you sure you wish to proceed?”

“Of course I do Mary, I asked you how to?”

“I know that Sebastian, but the routine is pre-programmed.”

“Oh. Okay, carry on.”

“You have to say ‘yes’”

“Yes what?”

“Never mind, good enough.” The bulky door slid open with a hissing of air. “Now place the item you want to eject, into the airlock.”

Sebastian dragged the body over the threshold into the small enclosure. A flashing red light illuminated yellow and black stripes and caution signs everywhere.

“Now come back into the ship.”

He didn’t need telling twice. The door closed.

When he palmed the sensor again as instructed, Mary’s formal voice returned.

“Caution. You are about to operate state two of airlock A13. It contains matter totalling 65.39 kilograms. Any living organisms within that matter will be subject to conditions not compatible with life. The initialisation of stage two is irreversible. Are you sure you wish to proceed?”

Sebastian took a further step away, as if that would save him in the event of a malfunction.

“Yes.”

The result was anticlimactic. He didn’t even hear the body leave the ship and drift away into space.

Bianca appeared at the end of the corridor.

“So you resisted the temptation to have Sebastian stand on the other side of that door, Mary?”

“Had he stood inside the airlock, he could not have activated the second stage.”

Sebastian glided along the corridor to Bianca, performing some dance moves as he went. “Ha!”

“She didn’t say that she wasn’t tempted.” Bianca told him. “Now, come and see what I brought home.”

Thomas awoke disoriented and attempting to remember why he felt so terrified. Nausea swam over him in waves and he tasted stomach acid in his mouth. After a while he realised, he was upside down, naked, and his ankles hurt from being bound in cold steel.

When his vision focused, he was looking at two pairs of legs. One pair covered by green until the ankles, which sat above red strapped shoes. The other legs had ragged shreds of white, blood spattered, silk hanging down them. Or up them, from his perspective. He remembered with a jolt and screamed, “No!”

“Well, he has an impressive set of lungs on him, that’s for sure.” Sebastian said, with a finger in each ear.

“Oh, he has many impressive attributes.” Bianca licked her lips as her eyes scanned Thomas.

“His best attribute at the moment,” Mary interrupted, “is that he’s alive. I must insist you keep him that way. For at least ten months. The human population is declining. Soon there will be insufficient to establish the new colony on Proxima B.”

Thomas had finished screaming and gathered enough wits to contribute to the conversation.

“Yes, please. Keep me alive. I’m… I’m much more use to you alive!” He whimpered.

“Oh, I agree.” Bianca hissed as she ran a sharp fingernail across Tomas’s bare chest.