[c] Sating the Swarm

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A commission for willi526 on FurAffinity! Featuring dominance play, breeding, (eventual) hyperpreg, and the imminent threat of an alien invasion~


When the Swarm first blitzed out of the Rho nebula, none of the galaxy knew what to think. They swept from world to world, star system to star system, conquering everything. Though they were few in number, their technology was incredible, peerless even, and none of the races of the galaxy could stand up to their onslaught for long.

The Swarm, thankfully, didn't lay waste to those it conquered. Instead, they were after other materials. Their vassals' technology was pilfered, as were their resources, their food, their artifacts. But the thing the empire prized most of all was the males of the conquered races.

One by one, conquered males of every world were rounded up. Swarmer inspectors (male all) investigated them, testing them for healthiness, virility, benign mutation. Even peak specimens were turned away for something as minor as a slight genetic hiccup further up his family tree, an imperfection generations back. Once the cream of the crop were winnowed down, the males were taken back to the mothership.

One by one they trickled back to their homeworlds, each of them harried and disheveled. Though the details varied, each returning male ultimately had the same basic tale to spin: he had been taken to see the Swarmer Queen.

And what a queen she was.

Like the rest of her people, she was primarily reptiloid in form and nature, a beastess of scales and claws with a thick tail. However, there were some insect influences: antennae, most obviously, but also a coordinated controlling ability with which she exerted her will over the rest of the swarm. And the enormous, milky breasts atop her front could only be called mammalian in origin, even as ivory-colored scales (the same hue as the rest of her) made them glow pearlescent in the humming spaceship lights.

The Queen had two sets of arms, both rippling with might and muscle, just as the rest of her was similarly muscled. She was a being of pure prowess and power, towering over her would-be mates at a good eight feet tall, and she would not be met without proper deference.

For that's what they were, these captured males. Mates--or so she wished, at least. As the Swarm moved from planet to planet, taking what they wished and enslaving all in their wake, whispers spread on the conquered planets like the star-pollen of Tachyon 2: the Queen was the last sole female of her kind and, for whatever reason, could no longer conceive with males from her own species. Her conquering quest had less to do with seizing territory and more for a desperate scramble to propagate her species. If she failed, it would end in a generation, despite all the Swarm's might and technology.

Some in the galaxy suggested that this was a justly deserved fate, for the Swarm's conquering spree to end with their eradication. But others knew that the Queen was sure to be long-lived, and while outlasting her was an option, it would result in a lot of needless collateral.

So when Earth received word that the Swarm would likely be on them soon, they sprang into action.

The humans were still upstarts in the galaxy: untested, unproven, but with boundless potential. Though they had confidence, they were not so foolhardy as to think they could take on the Swarm with military might. There was no chance for them to take the horde on with soldiers and weapons and hope to win; the Swarm had overcome the Lothians, had defeated the Circuitbred, had even forced the Amber Empire to bend the knee.

No, if humanity was to triumph, it would be with their greatest weapon of all: their wits.

"So what we know of the Swarm Queen," Dr. Sinjin said, rapping his knuckles on the board, "tells us that what she wants most of all is reproduction. A mate."

The brightest minds on all Earth, men and women from every nation, sat in attention. Dr. Sinjin himself was a pike-thin man with pronounced cheekbones and pecan-colored skin. His well-maintained hair was just starting to grey at the temples.

"We need to throw aside our reservations and prudishness," he continued. "We're going to be talking about sex, breeding, and fucking for the next little bit, so better get used to it." There were some tittering laughs; people shifted in their seats. "Now then, I'm of the opinion we need to craft an envoy who isn't just fertile enough to give the Queen offspring, but also to satisfy her personally. And that's going to be a tall order, considering she's fucked her way through half the worlds in the galaxy. So. Ladies in the room." Dr. Sinjin folded his hands over himself and smiled. "What do you think would be best served for a breeder meant to save Earth from the most promiscuous pillager the galaxy has ever seen?"

There were a few more tittering laughs and nervous glances from around the room. Most of them knew they would be creating Earth's 'envoy' (actually a tailor-made male breeder) from scratch rather than modifying any existing male. One woman tentatively raised her hand, and Dr. Sinjin motioned for her to speak.

"Well," she said, "he's got to be, um, big."

"Big how, exactly?" he supplied helpfully. She only blushed in response. "People, people!" the doctor said, throwing his hands up. "The fate of humanity is at stake! For the love of all that's holy, let's just let ourselves talk frankly about sex for one minute! So. Ma'am. When you say he has to be big, do you mean big muscles?" She sheepishly shook her head. "A big cock?"

This time she nodded, and Dr. Sinjin nodded with her. "There we go, then! Someone with a big cock!"

Emboldened, another scientist spoke out from the back. "Not just big!" she said. "Huge! He's gotta be hung like a horse!"

"Fuck that!" another researcher responded. "Just commit the whole way and actually give him a horse's dick!'

The crowd of brainiacs grew raucous at the suggestion, and Dr. Sinjin smiled at that. "Now you're talking," he said enthusiastically.

They brainstormed on the body type to go along with the required horsecock. Humanoid was by far preferred, of course, but they wrote off having their envoy being just a human with modified equipment. They ran past idea after idea, until finally, someone suggested a humanoid wolf--"Exotic enough to pique the Queen's interest, but familiar enough for her to not be intimidated." Dr. Sinjin approved.

They worked hard on their new subject, bringing the best geneticists in the world to try and make the resulting creation work. But it was hard going, at first. Their first attempts to create such a being proved enormously difficult, as it required them to throw together the genomes of three enormously different species: wolf, human, and horse. All were mammals, but that was just about all they shared. How were they to mix the genetic code and create a creature that was simultaneously ape, canid, and equine? The first two attempts--codenamed Alpha and Beta, from the first two symbols of the Greek alphabet--were failures, as the genetic material failed to come together.

The third attempt, project Gamma, was more successful. Under the direction of Dr. Sinjin, the team of scientists managed to get the required genomes connected. The resulting creation--standing a good six feet in height, noticeably humanoid in body structure but wolfish in his muzzled face and digitigrade legs--was a success. Programmed with a thoroughbred's confidence and an archival knowledge of human sexual prowess, he was considered a resounding success.

Until one of the interns on the project voiced the concern: "Can he impregnate anything?"

The question was disquieting. The researchers--the best and brightest humanity had to offer--realized they'd committed a grave mistake. Focusing so much on developing a potential paramour for the Queen who would be an effective (indeed world-shattering) lover, they'd neglected to keep in mind the entire reason the Queen was going out and conquering planets to begin with. She needed progeny and a mate who would give her such a delivery.

Quickly testing Gamma's viability, the team discovered to their dismay that Gamma's seed was of only average fertility. Certainly fine if he wanted to impregnate, say, a random person on the street--but the Swarm Queen, who had taken hundreds (thousands, even) of lovers without conception? It wouldn't be good enough.

Gamma was adopted out to one of the researchers and they quickly set about formulating a new creation. It was determined that to increase fertility, they had to give the wolfman an enormous set of balls to produce copious amounts of semen. Their next wolfman, Project Delta, boasted an incredible set of balls in a massive sack that hung down past his knees and almost to his ankles. His entire sack was easily the size of one of his knees. The team had also proportioned Delta's cock to be even bigger, to match his new gonads, and then had doubled the number of cocks he had, to better cope with the semen output. The result was a creation that was possibly the most proportionately well-endowed thing on Earth.

But although Delta was found to have solved the fertility problem, there were others. His two cocks were based on those of a horse, with a formidable length and a flared tip, but the team hadn't bothered to give him a sheath. That hadn't been a problem for Gamma, but with Delta's increased equipment, the sheer massiveness of it all actually got in the way as he went about his day, particularly when paired with his equally massive nuts. The researchers realized he was far too cumbersome to effectively serve as a lithe liaison to the sexually voracious Queen.

And worse, the Swarm had been steadily advancing on Earth. Even now it was only a few lightyears away from Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to Sol.

Time was running out.

It was Dr. Lavender, the very woman who had first proposed that their wolfman be hung huge, who discovered the solution. When there were concerns that implementing a sheath for a cock might have halted the tailor-made flood of cum that they were planning on, she'd suggested importing a feature from his canid heritage.

"A knot," she said, drawing up the diagrams, "would plug up the Queen's cunt quite nicely, ensuring the flood of cum from both cocks would be present without issue. The resulting flood of cum would stick around, having more chance to inseminate her. It wouldn't expand until the right moment, so it wouldn't affect size, and it would mitigate any negligible loss of productivity from transferring our current design plan to a sheath."

Dr. Sinjin had nodded in response. The truth of the matter was, they basically had no time to do anything else. The Swarm would be on them soon enough.

And so, their fifth attempt, Project Epsilon, was born.

He was as his brothers had been. Tall, muscular, proud, wolfish, dark-furred with two enormous cocks with matching balls and thorough knots and the combined sexual knowledge of everything the Earth had to offer.

When they were finished with him, Dr. Sinjin looked at him pleasingly, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Dr. Lavender. "The Swarm is on its way," he noted gravely. "We need to intercept now before they descend on us. Do you think we have a chance?"

When his compatriot didn't respond, he side-eyed her. Dr. Lavender was eying Epsilon with open appreciation. The wolfman's tall, sculpted physique and bestial air seemed to have caught her attention and then some. When she realized that her boss was staring at her, she blushed. "Well," she said, "he's got my interest piqued, that's for sure. I think he'd be more than enough to sate anything on Earth that wanted a cock in them. But the question is whether the Queen shares our tastes."

"Looks like there will be only one way to find out," Dr. Sinjin replied, before turning his attention to Epsilon. "You get all that, friend?"

"Sure did, doctor." Epsilon's voice was like dark chocolate, smooth and rich and luxurious. It was spectacularly deep and laced with a raw, primal undercurrent of pure sexual potency. "I was made for this. Literally. So don't you worry about a thing. Give the Queen the best night of her life, knock her up with my children, and save the planet while I'm at it?" He arched his neck right and then left, popping it with a smug look on his face. "All in a day's fucking work, am I right?"

As Epsilon sauntered off to be prepared for his envoy sojourn, Dr. Lavender whispered out the side of her mouth to her boss: "Was that, pardon the pun, cocky personality really necessary?"

Dr. Sinjin laughed in reply. "We spent so much time on his genetics and equipment that we didn't even touch the personality. Don't blame me--that's 100% pure Epsilon."


Epsilon reclined in the seat of his spaceship's cockpit, comfortable and confident. The scientists had custom designed a vessel for the anthro wolf, and he was now cruising past the rings of Saturn. The Swarm was expected to pass Neptune any day now. He leaned back, unconcerned, ready to flip the switch to hail the Swarm fleet's advance scouts the moment they came within range. It wouldn't be that long now.

And indeed, there wasn't much waiting at all. Before long his sensors indicated the Swarm had entered the Sol System, so he reached up and toggled the switch to hail the advance scouts. Thankfully, refugees from the Swarm's vassal states had provided the necessary information of which channels to hail, as well as what frequency to use. There was no outright response or reply to his hailing, but the advance scouts immediately swept his ship up in a tractor beam and trawled it towards their own.

Epsilon wasn't worried. This was all according to plan.

When the Swarm scouts boarded his ship, he was reclining, a knowing smile playing about his muzzle.

"And what are you?" growled one of the creatures. "Here to surrender on behalf of your creators?"

"Surrender? Nah," Epsilon said easily. He stood, stretched, and turned to face them. He was quite tall, easily towering over the Swarmer soldiers, and looked down at them with an appraising glance. "Earth sent me as an ambassador, kind of," he said easily. "Heard your Queen needs some help taking a dick--and getting her womb heavy." He raised one cocky eyebrow. "Kind of a failure on the part of the males of her species, wouldn't you say?"

The Swarmers chittered angrily, one of them hopping back and forth from one leg to another, but they didn't move to harm him. Epsilon smiled to himself. It was as Sinjin and the others had predicted. The Swarmers were under strict orders to leave "contraband"--that is, potentially fertile males--as pristine as they found it.

"Kekekeh!" one of the alien lizard-men said dismissively. "This creature is full of bluster. The Earthers are human, not this furred thing. They send their pets to meet with us!"

Epsilon rolled his eyes at that. 'Pet'? Him? Please. It was true that he had canid and horse DNA in his body, the genetic material of creatures that humans had tamed. But more than that, he was just as intelligent, deductive, and complex as any human from earth. He shared their DNA too, after all, and they had trusted him with the fate of their entire species.

If anything, he was superior to them.

"Keep talking," he laughed. "Just so long as you do your job and take me to your Queen."

"You think you can command her?" one of the Swarmers hissed, his reptilian face contorting in distaste.

"Dunno yet," Epsilon replied easily. "But I'm guessing you two have orders to send any new male her way, am I right?" They exchanged glanced that told him he was. "So what's the hold up then? Chop chop, you glorified gofers!"

Snarling, the guards roughly escorted him off his ship and shoved him into their hold to take him to the Queen. Epsilon just smirked. He didn't mind. This was, after all, what he was built for.

Her Majesty's ship was not that large, all things considered, but it was impressive in its own right, finely crafted and ornate. When the guards shoved him into her throne hall, he couldn't help but eye it in appreciation. The walls were purple crystal, like transparent amethyst, and thin, pale blue light cascaded down from unseen sources, bathing the whole thing in a phantasmal color.

And then there was the Swarm Queen herself. Every bit the titan the records indicated, she was several feet taller than Epsilon himself. Her scales were milky and shining, her build intensely muscular. One set of arms was folded over itself while the other tap-tap-tapped away on the arm of her throne.

"And who are you to be?" she growled. Her voice was a contralto of feminine power, the sort of sound that would brook no complaint or argument.

Epsilon's creators had pre-programmed him with a certain response, a deferential and respectful plea on behalf of humans and the planet Earth. He was to offer himself to her and submit to her every will.

Yeah, he thought, fuck that.

"Hey, Queenie!" he said cheerily. "Ya wanna get plowed?"

Some of the Swarmer guard murmured in displeasure, but the Queen just studied him. "You are not the first being to meet me with confidence," she observed.

"Yeah, but I'm the first tailor-made to solve your problems," Epsilon replied. "I can give you the best nights of your night and hopefully even end that little repopulation problem of yours. The whole genius of Earth went to solving your quandary. And all you gotta do is agree to let the humans go."

"Even if you do give me young," she observed wryly, "what's to stop me from conquering the planet anyway?"

Epsilon shrugged. "Dunno, Queenie. Guess they just have to hope you're in a good mood."

Her laugh was rich and confident. "Oh, I like this one." She waved away her guards, leaving the two of them alone in the throne room. Once the distant footsteps settled, the Swarm Queen rose fluidly, stepping behind her throne. There was a door to a distant chamber there. "Come," she said. It was not a voice that brooked argument.

Smiling to himself, Epsilon followed. He would see if she could hold that in-charge attitude for long.

Inside the Queen's chambers was an enormous, plush bed all adorned with satins. The Queen sprawled on it, one of her four arms lazily reaching down to spread her vagina. Ahhh... it looked appealing in a way that no woman on Earth could ever match. Exotic, a dusky black color to contrast with the paleness of her scales. The Queen's reptilian eyes glittered over the bed. "You think you can sate me?" she purred. "Then sate me, love."

Love? Heh. Wasn't she in for a surprise.

With agility borne from his lupine ancestors, Epsilon quickly rushed into her bed. With fluid movements, he straddled the Queen, one hand going up to stroke her scaly belly and cup her tits while the other gently traced one fur-tipped finger down her labia.

"Oh?" the Queen purred. "Confident. Usually the males are shaking with fear."

"Not me," Epsilon said flippantly. "I know exactly who I am and what I want." Already he could feel a tingling in his loins. His cocks were beginning to unfurl from their sheath, and he could sense the Queen's curiosity.

"Two?" she asked.

"The better to rut you with, my dear," Epsilon said, and he dove his muzzle into her cunt. The Queen trembled, gasping as he ate her out--his wolf's tongue was long and warm, and her musky cunt tasted delicious. He was buried in her for a few minutes, eagerly lapping at her pussy, his own pair of cocks growing all the while. He could feel them standing at attention, their flat equine heads hungering for satiation, and finally he knew he was ready.

"Right," Epsilon grunted, pulling his muzzle back. He angled his cocks with the Queen's pussy, his enormous sack swinging between his legs. "Time for the main event."

His cock was too big and intimidating to possibly slot into a normal woman's pussy, but for this titanic alien woman? He sank one of his cocks in like he was coming home. The gratification was immediate. Her voice, which had been murring and breathy from receiving oral, soared high with pleasure, and Epsilon felt her flexile and practiced cunt squeeze tight around his cock. He hilted in her without complaint, his breath heaving from him.

Dr. Sinjin's suppositions were correct. The Queen was more flexible than the average creature. They had suspected as such, given the variety of lovers she had taken from the average races.

"Fucking--take it--" Epsilon grunted, hammering into her immediately. Fuck the idea of going slow or taking it easy. This Queen was a conqueror, and it was time for her to learn her place! "Take--that--cock--"

Even as he continued pounding, the Queen showed nothing but keen-eyed enjoyment, and Epsilon's temper flared. He was here to sate this Queen, but she was leaning back, doe-eyed, like he was some glorified sex toy!

"Right," he growled, sliding his cock out. He had enough time to savor the look of confusion on the Swarm Queen's face before he plunged in with both of them.

Now he was rewarded. Her legs tensed and her eyes grew wide as her voice failed her, and as he rutted both cocks into her, he gripped her leg tight with his hand, enjoying the angry red lines left behind from how hard he was clutching at her.

Yes--yes--he was going harder, he was on top, he was dominating her, and now he was going to knot her and nut her and seed her up and it was all going perfectly! He could feel his knots beginning to swell.

"Hold on, little pet," the Queen said, her voice laced with pleasure, "let us try a different position, hm?"

His temper flared again. What? What? Stop and reposition themselves now? "No fucking way," he growled. "I'm in charge here and you're gonna take it!"

There was a breathless moment before the Queen leaned up her head. The eyes amidst her pearly-scaled face were amused--and slightly dangerous. "What was that?"

"I said I'm in--"

Epsilon didn't get much further than that. Three of the Queen's burly arms seized him and yanked him from her pussy as she used the fourth to help prop herself up from the bed.

Snarling, Epsilon tried to fight her off. He strength was not inconsiderable. But to her, he might as well have been a bamboo reed. The Queen held his eyes level with hers, his paws dangling down and not reaching the floor. She surveyed him with critical eyes.

"You are a good lover," she said, "and your equipment is the best I've tasted. I think I'm going to enjoy you once you lose that juvenile attitude."

Attitude? As if! Epsilon wriggled further, his erect cocks bouncing between his legs. The Queen eyed them with amusement.

"Did you forget?" she said. Still holding onto him with two arms, one dipped down to toy with his cocks while the other helped maneuver him underneath her, pinning him to the bed despite his useless struggles. "You're an envoy tailor-made for my pleasure. And me? I'm the most feared woman in the galaxy." She angled her slit right over his dicks and then sunk down, hissing with delight. "I'm the Queen."

Both his cocks sunk into her and Epsilon gasped despite himself. He wriggled fruitlessly, trying to bring all his strength to bear, but not only did it not work, but the Queen closed her eyes and sighed, as if she didn't even notice his efforts.

Grunting in an attempt to re-seize control of the situation, the wolfman bucked his hips up, trying to set the pace. It didn't do much, since he was already almost entirely within her, but the Queen chuckled and began rolling her hips up and down, up and down, and Epsilon's voice trailed out of him in a high needy whine. It felt so good, even as her movements rubbed his cocks against each other, making him wince from the abrasion and tenderness. Was she doing that on purpose, or did she just not care?

Against his better judgment, he could feel the knots swelling again, and a rumble of pleasure quaked from within the Queen's breast. "Good, little pet," she said, shifting her grip on him. It was tight; he winced. Her muscles rippled in the soft interior light. "Let's see if you will solve my people's problems. Try this..."

Suddenly, an insane sensation ran up both his cocks. Epsilon gasped. Part of the Queen's interior was idly massaging pleasure spots along his rods, both of them. To have such fine control over her own pussy... was this just an alien ability at work? Or was the Queen that superior at breeding?

Before he knew it, the sensory stimulation had grown too much, and he grunted as he spurted directly into her womb. The knots in his cocks both swelled, plugging the Queen up tight--but not tight enough that he was spared her squirting. Feminine juices, emblematic of the Queen's pleasure, squirted out of her cunt to spray on and around his loins. The scent was strong, marking him as hers.

His seed flushed into her, warm and sopping, and Epsilon gasped as his prodigious balls and two cocks flooded the Queen with seed. To his credit, he pumped in enough that her belly slightly rounded from all the cum.

When he was finally finished, he lay back, gasping against the bed, his cocks sore in that sweet, well-used way. The Queen had taken one of her hands and was slowly rubbing and cupping her mildly rounding tummy. "Good," she said. "I haven't been filled like that in some time." Then suddenly her brows arched, and her eyes lit up. "Oh?"

Before Epsilon could ask what was happening, he suddenly felt her weight shifting over him--and then increasing. He gasped and grunted as the Queen grew heavier, heaver, heavier; and with every increase of weight, her belly grew as well, surging out more and more, growing bigger, bigger.

"What's--happening--" Epsilon grunted.

"Did I say you could speak, breeding slave?" the Queen said mildly, gazing down at her plumping belly with delightedness. "Well, no matter. I suppose you have a right to know. They're yours too after all."

"M-mine?"

She eyed him. "Surely you are not so daft. The Queens of my species accelerate our pregnancies the longer it's been since we last birthed--and it's been a very, very long time since any young slipped past my cunt."

As she continued growing, Epsilon grew alarmed. The Queen had more than doubled in size, and she was still growing! Her weight was still on him and growing more and more. Even as his cocks quivered in her, knotted into place, sometimes spurting one last lazy bit of cum, he felt his chest increasingly straining to fill his lungs.

The by-now very pregnant Queen rolled her hips slightly, riding her mate's cock, and purring from the delight. Epsilon took the moments when she rode up to heave for breath. Her arms were gripping him tight; he knew that bruises would be purpling his skin underneath his fur.

"Oh, you're quite fertile," the Queen said, caressing her belly. It was huge, a whale of an orb, spectacularly swollen with life. She swirled his cocks in her again, purred from the sensation, and squirted again. Some of it leaked back onto Epsilon. Of course, he had more pressing worries.

"Can't--" he gasped. "C-can't--"

"Oh?" the Queen said, turning to look at him. "Having trouble?"

Epsilon only panted in return, unable to formulate a reply. From his angle, he could just see her leg where he'd gripped her. To his surprise, the redness had all vanished. She healed fast.

"You are fertile, and good at sex, so I'll grant you a reprieve," the Queen said, "provided you can come to an understanding. From now on, you're going to be my new breeding pet and love slave. Am I understood?"

Epsilon chuffed from the indignity of it all, but the Queen's eyes were still. "Am I. Understood?" she repeated. He nodded. "Who's in charge?" the Queen demanded, and he raised a tremulous hand to point at her. "Good."

Ponderously, her bulk seeming to dwarf the whole galaxy, the massive Queen rose, and Epsilon weakly dragged himself from the bed, heaving for air.

"Your old masters, the humans," the Queen said, her voice thoughtful, "I suppose you're going to beg mercy on their behalf?"

"I don't care," Epsilon spat, "what you do to them."

The Queen tilted her head first one way, then the other. "No," she said, "I suppose you don't." Her voice dropped, almost as if she were speaking to herself. "Well, I suppose that they did solve my race's impending extinction. I can let them wander free. It's only courteous." She turned her attention back to Epsilon and smiled at him the way a cat smiles at a freshly-caught mouse. "You and I will have much fun together, pet. I'll have my soldiers fetch you a proper collar."

His dignity and pride shaken, Epsilon quakily staggered out the door, cogent of the looming mountain of fertile flesh behind him as the Queen continued to swell with brood. His brood.

It was going to be a long lifetime.


Back on Earth, humanity received the Swarm's thanks with delighted gasps that turned to thunderous applause as the whole fleet turned and left the Sol System. Even the furthest-reaching Swarmer vessel hadn't advanced any farther than the asteroid belt.

In the laboratory where the envoy had been crafted, Dr. Lavender (who had taken on Delta as an "assistant"; not in the lab, presumably, given how the first morning after she'd taken him home she'd wobbled in with a dreamy look on her face) asked her compatriot Dr. Sinjin if they could expect to see Epsilon again.

"I expect not," the doctor said, tapping a clipboard with a pencil. "The Swarmers indicate he was able to impregnate the Queen, and I doubt they'd let the only being in the galaxy capable of helping them propagate just stroll back to Earth. Still, I expect that he'll have a lot of great sex in the future."

"I suppose so," replied Dr. Lavender, and she stepped away.

Left alone with his thoughts, Dr. Sinjin reflected something he had kept to himself. He had deliberately made Epsilon belligerent and dominant, prone to flying in the face of the deference the others had programmed into him. Sinjin's earlier assertion to Lavender had been a fib. Some might think he did so to try to make his creation bring the Queen to heel, but it was quite the opposite. All information on the Queen indicated she was proud and indefatigable. She wouldn't have enjoyed some simpering sop or blindly loyal breeder. No, she needed someone to control, to upstage, to dominate; and better Epsilon than the whole of humanity.

Sticking his hands in his pockets, Dr. Sinjin reflected that it had, after all, seemed to work. Then, casting his creation from his mind, he stepped outside to join humanity's celebration of being free from extraterrestrial aggression once more.