FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

DRIFT (Utopia) Written by Leo_Todrius Commissioned by Dariuswhitefur

[May 1st, 2092]

Despite the Drake's best air filtration systems, the living quarters on the space ship were musky, humid and dank. Dustin's purple eyes were clenched shut, his blue fur coated with the same sweat that scented the room as his glowing blue cock slid in and out of the tight, welcoming ass of his lover yet again. The appearance and disappearance of the glowing member was like a light house flashing a beacon into the night, but it signaled far more.

Dustin's lips were wrapped tight around Zar's swollen, cock like tongue, continuing to drizzle out its pleasure giving fluids. Some ran down Dustin's chin and dripped down onto his stomach, the fur already covered with the thick juices oozing out of Zar's ample shaft. The sheets were soaked, the walls splattered and the floor moist. The two had been going at it nearly constantly since leaving Io, but while Dustin had started to revert most of the way back, Zar had not been so lucky.

The Kadian's tongue was still phallic, his horns rounded and cow like. His nipples were too plump and his tail still ended in a rounded head rather than the demonic spade. Zar had broken his deal, reneged on his debts and had been turned into a sex slave... a slave with no master. For the first several weeks of travel, Dustin had experienced the same changes himself. They had been slow to sink in and slow to revert, leaving the ship two sex slaves with no outlet but each other. Day by day, however, Dustin was getting a hold back on his senses.

Despite Zar's eagerness, or perhaps because of it, he would collapse into naps of sexual exhaustion, recharging his energy and rebuilding his fluids. At first Dustin needed that time to recover himself, but he'd slowly built his strength back. He'd taken the first opportunity he had to shave himself clean, check the supplies... and see what stuck. With his genetic resilience, Dustin had to start keeping track of what changes he'd acquired from where.

His first encounter with the Tholans had left him with a canine cock and knot, patchy fur and hairless canine ears. The changes on IO had nearly reverted save for his purple eyes, blue fur and piercings... and thankfully a sheath to protect his glowing canine member. Dustin was giving it his all to fuck Zar into another sleepy state, grinding against the obsidian skinned beast, his own blue hair falling across his eyes.

Their moans grew louder and higher, their muscles tight and eager. Dustin felt like he was on the verge of orgasm when he felt the inertia change. The window that had been full of cosmic dust in an aurora of colors were now blank, showing stars. They had reached the end of their slingshot. The surprise caught Dustin off guard, and while he started to cum, it was discordant in his body. His shaft sprayed out the seed and he moaned, one purple eye opening. In a strange way, being unprepared for the ejaculation had its own pleasure.

Zar's back arched, his ass welcoming the seed before his tongue pulsed and sprayed sterile cum down Dustin's throat. Dustin gulped it down before their wet and messy kiss broke. The two collapsed onto the bed, panting and resting for a moment. Zar's purple slit eyes open as he looked over at Dustin.

"You know what this means, don't you?" Dustin asked.

"Forbidden territory... but no slavers." Zar replied gently. Dustin grinned, running his hand down across Zar's four pectoral muscles.

"And if we find a Topian ship, we can afford the tools to get you turned back to normal and pay off your debts." Dustin replied.

"Well, maybe not ALL the way normal. I love being able to fuck you this much." Zar smirked. Dustin blushed a bit at that but grinned, nuzzling Zar's neck before he slowly started to get up.

****

Zar yawned slow and languidly as he wandered down the cream colored hallways, a hand tracing over the vacuum formed panels that covered the walls. Human design was strange, making the sterility of the atmosphere somehow comfortable. The doors to the bridge opened as he approached, revealing the pilot's chair and the V shaped console. Zar still felt like it was an awfully large ship for just one person. He came up behind Dustin's chair and leaned over the back, intent on giving his lover some more affection, but his eyes caught sight of something that bypassed his sex slave programming... Utopia.

The planet was an aquamarine jewel filling the screen. Vast oceans covered the surface, dotted with island chains that spiraled from hemisphere to hemisphere. It seemed quite tropical, although much like earth it had two frozen poles. Dustin stared up at the screen as well, but not out of awe. He was homesick. It was just a touch too green, a touch too wet... but he had come from a blue jewel himself.

"We made it..." Zar whispered.

"Almost. I wanted to settle us into a low orbit for surface telemetry but I must have forgotten to set the order." Dustin said, entering the parameters. The Drake began to descend, but then as if it was skimming off of the surface of a pond, it bobbed back up. Dustin's eyes widened. He looked at the command interface. The commands had gone through.

"Drake, run system's diagnostics." Dustin ordered. One of the side screens showed the progress from stem to stern.

"All systems nominal." Drake replied.

"Then why didn't we settle into a lower orbit?" Dustin questioned.

"Navigational directives were countermanded by Architect command node." Drake replied. Dustin's blue eyebrows lifted at that before he leaned and crossed his arms, looking over his shoulder at Zar.

"Utopia is a forbidden planet..." Dustin stated.

"So... the architect systems are keeping us from getting close?" Zar asked. Dustin nodded.

"The Drake can't get any closer than this, but I do have a shuttle pod... Its a bit of a tight fit though." Dustin considered.

"Wouldn't it have the same restrictions?" Zar asked. Dustin shook his head.

"The Drake wasn't built with architect technology, that came later. When the Guardians were putting it in, I made sure the pod wasn't touched. If they betrayed me, I wanted something I could trust." Dustin said.

"So what are we waiting for?" Zar grinned.

"I only have three environmental suits left, and none of them make accommodations for your... anatomical differences." Dustin said, gesturing to his tail.

"It's an architect world... There isn't anything to be worried about." Zar replied, surprised at the idea of a protective suit. Dustin considered for a long moment.

"Maybe so, but it is pretty wet down there. I might need to consider a change of outfit." Dustin commented.

****

Clouds split and spilled over the windshield of the shuttle pod as it descended through the atmosphere, leaving Dustin to rely on the heads up display monocle. Zar was tucked in behind Dustin's chair, strapped in with makeshift straps, wondering if his place in life now was always behind Dustin's chair. Zar had been filled with zeal to come to Utopia, but he'd never imagined he'd be putting his life on the line in an over glorified metal can with boosters.

Dustin grinned ear to ear, wondering if he'd grown complacent with the enhanced automated systems on the Drake. It was all point and click up there, but this... this took skill. Dustin edged down further, keeping an eye on the hull temperature. The descent continued before they finally broke beneath the cloud line, the horizon opening up ahead of them. Zar let out a soft hiss of surprise.

The skies were a brilliant shade of blue with just a hint of violet. The water was as aquamarine as it seemed from space, rippling in gentle waves planet wide. Dustin paused for a moment, contemplating what he had seen before... Come to think of it, there hadn't been one storm anywhere on the planet. It had been ideal weather all over. Dustin leaned back in his chair a bit, lowering toward the ocean further, not sure why the idea of no clouds bothered him so much.

"What's the nearest island?" Zar asked, obviously excited. Dustin gave a soft smile and adjusted course.

"It should be coming up in just a few moments." Dustin said, looking ahead. Sure enough, the horizon filled with the gray form of an island sticking out of the ocean waters, but as the pod skimmed the surface, something caught Dustin's eye - tan coloring, then gold. Dustin was surprised, wondering what he had missed, but then he saw another... and another... and then a line.

Just beneath the surface of the water was what Dustin would have considered to be an elevated freeway on his home world, the sand colored road submerged. Rusted husks of some form of transportation were likewise underwater, the outer shell eaten away by the rigors of time, leaving a gold, bronze and gray mesh beneath glittering in the shallow waters. There were hundreds of the vehicles, left right in the middle of the road... a road leading to the island.

Dustin felt his heart sink in his chest, his curiosity tempered with the morbidity of the site. Elixar had said that the native species had gone extinct, that the other child races quarantined the planet as a result. Dustin had to keep himself from closing his eyes at just how stupid the idea felt to leave the environmental suits behind. He never should have come down in the first place. They had enough food to live off of on the Drake, they just had to hide out from the slavers long enough to not matter anymore.

"It's amazing..." Zar whispered, his hand coming down on Dustin's shoulder. Dustin looked at the hand before he took a breath, his anxiety fading a bit.

"It really is." he whispered, remembering the plan. If they could just get something worth enough to clear their names and fix Zar's genetics, it would be more than enough. Dustin moved the pod to skim above the sunken highway, approaching the island. Near the shores the highway lifted up out of the water, snaking its way through the rocks. Dustin brought the pod up, moving toward the crest of the island's rim, preparing himself for the revelation of a great city. It was a revelation that did not come.

The shuttle moved up over the rim of rock before abruptly shooting over water again. Dustin's eyes widened. He began bringing the pod around on a wide arc, lifting up to try and get a better view. He flipped a few switches to turn the scanners on to full, but as the pod came around, Zar and Dustin saw everything they needed to... a blast crater. The center of the island had been obliterated, leaving only the edges. This time it was Zar who felt chills.

"It was an orbital bombardment..." he whispered softly.

"An attack? From space..." Dustin whispered.

"It..." Zar trailed off just as the computer chirped. Dustin opened the scan results, skimming through them, taking a slow breath.

"It looks like the impact sunk the tectonic plate just a little, enough to sink all those roads." Dustin whispered.

"We came all this way and they've been shot up..." Zar murmured, his purple eyes glistening, "I'm so sorry... I brought us all this way and now we've wasted all that time and-" Zar was interrupted as Dustin reached up to pet his cheek.

"We needed to come here and I'm glad we came. We just have to find something to cover our debts so we can go back. I can't promise you a Utopian ship, but maybe we can find some distinctly Utopian relic some museum would want." Dustin said. Zar gave a lop sided smile.

"Do you think it'll work?" he asked. Dustin nodded, moving back to his scans. A few pings seemed promising.

"There is an artificial cave system near the north west edge of the rim. Since the roads are intact, it should be too. We'll touch down just above there and repel down, have a look around. How does that sound?" Dustin asked. Zar smiled meekly.

"It would be bad to come all this way and not even look." Zar said. Dustin grinned.

"Then it's settled." he said with a smile, adjusting the course. At the back of his mind, Dustin hoped something of the Utopians remained intact... He wanted to see just one thing that hadn't been destroyed before they called it a day.

****

Pebbles fell and scattered on the rock ledge before rolling off, falling into the sea. The source of the falling stones became clear as Dustin's feet descended toward the ledge, dangling in front of the open mouth of the cave. Dustin lowered inch by inch before he touched down, looking back up. Dustin had found it more difficult to descend the rock, seeming to struggle in a few places, not because of his strength or even modified appendages, but something else. Dustin swallowed a bit.

"Are you okay Zar?" Dustin asked.

"I miss my other arms... I wouldn't have needed any rope." Zar grumbled. Dustin thought back to the large insectoid Kadian they'd seen on Io, knowing that Zar must have gone through a lot of changes to wind up like he was now. In a way, they both had that in common. After a few more moments of the effort filled descent, Zar touched down on the rock ledge with a sigh of relief. Dustin moved to unhook the tether from each of them, tucking the ropes to the side against a cropping of rocks that might keep them in place.

"I've never seen so much water before." Zar said, looking out over the sea with his purple eyes. Dustin turned, inhaling the smell of the salt and the coastal plants.

"My world looked a bit like this a hundred years ago. Its mostly water too, though now coastal areas are full of aquaculture farming, wave generators for power and reintroduction camps for genetically saved species." Dustin considered.

"They did all that in just a hundred years?" Zar asked, impressed.

"Its hard comparing, but it feels like we move pretty fast as a species." Dustin said.

"Well, maybe you won't be alone for very long then. Maybe more will reach out to the stars." Zar said. Dustin gave a meek smile.

"I'm not alone right now." Dustin said, reaching over to pat Zar's shoulder, "Let's get looking around." he added. As Dustin passed, Zar grimaced. He'd meant to say something like 'be without your own kind', but as usual he'd put his talons into his mouth. Zar followed Dustin, the two moving into the cave. While the mouth was tight, narrow and seemed fairly natural, the inside opened back out to a fairly wide, perfectly sculpted hallway of stone. Recessed lighting snapped on as they walked, lighting the floor beneath their feet and casting enough illumination to see.

They made it in a few feet before the light hit something... something rather large. The lights continued to snap on, moving around the back of the cave. Resting near the back was an eight foot tall, vaguely polygonal egg shaped device made out of what appeared to be blue sandstone. There were vague engravings and seams along the panels. Dustin grinned and moved forward, circling the object.

"Do you think this is it? Our payday?" Dustin asked. Zar grinned wide, his fangs contrasting with his obsidian black skin.

"I think it just might be, assuming there's a way to get it back to the ship." Zar said. Dustin paused at that.

"That's... true. Maybe there's a way to take a piece of it back. We just have to figure out what it is and if its safe to remove." Dustin said, crouching down slowly. Zar continued to circle the device, trying to read the engravings.

"The nanites aren't translating..." Zar said softly.

"It doesn't always seem to work on writing for me." Dustin said, running his fingers along some of the seams. Zar crossed his arms.

"Yeah, but they never forget. That means that no time in my life... did I come across a single letter from the Utopians." Zar said softly.

"Well mine seemed to absorb enough during my time on Io to get by, maybe this will make sense to us soon." Dustin said, freezing in place as the panel he'd been touching slid in and lifted up into the device, revealing the interior... A pale blue light spilled out onto the floor, along with a steady, regular pulsing noise. Dustin slowly got down onto all fours, leaning in to look up into the device. A ring of blue energy throbbed and rotated around a large liquid blob of gray goo, suspended against gravity... although the field didn't seem to be entirely stable. The sides of the machine were caked with gray streaks that had solidified like cement or stone.

"What is it?" Zar asked, watching Dustin with curiosity.

"I don't know, but its beautiful..." Dustin whispered softly. As he watched the floating ball of gray, the energy field seemed to flicker and weaken. A single drop of the gray goo fell down, hitting Dustin's left eye. Dustin's back went rigid at once as he gasped. Blackness spread across his eye, overwriting the purple and the white. His eyelashes seemed to dissolve on contact with the gray and the skin that it touched turned rough, almost shark like.

Dustin tried to climb back out, murmuring, but it was already too late. The engravings on the pod began to throb and pulse, blue light turning red. Dustin pulled himself out of the hole and scrambled back up to his feet, but a massive bubbling sound came as a tentacle of gray goo launched out of the device, hitting the human in the chest. The impact was so severe that Dustin was knocked off his feet, launched through the air and out of the cave entrance.

The last thing Dustin saw as he was knocked back was Zar's terrified face before he felt the impact of the water hitting his back. The cold rush swept over him as he sank, still too stunned by the encounter. The goo had eaten through his shirt, but the skin beneath was changing fast. His blue hair was disappearing, replaced with gray shark skin. The gray on his face was spreading as well, crossing the bridge of his nose before infecting his other eye, turning it solid black as well.

Dustin began to paddle and kick, trying to bob back to the surface. He lifted up a few feet, seeing the sparkling surface above, but something wasn't right. A deep and painful ache began to fill his bones, his muscles feeling sore and heavy. Dustin kept treading as best he could, but he was descending faster and faster. The changing human reached up for the surface of the water, spreading his fingers, but even they had grown soft. The flesh stretched out between the digits like a fine web. It would have been ideal to swim with if he wasn't becoming so heavy... and that's when Dustin realized what was happening.

His bones didn't hurt for no reason, they were changing. He could feel their weight increase, their density climbing dramatically. It weighed him down like an anchor. he could feel the water displaced around him as he dropped down lower and lower like a lead balloon. Dustin's body soon slowed, no longer struggling to swim. There was no hope now and he was too deep. He could feel the pressure climbing around him, but even more he could feel his body continuing to change.

Dustin's feet throbbed and ached. He instinctively curled his toes to try and cope with the sensation and to his surprise, his feet curled far past the toes. It doubled nearly in half before stretching out again just like a hand, or the foot of a monkey. Dustin stretched his 'paw' a few more times before he decided on a daring plan, the only plan that would be able to save him from the cold depths.

Black eyes searched around before he spotted the rock face that connected to the cliffs. Rather than swimming up, Dustin began swimming over. He still descended, but his webbed hands and feet propelled him forward as well. Hands and feet reached out, digging into the stone. At first it was rough against his skin, but his skin instinctively reacted, becoming tough and resilient and gray.

He slipped a few more feet, but at last his hands and feet gained purchase, anchoring him in place. Dustin looked up, trying to determine how far he'd have to climb... but before he could figure that out, a great pain filled his spine. Every vertebrae and his spinal cord itself seemed to be on fire. It felt awful, throbbing and burning... and then it felt like his spine was dropping out of his body, ejected. While it felt that way, it was actually growing rapidly.

The flesh around his tailbone was displaced suddenly as the extension pushed out, gray muscled flesh wrapping around it. The tail extended to a foot long, then two, then three and four and even five. The tip developed a bit of a shark like fin, giving it extra water resistance. While it started out fairly miniscule, the tail suspended above the former human's ass widened more and more, nearly growing as long as his waist. To Dustin's dismay, it was also heavy... and the pain had taken another toll, this time on Dustin's air.

Fear, exertion, thinking, grabbing. It all took oxygen. Dustin hadn't even been able to fill his lungs fully as he was knocked back, not realizing what was coming. The fact that he hadn't started to suffocate yet meant everything that had happened had only taken place in a few seconds, but his time was up. Dustin felt the pressure of the water on his chest, the carbon dioxide building up. His chest burned and ached and throbbed. But he couldn't give up yet.

Dustin began to climb, using his hands and feet to heave his immensely heavy body up. While his bones were like metal now, his muscles had grown stronger to compensate. He just wished he'd thought of the plan sooner. The changes continued to sweep over Dustin's body. His eyebrows fell out, his blue hair fell away and gray skin covered his body. His nose flattened a bit, his nostrils becoming slits as his pointed ears once more became furless.

The pain in his chest grew, his brain starting to strain his will. There was only so long a person could hold their breath before the brain tried to get new air. Dustin had reached that point. Bubbles escaped his mouth, rising to the surface above. Dustin gazed up, watching as if his soul had escaped, as if he was watching his own death. The water rushed in and his lungs began to ache and burn. Dustin nearly let go of the ledge, but a new stinging distracted him from the pain of his lungs... the pain radiated from the sides of his neck.

While tough and hardened, his gray shark skin had developed a few seams. The seams parted, a few drops of blood escaping before they opened up fully, revealing bluish gray gill meat. The new organs filtered the water and began pumping air into Dustin's body. Dustin remained where he was, feeling the pain ebb and shrink away. His lungs no longer hurt, his spine didn't burn, his head wasn't pounding as much.

Dustin took a moment to look at himself, his black eyes seeing much more clearly under water and in low light than he could as a human. His skin was gray all over, his hands and feet adapted to living under water. He felt his tail waggling behind his body... and his nipples were puffy and dark. He brought one hand up to squeeze one, trembling as a jet of black ink ejected into the water. It felt almost like cumming.

Despite that pleasure, Dustin tried to remember himself, what he was trying to do. He had to get back to Zar, to the surface. Like any genetic change, he was likely to turn back to normal and if he was trapped at the bottom of the ocean when it happened, he'd probably die just then. Dustin continued to ascend, his tail swinging below him, propelling him upward.

As Dustin rose, he turned his head as if he heard something. There wasn't anything there, but something was nagging at the edge of his senses. Dustin tried to push that back, climbing more before he turned his head again. It was as if he could hear whispers on the water, calling to him. Dustin continued to look outward at the ocean, his mind tingling gently. His body had completed its change, but it seemed that his mind was starting to be rewritten.

Without having been in the ocean before, Dustin felt a familiarity with the area. He knew there was a reef near by, a valley, a good fishing spot... Dustin's black lips curled into a smile as he contemplated the taste of fish on his tongue. Dustin's stomach rumbled gently. He was hungry and he knew how to hunt. Dustin leaned away from the wall, hanging on with one hand and one foot. Dustin leaned closer to the rock face, leaned out, leaned back in and prepared to push off.

Dustin glided through the water like some sort of aquatic gargoyle, heading toward the fishing hole, so wrapped up in the idea of a good meal that he didn't notice the disruption to the surface of the water, nor the descending tether line weighted down with two metal spheres. The line hit Dustin's back and wrapped around him, latching together at his waist. Dustin hissed and thrashed and instinctively deployed a cloud of black ink. As his nipples sprayed out the cloud, he knew he had three choices... Fight, flight or fuck.

It seemed as he was tugged upwards that flight would not be an option. Dustin scrambled and tried to swim, but he was being pulled up with inhuman speed. He watched his watery home taken away from him, his heart aching with loss before the water spilled across his back. The sounds of the air filled world flooded around him, including a winch... the winch from the shuttle pod.

Zar's eyes widened in shock to see that Dustin had been changed so fast and so completely. Dustin was heaved up past the cave onto the top of the rim where the shuttle had landed. He clawed and scratched at the stone, taking a few difficult breaths of the air with his nearly forgotten lungs. Dustin clawed at the line but he couldn't break through it, nor could he pull it loose from the shuttle.

"Dustin, it's me, Elixar... We need to get you back to the ship, get you some help..." Zar said.

The newly formed gargoyle opened his mouth, revealing sharp fangs as he hissed. More black ink leaked from his nipples, but without water to disperse it in, it merely ran down his chest and stained his soaked, torn pants. Zar grimaced. He was terrified at the change, knowing he didn't have Dustin's resilience... but at the same time he couldn't abandon Dustin to the planet. It was no wonder that Utopia had been bombarded and quarantined. Anyone that came to the planet ran the risk of becoming one of the locals.

Dustin thrashed and fought, showing no signs of cooperating. Zar took a breath before he opened his mouth wide and lunged, climbing onto Dustin's back, bringing his mouth down. While he lacked the mandibles Kadians typically had, he had enough teeth to gnaw and chew on Dustin's neck, eventually wearing the flesh down enough to break the skin. When Zar tasted the metallic tang of blood, he expressed the fluids from venom sacks in his throat.

Dustin's solid black eyes grew wide as his fighting came to a stop. The feeling was draining away from his body, first from his arms, then his legs. The gray gargoyle unceremoniously collapsed onto the ground, paralyzed. Even his tail slapped down, limp. He was barely able to breath, but that was enough. Zar wiped his mouth on his arm, pausing to look at the grayish blood. His heart sank a bit at that... but it was a selfless act and he'd see it through. With great effort, the obsidian skinned man began to drag the gargoyle back toward the shuttle pod.

****

Amber light... Pulsating amber light. Dustin cringed as his senses began to return to him. He opened one purple eye, shielding against the light before his other eye opened as well... that one still black. The gray streak that had hit his left eye remained, but his human flesh had reasserted itself... for the most part. Dustin's arms and legs remained gray and webbed, though the webbing was slightly less. There was also the distinct presence of a thick, four foot long shark like tail dangling between his legs, forcing his hips up.

Dustin took a sharp breath in, feeling his gills flutter against his neck. His hands gripped the side of the bed and he pushed himself upright, spotting his reflection on the stainless steel covers of the infirmary storage chambers. He had a human face and even a faint blue fuzz on his otherwise smooth scalp... and smooth body. All arm hair, leg hair and even the invisible fuzz on his shoulders was gone. There were a few strands of blue on his chest, but he had little doubt those were the only two places he'd be able to grow hair again.

He pushed off the bed, getting used to standing again. He could tell he felt much heavier but his muscles still remained strong to counterbalance the effect. He hobbled over to the far side of the room and opened the computer terminal, bringing up the system's diagnostic. The reason for the alert was an internal rupture in one of the lower cargo holds. Dustin turned and moved out of the infirmary, heading down the central corridor. It took some getting used to, his tail smacking on the sides of the hall before he figured out how to keep it steady.

Dustin moved past the big wide doors to the side pods, but his eyes were focused instead on the large rectangular grills on the floor that made up the automated stairs, much like the landing ramp the Drake used. Dustin was in great awe that Zar had gotten him back to the ship on his own, even nursed him back to health, but ruptures were incredibly dangerous and had to be dealt with first.

Up ahead, one of the meal grills had been deployed, the floor opened up into a descending se of stairs. Dustin could hear a muffled klaxon, seeing shimmering amber light. Dustin moved up to the gap and paused. The stairs dropped down into the cargo pod, but after a few steps they were submerged. The entire pod had been flooded with stores of drinking water.

Dustin stared at the inadvertent pool his ship had developed, the water kept in place only by the artificial gravity field. As he watched, there was movement in the water. A muscled gray figure circled around languidly, kicking with monkey like paws, a long shark tail swishing around. He had complicated pointed ears like one might imagine on a merman, his gills breathing in the water. As the gray aquatic gargoyle circled, he stirred up something that lined the floor... loose strands of silver hair.

"Zar..." Dustin whispered softly. He lowered to his knees, watching Zar circle, putting everything together. Elixar had sacrificed himself to save his partner. Dustin closed his eyes gently.

****

The doors to Dustin's quarters opened and he moved in with great exhaustion filling his body. He had no doubt he was still recovering from his ordeal. He turned and flopped onto his bed, feeling himself sink in far deeper than before. For a long moment he just lay there, staring up at the ceiling. After some time he sighed.

"Computer, begin log." Dustin commanded.

"Commence record." The automated voice responded.

"May seventh, twenty ninety two." Dustin began, "I lost six days of my life... and now I fear Zar might have lost the rest of his. It is the result of a series of unfortunate events. Some were avoidable, others not so much. I would say that I was foolish not to take an environmental suit, but the genetic polymer on the planet ate through my clothing. I doubt it would have had any difficulty doing the same to my suit, but I'm getting ahead of myself." Dustin said.

He rolled over, tapping the tiny computer screen on the wall panel by his bed, linking data from the core into his records. Pictures, surface scans and uploaded information began to stream before he rolled back, taking another long breath.

"Some of this information I 'learned' when I was a Topian, the rest comes from a data chip that Zar must have retrieved from the planet when he was trying to save me." Dustin explained to his future self, "The Topians were like any of the child races. They were evolving, exploring, creating. They were the oldest race and had developed the most... but then they started to fall victim to a virus, a plague." Dustin said, closing his eyes. The human stretched out on his bed, his gray hands and feet and tail sticking over the sides of it. He sorted through his thoughts, trying to bring it all into focus.

"It took them almost fifty years, but the source turned out to be a tiny asteroid that had fallen into their ocean. They had the best science out there, but nothing they did stopped the plague. Their population dwindled more and more until there were only a handful left. To preserve their race, they came up with another idea... an ingenious, crazy idea." Dustin said, shaking his head.

"They knew when they died out, other races would come to try and poach their technology. They used their own advancement as bait and left gene pods scattered across the planet. They were loaded with a polymer filled with genetic retroviral agents, rewriting the DNA of any species that came to the planet into Topians... with the exception of the gene that made them vulnerable to the plague. And, surprisingly, it worked." Dustin said softly, his face growing more dire as he thought of the sunken highways and the craters.

"A sizeable population had built up, living in the ocean rather than on land so the ruins would still draw more people to the planet, but word got out. The other child races realized that the Topians were cheating death by rewriting anyone that came to the planet. The Topians had become a plague themselves. The child races formed an agreement and bombarded the planet, trying to wipe out every last gene pod. They also uploaded quarantine data to their ship systems and the Drake inherited that data on Io." Dustin replied, rolling over onto his side. His tail draped over his leg, stroking the flesh slowly.

"Six days ago Zar and I set foot on the planet and found a gene pod. I became a Topian. My DNA was over written, my mind filled with genetic memory. If Zar hadn't gotten me out I either would have died when I reverted, or stayed there forever. The price for Zar saving me was that he turned into one himself, but I won't let it stay that way. I will save Zar, from the slavers and from the Topians. I know the Rax on Vortalla have a genetic resequencer that can restore a person. I'd thought to use it on myself, but right now I just need to save Zar from this fate. I only hope what I learned about Utopia will be worth enough to use it."

Dustin went silent for a long moment, still restless. He rolled back onto his back, staring at the ceiling, contemplating everything he'd been through. He'd been turned into a dog, a sex slave and now an underwater gargoyle. It seemed ludicrous and yet it happened. Dustin reached up to rub at his chest, his webbed fingers grazing his puffy, dark nipple. A drop of black leaked out and made Dustin shudder a bit. He thought about the first time he'd sprayed dink, then he thought about those first moments as a Topian.

"I don't know if it was an artifact of the transformation... or if there really was something out there, but when I found myself turning into a Topian I could swear I heard something calling to me like a siren in the deep. After all these years, the Topian civilization might still exist... A few scattered aliens hiding in the deep of their oceans, waiting for a day when their world might thrive again. Its almost a romantic notion, as scary as it is... I know some of the child races would want to bombard the planet again if they knew. I'll sell what I know about their history to try and save Zar. As for their present, if anyone finds out I can only hope they consider the quarantine to be enough... Even though I bypassed it." Dustin said, groaning gently.

"Though Zar is pretty clear evidence a gene pod survived." he said in realization, shaking his head, "I don't know what comes next, what I'll say or what I'll do, but my course is clear. I have to go to Vortala and get the Rax to help me. Even with Quantum Slingshot, it's a bit of a journey. I'll have time to see if there's anything about them in the database... and to try and synthesize fish like oils and omega fatty acids for Zar. I have to figure out something for him to do so he doesn't get bored in our personal aquarium. The one good thing is that the Topian transformation overrode his sex slave changes... Well, I think that's good." Dustin paused, "Computer, end record." he added.

"Record concluded." Drake replied.

"Maximum encryption. Shift file to secure database." Dustin added. There was a slight chirp to confirm that the actions had been successful. Dustin wondered if he should delete the record just to be sure, but as a scientist he couldn't bring himself to do it. Everything he learned was important to history, to science and to the legacy of the Topian civilization. He'd just have to keep their secret until it was safe to share... and Zar was back to his normal drow like self.