Stow White and the 7 Dwarfs

Mary, naked, nestled in my lap. She was absent-mindedly squeezing my cock. I took her hand away and kissed it.

"That's very distracting."

"Sorry."

Tina, Billie, and Ali, naked also, had a daisy chain going on, sitting in a circle on the floor, grooming each other. It was that way with the midges. Always touching each other whenever they had a free moment. Often that touching led to other things, witness Leesa and Dee Dee's absence.

Technically they weren't dwarfs. The little people had fought that moniker in court and won. They argued that their deformity was natural. If you can call an alphabet soup of medical abnormalities natural. They're the ones who started calling them "midges", short for midget, a supposed insult. But the tiny women not only accepted the slur, they embraced it.

The midges are clones. Each is exactly four feet tall. They share the same body, the same face - something vaguely Asian. It's supposed to be the face of the average woman on earth.

They're voluptuous little women. Although the size of a nine-year-old, you'd never mistake a midge for a child. Still the child welfare groups tried to ban midge production saying it would encourage sex with minors. They lost their case and it hasn't.

And then there was the whole human rights thing. Were they citizens or human property? A ruling a while back, a major victory for pro-life conservatives, said that life began at conception. It came back to bite them when the court ruled that since the midges were conceived in a test tube in a corporate lab, they were in fact the property of the lab. And since that lab was in space, beyond Earth law, it was a moot point anyway.

If you took your midge to Earth there were some restrictions, something akin to animal abuse laws, but at the selling price you'd have to be an idiot to harm a midge. And, so far, there are no reported cases of abuse.

"Steve?"

"Hm?"

"How come they never found you? Didn't they look? Didn't your parents miss you?"

It was Mary's way. She loved me to tell her stories, even if I was repeating myself for the hundredth time.

"I had slipped into the trunk of Dad's flitter. He thought I was at home, Mom thought I'd gone to work with him. He used to take me sometimes, so I knew everything there was to know about the ship. He would take me aboard. He knew all the secret places because he had designed most of them. Not that they were really secret, just passages and ducts. The guard didn't even blink when I flashed my pass. He'd seen it before."

"So you stowed away."

"That's where I got my nickname."

"You were nine?"

"Mm."

"And they couldn't send you home."

"Uh uh. We had been accelerating for two weeks before they found me. Would have had to decelerate again, turn and repeat the whole process, then re-prep the ship. Didn't have the resources for that. They called my parents who felt both relieved and terrified. Though, truth be told, Dad was proud, kind of living the adventure through me.

"And you came back ten years later a captain."

"Well, I wasn't technically a captain. I had passed my tests, but I didn't have a ship."

"But you had a lot of money."

"Oh, yeah. It's a long, dangerous trip, witness the fact that we lost two crew, including Cap. When First moved up, I took his spot. I was sixteen then. Being a curious kid, I spent time with all the other guys - engineering, propulsion, electronics. I guess being my dad's son didn't hurt, sitting at his elbow all those nights while he worked. He used to explain things to me, like he was thinking out loud. But on board I spent most of my time with First, so I knew the big picture, too."

"As for the money, the cargo is critical to the colony's survival, still is. Most guys make only one trip and they're set for life and then some."

"But you went back."

"Yeah, I was First on Brando. Cap had met a woman out there and decided to stay. So that bumped me up. Turned out it was the last trip. The colony was getting more self-sufficient. And with the new drives, the trip could be made in a few months."

"And we're going there?"

"Yeah. It was kind of my raison d'etre-"

"Your reason what?"

"Reason for being, the trip, the colony. I'd like to visit one last time."

Mary was my first midge. All of them are equals, but Mary is just a tad more equal than the others. She selects a midge or two each night and leashes them to my bed, often joins them. They all wear collars and are as much pets as people.

IQ-wise they're normal, but because of the small brain case, they're on the low end of normal, which makes them excellent pets. Just intelligent enough. Eager to please, too. Especially my brood. Midges are bred to be owned, it's part of their core conditioning. Mine are especially grateful (and ever eager to please) because there are others. Midges grow up in a commune of sorts, so while not part of their conditioning, they're used to being in a group. Not that lone midges are unhappy. Conditioning trumps community. Still having "sisters" makes them a bit happier.

I eased Mary off of me, she settled on the floor at my feet. I brought up the display just as the voice filled the room.

"Docking in five minutes, Cap."

"Copy that."

There was nothing to do; computers handled everything. A few minutes later I felt the gentle nudge. I launched myself out of Home and into weightlessness. At the hatch all indicators were green, I acknowledged the request to open it. A man in a pale yellow jump suit glided through towing a box. He called up a display, I read it while he opened the box.

By signing this receipt, Steven White, captain of the vessel Stowaway, acknowledges that Midge, serial #MXX16076S, has been inspected and found to be in acceptable condition.

The lid of the box swung up. It was late in the revival sequence and she was awake. The tech released the bands encircling her chest, waist, thighs, and ankles. I held out a hand. She took it and I eased her out of the box.

I went through the motions of inspecting her. Given what I had paid, I assumed everything would be in order, had been the last six times. But I gave her the once over, then acknowledged the receipt.

The tech left, hatches closed, the delivery shuttle undocked and slipped away.

I pushed myself toward Home. The midge, a bit disoriented from her ordeal, hung onto my ankle. She settled on the floor next to me. Leesa and Dee Dee were there. No one said anything. The silence stretched for several moments.

"Ladies?"

"Layla," Mary said looking at the others who nodded.

I typed the characters, positioned the business end of the laser over the midge's hip, tapped start. There was a snapping sound. The midge flinched a bit, but not much. After a few seconds I pulled the laser away.

    Layla
 property of
Steven White
 Stowaway

The midges clapped and squealed, pulled the newly named Layla into a group hug.

And then there were 7.

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