I lay awake in bed listening to the muffled screams coming from the laboratory below. In the dark of the bedroom they seemed so distant, so... alien.

These were not the kind of screams I was used to being lulled to sleep by every night back on my home world. No, the only screams I'd ever heard back home were the screams of pleasure, moans of deep joy and immense indulgence. In a land of endless night there were endless pleasures to be had, endless wonders to discover. The only limits were those of one's own imagination.

My brother was down in the lab helping Frank. I never asked him about nights like tonight. I knew enough about what Frank was working on, I didn't need the gory details. The screams were more than enough and my well-endowed imagination did too good a job filling in the blanks as it was.

I wondered how my dear Riff could stand it. I'd always considered him rather sensitive. Well, he was sensitive with me, at any rate. I suppose he did have a bit of a sadistic streak. It ran in the family, truth be told. The screams his work produced were for science, so I supposed it was all for a good cause in that regard. That was the theory, anyway. That was what we'd been sent to Earth for, to research and study the human race's tolerance and capacity for... I'd thought it was hedonism and pleasure, the Transsexual way of life, but the screams emanating from the lab seemed...

Well, either the Earthling on the slab had an exceptionally low tolerance for the many pleasures of my home world, or he was being carved up like a one of the jack-o-lantern Columbia had gone on and on about last fall.

It was definitely a he. The voice, even at its highest, most pained shriek, was decidedly male and gruff. My imagination ran wild with imagined tortures the Master was having my brother inflict on the test subject, and it turned my stomach.

"Mags, are you awake?"

My head turned towards Columbia's silly little day bed at the sound of her squeaky, terrified, little whisper.

"Yes," I whispered back to her as though someone might here us.

"What are they doing?" She asked.

"You don't want to know," I told her truthfully.

Another blood curdling shriek filled the night air, and we both jumped. My skin crawled at the noise.

"Mags?" Columbia whispered, her voice trembling.

"Yes?"

"Can I crawl in with you?" She asked.

I exhaled, for once happy for the request to share my bed. She often wanted to share, and more often than not I relented. I preferred not to sleep alone, but it was usually more annoying than anything to have her in my bed. She squirmed and stole the blankets. Tonight, though, I welcomed her presence.

"Of course," I whispered to her and scooted over to make room.

Columbia scrambled out of her bed and into mine like something might grab her if she didn't move quickly. She burrowed under the covers and latched onto me. I slid an arm around her middle and we held each other in the darkness. We lay face to face, so close I could feel her warm breath on my throat.

A sound like an enormous swarm of bees emanated from the lab, the low hum and crackle of pulsating energy followed by more screaming.

"God, what are they doing to him?!" Columbia's entire body tensed up in my arms.

"I don't know," I told her. I'd never heard that buzz-hum of electricity before, and I didn't know what it meant. Nothing good, by the sounds the man made.

"I can't stand it!" She hissed and clamped her hands over her ears. Her slender frame shook and shivered in fear, each new shriek and wail of pain causing her to jump and quake.

I hopped out of bed, fumbled around trying to find a plug and finally managed to put on her string of colored lights. I stepped across the room, flipped through her collection of vinyl and put on one of the discs that I didn't particularly despise. I cranked the volume up as loud as it would go hoping to drown out the sounds of pain coming from the lab. We were definitely not going to be sleeping any time soon, but maybe we could pretend nothing was wrong for five minutes. I slipped back into my bed and put my arms around her once more.

"I can still hear it," she whimpered.

"Try not to think about it." I laid my hands over hers to help muffle the noise, though I doubted it did much good. Columbia cowered against me, trembling.

"Why does Frank gotta do that stuff?" She asked. "What's he think he's gonna learn? People are people and..."

I tuned her out, a talent I'd become rather skilled at in the last few months. She rattled on nervously for ages but I barely noticed as I stroked her short, silky smooth hair. I wondered how much of her own ordeal she remembered. When Frank had first brought her home, they'd spent many nights together in his bed and many, many more in the lab. She never spoke of it, and outwardly seemed to have no recollection at all. I was on strict orders not to tell her anything about it and to report anything she said about it to the Master. But, she'd never so much as hinted that she remembered being on the slab.

Columbia's screams had been piercing and shrill, nearly enough to break the sound barrier. I didn't know what they'd done to her. I thought nothing of it at the time, but now that I knew her...

Well, I don't know if I felt bad for it. I hadn't done anything to her. I hadn't stopped it, though. Disobeying the Master for one lowly human I wasn't even acquainted with? Oh, no.

Still...

I wished Riff was here. I wanted to go home. I was tired of Earth, with is unpredictable weather and entirely too predictable inhabitants. I didn't see the point in continuing the mission. In nearly a year on this miserable planet, we'd found very few worthy individuals. Columbia was one of them. Most of the people the Master brought home, though, were quite the waste of time. No imagination, no stamina- according to Frank. The good majority of them were astoundingly repressed; the result of something called 'religion'. I didn't understand it and didn't care to. I wanted to return to my moon drenched shores of endless wonder where the desires were as dark as the skies.

I was so, so tired of the Master's experiments that seemed to go nowhere. What was the point of it all? Each night we spent here seemed to take us further and further away from the original mission.

"Columbia," I spoke her name softly and kissed her forehead when I realized she was still chattering. "Shut up."

"But I-"

"Shut up!" I sighed, frustrated. I kissed her again, this time on her soft lips. "Quit your talking," I said, and pulled her into yet another kiss.

"You don't really wanna, mm-" I shut her up with my mouth, one slow but demanding kiss after another until she was trembling for an entirely other reason.

She was wrong; I did want to do this with her, right now. I wanted to make her scream and let the sounds of her pleasure drown out the sound of suffering.