She awoke standing against a wall. Metal bracelets clamped about her wrists were snapped to metal plates. Her arms were forced out from her at right angles, technologically shackled to the wall. Standing before her was a man.
He was only about 170 sems* tall, with skin the color of rich mahogny. His eyes were so dark a brown as to appear black; as if they were all pupil, without irises. Black, wavy hair grew straight across his forehead, rather low; strange for a man with such intelligent eyes. Also strange was the fact that his hair was sprinkled and occasionally streaked with gray. Sideburns fanned out on a line with the bases of his lobeless ears and were clipped, like the rest of his hair, quite close to his head. Rather thick lips covered intensely white teeth in a smallish mouth. The incisors were p.r.o.nounced, crowding canines that were accordingly diminutive, unpointed. A deep, nearly round dimple holed his aggressive chin. He wore neither moustache nor beard, and did not need them-the eyes were his feature, and he was very, very male.
"You are strong, very strong," he said. His voice was a deep baritone in which she recognized no accent. "Shockingly courageous. Either your pain threshold is abnormally low-and our sensors show that to be false -or you have unbelievable control. You have taken much and screamed impressively little."
* 170 centimeters: about 5 feet, 7 inches, Old Style 166.
She decided neither to comment nor to accuse or call names. Instead, she merely nodded. "Who are you?"
He looked surprised. "You don"t know?"
"I try not to waste breath on unnecessary questions," she told him, and she added, "I"d rather save it for screaming."
He smiled. And brought up a gloved hand to strike her in the mouth-watching closely, obviously studying her reaction. She felt her upper lip double back under her teeth. She tasted salt.
"You are also impossibly arrogant," he said.
"Consider my fingers flipped," she said between swelling lips. "Why not? What can you do to me that you haven"t already?"
"For one thing, we can really kill you. Slowly."
With a little pushing, she let him hear a throaty chuckle. "Each time I have died here it was real, for me. How can real reality be worse than perfectly simulated reality? How can I prove this isn"t another mental experience?"
He turned away, shaking his head. A wrap-front robe enveloped his broad body past the knees. It moved with iridescent glimmers, in a dark green velvon or velvet. He had girded it with a broad black belt rather than a sash, she noticed, and his legs were powerful. A large, broad, and thick man; a powerfully built man who was unusually un-tall.
"Unbelievable. Un-be-lievable! And the face . . . the body . . . unbelievable." He swung back to face her and she felt pierced by those eyes, impaled on those black eyes. "What do you remember? Before the whipping, I mean?"
"Was the whipping first?"
He shook his head with the tiniest of closed-mouth 167.
smiles. The shake was in wonder, not negation. He said, "Pos."
She strained her neck to look down at herself. She was naked-and unmarked. Whole, so far as she could see. With swollen, red-brown aureoles.
"I"ll have to sort it out," she said. "Oh, that grat"s-a.s.s bar. Captain ... I don"t remember. Gupta? Red-hand, he said-a bit melodramatic, that. Ah! The wine -drugged, wasn"t it! Drugged either by the bartender or the apparent slave who brought the drinks. Umm. You are his torturer then, is that it? What"s he want? I actually believed he wanted to discuss a merger.""
He shook his head with a whimsical little smile. "What a fool! Unbelievable stoic bravery and fort.i.tude-and utterly a fool. I am Ramesh Jageshwar."
Well, Janja thought, it worked. I"m here.
In the hands of Ramesh Jageshwar called Kshatriya: Warrior. Also called King of the Slavers. He took in over a billion stells a year, according to estimates, but no one could compute or guess at his expenses, his payroll. He was the ultimate villain of the Akima Mars mellerdrammers. Preposterously rich and enormously powerful, he could have anything and probably had nearly everything. Her quest was completed. She was a prisoner, according to plan.
She wondered how long she had been here, how long she had been tortured. She wondered what she had said, what all she had told them. Ratran Yao had a.s.sured her that she could not say or be made to say that she was with TGO, and that the information could not be taken from her mind. He must also have known or expected that she would be tortured. Probably, she mused. Goodole Rat.
Since no one knew for certain the location of Ramesh 168.
Jageshwar"s lair, she also wondered where she was.
"I"m impressed," she told Ramesh Jageshwar. "I suppose I should be frightened, too, though ... I"ve never met anyone who has seen you or has any idea what you look like. That indicates that those who do know do not leave here, alive. Wherever here is ..."
She paused for just a moment, for a couple of beats, but he showed no sign of speaking. He was beyond such tiny ploys then, she a.s.sumed, and went right on.
"Wait, I see it. Don"t tell me-Shieda was your creature, and perhaps Vettering too, and . . . could Jonuta be? And Gupta of course is your man-ah, and you probably own that bar. The Gotoh.e.l.l Bar. I went there and went to h.e.l.l. Really put my toes in it, didn"t I? I killed Shieda and incurred the wrath of G.o.d, or the next worse thing. Why am I alive?"
"You cannot guess?"
"Because killing me is such fun that you plan to do it again and again for the next several years?"
"Believe it or not, I am not s.a.d.i.s.tic."
She paused to look down at herself again. "Alive, after all that dying. And apparently intact, too." She lifted her head to meet his gaze. "Why?"
"I cannot believe that you cannot guess.""
"Somehow I had the notion that the mighty and nigh-legendary Kshatriya would not be so p.r.o.ne to cryptics -a phrase I use only to avoid the uncomplimentary "children"s guessing games," which would not be properly respectful to the King of the Slavers. Oh-oh, I angered you again! Going to slap me again? Is it more fun with me shackled helpless?"
His hand had begun to rise, sinister in the glove; it dropped. Smiling, he shook his head. "If I release you, will you give your word not to try anything . . . rash?"169.
"Oh come, Kshatriya, what"s the word of a slaver worth?"
He laughed. "Touche!"
"I"m considering, Kshatriya. Might I get something to drink? A stik?"
"You would bargain, woman?"
"I"d try!"
He stared at her bright smile, and again he shook his head in wonder. Impressed wonder.
"I"d try. Guarantee me a drink and a tranqstik and I will guarantee . . . umm. Four hours of non-violence. Guaranteed!"
His eyes twinkled and the unlikely crow"s feet crinkled at their corners. Surely he was older than his apparent-age 3 5 or so!
He said, "After which ..."
". . . to be discussed," she said.
He jerked his head down in a single brief nod; a Janja-like nod, oddly enough. "Done."
He walked away across a floor carpeted deeply in something furry and golden-green, rather like unusually plush moss. He was broad, and she was sure that there was musculature rather than excess meat under the robe. A long divan of dull russet faced her; between it and the chair set at right angles to it stood a closed table. The arm of the couch was equipped with a console, which he finger-tapped as he sat. To Janja"s right, a nine- or ten-meter wall went transparent. She gazed, squinting, at a vertiginous view of pinky-blue sky and of mountains in black and gray and purple. She felt that she was not looking at a holographic projection. This room, wherever it was, was very, very high.
He tapped again and her arms were released. When they dropped to her sides she grunted at the impact of 170.
the manacles on her thighs. She had not been prepared for his releasing her from across the room. The wall-plates were electromagnetic, then, as she had thought; she just had not thought of a switch across the big room.
She stood still, leaning back against the wall, enduring the terrible p.r.i.c.kling tingle from shoulders to fingertips while circulation returned to her arms and seemed trying to make up for lost time. She raised her hands and ma.s.saged each with the other.
The carpet was yielding and soft and not at all p.r.i.c.kly under her bare feet as she crossed to the seated man. She was aware of the unsteadiness of her gait. She worked at walking not as flauntingly as Daura might have done and yet as would a woman aware of her body and its sensuality.
"Nudity does not seem to bother you," he observed.
She shrugged-with her shoulder, not her hand, watching his eyes; Matching him watch the tightening and jump of her breast. She sat in the chair, which was padded and brown and which surprised her by yielding only a little.
"It doesn"t," she said. "It isn"t my fault."
He laughed. "Delightful! But nudity becomes you."
"Nudity becomes no one," she told him. "We can all use a bit of decoration. Especially in the presence of someone else who is clothed."
"I am not often contradicted.""
After regarding him for a brief moment she slid from the chair onto her knees, lowering head and forearms sinuously to the floor. "Pardon, O Master, for treading upon your vaunted and vaulting ego. Shall one speak only when spoken to, and then softly and only in agreement?"
His laugh was deep, from his belly. It seemed the 171.
genuine, hearty sound of a man fond of laughing who perhaps had too little genuine opportunity. "No," he said, "be yourself. Yourself is delightful."
Which was interesting, Janja thought, inasmuch as she was not herself. At least whoever/whatever he thought her self was.
She rose as sinuously and slid her bare backside into the chair in a fluidly supple movement. She studied the manacles that gleamed bluely on her wrists.
"My lord was pleased to give me bracelets."
"They ill become you. Tell me about you."
"What? Surely I have told all, during all that torture and dying in your clever-evil psychoid chamber! And under an injection or three, too, I"ve no doubt. And hypnosis as well?"
"Tell me one more time, then. Consciously, voluntarily."
"Drink and stik?"
"Rain and Heaven High?"
She nodded and he dialed. They waited, regarding each other in a reflective silence, until the table delivered up their drinks. And a packet of Heaven High. She sipped the Terasaki Rain, nodded with pleasure, scratched a HevHi stik alight and inhaled it.
"Terasaki emjay," she said in a strained voice because she was holding, "will never replace the Home-world original."
"Homeworlder grape juice," he said, "will never replace Terasaki wine."
"I"ve no argument. All right: I am Jansa. My Outie name is a lie. I was born on Aglaya, where we used only one name. "Daughter of would form the rest. One day three years ago my Promised and I were alone on the savannah, without cover. A s.p.a.ceship"s lander appeared. We did not even know what it was. They killed 172.
Tarkij. I"d never seen a stopper before, either. They returned me to Kirin, Shieda commanding. When he learned that I was not virgin, he used me. He sold me in Sopur. I was bought by a longhauler-an IP ship, and sold on Hawking, out near Homeworld. I had a decent enough life there, but it lasted all too short a while. My owner died and I was taken to Resh. I was bought by Si-cuan for his son Chulucan-"
"The part hardest to believe," Ramesh Jageshwar said.
Good, the mused, you"ve accepted the false part, then! "Huh! You ain"t heard nothing yet."
"I"ve heard it all, several times," he reminded her. "It"s the next part that is so hard. "Go on."
"I wish I had specified two drinks: I could do with stronger."
(The soporific effect of the Heaven High, un-offset by the gentle wine of ungentle Terasaki, had muted the brightness of the sky beyond the transparent wall, mauved the mountains, made his face even younger, and alerted her senses to the fibers of the carpet.) Seeing him dial another drink, she went on: "They"d done something to me-they can do a lot of things, on Hawking "way out near Homeworld-so that I appeared nearly virginal, for whatever that"s worth. It didn"t matter to Chulucan. He had no use for my stash anyhow. That slimeskunger liked women only for the entry we have in common with you men-and our warheads." A sudden flash of Daura hit her, and Janja slapped her breast idly. Both of them watched its tremulous dance. "I was there seven months. Believe me, the sisterslicer who designed your psychoid chamber could have taken lessons from that gentle priest and his son. I"d call "em two-legged felines, but I"ve met 173.
one of those and the HRal aren"t nearly as cruel. Not nearly."
She accepted the drink that popped up on the table-top. It was strong, and she made a face. She sipped twice.
"Why-this"s from out there-Hawking or Home-world! This"s Scotch!"
"Very good," he said, nodding. His eyes seemed hooded.
A test, she thought, and affected not to be aware of it. She had pa.s.sed. "My opportunity came. They were going to kill me that night. Once I learned that, I killed the old man and his son-"
"Details?"
Janja provided them, including the way she had thrust the slavetube into that orifice she had in common with Chulucan of Resh. He asked about the missing genitals. Janja explained about Aglayan rites. He nodded, then asked about Shieda"s genitals. She expressed regret that she had not got that close to him. She told of the Jarp she had left locked up, about her being grabbed in the narcohead alley in Grim on Resh because she was too ignorant to stay out of such a place; she told him about her fellow Aglayan Whitey, and about her being befriended by the hust Kitsko, about her being taken in and housed at Kitsko"s. Because of Whitey, whom they called Flash. She told him of the s.p.a.ceflight off Resh, disguised, accompanying Whitey/Flash to Franji.*
"WhyFranji?"
"Have I failed to say? I had vowed to kill Shieda," she told him with a little shrug. "I"ve been en route to * All these events are detailed in s.p.a.cEWAYS #1, Of Alien Bondage.
174.
our meeting for three years, in a manner of speaking."
"And you found him on Resh."
"On Aglaya. On my own planet." Another test? d.a.m.n. What did he know, this man with the eyes that seemed to see right into her and right out the other side?
"Oh yes. And you killed Shieda then, back where he had found you. There"s a lot of poetic justice in that."
"I suppose. Was Shieda your man?"
"Neg. Shieda was an independent. I can"t think of anyone who will miss him." He flipped his fingers. "Anyhow-you got to Franji, and ..."
"On Franji I met a man in a bar called Hari"s and robbed him. Then I set about learning some things. I studied a lot. I met a s.p.a.ceman named-never mind. I"ll tell you if you demand it. I became his mistress-not by choice. Also his fellow crewmembers, all except for the Jarp. I like Jarps. Despite their reputation they aren"t nearly the rapists you Ga-pardon me. Not nearly the rapists Galactics are."
Again he shrugged with his fingers. "All right. We are. It is an ancient tradition among us humans, rape. It"s sanctioned in the same ancient holy books that forbid it. So then what? I don"t care about his name, by the way."
"Well, he"s dead. I"m afraid I had to kill them. With their money and ship I outfitted a better ship-Hornet. I even recruited a few of his crew. They thought we were simply going aslaving, by the way, and had no idea that I went to my own planet to trap Shieda. I couldn"t enslave Aglayans."
"Really. Why"s that?"
She gave him a steady look. "I can"t enslave my own. I"m a sentimental a.s.s."
He smiled. "I can stand that. I know about sentiment, believe it or not. Why Aglaya?"