Deceived

by Evangeline Anderson

  “Come on, pretty boy,” the left head growled when the brothel employee handed him over. “Into the back with the fuck toys you go.”

  Dark got into the back of the cruiser without comment, just as the female Replicants were doing. They sat in an orderly row on the long back bench as Gorn piloted the ship up and away from the brothel.

  It was a short trip through a conveniently placed nearby worm hole and before Dark knew it, the ship was bearing down on the Trollox home world.

  It was a strange place, a ravaged wasteland of bombed-out buildings and rubble below where the poor lived and a number of floating islands above, held up by anti-gravity generators where the rich made their homes. In this way, there was no way for the poor to reach the homes or shops of the rich and the classes could be kept completely separate—which was how those in power liked it.

  Gorn piloted his cruiser around to the back of a vast mansion, set on a floating island that had been landscaped with lush, tropical plants, fruit trees, and a spacious garden. There was even a little stream running though the artificial wilderness behind the mansion Dark saw, with benches to sit beside it and watch the colorful marine life swim by.

  Over the entire island was a shimmering atmosphere dome which no doubt kept the warmth and moisture in and the pervading cold of the rest of the planet out. The Trollox home world was a dry, frigid place which would have been inhospitable to life as delicate as the tropical plants he saw growing around Gorn’s mansion.

  In fact, it was inhospitable to all but the hardy Trollox themselves, which was one reason no other species chose to live there. The other reason, of course, were the Trollox themselves—they were a savage race that nobody wanted for neighbors.

  Gorn pressed a button to make a ship-sized hole in the shimmering dome and then flew in quickly and landed on a private docking bay.

  “In through the service entrance,” the left head growled as Gorn herded them out of the ship.

  They filed into the back door of the huge mansion and found themselves in a service corridor with several doors leading off of it.

  “You lot through here, to the fuck room,” the left head said, shoving the three redheaded female Replicants through one door. “And you go in there to the kitchen and make me a fucking meal,” it growled, shoving Dark roughly through another door.

  Dark had to force himself not to turn back and punch the male who had touched him. He was bare-chested so he could feel the rage shimmering just under the Trollox’s surface when Gorn’s clawed hand had touched his skin. Even five years ago he wouldn’t have been able to stop his instinctive reaction.

  But he’d had time to get his emotions under control when he lived as a slave to Mistress Hellenix. She had touched him whenever she pleased and however she pleased and Dark had been forced to endure it. It was just that her touch hadn’t felt as threatening because she was small and female and Gorn was huge and male, he told himself.

  He pushed the negative emotion from his new master away as well as his own well-honed instinct to strike out when touched and went into the kitchen as he had been instructed.

  “Your pardon, Master,” he said politely, to Gorn who had followed him into the large, echoing area filled with appliances and cooking implements. “But what shall I prepare?”

  “Something good,” the left head growled. Dark had noticed that the right head seldom spoke and the left one seemed to issue all the orders. “Proper Trollox grub,” the left head continued. “And if I don’t like it, it’s back to the brothel with you, pretty boy! I told ‘em they’d better be selling me a good cook this time or they were taking him right back again.”

  Then Dark’s new master stumped out of the kitchen, leaving him alone for the first time since he’d gotten to the brothel hours ago.

  Dark drew a deep breath. Proper Trollox grub, eh? Well that narrowed things down to about a thousand dishes—all of them equally disgusting. And if he didn’t get it right, he was out on his ass. Great.

  The first thing to do, he decided, was to take stock of his new workspace and see what he did and didn’t have. The food stocked in the panty and cold storage unit might give him a clue as to what Gorn liked to eat and he could go from there.

  At least he felt at home in the kitchen—just being where food was prepared calmed his nerves. But he couldn’t cook bare-chested like this. He looked around and found a white chef’s jacket hanging on a hook on one wall. After putting it on, he felt better—time to begin his tour.

  The wave cooktop got hot instantly and had a good variable temperature setting and the convection cooker in the corner was a high-end one usually only seen in commercial kitchens. The cold storage unit was huge and well-stocked—whoever Gorn got to do his shopping certainly knew their stuff. Dark wondered if it had been the last hapless Replicant the Trollox had gotten to cook for him. Maybe the erstwhile chef had known which things to buy but not how to prepare them.

  Whoever had bought the groceries, Dark was grateful to them. There were ingredients for five different meals that he could think of right away and enough variety to mix and match for several more after he prepped a little.

  In his experience, a hungry Trollox was an angry Trollox so he quickly gathered the ingredients for a knohllock egg and brain scramble with gut sauce and dried purda intestines for garnish and got to work.

  The pots and pans and cooking implements in Gorn’s kitchen were all high end too. It would have been a pleasure to cook with them if the Trollox ingredients weren’t so disgusting, Dark thought as he mixed and mashed and sliced and diced.

  Trollox cuisine was heavy on organ meats and bodily fluids and light on any kind of greens or vegetables. Often the smells were nauseating to any other kind of humanoid but Dark had trained himself not to be bothered and he sautéed the brownish-purple knohllock brain and then mixed in a dozen telga eggs. He seasoned the resulting mess well with salt, ground Vineshian green peppercorns, and glack—which was an all purpose Trollox seasoning that included—among other ingredients—the dried and powdered hooves of a plover beast and the fermented honey of fear wasps.

  He plated the brownish-purplish-yellowish mixture on a huge trencher and then heated some bright green snarl bile to pour over the top. A garnish of the dried purda intestines finished the dish and he was just about to bring it out for Gorn’s approval when the Trollox came crashing through the vast swinging metal doorway again.

  Both heads were turned in Dark’s direction, the yellow eyes and the red both glowing as both sets of nostrils flared.

  “That smells proper!” the left head growled.

  “Maybe we have finally found a Replicant who actually knows how to cook,” the right one speculated.

  “Your meal is ready. Where would you care to eat, Master?” Dark asked blandly, though if he had been in his own kitchen back home, he would have thrown a customer who dared to barge in on him out on his ear. Still, he was a servant here—less than a servant—a Replicant. Which meant he had to act the part, he reminded himself.

  “Out here in the dining room.” Gorn motioned with one boulder-sized hand. “C’mon, pretty boy—get a move on!”

  Dark followed him without comment out to a grand dining room with a table big enough to seat thirty regular humanoids—or twelve Trollox. The vast polished surface was broken up by surprisingly dainty white lace place mats and there were about ten enormous chairs that looked to be made of titano-wood, which was one of the only naturally grown trees that could hold a Trollox’s weight.

  Dark placed the steaming trencher on the lacy mat at the far end of the table and pulled back the heavy chair for his new master. Gorn stumped over and sat heavily, both sets of eyes looking greedily at the meal.

  “Would you care for utensils, Master?” Dark asked, already knowing the answer.

  “No fuckin’ need,” the left head said. “Ain’t like we’re visitin’ the Empress of the galaxy, now is it?”

  Then Gorn dug in, using his clawed hands to shovel the brain
and egg scramble into the left maw while the right looked on hungrily.

  “Give us a bite then,” it coaxed, eyeing the left head. “Come on now—don’t be greedy.”

  “Goes to the same stomach—not like you haveta eat,” the left replied, its tusks still grinding on the dried intestines and food dribbling from its liver-colored lips as it spoke. Still, it finally held the trencher up to the right head as well and gave it almost an equal portion. The right head ate just as messily as the left.

  Dark wondered if this was a regular occurrence. Most of the Trollox customers he’d had in his restaurant had only had one head—though he knew some Trollox had as many as three. Regardless, maybe next time he ought to plate on two different dishes so that each head could be served equally.

  He stood there in the grand dining room which looked like it had been fitted for some kind of royalty and watched as his new master guzzled and slobbered like a herd beast nosing in a trough. It was a disgusting display but again, one he was used to. His restaurant had been one of the few that accepted Trollox customers on Rigelus Prime and he’d only done that because they usually paid well and he happened to have a separate space in his building that was well ventilated and perfect for a second dining room.

  In less than five minutes, the entire scramble was gone and both heads had a turn at licking the trencher clean. The left head gave a thundering belch and turned to look at Dark.

  “All right—that was proper good,” it said, its yellow eyes half-closed in contentment. “You can stay.”

  “I am glad Master is satisfied,” Dark said neutrally. “When should I have your meals ready in the future?”

  “I like First Meal at eight, Mid Meal at noon, and Last Meal at six,” Gorn announced. “Now get the fuck outta here—I don’t want to see you unless you’re serving me food, pretty boy. You live in the kitchen from now on.”

  “I’m happy to go,” Dark said. “But perhaps Master would like me to look around the house first? I need to ascertain all points of entry and exit in order to fulfill my other duty of home protection.”

  “Oh, right—forgot about your fangs, pretty boy.” The left head belched again, releasing a greenish cloud of fowl vapor. Dark forced himself to stand still, though he wanted badly to get away from the effluvium.

  “All right then—come on.”

  Gorn heaved himself up from the table, leaving a nauseating mess. Dark was just wondering if he was supposed to clean as well as cook when a silver-skinned Tamyo Replicant hurried up. Its four arms went into motion at once, two of them picking up the dirty trencher and retrieving the soiled lace place mat while the other two wiped down the table and the chair Gorn had been sitting in respectively.

  “Get that cleaned up,” the left head growled, unnecessarily since the Replicant was already almost finished cleaning. “And clean the fuckin’ mess in the kitchen too!”

  “Yes, Master.” The silver-skinned Replicant nodded mechanically and zoomed into the kitchen, still carrying the dirty trencher and place mat. As the swinging metal door closed behind it, Gorn turned to Dark.

  “C’mon then, pretty boy. Might as well give you the tour. I’m leavin’ next week for an ancient artifact buyer’s con so you might as well know what you’ll be protecting.”

  “Yes, Master.” Dark followed him, hoping to see the Shannom-rah on his tour of the house. The news that Gorn would be away next solar week was good. Supposedly his assignment was just to guard the ancient crystal and then to replace it with the fake the Kindred High Council were having made for him. After that, he could slip away and go back home to his restaurant on Rigelus Prime where he belonged.

  Of course, making the replica of the priceless crystal was a lengthy process but it had been well underway when he left the Mother Ship. It could be any day that someone would knock on the door and hand him a package marked “Fragile—Tonga Root extract. Warning: Toxic if unwrapped in an unventilated area.”

  That warning should hopefully preclude any prying eyes from examining what was actually inside the package, which would be the replica of the Shannom-rah. As soon as he switched it for the real one, Dark could get out of here.

  I might be home by the end of the week, he told himself as he followed the Trollox out of the room.

  Just the thought made his spirits rise. He would be gone before he knew it.

  Chapter Three

  The mansion was vast with several living areas, a gaming room, a holo-playground, a smoking lounge, a swimming pool as big as a lake, two dining rooms—one formal and one informal, multiple guest rooms and freshers—but no Shannom-rah, as far as Dark could see.

  There was something he did see though—or thought he did. As Gorn led him through the second living area, furnished with massive, padded couches big enough to hold an elephant from Earth comfortably, he saw a pale face peeking out at them from behind one of the heavy dark drapes on the wide crystal windows.

  The room was dim and it was hard to be certain—Gorn was going on about how expensive the furniture had been to import from Kadiz Three—and Dark only saw the face for a moment before it disappeared. He wanted to go to the curtains and look to be certain his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him, but of course he couldn’t. Instead, he followed his new master as Gorn led him through a series of bedrooms.

  “And this is my room—the master suite,” the Trollox said, leading him into an especially grand bed chamber. An expensive looking platinum and globe-glass chandelier hung from the ceiling, illuminating what had to be the biggest sleeping platform Dark had ever seen. It was covered in a vast expanse of black sateen and even bigger than the beds Twin Kindred used because they always slept with their mate between them.

  There were expensive-looking paintings on the walls and the carpet was so thick he practically sank down to his ankles in it but what caught Dark’s attention besides the huge bed was a dark, wooden rack in one corner of the room.

  Hanging on the rack were what looked like various leather harnesses or belts with buckles, though none of them looked nearly big enough to fit his new master—unless they went on his wrist or forearm, maybe. But if the belts were a mystery, the other objects on the rack were even less understandable. They were long and cylindrical and seemed to be of various sizes from the thickness of his middle finger to the thickness of his wrist. He even saw one as big around as his bicep and there was every size in between.

  Dark peered at the rack, wondering what in the world the objects could be. They were vaguely phallic in shape and seemed to be made of some kind of dull gray metal. Some of the larger ones had studs and ridges on the outside and some were tapered at the end and got thicker at the base. It didn’t make sense—were they some kind of Trollox jewelry? If so, he had never seen a Trollox wearing anything like them before and Gorn certainly didn’t have any on. What could be their purpose?

  His new master saw him looking at the rack and the left head grunted, “Don’t worry about those, pretty boy—they ain’t for you. Sometimes breeders need stretching, that’s all. ‘Specially when they gotta get bred by my mighty meat.”

  Then it guffawed as though it had made an incredibly witty joke. The right head snickered quietly to itself, its red eyes glowing with amusement but Dark still didn’t get it. Of course, he couldn’t say that though—he just had to follow along as his master led him out of the main bed chamber and into another part of the house.

  The second time he saw the small face was in the smoking lounge. This time Dark was certain it was real—the fire crackling in the hearth threw moody shadows on the ceiling and illuminated the pale features and huge eyes. But again, as soon as whoever it was saw him looking, they ducked away, into a dark corner of the room.

  Dark frowned—who could that be? He felt as though he ought to know for some reason—as though this half-seen person was familiar to him. But that was impossible—he didn’t know anyone on the Trollox home world—nor did he want to. He just wanted to accomplish his mission and get the Seven Hells out o
f here.

  Still, he couldn’t stop wondering about the unknown person—who he thought might be female because the few glimpses he’d caught showed delicate features and big, lovely eyes. Whoever she was, she was almost as great a mystery as the weird harnesses and cylinders he’d seen in Gorn’s bed chamber.

  Trying to put the oddly compelling face out of his mind, Dark concentrated on cataloging the rooms and their contents as they passed through them. The tour went on and on and still there was no sight of the Shannom-rah. He was just thinking that he would have to subtly introduce the subject himself—maybe ask if his new master had some valuables he wanted Dark to guard especially well, when the Trollox stopped in front of a locked door made of solid plasti-steel.

  Drawing a key on a long chain from around the left head, he fitted it to the keyhole and turned it. With an audible click, the lock snapped open and Gorn pushed with both hands on the heavy door to swing it noiselessly inward. It was nearly a foot thick, Dark saw—no wonder even the massive Trollox had to push to get it open.

  “Heavy bastard, it is,” the left head grunted as he fixed the door in place. “Don’t reckon you’d be able to get in here on your own, pretty boy, even if I left it unlocked, but you ought to know what yer guardin’.”

  Stepping into the room behind the huge Trollox, Dark saw a vast array of priceless-looking art and artifacts, all displayed on glossy, polished dark wood shelves which ran around the perimeter of the room. Here were delicate vases and there were sculptures in bronze, gold, silver, and liquid hematite held in place with some kind of force-screen. There were also pictures and paintings—even a living-art sculpture so named because the stone statues that comprised it were constantly shifting and changing to different positions with slow, calculated movements.