“I do not want humans to infect our way of life. I will see that they are safe and settled, because that is how the Senate voted, but I will fight every motion for them to become a part of our people. Moreover, there are people who would like to see them destroyed. So, I must step carefully, and as my slave, so must you. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” He clipped the leash to her collar and tugged her to her feet. “One more thing. You will not talk at all while we are out unless Dirac Ortan asks you a direct question. He is the only person you may talk to. Otherwise, you are mute.”
“Yes, master.”
23
Mena
She was so glad to be leaving the apartment and there was so much to see that instead of walking behind and to the side, she kept bumping into him. Finally, he dropped the leash and simply grabbed her wrist. The warmth of his large hand sent an unexpected thrill up her spine.
They waited for an aircar outside the huge stone apartment building. The sun was hot, but large leafy plants the size of Earth’s oak trees shaded parts of the street.
Aliens of various sizes, colors, and shapes walked down the sides of the wide road. Silent cars raced down the middle, just inches away from the pedestrians. One short, stocky, almost-white alien walking toward them was shepherding a slightly smaller version of itself, and suddenly the smaller one broke away and ran toward the middle of the street. A car was racing down the street, and Mena screeched and pulled her wrist from Mik'kal’s hand as the child headed right for it.
“Master, stop him!”
But the child was brought up short, and the car passed by without incident.
Mik'kal was glaring at her. She tried to explain.
“The child… I thought…”
At that moment, another car approached, slowing down as it came up to them. When it was barely gliding forward, it slid sideways toward them and sparkles erupted around it. Understanding dawned.
“There’s some kind of field that protects the people walking from the speeding vehicles?”
“Of course there is. Otherwise, the walkers would be unprotected and the cars would always be running into them.”
“Oh, thank goodness.” She turned to smile at him, but he wasn’t smiling at her. Her face fell. “I’m sorry. It just scared me. I won’t say anything else, I promise.”
“Bend over.”
“What?” She yanked on the cables she’d forgotten she was wearing as she tried to comprehend what he’d just asked her to do.
“Bend. Over.”
“Here?” She looked around. Already there were aliens stopping to watch, looking pointedly at the shiny belt and restraints.
“Here. Now. Silently.”
The color drained from her face. He was serious. He was going to punish her here, in front of complete strangers, in broad daylight. She’d been punished enough to know she’d better do it now, no matter how unfair she thought it was. She leaned forward a little.
“Pull your skirt apart in the back.”
“Oh, shit, no!” She stood up again, horrified. The anger she saw in his face scared her more than showing her bottom to strangers, though, so with a whimper, she leaned over again, reaching back with her hands to pull the two panels apart.
He reached around her waist, bending her forward so her head was somewhere around her knees and he faced toward her bare bottom.
“No words.”
She nodded, stifling a plea. This was going to hurt, and there was nothing she could do to avoid it.
The street around them was silent, and she knew everyone was waiting to see the disobedient slave spanked in public. A ‘crack!’ echoed in the silence a millisecond before a hot pain bloomed across one butt cheek. She drew in a breath to yell but didn’t have time as another one landed. This time she got out a loud screech. She struggled so hard she actually lost her footing and was simply hanging from his arm wrapped around her waist. That didn’t stop him, though. In fact, he kept her high enough her feet met only air as she attempted to find the ground. He smacked her again and again, and she yelled and struggled.
Suddenly, she was standing on her feet again, swaying. He caught her arm. Her face was wet with tears, her nose was running, and she couldn’t get her hands up to blow it, but she hadn’t used any words. She wasn’t sure how that was possible. She looked up at him, and he regarded her with a flat expression. Her eyes darted left and right and she saw all the onlookers still waiting.
As gracefully as she could, she knelt down in front of him and hung her head.
“I’m sorry for my, um,”—she sighed—“disobedience. Thank you, Master, for correcting me.” Saying the words she’d only read before was difficult, but sent a thrill through her. And unexpectedly, so did having so many witnesses to her punishment.
His hand was at her elbow, helping her to stand, ushering her to the open door of the waiting car. He pointed to the floor. Without protest, she stepped in and sank down on her knees again. He sat on the large forward-facing seat, the door shut, and the car began its noiseless journey to the Dirac’s office.
If she hadn’t been humiliated, and more than a little sore on her well-punished bottom, she might have enjoyed looking around at the planet that was her new home. As soon as they started moving, he produced a cloth and held it to her nose. “Humans produce an awful lot of liquid when they cry,” he observed. “Even your nose cries.”
She blew into the makeshift handkerchief. She was lonely right now. She wanted more than anything to have someone—him—say he was proud of her for taking her punishment well. Which was a stupid thing to want. But when she looked up, hoping for some kind of reaction, he was looking straight ahead, his brow creased, his mouth in a straight line.
He was not happy about taking her to the Dirac’s office, but it seemed he had no choice. She was sorry she’d added to his stress, and resolved to show perfect obedience for the rest of the day.
The trip only took a couple minutes, and they pulled up to a massive building with a dome on top. He grabbed her leash, and she followed after him, the perfect slave.
Though she kept her head down, she couldn’t help but let her eyes roam around at the sights. He led her through an enormous entrance hall made of reddish stone that gleamed. Inside, doorways with arches rose ten meters into the air. Aliens scurried around, some looking curiously at her but most ignoring the leashed slave.
Leading her to an empty corner of the hall, he turned around and stood. She glanced behind and bit back a shriek when she realized the hall was receding below them. They were on an open lift.
“When we get to Dirac Ortan’s office, you will kneel and spread your knees as far apart as possible. I want your hands on your thighs, and you will remain silent. Understand?” His voice was tight.
“Yes, sir,” she whispered.
When the lift stopped, she followed him down a red stone hallway adorned with carvings, and through another grand arch. He nodded at someone sitting behind a desk, and a massive carved door swung open toward them. He led her through to a room that at first seemed to be a floating platform with pillars supporting an elaborately carved ceiling. Between the pillars were large openings with spectacular views of the entire city. She pulled back in fear, never being one who liked unprotected heights. He yanked impatiently on her leash. She took a deep breath, noticing a desk and other furniture scattered around, and reassured herself this platform was really a room, and the openings were just windows.
Startled, Mena recognized the man who was rising to greet them as the man who had been at her master’s side the day of the auction. She stared down, her hands nervously fisting at her sides. Mik'kal pointed to the floor, and she dropped down onto the plush carpet, sliding her knees apart. She got most of the way there with concentration, but the last few centimeters eluded her no matter how hard she strained, and her hands couldn’t find their rest on her thighs. She looked up to Mik'kal, raising her eyebrows in a silent question.
Stepping between her knees, he used one of his feet to gently push her knee to the side. She bit back a cry of pain, but when he moved away, she could rest her hands, upturned, on her thighs. Mik'kal had said this man walking toward them was very powerful, and she was aware her people’s fate did indeed rest, to some degree, on her behavior.
The Dirac walked around her silently. Without comment he leaned down and slipped his four-fingered hand down the front of her dress, grabbing a breast and squeezing hard.
“Ahh!” She bit off the exclamation, hoping it hadn’t been too loud. He let go of the first breast, then picked up the second and squeezed harder. He was trying to get a reaction out of her, but she managed to keep her mouth shut as she shrieked through her nose. He let go. She thought he was done, but then he grabbed the chain that ran between the nipple clamps and pulled hard.
“Up.”
She stood, glad she’d had so much practice rising with her hands restrained. He circled her like a vulture circling prey. He trailed his hand across her stomach, then her hip, then slid it between the fabric panels covering her ass, to cup and squeeze the tender globes. She looked over to Mik'kal and was startled to see his mouth set in the hard line that said he was angry.
She dropped her eyes to hide the tears that had sprung up. What more did he want? She was doing what he told her to! She didn’t resist when the Dirac slid his hand between her legs, though she scrunched her face up hard. She managed not to jerk when a thick finger pushed up inside.
“Are you going to breed her?” the Dirac asked.
“I, um, haven’t decided that yet.”
“Well, if you don’t want to, consider selling her services. My partner is an Anterrin and we can’t interbreed. I wouldn’t mind having a half-human baby, and I’d be happy to pay you a little extra if I could do the breeding personally.”
Mena’s chest tightened as she listened to what the man was proposing. He was proposint to rape her until she was pregnant, have her carry the baby, then take it away? She couldn’t breathe, she was dizzy, her vision started to narrow—
“Mena, down.”
She gladly dropped to her knees. Gentle pressure from his hand on her head pulled her back from the terror that gripped her heart. She looked up at her master. He didn’t look down, but his hand stroked her hair softly.
Was he trying to reassure her?
“Dirac Ortan, you summoned me here for a reason. Perhaps we could move on to that topic?”
“I need an update on the humans.”
“Dirac, may I place my slave in a Zone of Silence? I do not think this is an appropriate topic for her to hear about.”
“No!” she cried before she could stop herself. “Please, let me hear what you’re going to say!”
The Dirac’s eyes widened at her outburst. “Mik'kal, would you like me to get my shockstick?”
She couldn’t read Mik'kal’s face, couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but to her relief he finally said, “No, thank you. I think that would be too distracting. I will punish her when I get home.”
She knew, without a doubt, the Dirac’s expression was one of disappointment. Maybe even a little perturbed? She hoped she hadn’t brought trouble to Mik'kal.
“Very well. That corner has a slave hook that hasn’t been used in a long time. We can put a Zone around her there.”
Mik'kal grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet. She tried to apologize but he dragged her over to the one solid wall, next to the door, and pinned her flat against the hard surface. Her hands fell out of her cuffs and he stepped back, but instead of raising them over her head, he pulled them back, higher and higher, until she had to bend over to compensate. When it was done, she was folded over so completely her head was near her knees, her shoulders straining in their sockets. She was dimly aware of him walking away, and a profound silence descended.
24
Mik'kal
Mik'kal schooled his features as he returned to the Dirac’s desk. He hadn’t anticipated the anger he would feel when the other man pawed his slave. Nor had he anticipated his reaction to the idea of someone else breeding her.
No. Fucking. Way. Mena belonged to him. He wished he could have reassured her that would never happen, that he would never take a child away from its mother. He’d been so angry at the thought, he’d responded more harshly than he meant to Mena’s entreaty.
For the moment, though, he needed to find out why the Dirac had ordered him here—unless it was merely to fondle his slave. He barely held back a growl at the thought.
The Dirac motioned to a chair and Mik'kal sat, doing his best to display an air of exasperation.
“I believe I mentioned she wasn’t street-trained, sir?”
The Dirac chuckled. “I do love seeing a slave lose her composure. It’s so much fun to punish them.”
Mik'kal forced a grin and nodded. “I apologize for preventing you from having that fun, but she is so dramatic. There would be tears and screams and wailing, and we have work to do. I’m sure I can break her, but I’m not as sure about training her.” He paused, wondering if he wanted to know the answer to his next question. “Sir, I’m curious why you didn’t take a slave?”
The Dirac shrugged. “These humans were all submissive by nature. I would rather have someone completely unwilling. It’s more fun.”
Mik'kal silently winced at hearing the words he himself had said.
“So, tell me how the humans are doing.”
Mik’kal pulled himself back to the conversation.
“Adequate. My announcement about the ship has sent them into a frenzy. They’re transporting cargo down as fast as they can and leaving it unsheltered and unguarded because they don’t have buildings or spare people. I think they will manage to finish, but it will be messy. With the storms coming, they may not get everything safely stored. I ordered reinforced shelters but it will be tricky to get them delivered and erected in time.”
“What about the nearby caves?”
“I’m going to suggest they use those as storage. I’ll have to see which ones are safe for them to be inside.”
The Dirac shrugged. “If they don’t get it figured out and they kill each other, then our problem is solved.”
“Sir?”
“I voted to enslave them. You voted to kill them. We could both get our wish.”
Mik'kal considered the man opposite him and chose his words carefully. “You want to enslave them.”
“Not all of them. There are too many. But if the storms and the effects of the nirza in the cave leaves their numbers thinned, unprotected, and vulnerable, it would be easy to show up periodically and choose among the survivors. The women would be sold, of course.”
“And the men?”
“Don’t you ever get tired of the pretense of a BattleSim? Do you ever think it would be so much more satisfying to kill an enemy truly fighting for its life? Once you’d killed it, you’d know the satisfaction of seeing it really dead, not just simulated dead.” He stood and walked over to the window, gesturing to the city below. “We’re growing weak as a society. We’ve replaced true violence with pretense, and we’re becoming soft.”
Mik'kal had spent the last decade of his life preaching they didn’t need real violence to flourish as a people, and he did not believe they were becoming soft. Though it was an unofficial part of their party’s platform, the Dirac had always appeared to support that philosophy, as well.
Mik'kal brushed aside the little voice that reminded him he was finding great satisfaction in a kind of violence right now.
“Sir, I didn’t want them here, either, but I’m not sure it’s honorable to facilitate their death or abrogate the agreement we made, now that they’re on the planet.” He spoke softly, aware of the power of the word ‘honorable.’
The Dirac turned back to him and raised an eye ridge. “Are you challenging my leadership?”
The ground under Mik'kal’s feet had just become quicksand. “No, sir!” He chose his next words
carefully. “Even if I have a slightly different perspective, I’ve sworn an oath to our party.”
The Dirac gave a quick smile. “I’ve never had a reason to doubt your loyalty, Mik'kal.”
Mik'kal had just declared loyalty to the party, rather than to the Dirac, and he knew the Dirac hadn’t missed that fact. He steered the conversation in a different direction.
“Sir, you presented the captain with the option to sacrifice the few. Did the captain present the idea to anyone else?”
“He said he discussed it with his command team, and they all agreed.”
Perhaps the Dirac was lying to Mik'kal, or perhaps the captain had lied to the Dirac, but Mik'kal was growing more certain the first officer’s claim was true.
“Sir, I’m not sure their actions should condemn them to death or slavery now that the bargain has been struck.”
“It sounds like you’ve been listening too much to your slave. Who is taming whom?”
It took every ounce of self-control Mik'kal had to avoid taking a swing at the Dirac, something that would have not ended well. He forced a grin instead.
“When she has her mouth around my dick, it can be hard to tell.”
The Dirac chuckled and turned back to the window.
“Sir, what is your nirza telling you about this?” Asking about a nirza was extremely intrusive, and Mik'kal hoped the Dirac wouldn’t be offended, but he needed to understand the man better.
His friend didn’t turn, and didn’t respond, for long enough that Mik'kal began to think he hadn’t heard.
“That’s a very personal question.” Dirac Ortan shrugged. “But my nirza doesn’t have a problem with the decisions I make.”
That was the oddest thing Mik'kal had ever heard. He stood and walked to the window, joining the Dirac to gaze out over the ancient city. The stone looked pale in the hard midday sun. He had a sudden longing for the green island he’d spent so much time on as a boy.
“I had forgotten how beautiful Kalnų Sala was when I went there the other day. I think the last time I was there was for my Adenję Trials.” He shuddered at the memory and turned to face the Dirac. “That was the longest week of my life. Where were yours? That was after your family moved away.”
Tribute: Captives of Kazir Page 14
