All this was because the Mekkers had a chemical need. History, even Earth history, said when a people did bad things to another people on a massive scale, year after year, genocide or slavery, or violence, they always ended up explaining it away by demoting the other people to being lesser. It had happened here. Humans were never going to be seen as equals when the Mekkers craved their blood.
A day after the tablet-licking incident, she was on the roof, having released the mechlings and letting them settle. The breeze cooled her face and the sky was as awesomely fresh as ever.
The voice on the roof spoke. Emery. I am here again. My brain fades. Help me. Extract the metal piece so I can think.
“What the f –” She slapped her hand to her mouth, remembering that she was being watched.
Could it hurt to do this? Least she knew the other day wasn’t a daydream.
Where is this metal?
It is black. Between the numbers three and four. Pull it...please.
A crackling then a hiss made her think it gone again. There were numbers nearby, written on the hull past the pole she often rested against. A curve of the roof met her bare foot – she loved feeling the sun-warmed metal under her. There. In Mekker numbers the cross shape was a four. The squiggle with a slash was a three.
Between the numbers was a flattened, black triangle that projected above the skin of the roof by an inch or so. When she poked it with her toe nothing happened. Glancing over her shoulder showed her the mechlings happily sucking from the air the thin spirals and spikes of blue energy.
Be quiet and nonchalant.
She slipped into a seated position with her legs stretched in front and her hand on the hidden side of her, where she could quietly tug on the black metal.
It moved.
How long had it been here, and what was she doing obeying that voice? Mechlings sent the feed to the House. What if this thing did that too? This might turn out to be some sort of trap. Her actions might cause an explosion, get her in trouble with the House Master, or with the whole ship even. This thing might eat her.
Sweat prickled up on her back, her palms, her forehead. She might doom herself.
On this world, anything might happen.
There was no logic to this and no way to be certain. Except...nothing could be worse than her current circumstances, could it?
Though at first her hands shook, she tugged and wriggled, then ended up using the point of her umbrella to pry loose the metal. At last a spike of black, shaped like a tent peg, came entirely loose. Throwing it might look suspicious, so she let it roll away. The motion of the ship slowly moved it further until it tumbled past where she could see it.
The evidence was gone. But evidence of what?
The hole left would allow water in and might even hurt whatever it was that was below?
How long has that been stuck there?
Centuriessss...
She wasn’t taking that as truth. Not yet.
Was this act of hers bad, good, or indifferent?
Animal, vegetable, or mineral?
Tha_k you, hissed the voice. Than_ke yo_ The missing sounds had all the significance of a mallet to her head. Definitely mineral. That was a machine’s voice.
JI-mech?
That is I. Can you place some covering on hole? I can rep_air. Need t_me.
Time? All she had was her dress, the umbrella. The mechlings. And her lunch.
From the box that held her lunch, she fished out a piece of fruit. It would rot, but it was the best she had. She jammed it into the hole.
Good luck.
Nothing more was said to her.
Soon she had other problems to attend to. One of the mechlings refused to leave when it came time to go below. It wasn’t her favorite. That was the horsey-elephant one with the purple fur, which she’d named Mammoth in memory of her tortie cat back home...and also because it had a trunk. Mammoth wrapped that trunk about her ankle as she gaped at the tardy mechling.
It was small, as in pocket-sized, with a spiky head like a scarecrow in metal, though it had the body of a beetle. She was sure she’d seen it repairing conduits and various appliances in the house. It sat on its tiny haunches rocking and staring upward.
“What are you doing?” Hey! She added, in her mind.
It ignored her.
It didn’t seem well. Was this sun madness? Or was it some other problem?
Sun madness meant being thrown down the hatch to the outside, and probably recycled once the power in its body ran down.
Cautiously, she picked it up, to find it weighed as much as a fat paperweight. The only way to carry it easily was in her lunchbox that had a rope handle. She tucked it in there and set off down the stairs, then waited for the hatch to close before going onward. The rest of the mechlings seemed unperturbed but then nothing much ever disturbed them. If this one in her lunchbox had programming, it had glitched.
Best if she find out what sun-madness was before condemning it to exile, death, and crushing.
Mekkers could be rather hasty, and she’d grown attached to her herd. They weren’t really intelligent but sometimes they came closer than any AI she’d seen on Earth. Like JI-mech 34. Already that one puzzled her. Was he, it, a mechling or as she suspected was he something more complex, something bigger?
Then there was the question of death. Could a mechling die if it was never exactly alive?
She glanced at Mammoth, which was trundling down the stairs beside her, its little stumpy legs almost tripping each other. Maybe they could. She was beginning to understand how Gio had been trapped into empathizing with one and thinking it a child.
Chapter 12
What is sun madness?
That was all she had said before Nik entered the slave room, the one place the master or his underlings rarely visited. Slaves came here to eat, to talk, and slowly the other slaves had been warming to her.
This though – her question had drawn stares.
Nik’s question had made them back away and kneel.
“Where is the missing mechling?”
She knew, already, that she’d landed in trouble without even trying. If she was prompt and reasonable, she should be okay?
Emery kneeled also, a little fast, for the dress billowed out about her, but no one would be observing her nakedness. Nik looked as stern as she’d ever seen him.
“There is one in my lunch box, Sir.” These two – Nik and Weln, she’d learned to call Sir.
“Why is it there?” Unreadable expression. Was he angry?
She blinked but kept her gaze steady. “It seemed ill. It wouldn’t come with me.”
“She was asking about sun madness, Sir,” one of the others piped up. A man called Slave Three, she thought.
The bastard. That alone had been enough to make Nik redden.
“I didn’t know what it was, Sir,” she added hastily. “The mechling is here.” She reached back, found it by feel, and slid the box toward him. Then she lifted the box toward him when he looked unhappy.
“Sun madness,” Nik said idly, as he plucked the mechling from the box. “Is a dangerous condition. Mechlings afflicted sometimes kill.” He turned the beetle mechling to and fro to study it then tucked it back into the box, clipped down the lid.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s an offence to hide a sun-mad one, or to neglect to report its condition. There is no excuse whatsoever for a slave to do this.”
Except when she had no damn clue, but she let her open mouth close. There was no point in arguing when they were like this over their rules. Fuck. She’d bear this, like before. Now she knew what sun madness was...sort of?
But she didn’t really.
They could kill? It seemed an exaggeration and she wondered if that hid some secret.
So that was how she ended up before Mako, again.
He stared at her, sniffed in long and loudly as if her being before him was a terrible offence all by itself.
“I’m disappointed in you, Slave Twelve. This
is a crime listed by the Governance. It has to be publicly punished. Lock her in the cage until we hear from the lawgivers.”
She curled up in the cage all night, wondering what was going to happen, had zero sleep, was woken in the morning by someone unlocking the door. Marched to go to the toilet area, manacled with her hands at her back. Marched out to kneel before a man called a lawgiver. A lean man with a hawk nose and a pale face, sparse hair and words that sentenced her to...
“I’m told she didn’t know what sun madness was. So this is on the lower end of the scale. Sentenced to a whipping in the park square. You, Mako?”
“No. Not me. Not unless you’ve no one free.”
The lawgiver frowned. “This is unlike you. She bores you?”
“Maybe.” He shrugged but his gaze locked on her like a bullet loading into a weapon chamber.
“Too curvy?”
“She looks like Shay. If I touch her... Let’s say I’m limiting myself.”
“Ahhh.” The man raised his head until she could see up his nose. “That was a bad day for your patrol. If a good day for the rest of us. I can see why you might be too enamored.”
“Mmm. The reverse.” His answer sounded as if it had been dragged reluctantly from his throat with hooks. “I want to fuck with her so bad and I’m not allowed to make her bleed.”
Emery wanted to shrink into the floor. She ducked her head. Who was Shay? More history she needed to know. She needed to figure out the key to this man before he ruined her.
“How many strikes?” Mako asked.
“Uhhh. Fifteen? Minimum is fifteen, and of course, not too harsh, no blood as you say.”
She could hear the glee in his last words, as if he meant to tease Mako. A whipping of fifteen strikes would be over with quickly.
Efficiency was a thing here. Unlike the legal proceedings in most countries on Earth, here it was decided by one man and done within the day. Or it was going to be for her. Though happier with that than she’d be with waiting, the errors in judgement that might come about were worrying.
They did have a court, but that might only be for the free.
The park square was the same one Mako had introduced her to more than a month ago. That long... An eternity since then, living in this enormous sardine can with a load of somewhat vicious and unenlightened sardines.
She had to keep thinking of them in insulting terms or she’d be crying all day.
They tied her to the top of the pole, her hands above, facing the pole this time. She turned her hands, and the manacles dug in. Metal, for once, serious metal. Beyond she could see Mako, arms folded, keenly watching. Or she thought he was, it was difficult to be sure with him.
Someone cut the back of her dress away to well below her ass, pulled it aside, then ripped the rest away. A symbolic gesture – they’d given her a thin, plain dress to wear for this punishment.
Being naked should bother her but she’d always been practical and half the Goth band gigs had ended with somebody half naked. She’d cope. Because she had to.
Someone else she couldn’t see, a man, read out the offence and the sentence.
She knew who was going to use the whip on her since she’d seen him before they turned her. He was a medium-sized man with a face she’d forget in a second, for all she’d really seen had been the red whip. At the end was some tassel arrangement, as if they’d prettied it up.
“One!” someone screamed she drew a breath, held it. The other slaves had told her not to tense if she was ever whipped but it was impossible not to.
The slap on her back made her jerk in place, and it hurt, but not terribly, not as much as you-know-who’s punishment. The no-blood rule? Maybe that was making him hold back. Maybe he was scared of damaging Basteer’s property. The power play and politics on this ship were hidden to her.
Another five slaps followed and none was enough to make her scream.
She stared at Mako, and after three more strikes let a smile grow on her face. The adrenalin was surging. She was almost daring him, knew he’d declared his hands-off policy.
A weakness? She’d wanted to find his weakness. Seemed as if she’d found it.
Oh, this was getting to be fun.
The next slap was harder, made her gasp, and she worried the man behind her might be upping the force. But no, the next was almost softer than the first. By then, she couldn’t help herself – she full-on smiled. Fuck them. Pussies.
How many left? Five. It was five.
Whoever whipped her paused and the crowd, that’d been at the most murmuring, hushed.
She heard the squeak of his boots before she saw Mako coming toward her. He kept coming then went past by a foot or two, and only then did he stop. The words he said seemed for her, though he didn’t speak in her direction.
“This is a farce. No slave of mine gets punished in such a pitiful way.” His next words were softer. “Don’t think you can get away with mocking this or me.”
Definitely said for her.
The grass underfoot seemed cold. The air stilled, as did her breath.
Only five strikes left, she told herself. Five. What could he do with five? No blood would still be in force.
Though she braced herself after he walked away, nothing happened.
Footsteps returned – squeaky and non-squeaky ones – the two men. Instead of saying anything to her, they discussed the comparative pinkness of the stripes on her back. After several agonizing minutes of this – she wanted this done and over with – she turned to look. She stared. Was this normal?
Mako smiled at her.
He’d met her challenge. Meant to use the whip on her.
There was only so much power she had in this world. All her freedoms had been torn away, even words.
Except...
Could he lip read? No. Course not. Who could?
You fuck was promptly mouthed.
His eyelids opened wider, his mouth straightened enough to be perceptible. Jolted, she turned her head so she faced the pole.
He didn’t know. Couldn’t.
Mako stepped closer then leaned his shoulder against the pole so his face was inches away, and she had to flinch to avoid touching him. His breath warmed her.
She’d sucked in her bottom lip. Involuntary reaction. She let it uncurl, stared back. Being tied to the pole was not an advantageous position. Her boldness had placed her in jeopardy.
“You are far too... What is the word? Smart?” He rolled out the syllables as if they were sweet nothings. If it wasn’t for where she was, tied up and at his mercy, she might think his intimate, gravelly tone sexy. Instead it was menacing.
“Or is it stupid?” He caressed her face with the side of his hand – a monster, mesmerizing her before the kill.
She needed to cut off her own tongue. It was simply too tempting to bait him. There was some undercurrent she surfed on when he was near. She couldn’t stop taunting him.
Satisfying though, to stir him, to be able to stir him.
It was a form of power.
“Let me guess this. Are you sorry you said something bad? I know it was bad. Don’t bother to deny it.”
He couldn’t know. Oh hell, but he did. The words, maybe not, but he had her figured.
Sorry?
Retreat was the wise choice.
“I’m sorry,” she coaxed from her mouth. Though she wasn’t exactly.
Sorry, not sorry.
“Too late, of course.” Then he straightened and walked away.
“The whip. It’s my turn,” she heard him say.
Already she shivered and wondered if she would pee herself from fear. Again she turned her wrists in the manacles. The chain clinked. They hurt her – but nothing like how he intended to hurt her.
She glanced back to see him raise his hand and the red swirl of the whip then turned away in time...
To feel the lash of the whip.
First strike.
Screaming wasn’t an option with her breath absent. She we
athered it as he kept going, though he paced the strikes slowly. At the last one, she gasped and slipped, hanging from the manacles as she coughed in air. The pain screamed in her back instead of her mouth.
Done.
“God,” she whispered, though not meaning to call on any deity. It was merely a punctuation mark for the end of what she’d endured.
There was an achievement in standing up to his worst.
His next words barely registered for a few seconds.
“Seven more for her insolence.”
He wouldn’t.
Couldn’t.
Without preamble, without pausing much at all, he laid into her again, upper back and thighs, the hurt rising in her skin, a tide of fire that swept away sensibility. When it ended, her legs no longer worked and people rushed to let her down.
Just the suddenness, it was that, she told herself, eyes shut, weathering the descent of pain. She made herself inhale, exhale, though it hurt her yet again when her expanding ribs stretched that mauled skin.
Hope brought some comfort when the manacles were removed, and she was pulled to her feet. She couldn’t stop herself from gasping or the tears from spilling, but she could hope. If he’d made her bleed, Basteer might sack him.
One of her helpers remained when the other left her side. He wrapped his arm beneath her breasts and pulled her into his body. Mako. Had to be. Smelled like him. Her legs wobbled.
She heard him spit then his other hand found her ass and he circled a finger at the entry to her asshole, then slowly fed it inside her in spite of her squirming, until he’d pushed it as far as his finger could go.
“Don’t wriggle so much, Slave Twelve. This is my right, just as it’s my right to decide when you need to be whipped and how many strokes.”
Though wincing at the invasion of her most private place, she didn’t resist – resistance would only prolong this, and knowing him, he’d make it hurt more.
“This is to remind you.” He sucked out that digit and casually began to slow-fuck her ass while talking. “Not to be insolent.” He shoved it in and she gasped at the drag of his thick finger through the tight circle of muscle. “Don’t even think.” He shoved it deeper and pumped there, so his hand squashed against her butt. “You will get your taunts past me.”
Acquired Possession (The Machinery of Desire Book 1) Page 7
