Dangerous

by Sharon Green

  "Now we'd better get this food eaten so we can get on with our chore," Tain said, breaking what had become an awkward silence. "I want us to be finished and back here with everyone before daylight."

  They'd all just been sitting and holding their bowls, but Tain's reminder set the other three to beginning the meal. Tain didn't really want the vegetable stew, she wanted a decent meal, but getting a meal like that wasn't going to happen until she was back where she belonged. In the meanwhile there was work to do, and since skipping the meal wasn't a good idea she picked up her own spoon and began to eat.

  Once everyone had finished the last drop of coffee in their cups, Tain, Killen, and Tandro got on with their chore. A candle let them find their way up the stairs and into the room with the secret entrance to the tunnel, then out of the warehouse. Tandro carried the pack holding the doses of the drug, leaving her and Killen's hands free for any fighting that might have to be done.

  It turned out that there was rough stuff, but no actual fighting. Tandro guided them through the empty streets to Gordi's house, deep night and silence all around them as they moved silently. Four men who could be considered perimeter guards stood a small distance from the house, and Tain made two of them unconscious while Killen did the same for the other two. Once the guards were out of the way, getting into the house wasn't hard at all.

  The man Gordi lay asleep in his bed beside a woman who didn't wear anything to mark her as a slave, so Tain knew that the woman could well be Gordi's wife. The man himself looked large and well-muscled even in the dark, which meant that Killen rendered the woman unconscious and then he, Tain, and Tandro all sat on Gordi while Tain forced the drug down Gordi's throat. Gordi struggled hard before the first of the drug trickled into him, and then his struggles turned very lethargic.

  By the time the second dose was down the man's throat, all the fight had gone out of him. It wasn't easy to tell in the dark, but Gordi looked dazed and mostly out of it.

  "Gordi, can you hear me?" Tain asked softly, needing to know if they'd have to wait until they could all get out of there. "If you can, say so."

  "I can hear you," Gordi obliged, but the dazed quality was clear in his voice.

  "Good," Tain said, feeling more than a little relieved. "Get out of bed and get dressed."

  Gordi obeyed without hesitation, but his movements were very deliberate and definitely on the slow side. Tain realized that the man wasn't resisting, he was simply reacting to the drug he'd been given. He obviously needed some time to adjust, but Tain didn't have the time to give him.

  Once they had the man out of his house, Tain moved very close to him.

  "You're going to close your eyes now, but that isn't all I want you to do," she murmured. "Until you're told otherwise, you're going to see nothing, hear nothing but my voice, and smell nothing. You'll have absolutely no idea of where you're being taken, and that will continue to hold true even if someone orders you to remember whatever you can. Do you understand?"

  "Yes, I understand," Gordi answered in the same kind of murmur, his eyes already closed. "There's nothing around me but unrelieved darkness."

  "Too bad he didn't realize that sooner," Killen muttered, and Tain knew he wasn't talking about the state Tain had put the man into. "Let's get out of here before one or more of those guards wakes up."

  Since Tain had been about to say the same thing she didn't argue, and they all moved off into the cool dark. She'd noticed that Killen hadn't been very friendly lately, not even to the point of neutrality. It looked like her plan to discourage him had worked, helped along by her plan to change the minds of the town and area leaders. Killen knew as well as she did that the job had to be done, but he obviously hated using the drug to accomplish the task. Tain could understand how he felt, but since there was no choice if the talks were to be effective rather than a waste of time and breath…

  Getting back to the warehouse took only a little longer than leaving it had. Tain and Killen searched the darkness carefully for anyone who might be around - like some of Himlin's men, for instance - but the area was completely deserted. Once inside the warehouse they relit their candle, then Tain began to question Gordi. She got the names she needed along with locations of the men's houses, and shortly thereafter they were in the room with the secret panel. Tain used the release to open the cabinet-door, and once it opened she got a surprise.

  "I've been waiting for you guys to get back," Ennie said from where she stood just past the secret door. "It came to me that you three have a lot to do, and it will save time if you don't have to go all the way down and then back up again. But if you don't agree - "

  "As a matter of fact I do agree," Tain assured the anxious girl, giving her a real smile. "Your idea is more than good, and I appreciate the help. I'm going to turn this man over to you, and then you can take him the rest of the way. Once you have him you-know-where, don't let the others start on the rest of the plan. I want to be there to make sure they don't go overboard."

  "That's an even better idea," Ennie said, her own smile on the rueful side. "Those women have been hurt so badly that going overboard is probably a guarantee rather than a possibility. But I'll make sure they stay away from him."

  "Let them know that the delay is only temporary," Tain advised. "That way you shouldn't have too much trouble." Then she turned her attention to their captive. "Gordi, from here there will be someone else leading you. When she tells you to lie down you'll do it, and then you'll go right to sleep. You won't wake again until you hear my voice, and when you do wake up you'll be able to see and hear and smell things again. You just won't be able to refuse orders, defend yourself, or try to escape. Do you understand me?"

  "Yes, I understand," Gordi answered, his eyes still closed tight. He seemed a little less dazed now so Tain let Ennie lead the man to the stairs, and once they began to descend without the man falling, Tain closed the cabinet-door again.

  "Okay, who do we go for first?" Tain asked Tandro, who had watched Ennie until the door cut off sight of her. "I want to take the most distant victim first and work our way back in this direction, and we can't waste the time to bring each of them here before going for the next. As soon as the alarm is raised we'll have half the town searching for us."

  "I hadn't thought of that, but you're right," Tandro said, his face showing a frown. "All three of our targets live fairly close to one another, but not in the same area that Gordi does. If we move fast we can have all three down in the tunnel before anyone gives the alarm."

  "Let's hope it works out like that," Tain said, shielding the candle's flame with one hand as they moved as quickly as possible to the warehouse exit. "And here's hoping none of the three have as many guards as Gordi did. Taking them down isn't hard, but it does waste a lot of time."

  Tain saw an odd look on Tandro's face before she blew out the candle, but there wasn't time to wonder what the expression meant. Instead she just let the native lead the way to the house of their next victim, a man named Flam who didn't seem to believe in guards. His house was large but easy to get into, and there were three female slaves sleeping on pallets in what seemed to be a closet in his bedroom. Flam himself was alone in his bed, so after closing the closet door Tain and her companions fed the man the drug. He reacted in the same way that Gordi had, and Tain put him under immediate control. They now had Gordi's main opponent, and had only Gordi's supporters still to get.

  They finally made it back to the warehouse with all three men, and as far as Tain could tell no one had sounded an alarm yet. Their luck was running better than she'd dared to hope it would, but that might not be the blessing it seemed. They had all four of the men they wanted in their control, but how those men would react to what was done to them remained to be seen.

  Ennie wasn't waiting this time when Tain opened the secret door, which probably meant she hadn't felt it wise to leave Gordi by himself even asleep. She left Killen and Tandro to see to their prisoners after she closed the secret door again, then went a
head to find out if her guess had been right.

  "You're back," Ennie exclaimed with a smile when Tain walked into the fourth alcove, the room they'd gotten ready for their prisoners. Ennie sat on the floor next to a sleeping Gordi, but now she got to her feet. "I thought about leaving this man alone when I found that the other women were asleep, but considering the fact that he's the important one I decided it might be better if I stayed. Did you get all the others?"

  "We certainly did," Tain said, relieved that her worry had been misplaced. "Killen and Tandro are bringing them down so they ought to be here in a minute or two."

  "After that I think we all ought to get some sleep," Ennie said, running a weary hand through her hair. "I know I had that nap earlier, but all the good it did has been slowly wearing off."

  Tain nodded her agreement, then turned to wait for the men to be brought to the alcove. If she cued the others to her voice the way she had with Gordi, none of the men would wake up until she wanted them to. But that didn't mean she'd be able to sleep anywhere but right there in the alcove with the prisoners. If the native women hadn't made any trouble yet, that didn't mean tomorrow wouldn't be another story entirely…

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jake had trouble falling asleep after they got the captives bedded down, and then suddenly found himself awake after a period of time that didn't feel very long at all. Ennie had joined Tandro on his pallet again, and even though the two didn't make love, this time was harder on Jake than the last when they did make love. Even without looking Jake knew that Tandro had his arms around Ennie, and that knowledge was oddly painful. Tain had taken a pallet into the captives' alcove, giving Jake not the smallest indication that she would have welcomed his presence on the pallet with her.

  Not that he wanted to sleep with Tain. She'd been treating him like some kind of unintelligent hireling, someone whose expertise was to be used when necessary but at all other times completely ignored. Being treated that way made Jake feel like less than he knew himself to be, and he refused to accept being put down like that. He was a human being, and no matter how he was treated he intended to continue acting like a human being.

  Trying to fall asleep again turned out to be a waste of time, so Jake got up quietly and went into what was called the cooking alcove. His intention was to make a fresh pot of coffee, and discovering that there was already fresh coffee being kept warm was something of a surprise. The native women were all asleep in the first alcove, so Jake didn't find out who had made the coffee until he carried his cup into the captives' area. Tain sat on her pallet drinking instead of sleeping, looking up when he appeared in the doorway. Looking up but not saying anything…

  "I want a chance to talk to Gordi before you go on with the rest of your … plan," Jake found himself saying, something he'd been thinking about since the night before. "If I can bring the man over to our side with just words, we won't have to chance turning him completely against us from what the women do."

  "It's worth a try," Tain conceded after a very long moment of simply staring at him. "But that's the only thing I want you to try without checking with me first. You aren't to order any of these men to obey no one but you, not unless I say you can."

  Jake nodded his head once, hating the fact that Tain didn't need his agreement. He was still required to obey her, a fact he couldn't forget even if he wanted to. She seemed to take every opportunity to remind him…

  Once Jake had been given his orders, Tain got up and went over to where Gordi lay on a plain blanket. That was all any of the captives had been given to lie on, which meant they would definitely wake up hurting.

  "Gordi, listen to me," Tain said softly right next to the big man. "In a moment you're going to wake up, but when you do you won't remember what was done to you in your house before you were taken out of it. You won't have any idea how you got here, but you'll be able to see and hear and smell things again. You just won't be able to leave without permission or try to hurt the people around you. All right, you can wake up now."

  The big man Tain had been speaking to began to stir, and then he sat up slowly on the blanket as he looked around. Gordi used one hand to rub at his shoulder as his gaze took in the other men who were still sleeping, and then suddenly his attention was completely on Jake.

  "What the hell is this?" Gordi asked in a deep voice that suggested the man was very used to giving orders. "Why are we all here and who the hell are you?"

  "I'm one of the men you'd agreed to meet with the day before yesterday," Jake answered mildly as he moved a step closer to where Gordi sat. "When my friend made the appointment he asked you and your people to keep the subject of our visit private, but one of you dropped a word in the wrong ear. My friend and I were attacked twice by assassins, once before we reached town, once in our hostel. And then yesterday morning, when we were on our way to your house, my friend and I were knocked unconscious by men with clubs and he and I were taken captive."

  "I thought my people could be trusted, but it looks like I was wrong," Gordi answered after a very brief hesitation, a touch of guilt showing in the blue of his eyes. "When you and your friend didn't show up I thought you might have changed your minds… But that still doesn't explain what I and those others are doing here. And if you were taken captive, how come you're free now instead of being dead?"

  "I'm free because an associate helped out, and I'm not dead because dead wasn't the way Himlin wanted me to be," Jake said, watching Gordi carefully. "One of his assassins named Himlin, and Tandro and I lodged formal complaints against him. Himlin wanted Tandro and me to withdraw those complaints."

  "Hearing that slaver's name doesn't surprise me one bit," Gordi said, his face twisted in a grimace that showed his opinion of Himlin. "And if that's who one of my people talked to, I'm definitely going to find out who the big-mouth is."

  "That's fine for later, but right now we have another point to talk about," Jake said, crouching down in front of Gordi. "There are a lot of people who listen to what you have to say, Gordi, and that's why I wanted to talk to you. I was told that you aren't all that fond of slavery, and that you might even listen when I proved that slavery needs to be abolished. Are you willing to listen?"

  "I listen to what everyone has to say," Gordi returned with a much more neutral expression. "If you don't listen to both sides of an argument you can't decide which side to support with any hope of being right."

  "I admire that intelligent an outlook, and now I'm going to take advantage of it," Jake said, and then he explained how enslaving women was keeping society on this world from advancing. Gordi developed a frown as he listened, and then he shook his head.

  "I knew I didn't much like slavery, but I had no idea that it was actually hurting us," he said, his expression sober. "What impresses me most is that you people are trying to talk us into changing things, not strolling onto our world and telling us what to do. But there are those who won't be impressed by any of it, and even more they'll claim that you're lying. People like Flam over there, and that brings us back to a point you haven't explained yet. How did we all get here?"

  "You can thank that slaver Himlin for your being here," Tain said while Jake searched for the proper words to answer Gordi's question. "Himlin decided to make use of a new idea, so we did the same."

  "She means that Himlin didn't just kidnap Tandro and me and try to talk us into withdrawing our complaints," Jake said hurriedly while Gordi frowned at Tain as if a piece of furniture had suddenly spoken to him. "Himlin used the slave drug on my friend and me, then gave us a taste of what women go through with him. Needless to say, Tandro and I now hate slavery even more than we did."

  "But that's not possible," Gordi protested, still giving Tain an occasional disapproving glance. "That drug doesn't work on men, only on women."

  "Guess again," Tain said, sitting straighter on her pallet. It was fairly clear that Tain had noticed Gordi's attitude toward her and wasn't happy about it. "There are only a very small number of drugs that do
n't work on both men and women, and you people aren't sophisticated enough to have any of those. If you thought you were safe from being put through what's only been done to women until now, you were wrong."

  "I don't like your attitude," Gordi stated, having done his own straightening where he sat. "You're dressed like a slave and even have the proper armbands, so you have no right talking to a free man like that. I want an immediate and proper apology from you, slave, and then I want that pallet you're sitting on."

  "I really am so sorry, sir, but I'm not allowed to take the orders of anyone but my owner," Tain answered at once with a very … feral kind of smile. "You claim you don't like slavery, but you still don't hesitate to give orders to someone you consider a slave and you even resent being talked to by that someone. With those facts clear before us, I'm sure you won't mind if I do the same as you."

  "Tain, please don't," Jake said, the order he'd meant to give coming out in the only way it was possible for him to speak to her. "I thought we agreed - "

  "I agreed to give you a chance," Tain interrupted to point out, the look in her own blue eyes a good deal calmer than Jake had thought it would be. "He thinks it's a shame that slavery seems to have been holding his people back, but he still doesn't consider slavery wrong. If you want people to see things your way, you have to make the matter more personal for them."

  Jake really did want to argue the point, but this time it was reason that held the words back. It so happened that he agreed with Tain, but pushing the matter to the limit could make the whole interview blow up in their faces.

  "I think people ought to be what they are," Gordi said, taking advantage of Jake's silence. "It isn't hard to make a woman a slave, but the same can't be said of men. If it's truth you're looking for, you now have it."

  "Truth isn't truth when you're only looking at one side of the coin," Tain countered, seeing the challenge in Gordi's attitude just as Jake did. "It's now become time to flip that coin, so why don't you get to your knees, put your head to the floor, apologize to me for speaking out of turn, and then sit down again."