“Well,” he said, “when I was on Devastation—that’s I.S.S. Devastation, Captain Morley, that was my ship before Ruthless...”
Amy nodded. “Go on.”
“When I was on Devastation, we did a run on one of the rebel worlds out on the fringes of the Empire. They’d been supporting pirates, same as these people here, and they used the people the pirates brought back as slave labor. Auctioned them off. And about half a dozen ships got away—these might even be the same people.”
“So you think...”
“I think they’re feeding us because hungry slaves don’t look as good to the buyers, and hungry people are more likely to do stupid, desperate things, like trying to escape.”
“Only at first,” Susan said. “Go without food long enough and you don’t have the strength any more. You need to choose your time carefully.” She adjusted her purse on the bench beside her.
“Well, that’s true,” Mervyn acknowledged, “but they want us healthy.”
Amy and Susan nodded reluctant agreement. “At least we have that much,” Susan said. “I’ve known worse.”
Amy glanced at her attorney, startled, but Susan was not looking in her direction.
She had known worse?
Amy decided not to pursue that. For a moment, the two of them sat, contemplating their situation. Amy was, once again, finding it all hard to believe; slavery? She, Amy Jewell, was going to be sold into slavery by pirates?
That was something out of stories, something out of the past...
Then she stopped and glanced at Susan again.
“I’ve known worse,” Susan had said.
Susan was Vietnamese, and her family had escaped to Thailand by boat when she was a child. Amy didn’t know any of the details; she had never asked, and Susan had never volunteered anything.
Still, Amy had heard stories about the boat people. Robbed, raped, murdered by pirates; stuck in camps and abandoned by civilized governments on all sides—to Susan, this might well seem all too real and familiar.
To most people outside the United States, Amy supposed, this wouldn’t seem so outrageous. The world was full of cruelty and injustice, it always had been; why should this other world be any different?
She told herself that, and she knew enough history to know it was true, but still, she didn’t really believe it, in her heart and her gut. All her life she had been safe, had been protected, had known what the rules were. She didn’t walk through certain neighborhoods at night, she generally kept her doors locked, she stayed out of bars, and that was enough; her world was safe and serene.
It wasn’t perfect; she’d had her bad moments when her marriage fell apart, when her dorm room was broken into her long-ago junior year of college, when she wrecked her car on that trip to Phoenix, but those seeming disasters looked pretty trivial in retrospect. She had worried that Stan would walk out, would leave her broke, would take the house away from her, might even slap her; she had feared that she might lose all her things, all her money and mementos, that she would never be able to sleep again without worrying; she had wondered how long it would take to get home without a car, where she would stay, how she would pay for everything, what would happen to her insurance rates.
Stan had done worse than slap her, but she had survived it, and it hadn’t been so very bad, she hadn’t wound up broke at all, or anywhere near it. And when it was over she was rid of him and that was all right.
She hadn’t been robbed again, she had burglar alarms, all her things were safe at home waiting for her.
She had flown home, bought a new car, paid her bills off eventually.
So she had worried about all those things, and they had all turned out all right in the end—but she had never, in all her life prior to the crash of Ruthless, had to worry about where her next meal was coming from, or whether she would be alive to eat it; never worried about whether she would ever again see her house, her family, her friends, her entire world.
She had sometimes feared rape, robbery, and murder—but piracy? Slavery?
And in another universe?
It was absurd, it was crazy.
And it was true, wasn’t it?
Or would she be rescued at the last minute? Would the cops come, the neighbors, the lawyers, the way they had after the robbery, the way they had after Stan had beat her? Prossie Thorpe was still alive, Amy had seen her; had she called the cops, the Imperial soldiers, this time?
And would they come?
“Your attention!” someone shouted above the room’s babble. “Your attention, please!”
The hum of conversation and general hubbub faded. A man in a blue uniform was standing on a chair against one wall, his arms spread wide.
“Next step is hygienic,” he announced. “I’m sure most of you haven’t had a good bath in days, and you may have... well, you could probably use one.”
Amy threw Susan a glance; the lawyer shrugged. Other people were also trading looks, worried or questioning.
“We don’t have facilities for individual baths,” the announcer continued. “Instead we have showers, one for the men, one for the ladies. If the men would please leave the cafeteria through that door...” He pointed. “...And the ladies through that one...”
“Now?” someone asked.
“Whenever you’re ready,” the announcer replied.
Showers.
They were prisoners being herded into mass showers.
Amy tried very hard not to think of what that immediately brought to mind.
Did any of these other people, the ones not from Earth, have anything like that in their histories? Had this monstrous, inhuman Shadow that they talked about ever sunk to the level of the Nazis? Had the Galactic Empire ever faced an evil to equal the one the Allies had conquered?
Very probably, she thought; after all, Stalin had killed as many as Hitler, and Pol Pot and a dozen others had tried. There had been murderous dictators all through history. The people of the Empire, and the people of Shadow’s world, all looked human enough; they probably had plenty of murderous dictators in their own histories.
But had those dictators used poisoned showers? Was anyone else here making the same connection she was?
Probably not. She was probably just being paranoid. And Prossie Thorpe must have called for help. Even the people at Auschwitz had been saved eventually, when the Allied troops came marching in.
A few of them had been saved, anyway.
A few of them.
She turned to Susan. “What do you think?” she asked. “Should we go?”
The lawyer shrugged.
“Do we really have a choice?” she asked.
Chapter Twenty-One
Pel Brown was arguing with the announcer as Amy left the cafeteria. She couldn’t make out the words, and decided against snooping; instead she just followed the little crowd through the indicated door.
Once inside, she looked around the bare little room and noticed that there were no lockers in the changing room, just cardboard boxes—stacks of them, grey inside, blue outside, with loose- fitting lids. There were no markers, no pens, no labels, no serial numbers, and Amy found herself very suspicious indeed.
How would they ever get the right stuff back?
Did anyone ever expect to return anything?
“Just put your clothes in there, dearie,” the blue-uniformed woman with the billy club told her. “They’ll be safe.”
“How’ll I find the right box?” Amy asked. “I mean, afterward?”
The guard, or matron, or whatever she was looked annoyed. “Write your name on it if you like,” she said.
“There aren’t any pens,” Amy pointed out.
“We ran out; don’t you have anything in that purse you’re carrying?”
Amy was not satisfied, but she began fishing in her purse, looking for a pen. If nothing else, it let her stay dressed a moment longer. The room was not particularly warm—and there were those other fears, not entirely suppressed.
Around her the other women were slowly, reluctantly removing their clothes. The first shower was turned on in the tiled room beyond and for a moment Amy froze, listening for the hiss of gas.
There was no gas; just water, splashing on the tiles. Someone squealed. “It’s cold!”
“It’ll warm up,” the guard called.
Amy felt an altogether unreasonable rush of relief, and was annoyed at herself. Had she really thought they were about to be gassed?
Did she really know they weren’t going to be killed by some other method?
She shook her head. She was being paranoid again, and it wasn’t going to do anybody any good. Her hand brushed through the contents of her purse, and for a moment she could see an old Bic, and then something slid over and it was lost again.
Someone knocked on the door from the cafeteria, interrupting her thoughts, and a male voice called, “Is there an Amy Jewell or a Susan... Susan Goyen in there?”
Amy looked up, then quickly scanned the room. Susan was already naked and about to step into the shower room, but incongruously, she still had her purse, held so the matron could not see it.
“I’m Amy Jewell,” Amy called back.
“We have a... could you come to the door, please?”
Cautiously, Amy approached the door. It swung open a few inches, then stopped.
“Excuse me, miss,” the voice said, and Amy recognized it as the man who had made the announcement about showers. “I don’t want to intrude on anybody’s privacy.”
“It’s okay,” Amy said, leaning around the edge of the door, “I’m still decent. What is it?” She looked out.
The cafeteria was almost empty now, and a man in a dirty apron was collecting trays and debris. The announcer was standing with his back to the door, holding it open with one hand.
His other hand was on Rachel Brown’s shoulder.
“We have a bit of a problem here,” he said. “It seems this little girl doesn’t have her mother here. She wants to stay with her father, but I’m afraid we have very strict rules about that; we just can’t let her through the men’s side. So could you please take charge of her for now? Her father says she knows you.”
Amy looked down at the child; Rachel looked back, her eyes wide. She had been crying, and Amy had the distinct impression that the wrong word would start more tears flowing.
Amy had never been very good with children, and had always been relieved that she and Stan had never had any. Still, this poor thing needed somebody to look after her, and her mother, Amy remembered... well, her mother wasn’t here.
And it was only for a few minutes.
“Would that be okay, Rachel?” she said. “It’ll just be until we’re washed up, and then you’ll be back with your father, I’m sure.”
The announcer’s face was carefully expressionless, and Amy suddenly knew, beyond any question, that it would not just be a few minutes before Rachel was returned to her father. She knew that these people had no intention of ever returning the child to her father, and she knew that this time she wasn’t just being paranoid. Still, she could hardly back out now.
And they weren’t planning to return those personal belongings, either. She threw a glance at Susan and her purse; Susan was being smart, if she could get away with it.
Just what they did plan, Amy didn’t know. She pushed that thought aside, though, at least for the moment, and forced herself to smile at the girl.
Rachel stared at her for a moment, then pulled away from the announcer’s hand and slipped through the door.
* * * *
Pel watched Rachel go, then reluctantly allowed himself to be pushed through the door into the men’s changing room.
He took his clothes off with dull mechanical efficiency, trying not to think. Nancy was dead, and now Rachel had been taken away; he was lost two universes away from home—he didn’t dare think. He knew that Rachel was supposed to rejoin him after they had showered, but on some level he didn’t dare believe that, couldn’t believe it, because the possibility of disappointment was too horrible to contemplate. Better to give her up as lost now, while he knew she was still alive and in the hands of someone who, if not exactly a trusted friend, was at least familiar and not obviously hostile or alien.
If he let himself think, he knew he would start anticipating Rachel’s return, would start wondering if Nancy was really dead, would start planning a return to Earth—and Rachel was gone, Nancy was dead, and he would never get home, he knew that and dared not let himself hope.
So he dared not let himself think. He peeled off his worn clothes quickly and dropped them in the box provided, focusing his eyes and mind on the texture of the concrete floor, the scuffmarks on the steel bench, the grain in the box’s cardboard—all of it simple visual data that occupied his attention and filled his mind.
Some part of him probably wondered how he would reclaim the right box, but right now he really couldn’t worry about it.
Mechanically, he walked naked into the shower room, where the other men were already bathing themselves, Cahn and his surviving men, passengers and crew of Emerald Princess, Raven and his companions. Ted Deranian was not merely bathing, he was singing quietly.
Pel plodded into the room, but made no move toward the showerheads.
And behind him, between the shower room and the changing room, a heavy steel door dropped into place.
The others started, turned, shouted. Pel didn’t bother; he stood, spray from the showers splashing his legs, water running down across his ankles and onto the tile floor.
He had known. Something like that had to be coming. He had known. And it didn’t matter any more.
Nancy was dead. Rachel was surely gone now, closed off by that metal barrier, as he had known she would be. He was trapped. He was doomed.
They were going to kill him. They were going to kill everybody. He was going to die. Maybe he was already dead. Maybe this was Hell, this Galactic Empire, not part of any living reality at all.
Maybe he was mad.
Maybe he was dreaming—but no. That was Ted’s theory, and he had seen what happened to Ted. Besides, that was the way to false hope, because every dreamer must wake eventually.
Pel knew he was not going to wake up.
* * * *
This mass ablution was distasteful, but Raven had acquiesced, had taken off his garments and placed them neatly in one of the odd little boxes provided. He had stepped into the water chamber, and had allowed the water to wash over him. He was not yet ready to draw attention to himself, beyond the comments already made upon his attire.
When the portcullis fell, though, he cursed his own foolishness in playing along this far.
Now, with his clothes gone, what was to mark him apart from the common mass of humanity? How was he to assert his identity?
True, the clothes would not have been proof, for the veriest madman might contrive himself the appropriate garb to support his tales, but they were all he had, save his own words.
Now, he had only his tongue and his wits.
Further, this locking away seemed a sign that the lordling that had captured them was done with them, and was now consigning them to whatever fate awaited them.
Slavery, most likely—a sorry life tilling the soil somewhere, back bent to the hoe and burnt by the sun.
Cold anger grew in his chest as warm water spilled down his side. Raven of Stormcrack Keep, a mere tender of vegetables?
Not so long as breath remained in him!
* * * *
Amy stared at the steel door. After an initial yip of surprise she hadn’t bothered to shout or scream or protest; some of the other women, though, were not so resigned. Three of the passengers from Emerald Princess were pounding on the metal with their bare wet hands, calling out until the shower room echoed deafeningly.
Slaves, Amy thought, they were going to be slaves. Bill Mervyn was right. That was why the door had dropped, she was certain—buyers would want to see what they were getting. No f
ancy packaging, no clothes. The showers were genuine enough, because the slavers wanted their merchandise clean, but they also wanted them naked, and how else could that be accomplished without argument?
She looked down at Rachel, who was looking up at her in silent puzzlement.
“It’s okay, honey,” she said. “They don’t want us going back that way, that’s all. They aren’t going to hurt us.”
At least, she thought, not yet. Slavers wouldn’t be eager to damage the merchandise.
But the new owners...
The new owners could be anybody and anything. Sadists, perverts—or just people looking for cheap labor.
If she were lucky, whoever bought her would just want cheap labor.
“All right, ladies,” the matron called. “Out this way, when you’re done washing.”
Amy turned and found that the drab grey door at the far end of the shower room, the door that had looked so much like access to a broom closet or furnace room that nobody had consciously noticed it at all, was now open. The matron was standing there, her billy club in her hand, her blue uniform starting to sag and darken with the moisture in the air.
Amy managed a smile as she told Rachel, “Come on; we might as well get on with it.”
“What about our clothes?” someone shouted; other voices chimed in.
Amy, Rachel, and Susan didn’t bother shouting, but they heard the matron’s explanation. “We’ll have them waiting when you’re dried off. This way, please.”
The women from Earth exchanged glances. They knew better. They would not be getting their clothes back—at least, not for some time yet. Amy wondered if Rachel knew, too.
Susan’s purse was not in sight, and Amy had no idea what her attorney had done with it.
* * * *
Pel toweled himself off quickly, though he had never gotten all that wet; then he stood and waited.
This was no dream, no fairy tale. He wasn’t going to wake up back home. This shower room wasn’t going to melt away like morning mist. He wasn’t going to get out of here by wishing. He couldn’t get back to his own world that easily.
This was real life, and real life was never that simple, there were never any ruby slippers.
Out of This World Page 26
