Beyond the encircling walls was another room, one kind of like my sitting room on the transport, but I paid little attention to it at that moment. I’d spotted Oses sprawled near the rocks, his bare feet dipping into the pond. He was still out.
I sprang up ... well, maybe ‘sprang’ is too graceful a motion to describe what I did. It was more like I lumbered to my feet, my body stiff and my balance questionable. I lost no time in staggering over to the Nobek.
I noted some strange shit as I approached my unconscious companion. For one thing, Oses was no longer in his uniform. He wore what looked like animal hide pieces, a vest and a skirt ... or maybe it should be called a kilt. Anyway, the vest was open with no closures, leaving his carved and scarred torso bare in front. The kilt thingy was tied low on his hips and went almost to the tops of his knees.
There was also a thick white strap around his throat. Little squares of metallic netting studded the strap, and I saw no closure on the thing. At least it didn’t appear to be choking him.
My mind was more focused on waking Oses up rather than his new fashions. I knelt at his side, grabbed his shoulders, and shook.
“Oses, wake up. Oses, can you hear me?”
The Nobek’s eyes fluttered a little. Then they opened all at once and he sat up. His face twisted into a bestial snarl, showing his fangs. He grabbed me around the throat. I froze.
Not even half a second later, Oses recovered himself. The animal fury in his expression turned to horror. He let go of my neck and yanked me close to his body. “Shalia! I am so sorry, pet. I didn’t know who was touching me at first.”
My heart eased down on its wild gallop. “It’s okay. I’m glad you’re all right and ready to kick ass.”
Oses pushed me back and looked me over. It was only then that I realized I was wearing something new too. New and really weird.
I had on a sheath dress made up of some animal’s fur. I looked like a cave woman. My feet were bare and I could tell I had no underwear on. Yeah, in the middle of all the confusion, I noticed I wasn’t wearing underwear. I’m weird like that.
Suspicious, I touched my throat where Oses had been ready to choke the life out of me seconds before. I felt a thick strap studded with metal beneath my fingertips. Okay, so I was wearing some type of collar too.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked.
Oses rocked himself up to a crouch and looked over our surroundings. His nostrils flared wide as he sniffed the cut-grass air.
I looked too, finally paying attention to the room beyond the little grassy habitat. I gasped at what I saw.
The room itself wasn’t remarkable. It looked much like my sitting room, as I said before, except it was larger. There was a kind of raised flat surface that was upholstered in shiny orange fabric. I thought it must be a type of sofa. The flooring looked like thick white fur. If I stepped on it, I thought I might sink calf-deep into it. What looked like plain trays floated in various places in the room. One held a decanter of black liquid and some clear glasses. Another had a heap of what appeared to be red poker chips. Still another had a vase with a single yellow flower.
It was what surrounded the room that had my attention. There were other habitat-like rooms we could see into, ones with alien environments I recognized from vids. I saw a room dotted with trees with a thick carpet of gold leaves on the floor. A Plasian woman sat naked in the middle of that area, looking incredibly sad. She sat very still and stared down at the ground, tears dripping from her eyes. She made no sound. She wore a collar too.
Another room had a muddy floor with many boulders. One of the boulders moved and turned a tusked face towards us. I stiffened to see the Tragoom peer at us through tiny eyes. Instead of attacking, it turned away once more.
There was a Dantovonian in what looked like a jungle setting. An Isetacian clung to a webbing of long vines in a dripping environment. A Yeknap peeked out of a hill of sand. An emerald-furred Joshadan lay in a tiny cave. They all had collars. No one said anything. The faces that held expressions I could identify looked incredibly sad.
“What the fuck?” Oses whispered to me. “The openings to these rooms must be covered by containment fields.”
I had an ugly feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Are we in some kind of a zoo?” I asked.
Oses got to his feet. He didn’t answer me. “Stay here. I’m going to see what kind of field holds us in here. I don’t want you hurt.”
I grabbed his hand. “I don’t want you hurt either. Don’t fuck with stuff, okay?”
He gave me a patient look. “I have to find out what’s going on, don’t I?”
“So ask the other inmates.” I nodded to the other creatures. “I need you, Oses. If you get yourself killed, what the hell is going to happen to me?”
The Nobek stared at me for a couple of beats. He slowly nodded.
“You’re right.” Then he leaned close to me so that his lips touched my ear. “Shalia, until we know what our best course of action is, do not mention the baby. Do not speak of it out loud.”
My heart froze. I hadn’t even considered my little hitchhiker. Holy shit, things were worse than I anticipated.
Oses barked something in Kalquorian. The only person who answered him was the Dantovonian.
His ... or her ... face was one of the ones I couldn’t read an expression on. Segmented in a hard exoskeleton, the Dantovonian’s face looks kind of like a frog and a praying mantis got together and had a kid which they immediately encased in a brownish armor. No, it’s uglier than that. What the hell, it’s the closest I can come to describing one of their kind.
With the segments of its face softly grinding together, the Dantovonian buzzed back at Oses. My Kalquorian friend’s expression turned hard as he listened. When the critter stopped talking, Oses turned to me with a furious expression.
“You were right about the zoo. We’ve been captured by the Ofetuchan and placed in his exhibit aboard his ship. He collects other sentients as trophies and shows them off to his friends. Lurb – that’s the Dantovonian’s name – says he thinks there are more exhibits elsewhere on board.”
“Isn’t that illegal?” I asked.
“If your Little Creep is caught in Galactic Council member planets’ space, yes. The trouble is, this ship is as well-cloaked as he manages to be. Or rather, phased.”
“Phased?”
Oses considered, his eyes taking in the situation all the while. I think he was trying to figure a way out of our predicament. “Phasing can make people invisible to others. It’s almost like existing on a parallel plane, except the person who is phased can see us while we can’t see, hear, or smell them. They can even pass through solid objects in that state.”
I thought of how I’d collided with others on the space station during my struggle with the Little Creep and how they’d not seemed to notice. Had I actually passed through their bodies?
“How does a person phase?” I asked.
“The Ofetuchan has a device he keeps on his belt. Lurb says it’s small and gold, kind of a tapered tube.”
“What did Lurb say about the containment field?” I asked.
Oses scowled. “If we touch it, it will trigger pain conductors in these collars. If we stay in contact with the field for too long, it could kill us.”
“Indeed it could, Kalquorian. It’s a good thing you asked before attempting to charge through.”
For a moment, that sweet bell-like voice brought joy to my heart. Then I realized who it belonged to, and the spell broke. I jerked and jumped back a little to see Little Creep outside our habitat.
I stared to see the scary little alien beaming at us from the room outside. When had he shown up? I also noticed that all the other inmates had hidden themselves or cowered in the corners of their cells. That was not a good sign.
Oses stared for an instant and then growled, showing fangs and getting between me and the Ofetuchan. In those animal hides, the Nobek looked extremely primitive and nasty. His muscles stood out,
corded and veined. I was impressed.
Little Creep was not. In fact, he looked pleased.
“Very nice. I’d given up on being able to keep any Kalquorians in my collection because your kind has a terrible habit of committing suicide rather than being imprisoned. Having the Earther woman to defend might make it worth your while to stay alive. You are a magnificent specimen.” Little Creep practically danced in his delight as he looked Oses over.
Oses’ stopped growling. His fangs began to hinge once more as he blinked uncertainly. I guess the Ofetuchan’s voice had an effect on him similar to what it did to me.
It lasted only a couple of seconds. Oses resumed growling and once more looked like he was ready to spring at the bastard at any moment. Remembering what the Dantovonian had said about the containment field, I put my hand on his shoulder. Oses thrummed under my touch, as if he had an electrical current running through him.
Little Creep’s eyes shone as he looked me over. “An Earther female. You are the real prize, especially given how few of you are left. You will be the center of my collection.”
“Fuck you,” I said. I pretended I wasn’t shaking in my fur. The fear I felt seemed to counteract the spell of his voice. That much was good.
Oses wasn’t so lucky. Yet again he stopped snarling and started to relax. An instant later, he was back to big, mean Nobek. “You lay a hand on her, and I’ll rip you to shreds,” Oses said, his words slurring around his fangs and rumbling like thunder.
“I don’t have to lay a hand on her. As for any punishment she receives, that is entirely up to you. A demonstration.” Little Creep said something that sounded like sherbeg.
Pain bolted through my spine and skull, white-hot and razor-sharp. It was like being hit by a lightning bolt full of daggers. I’m sure I screamed. I don’t remember doing so. I don’t remember anything except immeasurable agony that made me wish I could die.
It only lasted a second, but it was the longest, most horrific second of my life. When it was over I was lying on my back with Oses crouched over me, shouting my name. My whole body jittered.
Little Creep’s voice oozed like delicious poison. “A single word, and she suffers unbearably. As do you if she misbehaves. Sherbeg.”
Oses, whose face had gone slack again when Little Creep spoke, suddenly screamed fit to shatter my eardrums. His whole body went stiff, and then he fell over. He jerked and flailed on the grass.
“Oses!” I screamed, hauling my own shaking body up and grabbing him. He continued to contort and shriek.
I turned to scream at Little Creep. “Stop it! You’re killing him!”
“Oh, it won’t kill him. It might drive him insane, but he won’t die if I turn it off in time. Blonay.”
Oses’ cries cut off, resolving into moans. He twitched uncontrollably and heaved for breath.
“There, you see? He’ll be perfectly fine once he recovers from his lesson.”
I tried to ignore the melodious voice from Hell. I concentrated on Oses. “Oses, talk to me.”
The Nobek was suddenly up on his feet, towering over me. His face contorted in rage and he fucking roared at Little Creep.
It was then I noticed that Oses had lost control of his bodily functions when he’d been tortured. So had I, it turned out.
I rose to my feet to stand at his side, staring in horror at Little Creep. “What the hell did you do to us?” I gasped.
“The collars deliver pain at my order to keep you in line,” he said with a bright smile. “As you’ll be spending the rest of your lives here, I suggest you learn obedience right away. Oses’ fuck-ups will result in your punishment, and your misbehavior will give him torment. The demonstration was extremely lenient. You do not want to find out what true punishment is.”
Oses had begun to shake his head hard while Little Creep spoke. I thought he was trying to drive off the hypnotic spell the bastard’s voice kept weaving over his senses.
“Oh, that won’t do anything but give you a headache,” our captor said. “Kalquorians and Plasians in particular are susceptible to the aural frequency of our voices. Certain parts of your brain find it lulling. Earthers feel it too, at least to some extent.”
He frowned at me then. I felt a little glimmer of hope that I could escape his spell, but it also scared me that he wasn’t happy about it. I really didn’t want the collar activated again.
Little Creep said, “With the brains of Kalquorians and Earthers being so similar, it should have the same effect. I wonder why you’re able to shake it off so well?”
I had no idea and I decided to not answer him. Silence seemed my best defense at the moment.
Little Creep shrugged it off. “No matter. The collar will be more than adequate to keep you in line. Now for another lesson.”
With that, he disappeared. The space where the containment held us captive shivered for an instant, like ripples in a lake. I gaped and exchanged a look with Oses. “Where do you think he went?” I asked.
The melodious voice answered from right behind me. “Do you miss me already, Shalia?”
I yelped and turned to find the Ofetuchan grinning up at me. An instant later, Oses snatched me backwards, putting his body between me and the nasty freak. He shook all over as he glowered at our captor, like a muscled earthquake personified. After a moment, I figured out why Oses was trembling so hard: it was taking all his willpower to not attack Little Creep. I wondered why he didn’t go for it. I know I would have if Oses hadn’t been in my way, especially when I saw the phase thing-y Lurb had told us about. It was indeed on the critter’s belt and gold in color. To me, it looked like a kazoo.
I thought for sure Oses would try for it, but he didn’t. Then it occurred to me that if the Nobek went after the Little Creep and failed to squash our tormentor, I would be punished. That was the reason he held back.
He might as well have tried. Things couldn’t have gone any worse.
Little Creep grinned at Oses. “So your breed does have some sense. I didn’t think Nobeks could control their violent urges so well.”
After a moment’s pause to let the Ofetuchan’s spell fade, Oses snarled, “I might have many surprises in store for you.”
“Perhaps.” Little Creep nodded, as if impressed. “I thought I would be teaching you another important lesson, the one in which attacking me would bring on another round of pain.” He grinned up at Oses. “You cannot touch me without setting off your collar. Physical contact without my willing it brings you the same agony as what you’ve just felt.”
Oses again shook off the mesmerizing notes of his voice. I too found myself sinking into something of a trance and blinked hard to pull myself out. My terror hadn’t gone, but as the minutes went past, it did fade. My immunity to Little Creep was wearing off.
“Very well.” Little Creep sat on one of the large rocks in our environment. “I know you are Shalia and Nobek Oses. My name is Finiuld, and you are now my property. This environment is your new home. It is based on Earth rather than Kalquor, but I believe the Nobek will find it adequate for living.”
“I cannot be penned up in such a small space for long,” Oses growled. “It will drive me insane.”
Little Creep – Finiuld – chuckled in a mean tone. “Oh, you will be brought out from time to time so I can show you off to my friends. You are not just a prize for me to collect and look at when the mood strikes. You are also entertainment.”
I was thunderstruck. “We’re not trained animals giving shows like in a circus!” I exclaimed.
The bastard crooked an eyebrow at me. “I am not sure what a ‘circus’ is, but I assure you, you will give my guests enjoyable diversions. If you refuse to perform, the Kalquorian will suffer most horribly. If he balks, you will be tortured. It’s as simple as that.” He grinned his awful tombstone smile. “I’ve heard enough pass between you two to know you mean a great deal to each other. Don’t think I won’t use it to its fullest capacity.”
Oses started growling again when h
e understood all that Finiuld had said. I felt like growling myself. Who knew what this maniac had in mind for us?
“You will be fed. You may wash – and I would expect you to do that soon – in the pond. The water is circulated and cleaned continuously, so you may both bathe and drink from it. The temperature in here will be kept at a comfortable level. If you would enjoy painting or reading or some pastime to while away the time, I will grant the materials for that, provided you behave yourselves.”
I couldn’t help myself. “Gee, what a nice guy.”
Finiuld’s eyes narrowed. “I can be. Do what you’re told and you’ll see that. Disobey me, and suffer the consequences.”
After a few seconds, Oses said, “You’ll pay for this. You’ll pay dearly.”
Finiuld laughed in his face ... or at his knees, actually. The height difference was incredible, and yet the tiny alien had control over my behemoth companion. “That’s what they all say, Kalquorian. They’ve been saying that to me for decades, and yet, I have never been caught and my prizes have never escaped – except through death.”
Oses turned away from him and towards me. I didn’t like that he put his back to the Little Creep, but what could he do? Between Finiuld’s voice and that damned collar, Oses was powerless.
Yet his gaze held mine, as if he wanted to communicate something. Then he looked at the room behind me, beyond the containment field. He looked me in the eye again.
It was obvious Oses was trying to tell me something. I thought he might be readying to attempt to get out. But how? I couldn’t imagine what his plan might be. However, I trusted Oses with my life ... and my child’s life as well. That was the biggest thing that kept me from shrinking away in fear of being punished. I had to get my little hitchhiker out of here. If Oses thought there was a way out of our predicament, I was more than ready to give it a try, even if it meant enduring that awful pain again.
I made my head twitch only a little, the barest suggestion of a nod I could manage.
Shalia's Diary Book 4 Page 8
