by Jean Kilczer
I rubbed my eyes and watched a group of wrinkled, tan-skinned Kubraens huddled in a corner. They are a gentle, clannish folk. Being away from their kin must have been torture for them.
From a far corner came a snort. Shetland ponies, tethered to wall hooks, ate hay that was strewn on the floor.
Mining ponies, I thought.
A frail Terran boy, perhaps in his early teens, wide-eyed and pale, came and sat next to me. “They…they took me right out of my bed,” he said breathlessly and flipped back long, sandy-colored hair. “My parents didn't even know I was gone. Can…can I sit here next to you?”
“Sure.” I put my arm around his shoulders and he leaned his trembling body against me. “What's your name?”
“Jason.”
“We'll stay together. OK, Jason?”
“OK!” He nodded. “Thanks. We'll help each other. Right?”
“Right.” I sighed and leaned my head back against the wall. What I could do for him, and for myself, only Great Mind knew.
* * *
We were taken to the mine in a sealed, air-conditioned van with blacked-out windows. When it jerked to a stop and the doors slid open, the hot, humid air burst through as though an oven had been flung wide. I stood up and realized the gravity was a little heavier on New Lithnia than on Earth.
Armed Altairian guards waited outside in the glaring midday sun. I squinted as the closest one motioned for us to get out. His green scales shone in bright sunlight. His clawed hands pointed a beam rifle at us. His triangular splayed feet, braced on the loose shale, held him steady as he thumped his thick tail. I've never liked Altairians. Most of them are surly, natural-born grumps, except for Commander Ca Prez of the Alliance Star Fleet.
“Move!” he ordered.
I drew in a breath of dusty air and coughed as I stepped through the doorway with Jason right behind me. As far as I could see, to the hazy, enclosing fence and blue vegetation beyond this flat terrain, it was a desolate landscape of gray rock and hills of salt that had been dug out to reach the precious lithium below. A pink sky seemed to jacket the land with heat. Here there was no animal or bird life. Not even insects crawled between the salt-poisoned slabs of rocks. A sirocco wind swept through and raised swirls of dust. Rows of stone hovels, so small an adult human couldn't stand up in them, lined the aisles where a polluted channel of green water moved sluggishly past a retaining wall.
In the center of the slave camp, a laser cannon, mounted high on a rock stanchion shaped like a pyramid, stood as an exclamation mark to rivet home the power and brutality of the overlords.
Nothing else moved except the alien and human slave workers, made anonymous by layers of dust as they broke through the salt crust with pick axes. Some hefted shovelful of rocks into carts drawn by sweat-streaked ponies. With lowered heads and shaggy manes that bobbed, they dug small hoofs into loose shale and heaved the carts forward. I bit my lip. I hate to see animals abused. They never know why. A few workers paused and wiped their brows as they watched us.
“Work!” An Altairian guard mounted on a horse snapped his long whip. The big sorrel pranced sideways and showed the whites of his eyes. Slaves returned to their work.
“That way!” The Altairian guard pushed me forward, toward the only high structure, a primitive stone monolith held together with cement, and boasting one high window. Squat buildings surrounded it like a skirt. Armed Altairian lookouts patrolled its ramparts. A dark figure stood behind the closed window. “You can sightsee when you're working.” The guard pushed me again. I threw off his arm and walked toward the complex.
Jason hurried to keep up to me, but the guard hooked him by his collar. “Not you.” He pointed toward the workers. “That way.”
The boy glanced back at me with a terrified look. “Do what they say, Jason,” I called.
“Good advice.” The guard pushed me forward again. I turned and slammed his shoulder. “Keep your dirty hands off me!”
He hit me so fast I didn't see it coming. I found myself on my hands and knees. My head throbbed. The ground seemed to shift. I squinted up at him as he lowered his beam rifle to point at me. “If ye weren't the tel I would slice ye in half.” He slowly motioned sideways with the rifle.
I got up and swayed. “If you didn't have that rifle,” I told him, and wiped blood from my mouth, “I'd make crocodile hamburgers out of you.”
He turned to another guard. “Crocodile?”
The other guard shrugged and shook his broad green snout.
“But I do possess the weapon,” the guard said, and nudged me forward with the rifle barrel.
I pressed a hand to my head and walked toward the high structure. Tel, he had said. Then whatever watched from behind that window had not chosen me randomly in a net capture. Whatever his motives, my gut feeling was that we would be at odds.
* * *
I thought I'd meet the Lord and Master, but I was taken instead to a squat building and a barred cell with a cot and a small, high window. It was cool and the air smelled clean. I wiped my face on a towel as two Altairian guards watched from outside the locked door.
“Sweat glands, Kluth,” one said.
“Some aliens have them, Azut,” the other commented. “So do animals.”
“The higher evolved species,” I said and threw the towel at the bars. They walked away.
I lay down gratefully and watched water trickle through the cracked, stained cement wall. The penthouse. I felt guilty that the others lived in even worse conditions.
After a nap I threw my clothes into the vib unit and shaved. I paused to stare in the mirror and was a bit shocked. Abby Hatch had been right when she said I looked a little thin. I rubbed my cheek. She should've added pale. Considering the vicissitudes of my life, that was not really surprising.
“Toothpaste,” I said and picked up the tube. All the comforts of home. Was I being courted? I wondered as I brushed my teeth.
Could be, I answered myself and stepped into the warm shower. My clothes were dry when I emerged.
I was poised on top of the small, rickety table in an attempt to reach the window when Azut appeared with a covered tray and slid it through the food slot. “Planning an escape?” he asked.
I jumped down. “Just considering my options, croc face.”
“Disgusting.” He nodded his broad snout at the tray. “But I suppose if ye be a subspecies, it tastes good. Enjoy the view from the window. Even with ye skinny human ass, ye wouldn't fit through it.” He shrugged, leaned on the bars, and watched me.
I was afraid to lift the cover of the tray. I peered under it and sniffed. “Smells good, if you're a subspecies,” I told him. I uncovered the tray. Steak! Hopefully mock. Mashed potatoes and a salad. A piece of mud pie. Coffee! They'd really done their research to know that this was my favorite meal. “Yeah, disgusting,” I told Azut as I sat down and opened the plastic box of utensils.
“Enjoy, subspecies,” he said with a grin in his voice.
“Thanks.” I heard his claws click on cement. “Hey, croc face!” I called.
The clicking stopped. “What is it now, subspecies?”
“You forgot the dancing girls.”
“As ye say in ye simplistic Terran language, fuck off.”
I chuckled around a mouthful of steak as the outer door clanged shut.
* * *
She was just a kid, a teenager, and she was trembling with fear. She was also naked when they opened my cell door and pushed her inside.
“Here's a mate for you.” Azut winked. “Nice fresh meat. Have fun.”
The girl backed into a corner and cowered, her hands over her small breasts.
Christ and Buddha, what kind of animals were these Altairians?
Kluth locked the door and they shuffled away, tails slamming the stone floor.
I sat on the cot and rubbed my eyes.
“Don't hurt me, mister, please!” the girl whimpered. She wiped long black hair that was wet with tears, back from her face.
“I won't hurt you.” I took off my sweater.
“Please, mister. I'm still a virgin!” Her dark, round eyes widened. Her freckles bunched as she cried.
I shook my head and tossed her the sweater. “Here, kid. Put it on. I won't touch you.” I kept my eyes closed while she did. The black turtleneck reached past her hips.
“Thanks,” she said shakily.
I nodded. “Sit down, if you like.”
She did.
“What's your name, kid?”
“Danielle.”
I smiled. “Pretty name.”
She wiped tears and sniffed. “My friends call me Dan.”
“Oh?”
“But Mom and Dad like to call me Dannie.” She began to sob.
“What should I call you?” I asked gently.
“Dannie?”
“Sure. How old are you, Dannie?”
“Fourteen.”
I leaned my head back on the wall. “Dannie, you have nothing to fear from me, OK? I won't lay a hand on you.”
She sobbed harder and wiped her eyes with the sweater. “OK.”
I put on my jacket and zippered it. Something inside me hardened. The Altairian overseers would show us no mercy, I had to finally admit that to myself. We were nothing more than warm bodies, here to make their conglomerate bosses rich with the lithium mine, and as breeding stock. If some of us died, or some were killed, we could be replaced.
“Are you from Earth?” I asked to distract her mind from the situation.
“No. Alpha. I was just…” She stretched out a hand. “I was just walking home from school when these men stopped their car and pulled me inside.” Her voice rose and she put her hands over her face. "I dropped all my books, and when I tried to pick them up, they –
They – "
I reached out an arm behind her, in case she wanted to lean closer for comfort.
She cuddled against my side and I held her trembling shoulders. “Don't think about it, Dannie.”
“I'm so scared! I've never been so scared in my whole life.” She wiped tears on her sleeve and sniffed. “What's your name?”
“Jules.”
“That's a nice name.”
I smiled. “You think so?”
She leaned heavily against me, exhausted. “What are we going to do?”
“I'm working on it.”
It was late and we laid down and fell asleep together on the cot.
Morning showed through the barred window when I heard footsteps approach. “Dannie!” I shook her awake and stood in front of her as Kluth unlocked the cell door and came inside, followed by Azut. “What do you want?” I asked.
Azut gestured toward an automated glass light switch. “The viewer waited to see sexual activity. Instead, he saw ye give the female the sweater and go to sleep. Is that what humans call macho man?”
Oh, shit. A camera. I should have realized that.
“What's wrong with ye, Terran?” Azut poked my chest. “Have ye been castrated by your lords on Earth?” He looked at my crotch. “I think not.”
“She's too young for sex or childbirth,” I told him. “You'll get her killed!”
Dannie jumped up with a cry and pushed down her sweater as she crouched behind me.
Azut shoved me aside. “That's not ye decision to make.”
“Leave her alone!” I pushed Azut back.
He came close to me, his elongated snout in my face. His bitterroot smell in my nostrils. “If ye weren't a tel, ye'd be lashed to death for touching an overseer.” He glanced at Kluth, who unholstered a beam weapon and pointed it at me. “But a tel without a leg is just as good,” Azut said. “Now consider what ye do before ye do it. I have my orders.”
“Jules!” Dannie screamed as Kluth grabbed her arm.
“Get your slimy reptile claws off her!” I yelled and pushed past Azut. Kluth dragged Dannie to the door with his weapon leveled at my right leg.
I stopped. “Where are you taking her?”
“To a nunnery.” Azut pushed my shoulder. “Does that suit ye, subspecies?”
“Azut,” Kluth said, “that's not necessary. The female has been sold to a family in the town of Wydemont Creek,” he told me, “as a servant and babysitter.”
“Dannie,” I said. “Go with them. This is your best bet, kid.”
“No!” She pulled free of Kluth's grasp and ran behind me, yanking on her sweater. “I want to stay with you. We'll have sex, OK?” she told Azut.
I stepped aside. “No, we won't, Dannie. Go with them. We don't have a choice.”
“You don't want me.” She wiped tears on her sleeve.
“Just go with them!” I sat on the cot.
They dragged her through the cell door, locked it and led her down the hall.
“Jules!” I heard her cry.
I bit my lip. If the seat of the worlds' government on planet Alpha shut down this mining operation, I would go into Wydemont Creek, wherever the hell that was, and find Dannie and take her home to Alpha.
Chapter Four
Orientation Day with the Lord and Master, Boss Slade, was more a laundry list of Thou Shalts and Thou Shalt Nots. He led me to the window of his high tower and pointed at the slaves working the mine below.
“From up here,” he said, “they appear as insects, no?”
“From up here.” I drew in a silent breath as two Altairian guards dragged a struggling Cleocean slave to the whipping post.
Boss Slade snapped the blinds closed. “Are ye pleased with the accommodations?” He put his arm around my shoulders and led me to a chair. “Considering the primitive nature of this mining operation, it is the best I can offer you.”
I held down the seething anger that rose like bile in my throat. I would have to play his game, if not by his rules. “They're all right. But the bars could go.”
He stared at me. “Sit down, Jules. Would ye like a cup of coffee? I had it freshly brewed.”
I breathed in the aroma as I took a chair. My mouth watered. “No, thanks.” There would be no pleasantries between us, no more than between predator and prey.
The Altairians must've made leaps and bounds in their interstellar technology. Boss Slade wore no helmet to contain his natural atmospheric gases, but I saw the scars across his neck and the tubes from his backpack that were fed into them.
He sat behind his desk and folded his green, scaled hands. “The reason we recruited ye for this employment, Jules,” he said softly, to lower my defenses, I think, “is because of your rather impressive telepathic abilities.” He hissed in a breath between pointed teeth on his broad, flat snout. “Your reputation precedes ye, my friend.”
“I don't remember applying for the job.”
He chuckled. “Water under the bridge.”
You think, crotefucker? I thought.
He tapped the desk. “All that I, and my off-world employers request of ye, is that under the guise of being an overseer, ye…what do you call it, mindlock?”
Mindlink, schmuck. “Close enough.”
“Ah. Ye mindlock with our subjects and examine their thoughts, and their whispered conversations, to bring to light any hints of rebellion.” He tapped a key on his computer and studied the screen. “There is an ongoing threat of insurrection by the workers here at Lithium Love Mine.” He scratched the scales around his lips. “Some of our subjects are by nature disgruntled creatures, and they infect others with their derisive attitudes.” I caught the note of irritation in his tone. He glanced toward the closed window where the Cleocean's shrieks broke through glass like an invisible battering ram.
“So, my friend.” Boss Slade grinned. “Someday, this mine will be played out and we can all return home.” He sat back. “Me to my beautiful Altair, and ye to Earth. That said, do ye agree that we can do business?”
I rubbed my chin while the screams sank to moans. “That depends, my friend. Will I be on salary?”
“Salary? Why…why what did ye have in mind as a retainer?”'
&nbs
p; “With my impressive telepathic abilities, I'm thinking a thousand credits a week should suffice.”
“A thousand!” He leaned forward. The skin around his eyes flushed dark green. Then he collected himself and cleared his throat. “That is not unreasonable,” he said tightly. “The money will be deposited in your account on our online bank at the end of each work week.”
Sure it will, you lying motherless piece of crud.
He stood up and extended a thickly-muscled arm. “Can we shake on it?”
“Done deal.” I shook his reptilian-cold hand.
Back out in the thick air and heavy sunlight, I felt as though a suffocating hand had been lifted from my kwaii, what we Terrans call spirit. I watched two guards drag away the bleeding, semi-conscious Cleocean.
Azut strode up to me. “This way!” He took my arm and turned me around. “We are assigning ye a horse and a whip. Both to be used at ye own discretion.”
I nodded at his beam rifle. “And a weapon?”
“Ye know, Terran,” he said as we walked, “ye do not fool me for one minute.”
Toby was a big bay with nice conformation and an alert manner. I patted his neck and smiled. I have always loved horses. I think he was a Tennessee Walker. “Hey, big guy,” I said soothingly and stroked his silky neck. At least the overseers' mounts were well taken care of.
“Aw,” Azut said. “Ye two should become lovers. Ye are made for each other.”
I continued to stroke Toby's neck. “He's the most honest tag in the Love Mines, croc face.”
* * *
“Do you know a tag named Briertrush?” I asked an old Kubraen slave. “We were friends on your homeworld, Halcyon.”
His skin was gray from age between the rough-barked orange wrinkles, under a layer of dust. His nose slits opened and closed as he drew in labored breaths. “Briertrush.” His voice was as hollow as a kwaii already on flight to another lifebind. The usual pleasant Kubraen aroma of maple syrup had bittered with age and too much work to a sour smell.
He paused with the empty shovel and staggered back a few steps as he tried to straighten up. “Oh, yesh! Briertrush, good oversheer. A fine Kubraen. Yesh.” He nodded. “Briertrush,” he repeated dully and returned to work.
