Betrayed (Hidden Worlds Book 1)

by Bethany Burke

  I looked back at her, not knowing what to say. I understood what she meant, and while on the one hand, I didn't want her to touch it, on the other, I wanted the disgusting thing out of my arm. But practically before I completed the thought, the Matron had reached down, held my arm firmly in place and deftly slid the tube out of my arm. I felt a stab of pain that was stomach-wrenching, but over instantly. And then I felt so sick, for I saw what it really was. It was not tubing of the sort that ran up the bottle of clear liquid. What had actually been in my arm had been a needle. The primitive state of medicine here was beyond belief! I shut my eyes wearily, trying to keep myself from vomiting

  Quickly, the Matron stuffed a wad of cloth in the crook of my elbow and pressed the arm shut over it. The ache was bad, but I was so relieved at having that thing out of my arm, that I didn't feel up to protesting. The Matron bustled the tubing and jar together carefully, then turned to go. "Ye'll not be getting another injection for sleeping. 'Tis time ye started moving around, and we have to get ye ready to go to the castle. I'll be back shortly to clean you up. Leave the pressure on 'til then."

  I lay back, letting the dull ache from my arm pound over me with every heartbeat. My mind started running over what was to come. Lord Rohan was arriving to see me, the physician had said. The words caused my stomach to make a slow flip. On the one hand, I had no desire to see the man. From the first moment I'd encountered him, my life had taken one humiliating turn after another. First, I'd been offered to him with my bare bottom high for his examination, like no more than a piece of meat, and then, at his order, I'd been taken to a physician who had probed my body with his fingers and with cruel rods until I thought I would die with embarrassment.

  Yet Rohan was clearly the authority here, a prince or king of some sort. As I'd been shown graphically, my very life was in his hands. I died or lived by his decision. Maybe he'd actually tell me what was happening. Why had I been subjected to a sham execution? What had made me so ill that I had been bedridden for days, at least?

  As I waited for the Matron's return, I began noticing my surroundings with more interest and as I did so, certain inconsistencies became obvious. I had been horrified by the needle that was putting fluids directly into my body. On Earth all such procedures were handled by instantaneous sub-Q infusion, and my first reaction was to consider the needles disgustingly primitive. And they were… from my perspective.

  But, as the historian in me took over, I remembered that hypodermic syringes and intravenous feeding devices actually represented fairly advanced medical technology. I tried to remember during what century such things had become commonplace on Earth. Germ theory of disease and anesthesia, I recalled, had not been established until the nineteenth, and then most vaccines and antibiotics in the twentieth. So, I guessed, intravenous feeds had probably dated from about the same time. The only conclusion I could draw, then, was that their medical technology was squarely in the twentieth. Other colonies, I knew, were still using herbs and shamans. Considering that these colonists had been dumped on this planet with hardly more than the clothes on their backs, they'd made a good deal of progress in three centuries.

  I began looking around curiously, suddenly noting some other inconsistencies. The room itself was not lit with the contained flames I'd seen at the school, but by way of recessed lighting coming from behind a ceiling panel. And the door through which the Matron and the physician had walked… It had slid back fluidly as they'd approached, using some sort of sensor to detect their presence, and then it had slid shut. It seemed identical, in fact, to modern doors on Earth. For that reason, initially, it had not even caught my interest.

  But now I found myself wondering about everything. Medical technology clearly from the twentieth? A mechanical technology, judging from the door, that perhaps was beyond the twentieth? Scientists in the twentieth had put men on Earth's moon, in incredibly slow and primitive craft, to be sure, but on the moon nevertheless, and Mars had been, what? 2028?

  Considering that the prime directive of all colony monitoring was to prevent any colony from developing the capability for space travel, I was surprised at the advances here. Suddenly I had another disquieting thought. What happened to colonies that were on the verge of developing such technology? I'd never thought to ask. It just seemed to be an assumption that the colonists had been left with so few tools, both literally and figuratively, and that the gene pool of the colonists had been so substandard, that true scientific advances were millennia away. It wasn't discussed simply because, I had believed, it was an issue no one was concerned about. But now, after having been betrayed myself in a way I would never have dreamed possible, I found myself wondering coldly about what other lies I'd been told.

  But then there was another side of the coin. Intravenous feedings and sensor-operated doors seemed inconsistent, to say the least, with a culture that believed their ancestors had been dropped on this planet by mother sky-birds and that executed spies with a guillotine. Things were, I realized grimly, not quite "adding up."

  The door whispered open, and the Matron bustled back through, pushing a cart. My eyes narrowed as I watched the door. Definitely sensor operated, I confirmed, completely automatic. She'd made no move to close it in any way whatsoever.

  The Matron sat next to me on the bed. "First," she said, "we'll take your temperature and then we'll be cleaning ye up. Come on, now, hurry up. I've just been told Rohan's to be here within the hour." Reaching over to a tray on top of the cart, she lifted a narrow and shiny glass rod off of it. "Come along now." I had no idea what she expected of me, as my baffled face must have showed. Her mouth tightened. "Over on your side, Miss Jen."

  I began to have the same feeling I'd had in the physician's chamber at the school, that I was lost in some sort of medical nightmare. Without any further explanation, the Matron grasped my shoulder and pushed me hard over onto my side, lifting the sheets in one fluid motion. When her hand went to push the loose gown I wore off of my lower body, though, I tried to squirm away from her, making an inarticulate sound of protest.

  I managed to roll back onto my back, ignoring the throb in my arm, and looked up into her surprised face. "What's this now, girl? I just need your temperature, then we'll go on to the cleaning… and it should be happy that ye are that someone's finally caring fer ye."

  I was completely confused. I knew that ill people had their body temperatures monitored, and that occasionally, someone with a bacterial infection might actually have an elevated temperature… "fever" was the word, but I could not imagine what that had to do with me, or why she wanted me to lie on my side.

  My eyes narrowed as I saw the thin glass rod in her fingers. Was that glass rod some sort of temperature monitoring device? All right, let's say it was. Then why would she want me to lie on my side, with my backside facing her… Oh my God. I went cold and swallowed hard as awful comprehension dawned. To work, did it have to be inserted into my… my bottom? "No," I practically shouted, outrage in my voice and, I was sure, on my face. "Just leave me alone…"

  My protest was cut off with an abrupt "oooff," as Matron Lena, with no warning grasped my shoulders, dragged me straight out of the bed, and right over her black-gowned knees. The woman was incredibly strong and I was weakened from my illness. I went as loosely as a young kitten I'd held once, all floppy bones and skin. "If this is the way your wanting it, like a nursery baby," she muttered, exasperation in her voice, "this is the way you'll be getting it." Her large hand pushed my gown fully up to the small of my back.

  I threw my head from side to side, feeling as if I did not have the energy to move any other part of myself. "What are you doing… why?" I begged.

  My frantic tone must have communicated to her. Her hand had dropped to the cleft between my high, bare buttocks, but it stopped. "Taking your temperature, lass," she responded, her voice genuinely baffled. "What's wrong with ye? I'm not going to be hurting ye, unless ye fight me and we need to use the linden to remind ye who's in charge. Now, enough
o' this already. Can't imagine why anyone would make such a fuss…"

  "But I've never… never…"

  "Never what?" Her voice was amused. "Had your temperature taken?" She snorted. "Since I've done it myself at least ten times, I'm finding that a little hard to believe." I went cold, wondering what else had been done to me while I was unconscious. "I don't know what kind of game you're playing here, girl, but I been told to get ye ready to go with Rohan, and it's ready I'll get you, and I need one final temperature fer your med records. Now, we do it in a white bottom or we do it in a red bottom. Makes no difference to me."

  I dropped my head limply, the threat of punishment again cowing me. She placed her palm on the inside of my thigh, and nudged me open, then held my buttocks wide with one hand, and began rubbing the same cold substance I'd felt during my examination first around, then fully into my anus. I squirmed uncomfortably as I felt her thick finger probe and dilate me, but it was no use: her strong forearm was pinned across my back and I went nowhere. I suspected that even fully healthy, physically, I would be no match for these much larger women, and because of my long stint in bed, I was even less able to fight.

  She lubricated me carefully, and then I felt the slip of the glass rod, which felt odd and tickly, but was not thick enough to cause any actual pain. Humiliated, unable to believe, that I, Jen Marin, Earth scientist, was actually on a primitive planet, lying bare bottom up across some woman's knees with a temperature device inserted into my bottom, I nevertheless lay still while she held the rod firmly in place with her fingers (and me firmly in place with her strong arm.) After a few long minutes, she withdrew it. I lay silent, my lips pressed tight, my back running with the sweat of nervousness and embarrassment.

  After a pause, during which I guessed she was looking at it, she placed her hand back on my bottom. Her voice was matter-of-fact. "Well, if ye balked at the temperature, ye'll not be liking this, I imagine, but ye've been in bed fer so long, ye're needing it."

  And before I could question what this new comment meant or wonder why I was still held bare-bottomed over her knees, I felt her stretch, get something off the tray, then reach for the pole on which the glass bottle had hung. Then, her fingers again parted my buttocks, right around my anus, widely. "Now," her voice was flat and hard, "ye'll be holding still, Miss Jen, and ye'll be taking all o' this like a good, mindful child. Ye raise a fuss, and I'll be giving ye a spanking ye'll not be forgetting. Lord Rohan's coming soon, and he's not a man to be kept waiting. Somehow, I'm thinking you'd be wanting to be done with all this before he comes."

  Although I didn't really understand what "all this" was, the image of being in this humiliating position when Rohan walked in the room was appalling. I whimpered, and apparently, she took that sound for acknowledgment that I would not fight, which perhaps it was, for she said nothing more. Immediately, my anus was penetrated. The object which was deftly inserted felt considerably longer and larger than the small rod that she had just used. Though not as uncomfortable as what had been inserted in me by the physician during my examination, I definitely felt this one in a way I had not felt the thermometer. I squirmed against the discomfort.

  I held my breath, not fathoming what was coming next or why… and then I felt it: a slow rush of hot, stinging pressure flowing into my body and into my belly. I opened my mouth and gasped, a sobbing mix of horror and discomfort. "Stop, oh God why, stop…" I craned my neck around and saw a long tube running out of a black bag which hung from the pole. The tubing ran directly towards my bottom, and although I could not see, although I hadn't a clue why this was happening, I knew what was happening: something hot and irritating was being injected into my bottom. Just as the liquid from the glass bottle had run into my arm, whatever was in the large black bag was running, with steady stinging force, into my bottom.

  I frantically tried to reach my hand around to the back, to push it away, but Matron Lena caught my hand with one of hers, pulled it across the small of my back, and pinned it there, while still maintaining the device fully inside me.

  The pressure grew and grew and I could feel heat and uncomfortable irritation deep within me. My legs kicked and jerked a little, involuntarily. My belly felt as if it were going to cramp… "Why are you doing this?" I begged. "Stop, please, I don't understand."

  Suddenly the… thing in my bottom was withdrawn and I was helped off her knees and pushed gently onto my side. "One'd think ye never had a cleaning before." I looked up at her and she was shaking her head, looking amusedly baffled. "Now you stay still a minute or two and then I'll be taking you into the closet." She gathered the bag and the tubing (and I could see the long thick tip on the end of the tube that I knew had been inside my bottom), and bustled them out of the room.

  I lay, miserable, feeling tears on my face and hot crampy pressure in my bottom. I did not understand why so much attention had been paid to a part of my body I had mostly ignored up until now. It was almost as if my bottom was some sort of "public property."

  Matron Lena entered again and helped me to my feet. I felt unsteady, but found after a few weak, tottering steps, I could walk better than I expected, in spite of the cramping in my stomach. Perhaps, I had not been unconscious as long as I had assumed I was. A long white gown flowed around me as we walked towards the door.

  I was in a hall that seemed as tiny and confined as the room. There were no windows and utterly no sound. The dimensions seemed small to me, and must have been almost Lilliputian to the Gamma Rigelians who were all larger than I. Even Lena's head almost brushed the ceiling of the hall; Rohan, I knew, would have to stoop to walk through the corridor.

  Matron Lean escorted me to a tiny chamber, containing a commode, which I needed badly, and a bath tub. It was not as grand as the one I remembered from Rohan's mother's suite, but it looked as if it would do just fine.

  "Use the seat, Jen, then take a bath and come back to the room. I'll finish cleaning you then." She eyed me sternly. "Be quick about it."

  She left and I did what I needed to do, very badly, by then. Although I was appalled by the whole procedure, I did understand its purpose, and as much as I hated to admit it, by the time I'd finished using the facility, I realized I actually felt much better.

  Relieved that that was over, I ran a bath. Again, I was struck by how technologically advanced the systems seemed. One adjusted the temperature of the water with a touch-sensitive pad. Then, I remembered again Rohan's face as he described how his ancestors had come to Gamma Rigel, in the womb of a mother sky-bird. I was really starting to wonder if we'd been "had." Later, I had commented to Christy that it seemed unbelievable that these people could believe in such a crazy myth, and she had responded that it seemed almost, "too unbelievable." I wondered if Christy suspected then already that we were being told something that was untrue to mislead us.

  My hand trailed idly under the hot water as I thought about this. Why? That's what didn't make sense unless… unless…

  I went rigid. I understood.

  Chapter 8

  What a dolt I was! Rohan had been impatient with our "lies," but other than that, he'd been perfectly relaxed until I mentioned Earth. As soon as I breathed a word of our origin, he'd exploded, pinning my mouth shut and ordering me not to say another word. And it was only then that he'd began spouting that nonsense about sky-birds.

  I paused. It was not then. It was actually after I mentioned the… implants. I licked my lips. It was all clear now. Rohan had not acted that way because this culture had some ridiculous taboo about mentioning Earth or because he did not believe me. He'd acted that way because he did believe me, because he did know about Earth and he knew about implants… and understood, apparently how they worked.

  In a heartbeat, he'd realized that everything I was seeing and hearing was being observed. That was the reason for the frantic imposition of silence… the comment about the sky-birds. That was why I was "executed." It was only an act, a "play" for the entertainment of the watchers above. And why? I glan
ced around the room at the recessed lighting and automatic doors. Because there were things here… lots of things… that the colonists did not want Earth observers realizing they had.

  But, what was the point? Now, the observers on board the Drakkon knew I was not dead and had seen what Rohan had wished to hide. What had it accomplished? Unless I was in a place that somehow contained the implant signals, the charade was pointless. Yet, maybe that was the answer. This small bathing chamber was certainly as odd as the rest of wherever I was. With its curved, white ceiling, windowless walls, and tiny proportions, in spite of the fact that everything looked clean and fresh, I felt that the whole thing was somehow… incredibly contained. I remembered my initial reaction as I lay in bed, that the room was "cave-like." I hadn't changed from that opinion at all, and in fact, I felt it more strongly than ever. Somehow, I knew that the "great outdoors" was not right through these walls. But implant signals could penetrate anything, couldn't they? Then I had another chilling thought. What if the implants were… gone?

  I stripped off the nightgown and let my body sink down into the bathtub, almost moaning at the delicious feel of the very hot water. Was it possible to remove implants? I knew nothing about this. Although I'd seen implant vids, I'd been under the impression that the use of implants was mostly a thing of the past. I'd never considered how they were put in or removed, other than that it was a surgical procedure. Could my implants have been removed… surgically? I remembered the pain in my eye and ear and went cold.

  Christ, who knew? How could they possibly be capable of such advanced surgery, surgery on someone's eyes for heaven's sake? In spite of automatic doors, I could not overlook that much of what I'd seen of Gamma Rigel so far seemed awfully primitive. Although the mother sky-birds now definitely seemed a false trail, the way women were treated here was something out of a medieval nightmare. There'd been nothing false about what had happened to the girls punished at the school or to Christy.