by John Ringo
"So, what would Daddy do in this situation?" she asked, then paused. First of all, he wouldn't say something like that aloud; there was every likelihood that there was at least intermittent monitoring of the harem. And what he would do was gather information and then when he had a good plan, escape. He'd stay alive, whatever that took. Her eyes teared for just a moment and then she shook her head. What he wouldn't do was start crying because he was afraid he'd never see her again. He'd just go on. And hope for the best, planning for the worst.
She shook her head again and then stood up, donning one of the robes and wondering if there was some way to at least get panties for God's sake.
"Time for the briefing," she said. "Let's get out there and slay 'em."
* * *
"You clean up quite well," Christel said.
She had taken Megan to a small chamber off the main room. The chamber had a low desk, designed for a person sitting on the floor or, as Christel was, on a cushion. And it had more of the ubiquitous cushions found in the main room. Megan had taken one of these and was sitting cross-legged with her back against the stone wall.
"Thank you," Megan replied, coldly. "Okay, where am I? I can guess what this is. Given the way the world is run these days I won't ask 'by what right' but I will ask 'what council member keeps this harem?' "
"Smart and pretty," Christel said, smiling thinly. "Don't be too smart for your own good. Did you notice the young lady out there that didn't seem to care if it was night or day?"
"Yes."
"She was . . . too smart for her own good," Christel said, giving that thin, humorless smile again. "This is the . . . seraglio of Paul Bowman."
" 'We feel the same way,' " Megan said, nodding. "And he even called himself Paul."
"It is not just for his idle amusement," Christel added. "I was one of Paul's . . . biological consorts prior to the Fall. We made a child together, using replicators of course. After the Fall he ensured that I and Jean, who is a grown man now, were provided for. As he did with his other four consorts." She paused and looked up as if bringing some rehearsed speech to mind and then nodded.
"Paul's purpose in trying to bring a new age to this fallen world is just," Christel said, primly. "He was terrified that, given current trends and the way that the world was slipping into lotus eating, that the human race would simply wither away. Since the Fall he has worked incredibly hard to ease the suffering of his people. But he feels it important that there not only be breeding, but good breeding. And therefore he has established this retreat for the purposes of breeding a finer quality of human. You are here to be one of his consorts. Your purpose, from his point of view, is to breed good children. When you become pregnant you will be moved to another area where you will be pampered and cared for carefully until the birth of the baby. You will then move to the creche for two years so that your baby will develop a good early infancy bonding. At the end of the two years you will return here."
"And never see them again?" Megan said, perhaps more aghast at that than the rest of the litany.
"No, you will visit them from time to time; they will be well cared for, I guarantee it. And when they reach an age where they are amenable they may visit the seraglio from time to time. When Paul is not here. He . . . believes in the importance of children but . . . does not care for them as children."
"Oh, that's just great," Megan snapped. "He wants babies bred but doesn't want to be bothered with them himself. Some leader. Some visionary. What a hypocrite."
"Watch your tone," Christel said, dangerously. "We are here for Paul's pleasure and needs, not the other way around. He is a very important man, to the world and to us. Keep that in mind. I will add that Paul works very hard. And the other purpose of this group is to make him happy when he has the time to visit us. If you find it impossible to make him happy, steps will be taken."
"Such as a mind-wipe?" Megan said, coldly.
"There are preliminaries," Christel replied. She held out her hand languidly and mouthed a series of syllables.
Megan's whole body was suddenly seized by pain and she couldn't even gasp, much less scream at the agony. In a moment the pain stopped and she was left panting and sweating in reaction. There was no side effect except a lingering memory, but she felt as if she was going to throw up her good supper.
"Paul has given me access to a small amount of power and a few programs," Christel said, smiling thinly. "I use the power sparingly. Don't make me use it on you."
"I won't," Megan said, trying to act meek.
"Why do I suspect you're lying?" Christel said. "Megan who watches everything as if she were the predator rather than the prey. But you'll learn your place. Everyone does eventually. One way or another."
* * *
Megan stumbled out into the main room still feeling the tingling aftereffects of the pain lash. Most of the girls ignored her quite pointedly but one, who was sitting beside one of the mind-wiped, smiled at Megan and patted a pillow next to her.
"Isn't she just dreadful?" the girl whispered when Megan collapsed on the pillow.
"It wasn't fun," Megan admitted.
"I'm Shanea," the girl said. She was a short, heavy-breasted blonde with a happy but vacuous expression. "Shanea Burgey."
"Megan Sung," Megan replied, holding out her hand. "Your name is actually Shanea?" Megan continued.
"Yes," Shanea said, looking at her sideways. "Why?"
"Your parents gave you that name?" Megan asked with a faint smile. "Did you kill them in their sleep?"
"No, silly," Shanea said, smiling. "I like it. This is Amber," Shanea continued, turning to the girl next to her. "Say hello, Amber."
"Hello," the girl said, softly. Amber was a tall, absolutely exquisite brunette with slender hips and waist but very firm, large breasts. Megan had already noticed that Paul seemed to be eclectic in his taste for women except on the order of breasts. Amber continued looking off into the distance while her hands worked at the knitting in her lap. It didn't seem to be intended to be anything; she was just making a long piece about as wide as the knitting needle was long. The wool was lovely, a light gray shade that looked as soft as silk. From time to time the girl would stop knitting and stroke the fabric, a look of pleasure crossing her perfect features.
"Her real name is Meredith," Shanea said. "But she likes to be called Amber. She doesn't talk much. She . . . had some problems adjusting."
"I can imagine," Megan said. She wondered what the girl had been like before. In a way she'd rather be dead than mind-wiped. And most mind-wipes didn't leave the person a relative vegetable as Amber seemed to be.
"Really, it's not that bad," Shanea said, earnestly. "Paul's actually rather sweet in his own way and we don't have to worry about . . . other men. It's much worse on the outside."
"I'd love some more clothes," Megan replied. "Even panties for God's sake."
"You can make them," Shanea said, perkily. "Come on."
She led Megan down one of the corridors to a side door and opened it up to reveal a small storeroom just about crammed with fabrics. There were bolts of lace and silk, some of them woven so sheer as to be transparent.
"And, look," Shanea said, opening up a basket, "there's all sorts of needles and things."
"I've never . . . done any sewing," Megan said, looking at the room and thinking in terms of rope ladders. Silk could be awfully strong, especially if you braided a section of cloth. She also didn't know much about braiding, but somebody in the harem probably did. Not that a rope was going to do her much good if she couldn't even find a window she could fit through.
"I'm not that great but I'm learning," Shanea said happily. "Come on, we'll work on some shorts for you."
"Not pants?" Megan said. "A shirt? Maybe a dress?"
"No, not pants," Shanea said, for the first time with a serious tone. "Megan, please don't say things that don't make sense, okay? Did you see anyone wearing pants?"
"No," Megan said, slowly. "I guess that was pretty stupid, huh? I guess, mayb
e, a halter top? Short shorts? What was that thing they used to wear, I've seen it sometimes. Oh, yeah, a miniskirt?"
"What's that?"
"Think 'school-girl look.' "
"Oh, is that what they used to wear in schools?" Shanea said, her eyes widening. "Were they harems, too?"
"Sometimes you have to wonder," Megan frowned. "Sewing. Bleck."
CHAPTER TWO
There had been a pair of cutting scissors in the room, chained to the shelves. Other than that they had small cutting blades about the size of her thumbnail to section the cloth. Megan noticed that she hadn't seen anything resembling a knife or any serious bladed weapon in the whole harem. They had cut sections of cloth and headed back to their seat by Amber.
"What are you going to make?" Shanea asked.
Megan looked around at the other girls. Most of them simply wore the light robes that were provided, but a few had other items. One girl had a lovely blue pair of panties and bra with lace on the edges. But Megan knew that was far beyond her ability, even if she felt "right" wearing nothing but panties and a bra in public.
But she really wanted some support for her breasts. And something down lower would be good as well.
"I think . . . something to go around my top and bottom," Megan said, then shook her head at Shanea's incipient worried frown. "Nothing too . . . covering, damnit. Something that just covers the breasts, maybe buttoned. Just a few buttons. And pretty much the same thing on the bottom. If I can use those to figure out how to sew, I'll look at making things like bras and panties."
"Oh, those are hard," Shanea said, sadly. "Mine always look terrible. Only Mirta is that good. She's so good nobody picks on her even if she isn't one of Ashly's friends."
"Ashly?" Megan asked, picking up a length of heavy blue silk that rippled like water in her hands. "What about this?" she said, wrapping it around her breasts over the robe.
"Shorter," Shanea said, darkly. "Narrower, whatever."
"Great," Megan snorted, folding the cloth almost in half. "They're going to hang out the bottom if I go this narrow."
"Trust me, go with narrow," Shanea said. "If Christel thinks you're trying to 'cover up' too much you're not going to like it."
"Got it." Megan frowned. "Shorter. Now, Ashly," she said, setting the cloth down and trying to figure out what to cut off. And how; the narrow cutters were hard to figure out.
"She's the one playing backgammon," Shanea whispered, gesturing carefully to the far side of the room where a tall, heavily built blonde was lying on her stomach looking at the board, one foot raised in the air and lazily waving back and forth.
"What about her?" Megan asked. She was trying to cut a straight line in the cloth and failing miserably despite going with the weave. The cutters were wooden crescents with two small blades embedded in them. When pressed into the edge of the fabric they would start a triangular cut and they maintained it well, as long as the fabric was kept taut. But when she'd stop to tighten the fabric the cut would waver. And it wasn't particularly straight to begin with. She suspected her first effort was not going to be useable in public.
"She's next after Christel," Shanea said. "Christel doesn't say that, but Ashly does, and she's really mean. She's the one that turned in Amber for talking about escaping. And she's got some friends that help her. She'll hurt you; she likes to hurt people."
"Some people are like that," Megan replied. I'm one of them. At least when I'm this angry. "So does she hurt you?"
"Not so much anymore," Shanea said, sadly. "I just try to keep my head down and not bother anybody. Most of the time they don't bother me. Mostly."
Imprisonment experiments. Dad had talked about that one time, too. Take any random group of people. Make one side the "guards" and the other side the "prisoners." Within weeks the guards are sadistic to the prisoners and the prisoners have separated into packs for mutual protection.
Something else about prison society. "It's human society with all the stops off, honey. You have to establish that you're not the bottom of the pecking order. And you have to establish that fast."
Prisons were as much a part of the past as . . . well, war, come to think of it. But her father, it seemed sometimes, knew everything. And a lot of it he had passed on.
"Sometimes they want me to have sex with them," Shanea continued. She had cut out a triangle of cloth and was contemplating it idly, as if thinking about something in the past. "It's . . . sometimes it's not so bad."
"Shanea?" Megan said, gently.
"Yes?"
"Let me handle Ashly and her friends," Megan said, then smiled, nicely.
"Don't try to fight them," Shanea said. "Christel doesn't like fighting."
"I'm sure it won't get that far," Megan replied. "Leave it to me." She looked at the strip of cloth, then folded in an edge and wrapped it around her top again. "What do you think?"
"Narrower."
"It will be when I'm done." Megan sighed. She measured where it met in the front and then cut it off with some extra cloth in case she messed it up. Then she folded over one edge, which immediately unfolded.
"Pins," Shanea said, handing her a handful. "Fold the edges and then pin them."
"This is a pain," Megan snapped.
"It passes the time." Shanea shrugged. "There's sewing, talking, bathing and playing board games. Except when Paul is here."
"And then there's getting raped," Megan said, darkly.
"It's really not that bad," Shanea said. "Really. There's nothing you can do to stop it, so just have as much fun as you can. Think of your boyfriend or something. Or girlfriend if you go that way."
"Which is it for you?" Megan asked.
"Oh, I dunno," Shanea smiled. "I think for fun, guys. For comfort, mostly girls."
"And the only 'guy' is Paul," Megan said.
"Yep."
"What's he like?" Megan asked, almost against her will. She told herself she was just gathering information about the enemy, but she knew she was lying. If she was going to spend the rest of her life "servicing" some guy, it made sense to recon the territory as well as possible.
"Not too big, thank goodness," Shanea said with a shrug. "I kind of have to clamp down on him. Too quick. He really seems to think it's just a duty."
"Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am." Megan said, thinking that if it was "just a duty" a test tube and artificial insemination would work as well. Although, somewhere, she'd heard the term "live cover" which supposedly worked better. She shuddered at the thought. I'm a brood mare.
"Yep. 'Oops, I gotta go now.' And he switches around, too. I haven't been with him in . . . a while. I mean, I don't know how long. No way to tell time in here."
"Does he just . . . arrive, do one of the girls and then leave?"
"Usually. Sometimes he stays for a while talking and then chooses another."
"Just one of his myriad 'duties,' " Megan snorted.
"I guess. And he's looking worse and worse, too."
"What do you mean?" Megan had gotten the edges pinned and took up one of the fine needles. Shanea had insisted on little needles for the silk and Megan found herself squinting at the hole, trying to get the incredibly fine thread to fit the even finer hole in the needle.
"Well you saw him," Shanea said. She was apparently working on one breast piece of a bra and her movements were far defter than Megan's.
"He looked old and worn out," Megan said. "From the little I saw. But I thought that was a disguise?"
"The old might be," Shanea said, picking up one of the needles and trying to thread it as well. After only a few tries she got the thread through. "Try licking it."
"What?" Megan said, aghast at the apparent non sequitur.
"The thread, silly," Shanea said with a grin. "Try licking it. It makes the end a little smaller, it slides in better and it stays . . . firmer." She grinned again.
"Harem humor," Megan snorted. "Great." She tried licking the thread though and it was easier. It still seemed to take her forever to get it
though the needle.
"See? Lick it and it goes in easier," Shanea grinned.
"Shanea?"
"Yeah?"
"Once is funny; twice is annoying."
"Okay."
"You were saying Paul is looking worse?" Megan said after an overlong silence.
"Yeah," Shanea replied after a moment. "He just keeps getting thinner and weaker-looking. Like he's sick or something."
"Or wondering if destroying the world is a really good idea?" Megan muttered.
"No. He's really worried about people, though," Shanea said. "It's really all he talks about, how hard it is for the people."
"Maybe he should have thought about that before he tried to overthrow the Council," Megan replied quietly.
"Well if Sheida hadn't fought back . . ." Shanea said, hotly.
"Shanea, let's not argue about that, okay?" Megan smiled. "You're the closest thing that I've got to a friend in here. I won't say anything else bad about Paul, okay?"
"Okay," Shanea replied, shrugging. "I mean, I wish it hadn't happened, too. But if Sheida had just seen what he was trying to do . . ."
"I'm sure she did," Megan said, as placatingly as she could. "But, really, let's not argue about it, okay? We can't do anything about it. And, you're right, Paul is probably a nice guy. I'm sure we'll get along fine."
"Well, he is a nice person," Shanea said. "He's been very nice to us."
"Of course," Megan replied. He gets sex whenever he wants it and all he has to do is give us some board games and cloth. Great guy.
"Dinner time," Christel announced, as she opened up her door.
"I'm not really hungry, yet," Megan whispered.
"Eat it while you can get it," Shanea replied. "Three meals a day, none in between."
"What about the sewing?"
"We'll just leave it here," Shanea said, standing up and touching Amber on the arm. "Ami, time for dinner."
"Dinner," Amber replied, standing up and walking towards the dining room. She had a graceful stride and, again, Megan had to wonder what she had been like before.
"Settling in?" Christel asked.
"Yes, ma'am," Megan said, trying to imitate Shanea's bright vacuousness.
