A moment later the Overseers escorted the calm and collected gray-haired woman into the throne room.
"We found her hanging around the hall's food preparation area," the commander announced.
"I was not hanging around." Valori cast a defiant gaze at her accuser. "I volunteered my services in the kitchen."
Drucinda slowly approached the older woman and scrutinized her face for several long minutes. "You are familiar. This one has been a servant for a long time in our household."
"Yes, my lady. I am a skilled seamstress and cook. I have served the Clan Alphan well for many years. To whom should I give thanks for this great pleasure in meeting you at last, my high priestess?"
"No thanks are necessary if you are not to blame for this rogue ruining our feast." She indicated Hernando with a toss of her head. "So, tell us truthfully... Did this Quadsang male have relations with this human female?"
"Did I let the two lovers make a nest, my lady?" Valori touched her heart and sighed. "I cannot lie. I can't stand it when two such obvious soul mates are kept apart. I did help them get together without Lord Murnau's permission."
"Impossible!" Murnau shouted. Drucinda silenced him with a look.
"From her scent, I would say not." The priestess turned to the Overseer commander. "These three are to be removed from our presence immediately and sent with the others to the farm."
"Not the farm!" Hernando cried. "Please, my lady. Valori is old—she will never make it there, and Olivia is so young."
Olivia gulped. We're getting out of here, but it doesn't sound like we're going to Disneyland.
Murnau fell to his knees. "My lady, they should be killed for their grievous offense against you and our clan."
"There is no use wasting three perfectly good workers to appease your guilt, Murnau." Drucinda nodded to the Overseers for the prisoners' removal. "I've made up my mind. Besides you know how long the average farm worker lasts in the heat of the dayside. That will be punishment enough."
"Will it?" Murnau sneered. "I will make whoever is responsible for this fiasco pay for damaging my reputation."
Olivia gulped. His angry stare told her he meant revenge. I've made an enemy. I hope my new friends will more than make up for it.
The Overseer grabbed the three of them by their elbows and half-pushed, half-dragged them through the curtained archway and back into the hall proper. The music ended abruptly, and the dancers stopped their movements. A murmur of whispers began as they were led past the festival-goers.
What a pity. They must realize the feast has been canceled.
Suddenly, a female clan member began to wail. Her shrieking caught on and others joined in the sad, piercing cry.
"Wow, we've really ruined their party," Olivia shouted as the mourning cries grew louder.
"Yeah, they'd been looking forward to this all year," Hernando shouted back. A screeching Pure Blood couple fell to their knees in front of them, forcing the Overseers to drag them around the obstruction.
"They're going to miss me," Hernando explained. "They had such high hopes."
"As dinner?"
"As their personal assistant. I showed great promise."
Olivia frowned. "Must be nice to be wanted—for other than your blood."
"Don't be jealous," he said under his breath. "They wanted you for more than your blood as well. They need to increase their numbers to keep their power, and healthy, young human females make the best surrogates."
"I was going to be married to one of their lot?" Her stomach churned at the thought. "Become the mother of baby bloodsuckers?"
"Yes, it's possible. That's why we had to get you out of here. The Alphans have held power on BloodDark for too long. We couldn't risk them strengthening their position in the clan order. We had to get you out of the city."
"Who are we?"
Before Hernando could answer they were forced out into the darkness and separated.
Chapter Six
Olivia wished she could have kept the gown and jewelry, but her jacket, jeans, and tank tee would probably prove more practical where she was going.
"Thanks for keeping them clean and pressed for me!" The Overseers tossed her clothes into the cell and slammed the door behind them. Olivia picked up the tee and saw the precious autograph she had risked everything for had disappeared in the wash. "Crud! Why did I ever..." She sighed. "At the very least they could have at least given me a hanger for this dress."
"Never mind." Valori helped her untie the laces. "You should be grateful they let you keep your head on your shoulders."
Olivia looked askance at her. The older woman certainly had a way with words. "Oh, I am grateful, but I'd thought the scent-masker was going to let me escape with all my body parts connected."
"It did." The older woman helped to slide the gown over her head and folded it into thirds. "You're all in one piece, and you are escaping the city. Is that not what you wanted?"
"Yes, but I wanted to escape the city and return to Earth."
"All in good time, my dear."
Olivia pulled on her jeans and zipped them up, then bent to slide on her sneakers. "All in good time?" She straightened. "You sound like you knew this would happen. You mean, you..."
Valori smiled. "I never said how the scent-masker was going to work. It worked just as I had planned."
"And Hernando? He knew things would turn out the way they did?"
"Maybe. Maybe not." Valori shrugged. Olivia frowned. "Don't worry, child," Valori said, winking. "We'll fill him in on the journey to the farm."
Several hours later, Overseers marched Olivia and Valori from their holding cell and into the large cobblestone plaza near the Portal. There they discovered how many other servants hadn't pleased their masters recently.
"So many. There's got to be at least a hundred of us." Olivia searched the milling crowd in vain for Hernando. Where is he? He couldn't have gotten free, could he?
"There's always a need for farm workers," Valori shouted above the roar. "Not many volunteer for the assignment."
"I guess that's why we're being herded like cattle into a pen. They need more livestock." Olivia scanned the crowd again. "Do you see Hernando?"
Valori shook her head. "No, but don't worry. We'll find him when we get loaded."
"Loaded?"
"Onto the transport. We can't walk the entire way. We'd never make it alive."
"Great."
Olivia looked up toward the pavilion which housed the Portal. An unearthly blue-silver light flowed between the pillars. A subtle vibration thrummed through it. Great power emanated from it. Forbidden, seductive power... Olivia found herself drawn to it.
The Overseers wouldn't allow for sight-seeing. They prodded their charges with their staffs, forcing the crowd away from the Portal. Olivia sighed. She watched over her shoulder as the Portal shrank in the distance. She was walking away from her only chance at returning home.
Her sadness was forgotten when she spotted how they were going to travel.
"Whoa! Now, that's what I call a transport!"
The gleaming brass-trimmed, black metal monster stood three stories high and a block long with huge wheels the size of her friend Britt's backyard, above-ground swimming pool. It rested upon the widest train tracks Olivia had ever laid eyes upon. The engine stack belched volumes of white steam as it pulled up to a station platform.
"It's a train for giants." Olivia whistled. She followed Valori to the first passenger car behind the engine.
"There's your young man." Valori pointed out Hernando walking up a long ramp toward a carriage opening.
"Hernando!" Olivia ran toward him but found her way blocked by a wide Overseer. "Hey, brick wall! Outta my way!"
A rough push with his staff and she went tumbling backward into Valori's arms. The older woman nodded in Hernando's direction. "Don't try to get on that car. I see now the Pure Bloods are keeping males and females in separate compartments. They don't want us getting too friendly with ea
ch other."
Olivia scowled and straightened up. "Huh! If I'm already spoiled goods then why should they care?"
"They care about how they want to breed their livestock and when."
Olivia's blood ran cold. She crossed her arms tightly about her middle. "We really are just animals to them, aren't we?"
"That's where they underestimate us, my dear. They can't tell us who to love. Our hearts tell us that."
A soft, far off look washed over Valori's normally piercing eyes. Olivia thought her friend looked sadder than she had the moment before. She's loved and lost someone very close to her, I can tell. These Pure Bloods have a lot to answer for!
"Come along now, child." Valori put an arm about Olivia's shoulders and steered her toward the females-only compartment.
The transport swayed roughly back and forth as it barreled down the track. The passenger car had multiple levels and a scattering of narrow windows. Olivia and Valori found a spot by one of the windows, but the views that flew past them were bleak. As they traveled through the city, dark stone buildings of massive proportions lined the tracks. They offered no clues to what activities happened within. The urban center of BloodDark appeared as forbidding as a fortress.
"Don't the Pure Bloods hire any decent architects? What's wrong with a few good windows?" Olivia sighed. "Is this really the only city on the planet?"
"This is a small part of the city," Valori said. "It's said other Pure Blood communities exist, but this is by far the largest. The Pure Bloods have never wandered far from this one place on BloodDark. The rest of the planet is essentially left to the Overseers, Quadsangs, and humans."
"Overseers I know—they seem to be the leg men for the Pure Bloods, but what is a Quadsang exactly?"
"Why, I am Quadsang." Valori sat up tall. A proud smile lit her face and a triumphant glow filled her eyes. "So is Hernando. Our ancestry is mostly human, but we also have a few Pure Blood ancestors."
Olivia wrinkled her nose. Under no circumstance could she consider someone like Murnau attractive. She'd rather date the stupidest jock in her history class than that bloodsucker! But the gorgeous golden-haired boy who caught her eye on the dance floor at the festival? For him, she might make an exception. Maybe he was a Quadsang, too? It seemed unlikely that someone as good-looking as Golden Boy could be a part of the Alphan Clan. She shook her head and tried to dismiss her musings.
"You can't be serious, Valori. You're saying Pure Bloods actually have relationships with humans that don't involve drinking our blood? That they hook up and even marry?"
Valori laughed. "Yes, we're not their only sustenance. Many Pure Bloods and humans have been quite happy together. There wouldn't be so many Overseers or Quadsangs if they hadn't been!"
"You mean the Overseers are also part human?" Olivia couldn't detect any human characteristics in the hulking guards and lackeys at all.
"Overseers have fewer human ancestors," Valori continued. "That is why they resemble their Pure Bloods masters. They long to be raised in status, since their offspring have mated with other Pure Bloods. They wish to someday be considered Pure Blood themselves."
Ah-ha! Now she was catching on to how things worked on this messed up planet. "Let me guess—the Pure Bloods don't consider the Overseers to be full members of their family, right?"
Valori nodded. "No. The Pure Bloods let the Overseers do all the hard work and handle other servants, but they have never recognized the Overseers as their equals."
Olivia had heard plenty of similar stories before. It seemed prejudice infected all sentient beings in their galaxy.
"They act pretty mean at times, but I feel sorry for the Overseers. To be judged to be less-than-perfect because of your ancestors or how you look or the color of your skin... It's just not right. I've always hoped that if humans ever met other peoples from other worlds they would turn out to be more enlightened like on Star Trek. I guess not."
She turned and watched the scene rushing past the window. With an abruptness that made her flinch, the train emerged from the city and onto a vast plain. Olivia pressed closer to the icy-cold glass. For as far as she could see, the countryside outside the city limits consisted of swathes of gravel and sand scattered with isolated outcrops of black rock. Lit by the distant orange star and the weak crimson light of the gas giant, the bleakness of the landscape sucked out her soul. The fortress-like façade of the city disappeared far behind them and with it the Portal and any chance of a swift return to Earth.
Olivia drew back from the window and shivered with more than cold. Why hadn't the Pure Bloods spread across their world? Why had they settled in one spot and one spot only? Was it because of the Portal? Could they not move the Portal?
And why was the Portal pointed only at Earth?
Olivia turned back to her companion. "Valori, can you tell me why the Pure Bloods transport others from Earth? Don't they ever travel to other worlds? Don't they ever want to leave BloodDark for good?"
The older woman acted puzzled by the question. "Are there any other worlds where thinking beings like us dwell?"
"Uh, I don't really know." Olivia shrugged. "You mean the Pure Bloods have never found any other inhabited planets in their searches?"
Valori furrowed her brow in thought for a moment. "None that I am aware of. Our oldest myths tell us that the Pure Bloods came to the world of BloodDark long ago because of a great war—but when and where I don't believe I've ever heard. They don't wish to leave this place because their enemies might find them. So, they stay here protected by their fortress and strengthen themselves for the battle to come."
"Strengthen themselves?" Of all the nerve! "By kidnapping beings from another world and using them as slaves and sustenance for their festivals and for their sniffing pleasure?" Olivia scrunched up her nose and stuck out her tongue. "Ugh. For a technologically advanced civilization, these Pure Bloods certainly act backwards in their social dealings."
"Sometimes the more advanced you are, the more backwards you act," Valori laughed.
Olivia smiled. "Tell me about it. You should see my trigonometry class."
"Humans weren't always treated as slaves on BloodDark, nor did the Pure Bloods have need of their blood in the ways you think," Valori further explained. "According to myth, in the early days the Pure Bloods desperately needed help to survive on this world. It was very different from where they came from originally, and they used what tools they had to search for help."
"The Portal? They used it to reach out and discovered human kind. We weren't exactly the help they needed, huh?"
"True. However, the Pure Bloods didn't wish to lose their superior technology by adopting primitive ways to adapt to this world. Through trial and error they discovered humans possessed something that would help the Pure Bloods survive."
Olivia could guess what that particular something was. "Our blood, right?"
Valori shook her head. "Not exactly, but it's found in the blood I'm told. It is the substance that makes human beings unique from each other and to their creator. The Pure Bloods tried to instill this part of the life force into their own beings to make them strong enough to adapt to this dark world."
Olivia gasped. "You're not saying... You mean they used human DNA to adapt themselves?"
"I don't know what 'DNA' is, but it's said they couldn't quite incorporate the human life force into their own. So they made another attempt and it did change them... altered them... caused them to yearn for human blood to maintain their life force. To this day, they visit Earth on occasion to replenish their stock."
"Livestock is a better term for us," Olivia muttered. She turned to the window once more and watched the undulating hills of rock and sand flash by the transport as it took them farther away from the city. "I'm surprised they don't just put us all in a pasture and graze us like cattle."
"What is a cattle?" Valori asked. "I have often heard newcomers refer to these creatures."
"Don't you know what a cow is?" Olivia studied h
er friend's blank expression. "I thought you did since you speak English so well."
"English?"
"The language you, Hernando, and I speak. You're not wearing one of those wrist translators, are you?"
"The Pure Bloods keep their technology to themselves and lend it only to their most trusted servants." Valori's pained expression hinted at the emotional turmoil inside. "I served the Clan Alphan for thirty years. How little they care about what happens to the likes of me! "
Olivia felt her stomach twist. She realized now how much Valori and Hernando had given up by helping her, but she couldn't dwell on the guilt. She had to concentrate on her escape.
"How did you learn to speak the language we're speaking now?" she asked gently.
Valori shrugged. "My mother taught me to speak it. It's a common language among newcomers, although some speak it better than others. We use it among ourselves since most Pure Bloods don't have translators."
Olivia grinned and raised a fist in triumph. "Far out! You all could organize a rebellion against your masters while they stood in the room, and they'd be none the wiser?"
"Very clever you are." Valori winked.
"So are you." Olivia gave her new friend a hug. "You got us away from Murnau and his clan. All in one piece."
Valori bit her lip. "I don't know... I can't be very smart if I don't know what a cattle is."
*****
A day passed -– or so Olivia calculated. Measuring time proved challenging on BloodDark. The steam-powered transport barreled along the track for hours without pause for rest or refueling. Other slaves distributed food in the carriages by means of trolleys, supervised by an Overseer. The guards didn't seem the least concerned about security, merely going through the motions of supervising the food rationing.
Olivia wondered at the relaxed regime, but as Valori pointed out when she'd questioned her on it, "Even if someone leaped from the transport and survived the fall, where would they go on foot?"
Over time the seat grew uncomfortable, and it took an effort to sleep. Tiredness, the swaying of the train car, and the unchanging dark scenery eventually lulled Olivia into a fitful slumber. During the second day by her reckoning she fell into a doze, and in her dreams, she saw her mother and father crying—crying over losing her, their only child.
Olivia's Escape Page 5
