Slave Empire III - The Shrike Read online

  Tarke settled down to wait, watching her sleep.

  Rayne woke again several hours later, and, as the ship had warned him, she was dull and lethargic, but smiled in a distant, tremulous way. She drank water from the crystal goblet Scrysalza had grown for him and ate some of the peculiar food it provided.

  Rayne found Tarke’s attentiveness almost unnerving, and had to remind herself that this was the same reserved Antian who had frustrated her so. He hardly spoke, and she wondered at his silence, her questions multiplying.

  Late in the second day of her recovery, as she lay beside him on the lake shore, her head pillowed in the crook of his arm, she reached up and touched the sleek, gleaming black slave collar around his throat. He looked down at her.

  “I’ve been a fool,” he said. “I thought it was better to keep certain things a secret, to spare myself the pain of explaining it to you, and you the horror of hearing it. Now I realise that you have a right to know everything, no matter how much I dislike talking about it, and even if it makes you never want to see me again. I won’t blame you if you do.”

  He paused, his eyes growing distant. “I named myself the Shrike after a small, fairly vicious flying predator on my world. They had a nasty habit of impaling their living victims on the thorns of a charab tree and eating them at their leisure. It’s the symbol on my ships, and it represents the ruthlessness I’ve had to use to survive.”

  His tone changed subtly, and he looked away. “Slavers stole me when I was fourteen. I was lured into the woods on my way home from school by a spaceship landing there. They targeted me specifically, and I can only assume they spied on me beforehand. They drugged me. I don’t remember much until I reached the slave market. I remember them fitting the collar, and the heat as it welded itself together. At the time, I didn’t know I would always wear it.”

  His expression was inscrutable, but his voice was full of pain. “I was considered a valuable slave. A natural, they called me. Physical attraction can be had from a surgeon’s laser cutter, and many slaves are enhanced to increase their value. They’re called artificials, and are considerably less valuable than a natural, although the cost of their alteration is added to their price.

  “Still, they don’t look natural, and sometimes the surgery goes wrong. Slavers often go to cheap surgeons, but the occasional failures are worth it. My captors hid the fact that I was Antian, which actually made me almost worthless. They claimed I was Mansurian, an Atlantean Veridian cross.”

  He paused, frowning. “There are many kinds of slaves. They’re generally categorised early on, based upon their attributes, and sent to the appropriate market. Some are used as manual labour, some are hunted for sport, others become what are known as sportsmen, and are trained to fight or play deadly games.

  “Their owners can make a lot of money from them, and the good ones are highly prized. Others become servants or laboratory specimens. The women are used as servants, playthings or breeders, and sometimes forced to bear their owner’s children. But the most valuable slaves are those who are used in the pleasure market, and that was where I was sent.”

  Tarke glanced at her. “My first owner was a rich woman, a Jendariss deviant, as they’re known. When I didn’t do as she wished, she did a DNA scan and learnt that she had been lied to, but she didn’t give up and sell me. If she had, I might have died a long time ago. Instead, she used drugs. Luckily for me, their use also caused memory lapses, so I have little recall of what happened under their influence. She made the mistake of showing me off to her friends, and, when I was eighteen, slavers stole me and sold me again. A man bought me for his daughter, who was my age, spoilt and cruel. She liked torturing things. She had already done it to a lot of pets. I was even better, because I could speak. She wanted to hear me beg her to stop, but I didn’t. I stopped talking altogether. One day when she was hurting me, I turned on her. I didn’t care if she killed me, I’d had enough. I nearly killed her before the other slaves stopped me. Her father had me beaten almost to death, but decided I was worth too much and sold me.

  “A woman who ran a pleasure club bought me, and I’ll leave what happened then to your imagination, but whatever you imagine they did to me, it was four times worse. I was there for many years, until the drugs no longer worked and she sold me as a burnout.”

  Tarke sighed, gazing across the lake. The pain in his husky voice made her want to tell him to stop. She did not need to hear this if it caused him so much distress to remember it.

  He continued, “As a burnout, I was considerably less valuable, but I was strong, so they put me into the sportsman market. My next owner had me trained to play a particularly dangerous game called Dodge Blade, and the name pretty much explains it. All you need are quick reflexes and the ability to think fast and move even faster. Your first mistake would be your last, which was partly the reason for its popularity, and why only slaves played it.

  “As a player became more experienced the game’s difficulty increased, and millions were bet on the outcome. I was injured several times, but I survived to the highest level. When the game couldn’t be made any more difficult, it was generally just a matter of time before the player made a mistake and died. I kept playing it for… a long time at the highest level, thinking each game would be my last. My owner must have made a fortune, but eventually I was banned, so he sold me.”

  Tarke looked down at her again and noticed the tears that ran down her cheeks. He wiped them away, shaking his head. “Don’t cry. I was quite proud of myself. I had achieved something for the first time in my life, and it felt good. You have to try to understand that, as a slave, I had grown used to not owning my destiny. I had almost accepted it, for I knew escape was impossible. The slave collar is not only used for punishment, it’s also a tracking device, and can be used as an alarm to prevent slaves from escaping their prisons.

  “My prowess meant that my owner sold me for a large sum of money. But I could no longer play Dodge Blade, so my new master trained me as a fighter. I was good at that too, and for seven years I was unbeaten against men, then they grew bored with my constant success. They couldn’t win anything betting on me, the odds were too poor. So they pitted me against alien creatures. Sometimes I had a weapon, sometimes not, but usually the odds were against me. Fighting the Envoy brought back a lot of memories.”

  Rayne’s heart ached with horror and pity. He shot her a grim smile, avoiding her eyes. “I proved to be quite valuable to my owner, who made a fortune taking me to various planets and betting on me. But he had a jealous rival, who chose to get his revenge by stealing me. He didn’t want to sell me, though. He wanted to kill me, so he made me the quarry in a hunting party on a hostile desert planet.

  “I eluded them for seven days, until I grew weak from thirst and fell into a natural trap. I was injured quite badly, and I thought it was the end. But the hunting party found me and one of his friends took a fancy to me, so he bought me. He was the first kind owner I had, and he made me a bodyguard. But after two years I was stolen and sold back into the gladiator market. Again I was successful, and had a string of owners who took me to various worlds to fight.

  “Eventually I was stolen again, but this time I was bought by an old lady who wanted to paint me, and also used me as a bodyguard. She was clever enough to make me wear a mask in public, so I wasn’t stolen again. I was with her for fifteen years, and she persuaded me to talk again. She treated me well, and when she died she left all her possessions to me. I sold them and bought a ship.”

  Tarke looked down at her. “So, that’s it; the story of my life as a slave. I became a smuggler of anything except drugs in a decrepit ship. I was too ashamed to go home at first, but after five years I did, and found the disaster that had befallen my people. The rest, you know.”

  Rayne sighed and fingered the limp metal collar, hating it. She wanted to tell him how she felt, but words could not express her horror, nor did she think he wanted her to say anything. That was why he had told her before she
regained her ability to speak, she suspected.

  Instead, she gazed longing at the lake, and he helped her into the water. Her silken dress remained a barrier between them, and his touch was impersonal. He was clearly uncomfortable with the situation, and now she had an idea why. She had a feeling that there was more he had not told her, but she knew he would when he was ready. Whatever it was, it must be painful, so it was up to him to choose his moment to tell her.

  Scrysalza, who had been quiet for some time, brushed her mind, agreeing with her. The man-thing, it said, was very troubled, and did indeed have another secret, maybe even more than one. His memories were filled with pain and blood, unspeakable suffering and torture. It had touched them, and did not like what it had seen. Sensing her preoccupation with Tarke’s story, it withdrew, leaving her to float in his arms, hers twined around his neck. All too soon, he helped her to shore and carried her back to their camp.

  Two days later, they sat beside the lake again, watching a distant cleaner crab scurrying along the wall with some detritus clutched in its claws. They had seen several of the ship’s creatures since they had been here, each one more fascinating than the last. The cleaner crab was a common sight. Its main function seemed to be keeping the air chamber functioning properly, clearing away dead growths and carrying them off somewhere.

  When a clump of fungus had appeared on the moss and started to spread greyish tendrils into it, a bizarre, ant-like creature had appeared and sprayed it with some sort of poison before hurrying off in search of more. The flowering of a weird growth had brought a flock of flying beasts the size of doves to carry its pollen to another plant. Since the creatures were all part of the ship, presumably it created and sent them to do their tasks when it needed their services. The ship confirmed this, explaining that the use to which each creature was put dictated its design.

  Rayne watched the cleaner crab with familiarity verging on boredom, and wondered when Tarke would want to leave. She was in no hurry, but he had an empire waiting outside, and people who were probably becoming more worried by the day. Answering her thought, Scrysalza informed her that the people outside were no longer hostile or afraid. They came in their thousands to see it, inside their metal shells. Rayne smiled, amused by the idea of the Ship being a tourist attraction. Considering its alien beauty, it did not surprise her.

  People probably paid a fortune to see it, and businessmen would cash in on this unique opportunity. She also wondered when Scrysalza would want to return to its nebula, although the time it spent here was negligible to such a long-lived entity, and its patience seemed infinite. She had the impression that Scrysalza had a question of its own to ask, and awaited an opportune moment.

  Rayne sighed and turned to her husband, slipping her hand into his. He smiled and lifted her hand to kiss the back of it, a gesture that was becoming familiar. She longed to hold him, but sensed his dislike for it, although he tried to hide it. It was one of the drawbacks of being an empath, even with a man whose mental defences were so good.

  Without thinking, she stroked his cheek. He smiled, but turned his head away and flopped back, out of reach. Considering his ill-treatment as a slave, the tale of which was written in the scars he did his best to hide, his reactions did not surprise her. For fifty-eight years he had spurned any touch and hidden every part of himself from prying eyes. It surprised her that he was still sane, although she suspected that he had several phobias as a result. His shorts revealed more scars on his calves and ankles, and she wondered if there was any part of him that was not scarred. She had even noticed a few on his face, a tiny white line across the bridge of his nose and a larger one on his cheek. Each one had a story behind it, and brought back painful memories, serving as constant reminders of his past. She traced the scars around his wrist and glanced at him.

  “How did you get these?” Her voice was still husky from disuse.

  He looked away. “Shackles.”

  “Why would they put shackles on you, as well as a collar?”

  “For extra control. They didn’t want to guard me all the time, so shackling me was easier. When I was a fighter, my owners were often afraid of me. They knew how easily I could kill them. While I was waiting my turn in the arena, they would tether me with the rest of the slaves.”

  She leant over and slid her arms around his chest, making him flinch. “You know I would never hurt you, don’t you?”

  He chuckled, glancing down at her. “I’m not scared of you.”

  “That’s not what I meant -”

  “I know what you meant. Actually, it’s me I’m scared of.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He hesitated. “You must be careful when you’re near me. Don’t ever touch me unless I know it’s you. Okay?”

  She nodded, puzzled. “Why?”

  “I can be dangerous. It started with that damned girl torturing me, when I lost control. But it didn’t stop there. I guess I suffered too much. I stopped trusting people. Sometimes it happened when they beat me, other times they just had to touch me, and I’d lash out.”

  “That’s why they shackled you.”

  He sighed. “Yes. As the years passed I became more and more dangerous and unpredictable. At the pleasure club I was drugged whenever I was around people, which made me safe. As a fighter, they had to chain me. I was slowly going off the deep end, I guess. I became what they called a reflex fighter. Maybe I hoped they’d kill me if I got too dangerous. I was pretty confused, but death would have been a mercy. I’m much better now. You don’t have to worry. Just don’t sneak up on me and poke me in the back or anything like that.”

  “I won’t.” She rested her cheek on his chest and cuddled closer, sensing a ripple of tension go through him. “What was that?”

  “That’s... just because of my dislike for being touched. You must have noticed it before now.”

  She raised her head. “I thought you were just being aloof, but now I understand. You were so badly hurt...”

  “I have a large collection of aversions. Being untouchable is just one of them, but perhaps my worst.” Tarke took her hand and stroked it. “I promised the Atlanteans a war if you died, and I would have kept my word. I swore to avenge you. I... missed you, Rayne.” He paused, looking pensive, as if he was choosing his words carefully.

  “I told you that what I had to offer was pretty shabby, and it is. That’s why I tried to keep you away. But in the end I couldn’t stand by and watch you kill yourself with those filthy drugs. I hoped… thought… you would find someone and settle down. The last thing I wanted was to bring you into my world, with all its dangers, and now you know why. What I did wasn’t fair to you, though. I didn’t want to tell you the whole truth, because I knew it would hurt you, but now I must. You deserve to know.”

  He paused, gazing at her hand. “I married you because I wanted to save you and it was the only way. If I’d offered you less I know you wouldn’t have stayed. But I was clear about the terms, and you accepted them. I wanted to see you every day, but that would have made things worse. When I was at the base I would find myself going to wherever you were, just to see you. It was embarrassing.”

  She giggled, but his serious tone and some of what he said worried her. He seemed to be contradicting himself. “What are you saying?” she whispered.

  “I told you there was a reason why marriage to me would only ever be a job, and that hasn’t changed. You noticed when we were here before that I’m not normal.”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  He frowned at her hand. “I shunned people a long time ago. I don’t want to be around them. I don’t want to touch them and I especially don’t want them touching me. I guess I’m the ultimate loner, and yet, I sometimes have to deal with a lot of people.”

  “Have you ever tried to change?”

  “I never wanted to, until I met you, and now I think it’s too late. My aversions and reactions are too ingrained. I want us to have what we had before, but if you don’t want to
I’ll understand. We can just have the ceremonial bond that will ensure my people protect you. It’s up to you, but I hope you choose to share your life with me.”

  “Will you spend more time with me?”

  “So you want to stay with me, like before?”

  “Of course I do! I…” She bit her tongue and looked away.

  He cocked his head, his eyes intent. “What? You were going to say you love me, weren’t you?”

  “No. Maybe. I’m not telling you anything if you don’t feel anything for me.”

  He raised her hand and kissed the back of it. “Rayne… I’m a telepath and you’re an open book. You don’t have to tell me. I know.”

  “That’s not fair. It’s rude, too.” She frowned at the moss, annoyed that he knew her secret, and had probably known for as long as she had.

  “Do you really think I would have let you into my life if I didn’t feel anything for you? Not to mention rushing to your rescue whenever you were in trouble. I’ve as good as told you what I feel, even if I hadn’t been painfully obvious when I followed you around on the base. Everyone else knew. Do I really have to say it?”

  “Yes. I want you to.”

  He shook his head and lowered his eyes. “Ah, Rayne… I fell in love with you a long time ago.”

  Her eyes brimmed over, and her heart seemed to grow two sizes bigger. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It’s not much good to you, is it? It doesn’t change anything.”

  Rayne wiped her cheeks. “I don’t have to tell you how much you’ve fascinated me, since you’ve been reading my mind. You know what I think of you. Do you really think your being a bit strange matters to me? I wouldn’t care if you were paralysed from the neck down.”

  “Trouble is, I’m not in a floater chair, am I? I look normal, but I’m definitely not.”