by Jaleta Clegg
Chapter 2
I sniffed and gagged, woken by a vile stench worse than Flago's socks. I lay on a pile of dried grass that stank like an overgrown algae tank. I sat to get away from it despite my head spinning and my body aching. I had a big lump over one ear that ached horribly, but everything else seemed to be intact.
The only light came from around the door, a pale halo that barely lit any of the room. Rough stone chilled my hands and knees as I crawled over to investigate. It was real stone, complete with chips and cracks, but that couldn't be right. No one built with real stone. Plascrete was much cheaper and easier to shape and didn't have all the defects.
The door was a big slab of real wood. I got slivers trying to pry it open. It wouldn't budge when I shoved it. I hammered on it and shouted. No one came.
I slumped with my back against the wall next to the door, resigned to waiting. The cell held no answers for any of my questions.
The door swung open with a massive creak, jerking me out of a doze. I tried to shield my eyes from the sudden brightness, squinting at the wavering light.
"Fire?" Who used torches for light? This planet was getting weirder and weirder.
A man in a garish robe studied me, hands on his hips. A fierce bird embellished with polished stones and metallic embroidery screamed on his chest. I'd studied enough textiles to recognize the fabric as coarse, but the quality of the embroidery belied that. He curled his lip in distaste.
I pushed myself to my feet, leaning on the wall as the room spun. I barely came to his nose but that wasn't much of a surprise. I'm pretty short by Imperial standards. The man was about average height.
The other man, a big bald man wearing only leather pants and big boots and holding the torch, loomed over us both. His face showed nothing but vague boredom.
Everything reminded me of a Dariana Grace vid. I'd watched every one I could find at the Academy. I'd named my ship after her. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to recreate one, like a very elaborate joke. But why me? I had no money, no family, no connections. It couldn't be for me.
The bird man asked a question. I'd never heard the language before.
"Do you speak Basic?"
He said something else, waving his hand impatiently.
I shook my head. The room swirled. I grabbed for the wall and missed. They let me fall on my face in the doorway. I lay still, my cheek pressed to the gritty stone while I waited for the dizziness to pass.
Bird man asked me another question. He kicked my ribs when I didn't answer. I curled around the pain.
The bald one picked me up, tossing me over his shoulder. Bird man led the way down a hall.
They carried me into another room lined with more burning torches. I coughed on the smoky haze in the air. A huge brazier sat in the middle of the room, coals glowing red like evil eyes. The bald man dropped me onto a table. I swallowed bile as the lump on my head connected with the dense wood, waking stabbing pain behind my eyes.
Baldie grabbed my arms, yanking them out to the sides of the table where he clipped my wrists into metal cuffs. He grabbed my feet and did the same with my ankles. I couldn't have fought him if I wanted to.
Bird man leaned over the table. Bald man stayed by my feet. Bird man asked me a question.
"I don't understand anything you're saying."
He gabbled more questions.
"Try Basic."
He slapped me.
"I don't understand."
He slapped the other cheek. I screamed at him. He hit me until I shut up. My nose dripped blood across my cheek. Bird man turned away.
I looked at bald man. He may have been bigger, but he felt less threatening. "Who are you? Where am I?"
Bald man folded his arms over his massive, naked chest.
"Why are you doing this? My name is Dace, captain of the Star's Grace." I stopped. He obviously didn't care who I was.
Bird man smiled serenely as he lifted a metal rod in his hand. The tip glowed red, the light reflected in his eyes. He stroked my cheek with his free hand. I cringed at his touch. Not even at the orphanage had things been this bad. I'd been beaten, but not with hot irons.
"What do you want from me?" My voice cracked.
He reached for my face, cradling my chin in his palm. He aimed the rod at my eye. I tried to bite him. He squeezed my bruised jaw and lowered the rod. Heat sizzled across my face.
The door behind him slammed open, booming off the wall like the crack of a blast rifle. Bird man jabbed the metal rod into the table next to my head, frying off a strip of hair.
He uncurled his fingers from the rod, his face set in an angry scowl. I shifted my head as far from the smoking metal as I could get.
Bird man shouted at the newcomer. Baldie pulled out a huge knife. A new voice, a very authoritative and commanding voice, said something in their weird language. Baldie put the knife away. The newcomer shoved bird man aside.
His expression was cold enough to freeze methane. His icy green eyes were harder than emeralds. He touched the patch on my left shoulder, the red triangle of the Guild of Independent Traders. One eyebrow lifted. He flicked the gold bars and crossed comets on my collar. "Captain and pilot. Interesting."
"Who . . ." His frozen glare silenced me more effectively than bird man's slaps. I snapped my mouth shut.
He gabbled in the strange language. Bird man answered with a lot of arm waving and pointing. Baldie ignored me, intently watching the argument between the other two. Cold man won. Bird man backed off, muttering darkly to himself. Cold man snapped his fingers and turned, his white robe swirling around him.
Baldie unfastened the cuffs. He slung me over his shoulder, like before. Bird man fixed me with a glare of such hate that I shuddered as Baldie carried me from the room.
Baldie lugged me outside, dumping me into a rickety wooden cart like a bag of cargo. Early sunlight stabbed down, mercilessly exposing the mud and blood on my shipsuit. The breeze, though fresh, still reeked of animals and even less pleasant odors.
"Why didn't you report earlier?" the cold man demanded of the bald one.
I kept my mouth shut, wondering if they'd say anything important in front of me.
"I let you know as soon as I could. Baron Molier wasn't going to wait."
"Demons again. It's taken years to convince him demons don't exist. She just convinced him otherwise, falling from the skies in a ball of fire, bringing punishment on him for his sins. Killing his precious cows. Idiot." He shot a glare my way. "He won't let you work for him now, he knows you answer to me."
"We could have left her. The Baron would have killed her soon enough."
"And left an even bigger mess to clean up. You," the cold man addressed me. "You have a name?"
"Dace, of the Star's Grace."
"Trouble, Leran." Baldie gestured behind us.
Leran, the cold one, glanced behind. "Get her to the mansion, Ky. Tell Ameli to have her ready to ride tomorrow morning. I'll convince Baron Molier the demon won't bother him." He leaned over the edge of the cart. "Give me any trouble at all, Captain Dace, and the Patrol will get nothing more than your body."
Relief washed through me. The Patrol meant rules. The Patrol wouldn't let people torture me with glowing metal rods. I ducked my head.
Leran nodded, apparently satisfied. He strode into the mansion, his white robe swirling dramatically.
Ky climbed into the front of the wagon. He whistled. The cart lurched into motion. I clutched the side to keep from bouncing out. Hoofbeats squelched in mud. I craned my head to look.
An actual, real, not-hologram horse pulled the cart. I gaped. Horses were very rare, very expensive, and very delicate. This horse didn't look delicate. It resembled hologram horses the way an ore freighter resembled a yacht.
More horses worked in fields along both sides of the track. I stared, curious about the planet I'd crashed on. Primitive conditions prevailed, dirty people and animals worked in fields that looked tilled by hand. The people stopped grubbing i
n the dirt to stare as we drove past.
"You're like a blasted freak show." Ky grabbed a blanket from under his seat. He threw it at me. "Get under that and don't show yourself."
The coarse blanket stank. I held it out, away from me.
"Do it now, or I'll tie you and then do it."
He didn't look like he would be gentle. I gave in. I lay down in the creaking cart, pulling the smelly blanket over me. I waited until Ky turned around before I lifted the edge to peer out.
Even on the frontier worlds of the Empire people used machines, built buildings with plascrete. People didn't live in mud hovels. They didn't use horses to plow fields. I knew very little about agriculture, but this planet didn't resemble anything in the documentary vids. This was a Dariana Grace fantasy come to real, stinking life.
I saw fewer fields the longer we traveled. The cart bumped over a series of small hills. The day grew hot. Air lay like thick syrup over the landscape. Insects buzzed as they crawled next to me. The hay I lay on crept into my suit.
The cart jerked to a stop. Someone yanked the blanket away.
"What is this? A joke?" A head of elaborately braided yellow hair appeared over the edge of the cart.
"Leran says you are to make her ready to ride by morning," Ky said.
"Look at the mud on her!" She flipped my shoulder.
I slapped her hand away.
"Ky, you can't leave me with her," the woman complained, her voice shrill.
"Your problem, Ameli." He unhitched the horse.
I climbed out of the cart. The world slipped sideways. I leaned against the back panel.
Ky led the horse around the far side of a stone mansion.
Ameli planted fists on hips, her blue skirt flaring around her ankles. She would have been pretty if her face wasn't twisted in a scowl. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"
"No."
"You've disrupted fifteen years of field research. You ignorant, stupid spacer! You have no concept of the damage you've caused."
"I'm sure you'll tell me. Where am I?"
She smiled smugly. "You are at the residence of Leran, the Lord High Enchanter, he who commands even the demons of the sky to obey him."
Cold man's house. "That was really helpful."
"You're on Dadilan," she said, as if that would explain everything.
"And where is Dadilan?"
"You can't have landed here without knowing. It's not even on the official nav charts."
"I had to make an emergency downshift out of hyperspace. We were supposed to be on Thurwood."
"We?"
"I had two others on the crew. I don't know if they made it down or not."
"Your ship? A toy your rich daddy bought you to play with. You are way out where you don't belong."
"Star's Grace is a fully registered and licensed cargo ship. Or it was."
"You're too young to own a ship. Unless someone bought it for you." She folded her arms and cocked her head, a calculating look in her blue eyes. "Dadilan is restricted to protect its culture. Leran will take you to the Patrol base. The charges he'll press against you will get you a thousand years prison time. You'll have the entire Antiquities Research Division after you. If there's anything left, the Xenoarcheaologists will have their turn. They think the people on this planet are from a lost colony ship from before the Empire. They might even be from the mythical homeworld of humans."
I groaned. I'd be lucky to ever live free again. Criminal charges for interfering with a protected culture, even by accident, carried stiff penalties. I belonged to the Independent Traders Guild, but I wasn't authorized for contact on a world like this. I would have a hard time justifying my presence. Stupidity wasn't usually accepted.
Ameli tapped her slim fingers on her embroidered sleeves. "We can't have you inflicting any more damage. Bath first. I believe we can find suitable clothing for you in the storage chests. Then, I think the language and culture tapes. You're going to have to pass as native, at least until the Patrol arrests you."
"Hypnoteacher?" I shifted away from her.
"But of course." Malice lurked behind her words. I wondered exactly which tapes she'd use.
"I don't tolerate them well." The drugs necessary for the knowledge transfer made me ill for days afterwards. I used hypnoteachers only when I couldn't avoid them.
"Too bad," she said. "It's that or the Baron's dungeon."
"I'd almost rather take the dungeon."
"You don't have a choice." Her voice grew hard. "Strip everything off. Now. I won't have you leaving mud all over Leran's mansion." She smiled sweetly as I stared at her. "Should I have Ky help?"
I stripped my shipsuit off, hating her perky smile and smug attitude. I didn't see I had any choice, at least not until I had more information. I'd find my own way to the Patrol once I knew enough.