“Those to the sides are for the executed. Their bodies are impaled on the spears with the shaft entering through their assholes.”
“Awful.”
“The other spear, the one before us, is for criminals and slaves sentenced to exposure at the prow. They are bound to it with their backs to the spear, hanging facedown, allowed to see the ground beneath the ship as we pass over it. Sometimes they survive, sometimes not. Depends on how long they are left out there. It can take less than an hour to die if the outside temperature is cold enough.”
“Figureheads,” she whispered.
“Yes. We did this going into battle, even when our ships were primitive and navigated oceans or when they cruised the blackness of the space above.”
He let her think on that.
The silence seemed significant. He’d finally made her understand? She broke the silence to ask a question but not the one he expected.”
“The Mekkers were spacefarers?”
“In our legends, yes. Most believe it to be true. There was a great cataclysm after the wars to win Aerthe and the systems went down; even people’s memories were somehow wiped. There were storms and earthquakes, and part of the Swathe was destroyed. The ships were repaired, but much of our recorded history has been lost or corrupted. We drove the ships manually for many years until our scientists adopted new ways.”
“You’re foreign to this planet,” Emery said in a hushed voice. “That’s why you need this Factor H.”
“I don’t know. That’s one theory. You’ve distracted me from my purpose. That.” He reached past her and pointed at the spear. “Is where you will be if you aren’t careful.”
“I see.”
It appeared to sober her, though the day was a glum one for Emery anyway. He might only have made her think of her friend Fern.
He hoped this lecture achieved its purpose.
After that he kept his hands off her, took her back to House Oren, and locked her in the cage to mull things over.
The last words he said: “I know you hate me, girl. It’s what I would do if I were you. But...” Then he stood in the doorway going back and forth over what he might say.
I like you.
I’m beginning to see how humans are different?
Or more plainly, you can hate me but, if I had the chance I’d buy you, then I’d protect you from your stupidity in ways I cannot do now.
Maybe he’d train her to love him.
He’d certainly train her to love being fucked by him. She was partway there already. The lawgiver machine often had that effect, if females were treated enough times. A smaller version of it was used in slave brothels.
Any of those would be results he could bear to live with. His smile died.
Instead of saying more, he turned and left, because she’d not believe his words, and even if she did, it meant nothing in the true scheme of the world.
Chapter 25
The mechling she’d summoned had never turned up at the prow.
If she’d had to actually fuck Mako that day, she’d likely have spewed vomit on him. Fern had died minutes before. She’d hated the Mekkers enough to want to put him on that spear at the front of this ship. Then he’d caged her and left her with that mysterious but...
Whatever he’d had been going to say to her, her speculations had faded with the news JI-mech gave her when she returned to the roof.
I’ve not told you since the odds were poor, but I have been loading some mechlings with the doctor and surgeon programs. Strategic mechlings – ones I calculated were about to go sun-mad. The incidence of sun madness has been high recently. That may be significant.
I’ve been able to confirm that some of them were banished through the hatch not long before Fern was. If they recovered in time, they could have reached her and treated her. Your friend might be alive.
That had been astounding. Too much to believe at first. What about all the blood she’d lost? All the internal damage? He’d said he didn’t know for sure if her wound weren’t fatal.
It had still blossomed into hope. She’d cling to that. The mechlings new programming asked them to override other compulsions, to treat Fern then take her to the nearest town or large gathering of people.
Asked. That was what self-awareness did, but if anything knew what a mechling would do when self-aware, it’d be JI-mech. He’d been as he was for decades, maybe more.
The news was enough to keep hope bubbling away and to make her feel a little happier.
To make her want to scheme how to leave this ship.
Mako is staying away, she told JI-mech. The only thing that makes him touch me at all is when I do something wrong. Big wrongs, though.
Then the solution is simple – find something to do wrong that he has to address personally.
It seemed impossible to do something that wasn’t sedition or a crime that’d have her sent to the Hall of Lawgivers, thrown down the hatch, stuck on that spear. Then she remembered how Mako had learned English. No one else at the house understood it.
She began teaching one word to the other slaves, told them it was how her people addressed people they admired and that Mako had loved the title. Soon, everyone was calling him bastard. Everyone except her, but she rarely saw him up close.
She heard them calling him bastard though. Keeping a straight face should’ve earned her an Oscar.
Was it too obvious she’d baited a hook for him so he’d come looking for her? The man was a stickler for being fair and just, as the Mekkers saw justice anyway. He wouldn’t punish the others. He’d tell them what they were saying was bad, that she’d misled them, because they’d tell him she’d taught them, and then...
Within a few hours of her plan going live, he ordered her to his office.
Nik marched her in then shut the door, left her kneeling, eyes down, hands on her thighs, on the thick red rug in the middle of his floor. She’d not been in here before. The swirly pattern on the rug kept her occupied while she waited for him to speak.
Play it cool.
“Do you know why I have a rug that color, Slave Twelve? So the blood from punished slaves doesn’t show.”
Chilling but efficient. He’d said it all in a drawling monotone, as if busy reading something more important than her. She wasn’t going to point out the no blood rule to him, regarding her, because he might tell her Basteer had okayed a small spillage.
“Crawl to my boots and keep those eyes on the floor. Not too fast. I have to figure out what to do with you for teaching the others to use the bastard word.”
Ugh. This was not sex. If she threw herself at him, he’d not do anything. Step one had succeeded, though, and during the past week she’d taught two mechlings to follow her on command, to use their extendable eye receptors to peek under doors, around corners, everything bar doing the freaking limbo.
At least the floor was clean. He probably had pictures of his army days on the walls, framed preserved creature heads, people heads too, maybe.
Eww. Disgusting.
An image of Fern flashed into her mind, headless and squashed under wheels. Her mouth flooded with a sickly acid taste. Think of fields of daisies instead.
By the time she reached his boots, she’d calmed herself.
“Good girl.”
Which made her wonder if she was a puppy.
“I remember your suggestion from the other day. Climb on my desk and get onto your hands and knees.”
What had she said the other day? When? At the prow?
Her bafflement must’ve been apparent but he only moved back his chair and stood, to give her room.
She climbed up and saw immediately that his desk was bare. He’d lied. Which didn’t surprise her. Mako had already known what he was going to do before she arrived.
“Very nice,” he murmured as he slid the skirt of her dress to her waist. His large hand caressed the cheeks of her bottom, smoothing in circles, one side then the other, leaving nowhere untouched.
She
tried to think of bad things, nasty things, but when his fingers slipped to her cleft, parting her lips and caressing her there as thoroughly as he had her ass, her response was immediate. She could feel how he’d made her swell, made a small flood build inside. If he kept doing that slip-sliding motion, she’d leak the evidence all over his hand.
If he stuck a finger in her, he’d know.
This was punishment?
“Spanking,” he said quietly, leaning in. “In case it slipped your memory.”
She bit her lip, eyeing the glossy timber and the steel folded over the edge of the desk.
“Except spanking is too mild. So I’m going to use this.” He walked in front of her idly swinging a wooden implement like a large spatula. “Don’t move or I will add more to the count. Put your head lower. I want my target elevated.”
Target. She’d been reduced to a target.
She shuffled and put her head down, waiting.
Months ago she’d have run for the door; now she assumed the positions he asked for without a single protest. How she’d changed. It was common sense, if maddening. She’d be free one day then she’d give the Mekker Swathe the finger. And Mako too.
The slam of the thing on her ass rocked her forward a little, and was as humiliating as it was painful. With her naked, ass up, she was sure he enjoyed this, from what she’d seen of his pants.
If she wiggled, he might shove that in her. How good was his control?
Hers was fraying.
For once she lacked the courage.
He kept going, and she wrapped her fingers over the edge of the table.
Punishment and pain that felt hot as a small sun after each whack. He didn’t count and she lost track, but the notion of him screwing her was getting more and more enticing. Her pussy was throbbing as much as her butt.
The last smack made her gasp out a fuck!
He came around to her front and squatted before her, tilted up her chin with the spatula.
“Hurting?”
As if the tears rolling down her face weren’t enough evidence.
“Don’t lie to me. Answer.”
“Of course it hurts.” A frown came and went.
“Aroused?”
She grimaced, surprised by the question.
“If you lie, I will do worse.”
He wouldn’t know though, would he?
Oh what did it matter. “A little.”
Maybe a lot.
“Good.” A corner of his mouth curved, and he studied her keenly.
Too keenly. She wanted to put her hand between her legs and get herself off, and it annoyed her that he could do this to her.
“Now that’s over with I’ll tell you why this is a big problem. Or could have been. You incited other slaves to disrespect me, their master. Do you know the word for that, or rather how some might interpret it?”
Oh crap. Comprehension dawned, but she shook her head.
“Sedition. Again.”
Fuckitty fuck with sprinkles on top. “How was I to know that?”
This place was a maze of rules, and she’d almost whined that question.
“Maybe you should have asked?”
As if that was an alternative.
“The interpretation is fluid, and I already threatened you once, so...” Mako laid his forearms on the desk before her. “I’ve decided to leave. I’m too close to you, as I know you’ve guessed.”
“What?” she blurted.
“You heard.” He reached out and took her chin in thumb and finger, then slowly stroked her lip. “I shouldn’t tell you any of this, but this change will be better for us both. If I could memorize this face, this mouth...
“And there again is why I have to go. I don’t want to see you die because you can’t adapt. We have strict laws here for a reason. You need a stricter master. This ship is full of thousands of people. One change, one small disaster, can lead to the death of many. Hence our violent response to the misconduct of slaves.”
He paused and seemed to need her to speak.
Stricter than him? Her skin crawled.
Though his explanation had made sense. The barbarity of the laws had some logic to them.
Those eyes seemed to pierce through her subterfuge. How much did he guess of her plan? He couldn’t know about JI-mech, but this new side to him made her uneasy.
“So you’re leaving?”
This was going to be an organized leaving, not some spur-of-the-moment shambles.
He rose, placed the spatula on the desk beside her. “Yes. I have to sort out who might be best as my successor and organize some things. In two weeks, I hope to hand in my notice to leave. Before I go I’m going to let my sister, Sira, see you. Some slaves are content merely obeying orders, but you, you need something to do with your mind. Kneel up.”
She sat up, feeling her dress fall down her back and cover her, wondering where this was leading.
“Your stories – I’ve already told Sira about some of them. You can tell her the others. I think Basteer will agree to this. If you work hard for her, though it won’t be many hours, Sira will pay Basteer for the time.”
He wanted to help her to like being here. This was discomforting, in an upside-down way. She would never like it here, but that he tried to help her upset her assumptions about him – that was perplexing. Maybe he wasn’t as bad a man as she’d thought? Sadistic, yes, but... But what? She must not excuse him, must not tip the scales, because he did one, or two, good deeds.
He placed his hand on her head and began to gather her hair slowly into his fist.
The increasing tension in her scalp, the weight of his hand, it made her want to close her eyes and purr.
Instead she turned her stare into something sharper, more determined.
“You’re a little snarly bitch.” His smile said maybe he liked that.
Nothing had changed. She needed him to do something so bad to her that it would make Basteer fire him before he left of his own will. Had to get him to drastically flout the rules by which he was bound.
If he left here after making to-do lists, warned people he was going, there would be no disruption to this house. Her chance to escape would be gone, and she’d have a new master who could be anyone, any sort of man. Stricter meant probably worse than Mako.
His hand clenched until pain pinched at her scalp, until she knew she couldn’t get loose. It was a possessive thing to her that was more of a turn-on every time he did it.
Then, something scraped at the door.
“Wait there.”
Emery lodged her teeth in her lip. Shit. She was fairly sure what that noise was.
When he swung open the door, one of her trained mechlings had an eyestalk under the door and was dragged into the room.
Mako stared at the trapped mechling, drumming his fingers on the timber.
“Are you doing something to the mechlings?”
Her throat wanted her to swallow but she managed not to. “No. Why?”
“I don’t believe you. You humans are resourceful, and likely to lie, it seems.”
“I don’t lie.”
“There it is again – a lie. I need a detector for you.”
She scowled. “Lie detectors don’t work.”
“Maybe not in your world. We aren’t there.”
Pouting, she decided she hated him for so many reasons.
Nothing new there then.
Nik turned up behind Mako and rapped at the open door. “Excuse me, sir, Lord Basteer wishes to see you. Not her, though. I get her.”
“You?”
“Yes, sir. Direct orders. You’re to go immediately.”
After a glance back at Emery, Mako strode away down the hall.
“Get down off there, Slave Twelve.” He uncurled a metal leash from his hand. “I have orders for you too.”
His triumphant grin made her feel nauseous. Mako was sadistic but Nik was an unknown. From her place on the desk, she felt like another sort of target. Maybe one in the
gunsights this time, and not just a target for Mako’s pleasure.
She climbed off the desk and let him clip the leash to her then join her cuffs at her back.
“We have a hopper ride to go on. A long one. You’re in big trouble. So is the House Master, I’m guessing. He’s not allowed to handle you anymore. Just me and Weln.”
Maybe it was time to stop obeying automatically.
The cuffs keeping her hands at her back made her feel more helpless than she had for months. Mako wasn’t to handle her anymore. She should’ve been celebrating, instead her stomach had dropped, as if she’d taken a step off a cliff.
Chapter 26
He found Basteer in the square garden at the center of the house. Slaves rarely saw this place.
It was ten yards by ten, with two wide benches to sit on, a little fountain, and small plants growing in pots. The grass was always kept one inch high. How the big square of glass above let in light, he didn’t know, didn’t care. It didn’t open to the ship’s upper hull or roof. The plants and grass grew, and that was it.
A few mechlings shaped like plump birds waddled about Basteer’s feet.
“I believe you can find flocks of birds near lakes and pond in the Outside, but these make me happy. Now.” He set down the tablet he’d been writing on. “You said you wanted to leave.”
How did he know that?
“I –” That’s all he got out before Basteer stopped further words by holding up his palm.
“No. Listen. Ever since the Lawgiver’s Hall, I’ve monitored all your interactions with her. You know who I mean.”
He nodded, though it was a rhetorical question. This was why he’d been sent for in the middle of disciplining Emery...of telling her far more than a master should.
“You know you’ve overstepped, and I can fix that with one order. You’re never to speak to her again, to have any interaction with her. Nik and Weln can take care of her, and that takes care of your worries about being her master. Secondly, therefore, you’re not leaving my employ. I won’t permit it. You’re too useful to me. Do one thing for me, and you’re forgiven your laxness.”
Acquired Possession (The Machinery of Desire Book 1) Page 13