“He also lies,” General Marix said.
Damn. Kelric wanted to shake himself for his stupidity. Mirella had spoken in Highton.
Tarquine had been watching in silence. Now she spoke to Kelric. “You understand us better than you let on, don’t you?”
Kelric met her gaze but said nothing. He knew her only as an older relative of the late dowager empress, Viquara Iquar, who died during the Radiance War. Where Viquara had been renowned for her beauty, Tarquine’s face was hawklike in its aspect, attractive in its own ascetic way, with high cheekbones, an aristocratic nose, and a strong chin. Viquara had been sensuous: Tarquine was calculating. Viquara had been voluptuous: Tarquine was long and gaunt, with an austere beauty no one would call pretty. White dusted the hair at her temples and threaded the thick black braid that hung over her shoulder.
Under different circumstances, she would have fascinated Kelric. He had already experienced one shock today, when he realized Taratus could act human. Now he had a second shock: he was capable of finding a Highton Aristo attractive, even compelling.
“Come here,” Tarquine murmured.
Schooling his face to hide his unease, he went over to her. As he sat down, she spoke in Highton. “What color are you under that tattoo job?”
He quit pretending he didn’t understand. “Gold.”
“I thought so.” A slight frown touched her ascetic face. “It’s a shame Taratus didn’t have it reversed. I would like to know what I’m bidding for.”
As far as he had seen, she had yet to make a single bid. He couldn’t help but wonder what they were offering for him. Did Taratus really expect it to reach a million renormalized Highton credits? That seemed absurdly high.
Mirella sniffed. “I’ve no intention of bidding on how he might look.”
Tarquine gave a slow smile. “Then we should see how he looks.” She pressed the fastener at the neckline of his jumpsuit. As she moved her long finger down the front seam, the garment fell open, revealing his chest. She tugged on the shoulders and the jumpsuit fell around his waist, leaving his upper body bare, except for his lower arms. Despite his intent to remain impassive, his face reddened.
“Pull out your arms,” Tarquine said.
Stiff with embarrassment, he pulled his arms out of the sleeves. She continued to look at him, but the other three bidders were making entries on their palmtops.
“You don’t like this, do you?” she asked in a voice only he could hear.
“Jagernaut,” Marix said. “Come here.”
Kelric froze, staring at the general.
“Look at that.” Heeza laughed. “He likes you even less than the rest of us, Marix.”
Behind the Aristos, Kelric saw his guards drawing their weapons. Stiff with tension, he stood up. He walked around Tarquine and sat down between her and Marix, facing the general, but so close to Tarquine that his back was against her lounger.
A rustle came from Tarquine’s seat. She leaned against him and draped an arm over his shoulder. “Marix dear, I do believe he prefers me to you.”
The general considered him. “What is your security clearance?”
Kelric froze. He felt the odd blurred sense his mind produced when Bolt activated the nanomed series that prevented him from responding to an interrogation.
Still watching Kelric, Marix said, “How old is your biomech?”
Again Kelric sat in silence.
Mirella spoke with amusement. “He really doesn’t like you, Marix.”
“ISC conditions them,” Marix said. “He can’t answer my questions.” In a chilling voice he added, “Yet.”
“Whichever one of us buys him will have to have his biomech web redesigned,” Tarquine said.
Marix sipped his wine. “And studied, of course.”
Kelric was growing more and more uneasy. He had assumed Taratus meant to sell him as a provider. What if Marix also wanted an ESComm investigation? Taratus had to know his biomech web was twenty years out of date. Would ESComm still consider it useful to question him? If they subjected him to a full interrogation, they had a good chance of discovering his identity.
“I don’t think he can talk much at all,” Heeza said. “Maybe his brain was hurt in the war.”
“Was it?” Marix murmured. Still focused on Kelric, he said, “Well, Jagernaut? What about intelligence?”
He knew the general was trying to rattle him. It was working. Kelric had held a high-level security clearance. Even after eighteen years, he knew things ESComm would find useful.
“Look at him,” Heeza said. “He just sits there, staring at Marix like he’s hypnotized.”
“I’m not interested in how well he talks.” Tarquine laid her palms on Kelric’s shoulders, then slid her hands down his biceps. Leaning close to his ear, she added, “I think you should go sit on the bed again.”
Kelric flushed. He had trouble reading Aristos, particularly when he was guarding his mind from them, but he almost had the sense she had intervened to stop Marix. Then again, maybe she was just impatient. As he rose to his feet, her hands slid along his body, stroking his arms, hips, and then legs. He walked to the bed and sat down. Mirella was coming toward him, and the others were standing up.
Watching them, knowing what they wanted, knowing he had no choice, he felt a surge of panic. “I can’t do this,” he said. He was surprised how quiet his voice sounded.
Mirella sat next to him, on his left side. “Do what?”
Heeza sat on his other side and Tarquine walked around the bed. Turning to look, Kelric saw her climb onto the air mattress. Marix also sat down on the other side of the bed, watching them as he leaned against the post at the foot of the mattress.
Mirella turned Kelric around to face her. “Heeza and I have a bet that her uncle doctored that holo of you with the provider. I say yes, Heeza says no. You have to show which of us is right.”
“I can’t,” he repeated in a low voice. The thought of being with even one Aristo was too much. Four at once was beyond reason. Yet his traitorous body, still full of aphrodisiacs, was responding to her touch.
Tarquine moved so she was kneeling behind him, her head next to his. She draped her arms over his shoulders. “It would be far less appealing, sweet man, if you were eager for all of us.”
“Why is that less appealing?” Mirella grumbled. “I should rather like it if he showed some enthusiasm.”
Heeza snorted. “You would.”
“Come on.” Tarquine pulled on Kelric’s shoulder.
He turned to her, unsure what he intended. His mind was hazing as the drugs took over. When Tarquine brushed her lips across his, he put his arms around her waist. Pulling her against him, he deepened the kiss. She felt thin after the provider, her body sleek and firm.
She tugged him down and they lay together on the bed, he on his back and she along his side. Mirella stretched out on his other side. Lifting his head, he saw Heeza sitting cross-legged at his feet. Marix was still leaning against the bedpost, watching them with half-lidded eyes.
“Lie back,” Mirella said, pushing Kelric down.
Tarquine rose on her elbow and looked at his face. Then she kissed him. All the time, Mirella was caressing his chest. Kelric wondered which one he should embrace, and if it would cause trouble for him later if he made the wrong choice now. With Tarquine on top, it was easiest to keep his arms where they already were, around her waist.
While he kissed Tarquine, Mirella explored his body. Heeza was taking off his jumpsuit. He looked up in time to see her drop it on the floor. Then she began stroking his leg. Marix slid over and put one arm around her waist while he put his other hand onto Kelric’s calf.
“No!” Kelric pulled away his legs. They were suffocating him, their minds pressing on him. From what he knew about auctions, the bidders were forbidden to cause him physical injury that might affect the sale. But he felt them swimming in pleasure brought on by his body, his hair, his face, his skin, the enhanced pheromones the aphrodisiacs prodde
d him to produce, and the transcendence they were achieving from his discomfort.
He tried to sit up. “I don’t want this.”
Mirella pushed him back down. “Of course you do.”
Kelric stared at her too beautiful face. “Don’t touch me.”
Tarquine spoke with unexpected gentleness. “It will go easier for you if you don’t fight us.”
Mirella caressed his thigh, then folded her hand around his erection. “The rest of you seems to have its own ideas about what you wish.”
He stared at her, knowing his body would give them what they wanted no matter how he felt by their trespass. And trespass it was, regardless of how much. the drugs caused him to respond.
He turned his head toward Tarquine and tried to switch off his thoughts, to imagine he was somewhere else. Home.
But his memories of home receded like a fading dream.
12
Trade
Kelric opened his eyes into dim light. He was alone, lying on his stomach. Someone had lowered the lights while he slept. The bed sheets were rumpled around him and the blankets lay strewn on the floor. He tried not to remember how they had ended up there.
The remains of dinner were still on the table. His hunger gnawed, but he was too tired to get up and cross the few meters to the table. He wondered why no one had cleaned it up. He must have been sleeping for several hours.
After a while it occurred to him to wonder who bought him. Then he wondered why he cared.
I want to go home, he thought. His father’s farm on Lyshriol glistened in his mind like an unattainable dream of Earth’s mythical Brigadoon.
So he lay, listless, staring at nothing. The door panel was within his view, so he saw when an arch shimmered open. Six guards entered, and two women in the uniforms of Taratus’s private staff. One woman went to the table and began filling a platter with food. The other sat on the edge of the bed, near Kelric. She was holding a pile of clothes. The patch on her shoulder identified her as a medic. She had dark hair pulled back in a loose braid, hazel eyes, and an unremarkable face.
He wanted to cover his body, but he felt too tired to move. The medic seemed to understand. She pulled the sheet over him, up to his waist. Whatever the Hightons had chosen to believe about his willingness to lie with them during the auction, this medic had no illusions about the coercion involved. She spoke softly. “How do you feel?”
“Tired,” he said.
She set the clothes on the bed, then took a diagnostic tape from the pile. She seemed to know he didn’t want it against his neck, where doctors usually placed the tape. Instead she unrolled it against his side. After reading the holos and data it produced, she rolled it up again and slid it into her pocket. He didn’t ask what it said. As lousy as he felt, he knew he wasn’t seriously hurt. Taratus would have stopped the auction otherwise.
“Can you get dressed?” she asked.
Kelric didn’t answer. Instead he watched the other medic. In the dim light he couldn’t see well, but it looked like she had finished loading the platter and was pouring wine into a goblet. “Is that for Taratus?” he asked.
“He is called Lord Taratus,” the medic said. “Or Admiral Taratus. And no, it’s not for him. It’s for you.”
“Oh.” He blinked. “Thank you.”
The other medic brought the platter and goblet over to the bed. “Can you sit up?” she asked. “Or lie on your side?”
Moving slowly, he turned on his side. When the medic put the goblet to his lips, he took a swallow. It ran down his throat, sweet and smooth, and exploded with warmth when it hit bottom. Pushing up on his elbow, he took the goblet and drained the rest in one swallow.
She set the platter in front of him. “Take as much as you like.”
He ate most of the food. Ships usually carried synthetic supplies, to avoid taking up space with gardens or hydroponics labs. Apparently not Taratus, though, at least for himself and his honored guests. These vegetables were fresh. He didn’t recognize the sauces or poultry, but it all tasted good.
After he finished, the second medic returned the platter to the table. The first one set the clothes next to him. “Would you like help dressing?”
“No.” He didn’t want anyone to touch him. “Is there a bathing room?”
She motioned to a wall behind the bed. “In there.” Gently she added, “If you want us to leave while you dress, we will.”
Kelric nodded, relieved.
After the medics and guards left, he got out of bed and went to the wall. When he pushed a panel, an archway shimmered open before him. The chamber beyond was five by five paces, tiled with a coppery-red alloy that never rusted. When he walked inside, his feet activated sensors on the tiled floor, and the wall re-formed behind him.
Kelric waited, but nothing happened. He said, “On,” in Skolian. Still nothing. So he tried, “On,” in Highton.
Scented water misted from the ceiling and walls, bathing him. He exhaled, grateful for its healing warmth. “Soap too,” he said. The fragrance of aerated soap drifted into the misty air.
He leaned against the wall with his eyes closed. His whole body ached. The Law of Auction supposedly prohibited the bidders from hurting him, but he knew they had been transcending the entire time. With all four focused on him, it had been difficult to separate them into distinct personalities. He had felt Mirella strongest, then Heeza. Both were ice. Marix’s dark, brooding presence scared the hell out of him. Tarquine was harder to define.
“Rinse,” he said. Sometime later he said, “Off.” The sprays trickled to nothing. When he said, “Open,” the wall shimmered into oblivion.
He returned to the bed and picked up the clothes. The trousers and shirt were elegant and conservative. Made from gold velvet, they had a pile so plush it covered half his thumbnail. Although the garments fit snugly, they weren’t skintight, and the shirt had long, belled sleeves. They weren’t clothes he would have picked himself, but they were comfortable and felt good against his skin. In fact, he liked them, though he would never have admitted that to anyone, least of all the Aristos.
A memory came to him from when he was twenty. A girl he had liked, another cadet from the Dieshan Military Academy, asked him to a party. He wanted to go, to enjoy himself like other kids his age, make friends, dance with the girl. He couldn’t, of course. For one thing, he was betrothed to an Imperial Admiral. For another, Ruby princes didn’t go to parties with commoners.
Had he not been betrothed, he might have gone anyway. He didn’t care about the titles. He was, at heart, the son of a farmer. His mother had wanted to live on his father’s land, in part because she loved its beauty, but also because both his parents wished their children to have normal childhoods, away from the intrigues and chill of the Imperial court.
At twenty, though, with his marriage to Corey not much more than a year away, he had the House of Majda to consider. His parents might care little for pomp and ceremony, but with Majda it was everything. When he declined the invitation, his friend asked him a strange question: What is it like to be wanted by everyone? He had been nonplussed and hadn’t known how to answer. He did now: I want them to leave me alone.
Whether it was Aristos, Coban queens, Admiral Corey Majda, the Assembly, or ISC, he seemed to evoke a deep possessiveness in people. They wanted to own him, even those who weren’t Traders. His mother had the same effect on people. Why? It couldn’t only be his or her physical appearance; Aristos, at least, could create any standard of beauty they wanted with their providers. Whatever about him caused such an intense reaction, he wished he knew how to turn it off.
Across the room, the door shimmered open, revealing the medics and guards. Kelric went with them in silence. They followed tunnels that honeycombed the ship, until finally they reached an octagonal antechamber. A guard pressed a panel and spoke in a low voice. Then an archway opened.
They walked into a copper office. Taratus was sitting at a huge desk made from gold, bronze, and copper. With his bo
oted feet up on the desktop, he was leaning back in a large gold chair, his attention focused on a palmtop in his hand. The unrelieved black of his uniform made a stark contrast to the warm hues of his office.
The admiral looked up. “Ah. There you are.” He swung his feet off the desk and sat up straight. With a wave of his hand at the guards, he said, “Leave him here. You can all wait outside.”
Concern flickered on the face of the guard captain. But he simply bowed and said, “Yes, sir.” Then he and the others went out and closed the entrance, leaving Kelric with Taratus.
The Aristo indicated a gold chair. “Sit down.”
Kelric leaned against the wall by the door and crossed his arms. “I’d rather stand.”
“If you want,” Taratus said absently, turning back to his palmtop. Suddenly he grinned. “They’re still bidding.”
“On me?” Kelric asked.
Taratus looked up and laughed. “Who else?”
Kelric told himself not to ask, that he didn’t want to know, that it would only make him feel worse. But his curiosity got the better of him. “How much?”
Taratus settled back in his big chair, exuding satisfaction. “Heeza just made one for nine point six.”
Kelric wasn’t sure what that meant. A bid for 9.6 what? Thousand? It seemed low, considering all the fuss Taratus had made about how much he expected Kelric would cost.
The admiral burst out laughing. “Skolia be damned, you’re disappointed. You think you’re worth more, hmm?”
Kelric scowled. “I don’t think I’m ‘worth’ anything. You can’t put a price on humanity.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. You’re bringing me a nice one.” Watching his palmtop, he beamed. “Mirella: nine point nine. Tarquine: ten point three. Wait—hers came in at the same time as a ten point four from Marix. She’s making another …” He laughed. “A ten point nine. Beat that!”
“Eleven thousand?” Kelric asked.
That got Taratus’s attention. He stared at Kelric for a full three seconds before he responded. “You think they’re betting in thousands?”
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