When Marina woke the next day, the Town Council’s attorney was waiting for her with a draft of the trust to be set up. Marina made only one change, that the name of the trust should be not the New Vendenor Zeninan Medical Trust but the Princess Marina New Vendenor Medical Trust.
Jang tried to contact her that morning but she had left for the hospital. Chilka made certain she got a copy of the paper. Jang’s newspaper had to print an extra edition, because so many had been bought. The front page was headlined, “I lied and I’m sorry”. Inside the articles went into the lies and half lies the newspaper had told. Jang wrote a full page apology which was both gracious and abject. He stated he was setting up the trust and would pay seven percent of the net profits of all his business operations into a trust as a form of reparation for the damage he had done to relations between Bellatrix and Zenina.
The cartoon was on the third page. It portrayed a naked Jang sitting on his desk whilst a pretty secretary stuffed his newspapers down his throat into a now bulging stomach. She said to him, “Eat up Mr Atwelly, only another two hundred thousand editions to go.” It was certainly not flattering to his boss. Marina glanced at the paper and said she would read it later, continuing to treat the little girl beside her.
A few hours later a package was delivered containing the framed originals of both cartoons. Each ward of the hospital was smothered in flowers at Mr Atwelly’s expense and Marina was beginning to look cheerful again.
“I suppose I ought to put him out of his misery. I’m going to take the afternoon off,” she told Chilka.
Marina publicly wearing Zeninan dress took Jang out to lunch. They sat down at a table and Marina ordered. Lunch was a little time coming and arrived with the chef in attendance in large covered dishes. Marina’s was exactly what she ordered but when Jang’s cover was lifted, there was a finely chopped pile of newsprint. He looked at her and said
“Do I really have to eat this?”
“It wasn’t what I ordered. I think you’ve probably eaten enough of your words. Chef, my dinner is excellent but Mr Atwelly would like something more palatable. Could you as a favour to me make him some lunch?”
The chef beamed at his joke, his eyes lingering on Marina’s naked torso and had Jang’s lunch fetched. It had been a good joke, but Mr Atwelly was a regular customer whom he did not want to really offend. Amid laughter and with a very red face Jang ate his meal with Marina. When the bill came, the waiter went to give the bill to Jang but Marina paid with a flourish. She said to Jang she preferred some things not to change.
Chapter Thirty-three – Pursuit
Riyal arrived ten days after Marina in Bellatrix. The new engines in his craft were now run in and their speed would improve. When he reached Bellatrude he found she had left that city. He sought to follow her, but the city of New Vendenor where she had gone was quarantined. Riyal kicked his heels in Bellatrude waiting for the quarantine to be lifted. After a few days he met up with some other travellers in the same situation. When he finally set off for New Vendenor two weeks later, he was in company with more than twenty others. He left his crew in Bellatrude.
Most of the group were Bellatrese, but there were a few from other planets. A couple of Zigan businessmen who wished to trade with the cloth factories based in New Vendenor. Riyal was not interested in them, but the beautiful girl whose accent placed her somewhere in the Markaban Union would certainly have livened up the wait in Bellatrude, if she had been willing. He regretted the young woman was both uncooperative and uncommunicative. Her determined rejection of both his body and his company discouraged further entreaties.
He was very curious about her but she kept her person and her thoughts to herself. She wasn’t a telepath but he noticed she was aware when he attempted to discover her thoughts. He was not sure if it was conscious or not, but it made him wonder if she had been in Zenina. His curiosity got the better of him and he asked her if she had ever been to Zenina. She gave him a flat negative but he caught the flash of a lie at the edges of her mind and did not pursue the matter further.
At New Vendenor, Riyal enquired where he would find Princess Marina. He was directed to the hospital. At the hospital he found Chilka just preparing to leave. She said Marina had just left to go to the home of Mr J.Q. Atwelly and she advised him not to disturb her until the next day. Riyal accepted Chilka’s suggestion and booked into a local hotel. Chilka had supper with him and they retired early to his room together.
Ondiella was not so easily put off. It had taken so long to get close to Marina, she wasn’t going to let her get away. She booked in at the same hotel as Riyal, and asked the doorman if he knew where she could find the Princess Marina.
“You want to see the Princess, tonight?”
“Yes, do you know where I can find her?”
“She’ll be at Atwelly’s party tonight.”
“Is that far?”
“Atwelly’s house is about two kilometres away. It’s a big flash looking place with brass gates. They say he’s got a whole orchard growing in a sun room there. He doesn’t have to make do with reconstituted fruit. That’s the rich for you; they can have anything they want. A pretty girl like you shouldn’t have any trouble getting in. Half the men in the bar now would take you with them if you smiled nicely.”
Ondiella took his advice and got ready for the party. Chilka had been invited but had not wanted to go. She did not feel guilty about getting Riyal before Marina. She had Jang after all. It would only cause problems if Jang and Riyal got together. Somehow she could not see them getting on. Half an hour later Ondiella was downstairs in evening dress. She wore a long Zeninan skirt with a pale cream embroidered blouse. The neckline was a little lower than most Bellatrese women would have dared to wear but the men liked it. She found no difficulty in allowing herself to be persuaded to accompany one of Jang’s friends to his party.
Ondiella had not been feeling well. It was over a month since leaving Zenina and she had not felt right since leaving. She had headaches recently and most mornings she was sick. Her breasts were sore and her period was now several weeks overdue. Pregnancy seemed a likely explanation for most of the symptoms but not the headaches. In the five months she had been in Zenina, she had not had a day’s illness. Why all the headaches now? She decided it was probably psychosomatic. She felt guilty about Divak.
Ondiella had assumed Divak was infertile, as she had heard most Zeninan born men were infertile. She had learned that members of the royal family were exceptions but she did not know Divak was a royal. She had not wanted to upset him by enquiring whether he could father children. She had Opak so it did not really matter. Ondiella had only slept with Divak in Zenina so the child must be his. “What should I do about it? Nothing, even if Divak doesn’t forgive me, I’ll have something to remember him by. I hope it is a girl.” Her thoughts of Divak were tender, hoping he and Opak were all right.
***
Divak had gone from the frying pan into the fire. He arrived at the farm just as Belabeza and Adelza were deciding to set out to find him. He had saved them a journey. They let him settle in, Divak had been missing Ondiella, particularly in bed, so it wasn’t long before he sought Belabeza and asked her to accommodate him.
“Come tonight to our room,” she whispered in his mind, “I’ll make sure Adelza isn’t around.”
He dealt with Opak by placing him in the central nursery. Divak had not seen much of his parents as a young child and had missed them so he visited Opak several times a day to give him a feed and play with him. That night Divak was looking forward to Belabeza’s charms, he could not quite explain the ominous foreboding he felt when he knocked on the door. He did not realise he was going to get more than he’d bargained for.
Belabeza’s silky girly voice bade him enter. He did locking the door behind him. She lay naked on the bed and Divak undressed and went to join her. Then Adelza came into the room from the small wash and shower room. She was also naked. Divak tried to grab his clothes and flee but they s
topped him. It did not take long for them to explain their demands. He had no choice but to acquiesce. For the next few weeks he was obliged to serve them both daily until they were content with the children they carried.
As he thought his chore had been completed, other women on the farm demanded his favours. He did no farm work but was just as tired by his efforts as if he had. He looked forward to the time he spent with Opak as a respite from the sexual requirements of the farm women several of them chose to have children by him. Male Golds were rare, and for the present Divak had no owner or protector. Divak thought of Ondiella’s quiet gentleness with nostalgia and remorse. He hoped she would return to him soon, both he and Opak missed her. Divak was not ill-treated, no one on Marina’s farm would have dared beat her brother, but he was given no chance of refusal.
Karella’s colour begun to flicker and Kotenza drove her back to Hemithea and left her with Vellina. Karella’s mental state had improved since she had been on the farm. She had more confidence and Belabeza had taught her a great deal. Not only how to prepare food, for they had talked of everything whilst they worked, as Belabeza loved to have someone to listen to her. Vellina checked Karella’s mind again and found changes had taken place. The edges of the overwritten memory squares had blurred and the squares were fading. Vellina asked if she remembered more of her life in Markaba, but Karella said no.
“I feel happier. My past no longer seems important. I now live each day in the present. I miss Tippy but I can cope without him.”
Vellina’s tests put Karella in the Blue-Silver overlap band. For the next couple of days Karella sat around in the hospital grounds awaiting her colour change. After breakfast one morning, she felt hot and dizzy. Her head ached. When the orderly came to collect the breakfast tray, she was coherent enough to ask for a nurse before collapsing. Vellina and other doctors came and eased her though her transition. It took two hours to determine that she was Blue. She felt feverish and had a chronic head ache but Vellina gave her something to lessen it.
Next day Vellina did more tests and discovered the blurred squares had been reduced to a pattern of freckling. She asked Karella questions about her past life but she still could not answer, so Vellina let her return to the farm where she would learn to use her new mental abilities.
Vellina had called Adelza twice. She had asked her to come in for a check up on her eyes, so further treatment could be decided on, but Adelza made excuses and had not gone. Vellina tried once more to persuade her to come in for surgery, but Adelza said she could not risk it whilst she was pregnant. It would have to wait eight months.
The party was in full spate when Ondiella arrived with her escort. She deliberately lost him when he offered to get her a drink. Atwelly’s house was huge, but it was not hard to spot Marina holding court with Jang at her side and a large jolly audience around them. For the occasion Marina had purchased a new dress. It was golden yellow and perfectly plain. She had tried a few dresses on which the assistant had thought suitable but found them too loose. She asked for a smaller size, but the material did not cling to her shape. The shocked assistant brought a smaller dress still and zipped the naked Marina in as she breathed in.
The effect was like a second skin. The dress might cover Marina from wrist to ankle and neck but it displayed its contents in detail. The horrified assistant was instructed to have the trimmings removed and pack it.
Marina did not spot Ondiella in the crowd nor pick up her thoughts. So many people were thinking about her that one considering murder went unnoticed. Several of the women present who had designs on Jang wished her dead anyway. Marina did not notice one more ill wish. Ondiella had brought the rest of the sleeping draught with her. It had worked on Divak, why shouldn’t it work on Marina? It would not kill her but it might be possible to kill her when she was unconscious. Ondiella had acquired a small blaster in Karanollo and kept it hidden in her hand bag. It had made her feel safer on her journey from Bellatrude, particularly with that suspicious looking Kurgian who had tried to bed her.
It was some time before Ondiella could lace Marina’s drink but when Marina put it down to speak to some acquaintances, Ondiella slipped some of the powder into it. Ondiella backed away and watched from a distance. Marina picked up the drink and sipped it. It did not taste nice so she put it down again next to Jang’s empty glass. Jang had been drinking quite heavily and Marina was thinking about telling him to ease up. He picked up her discarded glass and drank it straight down. Not long after he fell asleep under one of the tables.
Marina had laughed and bent down very carefully to avoid splitting the dress to pick him up. She left him dressed on top of his bed and muttered something unsympathetic about men not being able to hold their liquor. Then she changed out of the yellow dress. Marina put on a casual shirt and trousers with soft boots. She slipped out down the back stairs and spoke to Jang’s butler on the way out. She told the butler what she had done with Jang and he “tutted” quietly. It was not the first time Jang had drunk too much, but it was by no means a regular occurrence.
Ondiella’s escort discovered her and tried to persuade her to go upstairs with him, but she retreated to the garden and spotted Marina talking to the butler in one of the lower rooms before leaving. So Ondiella grabbed her wrap and followed Marina. Marina had enjoyed the male attention and had intended bedding Jang again later that night. Now he was dead drunk and she wanted a man. It was very inconsiderate of him. She would not mix sexual suppressants with alcohol. That mixture had some pretty nasty effects. Nor would she bed one of Jang’s friends, that seemed ungracious and a certain way to wreck a friendship. So she went out to find a man.
Chapter Thirty-four - Rough Trade
She headed straight down the first spiral to Old Vendenor. Marina had been here several years before and knew there were more young men of the kind she sought in the tunnels than in the polite town above. She walked though half-lit corridors wondering whether someone was following her. She caught a fragment of thought a few turns back but could have been mistaken. Then she picked up other thoughts. Now she was definitely being followed by two, no three young men with lustful intentions towards her. They intended to grab and rape her, not expecting her to put up much of a fight. “Silly girl to come here alone, she’s just asking for it.”
Marina was not worried but moved into the next lit piece of tunnel so she could get a good look at them. They were surprised she stopped but they grabbed her anyway. Their leader went straight up to her and began to undo her shirt, whilst another walked behind her and put a knife to her throat. The third, a younger lad took no part in the attack but stood and watched. Marina did not struggle.
“Please put your knife down, so we can talk,” Marina quietly asked the young man behind her.
Their leader had unbuttoned her shirt and was roughly handling her breasts. He wondered why she wore no undergarments but was not complaining. The lad with the knife did not obey; then his hand stung painfully, forcing him to lower his arm and drop the knife. He cried out in agony and continued screaming, begging her to stop the pain. The first man stepped back and Marina began to talk quietly.
“The pain is in your mind. It will soon subside. I can switch it on again. You gentlemen intended to rape me! I’m a Zeninan Gold and could kill or cripple you all. I came to the old town seeking sex. I knew your desires before you attacked me. It would have been easy to pretend to be your victim. I could have called the police down here in seconds.”
“Look we’re sorry, we’ll leave you alone. Don’t set the police on us,” said their leader.
“Stay still, I want to talk to you, why stay on Bellatrix if you find the society so stifling?”
“We seek to change Bellatrese society, we’re revolutionaries.”
“You don’t overthrow a government by raping women. You alienate the women of Bellatrix and you’ll get caught.”
The lad with the knife said, “They deserve it. They treat us like dirt and boss us around. We don’t want to
live like that.”
“That doesn’t excuse rape. It is vile to force yourself on someone weaker than yourself for your own gratifications and amusement.”
“What would you know about it? How can you understand how it feels to need a woman when they won’t let you?”
“I find Bellatrese society frustrating too. When I was first in the army, it was fairly common for troops on Empire planets to pick a male civilian and hand him round between them. I dealt with several incidents where the male rape victim died of exhaustion, shock or committed suicide.”
“The surviving victims were emotionally scarred by the experience. I had the rapists flogged and fined, but I was considered over-zealous by my superiors who indulged in the same sport when young. By shimmering I could rape almost any man capable of sex. I prefer to bed only those who want to have sex with me. I don’t expect to change your behaviour but it’s my personal view all people deserve respect and should have sex only when they want it.”
“Fine speech for a Zeninan. I bet you keep dozens of slaves back home and beat them regularly,” said the third lad.
“I own one bed slave. I beat him, sometimes he beats me. He was asked whether he wished to be my slave before I purchased him. I don’t agree with male slavery either, but most Zeninans aren’t ready for abolition yet.”
“If you believe strongly that it should be abolished you should fight to change it,” said their leader.
“I should, or leave Zenina and live peacefully elsewhere.”
“That’s just a cop out. If Zenina had the right leadership, the rest of the Empire would get better too,” said the third lad.
“I don’t follow your logic but it’s an interesting opinion, but we’re veered from the point. Are you going to take me home to bed or do I look elsewhere? I always take precautions with non-Zeninans to minimise their exposure to the Zeninan factor, but there would still be a slight risk of damage to you.”
Champion of Zenina Page 14