“That’s right, keep staring, Ugly,” came a woman’s voice from the end of the room. She stood on one of the raised platforms, the same as the rest of the slaves, but unlike the others, she was addressing the audience. A bronze-skinned woman in her mid-twenties, she had Chinese writing tattooed down her arm, the marks doing nothing to detract from her beauty. Despite Marat’s determination not to stare, he found himself following the sinuous form of a dragon that snaked down her thigh to wrap around her calf. She strutted around the small platform, her hands on her hips, and her breasts thrust out as she glowered at anyone who came close. She kicked at one man who tried to sneak a feel of her calf.
Marat smirked when she connected. Too bad she didn’t have boots on so that would hurt more.
“Not that one,” Striker said. “She can probably freeze your cock with her eyes. If you don’t like the one girl, how about that one down there? Third from the wall?”
“Forget it, Striker. You’re on your own with this scheme.” Marat turned away from the post and would have strode straight for the stairs, but people were being pushed back toward him, clearing the way for someone new to walk down.
Two brawny, bare-chested androids thrust their arms out, clearing the crowd, using their mechanical strength to fling aside any humans who didn’t scatter quickly enough. If that wasn’t enough to convince people to move, their utility belts bristled with laser pistols, knives, and grenades that weren’t legal for civilians to carry on most stations. They were probably considered jewelry in this hole.
A middle-aged man in rich blacks and purples, including a sable fur cloak that fell to his heels, entered after they had cleared the way. He wasn’t armed, but he wore a tight vest without a shirt beneath it, showing off a muscular chest and bare arms adorned with spiked bracers. An old knife scar cut vertically down his left cheek. As soon as people spotted him, they murmured and backed away even more quickly than they had done for the androids.
“Captain Teneris Wolf?” Striker said. “I suppose Mandrake saw his ship dock, but I better let him know an old nemesis is here just in case.” Striker backed toward a corner and tapped his comm-patch.
Marat recognized the name, even if he hadn’t seen the pirate captain before. He had only been with the company for four months and didn’t know the nature of any conflict Wolf might have had with Captain Mandrake, but as the scarred pirate strolled by the platforms of women, studying them as if they were jewels and he was looking for flaws, Marat hoped Mandrake would find a reason to blow the man out of the stars.
Most of the women shrank away from him, less because of the scar and more because of the ice in his eyes, Marat guessed. The pirate ran a hand up one woman’s calf, and she tried to step away from him. One of the androids leaped onto the platform, held her tight, and pushed her to the edge so Wolf could get a feel.
The fist that had never fully unfurled since Marat had walked into the room tightened again, and he wondered how much trouble he would get into if he decked the man.
“Probably get myself killed,” he muttered.
Even if he hadn’t spent much of his life working among the seedy criminals of the underworld, he knew enough to be certain there was a reason everyone had backed away from Wolf. Those android bodyguards were probably programmed to kill anyone who attacked their master. In space controlled by the Galactic Conglomeration, androids were considered personal property with their owners being responsible for their actions, including being tried for criminal charges perpetrated by their “property,” but Marat wouldn’t bet on any such laws being enforced out here. This station was a haven for pirates, smugglers, and bounty hunters for a reason; it was owned by a rich underworld baron and was anchored out in unclaimed space.
“Don’t even think about pawing me, Captain Ugly,” the Chinese woman said as Wolf approached. Her hands were still fisted at her hips, and she shook out one of her legs, as if readying it for another kick.
Marat admired her fearlessness, but he wasn’t sure how wise it was. Even a booted kick wouldn’t do anything to harm an android, if it landed at all.
“Oh, I’ve been thinking of little else since I came down the stairs,” Captain Wolf said quietly—the room had grown utterly silent, and Marat had no trouble hearing the words. They were the first Wolf had spoken.
One of the androids leaped up on the woman’s platform. She dodged, avoiding its reach twice—impressive given how fast androids could move and the fact that her left ankle was tethered. But it finally latched onto her upper arm. She bucked and kicked back at it, smashing her heel into its knee. The blow would have dropped a regular man, but an android didn’t feel pain. It merely latched another hand onto her, stepping behind her and thrusting her toward its master, who reached up for her calf.
The android’s grip didn’t keep the woman from kicking at Wolf. She came within inches of connecting with his nose, but he jerked his head to the side and would have avoided the blow even if the android hadn’t pulled her back sharply. Her balance thrown, she teetered and flailed her arms, but it kept her upright.
“What a man,” the woman growled when she recovered. “Can’t even go shopping for slaves without the help of your pets. You take them into the bedroom too?”
The pirate smirked. “Sometimes. Care to find out?”
“You even think of buying me, and I’ll kill you in your sleep, you whore-spawned bastard.”
“Such an attitude,” Wolf murmured. “Conquering you will be a pleasure.”
“Right up until you’re dead.”
The woman’s words did nothing to deter the pirate’s interest. The lasciviousness glittering in his cold eyes as he looked her up and down made Marat want to throw up. Or shoot the man. Or both. His fingers found the grip of his pistol, and Marat took a step toward Wolf.
A hand clamped onto his shoulder from behind.
Marat ground his teeth but let himself be stopped. The second android, the one still on the ground by its master, had noticed his move the instant he made it. Already, its cold mechanical eyes were locked onto Marat’s hand, the one wrapped around the grip of his pistol. He hadn’t drawn the weapon yet, but something told him he would be dead before he managed to aim it if he did.
“You all right?” Striker asked, jostling him to draw his eye. “You look like you’re...”
“Seething?” Marat snarled.
“I was going to say constipated, but whatever. Look, there’s the auctioneer. The bidding will start soon. Here’s the four with cooking listed as one of their skills. I already showed you which one I want. Which one do you want?”
Marat’s first instinct was to knock the tablet away. And maybe knock Striker on his ass too. Still, he caught himself looking at the list, wondering if the Chinese woman was on it. It was a ludicrous thought—this whole situation was ludicrous, and he loathed Striker for talking him into coming down here—but maybe he could outbid the pirate and deny him whatever torment he wanted to inflict on her. He couldn’t even believe he was thinking of buying another human being—Buddha’s light, how had he fallen so far from the normal life he had once lived?—but he would do nothing but set her free. He wasn’t an expert in underworld slavery, but he couldn’t believe there was a law against that.
“There.” Marat spotted the woman on the list and pointed to the image of her face, which hovered above her list of skills. Ying Wei was her name, and cooking was on there, along with a few other domestic skills and a number of combat skills. That hardly surprised him. It also did not surprise him that there was nothing on there about pleasing a man.
“Oh, no,” Striker said. “I don’t want anything to do with that man-hater. Besides, even if we combine our savings, I doubt we could outbid a pirate captain. He’s got a repurposed Fleet ship that’s a lot fancier than the Albatross. I hear the combat shuttles are gold-gilded.”
“Does that mean Mandrake isn’t going to pick a fight with him?” Picking fights might not be wise, but in this instance, Marat was disappointed.
“Mandrake won’t back down if the pirate makes trouble for him, but there’s not much money in the revenge business. He’s usually real smart about the work he picks. Unless someone puts a big bounty out for Wolf, he’ll keep his distance.”
“Too bad.” Marat had never been one to wish for riches, but his blood was simmering—he couldn’t tear his gaze from Wolf’s continuing fondling of the woman—and he wished for them now. Enough to outbid the man at the least, but enough to have him blown from space would be even better.
“Here are the other three options.” Striker pointed. “Wait, make that two. That one’s only fifteen. There’s no way Mandrake is going to hire someone that young.”
“I’ll pretend that’s not the only reason you wouldn’t consider a minor.” Marat’s daughter had passed away over a year ago, but he hadn’t forgotten what it was to be a father, to have his heart in his throat worrying about his little girl. He shuddered to imagine her, or one of the friends she had played with, in a position like this.
“All right,” Striker said, the comment probably passing over his head. “So it’s these two. We can try for both. One might get fewer bids. How much you chipping in?”
Before Marat could say absolutely nothing, the auctioneer’s voice broke across the room. “Who’s ready for some lively action?”
The roar from the crowd buried any attempt Marat may have made at responding to Striker. All of the voices belonged to men. There were only a few women in the room, most wearing clothing almost as revealing as the nudity of the slaves.
The auctioneer tapped his belt, and jet boots propelled him to a platform higher than those of the slaves. He wore a suit and had hair and a goatee that were either oiled or hadn’t been washed in months.
“Good afternoon, my friends,” he said from his new spot. “We’re ready to begin the bidding. Captain Wolf, will you kindly remove your android from the platform?”
A couple of security men had come in with the auctioneer, and they eyed the androids warily, their hands resting on the butts of their guns. Someone with a less dangerous reputation might have received a firmer admonishment. The pirate offered the auctioneer a lazy salute, and his android hopped down. He stepped back a couple of feet, but didn’t face away from Ying Wei. Wolf propped his hands on his hips and used his physicality to claim her before the bidding ever started.
“What’s the opening bid on her?” Marat asked.
“Forty aurums,” Striker said, then pointed toward the woman he had been interested in all along. “Only thirty for her.”
“Let’s start the bidding with Slave Number One, shall we?” the auctioneer started.
“Number Eight,” Wolf said, cutting across the audience’s claps of approval.
Ying Wei was Number Eight. The audience seemed uncertain how to respond, but a spattering of claps arose, anyway.
“Captain Wolf, you’re not in charge of this auction,” the auctioneer said stiffly.
“No, but I’m a busy man and a frequent attendee—and buyer—at your auctions. You will begin with this girl.” He spread his hand toward Ying Wei. She leaned forward, her teeth bared, as if she might bite it off. Marat wished she could. Being called a girl when she was clearly a woman might not be the most insulting thing the pirate had said, but Marat added it to the list.
“Just let him get the one he wants so he leaves,” Striker said. His mutter wasn’t that low, and Captain Wolf looked across the platform toward him.
Striker was one of the few people in the room who didn’t appear intimidated by the pirate. Marat’s first thought was to assume that Striker wasn’t bright enough to know better, but that probably wasn’t true. Striker might be a dunce when it came to social intelligence, but he had enough common sense to survive fights. Knowing him, he might have a couple of grenades stashed in his pockets, grenades capable of taking out an android or two. Never mind the innocent bystanders. Not that Marat believed anyone here was innocent, except for the women. He loathed that GalCon pretended not to know the slave trade existed, and loathed even more that some of those corrupt finance lords running the system had slaves of their own.
“Fine,” the auctioneer said after a moment of conferring softly into a comm pin at his collar. “We’ll start with Slave Number Eight. Ying Wei, a great beauty with the warmth of a lotus blossom, a gentle soul from a Buddhist monastery on the exotic jungle moon of Sturm, she—”
“Gentle? Who are you trying to fool, pig?” Ying Wei asked. “I’ll take an axe to the horny bastard that tries to come near me with his ugly stick.” She glared down at Wolf for a long moment, then turned slowly to glare at everyone in the room.
Marat couldn’t bring himself to look away, but his cheeks heated when her scowl raked across him. He was embarrassed to be caught staring, but to flinch away from her would have made him feel like even more of a snake.
“Slaves are not allowed to speak,” the auctioneer said mildly. “If you interrupt again, you’ll be corrected.” He lifted a small black box. Some control device that could inflict pain?
Marat bristled at the idea. Wasn’t standing there nude with their ankles bound punishment enough?
Ying Wei smiled at the auctioneer and gave him a very silent and very lewd hand gesture. She couldn’t have learned that at a monastery.
“The opening bid is forty aurums,” the auctioneer said, giving up on the woman’s background. It was probably some made-up bullshit, anyway. If Ying Wei had grown up in a monastery, Marat wagered she had left quite a few years earlier.
A couple of men glanced warily at Wolf and raised their hands just as warily.
“One hundred aurums,” Wolf said before the auctioneer could acknowledge the other men’s bids.
Damn, he wasn’t just a pirate; he was, as Striker had implied, a rich pirate. It took Marat over a month to earn a hundred aurums. He didn’t spend much, with room and board provided by the outfit, but he also hadn’t been with the company long enough to be privy to many combat bonuses. Though he doubted he could win against someone who so casually threw such numbers around, he raised his hand and said, “One-ten,” anyway.
The pirate captain watched him through hooded eyes.
“Aw, Azarov, you’re not serious, are you?” Striker said. “Sure her tits bounce good when she’s jumping around and kicking people, but she wouldn’t be grateful to us for rescuing her. Even if we got her the job, she’d probably spike the food and kill the whole outfit.”
“One-fifty,” Wolf said.
“Buying a slave isn’t rescuing her,” Marat growled to Striker. “It’s participating in a despicable practice that’s only encouraged by idiots willing to spend money on it. What the blast am I doing here?” He groaned to himself, but raised his hand and his voice. “One-sixty.”
“One-sixty,” the auctioneer said with enthusiasm. He was probably delighted to get such a bid for someone who clearly wouldn’t be, as Striker had said, grateful to be purchased. “Do I have one-seventy for this sexy minx? Do a little spin, will you, Eight? Show the gentlemen that sweet ass.”
Ying Wei gave the man a new gesture, this one even more explicit. She certainly was well-versed in such expressions.
“One-seventy,” Wolf said, his icy stare doing its best to pierce Marat’s soul.
Marat had some armor on his soul and wasn’t that fazed by it, but to his surprise, Ying Wei was giving him a chilly stare, as well. It wasn’t as if he could expect her to know he was a decent man and planned to let her go; to her, he must seem every bit the ass that the pirate was. He didn’t know what expression he could share with her that might tell her otherwise, so he ignored both of them and faced the auctioneer, trying not to feel like he had been dropped in the middle of the ocean when he didn’t know how to swim.
“One-eighty,” he said, somewhat encouraged by the fact that the pirate captain had started going up in tens instead of fifties. Maybe he was growing close to the limit of what he was willing to spend on a slave.
; “One-ninety,” Wolf said.
Marat rubbed the finger where his bank chip was embedded, knowing he wasn’t far from the limit of what he had in his savings, period. “One-ninety-five.” He glanced at Striker.
“You’re on your own for that one, buddy,” Striker said. “Even if you win, you might end up losing, if you know what I mean.” He tilted his head toward Wolf, who was murmuring instructions to one of his androids.
“You have any grenades in case we need to leave in a hurry?”
Striker grinned. “Always got some booms on me.”
“Do I hear two hundred?” the auctioneer asked.
“Three hundred,” Captain Wolf said, his hard gaze still locked onto Marat.
The two androids had moved through the crowd and stood closer to him and Striker now. Marat refused to be intimidated, and he appreciated the fact that Striker, who might not support him financially in this craziness, was standing close to his shoulder and glaring right back at the pirate captain. Unfortunately, it didn’t matter. Marat didn’t have the funds to outbid Wolf, and he suspected the auctioneer already knew that, because the man was nodding to the captain.
“Three hundred, a worthy bid. Will anyone go higher?” He didn’t look at Marat. Yes, it was an invasion of privacy, but not a surprising one; the auctioneer knew exactly how much everyone here had. “Going once... going twice...”
Marat shrugged helplessly at Ying Wei. She didn’t offer an encouraging response, merely flipping her long black hair over one shoulder, turning her back on him, and glowering at the pirate again. He reminded himself again that, as far as she knew, he was no better than Wolf.
“Sold,” the auctioneer said.
Mandrake Company- The Complete Series Page 137