by Ruby Dixon
“Right this way.” I give her a jaunty little salute, because I love that she’s not afraid to demand things. I don’t know what kind of shit life has handed her, but I like that she hasn’t let it destroy her.
I open the doors to med-bay. Standing on the other side are both Sentorr and Alyvos, arms crossed and disapproving looks on their faces. They've clearly been waiting for me—for us—to emerge. I raise a hand in the air. “You both can yell at me in a minute, but for now, I'm getting our newest crewmember some clothes.” I make sure to say the words in her human language so she can follow them.
Sentorr's jaw drops. Alyvos scowls. “Newest crewmember? Did you forget that this is a four-person runner?”
“It was. Then it was five when Fran came on board. Now it’s six. See how that works? I’m good at math.” I wink at him and then put my hands on his shoulders, firmly moving him aside so the little human has someplace to walk. “Now move. Come on.” I pause and turn back to the human female. “I didn't get your name, did I?”
“I didn’t offer it,” she tells me in a tart voice, her chin up. I notice she's hugging the towel a little tighter to her, and her shoulders are tense at the sight of the rest of the crew.
"Well, until then, I'll call you…Roosha. That's a nice name." Old-fashioned, but pretty. I like it.
"That's shit," Alyvos says. "The kef kinda name is Roosha?"
"My mother's name was Roosha," Sentorr says, an odd expression on his face.
Kef me. It gets real quiet.
"Oh, whatever. Just call me Catrin," the human says. "Can we please get me some clothes now, or is this part of a grand plan to keep me naked?"
"No naked," Sentorr says, a fierce frown on his face. He points at me, all bottled frustration. "When you're done here, come to the mess. We need to talk about all this." He turns on his heel and storms back toward the bridge, and Alyvos follows him after sending me another surly look. I ignore their pouting. They'll get over it soon enough. I turn back to the female. "Cat-rn?"
"Cat, as in meow, and trin, as in 'rhymes with fin.'" I try again, and she shrugs. "Close enough. Your language is odd. All swallowed sounds."
"And yours is jarring," I tell her cheerfully. "All nasal honking and spitting. Come on, Catrhnnn, my room is this way."
"On second thought, just call me Cat. And why are we going to your room?" She pauses in the hall, uncertainty on her face. "I thought you said—"
"I did. We're not going for that." I can feel the base of my horns get hot at the suggestion. She looks so offended that it's downright embarrassing. I can see why she'd think that, though. Male like me has to buy his cunt, because I'm too ugly for most. "I don't have the passcode to get into the captain's chambers to borrow some of Fran's gear, so you're stuck wearing some of my castoffs. Hope that's all right. We can buy you some stuff out at the station, but it'll be a few hours before it gets here."
"Oh. Okay." Her skeptical glance moves over me. "I'm not sure anything you have will fit."
"I'm sure I have a tiny square of cloth somewhere." When she gives a little snort with amusement, I'm charmed. "So…Cat?"
"Yeah."
"My name is Das Tarekh Vesemmos, but everyone calls me Tarekh."
"I can't pronounce any of that," she protests.
"No translation chip?"
"No what?"
I grunt. "Never mind." That's something we can solve later. It just makes me angry that her captors—I won't call them owners—were too cheap to even give her a bulb translator. I guess no one cared if she could understand what they were saying. Pisses me off, though. Keffing thoughtless. I say my name again slowly so she can learn it, and this time she repeats it. "Tarekh." Her tongue seems to have trouble moving around the syllables, and it has a weird hiss when she says it.
I decide I like the hiss. "That's me." I lumber down the hall, assuming she's following me. The Fool isn't very big, and my chamber's one of the first ones in the personal quarters area of the ship. I flick my hand over the bio-meter and the doors slide open…and my boots flop out onto the hallway. I absently scoop them up and toss them back into the room. "Here we go."
"Jesus," the female breathes. Not “female,” I correct myself. Cat. She stares at my chamber with a look of horror. "What is this, the alien version of Hoarders?"
Her words make no sense to me and I scratch at my shaved scalp as she gazes at my stuff from the safety of the hallway. My chambers do look a little messy. There's laundry on the floor and my uniform changes are tossed into a pile of clean-ish clothes so I know where to find ’em. I've been taking apart a few broken plas-guns to try and improve them and the parts are scattered in another corner. And there might be a collection of vids in one corner that a nice female probably shouldn’t see. "Wasn't expecting company," I tell her, kicking aside the junk in the doorway and scooping up the vids before she can ask about them. I toss them into my pocket. I'll trash that crap in a safe spot later. "Sorry if it doesn't look welcoming."
Cat shakes her head. "It's fine. Just…surprising, I guess. Your room is small." She steps daintily over one of my boots and I can't help but notice that both of her feet could fit in there. Kef, I'm huge compared to her. I feel the insane urge to leave my quarters just so she'll have more space. "I can't complain, though. It beats a cage."
"Someone put you in a cage?" My growl reverberates against the ship walls.
She flinches, and I immediately regret it. "Figure of speech," Cat replies in that hard, brittle tone that tells me she doesn't want to talk about it. I make a mental note of it, though. I'm gonna remember. And I'm gonna do something about it. But right now, my female—sorry, Cat—needs clothes.
I turn around in my cramped quarters and activate the wardrobe that I never use. There's a couple of old tunics in here that I got for a gift last Name Day from my mother. They're about three sizes too small because she still thinks I'm a skinny, underfed runt, but they'll do for Cat. "Try these on. I can modify ’em for you if you need."
“Pretty sure I’ll need,” she tells me, but there’s a cheery note to her voice that makes me feel good. I hand her a tunic and she immediately drops the towel and pulls the tunic over her head.
I know she’s doped up on pain meds and her ribs are bandaged and she’s a mess, but I can’t help but realize that her cunt has a little tuft of fur on it. Kef. Now I’m going to be thinking about that tonight when I’m in my bunk. No, I tell myself firmly. She is her own person, and she won’t want someone like you. She’s lovely and deserves someone better looking, like Alyvos or Sentorr. Or no one. Maybe she wants no one at all, and that should be just fine. She’s her own person, just like I told her. “Better?” I ask gruffly, crossing my arms over my chest.
My smallest tunic hangs off her like it’s a blanket. The arm holes show her bandages underneath and a hint of her rounded teats. Cat looks thrilled, though. A smile crosses her face and she looks over at me, expectant. “Do you have something I can use as a belt?”
“Imagine I do,” I tell her, and turn back to my closet. The ache in my chest is a good thing, I remind myself. It means I’ve taken her away from those bastards. But still, it isn’t right that a female—kef, any creature—should get so delighted at my damned cast off clothing. I fish out a length of cord and offer it to her, and she belts her tunic tighter around her body.
A sigh escapes her and her shoulders sag, and for a moment, it feels like this is the first time she’s let herself relax since I met her. Maybe even longer than that. It’s like now that she has clothes again and she’s clean, she’s armored up against the world. “You look tired.”
“I am,” she admits. “Can I go back to your clinic and lie down?”
“Well, the med-bay’s coded to allow anyone on the crew in. I figure if you want privacy, you can have my room. It’s a bit of a mess—”
She snorts.
“—But it’s programmed to only let me in. I can program it to change that to you and me. No one else.”
Cat hug
s her torso and she gives me a wary look. “And I suppose you think I can trust you?”
I shrug. “You gotta trust someone.”
“No, I don’t.”
That makes me ache deep inside all over again. “No, I guess you don’t. But I’m safe. I bought you for you. Might take some time to get used to that idea, but I won’t let any harm come to you. That goes for this crew and for me, too.”
She nods and glances around my room. “I can probably find a weapon in here, you know.”
“If it makes you feel comfortable, do it.” I’m starting to think that anything could be a weapon in her hands and it’d do me no good to try and keep them from her. My bed’s more comfortable than the one in med-bay, and she deserves whatever comfort I can give her.
Cat looks skeptical, but I get it. It’ll take time for her to realize I mean what I say. “So what about you?”
“What about me?”
“If I’m sleeping in your room, where are you sleeping?”
I grin. “Med-bay.”
I wait for her to protest. To say she can sleep there and she’s not wanting to impose. That’s the polite thing to do. But Cat just nods tiredly, and I remember that this isn’t a guest. This is a survivor.
The rules are different.
“Come on,” I tell her, moving to the panel on the wall. “Let’s get you programmed in here so you can sleep.” And I’ve got to go round up Alyvos, since I’m feeling a bit like pounding some slaver heads and I know he’ll be up for a fight.
5
CATRIN
I sleep for what feels like forever. When I wake up, I’m enveloped by a feeling of safety and security. I feel like I can relax.
Then the last vestiges of sleep drop away and I remember where I am. I tense, glancing around the messy room. It’s quiet. The door’s still sealed. No one’s come to bother me while I sleep. Even the clothes I neatly folded and set at the foot of the bed are untouched.
Maybe…maybe the big blue devil wasn’t lying. Tarekh, I remind myself. I have to remember his name. I think if he would just fling me down on the bed and have his way with me, it might be better. Then I might know what to expect. It’s this uncertainty that’s making me a little stir-crazy. I’m both on edge and hopeful for the first time in what feels like forever. Have I landed in a safe place after all? Or is this the calm before the shitstorm?
I ease upright in the bed, biting back a hiss of pain. Truth be told, the awful, biting pain is better than it was yesterday. The numbness is wearing off, but things feel more knitted together, less hot and achy. My face doesn’t throb with my pulse anymore. All good things. I look around the room, mentally searching for signs that it’s been disturbed while I slept. Before I went to bed, I tried to organize things a little. I cleared off the sleep pallet, folded some of the scattered clothes, and set a few objects in very specific ways so I’d know if someone came in and adjusted things. I’d also searched for hidden cameras and found none.
This morning—if it is morning—everything’s undisturbed, though. The long strands of hair I carefully laid on the floor in front of the door remain in place, and the junky piece of equipment I balanced on the edge of a stool right in front of the entryway is unmoved.
Maybe this Tarekh guy is legit.
Oh please, please. I don’t think I can take much more.
I shove that desperate thought back, because if I have to take more to survive, I will. I’m never giving up. I get to my feet, stretch a little, and rebelt my tunic. It’s the most (and cleanest) clothing I’ve had in months, so that’s a plus. My stomach growls and I decide it’s time to emerge from my cocoon and face whatever the universe has in store for me. I’ve never been good at hiding.
It takes me a moment to figure out how to open the door, but I eventually manage the same careless hand flick over the panel that Tarekh did, and then I’m in the hall of the ship. It’s cliché, but it reminds me of every science fiction movie-type ship out there—gray and unwelcoming and just a little dark, with lighting built into the walls. The metal floor underneath my feet is strangely warm, and I tiptoe out, looking for a familiar face.
I round a corner and there’s an open entryway that looks like it leads into a break room of some kind. Two of the big blue aliens hunch over tables. One is slurping noodles with some sort of weird tong-like utensil, and the other is holding what looks like an ice pack to his face. Both look up at the sight of me.
I freeze, my senses going on alert.
“Cat,” Tarekh says, grinning at me. He puts down his bowl and gets to his feet, and I’m reminded again how big and strong he is. A shiver of fear races down my spine, but I ignore it. There’s something about his face that looks different today and as he comes closer, I realize what it is.
He’s bruised to hell. His deep blue skin is mottled with even darker bruises, and one eye is swollen shut. It makes his strange features even that much stranger, but he’s smiling at me like he won the lottery. I look over and his friend is just as beat up.
“Did I miss something?”
“We won,” the other guy says flatly. He gets to his feet, casts a look over at Tarekh, and then leaves the room.
“Won? Won what?” I ask, curious.
Tarekh just shrugs his big shoulders and points at the chair he recently vacated. “Bar fight. Sit and eat. You hungry?”
“Always,” I admit. Food is one of those things that I’ve learned you never overlook. Doesn’t matter if it’s cooked bugs atop worm noodles, I’m going to slurp it all down because I never know when the next meal is coming. Slaves aren’t fed three square from what I’ve experienced.
I shuffle over to his seat and he pushes his bowl across from me, then moves to the wall and starts punching buttons into a menu. Something in the panel swooshes and then there’s a busy hum while a bowl plops out and begins to fill with noodly stuff. He leans against the wall and glances over at me. “Better this morning?”
I nod, pressing my fingers to my face as I keep my gaze glued to that bowl. I’m hungrier than I thought I’d be, and his calm, relaxed manner is making me hopeful that this isn’t another trick, that the rug’s going to be pulled out from under me again. Surely the universe isn’t that cruel. “My face feels better.”
“Infection’s gone, looks like. I can change your bandages after you eat, get some more numbing agent on it.” He grabs the bowl when the last noodle slides in and then picks up a utensil and offers it to me. “Eat first.”
I don’t have to be told twice. I take the bowl and the comically oversized utensil and start shoving food into my face. If my manners are crap, he doesn’t comment on it, just sits across from me and eats his own food. Whatever it is, it’s pretty tasty. Kind of like a cross between salt and vinegar potato chips and mushrooms. I’m pretty sure it’s the best thing I’ve eaten in the last year. Maybe ever.
My bowl’s empty before I realize it, and my stomach hurts from how much food I’ve eaten, but I feel good. Relaxed. When Tarekh pushes something that looks like a beaker toward me, I realize it’s a drink and sip it. Plain, clean water. Nice. I guzzle it down, too.
Then there’s nothing else to eat or drink, and I sit and watch him polish off his own food. It’s weird. His features are very foreign to me, and I can’t say that he’s handsome. But his eyes have crinkles at the corners, which makes me think he smiles a lot, and there’s a kindness to his ugly face that has appeal. I remember how carefully he wrapped my ribs yesterday, telling me what he was going to do, and not manhandling me like I was nothing.
There’s a lot to be said for small kindnesses.
“So what now?” I ask, hugging my arms to my waist and ignoring the twinge my ribs send up.
He looks over at me. “You want more food?”
Yes, my brain screams, but I ignore it. Pretty sure I’ll vomit if I eat more, but instinct’s a tough one to ignore. It wasn’t what I was asking anyhow. “No, I mean, what happens to me now?”
Tarekh nods slowly, then puts h
is bowl aside. There’s a couple of noodles floating in the broth at the bottom and I have to clasp my hands to keep from snatching them and eating them. God, how did I get like this? “You’re safe here,” is all Tarekh says. “You don’t have to go back to the station unless you want to.”
Why on earth would I want to? I shake my head.
“I can’t take you back to Earth,” he tells me, heading off my next question. “But if you’ve got someplace else you want to go, you just speak up.”
“Am I safe here?”
He nods. “Safe enough. Though I’m gonna be honest—this is a pirate ship. We don’t exactly play by the rules. Might be boarded by authorities and locked up at any minute, but we’re smarter than that.” He grins at me, white fangs flashing. “Long as you don’t mind hanging out with lowlifes, you’re here for as long as you like.”
I think of his friend, the one with the ice pack on his face. He didn’t look pleased to see me awake. “The others don’t like me.”
“Doesn’t matter what they think,” Tarekh says, leaning back and crossing his arms. His big legs sprawl under the table, and we’re sitting so close that practically puts me between them. Is that a hint, I wonder? Is my safety in exchange for sexual favors?
I’ve had worse deals. If it means food and a bed and no one beating the shit out of me, I’ll take it.
“They’re outvoted,” Tarekh is saying, and that pulls me from my thoughts of bodies and bargaining.
“Outvoted?” I ask.
“Yup. He knows it, too. See, we’re a crew, but we vote on things. Sentorr and Alyvos can be pissy all they want, but they know that when the captain and his mate get back, they’re outvoted. Fran will vote to keep you, and Kiv’s going to do whatever Fran wants.” He just gives me an amused little grin. “And of course, I vote to keep you, too.”