Moro's Price

by M. Crane Hana

  “Just an itch all men get,” Moro tried.

  “Yes,” said Sardis. “An itch. Nothing to be ashamed of, right?” He undid Moro’s trousers. Slipped warm, sly fingers into Moro’s briefs. “What a lovely handful. Surely Jost played with it? No? What was he, a eunuch?”

  Moro kept his mouth shut and stared out the window.

  “No distractions, Moro.” The transport’s windows blackened, blotting out the towering shapes of Rio Sardis mining ships descending over the winter-browned hills. Inside the transport one tiny ceiling spotlight gave enough light to guide Sardis’s hands. And then his mouth.

  Moro moaned, ashamed of the noise, unable to silence it.

  Sardis pulled away to whisper, “You’re mine, Moro. I’m going to enjoy you while I can. Your only choice is whether you let yourself enjoy it too. I promise you, this doesn’t have to be horrible.”

  And oh God, it wasn’t horrible at all. Jost had never done anything like this. Moro felt an odd kind of divide begin in his mind, between the boy who rocked his big shaft in and out of Sardis’s skilled mouth and the one who remembered Rianta’s corpse sprawled in the dry grass.

  The divide shattered. He waited until Sardis backed off slightly. Moro slammed his hips forward as hard as he could, reveling in the pain as Sardis’s teeth cut his flesh.

  Sardis gagged and jerked away, cursing, wiping blood from his mouth. He slapped Moro. “You stubborn hick. I was trying to be kind!”

  “Then let me go, and get the hell off Ventana,” said Moro, thrashing against his restraints.

  “Says the virgin hero?” Sardis grinned at him and pressed a sequence on the console between the seats. Moro felt the seat behind him fold slowly back. Opening his own trousers, Sardis told his bodyguards, “Strip him, flip him, and hold him down.”

  Moro fought them, of course. Of course, they won. Then there was agony, which Moro expected. And pleasure, which he hadn’t.

  Afterward Sardis stroked the small of Moro’s back. Moro’s hips quivered in response.

  “Let’s review, shall we?” Sardis whispered. “You fought. I took you anyway. And you still came. Some itch.”

  AS CEDAR-SABA BLURRED around him, an older Moro clung to Val, remembering his hellish year as Sardis’s toy.

  By comparison, Kott’s brutal world had offered a bizarre sort of protection and hope, now stripped away. Sardis knew how to guarantee a fugitive Moro would never be free, whatever Val offered. Moro wouldn’t go back to Sardis alive.

  Moro had to make sure his body and mind couldn’t be retrieved. That left a slow death in a hidden room, Val, or an incinerator.

  He’d give Val’s way a chance.

  Twelve

  “SERO SARDIS?” KOTT began, crossing the arena floor and then bowing deeply to a man who owned solar systems.

  Not me anymore, the old man thought, hoping he could escape one bad master for an even more terrifying one. That purple-eyed fiend had only offered sanctuary if Kott survived this last encounter…

  Sardis had paused before the holo poster, watching through several of the newly uploaded images.

  “He’s a little shaken,” said Kott. “I thought he might need time to calm down.”

  “Ssssh,” said Sardis, holding up his left hand for silence.

  The poster had an audio feed, turned to low volume on a touch bar at the side. A sultry female voice announced, “The Diamond’s final battle! To mark this extraordinary engagement, souvenir programs are available for a limited time at the Golden Cage kiosks on level ninety-seven, level fifty, and level twenty-two. Challenger Vilstad Meng, injured and defeated. Challenger Jason Kee-DaSilva, injured and defeated. Challenger Bazilio Malkovski, deceased. Champion Kott’s Diamond, undefeated!”

  “You taught him well,” muttered Sardis. His right hand held a long, thin platinum chain. One end looped over his wrist. The other terminus, dangling near the floor, was a simple platinum mesh collar fitted with a two-pronged plug under a black star sapphire clasp. A matching ring graced Sardis’s left index finger.

  The scene changed. The audio shifted to Kott’s lust-roughened voice: “Your first master wants you back.” Then a mix recording of the young gladiator’s stammered pleas, moans, and climactic scream. The female announcer laughed. “I know what we’re listening to tonight. But one very lucky person gets to hear it for real. Here’s to the Diamond’s well-deserved retirement! First Master, whoever you are, if you’re listening, let him out to sing once in a while!”

  Sardis’s hand twitched, swinging the collar into his trouser hem. He tapped the slider on the holo poster, turning the volume off. “I do not appreciate even a hint of my involvement used as entertainment for a lecherous rabble. You were unnecessarily brutal and stupid. You told him.”

  “Sero Sardis, I didn’t mean to!”

  “Just as you didn’t mean to let Vance nearly gut him last year? I almost believe you,” said Sardis in a calm baritone voice.

  His current face was long-boned, tanned just enough for fashion. His square chin and elegant cheekbones were smooth and poreless. Light brown hair gathered into a platinum clasp at the nape of his neck, the simple tail falling below his shoulder blades. His tailored clothing alone might have cost more than Kott’s income for a month. His eyes were the same muted charcoal gray as his suit. A platinum and white diamond stickpin, in the Rio Sardis palm tree, anchored one lapel.

  Hushed gossip said the director of Rio Sardis was over a hundred eighty years old, near the end range for human antiaging treatments. Body-hopping with clones was an illegal, chancy solution.

  Sardis looked thirty-five.

  Kott wondered how many cloned bodies he’d used up.

  Sardis continued, “The miscalculation lies with me. I let you convince me it would be amusing to rescue my Moro off Bazilio Malkovski’s prick. To watch him beg Bazo, of all people, for sanctuary.”

  “Sero Sardis, it was an even fight. And you wanted the boy honed in hand-to-hand combat. He has an aptitude for deadliness. Why take him back into your bed?”

  Sardis spun, his fingers gripping the loose flesh under Kott’s chin. “He can’t hurt me. I own his soul.” Sardis pulled the old face closer to his, twisting Kott toward the holo on the wall. “But he can still hurt himself. Look at him. When you told him about me, you killed every dream and hope he had left. I wanted him honed, yes. Pushed to self-destruction? Never. He is too precious to lose.” On the screen, the defiant gladiator shifted once more to the terrified, desperate victim. “I’ve watched his progress over the years. No matter what you did to him, he adapted, compromised, survived. I am the only person who can make him look like that. And he knows it. You spooked him, Michol. Was it deliberate?” Sardis released his hold, stepping away.

  “I thought you might want him to anticipate your arrival,” Kott began, reaching the garden access ahead of Sardis.

  Sardis joined him a moment later. “You left him alone? Unrestrained? I doubt he’s out here now.” Sardis turned his left wrist, spoke into a slim steel band. “Vilam? Terise? Track his collar. Check the base of this building for a jumper. Yes, mind-capture if possible. Save all tissue samples.”

  Sardis patted Kott on the shoulder. “I’m disappointed in you, Michol. I’d hoped you’d be a better investment, or at least a better liar.” He pressed a gun into the sweat-stained white suit coat, hard against the big bondmaster’s rib cage. “You sentimental old fool,” said Sardis, shaking his head. “You shouldn’t have fallen in love with him while you fucked him.”

  The gun spat a pulse that jammed most of Kott’s cyber-enhanced muscles. He growled through his stiff jaw, “He’ll never love you, Sardis. He wasn’t meant for you. He and I have served another master for years.”

  “YOU’RE MINE, MICHOL,” said Sardis. “And your lies are still pathetic.” Just as Sardis pressed the trigger again, a faint purple glimmer showed in Kott’s pupils. A moment longer and there was no light at all.

  Kott’s corpse fell in the doorway.


  True to Sardis’s expectations, the garden was empty.

  The carafe was a subtler touch than he expected from Kott. A tableau calculated to send a stunned and desperate Moro literally over the edge. But the wedged gate and blown walkway controls suggested another route of escape.

  Sardis walked back to the table, still considering the carafe. It was company issue, available for purchase to all levels of freeborn Rio Sardis employees. Kott, who’d kept his bonded affiliation with Rio Sardis under wraps, should not have had it. The carafe’s registration number should tell an interesting tale about the true buyer.

  Sardis looked up from the carafe when a stern-faced older woman in brown medical garb walked toward the couch. Her bright silver hair was cut into a straight mop falling to her jawline. She had been lovely once. Hints of it came back as she smiled down at Sardis. “Not one jumper, Lyton. Two, off Vaclav 18. And neither him.”

  Sardis gripped the leash until his tendons strained.

  A communications band beeped on his left wrist. Sardis lifted it with uncharacteristic speed. “Vilam? You’re tracking him? South, at that speed? Get him before he lands whatever he’s flying. And drug him quickly, or he’ll commit suicide.”

  Sardis sat on the living couch. Face smooth again, hands calm, he looked up. “Terise, I want the buyer for that carafe. Find out who our jumpers were and if we can pull any data from their brains. They may have seen him in the garden or followed him from the fight.”

  “They wouldn’t have stood a chance against our Moro,” she said, patting his upper arm. “Don’t worry, Lyton. We’ll find him and bring him home.”

  Sardis caught her hand and pressed it to one cheek. “I should never have sent him away, Terise.”

  “You needed him sharp and strong. He has to be, for all our sakes,” she said and then frowned at the big body slumped on the black tiles. “I’ll get someone to dispose of this.”

  Lyton considered an incinerator but paused, looking thoughtful. “Scan Kott’s brain first. He defied me and claimed another master. His retinal implants flashed an odd color. I want to know what he knew.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have killed him. I work better on live bodies. You need to call a press conference tonight.”

  “Rio Sardis avoids publicity.”

  “Normally,” she said, tugging on his hand. “Not now.”

  Sardis stood, following her back to the access door. “Explain.”

  “That filthy holo’s going out across all the uncensored channels, and even you can’t stop enough people from putting the pieces together. Time for damage control. Not many people know what really happened on Ventana. Right now, you’re the heartsick multitrillionaire who just discovered the location of your long-lost lover, a youth stolen from you and sold into the most degrading slavery. Before you could reach him tonight, he was kidnapped again. Possibly by Kott’s allies. They and ‘First Master’ can be anyone we want them to be. We make plain that Kott killed himself rather than face charges.”

  His laugh rang out. He kissed the top of Terise’s head. “As much as the world loves watching depravity, it loves a romantic ending even more?”

  “Exactly. The Diamond is already a living doll to his fans. We’re just putting another costume on him. Do the press conference. Convince everyone you love Moro. You want to find him, free him, marry him, and sweep him off to a life that most people only daydream about. And that you’ll pay large amounts of hard-credit to the people who help you.”

  Sardis looked back out into the garden, his right index fingertip circling the black gem on his left hand. “I do, you know. Love him. In my own way. What I did to bind him to me, it wasn’t just for your cause, Terise.”

  “I do not want to hear this,” she said, looking away from him.

  He smiled down at her. “Liar. I know you liked watching me dominate him.”

  “I had to monitor every phase of his conditioning.”

  “You’d be wet from watching. I was married to you. I know your tells.”

  Her cheeks reddened. “You didn’t have to be so emotionally attached to him.”

  “And you’re not? He’s as much your creation as mine, my dear. Didn’t you see him tonight? He climaxed from one hint of my name. He’s mine now.” Sardis sighed, adjusting his arousal under his trousers. “Ours. He was still a bewildered boy when we sent him away. How much sweeter will he be as a man? As a perfected vessel?” Sardis grinned down at Terise, his eyes half-closed in contemplation. “You give me a great gift with your public tolerance, Dr. Volker. May I offer you one back, of honesty? You want Moro as much as I do. Admit it.”

  “Terra Prima’s mission cares little about my personal feelings, Lyton.”

  “Admit you want him,” he coaxed, leaning to whisper in her ear. “If you do, I’ll tie him down and let you rut on him. Or I’ll take over his body again and pleasure you through him.”

  Terise stepped away. “We’re divorced, Lyton. And I don’t recall you being very skilled the last time you used him on a woman!”

  “That cabin was private,” he hissed through suddenly clenched jaws.

  “My dear Lyton,” said his ex-wife, looking back from the doorway. “That cabin and everything twenty miles around it was monitored by Rio Sardis. Fortunately for you, by me alone. Were you aware you recorded the whole thing?”

  He smiled. “I meant to. For insurance purposes, should he ever run.”

  “Were you aware that you recorded yourself, reflected in Moro’s eyes?” At Sardis’s startled reaction, Terise shook her head. “I let you have an altered copy. I keep the real thing, Lyton. For insurance purposes.”

  “Bitch,” he muttered.

  “You married me because I’m a smart bitch and you needed Mother’s alliances in Terra Prima. I divorced you because you’re a criminal pervert. But you’re a useful one, to the cause. Remember who holds your leash.”

  He looked away, ceding victory.

  “Lyton,” Terise went on, “be more careful. It’s in Moro’s very blood, to kindle such lusts. The gladiators’ addictions proved it. Moro is an incubus. Don’t be like Kott,” she warned, her own expression guarded. “Don’t let misguided affection and pleasure get in the way of that boy’s ultimate purpose.”

  Thirteen

  “AMBASSADOR ANTONIN? THERE’S a message for you on the private channel.”

  Alys Antonin looked up from a stack of flexible holo charts detailing the most recent Camalian and League trade negotiations. Her staff worked around her, at desks around the echoing lobby of the Camalian Embassy. “Is it Valier finally? He’s had his com turned off for hours.”

  “Didn’t you hear?” asked another assistant. “He called midafternoon. Said he and Mateo DaSilva had free tickets to a fight down in Vaclav.”

  “Did they now?” Alys snapped. “I’ve warned Valier about associating with his warped Terran sycophant. Did you tell him to come home?”

  “Yes, Ambassador.”

  “What did he say?”

  “I’d rather not repeat it, Ambassador. It was about you and the empress.”

  Exasperated, Alys ran a hand through her myriad dark braids. They were currently gathered up in a luxuriant tail and jeweled with emerald and amber hairclips. Three hours before, she’d been at a diplomatic banquet with the Cedar premier himself, fending off inquiries as to why the crown prince wasn’t present. Again. She hadn’t had time to change out of her burnt-orange silk evening gown for her normal comfortable uniform stuffed with weaponry. The hated barrier mask, this time in matching orange silk, still fluttered from one side of her headdress.

  Diplomatic trivia was supposed to be Valier’s obligation, not hers. She was the Empress Liatana’s Knife: wife, bodyguard, weapons master, and conscience. A throwback to a more martial age, constrained to the public role of ambassador and the private role of Val’s second mother.

  Not that she didn’t love the boy. And Lia was right: while Val went to school on Cedar, he was far more vulnerable than his birth m
other or father. Alys doubted anyone outside the upper echelons of the Camalian Commonwealth knew Val’s father was the celebrated xeno-archaeologist Maitland Trevannis. Some days Alys wondered if Maitland even remembered it.

  After six years and three assassination attempts, she’d hoped Valier would have better sense than to run off alone with his idiotic human friend. Or that he’d find a way to deal with his sexual issues before they blew up in his face.

  She’d always had a suspicion Valier talked with Cama far more than he let on. The family had literally bred for a tight bond with their patron elemental and her billions of linked symbionts. But Cama wasn’t infallible. Valier was young, smart, bored, and prone to madcap adventures. From a normal Camalian point of view, he was simply wired wrong. The combination made Alys’s headache return.

  Her first assistant rattled off a series of numbers. “This is a really old code,” he said. “I think I saw it in school once. What in Reason is it?”

  Alys recognized it. Her dark-brown face paled almost green in shock, and she left her chair in a fighter’s flying leap. The dress ripped audibly. Holo sheets scattered behind her. She grabbed the com-link. “Antonin here,” she began in Terran Standard.

  A laugh answered through the static-ridden channel. “Gala’urra, Alys sythi Cama,” hailed the sibilant female voice.

  If Terrans were listening in, they’d be confounded by a language that predated Standard by over a hundred thousand years.

  Alys answered, “Gala’urra, adhi af Jumay Tena Sonta?”

  In the same ancient language the caller said, “I’ll bet you were airborne just now. Do you have any rugs or furniture on the central floor of the embassy? Move everything off the black disc just below Cama’s Sunburst. I’m coming through in five Terrani minutes.”

  Alys dropped the com and shouted orders in Standard. Within a minute, the mosaic was unobstructed. A green-and-amber-tiled sunburst radiated from the center of the white floor, surrounded by inlaid mathematical equations in dark blue tiles: Newton’s and Einstein’s Laws, Rosen’s proofs of M-space, and many others. Below the sunburst was a six-foot-wide circle of black stone, inlaid with one pure white alien glyph.