Jupiter's Glory Book 3: The Obsidian Slavers

by Adam Carter

  “You sound like you’re talking from experience.”

  “No,” she said quickly. “I don’t have experiences.”

  “None at all?”

  “I was an acolyte of Themisto. I didn’t have the opportunity for … experiences.”

  “Well, I guess being a nun and all, you …”

  “I am not a nun. Why does everyone always call me a nun?”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right. Just … well, I want you of all people to know I’m not a nun.”

  “Why me of all people?”

  Cassiel bit her lip and wished she would think things through before saying them aloud. “No reason. I just respect you more than anyone else on the Glory.”

  “Well that’s not no reason.”

  “No. Are we nearly there yet?”

  “Cass, we only just left the Glory. We probably have a couple of hours before we catch up to them. Moving through space is a slow and boring process.”

  “You’re bored by my company?”

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

  Cassiel stared out the window for the next ten minutes or so while Hawthorn kept them on course. Hawthorn was right: space was boring. She had never travelled much on Themisto, mainly because the world was so small that if she travelled for more than a few hours she would have walked all the way around the world and ended up back where she began. She knew of other worlds, however, and of how there would be things to look at during travel. Trees, people, houses, other vehicles. In space there was none of that. There were no moons in their vicinity, for space was a lot bigger than people realised; nor were there any artificial markers anywhere. She could not even see Jupiter from the position of their window, and Jupiter was something they could always see.

  So instead of focusing on what she could not see, she thought, and the deeper she thought the more a single question kept popping into her mind. “Gordy, why Iris?”

  “Why Iris what?”

  “What did you fall in love with her?”

  “Because she was convenient.”

  Cassiel looked at him, horrified.

  “I was joking,” he said. “Why did I fall in love with her? I have no idea. I don’t like women, I don’t hide that. After my divorce I decided women were the root of all evil and didn’t want anything more to do with them.”

  “I can relate to that, at least.”

  “You can?”

  “Sure. The Bible hates women, too. But you fell in love anyway? Why?”

  “Why did I fall in love? Cass, you’ve obviously never been in love if you can ask that question.”

  “What if I was?”

  “What if you was what?”

  “In love.”

  “Then you wouldn’t have left him back on Themisto to stow away with me.”

  She wanted to say something to that, but all she could really do was spell it out for him, and that was something neither of them needed to deal with while they were stuck in a tiny craft together for the foreseeable future – especially while they were racing to rescue the woman Hawthorn did actually himself love.

  So she said nothing and allowed another lengthy silence to open up between them. She was growing somewhat used to those. This one, unfortunately, lasted the better part of two hours.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Iris Arowana had suffered great hardships through her life. She had once survived a crash onto an illegal world only to have to fight monsters in order to survive. Another time she had fallen from a fifth-storey window and shattered her collarbone. She had been shot, stabbed, punched, kicked and spat upon. Her greatest torment was when her employers had recognised her superior strength and stamina and had taken her in the night, kicking and screaming, to their laboratories. There they had tortured her as they implanted vast amounts of knowledge into her brain.

  Arowana had not only survived all of these things, but she had been made stronger because of them. There was no way a third-rate bruiser like Victoria Haskell was going to even worry her.

  “I asked you a question,” Haskell said, the back of her hand striking Arowana across the face. Arowana would have hit her in response, but for the chains binding her to the wooden poles at her back. She had been taken into the slaves’ area of the Obsidian, whereupon she had been handed over to the brutish Haskell. It seemed Harman had revealed something of the truth about their lie and had done the usual thing for him and run away to leave her to deal with the consequences. Captain Gardener had left Arowana in the capable hands of Haskell in rather a hurry, for he likely wanted to get the Obsidian moving as quickly as possible. From what Arowana had been able to glean from her tormentor, Harman had escaped the Obsidian, which meant he was on his way back to the Glory. Of course, interrogating Haskell was proving a little difficult when Haskell would not stop punching her in the face.

  Still, even with blood filling her mouth, Arowana took great pleasure in the fact Haskell had given up more information than she.

  Spitting out the blood, Arowana said something derogatory. She said it in French, not to remain in character, but because she knew it would only infuriate Haskell further.

  It infuriated her enough to punch her twice more in the face in quick succession, which sent enough pain shooting through Arowana to make her decide not to antagonise the madwoman quite so much.

  “You want to know who I am,” Arowana said. “There are so many different people who could harm you that you’re afraid of not knowing.” That was perhaps not the best start in not antagonising Haskell, but it certainly was the truth. “I thought your slavery ring was all legit, so what are you worried about?”

  “I’m not worried. The captain asked me to find out who you are and that’s what I’m doing.”

  “Then why are you sweating? Why are your eyes twitching? Why do you look so damn nervous?”

  “You’re the one who’s chained to the wall.”

  “Then unchain me and I’ll show you who I am.”

  Haskell looked wary of the idea, but there was a part of her which seemed about ready to do just that. Haskell was a bully and she did not like to fail her captain. If she got the answers by beating up a prisoner, all was good; if she got the answers by beating up and humiliating a prisoner, so much the better.

  But things would not prove to be so easy for Arowana because if there was one thing Haskell was not it was stupid.

  “This may come as something of a shock to you,” Haskell said, “but I have some experience in dealing with unruly slaves. Some have taken longer than others, but in the end I always get what I need from them.”

  “Are you telling me you torture slaves?”

  “I don’t torture slaves, don’t be ridiculous. I discipline and interrogate.”

  “At least have the decency to admit what you do.”

  Haskell moved to the side of the room and opened a chest. From where she was bound, Arowana could only glimpse the contents of the chest, which, she supposed, was the entire point. Torture worked best when it was psychological, for possibility and assumption were sometimes greater motivators than actual physical pain.

  Haskell brought forth a black coil which was unmistakably a whip.

  “You’re not going to use that,” Arowana said, “so don’t even pretend.”

  “I’m not going to use it?”

  “No.”

  Haskell examined the whip, running her finger along its length. “This whip is named Matilda. I named her after the first person I ever used her on.”

  Arowana did not know what to say. Not only did Haskell name her torture instruments, but she assigned them genders. Whether Haskell genuinely thought there was something feminine about whips remained to be seen, but the answer would have been worrying so Arowana did not ask.

  “Who was she?” Arowana asked instead.

  “Matilda? No one. Just a prisoner.”

  “You often take prisoners here?”

  “Not here, no. I haven’t always been on a slav
er vessel.” She trailed the whip absently along the floor as though it was a yo-yo and she was walking the dog. “I used to work on a cruise liner. We had a stowaway one time. A young, wide-eyed thing who wanted to see the Jupiter system for free.”

  “Matilda?”

  “Matilda.”

  “What happened to her?”

  Haskell’s reverie broke and her eyes narrowed as she realised she had probably said too much. She snapped the whip, the noise so intense in the enclosed area it set Arowana’s ears ringing. “The simplest manmade object that breaks the sound barrier,” Haskell explained.

  “She died, didn’t she?”

  “The earliest hunters likely made whips from animal carcasses, the same parts they’d make their bowstrings from.”

  “Matilda died. She stowed away, a bright-eyed young girl, and you caught her, tortured her and killed her. Are you on the run?”

  Haskell stopped moving her whip and stared at Arowana. “If you must know, I threw her out into space. As a stowaway no one knew she was there, so no one knew she was missing. Space is a big place. Maybe someone came across her, maybe they didn’t. But no, I’m not on the run.”

  Arowana accessed her augmented brain, searching every news story broadcast or in printed format for the past five years. She expanded it to ten and came across a few from seven years earlier. There were six items in total, all from newspapers, but they weren’t stories. Rather they were adverts placed in the papers by Matilda’s family, a missing person’s plea. Matilda’s young, smiling face shone from the advert, filled with promise and genuine joy for life. The advert stated she was adventurous but easily influenced and the family feared she had been led astray by a stranger.

  There was no report to indicate her body had ever been found, which meant seven years later the family still did not know what had become of her. That, even above the girl’s murder, enraged Arowana.

  “What’s that face for?” Haskell asked.

  To reveal what she knew would also reveal something of the truth, or at least make Haskell believe she was an undercover cop investigating the murder. She debated on playing that angle, but if she did Haskell would likely just murder her too.

  “Whatever you’re going to do,” Arowana said, “just get on with it.”

  “You’re a cocky one, aren’t you?” She gathered up her whip and ran her finger along the underside. “As you can see, I’ve taken great pains to nick the whip every half-inch or so. It’s an old trick to make the lashes open up bloodier injuries and to make the torment more painful. I like to think of them as being Matilda’s teeth, gnashing into her victims.”

  “That’s because you’re a sadistic monster.”

  “I just enjoy my job.”

  “Your job is making sure the slaves arrive safely at their destination.”

  “My job is also to ensure they stay in line. Besides, you pose a threat to the slaves arriving safely, so by your own admission I’m right in what I’m doing here.”

  “Justify it to yourself all you want, Haskell, but it doesn’t change what you are.”

  “Now you know all about me, it’s time to find out something about you.”

  Haskell snapped the whip so suddenly Arowana’s first indication was not the sound but the pain which shot through her arm. She did not scream, but that was more through shock than anything else, and stared helplessly at the narrow gash just below her shoulder. She was still fully clothed and could see the blood already being absorbed by the thin material.

  The pain subsided but not by much. Gritting her teeth, Arowana furiously sorted through the database in her brain for an effective way of dealing with the pain of being flogged, but aside from astral projection there didn’t seem to be anything that would work.

  The whip landed again, this time horizontally nicking her side, and Arowana screamed. The slash had opened the soft flesh beside her belly and she could feel her blood oozing out.

  “Ready to talk yet?”

  Arowana straightened in her bonds. Her heart was racing, she could feel sweat pouring down her body and she fought to control her breathing. Haskell was absently flicking the whip back for another pass and Arowana wished the torturer had at least left her legs unchained. With all her limbs bound, however, there was simply nothing she could do.

  The whip came down again, punishing Arowana for her silence, stroking her shoulder and causing such pain that she was certain it had sliced through to the bone. Arowana’s scream this time was one of rage, for she was a fighter prevented from retaliating. She could feel tears forming in her eyes and pushed them down, not wishing to give the woman the satisfaction of seeing her break.

  “I love Matilda,” Haskell said, “but her problem is she’s just too good. There are only so many lashes the human body can take before it passes out, or before it becomes desensitised. When that happens there’s hardly any point in continuing. Fortunately for you, Matilda has some friends.” She moved across to the chest and made a show of deciding what to select next. Arowana’s mind was hazing over and she fought to retain control. Her body ached all over, for the injuries had been inflicted to cause maximum pain, but Haskell was right: a few more lashes and Arowana’s mind would simply shut down. Unconsciousness was a natural safeguard against dealing with pain.

  “Ah, these look good.”

  Haskell slipped something over her knuckles. Arowana had seen knuckledusters before but never like the ones Haskell sported. The metal strap fit snugly upon Haskell’s fingers, but from each knuckle there protruded long arrow-shaped barbs, each around an inch in length.

  “Arrows,” Haskell said. “You ever wondered why they’re the shape they are?”

  Arowana said nothing. She knew precisely why arrows were shaped the way they were.

  “The arrow goes in,” Haskell explained anyway, “slipping easily through the flesh to become embedded in the body. If the arrow goes in deep enough you can snap the shaft and push the metal all the way through to escape the other side. But what if you were to pull it out the same way as it went in? Little heart-shaped love-taps that hurt going in and tear coming out.”

  “You have a name for this one as well?”

  “Oh, this one’s also called Matilda. I did a lot of horrific things to Matilda before she died.”

  “And did she tell you anything?”

  “Only that she was a stowaway; but then I knew that when I captured her.”

  If she had not known it before, in that moment Arowana was certain she was dealing with a sick individual.

  Haskell approached her slowly, with the air of a performer, and displayed the knuckleduster for Arowana to inspect. Then, with a malicious grin, she lowered her fist and punched her victim in the thigh.

  Arowana bit her lower lip so savagely she tasted the blood flowing across her tongue. Haskell did not look at the injury, her grinning eyes fixed upon Arowana’s expression. Both their bodies were trembling – Arowana’s from agony, Haskell’s from ecstasy – and Arowana made a silent promise to make Haskell suffer.

  “Does that feel good?” Haskell asked, her fist pressed into Arowana’s thigh. “Are you ready for me to pull out yet?”

  Arowana spat blood in her face, momentarily blinding her. Haskell took an involuntary step backwards, the barbs on the knuckleduster tearing out of Arowana’s leg as she did so. Arowana cried out in pain, sagging in her bonds, and Haskell swore savagely.

  “There’s music to torture,” Haskell said, wiping her eyes. “You ruined the rhythm, it wasn’t time to come out yet.”

  “You sick piece of … How many people have you done this to?”

  “Oh, a few from time to time. Matilda was my first, it’s why I named all my pleasure instruments after her. But that’s the wonder of working on the Obsidian. It’s such a huge vessel no one can hear anything that happens in this room. Sometimes, when a slave takes my fancy, I bring her here under some pretence or other. And then we have some fun together.”

  “And no one ever asks what
happens to these slaves?”

  “I record in the logs that they died en route. It happens sometimes. It’s happening a lot this time around because of the radiation sickness, so I was looking forward to taking a fair few of the slaves, maybe to have them all lined up in a row. But then you came along. I’ve never done it with royalty before.”

  “I’m not royalty, you idiot.”

  “At last a confession.”

  Arowana realised she had given something away, but the pain in her body was making it difficult to think straight. She noted Haskell indicated she only ever took women in this way and wondered whether that meant something. It was not something she could work with, however, so she was not even sure she cared.

  “Once more for Matilda,” Haskell said, brandishing the knuckleduster again. Arowana struggled against her chains, trying to pull them from the wall rather than to break the actual links, but there was no give at all. Haskell placed her free hand on Arowana’s shoulder to steady her and lightly pressed the barbs against Arowana’s side. Their faces were so close Arowana could smell the other woman’s sweat, could taste the joy she was feeling, but there was nothing she could do to stop her.

  Slowly, Haskell pushed the knuckleduster forward, the arrow barbs piercing the softness of Arowana’s side. Arowana tried to remain rigid, for any movement would exacerbate the injury, but the pain was like a thousand burns in a cocktail of a million stings.

  Haskell removed her hand from Arowana’s shoulder and lightly brushed the back of her finger down her captive’s cheek. “So strong, so brave. And such spirit. You’re nothing like Matilda, and she’s always been my favourite. Maybe after this I’ll have to name something after you.”

  Arowana did not know the response she made, but its sheer venom caused Haskell to chuckle.

  “This is the good part,” Haskell said, gazing longingly upon her captive for any reaction she might make. Arowana tensed as she felt the barbs withdraw, the flesh torn ever so slowly as they withdrew. The slow pain was worse than before, but Arowana refused to react, to give the woman any pleasure at all. As the barbs came all the way out, Haskell looked disappointed, and Arowana felt as though her body was on fire.