by Dante King
Along the way, I kept a wary eye out for threats but also thought about what I needed to do. I wanted to search out the crew of the Revenge, but I had more pressing concerns. Shelter, water, food, and rest for the old woman and myself. Skrew seemed as if he had an endless supply for energy, skipping around and reenacting the fight with the guards. At first, I smiled, but then I started growing tired of his antics. He stopped only after I threatened to pick him up and throw him halfway across the jungle.
As the night gave way to day, the jungle became a rainforest of rocks and steep hills. A short while later, Skrew turned around and pointed at a bush. “We’re here!”
“You’re kidding,” I said. “What are we meant to do with that?”
“No kidding. This is Skrew’s hidey-hole! It is safe. It is dry. It is good for sleeping and not getting eaten by crawly-things. It is not tall. It is not wide. But it is mine. Jacob does not like?”
“It’s a bush,” I said, wondering if I could trust him to watch the woman while I went to look for a more secure place to rest. Even though I hadn’t slept for about three days, I didn’t feel at all tired. But the woman clearly needed to sleep. She’d managed to doze while I carried her, but the walk through the jungle had been rough at times, and she’d often woken with a start.
“Is disguise.” Skrew pulled the bush, and it slid out of the way on small metal wheels, revealing a dry cave. In the back, I could see the outlines of what looked like cloths, probably used as blankets, and a couple of bags. There were also several water skins, though they were flat and appeared to be empty.
The cave entrance was narrow. Barely a yard wide and almost as tall. There was no way all three of us were going to fit in there and be able to get some sleep. I had to make a choice. Either Skrew could camp out in the woods, or I could.
“Jacob fought all the guards!” Skrew whispered. “He did this and that!” The vrak demonstrated what I’d done with karate-like movements. He must have thought he could replay his routine since we’d arrived.
“I was there,” I growled, “I know.” I tried to ignore him as I put the old woman down. She sat there, unmoving and shaking.
“Then Jacob smashed the two noggins together like kako shells! Bonk! It was amaze! Skrew never saw thing like it before! It was such gore and pain!” He cackled madly at his own recollection.
“Skrew!” I shouted. I immediately regretted it when the old woman flinched at my raised voice.
“Yes?” Skrew said, arms frozen in a sort-of-karate position.
“We need food. Something she and I can eat. It’s important. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Skrew said, dark eyes becoming round. “Skrew will do this for Jacob. How much food?”
I thought about how much time I needed without him and the possibility that he might find something right away. I did a little math and came up with an answer. “Three days’ worth. Four if you can manage.”
Skrew frowned. It was the biggest vrak frown I’d ever seen. “But that could take Skrew a whole day.”
“Then, you’d better get started,” I said without looking at him.
“Skrew will do as Master says,” he confirmed before walking away.
“Master?” Did he call me “Master?” I turned to ask him about it when the old woman made a sound of pain.
I turned back and found her inspecting her left forearm. She had bruises all the way from her thumb to her elbow. Her skin was remarkably smooth, and I started to wonder if Skrew’s description of her ugliness had been entirely accurate.
I climbed into the cave, tore a piece of fabric from one of the blankets and sat at her side. “I need to clean you up a bit to check for injuries—see if you have anything serious. Will you let me?”
“You killed my master,” she said. “You are my new master.” Her accent was strange to me. Some people rolled their R’s when they spoke. She rolled several letters and added the sound in places I hadn’t expected. I found it intriguing, charming, and exotic.
“I’m not your master,” I said, taking her hand in mine. “I’m nobody’s master. Don’t listen to Skrew. He’s crazy.”
“You are not my master?”
“No. Nobody is your master. You are free.” I tried to sound as authoritative as I could without coming off as intimidating. I didn't want to scare her, but I wanted her to know it was true.
“May I remove my hood?” she asked, sounding hopeful.
“Remove it or not; it’s up to you,” I reminded her. “You are your own woman. You can do what I say or not. You won’t get punished. I won’t hurt you.” I let go of her hands and lowered mine to my sides, trying to emphasize the point.
She reached up with both filthy hands and pulled the hood of her rags back to reveal something more shocking than I’d been prepared to see. I made a mental note to learn more about Skrew’s definition of beauty because his and mine were nothing alike.
Her hair was so blonde, it was almost white, but there wasn’t a wrinkle on her face. Her skin was as white as ivory, and her eyes were as blue as the seas of Deepwater. She was thin but not sickly, and she trembled a little when I stroked her hand with the wet cloth, cleaning it so I could see her injuries. She was also definitely human.
Thin scars crossed her fingers, and I found a few on the backs of her hands. They didn’t look like wounds from fighting or even abuse. They were from working with primitive tools. I hadn’t noticed any tools when I’d rescued her from Cobble and ruined any chance he had at becoming a famous vrak baritone singer.
The only fresh wounds I found were on her knuckles. I’d been in enough fights to see the wounds for what they were. I hoped the scabs had been earned beating her captor to a pulp and wondered if that was why he’d been so angry with her.
“I am free,” she whispered. “I am not a slave.” Her eyes were unfocused, staring at a point in the sky a million miles away as if she was dreaming or remembering something long forgotten.
“That’s right,” I said. “May I see your arms?”
She offered her left arm first, holding the wide sleeve with her opposite hand while I used a little water to rinse the dirt from the cloth. The robe, it seemed, was more function than fashion. A one-size-fits-all-slaves variety of outerwear. When I lifted my eyes to see her arm, I had to stifle a gasp.
Bruises. To the untrained eye, the patchwork of purple, yellow, and brown might resemble some kind of horrible disease, slowly eating away at her otherwise beautiful arm. But no, they were definitely bruises.
I’d spent a year of my career training at the Ricci-8 penal colony as a medic. It was good training, and the prisoners there deserved the harsh conditions they subjected one another to. I’d learned to stitch and seal knife wounds, to identify blunt force trauma, and how to conduct advanced life-saving measures with minimal equipment or support. The kind of injuries I saw on this worman were from hard, constant pressure like a vrak might do by squeezing with a powerful three-fingered fist.
The bruises were layered. Some were almost healed, while others were no more than a day or two old. There were patches of red skin that made her flinch when I brushed them with the cool cloth.
“How long were you a slave?” I asked. I felt the need to say something, rather than sitting in silence, but I wasn’t sure she wanted to talk.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “At least three moons. Maybe four.”
On Mars, a single “moon” was roughly equivalent to 30 days. Living four moons as a slave was almost beyond my imagination. I didn’t know how long moons were on this planet, but it seemed like she’d been a slave for a whole lot longer than 120 days.
After cleaning and inspecting her left arm, I motioned for her to pull the sleeve of her right arm up. It was just as bad as the other one. She had to be in a lot of pain, but she was tough and did her best to hide it.
I thought again of the Federation, my home, and imagined leading the task force who would later invade this planet and free any slaves we could find
.
“Why did you release me?” she asked. “Am I not pleasing to you?”
The question shocked me like a miswired toilet-paper dispenser. “What do you mean?” I asked. “I find you… very pleasing.” I wasn’t kidding. I was trying to remain clinical as I inspected her wounds. And though the bruises were ugly and shocking, they didn’t detract from her beauty. Nor did they diminish the stoic pride or assertive power in her eyes.
“It is the way of things,” she continued, “that slaves do not get freed. Not even when our master dies. We are burned with him so that we will be slaves forever. But you freed me. You released me. Why?”
I didn’t make eye contact. I was still trying to remain clinical, inspecting her for anything more serious than bruising. She had scars resembling those caused by a whip. Either she’d been beaten a lot and used her right arm to protect her body, or the vrak had learned to make what ancient humans would have referred to as a “cat of nine tails.”
“Because slavery is wrong under any circumstance,” I said, still inspecting and cleaning her arm.
“But you have a slave.”
I raised my eyes to meet hers. Her expression was one of concern and confusion. I imagined my own was similar. “No, I don’t,” I said. “I abhor slavery in all its forms.”
“But the vrak.” She motioned in the direction Skrew had left. “He is your slave.”
“No, he’s not,” I said, growing impatient. I took a deep breath. It was obvious to me the woman would take time to adjust to her freedom.
She pursed her lips together, squinted one eye, and wrinkled her perfect, little nose. My heart melted. It was the most amusing, charming expression I’d ever seen. It was a look of innocence and youth. She had to be at least in her early 20s, though. Maybe as old as 25. I resisted the urge to smile at her, considering the seriousness of the conversation.
“Did he not give you his phylac?” she asked.
I felt its weight around my neck. It suddenly felt oppressive, heavy, and suffocating.
Using only my thumb, I lifted the string over my head and held the small object in front of my eyes.
“You are a master,” she whispered.
I was almost at a loss for words. I tried to speak but found my throat suddenly parched. I felt defensive, formulated justifications and counter-arguments, but the sad look in her eyes smothered the small brushfires threatening to consume me from the inside.
“I didn’t know,” was all I could manage.
She studied my face for several seconds. Her eyes held me firmly in a powerful grasp I couldn’t escape, even if I’d wanted to. I felt that I owed her an explanation, but I didn’t know if she would understand. She might think me a babbling idiot… or a liar.
She leaned forward and took my left hand, the one holding the damp cloth, in both of hers. She removed the cloth, placed it on the ground, and inspected my hand. She ran one beautiful finger across the calluses on my palm, sending goosebumps running up my arm. It took every ounce of self-control I could muster not to growl with pleasure.
On the back of my hand, she found a few old scars. One was a plasma burn I’d received when rescuing a fellow Marine from a critical powerplant failure. He’d suffered a career-ending set of injuries, but he’d lived, and he and his bride had both thanked me later. I heard they had a child and had named him after me.
The second, the one that seemed to capture her interest even more, was from a battle to free the city of Bramon on Sigma. It was my first introduction to the Xeno’s ootheca egg sacs. The acid had left pits in my skin, and the wounds had taken a long time to heal.
The third scar was on the big knuckle of my middle finger. I’d earned that one knocking two teeth out of a man I caught trying to mug someone. It was a scar from fighting. When the woman’s wounds healed, it would be a scar we had in common.
After performing a similar inspection on my other hand, she held onto it and looked me in the eye. “Who are your people?”
“My people are called ‘Martians,’” I said. “We are from the planet Mars, in the Sol system.”
She made the wrinkled-nose face again, and I wanted to laugh. “I have never heard of Martians,” she said. “Do your people keep slaves?”
“No. We never have. We don’t like slavery.”
“Then why do you have the vrak’s phylac?”
“Because he was going to be tortured to death,” I explained.
She had to have known what was happening in the village near the shack I’d rescued her from. She couldn’t have been that isolated, could she? The whole line of questioning was beginning to make me uncomfortable, and I hadn’t finished my examination.
I picked the cloth back up, wet it, and brought it to her face. She leaned toward me to make my task easier. Damn, she was pretty. I was having trouble staying focused as I cleaned the grime from her beautiful forehead and cheeks.
“Torture is the way of the Sitar,” she said. “It is the law. It is their way.”
That wasn’t a name I’d heard before. I didn’t know what Sitar meant, but it sounded sinister. It sounded like a group of people I had no chance of getting along with.
“Like I said,” I began, applying the most serious tone to my words, “I am a Martian, and I follow Martian law.”
We sat in silence for the next several minutes as I cleaned the dirt from her face. I didn’t find any new injuries until I began cleaning her neck. She’d been choked. A lot. I gritted my teeth at the sight and did my best to stifle a curse. I was concerned that if she sensed my anger, she might become afraid of me. Or, because of my new strength, I might accidentally hurt her. I didn’t want either to happen.
“My people are called Ish-nul,” she said. “It means The People. We also have our own laws. We do not keep slaves. We farm. We gather. We make war with the vrak when we can. But mostly, we hide from the Sitar.”
“Who are the Sitar?” I asked.
The question became irrelevant when she stretched her leg out and pulled up the end of her robe. Her leg was bruised, just like her arms. The vrak, at least one of them, seemed to take great pleasure in beating humans. I didn’t know how many were slavers, but I wondered if beating them like they beat their slaves wouldn’t be more than fair. Then I reminded myself that I was a Martian, and though revenge was acceptable, torture was not. I’d end them, but I would not beat them to death.
Her legs were unshaven. It didn’t look like she’d ever shaved, but the hairs were short, fine, and soft. I was as gentle as I could manage. Her legs weren’t as dirty as the rest of her, and I couldn’t help but admire them. She didn’t appear to be a warrior, but she was used to hard work.
I stroked her leg as gently as I could and noticed she wasn’t flinching anymore.
“You are different from most men,” she whispered. “You’re a warrior, but something else, too. The warriors of my people —”
I’d grown distracted by the sound of her voice and her soft, strong leg in my hands. I’d been too rough with her. “Sorry,” I said. “Tell me more.”
She offered me her other leg but didn’t pull her robe back down over the first. I wasn’t sure what it meant in her culture, but in mine, the message was loud and clear. I tried not to get my hopes up. She’d been through a lot, and it might have just been a reaction to the stress.
What could I do? I obliged her request to clean her other leg. I took my time, teasing it out as I rinsed the dirt from the cloth and wet it again, absently wondering if something else might be getting wet at the same time.
Her other leg was just as badly bruised as the other. Horror flickered inside of me again. There should be no slaves—ever. Human history was festooned with bad examples, but we’d learned. We’d overcome the primitive thinking of one person owning another. I’d read about it. I’d even witnessed it once among some pirates who were trying to revive the practice. But I’d never seen such violence against an innocent, one considered property by another. And honestly, one so beautiful a
nd stoic as the woman before me.
A thought struck me. “What’s your name?” I asked.
“I am called Enra,” she said. “It means—”
“Morning,” I finished.
The way she’d said it—the way her mouth moved and how she rolled the syllable—nearly caused me to grasp her legs tightly with both hands. I resisted and was glad for it. I was stronger now. I had to be gentle. And with Enra, I wanted to ensure she felt safe in my presence.
My self-imposed chastity had ended with Reaver before the mission had begun. The emotions and feelings that Reaver and I had shared had awoken something inside me. So many years without the pleasure of a woman had bubbled over on that day.
But I couldn’t exactly fulfil my desires now. Not with a woman whom I’d just rescued from her alien owner.
Except Enra seemed like she wanted me. Maybe more than that. It seemed like she needed me. She must not have felt comfort for some time, and it made sense that she would seek it out with the man who’d rescued her.
Still, I wasn’t entirely sure of her intentions. Before Reaver, it had been a long while since I’d engaged in flirtatious behavior with any woman.
I needed to know if I was understanding the unspoken words between us, so I got on my knees and scooted closer to her. She spread her legs wide. She was receptive.
I rinsed the cloth out again, found the knotted string holding the top of her robe closed and began to work at the knot. As I did, she studied my face. I pretended that I didn’t notice her heavy breathing, the way she licked her lips, and the way her breasts pressed against the tattered robe.
I didn’t want to ruin the only piece of clothing she had, but if the knot had been tied purposefully that way, I had no idea how to undo it. She must have noticed my frustration, because she took my hands in hers, brushed them against her cheek, and deftly untied the knot herself.
The lusty look in her eyes, how hard she was breathing, and the sheen of sweat on her top lip told me she was eager. I’d barely touched her, but the trembles of pleasure in her limbs were unmistakable.