by Stella Cassy
The guard turned out to be a general dogsbody. A few moments after leaving us in the room, he returned, carrying a tray with seven vessels and a large jug of liquid.
“For your refreshment, I offer you linten-fruit juice. Chilled.”
I stared at the unfamiliar liquid, unsure.
“It’s delicious, and it’s a specialty of Minapolis. It doesn’t grow anywhere else.”
“I bet it would grow somewhere else. But no one wants it,” said Thrantok behind me. The other crew members were amused.
The guard frowned and placed the tray down on the table.
“We have a senior manager who will see you in a moment.” The lanky Nortian backed out of the room and left us.
I picked up the clear jug and stared at the contents. It was a bright green color, similar to that of my eyes. I gave it a tentative sniff. It smelled fruity, but sickly sweet with it.
Sweet.
That reminded me. What was it that Illswing’s mother had said to me?
You’ll never beat my boy. I’ll make sure of it.
Those were her words, or near enough. There had been a glint in her eye, a hint of wicked cunningness that promised me she meant it.
She would do anything to protect her son. And I’d do anything to rise through the line of succession to earn the place I truly deserved: the very top.
Who knew how many agents she had, or where she had them placed? She certainly knew I was coming here. My mission was no secret from her after all.
Glaring at the jug, I tossed it across the room, smashing it against a wall and leaving a sickly green stain. While most of the liquid fell to the floor, some of it seemed to cling stubbornly to the wall, oozing down it leaving sticky-looking trails.
I didn’t want my crew drinking it either. After all, I didn’t exactly have many of them. Six. Barely even worthy of the term crew.
“Sir,” said the guard as he returned. His eyes flicked to the wall and the still-oozing green liquid clinging to it. Nervously, he continued, “The senior manager will see you now.”
“And I shall see him.” I turned to my crew. “Come,” I commanded, and immediately left to follow the guard.
We walked a short distance along the edge of the cavernous center of the building, until we reached a hallway leading to offices. We were led to the final office, the door of which was standing open.
Inside I examined the room and found it wanting, thought I imagined it was to the local taste. Two walls were made of glass, allowing for a spectacular vista across one side of the city. It was a veritable tapestry of garbage.
If this had been my office, one of the glass walls would have been removed to allow for an easy launch. I stared at it. Perhaps I could remove it now.
“Welcome to Minniku National Holdings!”
I flicked my eyes away from the view toward the banker himself. He was yet another Nortian. Every member of their weak-limbed race looked as if they’d been stretched on a rack.
The banker was standing up behind his desk, nervous eyes twitching while he watched me, a desperate attempt to appear cheerful and friendly on his pallid face.
“Greetings. I am Prince Rethryn of the Royal House of Thirren, Captain of the Hielsrane Fleet.”
“What an honor. What an honor indeed!” The banker had his hands in front of him and was slowly rubbing them together as he spoke.
“Yes, it is. I am here to secure a loan.”
“That is what we specialize in here at Minniku National Holdings. Storing your money or lending you money.”
What a business. Who would dedicate their life to such a waste? When one could be out among the stars, pillaging, why lock yourself in a building on a backwater planet with no chance for excitement? No chance for valor, victory or conquest. I mistrusted the banker on principle.
“This is my... first time,” I said. It was demeaning, being here. While the other four of us had been sent out to retrieve something of value, I had been sent out to beg for money. Well not beg. Enquire after. Demand, maybe.
“Of course, of course. You know, you’re the first Drakon we’ve had here. It’s such an honor.”
“You said that already. We require fifteen tons of gold immediately.”
The banker’s face fell.
“Fifteen tons?”
“Yes. Do you have it?”
“We do offer large lines of credit, yes. Is this a personal loan?”
It was a stupid question and I could tell he was just trying to buy himself time. I already knew what was going to happen.
“I am here on behalf of the Hielsrane fleet. We require gold for rebuilding.”
“Right. So an institutional loan. You see, the thing is—”
I did not wish to be messed around with. I needed an answer, not a discussion. A growl erupted from my throat.
“Will you provide it or not?”
The banker stared down at his desk, unwilling to meet my gaze. When he began to speak again, it was without even looking at me.
“What kind of security can you provide?” His voice was small and weak.
“We are the Hielsrane Fleet. That is security enough.”
“What I mean is…” he glanced up at me nervously. “For example, someone after a personal loan may use their home, or perhaps a spaceship as collateral, to reduce our risk.”
My nostrils flared and I considered whether I would prefer to tear the insolent beanpole limb from limb or incinerate him.
“We do not provide collateral. We are the Hielsrane Fleet and we require funds immediately. It is a very simple question. Will you provide them?”
The banker started to tremble.
“I can’t.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
“Can’t. It’s against the bank’s policy to give out large unsecured loans. I’m sorry. I wish there was something I could do.”
I was close. So close.
But the mission. The race. I couldn’t throw it all away now. I had to give this another go.
“I shall return tomorrow. You shall have one more chance.”
The banker’s eyes lit up with relief as he saw that we intended to exit peacefully. I spun around, flapping a threatening gust of wind over him as I did so.
My crew began to stomp out of the room to clear a passage for me. They would wait in line outside until I passed them before falling behind me again.
Just before I left, something caught my eye. Something rare and valuable. Standing in the corner, silently, was a human female.
She was exquisite.
She had blonde hair down past her shoulders, and a slim profile that positively screamed to be thrown around by a male mate.
Her eyes. There was something in them that the banker didn’t have — life, vitality. While she did not have the body of a warrior, she had the spirit of one. What was she doing in a place like this?
“What’s this,” I pointed a talon at the girl as I half-turned to look at the banker again.
“Just a slave. A human one. A rather stupid human one.”
When he said the word ‘stupid’ her eyes narrowed, and if she had been a Drakon I think a wisp of smoke would have emanated from her nostrils. Either that or she would have shifted and bitten his head off.
“This one is not stupid. Do not underestimate her.” I know not why I said it. I owed the banker nothing — despite my best efforts to try and owe him a lot — and I should not have been giving him advice for free. But perhaps the advice wasn’t really for him.
Maybe it was for the girl’s benefit instead.
Before I exited, I put a hand around her jaw and examined her eyes. Now they were wary, but not terrified. Analytical. Like she was sizing me up to see if I could be of use to her.
Sniffing her Earth-scent sent a shiver through my rapidly stirring dragon. It was a delightful perfume. I breathed in of her again, more deeply. I had seen pictures of their planet and I imagined that her odor was that of their meadows after a misty rain. I had no way
of telling if that was true, but I did know that my dragon was excited by this little plaything.
I released the grip around her jaw and stomped out of the room. Interesting. Perhaps I would obtain one of them for myself once this mission was over. There seemed to be more and more of the expensive playthings around. Unfortunately it was the Pax that had a monopoly on sourcing them.
When we were outside the bank again, I gathered my crew together around me.
“The bank has refused us.” I wanted to see what their reactions would be.
“Sir,” said Jal, the youngest member of my crew, a delightfully headstrong young male. “Let’s burn this ridiculous planet. The cowards and weaklings do not deserve our mercy.”
I stretched out my wings. It was tempting. Oh, so tempting. We could soar above this town, diving down and unleashing fiery vengeance on the bankers and their collaborators. If they did not wish to deal with us, why not obliterate them?
“Sir. The race.” It was my first officer, Thrantok. He wanted to move up the ranks and the best way to do that was to be part of a successful mission. But the same applied to me too. I hated for it to be true, but it was.
“They refused the loan.” I swished my caudal through the air behind me, back and forth. I wanted to soar, to burn, to pillage. While we couldn’t take fifteen tons of gold worth of loot, we could make a good start.
“Perhaps if we obtained some gifts for them, they might reconsider.”
A growl rumbled deep in me. Gifts for the bankers? They should have been on their knees offering us gifts as soon as we arrived.
But the race. The fifteen tons of gold. If I failed in my mission…
“Fine. We shall show them mercy one final time. Gather what gifts you can. We shall return here tomorrow.”
I knew not what my crew would seek to obtain, but I knew how they would do it. Through thieving, through burglary, through threats and perhaps, once they had obtained some minor baubles with which to trade, through barter.
We would present the bankers with undeserved gifts and then give them one more undeserved chance.
But if they refused me again…
My dragon growled in eager, hungry anticipation.
They would burn.
4
Talia
Talia
I was in the kitchen waiting to take out dinner. Of course I hadn’t finished cleaning it, that had been an impossible task for one human slave girl to accomplish. But I did have one section of wall gleaming and sparkling.
Today I had seen my first dragon. Or Drakon, anyway. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. When the six of them had come into Tytrik’s office, filling the normally echoing, spacious room to near capacity, my eyes had bulged.
They had been led by a massive, muscular dragon who claimed to be a prince. His muscles rippled as he moved, and he emanated an aura of barely constrained power, as if it was just under the surface begging to burst out.
Of course I had heard about them before, and I had expected to be repulsed by them. A race of murderous, pillaging space pirates? No one could like them but their own mothers. Except, we had something in common.
When the Drakon leader was speaking to Tytrik his voice positively dripped with contempt. I think my master was too scared of their bulk to even notice it, but I certainly did. Throughout their short exchange, I was hoping the dragon would demonstrate his concept with something more than words, but he had contained himself. But only barely, if I was a good judge of these things.
Before he’d left, he’d put his hand on me, grasping me by the jaw, examining me like a piece of meat. No, not like a piece of meat, more like a dessert. His lime green eyes had born into my own and I think he liked what he saw.
Being held like that, at his mercy, had been thrilling. After he’d left, my spine tingled, and my head was light. There was something about that breed of alien that none of the other races I’d met had. Or maybe it was just him. Rethryn, that had been his name.
“You can begin serving now,” said Frantew, the chef. He, too, was a slave, but one who’d been trained in a specific skill. Unlike me. And I never would be. Not because I got a choice, but because I intended to get off this hellhole before they had a chance.
I loaded the plates onto the serving trolley and braced myself before I pushed it out into the hall. I needed to keep my temper under control. Scrubbing the kitchen had been no fun at all, and there was still plenty left to do.
When I reached the dining hall, the twelve bankers who ran our branch of Minniku National Holdings were in a jovial mood. After his meeting with the dragon earlier, Tytrik had called them all together to join him for the evening. The twelve of them referred to themselves as the Dozen Dummies. Just kidding. It was me that thought of them that way, but I made sure to keep it to myself.
About half were distant relatives of his, but the other half had earned their positions in the bank’s hierarchy. From what I’d seen of them, they hadn’t earned their positions through talent, but rather through their ability to be obsequiously flattering and loyal to the family members who ran the bank.
“Now, I turned him down today — you should have seen his face! But that doesn’t mean we can’t do business with them. Let them simmer, that’s what I thought.”
It hadn’t looked to me like he’d been doing much other than trembling at his desk earlier. But in the retelling, Tytrik was the big man — or alien anyway — telling the weak dragon what they could or couldn’t do.
While the bankers talked, I slowly made my way around the room, putting a large plate in front of each of them as I made my circuit. I walked slowly, curious as to whether I might learn something of interest.
“What we need to do,” said one of Tytrik’s cousins whose name I hadn’t bothered to remember, “is leverage their power. If we get them under our thumb, they could open up untapped worlds to our business.”
“We could open off-planet branches!” said the youngest of the Dozen Dummies.
The others looked at him askance.
“Maybe you can,” said Tytrik, with a throaty chuckle.
The others nodded in agreement. They certainly didn’t want to leave the comfort of Minapolis for an ‘alien’ world. I wish someone had had the same consideration for me.
“When they come to see you again, you should tell them they can have the loan,” said Crynsep, another one of the cousins. “But that they will be effectively employees of Minniku Holdings until the debt is fully repaid.”
“But they’ll take centuries to pay it!”
I placed the last plate of food down on the table, and slowly began to push the trolley back across the room toward the exit. I took my time, curious to hear what the bankers were saying.
“Exactly,” said Crynsep with almost unbearable smugness. “They’ll be our slaves.”
I’d seen the Drakons myself earlier — seven of them anyway. Trying to make them into virtual slaves looked like a good way to get yourself ripped apart and tossed out a window. Or worse. I stopped the trolley and addressed the seated bankers.
“Look, if you try that, they’ll kill you. What you need to do is make them come up with the idea. Let them think they are getting one over on you by getting a loan with a centuries long—”
Tytrik stood up so quickly his chair smashed into the wall behind him.
“Insolent, stupid, ungrateful wench!” He started to scurry around the table toward me.
Pushing the trolley as fast as I could, I ran out of the room. He caught me in the hallway.
“What do you think you were doing? Are you trying to embarrass me? I should have you lashed but then you would be even more useless than you are now! Get back to cleaning that kitchen. I don’t want to see you again until the morning.”
“I was only making a suggestion.”
“Keep your suggestions to yourself! How many times do I have to tell you! Twelve experienced bankers do not need input from an idiot slave girl. If this happens again, I’ll have y
ou de-tongued.”
De-tongued? Was that a thing?
“Yes, master,” I said quietly.
If it was a thing, I didn’t want to find out tonight.
I figured Tytrik must have been in a good mood, because he didn’t even hit me this time. Trembling, I pushed the empty food trolley back into the kitchen. I was glad that the local custom was to only consume one plate of food. At least I wouldn’t have to make any more trips back into the room until they’d finished eating and departed to a relaxation area.
“What was all that about?” Frantew asked when I returned.
“Nothing. Just trying to help. They’re going to get themselves roasted by dragons.”
“I thought that would make you happy. Now, did I hear you’re going to finish cleaning my kitchen? Good. I prepared a bowl of water and the cleaning supplies for you.”
“Still no rubber gloves?” I asked with a sigh.
“Nope.”
Being the only human sucked sometimes. Like the fact I had to clean without any protection for my poor hands. I used to get weekly manicures, but now my poor nails hadn’t seen a bottle of Christian Louboutin in what felt like forever. How long had it been anyway? Six months? A year? It was impossible to keep track of time here. They counted it wrong. The days were the wrong length, they’d never heard of a week or a month, and their clocks were backward.
Reluctantly, I stuck my hand into the bowl of warm water and pulled out the rag that Frantew had put in there for me.
I scrubbed, and scrubbed, and scrubbed. My fingers wrinkled like they used to when I spent too long in the startub, or any of our other jacuzzis. I held them out, staring at them.
“It’s not fair,” I muttered.
Dad used to tell me that — life wasn’t fair. But he said it wasn’t fair in our favor. While other people had to suck it up, we got to live it up is what he always used to say. When I was rebellious, for a brief time I had thought we should try and make the world fair. Or at least fairer. But Dad had knocked that silly notion out of my mind by cutting my allowance down to double digits for a week. Once I realized how hard it was for a fifteen year old to survive on seventy five dollars a week, I threw out any such notions of making the world fairer.