Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hirianthial look at her, suddenly.
“It’s the law, Captain. It doesn’t matter if you’re a merchant or military.”
Another slave appeared at the entrance to the house. “Mistress, if it pleases you may we speak with the Phoenix and the Glaseah? We believe we have comfortable accommodations for them, but we would be pleased if they would examine them for suitability.”
“Just when the conversation was getting exciting,” Kis’eh’t said with a lopsided smile.
Bryer stood, saying, “The conversation lacks focus. We go.”
Irine popped to her feet. “I’ll come too.”
“What, you don’t want to take part in the unfocused conversation?” Reese asked.
Irine grinned. “Oh, I’m sure you won’t let the matter drop quickly. I’ll have plenty of time to hear you complain about it later.”
Sascha stared after them for longer than Reese expected, after they left. She said, “Something wrong?”
Sascha shook his head. “She’s just very happy to be home.”
“And you’re not,” Reese guessed. “I might have a chance to keep sane after all.”
She expected him to disagree, but instead the Harat-Shar chuckled and looked at Hirianthial. “So, are you going to work as a doctor here?”
“If I can,” Hirianthial said. “I have licenses in several specialties. Most Core worlds accept those wherever you travel.”
“I am not going to give you over to slavery,” Reese said, folding her arms.
“It is service, Lady, not slavery,” Hirianthial said, petting Allacazam. Beneath his hands the Flitzbe turned a deep, contented purple-blue, and those long white fingers sprang into sharp relief. Those hands had opened up her body and knitted her back together. They looked like a surgeon’s hands.
“I’d be careful about your assumptions,” Sascha said. “We call it slavery and it is slavery. You don’t have any choices once you sign the contract.”
Those long hands stopped moving. “So your master could beat you?”
“Sure, if you needed to be punished,” Sascha said.
“To death?” Hirianthial asked.
“of course not!” Sascha said.
“And abuse?”
The Harat-Shar fidgeted. “Not unless you sign up for abuse.”
“Starvation? Medical procedures without consent? Sterilization?” Hirianthial said. His voice remained calm and evenly paced, but Reese couldn’t shake the feeling he was pressing.
“Of course not,” Sascha said. “You have to find a very special segment of society to sign away that much of yourself.”
“What a genteel existence,” Hirianthial said. “Enough food to eat, enough to drink, a place to sleep, masters who dare not abuse you or torture you beyond what you have yourself allowed on a piece of paper you have signed.” He resumed petting Allacazam, who began to turn a very unpleasant orange. “Call this slavery if you like, Sascha. It bears as much resemblance to it as wine to poison.”
Reese stared at him. He looked as serene as always, but something about his face had changed. Beside her, Sascha sat stiffly transfixed, even his tail unmoving.
“Besides,” Hirianthial said after a moment, “I haven’t said whether I would take a slave-doctor’s contract. Even I am leery of giving Harat-Sharii that much of me.” A flicker of a smile.
Reese let out a long breath. “Thank the blood in the dust. The man has a sense of self-preservation.”
“He’ll need it,” Sascha said and stood with a tail-lash. “I’ll check on your rooms.”
Reese nodded, but the tigraine was gone before she could finish the gesture. She glanced at Hirianthial. “This is going to be harder than I thought.”
“Is it?” Hirianthial asked.
“You’re not nervous about this?”
He continued stroking Allacazam, who slowly turned a lovely turquoise green—what that meant, Reese hadn’t the slightest idea. “Worrying about what has not yet come to pass was never my duty, lady.”
It was such a bizarre thing to say she wasn’t sure how to respond. Finally, she came up with, “What is your duty, then?”
“To go where I’m sent,” he said. “To do as I’m asked.”
“To think as you’re told to think?” Reese asked with a trace of acid. “Doesn’t sound like the life of a responsible adult.”
“And your way is better, lady?” Hirianthial asked. Allacazam had bloomed several splotches of alarmed red. “To cast off all the threads that would connect you to others? To deny your responsibility to them? To mistake destructive stubbornness for individual choice?”
Reese gaped at him.
“Even a short life is no excuse for such selfishness,” he said, standing.
“W-what?” Reese managed. “Hey, wait! You can’t say that kind of thing to me! What gives you the right to judge me? You barely know me!”
“And you me,” Hirianthial said at the door. “Keep this in mind, captain,” heavily touched with irony, the title, “Harat-Sharii’s laws have made you the lord of your ship and we your liegemen. Take care with the role.”
“I didn’t ask to be in charge!”
“Few people do,” he said.
“Wait!” she said, but he was already through the door. Blood and spit! He had no right!
It had not been his plan to wander, but the alternative had not been palatable. So with Allacazam slowly calming in his arms, Hirianthial drifted through the gracious halls of the twins’ family estate. The subsequent rooms had been built on the same model as the first few he’d seen: large windows at ground level, high ceilings and fans. Lovingly tended plants lined the corridors, some reaching from outside to coil tendrils along the inside walls. Broad-mouthed pots proved to be water gardens, sporting exotic lilies and populations of tiny fish and other less familiar creatures. Each hall seemed to branch into a shaded terrace, a sheltered alcove, a perfumed garden. Occasionally he caught sight of stairs leading into the ground and up to the earth.
Slaves passed him, their auras dense and lazy with pleasure. How could he explain how easily he could discern their contentment? He’d run his mental fingers over the distant auras of true slaves before, felt the spikes of pain so long suppressed the barbs had turned inward, sinking into the person’s mind with the cruelty of despair. He would never have willingly given himself to the work these slaves had signed themselves to, but their willingness was real. There was no menace in this household.
In time, Hirianthial found a garden so charming he couldn’t leave it. He perched on a crumbled stone wall among flowers so tiny their blossoms seemed more like lilac spatters off a paint brush. They smelled spicy, like sandalwood and ember bark. Half a dozen orange butterflies floated among the bushes, and at his feet black lizards raced from one end of the patio to the other. With Allacazam drowsily eating sunlight at his side, Hirianthial relaxed.
“Did my son release you so quickly, then?”
“He seemed eager to arrange our rooms,” Hirianthial said, turning to look at Zhemala.
“You are overdressed for the weather,” she said. The crumbling wall had once framed a gate, and she sat on the gate’s opposite side, her gaze resting on his.
“If that was an invitation, lady, I’m afraid I shall ignore it,” he said.
She laughed, her teeth and red mouth obscured by the filmy veil that fell from the level of her cheeks. “No, old alien. It was an invitation to have water. You will need more water than you are accustomed to drinking on a dry, cold ship.”
“Water would be welcome,” Hirianthial said.
She called for the attention of a servant and sent him away for a pitcher, then turned back to the Eldritch. “Will you forgive my staring? Most people expect Harat-Shar to stare, but your people are not rumored to know much of the Pelted.”
“As you will, lady,” Hirianthial said. “Your eyes will not harm me.”
And with amusement, he observed the frankness of her ap
praisal and how it did not lift until the servant returned with a sweating silver pitcher and two goblets. She did not pass him his after pouring it, but set it on the edge of his side of the gate with all the practiced etiquette of an Eldritch courtier.
“I have lived long and hard and never regretted it,” Zhemala said. “But I never thought I’d see an Eldritch in the real. I would greatly love to see more of you, but if this is all I ever see then I am satisfied.”
“Are we worth so much?” Hirianthial asked with a lifted brow.
“Oh, anything rare enough is worth so much,” the Harat-Shar said. “But this... yes, this even more. Your captain is a lucky girl. But come, there is business to discuss.”
The water was cold enough to shock, cold enough to numb his mouth. He could feel it traveling all the way down his throat and into his stomach. “Business, lady?”
“My children tell me you’re a doctor, and I happen to have a particular need for a doctor at this time. If you show interest, I would offer your captain a contract for a few hours of your time a day.”
“And my duties?” Hirianthial asked, setting the goblet down.
“One of my husband’s wives is expecting and this is her first,” Zhemala said. “She is suffering from anxiety over her physical condition. A doctor would be a welcome addition to her midwife.”
He was glad he’d put the goblet down as it gave him ample reason to fold his hands together in his lap where they could not shake. He was similarly glad that Allacazam was too far and too somnolent from gorging to react to the panic that had gripped his chest. “I do not have a specialty in obstetrics, lady,” he said.
“I didn’t imagine so,” Zhemala said and took a long sip from her goblet. “I won’t require your help in delivering her baby—she’s not close to her time—only in reminding her to care for herself, to eat the right foods and take the right supplements, and to ease her anxieties about being a mother. I will talk bluntly, sir. I do not require a doctor. I require a babysitter whose degrees in medicine will lend him a lulling air of authority. I will pay your captain well for you to deal with her histrionics, for all of us are beginning to find them tiresome.”
“I can play the nursemaid,” Hirianthial said, forcing his discomfort aside. “But I must point out that I am no woman. How can your co-wife believe me if I have no direct experience with what she will soon undergo?”
“The midwife has not calmed her, despite her many successes and her own long line of children,” Zhemala said. “So perhaps the girl’s habit of obedience to men will shut her up in your presence.” She sighed. “I would have brought in someone from the city, but you are close, you are convenient, and you’ll be leaving... so I need not worry about alienating a neighbor.” She managed a faint smile, one that didn’t rise far enough above her veil to touch her eyes. “Her mother died giving birth to her second sister. The girl is convinced the baby will kill her. We’re tired of telling her otherwise. Perhaps you will have better luck.”
The irony of the situation was heavy-handed enough to off-set the reminder of his grief. Hirianthial said, “You’ll have to check with Captain Eddings—”
“—of course.”
“But if she approves, I will do my best,” Hirianthial said.
Zhemala smiled and left him with the pitcher. He poured himself another serving and watched the butterflies.
“Reese!”
She paused at the entrance to the hall to find the twins trotting toward her. She’d almost escaped without anyone seeing her, which would have suited her fine... her talk with Hirianthial had left her angry and unsettled.
Sascha stopped first. “I was going to show you and Hirianthial to your rooms, but I get back to the Moon Patio and find you both gone! Where are you going? And where’s Hirianthial?”
“I’m heading into town,” Reese said. “I don’t know where Hirianthial is.”
“Town already?” Sascha asked. “You’re not even settled!”
“In case you haven’t noticed, the ship’s in need of repair,” Reese said, clipping her data tablet onto her belt.
“Can’t it wait a single day?” Irine asked. “Mamer’s preparing a glorious dinner!”
“Dinner’s not for another five or six hours, unless you people call lunch dinner,” Reese said.
“We can’t lift off for an entire season, though,” Sascha said. “What’s the point of rushing?”
“The point of rushing is that the faster I get this done, the more relaxed I’ll be. I hate having things hanging over my head. So tell me which way, fuzzies, or I’ll have to figure it out on my own and you know how cranky that will make me.”
Irine sighed. “Go down Market Avenue. The port’s at the end of it.”
“That’s it?” Reese asked, lifting a brow.
“Hey, that’s just how Hirianthial looks sometimes,” Irine crowed, tail waving.
“What are you talking about?”
“The thing with the brow,” Irine said.
As if sensing Reese’s forthcoming tantrum, Sascha hastily said, “Market Avenue’s the largest street in town. You won’t miss it. It’s in the middle of everything.”
“Right,” Reese said. And added, “I do not look like him.”
“Of course you don’t,” Sascha said, pushing Irine deeper into the hall. “Enjoy your walk.”
Reese eyed them both, then shrugged and headed toward the nearest exit. Finding it wasn’t as easy as she’d hoped, but she managed to navigate out without having to ask one of the naked people how to get to the street. Blood and Freedom, but a little clothing wouldn’t have hurt them, would it? Except that she had to admit that it was hot, so hot that it distracted her from staring at the size of the sky. She was used to climate-controlled environments, not places where the light was accompanied by heat dense enough she bet it could melt plastic. By the time she reached the edge of town, Reese regretted her black jumpsuit more than she could describe.
Market Avenue was indeed easy to find, though not needing directions didn’t save her from the flirtatious calls from a few bystanders. Reese fumbled her responses and escaped while they laughed. Blushing only made her feel hotter, so she found the first grocer and jumped down the stairs to buy something to drink. It was a little strange at first to be halfway underground while inside, but if the Harat-Shar claimed it made it easier to cool their buildings she wasn’t going to argue. Especially when arguing prolonged conversations that inevitably involved a proposition.
Back up on the street Reese began the long walk to the end of town, grateful that the profusion of stores and people made it easier to ignore the vastness of the world around her. Sascha’s claim about Zhedeem being off-worlder-friendly seemed true; for every five Harat-Shar strolling the street in veils and flowing pants there was one alien. Humans, Seersa, Karaka’An, Asanii, the occasional Ciracaana flowing past on four feet... quite a selection. With the crowd so dense and so many people intent on errands, no Harat-Shar pounced the off-worlders either, which went a long way toward making Reese relax.
No, it was entirely unfair that she was enjoying the shade of the palms and the vibrancy of the passersby and the jabber of different languages amid the more common use of Universal. It was also entirely unfair that there were so many fascinating and exotic shops, from restaurants smelling of unfamiliar but enticing spices to vendors of luxury items Reese had never been able to afford. Expensive cloth. Boutiques selling haute couture so bizarre she couldn’t figure out how it stayed on the solidigraphs. Art in blazing colors appropriate to the planet. Personal hardware that made her battered old data tablet look positively prehistoric. Cosmetics appropriate for whatever kind of face you had, whether covered with skin, fur or scales.
She managed to ignore it all with only the faintest pangs of longing. Her account simply couldn’t clothe her in hand-woven brocade or buy her jeweled sandals. She was, in fact, feeling proud of her own willpower when it failed.
Her feet took her down the stairs and her hand push
ed the glass door before her, and she was standing inside a real bookstore before she realized where she was. And oh, the smell of paper!
“May I help you?” a cheerful woman asked. She had spots... leopard spots? Something like that. What little Reese knew about Terran cats she’d learned because of Harat-Shar patterning. The woman also had a veil draped over her nose and chin and throat.
“Books,” Reese managed. “These are real books?”
“Of every kind,” the woman agreed. “From the electronic sort you can order in squirts to hand-made, hand-painted, hand-lettered curiosities from around the Alliance.”
“Oh my,” Reese said around a tight throat. “I’ve never held a real book in my hands.”
“Never?” the woman said, eyes round. “Virgin hands! We should remedy that at once! Come along.”
In the coldest, driest section of the store near the back, Reese found herself holding a real book with a leather cover, leaves of raw silk that chafed beneath her fingers and glossy ink she could still smell, pungent and rich. Her reverence inspired the woman to hand her yet another, and another, each one more glorious than the next until finally Reese sat on a bench and said, “I can’t possibly see any more. I’ll die of wonder.”
“You could take one home,” the woman said.
Reese laughed. “There’s no way I could afford any of these treasures. I can buy a soft copy of something... I should, anyway, I’ve run out of my monthlies... but those? Those are far, far beyond my reach.”
“You never know,” the woman said. “But tell me what you’d like to look at and we’ll see if we can’t set you up with something.”
“A romance novel,” Reese said. “Preferably something new.” Against her better judgment she added, “And with Eldritch in it.”
“Eldritch!” the woman said with a laugh.
“I know,” Reese said. “It’s silly. Especially since I’ve got one of my own and I realize they’re not the way they’re written, not at all.”
“You’ve got an Eldritch of your own to play with?” the woman asked, eyeing her as she replaced one of the treasures on the shelf.
Earthrise (Her Instruments Book 1) Page 15