Endurance

by neetha Napew

  “No.” I said it again, louder, so he would understand. “Cutting is not the same thing as branding. For branding, you use heat.”

  FlatHead simply adjusted the unit to produce a focused, narrow beam and input something on the thresher’s panel. The low hum become a high, eardrum-piercing whine. Then the OverCenturon stepped aside, and waited.

  The displacer band hit my arm, and everything that had happened to FurreVa came back to me in a huge, terrifying rush of images. “Stop it!”

  He didn’t, of course.

  The thresher began cutting into my arm. Not like a lascalpel, which was hot, fast, and efficient. No, this was more like being gouged with a cold, dull eating utensil. I twisted, digging my heels in against the post, trying to get away from the beam.

  Reever, where are you? “Turn it off!”

  GothVar would leave it on, I thought, closing my eyes tightly, biting the inside of my lips to keep from screaming. He’d leave it on until it dug through my skin and muscle and bone. Until my body dropped to the deck. Until my arm was left hanging by itself on the post. That was where my ex-bondmate would find me, armless, cold, and white.

  Because this time, Reever wasn’t coming to my rescue.

  GothVar drew closer. I felt his claws hook into my slave collar, and I couldn’t bear his touch and the thresher chopping into me at the same time. I opened my eyes, saw the voracious alien gaze locked on not my arm, but my face.

  His mouth parted, allowing the black tongue to slide out and trail up and down my face. Tasting the droplets of sweat and tears, I realized. Licking them from my skin as though they were wine.

  My teeth stayed locked together, but I got this much out: “Get-away-from-me!”

  “More, SsurreVa,” he said, and ducked under the beam to crowd me from the other side. “Scream for me.”

  He certainly liked to hear people screaming, and looked ready to chomp down on anything I moved. I kept silent and tried to hold still. It wasn’t easy. The beam had gotten through the first layers of derma and superficial tissue, and was now tearing into the deep fascia.

  How had FurreVa endured this? How could I?

  Like a mouth of flat-topped fangs, like his mouth, the thresher kept at me. The odor from the Hsktskt’s mouth and my own blood choked me. I couldn’t take a deep breath. The pain worsened, darkened from sharp and stabbing into profound agony.

  How long, how long can I stay conscious? My ears filled with the rush of whistling sobs. Not long, but I can’t pass out-he’ll leave me here to bleed to death. He’d leave me until the beam dices me up.

  GothVar’s voice inched into my ears... telling me... oh, my God, he was telling me what he...

  Something seized me by the throat, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe at all. I felt my lungs burn, my larynx strain around an unreleased gasp. Yet I couldn’t overcome that vise around my neck, couldn’t fight it. Whatever it was held me suspended and helpless.

  GothVar’s repulsive presence seemed to fade away.

  No, Cherijo. You can breathe. Breathe.

  My pulse roared out of control. Icy sweat glazed over my face. That voice behind my wide eyes was wrong, I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t unlock the paralyzed muscles. I was going to die here, like this, frozen, trapped, helpless.

  Cherijo, breathe.

  I couldn’t comprehend what was happening. I wasn’t having a seizure. Nothing was strangling me. The beast wasn’t touching me. There was nothing there-

  Lack of oxygen made the room transform into a shifting, vague blur. Eventually it left me, all of it, the room, the thresher, the pain. Trapped inside my own body, listening to the sound of my heart as it slowed, beat by beat, I didn’t care anymore, not knowing...

  Cherijo!

  Someone pried my mouth open and filled it with something hard and round. Delicious, sweet oxygen pumped into my lungs. I drew it in eagerly, then shuddered at the resulting rawness as it left me on a ragged exhalation.

  Breathe.

  The voice in my head forced another breath into my lungs. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that. The other way was easy, I wouldn’t have to deal with the Hsktskt or the arm he’d hacked off my body by now. I wouldn’t have to be a slave.

  Breathe for me.

  Another rush of oxygen poured down my throat. It reconnected me with more than I wanted-the horrible pain of my arm, the wrenched, contorted muscles of my body, and the force that held me between two solid struts... not struts... arms.

  Human arms.

  Reever?

  Old memories flashed in brief, swift sequence.

  Ana Hansen, smiling. Cherijo Grey Veil, this is Duncan Reever, our chief linguist.

  Jenner, winding in and out of Reever’s ankles. That’s why they’re called pets, Reever. You pet them.

  Hands that carried the scars of a terrified child. I think of the ritual often now.

  A birthday present I’d received while serving on the Sunlace. It’s to keep my hair tidy.

  A list of dead and wounded, one that didn’t have Reever’s name on it. What have you done to yourself?

  My own face, for once open and alive with yearning. We belong together. I can feel it, when I touch you, when I look at you. When I hear your voice.

  Reever, the first time I’d seen him. Sitting alone, dressed in black, looking at me. The cold, handsome face that never changed. The eyes that never stayed the same.

  Touch me, Cherijo. Someone pressed my hands against warm, smooth skin. Look at me. I opened my eyes, saw his face. Listen to my voice.

  Gently he removed the tube from my mouth. “Breathe, beloved.”

  My petrified lungs slowly expanded, dragging in a shallow breath that rasped over the swollen tissues of my throat. As I released the burning gulp of air, I knew I would live.

  The problem now was wanting to.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Catopsa

  A few days after GothVar’s attempt to part me from my right forearm (which failed), the L.T.F. Perpetua arrived at Catopsa.

  The OverCenturon, according to Reever, had been reprimanded about his actions in the launch bay. Apparently he wasn’t subject to discipline for branding me with the PIC, as that was standard Faction regulation.

  Pity. I would have liked to watch him get chopped to pieces.

  Reever had ordered me to remain in his quarters, but I ignored that. Work kept me busy. I made daily rounds in Medical and the Detainment Area. FurreVa and her infants were kept in an isolation chamber, and I performed a somewhat delayed postpartum. She would need more skin work, and two of the infants suffered from continued respiratory distress, which I treated.

  “You would have me thank you for this,” the OverSeer said as she gazed over at the reinforced incubators housing her vicious offspring.

  “Not really.” A ghost of my former humor emerged briefly. “After all, you’re going to have to raise the little monsters.”

  I dealt with the rest of the caseload without much problem. Someone had assigned a pair of centurons to shadow me, and they kept the League prisoners from getting out of hand. Much was muttered about that as I made my rounds, by both patients and League staffers. None of it good.

  I didn’t care. I could do my job without much conversation. When someone stepped over the line, TssVar’s guards made the appropriate threatening gestures. FlatHead never showed his ugly face in Medical. Reever left me alone.

  As long as that remained the status quo, I’d be fine.

  Why I suddenly had guards didn’t concern me. Thoughts of what GothVar had done hovered on the fringe of my mind, but I didn’t dwell on it. I functioned quite well in a safe, comfortable haze, and I had absolutely no intentions of leaving it.

  I liked the status quo.

  Shropana’s former ship went into orbit above Ca-topsa just before I came off my shift, or so Reever informed me when I walked into his quarters.

  “That’s nice.” I went to the cleanser and stripped. The soft support brace on my forearm was waterproof, so I
didn’t have to remove that. Judging from the slight problem I was having with lateral mobility, I’d have to deal with it later. For now, I was content to let it heal on its own.

  Reever’s voice drifted in over the hiss of the sprayers. “We will be transporting everyone to the surface.”

  I frowned, vaguely annoyed. Couldn’t I take a shower in peace? “That’s nice.”

  The hot jets felt good against my skin, and I stood under the port for a long time before I attended to the business of deconning. When I got out, I dried off and noticed absently that I’d lost more weight.

  Weight I could put back on, of course. After I got around to fixing my arm. It didn’t matter.

  Nothing really mattered.

  Reever waited until I was dry, then handed me a fresh set of garments. He always seemed to be doing helpful little things like that lately. When he wasn’t bugging me.

  “Cherijo, we have arrived at Catopsa and are scheduled to jaunt to the compound within the hour.”

  “I heard you.”

  I pulled on my clothes, went to the prep unit, and absently prepared Jenner’s evening meal. He ignored it and started weaving around my ankles, rubbing his head against me. I gently pushed him toward the dish, then drifted over to my vanity unit.

  Should cut my hair, I thought, surveying the excessive, damp length. It tangled like crazy, and was such a chore to brush out and braid every day. Where had I put my trimmer?

  I searched through my storage unit until I found it, then sat down and carefully applied the comb to the mess. This was going to take awhile; there were knots upon knots.

  Reever took the comb and trimmer out of my hands and set them aside. “I want to talk to you.”

  He wanted to start an argument. So I’d do the trim job another time. I got up and cruised past him toward the prep unit. I wasn’t hungry, but a server of tea might be nice.

  Hard hands spun me around and shook me. “Cherijo!”

  I eased out from under his grip. Maybe I should try being more direct and polite. “Please don’t do that.”

  He didn’t let up. “What did the OverCenturon do to you before I arrived at the launch bay?”

  The launch bay. No, I didn’t want to think about what had happened there. I backed up a wary step.

  “Cherijo?” Reever came at me again. “Answer me.”

  “Nothing.” Nothing I wanted to remember. The throbbing in my arm got worse. So did the tightness in my chest. Why did he insist on continuously yelling at me?

  “You’re lying. Tell me.”

  Something trickled into my veins, something hot and fast. I resisted the pull of the unreasonable anger. I wanted to go back into my fuzzy, safe lethargy, and he wasn’t letting me. “Leave me alone.”

  Instead of turning me loose, he dragged me over to the viewport. “Look.”

  Below the Perpetua, there was an immense, sparkling white sphere. At first I thought it was a dwarf star, then realized we couldn’t be this close to one and remain unimpaired. A satellite? I glanced from side to side, but spotted no mother planet. No icy plume trailed from it, so it wasn’t a comet. An asteroid then.

  Just another hunk of space rock. “Okay. I see it.”

  “That is Catopsa.”

  Correction. Just another slave-depot.

  “We leave on the first launch to the surface in one hour.”

  Jenner came between us and started meowing plaintively, rubbing against Reever’s shins. My cat had lousy taste in men. Just like me. I lost interest in the view. “Then I’d better pack.”

  Reever said some other things, but I didn’t listen. I floated away from the viewport and concentrated on deciding what to pack for a lifetime of enslavement.

  The Hsktskt loaded as many of us as they could fit into a launch, then sent it down to Catopsa. Reever went with my group, and I spent several minutes squashed between him and Jenner’s carrier. My cat swatted at the grid with his paws until I stuck my fingers through it and absently stroked what fur I could reach.

  “Almost there, pal,” I said.

  The asteroid appeared perfectly round, like a planetary body, but wasn’t really white. As the launch drew closer, I saw towering faceted structures paved the surface, and refracted light like prisms in every direction.

  I squinted as the increasing brightness hurt my eyes and pierced the nimbus of indifference I’d wrapped myself in. “They built this prison?”

  “No. The asteroid was discovered fully formed by the Faction centuries ago.”

  Untouched by scaly limbs. “Why’d they pick this ball of plas for their little enterprise?”

  “Catopsa is not made of plas. It is well within Faction territory, and convenient to the bond merchant routes.”

  Location is everything, even in the slave trade. “If it’s not plas, what is it?”

  “A mineral similar to silicon dioxide, but one hundred times as hard and possessing an equally higher specific gravity.”

  We were close enough now for me to see tiny figures moving inside the clear pillars. “They hollowed it out?”

  “No. The mineral develops natural recesses in its growth clusters.”

  “Okay.” I didn’t want to get a lecture on quasi-quartz mineralogy. I noticed no star in the immediate vicinity. “All that light it reflects, where is it coming from?”

  “The Hsktskt believe it is generated from phosphorescent material near the core of the planet. The nature of the mineral mantle prevents any confirmation.”

  As the launch prepared to land, I saw an enormous array of artificial environment generators, which answered my only other question. Catopsa was the quintessential prison-cold and transparent, with glassy walls no one dared shatter, even if they could find a way to do it.

  The Hsktskt once more displayed their efficiency as the League prisoners, now wearing prisoner uniform tunics in a disgusting shade of sickly yellow, disembarked from the launch into a portable passage, where the centurons distributed shaded eye protectors and swiftly scanned PICs using a portable database unit. Prisoners were then arranged in a line and shackled together by lengths of plasteel cable fastened to their slave collars.

  Reever and I were the last to leave, which gave me time to process what I was seeing. I slid the shades over my eyes at once, suspecting overexposure to the asteroid’s natural light source would cause considerable damage.

  I studied the interior, mostly so I wouldn’t have to look at all the League prisoners being marched in, chained like animals.

  The passage ended inside an enormous chamber created by a dozen massive pillars that had grown together at different angles. More Hsktskt stood waiting, these dressed in heavier insulating uniforms. Even with the evident atmospheric enhancements, Catopsan air felt cool, barely comfortable for a Terran.

  The lizards didn’t bother with a prisoner indoctrination; they simply surrounded the League arrivals and began separating them into new, smaller groups to be re-chained together. Males, females, hermaphrodites, and various other genders were segregated and marched off in different directions to passages leading away from the tower.

  No one who came off the launch went quietly.

  “Well?” I could avoid the sights, but the sounds of weeping and despair that echoed through the icy corridors were harder to ignore. “Do you show me to my cell? Or-“ I saw a blob of something ooze past my left foot and jumped away from it. “What is that?”

  Reever prodded the moving, dun-colored puddle with his foot, and it instantly changed direction and moved away from us. “Lok-Teel fungus. They are indigenous to Catopsa.”

  “Moving mold.” I made a disgusting sound when I spotted more of them moving along the sloping faces of the chamber. “Can this place possibly get any more offensive?”

  “Centuron.” Reever took Jenner’s carrier from my hand, and gestured to one of the Hsktskt standing nearby. “Accompany the Doctor on an inspection of the facility, then report to me.”

  “Yes, OverMaster.”

  �
�Where are you going with my cat?” I asked, but he only walked away and left me with the lizard. I glanced up at my guide and sighed. “Let’s get it over with.”

  The Hsktskt escorted me from the receiving area through the first corridor, which branched off after a few meters. The transparent walls produced double refractions that made me blink a few times until I got used to the “twinning” effect.

  “Bet head counts in this place are fun to do,” I said.

  My companion only grunted. We passed some Hsktskt supervising small groups of prisoners wearing orange tunics in different common area sections. Finally he spoke, identifying each chamber we passed. “Depot service administration. Population regulation. Food preparation and distribution. Fluid recycling. Inedible waste disposal.”

  Again reality punched holes through the numbness surrounding me. Inedible? They were feeding their garbage to the prisoners? And what was this population regulation business? I started to ask, but by then we’d arrived at the first of the prisoner habitats. The tiers I’d been threatened with, by GothVar.

  A hundred types of eyes peered out at me from small, six-sided cells. Five sides were composed of the quasi-quartz, the sixth barred by a huge plasteel panel. The natural walls of the structure must have been too hard to drill through, judging by the unusual clamping mechanisms that kept each cell door in place.

  Prisoners appeared for the most part healthy and very unhappy. They wore the same tunics we’d been given before leaving the Perpetua. The hideous shade of yellow didn’t look good on anyone. A few shouted some ugly words when they saw us, but the thick chamber walls muffled the sound.

  All male in this tier, I noted. “Why do you keep the genders separated?”

  The beast didn’t answer me.

  We got through the first tier and made a turn into another corridor. More exotic life-forms populated these cells, but they were just as impolite as the males had been. The only difference seemed to be a marked inactivity, something else I asked about.

  He ignored that, and I noticed some commotion down the long row of cells had snared his attention.

  “Wait here.”