Irsud (2 page)

“Calm yourself, slave.”

Aleytys crouched on the floor looking up at the kipu past tangled strands of hair. “No. I won't be a slave.”

“Slave,” the kipu repeated, her antennas twitching slightly. “Bought and paid for. You waste your energy and my time fooling yourself. Your condition is a fact, to be neither denied nor affirmed. I own you. You're meat. If I choose to feed you, you eat. If not, you starve. If I choose to have you carved into meat for my sabutim you will be meat. Don't tell me about your life before. That's over. Forget it. You're meat. Bought and paid for. Accept that.”

Aleytys stared at her for a minute. Quietly she stood up, pushing straying tendrils of hair behind her ears. The psi-damper itched in her back and her brain felt like hot mush and her nakedness was a vulnerability hard to ignore. She pushed the confusing betraying anger way, way down and fought to clear her head. “Never. Bought? You wasted your money.”

“No. For your present comfort, slave.…” The kipu flicked a long forefinger at the two guards behind Aleytys. “Come back to the table.”

Aleytys glanced over her shoulder at the narrow stolid faces. The damper cut off her empathic reach and left her feeling worse than blinded. She faced the kipu again. “I could give you some trouble.”

“Bring her.” The kipu turned her back and faced the bed, dismissing anything Aleytys could possibly do as a minor pinprick not worth bothering about.

Aleytys watched her walk away and swore to herself that somehow … somehow … she'd puncture that arrogance.

Long cold fingers closed around her arms. Helpless as a naughty child, she let them push her back to the polished metal table. Smoothly, with scarcely a break in their movements, they bent and lifted her, stretching her out on the surface and holding her quiet.

A white nayid took hold of Aleytys' head, turning it away from her, her strength making nonsense of the long neck muscles. Aleytys felt a cold spot on her spine, round like the end of one of the rods, then all sensation in her body vanished. She cried out in sudden panic.

“It's only to stop pain.” The nayid's voice was calm and precise as a machine. And oddly reassuring. She seemed so certain and matter-of-fact about what was happening.

“What are you doing?” Aleytys whispered. “Why.…”

The kipu's face swam into her limited range of vision. “Calm yourself, slave,” she said coolly. She rubbed a strand of Aleytys' hair between her thumb and forefinger. “Red.…” Dropping the hair she stepped back and spoke with a curious remote quality in her resonant voice. “You were purchased for a high and noble purpose. You shall live in luxury, your wishes demands on us until our purpose is fulfilled. Accept it, for your own comfort.” She broke off and moved farther away as a series of hoarse shrieks rose in a crescendo of pain, then cut off abruptly.

A motion at the edge of her field of vision distracted Aleytys. At the cost of aching neck muscles she forced her head up and looked along her body. The middle nayid, a lanky female, bone-thin with a severe sharp-angled face, drew a sponge over her thigh, leaving a pale blue stain behind. Repeatedly the nayid dipped the sponge in a basin held by a second white nayid and smoothed the viscous liquid over the pale amber skin of Aleytys' left thigh.

Aleytys dropped her head back a moment to rest her trembling muscles then lifted it again as she heard a soft meaty slap. The tall thin nayid was peeling back the skin on the thigh while the basin holder had ditched her basin and was controlling blood flow with a quivering green jelly. When the skin was clamped back, the surgeon sliced deeper, cutting neatly between the big front muscles until she'd opened a cavity the size of a fist. Quickly, efficiently the cutter propped the cavity open with a pair of evil-looking spreaders, then stood back, patiently waiting.

The doctor with the gray-barred hair came from the bed, her hands cupped reverently around a rubbery ovoid, a grayish-green object with concentric ochre stripes.

Sick with horror, Aleytys watched the cold-faced surgeon lower the ovoid into the hole in her thigh. When she had it settled to her satisfaction, the nayid removed the clamps and eased the flesh back into place. Gently, with the same care she had shown with the egg, she pulled the flap of skin into place and ran a buzzing rod along the wound to seal the cut. With a quick sure twist of her long supple fingers she altered the setting on the rod and placed it against Aleytys' temple.

Aleytys gasped and spun off into darkness.

CHAPTER II

Groaning as pain pulsed around the back of her skull, Aleytys opened bleary eyes and cautiously moved her head. Her body ached so that she could barely gather enough energy to think through the fog in her brain, while the damper in her back triggered waves of itching. She moved restlessly, rustling the crisp sheets, a small pleasant sound that soothed her aching spirit.

Lacy, elaborately frilled pillows billowed up around her head. Impatiently she shoved against the mattress, pushing her aching body erect. She threw the covers off her legs and stared unhappily at her thigh, her fingers tracing the fine red line around the shrinking lump. “Damn.”

Floundering to the edge of the bed she hauled the cobwebby lace curtains back and slid onto her feet, wincing as her skin touched the cold tiles. She stumbled to the center of the room and stared around.

Blue-green shrouds falling from a gilt bee-like insect splayed out against the ceiling. She spun around. In the narrowest wall of the wedge-shaped room, an arch closed by a heavy blue-green tapestry. That room. The old queen's bed. She could see once again the bulky decrepit figure of the ancient nayid … aaaagh!

Moving stiffly to the arch she pulled the tapestry aside.

The guard outside stepped in front of her, her blue-green tunic rippling softly about her stringy form. When Aleytys tried to move past her, the guard shook her head and pushed her gently but inexorably back into the room. The tapestry dropped between them with a heavy finality.

The damper still jumbled her thoughts but her mind was adjusting rapidly to a hippity-hop style of thinking. “Well.” She rubbed her queasy stomach. “So I sleep in that hag's bed.” She shivered and looked around.

The room was a blunted wedge with the long side walls covered by ornate tapestries suspended on rings from long polished poles. Imposed on an intricate and lovely design of leaves and flowers woven of earth tones with accents of rose and violet, a line of rampant male figures cavorted through a wild erotic dance, their lurid, explicitly sexual forms contrasting grotesquely with the delicacy of the background.

Aleytys examined the figures with interest, her body heating a little as she noted the genital similarity to the men of her own species. Glancing over her shoulders at the tapestries, she moved to the wide end of the room behind the head of the bed.

When she pulled the tapestry out away from the wall she discovered that it was apparently a single sheet of glass with a greenish blue tinge that was cool and restful on the eyes. Outside she could see a walled garden. Neatly clipped grass. Gently rolling ground. Patches of flowers. Short, flat, slender umbrella-like trees … mimosoids … with delicate lacy foliage … leaning gracefully over a small lively stream.… She gazed hungrily at the crystalline water leaping down the miniature waterfalls, dancing around scattered boulders, passing under the heavy, nearly horizontal limb of a rugged live oak. Her need for flowing water was almost as demanding as for hunger or sex. She felt along the glass, searching for a way into the garden.

“Hieno-nainen.”

Aleytys jumped and wheeled, startled out of her concentration on the stream. She moved hastily around the bed and stopped in front of a small brown figure that knelt, eyes fixed servilely on the floor, a pile of clean sheets and towels heaped neatly beside her. The diminutive female had neatly braided dark brown hair tied in loops over small ears, light brown skin flushing pink on the cheekbones, a coarse brown wrapper pulled tight emphasizing a dainty waistline with an elaborately embroidered sash-belt.

Abruptly conscious of her nudity, Aleytys pulled the lacy cover off the bed and wrapped it around her. “Who are you?” she demanded.

“Aamunkoitta, hieno-nainen. I am hiiri assigned to care for these rooms.”

“You're not a nayid.” Aleytys eyed the full breasts thrusting against the wrapper. “You're mammal like me.”

The brown face flushed. Full lips thinned for an instant then the stolid face mask slid back. “I am hiiri, hieno-nainen.”

Aleytys tucked the cover absently around her. She hates them, she thought. I suppose she's a slave too. I wonder … damn! If I could just.… She wriggled her shoulders as the itch intensified and her thoughts veered wildly until she disciplined her mind and seized hold of a remembered word. “Rooms?”

“Hieno-nainen?”

“There are other rooms here?”

“Yes, hieno-nainen.”

“Hah! Aleytys glared at the petite woman. “If you think that stupid act is fooling me.…”

The hiiri gaped at her. “Hieno-nainen?”

Rubbing a palm that itched to slap the tiresome little creature, Aleytys sighed. “Never mind. Show me the other rooms.”

The hiiri rose gracefully to her feet.

“Wait.” Aleytys hitched up the trailing ends of the cover. “Where can I get something to wear?”

Silently the hiiri glided to the far side of the room. She reached up, got a handful of the tapestry and pulled it to one side, the rings clattering along the wooden pole. As she tugged more strongly, a portion of the hanging broke away from the rest, uncovering a section of wall pierced by another of the arches.

The hiiri reached up and spread her hand across a milky white square. A light came on, illuminating a small inner room.

Aleytys stepped on a trailing end of the bedspread and nearly strangled herself. Muttering impatiently she caught up a few more folds and padded cautiously through the archway.

Empty shelves, rods, hooks … the old queen's clothing had been swept away except for a few shapeless tent-like garments hanging from hooks beside the arch. The hiiri slipped past her and frowned thoughtfully at these. She lifted a shifting mass of blue-green from its hook. “There is this.”

She shook the folds briskly and held the garment out to Aleytys. “The kipu must have put these here for you. If you want more, see that one, hieno-nainen.”

Aleytys sighed. After a minute's struggle she got the multiple layers of the shimmering blue-green silk over her head and slid it down over her body, letting the cover drop to the floor. She settled the brooches on her shoulders and shook her body so that the silken layers of material slid across her skin and settled into graceful folds falling to her ankles. She felt immediately less vulnerable and turned to the hiiri with a new sureness in her movements. “The other rooms?”

The hiiri bowed her head and left the closet. Farther along the wall she pulled the tapestry apart again, touched the light switch and waited for Aleytys to come up with her.

“This room is for your body's needs, hieno-nainen.”

A huge sunken tub took up half the room. An elaborate throne-like commode made of beaten gold studded with jewels had a matching fur-cushioned footstool. Aleytys blinked, then giggled. “My god,” she said, voice vibrating with awe, “I've never seen anything like this.”

“Yes, hieno-nainen.” The hiiri's bland colorless voice sucked away Aleytys' sudden high spirits. She looked at the small stolid face and sighed. The hiiri lowered her eyes meekly and moved away toward the other side of the room, passing behind the big bed close to the glass wall.

“Wait.” Aleytys ran lightly up to her, stopping in front of the clear glass. “The other rooms can wait. Is there any way out there?” She splayed her hand out on the glass and looked hungrily at the sunlit garden.

“Yes, hieno-nainen.” The hiiri pulled the tapestry farther aside, baring a section of glass with two milky squares set in it. She tapped her fingers on the topmost square and stepped back as a section of the glass slid rapidly and silently upward. “To close,” she said colorlessly, “tap there twice.” She pointed to the lower square, now more than a meter beyond her reach. Aleytys brushed past her and stepped onto the grass.

The sun was the wrong color, an egg-yolk yellow instead of red or blue, and it was single in the sky. She looked up, shaking her hair out, letting the gentle breeze play through it.

The grass was cool under her feet. It felt right, though the green was not so dark as she remembered. Even the water looked lighter, brighter under this yellow sun. Again she felt the abrupt disorientation as her body reacted to the wrongness of the feel. She felt too light, too cool, too.… it was hard for her to bring to consciousness all the things her body found wrong here. But the smells of the green growing things were just enough the same.… She closed her eyes and took a few steps farther onto the grass, letting the feel and the smell take her back in memory to the valley where she'd spent her growing up time. For a deep aching moment she smelled the sharp clean penetrating fragrance of the horans that grew along the Raqsidan, heard the laughing roar of that mountain river. She sank to her knees, tears of aching homesickness running unchecked down her cheeks.

She jumped to her feet, ran back into the building, stretched up, tapped the square, stepped hastily back as the glass door slid down. Shivering slightly she twitched the tapestry back over the glass, shutting out the disturbing view of green and lovely garden.

The hiiri was gone. The bed was made up, the cover restored, the pillow slip a crisp unwrinkled white.

Aleytys walked along the wall, poking gloomily at the tapestry, her mouth twisted into a self-mocking curve as she studied a prancing male figure with organ impressively erect. After a minute she turned away, clamping down the disturbing memories that threatened to send her spinning futilely down roads she couldn't retrace.