Chained (Brides of the Kindred) (2 page)

“You can manage,” Ferna told her. “I’m
sorry, Maggie but you have to. Of course you have no male to act as your body
slave so we’ll have to make up a story about that—”

“Wait—what?” Maggie frowned. “Body slave?
What are you talking about?”

“Yonnie Six is a world ruled by females.
All the females of rank have body slaves—male slaves that wait on their every
whim and need. Ratner was going to pose as mine but unfortunately…” Ferna
turned green and started retching again.

“Oh dear…” Maggie held her hair again. She
didn’t know what made her feel worse—seeing the nice Kindred girl so horribly
sick or knowing she was going to have to take her place down on the surface of
Yonnie Six.

“It’ll be fine,” Ferna gasped, sitting up
again at last. “Just…do exactly what I tell you and you’ll be off the planet in
no time. All right?”

“I…I guess so,” Maggie said doubtfully.
“If you’re sure it’s safe.”

Ferna nodded. “As long as you follow
directions and don’t do anything you’re not supposed to do. Also remember
not
to mention the Kindred.”

“Why?” Maggie frowned.

Ferna ran a trembling hand through her
hair. “The Yonnites don’t like us—don’t like any society where males penetrate
females.”

“Um…okay.” The whole penetration thing
made Maggie’s cheeks get red—it wasn’t normally something she’d discuss with a
colleague—but she nodded earnestly.

“I was going to pose as a buyer and seller
of antiquities,” Ferna continued. “This female you’re meeting with—Lady
Pope’nose—has a number of historical documents from the Kindred home world
which were stolen and sold to her some time ago. They are the early history of
our people and the Kindred would like them back. Lady Pope’nose has agreed to
trade them for the Hurkon collar you’re going to be bringing to her.”

“Okay.” Maggie nodded again. “So I just go
in, swap the collar for the documents, and come right back to the ship?”

Ferna looked troubled. “Well, it might not
be
quite
that easy. The Yonnites have unusual ideas about hospitality.
You may have to agree to have dinner with her or even spend the night.”

“Spend the night? On a strange planet?”
Maggie squeaked. Not that she didn’t like to see and experience new things—she
was, after all, going to a whole new world the Kindred had discovered to study
its flora and fauna. But she preferred her alien experiences to be of the
scientific variety. And she was much more comfortable studying new and exotic
plants and animals than being thrust into a whole new culture—especially a
hostile, man-hating one that had views on who should penetrate who. Or was that
whom?
And if the males didn’t do the penetrating then how…Never mind. Maggie
didn’t know and she didn’t really want to find out.

“You’ll be all right,” Ferna assured her.
“You got your translation bacteria back on the Kindred Mother Ship, right?”
Maggie nodded and she continued. “Then you’ll be just fine. All you have to do
is nod your head a lot and agree with whatever Lady Pope’nose says. Just avoid
giving offense and stay out of trouble, all right?”

“Sure,” Maggie said with more conviction
than she felt. “Just stay out of trouble—how hard can that be?”

Except trouble seemed to follow her everywhere.

No, stop thinking
like that,
she ordered herself.
Everything
is going to be just fine—won’t it?

Maggie certainly hoped so but she had a
bad feeling about this. A
really
bad feeling.

Chapter One

“So very pleased to meet you, little
Mistress.” The shirtless man bowed stiffly to Maggie. “I am the personal body
slave of Lady Pope’nose.”

“Uh, nice to meet you.” She started to bow
back and then remembered she wasn’t supposed to. Women were superior to men
here so she should be courteous but distant—at least, that was what Ferna had
said.

The shirtless slave frowned. “But where is
your body slave? Forgive me, but I was told to expect a person of rank.”

“I
am
rank. I mean,
of
rank,”
Maggie corrected herself hastily. “But I, uh…my slave got sick on the way here.
Actually,” she went on, hoping to make her story even more convincing, “He
died.”

“Oh!” The man bowed low. “My condolences,
Little Mistress. Had you owned him long?”

“Oh yes, ten years! He was a…uh…a birthday
present for my fifteenth birthday,” Maggie said. “I’m heartbroken over it,
really. He had the…the uh, purple spotted chicken mumps.”

The slave frowned. “I’m sorry—the what?
That disease is not known here.”

“Never mind.” Maggie waved airily. “It’s
not contagious but it
is
deadly once contracted. Anyway, I thought it
was better to continue here and give you the Hurkon collar in exchange for the
historical documents as we agreed. So, uh, here.”

She held out the black velvet pillow which
contained the strange device. It had multicolored lights all over its black
wire surface, reminding her of some kind of bizarre Christmas wreath. But there
was nothing Christmassy or cheery about it. Frankly, just holding the thing on
the cushion gave her the creeps although she couldn’t say why. She was more
than ready to get rid of it and the little remote control that went with it.

The half naked slave took a step back, his
boots making a
gooshing
sound in the deep mud that surrounded the ship.

“Oh, I couldn’t take that, Little
Mistress! You must deliver it to Lady Pope’nose yourself.”

Inwardly, Maggie sighed. Well, so much for
an easy end to her quest. Although it
did
seem like the slave could have
taken it. After all, he was wearing a similar collar himself, though his was
much less elaborate than the Hurkon one.

“Of course,” she said smoothly. “Well,
where is she?”

“She would never come to this side of the
chasm,” the slave said. “I must take you to her.”

“All right,” Maggie said, resigned. “Let’s
go then—lead the way.” She didn’t like the idea of tramping through mud in the
one good dress she’d brought on this mission but she’d been on enough field
expeditions that exposure to the elements didn’t make her squeamish. She could
deal with it. She started to step down into the mud but the slave shook his
head, obviously horrified.

“Please stop, little Mistress! You cannot
soil your feet in such a manner. As you have no body servant of your own, I
will carry you.”

He held out his arms to her but at this,
Maggie balked. There was no way she wanted to be carried in the arms of a
complete stranger across this field of mud. Besides, while the shirtless slave
seemed nice enough, he had a strange, weasely look in his eyes which darted
from side to side as they talked.

Also, he was skinny and she didn’t want to
embarrass either of them if he couldn’t lift her. She was short but heavy in
the hips—something no amount of exercise seemed to help—and she’d packed on a
few pounds eating Lauren’s delicious cupcakes which seemed to be always
available on the Mother Ship.

“No, that’s all right,” she said firmly.
“I’ll just go get my field boots on so I can walk.”

“You mustn’t,” the slave insisted. Then he
appeared to have an idea. “If you wish, you may ride upon my back instead of in
my arms. Whatever makes you more content, only we must hurry as my Mistress,
Lady Pope’nose, is waiting for us. She gets
very
angry when she’s kept
waiting.”

“No, really,” Maggie said. “I couldn’t.”

The slave looked nearly desperate. “But my
lady will punish me if you do not! If I slight you in any way I will taste her
wrath.”

The look in his squinty little eyes was so
fearful that Maggie began to reconsider her decision. Taking a piggy-back ride
was scarcely more appealing than being held in his arms but she began to see
that she had no choice. If she broke the protocol of this place, they would
suspect her and dig into her background. And if they found out she was from a
Kindred ship, she might lose the documents which had been promised.

Also, the deal for the Hurkon collar had
already been held up once and it had to be delivered soon. Apparently there was
a dangerous prisoner who could only be tamed by the strange thing in her hands.
Plus, she didn’t want the skinny little guy to get punished—she felt sorry for
him, even if he
did
look a little like a weasel without its fur.

“All right,” she said at last, hiking up
the skirt of her best dress and nodding for him to turn around. “Piggy back it
is—let’s go.”

He looked relieved. “Thank you, little
Mistress. I will not fail you.” He turned his back to her and crouched down,
getting ready to take her weight. With grave misgivings, Maggie hitched her
dress a little higher and began to climb aboard.

Getting on his narrow back while still
holding the pillow with the collar on it wasn’t easy. It would have been
considerably easier if she could have brought herself to touch the collar but
somehow the black wire contraption with its blinking lights scared her. She
tried to balance it on the cushion while scrambling onto the slave’s scrawny
back. If only he was wearing a shirt she could hold on to! Putting her arms and
legs around a strange, half-naked man was really not appealing to Maggie at
all.

“Ooof!” he gasped, when she was finally
mounted with one arm around his skinny throat.

“I’m sorry,” Maggie said at once. “You’d
better put me down. I’m too heavy for you.”

“Not at all,” the slave said in a tight,
strained voice. “Are you well mounted, my lady?”

“Uh, yes, I guess so,” Maggie said,
feeling miserable. She really should have laid off those cupcakes on the Mother
Ship! But she’d been indulging herself, knowing that she wouldn’t see Donald
for six long months. With no one to criticize her for letting go a little, it
had been easy to say yes to just one more sweet and even easier to skip her
usual gym time.

“Let us proceed,” the slave said in the
same, tight voice. “I must get you to my lady soon if I wish to avoid
punishment.”

He started out, staggering through the
thick, deep mud, his boots making
slurping
and
gooshing
noises
with each step. Maggie held on for dear life, still trying to balance the
Hurkon collar and its remote on the satin pillow with one hand while she clung
to the man’s skinny, pale back with the other.

“Have you lived here on Yonnie Six long?”
she asked, trying to make conversation to defuse the awkwardness of the
situation.

“All…my life,” he gasped, still plodding
along. “My mistress…bought me from the training house…when I was but fifteen
cycles old.”

“Wow,” Maggie said. “So you’ve been with
Lady Pope’nose a long time then? Say…fifteen or twenty years?”

“Only…five years,” the slave puffed. “I am
but twenty cycles…little Mistress.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Maggie felt worse than
ever. “I’m a terrible judge of age,” she said apologetically. But really, the
man looked to be at least in his mid thirties. Did they age faster here on
Yonnie Six or was he just living a really hard life?

“You must not apologize,” he protested.
“Many other slaves have…” He paused to take a deep breath and then continued.
“Have fallen under the whip or been rendered useless by the pain collar. But
I…I survived.”

“Wow,” Maggie muttered. Was the slave
mortality rate really so high here? What was this Lady Pope’nose doing to her
people? She had an awful feeling she was going to find out.

“Here we are,” the slave gasped out and
Maggie looked up to see a rickety looking cart and a narrow track spanning a
vast, deep trench that looked a little like the Grand Cavern.

“That’s…wow, that’s
huge,”
she
breathed. “Are we really supposed to cross it?”

“The only way to Opulex is by crossing the
chasm,” Lady Pope’nose’s slave assured her. “And so—”

But just then, Maggie felt herself
slipping. She tried to hold on but the slave’s narrow, bare back was clammy
with sweat and there was simply nothing to hold on to.

“Oh!” she gasped, beginning to slide down
his back. “Oh my! Oh, no!”

“Little Mistress!” he cried, trying to
grab her legs. Unfortunately he got her dress instead which made a loud ripping
sound as Maggie fell on her back in the thick brown mud. Worse, the Hurkon
collar and its remote went flying and landed with a juicy
splat
several
yards away.

“Oh, my lady! Little Mistress!” The slave
floundered around in the mud, clearly unsure of what to do. He tried to haul
Maggie to her feet but just when she was getting up, they over balanced and she
fell in the mud again—face first this time.

Maggie lifted her head, spluttering, and
wiped the cold, oozing muck off her cheeks. Luckily, it was just the bottom
half of her face which had been dunked in the mud—except for a few splatters,
her glasses were clear. The slave reached for her again but she shook her head.

“I’ll manage myself. Just get the collar.”