When she reached the Aide who handled her for the Grand Sech, she didn’t waste time on tact. “Whoever assigned that supercilious little cretin to me ought to have his brain scrubbed. He’s generated so much hostility here it makes me wonder if someone planned it; there’s no way I can accomplish anything with him in the same hemisphere.”
The Aide was a fat old man with empty eyes. He’d supplied her needs without comment the several times she’d called on him, he seemed to be an efficient administrator, she never had to ask twice or reject any of the supplies he sent her and subjects for interviews were on time and forthcoming. Now he smiled at her, briefly amused. “You didn’t object to him before you left.”
“I hadn’t been exposed to the full glory of his personality.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Get him away from me. Far away. You know what the sweet thing just did? He barged into a bedroom where a girl was with her new baby and nearly scared her into a heart attack. Terrific.” She scowled at him. “Am I supposed to be some sort of agent provocateur?”
“No. I’m sure your energies will be fully engaged by the work Sech Tra Yarta has given you.”
“Which brings me back…
A hand clamped on her shoulder and jerked her out of the chair. Efi Musvedd flung her at the floor, put a boot in her side, then panted and cursed as he swung his czadeg at her, that limber gray cane which guards used to herd slaves and Huvved used whenever they were annoyed with someone of lesser status. The beating went on and on as the Huvved gradually worked off his rage. Aslan huddled in a tight knot, rolling and wriggling, slipping some of the kicks and taking most of the whipping on her shoulders and buttocks.
The Hordar elders watched, silent and impassive; Aslan caught glimpses of them standing in the doorway.
The Aide watched from the comscreen. When Efi Musvedd dropped his arm, he called him over.
“Zarkzar Efi Musvedd, return immediately to Gilisim Gillin,” the Aide’s voice was crisp, flat, “report to the Grand Sech as soon as you reach the Palace.”
The wild energy drained from the young Huvved’s face and body; he looked tired and there was a glint of fear in his narrowed eyes. “What about the woman?”
“Forget her; she’s no business of yours.”
“I hear.” He reached to click off the set.
“No. Leave it. Start back now.”
Efi Musvedd slapped the czadeg into its clip, smoothed his hair down and stalked out the door, the watching Hordar melting like smoke before him.
“Ommar Tirtky Presij come here.”
The elder walked to the comset, stood in front of it. “I am here, Seref.”
“The woman, what is her condition?”
“With your permission, Seref.” She stepped away, knelt beside Aslan and went carefully over her body, prodding at flesh and bone with strong, knowing fingers drawing groans and a film of sweat from the injured woman. She stroked her fingers in a brief caress along the side of Aslan’s face. “Nothing broken,” she murmured; a last pat, then she went back to the comset. “She is badly bruised and bleeding from several cuts; there might be internal injuries. If you want her intact and reasonably healthy, you’ll have to leave her with us for a while. If there’s nothing seriously wrong, she can travel in three or four days.”
“I will want a report each evening.”
“I hear, Seref.”
The screen went dark.
Aslan woke late in the night, her body one massive ache that disintegrated into dozens of agonies when she tried to turn over. Her throat was dry, one eye was swollen shut, her upper lip was sore and so thick it seemed to be pressing against her nose.
A young Hordar woman sat in a rocking chair a short distance off. She was reading by the light from a dim lamp, her face in shadows, only her hands and arms lit clearly, the scars on them like broken wandering threads that started on the backs of her hands and wound along her forearms to trail out above her elbows, the white vividly clear against the bronze of her skin. When Aslan began moving about, she lowered the book to her lap and waited a moment before she spoke, making sure her patient was awake and aware. “Thirsty?”
Aslan’s tongue rasped across dry lips. “Yes,” she managed.
When the glass was empty, the young woman set it on the table and pulled the chair closer to the bed. “You haven’t been a slave long, have you.”
Aslan tried to smile, but her mouth felt like wood and the cut on her lip burned and broke apart. “No.” She lay back, stared at the shadowy ceiling. “No.”
“Are you angry at us for not trying to help you?”
“No. You couldn’t do anything.” With her mouth in its parlous condition, her articulation was so mushy even she had a hard time understanding herself, but she wanted to talk. She NEEDED to talk. “Do you know what touched him off?”
“You shamed him before Hordar. Sea Farmers. We are too valuable to the Imperator, he couldn’t do what he wanted and wipe out the insult by killing us all. So he lessoned you.’
Aslan nodded, grimaced as the movement sent dull pain bouncing between her temples. “I should have known that. I wasn’t thinking. Too angry.” She lay silent a moment, then lifted a hand and let it fall, a gesture of futility echoing the confusion in her mind “The Grand Sech… You know he’s the one who sent the slavers looking for someone like me? Out there…” She tilted her hand up, waggled a finger at the ceiling. “He’s no fool or he wouldn’t be where he is… or am I the fool… no, not this time… and I doubt he tolerates fools working for him. Why did they send that clown as my escort? How could I possibly accomplish anything with him bulling about? Tra Yarta paid a hefty price for my skills, why why why did he undercut me like that?” She stopped, blinked, then tried out a painful laugh. “Funny, not long ago I was thinking about an acquaintance, I was telling myself he didn’t know what it was to be powerless, that he was going to run himself into trouble because of it, that he expected power to be rational and was he going to be surprised when he found out how irrational the powerful could be. I could have been describing myself.”
“Sending that… um… person wasn’t irrational.” There was a quiet bitterness in the young woman’s voice.
“What?”
“Wasteful, maybe, not irrational.”
“How can…?”
“We’ve had a long time to learn the convolutions of Huvved thinking.”
“And?”
“I don’t understand what the Sech wants from you.” A graceful flutter of scarred hands silenced Aslan. “It doesn’t matter, whatever it is, it’s trouble for Hordar. You see…” She stopped talking, shifted position in the chair, folded one leg up so the foot was resting on the other knee, clasped her hands about the ankle. She was leaning forward, intense, filled with anger and need. “You see, he doesn’t trust you, he’ll break you first. That’s what this was. A start toward smashing the part of you that won’t submit to him; it’s like breathing, not something you can control, you just do it. He wants you sane, he wants you healthy and he wants you co-opted.”
“Complicity, not competence.”
“What?”
“The reciprocal of something my acquaintance said. I think I see. I have to be his from the marrow out, not just from self-interest.”
“Yes. The Huvved have done that to us. You saw what happened here, and we’re the most independent Hordar on Tairanna. Our first reaction was withdrawal. No one challenged that bastard’s right to put his hands on anyone or anything he chose. One of the lessons of power, it is exercised everywhere, supported to excess everywhere, no matter how stupid or mindless or destructive the act. No Hordar is ever allowed to triumph over a Huvved, not even in the smallest degree. The Huvved might be punished for his act by other Huvved, but no Hordar will ever be allowed to know it.”
“Why are you telling me these things? I could report you to the Sech.”
The young woman laughed again, more anger than humor in the barking sound. “Don’t you understand? I’m the second act. I’m the voice of despair, the councilor of passivity, the object lesson. How to survive and prosper under the rule of the Huvved.”
“You don’t seem to have learned the lesson all that well.”
“Oh, don’t fool yourself. I might talk a good fight, but that’s empty air. I am Pittipat’s footmat and that’s all I’ll ever be.”
“Uh… Pittipat?”
“The Imperator. Word goes round that he’s so woolly-headed he’d lose in a game of pittypat played with any healthy three year old. Makes us feel brave to call him that. Subversive. But it’s smoke and nonsense.”
“I can’t believe…”
“Listen to me,” doctor whatever your name is. Do you know what hangs over our heads right now? No. Don’t bother answering, I’ll tell you. A battleship called a Warmaster. If the Imperator or even the Grand Sech decided we were expendable and they needed an object lesson to enforce their demands on other Sea Farmers, thirty seconds on we’d be a cloud of steam. And there’s not a single thing we could do to prevent it.” Her hands closed into fists, then she forced them open, splayed her fingers across her thighs. “Apply that to yourself. If you defy him, if your capacity for giving him trouble begins to match the value of your skills, pouf!” She sighed, shifted position again. “I suppose you and your acquaintance are planning to seize a Bolodo transport and escape. That’s happened, you know. Or perhaps you don’t. The year before I was born a band of determined slaves made it on board a transport, they even managed to take off. The Warmaster didn’t bother leaving orbit, it ashed them and the hostages they took with them. Everyone who helped them, everyone in the families of those who helped them, everyone who could be accused of helping them by local enemies whether they were guilty or not, altogether more than a thousand people were hung in iron cages and left to die. No food, no water, no shelter from heat or cold. The strongest lasted fourteen days. No, whoever sent that lunatic with you knew what he was doing. And he’ll do more.” The young woman fell silent; she frowned thoughtfully as she inspected Aslan’s face and body. “I suspect you won’t last more than six months.” A quick brilliant smile, warm, amused, far from the despair in her words. “No, you won’t give in, I don’t think you can; poor baby, you’ll be dead.”
“Cheerful thought.”
“Um, dead isn’t all that bad; when you come back, maybe the world will have changed. Any change will be an improvement, the way things are now.”
Aslan made a small noncommittal sound; there was no point arguing the tenets of a religion she was unacquainted with. “My name is Aslan,” she said. “Aslan aici Adlaar.”
“Aslan.” The young woman touched eyes, lips, spread her hands palm out. “I am the Dalliss Gerilli Presij.”
“Dalliss… um… diver?”
“That’s what the word means, yes.”
“I’m missing something?”
Gerilli Presij stood. “Why don’t you shift onto your stomach and let me give you a back rub. We don’t want you stiffening up.” She glanced at a mechanical clock whose faint regular tick Aslan had dismissed as part of the noises endemic to barge life. “Not time yet for your next shot.”
“Shot?” Aslan stiffened.
The Dalliss chuckled. “It won’t hurt, I’m very good at this.”
Aslan didn’t answer, just began the painful, difficult process of rolling onto her stomach.