Alien Chronicles 1 - The Golden One (35 page)

“She didn’t. It was the Kaa.”

“So what did you do to the Kaa?”

“Nothing,” Ampris said with a sigh. “I was taken away to punish Israi for one of her pranks.”

Elrabin pricked his ears at her. “So they punished you for something she did?”

Ampris dropped her gaze. “I—I guess so.”

“That stinks.”

Agreement made Ampris’s ears droop. “Yes,” she said, very softly.

“Still think she’s your friend?”

She didn’t like his criticizing Israi. “It wasn’t her fault. The Kaa decreed the punishment.”

“So why didn’t he punish Israi?”

The hair rose on the back of Ampris’s neck. “Don’t call her that. You do not have permission to—”

“Oh, slag that,” he said rudely. “She’s the one who should be punished, not you. She did the prank, so what good does it do to be rough on you?”

Ampris found herself agreeing, and that scared her. “If anyone hears you speaking against the Kaa, you will lose your tongue. Maybe your head.” She thought of the trophy room at the mountain lodge, and shuddered.

“So I lose my tongue,” he said with scorn, although his ears swiveled nervously. “Is that worse than having my hand cut off if I’m caught stealing? Or being sold into hard labor tomorrow at auction? I’ll spend the rest of my life hauling stones until my back snaps and I’m thrown into the sewers to rot. And for what? The Kaa owns machines that could rebuild his precious old buildings in a few months. But, no, he wants everything done by hand the way it used to be. So he enslaves entire races to do the work. He tears families apart, the way he tore apart yours. He walks on our backs and crushes the life from us. He lets transit systems decay and buildings fall down and jump gates fail, all because he cares more about the past than he does the present.”

“Stop it!” Ampris cried, horrified by what came spewing from Elrabin. “You don’t know what you’re saying. I know that past kaas have been cruel, but this one is good and kind. He cares about his subjects.”

Elrabin yipped with derision. “He cares nothing! Before she died, my mother worked herself to a shadow for sub-grade wages and low food allotments that wouldn’t feed the lits. My da—”

“That is a problem of society,” Ampris said, quoting a courtier she had once overheard. “Chancellor Gaveid says that—”

“Him? All the commentators on the vids say he’s against abiru reforms. He’s our enemy.”

Ampris drew back. “You don’t know him. You’ve never met him.”

Elrabin stared at her as though he could not believe what he saw. “You sit here, in the dirt, in an auction pen
where they sent you
, and you defend them. Worse, you talk like a Viis—all pride and emptiness, blind to the way things really are. What kind of Aaroun are you?”

Ampris felt as though all the wind had been crushed from her. Speechless, she stared back at him. Her mind wound back to the data crystal Bish had given her about the once-proud history of her people. She thought about the fate of her ancestors, how they had been torn from their homes and made into slaves to serve Viis society. She thought about her own trust and security, shattered in a moment by the Kaa’s terrible wrath. Not even Israi had been able to save her from this place.

“You’re right,” she said softly, bowing her head so that Elrabin could not see her shame. Retracting her claws, she curled her hands into fists. “I just want to go home.”

Despite the sympathy in Elrabin’s eyes, his expression remained bleak. “That will never happen, Goldie. You might as well face it. Aarouns are meant for labor. No matter how pretty you are, your easy life is over.”

She turned away from him, her heart pounding. “I won’t believe that. They have to relent. They have to!”

“Why should they?”

Battling her tangled emotions, she couldn’t answer.

He touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry to carry you the bad news, Goldie, but you have to face it. Sooner or later we all come to the wall.”

She shook her head. “I have lived all my life with them. They treated me like . . . like a part of—”

“You’re not Viis,” he said firmly. “You know that. No matter if the Imperial Daughter played with you or how many privileges you enjoyed, it’s over. Gods, I can’t even imagine the life you’ve led. Everything you wanted. Food every day. Jewels to wear. Some slave waiting on you hand and foot. But it’s not real, Goldie.”

He gestured across the pen to where the Zrhel was scratching his feathers and belching as a way of passing the time. “
This
is real. This stink hole is where you belong, and I belong, and all of us belong. Anything else is a dream, a cloud in the mind.”

Tears welled up in her eyes, hot and stinging. “I want the dream,” she whispered. “I’ve lived in it too long. I want to go back.”

“You don’t belong there. You never did. And now they’ve put you out and closed the gates. Accept it—”

“No!” she said. She glared at him, furious now. “I will
never
accept it. Israi will send for me. I know she will. She promised to always take care of me, and she will keep that promise.”

“Believe in nothing, Goldie. The Viis keep only the promises they want to keep. They are liars, tyrants, and users. Everything they do is a lie. Everything you’ve always known is a lie.”

“You’re wrong,” Ampris said. “They’re not
all
like that.”

“Sure,” he said, swiveling his ears and moving away from her. “So tell me again why you’re here.”

And Ampris was left with nothing else to say.

CHAPTER
•NINETEEN

At sunset, Ampris stayed crouched beside the fence while the others crowded and fought at the food trough. Ampris refused to fight over the bad-quality food. She certainly had no intention of eating it, no matter how strongly her stomach gnawed against her backbone. She was beginning to feel dizzy sometimes, but she didn’t care. In the morning, she told herself, the palace guards would come for her. They would take her home, and Subi would feed her civa cakes and spicemeats, as much as she wanted, and then she would have a bath. This place would be a forgotten nightmare, fading swiftly from her mind.

If only she could drive it away now. She turned her back to the pen, staring through the fence at the walls beyond. The squabbling, the screeching, the stench of too many unwashed bodies too close together . . . she hated all of it.

A claw-tipped hand gripped her shoulder, startling her to such a degree that she cried out. She whirled around, her heart pounding, then saw it was only Elrabin.

She relaxed, letting out her breath in a rumble. “You scared me.”

“You’re like a cub,” he said gruffly, placing a chunk of greasy meat in her hand. “Never turn your back on folk. Always keep watch.”

“I have no enemies here,” she said, and then thought of the palace slaves who had beaten her during the ride in the transport. She was glad none of them were in this pen.

Elrabin dropped to his haunches beside her and pulled a second chunk of meat from his pocket. He sniffed it, then started gnawing on it. “Enemies can come from nowhere,” he said, and shot her a sideways look. “So you’re speaking to me again?”

“Not willingly.” She tried to hand him her piece of meat. “No, thank you.”

“Don’t be stupid. Eat it before someone takes it from you.” He bit off another piece, chewed, and swallowed. “Sniff it for maggots, then eat around them. Don’t look at it.”

Ampris stared at the meat in disgust and dropped it on the ground. “It has maggots in it? I can’t eat such a thing.”

Swearing, Elrabin snatched the meat off the ground and thrust it deep in his pocket. “That was stupid,” he said angrily. “Stupid, stupid, stupid. Never refuse food.
Never
. If you want to live, then you got to learn.”

“I will eat tomorrow when I go home,” Ampris said.

Elrabin scowled at her, then went back to eating. He ate his piece and hers, hunched up and wary as though he expected someone to take it from him.

Ampris listened to her stomach growl and decided perhaps he was right about her being stupid. He had been kind to bring her food, and she’d insulted him with her refusal.

Sighing, she finally said, “I’m sorry.”

He licked his mouth and belched. “No good being sorry now. I ate your share.”

“Never mind that. It was very kind of you to try and help me. Really it was. I’m sorry I didn’t thank you properly for your care and concern.”

Still he wouldn’t look at her. “It’s gone. Too late to get more, no matter how sorry you are.”

“I know. I’m not asking for the meat.” She looked at him with exasperation. “I’m apologizing, not begging.”

“Yeah.” He turned to face her. “Never met anyone like you. Abiru but not abiru. You got education. You talk fancy. You’re special, Goldie.”

She felt suddenly shy and embarrassed, yet warm inside. “Thank you.”

“I got no one now,” he said as the twilight shadows closed around them. “My family’s gone. As for my friends, they’re nothing. Never were my friends. Never were.” He scowled. “Don’t want no more friends.”

“You’ve been a friend to me today,” Ampris said shyly. “Thank you for that.”

“Quit thanking me,” he said gruffly. “And I ain’t your friend.”

She didn’t want to argue with him, so she changed the subject. “What will happen tomorrow?”

“You got to be ready for the auction,” he said. “You got to find a way to take the shame of it, Goldie. Otherwise, you won’t make it. You follow me?”

Dread rose inside her, and she tried to ignore it. “I think so. Only maybe—”

“Stop it!” He reached out and gripped her hand hard. “Stop thinking maybe. There’s only now—what is right now. You follow? You got to be strong inside yourself. You can’t let them break you. You can’t let them beat you. Not inside, where it counts.” He pressed his fist against his heart. “It’s the only way to survive.”

“I’m afraid,” she said with a shiver, thinking about his words.

Around them, the other captives were talking among themselves or pacing. It was a restless night; tension could be felt in the air. Someone wailed in a distant pen, and was silenced.

Ampris realized that Elrabin was right. She’d been fooling no one but herself with her optimism.

“I’m afraid too,” Elrabin admitted softly. “I always said I was too smart to get caught. Only, I was wrong. I let myself trust again, when all the time I knew better. Now I get to pay for that. Sold out. The law of the streets. Sell out someone before they sell you.” He glanced at her. “Maybe it’s the law of the palace too.”

“No! Israi stood up for me.”

“But she didn’t rescue you.”

Ampris backed her ears and said nothing else. She couldn’t keep denying it forever.

“When you’re sold to someone,” she said in a soft voice, “what happens?”

“Depends. What kind of labor you go to. What you’re trained for.” Elrabin drew on the ground for a few seconds, although it was too dark to see the pattern. “The auction ain’t a good place, Goldie. Good places are private merchants, private sales. The auction ain’t good.”

She wanted to ask more, but Elrabin abruptly turned his back on her and curled himself on the ground. “Get some sleep,” he said.

In the morning, the Gorlicans, yelling and snapping open gates, had them up at dawn. Whips cracked and sizzled on all sides. They were prodded back into the chute, urged along at a swift trot and crowded too close together.

Ampris stumbled and would have fallen had Elrabin not steadied her.

She was dizzy with thirst and hunger, feeling light-headed and frightened. Colors and shapes looked alien today. Noises were too loud or too soft. Her knees felt unable to support her, yet she forced herself to keep up.

Elrabin kept shaking his head and muttering gloomy things about being the first lot on the block. Ampris tried to hang on to her failing courage.

She didn’t know what to expect, but the humiliations she’d encountered up till now—being treated like a non-sentient animal, being forced to live dirty, being forced to eat garbage—were nothing compared to what lay ahead of her.

When she came staggering up a ramp onto a tall stone platform surrounded by a gallery of seats filled with spectators, her hide felt too tight for her body and her skin began to burn beneath her fur.

Surveillance cameras mounted on the walls swiveled this way and that. The top of the market was open to the sky, and the newly risen sun shone dazzling light over Ampris.

Gorlican buyers and agents whistled when they saw her. They stamped their round feet and began talking rapidly into their comms.

Shoved into a single-file line behind Elrabin, Ampris walked across the platform with the other slaves in her lot. They were forced to stop and face the spectators, then were prodded into a narrow holding pen on the other side.

The handlers used staffs to separate one reddish-gold Myal from the others and sent him shuffling back onto the platform alone. The auctioneer opened the bidding while buyers crowded around the holding pen with avaricious eyes.

Every few minutes, the auctioneer cried, “Sold!” The handlers would select another slave from the pen, and the process would start again.

Appalled, Ampris watched each slave go through humiliating physical examinations. Some submitted tamely, standing with faces averted in shame. Others fought and were whipped. The speed and efficiency of the handlers and auctioneer kept everything moving fast, too fast.

Elrabin stood beside Ampris, close enough that she could feel him trembling. She saw that his eyes were wet and shiny.

He panted, and his ears moved constantly.

When Ampris touched his arm gently in reassurance, he jumped.

Embarrassment clouded his eyes, and he dropped his gaze from hers.

“Why are they so cruel?” Ampris asked in a soft voice. “Why do they take so much joy in hurting, in shaming us?”

Elrabin shrugged. “My father was sold into hard labor,” he said in a low voice. “I swore to myself that I would never share his fate. I thought I was too smart, too clever to get caught. Now . . .” He let his voice trail off.

The handlers opened the holding pen and a long hook reached through the milling slaves to catch Elrabin’s collar.