Tales from the New Republic (10 page)

Bardrin had told her that Praysh’s mansion and grounds were set up near the center of one of Torpris’s larger cities. He had failed to mention, however, that that particular section of the city was otherwise composed entirely of slums.

Or at least that was how it seemed to Mara as she maneuvered her landspeeder down the winding streets toward the high walls of the compound, wincing at the garbage and debris piled in alleyways between the dilapidated buildings and trying not to hit any of the ragged derelicts shuffling along the street. A dozen different species were represented here, all looking equally hopeless, and she found herself wondering how much of it was a result of Praysh’s presence in the city.

Passing one final clump of huddled beings, she reached the side door she’d been told to come to. Flanking it were a pair of Drach’nam guards, looking even more massive than usual for the species in their heavy body armor. Each of them held a neuronic whip, with a holstered blaster and long knife standing ready in reserve. “Hey, there,” she called cheerfully to them, eyeing the whips with the sort of contempt she reserved for unnecessarily barbaric weapons. “I have a package here for His First Greatness Chay Praysh, a gift from the Mrahash of Kvabja. May I enter?”

There was an almost chuckle, quickly strangled off, from one of the guards. “Really,” he said, lumbering toward her. “Bring it here and let’s have a look.”

Mara slid out of the vehicle and pulled the packing cylinder from the storage compartment in back. It was large—a good meter tall and half a meter in diameter—but fairly light, most of its bulk consisting of cushioning material for the delicate floater globe she’d borrowed from Bardrin. “It’s some kind of expensive art object, I think,” she said, setting it carefully down in front of him.

“Oh, it’s that, all right,” the guard agreed, looking Mara up and down. “Just a minute.”

He went back to the door and busied himself with a comm panel built into the wall. There was a breath of movement beside Mara—

[Leave it and go,] an alien voice spoke quietly from behind her.

Mara turned. A Togorian female was standing at the rear of the landspeeder, her fur matted and dirty, clearly just another of the derelicts loitering on the street. But her yellow eyes were bright and alive, and her teeth were bared slightly toward the guards. “Excuse me?” Mara asked.

[I said leave it and go,] the alien said, mouthing the Ghi trade language words with some difficulty. [You are in great danger here.]

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Mara said, shaking her head with casual unconcern even as she wondered at the Togorian’s courage in sticking her neck out this way. Clearly, she knew or suspected what happened to human females who wandered near Praysh’s fortress; but to try to chase a potential prize out from under the slaver’s snout this way bordered on the suicidal. “I’m just delivering a present to His First Greatness, that’s all.”

The Togorian hissed. [Fool—you
are
the present,] she snarled. [Flee, while you still can.]

“Okay, we’re set,” the guard said, keying off the comm unit and walking over to Mara. She turned back to him, making sure to keep a pleasantly blank expression on her face. If he even suspected the Togorian had tried to warn her, there might be unpleasant repercussions. “You can take it right in.”

“Thank you,” Mara said, stooping to pick up the cylinder—

A gauntleted hand came down with a thunk onto the top of the package.
“After
we unpack it, of course.”

Mara felt her muscles tighten. “What do you mean?” she asked cautiously, straightening up.

The guard already had his knife out, a nasty-looking serrated weapon with a handguard consisting of a series of thick, needle-sharp spikes alternatively curving up and down from the base of the blade. “I mean we unpack it out here,” he said, digging the blade in beneath the lid. “Never can tell what someone might try to slip inside the packaging, you know.”

Mara flicked a glance over his shoulder at the second guard, a sense of things gone suddenly and terribly wrong rippling through her. Nestled in its hiding place between the inner and outer shells of the cylinder, she would have bet heavily that her lightsaber could slip through any standard weapons scan Praysh’s guards might have put the package through. But unpacking it outside the fortress was not a possibility she’d expected. “But what if you break it?” she asked anxiously.

“Don’t worry—we do this all the time,” the guard assured her. “H’sishi, I thought I told you scavengers you were supposed to stay behind the mark line.”

[Your pardon,] the Togorian said, her tone almost groveling. [I saw the shiny metal—]

“And hoped you could get first grabs, huh?” The guard finished slicing off the top and peeled away the first plate of packing foam. “Here you go, scavengers,” he called loudly, hurling the lid and the foam down the street.

Abruptly, the gathered loiterers exploded into action, diving toward the flying pieces as if they were prize jewels instead of unwanted garbage. The guard continued digging down, throwing more foam plates into the melee, until he reached the floater globe at the center. “There it is,” he said, reaching in and carefully pulling out the globe. “Nice. Okay,” he added, handing the globe to Mara.
“Now
you can go in.”

Mara swallowed, glancing down at the cylinder as the guard continued to unload the packaging from the bottom and throw out the pieces. She looked up—

To find H’sishi’s yellow eyes steady on her. Mara felt her lip twitch; and then, to her surprise, the alien bared her teeth slightly, as if she’d found a hint she’d been searching for. There was a movement from the side, and Mara looked back just as the guard hefted the cylinder itself over his head and hurled it toward the seething, quarreling crowd.

A dozen of the derelicts abandoned their fight for the foam scraps and charged toward the spot where it would land. But H’sishi was faster. With a single leap she got under the cylinder, snatching it into her arms and hissing a warning at the two or three who tried to grab it away. Another hiss, and the crowd reluctantly fell back.

“I guess she really did want the shiny metal,” the guard said with a sneer. “Okay, human, let’s go.”

Despite the fortress’s sleek and modern exterior, the interior was dark and decidedly dank, its twisting and rough-floored corridors clearly modeled on the hiding-tunnels much prized by Drach’nam on their homeworld. Mara didn’t bother to keep track of the route as her five-guard escort took her ever deeper into the fortress, concentrating instead on evaluating Praysh’s overall defense structure and gradually increasing the level of nervousness she was displaying in her body language and infrequent attempts at conversation. Her lightsaber was going to be severely missed, but even if she’d been able to smuggle the weapon inside, she’d already concluded that the best hope of getting out would be in Sansia’s impounded ship. Fighting their way back along the tunnels and out into the grounds was not an option she was interested in trying.

Still, that lightsaber had been Luke’s once, and he was going to kill her if she lost it. Hopefully, when this was all over, she’d be able to track H’sishi down and buy it back from her.

They reached Praysh’s audience chamber at last, a large, high-ceilinged room that by its gloom, smells, and general repulsiveness brought back unpleasant memories of Jabba the Hutt’s throne room on Tatooine. His First Greatness obviously lacked Jabba’s egalitarian sensibilities, though; the only beings in the room were more of Praysh’s fellow Drach’nam.

“Well, well,” Praysh called, swiveling his throne around to face the incoming group. “What have we here? A present from the Mrahash of Kvabja, is it?”

“Yes, Your First Greatness,” Mara said, putting a nervous quaver into her tone as she glanced surreptitiously around. There was a pair of camouflaged blaster ports in the false wall behind Praysh’s throne, but other than that the only defenses were the handful of guards standing between her and the slaver chief. Unlike the door wardens, this group carried no blasters, but were armed only with the same type of long knives and neuronic whips. Probably the intent was to keep the more dangerous weapons away from rioting prisoners or slaves; still, it was an overconfidence she might well be able to exploit. “He sends you greetings and—”

“Take that bauble, someone,” Praysh cut her off, waving a gem-encrusted scepter toward her. “You—human—step forward.”

One of the guards took the floater globe and nudged her forward. Stretching out with all her senses, Mara walked toward the throne. Somewhere along here there would undoubtedly be a test to make sure she was nothing more than the useless slave she appeared…

She’d gone no more than three steps when it came. Abruptly, one of the guards ahead pulled his whip from his side and with a casual flick of his wrist sent the lash snaking toward her.

Mara gasped and threw her hands uselessly in front of her face, forcing back the reflex to dodge or duck or do something—anything—that would be more effective.

To her relief, the lash cracked a few centimeters short of her face. “Your First Greatness,” she gasped, taking a quick and unsteady step backward. “Please, sir—what have I done?”

The only answer was the sound of another whip from behind her. She half turned—

And suddenly the lash curled itself around her knees and a wave of pain surged through her body.

Mara screamed, an explosive sound that was only partially role-playing, as she toppled onto the floor, the whip’s current arcing agonizingly through her body. She clawed once at the lash, screaming again as the current burned at her fingertips. “Please—no—please—”

“Here—defend yourself,” a voice called out, and she looked up as a small blaster landed on the floor beside her legs.

She grabbed at the weapon, forcing her fingers to fumble as if dealing with a totally unfamiliar object, clenching her teeth against the waves of pain as every part of her being screamed at her to
do
something. The blaster was undoubtedly useless, just another part of Praysh’s sadistic test, but if she swiveled on one hip, swinging her legs hard around, she might at least be able to yank the whip out of her attacker’s hand.

But if she did that—if she showed any sign of combat skill whatsoever—she would probably die.

And then so would the
Wild Karrde
’s crew.

She got a grip on the blaster at last, bending awkwardly around to try to bring the weapon to bear on her assailant. The muzzle wavered uncontrollably, and she tried to prop her elbow on the floor to steady it, sobbing now like a child. The blaster sagged and dropped from her paralyzed fingers—

And abruptly, thankfully, the current shut off.

Mara lay there, unmoving, still sobbing through clenched teeth as she worked out the sudden cramps in her leg muscles. If she’d misjudged Praysh’s intentions—if he’d decided to kill her for sport instead of putting her down in the slime pits…

“That was an object lesson,” Praysh said conversationally. There was a movement beside her, and rough fingers began unwrapping the lash from around her legs. “Now that you’ve seen what a neuronic whip feels like, I’m sure you won’t ever want to provoke its use again.”

“No—please—no,” Mara managed, the words coming out mangled through her gasping sobs. A pair of hands grabbed her upper arms and hauled her up onto her feet. She took a second to confirm that her legs were recovered enough to hold her weight, then let her knees wobble and collapse again beneath her. The two Drach’nam pulled her up again and turned her to face Praysh. “Please—” she whispered.

“You belong to me now,” Praysh said quietly, his colorless eyes staring at her. “Your safety—your well-being—your life—are all in my hand. If you serve well, you will survive. If not, there will be neuronic whips around you for the remainder of a short and excruciatingly painful life. Do I make myself clear?”

Mara nodded quickly, dropping her gaze and hunching her shoulders, the helpless terror of a beaten animal. “Good,” Praysh said, waving off-handedly toward a different door leading out of the chamber. The show was over, and already he was bored with the performer. “Take her to the slavekeeper,” he ordered. “Enjoy your new life here, human.”

Halfway down a long flight of stairs her escorting guards apparently decided they’d had enough of carrying her and cut her loose to walk on her own. Aside from a lingering tingle in her muscles Mara had completely recovered, but she was careful to maintain a weak-kneed stagger for their benefit the rest of the way down. Neuronic whips were the ultimate glorification of savagery and degradation, just the sort of thing Praysh’s thugs would use as their primary persuader, and she had no intention of letting them know how fast she could recover from their effects.

The slime pits were in the lowest level of the fortress, composed of a series of interconnected trenches about two meters wide and a hundred meters long set into the floor. On the walkways between them strolled the Drach’nam guards, idly fingering their whips or playing with the hilts of their knives. Perhaps two hundred women, most of them young looking, slogged slowly through the waist-deep gray muck in the pits, bent over double with their arms dug into the slime, their faces bare centimeters above the surface. All those Mara could see wore identical expressions of blank hopelessness that sent a shiver through her.

“I’ll explain it just once,” the slave keeper said, gesturing almost genially toward the pits. “The nutrient slime in there is home to the pupal form of the krizar creatures His First Greatness uses to patrol the grounds. The pupae are hard-shelled and ellipsoid, about the size of one of your pathetic little thumbs. Your job is to find the ones that are starting to break out of their shells and put them up on the walkway where they’ll be retrieved and moved to the main hatchery.”

“How do I know when they’re ready—?”

“You’ll know when they’re ready when they start to wiggle and chew their way out,” the slavekeeper cut her off sharply. A couple of heads turned at the sudden harsh tone; most of the women didn’t even bother to look up. “And don’t try just pulling out every one you find. If the pupae are out too long before they’re ready, they’ll die.”

He waved his whip in front of her nose. “And dead pupae make us
very
unhappy. Understood?”

Mara swallowed, forcing herself to shrink back from him. “Yes, sir,” she murmured.

“Good,” the slavekeeper said, his tone back to genial again, a being who clearly enjoyed his work. “Your head fur is an interesting shade of color. It will be of no use to you in the pits; perhaps you would like to sell it to me.”

“In exchange for what?” Mara asked cautiously.

“Favors. More food, perhaps, or other kindnesses.”

Mara fought back a grimace. The thought of her hair hanging from a slavekeeper’s trophy wall was utterly abhorrent. But on the other hand, he could probably take it without any payment at all if he chose. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be here long enough for him to get around to that. “Can I think about it?” she asked timidly.

He shrugged. Clearly, this was just a game to help him pass the time. “If you wish. Oh, one more thing. If you
don’t
get the pupae out fast enough, they’ll start digging through the shells on their own. No problem with that; except that their mouth palps are always the first things that come out. If they get those into your skin, you’ll need a trip to the med facility to get it taken off.”

“Oh,” Mara said in a small voice. Now,
that
was very useful information. “Does it hurt?”

He gave her one of those evil smiles that Drach’nam did so well. “No more than the whip. Now get in there.”

Mara looked down at her jumpsuit. “But—”

She didn’t even get a chance to finish her protest. Putting a massive arm around the back of her waist, the slavekeeper swept her off the walkway into the nearest of the trenches.

She managed to hang on to her balance as she landed, keeping her head and most of her torso up out of the slime. But the impact sent a wave of thick muck splashing outward at the nearest workers. “Sorry,” she apologized.

One of the women looked up at her, a dab of the slime oozing slowly down her cheek. “Don’t worry about it,” she said in a voice that sounded more dead than alive. “Don’t worry about getting dirty, either. You’ll never be clean again.”

A neuronic whip cracked warningly overhead. Mara shied back, but the other woman didn’t seem to notice or care as she dug into the slime again. Stomach twisting with revulsion, Mara eased her arms into the muck and got to work.