Cheryl Brooks - Slave

Contents

THE CAT STAR CHRONICLES

SLAVE

CHERYL BROOKS

Copyright 2008 by Cheryl Brooks

Cover and internal design 2008 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

Cover photo Dreamstime

Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Source-books, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systemsexcept in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviewswithout permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

(630) 961-3900

FAX: (630) 961-2168

www.sourcebooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brooks, Cheryl

Slave

/ Cheryl Brooks.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-1-4022-3550-4

ISBN-10: 1-4022-3550-X I. Title.

PS3602.R64425S57 2008

813'.6--dc22

2007049212

Printed and bound in the United States of America

OPM10987654321

Dedicated to anyone who enjoys the occasional escape from reality.

Acknowledgments

My heartfelt thanks to:

My husband and sons for their love and support;

My buddies at the hospital for their enthusiasm and encouragement;

My editor, Deb Werksman, for giving me a chance;

My horses for forgiving me for spending more time at my computer and less time at the barn; And all the cool aliens and sword-wielding men on horses who have ever inspired me.

Chapter One

I FOUND HIM IN THE SLAVE MARKET ON ORPHESEUS Prime, and even on such a godforsaken planet as that one, their treatment of him seemed extreme. But then again, perhaps he was an extreme subject, and the fact that there was a slave market at all was evidence of a rather backward society. Slave markets were becoming extremely rare throughout the galaxythe legal ones, anyway.

I hitched my pack higher on my shoulder and adjusted my respirator, though even with the benefit of ultrafiltration, the place still stank to high heaven. How a planet as eternally hot and dry as this one could have ever had anything on it that could possibly rot and get into the air to cause such a stench was beyond me. Most dry climates dont support a lot of decay or fermentation, but Orpheseus was different from any desert planet Id ever had the misfortune to visit. It smelled as though at some point all of the vegetation and animal life forms had died at once and the odor of their decay had become permanently embedded in the atmosphere.

Shuddering as a wave of nausea hit me, I walked casually closer to the line of wretched creatures lined up for pre-auction inspection, but even my unobtrusive move wasnt lost on the slave owners who were bent on selling their wares.

Come closer! a ragged beast urged me in a rasping, unpleasant voice as he gestured with a bony arm.

I eyed him with distaste, thinking that this thing was just ugly enough to have caused the entire planet to smell bad, though I doubted hed been there long enough to do it. On the other hand, he didnt seem to be terribly young. Okay, so older than the hills might have been a little closer to the mark. Damn, maybe he was responsible, after all!

I have here just what you have been seeking! he said. Help to relieve you of your burden! This one is strong and loyal and will serve you well.

I glanced dubiously at the small-statured critter there before me, and its even smaller slave. I dont think so, I replied, thinking that the weight of my pack alone would probably have crushed the poor little things tiny bones to powder. I know that looks can often be deceiving, but this thing looked to me like nothing more than an oversized grasshopper. Its bulbous red eyes regarded me with an unblinking and slightly unnerving stare. Its eyes give me the creeps, anyway, I added. I need something that looks morehumanoid.

Dismissing them with a wave, I glanced around at the others, noting that, of the group, there were only two slaves being offered that were even bipedal: one reminded me of a cross between a cow and a chimpanzee, and the other, well, the other was the one who had first caught my eyepossibly because out of all the slaves there, he was the one seeming to require the most restraint, and also because he was completely naked.

I studied him out of the corner of my eye, noting that the other prospective buyers seemed to be giving him a wide berth. His owner, an ugly Cylopeanand Cylopeans are all ugly, but this one would have stood out in a crowd of themwas exhorting the masses to purchase his slave.

Come! he shouted in heavily accented Standard Tongue, my slave is strong and will serve you well. I part with him only out of extreme financial need, for he is as a brother to me, and it pains me greatly to lose him.

His pain wasnt as great as the slaves, obviously. I eyed the Cylopean skeptically. Surely he couldnt imagine that anyone would have suspected that his brother would require a genital restraint in order to drag him to the market to part him from his current master!

Rolling my eyes with disdain, I muttered, Go ahead and admit it. Youre selling him because you cant control him.

Oh, no, my good sir! the Cylopean exclaimed, seemingly aghast at my suggestion. He is strong! He is willing! He is even intelligent!

I stifled a snicker. The slave was obviously smart enough to have this one buffaloed, I thought, chuckling to myself as it occurred to me that no one around here would even know what a buffalo was, let alone the euphemism associated with the animal.

I blew out a breath hard enough to fog the eye screen on my respirator. Damn, but I was a long way from home! Earth was at least five hundred long light-years away. How the hell had I managed to end up here, searching for a lost sister whom I sometimes suspected of not wanting to be found? Id followed her trail from planet to planet for six years now, and had always been just a few steps behind her. I was beginning to consider giving up the search, but the memory of the terror in her wild blue eyes as she was torn from my arms on Dexia Four kept me going.

And now, she had beenor so Id been informedtaken to Statzeel, a planet where all women were slaves and upon which I didnt dare set foot, knowing that I, too, would become enslaved. The denizens of Statzeel would undoubtedly not make the same mistake that the slave trader had, for I was most definitely female, and, as such, vulnerable to the same fate that had befallen my lovely little sister. That I wasnt the delicate, winsome creature Ranata was wouldnt matter, for a female on Statzeel was a slave by definition. Free women simply did not exist there.

Which was why I needed a male slave of my own. One to pose as my ownerone that I could trust to a certain extent, though I was beginning to believe that such a creature couldnt possibly exist, and certainly not on Orpheseus Prime! I was undoubtedly wasting my time, I thought as I looked back at the slave. He was tall, dirty, and probably stank every bit as much as his owner did. I was going to have to check the filter in that damn respiratoreither that or go back and beat the shit out of the scheming little scoundrel whod taken me for ten qidnits when he sold it to me. I should have simply stolen it, but getting myself in trouble with what law there was on that nasty little planet wouldnt have done either my sister, or myself, a lick of good.