Alien Chronicles 1 - The Golden One (37 page)

Ampris forced herself to meet the captain’s merciless eyes. She still did not understand.

He switched off the restraint field on her muzzle, and she sagged, coughing in relief.

“You will be treated better if you arrive looking and acting like a slave of refinement and proper training,” he said to her. The skimmer halted with a bump, and the other guards jumped off onto a dock platform. The captain rose to his feet and stared down at her. “Or you can remain savage, clamped in a restraint field, and find yourself sold as soon as you arrive.”

Ampris held out her bound wrists. “Take them off, please,” she said, forcing her voice to be meek.

He flicked out his tongue. “You must wear the cables during the shuttle flight. Regulations,” he said. “My advice is to act as though they are unnecessary. It is to your advantage.”

She realized he was trying, in his own way, to be kind. Her heart lurched inside her, and she found herself still unable to believe this was happening. “She is sending me away from her?” Ampris asked plaintively. “I do not understand.”

The captain raised his rill with visible impatience and looked past her at the other guards. They had secured an empty cargo pod and were waiting.

The captain handed Ampris a holocube. “This will explain,” he said. “Now get in the pod and behave. It’s a short flight to Malraaket. You will prosper there if you use good sense.”

Clutching the holocube, which bore Israi’s seal, Ampris started to speak, but the captain gave a signal and the guards hauled Ampris off the skimmer and pushed her into the pod.

She howled, trying to climb out, but a ruthless hand shoved her down and the two halves of the pod were snapped shut around her, closing her in.

Furious and frightened, she pounded on the sides, but it did no good. In seconds, she felt a thump from outside as her pod was labeled, then she was bounced onto a belt and borne away into the controlled chaos of the cargo hold.

She could not escape the pod, and Ampris stopped pounding on it as she was jolted along. Instead, she switched on the holocube, desperate for answers.

A second later, Israi’s lovely face shimmered in the air before her. Israi’s radiant eyes were dimmed with sadness. “My dearest companion,” she said, and the sound of her voice made Ampris weep in longing. “I have pleaded long and hard for your return, but your own treachery has made my efforts futile. I thought I knew you, my golden Ampris, but I was mistaken. The guards found a sivo crystal of forbidden information in your belongings chest, and my duty is clear.”

“No!” Ampris cried aloud as though the image of Israi could hear her. “I didn’t listen to all of it. I never took the time.”

“Chancellor Gaveid says you cannot be trusted close to my imperial person,” Israi continued. “But because I loved you once, I—”

“You love me still,” Ampris said. “You must!”

“—I cannot allow you to be destroyed as the Imperial Father commanded. Therefore, I have arranged for you to be placed in the home of a family of Lady Lenith’s distant acquaintance. Perhaps there you can begin again. Enclosed with this message is a token of my regard. It has no real worth, but comes from the Aaroun culture, which you apparently value more than my company. Shame be on you, Ampris, for breaking our happiness. Good-bye.”

“No!” Ampris cried, but the image vanished.

She played it again while her pod was being loaded onto a shuttle. And again during the flight. And again upon arrival while her pod was unloaded. By then she had memorized every word of Israi’s parting message. Israi’s tone held a finality that crushed Ampris’s heart.

But it was so unfair. Ampris had done nothing wrong, nothing treacherous. The crystal’s information held only history about the Aarouns. What harm lay in that? How could Israi say she was no longer faithful, no longer to be trusted?

Worst of all, how could Israi blame her for what had happened, when the prank against Lady Zureal had been Israi’s idea in the first place? Ampris had tried to stop her friend and failed. Why, as Elrabin had pointed out, should she be punished? Why should she carry sole blame?

Twisting the bottom of the holocube, she opened its compartment and withdrew a necklace on a cheap metal chain. She held it up, and recognized the disk-shaped amulet with its distinctive center of clear stone.

“An Eye of Clarity,” she said aloud in astonishment.

Worthless, according to Israi. Precious beyond all measure, according to Bish.

Holding it in her hand, Ampris bowed her head in bitterness and thought of what she’d lost—the way of life she’d always known, the friend she’d loved from her earliest memories. For all of that, the Eye of Clarity seemed a very poor exchange.

And Ampris wept.

CHAPTER
•TWENTY

The port of Malraaket was capital of the southern continent, smaller than Vir and lacking both the imperial city’s size and galactic importance. Located on a wedge of land between a wide, sluggish river and the broad sweep of sea beyond, Malraaket rose in a glittering jumble of spires and domes painted every bright color imaginable. Balconies jutted out beneath the windows, many of them lush with blooming, vining plants that spilled vivid hues of pink and magenta down the sides of buildings. Seabirds wheeled around the eves of houses. Fat poufers strutted on the roof-tops, cooing to themselves. Bells rang, traffic blared, incoming sea vessels whooped approach sirens to warn off outgoing barges. The activity never seemed to slacken.

Uninterested in politics or the governance of a vast empire, and therefore free of a heavy bureaucratic burden, Malraaket supported a flourishing trade center for merchants of all kinds. Importers and exporters of exotic goods thronged the vast complex that was its cargo terminal. Dozens of dialects and languages filled the air with a racket that punctuated the general noise of the city itself—all of it making Ampris’s head spin. Parked on a pickup dock beside an impressive stack of crates that smelled of spices, her restraint cables fastened to a bolt clip stout enough to hold tonnage, Ampris sat in the broiling sun, panting in the heat, and unsure of what was to befall her next. She’d been waiting two hours, with nothing to do but count incoming shuttle flights, and it looked like the family Israi had sold her to had no desire to come fetch her.

From her vantage point, she could glimpse the sea through a gap between distant buildings. But although she was awed by its vast size—it stretched to the horizon and beyond—its scent impressed her more. She had never before smelled such a briny fragrance, or one so mingled with the odor of fish and other sea creatures. Oh, she was used to the strong scent of the Cuna Da’r River, with its muddy, reed-strewn banks. But the sea . . . inhaling deeply, Ampris closed her eyes and felt her senses surge toward the glittering water. It was raw, primitive, elemental. It drew her in some mysterious way, awakened strange urges inside her, made her blood throb heavily in her veins. She wanted to roam. She wanted to explore. She wanted to hunt.

But the cables held her in place. She was tied too short to allow her to stand and stretch her legs. And there wasn’t a finger’s breadth of shade.

Periodically a Viis dock guard swathed in a white robe of strange coarse-woven fabric would walk past her and make a notation on his manifest. This time, Ampris gazed up at him. “If no one comes to pick me up, what will happen—”

With a wordless exclamation, the guard unclipped a short bar from his belt and struck her with it. Knocked flat on her back, her chest and shoulder burning with pain, Ampris struggled for breath.

The guard stamped his booted foot on her wrist, pinning her there. His rill, bright red, stood out in a broad flare around his face. “Abiru trash,” he said in a voice hoarse with anger. “Defile my language again with your unworthy tongue, and I’ll cut it out.”

She lay there, shocked and fighting back tears, and with a mutter the guard strode on. Slowly Ampris righted herself and brushed off her fur. She swallowed her whimper of pain, refusing to surrender to it, and told herself she must remember not to speak Viis again. Only it was more familiar to her than the abiru patois that the slaves spoke. She had spoken Viis all her life, privileged by the wish of the sri-Kaa, and it was ingrained in her.

Yet she knew she must break the habit, or suffer more beatings and attacks. She had to remember that Israi no longer protected her. She was simply a slave now, and she belonged to someone else.

Fresh grief welled up into her throat, and she had to struggle to control it. Her pride would not allow her to sit out here on display, weeping openly and feeling sorry for herself. If this was her fate, then she must cope with it and find what good she could in the situation. She was certain Israi had found kind, decent people to take her in. There had to be a reason why they had not yet come to get her.

The sun had begun to sink beyond the outermost flank of the city, a great fiery orb that still radiated heat, before someone came striding onto the dock and stamped to a halt before her.

Ampris gazed up, squinting into the stern visage of an aging Viis male, surely a lun-adult in his sixth life cycle, garbed in pale coarse cloth and carrying a claims tag that he matched to the one dangling from Ampris’s collar. Two bulky Aaroun males in loose sleeveless jerkins stood behind him.

“Stand up,” the Viis said to Ampris in strangely accented patois.

“I cannot,” she replied.

Red darkened his rill and he whipped her across the chest with a slim baton that stung. “Obey me at once, you bothersome creature! I will have none of your foreign insolence.”

Swallowing a growl, Ampris backed her ears and rose to a semicrouched stance which was as far as her cables would allow.

“Straighten up,” he snapped at her. “Are you crippled, you wretched beast? Stand straight before me, that I may see you properly.”

Ampris shifted her feet, trying not to lose her temper. “I cannot,” she said. “The cable is too short.”

From behind the Viis, one of the Aarouns looked at her and silently shook his head. But his warning came too late. The Viis whipped her repeatedly with short, stinging blows until she was shuddering from both pain and the effort to hold herself back from biting him.

“Insolent and disobedient,” he said at last, stopping his attack while she stood crouched before him with her head held low and her breathing harsh and ragged. “Small wonder you were thrown out of the palace.”

Ampris’s head snapped up and she opened her mouth, only to stop herself from speaking at the last instant.

The Viis glared at her, his air sacs inflating. “Improperly trained as well,” he said at last, looking disappointed when she said nothing. He slashed the air with his baton, then put it away and curled his green-skinned, bony hands into fists. “Can you serve table?”

“Yes,” Ampris mumbled, aching from his blows. Her pride revived within her, and she lifted her head to meet his gaze. “I served the sri-Kaa at—”

“Silence! None of your boasting will be tolerated here. You serve the Hahveen family now. Your loyalty will be to them. Your thoughts will be to please them. None but their wishes matter to you. Do you understand, you simpleton?”

“Yes,” Ampris said, pushing down her seething resentment. He was every bit as petty and horrid as Lord Fazhmind, and there was nothing she could do to escape him.

“Better,” he said grudgingly, and drew himself erect. “Remember your place. Keep silent unless you are addressed directly. Answer only what you are asked. Do precisely what you are told.”

She said nothing in response, and he flicked out his tongue in displeasure and swung away from her. Gesturing at the two Aarouns, he said, “Bring her,” and strode away.

In the gathering twilight, she could see neither Aaroun clearly, except that they were full-grown adults. One of them held her arm while the other one unsnapped her tether. Ampris straightened fully with a soft groan of relief.

“That is Kevarsh, steward of the household,” the largest Aaroun told her in a voice as soft as the evening breeze. He spoke the patois in a peculiar singsong rhythm that was far different from the way it was spoken in Vir. “He will punish you with great pleasure if you do not learn your duties quickly.”

“How will I—”

“Hush,” the Aaroun warned her, his voice so soft now she could barely hear it. “I am called Faln, but we are not permitted to chatter while on duty.”

Ampris backed her ears, unaccustomed to taking orders from anyone but Israi and Lady Lenith. She didn’t like it, but she realized Faln meant well.

He pointed at his silent companion, who opened his mouth. In the shadows Ampris could not see anything clearly except a faint gleam of light reflecting off his teeth.

“Gur has no tongue,” Faln told her. “Always talking, this one, until they silenced him for good. Now come.”

The Hahveen family lived in a narrow, three-storied house jammed between similar dwellings on the Street of Thoughts. Arriving in darkness, Ampris received only a confused impression of lights blazing from tall, rectangular windows before she was shoved through a side entrance on the ground floor, whisked down a narrow hallway smelling of cleanser and stored food, and placed inside a tiny cell containing a sagging cot, a peg with a servant’s tabard hanging on it, and a small three-legged table supporting a bowl of cold mush. Gur removed her restraints, and while Ampris was flexing her arms in relief, her escorts slammed and locked the door to her quarters, leaving her in solitude.

She was glad to be alone. Hungry, she ate the mush, even though it was tasteless and congealed into a cold lump. Once more she played the holocube with Israi’s parting message, aching to be home with her beloved friend. If only she could reach Israi, could somehow explain about the crystal, she was certain she would be forgiven and allowed to return.

The cot provided no comfort, despite the fact that she kept telling herself it was better than sleeping on the ground in the auction pens. She slept fitfully and awoke stiff-necked and sore from her beatings. Muffled noises in the distance told her the household was up.

Minutes later, her door opened without warning and a female Kelth stood there, clad in a yellow servant’s tabard, teeth bared impatiently, ears pricked forward. “Aren’t you ready?” she asked without preamble. She pointed at the tabard hanging on the peg. “Put that on, and look sharp. Kevarsh allows no tardiness.”