Slave (9 page)

“Where will we land?” Cat asked.

“Right about there,” I said, pointing to a small area of land jutting out into the sea from another larger land-mass. “I’ve been studying the maps for months. With any luck, we won’t get lost.”

Or encounter any of the other disasters that I had considered as possibilities for landing on a world like Statzeel. Actually, getting lost was among the more minor ones that had occurred to me. Being forced into
lifelong servitude was the one that usually got most of my attention. What I mean is, being lost was a problem that could be remedied by finding a map, but being chained to some pompous Statzeelian asshole for the rest of my life was something else altogether. The thought of it got me to wondering just how often the women killed their husbands….

“My information was obtained from a smuggler who deals in black market goods. He sold me some clothing that should pass for the local garb and told me which areas to land my ship in to avoid detection, though we’re not going to be sneaking in—at least not at first. I plan to go through the accepted channels as an honest trader and we should be able to find out plenty of information in the spaceport and the marketplace. This isn’t a planet that people visit a lot, though, so I don’t expect to be welcomed with open arms or put up in style at a Holiday Inn! He did tell me that traders aren’t discouraged too much, so we can pull some stuff out of the hold and sell it while we’re in the process of locating Ranata. She shouldn’t be terribly hard to trace, given that she’s from Earth, but the people might not be very talkative.”

I hoped they were blind, too, for the outfit I had bought to wear while on my search was far too revealing for my own personal tastes, and had undoubtedly been designed for a woman much more well-endowed than I was—in the boob department, you understand. I suppose you might have figured out by now that I was as flat-chested as a boy, since I had considered it possible to masquerade as a man. The trouble was, I just didn’t have the dick to complete that particular ensemble, so Cat
would have to wear it. He’d probably look quite nice in it, actually, though it was difficult to picture him wearing anything at all since I’d only seen him in the nude— unless, of course, you were to count his shackles as garments, and I didn’t think they qualified.

My smuggler friend had been the one to suggest that I get someone to go with me to pose as my master. He’d offered to do it himself, of course, but I wouldn’t have trusted him not to sell me and leave me there to rot. He was a nice enough fellow, but since nearly all smugglers are seduced more by money than by any noble cause like freeing the slaves, I doubted that he would have been much help. He wouldn’t have been allowed back on the surface of the planet if he’d made off with one of the women, either, which would have been bad for his business. Besides, finding Ranata was
my
job, and I doubted that she would have gone willingly with that particular smuggler anyway, for he was a bit creepy-looking— though certainly an improvement over any Nedwut I’d ever seen or heard tell of.

However, the information I received from him seemed to agree with what I’d already learned, so it seemed reasonable enough to believe him. I’d paid for the information, of course, and had put him onto a good bargain on another planet I’d visited; so he was pleased enough with the outcome of our deal to add another little tidbit of info for free, which was that if I was going to Statzeel, I’d better take along someone that I could trust.

I just hoped Cat would fit the bill.

Slave 221107.qxd 1/30/08 4:36 PM Page 76

I PUT THE
JOLLY ROGER
INTO ORBIT, SENT OUT A HAIL TO

the surface, and sat back to wait. Some places take hours to respond to hails, so I knew better than to seem overly anxious by making the mistake of hailing them again.

Some of those landing authority guys are real impressed with themselves and like to throw their weight around by making you wait for days just because they can. Besides, I had come a long way in six years and a few more hours of waiting wouldn’t kill me, and hopefully it wouldn’t kill Ranata either.

To pass the time, I went and got the clothes for Cat and told him to get dressed. He was still reluctant to put on anything, but I insisted. “Look, when they respond to our hail, they’re gonna want to talk to the man in charge, and they’re gonna want to see you, not me.” I took a quick gander at what I was beginning to believe to be a permanent erection and added: “And don’t worry about that, either. These clothes will accommodate it very nicely.”

My smuggler friend had informed me that even visitors to the planet were required to dress like the natives, a practice which I found to be a bit odd—particularly since nearly every other world I’d ever visited didn’t give a damn what the aliens had on, as long as they were wearing something decent. This was the first I’d ever heard of where the visitors to the surface were required
to take things off, as it were. I could understand the women having to be properly clothed and chained, but I wondered why the men had to display their genitals. I never got a straight answer to that question, but the smuggler did tell me that a man could not legally even land on Statzeel without a female, which I assumed was to ensure that offworld men wouldn’t run off with any of the local women.

The female dress was sheer and revealing, but stopped short of actual nakedness, which also seemed a bit odd to me. I mean, there were plenty of other places where the women wore virtually nothing, while you hardly saw any skin at all on a male. Then again, I reminded myself, I had seen plenty of other bizarre customs on my trek across the galaxy, and this was just one more to add to the list. I sometimes wondered if contact with other worlds was what had made them become even weirder—you know, just made them try harder to be different?—but I had no way of proving that hypothesis.

As I had thought, Cat looked spectacular dressed as a native of Statzeel. The white shirt had a high collar, billowing sleeves, and was open to the waist—it truly had no buttons on it whatsoever—and there was a black leather vest to wear over it. The black breeches were skin-tight and stretchy, but where on other worlds there would have been a fly or a cod-piece, on Statzeel there was a big hole surrounded with decorative embroidery, through which his cock and balls protruded. A red sash at the waist and black leather boots with Spanish tops to the knee completed the ensemble. He looked for all the world like a feline version of a swashbuckling pirate of
the Caribbean with an exhibition complex. The only thing missing was the cutlass thrust through his sash.

“Well, if it isn’t Puss in Boots!” I exclaimed.

“Damn!” I swore softly. “You look good enough to—”

“Fuck?” he suggested with a hopeful lift of those exotic eyebrows.

“Well, yes, actually,” I admitted. Of course, if I was being honest with myself, I would have to admit that he always
had
, even on Orpheseus Prime when he was filthy dirty and in restraints. Though I couldn’t count myself among their number, I’m sure there were plenty of women who would have had an orgasm just from the mere sight of him standing up there on the auction block—though I must admit that seeing him dressed like this almost did it to me. Well, it made me think about it, anyway! I can’t recall ever having had what you’d call a spontaneous orgasm in my life. Come to think of it, I hadn’t had very many of the other kind either….

“If I had known that you would prefer me in such clothing I would have gotten dressed before this,” he said ruefully. “I will have to remember that.”

“Yeah, well, don’t get too cocky, Kittycat!” I advised him. “Just remember we have a job to do and a sister to rescue.” I was about to suggest that he keep his shirt on, too, when I realized that, at least in his current situation, the use of that particular expression to encourage patience would have been a bit ridiculous since, dressed as he was, he could service as many females as he chose without ever having to undo so much as a button. In fact, the more I considered the matter, the more I became convinced that it was quite possibly the most
practical male attire I’d ever seen, and if you wanted to compare equipment size, it was unsurpassed. Of course, if your dick happened to be minuscule, there was no hiding that sad fact, and any woman would certainly know what she was getting into well in advance of any introduction, let alone an exchange of vows. I wondered why it hadn’t caught on in other places throughout the galaxy, but decided that there were some people who preferred the element of surprise that came from unzipping their fly—and plenty of other guys who just didn’t like the idea of their most prized appendage hanging out where someone might whack it off, whether accidentally or on purpose.

The hail came through just then and Cat took a seat at the communications console. “I am Carkdacund Tshevnoe of the trade ship—”

“
Jolly Roger
,” I whispered.

“
Jolly Roger
,” he went on smoothly, “requesting permission to land.” He seemed very impressive, with his military bearing showing, and a firm, determined expression on his feline features. He could probably cow a few Nedwuts into submission just by looking at them like that, I decided. I was mentally patting myself on the back for my choice of slaves when the man on the planet asked if there were any females aboard.

“Yes,” Cat replied. “I have one.”

“Good. She must be properly clothed and chained to you before you will be allowed to leave the docking area, as is our custom. Your style of dress must meet with our regulations as well.”

“I understand,” Cat replied. “We will comply.”
The man nodded and gave the landing coordinates and welcomed us to Statzeel. “The docking authority will give you further instructions on our trade regulations. I remind you that only legal commodities are allowed through the docking authority—no contraband.”

What he was saying, of course, was that if we were smuggling anything illegal, we had to land somewhere unofficial. Not that we
couldn’t
land somewhere else on the planet, mind you, just not in the main port. It was pretty much the same on any world in these parts: certain things were illegal only if you went through proper channels; if you didn’t tell them about it, they would casually look the other way. I suppose even the most straitlaced Statzeelian might like a little Xedonian ale now and then, but you had to be really careful with the stuff because it had a tendency to explode—which is undoubtedly why it’s illegal on most worlds. I’d carried it once and ended up losing a pretty nice cargo droid for my trouble, so I never bothered with it again.

Fortunately, I had been able to amass a fair fortune dealing only in legal goods, and it made me wonder sometimes why the smugglers went to so much trouble.

Not only were their commodities dangerous at times, but I’d seen some of their covert landing areas, and even though I was a pretty decent pilot, I wouldn’t have wanted to attempt it myself. Granted, drugs were easier to carry than, say, offworld furniture, for example, but I had a decent-sized hold in my ship and a good load-lifter. I guess the main difference between me and the smugglers was that I wasn’t quite so greedy. Besides, to succeed as an honest trader, the trick is in knowing what
to buy and when to buy it, and I was pretty good at that.

Drug smugglers, on the other hand, didn’t have to be particularly smart, just ballsy.

I fed the coordinates into the navigation computer but decided to take the ship in manually. Sometimes my reflexes were a little better than the
Jolly Roger
’s
,
especially if some idiot came flying in too fast from the wrong direction.

“We are landing now?” Cat asked as he noted that our heading had changed. From his tone he seemed to think such haste was unnecessary for some reason.

“Yes, of course, we’re landing now,” I informed him.

“Why shouldn’t we?”

“But you said that I looked good enough to fuck,” he reminded me, his disappointment quite evident. “Why can we not do that while we are in orbit and
then
land?”

“Well, you certainly have a one-track mind, don’t you?” I grumbled. “I thought you’d forgotten about that.”

He swiveled his seat around to face me. “I do not forget things easily.”

“Well, you’re just gonna have to get over it, Cat, because I can’t be screwing around and wasting time right now! God knows I wasted enough time looking for you, so let’s just forget about it, okay?”

Cat didn’t say whether he agreed or not, but it was fairly obvious that his dick hadn’t forgotten yet since it was still pointing right at me. I pulled Tex out of his holster, checked the setting and aimed it in Cat’s direction.

“Where do you want it?” I asked.

His dark, almond-shaped eyes widened and his glowing pupils made a quick adjustment. A moment
later his cock began to droop just a bit. “I will wait,” he said contritely. “But not forever.”

It was my intention that he probably
would
end up waiting forever, but that was a discussion for another time. I turned back to my console and flew the ship into the dock on Statzeel, settling it down gently on its three landing pads with nothing more than a slight bump that wouldn’t even have spilled a cup of coffee. You know, sometimes I amaze even myself!

“Ha, ha!” I exclaimed. “Slicker’n snot!”

“That is two times now that you have used the word

‘snot,’” Cat informed me. “What does it mean?”

“Mucus expelled from the respiratory passages,” I said absently as I went through the shutdown sequence, attempting to focus solely on the task at hand. My goal was almost in sight; I couldn’t afford to get distracted and slip up now. “Slick means that two surfaces can move easily across one another with very little friction—usually with some form of lubrication. You know, like slime?”

He didn’t comment further, but I knew he would remember. Like he said, he didn’t forget things easily—

and I would imagine that any wrong that had been committed against him would be the very
last
thing he would ever forget. I knew I certainly wouldn’t want him holding a grudge against me, and I might even find myself feeling a little sorry for some Nedwuts if he ever got ahold of them. Paybacks are hell, you know.