The First One's Free (9 page)

Metis?

What was Metis? Marq had told her it was
named for an ancient Tianese goddess of wisdom. When Tishla pressed
him for details, Marq added that the king of that particular
tribe’s gods feared that Metis would bear a son who would overthrow
him. So he swallowed her, only to end up giving birth to her
daughter.

“Your people are sick,” she said when Marq
finished the tale of Zeus, Metis, and Athena.

Marq laughed, and it sounded off now that
Tishla could hear other Tianese around them. “You have to
understand. The tribe that originally created the Metis myth was a
matriarchal society. Metis was their goddess. When the Sea
Peoples…”

“The what?”

“A warrior tribe that overran that part of
our homeworld before the historical record there truly began.
Anyway, they were patriarchal and worshipped a thunder god named
Zeus. When the cult of Metis would not die off, the conquering
people made up a story that Zeus had married Metis. As the story
goes, someone told Zeus that his son by Metis would overthrow him.
So when Metis got pregnant, he tricked her into becoming tiny and
swallowed her. Only she gave birth anyway, and a new goddess of
wisdom, Athena, sprang from his head.”

Tishla wondered if the story lost something
in translation. It sounded ridiculous and just a bit horrifying.
“Who are you people? Do you solve all your wars with
cannibalism?”

“It’s just a primitive myth.”

“That you named an entire planet after.”

“
Baah-Zun
. Isn’t that from your
creation myth?”

That was all the quarrel she would have with
him. When Kai ordered Tishla to accompany Marq to his homeworld,
she knew not to argue. Though he would not explain why, she did not
argue. Most of the time, she could push him as though she were the
master and he the indentured. Still, if Kai asserted himself,
Tishla submitted. That was the deal.

The trip started normally enough. She and
Marq took one of Kai’s personal transports to Ramcat, a Laputan
world. As the Realm and the Compact remained largely oblivious to
one another’s existence, only on Ramcat could they move from one
culture to the other without having to go through first contact
protocols.

At least, that was the plan.

As the Laputan transport entered the wormhole
that would carry them to Compact space, Tishla watched with
pleasure as Marq became mildly ill from the distortion effects of
the hypergate. She herself found the experience unpleasant, but she
did not suffer the same problems dealing with the gates’
interdimensional oddities as others did, be they Gelt or alien.

Exiting the wormhole, she heard the captain
announce in several languages that they were now in Compact space.
The ship would free fall to parking orbit over Metis within the
next hour or so.

As soon as the announcement ended, Marq
reached into his pocket and produced a small blue crystal. Tishla
recognized it immediately.

“That belongs to Kai,” she said. “That’s
the…”

“Deed to your person? Well, now it
belongs…”

An alarm sounded as a large ship appeared
outside, stopping his response. Another voice cut in over the
intercom and chattered something in Marq’s native tongue, a
language Tishla had not quite extrapolated yet. The captain came
back on and, in several languages, apologized for the
inconvenience. The Compact Navy needed to do a routine inspection
of the ship.

Minutes later, four primates clad in polymer
suits with their faces obscured approached from the docking module
and surrounded her and Marq. One of them raised a device and
pointed it at her. Pain coursed through her body for a moment as
the world turned bright blue.

Then black.

*****

They had Tishla naked and stretched out on a
table. She could not understand the gargling noise that passed for
these creatures’ language. Sedated as she was, she could not listen
closely enough to extrapolate what they were saying. The room was
cold. She wanted to shiver, but she could not move at all except to
breathe.

The beings hovering over her wore blue robes
and covered their faces. What little she could see of their skin
looked as pale as Marq’s, though one of the beings had much darker
skin. It still had that brownish tinge Tishla had not really
noticed before in the little alien. They ran their hands over her,
poked her skin, and drew blood. One of the beings ran its finger
down her belly and pressed it into her navel. It seemed surprised
when its finger went inside.

Do they know they’re raping me?
Did
they? She sensed no malice from these creatures, but they had laid
her out like an animal. She felt little different from a
horniq
she once watched her father butcher or the
urdongs
she dissected as a medical student. As they sliced
tiny pieces of skin from her and drew blood and other fluids, she
began to wonder if they would simply cut her to pieces and put her
in jars of preservative solution.

Unable to move or speak, she resigned herself
to her fate. She was a lab specimen. It made it no less horrifying
as one of the beings plunged a cold metal probe deep into her
navel. The feeling of something invading her body in such a manner
made her want to scream, and she couldn’t.

12

The sudden flare of bright light woke Best
from his drug-induced sleep. He looked up to see two figures
standing in the doorway of his recovery cubicle. His arm blocked
them from view as he shielded his eyes from the glare. “What is it?
I paid for six hours. I’m still groggy.”

“Mr. Best?” said a man’s voice. It had a lilt
not unlike Luxhomme’s, but he spoke in more of a monotone. It was
an odd combination. “Metisian Homeworld Security. We need to speak
with you.”

Best reached up and fumbled for the cubicle’s
dimmer inside light. Sitting up, he realized his visitors would see
him clad only in a T shirt and boxers. “You couldn’t have just
waited until I checked into my hotel?”

“We’re not even sure we can allow you to
leave the spaceport,” said the other visitor, a similarly accented
woman in a jacket and skirt cut so severe it looked like the
creases could sever limbs.

The light revealed the first agent to be a
man who fairly bulged from his suit. Best suspected he spent most
of his off-hours in a gym. “Minister, why did you not send the
government advanced notice of your arrival?”

“What?”

“You’re a minister in the government of a
core world,” said the woman. “You must present your credentials to
the Executive or one of her representatives.”

Best rubbed his eyes and tried to make sense
of what they were saying to him. “I’m here on personal
business.”

“Uh huh,” said the man. “And would this
‘personal business’ have to do with one of our Citizens? An
Etruscan resident named ‘Luxhomme’?”

“So he is Metisian,” said Best. “Yes, but I’m
here of my own accord.”

“And apparently charged with planetary and
Compact-level crimes,” said the woman. “Technically under arrest on
Jefivah.”

“Your sheet reached us before you left The
Caliphate.”

Best stretched. He would not get anymore rest
here. “I’ll check in with the Compact Home Office on my way to the
hotel.”

“See that you do,” said the woman. “And
please bear in mind that Mr. Luxhomme is a Citizen here. You are a
guest.”

Gee
, thought Best,
no
kidding
.

*****

Tishla awoke intact for the most part. They
had placed some sort of quantum tag several places on her body. She
still had no clothes, but they had put her into a thin garment that
opened in the back. A couple of tubes stuck into her arm, and a
plastic clip hung from her forefinger.

It was as though the Grays had abducted her
and dumped her in an alien hospital, perhaps a Laputan facility.
And yet she could not understand a word of what was said around
her. That bothered her. Normally, denizens of the Realm could
extrapolate a language within minutes of listening to a
speaker.

One of the Orag-looking beings entered.
Similar to Marq, it had pale skin with a brownish tinge to it. Or
maybe beige. Tishla wasn’t sure. It appeared to be female, its
ample breasts curving the front of its light blue garments. As it…
She… worked the tubes and examined the instruments, she started
chattering in that same gargling language as the beings who probed
Tishla. This one, however, spoke in an almost musical tone, not
quite like Marq’s manner of speaking. Tishla gleaned that this tone
was emotional whereas Marq’s tones were a function of his native
accent.

That was enough to enable Tishla’s mind to
start calculating the language. She couldn’t pick up words yet, but
the combination of how Marq spoke the Mother Tongue and the
attendant’s chatter formed the building blocks she would need to
learn their language.

The creature continued to prattle, went over
to the wall, and pressed her fingers against it. She drew her
fingers apart diagonally and said something in a tone Tishla
recognized as a question. Since Tishla did not know the aliens’
gestures, she tried nodding as she had seen Marq do. The female
stepped away from it to reveal a data feed or video broadcast of
some sort.

Again, Tishla nodded. The creature smiled,
like Marq did, only without the oily overtones. Marq’s smile
reminded Tishla of the reptilian predators that prowled her
homeworld in the warmer months. This person reminded her more of a
mother. Tishla found herself left alone for a while with the
gurgling wall display. Soon, occasional words began to make sense.
It made her feel more comfortable with her surroundings, as
comfortable as one could be in a hospital.

With the display constantly on, Tishla was
quickly able to calculate the aliens’ language. She learned that
another world called Etrusca, which she’d heard of, hosted
something called the “Interstellar Games” and that another world,
Tian, currently led in medals. That made Tishla laugh. The Realm
did not give athletes medals. They gave them food, homes, and
concubines, but medals went only to Warriors and those who served
the Realm in a high capacity.

The beings narrating the news feeds talked of
a world called Jefivah, where food riots raged after factional
clashes had flared and wrecked food production. Jefivah looked a
lot like Essenar, only better developed and not as rainy. One shot
of a city there included a garish statue of a scantily-clad Tianese
woman in a white dress that stood some three floors high. According
to the narrator, this was the goddess of a local cult that,
surprisingly, had some power on Jefivah. From the narrator’s tone,
she guessed that most Tianese found it as ridiculous as she
did.

Another world, whose name did not really
translate, announced some significant technological breakthrough.
Tishla didn’t understand enough Tianese to make out what they said,
but she did glean that the world called itself
Thukalifate
,
had its own religion-based power group, but existed largely in this
“Compact’s” mainstream.

The attendant reappeared about an hour after
she set up the video feed and began looking over Tishla’s tubes and
instruments.

“Hello,” said Tishla in their language. She
knew it sounded almost machine-like, but she was unpracticed. For
all she knew, she may just have proposed marriage. “My name is
Tishla. Where am I?”

The attendant looked at her, wide-eyed, then
turned and ran out into the hall. “Hey, that alien woman’s talking.
Get the
spuks
from Compact Security up here.”

*****

“Do you have a name?”

The Tianese male in the dark suit spoke in
such a mechanical manner, Tishla wondered if he was an android. The
Realm had banned such devices centuries ago, mainly to keep idle
serfs from revolting. This Compact may not have.

“My name is Tishla,” she said.

“Is that a family name or a personal
one?”

“Just Tishla.” She decided to withhold
revealing her status as a concubine. For starters, primates tended
to act strangely about other primate species’ sexual mores.
Besides, one race’s concubine might be another’s whore.

“And how do you understand and speak our
language? Were you educated by one of our people?”

“The only person of your species I know at
all is the one called ‘Marq’, though something tells me that’s not
his actual name. As for your language, my people can listen to and
extrapolate most languages we are exposed to in a very short time.
It’s a survival mechanism that evolved during our stone ages.”
Let’s see if that makes any sense to him
.

“Interesting.” The man traced his finger
across his palm. “Just Marq? Did he not mention his surname,
Katergarus?”

So they have nano-tattoos as well
, she
thought. “Katergarus. That’s not a Humanic word, is it?”

The man nodded and traced his palm again.
“You came to us from Laputan space, but clearly you are not
Laputan. What are you?”

“I come from a region of space known as the
Realm.” The Tianese word for the Realm felt strange coming from her
mouth. Despite awareness of aliens, she had only known the Realm
since birth. To refer to her home using a strange word from another
language unsettled her more than this alien’s presence in the
room.

“The Realm,” he repeated. “What is that?”

“What is the Compact?” She thought the male
would smile for a moment. “Where am I, anyway?”

“You are on a world known as Metis. More
specifically, you are at the Homeworld Security Quarantine Center
at Sophiopolis, the capital. What is your business here?”