The slave's condition was terrifying. The moment I got him home on the stretcher, I pulled a few beads off the pearl bracelet and asked Gutrun to go to the market for the best antiseptics and wound-care supplies she could find. My neighbor gave me a suspicious look but did it anyway.
While Ayur and I had been arguing, while he'd been preparing the documents, while he'd been searching for the remote that unlocked the restraints, which turned out to be locked in a safe; the dusk had fallen. I'd asked the Maestro for a large piece of clean fabric to cover the slave, and pointed out that it was very much in his own interest that no one connect the two of them. In my head I was already picturing the moment I'd tell the man, once he came around, that he was free to go wherever he liked. I genuinely didn't want the neighbors asking where I'd hidden my semi-contractor.
Ayur and I had a small war over the clothing situation: he insisted the only thing he'd hand over were the moldy rags already on the floor of the shed, and I categorically refused to bring those into my home, let alone touch them. In the end, another secker changed the Maestro's entire perspective on the matter, and he promptly ordered his servants to bring a blanket and throw some "storage room items" on top of the stretcher. Two pale-green Orshan women tucked a blanket around the unconscious man and piled on top of it a collection of long dry branches, a couple of misshapen gourds, several large zucchinis, and a pulled weed, all while shooting curious looks at what was now technically my semi-contractor. Somehow the sleek anti-gravity stretcher had been transformed into something resembling the air-cushion cart that wealthy Orren'Tal residents rented for serious market runs. Thanks to this disguise, even my nosy neighbor hadn't registered that I'd brought a barely-alive humanoid home.
My house on Orren'Tal was tiny compared to the penthouse on Zwarg: a small entryway, a bedroom, a living room, a kitchen, a wing I called the laundry, which also contained the shower, the bath, and a small room with a washer and dryer, plus an attic and a basement. Taking him down to the basement or hauling him up to the attic was obviously out of the question, so I settled him temporarily on the narrow but long sofa in the living room.
Without overthinking it, I cut away what had once been a shirt, dropped it in the recycler, straightened up, and froze.
It was as if whatever internal support had been holding up my composure until that moment had simply been pulled out from under me, the same composure that had gotten me through negotiating for a slave's life and buying it for nearly nothing. My lungs compressed. My fingers started shaking.
In the light of the diode lamp, what I saw was horrifying. I'd caught glimpses of it in the shed, but the dimness had hidden the details. In retrospect, that was probably for the best. If I'd seen this clearly that morning, I wouldn't have been able to hold myself together; and if that shrewd dealer had understood just how determined I was to get the man out regardless of cost, the deal would have involved considerably more than magnetic restraints and three seckers.
His chest and arms were completely covered in inflamed abscesses and deep, ugly ulcers. Yellowish fluid seeped from blisters with ragged edges, crusting over patches of dried blood. In the more merciful areas, the stomach and sides, the skin had cracked and was peeling away in torn strips. Blue veins wrapped around his sinewy arms and showed through the skin at the elbows and forearms as though the skin there had thinned to something nearly transparent.
My vision blurred for a moment. Every tiny hair on my body stood up. Even I, a pureblooded Zwargian who had always been completely unbothered by injuries, couldn't make myself move for the first few seconds.
How much pain must he be in?! Thank everything he's unconscious. What is this? How does this happen to a person?
Without much deliberation I ran to the portable first-aid kit for a syringe-gun and ampules of sedative and painkiller; thankfully, a visit to Mittaria had left me stocked with the basics. Before cleaning the wounds, I needed to make sure he wouldn't wake up and die from pain shock. After administering the standard dose to my involuntary patient, I paused, then gave myself an ampule of sedative too. For a Zwargian it was essentially nothing, but something was better than nothing. I breathed in, breathed out, and for the first time in two years deliberately summoned the image of the winged warrior-maiden.
For the first time in my life, I was running through breathing exercises and calling myself to calm not for the comfort of the people around me, but simply so my hands would stop shaking.
You can do this, Celesta. You've got this.
I took a soft sponge, brought a basin of water, and began the long, tedious, painstaking work. The sponge moved slowly, absorbing dirt, then I rinsed it and went over the area again, trying to avoid the inflamed patches as much as possible.
The worst came later.
Once the pus was cleared away, I found that most of the open wounds still had tiny threads, remnants of whatever vile rags had been lying in Ayur's shed. I had to tear through my belongings searching for tweezers. To make sure I didn't miss anything, I used my communicator camera and a hastily downloaded app as a magnifying glass. I cleaned his chest and arms and began extracting whatever was left in the wounds.
By the time I'd finished with everything visible, it had been dark outside for a long time. My lower back was in agony from the position I'd held for hours on end. I was desperately tired, and the extreme strain had started my fingers trembling again. The whole time I'd been cleaning the wounds, raspy sounds kept escaping the stranger's lips, and I kept finding myself thinking: what if it's all for nothing? What if he dies anyway?
The slave's features were hidden behind a thick, unkempt beard. I kept trying to make out who I was looking at, at least in terms of species, but I couldn't determine it. The facial hair told me he wasn't Zwargian, but he didn't look human either. Not even a hybrid. I knew what Michel looked like, and I was confident the man in front of me wasn't a half-blood. So what was he?
The man groaned. I quickly treated his wounds with antiseptic and anesthetic spray, then used the syringe-gun to inject a regeneration-accelerating solution into his vein.
All evening, I chewed my lip and went back and forth about spending the rest of the pearl beads and calling a doctor, but eventually talked myself out of it. I didn't have much local cash left, and if something urgent came up, I'd need it. Flying to the nearest technologically advanced planet to use an anonymous ATM wasn't an option in the near future either. And there was no guarantee a local doctor on Orren'Tal would have any real qualifications. If the doctor turned out to be an Orshan, the entire neighborhood would know about the half-corpse in my house before morning; that was a certainty.
I pulled out the last thread with the tweezers and set the instrument aside. Then I wiped the sweat running down my forehead and smiled to myself at the thought that in the past two years, I'd accumulated more varied experience and impressions than in my entire comfortable, uneventful life on Zwarg.
The communicator read midnight. Instead of going to bed, I rinsed my hands in clean water and ran a careful eye over the stranger, looking for the least damaged areas so I could gently turn him onto his side. The best solution I could come up with was to cover the deepest abscesses on his chest with adhesive medical pads. The last thing I needed was to disturb those wounds. I was confident I could manage the turn easily enough, but despite the alarming thinness, the slave turned out to be extraordinarily heavy. The built-in robotic lift on the anti-gravity stretcher had handled the transfer to the sofa, and this was the first time I'd actually tried to move what had looked like a skeletal body with my own hands.
"Argh! Either I've completely lost my strength, or there is a gravitational well on this wretched sofa!" I muttered furiously, making absolutely no progress trying to roll this enormous dead weight while simultaneously trying to see his back.
In the end I came up with a solution: prop the communicator on the edge of the sofa, set the camera on a timer, and get the photos I needed. Whether luck was on my side or whether the strange condition simply didn't affect his back, I couldn't say; but the blurry images on the screen showed, to my considerable surprise, no ulcers whatsoever. Just sharp vertebrae rising like a ridge of hills beneath the skin, and pale bands of old scars.
My gaze lingered on the man's worn belt. Chest and arms treated, no wounds on the head, back practically clean by comparison. That left the legs. I stood there for several seconds, lip between my teeth, not sure what to do. Twenty years of impeccable Zwargian upbringing made it genuinely difficult to just go ahead and undress a stranger who was, in the end, completely defenseless.
Finally, I sighed loudly.
"Celesta. You were married for twenty years. What exactly is there to see that you haven't seen before?"
Thoughts of my late husband lifted my mood for the first time in a long while. He would have had a cardiac event on the spot if he'd seen that shed, or found out what I'd spent the last several hours doing. The man flinched and ran to wash his hands at the sight of not blood, but tomato juice. And if any Zwargian had known what I was about to do, the respectable Lady Gyu-El would have been a fallen woman for life.
And yet I unfastened the man's trousers and pushed the fabric down as far as was practical. Fortunately, the stranger was wearing underwear. Unfortunately, it fit rather closely, and what it outlined was, even in a completely relaxed state, quite substantial. The idiotic thought arrived entirely uninvited: Martin had been smaller. I shook my head and got back to work. No wounds on the thighs.
"That's it. Done for tonight," I muttered, administering one more dose of fever reducer, and fastened everything back up.
Ideally antibiotics, too, but I hesitated. What had even caused those abscesses? Why only the chest? And how would his system handle a strong medication?
I threw a blanket over my patient and made my way to bed, swaying slightly. The clock said dawn was close.
***
Day three.
I was fighting the slave's fever and treating his skin with antiseptics and healing agents. My neighbor was practically bursting with curiosity about why I'd needed medical supplies so urgently; I hadn't asked for her help even during the acid rain season. I had to lie and say I'd slipped with a kitchen knife while cooking. The Orshan woman processed this story at length, clucking with sympathy, then delivered a completely baffling conclusion: "What you need, Lesta, is a man." I never did figure out what the connection was, but a slice of homemade pie redirected her attention nicely.
I carried the tray with sprays and loaded syringe-gun into the living room, set it on the coffee table, pulled back the blanket, and settled into my usual spot beside his hip. For three days the stranger had barely moved, just shifting position slightly. He'd clearly had brief moments of improvement, but the persistent fever kept pulling him back under.
A long strand of hair lay across his forehead and the heavily stubbled cheek beneath it. Without thinking, I reached over to move it. Tucked it behind his ear, and on the way back, my fingers grazed a horn.
I froze.
Martin had hated being touched there, and in general, Zwargian sensory organs were always extremely sensitive. Hypersensitive, really. They picked up the faintest emanations from living beings, and touching someone's horns without permission was… well. It was roughly equivalent to putting your hand somewhere you very much hadn't been invited. Scandalous, deeply offensive, and not something most men would appreciate.
The man didn't move.
I exhaled and ran my fingertips across his chest, feeling for the edge of the dressing. There, near the ribs, was the worst of the abscesses, the one I'd had such difficulty cleaning. I leaned closer. Working carefully, I finally caught the corner of the silicone backing with my nail and eased the bandage away.
I stared.
The sprays had actually been worth the money, and for once, Orren'Tal had received genuine concentrated healing solution and not watered-down counterfeit. Where inflamed raw flesh had been gaping just days ago, a thin layer of new pink skin had pulled tight across the wound.
I touched it in disbelief and ran my fingers gently over it. At that exact moment a large, calloused hand closed over mine.
The feeling that shot through me was exactly like being caught doing something embarrassing. The memory of unfastening his trousers the night before blazed to life in my head with mortifying clarity.
Split me into atoms. I really hope he can't read thoughts. Or emotions.
I looked up sharply at his face. He was watching me with such focused, steady attention that my mind went completely blank. Based on his body, the lines on his forehead, his general bearing, I'd assumed he might be older, but looking at those eyes now, I would have bet everything I owned that those particular depths couldn't possibly belong to an old man.
The silent gaze moved across my face with almost physical weight: cheekbones, nose, chin, lips, then shifted to my hair and neck, and finally down to what I was wearing: a short-sleeved T-shirt and shorts, my standard at-home uniform. For no good reason I suddenly felt acutely self-conscious about it, with a strong urge to go put on trousers. Or possibly a full-length dress. I shook the thought away immediately.
Get it together. He's just some guy. Why am I nervous?
I'd completely forgotten what I'd planned to say when he woke up. And what language was I supposed to use? Did he even know the local dialect?
"Where am I?"
To my enormous relief, he spoke in Intergalactic. His voice came out cracked and hoarse, but almost immediately he cleared his throat.
"At my house."
"What's your name?"
"Lesta."
Beads of sweat had broken out on his forehead. I could see he was still fighting the fever and struggling to speak, so I reached for the water, and was held back, his hand still locked around my wrist.
"I bought you," I said, feeling immediately ridiculous. "Please let go of my hand. You're not in danger, wherever your wounds came from. They're almost healed, by the way. You're safe here."
"Bought?" the man interrupted, in a voice so strangely low and resonant that something went through every cell in my body completely without my permission.
"Yes, don't worry, everything is fine."
Celesta. Who exactly are you reassuring right now? Him or yourself?
"I acquired you under an Orren'Tal contract from the Maestro of Souls and Desires. You're technically my semi-contractor, but once you're back on your feet, I'm letting you go. Look; the restraints are already off." I nodded toward his wrists, thinking this would reassure a man who'd just regained consciousness.
Apparently, that was a tactical error. He looked down at his hands reluctantly, and his expression changed so suddenly it was like something feral had moved in behind his eyes.
"You took off the pacifiers? Why?!" the sound that came out of him wasn't quite a voice. It rolled through the entire house.
I blinked.
What do you mean, why?
His reaction was so baffling that the last coherent thoughts in my head burned up like meteors on re-entry. The desire for freedom seemed so fundamental, so blindingly obvious for any thinking creature, that I genuinely couldn't find a response. The air left my lungs in a rush as his nostrils flared and his eyes went red.
"Why did you take off the restraints, woman?! Are you out of your mind?! Tired of living?! Do you just go around freeing every dangerous person you come across?!"
You’ve got to be kidding me.
He shook my hand, still locked in his grip, as though trying to jolt a coherent answer out of me. But what coherent answer exists when you're talking to a madman? I'd faced the press and never once descended to this level of useless sputtering.
"Um…"
Getting nothing, the lunatic suddenly narrowed his gray eyes and yanked me toward him, pressing me flat against his chest. Which was, despite everything, remarkably solid for someone who'd recently looked like a skeleton.
"Maybe you're the type who likes it rough?!" Hot breath hit my cheek and the edge of my ear. His other hand settled with great confidence onto my backside. "Come on, Lesta, tell me, why did you really buy me from Ayur? Wanted a little excitement? Not afraid of what an unchained slave might do to you?!"
While he was talking complete nonsense, I recovered from the initial shock. I twisted the hand he'd grabbed first, reached across to the coffee table, found the syringe-gun loaded with sedative, and drove a full ampule into the raving semi-contractor's neck. Only in the split second when I pulled the trigger did something like surprise flicker across his face. One second, two, and he went limp.
I scrambled off him, spitting hair out of my mouth, and made my way on unsteady legs to reload the syringe-gun.
Something tells me I'll be needing that again.
What an absolute idiot.
He wakes up, and I'm getting rid of him. Immediately. Celesta, what were you thinking when you decided to buy a slave on Orren'Tal? It's genuinely unclear whether he's capable of rational thought.
***
Liert Kassel
Consciousness rocked on warm waves, and I thought I was dead. For a while my lungs still burned; and then blessed darkness came, and the pain retreated, leaving behind only a faint scent of edelweiss. That was how the snow mountains of my homeland smelled. Was this what death smelled like? How strange. How pleasant.
But something pulled me out of that strange, almost sweet state. An emotion, soft as a breath of wind, brushed against my horns and immediately shied away in alarm. Wind? Emotions? On the other side of life? That couldn't be right. Could it?
Several seconds passed, and then I understood that the sensations weren't phantom at all. Someone was genuinely touching me, near the ribs now. I covered the small hand with my palm and opened my eyes, trying to understand where I was and what had happened.
In front of me sat a frightened fair-haired girl, the one who had come in my dreams, the one I'd taken for an angel. She was saying something, biting her lip. From her words I gathered that her name was Lesta and that she'd bought me from Ayur. Memories crashed over me all at once, like a sudden avalanche: Fionna's death, the swift military tribunal, the radioactive prison on a forgotten asteroid, the pirates…
"Look; the pacifiers are already gone!" the pretty human girl's voice cut through the dark tide of memory.
That she was a fragile human woman was practically written on her face: long golden waves of hair, a sweet fringe, sharp dark-coffee eyes (an unusual combination for a human, actually), dimples on her cheeks, a small nose. My palms were several times larger than Lesta's fine aristocratic wrists, and my rough calloused fingers with their ragged edges bore no resemblance whatsoever to her neatly rounded nails. She kept talking and talking, and suddenly I felt a deep, dull fury, because the pacifiers I'd long since made peace with, the ones I'd worn for decades, were simply gone.
"You took off the pacifiers? Why?!"
As expected, the little idiot couldn't find a single word in her own defense. Was she out of her mind? A defenseless girl sitting on a bed with a strange man, cheerfully announcing she'd removed Tanorgian pacifiers from him. High-technology devices, typically fitted to criminals at the conclusion of their trial and worn for life. They split into half-rings only when the humanoid's pulse finally stopped, and were removed in only the rarest cases, after a successful appeal.
Was she actually insane? Buying a sick, half-dead slave, nursing him back to health for some reason, and then removing the pacifiers?!
For a brief moment, instead of the girl's pretty face, I saw Fionna's stubborn features. She had done exactly the same kind of foolish thing—trusted the Trasks, gone behind my back; and that was why the tragedy had happened.
The rage at what Fionna had done, at myself for failing to protect her, tangled with the anger at this incomprehensible girl who had freed me. The past blazed before my eyes so vividly and wildly that I wanted to howl. Acting under the weight of old emotions and old ghosts, I grabbed Lesta and pulled her toward me, showing her what could have happened, what would have happened, if any other humanoid with worse intentions had been in my position. Cruel words came out, and some part of me waited for the moment she'd finally flinch and cry. As if that moment could somehow change and undo the past. If only Fionna had been frightened. If only she hadn't gone to those negotiations on her own.
I understood I'd miscalculated only when I felt a thin mosquito-sting at my neck, and my body betrayed me, going quiet.