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Authors: Julia Rachel Barrett

Tags: #Siren Classic

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BOOK: Captured
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“Slower, please,” said Mari.

“My name is Ekkatt Vom Baerkah Elae, son of Baerkah, son of Elae.”

Mari reached a hand towards him as if to touch him.
 
The man looked at her in surprise.
 
He touched a sheathed finger to the bars of Mari’s cage.
 
They opened.
 
He reached in with his large hand and patted her on the head as one would pat a dog.
 
He said something.
 
Mari assumed his words were exactly what they seemed –
good dog
.

“If you need to relieve yourself I will take you now,” he said, the tone of his voice gruff.
 
“I do not want this area soiled.”

“Yes.
 
Thank you.”

The man grunted at her and turned. Mari hurried after him.

* * * *

Mari lost track of time, but if she had to guess she’d guess that perhaps three twenty-four hour days had elapsed since she’d awakened.
 
She had no idea how long they’d kept her asleep or in
stasis
.
 
She pressed Ekkatt for answers.

Ekkatt grudgingly explained. “If we keep the cargo in stasis, we do not have to provide food or water.”
 


More cost-effective
,” Mari commented.

 
 
Ekkatt looked at her, thick eyebrows raised, though he said nothing further.
 

She watched as he and the other man, Pana, repositioned the women every so often and put a machine over their chest that gave them some sort of readout.
 
Mari assumed it was their version of a heart monitor or pulse oximeter that doctors used in the hospitals on Earth.

 
Mari studied Ekkatt and learned to read his expressions, his moods.
 
She knew when to sit in her cage and shut up. She began to sense when he felt reasonable.
 
Mari didn’t believe she suffered from Stockholm Syndrome as many kidnap victims did when they began to identify with their captors.
 
She hoped that if Ekkatt could begin to see her as a sentient being
 
he’d think twice about who she was sold to…if he had that kind of influence over his superiors.
 
She couldn’t allow herself to wonder about the fate of the other women.
 
She harbored no illusions about her limitations in that regard.
 
Ekkatt and Pana and the above decks crew had no intention of returning a single one of them to their homes.
 
Nothing she said or did would change that.

There were periods of times when the two of them were alone in the cargo hold.
 
 
Ekkatt seemed a bit more open then. He’d converse with her in his stilted English.
 
She’d listened hard to his conversations with Pana and struggled to pick out individual words. Their language sounded Semitic. It reminded her of the time she’d attended a wedding at an Ethiopian Coptic Church.
 
She’d understood quite a bit of the service.
 
Listening to the men talk to each other was like having a word right on the edge of her tongue that she couldn’t quite get out.
 
Given enough time, she could learn their language.

Ekkatt humored her, as one would humor a child, as if she amused him. He taught her a few words in his own tongue like
come, stay, sit, hungry, food, drink,
and
move your ass.
 
She began to learn the difference between his tolerant laugh and his grunt that meant –
get the hell out of my sight you filthy animal
.
 
He even brought her a tunic without her asking for it.
 

He’d seen her shivering and commented, “If you sleep, you will not feel the cold of space.”

Mari shook her head,
no
.
 
But, she had fallen asleep for just
 
a brief period of time. When she woke a threadbare tunic had been thrown over her.
 
Mari had been so grateful that she’d cried.
 
She’d huddled in a corner of her cage and kept her back to the men so they wouldn’t see her tears and realize how close she verged on breaking down every single moment.
   

Pana had actually growled when he’d seen her approach wearing the oversized garment.
 
He’d had words with Ekkatt over it.
 
Finally he’d stormed off and shoved her out of the way, saying, “You stink, beast.
 
You’re stench follows me above decks.”

Mari rose to her feet cautiously, eyes fixed on Ekkatt.
 
“If you allow me to bathe properly,” she said, “I will not stink.”

“You will be cleaned…you will all be cleaned, when we reach our destination.
 
We haven’t the facilities to bathe an animal.”

“If you came to my home,” said Mari, speaking clearly, “I would treat you with respect and dignity.
 
I would not call you an animal simply because you are not human.”

Ekkatt shot her a hard look.
 
“This ship is not my home, and on this ship you are nothing to me but cargo, valuable, but very filthy, cargo.”

“Then why have you learned my language?
 
Why have you bothered if I’m nothing but filthy cargo?
 
You and Pana?”

Ekkatt motioned to the sleeping women.
 
“When they wake they will need direction.
 
There will be fewer problems if they hear their own tongue.
 
Even your Earth cattle need to be herded, do they not?”

“Not all of them speak English,” said Mari.
 
“You have women here from all over my planet and some from other places, not only from earth.
 
Do you speak those languages too?”

“Yes, puppy, I do.”

Mari addressed Ekkatt in Japanese and he replied.
 
She tried French, and again, he responded to her question.
 
He didn’t know Latin or Greek, but he knew Spanish, Italian, Russian, Hebrew, Hindi and some Arabic.
 

“What does she speak?”
 
Mari pointed to a woman who was definitely not human.

“Ciri,” replied Ekkatt.

“How do you know so many languages?”

“How do you?” he retorted.

“I…I lived many places growing up and I studied.
 
My father was…my father was in the military.
 
Do you understand?”

“Your father was a warrior?”

Mari latched onto this.
 
From the tone in his voice, Mari guessed that Ekkatt’s species respected warriors.
 
“Yes, he was a warrior.”

Ekkatt grunted.
 
A grunt Mari had come to recognize as an acknowledgement of sorts.

“Where was he when I took you?”

“What?”

“If your father is a warrior then where was he when I took you from that house of eggs?
 
A warrior does not leave his females unprotected.”

Mari didn’t answer.
 
She gazed around at all the women in cages.
 
“My father is dead,” she replied.
 
“He was killed in battle.”

“He should have given you to another, one who could protect you.”
 
Ekkatt’s voice was terse.

“It’s not our custom.
 
Women on my planet try to protect themselves.”

“You did not stand a chance,” he snorted.

“How do you know so many languages?” Mari repeated her question.

Ekkatt sighed.
 
“If I tell you, will you go to your cage and sit quietly?”

“Yes.”

“An implant in my brain.”

“You mean like a computer chip?”

Ekkatt appeared to think for a moment.
 
“You have this sort of thing in your world?”

“Not exactly.
 
We have computer chips. They can be used for many things, but not this, not yet.”

“Go.
 
Sit.”
 
Ekkatt dismissed her in his own language.

Mari obeyed.
 

Later, Pana returned and relieved Ekkatt.
 
He surprised Mari by handing her a bowl of nutrient rich broth.
 
Ekkatt had explained they drank the broth during long space journeys because it contained everything needed to sustain life.
 
Mari found it filling and palatable.
 
The stuff tasted like a more concentrated version of her grandmother’s chicken soup.
 
She thanked Pana in his own language.

“You pollute my tongue, insect,” was all he said.

On what Mari estimated to be the fifth day Ekkatt said to her in his own language, “Return to your cage and keep quiet.”
 
He added in English, “Give me back the tunic.
 
We land soon; therefore, you must be exactly as the rest.”

He escorted her down the row of cages.
 
Mari knew he would lock the door behind her this time.
 
She halted in her tracks and turned toward the tall man.
 
Her green eyes sought his yellow ones.
 
“Ekkatt, can you buy me?”

Ekkatt stared at her as if he tasted something foul.
 
“I do not purchase living things.”

Mari kept her voice low.
 
“No, you merely steal their lives away.”

“You are in no position to challenge me.
 
I can snap your neck in one of your seconds.”

“Then snap it,” Mari hissed.
 
“I would rather be dead than sold into slavery, or forced into prostitution, or slaughtered for meat.
 
Do you hear what I’m saying?
 
I would rather you kill me now.
 
Let me make it easy for you.
 
I can attack you then you’ll be justified in killing me.”

Ekkatt roared with laughter.
 
He wrapped long fingers around Mari’s neck and squeezed.
 

Mari didn’t move.
 
She held perfectly still and waited to die.

“You humans.
 
Your bodies are so fragile.
 
It takes little effort on my part to break you.
 
This god of yours, he was misguided in his design.”

A tear rolled down Mari’s cheek.
 
“Kill me,” she whispered.

Ekkatt lifted his other hand. Mari felt his fingers cool against her wet cheek.

“Another design flaw.
 
You leak when under duress.
 
I will not kill you, Mari,” the man spoke her name for the first time since she’d given it to him.
 
“I will do my best to see that you are sold to the right party, to someone who will appreciate an animal of quality.”

* * * *

Mari didn’t think it was possible to feel worse than she felt when she’d awakened that first day in the cage.
 
She was wrong.
 
While being herded like cattle through a chute the mass of naked, crying, clutching, screaming, pleading women of various colors, shapes, and sizes pressed forward.
 
Men of the same species as Ekkatt counted them as they passed, checked out the merchandise, and assessed their value.
 
Mari refused to be pushed through.
 
She held back,
 
waiting until the end, and was grateful when Ekkatt and Pana deliberately looked the other way.
 
She stepped out of the ship and strode between the electrically charged fences. Her face was impassive, her eyes and ears alert, and head held high.
 

BOOK: Captured
10.8Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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