Earthrise (Her Instruments Book 1) (19 page)

As with most of the rooms and gardens they’d passed through to reach this one, Reese could hear the far-off trickle of water. She was so busy trying to find the source of the sound that she didn’t notice the naked people until she was halfway into the patio. Her abrupt stop nearly made Hirianthial bump into her.

“Ack, Irine!” Reese said. “You didn’t tell me they’d be
naked
!”

Irine waved a hand. “They’re slaves. Did you expect them to be dressed?”

Reese couldn’t bring herself to move. Something about the two women with their serving platters, their nudity accentuated by the jewelry they wore, disconcerted her more than any of the more extreme things she’d read about Harat-Shar.

From behind her, Hirianthial’s voice sounded gentle, calming. “Go ahead. Sit with your people.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him, trying to hide how rattled she was. Then she sighed and plunked herself on one of the stone benches. Hirianthial followed her and lit on one of the nearby stone columns, this one cut half-height.

Reese said, “All right. Explain this right now before I go crazy. How come this planet gets slaves?”

“They enslaved themselves voluntarily,” Sascha said. “They sign up for a period of time, at the end of which they either renew their contracts or go back to being free. When they sign up they specify what they’re willing to do or undergo.”

“And they get paid for this?” Reese asked, mystified.

“Of course not,” Irine said. “That’s not slavery, that’s employment.”

“When they sign up, they can get a special kind of high-interest account at any bank,” Sascha said. “While they’re “unemployed” their savings accrue much higher dividends, plus they get a host of other protections under the law.” He scratched his nose. “Actually, depending on how long you want to stay, Captain, that might not be a bad way to deal with our cash deficits.”

“You must be kidding,” Reese said.

“Not at all,” Sascha said. “We get a lot of our workforce this way. That and the indentured servitude.” Before Reese could interject, he said, “Convicts, captain. They work a term of service, unpaid and unprotected, for petty crimes.”

“Do all of them wander around naked?” Reese asked.

Irine giggled. “Only if their masters want them to.”

“House and pleasure servants typically do,” Sascha said. “Slaves choosing other means of service wear whatever’s appropriate to the task they signed up for.” He glanced at Hirianthial. “The medical profession is almost entirely slave labor. The law doesn’t allow a person to sue slaves for damages, so it’s the cheapest and safest way for doctors to practice.”

“Now you really must be kidding,” Reese said. “All your doctors are
slaves
?”

“Servants,” Hirianthial murmured. “All doctors are servants, no matter how they’re compensated.”

“I did not cross the Alliance to save you from slavers so you could meekly offer yourself to a city full of insane cats,” Reese said.

“He can practice as a free-man,” Sascha said. “It’s just a different balance of money and risk.” He grinned. “Besides, Captain, he can’t enslave himself without your permission. None of us can take any form of employment or contract without your say-so, in fact.”

Reese tapped her fingers on the table. “I told Irine one culture shock at a time, Sascha.”

Kis’eh’t offered, “Maybe it’s better just to get as many of them over with as possible, Reese... while in the presence of people you trust.”

“I trust you people?” Reese said. When they laughed, she said, “All right, Sascha. Tell me why people need my permission to do anything.”

“Under the law here,” Sascha said, “Visiting crews are considered owned by their employer. They can’t be employed without permission from the captain of the vessel.”

“I don’t run a Fleet ship,” Reese said. “You people are my employees, not in service to me.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hirianthial look at her, suddenly.

“It’s the law, Captain. It doesn’t matter if you’re a merchant or military.”

Another slave appeared at the entrance to the house. “Mistress, if it pleases you may we speak with the Phoenix and the Glaseah? We believe we have comfortable accommodations for them, but we would be pleased if they would examine them for suitability.”

“Just when the conversation was getting exciting,” Kis’eh’t said with a lopsided smile.

Bryer stood, saying, “The conversation lacks focus. We go.”

Irine popped to her feet. “I’ll come too.”

“What, you don’t want to take part in the unfocused conversation?” Reese asked.

Irine grinned. “Oh, I’m sure you won’t let the matter drop quickly. I’ll have plenty of time to hear you complain about it later.”

Sascha stared after them for longer than Reese expected, after they left. She said, “Something wrong?”

Sascha shook his head. “She’s just very happy to be home.”

“And you’re not,” Reese guessed. “I might have a chance to keep sane after all.”

She expected him to disagree, but instead the Harat-Shar chuckled and looked at Hirianthial. “So, are you going to work as a doctor here?”

“If I can,” Hirianthial said. “I have licenses in several specialties. Most Core worlds accept those wherever you travel.”

“I am not going to give you over to slavery,” Reese said, folding her arms.

“It is service, Lady, not slavery,” Hirianthial said, petting Allacazam. Beneath his hands the Flitzbe turned a deep, contented purple-blue, and those long white fingers sprang into sharp relief. Those hands had opened up her body and knitted her back together. They looked like a surgeon’s hands.

“I’d be careful about your assumptions,” Sascha said. “We call it slavery and it is slavery. You don’t have any choices once you sign the contract.”

Those long hands stopped moving. “So your master could beat you?”

“Sure, if you needed to be punished,” Sascha said.

“To death?” Hirianthial asked.

“of course not!” Sascha said.

“And abuse?”

The Harat-Shar fidgeted. “Not unless you sign up for abuse.”

“Starvation? Medical procedures without consent? Sterilization?” Hirianthial said. His voice remained calm and evenly paced, but Reese couldn’t shake the feeling he was pressing.

“Of course not,” Sascha said. “You have to find a very special segment of society to sign away that much of yourself.”

“What a genteel existence,” Hirianthial said. “Enough food to eat, enough to drink, a place to sleep, masters who dare not abuse you or torture you beyond what you have yourself allowed on a piece of paper you have signed.” He resumed petting Allacazam, who began to turn a very unpleasant orange. “Call this slavery if you like, Sascha. It bears as much resemblance to it as wine to poison.”

Reese stared at him. He looked as serene as always, but something about his face had changed. Beside her, Sascha sat stiffly transfixed, even his tail unmoving.

“Besides,” Hirianthial said after a moment, “I haven’t said whether I would take a slave-doctor’s contract. Even I am leery of giving Harat-Sharii that much of me.” A flicker of a smile.

Reese let out a long breath. “Thank the blood in the dust. The man has a sense of self-preservation.”

“He’ll need it,” Sascha said and stood with a tail-lash. “I’ll check on your rooms.”

Reese nodded, but the tigraine was gone before she could finish the gesture. She glanced at Hirianthial. “This is going to be harder than I thought.”

“Is it?” Hirianthial asked.

“You’re not nervous about this?”

He continued stroking Allacazam, who slowly turned a lovely turquoise green—what that meant, Reese hadn’t the slightest idea. “Worrying about what has not yet come to pass was never my duty, lady.”

It was such a bizarre thing to say she wasn’t sure how to respond. Finally, she came up with, “What is your duty, then?”

“To go where I’m sent,” he said. “To do as I’m asked.”

“To think as you’re told to think?” Reese asked with a trace of acid. “Doesn’t sound like the life of a responsible adult.”

“And your way is better, lady?” Hirianthial asked. Allacazam had bloomed several splotches of alarmed red. “To cast off all the threads that would connect you to others? To deny your responsibility to them? To mistake destructive stubbornness for individual choice?”

Reese gaped at him.

“Even a short life is no excuse for such selfishness,” he said, standing.

“W-what?” Reese managed. “Hey, wait! You can’t say that kind of thing to me! What gives you the right to judge me? You barely know me!”

“And you me,” Hirianthial said at the door. “Keep this in mind, captain,” heavily touched with irony, the title, “Harat-Sharii’s laws have made you the lord of your ship and we your liegemen. Take care with the role.”

“I didn’t ask to be in charge!”

“Few people do,” he said.

“Wait!” she said, but he was already through the door. Blood and spit! He had no right!

It had not been his plan to wander, but the alternative had not been palatable. So with Allacazam slowly calming in his arms, Hirianthial drifted through the gracious halls of the twins’ family estate. The subsequent rooms had been built on the same model as the first few he’d seen: large windows at ground level, high ceilings and fans. Lovingly tended plants lined the corridors, some reaching from outside to coil tendrils along the inside walls. Broad-mouthed pots proved to be water gardens, sporting exotic lilies and populations of tiny fish and other less familiar creatures. Each hall seemed to branch into a shaded terrace, a sheltered alcove, a perfumed garden. Occasionally he caught sight of stairs leading into the ground and up to the earth.

Slaves passed him, their auras dense and lazy with pleasure. How could he explain how easily he could discern their contentment? He’d run his mental fingers over the distant auras of true slaves before, felt the spikes of pain so long suppressed the barbs had turned inward, sinking into the person’s mind with the cruelty of despair. He would never have willingly given himself to the work these slaves had signed themselves to, but their willingness was real. There was no menace in this household.

In time, Hirianthial found a garden so charming he couldn’t leave it. He perched on a crumbled stone wall among flowers so tiny their blossoms seemed more like lilac spatters off a paint brush. They smelled spicy, like sandalwood and ember bark. Half a dozen orange butterflies floated among the bushes, and at his feet black lizards raced from one end of the patio to the other. With Allacazam drowsily eating sunlight at his side, Hirianthial relaxed.

“Did my son release you so quickly, then?”

“He seemed eager to arrange our rooms,” Hirianthial said, turning to look at Zhemala.

“You are overdressed for the weather,” she said. The crumbling wall had once framed a gate, and she sat on the gate’s opposite side, her gaze resting on his.

“If that was an invitation, lady, I’m afraid I shall ignore it,” he said.

She laughed, her teeth and red mouth obscured by the filmy veil that fell from the level of her cheeks. “No, old alien. It was an invitation to have water. You will need more water than you are accustomed to drinking on a dry, cold ship.”

“Water would be welcome,” Hirianthial said.

She called for the attention of a servant and sent him away for a pitcher, then turned back to the Eldritch. “Will you forgive my staring? Most people expect Harat-Shar to stare, but your people are not rumored to know much of the Pelted.”

“As you will, lady,” Hirianthial said. “Your eyes will not harm me.”

And with amusement, he observed the frankness of her appraisal and how it did not lift until the servant returned with a sweating silver pitcher and two goblets. She did not pass him his after pouring it, but set it on the edge of his side of the gate with all the practiced etiquette of an Eldritch courtier.

“I have lived long and hard and never regretted it,” Zhemala said. “But I never thought I’d see an Eldritch in the real. I would greatly love to see more of you, but if this is all I ever see then I am satisfied.”

“Are we worth so much?” Hirianthial asked with a lifted brow.

“Oh, anything rare enough is worth so much,” the Harat-Shar said. “But this... yes, this even more. Your captain is a lucky girl. But come, there is business to discuss.”

The water was cold enough to shock, cold enough to numb his mouth. He could feel it traveling all the way down his throat and into his stomach. “Business, lady?”

“My children tell me you’re a doctor, and I happen to have a particular need for a doctor at this time. If you show interest, I would offer your captain a contract for a few hours of your time a day.”

“And my duties?” Hirianthial asked, setting the goblet down.

“One of my husband’s wives is expecting and this is her first,” Zhemala said. “She is suffering from anxiety over her physical condition. A doctor would be a welcome addition to her midwife.”

He was glad he’d put the goblet down as it gave him ample reason to fold his hands together in his lap where they could not shake. He was similarly glad that Allacazam was too far and too somnolent from gorging to react to the panic that had gripped his chest. “I do not have a specialty in obstetrics, lady,” he said.