Slaves of Elysium (17 page)

‘And how long will that take?' Rebecca demanded.

‘Ten, twenty years, maybe more.'

Rebecca looked horrified. ‘I can't wait that long! I'll be old!'

Cath frowned in thought, looking at each of them intently, and when she spoke again it was as though she was choosing her words with care. ‘There's something about Elysium that I haven't told you before, but you'll notice soon enough for yourself when you're allowed out into the city, so you'd better know now.'

‘Is it something bad?' Jeni asked.

Cath smiled. ‘No, quite the reverse, but it's strange and takes some getting used to. You won't see many children and no old people, at least nobody who looks old the way you think. Elysium has a very low birth rate, just enough to keep the population steady. Medical science has been practiced for a long time here and has become very advanced. It can keep you young and healthy far longer than back home. And slaves get the same treatment as everybody else. You've probably already had the starter shots, along with a sort of combined broad spectrum inoculation and long-term contraceptive. You don't have to worry about social diseases or getting pregnant here.'

Jeni was gazing at her in surprise. ‘We did have some injections. Was that what they were for?'

Rebecca interrupted, her eyes bright with wonder and urgent curiosity. ‘How long do you stay young for?' she demanded.

‘Well it's not fixed, but I have heard of people over three hundred years old.'

‘Oh, my God!' Rebecca exclaimed.

‘So you see, even if you have to serve twenty years before you earn your freedom, you'll still look just the same as you do now.'

Jeni was smiling. ‘That sounds wonderful. Thanks for explaining it to us, Cath. It will make things easier.'

‘It's really true?' Rebecca asked, as though still having trouble believing what Cath had said.

‘You'll soon see for yourselves,' Cath said. She shrugged. ‘For instance, how old do you think I am?'

‘Twenty,' Rebecca guessed, taking in Cath's slim figure, firm breasts and unlined skin. ‘Maybe twenty-two.'

‘I was twenty-three when I came here. And that was twenty-six years ago. I'm almost fifty.'

 

 

 

An hour after Cath had gone, Jeni and Rebecca were still trying to adjust their thoughts to accommodate her startling revelation. Then a guard entered to prepare them for transfer to slave school, bringing with him something that temporarily turned their minds from abstract matters: two pairs of white strappy sandals.

Jeni fell upon them with almost as much delight as Rebecca.

They were the first items of proper clothing they had been allowed since their arrival, and the simple pleasure of putting them on was beyond measure. They walked up and down their cell under the guard's indulgent and amused gaze, getting used to the feel of footwear once again and admiring them like little girls with their first adult shoes. That the sandals were simply made and no doubt a standard slave issue did not matter. They were being allowed to dress once again, however minimally.

And the other items the guard brought reminded them that their status remained unchanged. First were metal chastity belts. Jeni shivered as the cold, curving metal thong was pushed between her buttocks and the triangular plate, with its small guarded hole to pee through, pressed against her pubes. The broad waist strap was locked tightly about her middle just below her navel and she was secured.

Its weight and rigidity made it impossible to ignore, even though it was not actually painful to wear. Jeni felt a delicious thrill of alarm at the thought that she could not remove the device that enclosed her so intimately. It made her more helpless and controlled than ever. She saw Rebecca barely concealing a look of disgust as her belt was clamped around her. How shamed she must feel to think that a Lamont should be subjected to the indignity of wearing such a primitive device intended to curb her sexual activity. A touch of a controller button and their wrist cuffs pulled their arms round behind them until they clicked into place at the back of the belts.

Finally, transparent gag bridles were put on them. Jeni surrendered to the pressure of the straps as they encircled her face and head. She realised that for the first time each of her major orifices was plugged or sealed over. Somebody else would decide when she could use them to eat or drink, to excrete, or to have sex.

As they were led out of the small white cell that had been their home for almost a month, Jeni felt an odd sense of disorientation. They were leaving behind the certainties of the prison routine and the pleasure of Cath's regular visits. What would take their place?

Three other girls, similarly restrained, were waiting in the corridor in a tight line, linked by short rods that resembled slender dumbbells with ball-like ends, which were force-locked to their collars. Presumably they were also destined for slave school. How odd, Jeni thought, that she had exercised with these girls every day, yet she did not know any of their names. Like herself, the only identification they bore were prison numbers stamped on their chests.

Jeni and Rebecca were added to the line, with Rebecca at the head and Jeni at the rear. The spacing rods clicked against their collars, allowing them to turn sideways, but holding them rigidly spaced in their line. And there they were; five naked, bound slave girls all in a row. There was a name for such a thing, Jeni remembered. A coffle, that was it. They were going to be taken to slave school in a coffle.

A guard took up position at the front and another at the rear. The leading guard pointed his controller at Rebecca, and her right foot immediately stepped forward. Jeni felt her own right ankle cuff twitching to follow and she let it guide her. Left, right, left, right. Out of the cell block they marched in perfect time, the bars linking their collars allowing almost no give, compelling them to move as one. It was as though they had been merged into a single creature with five pairs of legs and no will of its own.

They marched out through a ground floor lobby set in the middle of the base side of the Erekthion, past a steady flow of people dressed in the same mix of tunics and uniforms Jeni had seen when they were first brought in. When they were halted to let others pass the coffle marked time on the spot mechanically, their new sandals slapping softly on the stone tiling like some clockwork toy.

When the way was clear, they passed under a wide portico supported by square stone columns and out into the open air. They were turned left, still keeping in step, and headed off down a broad street away from the Erekthion which rose above all other buildings. Jeni blinked in the bright warm sunshine as she was marched along, turning her head this way and that as far as she dared to try to take in the sights. Though they had lived in the middle of Ceroth for so long they had only glanced the city proper briefly from the air.

The main streets were of uniform width and were paved with rosy sandstone slabs. They seemed to be entirely given over to pedestrian traffic, with no provision for wheeled vehicles. The reason why was soon apparent as a flying disk of a similar design to the one that had captured them glided soundlessly and sedately overhead, following the line of the streets. Perfect duel purpose use of space, Jeni thought. And assuming whatever mysterious power supporting the flying disks did not fail, no risk of traffic accidents.

The buildings flanking these boulevards were mainly of simple block design, two or three storeys high, with almost featureless external walls except where they were pierced by a few narrow slit windows and ground level awning-covered entrances. These, Jeni guessed, were shops, from the signs and devices hanging on the walls outside to advertise their wares. Her facility with the written language was not yet sufficient for her to be able to read the signs at a glance, but a pair of boots clearly suggested a cobblers, and a sheaf of corn a bakers.

Most of the roofs were flat as far as she could see, but some showed the curve of domes or had light canopies strung over them to ward off the sun. Jeni saw nothing like open front gardens and wondered if the inhabitants of Ceroth, like others living in similar climates, invested all their horticultural interests in roof gardens or internal courtyards.

Reinforced by the high angle and clarity of the sunlight, the impression grew that Ceroth had the easy cultured atmosphere of some ancient city on the Mediterranean coast, miraculously repopulated by people of the past. A few wore broad-brimmed hats and anachronistic sunglasses, but otherwise their tunics reminded her of reconstructions of ancient Egyptian or Incan costumes, while a few women in light flowing gowns with looping cords forming bodices conjured up the fashions of the Greeks or Romans. But which came first? If Elysium was as ancient as Cath had said, and its influence had somehow seeped into their world, perhaps those styles were in fact derived from originals that first appeared on these very streets thousands of years ago.

As she turned over these confusing ideas in her mind the coffle continued along the streets at a steady pace. They attracted a few casual glances, mainly directed at her and Rebecca's hair, but otherwise they passed without remark. The populace were apparently quite used to the presence of bound and naked flesh in their midst, as became apparent when Jeni started noticing the slaves.

There was an olive-skinned girl with a long plat of black hair hanging down her naked back from under her sunhat. Silver mesh covered her pubes, while the handle of a wicker basket was chained to her wrist cuff. She was consulting a small pad as she hurried along, as though in the middle of shopping. How bizarrely ordinary, thought Jeni.

On the other side of the street a couple ambled past with a slave girl following meekly a few paces behind, her hands locked behind her back. It was almost as though they were taking their pet for a walk. The leash the man held, however, did not link with the girl's collar, but vanished through a narrow slot in her chastity belt. How was it secured, Jeni wondered with a shiver.

A tall woman in flowing dress was leading a naked male slave by a leash of heavy chain links. He was confined on all fours by more chains cross-linking his wrist and ankle cuffs, and had to shuffle rapidly along after her, like a dog. A heavy bridle enclosed his face. On his broad back was strapped a rectangular basket half full of goods. His genitalia were tightly confined by a male version of a chastity belt made of moulded metal mesh, which looked more uncomfortable than the device Jeni was wearing.

There must be quite an industry producing all these restraints, Jeni thought. Were their different competing styles to choose from, and did fashions come and go as with other goods?

The coffle was led around another corner, and they came upon a form of transport Jeni had not seen before. Two sturdy slave girls harnessed side by side were pulling a rectangular platform about two metres wide by three long, which was piled high with crates. The platform was floating silently and entirely unsupported at about waist height. Resting on a seat mounted on the front edge of the platform, as one might sit behind a pair of horses drawing a carriage, was a slightly bored looking driver. He held what were effectively reins that were hooked to the back of the girls' collars.

So that was how heavier goods were transported around the city without actually flying them, Jeni thought. The platform was out of sight before she could take in more details, but it set her wondering at how casually such high technology was used. Did they have any wheeled vehicles in Elysium? And was the force that levitated such craft similar to the fields that controlled the slave cuffs? There were so many questions.

Her musings were interrupted as the coffle turned down a slightly narrower street and halted before the closed gates of a three-storey building slightly larger than those about it. Lettering over the heavy black double doors that served as an outer gate presumably gave its name, but the function of the place was made abundantly clear by what was above it. Where other emporia displayed replicas of their goods, the proprietors of this establishment had chosen a living sign.

Above the doorway was a circular window, over two metres across and perhaps a metre deep, backed by heavy black metal grillwork. Standing in this recess, her wrists and ankles chained to the bars behind her, was a very beautiful naked slave girl of the local copper-skinned type.

As they drew up, the girl bowed as far as her chains permitted, and called down to them in a clear voice, ‘Welcome to the House of Remnos, traders in the finest slaves by royal appointment. How may we serve you, masters?'

‘By order of the city council, I bring five female prisoners for basic training,' the lead guard said.

‘You are expected, masters,' the girl replied, bowing again. ‘Please enter.'

The gate below this living sign swung open, and Jeni felt an uneasy shiver run through the coffle, transmitted by the rods linking their collars. The girl ahead of her gave a moan of dismay and Jeni saw her fingers clench tight in the small of her back.

But there was nothing they could do. Their fate was not in their hands.

The coffle was marched through the gate, which swung closed behind them, up a covered flight of stairs and through a second barred gate. They emerged into an enclosed inner courtyard, onto which several doors and windows opened, and which did the balconies of the floor above overlook. An ornamental fountain splashed merrily amidst carefully tended flowerbeds and potted shrubs, which cast graceful pools of shade.