Part 13 (2/2)
”Nudity does not seem to bother you,” he observed.
She shrugged-with her shoulder, not her hand, watching his eyes; Matching him watch the tightening and jump of her breast. She sat in the chair, which was padded and brown and which surprised her by yielding only a little.
”It doesn't,” she said. ”It isn't my fault.”
He laughed. ”Delightful! But nudity becomes you.”
”Nudity becomes no one,” she told him. ”We can all use a bit of decoration. Especially in the presence of someone else who is clothed.”
”I am not often contradicted.''
After regarding him for a brief moment she slid from the chair onto her knees, lowering head and forearms sinuously to the floor. ”Pardon, O Master, for treading upon your vaunted and vaulting ego. Shall one speak only when spoken to, and then softly and only in agreement?”
His laugh was deep, from his belly. It seemed the 171.
genuine, hearty sound of a man fond of laughing who perhaps had too little genuine opportunity. ”No,” he said, ”be yourself. Yourself is delightful.”
Which was interesting, Janja thought, inasmuch as she was not herself. At least whoever/whatever he thought her self was.
She rose as sinuously and slid her bare backside into the chair in a fluidly supple movement. She studied the manacles that gleamed bluely on her wrists.
”My lord was pleased to give me bracelets.”
”They ill become you. Tell me about you.”
”What? Surely I have told all, during all that torture and dying in your clever-evil psychoid chamber! And under an injection or three, too, I've no doubt. And hypnosis as well?”
”Tell me one more time, then. Consciously, voluntarily.”
”Drink and stik?”
”Rain and Heaven High?”
She nodded and he dialed. They waited, regarding each other in a reflective silence, until the table delivered up their drinks. And a packet of Heaven High. She sipped the Terasaki Rain, nodded with pleasure, scratched a HevHi stik alight and inhaled it.
”Terasaki emjay,” she said in a strained voice because she was holding, ”will never replace the Home-world original.”
”Homeworlder grape juice,” he said, ”will never replace Terasaki wine.”
”I've no argument. All right: I am Jansa. My Outie name is a lie. I was born on Aglaya, where we used only one name. 'Daughter of would form the rest. One day three years ago my Promised and I were alone on the savannah, without cover. A s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p's lander appeared. We did not even know what it was. They killed 172.
Tarkij. I'd never seen a stopper before, either. They returned me to Kirin, s.h.i.+eda commanding. When he learned that I was not virgin, he used me. He sold me in Sopur. I was bought by a longhauler-an IP s.h.i.+p, and sold on Hawking, out near Homeworld. I had a decent enough life there, but it lasted all too short a while. My owner died and I was taken to Resh. I was bought by Si-cuan for his son Chulucan-”
”The part hardest to believe,” Ramesh Jageshwar said.
Good, the mused, you've accepted the false part, then! ”Huh! You ain't heard nothing yet.”
”I've heard it all, several times,” he reminded her. ”It's the next part that is so hard. ”Go on.”
”I wish I had specified two drinks: I could do with stronger.”
(The soporific effect of the Heaven High, un-offset by the gentle wine of ungentle Terasaki, had muted the brightness of the sky beyond the transparent wall, mauved the mountains, made his face even younger, and alerted her senses to the fibers of the carpet.) Seeing him dial another drink, she went on: ”They'd done something to me-they can do a lot of things, on Hawking 'way out near Homeworld-so that I appeared nearly virginal, for whatever that's worth. It didn't matter to Chulucan. He had no use for my stash anyhow. That slimeskunger liked women only for the entry we have in common with you men-and our warheads.” A sudden flash of Daura hit her, and Janja slapped her breast idly. Both of them watched its tremulous dance. ”I was there seven months. Believe me, the sisterslicer who designed your psychoid chamber could have taken lessons from that gentle priest and his son. I'd call 'em two-legged felines, but I've met 173.
one of those and the HRal aren't nearly as cruel. Not nearly.”
She accepted the drink that popped up on the table-top. It was strong, and she made a face. She sipped twice.
”Why-this's from out there-Hawking or Home-world! This's Scotch!”
”Very good,” he said, nodding. His eyes seemed hooded.
A test, she thought, and affected not to be aware of it. She had pa.s.sed. ”My opportunity came. They were going to kill me that night. Once I learned that, I killed the old man and his son-”
”Details?”
Janja provided them, including the way she had thrust the slavetube into that orifice she had in common with Chulucan of Resh. He asked about the missing genitals. Janja explained about Aglayan rites. He nodded, then asked about s.h.i.+eda's genitals. She expressed regret that she had not got that close to him. She told of the Jarp she had left locked up, about her being grabbed in the narcohead alley in Grim on Resh because she was too ignorant to stay out of such a place; she told him about her fellow Aglayan Whitey, and about her being befriended by the hust Kitsko, about her being taken in and housed at Kitsko's. Because of Whitey, whom they called Flash. She told him of the s.p.a.ceflight off Resh, disguised, accompanying Whitey/Flash to Franji.*
”WhyFranji?”
”Have I failed to say? I had vowed to kill s.h.i.+eda,” she told him with a little shrug. ”I've been en route to * All these events are detailed in s.p.a.cEWAYS #1, Of Alien Bondage.
174.
our meeting for three years, in a manner of speaking.”
”And you found him on Resh.”
”On Aglaya. On my own planet.” Another test? d.a.m.n. What did he know, this man with the eyes that seemed to see right into her and right out the other side?
”Oh yes. And you killed s.h.i.+eda then, back where he had found you. There's a lot of poetic justice in that.”
”I suppose. Was s.h.i.+eda your man?”
”Neg. s.h.i.+eda was an independent. I can't think of anyone who will miss him.” He flipped his fingers. ”Anyhow-you got to Franji, and ...”
”On Franji I met a man in a bar called Hari's and robbed him. Then I set about learning some things. I studied a lot. I met a s.p.a.ceman named-never mind. I'll tell you if you demand it. I became his mistress-not by choice. Also his fellow crewmembers, all except for the Jarp. I like Jarps. Despite their reputation they aren't nearly the rapists you Ga-pardon me. Not nearly the rapists Galactics are.”
Again he shrugged with his fingers. ”All right. We are. It is an ancient tradition among us humans, rape. It's sanctioned in the same ancient holy books that forbid it. So then what? I don't care about his name, by the way.”
”Well, he's dead. I'm afraid I had to kill them. With their money and s.h.i.+p I outfitted a better s.h.i.+p-Hornet. I even recruited a few of his crew. They thought we were simply going aslaving, by the way, and had no idea that I went to my own planet to trap s.h.i.+eda. I couldn't enslave Aglayans.”
”Really. Why's that?”
She gave him a steady look. ”I can't enslave my own. I'm a sentimental a.s.s.”
He smiled. ”I can stand that. I know about sentiment, believe it or not. Why Aglaya?”
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