Bringing Stella Home (16 page)

Tamu laughed, surprising her. “Are you
scared of me, dear? Goodness! I don’t bite—really, I
don’t.”

“
It’s not that,” said
Stella.

“
Oh? Then what is
it?”

“
It’s…” Stella’s voice
trailed off. Tamu was so unlike herself—so sensual and voluptuous,
even around other women. How could she possibly understand what
Stella was going through?

“
I think I know, honey,”
Tamu said, siting up on the couch. “The first few weeks are hard
for everyone; it’s not easy to let go and start a new life. But
trust me, dear—if you keep to yourself, you’re only going to make
it worse. Come out and meet the other women. It’ll do you
good.”

Stella shuddered at the thought. From
what she could see, all the other women were perfectly content to
be playthings for the most brutal, barbaric warmongers in the known
universe. Stella never wanted to be like them, even if she spent
the rest of her life in this place.

“
I don’t think that’s a
good idea,” she said.

“
Nonsense! Come, let me
introduce you to—”

“
No. I mean, thank you, but
no.”

Tamu sighed. “All right, dear, but I’m
only trying to help. If you don’t start making friends, how do you
expect to adjust?”

“
That’s not it,” Stella
said. “That’s not it at all.”

“
Then what’s bothering you,
dear?”

“
It’s—you wouldn’t
understand.”

“
Oh? Try me.”

Stella felt weak and dizzy. She closed
her eyes and took in a deep breath.

“
It’s, it’s just—I’m not
ready to be Qasar’s—” She rolled over onto her face and buried her
head in her hands.

“
There there, honey,” said
Tamu from the couch. “Don’t cry. Most of us left someone special
behind. What’s his name?”

“
No,” Stella said quickly.
“It’s not that.”

“
Oh really? Sholpan, dear,
I’m your roommate—you can tell me anything.”

Stella hesitated. Lars didn’t have
much to do with her fear of sleeping with Qasar, but it wouldn’t be
good if Tamu thought she was hiding something.

“
Well, there was this one
guy,” she started.

“
Oooh!” Tamu’s eyes lit up,
and she leaned forward with her head cradled in her hands. “Tell me
all about him. Was he cute?”

“
Yes,” said Stella,
blushing instantly.

“
What was his name? How did
you two know each other?”

“
His name was Lars. We kind
of grew up together, I guess.”

Tamu smiled. “Aww, that’s sweet! So
when did you both realize you had a thing for each
other?”

“
Er, I don’t know,” said
Stella. She didn’t like where this conversation was
going.

“
What was that, dear? Speak
up; don’t be shy.”

“
We weren’t—that is, we
were never really together.”

“
No? Did you ever hold
hands? Kiss? Sleep together?”

“
No, no!” said Stella,
shaking her head as her cheeks flushed red with
embarrassment.

“
You never did anything
with him? Why not?”

Shut up! Just shut
up!

“
You’re blushing,
dear.”

“
No, I’m not,” Stella said,
quickly burying her face in the pillow.

“
Yes you are, honey. Did I
say something?”

“
I don’t want to talk about
it.”

“
Why not?” asked Tamu.
“What’s so difficult to talk about?”

Stella said nothing.

Tamu laughed. “Don’t tell me you’ve
never slept with a boy before. You’re young, dear, but not that
young.”

Please stop,
Stella thought to herself. Colorful shapes spread
across her vision as she squeezed her eyelids shut. She could hear
her father lecturing her on the importance of living a chaste
life.
A democratic society is only as
strong as the virtues of its citizens,
he
had told her countless times.
The power to
have children and raise a family is a precious gift, and must not
be treated lightly. No matter the decisions of your peers, you must
keep yourself pure.

“
No, I haven’t,” she said.
“I’m a virgin.”

“
A virgin?” said Tamu.
“No!”

“
Yes, I am,” Stella
whispered.

The pillows rustled as Tamu sat up.
“Oh my goodness—that changes everything.”

“
Why?” Stella asked,
looking up at her roommate.

“
Never mind that, dear;
just listen to me. I can help you.”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
Qasar’s demanding, but
he’s not hard to please. Trust me, honey; I’m his favorite. All you
need to keep in mind is that he’s a conqueror, and conquerors like
to go on the hunt. Hold back a little at first, but give him just
enough to lead him along. They like it when you play hard to get—it
gives them a sense of conquest when they reach their
climax.”

Stella’s whole body tensed, and the
blood drained from her cheeks. She couldn’t believe she was hearing
this.

“
I’m not telling you to
fight him off, mind you. Let him have his way—just don’t give in to
him at first. Make him take what he—.”

“
Stop!” Stella shouted,
covering her ears. “Just—stop!”

Tamu frowned. “Well sorry to rub you
the wrong way, sweets, but if you want to live you’d better start
thinking about it. You’ve only got one first impression, and if
Qasar isn’t pleased, life won’t be easy for you.”

As if on cue, the beads in the doorway
made a clattering noise as someone entered the room. Stella turned
in time to see Engus walk straight up to her.

“
Mistress Sholpan,” he
said, “you have summons. Two hours. Go to bathing room. Narju make
you ready.”

Stella’s face paled. A wave of sudden
anxiety passed came over her. Before she could respond, Engus bowed
and left the room.

“
Well, well, well,” said
Tamu. “Looks like you’re going to be busy tonight,
dear.”

Stella wanted to scream. She wanted
nothing more than to open her eyes and find out it was all a bad
dream. Her life had become a surreal nightmare, one from which she
couldn’t wake up.

“
I can’t,” she said, her
voice hoarse with fear. “I—I can’t do it.”

“
Sure you can, honey,” said
Tamu, patting her on the shoulder. “It’ll be over before you know
it. You’ll be fine.”

You don’t
understand,
Stella wanted to say.
To you, it may be nothing, but to me—I’d rather
die.

The scariest part was that if she
refused, she just might.

* * * * *

Ben trudged into the dimly lit Hameji
office, staring at the floor as he entered. The ever-present hum of
the station’s obsolete ventilation system faded into an eerie
silence as the door hissed shut behind him. His body ached, and his
knees were stiff from countless days of hard labor at the
dilapidated, centuries-old mining station.

“
Good morning, prisoner one
one oh nine three,” came a voice from the other side of the room,
speaking in perfect New Gaian. “Please, step up to my
desk.”

Still staring at the floor, Ben
shuffled up to the station officer’s desk. It was made of the
finest polished basalt, smooth as glass and black as the starless
deep beyond the galaxy. Ben suppressed an irrational urge to run
his hand over its fine-grained surface. Such an exquisite piece
work of craftsmanship was completely out of place in the rust-shot
hellhole of a space station.

“
Beautiful, is it not?”
came the voice—a voice as smooth and perfect as the basalt desk. “I
spared no expense in shipping it here. When entertaining guests,
one must be generous with one’s hospitality, no?”

Ben finally glanced up at the Hameji
officer. As he did, his breath caught in his throat.

The Hameji officer was tall and
slender, yet possessed an undeniably strong physique that
complemented the self-assured way in which he carried himself. His
face was unbelievably handsome, with high cheekbones, broad
forehead, and a sharp, clean-shaven chin. But the thing that caught
Ben’s attention—caught it, and held it like a vice—was the
officer’s pure-white hair and shimmering red eyes.

The albino officer met Ben’s gaze and
smiled. Except for the eyes, he could have passed as a god among
men. With the two red orbs for eyes, however, he seemed utterly
inhuman—like a demon. Ben shivered.

“
I see my unusual
appearance has caught you by surprise,” said the man. “I assure
you, I am not the monster you may think me to be. Please, have a
seat.”

Ben remained standing. The officer
reached for a stack of papers and pulled out a file, evidently with
Ben’s information in it. The lack of any computerized surface in
the room suddenly struck Ben like a nuclear flash. Why wasn’t there
any standard form of technology in this place? Though he hadn’t
been within sight of a computer terminal since his capture, he
found this realization strangely disconcerting.

“
You’ve been with us for
quite some time, one one oh nine three,” said the man. He glanced
up at Ben and nodded in admiration. “Fully fifteen prisoners from
your group have taken their own lives, in one fashion or another,
since your arrival— yet you remain.”

What the officer said was true. Each
day, it seemed, another prisoner hanged himself in the communal
bathroom facility, or flung himself into the molten steel of the
blast furnace, or opened his suit while mining the asteroid by
hand. The deaths were always gruesome, yet Ben was long past any
shock. The only image that played across his mind was of the woman
in the airlock, her body stiff and bloated, drifting out into the
endless void.

The albino shuffled his papers. “I
suppose it would be normal for a man in your position to wonder why
we still keep such an obsolete, broken-down mining station as this
in operation,” he said, “and why we waste so much human labor in
doing something that a robot could do with much greater
efficiency.”

Ben said nothing. The man looked up
from his papers and folded his hands on top of the desk.

“
But I know the truth,” he
said, his voice as smooth as silk. “You’re beyond wondering about
such things. You already know that the answer won’t change
anything. And as for your innate sense of curiosity, you no longer
possess it. It’s been beaten out of you just like the precious,
comforting truths that made your sheltered little life possible. I
know. I can see it written clearly on your face.”

Ben’s arms tensed. He met the albino’s
gaze without flinching.

“
You’re a broken man, one
one oh nine three. You no longer have a reason to live. Which begs
the question, Why haven’t you taken your own life
already?”

“
Why have you brought us
here?” Ben asked, his voice hoarse from the dust. “Why do you treat
us like cheap, mindless machines?”

The officer smiled. “A fair
question. Before I answer, one one oh nine three, let me ask you a
question. Why
shouldn’t
we treat you as anything more than expendable
labor?”

Because we’re people,
dammit,
Ben wanted to say.
Because we’re human beings, just like you.
Instead, he stared at the man in malevolent
silence.

“
You planetborn are
obsessed with the notion of rights,” the man continued. “Civil
rights, human rights, natural rights—even life itself as a right.
You trust in these ridiculously arrogant lies because you believe,
in your sheltered little world, that every man can control his own
destiny. Every man is the captain of his own soul. Every man
deserves his own place in this rich, boundless universe.

“
And yet, while you trumpet
these lies to yourself, the universe remains oblivious to you.
Would you pontificate of these precious rights to the stars and
galaxies? Do you think that the endless void cares one whit about
such things as it sucks you out the airlock?”

Ben bit his lip. His arms were
shaking.

“
Have you ever considered
the fragile and all too finite constraints on human life in deep
space?” the albino said, his voice rising. “Have you ever thought
that the tremendous cost of air and water and food that keeps you
alive might have been spent on a better man? Which is the true
crime: to consign an entire starship to death in a misguided
attempt to save the weak and the useless members of the clan, or to
let them die that the strong may live? No, one one oh nine three,
life is not a right—it is a privilege. Strength is the only right
in this universe—strength born of power, and precision, and
perfect, uncompromising efficiency.”

“
Then why do you use this
old trash heap as a mining station?” Ben spat at him.

The albino threw back his head and
roared with laughter. Ben jumped in surprise and nearly fell to the
floor, his legs had become so weak.