“And you were supposed to believe he’d let you go free if you got the charges against him dismissed?” Tain asked with a snort of derision.
“Did he order you to be that naive?”
“He might have thought to order us to believe him tomorrow, when he came back,” Jake answered with a sigh and a shake of his head. “I noticed that some of his orders were designed more for women than for men, and there is a difference in dealing with the two genders. I think Himlin is too used to having frightened women to order around, victims who are too afraid to do anything but what they’re told to do. Even if they have the choice.”
“So the humiliation was designed to terrorize you,” Tain said with a thoughtful nod that suddenly bothered Jake quite a lot. Just how much of what was done to him and Tandro did she see…? “I can understand why a slaver would think the ploy would work, considering that you’re right about the kind of slaves he’s used to. Okay, now for my next question: what were you supposed to do here in this town?” “There’s a man in this town named Gordi, who happens to be a strong leader,” Jake responded, galled that he was being made to discuss a matter he’d kept private until now. “I was supposed to see and talk to Gordi and convince him that slavery was holding him and his people back from advancing into the modern universe. Since the man is supposed to be a bit above average in intelligence, we had high hopes for the plan.”
“What has intelligence got to do with emotions?” Tain asked, her expression showing scorn again. “If it feels good to have slaves around you and someone comes along and tells you that having those slaves is holding you back, what you’ll most probably do is ignore the someone. Having a slave who has to do exactly as you say is intoxicating, Killen, a fact you yourself can’t argue no matter how much you might want to.”
Jake would have enjoyed protesting the accusation, but he’d already been forced to admit the truth of that claim. Having someone in your complete power was a heady drug, and not even being against slavery in general was enough to keep from being enticed into excess.
“It’s come to me that what you really need to change your outlook is a taste of what you consider so acceptable for others,” Tain went on, drawing Jake’s attention again. “Can you say truthfully that your emotional reaction to slavery hasn’t been changed by what you went through?”
“No, I can’t say that and not be lying,” Jake agreed, now seriously bothered. “I disliked the idea of slavery before, but now I’d kill or die to keep it from happening to me again.”
“And the only way to be absolutely certain that you can never be enslaved again is to make sure no one can be enslaved,” Tain said, smiling grimly as she nodded. “You as an individual may be safe today, but as long as it’s possible to enslave someone you might suddenly find your safety gone tomorrow. Does this strong leader you mentioned have friends or enemies with as much influence as he does?”
“I’m sure he does, but I don’t know who they are,” Jake answered, glancing at Tandro where he lay on his stomach on his own blanket.
“Tandro only knew about Gordi, so he was the one we meant to talk to. If we can talk Gordi around, and there’s a good chance of that in spite of your point being valid, he ought to call in the others and let us talk to them as well.”
“I’m not as big a fan of calm conversation as I used to be,” Tain remarked, looking into her coffee cup before draining it. “I’m more of the opinion that one good experience is worth a million words instead of a thousand, not to mention twenty-five words or less. If the man really doesn’t want to hear what you have to say, you’d be lucky to get in even as many as twenty-five words. Risdin, you and I need to talk.”
And with that Tain walked over to the native woman and began to speak to her in tones too low for Jake to hear. He was being shut out of Tain’s plans just the way he’d shut Tain out of his, and Jake found that he didn’t like it any more than Tain had. “What’s going on, Killen?” Tandro asked from where he lay only a couple of feet away, his expression as calm as it usually was but agitation showing in his eyes. “Are we going to be free, or have we simply exchanged owners?”
“I’m sure we’ll be free, but the question right now is when,” Jake answered, speaking as softly as Tandro had. “I wanted to go straight home, but if there’s a chance we can end slavery before we go then I’m willing to wait. Do you feel differently?”
“I can’t decide,” Tandro admitted, defining the agitation Jake had seen.
“I want to be free as soon as possible, but now that I know that drug will work on me as well as it does on women my familiar world suddenly scares me. How can I go back to living a normal life if that life can be stolen from me with very little effort? If your woman needs us to tell Gordi how bad being a slave is from the male point of view, I know I can be more than a little convincing.”
“You and me both,” Jake agreed, suddenly noticing that the woman Risdin had made a fresh pot of coffee as the aroma of the fresh brew began to fill the room. “If having us speak to Gordi of what we went through is part of Tain’s plan, I’m hoping she doesn’t ask us to go into real detail. Talking about it won’t be quite as bad as having lived it, but I don’t expect the experience to be pleasant.”
“You really do like understatement, don’t you,” Tandro commented dryly, then he shook his head. “I’m trying very hard to forget those details you mentioned, but looking at your woman isn’t making the effort easy. That insertion isn’t affecting me any longer, but the outfit your woman is wearing is bringing back some of what we weren’t allowed to relieve. And speaking of women, where’s the girl?”
“Ennie must be safe, or Tain would hardly be acting so unconcerned,” Jake assured the other man, bothered that he hadn’t noticed the girl’s absence himself. What he had noticed was the costume Tain still wore, but he’d finally remembered how to control himself. Without the insertion egging him on, controlling his reactions was no harder than standing on his hands for an hour would be. The effort would exhaust him, but it was possible…
And thinking about other things helped a good deal. With that in mind, Jake concentrated on the aroma of coffee brewing to blot out awareness of how badly he wanted to take Tain in his arms and make love to her…
“We now have a workable plan,” Tain told Risdin as soon as she’d moved far enough away from the men to make the conversation private. “If the only way to make men eager to end slavery is to force them to experience the state, we now have the perfect man to start with. As soon as we make Gordi ours we’ll get a list of names from him, then we’ll do the same with as many of the men on the list as we can.”
“That’s a great idea, but I’m afraid there’s one small thing wrong with it,” Risdin said, her expression not quite ridiculing. “We could convince
Gordi if we could get to him, but we have no way of getting to him.
Inviting him to come visit and be enslaved probably won’t work.“
“That all depends on how you word the invitation,” Tain countered, then waved away Risdin’s immediate protest. “I’m just joking. I know you and your people can’t get to Gordi, but Killen and I ought to be able to.
We’re trained for this kind of thing, but we won’t be able to do it tonight. Killen is hurting too badly and we all need to get some sleep, not to mention the fact that we have to stay out of that slaver’s way. Is there some place other than here where we can all hide out until tomorrow night?“
“You think there’s a chance we’ll be found in this room?” Risdin asked, now looking faintly worried. “The others and I have always been safe here, so what makes you think that won’t continue to be the case?”
“As soon as the slaver finds Killen and Tandro gone, he’ll probably have his men search everywhere in the immediate neighborhood,” Tain explained patiently. “He’ll know that his former victims were too hurt to go very far, so he’ll search hoping to find them again. And since he’ll certainly be back first thing in the morning, we’ll be best off not waiting to go elsewhere until his men are knocking on the door.”