The best host-body on the planet: a chained Slave!
A foreman approached. Flint/Øro recognized him: Φiw of Vops, a Slave of status, harsh but fair.
“Last day, Øro,” Φiw said, raising the punishment-box. “Think you’ll make it?” He spoke in the native language, of course, but Øro’s brain rendered the meaning as though it were Flint’s own.
Silence would mean a stiff jolt of pain; a plea of contrition would reduce it. Øro had maintained stony silence through the first two days of the three-day ordeal. But Flint, knowing Øro’s cause was just if stubborn, ignored these alternatives. “Go soak your beak in acid, Φiw.”
It was a triple insult, culled from the depths of Øro’s admirably rebellious nature. Only the birdlike carrion-eaters had beaks; acid was the slang term for liquid offal brewed to high potency; and the intonation of the double bar //, or baton sinister, meant “Slave of a Slave.” In human heraldry it could suggest illegitimacy, but since Slaves had no legitimacy and no marriage, that was irrelevant here.
“Unrepentant,” Φiw remarked blandly. “That elevates the scale.” He turned the dial on the punishment-box, moving the indicator up a notch. “And foul-mouthed.” He turned the dial again.
And paused. The dial stuck; it would not complete the second notch. Φiw looked at it, startled, then turned the dial all the way down to neutral, counting clicks. “Great One!” he swore, taking the title of a Master in vain, the strongest possible expletive. “The dial’s out of adjustment! It was set on eleven!”
. Flint’s new memory made this clear after a moment of effort. Actually, this seemed to be the best mode of operation: to allow events to call forth the necessary background in their own fashion. As long as he did not try to grasp too much at once, he suffered no further nausea. The punishment-box had twelve settings, with one being minimal and twelve maximal. Øro was supposed to get a jolt of six each hour of the day and night until his scheduled ordeal was over. Contrition would reduce it to five; his insult should have raised it two notches to eight. But Øro had actually been receiving, by accident, near-fatal jolts of eleven. No wonder his soul had succumbed!
Φiw spoke into Ms Master-band. “Problem in the field, sir. Defective punishment-box.”
A melodious voice responded immediately, sounding bored. “Noted. Exchange for another.”
“Complication, sir. Convict Øro jolted eleven, not six.”
“Convict damaged?”
Φiw looked at Flint “No apparent damage, sir.”
“Administer scheduled punishment Check other boxes. Report.”
“With dispatch, sir.” Φiw lowered the box, studying Flint “Slave, you know the difference between six and eleven! Why didn’t you speak?”
But Flint, wiser now, did not answer.
Φiw went to the control center and exchanged boxes, giving the convict temporary respite. Why, Flint wondered, hadn’t Øro spoken? Why had he tolerated an appalling intensity of pain for so long, when it could have been reduced at any time? And why hadn’t Øro made the properly subservient petition for redress at the outset.
It was because he was unrealistically stubborn, and not very bright Øro would die before allowing himself to appear craven, to beg for mercy. In fact, he had died, for the pain had killed his essence. The death of a valuable, powerful Slave—for Øro was physically strong as if in compensation for his intellectual weakness—would have gotten Foreman Φiw in trouble—except that no one outside of Øro’s body knew of it. Now Flint was here, taking the place of the Slave.
All he had to do, he realized suddenly, was tell them—and he would be on his way.
Φiw returned with the new punishment-box. “Shall we try it again?” he inquired as he carefully calibrated it to Øro’s frequency.
“I’m not Øro,” Flint said. “Øro died this morning. I am an alien from Sphere Sol.”
“Unrepentant, one notch,” Φiw said. “Sarcastic; another notch. Right back on eight”
“Wait!” Flint cried. “I’m telling you—”
Terrible pain overwhelmed him. His body strained against the chains as the soul-shattering agony tore through every cell of his being. He tried to scream, but the muscles of his lungs were knotted, unable to respond.
It lasted an eternity: a few seconds stretched out interminably by the sheer volume of pain. For it was not mere surface sensation, such as that produced by the quick slash of a knife; it was complete tissue involvement, as of fire projected inside to cook the muscle and bone simultaneously. When it finally stopped, he collapsed, supported by the chains.
By the time his head cleared, Φiw was gone.
At dusk a young female Slave brought him his rations: dried burl and water.
Flint accepted the offering eagerly, for he was famished. The effort of pain dissipated much bodily energy, and part of Øro’s punishment was to endure half-rations these three days. This was rough on an able-bodied giant. Fortunately the ordeal would be over in the morning.
As his chains prevented him from feeding himself she had to put the food in his mouth, as though he were an infant or an idiot. That, too, was part of it. Pain, hunger, and shame. The three-day sentence was a thorough humiliation and discomfort, guaranteeing that 90 percent of offenders would not soon repeat the offense.
Flint searched Øro’s memory, but could not identify this girl Slave. She was extraordinarily pretty, and evidently new to this plantation. “Who are you?” he asked in the direct Slave way.
She flushed in humanoid fashion—for they were humanoid—and he realized that he had spoken too soon. His memory informed him that one did not inquire the identity of a female except as a prelude to more serious business. If she were not interested, she would decline to answer.
“I am ¢le of A[th],” she replied.
His Øro memory clicked over. Flint didn’t want to make any more mistakes! A[th] was a distant Slave planet, small but well regarded among Slaves. There had been three major rebellions there in the past century. Now the Masters were spreading A[th] all across Sphere Canopus, preventing that nest of ire from achieving critical mass.
The Masters and Slaves, his memory instructed him, had evolved on neighboring planets within the Canopus system. Both had achieved sapience at about the same time, but the presence of readily refinable metals on the crust of the Masters’ planet had given them an impetus toward technology that the Slaves lacked. Thus the Masters achieved space travel first, and came to their neighbors as conquerors. They had a tremendous need for cheap manual labor, and were quick to exploit what they found. They took care to see that the Slaves never had opportunity to learn even the most rudimentary technology, and so never gained even the semblance of equality. Thus it had been for a thousand years—and those years were longer than the years of Earth, though considerably short of the years of Flint’s home planet, Outworld. As the Masters, buoyed by this cheap labor, expanded to full Sphere status, their Slaves expanded with them, while doing all the uglier chores. Most accepted this without objection—but some resisted.
“You A[th]s have real spirit,” Flint said.
“So do you N*krs,” she said, pleased.
Flint realized that there were possibilities here. He was not about to identify himself to the foreman again—but perhaps some of the lower slaves would believe him. If he were circumspect This was as good a place to start as any.
“I am released tomorrow,” he said. “Will you work beside me?”