The Love Farmer
by Ray Aldridge
ONE DAY, ARRIANGEL was a free citizen of Dilvermoon — wealthy, beautiful, and quite happy.
Then she woke in a strange, narrow bed and looked up to see a bland-faced stranger bending over her.
"Ah. You're with us," said the stranger, in a whispery voice. He smiled with his mouth, but not with his eyes.
She tried to sit up; he pressed her back and slapped a narcosack against her neck. Her muscles melted into uselessness.
The stranger spoke again. "It's my duty to inform you that you are now the property of Specialties, Inc., a subsidiary of SeedCorp/Dilvermoon."
When next she woke, she was alone.
A day passed, then another. Her cell was comfortable enough, though not luxurious. There was a formfit bed, a holotank, a hygiene stall, and several paintings on the walls. These small canvases depicted pastoral scenes, painted in a smooth, impersonal technique. Smiling young men and women tended gardens full of flowers and fruit-laden trees. All were wholesomely attractive, and this was even more apparent because all were naked. When she looked closer, she saw that they all wore thin explosive slave collars, disguised as fashionable silver chokers. She shuddered and turned away.
The room was wedge-shaped and from all three walls projected the glassy snouts of holocam imagers. This, she thought, was the least palatable aspect of her captivity — even now, strangers watched her and judged. She wondered that she had so quickly grown used to the unseen eyes. She had even grown used to the idea that the watchers were with her when she visited the stall.
She tried to adopt a philosophical attitude. It could, after all, be very much worse. Arbrand might have sold her to a chop shop, or to one of the exty traders that infested the human sectors of Dilvermoon. She thought back over the events of the past few days, trying to see what had made Arbrand do what he had done.
Arbrand... it was difficult to believe he had enslaved her simply because she was no longer romantically intrigued by hifn. He had seemed so well-mannered, not at all the sort of person who would perform so dire an act. And she had broken off such relationships before. Many times.
She shook her head. Arbrand was certainly mad; no other explanation was possible.
She remembered his white face, his bleak eyes, the odd choking sound he made when she told him that she could no longer see him. She thought she had explained her decision with a generous degree of courtesy and tact. Certainly she had tried to be civilized. But in the next instant, he had seized her hand. She thought he was only going to attempt some desperate gallantry, so she hadn't tried to pull away until it was too late. He had pressed a sinjector against her wrist, and that tiny cold pain was the last thing she had felt, until she had awakened in the slave pen.
Arriangel went now to the mirrors that opened like silver wings in one corner, and looked critically at her reflection. She touched the comer of her jaw, brushing back the thick, honey-gold hair. She rubbed at the empty spot where her Citizenship tattoo had once been. She wondered how Arbrand had managed to remove the tattoo so swiftly and completely. Well, he was an extremely wealthy young man, with resources equal to ¦i I most any task. She held up her wrist. Its smooth white skin was unmarked over the spot where her datacyst interface had once been. Not only was she a slave ... she was a penniless slave.
She decided to stop thinking about Arbrand.
A long time later, a rattle came from the door. It swung open, to reveal a black-masked turnkey and a tall, red-haired man. The turnkey bowed the tall man inside, then stepped out and closed the door.
Arriangel observed her visitor with interest. She judged him a handsome man, perhaps even beautiful. He was muscular and moved with an energetic grace. His face struck her as unusual — a bit more strongly carved than was completely fashionable, with broad cheekbones, heavy brows, and deep-set amber eyes. His mouth was wide and smiling. His hair was of a peculiarly fiery shade, swept back from a high forehead.
"Will I do?" he asked, in a low, warm voice, and smiled even more broadly.
She looked away, embarrassed. "Are you here to buy me?"
"It's possible. Do you think you'd make a satisfactory purchase?"
She suddenly found the situation not at all amusing. It was one thing to sit alone in a comfortable room and muse abstractly on the institution of slavery. It was quite another to be confronted by a man who could own her, who could then do whatever he wished with her — rent her out by the hour, sell her piece by piece to the clonehacks... or grind her up for beastfood if she displeased him.
Always before, in her dealings with others, she had made the rules —and this she had believed to be the natural order of the universe. She felt tears well up in her eyes. How could her circumstances have changed so abruptly and unfairly?
"Well, at least you can cry. That's a good sign. You'd be surprised to know how many human beings have lost that faculty." The man spoke kindly. Arriangel was cheered a bit by his apparent civility. Perhaps she should hope that he would be the one to purchase her.
She brightened, and tried to smile.
He laughed, but it wasn't a derisive sound, not at all. "You're an optimist, too," he said. "I like that."
He sat on her bed and regarded her without speaking. He seemed perfectly at ease, as though he might watch her in that assessing manner for hours. His face reflected some pleasant but unidentifiable emotion, and she felt somehow challenged. "You know my name," she said. "Will you tell me yours?"
"Yes, of course," he said. "I've been rude, Arriangel. My name is Memfis."
She smiled at him, as warmly as she could. She suddenly felt herself on more familiar ground. She tossed back her hair, and leaned against the wall, thrusting out her hip, a maneuver that she knew shaped her body into an alluring line.
Memfis the slaver seemed to appreciate her skill. His gaze traveled slowly up and down, and when he was finished, his smile had some personal quality that it had not had before. Her confidence rose a bit.
She decided to attempt bribery. "I was a Citizen," she said.
"Oh?" Memfis seemed only mildly interested.
"Yes. If you buy me, I can guarantee you a fat profit. All you need do is contact my family." She looked at Memfis, quirked an eyebrow.
He continued to smile, but she had the feeling that she was failing to make herself understood. "Is that so?" he asked.
She was slightly annoyed. "Yes, it's so. My demifather is Larimone the Factor?" Memfis looked away, rubbed at his chin, as if struggling to remember.
She was quite irritated now. "Surely you don't pretend that you've never heard of Larimone?"
He stopped smiling, and fear stabbed through her. She couldn't seem to remember her new station. Would the slaver punish her?
But he didn't seem angry. "I remember now," he said soberly. "Larimone the Factor. Of course. He died in the Adjustment, and his corporation was redistributed."
She felt a breathless, uncertain grief squeeze her heart. "Larimone is dead? Truly dead? Oh, oh .... When did it happen?"
Memfis drew a deep breath, looked unhappy. "I'm not sure. Four hundred years ago? Five hundred? I don't know. I'm sorry to have spoken so bluntly, but you must sooner or later learn the truth of your new circumstances."
Her muscles turned to jelly, and she slid down the wall. She hugged her legs to her body and hid her face. What had happened?
"The man who sold you to Specialties put you on ice for a long time. What was his name?" The slaver's sympathy seemed oddly genuine.
"Arbrand," she muttered.
"Arbrand. Yes. This sort of thing happens frequently in vengeful e nslavements; it separates the victim from the possibility of rescue, and i lie passage of time works other unpleasant effects."