“As you say.”
The man with the dataslate touched his wrist and the restraint floaters rose up and moved toward an armored hatch that peeled open in the side deck.
Ruiz Aw was the first to go down into the below-decks darkness. A familiar stench filled his nostrils: the smell of the slavehold, compounded of organic substances and the unmistakable bouquet of hopeless misery.
The hold was dank and lit only by red glowplates. After the Roderigans had secured them to bulkhead racks and gone away, no one said anything for a while. The catchboat’s engines revved and the boat began to pitch up and down in the seaway.
Finally Nisa started to speak. “Why did—”
She was interrupted by Gunderd, who spoke in a loud jovial voice. “Well, well; now we are embarked on a new and exciting life. Our careers will be whatever we can make of them, and we must never forget that our new supervisors will weigh every aspect of our behavior, so as to find the best possible use for our talents. Why, even now they probably listen and evaluate. And why not?”
Ruiz realized with a small start of surprise that Gunderd had not yet given up, that he hoped that Ruiz Aw, slayer extraordinary, might arrange a miracle and get them away from Roderigo alive.
Svin spoke in a small voice. “And what of me? My career is to be the stockyard. What does that mean, do you think?”
The cabin boy meant nothing to Ruiz Aw, but he pitied Svin. He didn’t know what to say.
Gunderd answered in the same cheerfully brassy voice he always used with Svin. “Who can say? Perhaps that is their term for their holding area, where they keep folk whose talents have yet to be gauged. Be content; if anyone can find a use for you, the Roderigans surely will.”
The cabin boy seemed somewhat heartened by Gunderd’s attempt to comfort him, though Svin would have to be improbably stupid to swallow Gunderd’s words completely, Ruiz thought. The hold had such an air of malevolent purpose; Ruiz could almost feel the ghosts of former passengers, crowding around him, touching him with cold bloodless fingers.
He shivered and tried to form a plan. Nothing came to him; he could only hope that somewhere along the line, the Roderigans would think him harmless and relax their security sufficiently to give him an opening. Unfortunately, everything he had ever heard about the Roderigans led to pessimistic thoughts. Many assassins had been sent against the Roderigan hetmen, for millions had reason to hate them. But as far as Ruiz knew, the hetmen lived as long as they chose, until the weight of their deeds bore them down into extinction.
In less than an hour, the drone of the engines dropped in pitch and the motion eased, as if they had come onto the smooth water of a harbor. The engines rumbled to an idle and then stopped. They heard the clatter of people on deck, shouted commands, the whine of windlass motors.
Finally the sounds fell away, replaced by an ominous silence.
The hatch slid open, admitting a harsh ray of sunlight.
“Good-bye, everyone,” said Gunderd. “I’ll miss your company. Even the vipers. Even Svin. Even, gods help me, Einduix the poisoner.”
“Good-bye,” said Ruiz, in a suitably tremulous voice.
No one else seemed inclined to farewells.
In the hatch appeared a pair of magnificently embroidered margar-web boots, followed by their owner, a woman in the black shipsuit of a Roderigan hetman.
She descended the access ladder with sinuous grace and turned to inspect the prisoners. For a moment she stood in the light, as if to permit their admiration.
Despite his certain knowledge that she was a great monster, Ruiz felt compelled to an abstract admiration. She had a dark harsh face, framed by an artfully wild tangle of hair falling below her shoulders. At the crown her hair was an arterial red, muting to rusty brown at midlength. At the ends it was as black as Nisa’s. Ruiz suddenly realized that the hetman’s coloring recapitulated the progressive hues of drying blood.
She wore a cluster of rubies and tiny white feathers from her right ear, and on one high cheekbone a triple chevron of thin white scars. Her body was strong and spare, without any apparent softness.
The impression was of barbaric splendor. Someone spoke in a soft detached voice. “Light.”
Overhead lamps came on, so that brilliance filled the hold and Ruiz was blinded for a moment.
When he could see again, the hetman stood before Ruiz’s floater, staring at him with stony black eyes. Another Roderigan had joined her, a man of great apparent age, white-haired and wrinkled, his body knotty with wiry muscle. He had a clever vulpine air, and eyes that darted everywhere. Ruiz identified him as the hetman’s personal tongue and security chief.
“I am Gejas,” said the man, in that incongruously gentle voice. “I speak for your new keeper, The Yellowleaf.” He made a courtly half-bow to the hetman.
She nodded and turned, to give each prisoner a deliberate expressionless look. Then she returned her cold gaze to Ruiz, who had no difficulty in adopting a look of barely restrained terror. He told himself there was no special malevolence in her attention, but he wondered why she was so single-mindedly focused on him.
A minute passed with excruciating slowness. Ruiz found her face baffling — if there was any expression at all, it appeared to be a sort of rapacious curiosity. She finally turned away and went back up the ladder, moving with a powerful agile grace. Ruiz felt an involuntary shudder run through him. He thought, She’s probably as dangerous as any creature on Sook.
Gejas waited until the hetman’s boots had disappeared before he spoke again. “Roderigo’s pens overflow with stock at the moment. You will all therefore be held in our intake area until training slots open up. It is my job to teach you to survive this initial procedure. Your survival is probable, providing you follow this simple rule.”
He gave them a small chill smile. “Never attempt to harm or disobey or annoy any Roderigan. Or you will die. Does anyone not understand? Are there any questions?”
Svin said in a small tremulous voice, “Sir? I—”
Gejas moved so quickly that even Ruiz was surprised, and before Svin could speak another word, Gejas had dexterously opened his throat, using a small sonic knife. A single spurt of blood escaped the wound before Gejas attached a self-sealing drain, which pumped away the cabin boy’s blood as quickly as it flowed, down a thin clear tube, into a receptacle at the foot of the rack.
Unable to look away, Ruiz watched the boy’s white, horrified face. Svin wheezed and choked, unable even to scream; apparently Gejas’s skillful knife had destroyed his larynx. His arms jerked in their restraints, a little blood trickled from his mouth, and then his eyes went dull, his body relaxed.
“So,” said Gejas. “A useful lesson here. The wise trainee asks no questions; he simply does what is required. A few of you may think yourselves more valuable than this person, who was destined to be meat in any case — but you should remember that there is always an empty hook waiting for you in the holds of our freezer ships. Roderigo is rich, and will survive even if we must sell your carcass to the Blades for a pittance.”
Gejas smiled again, projecting an air of repellent charm. “Now, you go to Intake. You will go sleeping; security requires that no one see more of us than is absolutely necessary.” He touched a control pad at his wrist, and an injector at Ruiz’s shoulder sighed.
Ruiz made no effort to fight the darkness.
Corean felt a huge bubble of joy well up in her chest, squeezing her heart, almost painfully. “They have him?” she asked again, breathlessly.
Marmo shifted uneasily, his ancient servomotors whining. “But consider carefully. The hetmen have set an absurd price on Ruiz Aw; furthermore, they are demanding you come to Roderigo to claim him. How can we know their purpose in this? Why will they not simply ship your properties back to you?”