Выбрать главу

Nodding tightly in agreement, Seth stood up so abruptly that his chair fell back.

Dani wasn’t as cool as she pretended, he noticed with dark satisfaction. The sound made her jump; her folded hands clenched in tension.

“I’ll leave, but I’m warning you that if I find Devora off Guild property I’m taking her,” he said. “And you might want to warn her other client that if I find out who he is, he’s mine. Tell him it’s in his best interests to stay away from her. Send the contract to my office. I’ll want full control of her when I leave at the end of the week—there won’t be any vacation and there won’t be any time off. Money is not an issue.”

With that, he turned and stalked out of the office, slamming the door behind him.

Dani let out the breath she held with a mixture of relief and trepidation. Seth was taking the contract far more seriously than she ever imagined. Calla might be in trouble.

* * *

Seth kept his promise.

Within an hour of his leaving, guards were posted at every door of the House of Lilies. Every visitor was scrutinized carefully, his entry and exits recorded in a log.

With Dani’s assistance, Devora made a formal request for temporary asylum to the House manager and governing council, which was approved on the understanding that she would leave within a week. Seth struck back. He made a formal request that she be held under house arrest, and barred from receiving any guests or visitors who were not Guild members.

It was a condition that Calla and Dani agreed to readily. The last thing Calla wanted was more attention, and her little room in the House of Lilies provided far more comfort than she’d ever experienced during her life as a slave. At Dani’s suggestion, she spent her time preparing for her trip, compiling data on everything from Imperial legal codes to star maps and cultural histories of a thousand planets on a small computer tablet. She and Jess would need the information to plan their new lives, assuming she ever found him.

She also shopped using the terminal in her room. It was a difficult process, because Dani was almost completely out of funds by then. Fortunately, she had the credits Jess had been hiding in the storeroom. It wasn’t much money, and she had to be careful to select clothes costly enough to keep Seth from becoming suspicious about her origins.

Dani had a few things that might work but she was bigger than Calla, and neither woman was skilled enough to make alterations. Calla finally decided on a mix-and-match wardrobe of attractively-cut yet sturdy tunics, pants and skirts. They flattered her figure without being too overtly sexual–the mark of an amateur, according to Dani.

To add a little spice, Dani selected a variety of lingerie that made Calla blush.

Everything from a silken, white dressing gown that covered her fully to tiny black and lace garments that left nothing to the imagination.

“Remember,” Dani told her during one shopping session. “The key is to keep him guessing. Every time he sees you, he should be wondering what he’ll find under your clothes. Are you the virgin or the whore? Are you ready and naked or will he have to unwrap you slowly? It’s a game to heighten the pleasure–make the most of it. Six months is a long time to entertain a man like that, so make your clothing work for you.”

In the end, the week went by far too quickly for Calla. She had watched the recording of Dani’s meeting with Seth, and she was nervous about seeing him again.

He’d said “full control,” something that had been emphasized in the contract negotiations that followed. Each time Dani sent over a contract, he’d send back revisions.

“Devora” would be under contract for six, not three, months. She would have no personal leave during that time. She would be available to Seth all day, every day. She would be required to participate in any and all sexual acts he requested, no exceptions.

It was hardly standard, but he had all the power. Calla’s Guild asylum would end in a week, and then he would take her whether she had the protection of a contract or not.

At least with a contract there would be a substantial sum of money waiting for her in a Guild escrow account in six months. She’d be off station, she’d be free and she’d have enough money to set herself up somewhere. Calla figured that whatever those six months held would be worth it, especially if she could find Jess.

Dani was less comfortable with the situation. Seth had her followed day and night.

Her apartment had been seized and searched twice, and her Saurellian customers were avoiding her. She was used to being appreciated by men, not punished.

* * *

On the day Seth was supposed to come and pick up Calla, Dani felt like a mother hen losing her chick. Despite Calla’s reassurances, she paced back and forth in the small House of Lilies parlor where they sat. Finally Calla actually grasped her by the shoulders, forced her to sit down and brought her a glass of fortified wine.

“Dani, I can never thank you for all you’ve done for me,” Calla said, gazing into her friend’s eyes with affection. She hated the thought of Dani worrying about her. “You’ve risked so much to help me, and I’m ready for whatever happens on this trip.”

“But honey, you need to understand this isn’t a normal contract,” Dani burst out, momentarily losing her composure. “You’re going to have to protect yourself. This man is obsessed with you, far beyond what’s normal! You’ve got to be careful, because this kind of thing can get ugly. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“I’m not sure that I do,” Calla said carefully, trying to gage Dani’s meaning. “But whatever it is, I can handle it.”

“Really?” Dani asked spiritedly. “Do you realize that men sometimes beat private contractors? There have even been murders! Usually you’re pretty safe going through the Guild, because we take contract violations very seriously. If this guy hurts you, we’ll find him and make him pay, that’s just good business. But that won’t bring you back.

You’ve got to be careful.”

“Dani, I understand that there are risks, and I also understand that this isn’t the kind of contract we’d hoped it would be,” Calla replied with feeling. “This would be a terrible contract for you, but it’s more than I’d ever dreamed could happen to me. You need to understand that.

“Remember, I was born on an imperial slave farm. It’s not like I lost my mother. I never had one. I’m the product of synthetically created human egg cells. Do you understand what that means? Do you understand how many religions don’t even consider me to be human? When I was at the hostel, Jenner could beat me any time she wanted. She could sell me to whoever she wanted, whenever she wanted. She could even kill me and no one could complain!

“I lost my crèche-brother because he was a slave. Do you know what it means to be raised in the same crèche?” Calla continued bitterly. “Fifty infants were born–expelled–from incubators on the same day. We were placed in one room, tended by two slave nurses who had raised a thousand others like us. Thirty-five of us survived the first year… it was a higher survival rate than usual. They were very pleased with us.”

“Oh, Calla,” Dani said. She was at a loss for words–she had never heard Calla’s story before, had no idea where slaves came from. She had always just assumed they were born to slave parents and were raised like other children. It was an ugly truth to confront

.

“The nurses left when we were five, and we started our training,” Calla continued, her face wooden. “We were moved into a training camp. We spent all day, every day learning to be excellent slaves. We learned how to work, we had obedience conditioning–I wouldn’t have been able to even think about escaping if Jenner had been more regular about keeping up the conditioning sessions–and we learned not to care about each other. At night we were at the mercy of the older slaves… the oldest were only ten-year-olds, but they were twice our size, and they were hard from living in the camp for five years.