this little thing out, and then I’ll be the only whole male on this ship.
Understand?
The Chow sisters looked pleadingly at Chu Li. All right, he said. I will do
whatever you say.
There was a nearly immediate jolt from the little gun that again produced agony.
From now on, your name, the only name you will answer to, even to your friends
here, is Slave. And you will call me Master or Honorable Captain. My slave here
will refer to herself as a she at all times, and so will you all—only the
feminine will be used when referring to or speaking to her. I want her to get a
basic truth through her head once and for all.
Additionally, all of you will bow in my presence, and you, Slave, will kneel to
me, head bowed, anticipating my desires. To prevent more thefts, all of you will
go naked until we arrive at Melchior, and as extra insurance our two sisters
will continue to have their hands bound behind their backs—unless the slave,
here, fouls up and they lose sufficient fingers to be a threat no longer. What
do you think of that, Slave?
Whatever you command, Honorable Master, Chu Li responded, teeth clenched but
head bowed.
Sabatini went over to him. I know what you’re thinking, but I plan to change
that. You see, you’ve lost everything. Everything but your honor and your
dignity. I will strip those from you. You’re the only one of this bunch who
really has any. That’s why you are the leader. Before the end of this voyage,
you will break.
He sighed and dismissed the medical robot, then went back to his cabin for a
moment. He emerged soon with a set of U-shaped devices, then unlocked all chains
from Chu Li and commanded her to lie flat on the floor in a particularly
embarrassing position. The four restraints descended to hold down her arms and
legs. Then he began removing his own clothing and weapons.
He made the rest watch in anguished silence as he first performed the ultimate
indignities upon their companion. He was deliberately brutal about it, but he
clearly was enjoying himself.
Sabatini kept his slave apart from the others in a small, dark closet barely
four meters square and only a meter and a half high. The only light came from a
small grill right at the top of her box. She could not see out, and the
vibrating compartments at the rear of the cage masked any noise or movement
outside. She would be there for long, horrible periods, then suddenly taken out
and checked over to see how she reacted. Sometimes he didn’t like the slightest
thing and shoved her back. She was allowed to see her friends only in his
presence, and then she had to speak to them servilely and in a very loud voice.
Infractions were met with deprivation of food, water, and bathroom stops.
Clearly he wasn’t neglecting the other three. Deng Ho seemed lost most of the
time in a world of his own, while the two girls were vacant, listless, and
resigned.
He no longer restrained her when mounting sexual attacks, but he was even
rougher and more brutal and demanding. Early on, he’d left his shock pistol on a
table near his bed in the cabin where he had her, and she had gotten it and
fired it at him, over and over. He had just laughed. He had removed the little
charger and deliberately left it there. He then actually handed her his knife
and invited attack, but she lost the knife and her footing before she made the
fist real move. Then he had worked her over with just his hands, leaving painful
bruises that did not show on her skin, and raped her, before tossing her back in
her hole to be wakened every hour or so for an extremely long period but denied
food, water, and bathroom.
His treatment so brutalized her that when he finally let her out, she was so
sincerely servile, so letter perfect, he let her sleep. Her behavior after that
remained so perfect that he began easing up, slowly but progressively. He
cleaned the closet and disinfected it. He let her shower. He gave her good food.
A few more very minor slips brought renewed punishment, but they were the last
gasps of resistance. She found it increasingly difficult to think of anything
but the ship, her duties, her behavior, pleasing him. After a bit longer, the
only thing that mattered to her was pleasing him. He continued to leave weapons
and other things of interest to the old Chu Li around, and if she saw them at
all, she did not even think of picking them up or using them.
She began to hope that she would be so useful, so obedient, so perfect that he
would not think of turning her over at Melchior but would retain her on the
ship. He obliquely encouraged this idea, then released her forever from her
closet and allowed her to rejoin the others. She was not, however, to have any
private conversations with any of them.
The other three had been faring only a little better, with routine deprivation
and punishments by Sabatini’s pistol. It was what he had done with, and to, the
one they’d known as Chu Li that was the telling blow. If the strong, educated
one could be broken so completely without even any technological aids, then
there was no hope.
When they were twenty-three days out, although they’d lost all track of time,
Deng Ho committed suicide.
It had not been easy, but it had certainly been well planned. He did it in the
bathroom by wrapping his waist chain excess around his neck and then somehow
getting it caught up in the toilet-flushing mechanism. It must have been an
agonizingly slow strangulation, yet he had resisted all impulses to stop it and
had not cried out, even at the last.
The act shocked all three of the remaining prisoners, and it really irritated
Sabatini. He had spent so much time on Chu Li that he’d really neglected to keep
close watch on the others, and particularly on the quiet chubby boy who had
never really given him any trouble. He actually felt a little sorry for the kid,
but he was more upset that perhaps this was only the first. He doubted that Chu
Li would try it; she was too anxious to keep in good with him in the pathetic
hope that he’d keep her aboard—if he could, he would, but they’d never allow it.
Instead, he now had a black mark, and he needed a good line to get out of it.
He decided that a burial would be a nice gesture. He had no desire to build up
any more resentment. And so, after speaking some words, he’d taken the body to
the port center air lock, where the other three could watch, and placed it
respectfully inside. He was even indulgent to their reactions. You may say
farewell and whatever prayers you wish for him, he told them.
If you please, Honorable Captain, Chow Mai said, somewhat more animated than
she’d been in a long time. Where will he go now?
Normally, you would enter the air lock in a pressure suit and then pump all the
air out before going into space. I’m keeping the air inside, and I’ll pump the
pressure way up. Then, when the outer door opens, he will be launched into space
by the escaping air. He will drift in space forever.
Chow Mai, who had always liked the boy, had a few tears for him. That is good,
she responded, almost to herself. He will become one with the stars, a
constellation in the heavens.
The two girls both said prayers and farewells, but Chu Li stood back, silent.
She had found the body of the boy and had seen the grotesque face and distorted,
popped eyes. It was a haunting grotesquerie worse than anything yet experienced
in this horror odyssey.
The two sisters stepped back, and Sabatini made certain that the body was
arranged in the air lock.
Something snapped in Chu Li’s brain. The compassion of the innocent Chu Li who
had been killed; the haughty pride of Song Ching, reduced and violated; the
relative innocence of the two sisters, punished all out of proportion to their
crimes; the cruel, calculating Sabatini who personified the system’s least
common denominator; the quiet innocence and inner despair of Deng Ho, who chose
to die a slow, agonizing death rather than see or accept any more…
No, she whispered under her breath. Sabatini didn’t hear it, but the two
sisters did, and they looked at each other, then at her, not quite knowing what
was about to happen but ready to assist. Chu Li moved up behind the captain
silently. He was a good fifteen centimeters taller than she and far stronger,
but she knew that this was the moment. Risk it now, and perhaps lose, or be a
slave forever and deservedly so.
With one motion she jumped, grabbing the headphones from the captain’s head and
striking his face with the little microphone. As he was still turning in shock
and surprise, she gave him a push forward with all her adrenaline-pumped might.
He staggered, but a hand caught the side of the air lock door.
The two sisters, hands still tied behind their backs, ran at him and butted him
in the midsection with their heads. He grunted and fell backward into the air
lock, almost on top of Deng Ho’s body. He recovered quickly. Why you little
bitches! I’ll— he bellowed, but Chu Li had already begun to swing the door shut
on him. When he saw what was happening, he rushed against the door, and all
three girls lent their bodies to pushing it closed. It was fury versus
desperation, and desperation won. The door shut with a hiss, and Chu Li, while
still pressing against it, managed to turn the wheel that locked it.
I don’t care what you do—put your feet in it if you have to—but don’t let him
turn it back from that side! she shouted to the sisters, then ran to the panel.
Sabatini was lazy; she knew he would have preprogrammed the sequence, but she
had to find the right control and throw it. The sisters were having a hard time
holding the wheel by backing against it and gripping it with their hands as best
they could, but the safety lights kept flashing yellow, green, yellow, green.
There were only five buttons, and she pressed each of them in turn, but nothing
happened. She knew the sisters were weakening and that he would soon get that