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Zhevra's Dance Novel

* * *
“I can still feel the callous where the hoop was,” remarked Zhevra who had reached up to feel the scar where her hoop once hung.

“Barbaric,” opined Kzaeng the Psion who got up first at the end of the day. He was followed by Allain Templeton who did not have an opinion.

Zhevra fired back, “Says the cowed Aekhu who is brightly tethered with a blue dye between his eyes and is bound by an Oath.”

Kzaeng’s mouth fell open, his canine teeth lining his tongue, “That! That is different. I chose this path. You were forced into it.”

The Suedzuk narrowed her eyes at the Psion, “Was I, telepath?”
 
VII. Regina (Spinward Marches 1910) A788899-C, Jumpspace of Zhevra’s testimony
The advocate and the Psion did not return the next day. In her cell, Zhevra was forced though to endure another one of her nightmares, brought on by her diagnosed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. She shook under the covers of her bunk almost like convulsions, alone and without Gev. She cried to herself as the shakes came on and balled herself in a fetal position. They were followed by shivers as he remembered how cold she was when she had awoken in the hospital. But Zhevra decided to tell that chapter to the advocate and the Psion later. Right now, she would keep her PTSD from the Human and conceal her tremors as best possible from the telepathic Psion.
When the shaking subsided, Zhevra decided to stretch and exercise again in the cell. If she was too dangerous to allow on the yard, in the triple sunlight of Regina, then Gev would be proud that she kept muscle tone by performing as many exercises possible here in the cell. Doing so, she recalled the nightmare from the night.

Gev was fur-only, his augments and beveled collar; the EMP shielding quality of the device protecting his delicate, internal circuitry. He beckoned to her with his index claw. Hung on the index digit was her lavender, leather collar with a gold heart pendant and round silver studs. It had a buckle closure and he held it out before him to her. With a heart of desire, she was nodding to him. Then a flash of blue washed over the jumpspace quicksilver background of the dream. Gev’s expression changed. The collar on his digit was no longer her gifted lavender. Instead, it was another slaver capture collar, the kind with painful barbs on the inside of the ring. The nightmare ended when Zhevra’s shaking startled her awake. She had begun the day crying.

Now at the end of her exercises, delivered meals, Zhevra was feeling somewhat better, the dream fading. Gev was alive somewhere, somehow. The day wore on as the Suedzuk marched in place or tried yoga or straightened her cell.

The following morning, Zhevra hid her appreciation for the return of Advocate Templeton and Psion Khzaeng. They brought her another slab of meat and vitamin supplements with her water. Together they took breakfast and Allain explained their absence the day before.

“It was the weekend day and we weren’t allowed to see you,” said Allain to Zhevra. Khzaeng just stood in his usual corner, content to have eaten.

When the recording device’s blue LED was lit, Zhevra sat back to continue her story. Allain had the folder of hardcopy open again and his pen at the ready.

* * *

After the concubines split to go study, prepare a meal in the galley or go to bed, Zhevra was spotted by Gevaudan. She was considering what skill to study, if any at all, when she scratched at a spot under her capture collar. When her claw digits came away bloody, she stood there surprised as the white Vargr came up to her. He had been watching her from afar.

“Zhevra,” he sighed at the sight. “You worked too hard on the jumpdrive field emitters. How much torque were you employing on the mounts?”

The Suedzuk looked from her hand to her current owner and answered, “It doesn’t hurt. It’s just raw. I think I scratched myself too hard, is all.”

“Uh-huh,” said the Gvegh disbelieving. “Let me have a look. I should have checked you earlier. Yep. You’ve rubbed your entire neck raw and bloody. Come with me in to the pantry. My medical supplies for the ship are in there. He then ushered Zhevra forward to the starboard side pantry next to the main airlock. In addition to the stacked laundry washer and dryer, were cabinets. Unlocking one cabinet marked with a red rod and serpent symbol the male opened it to take out sprays and bandages.

“You could just take this off and let me air. I’ll be fine.”

“Like hell in this ship’s cramped quarters,” answered Gevaudan. “I won’t remove the collar until you are sold, but I have better than cabin air, girl.” Zhevra smiled inwardly at the use of the human word, ‘girl’ as if she were some adolescent female of the species. It was an endearment and she marked it inside herself.

Using painkiller sprays, antiseptic gels and gauze bandages, the white male tended the raw ring the collar had worn and then admonished her with, “These collars are meant to keep the stock in them from fighting, athletics and other strenuous activity. Your hours-long recalibration of the emitters rubbed the barbs past your neck ruff to the skin. See?” His touch was administrative of the stinging treatment, trained to a rating in Medical. Yet, his extremities were gentle even with his black, male’s, unmanicured claws. Gentlemanly. A flush of alien desire blushed in her solar plexus but subsided.

“I guess I did not register them until the itching started,” Zhevra offered.

“This is why I wanted the ladies to learn peaceful skills from the terminals,” explained the slaver. “Nothing overly active, you see now. If you are truly rated in Starship Engineering, be a good servant and tell me about the heavy-duty tasks instead. I too am rated in all my drives. Understand? You’re precious and that neck need not be ruined.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Zhevra meekly. He was cute in that moment. Sincere, like her sire had been in her youth. She smiled and let Gevaudan wrap her neck under the collar. She at first thought his ‘precious’ meant monetary value in his slaves, but after his speech about not needing profits from the sale of them to the Society of Equals, the notion was discarded for the nicer definition. And there was that tingle of desire again.

“That ‘sir’ crap is not going to get you ice cream or some other dessert,” Gevaudan continued sternly. “Stay away from hard work. You might not be a concubine, but for me, act like one. I can keep my paws off a concubine in my stateroom.”

She snickered as he smiled, his ocean blue eyes flashing under the pantry lights. It was his eyes that did it. A random curiosity caused her to ask Gevaudan a question about him. “Are you an albino, Gevaudan?” she asked. “I’ve never encountered a pure white Vargr in my travels from the Enclaves before.”

The Courier tilted his head humorously and smiled. In answer, he explained, “It’s hypomelanosis and no, I’m not an albino, else my eyes would lack their blue. You never took classes in Medical, did you?”

Zhevra shook her head no. Now she was embarrassed to have asked.

Gevaudan nodded and added, “My sister, the white female in the picture above my stateroom terminal, is just as white. We came from the same litter.” He pointed to his nose, indicated his hands and said, “Blue eyes, black nose, pink skin with black extremity pads. It is however a recessive gene in my family tree coming from my dam. The rest of Pack Cannagrrh comes in a variety of light grays and mottled dark gray.” He then shrugged off the question, having answered it. “And you? Are all Suedzuk this deep red-brown?”
 
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Zhevra looked at the parts of her pelt that were the signature Suedzuk and answered, “Most. We stand out in any crowd, marked for hate since the Sack of Gashikan. But I don’t hate my coloration, Gevaudan. I am who I am and not the bad things said about us. But, yes, most of us are this red and cream and come in various shades.” She yawned, tired.

“Off to bed with you,” said Zhevra’s current owner. “Plenty of time as we transit jumpspace to choose a skill from the Library.”

The two left the pantry, Zhevra ducked into the captain’s cabin while Gevaudan returned to the cockpit bridge. Inside his stateroom, she took a second look at the photo print of Gevaudan’s sister. She was dressed in a golden cape which framed a reflective once piece covering her torso, abdomen and ended in a waist high bikini. She wore a rounded, silver collar. A bracelet that dangled a large, octahedral, crystal spindle rode one wrist while an oval gem rode a silver wrist bracer on the opposite forearm. Her center forehead was adorned with a second oval ruby that was dangled there between two tiny chains leading to two circlets of gold that rounded the base of each ear, a pair of ear-cuffs. She was young adult in the picture and seemed to be celebrating some promotion or new career.

In the upper left corner of the same image was captured a titanium sphere of a floating robot drone hovering within the shot. Zhevra assumed that Gevaudan was the photographer since he was not in the image. She looked like a female version of Gevaudan only less bulky and lither. His sister’s tail was bushy, more so than her brother’s. Her pelt was meticulously trimmed to sharp edges as if she were used to being in front of a camera.

Moving the wall magnets holding the picture to it, Zhevra removed the picture and turned it over. Guessing correctly, she saw Gvegh words in what was readily apparent to be a female’s flowing script. The Suedzuk was unable to yet read Gvegh though she saw similarities in the alphabet. Sentence structure was still too difficult for her. She thought that there was a date written immediately after the caption, but could not make it out. Simple doodles of ink pictures punctuated the written script. Smiling with a tinge of envy to have a sibling, Zhevra returned the photograph to the wall above the computer.

Then the bed was too inviting to ignore any longer. Slipping out of the work overalls, Zhevra pulled back the covers and climbed into the bunk. It smelled of Gevaudan, his scent stored in the mattress, covers and his pillow. His light musk was without colognes or other fragrances. The laundry detergent smell was background to his. Better to use an unscented cleaner in the pantry, she decided. The alien desire again threatened to rise out of her solar plexus and up and down her spine, but weariness claimed her. She had been awake since before she was presented on the tarmac for sale to the crowd of bidders. Before falling asleep, Zhevra whispered to herself, “A good owner, this Gevaudan Cannagrrh.”

The rest of the time “in the hole”, Zhevra noted that Gevaudan was silently pleased that she was running Piloting simulations from the terminal in his stateroom. He said nothing about the course, but his Mag told her otherwise when he leaned over her shoulder to observe the current lesson. “Watch the atmospheric pressure when you begin your descent for skimming,” he added to the monologue of the computer instruction. “It will help you determine the best approach for refueling.”

Zhevra nodded, on final approach to a gas giant while piloting a simulated version of the Sixth Horizon Far Scout. Then she heard him duck into the shower because she could not turn to look away from her flightpath. He had quickly stripped and darted to the fresher perhaps too shy to be seen fully unclad. Zhevra smiled in that she had already seen his wet bar statue in the portside jumpdrive section. She thought to ask him about the sculpture, but deviously waited until he emerged from his shower, clean and ready to take a meal in the galley. Then she could finish her simulation run and corner him.

Zhevra had been wearing her crimson concubine’s dress since her other clothes were in the laundry in addition to his. This day had been their turn to wash clothes in the pantry. When Gevaudan was to select their meal, she would extract the dry clothes. But for now, she let the loose dress hang precarious as she rose from a successful gas giant atmosphere skimming to refuel the virtual ship.

Not one to spy on the Captain, Zhevra instead straightened the stateroom and gathered Gevaudan’s flight suit to deposit in a laundry bin next to the closet. A shower was still to her a blessed private moment from the workday. She valued it and gave the same respect to the white Vargr grabbing for his towel. Tactically, he stepped from the shower, somewhat toweled-off with the terry cloth wrapped about his hips and over his waist. The statue was not lying, Zhevra thought, though how he knew where she was in the stateroom without looking from the shower first was a minor oddity compared to the rest of his exposed form. He smiled at her when he noticed his clothes were no longer on the floor where he had discarded them. His blue eyes wandered over her dress as if to volley her opportunity to watch him get dressed. His tail wagged as if it had a mind of its own.

“Let’s not be messy if we are to share a room, roomie,” she said as she nodded to the locker where his extra clothes were kept. “By the way, don’t you have to be water tight with your augments?”

“Only the wafer jack,” answered Gevaudan who turned his head to show the port in his skull plugged with a watertight rubber cap. “Everything else is either biological augments like the subdermal armor or is already watertight and internal to begin with. If I keep the jack clean and dust-free, I don’t get a pixelated interface with the ship.”

Zhevra’s face perked to the new information involving Gevaudan’s cybernetics. She watched him dress from near the door to the cabin.
He was shy, but when it came down to it, he did have to dress. Gevaudan made quick work of a black mesh underwear and a ballistic armored cloth, one piece number also in black which contrasted his white pelt. Running a fur brush through his facial, skull, neck ruff and mane, Gevaudan turned and asked, “Okay for a galley date, ma’am?”

The male could clean up given his limited wardrobe of a lonely Spacer. “Yes,” she said then asked him, “Hungry?”
 
Gevaudan in black nodded eagerly. He finished his grooming in a mirror then gestured toward the door. Zhevra stepped from the cabin and diverted toward the finished laundry in the dryer as her ‘date’ went to select a meal from the galley stores. When she had cleared the pantry for Arksouel and Dhaeos to use, she delivered the dry clothes to the captain’s cabin. She could smell the dinner Gevaudan was preparing as she folded and put away his clothes first and then her loaned work overalls, her bra and undies. Stepping from the cabin and aft to the galley, she looked about for any of the other females. The other five were busy with lessons, practice with Vincent or Bob or were asleep in the passenger staterooms. Alone then, she began the date conversation with a request.

“Tell me about your statue in Engineering,” Zhevra said, “the one of you holding a planet on your shoulders.”

Gevaudan nearly choked at the opener request, “I-I knew I should have put that in the maneuver drive room.” He sighed at her wicked grin. That smile told him that Zhevra had seen his likeness in full display. She made sure of it. He blushed pink under his white facial fur.

“Tell me?” she asked as she dug into her meat.

“It was a good five years of employment to a mercenary group that did civilian jobs and clandestine missions just as a war broke out, played its course and ended,” Gevaudan began. “I was hired on initially as a Navigator on a Free Trader, but was later asked to cover both Pilot and Navigator positions on an 800-ton Broadsword.”

“You flew one of those Sword Worlds ball ships?” asked Zhevra, interrupting at the name of the class of Mercenary Cruiser.

“It was clunky, but yes,” continued Gevaudan by pointing his utensil at Zhevra’s food to indicate she should eat and listen to him. Zhevra complied. “We had many adventures and mishaps in those years before I was banished back to Gvurrdon Sector. Before you interrupt again, I won’t tell that tale yet. Just know that I came back here in this ship I designed as a variant. Augmented in the Darrian Confederation back then, I could fly a starship by use of my Ship Integration rig, cybernetic control by attention and decision alone. I returned my Sister-Dame, Qiktha is her name, to the Dzen Aeng Kho so as to put her on the throne as Alpha of Pack Cannagrrh. She would have never agreed to ending her career as a field Journalist and Entertainer if I had not tricked her that day she stepped from my ship along with her attaché, Uthka Varzeekh, an Unequal whom also I owe much. If she were to call, I would answer.”

“Before I left the Artemis Group by cashing out my investments the mercenary company I was employed with, I fashioned six wooden Wands over a wood lathe machine. I gifted them to the closest of co-workers I valued most. Each has their story in how they helped me in times of trouble. Each Wand has my bust on the pommel of the handle. They were parting gifts in thanks and camaraderie. In return, they threw me a going away party and the center piece was that statue, filled with ice and various libations. To this day, I don’t know where or how they photographed me without clothes. I suspect that our company spook, a Darrian had something to do with that. Since I could not bear to part with a wet bar, I parked the sculpture in Engineering on this ship. My likeness reminds me that I have friends in the Regency. Their Wands remind them that they have a friend in Gvurrdon Sector. That is the gist of why there is a statue of me on this ship. A parting gift for service and for the adventures we shared.”

Zhevra had finished her meal as Gevaudan recounted and she waited for him to continue his meal before speaking. “Amazing. I’ve never had friends like that, folk who would immortalize me in stone.”

Gevaudan spoke with his mouth full, saying, “Not everyone in the company were my friends. Some wanted me dead, thinking I had betrayed them or lied to them about...things I could not admit. Though the friends suspected or knew anyways and did not judge an ethnic Vargr from Vargr space.”

Zhevra began cleaning up the meal but kept her attention pinned on the male who finished eating. Gevaudan finished the story with, “So, you Zhevra are the first person to see that statue in a long time, ever since I put it in that corner of the jumpdrive section.”

In her head, and by the tone of Gevaudan’s voice, Zhevra did the estimated math. To her, that statue looked the same age as the male Vargr across the table from her. But to hear him speak of the statue as stored for a long time, gave her bumpy-flesh and a shiver up her spine. Saying nothing, she stored the deduction for digestion later.
 
The two sat up late into the ship’s night hours talking. Zhevra had Gevaudan Cannagrrh tell her about how he tricked his sister into becoming Alpha of his Pack.

“Ah, about that,” Gevaudan chuckled but then sobered. “There is a stupid tradition in the Pack Cannagrrh. If there are three or more candidates to succeed an Alpha who is abdicating, that Alpha may choose that Vargr. In the Pack, there were three branch factions on the family tree. Two of those branches had black marks against them, the Progressives faction and the Traditionalists faction. But the balancing fulcrum between them was my dam’s faction which was smaller but hinged on Emissary work instead of scientists and artists bickering across the aisle with business Vargr and military warlords. My grandsire chose my dam as Alpha. Years later, she had to abdicate for health reasons and because she was tired of the responsibility at that age. Everyone in the Pack with any amount of charisma knew full well that her successor had to be an Equal and of our branch of the Pack family. Both Qithka, my elder sister by minutes, and I had passed the Equality Test. However, when there are only two candidates and both are equally qualified and supported by sufficient numbers in the Pack, the tradition states that the current Alpha must preside over an Infighting combat to first blood, a wound that would prove one’s charisma over another. I hate that tradition.”

“You refused to harm your elder sister in ritual combat,” said Zhevra and she smiled. Such brotherly love. Zhevra wished she had siblings with that kind of kinship. Suedzuk were close-knit, but her sire and dam had only her for a child, showering her with all the opportunities to attend trade school, and Service academy and come up with the funds to tack on NOTC to boot.

“When we got the coded, hardcopy notification, Qithka and I were devastated. We had fought like sibling rivalries for a long time. But by the time that letter arrived we had mended our rivalry and became close, too close to ever harm each other. I was contracted to deliver Qithka home, but in doing so I would be forced to Infight her, no small task I’m telling you. We had Infought many times in our youth. She always had the upper charisma to field against my bodily power. Neither of us were military or even fighters of any true skill. She was a new magazine field correspondent and propaganda actor. I was a Scout-Courier. However, both of us were proficient in Infighting, just as any Vargr learns to bite, claw, wrestle and throw an opponent.” Gevaudan paused to pull a can of hard cider from the refrigerator which gave Zhevra time to interject.

“How then did you trick her?” asked the female stealing a draw from the same can as the white Vargr.

“She had been a pain in my side, covering my adventures Rimward for five years in that company, the Artemis Group,” Gevaudan said as he watched Zhevra take a long draw on the hard cider. Her swallows rippled down her creamy white throat and behind the capture collar. Continuing, he recounted, “But in those adventures I learned that Qithka could not stand to miss a story and that she needed to be around others, hence why she became a Journalist and Entertainer – to be put in the spotlight of others’ attention. She followed me to be near me as her older sister, I her younger brother. Both of us almost died in separate occasions in that chapter of our lives. The near deaths made us appreciate life and each other better. I needed her just as much because she far outmatched me in her charismatic star power where I was just another, everyday Vargr in a flying Human can. We worked well together, though there were times we did not recognize it.”

“It hurt me to have to trick my Sister-Dame. So, when the gears touched down on the asphalt of Ouse Faeg World Downport, I let her disembark first as was her station. She was received by her patron magazine, a heroine of theatres of war, a snooper of secrets, willing to go toe-to-toe with Human Nobles and dignitaries who otherwise shunned the media. Kfan Uzangou, her magazine, welcomed her home. My contracted fee hit my account as soon as her footpads touched the warm tarmac. She turned to look up at me as I closed the airlock door and gave the order to lift. The local control tower bitched at me the entire way to orbit. Zhevra, she called me on her wristcomm. I didn’t answer her. I knew she was the better choice and I knew I had to make her give up her career as a rabble-rousing propaganda actress and step into true responsibility above and beyond the objectivity of press coverage and observation overt reporting or investigative snooping. It would have gotten her killed. No. Better to see “Blooded Fang” Dame Qithka Cannagrrh ascend to Alpha in my absence and refusal to appear in Pack court. If I ever return to the Pack territory, I still fear to this day that that stupid tradition will get dredged up out of some Pack bylaw file or document and force Qithka and I to Infight. No, this way was better. Through the years, she has led the Pack and been efficient just as our dam had as an Emissary. Qithka’s reporting integrity has served her well. I believe in her and am a coward to visit her. I don’t know what she thinks of me killing her career as a reporter and forcing an Administrator career of responsibility as Alpha of Pack Cannagrrh. I have my project as you now know. The Collapse is decades old and has Splintered Vargr space. I mean to do what I can to heal its peoples, including the Suedzuk, Zhevra.”

Noble, cowardly, gentlemanly, polite, and valorous if the story behind the statue was true. Gevaudan’s Mag and Lek did not betray him with the tells of spinning yarn to Zhevra’s sensitivity. Not once did his fields rise in a lie. The two Vargr shared the cider in the can until it was very late and almost time for bed.
 
* * *

Allain Templeton stopped his shorthand with revelation on his face. He looked up to Zhevra in the cell with him. With disbelief in his voice, he asked, “You, Zhevra are next in line after this Dame Qithka for Alpha of Pack Cannagrrh subsectors to Coreward?” He rubbed his temples at the causality.

Zhevra jumped from the bunk and rushed Allain, getting her claws into his suit jacket, shaking him and yelling, “No, I am not! Gevaudan is. Never say that to me again! You get me? I am not the next Alpha! I’m not! I’m not a Red Pelt! I’m not a whore! I’m a wife. Runetha, I miss him.” Her teeth were bared.

Psion Khzaeng grabbed Zhevra from behind and pried her off Allain. She sniffed tears as she cried, “Get out! Leave me alone. Gev is alive! He is!”

“She’s hysterical and we have provoked her,” warned the Psion. “Her mind is jumbled and it is late.”

Allain fell back standing against the bars of the cell, but he heard the guards running towards the door to Zhevra’s cell. Keeping well away from both the Vargr, he called to the guards and picked up the hardcopy folder, his pen and the device which had been recording through the attack.

Khzaeng pinned Zhevra down, his strength growing as his concentration and zen-like calm grew. Zhevra could hear him whisper his Oath under his breath in his own Aekhu Vargr dialect though she could guess what was said. He Infought like a monk who had trained to do so since a small pup. The Suedzuk was forced to yield by baring her neck’s carotid artery in submission. She sobbed and cried, tears flowing.

The two left her in the cell when the guards opened the door. Templeton calmed the guards with nightsticks by saying, “It’s okay. I’m fine. I said something I should not have. No blood, no foul. Let her sleep it off.” Then Allain and Khzaeng were gone from the cellblock.

Zhevra panted, cried and shook uncontrollably alone in the cell.

In the dark of early morning, the guards returned to her cell and put a struggling Suedzuk back in manacles, collar and chains leading to a mount in the wall. Once they were locked on her, she quit struggling having managed to punch or slap each guard once or more. Curled on the bunk again, she was hugged by something again, even if it was warming steel against her neck and wrists.
 
VIII. Regina (Spinward Marches 1910) A788899-C, Jumpspace to Okhtous (Gvurrdon 2425) E555374-3 of Zhevra’s testimony
Another nightmare inflicted its torture upon Zhevra which lasted up until Allain and Khzaeng stood once more outside her cell. They watched as she woke from a dream where she saw or imagined her husband suspended in the nothingness of quicksilver jumpspace or outside it. The indecision between outside nothingness and jumpspace mire caught her in fear and frustration of trying to piece together a puzzle too complex for her.

Opening her eyes to the reminder of last night’s attack, Zhevra numbly sat up and regarded the two males who had returned. They brought breakfast. Allain looked remorseful but retained a professional demeanor. Khzaeng the Psion was likely already probing her mind to check her state of being. She felt weary from shaking all night, the chains on her like tiny alarm clocks. Exhausted was a better word, Zhevra concluded at the telepath as if to clarify her state to him. Khzaeng merely shifted his robe on his shoulders in response.

“Ms. Cannagrrh, may we come in?” asked Allain Templeton. Another business suit surrounded him as he cradled breakfast, his recording device and the hardcopy file. In his lapel was the pen she wanted to stab him with.

“And what if I say no?” Zhevra mumbled.

“Then Khzaeng and I will be forced to sit outside the bars to bring you breakfast and continue the interview.”

“I hate you, but come in. I should apologize.”

“Me too. I was wrong. I should have kept that part nonverbal and merely noted it on paper. I could not have known without tapping our Psion to avoid a trigger.”

Zhevra nodded and this time did not fire off a glare at the Aekhu in the robe. “I am sorry. The doctors on Dzuerongvoe said I have PTSD after-…. well I’ll get to that part eventually. Sorry.”

Allain nodded to the guards who unlocked the cell door to permit him and Khzaeng. Meat again for breakfast and coffee this time as an apology, the cream and sugar added further woke Zhevra to sit and eat. Cradling the warm and tall beverage against the morning chill in the cell, she spoke more of her tale.

* * *

“I can work any two boards I like on the ship as long as I’m jacked into the ship through my rig,” explained Gevaudan. He and Zhevra were seated in the compact bridge. A yellow flashing light on the astrogation board across from her was warning of imminent jump precipitation back into normal space. “Stand by to divert power from the jumpdrives for cooldown and to the maneuver drives, Zhevra.”

“Aye, Captain,” acknowledged.

The Sixth Horizon fell out of jumpspace, a majority of its liquid hydrogen or L-hyd fuel spent in the four parsecs jump from Rorroksueknea to Okhtous. The milky gray quicksilver split at the bow and melted to black of space and stars. Slightly different in position but still in familiar constellations to Zhevra, she reported to Gevaudan, “Clear of jump. Drives on cooldown. M-drive readied.”

“Engage,” Gevaudan commanded. Then he spun his chair on its mount to face Vincent who was helping Zhevra by monitoring the ship’s sensors. “What have we got on passives, Vince?”

“No contacts and ready on comms.”

“Very good,” said the white Vargr. “Vectoring for the system’s only gas giant and bringing up skimming protocols for later. Have Bob warn our passengers of the rough ride we’ll be enjoying.”

“Acknowledged.” Vincent then stepped from the bridge in a Vargr-like lope, obviously programmed to mimic the living gait of biological Vargr.

“Is it not illegal to initiate communications still, Captain?” asked Zhevra who was inured to radio silence even this far past the Virus era.

“The system knows I pass through and refuel only. They know my signal, a patterned howl if you will. It’s not long enough to infect in either transmission or receival.”

“Oh. This is outside the Wilds.”

“Yes, Zhevra. You are free of that which Regency calls the Dreamtime.” Gevaudan smiled at her warmly.

The gas giant ahead was a blue ball of methane. It had planetoid moons and a tiny ring of ice barely thick enough to rate as a ring at all. The flightpath for fuel skimming lit up on the navigation board but the Pilot-Astrogator kept his hands off the controls and instead concentrated.

“You’re not going to do this on instrumentation or maneuver software?” asked Zhevra curiously.

Gevaudan took his eyes of the unseen virtual boards she could not see and he focused on her. “I never have. Manual only. It keeps me sharp when wilderness refueling time comes around. You might want to strap yourself in. It will get bumpy from upper atmosphere turbulence. You remember the simulations, right?”

Zhevra nodded and proceeded to work the web belts over her work overalls.
The Far Scout dipped into the upper atmosphere and bounced along at otherwise disintegrating speeds. “Opening scoops and queuing the fuel processors to chew on the gathered needs,” notified Gevaudan. Immediately the ship shuddered from turbulence. Everything outside the hull through the view ports was a pale blue below and stars above as he rolled to flush with the gas giant horizon.

The ride was harrowing for only four hours of turbulence against the hull of the Sixth Horizon. Zhevra watched as the fuel gauges rose slowly until full. Every so often the fuel processors would vent whatever was unneeded, causing the gauge needles to drop a step. The unrefined fuel was being replaced with condensed L-hyd.

Her hips were sore, her tail was stiff from being in the cockpit chair for so long. Yet even as her aches mounted, the shipboard operations were finally coming back to Zhevra. Her navy days as a junior engineer and bridge crew in the Service were revitalized even in this 200-ton Far Scout.

Gevaudan, a long-time Spacer, seemed to take it all in stride and for granted. He had said to his stock of slaves that this route was rote to him. This was merely a small part to a three-jump journey home to his Society of Equals. With the tank full of refined L-hyd, he at last pulled up on the virtual yaw and the ship answered by ascending from the upper atmosphere of the gas giant. Stars again ruled the forward view ports.

“Go aft and visually account for our fuel status while I begin calculations for our next jump and vector to 10o diameters, Zhevra,” Gevaudan commanded.

“Aye,” the Suedzuk said and left the bridge.
 
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Passing the third passenger stateroom on her left as she moved aft down the axis corridor, Zhevra saw that the door was open. Through the door, she could hear and see Arksouel kneeling over the fold-down toilet and regurgitating. “Bob! Come help. Ark is having distress and is vomiting into the fresher toilet.”

Bob paused its cooking at the galley and loped over to Zhevra who then entered the stateroom.

“Arksouel? Ark honey, are you okay?” asked Zhevra cautiously. Was the huge Urzaeng female ill with a disease? Being untrained, she decided to ask questions first before getting too close.

“Is okay,” panted Arksouel between surges of regurgitation heaves, “Bumpy ride and not felt skimming in years.”

Zhevra let out a sigh. Motion sickness not compensated for by the gravity plates in the ship’s deck had jostled the Urzaeng concubine female. Arksouel was not ill, just losing her lunch. Zhevra wondered if any of the other slaves were suffering too. “Bob, she’s okay. She’ll recover fine. Please check the others’ status.”

“Compliance.”

Without stopping at the local world of Okhtous, the Sixth Horizon returned on a similar tack to its entrance from jump precipitation. To maximize a safe jump, a distance equivalent to 100 times a system body’s diameter, in this case a gas giant was needed. To jump inside 100 Diameters was asking for that planetary or solar primary’s gravity well to pull on the mass of the jumping vessel which risked ripping at the molecular level as the remainder of the ship entered jumpspace. The result was a catastrophic derelict spat out of jumpspace after a week of disintegration as parts broke off and were claimed by the nothingness outside the fuel-invested jump bubble. While technically possible to initiate a jump anywhere, even inside 100 Diameters, there was not an astrogator in Charted Space that recommended such.

Zhevra again made herself useful in the second jump in the route. Gevaudan had opened up to her and let her see the route of jumps. The next world was called Tagnaghoutsozaeng, a Rich, Water World planet with over 95% of its surface consisting of oceans. The route called for another wilderness refueling at that system’s only gas giant too. When the jumpdrives kicked the ship into its own pocket universe of a jump bubble, the Suedzuk helped Gevaudan stand down the bridge for jump transit. Then she went to the captain’s cabin to continue her training in Starship Pilot simulations.

This week’s curriculum chapter was combat vector movement and the most exciting chapter of the training. Eagerly she used a simulation flight stick to vector her virtual ship and pulled triggers to command the simulated vessel to fire its turrets against randomized enemy ships. Her teeth bared and leaning forward to the terminal monitor, she growled at her virtual foes. She was so intent that she did not register Gevaudan come up behind her.

The white Vargr placed his black pawed claws on her shoulders as he examined her maneuvers. “Breathe and be one with your ship,” he advised in a calm, male baritone. “The enemy can’t hear your vocalizations. Relax and maneuver. Don’t fight the controls.” His hands were warm and they melted Zhevra at his touch. She obeyed and felt a slight massage from his thumb and digits. It felt good and she leaned into his ministrations.

Zhevra passed combat flight easily that week, making higher marks when she fought computer-generated Corsairs on the terminal while Gevaudan rubbed her neck or shoulders. She had never been the recipient to tactile massage before that week in jumpspace. Just before jumpspace precipitation she approached her owner.

Zhevra licked up the side of his white muzzle once and said, “Thanks for helping me, Gevaudan.” And as soon as she had done so, she was off to the bridge and leaving the surprised slaver standing in the center of the stateroom. That felt good too, she thought. Appreciative and not too much, she hoped. Sitting down at the engineering and operations boards in the cockpit, Zhevra waited for the Captain to announce jump precipitation and enter the bridge.

Her claw tapped on the jumpdrive board for two minutes before Gevaudan’s arrival on the bridge. Was it too forward, she asked herself inwardly? Without a word, the pair got to work on exiting jumpspace, professionalism ruling the cockpit. But, with the Gvegh just three meters from her, she could feel his elevated Lek. She had indeed shocked him. The Sixth Horizon continued its journey by refueling its tanks with a second rough ride over a banded orange gas giant in Tagnaghoutsozaeng system. This time however, Zhevra had informed Gevaudan who prepared a dosage of Dramamine to help Arksouel. When the Urzaeng weathered the turbulence, she came to find Zhevra.

“Thanks to you, no visit to fresher and donate lunch,” announced the tall female. The two stood just aft of the passenger staterooms and in the axis corridor. “I owe you.”

Zhevra almost shied but took in a breath to ask Arksouel for a favor. “Ark, would you-… would you help me to be a better concubine, just in case Gevaudan does sell me to a Madam? I-I have never done it. I know about males and females, but have never given myself. I am unspoiled.”

“Och, little one,” said the gray female. “Say not this ‘unspoiled’. Look at me. Would you say I am spoiled just because I am sex worker? Is not bad if one is safe, enjoys the task and careful about who to share beds with. And better if you love when you do. Get me?”

“I think so,” said Zhevra who chewed her thumb claw nervously as she had seen Dhaeos the Logaksu do so often since they met in the cages of the scavengers. “I should learn to perform the act better, I think.”

“Better?” said Arksouel more as an exclamation than a question. “Little one, for your first time, let a worthy gentleman have you. If he is gentle, you will know how. Then can come – how you say – variation.” The Urzaeng then patted the Suedzuk on the head and stroked her red-brown mane. “Choose wisely.”

Zhevra nodded. The two then spent the day primping and dressing. The large female refreshed Zhevra on the lessons Madam Karrnae had given the captives from the Vadar. From a naval Spacer to concubine and prostitute, Zhevra received crash course in attraction and act. By the time the Urzaeng’s territoriality kicked back in gear, Zhevra was ushered out into the corridor to the captain’s cabin. Gevaudan had been asleep while she trained.
 
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IX. Regina (Spinward Marches 1910) A788899-C, Gnoengungag (Gvurrdon 1923) B759623-7
The jump from Tagnaghoutsozaeng to entry to the Society of Equals was to end the journey with Gevaudan Cannagrrh. Zhevra found herself not wanting that week to end as the L-hyd fuel boiled outside the Sixth Horizon in jumpspace. The mock exam of the Piloting certification test did little to take her mind off the arrival on a world called Gnoengungag (Gvurrdon 1923), another mostly water world with, strangely enough, a Participating Democracy and a liberal mindset. The planet only had a Downport, no orbital docking facilities.

“My exam time for you,” said Gevaudan calmly as the Far Scout made final approach to Gnoengungag. He had already signaled his incoming vector and over the comms was welcomed heartily by the Downport Tower. They knew the white Scout-Courier on this world.

“What?” asked Zhevra.

“You have the conn, Zhevra. Take us down and land. I will watch the other boards.” With that, Gevaudan sat at Engineering-Operations and laced his clawed digits of both extremities together.

Zhevra said automatically from her years in the Service, “I have the conn.” She then sat down and took up the controls on the helm and checked them with the navigation board’s flightpath. “You trust me that much?” she asked two minutes later.

“Implicitly,” said the Gvegh. “Either you save our lives and land the Sixth Horizon or I get early retirement and a one-way vacation to the Seventh Horizon if you catch my drift.” He then unfocused his ocean blue eyes to check boards only he could see.

Zhevra had never before live-piloted a starship. She was exhilarated and nervous. Though he was monitoring from inside the computer, she still felt he was watching Zhevra over her shoulder. But the real Sixth Horizon responded to her control adjustments, the holographic ‘stick’ feeling a little more forgiving than the practice controls in the captain’s cabin. The protocols came to her from the simulations when she noted aloud, “Reentry in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, mark.” The blue gem of a planet was blanketed with clouds in its tropics but the targeted Downport’s beacon registered on the navigation board as sitting in the temperate northern hemisphere. If the sensors were correct, it was partly cloudy skies with gentle cumulus puff clouds pushing six knots across the island. The ship’s hull registered the atmosphere, its heat shielding armor and wedge shape accepting the resistance. Zhevra kept the Imperium vessel in the virtual tunnel presented by the HUD relaying info to her from navigation.

Gevaudan sat through it all, seemingly a statue in the chair to Zhevra’s right. Finally, he said, “We have an aerospace local G-limit of three gees, but in a pinch I can give you up to five at your command.”

“Five?” she asked.

“Or six if it’s an emergency. Your call. You do have the conn.”

Six gees of acceleration in atmosphere would blow out the windows of a skyscraper back on Llotree, her homeworld in the Enclave. Given the smooth ride on this vessel, Zhevra smiled to know that the Sixth Horizon offered such in-system speeds. It awoke something primal inside her.

“Give me three then.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Gevaudan smiled and concentrated on a virtual board.

The wedge starship shot down through the clouds and left holes in the puffs of white water vapor where it passed. In the rear cameras, Zhevra could see the supersonic cone surrounding the fattest part of the vessel. She pulled up and into a controlled descent with her heart thumping. So fast!

“Okay, final approach. Back it down to one and let’s call the ball.”

“On it.”

The island was visible outside the forward view ports. A volcano was cooling with a small jet of smoke indicating the prevailing wind direction which was helpful to know. Now Zhevra did not have to ask. Green temperate forest was bisected by a swath of black lava flow down one side of the caldera. Small fires were being fought by VTOL aircraft. The ship flew over a bay of ocean water that was home to white sailing craft and wharves were full of cargo ships being fed by cranes. Tree line topography seemed to wave in the winds a greeting to Zhevra’s overhead passing. Then the Downport came into view and she vectored for it with a lazy bank to port.

“Zhevra?”

“Hmm?” the Suedzuk did not take her eyes of the landing field as the ship descended.

“I need a second crew.” Gevaudan announced to her. “Want the job? There might be complications that delay that collar coming off but do you really want to be sold as concubine like the others? Do you want to be sold at all?”

The question nearly distracted Zhevra who flushed under her cream white face. The first gear touched down easy enough but the other two came down hard and she heard their pneumatics hiss from inside the bridge.
With precision actions, Zhevra stood down the bridge, “We’re down. Vincent tell the others and tell Bob to coordinate with ground for umbilical power.

“Compliance.”

The two were now alone in the bridge as the hum of the power plant lowered its pitch to a sound level that indicated that the ship was on Downport umbilical lines, power flowing from the landing field. The Suedzuk measured the white Gvegh’s Mag and Lek with a focus she had not done in some time.

At last she answered Gevaudan, “There might be complications, like buying me clothes and tools sized for me.”

“Done.”

“When does the collar come off?”

“Immigration laws prevent naturalization at this time, Zhevra. But if I register you as my s-servant, pay the taxes on the ‘sale’ and you agree to keep that hoop in your ear after I remove the collar, you should be able to be mine and my crew and bypass naturalization as my property until you can buy your freedom or the courts find me in violation and emancipate you as I said before.”

“Is there a catch to this, Gevaudan?” asked the Suedzuk who was taking the full measure of the fields about the cyborg.

The white Vargr Equal answered her with, “I’d need you to walk out the ship as a concubine and help me sell off the current stock long enough for me to do the paperwork and pay the fees. In your dress, down the ramp and alongside the other ladies.”

A debut. Gevaudan was asking for Zhevra to portray a concubine until he could do the admin needed to solidify his true purchase of Zhevra. Imagining descending the airlock steps to the Downport on Gnoengungag, Zhevra could already feel the trade winds off the bay in her mind.

“Done,” she agreed. “I walk the carpet as a whore for one day, no assignations and get to say farewells to the ladies.”

Gevaudan smiled and said, “Welcome to the Sixth Horizon, Engineer.” The two shook claws on the agreement.
 
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Zhevra stood outside the low berth room on the starboard side, forward of the small cargo hold. Gevaudan keyed the lock on the chamber and stepped in to begin reviving the sleeping slaves. One by one, the concubines and the one male came awake shivering and receiving blankets. Zhevra saw that the white Vargr took extra time to slowly and carefully revive each and monitored their vitals as they began to move. All ten sleepers were revived successfully. The females were helped by the six concubines with hoops in their ears. The male was aided by Gevaudan personally. All were fed and given hot drinks to warm up.

Gevaudan then gave them the same lectures about the Society of Equals, its slavery laws and how each servant could rise to freedom using the system. When each of the sleepers had accepted their fate on this new world, The male Equal brought in the ear hoop jewelry for the left ear of each he was to sell later that day.

“Get dressed in your crimson,” ordered Gevaudan Cannagrrh, “then step outside the airlock to your new home polity, the Dzen Aeng Kho, far and away from the dangerous Wilds, Safe from Virus and vampire fleet bombardment. These six will help you to the ground. I will have my Ongrung sonic rifle so don’t embarrass me and yourselves with poor behavior. These people know me and know my policy of transplanting rescues from the Wilds. As I’ve said, I have done this before.”

Zhevra put on her crimson dress and settled it correctly on her Suedzuk frame. She was the last of the slaves to exit the Far Scout, down the ramp in the evening sun and with the gentle wind pushing on their apparel. Below was small crowd of Equals as none of them wore the protestant head belts and waist belts in the public of this island Downport.

1_Zhevra_s_Debut.jpg


Gevaudan emerged last, dressed again in his black ballistic cloth uniform. He had used a velcro patch to attach the emblem of the Society of Equals, two upper canine fangs over a blood red circle. On a gun strap slung on a shoulder was a curious rifle, supposedly the Ongrung sonic rifle he had mentioned. At his belt hung the strange, finned flashlight she had seen him wear before. Zhevra looked over her shoulder and up at him. He looked charismatic in the evening sun with the light wind moving his neck ruff and mane. For a cyborg, a slaver, a male and a Gvegh, Zhevra again appreciated how Gevaudan could clean up. He was just formal enough for business, but in a duty uniform that allowed him to get the job done. Zhevra took another step down as the line of slaves moved to the ground below the Far Scout.

Fifteen females in crimson and revealing dresses had to hold down the split side falls in the wind and the male in a crimson kilt stood a little taller in his crimson kilt. From the crowd, there was light applause to Zhevra’s surprise. These people were applauding Gevaudan who reached the ground after her. They knew him to bring rescues out of the Wilds. This was not his first ranching fair. He moved to the crowd and clasped claws with a few buyers. Words of welcome were exchanged. The white Cannagrrh smiled handsomely, charismatic with his teeth white and the late sun glinting off his facial augments. Zhevra felt a twinge of new pride in that she had just agreed to be his slave, his crew. She straightened taller like the male slave had done, though with less silent protest.

Though to an outsider, it may have appeared that Zhevra was again the last concubine to be sold, she went to each slave as soon as a price was confirmed. As each was signed to a new master, Gevaudan stepped up to key in the unlocking of a collar.

“Dhaeos,” said Zhevra as the Logaksu was confirmed sold, “Good luck and I hope you put your new admin skills to work for your new owner.”

“Thank you, Zhevra,” said Dhaeos who then added while rubbing her freed neck ruff, “It’s not a Madam like Karrnae. He’s tall and looks like he might own a concubines’ villa. I hope you find a good placement, little Suedzuk. I’m sorry my Logaksu folk treated you badly. Be safe.” With that the two females parted. Near the last in the line of sales, the Urzaeng Arksouel hugged Dhaeos.

“Give them hell, number cruncher,” Arksouel said to Dhaeos.
Dhaeos nodded as another sale of the original sixteen was confirmed over her shoulder.

The Urzaeng female was hard to place but Gevaudan managed an off-world buyer who needed to hide protection for his concubines inside the concubines themselves. Gevaudan explained such to Arksouel.

1_Concubine_Protector.jpg


“I can handle myself,” the large gray female said as she flexed her claws. She lowered her stance so that Gevaudan could properly and correctly key in the combination to her extra-large collar. As he did so, she surprised him with a lick to his forehead from above him, a kiss in human equivalent. “You have been good, Gevaudan Cannagrrh. I understand your project better now. Be well.”

“And you, sky reacher,” replied the smaller, white slaver. “I will write, so watch for my profile sigil on any posts.”

The Urzaeng nodded and then said, “Now. Show me this new master you have given me.” Arksouel accented her request by running her left claw through her thick mane and flicked her index claw across her ear hoop. It sparkled in the evening light.

Robots Vincent and Bob appeared in the cargo hold doors which slid open to allow them to unload the sold slaves’ possessions which amounted to less than a displacement ton. Zhevra saw them hand each their baggage and keepsakes. She also noted that there was less fear of the two robots even this late after the Collapse and the long nightmare of Virus. Local xenophobia must have been lessened or that they knew of Gevaudan’s Servitor assistants.

The Gvegh slaver met with a taxation representative and exchanged hard currency for sixteen sheets of hardcopy paper, Zhevra had counted each from afar while waving to the departing concubines. Even the male had sold to a brothel that featured males. At the sixteenth receipt, Gevaudan nodded and the two male Vargr clasped claws. Then Zhevra’s new master was confirmed, the Captain of the Sixth Horizon. She waited in an obeisant stance for Gevaudan at the foot of the airlock stairs to his ship.

“Stand up straight and proud, Chief Engineer Zhevra,” ordered Gevaudan. “It doesn’t do to have cowed crew.”

“Yes, Sir,” Zhevra acknowledged but added, “Though I’m the only Engineer on board.”

“A technicality.”

The white-furred cyborg displayed the receipt with Zhevra’s name on it. Gevaudan explained the Gvegh document that it detailed her Universal Personal Profile, some skills he had seen her display and her role under his ownership. At the bottom, a sum of the taxes was shown. It was almost as much as a full slave.

“The taxes are not nearly as high here as other worlds in this subsector, but I make a do.” A nostalgic flash of memory came over Gevaudan’s white face as he looked to the horizon where the sea touched the sunset sky. He came out of his remembered past and looked to Zhevra with an order, “I have to grav into town to pay fees for docking and maintenance. I’ll be back before midnight local. Please watch the ship with Vincent and Bob. Here is the combination to the ship’s locker, crewmate.”

“Yes, Sir,” Zhevra answered. The emphasis on ‘Sir’ to her was increased because Gevaudan was now her owner and her Captain on a vessel that would not mistreat her as the Service back home had.

“I’m not going to live down that ‘sir’ business, am I?” Gevaudan said with a half-grin.

“No, Sir.”
 
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Gevaudan utilized a belted harness device called a grav-belt to ‘grav’ into the small metropolitan city just outside the Downport. Called a Startown, he named it for Zhevra, “It’s Gnoengungag Bay, the largest island on the planet. I have my ear comm if you need to call me.”

Not wanting to risk another ‘Sir’, Zhevra nodded and waited for her Captain to float a good meter off the ground in the grav-belt vehicle and zoom off towards town. Then she returned up the airlock steps to the Far Scout.

Out of curiosity for cabinets and rooms she had not seen thus far in the Far Scout, Zhevra used the combination she memorized to enter the ship’s locker. It was large and held the standard fare of VaccSuits, survival gear, Scout gear and the like she had come to know in her days of the Service. Inside was the ship’s computer and another access terminal though it was covered and unused. But it was the array of wall-mounted personal weaponry that caught Zhevra’s green eyes. Gevaudan was a former adventurer who really toured around!

There was a huge, barbaric maul hammer centered on the wall. It had strange rune engravings on its high-tech, low-purpose alloy head. This was not some tool. It was a weapon. Just below the hammer hung a Corsair’s weapon, a two-handed Vargr serrated sword with wicked edges. Zhevra doubted she could wield either of the melee weapons. Mounted above the huge hammer was an ornate yet functional cutlass in a decorated scabbard. This was a weapon a naval Service Vargr would wear in formal dress uniform. She might fancy swinging such a blade if need arose.

Zhevra spoke to herself in a hushed reverence of this ship’s locker, “I thought you said you were never in the navy, Gevaudan Cannagrrh.”

The locker continued to mount other weapons: a shotgun with an under-mounted grenade launcher with a strap that held a line of some dangerous ammunition and a real honest-to-Ancients single-use rocket launcher.

In the corner, nearest to the ship’s mainframe stood an actual set of battle dress combat armor sized for Gevaudan or his like. It was polished and reflective even if it was a little dusty from lack of use. A blinking LED light on the battle dress noted that it was plugged in for charging and ready for use. Zhevra played her hand over the armor as if it were Gevaudan instead and said, “You are far more that you let on, Captain Cannagrrh. It is easier now to believe your adventure stories.”

Just to try out the act unseen, Zhevra put her arms around the shoulders of the battle dress armor in a hug with her breasts against ‘his’ chest. She whispered to the armor, “Why yes, I’d love to dance with you, Sir. Nice collection of dangerous toys you have.” Though she could not lift the armor, she laid her head on the breastplate of the armor’s torso. “Just be a gentleman, Gevaudan Cannagrrh.”

As an afterthought before leaving the ship’s locker and now armory, Zhevra lifted the cutlass and partially unsheathed it. The gleaming, maintained blade of the officer’s cutlass revealed itself with a laser engraving in Galanglic. Since she could read the Human language she whispered as she read, “Captain Jacob Crow, INS.” Imperial Naval Service! This cutlass was from the Third Imperium, Zhevra discovered. Did Gevaudan kill this man, this Jacob Crow and take his officer’s blade as a trophy? Was it a gift? Questions that only piled up the mystique of her owner fired like synapses in her mind. She re-sheathed the cutlass and returned it to the wall. Then the Suedzuk backed out of the ship’s locker. She had rummaged through private and locked away past that now fed more mystery to the white Vargr who now owned her.

* * *

Zhevra flicked with boredom at the chains that had been returned to her and said, “No doubt you will look up records on Captain Jacob Crow. I later learned that the officer’s cutlass was gifted to Gev in friendship. I also later learned of Gev’s office in Gnoengungag Bay, where I returned just this year.” She then wearily fell into her cell’s bunk and covered herself. “Good night.”

Allain Templeton and Khzaeng looked to each other and then packed their items and departed her without disturbing the prisoner.

Zhevra was performing abdominal crunches and leg bicycling in the air of the cell the next morning when the advocate Human and the Psion Vargr returned. Her chains jingled as she repeatedly sat up at their approach.

“It’s like she’s fine one moment and then bang! She can tear into you the next,” Allain was telling Psion, someone who ought to know already.

“She is still in love with him, Mr. Templeton,” offered the Psion in a gentle voice almost hushed, “Vargr are just as passionate about mate relationships as you Humans. Sometimes more so.”

The two came before the bars of Zhevra’s cell. She was picking herself off the floor. Coming to a relaxed, digitigrade stance, she complained to the two males, “Hey. It’s been quite a few days since my last shower. And I reek.” She said that last with a disgusted sniff of her wrinkled muzzle and nose.

Allain looked to Khzaeng who nodded back to him. “I’ll make sure that goes through, Ms. Cannagrrh.” He then changed the subject with, “Captain Jacob Crow was a decorated naval officer and a shareholder in the Artemis Group you mentioned before. His service record and taxation records are on file way back to the Third Imperium, before the Collapse. You know how old that makes your husband, Ms. Cannagrrh?”

Zhevra nodded but said nothing until the males were seated and breakfast was served.

With Zhevra sill tethered to the back wall by single chain to her manacles and collar, the three ate breakfast and returned to recording her story.
 
* * *

Gevaudan returned to Sixth Horizon just before midnight and he was accompanied by a tram train of what looked to Zhevra to be passengers and luggage. Zhevra was dressed again in her loaned overalls belted to help fit her in his clothes. The Vargr she learned were tourists and business scouts, agents to scout the Wilds and other folk destined for Aellukh Subsector. The Captain had secured only eight passengers, three to occupy the staterooms now refreshed by docking services that had come by hours ago, to do the tasks of resetting the Far Scout as a Courier once more as opposed to a slaver.

The tram had a baggage car and a cargo container car trailing in tow behind the passengers’ car. The wheeled vehicle pulled up below the midline ridge of the wedge-shaped ship. Gevaudan was present to welcome his passengers and point out Vincent and Bob who began loading the vessel through its cargo bay ramp. The Equals ascended the airlock stairs where Zhevra greeted each with a polite bow, “Welcome aboard. I am Zhevra, the Chief Engineer of the Sixth Horizon. If I can help in any way, please notify me.” A couple of the passengers stopped to regard her, no doubt for her rare coloration, but then proceeded to either their assigned stateroom or to the starboard side low berth chamber just aft of them.

Passengers were settled, luggage was secured in cargo and the three, large and sealed containers were fixed in place aside the baggage. Zhevra guessed that the containers held speculative commodities, the trade blood of the interstellar polity. Likely, Gevaudan was to sell them on another needful world for profit. This was the income the Gvegh slaver was making as a main source. This was why he was nonplussed about profits from the sale of his ‘rescues’.

As Gevaudan closed up the airlock hatch, Zhevra asked him, “Do I get to see the cargo manifest, Captain? Or am I still a slave first?” The question was quiet enough and far away from the three medium-class passengers who were either in their staterooms or in the galley giving nutrition needs to the robot Steward Bob.

“Here. Peruse this if you like, Engineer, though I did not know you also wanted the Purser job,” he offered to Zhevra. Then he reported down the axis corridor to settle the five low berth passengers to sleep through to their destinations.

Zhevra flipped open the hardcopy manifest and sighed. She really needed to learn to read Gvegh. This was how she learned that her cyborg Captain could be literal when he chose to be. He had indeed let her see the cargo manifest. He didn’t say she would be able to read it. She could either take a Library course in written Gvegh or cheat and run the manifest through a translator software if there was such an application loaded in the Far Scout. Thus, the Suedzuk was not yet privy to the sealed cargo in the hold.
The Engineer then went to begin starship operations by hot-starting the onboard power plant. She fell into a routine as the ship was prepared for lift to orbit. Gevaudan then called her into the captain’s cabin on the portside opposite the passengers’ staterooms.

“I picked up some things for you earlier in town,” the white male began. “I’m pretty sure they fit given how loose my overalls are on you and your frame I captured for the tailor in town. I hope they will suit you.” On the bunk was a stack of clothes, uniforms, undies, bras and a utility belt full with an Engineering toolkit.

Zhevra moved to examine the clothes. Some of the pieces were utilitarian and a few were casual, everyday wear. This was more items for her than she had owned since stepping foot on the Vadar liner. She took in a breath of surprise but also of appreciation. “Thank you, Gevaudan,” she said and hugged the white male. She could feel his subdermal bio-plates under his skin, rigid and slightly flexible at the edges. He returned the hug with a dash of shy gentility. She felt it through his Mag and Lek.

“Keep your crimson dress,” Gevaudan suggested. “You probably hate it, but you are quite beautiful in a dress.”

“Oh you!” Zhevra huffed as she moved to try on a black ship’s uniform with the insignia of the Dzen Aeng Kho on the collar and upper arm sleeves. The utility belt fit better with less excess strap than his belt. The tools, sized for her, rode her belt better than the ones in Engineering.

“How do I look?” she asked as she had not moved to the small mirror next to the fresher.

“You look like my Chief Engineer and a stunning Suedzuk that can keep this bird in the air. One more thing.”

“What?”

Gevaudan Cannagrrh stepped up to her, close enough that she could feel his fields overlap with hers. It was very close.

He looked down into her green eyes and reached up with his white claws. She swallowed as his hands reached her capture collar’s electronic lock. Keying the combination over the only touch buttons on the collar, she heard it beep and mechanically click unlocked. Carefully, gently and to Zhevra, Gevaudan opened the device and freed it off from under her mane and neck ruff. Then he looked at her neck where it had been.

“Healed fine and no loss of fur,” he noted aloud to the two of them. “I’ll store this and you need not-“

“Can I keep it, Gevaudan?” she cut him off. “I mean, I don’t want anyone else wearing something that has taken my blood, even if you sterilize it. It’s… it has been on me for weeks and I want to keep it, like a souvenir. Am I being silly?”

Gevaudan sniffed the air in close proximity to her. It was not a snuffle or a huge intake of breath. It was almost an intimate gesture, Zhevra thought. “Of course you may. For as long as you want. I can purchase another. Put it in your locker next to mine, my Engineer.”

Though the golden hoop in her left ear still marked Zhevra as his slave here in the Society of Equals, her status would not be so apparent outside its borders now that her barbred collar was off. Through some unknown sense of loss, the reduced weight about her neck made Zhevra feel slightly naked without the collar. Smiling at the ship role he had reiterated, the red-furred in uniform black performed a small salute she had picked up from her Service tours. Now she could truly work without rubbing her neck raw, her calling from back in the Academy. Zhevra also marked the unspoken inference that he trusted her to work her position on the Sixth Horizon. For the first time, she as able to prove her skills to a vessel without sexist males in the Service pulling on her tail, flicking her ears or otherwise hazing a female Engineer on a starship.

“This isn’t the military, Zhevra,” said Gevaudan Cannagrrh. “I work for a living. ‘Sir’ me if you have to, but none of that entitlement crap please. I’m going to sleep. Would you please start up the ship and lift after contacting the Tower of our intentions? I’m beat.”

A cyborg with limits, thought Zhevra. Cute and Vargr limits. Zhevra acknowledged with a nod and covered up the male after he had disrobed down to his black mesh undies and climbed into the bunk.

“You have the conn.”

“I have the conn,” acknowledged Zhevra. Then she left him so as to perform starship operations.

The lift after a window of launch was confirmed by the local traffic control Tower was easier than the landing, and Zhevra was already able to see the stars over the island. Vincent, the Servitor robot sat next to her in the cockpit.
 
Robots don’t care what one thinks or asks, Zhevra thought as the ship cleared atmosphere and the Far Scout passed all the artificial satellites on its route to the jump point. The Sixth Horizon had been refueled by the maintenance ground crew at Gnoengungag Bay Downport. So, she opened a conversation with Vincent by asking, “Am-…am I the first female Gevaudan has become close to, Vincent?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Oh.” After a pause to vector the ship on the shortest route to 100 diameters from every system body possible, Zhevra asked another question. “How many? He is quite handsome for an augmented Gvegh.”

“Three, ma’am,” Vincent answered deadpan and matter-of-fact.

“Three.” She said the number more to herself as she locked in the vector. Though she was trained in astrogation, she knew there was time enough to let Gevaudan sleep and then come to the bridge for the jump calculations.

“Does he-…..did he love them, his previous?” she asked anew.

“Insufficient parameters. Please restate the question.” Vincent was a robot and not some confidante of Gevaudan’s.

Not used to robots since Vargr could find no charisma to give them that spark of personality and life, Zhevra rephrased herself and asked again, “Did he properly stave off entropy for each of his previous mates, Vincent?” It was almost a declarative that she asked in voicing the request for information.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Elaborate and augment please.”

Vincent checked the ship’s sensors per a subroutine and did so manually without any direct connection to the ship as Gevaudan did via his Systems Integration rig. “No contacts on sensors. Gevaudan Cannagrrh made formal marriage to three mates to current date. Each lived and worked on Fast Far Scout Sixth Horizon for different spans of time in years before divorcing him, all on differing reasons and personal priorities. According to verbal notations logged, Gevaudan Cannagrrh tracked their progress as civilians and as Equals in the polity. Each left the Sixth Horizon with full bill of health and sums of currency as to continue their operations elsewhere.”

“I see,” whispered Zhevra knowing Vincent’s Vargr robot ears could hear her. “Thank you. That is all.”

The cutlass, the tales he told without tells of lies and now three wives. Just how old was Gevaudan Cannagrrh, Zhevra asked herself.

Hours later, Zhevra finished her dinner as Gevaudan emerged from his stateroom. “Your meal from Bob?” he asked her. “It woke me, but I’m fresh and showered for duty.” He asked about the lift from Gnoengungag. She reported to him all was Green. He took to his breakfast from Bob the Steward robot. Zhevra held her question and retired, “You have the conn, Sir.”

“I have the conn,” Gevaudan answered automatically.

Alone in the stateroom, Zhevra privately looked at the pictures of the other female Vargr aside from Gevaudan’s slightly elder sister on the wall next to the computer terminal. Not some lusty icons for fantasizing over, Zhevra came to assume that these three were the previous married mates to Gevaudan Cannagrrh. Did they come to him like she had, as a slave rescued from the Wilds? The questions mounted again. Turning to prepare a shower, the red and cream female caught herself in the mirror next to the fresher-shower. She looked at herself at length.

Could she love someone who had purchased her, locked a slave’s collar about her neck, and who was so mysterious that questions flooded her mind? Then there was that twinge of attraction she kept feeling, especially whenever their bioelectric fields touched or in passing. She traced a digit claw over the wrinkled band where the device had been with her right extremity. With her left claw and a turned head, her glance and touch lifted to the ear hoop in her left ear. Though gold and an expensive alloy, did such a symbol mark her with love above just ownership? He had said the alloyed hoops were for concubines who were selected as making a cut of some sort, perhaps the “leg up” he mentioned in that lecture weeks before. Was Gevaudan robbing the cubs’ den at his age? Did it matter with his apparent age and cybernetic augments?

In the mirror, Zhevra thought to her reflection, You are way in over your head.

Her reflection responded with, He’s been a gentleman so far.

Zhevra continued to feel the healed ring about her neck and countered with, He’s old and a cyborg – with augments.

The mirror almost agreed with Zhevra, but then answered, If you never try after all that career work and suffering, will you regret it later?

Yes.

Her reflection smiled a secret smile, take that into the shower with you, dirty female.
 
X. Regina (Spinward Marches 1910) A788899-C, Orsesokhin (Gvurrdon 2323) A000874-E of Zhevra’s testimony
Zhevra completed her certification in basic flight school for Starship Pilot and added the skill to her personal resume, to file it with the ship’s Library. Still frustrated in she could not read that manifest, the Engineer continued to use the terminal in the captain’s cabin to learn to read Gvegh. A week later, the Sixth Horizon precipitated from jumpspace into Orsesokhin (Gvurrdon 2323), the newest polity capital of the much-reduced Thoengling Empire. The Far Scout had steered just outside the Collapsed polity in returning to the Society of Equals, but Gevaudan had claimed business there.

“It’s also a high-tech mining system full of relics that were preserved from the final push of the vampire fleets,” explained Gevaudan to Zhevra who was looking at the astrogation board to her left and in front of the Pilot-Astrogator. “Slightly more stringent laws, but that’s been because of decades of Virus threat and it’s an asteroid world. We’ll be docking at a space station, a large one. No Downport.”

Zhevra recalled the only asteroid world system of the Enclave Famuurueroergoghz, her home polity. Its Highport was a low population space station mated to the local Naval Base which bolstered the need to keep staff on hand. Pay was good and so was the system’s resource output to cut those checks. Her ship had made port there more than once during her patrol tour. Thus, the Suedzuk was intrigued at asteroid worlds here on the far side of the Vargr Splinters.

“This is a new polity for me, Captain,” noted Zhevra aloud, “Will they have a problem with me being your slave in Customs-Immigration?”

“While they do know the Society practices slavery,” comforted the white Vargr beside Zhevra, “the Thoengling Empire is in no position to do anything to us about it. They are still recovering from Virus and fighting vampire ships since they are right on the border with the Wilds. They need our trade. If anyone does touch you, Zhevra, you Infight them or tell me and I’ll Infight them, okay?”

“Yes Sir,” Zhevra said and smiled inwardly. He cared. He actually was protective her. Protective or possessive, asked her reflection from the mirror earlier.

With all the quarantine precautions still upheld to the highest degree of threat levels, Gevaudan hailed system patrols using a manual laser signaler in his claws. Additionally, Zhevra saw him plug another black wafer stick into his skull port before beginning to flash to the Thoengling ships patrolling the abundant resources and gas giants of Orsesokhin. A similar flashing returned from the lead system defense craft and a dialogue between them and Gevaudan continued. Eventually permissions were gained and the Sixth Horizon was granted leave to refuel over the gas giant with a high-altitude wingman patrol craft watching the Imperium-made Far Scout for signs of treachery.

“In this day and with Thoengling’s past losses, they are still on high alert,” Gevaudan explained. “But we are going to the Highport. Some of the passengers are bound here, the ones in low berth. Business Vargr.”

Without weather and atmosphere, the final approach was easier on Zhevra who was ordered to pilot to space dock as Gevaudan monitored. Again, their ship was escorted all the way in as station rail gun emplacements tracked their slowed approach to a docking gantry swinging from the superstructure’s concourse.

As soon as the umbilical power cables connected, Gevaudan used his cybernetics connection to stand down the ship’s power plant as Zhevra did similar to the bridge. On station power, Gevaudan went to wake the low berth passengers as Zhevra stood by to open the airlock at the standard mallet-knock on the outer hull. The gantry was safely sealed and the station security was outside to receive crew at the door.

Again, all five of the low berth sleepers woke safely and recovered on hot drinks and hot meals as security swept the Far Scout and tested Vincent and Bob with devices that scanned for Virus infection. If the little flag-waving actuator attached to the canary sensor waved, it meant that Virus was infecting the device and testing the device’s capabilities. It and the connected system, robot, or ship would be destroyed, cargo seized, passengers grilled for information and crews would be arrested and incarcerated if not executed.

But the Sixth Horizon was also a known ship and the sweep was routine and produced a clean bill of tech-health from station security. The Highport Authority representative met with Gevaudan and fees were paid in exchange for hard, plastic visas machine stamped with dates, windows of welcome to Orsesokhin.

Zhevra saw that the sealed cargo containers and some of the baggage in the hold were leaving as Vargr manned cargo lifters carried them into port for inspections even if they had been sealed the entire time. This was routine and Zhevra knew from back home and growing up that no chances could be taken even with Virus events in final decline in current times. She did manage a final peek again at the manifest after terminal classes in written Gvegh. It took a little time to sound out the Gvegh words and register them in her lessons. Gevaudan had bought and sold nothing dangerous. Exotic and rare clothing in tightly packed plastic rode the containers alongside home furnishings. In space, a domicile could better serve as home if it was decorated and the station workers wore something other than station overalls uniforms. She could smile then that her Captain and owner knew the value of simple pleasures and homemaking. It was another mark of attraction to Gevaudan Cannagrrh of Pack Cannagrrh and the Suedzuk had to acknowledge it this time with her mirror-self watching and nodding approvingly.
 
He took her shopping once the disembarking passengers were released, luggage was surrendered, and speculative cargos sold at this year’s tax rates, given the local Balkanization of the government and whim of its leaders. Gevaudan led his slave Zhevra through the visitor malls and entertainment districts of the high-tech Highport. They ate a dinner at a restaurant with full service and enjoyed a zero-gravity sports event. Zhevra cheered loudly and called for more action at the top of her lungs as Gevaudan watched her get caught in the moment.

Only once did anyone local speak up about Zhevra being a slave. It happened in a store, as she was trying on dresses. A Gvegh Vargr male initiated a conversation with Gevaudan just as Zhevra was emerging from the dressing room to display black and yellow tabard and revealing hip dress combination. Gevaudan noticed him but redirected his attentions on Zhevra when the pair heard, “Why are you buying such expensive clothes for a slave, Equal?”

Using the term Equal meant that either the male was from the Society of Equals or knew of their societal stratifications. He must have recognized Zhevra’s gold ear hoop as she nervously showed it combining a black bell hip dress framing the yellow vertical tabard over her shoulders. The cincher that gathered the dress and the tabard was a gold leather that matched with her ear hoop. Gevaudan kept his eyes on Zhevra, but said, “Can I not acknowledge beauty?” She blushed demurely.

“Is she your slave or are you the butler escort?” the interloper intruded further.

Zhevra’s ears burned on the inner cups until they stung. In a dress she had not paid for, the Suedzuk could not confront the Gvegh male so curious. Instead, she locked her green eyes on Gevaudan, “Yes, I am his slave. And what business is it of yours?”

There was a circular display rack of stacked and hanging clothes in the establishment that stood between the brown male and Gevaudan. But from Zhevra’s angle, she could see the white Vargr’s left claw on the strange, finned torch on his belt. Also from her adorned angle she saw the flexing of metal fist claws tied to the brown male’s hands. A Corsair’s weapon of close melee combat, especially in Infighting or wrestling, the claw blades were handy, freed the grip of the user and were intimidating on sight to most other Vargr. From her vantage, Zhevra saw an unseen escalation between the two males.

“Just askin’, is all?” said the brown male. “Seems to me a dress like that belongs on a lady or a whore over a slave.”

Neither the brown Gvegh or Gevaudan possessed ranged weaponry. This could get ugly very quickly, Zhevra decided.

When Gevaudan did not speak, the male continued the provocation, “Can you affor-”

Zhevra heard the male speak, but her eyes returned to Gevaudan. When her focus landed on his white form, he blurred into speed too fast to follow with the eyes. But touch is fundamental and Zhevra could feel the fields from her owner flash from where he was standing, around the rack of clothes. When she could look to the brown male, Gevaudan had appeared beside the male. The cylindrical torch was in her owner’s hand and a hissing sigh could be heard as it was pointed at the brown. But to the Suedzuk, she could feel the electromagnetic field, invisible to the un-augmented eye, a blade of some kind. Out the pommel of the torch radiated heat rippling the air around the fins. It was most certainly an exotic weapon. She only had time to gasp before Gevaudan spoke.

1_Deadly_Serious.jpg


“She’s mine, it is her dress, we can afford it and you are about to lose an Infight before it starts.”

The Gvegh male froze in place with the white male in his face, the hissing and sighing weapon at his throat. Then the acrid smell of the male losing his bladder control wrinkled the noses of all concerned. Zhevra managed a step back, silenced by the speed Gevaudan must have evidenced. Somewhere in the back of her mind, the memory of Gevaudan’s augments registered as the reason for his speed.

“Go shop elsewhere. These dresses don’t fit you.”

“Y-yeah, sure thing,” stuttered the male.

“Finestkind,” Gevaudan growled low.

The brown male backed away but after three steps began running for his life. Once he was out of the store, Gevaudan silenced the torch thing in his hand. The entire scene was over in ten seconds flat.

Zhevra’s mouth hung open. She had never seen such speed.

“Come Zhevra,” ordered her owner, returning his voice to his normal baritone.

The pair made over to the cashier’s counter. Gevaudan fished out his money. Zhevra could hear him panting though the white Vargr was calm and businesslike. “Keep the change for taxes,” he said to the cashier, a female Gvegh of mottled gray.

“Have a nice day, you two.”
 
The shopping trip ruined, the pair returned to the Downport. Zhevra kept silent in the new dress even as she held tight to Gevaudan’s arm all the way to the Sixth Horizon. Questions blossomed in her head, but she bit her tongue to keep from saying anything.

The white Vargr by now calm, sat down and said to Zhevra, “You’re confused and your con is fuzzy. You must have questions. Ask.”

Zhevra froze in her dress. The questions that had been sitting in the back of her mind came out now that they were bidden by her owner. “What- what just happened?”

“A fool almost got himself killed on a low-law capital of the Thoengling Empire.”

Zhevra pointed at the finned handle that now hung on Gevaudan’s belt, “What is that? A weapon?” It was still cooling as the waves of heat dispersed from the fins still.

“Yes,” admitted the Gevaudan and he described it with, “It’s a Zhodani Mindsaber and is basically a cutting weapon.”

The answer did not seem to register in any knowledge of Zhevra who fired off another question instead, “Just how old are you, Sir?” The ‘Sir’ just came out of her mouth as an automatic honorific to her Captain and owner in one word.

“I was born to my dam, Souegh Cannagrrh Alpha of Pack Cannagrrh in 1072 Imperial calendar, 113 years ago.”

The age and the numbers again did not register until later when Zhevra had time to digest them. Then she kept firing questions that had piled up.
“Who is your sister in that picture in the captain’s cabin?”

Gevaudan looked in the direction of his stateroom then answered, “She is my Sister-Dame Qithka Cannagrrh, Alpha of Pack Cannagrrh, my elder by a several minutes, a litter mate.”

“Why do you have the officer’s cutlass of one Captain Jacob Crow in the ship’s locker?” Again, the questions had no rhyme or reason to their order or topic.

Gevaudan looked the other direction to the ship’s locker and answered, “Captain Jacob Crow is my friend. He presented me his officer’s blade. I do not know if he still lives, but I doubt it.”

“How were you able to tell what I was thinking that night I thought to kill you in your sleep?”

Gevaudan sighed, “Just prior to being augmented in the Darrian Confederation, I was tested and trained in psionics. I however only rated mediocre in clairvoyance and teleportation. It is how I moved instantly to that brown jerk tonight. The moment he started talking, I was preparing to jaunt to his side. I already knew he was an enemy.”

“How?” asked Zhevra.

“After my psionic training through less than Institute means, I developed olfactory synesthesia; I can detect by smell if someone means to harm me if they are within scenting range. The psionic doctors say it’s an aberration from not receiving full Institute instruction or that I’m a Vargr or that I’m Gvegh or that the combination of a Zhodani instructor paired with an Unequal precog caused me to have a strange way of using my clairvoyance talent of tactical awareness. I never used these talents as a career and stayed a normal, everyday Scout-Courier. I’m no Psion. Remember that, Zhevra.”

“That is why you sound like you have sinus issues, yes?” Zhevra continued her questions fearful that if she stopped asking them, Gevaudan would allow no further inquisition.

Gevaudan chuckled, “Yeah, I suppose to you it might. But our Vargr noses are better than Humans and my talent reached for the one sense, the olfactory, that generally can’t lie to me.”

“And the three females’ pictures on the wall next to your sister are your previous wives?” It was almost an accusation.

“Only until they could naturalize to the Society of Equals as part of my plan to fast-track individuals into citizenship of the polity, yes.” Gevaudan continued with, “The divorces were lawful, amicable, all arbitrated fairly and they made new lives on other worlds in the Dzen Aeng Kho. My first wife actually bought s-servants from me later with her own money along the same lines to help those I rescued out of the Wilds into her fold and protection. The web only widens from there, Zhevra.”

The questions came again from Zhevra, “So you are both psionic and a cyborg?”

“Yes, and please don’t say ‘abomination’ like others say the words ‘Red Pelt’, okay?”

Zhevra cooled at that. The mirror was pointed at her now. Since Gevaudan was seated and seemed no more a threat than a puppy with his claw in the treats jar, Zhevra began pulling off her new dress in favor of her ship’s uniform. “No more questions, Sir. I need to work off what happened tonight. I’ll be in Engineering if you need me.”

Gevaudan nodded. No more words were spoken.
 
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Two weeks and two days later, the Captain, the Engineer and two robots returned to Rorroksueknea (Gvurrdon 2628), where Gevaudan had purchased Zhevra and the other slave concubines. It had been a professional relationship for those two jumps. Zhevra spent more time in the three aft sections of the ship. It allowed her to think.

Gevaudan meanwhile performed his duties and had help from the robots to conduct more trade through the buying and selling of speculative cargos, products he knew that those worlds on the cusp of the Wilds could trust in their use and without the fear of Virus. The technology of the products he transported was too simple for infection. Since his meager four-ton cargo hold could only transport a small amount of needs, his arrival was a special treat since the Collapse of interstellar trade, especially with the Wilds. Out in the Vargr Splinters, Gevaudan did not have Regency’s restrictive laws to obey to come and go back to the Society of Equals.

The Suedzuk and the Gvegh sold their speculative for local currency to the various ranch owners of the agricultural communities of Rorroksueknea. The ranchers travelled far across the landscape in fusion-generated, electric ground cars to do business with the white Vargr from Spinward. Zhevra saw that this was Gevaudan’s main source of income and that it far outstripped the sale of the rescued, but enslaved concubines.

At the local Downport, Gevaudan met with slave fetches, slavers who knew the Equal or knew him by reputation. Rorroksueknea still lived in fear of a vampire fleet attack and kept their technological footprint low enough that other worlds might be greater magnets, preferred targets by vampire ships and the Virus hive-minds that controlled their movements through the Vargr Splinters. Thus, there were a few fetches present when Gevaudan alerted the seedier side of the markets. Zhevra saw now that Gevaudan purposefully kept from the speculative cargo markets until he had selected his next sixteen slaves. She also took note of his selective process. He was purposefully taking concubines aboard, prostitutes, or just females who, like Zhevra were down on their luck and would engage in any activity if it meant migrating Spinward to a Safe such as Gevaudan’s home polity, the Dzen Aeng Kho.

Seeing the process of selection and purchase from Gevaudan’s perspective, Zhevra had to admit it was disheartening that he could accept so few when there was a small of horde of concubines, female and males, who were willing or forced by local laws to accept the loss of their freedom in the promise of safety in an interstellar civilization over the Wilds. Would that he upgraded to a larger vessel, Zhevra thought. Then he could take on more. But the Engineer in her told Zhevra that to do such would reduce the performance of his travel and that could be dangerous with vampire ships, Corsairs who still predated the civilized trade routes and warring polities that still harbored the old hatreds such as the Society of Equals’ grief with the Thirz Empire still further Spinward in Safe space.

Zhevra could see the frowning faces of the fetched slaves that did not make this run’s cut. Gevaudan was not allowed to speak to the collected concubines in that he would be returning. He had to let the fetch merchants tell them such, which was not often. Sixteen ‘lucky’ slaves were elevated out of stock barracks cages and in various states of dress and taken under the Courier-slaver’s wing, literally under his ship’s wedge edge and figuratively into his care. He gave the female Vargr, as this run had no male concubines, the same speech and when there were still eager nods of acceptance and consent, each was given a slave’s capture collar to put on themselves.

The Engineer saw that the collars served two purposes. She felt their Mag and Lek fields change as each locked their devices about their necks. First, the collar reminded them to behave or suffer a nasty rub to the flesh as Zhevra had endured. It told them that they were indeed fully enslaved to Gevaudan and only he knew the combination to the devices. Second, the touch and feel of a metal collar reminded each that there was a responsible party in charge of them from purchase, into safe travel out of the Wilds and properly cared for up until final sale to a new master in the Society of Equals. To lay down the rules, as he had done with Zhevra’s batch of slaves, Gevaudan gave the six females the same speech about his route, the Society of Equals and how their futures were not terminal as servants. Each could rise up out of enslavement through the system and work towards their freedom at each’s own pace and merits.

It was heartening to Zhevra to hear the lecture again. Through her Awareness, she felt Gevaudan’s sincerity and integrity strengthening his aura and charisma. The first time around in her uncertainty as slave stock, she was disbelieving of this Society of Equals. Her heart opened again to the white Vargr who spoke and sniffed the air, using his tactical awareness psionic talent nested in his strange olfactory synesthesia. He could smell if the females, Zhevra included as she was standing at a parade rest next to him; smell if there was still hostility meant for him as their new owner. Again, Gevaudan refused or was unable to use the term slave, substituting servant instead. In a pang of guilt, Zhevra knew now the personal honor, integrity and charisma the Equal was putting on the line, hinging it on his success to transport sixteen fearful slave immigrants home to the Dzen Aeng Kho. It again endeared him to her when he dismissed the six favored concubines to staterooms and then laid the other ten to sleep in the low berth chambers, through the journey until planetfall on Gnoengungag.

And through the process, Gevaudan was showing great patience with Zhevra who was at the tail end of working out the full measure of his project. At 113 years, looking handsome through the use of anagathic medicines she assumed, the Captain of the Sixth Horizon had been doing this private service of his own conception for what must have been decades. No doubt in her mind then that his previous ‘wives’ had been former slaves that he had ‘fast-tracked’ to civilian status so they might take the Equality Test and become full citizens. It renewed the gentility she felt for Gevaudan Cannagrrh. She resolved to help the current batch of uncertain and nervous slaves, to assure them of their improving life, advice into which curriculum to select from the staterooms terminals connected to the ship’s Library for the next three weeks.
 
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When her shift to stand watch the vessel during jumpspace transit came up, it was the eight-hour overlap between hers and Gevaudan’s. She was waking from sleep and he was on free time. Finally listening to her heart, Zhevra rose as he entered the captain’s cabin they shared. He stopped what he was thinking at seeing her approach in her purple undies and sliding on a sports halter bra. As his slave and Engineer, crewmember, he had not touched her in any way she did not consent. Now she wanted his touch.
With deliberately slow foot pads to the deck, she stepped up to Gevaudan. Her head was low, her nose pointed toward him and her emerald green eyes giving him her full attention.

“I am very sorry,” she began. “Your nose was right. I did judge you harshly after the mall up until today. I have worked it off. Who am I, a Suedzuk after the Sack of Gashikan to lay judgement on a male who is only trying to do the right thing even if on the outside, it looks like a perverse cyborg-psionic is using his talents to take advantage of an ages old profession.” She reached out with her hands up, her claws passive an offer of a hug, an embrace.

He looked both relieved and young again, a pup unsure if he was invited. To Zhevra, Gevaudan was alone in this ship, far away from his Pack with no one to congratulate or admonish him through charisma. But seeing his ocean blue eyes lock with hers, he came to her.

“You are a good Vargr, Gevaudan Cannagrrh,” she said as the two embraced. “I needed to see it, I guess. In my travels, I cannot afford to take anything for granted, see?” Seeing his nod affirmative, she said, “You did right not to hinder my investigative snooping and prying into your past. I am your slave and it helps a servant serve when the owner is a known part of the equation. You are a gentleman, a scholar, a merchant, a Scout-Courier and an experienced lover if the smiles on the females in those pictures is any accurate testament.”

Gevaudan was able to get in a question. “How did you know I was telling you the truth, holding my honor out ahead of me for you to shred the first sign of falsehood?”

In his stronger arms, Zhevra licked him once. A kiss in Human equivalent gesture. Then she locked eyes again, “If I tell you, it is in utter and complete confidence, okay?”

“On my honor and charisma. You aren’t trained in psionics are you?” Zhevra would later learn that that last question was rude, but given their intimate embrace and his curiosity, it could be allowed. She smiled.

“No, Gevaudan,” she began to explain, “When the Vargr race first rose upon Lair as the dominant species, whether it was Ancients or evolution – believe whatever you wish – the Suedzuk were already pushed to the less favorable landforms and habitats by the other sub-species, Gvegh included. Marginalized to the exotic, broken and stranger climates and hunting grounds, we somehow became Aware as a survival adaptation. We did not know it at the time but we could feel through the sense of touch and our red pelts the bio- and electromagnetic fields of plants, animals and other Vargr. It took centuries before we learned that other Vargr ethnicities had developed other senses and capabilities, the rage of the Urzaeng and the Ovaghoun for example. We hid our senses, for how can one shut off the sense of touch? But we also honed our sensitivity of magnetic or Mag and electric or Lek once we came to the conclusion that Lair had given us something, a “leg up” as you say, to survive. The so-called Church Of The Chosen Ones would have us believe that the Ancients repeatedly made modifications to the Vargr, their Chosen. I don’t buy it and most of the Suedzuk don’t buy into that rubbish. The Solomani Hypothesis can stand until proven guilty, that our species was uplifted. We are Vargr, not canines. When jumpdrive technology was discovered by Lair’s scientists we took our heightened senses with us to the stars in the First Diaspora.”

Gevaudan’s hug tightened in empathetic grip, “Then the Suedzuk made the mistake of the Sack of Gashikan.”

“A grievous mistake, yes,” said Zhevra, “one for which we have never lived down as ‘Red Pelts’, pirates, ransacks, looters, genocidal monsters. What am I to you?”

“Someone…someone I can love unconditionally if you can do the same,” Gevaudan admitted, his heartbeat pounding through his aura field.

“I believe I can now that I see and feel the measure of you, Gevaudan Cannagrrh. You are a hero, not just some very old adventurer, slaver and psionic cyborg. A hero. Will you be my hero?” Zhevra’s words came from that side of her that argued with her in the mirror.

His tail wagged like a puppy. He swelled with an intake of breath, his subdermal plates of flexible armor going rigid against her. “Was it the statue in Engineering?” he asked jokingly as a tension breaker.

“If you want to believe it, yes,” Zhevra said and licked him again. Now her tail swayed confidently.

Gevaudan smiled genuinely. Now in his off hours, he looked around for something to do as he held her smaller frame.

“Allow me, my Sir,” she cooed up at him. When he released her from his embrace, she began to undress Gevaudan from his black ballistic cloth uniform. He had forgotten to remove the insignia emblem of the Society of Equals since the mall incident.

“You don’t have-,” he said.

“I want,” Zhevra declared, again at odds with that Engineer career female inside her. What was she doing? She had no skill other than what was imparted externally from Madam Karrnae and the other concubines’ gossiping about the act of blending pelts, the joining of two Vargr in intercourse. “Please,” she added, her politeness demanding such. Then she dropped her underclothes to the deck before him, in full nervous display.

Gevaudan sniffed her subtly, “You-you’ve never...,” he guessed.

“So?” Zhevra countered. “Show me. You are worthy. I know that now. Am I of you?”

* * *

“We blended pelts, in love for the first time on Rorroksueknea, neutral grounds between my Wilds and his Equality,” Zhevra told the advocate Allain Templeton. She did not look at Khzaeng the Psion. No doubt he could see better than Allain especially as a fellow Vargr.

The Human lawyer wisely kept his mouth shut and wrote. He looked up to see her in memorable recall.

“If you ask me how it was, you will only betray that you still know very little of us Vargr, Mr. Templeton,” Zhevra warned, “despite all the ‘Vargr cases’ you are assigned. We have all the same passions and yet are not Human.”

The Human blushed red and again continued writing. Khzaeng shifted his robe again.

Seeing her words affect the Human, Zhevra relentlessly continued in a teasing tone, “What is there to say beyond biology that any other romance novel can give you? I am no better than those fantasies, especially then, for my first time. I knew my part anatomically and Arksouel the Urzaeng was right. The rest fell into place, in a manner of speaking.”

The day concluded, Allain Templeton collected his recording device first, then cleaned up from the finished breakfast hours ago. He pushed the file on the fold-down table to face Zhevra still in chains. “I uh- I did not record your Suedzuk sense of Awareness in my transcription.”

“I can’t read shorthand. But don’t worry. Though your Mag is up, like a polygraph test, your Lek tells me you aren’t lying to me.”

Allain straightened like his deeper secrets had just been plumbed.

Tired from her tale, Zhevra said, “Told you I wasn’t a Psion. Good night, Gentlemen.” Again, she used Gev’s honorific he reserved for anyone who was not an Equal.
 
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The next morning, Khzaeng returned alone. With him was the recording device. Allain Templeton was absent as was the file. Seeing the Psion, Zhevra rose from her morning exercises.

“What is this?”

The indelible telepath reported in calm monotone, “Mr. Templeton fell ill last night with an influenza strain missed this year by the annual inoculations. He is to remain at home and recover. I however am not excused to bring the recorder and observe your truth-telling. I put in a protest, but- ”

“It’s okay,” Zhevra assured the blue dye dot on the Vargr’s forehead as if it were the person and not the flesh and fur about it. The focus of her address caused Khzaeng to shift his robe as he had this many times.

The two ate breakfast. Zhevra tried to eat the nut encrusted and marinated dish same as Khzaeng and found she liked it. It was not the usual diet of a Suedzuk but the flavor was distracting from the texture of the nut addition. When finished, Khzaeng remained sitting and wordlessly gestured to the recording device.

Zhevra caught the cue and nodded her assent. The male Psion sat quietly as she continued her story.

“What’s more to say about that first few months, Mr. Templeton?” asked Zhevra to the recording device. “Gevaudan and I fell in love, continued the slaving route to save lives. Gev was already decorated for his Vargrtarian project by his fellow Equals on the Council of worlds.”

Zhevra purposely rattled her chains in proximity of the recorder so it could hear her. “But I suppose our mating vows, or wedding you might call it, can be touched upon.”
 
XI. Regina (Spinward Marches 1910) A788899-C, Gnoengungag (Gvurrdon 1923) B759623-7 and Rorroksueknea (Gvurrdon 2628) B574500-8 of Zhevra's testimony
After much soul-searching, repeated trade route slaving and growing closer, Zhevra by now knew that Gevaudan was a male she wanted to marry. She did not know Gvegh conventions or traditions in regards to proposition or marriage. What were the vows? What was expected?

She was still his slave. His gold ear-hoop still rode her ear. She wondered if the now-healed piercing jewelry was to be removed. Like the capture collar, Zhevra had come to rely on the ear-hoop as a reassuring sign, by its touch, that Gevaudan still upheld his promise to take care of his slave and Engineer. It was akin to a contract running through her left ear and could be made readily apparent if she but turned her head to the right and pointed her left ear at the white-furred slaver. Could her consent be lawfully given if she was still his property?

Thus, Zhevra the Suedzuk did research into the laws of the Dzen Aeng Kho regarding marriage and mating. She found that though rarer than mate-marriages along the same societal stratifications, Equal, failed Inequal, Unequal and slaves, cross-quality weddings were upheld by the courts of the polity. The opinions she found in media of the Society of Equals found such marriages distasteful, bordering scandalous in some Packs, Gevaudan’s Pack Cannagrrh notwithstanding.

Small wonder that Gevaudan had not visited his homeworld and Pack in a long time. His previous three marriages of convenience to bypass immigration laws had made a lesser name for himself. No doubt that the public records would have shown up on his extended family’s radar. Gevaudan did not seem to care of their opinions or tastes. His actions were guided by his heart and his project, noble, lusty, with an enslaved mate or one soon to be emancipated. He did love and Zhevra found he loved unconditionally, without passions such as attachment, lust or anger complicating things. If one of his wives parted from him in divorce, as the white male had recounted to Zhevra, it was a return to a friendly acquaintance status and mutual respect to a civilian about to undertake her Equality Test.

Gevaudan “popped the question” over a dinner at a restaurant on Gnoengungag, the world where he had just sold a new batch of male and female concubines to new placement homes he was more than satisfied to see them graduate from his transportation and care. The success had left him in good spirits which Zhevra of course could detect. This brightened her to respond by wearing the black and yellow, tabard hip dress he had first bought her.

Over a three-course celebration meal with red wine, a thick and scented column candle he had found at a store in the Startown, he smiled at Zhevra.

A little self-conscious at his approving gaze, Zhevra asked, “What is it?”
In the candlelight, he looked regal in a formal uniform of the Couriers of the Dzen Aeng Kho. This was the first time he had laundered and worn it for this night at the restaurant. She had done the same for her ensemble. The candle’s foot-lumens caught the gold ear-hoop in the corner of her left eye with a glare. The reflected light put a strange visible aura over the white male’s right side as he sat across from her. But before he could say anything, a pair of thick steaks peppered with pureed greens and spices arrived from the kitchen.

The two ate and Zhevra though she could feel Gevaudan’s Mag heighten. He was holding something back, tormenting the both of them. She could sense it as a Suedzuk. Her tail wagged through the dress and the wooden chair’s back which was standard for most Vargr furniture. She was sure it was attractive to Gevaudan by now. That red and cream fur of her ventral regions reached down, between her pelvic and thigh areas, all the way under her bush tail. He knew her body by now and found her small frame attractive.

Pretending to savor the aroma of the steak in an intake of breath, Gevaudan waved his muzzle and nose over his plate, and leaned a little forward. Zhevra knew better. He was conning her, cheating as she was cheating with her Awareness senses. Only for him, the Courier-slaver was able to shut off his psionics by will alone. Her senses were always active. Touch is fundamental. His smile through half-lidded, ocean blue eyes nearly melted her again. She liked it when his biological body reacted, that far outstripped his parts being cybernetic, which was not much in proportion to begin with. She had learned that ratio sometime in their couplings, blending pelts.

“Zhevra,” began Gevaudan, “do you tire of being my slave? I mean, are you ready for that ear-hoop to come out?”

“Gev,” Zhevra stopped him by using the shortened nickname for her Sir, “I’d feel naked. This is hard to explain, so let me ask you and see if we can find a parallel, okay?”

The white Gvegh stopped his meal and laced his claws before his plate to listen. Zhevra did the same but added hand gestures and pointed to the ear-hoop as she detailed what was on her mind. “Your EMP shielding collar, the beveled one. You wear it always, right?”

Gevaudan nodded, but did not interrupt.

“This ear-hoop has become similar. It protects me in your Society of Equals as your property. You have every right to defend me if I become threatened. I like that part actually.” Zhevra grinned with a shy shrug of demure. “Just as your EMP collar protects your augments and cybernetics from electromagnetic pulses that can fry your rigs and implants, my ear-hoop protects my rights from abuse, even by you. It has become a part of me. To stop wearing it now would feel like I’d had a body part amputated in some unwanted, elective surgery.”

Her partner considered Zhevra’s words and said, “What if I could offer similar but better?”

Zhevra tilted her head in both a questioning gesture and submitting her jugular vein in her neck. It was a gesture of submission in charisma. Gev had her in that racial asset. The gesture meant she was listening to him and had his full attention. Her tail stopped waving. A waiter passed by it easily as he served a meal to the next table over.

Gevaudan produced from a hidden coat pocket in his formal dress uniform. It was a short, almost flat and square box featuring a designer’s logo in silver on its black top. Zhevra caught her breath as sight of it. He reached over and seized her cream claw in his larger white. The he focused his blue eyes on her green. “Zhevra the Suedzuk, my Engineer, my slave, my partner in this grand project, my love. Would you consent to marry me and be my mate?”

Her grip on his white claw was keeping Zhevra from vertigo. He had done it. He had asked her to marry him. She was mesmerized by his fields, his eyes, the grip he had on her. Though her mirror-self who wanted Gevaudan made her nod her head, she fought for dominance and answered, tears in her eyes, “Yes, Gevaudan Cannagrrh, my Captain, my Sir. I consent to marry you, though I don’t know how Gvegh go about it.”

With his free claw, which had left nail marks in the top of the box, Gevaudan pushed the surprise forward, across the linen covered table to Zhevra. “Open it,” he said as a suggestion rather than an order. His voice rattled with nervousness.

The thing, the box, was still losing Gevaudan’s magnetic signature still when she loosed her hands from his to reach and open the gift. Trembling subtly down her spine, Zhevra lifted the black top off the silver bottom of the gift box. Inside and cradled by a black velvet lining similar to the box that held the gold alloy ear-hoops, was a collar. It had a silver buckle closure, round silver studs around the outside, a front D-ring that supported an orange-gold metallic pendant in the shape of a small heart. The band was made of an unknown leather and was permanently died a medium lavender. Zhevra gasped with an intake of breath. Her claws came up to her cream muzzle topped with her signature red stripe up her nose. She stared at the collar. She wanted it on her.

“This is for you, Zhevra,” declared Gevaudan Cannagrrh. “It was yours whether you said yes or no in answer to my request. I do know how naked it feels to have my EMP collar off. I feel unshielded. Unprotected. As my wife, you can properly immigrate to the Dzen Aeng Kho, take out that ear-hoop and have free choice of becoming an Equal or other.”

“I thought you liked them.”

“My Suedzuk, I never liked them. I only tried to make them beautiful and worthy of the ears they rode, is all. Laws chose its form. Yes, it does look good on you, but it is my hope as my wife that you will consider this gift in its stead, in exchange. It is only a small bit of paperwork, red tape really to list you as such and not a s-…. a slave. Whew, I said it.”

Zhevra smiled big. Other dining Vargr risked occasional glances at the couple, as Gevaudan rose from his chair and rounded the small square table. Lifting the collar from the box with one claw and spacing her red mane from her neck, Gevaudan wrapped the lavender leather about Zhevra’s neck and buckled it under her red fur. “Too tight?”

“No, just snug so I can feel it, please.”

The white male then returned to his seat so he could look at the gift on his betrothed. Zhevra’s index claw fiddled with the pendant as to make it hang loosely and swing like a small weight on the front ring mount. She could feel it move, so new was this gift he’d given her.
 
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