The Dagura Chronicles: Down at the Slave Auction
by Seldom (seldomlasts@yahoo.com)
Science fiction. A bit violent.


***** AUTHOR'S CORNER *****

Don't you love watching Star Trek? Doesn't the Federation make you feel all warm
and fuzzy? What wonderful creatures we humans are! What wondrous free
compassionate spirits we have!

Ha! We're humans. We all know what that means.

* * * * *

I don't know what compelled me to attend the slave auction that day. I often
wonder about it.

I stood in the square with nearly a hundred others. It was the weekly auction,
not the large bustling monthly or the even bigger semi-annual that thousands
across Bana Province attended. The weekly was when they tried to auction off the
sickest and weakest slaves, or the most unruly and in need of discipline. The
men (they were all men) who surrounded me were large and rough, some former
slaves themselves. They shuffled impatiently, some yelling to get on with it
already.

I looked behind the stage where several slaves were shuffling out. The sight
sickened me. The figures were dirty, stooped and broken, and moved with slow
stumbling steps. The attendant constantly thrashed one or another of them on the
back or legs. The slaves would wince. One large man struggled futilely against
his chains, not yet broken. He would break though, they would all break. They
would not be bought until they broke.

Kara had hated everything to do with slavery. Out of respect for her I never
owned one. Passing the auction that day, though, I was irresistibly drawn to it.
I had to see a weekly, to know what it was like.

The auctioneer and the buyers were all equally bored. It was apparent that they
all wished they could be somewhere else, but I was fascinated. I watched as
slave after slave was sold off, some as cooks, some as labor.

Some as whores, I saw. The only time the people attending the auction showed the
slightest interest was when some poor bedraggled woman was hauled to the stage,
stripped, and her various attributes shown. That they were sickly and gaunt did
not seem to matter. The bored men bid insultingly low prices for the women,
muttering about hoping to get at least a month or two out of them before they
died.

I understood now. Many of these men were seedy club owners, probably near the
spaceport, hoping to pass some cheap entertainment to a crewman on temporary
shore-leave.

I was revolted but could not leave. Had Kara attended one of these? There was
none of the flash or show of a monthly auction. The slaves were not even cleaned
up first. They were whipped and openly mistreated.

One short skinny woman with webbed feet and hands, an alien, coughed and
collapsed on her way to her new master. The man yelled disgustedly at her. She
winced. He pulled out a pistol and shot her once through the head. "Bloody waste
of a tenner that was," he said. Several men around him comforted him on his
loss.

I nearly threw up.

The auction continued like this for forty-five minutes. Then the most
extraordinary thing happened. She stepped into the open.

I gasped. She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. She towered over
the other slaves, glancing at them without interest. She didn't react to the
beatings the attendant gave her on her back and prominent bare chest. She was
seven feet tall, with blue skin, purple hair, and huge, sleek, powerful muscles.
She looked every inch a powerful, arrogant, dangerous predator. Her spirit was
unbroken but not her body. She cradled her right arm carefully. It was swollen
and oddly bent.

I suddenly paid close attention to what the auctioneer said. He smiled weakly,
knowing that this one would be a no-sale. The men chuckled and cat-called at her
voluptuous figure and obvious womanhood, but nobody would pay for an untrained
wild slave in need of medical attention, and the auctioneer knew it.

She stepped onto the stage when shoved forward, moving with smooth feline grace.
The expression on her face was hard and unreadable. What caught my attention
after her perfect body and extraordinarily beautiful face were her eyes. The
black pupils were surrounded by a deep red with no white at all. The pupils were
small in the sun's harsh glare, but the large irises allowed for great
expansion. Night vision, my analytic mind noted. Perfect for a predator.

The auctioneer's next words confirmed this. "Here we have a most unusual
specimen, a barbarian warrior princess from XZ7219R, which the council just
recently approved for recreation and abduction." Hunting and enslaving, in other
words. There would be many game hunters who would pay big bucks for a chance at
sentient prey, especially when the opponent was as formidable as this huge
alien.

The auctioneer was just playing it up for entertainment. Nobody cared about or
believed the warrior princess claim. More than likely she was just one of many
slaves from a village we had raided. The man continued, "She'd make a great
fighter in the arena, eh Gregory?"

The man the auctioneer had addressed, the owner of a fighting arena, called out,
"Yeah, too bad she's lame!" The others guffawed but I watched her, mesmerized.

Her eyes caught my stare. She stared back at me, unmoving, betraying no emotion.

I hadn't even realized my hand was raised. The auctioneer glanced at me,
surprised. "It appears we have a bid!" he called out. The others stared back at
me and began laughing. I was out of place in my smart business suit.

The auctioneer looked at me in pity and decided something. "Now look fella," he
said, "you look like you could use a domestic slave, or maybe a harem slave. Am
I right?" I just looked at him impassively. "Be reasonable. I can't sell her to
you. You look like a right softie! She'd rip you apart. No, I could sell her to
the arena or a club maybe, but we want repeat business, you know? Come back to
the monthlies, you look rich enough, and if you promise not to tell I'll give
you a discount on some luscious well-trained harem wench. Trust me, friend, you
don't want an untrained barbarian woman, curvy though she may be." He slapped
her playfully on her firm muscular buttocks. She didn't move, still staring at
me.

"I want her," I said.

The man sighed. "She don't even speak good English! Just a jury-rigged minder
implant."

"She can learn," I retorted, unmoved.

The auctioneer licked his lips and looked around nervously. "I'll be straight
with you. She's killed two of our attendants and three of the other slaves, even
with that broken arm. She'd kill you without another thought, you know how these
barbarian races are. She'll be put down in another month if she ain't bought,
the expense is too great. Leave her be, friend. Maybe in a few years her kind
will be properly trained."

Why did I want this? The auctioneer was right, she was dangerous. Her gaze never
wavered. For some reason, though, her stare did not make me nervous or
uncomfortable. She seemed to pierce right into my soul, and I let her.

The auctioneer looked at the giantess, then back at me. "Your funeral, friend.
Just remember that we don't take no responsibility for her once she's yours.
Your family can't sue."

"I will keep that in mind," I said coldly.

"No need to get hostile, friend. Just trying to keep you from making a mistake,
right fellas?" The others laughed, looking at me and shaking their heads,
obviously thinking I had lost my mind. "So now there's, ah, just the matter of
price. A thousand seems fair for this fine example of raw animal beauty, don't
you think?" A thousand, I knew, was the price for a well-trained healthy house
affairs manager.

"Two hundred," I said, a fair price for an inexperienced arena warrior.

"Seven," he countered. The head chef of a prominent household.

"Four," I said. Ridiculously high for a maimed, deadly, hostile slave.

"Five, no lower," he said. He was lucky to get anything for her, and he knew it,
but he still had to put up a fight.

"Four fifty, plus fifty for her pedigree." This was unfair, as a member of a new
slave race she would have no pedigree.

The auctioneer winced at my low blow. "Four fifty for our friend here," he said
tightly. I knew the anger was just a show; he had just made four hundred fifty
on a slave he was ready to write off. His superiors would be pleased.

One of the attendants swiped a card through her bindings, and she was free to
leave the stage. The shackles remained around her ankles and wrists. Those were
mine to take off.

Her eyes never left me. She walked steadily down the stage and through the dirt
to me. Her movements were smooth and graceful.

"Shall I remove these?" I asked, indicating her shackles. Her expression
remained unchanged. She gave no indication that she had understood me. The
implant was obviously not working.

I turned to the waiting attendant. "Take off her chains," I commanded. The
attendant looked surprised but did as ordered. I tipped him well and he scooted
away, clearly relieved to get out of my new slave's range.

She did not resist or even react as I examined her arm. It had received no
treatment at all and was mending itself into the wrong shape. This close I could
see dark bruises all over her body, and infected red whip welts. The conditions
she'd been in were miserable. I looked up at her. She was looking down,
watching, always alert, always expressionless. Was that natural for her kind, or
the result of shock?

I took her to my doctor. He looked her up and down. He clucked. "We'll have to
re-break the arm and then mend it properly, and she needs a bath and some
disinfectants, other than that she looks like she's in superb health." He
frowned. "In better shape than she has any right to, considering the conditions
I hear the slaves are kept in. I'm amazed she shows no signs of sexual assault."

I raised my eyebrows, appraising her vast rippling musculature. "I imagine
assaulting her would be someone's last mistake. I hear she killed five people in
the slave quarters, two of them attendants."

Jim looked at me seriously. "I'll be straight with you, Harry. She may be
weakened and her arm broken, but she's dangerous. Look at her. I've never seen a
slave like her. She could kill both of us and probably more without breaking a
sweat. You should have her destroyed."

Her eyes flickered at that, just barely. If I hadn't been watching for it out of
the corner of my eye I would have missed it. Gotcha, I thought. A clever girl
you are. The implant was working fine.

Jim was right, of course. Death was the fate that she would have met soon
enough.

I shook my head. I couldn't order her killed any more than I could commit murder
myself. She might be property by law, but she was an intelligent being. "Let's
just get her cleaned up and into some clothes." Jim nodded.

"You know," he started to say.

"What?" I asked.

"Nevermind," he said, looking away.

"It's alright. I know what Kara would have thought. They were going to put her
down, Jim, what could I do?"

"I just hope you're not making a mistake."

She watched our dialog, still expressionless, showing no sign of comprehension,
but I knew better. Jim directed her to the shower. The soapy water poured over
her. She stood there impassively. Jim shuddered. "She's not going to make a very
good slave," he said. "The med bots alone are going to cost you more than she's
worth."

"Just heal her," I said quietly. Sonic vibrations quickly dried her and Jim
cleaned out her wounds. He took out a hypo and pressed it to her arm. Millions
of tiny medical nanites flooded into her body, numbing her arm. He looked at her
nervously, then took her arm and yanked it. She made no motion to stop him. The
only sound was a vicious crack as her arm broke again. No cry, no startled jerk,
nothing. Eerie. "Is it normal for them not to show any reactions?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I don't know. We don't know very much about her race, actually.
What we do know indicates that you have a very healthy, exceptionally large
teenage girl. Her hormone levels indicate she's about sixteen years old."

She would be about that age on her planet, too. Orbital mechanics dictated that.

Sixteen.

The age our child would have been. If...

I quickly swallowed the lump forming in my throat. She was a child! A
well-developed, extremely muscular, very voluptuous child, to be sure. A child
who had been torn from her homeworld and thrust into slavery in a universe of
which her race understood very little.

"Thanks, Jim. Don't worry, I know what I'm doing, I think."

He smiled weakly. "I doubt it."

* * * * *

I led her into the guest bedroom. My house was modest, not small but not large.
Normally with my wealth I would need a large household, but I was one of the few
of my status who did not keep slaves. I honored Kara's memory as best I could.

"The bed's a bit small for you. I'll work on getting a new one. I'll have a
tailor here tomorrow to see if we can't get you some civilized clothes, too.
Naked as you are, we can't have you walking the streets lovely." I licked my dry
lips and hesitated. She was watching me but still had not uttered a sound or
made any reaction to indicate she understood. Her arm, tended by the small
healers in her blood, had fully mended.

"I know you can understand me," I said quietly. She didn't respond. I sighed and
walked to the door, preparing to step out.

I hadn't heard her creep up on me, but suddenly her strong hand was around my
throat lifting me into the air. She turned me around. I saw that she easily held
me aloft with one arm. Her muscles flexed but were not strained. She could hold
me like this all day. I scrabbled feebly at her forearm, feeling the dense hard
muscles. If she clenched her fist, my neck would snap without even a moment's
resistance.

I looked into her deep red eyes. They were impassive. She gave no hint of
emotion.

Her grip was tight but not crushing. I could still breathe, painful as my
position was. I realized that if she wanted to kill me she would have done so by
now. Why didn't she? I received no answer from her expressionless face.

She put me down and turned away. She sat on the bed and closed her eyes. I was
no longer part of her world. I rubbed my throat and left the room. Were I a
normal slave-owner I would have her killed. I wondered, though. Why had she let
me live?

I know now that I had half-hoped she would kill me. That was the reason I had
bought her. I was not afraid of death. I did not look forward to it, but neither
did I have anything I was particularly attached to. My life had ceased to be
worth living about when that large blue-skinned violet-haired pup was born.

I sat on my own bed and looked at Kara's picture. I wondered, after all these
years would I still have found her beautiful? She was twenty-five in that
picture. Gorgeous and vibrant, her long blonde hair framing her pretty face. I
still miss that fantastic body. More than that I miss her company. I miss the
life we could have shared. Of course, in that life, that paradise where we are
still together, I did not buy a beautiful alien slave, and none of the things to
come happened. It's almost enough to make one believe in fate.

In the greater picture, one woman's life is not much to pay to bring about a
better galaxy. Unless that woman is your wife.

I did not know back then what I know now. All I knew was that I had betrayed her
memory by buying a slave. I hoped she would forgive me. "Please understand,
Kara." I could have sworn I felt her hand on my shoulder, and her guiding
influence on the events to come. I suppose I have grown a bit superstitious, for
now I believe a dead woman changed the universe.

I spent the rest of the day in research. From my home terminal I called up all
the information the council worlds had on the new slave race from XZ7219R. They
had a physiology similar to ours. They were much bigger on average, their
females ranging around six to six and a half feet tall, their males reaching
seven feet. My slave was indeed an exceptionally large example of her race.

Their muscles were much denser than ours. They weighed on average about twice as
much as a human of similar height and proportions. Their response time and
healing powers were above average for a humanoid race. They were physically
superior to any other humanoids we had encountered, and she was physically
superior to the rest of her race. I was awed when I thought about the raw
strength her large powerful body must contain.

The anthropological studies had yielded minimal data. Who cares about the
society of a slave race? What there was indicated that their society was
well-ordered and advanced for the low level of technology they had. They had
been on the verge of discovering electricity when the planet was declared open
by the council.

All of that was gone now. The poor bastards never stood a chance. They would be
hunted for sport, enslaved if it was possible. If they were declared unfit to be
a slave race, as seemed likely from my short experience with the giant female,
their planet would be isolated and they would be reduced to the level of game
animals. Their society would never be given the opportunity to develop their
art, or space travel, or any of the glories the universe could have offered
them.

I looked at the picture of Kara I had next to my terminal. She was posing in
this one, lips pursed outward in a slight pout. My heart ached. "What are we,
Kara? Why do we do this?" She did not answer. She had hated everything about
slavery. I knew why. She had a noble soul, as it seemed these blue-skinned
creatures had. Why did the universe reward nobility with death?

The universe, I knew, didn't do anything. We did. It's so much easier to blame
the way things are than to change them.

End of dagura01