Caliphate

Castle Noisvastei, Province of Baya, 22 Sha'ban, 1536 AH (18 June, 2112)

Ling waited until the fat man had left before easing into Petra's room and crawling into bed next to her, conforming her own body to Petra's like one spoon to another. When Ling put her arm around her, Petra was stiff and unresponsive. Then again, she always was whenever that grotesquery in vaguely human form came to visit her.

"Bad, honey?" Ling asked.

Petra sniffled, "He didn't even grease my ass first . . . and I had to pretend I liked it. Oh, God, Ling . . . I hate my life."

"There are worse things," Ling said, thinking of the computer- controlled creatures down below.

"That's the worst part," Petra wailed. "I know there are worse things and I'm terrified of them." She spun within Ling's arms and buried her head in the Chinese slave's neck and hair.

Under the circumstances, Ling didn't even try to make love to Petra. Instead she just held her tightly and softly kissed her hair while the sixteen-year old houri cried herself to sleep.

When the Ministry of State Security recalls me, Ling thought, I will take this girl with me.

For while Ling had told the truth about having been sold when she was four, she'd neglected to mention that she had a chip in her head as well, one planted there when she was purchased by MSS and just before she was "sold west." In her case, however, nothing had been removed from her brain. Instead, she'd had a whole suite of things implanted—little things, mostly: loyalty, duty . . . code words and phrases . . . field craft.

Not even the Hindus did better human programming than did the Celestial Kingdom of the Han, once known as the Peoples Republic of China.

If possible, said a small voice in Ling's head.