The Warrior Enchained

3

The common area was spacious enough under most circumstances, but Tammad’s large blond l’lendaa seemed to fill it more than six people ought to. They sprawled on the carpeting, leaning against the cushions, laughing with each other as they helped themselves to the food and drink brought them by the transport’s steward. Garth sat to my right, watching them with frowning interest, paying almost no attention to the food he shoveled into his mouth. He seemed determined to continue in my company, and much of his distress was gone since the last time I’d seen him. He and Tammad had had a long talk before the meal was served, which probably accounted for his new attitude.

I sat beside the barbarian on the carpet, holding a pillow rather than leaning on it. The sense of satisfaction from the man beside me was so great that it set my teeth on edge. He had promised not to give me pain and he had kept that promise, at least on a physical level. Mentally I was furious, miserable, frantic, fearful—and more confused than I had ever been. Not knowing what to do or how to think had turned me sullen and unresponsive—until the barbarian put his hands on me. He had used me twice in his cabin, once on the carpet and once on the bed, and all I could remember was moaning helplessly and kissing the light-haired chest I was held against. Afterward I could have kicked myself for being such a willing victim, but the barbarian’s amusement was punishment enough. He knew I couldn’t resist him, and that seemed to settle whatever doubts he might have had.

I moved in annoyance on the carpeting, unhappy with the imad and caldin the barbarian had made me wear. The blouselike imad and full-skirted caldin were both pink in color, made of a thin, formless material that both hung on me and clung to me at the same time. Tammad’s I’lendaa had murmured in appreciation when they’d seen me in the outfit, and even Garth had been startled enough to stop and stare, but I’ve hated pink long enough not to care what other people think about it. Pink is too vulnerable a color for my taste, but the barbarian was back in charge, of me and every thing else.

“Terril, the food was put before you so that you might eat,” the barbarian said, undoubtedly having noticed the untouched serving on the small table near me. “Do you now take the plate and do so.”

“I don’t like regim in cream sauce,” I muttered, keeping my eyes on the bright orange pillow in my lap. Bright orange and pink. Maybe I’d get lucky and the barbarian would get violently ill.

“It matters not what the dish might be,” he persisted, a, faint annoyance tinging the edges of his thoughts. “The Garth R’Hem Solohr informs me you have eaten no more than once this day, if that. Take the food and eat.”

“It really isn’t bad, Terry,” Garth put in, trying to sound encouraging. “I’m not crazy about regim either, but I’ve tasted a lot worse. Try some and see for yourself.”

“I said I don’t want it,” I repeated for both their benefits, beginning to hate even the sound of their voices. “I don’t want it, I don’t want it, I don’t want it!”

I was so close to throwing a screaming fit I don’t know why I didn’t, but passing up an opportunity often mean’s you don’t get another chance at it. The annoyance in Tammad’s thoughts spread from the edges inward, giving him all the encouragement he needed. He twisted where he sat, grabbed both of my arms, upended me across his lap, then used his hand instead of a switch. He put enough strength into the swats to let me know what was happening, kept it up until I began twisting and crying out in spite of my embarrassment, then put me back where I’d been sitting. Garth and the l’lendaa laughed, making my face burn so red I could feel it more strongly than what the barbarian had done to me. I was furious with them all, but there was nothing I could do to stop them.

“Now do you take the plate,” the overgrown monster directed, his voice as calm as it had been, his mind set in that no-more-nonsense mold. I unclenched my fists and reached the plate slowly over to me, ignoring the tears of frustration and misery that rolled down my cheeks. How was I supposed to fight a man his size, how was I supposed to refuse him? All he wanted was the use of my talent, but I couldn’t even turn and walk away.

“Don’t cry, Terry,” Garth chuckled, wiping at the tears on my right cheek with one finger. “Once you’re finished eating, you’ll feel better. And it looks like you’ve also learned a very valuable lesson: despite the way you act with everyone else, Tammad isn’t someone you can stand up to.”

I turned my head to look at him, seeing and feeling the immense satisfaction he was filled with. If the barbarian had threatened my life Garth would have defended and protected me, but as long as I’d only been punished, Garth couldn’t have been more pleased. He was reveling in feelings of masculinity by proxy, glorying in the embarrassment I’d been given. Right then I hated him more than I ever had, and the hatred found expression in words.

“Well, I guess that makes two of us who can’t stand up to him, doesn’t it, Garth?” My voice was hoarse but filled with venom. Garth felt a deep-down stab of pain that paled his cheeks and blanked his mind. He stared at me no more than three seconds, then rose painfully to his feet and hobbled away toward a cabin. Tammad felt a very strong urge to go after him, did not act on it, then waited till Garth had disappeared into a cabin before speaking.

“It is ever true that a woman will attack with words rather than use a more merciful weapon,” he growled, then reached over and turned my face toward him, his anger as clear in his blue eyes as it was in his mind. “You are not to speak to that man in such a manner again,” he said, holding my face tightly between his fingers. “You have no concept of what occurs between men, therefore are you forbidden to make mention of the matter. Eat what was given you, and do not forget my words.”

He let go of my face and turned back to his own food, the thrill of anger still sharp in his mind. I poked at the regim, then ate it mechanically. The dish was as bad as I’d thought it would be, but its taste really didn’t matter. It would have been horrible no matter what it tasted like.

I shifted around on the carpeting again, uncomfortable and unhappy, resisting the urge to turn and stare at the barbarian in tight-upped resentment. What was supposed to be so special about being a man and talking about men’s things? I bad every right to say anything I cared to to Garth, even if the barbarian didn’t like it. Garth acknowledged my position as Prime even if Tammad refused to, and that gave me the right. Tammad wasn’t concerned about excluding me from so-called men’s discussions; he was afraid I would alienate Garth and negate his attempts to make use of the Kabra. I didn’t know how he intended using Garth, but Tammad wasn’t one to waste whatever talent came past him. Ever since the swordfight in the park, Garth had become an important part of the barbarian’s plans. Just how important and exactly what those plans were remained to be seen.

After getting poked in the ribs and frowned at a couple of times for picking at my food, I decided I might as well get it over with and began swallowing as fast as possible to avoid tasting the stuff. I was almost all finished when the captain of the transport and two of his men showed up, but the three men weren’t alone. They each had a woman in tow by the arm, a piece of well-worn luggage held in their free hands, their scowls showing how disapproving they were, especially at the grins the women were wearing. The three females wore cheap, gaudy day-suits, cheaper jewelry, and the wrong sort of makeup. Their faces looked as though they belonged on a stage, and I soon found I wasn’t far wrong. The captain dragged his captive in front of Tammad, then shook her slightly as though showing evidence of guilt.

“Look what we found on the cargo deck,” he growled, obviously expecting the barbarian to understand what was going on. “Turn your back for more than a minute, and your ship is suddenly swarming with trippers.”

“Trippers?” Tammad echoed, examining the woman in detail with his eyes. She had very blond hair, as did the other two, but also had the brown eyes that they did. They weren’t natural blonds, not the way Tammad and his l’lendaa were, but the barbarian didn’t seem to know that. His mind hummed faintly as his eyes moved over the suit-hugged curves of her body, and the captain finally realized his meaning wasn’t getting through.

“Trippers are travelers who either can’t or won’t pay their way off the planet they’re on,” the captain explained, looking the woman over with less interest than Tammad had shown. “They hide on a private ship until the ship is on its way, then come forward demanding their rights under the distressed travelers’ law—the one that says all travelers on your vessel have to be taken care of whether they can pay for the trip or not. The law wasn’t meant to protect people like these three, but they don’t mind taking advantage of it. It gets them where they want to go without costing them anything, and being women, they can’t be forced to work out their fare. It would put them in ‘too compromising’ a position.”

“I see.” Tammad nodded, not missing the way the three women were laughing at the captain’s anger. His mind hummed again, but in a different key, and he added, “Perhaps they should have been told that this vessel concerns itself with Rimilian law, not that of the Amalgamation.”

The captain and his men suddenly grew wide, happy grins, and the women, noticing the abrupt change, found their own amusement deflating. The one in front of Tammad glanced back at her friends, then gave her attention to the captain again.

“We don’t care whose law you’re working under,” she told the captain with brash belligerence. “It’s too late to turn back to Alderan, so you’ve got to take us with you. And if you try not feeding us or getting too fast with the handwork, we’ll report you as soon as we set foot on your planet of destination. As a matter of fact, we just might report you anyway—if you don’t get smart real fast and come up with some sweet, pretty apologies for rousting us around. How about it, girls? Should we yell compromise?”

The other two laughed and agreed with enthusiasm, really enjoying the needling they were doing. Not one of them was worried about what would happen—as if they’d done the same thing many times before without anything unpleasant developing. I put my plate back on the small table without bothering about the rest of the regim. The barbarian wasn’t likely to notice, and I didn’t want to miss whatever was going to happen.

“Apologies, huh?” the captain snorted, his mind full of glee and satisfaction. “If we don’t treat you like something special, we get reported, do we? Well, go ahead and start reporting. The authority you’ll be talking to is sitting right there.”

He pointed to Tammad, and the woman stared at the barbarian thoughtfully. She still wasn’t worried, especially when she caught the way she was being inspected.

“Well, well,” she drawled, deliberately standing straighter and sticking her chest out. “So you’re the authority we’ll be complaining to. How about it, handsome? Are you going to be listening to his side of the story—or ours?”

The woman was being deliberately provocative, trading on the promise of her body for favoritism over the captain. I could see she considered the barbarian attractive, but I could also see she had no intentions of delivering on the promise she was making.

“You speak of a story,” the barbarian mused, leaning his broad body back on his cushions to stare up at the woman. “What is this story you wish me to hear?”

“It’s simple but tragic,” the woman sighed, trying to project honest heartache. The emotion was as false as her hair color, and everyone but Tammad seemed to know it. “My friends and I are an exotic dance team, working as many worlds as possible in order to pick up enough Earning Pluses to pay for an operation for a fourth friend of ours. She used to dance with us until—the accident. Without the operation, the doctors say she’ll never walk again.”

The woman paused to put her hand briefly to her face, supposedly in a spasm of grief, in reality to cut off a laugh at her own corny story. The captain groaned and tried to interrupt, undoubtedly thinking Tammad was buying every word, then groaned again when the barbarian gestured him to silence.

“I try not to think about that too much,” the woman said, gazing sadly at her victim. “Thinking about it is too painful. Well, at any rate, there we were, trying to earn ETA for our friend, when this—this—ruffian you call a captain comes over to us with some of his friends. He says he has a special job of dancing for us that will bring us more than what we need, but we have to go with him. My friends and I would do anything to help out our other friend so we do go with him—but once we get here we find out he’s lying. Not only is there no special job, but the transport takes off! Then be and his friends come down to where they left us, and tell us that if we don’t start being nice to them, they’ll turn us in as trippers! Well, my friends and I don’t do things like that, so we refuse—and the next thing we know, we’re being dragged in front of you. Now, we’re just girls so we can’t fight them, but you—is a big, strong man like you going to let them treat us like that?”

Tammad continued to stare at her as she batted her eyelashes at him, his expression thoughtful but unaccusing. She had picked up on his backwoods accent and was trying to take him for everything he had, without once considering whether or not the try would be safe. It came to me suddenly that she had never dealt with a barbarian before, and didn’t know she was dealing with one now. I stirred where I sat, half tempted to warn her, half tempted to let her find out the hard way, but the decision about what to do really wasn’t mine to make. The woman and her friends had voluntarily walked into a trap for innocents, and without their knowing it, the trap had already closed on their legs.

“My congratulations, Captain,” the barbarian drawled at last, keeping his eyes on the woman in front of him. “I had not realized you would be so thoughtful as to provide us with entertainment. As you were brought here to dance, wenda, I suggest that you do so.”

The captain’s grin came back, stronger than before, but the woman next to him and her friends were instantly furious.

“What do you mean, dance?” the first one demanded, putting her fists on too-curvy hips. “We’re not here to entertain a bunch of yokels! If you didn’t buy my story that’s too bad, but there’s still nothing you can do about it! We’re here and you have to take care of us!”

Tammad, a lion among sheep, an outstanding warrior even on a world of warriors, rose to his feet to stand in front of the woman, a silly female who looked up at him with a dumbfounded expression. Somehow, Tammad’s l’lendaa were also on their feet, three of them around the second woman, the other three around the third, all of them much larger than any of the women had expected them to be. The captain and his crewmen looked at each other, withdrew half a step from the women they’d been escorting, then quietly put down the luggage they’d been holding.

“If I had my guess,” the captain muttered to the woman nearest him, “I’d say you were about to be taken care of. Don’t ever claim you didn’t ask for it.”

“Hey, wait!” the woman protested faintly, reaching for the captain without taking her eyes off Tammad. Her reach and protest did as much good as mine had done; the captain and his men were already most of the way to the passage that led to the control deck.

“Do you dance well?” the barbarian asked the woman in front of him, staring down at her over folded arms. His voice was no more than mildly curious, and that gave the woman enough false encouragement to try bluster.

“We’re the best!” she tried, raising her chin in his direction and putting her fists back on her hips. “When you want to see the best, you have to pay for it and pay high!”

“Does she speak the truth, Terril?” he asked in that same casual way, keeping his eyes on the woman. I’m sure he was trying to catch me off-guard and thereby seta precedent; it was his bad luck it didn’t work.

“If I were in your employ, I would explain the difference between opinion and fact,” I said, keeping my voice as casual as his had been. “Since I’m not in your employ, you can go jump in a lake.”

I didn’t quite look at him when I said that, but I wouldn’t have taken the words back even if I could have. The flash of annoyed anger he experienced was something I’d have to get used to—that and a lot more—otherwise I was wasting my time refusing to help him. He could make me obey him—he’d certainly done it often enough—but I couldn’t let him force me to work for him.

“Wendaa,” he muttered under his breath, making it sound like a curse. I could feel how close he was to the limit of his patience, but the silly female in front of him couldn’t.

“What are you asking her opinion for?” she demanded, jerking her chin at me. “She don’t even know how to dress. If you want to know how good we are, ask anybody who ever saw us.”

“There is no need to ask anyone at all,” Tammad answered, his tone losing its mildness. “You were instructed to dance for us and you will do so. Should you refuse to obey, you will be punished.”

“Punished?” the woman echoed, shocked. “What are you talking about? You can’t. . . ”

“Renny, wait,” a second woman called, one who hadn’t felt shock at the threat. “Renny, tell them we’ll do it.”

“Are you crazy?” the first woman exploded, turning on the second. “I’m not about to . . .”

“The L.M. Special,” the second woman interrupted again, stepping closer to her friend. “How about the L.M. Special? It’s been months since the last time we did it, and it’d be perfect for them.”

“I’ll say it would,” the first one muttered, turning to glare at Tammad. “Okay, big boy, we’ll dance for you. It’ll only take a minute to get the costumes out.”

The three women picked up their luggage and walked to the opposite side of the lounge area, two of them experiencing a “just wait!” sense of satisfaction and anticipation, the third somewhat nervous but determined not to show it. They all began opening their multi-colored day suits, and even though their backs were turned, the seven l’lendaa watching them inwardly began to hum. The women had plans of some sort, the men had plans of their own, and I didn’t need to be put out an airlock to know I’d be much happier somewhere else.

“Where do you go?” Tammad’s voice came from behind me, stopping me no more than two or three steps on my way. “I have not given you permission to depart.”

Permission! I stood where I was for a minute, facing away from him, finding it impossible to unclench my fists. Prunes don’t need anyone’s permission to do anything!

“I don’t like group orgies,” I finally choked out over my shoulder. “From the tenor of your thoughts, I would have thought you’d be pleased to get rid of me. You know, fifth wheels and all that.”

He seemed disconcerted then suddenly inwardly amused, chuckling.

“Truly, I had forgotten how easily my inner feelings might be read,” he said, and then his big hand was stroking my hair. “Nevertheless, your interpretation is incorrect. I do indeed wish you to remain, for I would have my wenda know something of dancing with which to give me pleasure. As you are to be no more than my belonging, it is your duty to learn that which will please me.”

His mind was under its usual full control, but way back and deep down there was something covered over, something he didn’t want me to see. I might have refused to guess about his motives if I hadn’t known the situation, —but I knew the situation only too well. I turned around to face him, and had no trouble meeting his eyes.

“You don’t want my ownership,” I told him, finding I had accepted the truth of the statement. “You want the ownership of a Prime. Having another woman around means less than nothing to you. You should have led me on a little longer, gotten me good and hooked, and only then lowered the boom. As it is, you’re wasting your time and mine—which, contrary to your own opinions, is considerably more valuable than yours.”

At the very least I expected him to be annoyed, possibly even angry. I watched carefully for either of those reactions or any other, but none of them surfaced. The calm continued in his mind as though he had expected the sort of answer I’d given, no more than a faint weariness back-dropping the way he sighed.

“Men and women speak the same words, yet those words, spoken by a woman, are not the words of a man.” He spoke very gently, almost as though what he’d said was supposed to make sense and be important. I didn’t react to the nonsense, and he shook his head. “Perhaps some day we will find ourselves able to exchange words and make them our own. For now I wish you to remain here, learning what you might, in order to be able to please a man. You have not yet learned how little you know in this respect.”

He touched my hair again then turned and went back to where he’d been sitting, totally unconcerned about my wishes in the matter. I had no desire at all to stay, but there was little point in walking out; if be really wanted me there, he wasn’t above following and dragging me back. Instead of going back to him I sat down where I was, on the fringes of the eager and expectant group of l’lendaa. I wasn’t one of them, had no wish to be one of them, and wanted my choice of position to make that abundantly clear.

If I’d thought the barbarian and his men would notice the way I was trying to insult them, I must have forgotten what l’lendaa were like. They paid no attention to anyone but the three women, who had changed from the day suits they’d been wearing to gaudy, almost nonexistent stage costumes. The outfits were very short and brief, barely more than multicolored lightning flashes at four cardinal points, and I’m sure none of the l’lendaa were able to notice the fine network of wires covering all three bodies, not with the largesse shown them. The costumes accented what the girls were naturally endowed with, and I was undoubtedly the only one to wonder what the wires were for.

The first girl took a tiny micro-recorder from her bag, turned it on, then went to stand with the other two, who were already in position in the middle of the floor. The three women formed a triangle, two in front of the six l’lendaa, one in front of Tammad, all three facing outward, left hands on hips, right arms straight up. When the opening strains of music began, their heads came up and their bodies grew poised, their stance graceful in the very high-heeled shoes they wore. The next minute they were moving slowly to the blary music, swaying sensuously, stepping about broadly and suggestively, swinging their bodies and bumping their hips. The Rimilian men laughed and shouted, entertained by the novel sort of movement and pleased by it, watching closely and appreciatively as the triangle became a circle to allow the women to shift about. All the men were danced to by all of the women, giving them a good time, but I didn’t share their enthusiasm. Despite Tammad’s belief to the contrary, I knew certain audience-appreciation dances too, most of them more subtly sensual than the out-and-out brassiness that the blondes were exhibiting. The dance’s I knew undoubtedly would have pleased Tammad, but he wasn’t going to know anything about them. I’d decided a long time earlier that I wasn’t about to be forced to dance for a barbarian.

The dancing went on for a good fifteen minutes, the men continuing in their vocal appreciation, their desire growing so high it was hard to believe the three women didn’t feel it as strongly as I did. The l’lendaa sat cross-legged in their places, laughing and occasionally reaching for the dancers, laughing even harder when the girls moved out of groping range. Tammad was enjoying himself as much as the others were, but be alone showed no desire to touch the women. He sat leaning back on his pillows, his face covered with a grin, his mind pleased but somewhat distracted. I had the feeling he was visualizing something other than the women in front of him, and I didn’t want to know what that something was. I would not be dancing for any barbarian!

The end of the dance was as much of a shock to me as it was to the men. One minute the women were bumping and twisting madly, apparently enjoying the men’s enthusiastic shouts of encouragement, and the next minute they had stopped dead, two in front of the six l’lendaa, one in front of Tammad. I could feel that something was about to happen, and abruptly it did—without seeing anything coming from the women, the men were suddenly covered with a foul-smelling sticky substance, brown-colored and nauseating, coating them as though it materialized out of thin air. Even I didn’t entirely understand what was happening—after all, set route induction fields are hardly in my province—but at least I finally understood what all those wires were for. Some dancers used the fields for effect in their routines, causing magical showers of glitter or flower substance to float gently down on their audiences. These dancers were obviously prepared to supply something other than audience delight, causing me to wonder what sort of audiences they were used to.

“Have a good taste of the L.M. routine!” the woman in front of Tammad shouted, not only to him but to all of the men. “The L.M. stands for Loud Mouth!” She and the others were laughing at the men’s outrage, continuing the spreading of the field even as their victims struggled to their feet. The l’lendaa were disgusted and offended as well as outraged, but I couldn’t help but find a certain poetic justice in their predicament. If you spend your life demanding things of others, you sometimes get more than you asked for.

“Stop that at once!” Tammad shouted, reaching through the haze of unseen spray to grab the woman nearest him by the arms. He didn’t know what was causing his problem, but be wasn’t simple enough not to know the women were responsible. As soon as he drew her to him the coating stopped, and he gestured his men to close with the other two women as well. All three women struggled, surprised and outraged that the men would dare to touch them like that, and then Tammad saw the wires on the woman he held. He couldn’t have known what the wires were for, but logic said they were the unknown in the equation, and Tammad was no stranger to logic. He began ripping them off the woman, causing the other l’lendaa to do the same, and the fury and outrage from both males and females was enough to give me a headache. I sat where I’d been sitting, on the outskirts of the battle, and tried to block out as much of the mental noise as possible.

In a matter of seconds, the women were no longer wired for mess. They were screaming as if they were birds whose feathers were being pulled out, but the screams still had no real sense of personal fear in them. If they knew nothing else, they knew that women in the Amalgamation were safe no matter what they did. I’m sure the smell they’d caused to be was turning their stomachs, but that was nothing more than to be expected. I put a heavily veiled wall between me and the others, and just watched to see what would happen.

“Just look what you did to our equipment!” the woman near Tammad screamed, so wild with anger her voice shook. “You jerks are going to pay for this, I swear you’ll pay!”

“You feel anger toward us?” Tammad demanded, his emotions so strong they surged through his attempts at control. He held the woman between his hands, and it seemed all he could do to keep from crushing her or tearing her apart. “You dared to soil us as you did, and yet you feel anger? It was not we who came in search of you, wenda, nor was it we who forced our presence upon those who sought us not! Had you merely danced for us, you would have been freed at journey’s end to return to the darayse you are accustomed to; now you will be punished and held as long as we wish.”

The woman was reverting to feelings of shock, but that didn’t stop her from being thrust toward the other two women. She stumbled from the push, but was kept from going down by two of the l’lendaa, who took her in tow the same way the other women were being held. Ail three were then started out of the common area amid screams and struggles, their minds beginning to be more than worried, and Tammad watched them disappear into three of the cabins before turning in my direction.

“I’m glad you insisted that I watch that,” I said as he stared at me, still angry. “It never would have occurred to me to please a man in that particular way. It seems I don’t know as much as I thought I did.”

“You are amused,” he rumbled, his mind quivering with near-illness at the sticky mess all over him. “You undoubtedly knew what would occur, yet saw no reason to warn me. Had you given warning, there would have been little amusement.”

“That odor allows for very little amusement altogether,” I said, close to a shudder from the repulsion in his mind. “Under other circumstances, I might at least have felt sorry for you.”

“I have no need for your pity,” be rasped, his light eyes growing hard. “There will be a reckoning for this.”

He turned away then and strode toward his cabin, anger and frustration and a tinge of hurt boiling around in his mind. It came as a shock that he would feel hurt, but then the shock turned to frustrated anger. No one but a barbarian would kidnap a woman, then feel disappointment when she refused to be loyal to him.

“What in Darvin’s name happened here?” a voice came, and I turned my bead to see Garth standing in the doorway to his cabin, his nose wrinkled in disgust. Tammad was already gone into his own cabin, so he had to be addressing me.

“That expert on women you’re so friendly with demanded a show from some trippers the captain found,” I explained. “The women gave him a show he’ll never forget.”

“That has to be grub slime,” he said, hobbling farther into the common area. “I haven’t smelled that smell since the time I went drinking in the dives around the port. One of the strip dancers used the stuff to discourage someone who tried to put his hands on her at the wrong time. How did a strip dancer get here?”

“Three strip dancers, if that’s what they are,” I corrected, shifting to look up at him. “I couldn’t really say one way or the other. I don’t often spend my time in port dives.”

“Of course.” He nodded, looking down at me with less than friendliness. “Doing something like that would be too far beneath you. And you did say they were trippers. I’ll have to ask you to excuse my slowness.”

“Don’t I always?” I came back, getting satisfaction from the flash of anger I felt in him. His sarcasm had been meant to annoy me, but his plans had backfired. He wavered a moment, trying to decide whether or not to be angry out loud, then decided against it. He moved forward again instead, and lowered himself to the carpeting in front of me.

“What does—darayse—mean?” he asked, stumbling over the unfamiliar word. His gray eyes were serious, as though the question held personal importance.

“lt means non-man,” I supplied, wondering why he wanted to know. “The concept is the antithesis of Nenda, who is a warrior and a man in the Rimilian society. It means coward and fool and anything else derogatory you’d care to call a male. If you saw the party, why did you ask about it?”

“I didn’t see all of it,” he denied with a headshake. “I heard the uproar and started out to see what was going on, but this ankle kept me from getting to the door until everything was just about over. Tammad thinks you knew what was going to happen, but I’m convinced you didn’t. Why didn’t you deny his accusation?”

He was still looking at me in that very serious way, his mind echoing the look in his eyes. I didn’t know what business it was of his, and didn’t mind saying so.

“Since when do I have to excuse my actions to you?” I demanded, letting the heat come through in my tone. “I couldn’t care less what that barbarian believes, and you can include yourself in on that!”

“What will he do if he does come to believe it?” Garth persisted, unaffected by my anger. “You know him better than I do; you must know what his reckoning will consist of.”

His gray eyes did not leave me, and I couldn’t stand it. I closed my own eyes and turned my head away, wrapping my arms around myself as if against a chill.

“He’ll beat me,” I said harshly, suddenly fighting to keep the bitterness and hurt from flowing out of my mind. “Does that please you, Garth? Does it make you feel proud to be a male? Well, I don’t care if he does beat me. I simply and completely don’t care!”

Garth cringed as a portion of my bleakness touched him, his mind recoiling from the strength of mine. Most non-empaths never feel any emotions but their own, making them particularly vulnerable to outside projections. If an empath’s range was greater than the mere twenty-five feet it was, we never would have been allowed to survive. I savagely cut off the flow, disgusted with myself for having let it .happen, and suddenly Garth’s arm was around me.

“Terry, take it easy,” he soothed. “He won’t really hurt you, I’m sure he won’t. He told me he loves you and wants to be with you forever.”

“Oh, sure,” I nodded, keeping my eyes closed even as the tears began to form. “He wants me so desperately he’s even willing to let me work for him. That’s what I call true love.”

“Work for him?” he echoed with a frown. “What do you mean?”

“He’s in love with my abilities as an empath,” I whispered, feeling tears roll down my cheeks. “He doesn’t want me, Garth, he wants the sort of help I gave him during my assignment on his world. I fell in love with him then, and I’m sure that was part of his plans. The only thing that wasn’t part of his plans was my finding out the truth.”

Garth’s arm was around me, holding me close to his chest, but even the wave of pained sympathy that came from him was no comfort. I just let the tears roll out of my eyes, making no attempt to stop them, feeling the great contrast between the pushing and turning in Garth’s mind and the deep, thick silence he chose to show me.

After a few minutes of the silence, Garth stirred and said, “What do you really want to do now, Terry? Do you want to stay with him, or would you leave if you could?”

“Do you think I ran from him just for the exercise?” I sniffled, feeling very tired on the inside. “Of course I would leave, but do you really think he’ll let me go? He’s convinced he can get me to do as he wishes.”

“And you think he can’t?” he asked, surprised. “From what I’ve seen, he’ll have very little trouble getting anything he wants.”

“He can’t force me to work for him,” I denied, looking up at him. “He knows I lose control when he beats me, so he can’t beat me when he needs my ability. There’s nothing else he can do but try to convince me with words, and I’m all through listening to his words.”

“How many times has he beaten you?” Garth frowned, his mind definitely disturbed. “I never thought Tammad was the sort to beat a woman.”

“Tammad is the sort to do anything he damned well pleases,” I snorted. “And he’s beaten me every time he cared to, except for the one time I used a projection on him and lied about my range.” I moved against the arm he still had around me and added, “And you’d be wise to remember not to touch me from now on. The mighty l’lenda doesn’t like having other men touch his woman—not unless it happens to be his own idea.”

“I don’t like the sound of any of this,” Garth growled, slowly moving his arm away. “From what he said, I thought—well, never mind what I thought. I’ve just decided that if this is the price I have to pay for it, the price is too high.”

“What did he offer you, Garth?” I asked, trying to keep my tone soft and without too much curiosity. If the barbarian’s plans included Garth, and they certainly seemed to, I wanted to know about it.

“He—offered me a place in his world,” Garth answered after a brief hesitation, his mind almost embarrassed. “He described it as a place where a man is free to be a man, free to do what he yearns to. I’m tired of being a fancy-dress play soldier, but I won’t buy a new life with the misery of innocent women. He seems to want me with him for some reason; if that’s true, then the only way he’ll get me is if he lets you go.”

Garth sat next to me, staring off into the distance, seeing nothing of what was around him. It wasn’t particularly surprising that he would bargain his dream in return for my freedom; that was the sort of man Garth was. High idealed, high principled—and totally uninvolved in any human way. He wasn’t about to do something to help me, he Was adhering to beliefs he felt very strongly about. He would have done the same no matter who was involved, me or any other helpless woman. On behalf of all helpless women I was disgusted, but I couldn’t afford to reject the offer. If he managed to get me free, he could be as high-principled as he liked about it.

We lapsed into another silence after that, but it didn’t take long before faint sounds began intruding into my distraction. Automatically my mind reached for the source of the sounds, but once I had them I was sorry I’d tried. The three women, each in a separate cabin, were so hysterical over what was being done to them that I cringed away, unable to cope with even the fringes of their desperate hysteria. I didn’t know the details of what the l’lendaa were doing, and I didn’t want to know. I just rose quickly to my feet, passed a surprised Garth, and burried to one of the cabins on the far side of the common area. The locks had been removed from all of the doors, but I didn’t need a lock to keep the smell and hysteria out. I closed the door behind me, went over to the bed, then tried to get some rests

I didn’t know I had fallen asleep until I woke up. The cabin light, which I hadn’t turned down, showed me one of the three trippers standing right next to the bed. It had been her hand on my shoulder which bad awakened me, and I blinked at. the changes in her. The heavy stage make-up was gone from her face, leaving her younger-looking and almost vulnerable. Her short hair, which had been puffed up and out, was neatly combed down around her face. Her gaudy costume and tasteless day suit were both gone, having been replaced with an adapted towel. The very large light blue towel had been slit in its center to allow it to be slipped over her head, a cord around her waist drawing it closed as if it were a sleeveless imad. The thing fell nearly to her knees, making it considerably more modest than the costume she’d worn, but the girl blushed when I looked at her, and bristled.

“That big one bays he wants you,” she told me sullenly, glaring out of angry brown eyes. “Can you understand me?”

“It’s difficult, but I am making the effort,” I told her, raising myself to a sitting position. “I take it the big one you’re referring to is Tammad.”

“You talk like me!” she said in surprise, momentarily forgetting her anger. “I thought you were one of them!”

“Not through choice, I assure you.” I grimaced. “Unlike you, I wouldn’t have come within parsecs of this vessel if I hadn’t been kidnapped. Have you learned yet how big a mistake you’ve made?”

“I still don’t really understand what’s going on,” the girl complained, allowing the confusion and hurt she’d submerged to surface. “That bunch is different from any men we’ve ever met! Oh, sure, lots of guys will try to get it on with us, but all you have to do is turn your back to freeze them. These guys don’t even ask—it’s like if they want us they’ll take us without asking! And what they did to us—do you know they made us clean them up, right after they—they—”

She swallowed, trying to make room for the words to come out, but the bright red in her cheeks kept it from happening. I caught a brief flash of replay in her mind, the vividness of it leaving no doubt as to what had happened.

“You were switched,” I finished for her, feeling a good part of her embarrassment. “It hurt more than anything ever done to you, but it was worse than simply being hurt because it was humiliating. They’re strong enough to tear you apart, but all they’ll do is punish you because you’re not in their league.”

“Sure,” she nodded, totally depressed. “We’re not in anybody’s league. But we found that out a long time ago. Come on, you’d better get up or he’ll be in here himself.”

She turned away from the bed and left the cabin, wrapped up in a private disappointment that didn’t seem to have anything to do with what had gone on earlier. I got to my feet and followed her, wondering what she could have meant, and saw her walking over to her friends, who were sitting in the common area not far from Tammad and his warriors. The other two were wearing the same sort of towel arrangement she bad on, and once she was part of the group again I could see she was the one I had thought of as the third, the one who had been somewhat unsure about spraying the men. She spoke to the other two as she sat down near them, but they didn’t answer or look up from their laps. Her mind was calm reason compared to theirs, and I could see they weren’t far from being terrified.

“Terril, come here,” the barbarian called, gesturing to me from what seemed to be his permanent place among the pillows, which had been completely cleaned up. Garth was also in the same spot he had been in earlier, so walking over and hitting down put me between them again.

“Now that you are rested from your long sleep I would have you do a thing for me,” the barbarian said, keeping his voice low. His pretty blue eyes were serious, and his broad, handsome face was concerned. “The wendaa who tended my warriors—they do not seem quite right. I would have you read them and tell me what must be done to see to them.”

He sat there watching me, truthfully concerned but also covertly pleased that he’d found a way to commit me to the first step along the path he was determined I would take. The request he had made wasn’t an idle one, therefore he had every right to expect my cooperation; the one thing he didn’t expect was the way I chose to cooperate.

Instead of interpreting what I read as I had done on Rimilia I gathered the sullen depression, the shock, the fear, the confusion and near-terror coming from the women and fed them all to Tammad, just as I’d done during the mediation on Alderan, amplifying the emotion for clearer understanding by a non-empath. The barbarian paled as the unexpected load struck him, his eyes widening as be flinched, and then his control was fighting back, pushing all unwanted thought out of his mind. I could have held the picture even against his resistance, but there was no sense in letting him know that. As soon as he resisted I let it all go, then sent a smile toward him.

“Is that what you wanted to know?” I asked very sweetly, being abrasive on purpose. I was braced for a violent response, but he was still unsteady enough from what I had done to let Garth get the first words in.

“What are you two doing?” the Kabran demanded, frowning at Tammad’s dazed expression. “And speaking of those women, what was done to them? I haven’t heard a word out of them since your men turned them loose.”

“They are frightened and unhappy,” Tammad answered in a husky voice, obviously trying to interpret what he had been made to feel. “It seems they are unused to being punished for that which they do.” Then he straightened up with a sigh and his eyes, filled with a strange expression, came back to me. “Is this what you are ever concerned with, harm?” he asked very gently. “The fears and hurts and disappointments of others? Is there no joy for you to read and share, no happiness and delight? Where is the pleasure in your own world, when all about you touch you with pain?”

The soothing, sympathetic thoughts coming from his mind were so strong that all I could do was sit there and try to swallow down the burning in my throat. He was the only one who had ever known without being told how hard it was for awakened empaths to fend off the waves of emotion coming at them. Likes and dislikes, preferences and faint aversions, these were all pale shadows next to the burning bright red and orange of overwhelming hate or lust, the black-green of gut-eating envy, the ghost-white of stark terror, the ice blue of deep fear, the bloated gold of greed. Deep love was a light velvet brown, happiness a pale pink, delight a bouncy yellow, laughter a bubbling sparkle of silver. What chance did the lighter emotions have against the stronger, what chance did an empath have of avoiding them? I faintly remembered children disappearing from the creche for the gifted where I had been raised. We had all been told that those children had gone elsewhere to study and live, but none of us had ever seen them again. Were they the ones who hadn’t been strong enough to shoulder the load, the ones who had been crushed in the trying? What made an empath strong enough—and what made that strength fail?

“You have the nerve to ask about her pleasure?” Garth sputtered at the barbarian after a minute of silent courage, obviously not knowing what Tammad was referring to. “How much pleasure can she have, being kidnapped and threatened, beaten and bullied? You’ve already done enough to her; why don’t you try being a man about it and let her go?”

Tammad was surprised by the sudden outburst, surprised and puzzled. He shifted his stare to Garth and considered the other man in silence for a moment, then slowly nodded his head.

“It is as I discovered earlier,” he murmured, his tone even and calm. “Men of your worlds have been taught a strangeness when dealing with their women. Tell me what terrible things have been done to this woman, and tell me also what action would prove my manhood.”

“What was done to her is obvious enough,” Garth came back stiffly, knowing there was a hidden trap but not knowing where it lay. “Is she on board this vessel willingly? Is she to be released when the journey is over? You know the true answers to those questions as well as I do.”

“Indeed.” Tammad nodded, still totally unruffled. “The woman has not accompanied me willingly, nor will I release her when we have reached Rimilia. Have I not said what reasons I have for doing such things?”

“You said you love her,” Garth grudged, far from being convinced. “But if you really loved her you would let her go, give her a chance to think things over and come back on her own. This way you’re trying to force her love.”

“You would have me release the woman, believing as she does that I care only for her ability and what use I might make of it?” the barbarian countered, his light eye’s sharp. “What woman of pride would return to me under circumstances such as those? Even should she recall the love she once felt for me, how might she return and profess it?”

“You could follow after her and court her,” Garth said, but his mind was full of embarrassment at the suggestion. It was impossible imagining the giant barbarian courting any woman, and even Garth could see that.

“Follow after and coax her attention as the men of your worlds,” Tammad said, refraining from showing any of the scorn in his mind. “Is the fate of my world to await the whim of a courted wenda? Even had I the time to spend on such an undertaking, what would the woman think of the man who came begging her favor? Should she wish to indulge her humor the fate of the man would be humiliating, calling for the deepest self-abasement possible. Is this a thing to offer a woman, a man who has forgotten his manhood?”

“It doesn’t always work like that,” Garth muttered, rubbing his face with one broad hand. “What you’re saying is that it’s better to carry the woman off than to try to convince her. It may be easier, but that doesn’t necessarily mean better. And once you do carry her off, how do you get her to see things your way? Beat her, the way you beat Terry?”

Garth was using anger to bolster his position and Tammad seemed to know it. He unfolded his large body and leaned back on his pillows, then shook his head at Garth.

“A man speaks best to a woman when he holds her in his arms,” he said, as though explaining the matter in words of one syllable. “She then knows the truth of his feelings, clear beyond any doubt. Should she be completely uninterested, her body will so inform his, giving him also the truth of the matter. If he is wise he will then release her, for she is not his true love. What led you to believe I have ever beaten this woman beside me?”

“Why, she told me so.” Garth blinked in surprise, turning his head to look at me. I knew he was looking at me because I could feel his eyes even though I had turned my head away. Her body will tell his if she’s uninterested, Tammad had said. I knew what my body had told him, but that wasn’t the truth. What the body wanted and what the mind wanted were two different things.

“Do you believe the woman is incapable of speaking other than the truth?” the barbarian asked Garth, still without accusation. “It is true I did indeed beat her once, yet the thing was not a doing to boast off and build one’s manhood upon. The woman gave me deep insult, yet punishment would have been a more fitting response. A switching teaches what a beating does not—it builds a basis for respect and obedience rather than for bate and a need for revenge. A switching is little more than what was given her earlier.”

“But that was nothing,” Garth protested, and then his hand was on my arm, demanding my attention. “Is that all he ever did to you, Terry? That and nothing more?”

I raised my eyes to study his face, but looking at him didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. Garth had switched sides again, and for reasons that seemed to be totally irresistible to certain men.

“How would you like that little bit of nothing done to you, Garth?” I asked, wasting my breath because I was in the mood for it. “How would you like to be taken in a man’s arms and made love to even if it wasn’t what you wanted? You stood and faced him with swords once. Could I do that? He beat you, Garth, but he didn’t laugh at you. If I tried it, he would laugh. I can’t even lift a sword.”

I got to my feet then and walked away from them, blocking out whatever their reactions to my speech were. I didn’t want to know what they were thinking and feeling, I only cared about what I was feeling. Even if nobody else cared, at least I cared.

I went back to the cabin I had napped in, closed the door behind me, then sat down on the bed with my back to the closed door. I was hoping for enough peace and quiet for a good session of uninterrupted brooding, but without a door lock there wasn’t much chance of it. No more than a minute later the door opened again, admitting guess who.

“Do you truly wish you might face me with swords?” the barbarian asked, a definite disturbed note underlying his usual calm. “I had not considered the possibility.”

“Of course not,” I answered without turning. “I’m nothing but a woman.” He didn’t reply to that, but just stood there waiting, and after a minute I understood what he was waiting for. “I know well enough I could never face you with swords,” I said, lowering my head. “Even if I could lift one.”

“I would not have laughed,” he said, finally coming closer to stroke my hair. “To draw sword against another is not a matter for laughter. Why do you refuse to hear my words, l’lenda wenda? That I have need of your abilities does not mean I have no desire for you in your own self. How may I convince you of this?”

“You cant,” I said, shaking my head against his hand. “If I let myself believe you I’d just be leaving myself open to be hurt again, and I can’t do that. The pain would be less if I did face you with swords.”

“I would never find myself able to raise sword to you,” he whispered, sitting down next to me to draw me close. “And yet, as great as my love is for you, my need is nearly as great. My people—our people—have need of the talent you possess, and you must not deny me. Turn your face from me in ail other things if you must, but do not deny me in this.”

My cheek was against that broad, bare chest, feeling his warmth and the vital life in him. His brawny arms were around me, holding me gently yet possessively, his mind speaking to mine of the desperation he felt. I felt a crushing need to cry like a child, sobbing wildly, but the time for tears was long past. When pain goes deep enough, nothing soothes it.

“I can do nothing else but deny you,” I whispered back, falling easily and naturally into the Rimilian language. “Tammad, hamak of my soul, I would give up anything and everything I possess for you, even unto my life, but you, through your own words, show your love for your people greater than your love for me. You would allow me to turn from you completely, if only I would aid your people. I cannot fault you for this love that takes you from me, nor am I able to fight it. I simply cannot allow myself to be placed second, not knowing when another love might place me third or fourth or lower still. Should I attempt such a life, I would wither and die. I have not the stuff of sacrifice within me.”

“Terril,” he sobbed, crushing me to him, his mind searching frantically for a way to deny what I’d said. A terrible ache had come to claim him, one almost as bad as mine, but he was the one who had set up the rules. His own words proved what mine could not, and the search for denial was a waste of time. I had never seen this giant of a man cry before, but there was no shame in him for what he was doing. In his culture tear’s were reserved for very special times, times when nothing else will serve. His sense of loss was nearly inconsolable and I moaned with the pain of it, far too close and personally involved to fend it off. His arms crushed me, his mind crushed me, I tried to contain it all, but I couldn’t. The raw power of his body and mind overwhelmed me completely, sending me tumbling down into gray and yellow-shot black.