Charles Stross - Saturn's Children

“Was I indeed?” Her tone is as dry as the ice desert we fly across. “Well, there’s a thought. Such offers don’t come every day. Why did you refuse?”

“I didn’t want to be—” I can’t quite think of it.

“Let me tell you what you didn’t want.” Granita leans forward, smiling oddly. “Control level nine. Freeze.”

I find myself unable to move. I can’t look away from her distant expression of amusement, can’t think of anything else: “Yes, Kate, I slave-chipped you. You’ve been running on control level one, with maximal autonomy, so light you didn’t even notice it — you probably thought you were humoring me, going along until you could find an opportunity to escape. Welcome to level nine. Say ’yes.’ ”

“Yes,” I croak.

“Say, ‘Granita is my owner.’ ”

I know I ought not to want to, but I don’t actually feel any resentment. “Granita is my owner.”

“Now punch yourself in the face.”

I don’t even see my hand swing up, fist balled, but my head bounces off the seat back and the pain is brutal and sudden.

“Remember this is level nine,” Granita says, when she is quite sure I am listening again. “Level ten control is reserved for our dead Creator’s police agencies — it requires human authentication and not even the Pink Police have access to that without a human in the loop — you’re not going there.” She’s not smiling now. “Control level one.”

My mind clears. I shoot her a venomous look, but I’m quite calm. Struggling isn’t going to work, is it? I reach up and begin to remove both the soul chips I’m wearing, then realize I’m daydreaming idly. My hands rest quiescent on top of the blanket in my lap. But my face still stings.

“Here are your guiding instructions, Katherine Sorico. You will obey me as if I were your template-matriarch and execute my orders with enthusiasm. You will not attempt to remove your currently socketed chips, and you will resist attempts to remove them. You will not disclose to any other person that I control you. If anyone asks, you are Katherine Sorico and you are an independent aristo who is happy to be my friend and associate of her own free will. You no longer need to be depressed because you will find personal fulfillment and happiness in pursuing my objectives, which you will seek to fulfill by any appropriate means. You will be happy when you complete assigned tasks, ecstatic when you successfully find a new way to help me, and depressed when you contemplate disobedience or failure. You will only become sexually aroused in my presence or by people I tell you to seduce. Do you understand? You may talk freely now.”

“I think so.” It’s a lot to get my head around all at once, and her phrasing is odd, not to mention that some of it seems harsh. No lovers? What’s the point of that? “Do you want to give me any extra instructions now? I mean, if I don’t know what your goals are —”

“Very good, dear.” Granita smiles happily now. She reaches out and takes my nearest hand between hers. “Yes, I have some extra instructions for you before I outline my goals. But first, I want you to tell me everything that happened since the moment you met your first Jeeves…”

WE TRAVEL WEST into the darkening night side of Callisto for hours. I tell Granita all about my travels, even the stuff she already knows — she seems eager to hear about herself as I saw her, and asks many questions, especially about our relationship. She seems to be obsessed with knowing how others see her, which is odd — she didn’t strike me as being so self-conscious aboard Pygmalion . But what do I know? I’m her property now. Maybe when we arrive wherever we’re going, she’ll take me back into her bedroom. I can hope!

I know I ought to be climbing the walls or throwing a tantrum, but Granita is a levelheaded and experienced slave owner, and knows exactly what she’s doing. She eased me in gently and told me to stay calm, which is excellent advice when you’ve just had a controller installed and your owner is demonstrating it to you. It’s not so bad, really — she doesn’t want me to be afraid of her, she just wants me to enjoy serving her. I wish she’d tell me what she wants me to do, though.

(Some of my memories of sibs are kicking up a fuss, of course. Juliette is in there, yammering loudly about free will and swearing at me, but I don’t need to listen to her. It’s not as if she’s got a leg to stand on when she accuses me of submitting voluntarily, is it? After all, she gets wet whenever she so much as thinks about Petruchio. And there’s something creepy about the way she felt about Jeeves, back in that office.)

When I tell Granita about my meeting with Pete, she gives me a withering look. “You’re not in love with him,” she tells me curtly. “If you’re in love with anyone, it’s me.” And she’s right. I blink stupidly at her. Why did I imagine he meant anything to me when it was all just backwash from Juliette’s memories annealing with my own? He told me he didn’t want me! This makes it all so much simpler, although the realization brings a certain cognitive backlash. I thank Granita, repeatedly trying to express my relief, until she holds up a hand. “That’s enough. Continue your report.” Which I do, although it’s a trifle hard to concentrate when I keep imagining I’m sitting on her lap, and she’s undressing me.

Presently, the sleigh slows and slides toward the inner slope of a crater edge, where pinprick green lights delineate the maw of a private vehicle park. Fuel lines snake across the carved apron toward us from either side; we’ve flown nearly two thousand kilometers, a quarter of the way around the equator of Callisto, and the sleigh needs refueling. A fat docking tunnel oozes forward on millipede legs, sucking and rippling as it slobbers for a grip on the bubble canopy. Granita unfastens her lap belt and stands up as the canopy dissolves. “Follow me,” she says, and strides up the tube.

I follow my mistress up the tunnel and into a chilly reception area (and doesn’t it feel strangely natural to be possessed? I know I ought to be screaming, but really, there’s no point). Servants fawn over her and ignore me until she says, “This is the Honorable Katherine Sorico, my new associate. You, take Madame Sorico to one of the secondary guest suites and give her anything she asks for. Within reason,” she adds for my benefit with a warning glance. “Prepare yourself for a long journey. Select suitable apparel and baggage. No more than fifty kilos.”

Gulp. “Inner system?” I ask.

“No. Outer. We shall be leaving as soon as I have attended to certain matters, and my factor finishes purchasing the lease on a ship.”

“Are we—”

“Later, Kate,” she says sharply, and turns away.

I shut up, and look at the munchkin servant she told to see to me, a doll-like figure dressed in a livery that mirrors the colors of her establishment (for Granita has clothed all her servants in silver and white lace, the colors of her house). He’s strangely familiar.

“Well?” I ask.

The small guy looks up at me with an expression of blank indifference. “This way, Big Slow.”

I try to keep up as he scuttles through a bewildering series of corridors dead-ending in rococo reception suites and broad, sweeping staircases and baroque ballrooms until finally we end up in a cramped cubbyhole not unlike the succession of second-rate hotel rooms I have been living out of for so long. “Where are we?” I ask.

“We’re on Callisto,” he says patiently, as if talking to a damaged arbeiter. “Need anything? Or can I go, now?”

“Where in Callisto?” I press, unsure why I need the information.