Lawrence Watt-Evans - Out of This World

“Oh.”

“We’re the Blue Shift; the other one’s red. Somebody’s idea of a joke, I guess. You’ll get a cot, share it with someone on Red Shift.”

Pel nodded. He stood, the shovel in his hands, trying to absorb all this.

“Hey, buddy,” another man called, “enough with the lessons. Get to work.”

Pel looked at Jack, who nodded and pointed to the pile of ore and slag. “There you are,” he said.

The rock was on one side, the empty cart on the other, and Pel between, with his shovel. The rock was fist-sized lumps; the cart was a battered black metal box on steel wheels; the shovel was a shovel.

He started shoveling.

* * * *

Amy looked over the interior of the aircar apprehensively. She didn’t like the situation at all.

She had seen most of the others, male and female, sold to men in various uniforms, and formed into gangs-obviously destined for manual labor somewhere. A few who had had specific skills announced had drawn higher-than-average bids and had presumably been bound for jobs that could use their talents.

But the auctioneer had announced Susan with an audible leer in his voice. “A really nice young woman,” he had said, grinning. “History unknown, looks a bit exotic.” And the bidding had been enthusiastic-she had gone for eleven hundred and something, higher than anyone else Amy saw sold. Susan was small and slender, with no known skills, so nobody was buying her as a laborer. It was obvious what her value was.

And one of the bidders for Susan-one of the losing bidders-had been the one who bought Amy for five hundred and ten. He hadn’t bid on anyone else after that; he had just stood in his spot along the right-hand wall, watching her, waiting until he could claim her. He wore no uniform, no fancy clothes, just a dull white shirt and black slacks; he had no clipboard, no notes, none of the totems and devices the other buyers flourished.

And when the paperwork was done, and he could collect her, he hadn’t said a word; he had just grabbed her by one manacled wrist and had dragged her out to the parking lot where his aircar waited.

That had given her her first glimpse of the outside world on whatever planet this was, save for the quick dash across bare concrete from the pirate ship to the holding facility, and she had been interested by the look around, despite her worries. They were clearly in a city-she really hadn’t been sure of that from the glimpse between the ship and the entrance tunnel. None of the buildings in sight from the parking lot were over three stories high, but the streets were lined solidly with masonry, showing no gaps in the stone and concrete facades. The architecture ran to colonnades and pilasters, with little ornamentation-it reminded her of old pictures of the Soviet Union under Stalin.

Then she had been shoved into the rear seat of the aircar, and a moment later they were airborne, just the two of them. She wondered if she should say something, anything, but she had no idea what would be appropriate. After all, she had never been auctioned off before.

She studied the interior of the aircar.

The dark red upholstery was worn; a tear in the back of the rear seat had been darned with heavy thread, but the off-white stuffing still showed through. The nap of the rough fabric scratched her bare bottom, her manacled hands made it difficult to sit back, and she shifted repeatedly in an unsuccessful attempt to find a comfortable position.

If she had been wearing anything, she thought, she would have been much more comfortable.

The windows were clean; the cranks to open them had been removed, she noticed, leaving bare threaded metal. The metal was dull, not shiny-the removal wasn’t recent.

The rear shelf, behind the seat, was dusty and empty. The front seat was more of the same, dark red fabric, worn but clean and serviceable.

The driver-well, the driver was medium height, heavy, with a round, sweaty face. His expression seemed to vary from hostile and blank to an unpleasant smile, and his gaze had never yet met her own. All she could see of him now was the back of his head, thick black hair that could have used a shampoo and trim.

He hadn’t said a word to her.

And he had just bought her, for five hundred and ten crowns, however much that was.

However much it actually came to, it was less than half what Susan had been valued at; Amy wondered if she should be offended by the difference. Of course, Susan was at least ten years younger, and ten pounds thinner-or maybe twenty. She wasn’t sagging anywhere yet, the way Amy was.

She was just as sold, though. Amy had seen her standing motionless on the stage, her face calm and resigned; almost everyone else who had stood there had been visibly nervous, trembling or sweating, glancing in all directions as if expecting sudden rescue.

It was about time for that rescue, Amy thought. It was past time. Prossie Thorpe must have called for help days ago; wasn’t it due to arrive by now?

After all, in the movies help always arrived before anything really terrible could happen, didn’t it? And this whole thing, spaceships falling out of the sky into her yard, Raven and Shadow and the Galactic Empire-wasn’t it all something out of the movies?

If help didn’t come soon…

She didn’t want to think about it.

Not just for herself, but all the others. What was going to happen to Susan? What had become of Rachel? Amy hadn’t seen her out on that stage; the girl had been pulled away by the female guards and put at the rear of the female line. Maybe they had the decency not to make slaves of little girls, Amy thought; maybe they would find a good home for her.

And maybe not.

The aircar set down on a gravel square in the front yard of a rambling one-story house; the little patch of pavement was surrounded on all sides by grass, and that, in turn, was surrounded on every side by cornfields. The crops stood from knee- to waist-high, and stretched off as far as Amy could see in every direction. In the distance she could see the wind drawing patterned ripples in the fields, but where she stood the air was still.

A few scraggly oak trees had been planted near the house, but as yet none were much taller than Amy, and while she wasn’t short, she was hardly Amazonian.

The driver got out, slammed the front door, then turned and opened the rear.

“Get out,” he said.

Amy got out, not hurriedly, but not hanging back, either. The manacles made it a bit awkward.

Once she was out the gravel hurt her bare feet, and she danced a painful two steps to the grass. “Ow,” she said.

“Come on,” the man ordered, turning away from her and toward the house.

Amy looked around.

She stood beside a gravel square, connected by a gravel path to a concrete stoop; the house behind that stoop was half-timbered, with something like orange clay forming most of the walls, while the frame and trim were dark unpainted wood. The roof was thatch. The windows were large, with only a few large panes, which seemed at variance with the rest of the architecture.

A front lawn of neatly-trimmed grass extended out from the house and around the gravel landing area. On all sides of the lawn green corn plants marched in neat rows across the reddish earth.

The idea of escape struck her. Her feet were free; the man had made no move to stop her when she hopped off the gravel, and now she was a good five feet away, out of his reach. He didn’t look like much of an athlete. If she were to turn and start running, she thought she could probably outrace him and outlast him.

But where would she go?

She couldn’t see any human-made structure except the house and aircar, anywhere. She was naked, her hands chained, on an unknown and hostile planet. There weren’t any lawyers or cops to help her this time, no friends or family she could hope to contact.