Роберт Бюттнер - Orphan's Journey

Someone shouted, “And who feeds the child? Split the Lot. I’ll give two hundred for just the girl.”

The girl clutched her baby, and tears rolled down her cheeks. They couldn’t sell her without her hair comb, because it was her personal property. But they could sell her without her child, because he wouldn’t become personal property until he was sold for the first time.

Jude sat alongside me, his eyes wide, shaking his head.

Howard’s hands shook. “They call themselves human?”

Ord didn’t speak, but his fists were clenched white-knuckle tight.

The Auctioneer turned again to the jewel-armored bidder, whose shoulders were so broad they obscured the chair back. Every Casuni I had seen looked like he could toss a cow through a closed barn door.

The Auctioneer bent on one knee, and stretched his palm toward the bidder. “Come, Sir! Say two hundred! Give the lie to those who say your people are stubborn!”

A woman hooted, “You can always tell a Casuni. But you can’t tell him much!”

The crowd roared, and even the big, bearded man smiled. But he didn’t twitch his bid fan.

In the end, “The Lot,” mother and child, went together to the outsized Casuni, because nobody raised his bid. The girl ran off the stage, the baby clutched to her, knelt and kissed the Apprentice’s feet. He toed her aside, then refastened her chains to The Block, on the side opposite from us, where sold merchandise awaited collection.

Then the Apprentice scuttled into the crowd, where a man alongside the seated Casuni counted out coins, and traded them to the Apprentice for a parchment sheet.

I swallowed, and my heart sank. Two human souls had just been sold like beer at a ball game.

Jude said, “I wish we took our chances with the monsters.”

I hung my head. Another crap decision by me. Likely the last decision I would have free will to make. We should have gone down swinging against one set of animals or the other when we had the chance.

I looked around. Besides us, twenty “Lots” were on offer, Marini, Tassini, and Casuni. The Bren were equal-opportunity slavers.

I saw one familiar face.

Bassin the Assassin sat cross-legged in the dirt. He was the next Lot behind us. A small hide bag, presumably the Stones that were captured with him, lay alongside him. He wore a Tassini robe, obviously borrowed because it barely covered his knees, and he had been fitted with a hideous glass eye, all presumably to boost his marketability. He nodded to me, but didn’t smile.

Blip. Jeeb’s low level alert yipped in my earpiece.

I whispered, “Hold.” Jeeb knew something was wrong. But unless it had a bomb stuffed in a pocket, a TOT had no capability that would be useful to extract us from this circus. Jeeb had no pocket, much less a bomb.

Six armed and armored Casuni stood between us and our stuff. Whether the stuff was our property or not, I doubted that those bouncers would allow us to decrypt our Tamperproofs, unpack our rifles, load them, and shoot our way out of this.

I looked out in the audience. Alongside Blackbeard stood the Lieutenant whose men had actually captured Bassin. That made the Lieutenant Bassin’s seller, just as Blackbeard was ours.

After an hour, the four of us Earthlings got herded from the on-deck circle up onto The Block.

Jude whispered, “This sucks sewage.”

I asked Howard, “Can’t you predict a solar eclipse or something, and awe the crowd?”

The Auctioneer looked out across the upturned faces. “Four strong Marini, offered as a Lot. Who’ll start the bid at the ridiculously low price of four hundred?”

Somebody yelled, “For half-breeds? It’s ridiculous all right!”

Laughter rippled.

In the audience, Blackbeard scowled at the Auctioneer.

Blip. Blip.

I covered my mouth with my hand, and whispered into my throat mike, to Jeeb. “I said ‘hold’!”

The Auctioneer arched his eyebrows, as he pointed at our sealed Plasteels. “Who knows what treasures await in those chests?”

Our armor was too small for any male Casuni, and we owned no other property except the Tamperproofs, and the folded-down ’Bots, which looked like iron lumps. Our Seller evidently thought the chests’ mystery would romance bidders. Besides, he didn’t know how to open them.

“Maybe there’s more skinny half-breeds in there!”

More laughter.

So much for romance.

The Casuni who bought the girl and the baby flicked his bid fan.

The Auctioneer laid the back of his hand across his purple forehead, and swayed like he was about to faint. “One hundred? Only one hundred for these marvelous specimens? Even if they survive but one year, they’re still cheap at two hundred.”

“The play’s not till tonight, you purple-faced ham!”

After the laughs came silence, and no bids.

The Auctioneer sighed. “Going once.”

The Casuni with the fan smiled.

“Going twice.”

Jude muttered, “Slaves. Forever. I don’t pugging believe this.”

“Two Stones.”

The Auctioneer turned toward the voice. “Two Stones? That’s more than—”

“Three Stones.” It was the same voice.

The crowd buzzed.

The Auctioneer craned his neck.

Alongside The Block, Bassin the Assassin stood, his ankles chained. “Four Stones for the Lot. And two more for the next Lot.”

The buzz became a rumble.

The Auctioneer pointed his gavel at Bassin and snorted. “You are the next Lot! Sit down!”

Bassin bent, drew a handful of Stones from the bag he held, then raised them above his head. The jewels glowed so red in the sunlight that he looked like he held a flaming torch.

The crowd gasped collectively.

Someone shouted, “They’re his Stones. Why can’t he bid?”

A heckler hooted.

The Auctioneer spun back to the crowd. “It’s ridiculous!”

“It’s the law!”

The crowd picked up the phrase and chanted. “It’s the law! It’s the law!”

Howard nudged me. “Look at the Captain. Whatever a Stone’s worth, it’s a hundred times more than he ever figured to get for us.”

Blackbeard was smiling. The Lieutenant who had actually captured Bassin stood alongside Blackbeard, purple and trembling, with his teeth clenched. He must have figured the bidding for Bassin alone would go up to six or eight Stones, once bidders found out what surprising bonus they would get from Bassin’s bag. If Bassin’s ploy worked, the Lieutenant would only net two Stones. But the Lieutenant couldn’t afford to cross his boss, Blackbeard.

The Auctioneer raised his eyebrows at his Apprentice. The younger man turned his palms skyward and shrugged.

Ord said, “Slaves buying themselves! Case of first impression, apparently.”

The Auctioneer furrowed his brow.

Bassin reached into his bag a last time, and held another Stone aloft, in his other hand. “And another Stone to My Lord Auctioneer, in appreciation for his services.”

The Honorable Dickie Rosewood March told me, when I was young, “If the truth won’t set you free, try bribery.”

A heckler shouted, “That’s more than the old gasbag makes in a year!”

The crowd roared.

The Auctioneer glared at the crowd. Then he glanced first at the bidding Casuni, who folded his fan, and nodded. The Auctioneer shot one more glance at Blackbeard, who beamed.

The Auctioneer swung his mallet. “Sold!”

The crowd cheered.

The Apprentice, shaking his head, unlocked our leg irons, then Bassin’s, then prodded the next Lot toward the stage.

Blip. Blip. Blip.

I growled into my throat mike. “It’s okay, now. We’re fine. Shut up!”

Somebody slapped me on the back, and thrust a full horn flagon into my hand. “I’ll buy you a drink on that!”