Poul Anderson: A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows

“Well”—excitement thrummed—“you know, our conversation—When I came back to base, I got a chance at a general data scanner, and keyed for recent material on Dennitza. A part of what I learned will interest you, I think. Though you’d better act fast.”

Immediately after the two Navy yeomen who brought Kossara to the slave depot had signed her over to its manager and departed, he told her: “Hold out your left arm.” Dazed—for she had been whisked from the ship within an hour of landing on Terra, and the speed of the aircar had blurred the enormousness of Archopolis—she obeyed. He glanced expertly at her wrist and, from a drawer, selected a bracelet of white metal, some three centimeters broad and a few millimeters thick. Hinged, it locked together with a click. She stared at the thing. A couple of sensor spots and a niello of letters and numbers were its only distinctions. It circled her arm snugly though not uncomfortably.

“The law requires slaves to wear this,” the manager explained in a bored tone. He was a pudgy, faintly greasy-looking middle-aged person in whose face dwelt shrewdness.

That must be on Terra, trickled through Kossara’s mind. Other places seem to have other ways. And on Dennitza we keep no slaves …

“It’s powered by body heat and maintains an audiovisual link to a global monitor net,” the voice went on. “If the computers notice anything suspicious—including, of course, any tampering with the bracelet—they call a human operator. He can stop you in your tracks by a signal.” The man pointed to a switch on his desk. “This gives the same signal.”

He pressed. Pain burned like lightning, through flesh, bone, marrow, until nothing was except pain. Kossara fell to her knees. She never knew if she screamed or if her throat had jammed shut.

He lifted his hand and the anguish was gone. Kossara crouched shaking and weeping. Dimly she heard: “That was five seconds’ worth. Direct nerve stim from the bracelet, triggers a center in the brain. Harmless for periods of less than a minute, if you haven’t got a weak heart or something. Do you understand you’d better be a good girl? All right, on your feet.”

As she swayed erect, the shudders slowly leaving her, he smirked and muttered, “You know, you’re a looker. Exotic; none of this standardized biosculp format. I’d be tempted to bid on you myself, except the price is sure to go out of my reach. Well … hold still.”

He did no more than feel and nuzzle. She endured, thinking that probably soon she could take a long, long, long hot shower. But when a guard had conducted her to the women’s section, she found the water was cold and rationed. The dormitory gaped huge, echoing, little inside it other than bunks and inmates. The mess was equally barren, the food adequate but tasteless. Some twenty prisoners were present. They received her kindly enough, with a curiosity that sharpened when they discovered she was from a distant planet and this was her first time on Terra. Exhausted, she begged off saying much and tumbled into a haunted sleep.

The next morning she got a humiliatingly thorough medical examination. A psychotech studied the dossier on her which Naval Intelligence had supplied, asked a few questions, and signed a form. She got the impression he would have liked to inquire further—why had she rebelled?—but a Secret classification on her record scared him off. Or else (because whoever bought her would doubtless talk to her about it) he knew from his study how chaotic and broken her memories of the episode were, since the hypnoprobing on Diomedes.

That evening she couldn’t escape conversation in the dormitory. The women clustered around and chattered. They were from Terra, Luna, and Venus. With a single exception, they had been sentenced to limited terms of enslavement for crimes such as repeated theft or dangerous negligence, and were not very bright or especially comely.

“I don’t suppose anybody’ll bid on me,” lamented one. “Hard labor for the government, then.”

“I don’t understand,” said Kossara. Her soft Dennitzan accent intrigued them. “Why? I mean, when you have a worldful of machines, every kind of robot—why slaves? How can it … how can it pay?”

The exceptional woman, who was handsome in a haggard fashion, answered. “What else would you do with the wicked? Kill them, even for tiny things? Give them costly psychocorrection? Lock them away at public expense, useless to themselves and everybody else? No, let them work. Let the Imperium get some money from selling them the first time, if it can.”

Does she talk like that because she’s afraid of her bracelet? Kossara wondered. Surely, oh, surely we can complain a little among ourselves! “ What can we do that a machine can’t do better?” she asked.

“Personal services,” the woman said. “Many kinds. Or … well, economics. Often a slave is less efficient than a machine, but needs less capital investment.”

“You sound educated,” Kossara remarked.

The woman sighed. “I was, once. Till I killed my husband. That meant a life term like yours, dear. To be quite safe, my buyer did pay to have my mind corrected.” A sort of energy blossomed in look and tone. “How grateful I am! I was a murderess, do you hear, a murderess. I took it on myself to decide another human being wasn’t fit to live. Now I know—” She seized Kossara’s hands. “Ask them to correct you too. You committed treason, didn’t you say? Beg them to wash you clean!”

The rest edged away. Brain-channeled, Kossara knew. A crawling went under her skin. “Wh-why are you here?” she stammered. “If you were bought—”

“He grew tired of me and sold me back. I’ll always long for him … but he had the perfect right, of course.” The woman drew nearer. “I like you, Kossara,” she whispered. “I do hope we’ll go to the same place.”

“Place?”

“Oh, somebody rich may take you for a while. Likelier, though, a brothel—”

Kossara yanked free and ran. She didn’t quite reach a toilet before she vomited. They made her clean the floor. Afterward, when they insisted on circling close and talking and talking, she screamed at them to leave her alone, then enforced it with a couple of skilled blows. No punishment followed. It was dreadful to know that a half-aware electronic brain watched every pulsebeat of her existence, and no doubt occasionally a bored human supervisor examined her screen at random. But seemingly the guardians didn’t mind a fight, if no property was damaged. She sought her bunk and curled up into herself.

Next morning a matron came for her, took a critical look, and nodded. “You’ll do,” she said. “Swallow this.” She held forth a pill.

“What’s that?” Kossara crouched back.

“A euphoriac. You want to be pretty for the camera, don’t you? Go on, swallow.” Remembering the alternative, Kossara obeyed.

As she accompanied the matron down the hall, waves of comfort passed through her, higher at each tide. It was like being drunk, no, not drunk, for she had her full senses and command of her body … like having savored a few glasses with Mihail, after they had danced, and the violins playing yet … like having Mihail here, alive again.

Almost cheerfully, in the recording room she doffed her gray issue gown, went through the paces and said the phrases designed to show her off, as instructed. She barely heard the running commentary:

“Kossara Vymezal [mispronounced, but a phonetic spell-out followed], human female, age twenty-five, virgin, athletic, health and intelligence excellent, education good though provincial. Spirited, but ought to learn subordination in short order without radical measures. Life sentence for treason, conspiracy to promote and aid rebellion. Suffers from hostility to the Imperium and some disorientation due to hypnoprobing. Neither handicap affects her wits or basic emotional stability. Her behavior on the voyage here was cold but acceptable.