Elizabeth Moon - Rules of Engagement

Her body jerked, in spite of herself . . . she struggled, as she had not struggled before, knowing it was useless. The men laughed, loud confident laughter. Brun fought herself to stillness, hating the tears that stung her eyes, that ran down her face.

“We’ll put you away now, to think about that. I want you to know ahead of time, to understand . . . for this is part of the training you will receive, to learn that you have no power, and no man will listen to you. You are silenced, slut, as women should be silent.”

It could not be happening. Not to her, not to the daughter of the Speaker of the Grand Council. Not to a young woman who could rappel down cliffs, who had earned badges in marksmanship, who could ride to hounds, who had never done anything she didn’t want to do, with anyone she wanted to do it with. Things like this happened, if they happened, in dull history books, in times long past, or places far away. Not to her. All this, she knew to her shame, was in her eyes, was in the tears, in the shaking of her body, and the men laughed to see it.

“Take her back—be sure you’ve cuffed her. Start an IV, too. Just saline, for now.”

For now. For however long. She believed, suddenly. It was real, it was happening . . . no, it couldn’t be! The men holding her moved her firmly along, her bare feet stumbling on all the rough places where her boots had protected her. She was cold, frozen with a fear she had never understood when she saw the storycubes or read the old books in her father’s library.

In the compartment, four of them laid her on the bunk, ignoring her struggles, and cuffed her hands to the sides, her feet together. She tried to plead with her eyes: loosen the gag, just for a minute, please, please . They chuckled, confident and amused. Another one came, with a little kit, and turned her arm . . . inserting the IV needle deftly. She stared up at the bag of saline hanging from a hook overhead.

“When we’re ready,” one of them said, “we’ll put you to sleep.” He grinned. “Welcome to the real world.”

She hated them; she writhed with fury. But it was too late for that.

She would go to sleep . . . it would be a dream, when she woke. A bad dream, a scary dream, and she would go tell Esmay about it and apologize for having laughed at Esmay. She would . . .

She woke to a sense of pain, and fought her way to consciousness. No gag in her mouth; she could breathe through it. Had they—? But she could feel her tongue, too large it seemed, scrubbing around in her mouth. So they hadn’t. At least not yet. She swallowed. Her throat felt raw and scratchy. She looked around, cautiously. No one . . . she was still cuffed to the bunk, with the IV running in her arm, but no one was there. She took a breath of pure relief . . . ahhh.

And froze in horror. No sound. She tried again. And again. No sound but the rush of air in her throat, which hurt a lot now. She tried to whisper, at least, and realized that she could shape words, she could make hisses and clicks (though moving her tongue made the pain in her throat worse) but she could get no real volume out, hardly enough sound to carry across a small room.

Almost at once, the door slid aside, and the one who had inserted the IV came in.

“You need to drink,” the man said. He held a straw to her mouth. “Swallow this.”

It was cold, minty. She could swallow . . . but she could not say anything. Her throat hurt as the liquid went down, then eased.

“You’ve realized what we’ve done,” he said. “Cut your vocal cords, some muscles. Left your tongue—you can eat normally, and swallow, and all the rest of it. But no speech. And no, it won’t grow back. Not the way we do it.”

It had to be a dream, but she had never felt a dream this real. The cold air on her skin, the ache from being bound in one position too long, the pain in her throat, and . . . and the silence when she tried to speak. She tried to whisper, to mouth words, but at that he put a hand on her mouth.

“Stop that. You don’t talk to men, ever. Make faces at us, and you’ll be punished.”

It wasn’t making faces, it was communication. How could he not know that?

“Nothing you have to say is important to us. Later, if you’re obedient, you can lipspeak to other women, in the women’s quarters. But not now, and never to men. Now—I’m going to examine you. Do as I say.”

His examination was clinical and complete, but not brutal; he handled her body with the same smooth competence she had received from doctors in her father’s clinics. He spoke the results aloud, for a recorder. Brun learned that she was now catalogued as Captive Female 4, slut, gene-altered, fertile. Her instant satisfaction at the error in that disappeared when he held up her fertility implant, and she realized they had removed it. Through the haze of drugs, she now felt the pain in her left leg, from the incision. She was fertile, then—or soon could be, if they also knew about fertility drugs. She thought they probably would.

When he was through, the man called others; they carried her from that compartment to another, somewhat larger, but empty of anything she could use as a weapon against them or herself. She was still cuffed, this time one arm to the corner of the bunk. Beside her the men left a soft tube of nutrient gel and a carisack of water. She had just dozed off when the commander appeared with the man who had waked her.

“How long?”

“Well, she’ll be strong enough in another two or three days, but she won’t ovulate for another twelve to fourteen. I gave her the shots, but it takes that long to cycle.”

“We’ll move her in with Girlie and the babies when she’s strong enough. She can start sewing, though I doubt she knows any more about it than Girlie did.” He stepped up to the bunk. “Now you know we spoke truth; living among liars as you did, you might have doubted us. Now your next lesson. You aren’t who you were. No one will ever call you by that heathen name you used. Where you’re going, no one will even know it. Right now you have no name at all. You’re a slut, because you aren’t a virgin or a wife. Sluts are any man’s pleasure. When you’ve borne your third child, if anyone wants you and if you’ve been obedient, you’ll be available for junior wife.”

He left, taking the other man with him, before she even thought to curse him in whispers. Brun wanted to cry, but tears would not come. Instead, despair settled over her like a dark blanket, tucking itself around her mind until she could see nothing else. She struggled against it briefly, but it held her as firmly as the cuff on her arm, and she was so tired.

She slept again, and woke. Her throat hurt; she sucked at the nutrient tube, and the chill gel eased it again. The move to the other compartment had to be better, Brun thought. If she lay there alone she would go crazy. Another human—even women belonging to these men—had to be better.

Hazel looked up from the littles only as far as the men’s waists . . . she saw the woman’s bare legs and almost forgot to keep her gaze down. They had told her about this woman, and Hazel’s heart had ached for her . . . but it frightened her, because they had shown Hazel pictures of what they’d done to her, and threatened to do the same to Hazel and the littles if Hazel disobeyed. Now they pushed the woman down onto the pallet along the wall. Hazel pulled the littles back into the corner. The woman was pale, almost as white as milk, and dark bruises stood out on her skin. She had a rough red scar on her leg, and her face . . . Hazel didn’t want to look at her face, but the burning blue eyes seemed to reach for hers and demand a response.

“Girlie, you take care of her. Feed her. Make sure she eats and drinks and goes to toilet. Keep her clean. But don’t talk to her. Understand?”