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?”
Hazel bobbed her head. They’d told her and told her—if she talked to the woman they were bringing in, they’d do the same to her. And to both the littles. She couldn’t let that happen.
“You teach her to sew, if she doesn’t know how. Make her a decent dress. We’ll bring more cloth.”
Hazel bobbed her head again. The men left, leaving the strange woman alone. Hazel hitched herself across the deck, being careful not to uncover her legs, and retrieved the food sack. She held out a tube of paste concentrate. The woman put her hand in front of her mouth and turned away. Hazel went back to the littles, who were staring at the woman with wide eyes.
“Who she?” asked Brandy, barely breathing the words.
“Shhh,” Hazel said.
“No clothes,” breathed Stassi.
“Shh.” She handed the littles their dolls, and started them on the dancing game she’d devised.
Every word Brun had said to Esmay seemed etched on her skin in acid. Simply a matter of practice, she’d said. Just think of pistons and cylinders, she’d said. Easy . . .
In the silence, in her mind, she apologized again and again, screaming the words she could not say. How could she have been so wrong? So stupid? So arrogant? How could she have thought the universe was set up for her convenience?
Her body ached, raw and sore from waking to sleeping again. They had all used her, over and over, for days . . . how many days she didn’t know. Through one cycle, at least, for she had bled heavily. They didn’t touch her then, and would not even enter the compartment. Not until she was “clean” again . . . and then it started all over.
When her breasts swelled up, sore to the touch, she winced away from one of them. He stopped. “Slut . . .” he said warningly. Then he prodded her breasts, and moved away. She lay slack, uncaring. If it wasn’t hurting right now, that was enough. Another one came . . . the one, she now recognized, who was some kind of medic. He felt her breasts, took her temperature, and sampled her blood. A few minutes later, he grinned.
“You’re breeding. Good.”
Good? That she was carrying the child of one of these disgusting monsters? He seemed to read her feelings in her face.
“You won’t be able to do anything unnatural. If you try, we’ll confine you alone. Understand?”
She glared at him, and he slapped her. “You’re just pregnant, not injured. You will answer appropriately when I ask you a question. Understand?” Against her will, she nodded. “Get dressed now.”
Under his gaze, she fumbled back into the ugly tubelike dress the girl had made for her and tied the tapes that held it closed. She threw the square of cloth that covered her arms around her shoulders. They hadn’t figured out yet how to put sleeves in the dress.