I apologize for having tried to fight you off, Jer-Mar,” I said, looking up to meet his eyes directly. “If I’d known you were going to go at it for so short an amount of time, I wouldn’t have bothered protesting. I really appreciate the way you honored me, but I do have a question: when does it get to be my turn to be satisfied?”
There were so many gasps and choking noises from the people all around, that it sounded like a windstorm rising in a forest. The blood drained out of Jer-Mar’s face and then it came back to make him look like he’d been slapped, a bright flush of crimson humiliation that went a good distance toward getting even for what he’d done to me. In my imagination I could feel the way the men in the room were now laughing at him, not aloud but still plain enough to sense, and again there came a feeling of pressure around my mind, as though something were trying to squeeze me to nothing.
The man who had tried to add to my shame stood with fists clenched, eyes bulging, and no expression for a very short time, and then he seemed to grow even angrier with frustration. His face twisted with savage fury, and he made a gesture of dismissal.
“Turned off is untouchable, but only in that way,” he said with a snarl, then shook off the hands of his friends who tried holding him where he stood. “I don’t care what the policy against really hurting them is, nobody talks to me like that. Nobody.”
With that he started toward me, his right hand still clenched into a fist, and it wasn’t hard figuring out what he intended doing with that fist. I got to my feet as quickly as I could, but made no attempt to back away from the oncoming attack. I’d known Jer-Mar was the sort who could be goaded into something that wasn’t supposed to be done, someone who could be pushed until he pushed back just a little too hard. No one in that place was willing to let me die, but if it happened before any of them could stop it . . .
It took only seconds for the man to reach me, wonderfully brief bits of time that I happily greeted the end of, his fist beginning to rise to the ready point while his eyes filled with vicious satisfaction. It was just about to happen and too late for any of the Secs to interfere; he was going to do it- But then his rush faltered as he looked past me, and stiffness replaced the readiness in him.
“That’s a good boy, Jer-Mar,” a deep voice said from behind me, a calm and easy voice filled with the faintest hint of amusement. “Trying to hurt one of the girls will get the boy’s ears pinned back hard, but not by the fools who run this place. And you have to admit she was telling the truth. That’s not the first time I’ve heard it suggested you’d still be the next thing to a virgin if the girls had anything to say about it. If you were smart, you’d look into the possibility of taking a few lessons.”
“From you?” Jer-Mar came back with all the scorn he was capable of, but there was still an almost-trembling inside him, a fear of sorts that limited him to the use of no more than words. “The story around here is that you’re having trouble cutting it, Kel-Ten. Everyone’s waiting for the time you’re defeated, so a real man can take over firsts. That time may not be too far ahead of us. ”
“That’s right, you are due to move up soon, aren’t you?” the deep voice said, and the amusement in it had increased. “I’ve been meaning to come by and tell you how much I’m looking forward to that. And the story you should have been hearing is that I’m bored with cutting it, but I doubt if you’re capable of understanding something that deep. You’re not smart enough to know there’s more to life than working up to a challenge, and in between dipping your brains out. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why you’re not smart enough.”
“So to cure your boredom, you come slumming,” Jer-Mar said, his eyes glittering with the wish that he could
go beyond that. “You stroll in and act the great protector, but what you’ve really accomplished is doing me a favor. They would have drawn and quartered me if I’d managed to hurt the pretty little thing, but now I’ve calmed down enough to step back and let them do it. She took their first efforts hard enough to start out this evening with a real attempt to apologize. I can’t wait to see what the next set does to her.”
The look on his face was pure vindictive glee, and closing my eyes in defeat didn’t stop me from knowing about it. I’d been so torn apart when my plans hadn’t worked out, that I hadn’t even turned to see who had ruined them. Now I was more than torn apart, more like close to stark terror, and the next words I heard began to freeze my blood.
“We humbly beg your pardon, Prime Jer-Mar,” the voice of the woman in yellow came, the tremble in it undoubtedly caused by anguish and anger both. “We returned her to you thinking she was now worthy of your attentions, but obviously we were wrong. The next time she’s brought back, there won’t be any possibility of our being wrong.”
That was the signal for the hard, uncaring hands to close on my arms again, hands that would drag me back to agony I couldn’t even bear to think about. Opening my eyes again was something I couldn’t bring myself to do, as though the nightmare would dissolve and drift away if I didn’t look at it, leaving me safe and unhurt. The hands closed tighter and began pushing and pulling me, refusing to dissolve the way they were supposed to, forcing me to take the first steps toward crushing horror. Part of me wanted to whimper and beg for forgiveness, to swear that I’d never do anything like that again, but the rest of me refused to let the words come out. Women were lucky in that they didn’t have to be strong at all times, I remembered from somewhere, but most of me dismissed the thought as unacceptable. Some women couldn’t let themselves be anything but strong, especially if they were alone-without someone really strong beside them whose strength they could share
“Where do you think you’re taking her?” that deep, calm voice came again with no warning, a big hand suddenly on my shoulder in company with the words. “Were you given permission to take her?”
“But—but-Prime Kel-Ten, you don’t seem to understand,” the woman in yellow began to stutter, choking up in horror over having to disagree with one of her gods. “The girl was obscenely, unbelievably insulting to a Prime, a man who’s one of your own! She has to be punished for that, she simply has to be, it would be unthinkable to allow anything else! I do hope you’re not upset over my having spoken to you like that, but . . . ”
“But you’re missing the point,” the deep voice interrupted, surprisingly sounding gentle rather than annoyed. “Prime Jer-Mar hasn’t yet reached the point where he’s one of mine, and even if he does eventually get there that doesn’t change the fact that I want the girl. I was about to take her with me when you and your Sees interrupted, but I’m prepared to forgive you for not knowing that. If you like, I’ll punish her for you, but I’m still taking her with me.”
“You have no right taking that girl!” Jer-Mar snarled with frustrated fury, while confusion forced my eyes open to see how close he was to throwing a fit. “She belongs here with the rest of the no and low percentage fluff, not . . . ”
“Wrong again, big man,” the deep voice said, all gentleness having disappeared from it. “I can take any girl I care to, from highest to lowest, and no one will do anything but smile and nod. It’s one of the privileges you get when you reach the level I’m at-something I really do hope you manage. Until and unless that happens, I can’t do any challenging of my own. Tell your Secs to let the girl go, woman. They’re not Class Zeroes, and I don’t want to have to hurt them.”
“Of course you don’t, Prime Kel-Ten, of course you don’t,” the woman in yellow said hurriedly with worry, while Jer-Mar paled and stepped back to fall silent. “See, they’ve already let her go, so she’s yours to take. You will punish her while you have her, you did say you would, didn’t you? No permanent physical damage, of course, but that leaves quite a lot . . .”