“Get back—get away from the door. Anybody who tries to get out when this little bimbap goes in will get a taste of my pain prod!”
The women prisoners must have believed him, because they backed away from the Plexiglas door, which had been smeared with some kind of brown filth.
“All right now.” The Court guard stuck another key in the lock of the door and swung it open. He shoved Selena forward. “Get in there.”
Selena felt a surge of panic. She was sure that if she went into the holding cell, she would never get free of this place!
“No, please!” She hung back, fighting to stay outside. “Don’t put me in there! Please, I just want to go home.”
“This is your home now, bimbap—at least until you get to Hammerdown,” the guard snarled. Gripping her arm harder, he shoved her forward. “Now get in there! Or would you rather I put you in with the males, so you can service all of them all night long?”
At this, the males in the other cell shouted louder than ever.
“Send the little bimbap over here!”
“We’ll make good use of her mouth and pussy!”
“Not me—I wanna try her ass!”
At the crude shouts and yells, Selena realized that as bad as this situation was, it could get much, much worse if she wasn’t careful. Quickly, she ducked into the female cell, which was separated from the male cell by a clear wall.
“Yeah, I thought that would get you in there.” The Court guard laughed crudely as he relocked the door. “Simmer down, you lot,” he added to the male inmates, who were shouting angrily now that it had become clear they weren’t going to get Selena in their cell after all. “You’ll get a taste of the little bimbap’s cunny soon enough—you’re all headed for the same prison!”
Then he left, clanging the heavy iron door shut behind him and leaving Selena trapped in the crowded cell.
59
“Oh Gods…oh no. Goddess, please, no.”
Valen stared in horror at the ruined remains of Selena’s beloved violin. Its delicate, curved body had been smashed and dumped carelessly into the top of an almost-full trash bin. The wood was splintered and ruined beyond repair.
He felt sick. There could be no clearer sign that something bad had happened to the little Elite. Selena loved her instrument—she seemed to have the same affection for it that most people had for beloved pets. She would never have treated it like this or allowed anyone else to, if she’d had the choice.
Someone took her, Valen thought, gently picking up the ruined violin and examining it. Probably the same bastard who was trying to grab her when she first came into the spaceport!
But if she’d been taken by slave-takers, then why had her violin been destroyed? Slavers were greedy bastards—they usually tried to sell anything that had any worth at all. Why would they smash it instead?
Maybe she tried to fight back, using it as a weapon?
But that didn’t make sense either. Why would she take it out of its protective case? Valen shook his head. There were too many unanswerable questions here. But someone must have seen what had happened!
Desperate for answers, he strode up to the desk at the front, just beside the connecting tunnel that led to the shuttle. There was a female gate agent there, wearing a blue and red uniform with blue and red nipple rings to match.
“You,” Valen said, pointing at her. “You were here during the noon shuttle flight to the Mother Ship, were you not?” It wasn’t a question—he remembered seeing her and thinking it was unusual for the Ma’shorkans to have posted a female gate agent alone, without a male to back her up. Probably they only did it because they knew the Kindred who came in from the Mother Ship wouldn’t attack or molest a female, even if she had no protection.
The gate agent shrank back from him, giving him a mistrustful look.
“Yes, Sir, I was. What about it?”
“Did you see what happened to the female who was carrying this instrument?” Valen held up the broken violin, which he had rescued from he refuse bin. The two halves dangled limply, barely held together by the strings. “Well? Did you?” he demanded, when she didn’t answer right away.
“She was taken,” the attendant said simply. “Just as we were boarding the shuttle, two males came and took her.”
“Two males took her? Took her where? And you didn’t think to report it to anyone?” Valen snarled.
The gate agent gave him a mutinous look.
“She was walking around with her breasts covered and no Seal of Independence on display,” she muttered sullenly. “She was breaking the law, right out in public—being indecent! Why should I report it when she got her just comeuppance?”
Valen wanted to punch something. He should have warned the little Elite to keep her breasts out and on display until she actually entered the shuttle. But he couldn’t blame her for wanting to cover up—she’d been in the middle of a group of Kindred and their wives, which were mainly from Earth. Doubtless she’d been embarrassed to go bare breasted around people she might know from the Mother Ship. And who could blame her?