“Stop! Let me go! I’m innocent! Help!”
She tried screaming various words, but she had no allies on this planet where she was a stranger. She did not belong anywhere. She was an unwitting interstellar stowaway, a woman out of space and out of time. And that meant there was nobody to notice, let alone care that she was being abducted by a heavily armored six-foot-plus alien.
The guard was deaf to her cries, and immune to the helpless kicking and hitting she tried to deploy in her favor.
“Innocent people don’t fight,” he growled. “You’re a hostile alien spy sent by Dominax.”
“Dominax doesn’t even know I exist!”
They reached the end of the gangway, at which point the ship opened up and swallowed them both. The world went dark for a moment, then was lit by many dozens of little lights along the walls, like a high end version of the little glow-in-the-dark stars she’d stuck to her ceiling in an effort to recapture the majesty of the universe — back before she realized the majesty of the universe was terrifying.
There was a low hum throbbing through the ship at a frequency she found calming, or would have if she were not being actively abducted. The soldier had wrapped her in his arms and was carrying her along under her armpits, sort of like the way someone who doesn’t like cats tries to carry a cat.
The halls were trammelled with what might have been cords and pipes moving in fractal ways. They might also have been branches. Or maybe veins and arteries. There was no chance to explore them more deeply because she was being dragged past them at a speed which did not allow for sight-seeing.
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I was just looking. You have a beautiful ship. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“This is the royal flagship of King Konan of Masih,” the guard told her. “Only royalty may approach, not vagrant scum.”
Vagrant scum? She was going to protest the description, but the first part was probably accurate and the second part, a matter of perspective. She’d come to think very highly of herself back on Earth. Being the dominant species imparted a certain arrogance which was quickly lost when one found oneself in a situation like the one she was currently enduring.
Half-horrified, half-intrigued at the fascinating construction of the vessel which continued to astound her even in her captivity, Elizabeth wished the guard would slow down a little. She would have enjoyed the tour more if she had not sensed that she was in absolute mortal danger. Many terrible things had happened to her over the past months. Some of them were interesting. This was the most interesting. She had the feeling it might also be the most terrible, if she were not careful.
“Please, let me go! I wasn’t doing anything…” She tried begging, though it did not feel like it was going to amount to much — and indeed, it did not.
“You were doing something," the guard replied. “And the king needs someone to take his anger out on. If it is not you, it will be one of us. You are a perfect whipping girl. You're not one of the homelanders of this planet. You’re dispensable.”
“You mean expendable,” she corrected out of force of habit. “Why is your king angry?”
The soldier didn’t seem to mind explaining the situation in a convenient piece of exposition.
“We arrived here expecting a formal welcome from Dominax, king of this planet. We expected fireworks and dancing girls. We expected a feast and many, many gifts. But we have been in port for several hours and you are the only one who seems to have noticed. Konan is furious. He has never been so insulted in all his life. And now that he is enraged, someone will have to pay the price to restore his honor.”
“Me? Am I really going to be enough to make up for the slight of being ignored by a king? I’m nobody.”
“You’ll be enough to distract him from one of us. Try to scream when he beats you. He likes that.”
She did not like the sound of that at all, being made the whipping girl in place of King Dominax, he who ruled the planet she found herself stranded on, he whose fault it technically was that she was there in the first place… Dominax had a lot to answer for as far as she was concerned.
“Please, let me go. I’ll… I’ll go and get Dominax. I’ll remind him…”
“You don’t know Dominax. He’s the king. You’re a street rat.”
“Actually, I’m more like a refugee. It’s a funny story…”
There was not enough time to tell it before she was pulled through a pair of doors which slid open with an annoyed clanking, and she found herself in a big room the general layout of which seemed like the bridge.