Delivered by the Defender (Kindred Tales)

Well, news certainly travels fast around here. Selena wondered how in the world the other woman knew about her supposed crime, but she decided it didn’t really matter.

“I’m not a thief,” she said tiredly. “I was framed. Not that it seems to matter here, since you can’t get any kind of a fair trial.”

“’A’course not. Not if you’re a female, you can’t,” Veelah said, matter-of-factly. “You might be wondering what I did to get in here,” she added, shifting topics fluidly. She seemed to be in a chatty mood.

“Oh, um, sure.” Selena nodded, still feeling sick and scared. “What…what did you do?”

“Not much of nothin’—just went around with my breasts covered is all. But I did it a’purpose, you see,” Veelah went on.

“On purpose? You got sent to prison on purpose?” Selena’s head jerked up and she stared at the other woman. “But why?”

“Because my old Master got sent up a while ago,” Veelah explained. “I was having a rough go of it without him—it ain’t easy being an unclaimed Dependent Female, you know. So I was having a bad time, but hoping all the while that his appeal would come through.”

“Oh—do people get appeals here?” Selena asked, feeling a tiny glimmer of hope. But Veelah snuffed out the glimmer ruthlessly with her next words.

“Only males, a’course—they get at least one appeal—sometimes two, if they have a good Defender,” she said. “Females don’t get none.”

“Oh…” Selena hunched her shoulders, feeling her heart sink back down to her shoes. “So you got sent to prison on purpose, so you could be with your husband? Er, your Master, I mean?” she said.

Veelah nodded.

“Yup, that’s about it. Hopefully he’ll still take care of me. Though if Big Horn there, should take an interest, I’d throw my old Master over in a heartbeat,” she added, nodding at the far end of the male’s cell where the huge Ma’shorkan was sitting again. “Whoever he wants is gonna be sitting pretty in Hammerdown.”

“I’m sure they will,” Selena murmured, looking down at her hands again.

She wanted to withdraw into herself and just be miserable, but the Ma’shorkan woman seemed to have a lot of good information, so she made herself keep talking.

“Veelah,” she said tentatively. “Do you know who should I talk to if I want to get a message out of here? I mean, to someone on the outside?”

“Sure—let any of the guards fuck you and they’ll send out a message for you,” Veelah said, shrugging. “A’course, sometimes they say they’ll send a message but they’re lying—so it’s better to hedge your bets, so to speak, and fuck several of ‘em. Give ‘em all the same message and odds are at least one of them will send it—if you’re lucky.”

“What?” Selena felt like she might throw up. “I can’t…I don’t want to…to do that!” she exclaimed. “And besides, the palace guards who brought me in told the Court guards not to send any messages for me,” she added.

“Well then, you’re screwed,” Veelah said cheerfully. “Unless you got something valuable enough to bribe ‘em with, that they’d be willing to overlook what the palace guards told them.” She looked thoughtful. “Too bad you don’t have any good nipple jewelry. I’d give you one of my fancy feathers, but I might need them to barter at Hammerdown if my old Master won’t have me back.” She nodded down at the silver rings with their dangling blue feathers.

“Yes, too bad I don’t,” Selena said dully. “But I was at the spaceport when they grabbed me—I had to be sure I didn’t take anything with me, so I wouldn’t get arrested for trying to, uh, lighten the mass of the planet.”

“Too bad.” Veelah shook her head sympathetically. “Well, maybe you’ll be able to find yourself a good Master once you get to Hammerdown who’ll take care of you.”

Selena didn’t know what to say to that. She simply rested her elbows on her knees and lowered her head into her hands. It was all too much—too much to bear. She had no way of getting out of here and no way of sending word to Valen that she was trapped here and about to be sent away to Ma’shorkan prison for the rest of her life.

What was she going to do?

61

What she did, was take a nap. She would have thought it was impossible to sleep under such awful circumstances, but she’d gotten next to no sleep the night before and it had been a draining and emotional day. Somehow she slipped down so that she was sitting on the floor with her back against the bench. Then she drew up her legs and pillowed her head in her arms. Slowly, her eyes drifted closed.

She fell into a thin and troubled sleep and dreamed she was falling down a long, dark hole in the ground. There were hands reaching up for her, the fingers hooked into claws, and deep voices were shouting for her to “Show us your tits! Come on, bimbap, show your tits!”