Crown of Slaves

Chapter 37

Within half an hour after being forced into the slave quarters, Berry had managed to adjust to the…

Surreal situation.

There was no other word for it, really. By then, she'd discovered that the slaves had not only seized the slave quarters and held them for a day, but had even managed to jury-rig a government of sorts. They'd been able to do so, for two reasons:

First, the Masadans had killed over half the slaver crew, including most of the officers, in the course of seizing the ship. That, at least, was the best guess of the slaves' steering committee-based on admittedly sketchy evidence. But their estimate matched the number of crewmen Berry had seen on the bridge.

She did the arithmetic herself, and came up with the same basic conclusion. There'd been just four crewmen on the bridge, including only one officer. Allow for perhaps another officer and two or three crewmen still alive in the engineering compartments. There'd been only four Masadans on the bridge also, which left two unaccounted for. Assuming that Kubler would have put them to oversee the surviving crewmen in the engineering compartments, that meant that in the course of seizing the ship the Masadans had wound up killing about two- thirds of the crew. Including, presumably, the captain.

No wonder the Masadans aren't trying to control the slaves any longer! They CAN'T.

Nor, she realized grimly, did they really need to. There was no way for the slaves to break out into the rest of the vessel. And unless they could do so, they simply couldn't threaten the ship itself or the men running it. What they could do, they had done-taken control of the slave quarters and gotten themselves organized.

After that… nothing. Just wait, and probably die when the Masadans decided to blow the ship.

'How did you find out about me?' she asked, early on.

The slave named Kathryn, who seemed to be presiding over the steering committee, issued a harsh little laugh.

'They told us.'

Kathryn gestured at a piece of surveillance equipment suspended on the wall of the compartment which the steering committee had seized for itself. A former mess compartment, judging from its accouterments. There wasn't much left of the surveillance gear, beyond smashed pieces hanging limply from brackets.

'We wrecked most of the surveillance equipment early on, so they couldn't monitor what we were doing any longer. But we left the equipment intact in a compartment not far from here so we'd still have a way to negotiate with them if we needed to. Not long after that, one of the new people-the 'Masadans,' you're calling them?-got in touch with us. We think he simply wanted to calm us down. The gist of what he told us was that they'd seized the ship, they weren't slavers themselves-and they'd either free us eventually or kill us all by blowing up the ship.'

Juan, another member of the steering committee, snorted sarcastically. 'Of course, we told him we didn't believe a word he was saying. Why should we? So, after a few minutes, another Masadan came on-said he was the leader, a guy named Kubler-and explained to us that he was going to use a Manticoran princess as a hostage. I guess in order to prove his point, he showed us some footage of you.'

He gave her costume a quick, smiling scrutiny. 'You were wearing a lot fancier clothes, then. Standing in front of some kind of mansion shaking hands with…'

The words trailed off. All nine members of the steering committee seated at the mess table in the center of the compartment were now staring at Berry. So were the dozen or so other slaves standing around nearby.

'Was that really the Countess of the Tor you were shaking hands with?' Kathryn asked quietly. Her tone was almost awestruck. 'And was that really W.E.B. Du Havel standing next to you?'

Berry's eyes widened. 'How do you know who-?'

She bit off the words. It was already obvious, just from the quickness and efficiency with which the slaves had organized themselves over the past day, that she'd drastically underestimated their sophistication. She really didn't know that much about the inner workings of Manpower's genetic slavery, she now realized, especially from the vantage point of the slaves themselves.

Juan smiled crookedly. 'What? Did you think we were all foot-shuffling illiterates? Something out of the history books?' For all that he was obviously trying to keep any anger out of his voice, Berry could detect the traces of it.

'This is the modern galaxy, Princess,' he elaborated, shaking his head. 'Even the combat and heavy labor lines have to know how to read and write. And most of us are trained for fairly complex work. We have to be, whether the scorpions like it or not.'

Scorpions. She'd now heard that term at least a dozen times. It was the way the slaves referred to their Manpower overlords.

Kathryn waved a hand, indicating the members of the steering committee. 'Several of us belong to the Audubon Ballroom, Princess. The Ballroom's been organizing slaves for at least ten years now.'

Seeing the unspoken question in Berry's face, Kathryn also smiled crookedly. 'How do you think? Some of us- I'm one of them, so's Georg over there-volunteered to let ourselves be recaptured. So we could start organizing on the inside of the scorpion nest.'

Berry tried to imagine the degree of courage involved. That… she could do. But she knew she could never-not in a lifetime measured in centuries-match the sheer hatred that lurked under the terms.

Scorpions. In their nest. God help Manpower if they ever fall into the hands of their slaves. They'll be as merciless as demons.

Can't say I blame them any, of course.

Berry cleared her throat. She had to remind herself not to tell them that 'the Countess of the Tor' was, in point of fact, her mother.

'Yes, that was she. Except she's not a countess any longer. She gave up the title so she could run for a seat in the House of Commons. And, yes, that was Web Du Havel standing next to me.'

'Good for her,' grunted the one named Georg. 'She's always been the best of the lot, in the Anti-Slavery League. My opinion, anyway. Not sure what I think of Du Havel. We're all proud of him, of course, but… I think he's something of an appeaser.'

'Let's leave politics out of this, shall we?' suggested one of the other slaves, a stocky man somewhat older than the rest. Berry had been given his name, but couldn't quite remember it. Harry, or Harris-something like that. The man gave Kathryn and Georg a somewhat frosty look. 'We're not all members of the Ballroom, I'll ask you to remember. Personally, I think very highly of Professor Du Havel.'

Kathryn raised her hand in a pacific gesture. 'Take it easy, Harrell. Georg wasn't trying to start a debate, I'm sure. We can leave that for another time.'

'Assuming there is one,' muttered Georg. He glanced at the shattered surveillance equipment. 'Easy enough to break that. But unless we can figure out a way to break into the rest of the ship, we're so much meat waiting for the slaughter.'

Berry cleared her throat. 'Uh. Are you sure we can't be spied on, any longer?'

The response she got was a lot of rather unfriendly looks.

Right. Stupid question. 'Scorpions,' remember? They probably spent two hours crushing every little functioning piece they could find.

'Never mind,' she said hastily. 'The point is… well. I'm not actually a captive here. Well. I mean, yes, I am-right now. But there's an assault team on its way to deal with that. The real reason I came over was to serve as a decoy. Keep the Masadans preoccupied-me and Victor, that is-while Thandi and her women take them out.'

She stopped, suspecting her account fell somewhat short of coherence.

'Who's 'Victor'?' Georg demanded immediately. Suspicion didn't exactly 'drip' from the words. But it did seep noticeably.

'Victor Cachat. He's an agent-of some kind, I haven't figured out the details-for the Republic of Haven.'

Kathryn's eyes widened. 'I know him!'