I knew this in part because the Low Mercan vocabulary reflected the true situation: The word for city included the rootword for sterile; the word for swamp included the rootword for fecund. The word for a pleasure-female was made up of the words urban and k’dawk, a term for playful congress, indecent when used alone. Playful had been the word used in my glossary, but from what I now knew about the K’Famir, I doubted that any interchange between male and female could be playful. I now knew things I had not known I knew, for until now I’d had no mental hooks to hang them on. After a long voyage of listening to K’Famir talk, I had acquired hooks in plenty.
Because many K’Famira were sterile, pets were common. Any small, biddable creature would serve. Pets could be brought up in the family and kept for an unlimited time, or, when they reached adulthood, the pet could be freed to a colony. If the family didn’t free it, the pet could be sold again for fifteen years of labor. One of the more discouraging facts I had learned on the ship was that time spent as a pet did not count against the term of bondage unless the family wished it so. The one encouraging thing I had learned was that K’Famir males did not find Earthians sexually attractive or at all interesting.
So, I focused on these trivia, standing very still and ignoring the manipulators running over my body.
“What’s your name, human-female-young,” Adille asked in Mercan, waiting for the translator to convey this to me.
“Margaret,” I said, without waiting for the translator. “And I’m twelve Earth-years old.”
“You speak Mercan?” Adille sounded almost outraged.
“I do, Great Lady,” I said, focusing all my attention upon Adille’s speech in order to blank out her smell.
“Well, then. You would be a bargain, wouldn’t you?”
“I would seek to please the Great Lady,” I said.
The cargo manager on the ship had been kind enough to instruct me in what to say. Great Lady. Great Lord. My only desire is to give good service. What does the Lord require? And so on. I had taught these same phrases to those in the cargo, though only a few of them had learned to say the words in Low Mercan. The cargo manager had told me he much regretted that he could not buy me for himself, as an assistant during future voyages.
“And your name, again?” Adille demanded.
“Margaret.”
“Margaret. What a strange name, and yet, I suppose you’re used to it. We’ll keep some of it for you, wouldn’t that be nice? My last pet’s name was Onga. Suppose we call you Ongamar?”
And Ongamar I became. Ongamar who found her role not unfamiliar, for she fetched and carried, grateful to be frequently ignored, reconciled to being occasionally petted and fussed over, meantime listening to every word spoken in her presence and, when possible, those uttered behind closed doors. Thus I, she, expanded my Mercan vocabulary while learning a great deal about the K’Famir race and the Combine of which it was a member.
In general, I, as Ongamar, found the situation tolerable. The Mercan people were uniformly disagreeable, but simple pleasure-females—as distinguished from the breeding consorts of males in the hierarchy—had no dynastic ambitions and shared few of the more deadly K’Famir attributes. Though vicious if provoked, females were not routinely cruel; their interests were narrow and restricted to their own comfort; their servants and pets did not find them hard to please.
The males, however, were uniformly sly and vicious, even before they were sent to their male-only religious schools. By the time they left those schools, they were sufficiently menacing that pets, servants, and children stayed out of their way, and even consorts and pleasure-women were careful of their demeanor. There was no K’Famir law against the negligent or purposeful slaying of children or wives by male K’Famir, or the slaying of male K’Famir by male K’Famir, though penalties were exacted for slaying the mates or children of other males, which was considered to be theft.
As Ongamar, I was allowed to take my own exercise unsupervised in the walled gardens, which were extensive. My usual food was a tasteless kibble, made especially for pets of several humanoid races, but I was also fed scraps from the table, many of them delicious, though some were revolting. Adille’s previous pet had been of another race, but Adille learned which foods were acceptable while I invented ways to avoid being stuffed with foods that made me ill. Vomiting on the carpets resulted in a beating with one of the special slave whips made of flemp hide. The skins had microscopic, hook-shaped scales on them that tore the flesh and prevented the wounds from healing. Pets were beaten for any “dirty” behavior such as tracking in soil or leaves or failing to put clothing away, or spotting anything with blood, which occurred when I began to menstruate, some little time after arrival.
The first bleeding upset Adille, and I was taken to a K’Famir veterinarian, who explained the biological function to Adille, not to Ongamar, and gave a kit of supplies to Adille, not to Ongamar, that Ongamar was to be trained to use. Thereafter Adille speculated from time to time whether it might not be fun to breed Ongamar and raise a litter of little ones. When she mentioned this in her current patron’s presence, however, his throat sac bulged to its fullest as he bellowed that one animal in the house was barely tolerable and there were to be no more.
The semiaquatic K’Famir wore clothing as protection when outdoors, or as adornment. While at home they were constantly in and out of the fountains with which most of the rooms were furnished, Clothing for pets was allowed. When my own clothing began to wear out, I begged Adille for fabric to make simple, long-sleeved shifts. In public, K’Famir
