Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 68525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
The moment I saw the company agent, though, that rational conclusion started to waver. The center of my village, Village 17, was relatively busy at this hour. The artisans who produced genuine Kamnian products like the highly-prized aged cheese from Kamnian sheep’s milk and the even more highly prized decorative lumber that they told us no Vionian palace could do without, were taking their mid-day meal in the plaza. School-children had just emerged from the educational facility to return home for their own lunch. I could still pick out the agent, though, standing in front of the village house, as much from the mere body language of his stance as from his red uniform and his pale skin.
I wore the simple shift dress that represented traditional Kamnian women’s clothing. Kamnian men wore a tunic and loose trousers. The agent’s company uniform fit him like a glove, and he wore it in a way that suggested he could adopt a ramrod military posture if he chose, but he definitely did not so choose here on a world owned by his mighty corporation. I watched him lift his eyes in recognition as the elders led me closer, and then stroke his chin, looking me up and down with a frankly evaluating gaze that made my face go hot.
My skin was close to ivory, and my hair, according to my mother, was the perfect shade of blue. In the loose ponytail all Kamnian girls wore for school and daily chores, it flowed down to my shoulders in tight ringlets, its color vibrant against my skin’s: cyan, people usually called it.
The agent gazed into my eyes as I approached, until I had to lower them, knowing he must find them “striking,” just as I had once heard a neighbor describe them to my mother. A very light shade of green, I had always thought of them as my most characteristic feature—the expression of my spirit.
The elders stopped in front of the man in the red uniform. I stopped too, but he said, in an impatient voice whose accent seemed like the schoolbooks telling of Vionian Imperial glory come to life, “Step forward, girl. What’s your name?”
I had thought the matter of whether I meant to do anything foolish settled, inside myself. The company agent’s brusque, dismissive manner seemed to change that completely. I didn’t answer, and I didn’t step forward.
“Her name’s Chalondra, sir,” said Elder Harta. “You’ll forgive—”
“No, elder,” the agent replied, his words clipped and harsh. “I have no need to forgive anything. Get her into the preparation room, please. Chalondra, this is your first, last, and final warning to obey me. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out of all your clothes once the elders have left you in the preparation room. If you’re not completely nude when I arrive, things will go badly for you.”
CHAPTER 2
Chalondra
I didn’t protest as the elders, obviously miserable at having to do their duty in obedience to the company agent, led me into the village house, through a locked door, and down a flight of stairs I hadn’t known existed. There, in a nearly bare basement room most notably containing metal pillars to support the floor above, were a table, a chair, and a cage of the same dull gray steel as the pillars.
I swallowed hard. For some reason, rather than reacting immediately to the presence of the cage, I felt surprise at the metal involved in the room. Kamnos, despite being quite rich in minerals, sent those minerals to the company. We were forbidden to smelt our own metal, and forbidden to buy metal from the company, which of course controlled all our trade. Every piece of metal in my world represented a “gift” from the company: ploughshares, hammers, structural supports like the ones in this room. The rest of the village house, where I had come frequently for various important occasions in village life, contained no metal at all. Nothing marked this room as Vionian more starkly than those metal pillars extending up from the basement’s dirt floor.
Or that horrible cage.
It looked perhaps ten centimeters taller than my 170, but it could have no other purpose than to hold a human being.
No, I thought. Not a human being really. A particular sort of object, wholly owned by the Tri-System Mercantile Company. A girl, destined for sale on Vion Prime.
A naked girl. Next to the cage, I noticed, stood something else I hadn’t observed when the elders had led me in. An unassuming post, made of wood, with two wooden pegs on it, one at head height and the other halfway down.
For my clothes, I understood, the heat flashing into my face. The upper one for my dress. The lower one for my underwear.
“Now, Chalondra,” said Elder Jusalon from behind me. I realized the elders, after leading me into the room, had dropped back a step. To block my escape? I wondered.