The Commander's Slave Read Online Free PDF Page B

eight month’s time.”
    That should have heartened Tangus but
the ‘population’ Daurent referred to numbered in only the
thousands, a last pitiful remnant of a once-proud species. And the
statement was bounded by so many qualifiers, Tangus knew his deputy
was merely trying to boost his spirits.
    He sighed and sat on the edge of the
conference table. “What about the detection technologies we bought?
Any good?”
    “ They’re not fully compatible with Seti matrixes. I’ve had a
bit of a play with them, and they seem to work, but I
won’t know for sure until they’re fully installed and I’ve had a
chance to tune them.”
    There was a loaded pause.
    “ How’s our passenger?”
Daurent asked, a little too casually.
    “ Passenger? We don’t
have--oh. You mean Asha.”
    “ She has a Seti
name?”
    “ No, no of course not. She
can’t remember her real name.”
    “ So you gave her
one?”
    “ Something like that.”
Tangus shifted.
    “ Why?” Daurent seemed
clearly puzzled. “Why not just call her ‘hey you’? Or ‘breeder’?
Or,” he continued carefully, “have you changed your mind about
that?”
    Tangus pushed himself from the table.
“I haven’t changed my mind about anything. And you’re starting to
take dangerous liberties, Daurent.” His look would have quelled any
other, but the two men had been through enough together for Daurent
to see beneath the rebuke.
    “ She looks too innocent,
Tangus, to be used like this.”
    “ You would have us shower
our murderers with flower petals,” Tangus retorted, using a line
from a classic Seti poem.
    Daurent’s pale eyes followed the
commander as he paced. “I lost family too, you know.”
    That stopped the taller male in his tracks. “And that’s why
I must do this. While the Lasc Prein destroyed our
planet, the Fusion stood by and did nothing. We have no women, no
children, no world left to us. All we have left to cling
to is our vengeance and our thirst for justice.”
    “ Vengeance? On innocents?
Is this what the Seti are reduced to?”
    “ Justice through survival,
Daurent. Everything has a plan. We examine her physiology and
compatibility to breed. If compatible, we set her up as a breeder,
one of many to help increase our race again. If not, maybe we can
still use her womb. As a last resort, she can help establish the
new Seti world. Nothing goes to waste.”
    “ And you think you can do
this? Use her, then discard her when you’re done?”
    “ Do you deny me this?” the
older man countered in a cold voice.
    Daurent shook his head.
    “ Tangus, I know more than
anybody else what you sacrificed to save even so few of us. I, and
everyone else in the Fleet, owe you our lives. You know that I
don’t begrudge you a thing, least of all a few days of pleasure.
And why not? She is certainly comely, and you’ve denied yourself
for more months than I can count. But you’re not as strong as you
think. The Lasc Prein destroyed much, but they couldn’t destroy
your heart, Tangus. Please. Don’t do something you’ll regret
later.”
    “ This is for us , Daurent,” he said
softly.
    But Daurent remained unconvinced. “If
you say so.”
    * * * *
    She ached where she didn’t even know
she had muscles. After Tangus left, Asha moved slowly to the
shower-pan and hesitantly ordered a warm, soothing shower. She
tried to clean between her legs but the flesh was tender and
swollen. Eventually she gave up, dried herself and limped to the
bed, collapsing on top of it.
    So much had happened that she could
barely take it in.
    If only she could remember more than
five days of her life. Who was she? What had caused the ship she
was on to crash on Helson V? Was she running away from something?
Or towards it? And what did her subsequent ‘purchase’
mean?
    The thought of being sold at Hell’s
Market inevitably led to her captor, her owner.
    Tangus.
    With those broad shoulders, slim hips,
and towering height, he was the epitome of masculinity, one