Ganzar Chapter six

"So once more it comes down to the issue of male servitude," one of the council members was saying from across the long table in the gas-lit assembly chamber.

Kirk wondered why they bothered to have these evening sessions. He knew he was almost always too tired to turn the late meetings to any productive use. He privately supposed these wealthy city dwellers had night sessions simply to show off the building's expensive gas lighting.

"According to your Prime Directive," the honorable member was continuing, "we are free to conduct the affairs of our planet however we may chose, aren't we?"

"Then if members of our society find it economically expedient and socially acceptable to hold men as property, they have every right to do so under your laws, don't they?"

Kirk took in a deep breath before answering. It might just be his imagination, but it seemed that since he'd begun having relations with various council members, all of them seemed more bold and aggressive in their verbal attacks against his positions in meetings like these.

"Rights and freedom are the reasons why the Federation finds male..." Kirk hated that this language of a slave holding people didn't have direct translation for the word 'slavery.' "...Finds the holding of men as servants morally repugnant."

"They would do the same to us if they could," his old friend Dusach asserted sharply. "Women in the tribes of the frozen North are treated little better than pack animals."

Kirk cast a quick glance at Gallew, wondering if her real purpose in asking him to sleep with council members was actually to destroy his already tenuous credibility among the Ganzarites. "We do not approve of such attitudes either..."

"Here we simply have the means -- by virtue of our higher levels of education and civilization -- to conquer instead of being conquered," the minister of the interior said.

Dargion, the normally moderate chair of the council, interrupted him with a laugh. "Captain Kirk, we have the right to shape and mold our men as we please, just as your higher level of civilization and technology allows you to come and dictate change for us and our society."

Kirk cleared his throat and tried to keep his temper in check. "By insisting on equal rights for all citizens, we are simply trying to guide you towards a higher and more productive level of civilization."

"But that's exactly what we're doing for our men!" the minister of the interior exclaimed.

Kirk's preparations for a rebuttal were interrupted when a servant placed a note underneath his hand.

"Make no further attempts to contact me" was written on the scrap of paper in Ganzarite. There was no signature.

Chekov sat in the darkness of an unknown location waiting for the sound of footsteps. He wasn't sure how long he'd been there. When he'd awakened, he found himself confined inside an enclosure made primarily of a wire mesh with his hands bound behind him. As little as Chekov liked the idea, he had to admit to himself that the "enclosure" was actually a cage -- or even more accurately, a pen. There was evidence that some creature with feathers was normally kept in it. The structure was around three feet square, allowing him insufficient room to stand. The bottom seemed to be made of wood. He'd thought of turning the cage over on its side and kicking the flooring out, but experimentation had revealed that contact with the metallic mesh was too painful to maintain for more than a split second. He was, regardless, currently marshalling his resolve for another attempt.

From the little he could see in the moonlight, the ensign thought that he might be in one of the outbuildings on the property from which he had liberated Commander Ghyka. Chekov took hope in the fact that the Intelligence Officer was nowhere in sight or sound.

He wished beyond reason and probability that Ghyka had somehow escaped and reconsidered his plan about sending Chekov back to ....Tarell. The mere thought of her name sent a wave of despair through the ensign's knotted insides. He knew that if Ghyka had so ordered, he would have gone back to face whatever his owner cared to mete out for his unexplained disappearance, but for this...

'That's nothing next to what they do to you when they catch you outside the walls,' Tirst's voice said inside his head.

"Oh, God, what have they done to me?" Chekov groaned as nauseating dread settled in his stomach. He'd faced what he'd thought was certain death and not felt this afraid.

Another fear began to grow inside him. Perhaps what the Ganzarites had done to him -- through conditioning or this mysterious "control device" that Ghyka alleged he'd been briefed on -- was irreversible. His entire personality was changing. In a few short days, he'd become hesitant and apprehensive, suffering from profound feelings of inferiority and helplessness. He was no longer mentally fit to be a Star Fleet officer.

"I could be feeling these things as a result of purposeful conditioning," he told himself. "So that, like Tirst, I will cease to wish to return to my former life because I feel I would no longer be accepted or seen as competent."

'Then again,' his mind replied, 'it would be as effective to actually make you unfit as it would to make you think you're unfit. And if you are still capable, then why aren't you trying to get out of this cage right now?'

"Because it is going to hurt," he answered himself, drawing in a deep breath in preparation for one more attempt at overturning his wire prison. "It is going to hurt terribly."

He got as far as taking a preparatory sway in the opposite direction when he noticed that there was pale yellow light coming through the cracks of the building. This was not a good sign. The visitor the ensign was hoping for would not come carrying a Ganzarite hiotaz stone. Chekov hoped that the light was only the owner or residents of the property checking on something elsewhere, but the glow drew steadily brighter.

He closed his eyes as the door creaked open. A palpable atmospheric change told the ensign that the person who entered the building was Tarell. He was seated facing the wall to the right of the entrance. He remained in that position, blinking at his feet and the sturdy wooden floor of his cage as his eyes adjusted to the pale light. When he could finally stand the silence no longer, he took a quick look over his right shoulder to confirm that it was her.

She was standing motionless by the doorway as if she'd been waiting for him to do so. His eyes could rest on her face for only a second. Tarell was angry. Her anger silently filled the room. It echoed painfully through his mind and down the length of his spine. The feeling only got worse as she stepped closer.

He could see her laced shoes with his peripheral vision as she stood quietly surveying him for several minutes. If a person could die of shame and despair, the ensign would have gladly perished on the spot. To be seen by his worst enemy -- his owner -- in such a condition -- caged like some sort of stupid domesticated animal...

"Well, alien," Tarell said, letting the pack she was carrying on her shoulder fall to the floor. "You certainly managed to land face first in the fertilizer this time, didn't you?"

Chekov didn't reply. He wondered if his condition would seem any better if he'd not fallen into the hands of the crudest, most insensitive woman on the planet.

He ignored her as well as he could as she knelt down and began to take things out of her bag. Morbid curiosity finally got the better of him and his eyes wandered towards her satchel. As soon as he did so, he had to turn back away, very sorry to see his fears confirmed.

"Not looking at it won't make it go away," Tarell said, as she crossed over to hang the long black quirt on a hook on the wall in front of him.

Chekov closed his eyes and wished himself a billion miles away as cold sweat began to form around the collar of his shirt.

He tried to look at her, but all the defiance he could muster only got his eyes to the level of her knees. He couldn't even maintain that much as she stepped close and unlatched a small opening in the top of the cage.

"Don't pull away from me," she snapped as he flinched from the hand she thrust through the opening.

"Yes, I'm going to hurt you," Tarell confirmed, reaching in and pulling him towards her by a handful of the shirt he was wearing. "I am going to hurt you to within an inch of your fornicating, idiotic, offworldish life... But not right now. Lean forward so I can untie you."

Chekov rested his cheek against his knees as she undid the knots binding him, loving the pleasant sensation of her fingers was they occasionally brushed against his skin and hating himself for doing so.

"Now," she said, turning back to her pack and removing a small medical kit, "show me where the dart hit you."

After a moment, he noticed she'd stopped talking or moving. When he looked up, he knew immediately that this was because he'd displeased her in some way. Having profoundly displeased her in so many ways, he was at a loss to isolate what was bothering her at this moment.

"I said show me," she repeated in a low, dangerous voice. "Are you too stubborn to obey simple commands, or just too stupid?"

The ensign decided it was not wise to admit to being either as he reluctantly opened his shirt for the Ganzarite.

"There doesn't seem to be any point," he said more to himself than to her as she ran a sealer over the small wound.

"In what? In my healing a little hole in your chest right before I cut a few big ribbons into your back?" Tarell asked grimly. "No, that doesn't make sense. Then again, it doesn't make very much sense for you to be sitting here in this kitvas coop, does it?"

Tarell sat back on her heels. "Why did you come after that other offworlder? Didn't you know you could never get away with such a thing?"

He knew she wouldn't listen to his answer to this question. She seemed incapable of understanding duty and loyalty -- except to her.

"Well, you didn't do him a favor." Tarell crossed her arms. "They had to put him down."

"Put him down. Put him to sleep." Tarell held the sealer against her neck and made a hissing noise like a hypo. "You know what I mean. Foushee had to give him the shot."

"Ghyka's dead?" A feeling of bottomless despair overtook him. His only chance for returning to the Enterprise was gone. "You murdered him?"

"You had more to do with it than I did," Tarell said, calmly putting the sealer back into her kit. "And you're not using the right word. He wasn't murdered. You can only murder free people."

The worst thing was that the ensign had utterly failed Uhura. Instead of rescuing the man she charged him to protect, he'd taken actions that had led to Ghyka's death. Why hadn't he been more careful? He'd had ample warning that the Intelligence Officer was in a precarious situation with the woman holding him. Why hadn't he taken the time to think?

"It's unusual that you should care so much about another man," Tarell commented dispassionately. "What was your connection to him? Were you his lover?"

"Then what's all this for?" she asked, gesturing to the tears escaping down his cheeks.

The ensign swiped at his eyes. "I don't know. Lately I have become rather emotionally unstable."

Tarell shrugged as she removed the Vegan medical monitor from her pack. "As long as it's not mentally unstable..."

"This all had something to do with a woman then," Tarell speculated as she handed the medical monitor down through the opening to him. "Doesn't it?"

The ensign made no reply as he set the device down on the floor of the enclosure.

"An offworldish woman, right?" Tarell hypothesized, reading his body language. "One that the other offworlder belonged to? Perhaps kin of an offworldish woman you know?"

Chekov kept his mouth closed as he put one hand inside the monitor and activated it.

Chekov knew that this was correct. He resisted only to prove to himself that he still could -- as a final act of loyalty to Uhura. He didn't want even the lieutenant's beautiful name on the unworthy lips of this Ganzarite barbarian.

"Sahshell was right," Tarell said, narrowing her eyes. "I was too lenient to let you keep your memories of the offworld. They've made you nothing but trouble and done me no good. Well, I'll soon remedy that situation."

"What will happen to me?" Chekov asked, in a tone that he strove to keep from sounding fearful. "Do you intend to 'give me the shot' also?"

"No." Tarell collected several pieces of string from her bag. "Because if you're dead, I can't punish you any more than that." She paused, then looked up and smiled at him. "And I do want to punish you."

All the courage the ensign dredged up from his memories of Lt. Uhura inexorably drained away.

"And I do intend to punish you. I am going to punish you tonight. I am going to punish you tomorrow morning." She counted her plans off one at a time on a cord that looked as though she'd knotted it for the sole purpose of recording his transgressions. "I am going to punish you tomorrow afternoon. I am going to punish you the next day and the next day and the next day until I am completely over being angry with you about this. And that may take some time. You've been a lot of trouble to me, you know. It's not enough that you go over my walls -- which is a very serious offence. And as a consequence, the law requires that I contribute a certain sum to the community for my negligence in allowing you to do so."

"I was not aware that you would be held responsible," Chekov said, studying the floor of his cage.

"Let's both hope the adjudicator is in a good mood when she arrives to witness that you receive the proper punishment for having done so," Tarell said grimly. "I'm also going to be fined because you crossed onto another woman's property AND assaulted one of her servants -- who is in very serious condition right now, by the way -- AND encouraged and aided a valuable piece of her property to escape."

He couldn't suppress the involuntary shudder that ran down the length of his spine at the mere mention of that forbidden term.

"Oh, you flinch now at the word, but you didn't flinch away from the fornicating deed, did you?"

"I am the only one who should suffer because of my actions," Chekov said, his voice choked down to half-volume.

"Well, you're going to suffer for them, laddie. I'm going to see that you pay for each and every disobedience -- from crossing my wall and trespassing to going without shoes and lying to me about reading the fornicating manual for that piece of offworldish manure."

The medical monitor bleeped as if in protest to this slander. Chekov picked it up and handed it to the Ganzarite.

"When I'm done with you, you won't remember a word of offworldish nonsense, but you'll be an expert on the laws of this land and my household," she promised hotly as she accepted it.

He didn't offer advice or even lift his eyes high enough to watch as she recorded the readings on the monitor's indicators.

"I know that Tirst put you up to it and that Sahshell encouraged him to encourage you."

"No use protecting them. They certainly wouldn't do the same for you. Come on now, admit it. Tirst told you where the offworld monitoring device was, didn't he?"

Chekov thought of the advice Tirst had recommended to him to evade betraying his informants. Not only did the humiliating options for avoiding punishment the Northerner had given the ensign seem unattractive, they also seemed futile. If the law required Tarell to discipline him in a certain manner in front of a witness, it seemed there was little he could do to get out of that.

"Come on." Tarell impatiently reached out and rattled the side of the cage. "Admit it."

"I deduced that you would require such a device to monitor the whereabouts of your... men," the ensign said, providing what he hoped was a plausible alternative explanation. "I reasoned that it would be hidden somewhere near your computer..."

"Yes... the machine," he said, acquiescing to her primitive linguistic preference. "I looked for it until I found it."

Tarell frowned at him, her eyes narrowed disbelievingly. He met her gaze for as long as he could.

"It doesn't matter if he helped you or not," she said, at length. "I can't have both of you in the same house. I see that now. He's too jealous. I've been too permissive with him for too long. He and Sahshell will keep plotting and scheming until they get you killed the way they did the last one I bought."

Chekov swallowed hard and wondered how big a part the Northerner had played in his recapture.

"Well..." Tarell took a bottle of pills out of her pack. "I think it's time that Sahshell took an extended visit back home to visit with our relatives. And Tirst... I should have gotten rid of him years ago."

"You mean kill him," Chekov corrected boldly, although his voice didn't go above a whisper.

Summoning his last ounce of courage, Chekov forced himself to answer in an even voice. "Then let it be me."

"Oh, shut up," Tarell replied irritably. "Being dramatic isn't going to get you out of anything."

"I am completely serious," he insisted, his path clear. "I cannot live this way. You have taken from me who I am. I cannot live as an animal, as a creature with no thought other than doing your will."

"Think of yourself, Tarell," he persisted, stopping her hand as she reached in to give him the pills. "You have lived all your life as a free person. If that were to suddenly change and you were to become what I must become, would you wish to continue to live?"

The Ganzarite pulled her hand away. There was something in her face... as if she'd never considered the situation from that point of view before.

"If you do as you intend," Chekov continued urgently, "you kill all that I was, all that I am, and all that I ever wished to be. Could physical death be any worse than that?"

The hard lines of Tarell's face didn't soften as she continued to stare at him, but she did nothing to stop him from speaking.

"Please, Tarell," he begged. "For just a moment, look at me as though I were a real person like yourself, not a white, alien man."

He could see that he lost her as soon as his last words left his mouth. His plea had only reminded her of what he was in relation to her. Tarell's brief moment of cultural doubt was over.

"You are what you are," she said, forcing the pills into his hand. "The sooner you learn to live with that, the better it will be for both of us."

"One good thing," she said, standing up and crossing to the hook on the wall. "You'll be getting the worst beatings out of the way first. Since you're so small, I doubt the adjudicator will order over twelve lashes for you."

Kirk sat on the bed in his chambers watching the night breeze gently flap the curtains as he waited for a visitor. The knock at his door told him this one wasn't going to be the one he was hoping for. "Come."

"We have made some progress, sir," the security man reported with measured optimism. "Knowing the sort of technology being used to amplify the ginzite interference with scanning has enabled the Enterprise's sensor specialists to compensate somewhat. We've improved our scan accuracy by nearly forty percent."

"We can distinguish population areas from unoccupied areas, but are still unable locate specific individuals -- Ganzarite or Human. The natural distortion is too great."

Kirk rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Do we have sufficient resolution for using the transporter for beam down?"

Johnson stopped and squared his shoulders before answering. "The risk parameters would be acceptable for a security team on a rescue mission."

Kirk smiled grimly. This meant that beaming down was okay for people who were willing to risk having their feet materialized into a rock or being beamed in over the surface of a lake. "If we only had a location..."

"Then you've not seen any progress in that area?" Johnson speculated delicately.

"What about the evidence we've gathered of alien technology being used here, sir? Couldn't we use that to put pressure on the Ganzarite government?"

"My orders specifically state that I am not to confront the Ganzarites with any evidence of alien presence we gather under any circumstances," Kirk replied. "This is Intelligence's show. They want to preserve their element of surprise... even at the cost of their own man."

"Yes, well, we have to be off this planet by this time tomorrow, Lieutenant. I'm going to give my native informant until morning to contact me and then..." Kirk's mouth twisted into a smile of its own accord. "My orders say that I can't confront the Ganzarites directly about anything we find. But if I don't hear from my informant by morning, I'll see what a little indirect confrontation turns up."

"Yes, sir." Johnson turned, taking that as a dismissal. He paused by the door. "Do you think that's going to be enough, sir?"

"Enough to keep you and I from preparing a 'missing, presumed dead' report on Chekov and sending a copy to his parents?" Kirk shook his head. It was a relief to be dealing with security personnel in a situation like this one. There wasn't any need to soft-pedal the truth to them. "It looks like we're going to need a miracle for that, Johnson."

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