Ganzar Chapter three

"We've determined that they're not being held in the underground tunnels beneath the city, sir," Johnson reported quietly after first making a visual sweep of Kirk's quarters in the Hikasha Municipal Complex.

Kirk looked up from the scrawl- and slash-marked draft of the trade agreement he was studying. "Underground tunnels?"

"Yes, sir. That's the bad news, sir. There was a reason why the Ganzarites didn't want us snooping around down there. The ganzite buildup isn't natural. It's deliberate shielding. There's a fully developed network of Deltan tunnelcars down there."

"That's impossible. The Ganzarites aren't capable of anything like tunnelcars. They barely have the construction skills needed to make the tunnels."

Kirk paused as the implication sunk in. "So Special Intelligence's suspicions were correct. There's interference with this culture by a superior culture on a massive scale."

"It would seem you've simplified Commander Ghyka's job, Lieutenant. I'm sure if we ever find him, he'll thank you."

Johnson shook his head. "That's the problem, sir. Knowing that their captors could have used tunnelcars to transport the Commander and Ensign Chekov increases our search zone exponentially. By now they could almost be anywhere on this planet."

"No, sir. We can't exactly blend in and pass for locals. And we're increasingly being watched and followed by the local security forces."

"We're going to have to find some way to gain the confidence of a local source of information. If we just knew which general area of which continent to search..."

"All right, lieutenant." Kirk grimaced as the easiest and most obvious way to cultivate a local source occurred to him. "I'll see what I can do."

The happy sound of the little bells inside Chekov's shoes rang out in contrast to his bleak state of mind as he walked down the hallway between Tarell's office and the kitchen... Well, perhaps "bleak" was putting it too strongly. "Numbed" was more accurate. He felt like he was coming out from under a heavy stun. He was just aware enough of his surroundings to be slightly irritated by them, like a sleeper who is suddenly roused and forced to perform some task. He wanted nothing more than to go back to Tarell and the blissful state of nearly-mindless euphoria he'd been luxuriating in. It didn't occur to him to turn and go back until after he'd reached the kitchen door. By then, though, Sahshell had caught sight and sound of him, so it was much too late. There were no signs of the large meal that they had been preparing. Everything was neatly in its place. Sahshell sat at the table leisurely pulling stems off a bowl full of a dark purple fruit. Her boys were asleep in each other's arms on a pallet in the corner.

"So," she said, smiling as she pushed his bucket of soapy water out from under the table with her foot, "she's had you already?"

Chekov chose to interpret the question as rhetorical as he picked up the bucket and carried it over to the spot where he'd left off.

"I am able to answer," he said as he knelt down by the bucket. Still feeling irritable, he then unwisely continued, "I simply do not believe that such matters are any concern of yours."

He obeyed her almost automatically, only retaining enough self-possession to halt a little more than an arm's length away.

She reached out and grasping the loose fabric of one sleeve pulled him forward far enough so she could slap him without going to too much effort. "Don't talk back to me."

"Yes, ma'am." Chekov dropped his gaze to the floor, but he was almost grateful for the stinging pain in his cheek. It seemed to bring him back to reality... such as reality was.

"So, as I was saying," Sahshell said as she untied his sleeves and rolled them up to his elbows, "she had sex with you?"

He was too embarrassed to even have her fingers in his line of sight, so he turned his head towards the bowl of fruit as he answered, "Yes."

That was a question of almost philosophic complexity. The sex, like all other aspects of his new life on this planet, had to be done according to Tarell's specifications. Using a very effective system of punishment and rewards, she rapidly taught him how to have sex as a submissively passive participant -- more passive and submissive, in fact, than seemed natural or was entirely pleasant.

On the other hand, however, he had experienced a level of pure physical ecstasy that he did not previously believe was humanly possible. Whatever they had done to him had made him capable of sustaining levels of arousal of incredible duration and frightening intensity. Despite his mental discomfort, his owner was able to play his body like a fiddle... and successfully demand a shocking number of encores.

Sahshell shook her head as she untied the sash from around his waist. "And you're still determined to try to rebel?"

"I don't belong here," he said stubbornly. His statement functioned as much of a reminder to himself as it was to her. Although it scarcely seemed physically possible after what he'd been through, he could feel himself beginning to respond to the pleasurable sensation of Sahshell's hands on him. More than fearing the punishment that would come if he tried to pull away, he found himself reluctant to interrupt the pleasing stimulation.

Even more troubling, he found that the part of himself that had previously only hated and feared Tarell now was complicated by the stirrings of a new emotion... something that felt disgustingly like love... No, not love. Lust? Lust would have been more reasonable, but there was something else there too... a growing feeling of loyalty, a growing fascination.

"You may not have been born to this life," Sahshell said, pulling his overlay off over his head, "but soon you'll be spoiled for anything else."

Her prediction seemed frighteningly possible. It felt almost as if he were developing an addiction to these heartless Ganzarite women. All his attempts at resistance melted in their presence.

As Sahshell dropped a grease-stained apron over his head to replace the overlay, he stubbed the toe of his shoe against the floor like an unhappy child. Tiny bells rang merrily.

"I don't understand the function of these... stupid things," he said, venting his frustration at his noisy shoes in the strongest language he could muster on short notice. "Not at all an effective aid to surveillance."

"They indicate my presence only while I wear them. Nothing prevents me from removing them should I wish to allude detection."

"Hide," Chekov supplied, disappointed that it seemed he couldn't make use of the few sophisticated terms he knew in this language.

Sahshell smiled and shook her head. "Hiding or taking off your shoes without permission are not things I recommend you try if you're fond of keeping a whole skin on your back."

"Because you have much more sophisticated means of surveillance at your disposal?" Chekov was eager to have his suspicions confirmed, eager to affirm that there was a good reason why he should have delayed a real attempt at escape for this long.

She gave him a disapproving look. "Do you really think that's a proper question for you to be asking me?"

Despite the fact that it seemed like a perfectly appropriate and very pertinent issue for him to raise, he found he could not meet her gaze. "I apologize, however..."

"No `howevers' to it," she cut him off, sounding very much like her sister. "You're not to be concerned with such things. All you need to know about belled shoes is this: they're a reminder. As long as you wear them, you'll know that we know you're still trying to rebel, still refusing to adjust. Tarell will take them off when she feels you've adopted the correct attitude towards staying here. Until then, the bells are a reminder that you are being displeasing... or at least not completely pleasing."

The very sound of the word "displeasing" caused a tiny shudder of pain to run down Chekov's spine. He noticed that this word and the word "disobey" both seemed have a palpable physical impact on him.

Softening a little, Sahshell reached out and brushed the hair out of his eyes. "The bells also are to remind those of us that don't own you that you aren't available."

His research told him that Ganzarite women of this region thought nothing of sharing the sexual favors of their many mates with friends and relatives, but this didn't stop him from stammering, "Bu.. bu.. but Tarell wouldn't permit anyone else to... to.. have that sort of access to me, would she?"

"Well," he said, trying to master his panic. "I doubt there would be much demand at any rate."

"It is true that you're a white-faced offworld dwarf," Sahshell conceded frankly, "but on the other hand, you're also a hot-blooded little..."

She finished with a idiomatic Ganzarite term that had no direct translation into Standard. The word was a very condescending and mildly derogative appellation for a male who had no control over his sex drive. As close as Chekov could figure he'd just been called something between a tramp and a slut. "Excuse me?"

"I think I can state with a high degree of confidence that this is the first time," Chekov assured her.

"If I owned you," Sahshell purred as she walked her fingers towards him along the edge of the table, "it's what I'd name you."

"I am very glad you do not own me, then," Chekov said, stepping nimbly out of her reach.

From the awful sensation that ran down the length of his body at the sound of her voice, Chekov knew that his owner had entered the room. Without turning to confirm, he glued his eyes on the floor and willed himself to become invisible. Hot waves of shame alternated inside him with cold tremors of fear.

"The offworlder and I were arguing about whether or not he's a..." Sahshell, unaffected by the entrance of his tormentor, repeated her untranslatable slur against him.

"He doesn't think he is," her sister answered, sitting down in front of her bowl of berries again.

Tarell patted him lightly on the shoulder. "Then he's not been being very observant," she said dryly.

He could feel the impression her hand linger as if it had been burned into his skin. It was all he could do to stop himself from falling to his knees in front of her.

"You've got to learn not to argue with your betters, laddie," she warned as she crossed the kitchen and removed the white chest from a high shelf. "Especially when you're wrong."

Chekov cleared his throat and tried to get a grip on his emotions. "That is what I was objecting to," he said, although he was still not brave enough to meet her eyes, "the implication that I am somehow inferior because of my sex."

"Not just because of your sex," Sahshell corrected, popping a berry into her mouth. "Because of your sexuality."

"Sex is the basic power relationship," her sister concurred as she sat down at the table next to him with the white chest. "Since you've lost control over who you desire and when, you have reduced power. You are therefore inferior to those who have superior control."

"Since this is not a natural condition, that is a rather unfair way of looking at things," he said as she removed what looked like a large glove made of hard plastic from the chest.

When she clamped it to the table next to him, Chekov recognized it as an old Vegan medical monitor. He could even see where it had been converted to accommodate five human fingers instead of four Vegan ones.

"Put your hand in there," she ordered, taking out an instruction manual. "What difference does it make if it's natural or not? Most women are naturally smaller than men. Does that make it fair that in tribes in the far North men dominate women merely because they're larger? Fairness doesn't come into it. You just have to take advantage of what you can when you can."

"It isn't necessary or advantageous for one sex to dominate another for any reason," he said, hoping that none of the parts hugging his fingers would turn out to be made of metal.

"I suppose you're going to tell us that's not the way things are in the offworld?" Sahshell said.

"Individuals -- male or female -- can own property, but a great deal of land is controlled by the government."

"Well," he admitted grudgingly, "The head of the government does happen to be a male at this particular time, however..."

"I'll bet your offworldish name indicates who your father is, doesn't it?" Sahshell speculated.

It was impossible to deny that Russian names gave rather ample indication of paternal descent. "Yes."

"If someone says you do something like a woman, is that a compliment?" Tarell put in.

Chekov cleared his throat. "Admittedly there are still remnants of less enlightened times, however..."

"...However now you have given the women enough trivial privileges, they no longer complain," Sahshell concluded.

"It means the vital sign readings are complete," he replied, pointing out the display on the side. "Here is blood pressure, heart rate, body temperature..." He stopped and withdrew his hand as her eyes narrowed over the top of the manual.

"No need for you to show off how clever you are, alien," she said icily. "I can figure this thing out myself."

"Yes, ma'am," he said respectfully, remembering that this discussion on dominance was not taking place on a purely theoretical level. "Of course."

"Since you're a male, of course you don't think males dominate," Sahshell said as her sister recorded the monitor's readouts by making knots in a long string. "That's just a measure of how secure you are in your dominance. The women here think they are so liberal with their men that they are practically like free men."

"I gather that methods of controlling men are stricter in the North?" Chekov asked Sahshell.

"Things are more out in the open," Tarell answered for her. "You see, we lived near enough to free men to know them for what they are. We know how to break them... and why they need to be broken."

A deaf man would have been able to correctly identify her statement as a threat.

"A man must either dominate or be dominated," Sahshell said. "It's just the sort of creature he is."

"All you need to know is that you're the sort of creature who belongs to me," Tarell said, taking two pills out of a dispenser in the chest. "Now, take your hand out of that thing and open your mouth."

He didn't have any problem removing his hand from the monitor, but when he opened his mouth to take the pills, the words, "What are those for?" came out almost of their own accord.

"To make you ask stupid fornicating questions," Tarell said sarcastically, popping them into his mouth and following with a bottle of water for him to drink. "Actually," she said, marking the dose off on a chart and getting another set of pills from the chest, "they're to make your body get used to the mineral content in our water so I don't have to spend a fortune on bottled water for you. Open."

Chekov removed the bottle and opened his mouth to receive the next set of pills... and the next... and the next ... and the next.

"That is quite a lot of medicine," he said, coming as close as he dared to a complaint.

"Be glad you're not paying for it, laddie," Tarell agreed, finishing the round off with a couple of those little yellow pills she and the woman who sold him had discussed. "Though I suppose you could say that I do expect you to work the cost off for me."

"What are you going to do with him now?" Sahshell said, putting voice to the question whose answer Chekov feared.

Tarell consulted her manual and lists. "I think he should be put down to sleep for a while... It's hard to tell from these charts."

"One more smart-assed remark out of you..." she threatened, shaking a finger in his face. She then caught herself and made a visible effort to control her temper. "Sahshell, get your boys up so I can have him use that mat."

"Chood, Toz," Sahshell called, sounding disappointed that the confrontation had de-escalated. "Get up, boys."

"Take that apron off," Tarell ordered as Sahshell's brothers groggily struggled to their feet without complaint.

He fumbled with the complicated knots a few moments before she brushed his fingers away.

"Until you learn knots," she said, loosening the ties with practiced ease, "you've got to learn to politely and respectfully ask for help."

"Well, you can't," she said bruskly then nodded towards the vacated pallet. "See, you don't know everything. Now, go on."

He got up and walked over to the corner. Sahshell's boys, without waiting for instructions, were already in the process of beginning the preparations for the next meal. Chekov looked down at the double indentation they'd left in the thin stuffed mattress. The medication was already increasing his well-earned weariness, but it was degrading to be ordered to take a nap like a toddler.

The pallet was firm and reasonably comfortable underneath his back. He folded his hands across his chest and put one knee up... At least he could look like an adult as he took his enforced rest.

Tarell put the white chest back in its resting place then crossed to him. When she touched his raised knee, he lowered it to the pallet. To a casual observer, the interaction would simply look like another trivial exercise of dominance on her part. However their motions echoed ones that had taken place previously in a way that made the gesture clearly read as one of sexual submission on his part. The expression on Tarell's face clearly indicated she was pleased. Since Chekov's feelings were much more ambiguous, he took refuge in turning his face towards the wall.

He found he was very tired. Something she'd given him must be making him drowsy. The sounds of the boys banging pots and pans almost covered up the sound of Sahshell's voice as she asked, "Is this one going to be trouble?"

"No." From the sound of it, Tarell had returned to sit next to her sister. "He's too eager to please. He may rebel for a few days, may pine for his life in the offworld for a long while, but he won't try to leave. He's too just too much of a..."

Sahshell laughed at her sister's use of the term Chekov had found so objectionable. "So the sex was all right?"

"He was a little stubborn at first, but he's as willing as they come. His body's not bad for an alien."

"I've always liked men who were more my size." Sahshell's comment carried an ill-concealed complaint.

"I know... And you know that I'll share this one with you after I get him broken in," Tarell said with sisterly generosity.

"Not all over... That's the one thing I just can't get used to. He's so white..."

Chekov drifted off to sleep dreaming of himself as a black man with skin darker than Commander Ghyka's.

"Bad news, Kirk," the head of security said as soon as he stepped into her office. "Your men are dead. They washed up on the bank of a river outside of town."

Despite the fact that he expected the Ganzarites to try to fake the deaths of the two missing men, the captain felt a cold lump settle in his stomach. "Where are the bodies?"

"We had to dispose of them." The security chief gestured to an aide who brought forward two bags. "They were already decomposing and we don't have sanitary facilities for transporting and storing alien corpses."

"We brought you their clothes, though," the security chief interrupted impatiently. "And samples of their skin. We've been told you can identify them that way."

The assistant handed him the two bags. Inside the top of the first was a yellow tunic with an Enterprise insignia on it. It was still damp and stank of the river bed it had reportedly been fished out of. "What's this slit in the back?"

"It's where we cut it off the body." The assistant took the shirt and spread it out on the back of a chair. "Do you see this small hole near the shoulder? It's probably from a dart tipped with some drug that either killed him or knocked him out. Weights were tied around the arms and legs. Then he was thrown into the river. This little one probably died pretty easily. The bigger one's clothing is torn. He must have put up a fight."

Out of the bag, Kirk pulled a jar. Inside it floated a small piece of whitened flesh suspended in some sort of liquid. It chilled him to think that this might be the last he'd ever see of the young navigator whether he was now dead or alive. "Any clues to who might have wanted to do this?"

"As you know, there is a faction of radical isolationists in the city," the security chief replied, folding her fingers over her desktop. "We have reason to believe they may be involved."

"We aren't prepared to discuss our ongoing investigation with you at this point. When we come up with a culprit, you'll be notified. But until then..." The chief motioned to her assistant to show him to the door. "...I think your business with this office is concluded."

"Yes." Kirk collected the tunic, then dropped it and the tissue sample into the bag he'd been given. "I think so too."

Chekov awoke to find himself staring at a huge pair of light brown feet in ragged sandals. He got all the way to the Ganzarite man's knees before he realized he wasn't in his cabin on the Enterprise.

"I don't know, Tirst." Sahshell's voice over the sound of banging pots and pans brought the whole terrible situation back to the ensign. "It looks to me like it's your replacement."

Tarell's former favorite was more the type one would expect to find in the sort of bondage fantasy Chekov found himself stuck in. The Ganzarite was over six feet tall and generously muscled. His features were hard and striking. His long black hair was braided in tiny rows that joined into a single braid and hung down his back. He was dressed in a plain costume like the one Chekov had been sold in.

"It won' be much in d' field," he commented critically, prodding the ensign with his toe. Tirst's enunciation was very nasal -- almost like a French accent from Old Earth.

"Oh, I doubt that he'll be replacing you in the field." Sahshell wandered into view, smiling. "Are you awake, precious?"

As little as he liked to acknowledge being addressed as "precious", Chekov felt obligated to nod as he sat up.

Even the word "brother" carried unfavorable connotations in this language. Chekov was only inches from taking her hand when he remembered what skin-to-skin contact did to him.

"I forgot," Sahshell said, with a laugh that put that statement into doubt. "He's a little sensitive. Help him up, Tirst."

The male Ganzarite's touch had no unusual effect on the ensign. Chekov was also glad that he wasn't being made to feel the disapproval that showed strongly in the Northerner's teal-colored eyes.

"It occasionally says things like that," Sahshell informed her fellow Ganzarite. Beyond her, Chekov could see several other males were seated at the long table. They looked up from their meals with the sort of dull curiosity a herd of cattle might display. "Usually it's thinking about places it would rather be and trying to figure out how it ever managed to end up here. Isn't that right, sweet one?"

"How long was I asleep?" Chekov looked out a window and tried to judge the change in the angle of the sun.

"Now, that's no way to be," she scolded as she took a handful of the material over his shoulder and drug him forward towards the cooking area. "You've got to learn to speak more respectfully to me. Even though I don't own you, your tone should always show that you know that you're property and I'm free. You should always be very careful to behave well towards me. Remember that someday you might end up like poor old Tirst here -- not Tarell's favorite anymore, wondering what's going to happen to him, thinking about all those times he should have been nicer, spoken softer to me..."

"...Then again, it's more entertaining for me to watch the two of you learn things the hard way." Sahshell placed Chekov in front of a large wooden tub filled with food-stained crockery. "Since you can't eat with the others, you can start washing. You do know how to wash, don't you?"

"Well..." Chekov looked for something that looked like it might contain water. "I suppose so..."

She laughed at him as she took the covers off two smaller buckets of water on either side of the tub. "Why don't you go ahead and say, 'No, Sahshell, I don't know how to do anything useful'?"

Although it was beginning to feel as though that were true, the ensign cleared his throat with all the dignity he could muster. "I think I can manage."

"Oh, I'm sure you think you can manage." Sahshell pulled him backwards and dropped an apron over his head. "Just like Tarell thinks she can figure out machines. They make quite a pair, don't they, Tirst?"

"Wha' she want wit a lil' white runt like tha'?" The Northerner asked unsmilingly.

"I was hoping you could help me figure that out, Tirst." Sahshell said, tying the apron around Chekov's waist. "You're not exactly anyone's ideal of the perfect servant, but my sister does seem remarkably fond of you. She's threatened to get replace you for years now... for so long, we'd all stopped taking her seriously, hadn't we?"

"No, not if you have anything to do with it." Sahshell demonstrated the proper method of "washing" for Chekov. First the clay platter was dipped in the bucket to the right. Next it was scrubbed with a sponge. It was then dunked in the right hand bucket again, then rinsed with water ladled with from the left hand bucket. Finally the dish was hung to dry on one of the hooks above the tub. Each piece of crockery had a tiny handle incorporated into its design for just that purpose. "Do you see?"

"Be careful of the metal things," she reminded him, right after he'd accidentally touched one. "I'll let you leave them for someone else."

"What's the matter, Tirst?" Sahshell walked over to the table and looked over the big man's shoulder at his empty plate. "Losing your appetite? Does that mean you're beginning to believe me? Does that mean you know some reason why my normally tight-fisted sister would suddenly go out and buy an over-priced, under-sized offworlder from a woman she swore she'd never do business with again?"

The man at the end of the bench moved over, anticipating Sahshell's desire to sit adjacent to Tirst before being asked.

"I've been hearing a rumor for a long time now," she said. "A rumor that my Aunt Cilla made a provision in her will that anyone who inherited her lands would have to produce a daughter to be her heir within four years of inheriting."

Chekov could see them out of the corner of his eye. Tirst was spooning something into his plate.

"Now after three years and no daughters, Tarell buys this offworlder," Sahshell continued. "Is that it? Is she trying to keep this house and land from passing to me? Is there a way they can fix offworlders so they can only give daughters? Is that why she won't let me touch him?"

"Tarell's let you have your way too much. It'll go hard with you if this one gives her a daughter." Sahshell put her hand over Tirst's. Chekov could hear the Ganzarite's breath rate quicken. Apparently he wasn't the only one with an unusual weakness for women around here. "It's better that we work together on this."

After taking a moment to collect himself, the big Ganzarite got up from his place and crossed to the ensign. From his bearing, it was clear that this man was the acknowledged alpha male in the group. From his look, it was equally apparent that he judged Chekov's proper relative status to be a letter so far down the alphabet the Greeks hadn't bothered to invent it.

"She wants me to make you dead," he said after a weighty pause. "Or make you so you can't give a child."

Chekov looked up at him. The Ganzarite stood almost a foot taller than him and outweighed him by an amount more than equal to the ensign's own weight. Chekov estimated his chances at emerging unscathed from unarmed combat with Tirst at low to none. "So I surmised."

"Already I begin to hate you." The Ganzarite crossed his large tree-limb sized arms across his large tree-trunk sized chest. "Tarell has had you, hasn't she?"

Chekov put down the dish he was washing. "Is there a way for me to... to get out of this place?" he asked, lowering his voice and fighting the terrible headache that such thoughts brought on.

"If you can help me, you must," Chekov urged him softly, pressing a hand against his temple to ease the pain. "You must help me leave here before I lose the will to leave."

The Ganzarite watched him silently for another moment. His face was hard and unreadable.

As if to illustrate, Tirst took a clay platter from the pile and calmly sailed it across the room. It smashed into a wall opposite then burst into a thousand pieces when it landed on the hard tile floor.

The action was so sudden and senseless that it took Chekov completely by surprise. He stared first at the Ganzarite then at the shattered crockery as the sound of footsteps pounded towards the kitchen. Tirst casually resumed his seat at the foot of the table.

Chekov opened his mouth to answer since the question had been addressed to him. He then closed it, realizing he had no idea what was going on.

All the men at the table except Tirst turned and looked at the ensign. It seemed he'd been elected group spokesman in a vote he'd missed. As he opened his mouth again, it occurred to Chekov that Tirst might be testing him. The Ganzarite had just told him that group effort was strongly discouraged. Perhaps he broke the dish to gauge the ensign's trustworthiness. Chekov looked into Tarell's angry eyes and swallowed hard. As initiation rituals went, this one looked like it was going to be a really tough way to break into the Boy Scouts. "I did."

"Yes... uh.." Chekov fervently searched for forgivable explanations of the action. "It slipped... fr.. from my fingers."

Tarell walked over to the shattered bits of pottery and measured the distance between there and the wash tub with her eyes. "Quite a big fornicating slip."

"No, uh..." Chekov faltered before he could think of something to say that had a sufficient number of grains of the truth in it. "It was my fault."

"No." Tarell shook her head suspiciously. "Now you're changing your story. First you say you did it and now you say it was your fault."

She scanned the room. No one met her gaze. Sahshell was watching Tirst who'd seemed to have regained his appetite.

The ensign cleared his throat, folded his hands behind his back and prayed that what he was about to go through was going to be worth it. "I did."

"No." Tarell walked behind Tirst's chair. "I'm beginning to be pretty certain someone else did it... but I will punish you for doing it if you don't tell me the truth right now."

"Your fault, I see." Tarell put her hand on the back of Tirst's chair. "You seem awfully quiet, Tirst."

"We'll see about that." She put her hands on her hips and looked back and forth between them for a moment. "Sahshell, you keep bundle straps in here, don't you?"

"Do you even know what a bundle strap is, offworlder?" Tarell asked as the boy rummaged around for the requested item.

"A strip of tanned animal hide used to secure bunches of barbran," the ensign answered from his research as the boy produced one such item. "Usually about two feet in length and a quarter of an inch thick."

"Very good." The boy handed the strap to Tarell who wrapped one end of it around her fist. "I thought you didn't like being punished."

Chekov shook his head. "I don't. Isn't there some other way we can resolve this?"

Chekov took a moment to weigh the consequences of his next words. Was the humiliation and pain of letting himself be unjustly beaten by this savage worth the wisp of a chance that Tirst -- who had every reason to wish him ill and had obviously not been able to escape himself -- might be able to give him information or assistance that could get him out of this place? Yes, yes it was. The alternative was a lifetime of such treatment and the knowledge that he'd done nothing to try to free himself. "I broke the plate."

"All right. Toish, Tuul." At her signal, two dark burly slaves rose from the table. They impassively took the apron off him and loosened all the fastenings on his shirt around the collar. Their silence and bulk gave the proceeding the air of a formal execution. The two then turned him so his back was towards his owner. Each took one of his arms in their ham-sized fists and held it out straight.

"You seem to be trembling," Tarell observed as she pulled his shirt down, baring his shoulders and the top half of his back. "Are you losing your nerve?"

Chekov remained silent even though his supply of nerve was ebbing away in a great tidal motion.

"I'll need someone to keep count for me," Tarell was saying. "Tirst, would you? Start at ten and go backwards."

Ten? Dear God... Chekov didn't know if he could live through three blows from something that would actually give a substantial amount of pain in addition to the amplified suffering he'd felt when he'd been struck lightly.

"I'll give you one more chance, offworlder," Tarell said. "If you tell me the truth right now, you'll only get a very light punishment for lying and this beating will go to the one who deserves it. Who broke the plate?"

Chekov could feel the skin on his back tingle in anticipation. He clenched and unclenched his fists, willing himself forward in time to when he would be sitting in the Rec Room with Lieutenants Uhura and Hiroto again and this would all be a very bad memory. "I did."

He thought he'd be able to get through the first blow without crying out. However the real pain came not with the initial impact but a few seconds after when the burning set in.

The second came too close upon the heels of the first, doubling the pain at exactly the point where he didn't think he could stand any more. He tried to pull away, but Tarell's servants had him in an unshakable grip.

The sound of his cries drowned out Tirst's counting. He couldn't stop even when Tarell paused and asked for the last number to be repeated.

He was almost grateful the beating had started again. At least the sharp impact of each blow momentarily numbed their terrible burning wake.

For a few moments, he couldn't hear anything besides the sound of his own heaving breaths. He would have cried from the endlessly echoing pain, but lacked the strength. Moisture that could have been tears, sweat, or mucous rolled off his face and down to the tiled floor.

"Good." A light touch eased the searing torment across his shoulders momentarily. "I didn't even break the skin."

"I'd hate to see what would happen if you ever really had to hurt him," Sahshell commented from a distance. "I think his heart might stop."

"Oh, he's not going to ever make me do that." The shirt was pulled back up and loosely fastened. "Are you?"

He couldn't answer. When the two men holding him let him go, he couldn't even stand properly. He wrapped his hands around his back, trying to press them against the places that still stung as he collapsed slowly down to the cool tiled floor.

"There, now," Tarell said, unwrapping his hands and wiping away the moisture clogging his vision and breathing. One of her hands rested lightly against his shoulder, passively siphoning pain. "That's over. Now, I want you to apologize for lying to me..."

Tarell smiled at the way he belatedly clapped a hand over his mouth. "Too late for that now," she said, helping him to his feet. She took a strip of cloth from around her waist and tied it around his wrist. "Tuul, take this one upstairs. At the foot of my bed there's a pallet for him. Tie him to the one of the legs. I'd hate to have to punish him again for trying something else foolish tonight."

"I..I.." Chekov stammered, trying desperately to think of something to salvage the situation as the big servant led him away.

"You've said all you need to," Tarell said, turning her back on him. "I'm interested in hearing Tirst talk now..."

Sometime during all this, the sun had sunk down almost to the horizon line. Tarell's house was lit only by murky twilight as Tuul drug him up the swaying, rope and plank stairs. It had been a long time since Chekov had spent the night on a planet. It had been even longer since he'd had to bite his lip to keep himself from weeping out loud. The drudge assigned to him didn't seem to notice the tears that kept rolling down his face as he was led into the first room at the top of the stairs, instructed to lie face down on a pile of bedding on the floor and had his wrist secured to a bedpost.

Although Chekov was not fond of pain, he'd never been much of one to just cry. He didn't know what was making him break down now. Was it the continuing burning torment in his back? Or the fact that he'd just stupidly destroyed the chance that he'd suffered so for to gain an ally? He could hear the muffled sounds of another torture session taking place downstairs. His eyes filled up again unstoppably. He was marooned. There was no way for the ship to locate him. He was stuck here for the rest of his life -- a slave, worse, a slave who would in a few weeks lose the desire to be anything else but a slave. Already he'd stopped thinking like a Star Fleet officer. An officer would never lie around whimpering and feeling sorry for himself rather than trying to come up with a plan.

That thought steadied him. He rolled over onto his side and wiped his eyes with his free hand. The room had a western exposure. He could see the darkening sky out the two windows, but no stars were visible yet. To calculate his position accurately in this unfamiliar part of the galaxy, he'd need to see the whole night sky. There didn't seem to be much chance he'd be allowed to do that.

It had been slightly after noon when he'd been abducted from the Hikasha marketplace and somewhat before noon when he'd been revived in the fat woman's barn. That meant he'd been unconscious for at least one entire day. Most of the evidence suggested he was in the midlands of the continent. Calculating at the top rate of speed available in Ganzarite transport, that put him at least a day or two away from the costal city he'd been abducted from. It was possible a much longer time had elapsed... It was possible that the time granted to the Enterprise to visit Ganzar had already run out and the ship was no longer even in orbit...

Chekov wiped the annoying resurgence of moisture away from his eyes and nose. "Why can't I stop crying?"

"First sign of an imminent mental collapse," the remnants of the cool, analytical part of his brain answered.

"Marvelous." Chekov didn't notice he'd also picked up the habit of talking to himself out loud. "I'm sure a nervous breakdown is going to prove most useful in getting me out of this situation."

Another blinding headache set in to remind him that he wasn't supposed to be even contemplating the possibility of thinking about that sort of thing. Until the pain subsided all he could do was to lie there helplessly and weep like... like a woman.

He had to admit that the sisters were right. "Like a woman" wasn't usually meant as a very complimentary phrase. Chekov resolved to strike it from his vocabulary right after he... as soon as he could... if it were ever possible to... Words for "leave" seemed to be fading from his repertoire.

He rolled back onto his face miserably. The hand tied to the bedpost was getting a little numb. As he moved it to a more comfortable position, he realized that he hadn't even considered untying himself.

"What have they done to me?" he wondered aloud as he struggled with the knot. It didn't seem reasonable that people who were so ill-advanced technologically could figure out such devilish ways of tying things.

Seeing it could make no progress on the question of how he was being controlled, his mind began to turn to the darker question of why. Was it something about him? The women had repeatedly commented that he seemed more susceptible than average to whatever conditioning had been done to make him so malleable. That meant that other men were able to resist to a greater degree. Why wasn't he able to? Or was it that he wasn't sufficiently willing to resist? Tarell had called him eager to please. What did that mean? He certainly wasn't eager to please her. What he actually wanted to do to her was....

Chekov groaned and buried his face in the bedding as another blinding headache overtook him. Dimly, he could hear footsteps heading up the stairs. The feeling in the pit of his stomach told him it was Tarell. Here he was, tied in her bedroom. Doubtlessly she intended to...

If a week ago someone had told him that he'd be looking on the prospect of having sex with a reasonably attractive woman with fear and dread, he would have laughed. On the Enterprise, they'd joked about it. He couldn't remember who'd said it first, maybe Hiroto, "Cheer up, Pavel. The worst that could happen is that you'll become an alien sex slave."

It had turned out to be the worst. His vision blurred as he thought of the Enterprise and how he'd never have the chance to tell any of them how unfunny the joke had turned out to be. He tried to get a grip on himself as he heard the door open, but tears continued to squeeze out no matter how tightly he shut his eyes.

Her footsteps drew near to him at a leisurely rate. From the change in the room's lighting, he could tell she was carrying a hiotaz stone. In the stone dwellings of the large cities, gas lights were used. However, in the countryside, phosphorescent stones were still left out to gather sunlight all day in order to dimly light the interiors of the thatched and woven houses at night.

He knew he was expected to respond to this, but the smug condescension in her voice made him feel even worse. A hard lump seemed to be permanently stuck in his throat.

"Not looking at me, huh?" She prodded him with her foot. "Not talking to me either?"

She remained silent for a long time. He was beginning to wonder what she was doing when she finally said, "Come on, I know you can't hold your breath for much longer."

She was right. The ragged, congested gasp he eventually had to take divulged all.

"Sit up," she ordered, tapping him on the shoulder. "Somehow I didn't think you'd be one who'd be ashamed to cry. Or is it just that you're trying to preserve a little privacy for yourself... a little dignity?"

He couldn't answer her as he struggled to an upright position. He swiped at his face with his left hand, but nothing seemed to staunch the flow.

"You're not allowed privacy or dignity." She knelt down beside the mat. "You're my property. I control everything you think and everything you feel. Do you know why you're so depressed right now?"

"Because you displeased me. You will feel like this every time you disappoint me or make me angry with you. Your only concern from now on -- for as long as you live -- is to make me happy. This is how you're going to feel every time you fail to do this."

Chekov couldn't meet her eyes. All he could see was a watery version of his chest, legs and the pallet he was sitting on. The light of the hiotaz stone gave everything a pale yellow glow.

"You have the longest, thickest, blackest eyelashes I've ever seen on a man," Tarell commented, lifting his chin up with a finger. "That's one good thing about your white skin. It makes them stand out more."

Even the agreeable sensation of her touch couldn't lift him from his despondency.

"Come on, now." She patted his cheek. "You've been a real aggravation today, but you've suffered for it enough. You can stop crying."

"I... don't... s-s-seem to... be.. able.. to..." Chekov's voice came out in choked hiccups.

Tarell pulled away and observed him carefully. "Oh, fornication," she said at length. "You aren't trying to lose your mind on me, are you, little alien?"

Chekov curled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his free arm around them. "I'm af-f-fraid..s-so."

"Fornication," the Ganzarite repeated ominously. "That's the trouble with the clever ones. Sometimes they just snap."

Chekov rested his cheek against his knees, feeling the material covering them rapidly soak through. "I... c-c-can't... st-stand to...l-l-live like... this."

"Once you learn how to behave, you'll have the easiest job in the house," she said in a deliberately milder, more cajoling tone. "You'll sleep here in my bed. I've bought nice clothes for you and special food... Tell you what, if you promise to make a real effort to cooperate, I won't even make you work in the kitchen tomorrow. I'll let you fool with that offworldish machine I bought.... or I could let you go out in the yard... Get a little sun, eh? Darken you up a little, eh? You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

Chekov swiped at his eyes and tried to look at her. Her face was still a smeary watercolor. "Please... let me go, Tarell," he begged. "I d-don't belong here. You... you don't even p-particularly... l-l-like me."

The Ganzarite sat back on her heels and crossed her arms. "You're not going to go crazy. You're too fornicating stubborn to go crazy. Now for the last time, quit thinking about the offworld. You're not going back there... ever. I'm not letting you go. If I decide to get rid of you, I'll sell you or just have you put to sleep."

She meant killed. It was the same euphemism a Ganzarite would use for the fate of an animal that had become useless.

"You... d-d-despise me b-because... of.. of my race," he observed miserably. "You... d-don't even... c-call me by... a... a proper n-name."

"All right, that's enough," she said firmly. "Now lie back and I'll show you that I like you and what I like you for."

Chekov opened his eyes. This definitely wasn't the way he wanted the conversation to turn. "T-t-tarell..."

"Shhh..." She reached out and taking hold the toe of his left shoe, pulled his leg down to the mat. "I said, lie down."

The tears stopped as she removed his shoe and lightly caressed his foot. A new sort of sensory/emotional input travelled up his spine. "T-tarell..."

"Tomorrow I'll teach you some knots," she said loosening the ties at his ankle. "At least enough so you can dress yourself... although I do like undressing you. Now lie down like I told you."

He couldn't seem to stop from obeying her. "This isn't what I want to do," he warned her as he eased down onto his back.

"Oh, we'll see about that." The Ganzarite smiled as she worked her way closer to the part of his body that was going to adamantly contradict his last statement.

"This isn't the way I feel about you, Tarell," he protested to the ceiling. No other part of him could be convinced to do anything to impede her progress, though.

"I know," she replied, pausing a moment to remove her outer robes. "But that can be changed."

Captain Kirk sat on the edge of his bed in the large quarters he'd been provided in Hikasha's huge stone municipal building.

"It's definitely Chekov and Ghyka," McCoy's voice answered from the open communicator in his hand. "But the samples are in such lousy shape... If that's the current state of forensic medicine down there..."

"I doubt it is," Kirk replied. "I think the authorities are just doing all they can to keep us guessing whether those samples were cut from living bodies yesterday or dead ones this afternoon."

"Like I said, the samples are in pretty poor condition. But my findings lean more towards the former than the latter."

"Good..." Out of the corner of his eye, Kirk thought he saw a movement on the stone balcony that overlooked the marketplace. In the flickering gaslight it was hard to be sure, but... "Uh... O.K. Bones, do what you can. I'll check back in with you in about a half hour."

"I said, do what you can, Bones. Kirk out." He closed the cover of the communicator abruptly, hoping that would be enough of a warning to the ship that he might be in trouble. Keeping his peripheral vision focused on the blue crocheted curtain hanging over the balcony as it flapped gently in a night breeze, Kirk slowly reached for his phaser.

"It's a little chilly out there," he called to his unknown visitor, resting the phaser in his lap. "Wouldn't you prefer to come in?"

A tall woman with dark hair braided into a familiar-looking conical silhouette stepped out of the shadows. "I didn't want to interrupt your call."

His intruder was Gallew, a council spokesperson for the radical isolationist faction.

Kirk smiled, but his grip on his phaser didn't relax. "I was hoping you'd decide to pay a call."

Her layers of kimonos made a whispery sound as she walked towards the bed. "That won't be necessary," she said pointing to his weapon.

This didn't exactly sound promising. "Their deaths are being blamed on your faction."

Kirk barely stopped himself from sighing in relief. "No, I don't. But in order to clear the people you represent, you've got help me find out where they are."

The Ganzarite shook her head. "I'm afraid I'm not here to divulge any information."

He laughed humorlessly. "Well, lady, my desire for information is pretty great right now."

"That's good." Gallew unfastened her outermost robe. "Because I'm going to require a demonstration of good faith on your part. You see, if you were suddenly to come into possession of certain information about the whereabouts of your men, suspicion would immediately fall on my faction. There might be reprisals."

She smiled as she laid her robe on the bed. "If you came into that information, there would definitely be reprisals. I will tell you this much though, we isolationists are interested in removing all alien presence from Ganzar."

Her emphasis made it clear she wasn't just talking about putting restrictions on Federation trading rights like she'd been trying to do for the past few days in the council chambers.

"What about this gesture of good faith on my part?" Kirk asked, taking his thumb off the trigger of his phaser.

The Ganzarite took two long wooden hairpins out of her coiffure and shook her braids free. "As I said, if you come into certain information, suspicion will fall on the isolationists. To diffuse this, you must make very convincing efforts to get information from other sources. Specifically, before I give you any information, I must be satisfied that there will be evidence to suggest that you could have gotten the same information from individuals like the Head Speaker of the Council, the Municipal Director, the Chair of Agricultural Affairs, and the Director of Security..."

Kirk flinched at the last name on the list. "Just what are you thinking of in terms of my making a 'convincing effort'?"

"That's up to you." Gallew shrugged as she loosened the fastenings of the next layer of her robes. "...But I'd suggest you simply use the normal method men employ to try to influence women."

"Gallew..." Kirk couldn't help but smile as the next layer of kimono fluttered to the floor. "...What are you doing?"

"I thought it might advance our common cause if I offered you..." She sat down next to him on the bed and gently pushed him onto his back. "...a little instruction."

"Yes, I'm afraid so," she said, then kissed him pityingly. "Aside from your lack of physical attractiveness, it's painfully obvious from your behavior that you don't know the first thing about seducing a woman..."

Chekov was roused by a touch of pure heaven at his neck. He opened his eyes to see Tarell sitting on the bed next to him.

"Do you know where you are, offworlder?" She smiled as she took the Vegan medical monitor off his hand.

Tarell's sleeping quarters were much more impressive in the daylight. The large airy room's walls were a weave of cream, blue, and gold. The wooden furniture was brightly painted in darker versions of the same colors. The bed he was lying in was wide enough to comfortably hold four. It swayed gently on its rope mattress supports in rhythm with Tarell's movements.

She grinned as she took out a length of string to record the readings on. "You're in my bed."

"Yes." While she was fully dressed, he was covered only by the crocheted bedcover he was lying under. He adjusted the blanket a little more strategically. "That much I remember."

The Ganzarite's face fell as she checked her previous records against the new numbers. "Oh, no. These are too low. Are you sick?"

"No, probably it's because..." Suddenly remembering how it displeased her to be corrected, Chekov bit his lip on his explanation.

"If the readings were taken while I was asleep," he said, carefully choosing a passive construction that he hoped would appease her, "then my pulse and respiration rates would naturally be lower...."

"Oh," she groaned, rolling her eyes. "What a male-reproductive-organs-for-brains mistake! I just can't get the hang of this fornicating machine. If I had the time to decipher that manual...."

"In the offworld," Chekov offered tentatively, "when a person with many responsibilities -- like you -- has volumes of technical information that they must assimilate quickly, often they assign an underling the task of going through the material and preparing a summary for them..."

"An underling?" She eyed him narrowly as she opened a container and took out a large white pill. "You mean that you think I should let you read the manual and teach me how to run this thing?"

Knowing that he had yet again strayed into unsafe territory, Chekov made no answer other than to open his mouth to receive the pill.

He sighed miserably. Awake no more than two minutes and already in hot water. "I don't know. I.. I suppose I would just like to feel useful in some way."

The Ganzarite grinned as her eyes travelled down his body. "You are useful in some ways."

It was strange the way such treatment from her made him feel extremely humiliated and extremely flattered at the same time. Stranger still was the way gratification seemed to be taking a distinct lead over embarrassment this morning.

"I have a few things I have to see to downstairs," she said as she fed him another capsule. "There's a bathroom through that door if you need it, but I'd prefer it if you just went back to sleep for awhile. You are not to touch any of my things. Do you understand?"

He obediently swallowed a couple more tablets. "Yes, ma'am. Um... Where are my clothes?"

"You won't need them." She leaned forward and kissed him. "You see, after I come back upstairs I've decided to devote the rest of the morning to having you... demonstrate your usefulness."

Chekov closed his eyes, trying to force his brain to produce one good reason why it shouldn't be enjoying this the way the rest of his body was.

"Such pretty eyes, even when they're not open." Tarell caressed his cheek. "What do you think of me this morning, offworlder?"

"I think," he said, kissing the hand that controlled him, "that I am beginning to fall in love with you, Tarell."

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