Part 3
With only a few more words said in parting, Beka was out of the clinic, Trance by her side. She had her concerns about allowing Trance to walk the distance between her ship and the clinic alone in her night things, but her curiosity about the girl won over her better judgment, and Rian had suggested the plan to begin with. They walked down a few long corridors in silence before Beka mustered up the nerve to ask what was on her mind.
"Trance, how did you become a slave? You have so much talent, and Rian told me about Makika." Trance didn't look at her but answered in a small voice,
"It was a punishment."
"For what?" she asked an instant later in an incredulous tone. What could this girl have done in less than six months to deserve slavery? Beka had thought the truth would be more along the lines of Trance being captured by slave-gatherers, or tricked into a situation she could not get out of. Trance appeared to be lost in thought and seemed to answer without thinking,
"I was disobedient."
"Disobedient?" Beka asked. Trance's head shot up and Beka got the distinct impression that the girl had said more than she wanted to, or at the very least the wrong thing, and was frightened by it.
"I mean-- well, I left the City of Peace with someone who said he would help me if I helped him. People in the City of Peace would come to me to help them find things or people that they had lost because I am really good at it. He wanted me to find things for him, and when I had found them, he wanted me to take them and give them to him so he could sell them."
"He wanted you to steal?" Beka asked. Trance looked up at her and said,
"That's not a very nice way to say it, but yes. There were a bunch of us who did this for him. One day he sent me to find something, but I couldn't take it when I found out how much it meant to the person who owned it. He was very angry with me when I came back without it, and he turned me to the authorities for a job I had done a week before." Beka began to put two and two together.
"You stole from Ariano."
"The punishment on the drift I was caught on was either death or enslavement to the one you stole from. Ariano got to choose, and so he brought me back here."
"Oh Trance…" Beka said, not really knowing what else to say. She had heard stories like Trance's often enough. The men her father had worked for had backstabbed him on more than one occasion, and it had nearly cost him his life each time. Trance was just another victim in a society where everyone had to look out for his or her own needs, but the girl's innocence made the injustice seem even worst.
"Captain Valentine, you shouldn't worry about me. It's not really what you think it is," the girl said after a moment of silence.
"What isn't?" Beka asked as she indicated with a hand gesture a turn they had to make.
"I know what you think I have to do, and I don't. Not most of the time. I'm different from them-- they usually just want to look. I'm, um, really expensive. It is not so bad." Beka stopped and stared at her long and hard for a moment. The ember of anger she'd been harboring for Ariano suddenly flared up.
"Not so bad, Trance? It's your body! No one you didn't specifically choose should be allowed to look at it, touch it, or do anything else with it," she snapped, raising her voice more than she intended to. Trance's eyes grew wide and she took a step back. She wrapped her arms around herself as if she were unconsciously trying to shrink into invisibility.
"Please," she pleaded, "I know it's not fair, but nothing is ever fair. Don't worry about me. I have been saving up for two years now. Every slave has a price on Segway Drift, and I almost have enough to pay mine." Beka instantly felt terrible for loosing control. Trance didn't deserve to be yelled at for something beyond her control.
"I'm sorry." Trance unfolded her arms and stood taller, a tiny smile coming to her lips. Beka had never met anyone who smiled so easily before, especially with a stranger. The people she knew, those she'd been raised around, usually reserved their smiles for the ones they were close to. A true smile implied a level of familiarity and ease. To show anything more than guarded smirks was to invite strangers into your personal space, a dangerous move when it was every man or woman for his or her self. Unwittingly, she felt herself return the smile.
"It's all right. I know it is because you are a good person," Trance said. Beka found it difficult to maintain eye contact. Trance thought her good because she did not know what Beka was capable of. On a good day, Beka was merely a smuggler and a thief. On a bad day… well, she didn't want to get into that. "… You should worry about yourself more than me."
"I don't understand," Beka said with a frown. She began walking again. The halls were empty and two people loitering in them at almost four in the morning would not go unnoticed by security, who diligently scanned everything above the lower decks for trouble-makers. Security generally ignored petty criminals when they came onboard because there were not enough hands, nor enough holding cells, to collect them all. However, as a petty criminal, she knew not to press her luck, especially given her company. Security undoubtedly knew the faces of each and every one of Ariano's girls.
"Greg Neiman is dangerous," the girl stated simply. Beka rolled her eyes and was thankful that Trance was too busy looking down the hall to see the gesture. She didn't need a slave girl to tell her what she already knew.
"Tell me something I don't know," she replied, the sarcasm heavy in her voice.
"Well, okay," Trance said, obviously missing it. The girl looked up at her and Beka could see that she was truly concerned. "Do you know what you are doing in the Plagis System?"
"Dropping of computers and medical supplies. I know everything is not legit, but a job is a job, Trance."
"Well… he's not lying." Trance said slowly, drawing out the first word. Her tail twitched nervously and her eyes migrated towards the deck-plates, seemingly involuntarily. Slaves were never supposed to share what they had learned about those they served, especially anything that could implicate their masters (or clients of their masters as in this case) of some sort of crime. Even bringing it up was dangerous, and it was more than likely that Greg Neiman had not sat Trance down and told her his devious plans in detail. How she was privy to the knowledge could also cause the girl trouble.
"What is it?" Beka asked in a tone she meant to be soothing. Trance's tail continued to twitch, but she looked up at Beka once again.
"There-- um-- there are computers, and medical supplies, but on the computers are the schematics for some horrible weapons, and viruses that the medicine wouldn't be able to help against. What he is giving the Pangeans could kill millions." Her eyes were wide and horrified as she said, "It could destroy an entire race."
Beka had to take a moment to absorb the information she'd just received. It seemed like something should have changed at the mention of playing a part in genocide, but nothing had. Yellow lights still dimly light the corridors, which had dirty, white walls and deck-plates painted a dull brown. She was still standing there, beside a slave girl she had met less than twenty-four hours before, with her side throbbing and ankle sore from the beating she had taken earlier. Surely the Universe would be different if she were going to be a party to genocide. Wouldn't it look more sinister?
Her first instinct was to try and discredit Trance. She was a nice girl. She was smart and resourceful, but she was still very young, nothing more than a child, really. What did she know of the outside world? If she had seen something, heard something, while she was with Greg wasn't it possible that she could have warped it in her young mind? Perhaps she had just imagined such a plot, creating a grand story, as children were want to do.
"How do you know all this, Trance?" she asked, trying not to allow her skepticism to show. She must not have been successful because Trance's shoulders slumped and she averted her gaze before answering.
"No offence, but Humans tend to think that everyone has the same limitations as them. Mr. Neiman received a private call from someone and sent me into the other room where he though I couldn't hear, but I could hear everything. He received some sort of secret file with all the details, but I don't know how to find it." Although Trance didn't say it, Beka could hear the 'you have to believe me' at the end. The funny thing was that no matter how much she didn't want to, she did. Trance didn't seem like the type to misconstrue something as genocide unless she had a good reason to believe it was.
Beka was about to answer Trance when she simultaneously saw the girl's eyes grow wide and heard heavy footsteps coming from behind her. She turned halfway to look, and lumbering down the hall was a very large man with heavily muscled arms poking out of a black t-shirt that looked to be a size to small for him. His trousers were also black, and on his chest, directly over where his heart should be, was a scarlet patch of Ariano's crest. At his hip was a large side arm. His expression was of amusement, which was fortified by a twinkling in his eyes. He was obviously a man who enjoyed his work. Beka also noted that he swaggered rather than walked, though on a man so large and graceless the effect was more frightening than alluring.
It was obvious that someone at the security office had found Trance's presence in the halls anomalous and called in the cavalry. She spared a glance at the girl who was standing perfectly still, not even her tail twitching, with eyes trained on the massive man. The man's lips curled into a distorted smile as he approached. Beka stepped in front of Trance, assuming a protective stance, her hand reaching for the gun she usually kept holstered at her hip. Unfortunately, it wasn't there. Segway drift kept total anarchy from breaking out on the lower decks by making it impossible to carry riffles and guns beyond a certain point. A fat lot of good those protective measures did her now.
"Trance, darlin', what are you doing out here in the halls so late? It isn't safe for a girl like you," he said with mock concern. His expression, a mixture of lust and power, belied the kindness of his words. He gave Beka a hard look and placed a hand over his riffle. The sheer size of it made Beka question his sense of masculine adequacy. He was certainly overcompensating for something. Her mind raced as she tried to think of a way to keep Trance safe from this man, but all her efforts were thwarted when Trance stepped out from behind her, moving towards the man with her head bowed. She stopped just in front of him.
"I was just helping Captain Valentine. She was at the restaurant tonight," she replied. Her voice was so quiet that Beka could hardly hear her. The man reached forward and placed a calloused hand on Trance's cheek as if he were nothing more than a concerned lover. Beka's insides screamed for her to do something, though with no way to defend herself and several half-healed injuries to top it off, she was at a loss. Besides, it wasn't her job to meddle, right? She had no ties to Trance beyond that of a kind stranger. Why should she care what happened?
"Did Captain Valentine pay for your services this evening?" He spoke to her in the same tone a parent would use when addressing their child.
"No sir, but she works for Captain Neiman."
"Did he order you to help her? If not, I am going to be very upset. I thought we agreed that there would be no more problems like these." Trance was silent for a moment. Her tail began to move quickly, and likely involuntarily. She took a few deep breaths and then answered in a whisper,
"No sir." The man drew his hand away from her face only to swing it forward a moment later, slapping her with enough force to send her staggering backwards. Trance gasped, but did not cry out. Beka lunged at the man, but was forced to stop when his hand closed around the butt of his riffle.
"You," he said, addressing Beka, "will return to your ship before there is trouble, and you…" He grabbed Trance's arm roughly, closing his hand, which was large enough to circle her arm completely, around it. Beka could see his fingers digging hard into her flesh. "You are going to come with me back to Mr. Neiman's quarters, where you will stay until he returns you. Got it? There will be consequences once Ariano find out about this."
The man didn't give Beka any time to contradict his words. He began dragging Trance down the hall. Beka watched helplessly as the poor girl tried her hardest to keep up. The girl looked over her shoulder, shooting Beka a look she could barely comprehend. It was as if Trance were being pulled away from her only hope, and that hope was Beka. Poor kid, Beka thought, I'm just a freighter captain. What does she expect from me? What can I possibly do?
