III. Janus: Losing Jack
"Shit!!" Jack kicked the wall of Riddick's tiny flat. "They took fucking everything!" She gave Kat a sideways look--Not everything, she snarled silently. Riddick, Mr. Save-the-Day himself, had given the salvagers the flare gun, the cash, and even the skiff itself to keep them from taking the pet. "They didn't even leave us enough to buy passage anywhere!" Of course, they could still sell the slave and go damn near anywhere, but she had the feeling Riddick would have none of that.
Despite her frustration, Jack had never been so glad to get away from a transport before. The men had been filthy, the women crude and colorless. The ship itself had seemed cobbled together from the very scrap the crew collected.
"What'd you expect, kid? It was a salvage ship. Or would you rather be back on that goddamn eclipse planet? Think you could take out all those monsters yourself?" Riddick banged on the broken down InstaMeal machine, which groaned in protest before spitting a colorless, but doubtlessly highly nutritious, glop onto a protein plate. "Hell of a way to get your own world." He passed it to Jack, who made a face. "Sorry, kid. Thing was still making fake-turkey sandwiches, last time I used it."
Jack just sighed and proceeded to scoop the stuff into her mouth, using two fingers carefully. She had never been able to eat as sloppily as some of those spaceport boys, no matter how hard she'd tried to emulate them.
She started when Imam's hand reached around her to take the next two plates. With Jack's eyes following him, the holy man carried a meal over to the pet, who huddled in one corner of the bare room. Imam's robe was still draped over her shoulders. Crouching down next to the creature, he gently proffered the meal. Jack sniffed and looked away, studying her surroundings instead.
"Spartan" didn't even come close. The quarters consisted of a main area, a sleeping room, and a bathroom. That food machine was the extent of the kitchen.
Jack's last lingering ideas equating outlawry with glamour collapsed when faced with this dump. The ceiling sagged, the walls were pitted, and the ratty floor cover, which had started life as generic carpeting, was now trampled and stained beyond help. Insect carcasses, the leavings of whatever lived in the pitted walls, hugged the floorboards, crunching under Jack's rear when she flopped down to finish what passed for a meal.
The whole place smelled of mildew, urine, and hopelessness.
She stole a glance at Riddick, relaxed against one wall, licking his fingers as though he'd just feasted, then looked past Imam at the pet. Kat, she grudgingly reminded herself. She said her name was Kat. Jack had to give high marks to whomever had come up with such an original name for the felinoid pet.
What was Riddick going to do with her?
Jack followed Kat's gaze to a bookcase consisting of a steel plate atop a couple of bricks. A handful of books, looking worried and torn under several layers of dust, lay carelessly piled on the makeshift shelf. She glanced quickly away, before Kat could notice her staring, but not before Jack had seen the expression on Kat's face. She recognized that hungry look--she'd seen it often enough, in the eyes of more street rats than she could remember.
Jack gathered up the used paper plates and tossed them in the food machine's recycler, then curled up in one cold corner as Riddick dimmed the already flickering lights. Imam stretched out against another wall, but Kat rose quietly and padded after Riddick into the bedroom.
Jack squeezed her eyes shut, bit her lip, and tried not to cry.
Kat entered the bedroom and closed the door in silence. The king sized bed, the only piece of actual furniture in the flat, waited under a broad window that opened out into the perpetual dark. Riddick was a long shadow reclining beneath that window, his eyes glinting like two stars that had somehow escaped the rectangle of night.
Her first owner had been kind enough, as owners went. He'd gotten regular use out of his pets, of course, but Kat had been kept mostly for display. The second man, though, may as well have been the devil incarnate. His tender ministrations had left her with more than a few well-hidden scars. The third man had been a fool who had died for aspirations overreaching his abilities.
What would this new owner do to her? The borrowed robe fell to the floor, followed by the loincloth. It was, she told herself, a moot question.
She made no pretense of her body's actions. Kat was a pet, Riddick her owner, and neither would need any masks over the arrangement. But when she slid between the sheets, those quicksilver eyes studied her for only a moment. Then they disappeared as Riddick rolled over without so much as a goodnight.
The collar, as cold as fear, tightened around her neck. What had she done wrong? Why didn't he want her? Accustomed to active nights, her muscles stiffened quickly. But her new owner no doubt slept lightly, so she didn't dare even roll over to a more comfortable position.
Twenty-two years of cryosleep made for long nights.
A cold hand shook Kat. "Get up." Riddick pointed to a small closet. "There's some clothes in there."
The apartment was still dark--as dark as the neverending blackness outside--but her body knew it was day. Surprised to find she'd slept after all, Kat rose, carefully not looking at Riddick, and opened the closet. Inside, it was broader than the doors, but a good deal shallower than she'd expected. Several skimpy dresses hung on the rack, their hangars scraping against the back wall. Kat decided she didn't want to know where Riddick had gotten women's clothing from.
Her fur prickled as Riddick's breath crawled over the back of her neck. "I know that collar keeps you from running, Spots." A finger traced a path down her bare back and over one buttock. "And I know all about that behavioral inhibitor. You don't wear it, it wears you. And as long as that collar wears you, you're mine."
Flustered, Kat grabbed a short sundress. By the time she'd pulled it over her head, Riddick was gone.
Jack watched Riddick disappear out the door with Imam, leaving her alone in the tiny apartment. Alone, except for the pet. Riddick's parting shot had been that he was sure the girls would find something to talk about.
Two hours later, neither had exchanged a word. Kat stared out the main window into the darkness, while Jack sat fidgeting against the far wall, wondering what the pet found so fascinating about the night. Things lived in the night--Jack hadn't needed the eclipse to teach her that.
Kat's lightly furred body was covered now in a short blue dress, and Jack distracted herself for a while speculating where the pet could have gotten it from.
"He didn't do anything."
The pet's voice, so startling after the long silence, jolted Jack out of her thoughts. Kat didn't turn from the empty window.
He didn't do anything, Jack repeated to herself. Hugging her knees to her chest, she wondered why Kat had sounded so apprehensive. It would've been pretty nice not to have to worry about that, right? she thought. So why would she be nervous about not being... being...
"They always do something."
She almost jumped out of her skin as Kat spoke again, this time looking back at her. The pet's eyes shone an eerie amber in the darkness, and Jack broke into a sudden, cold sweat. They always do something. What would Riddick do? Jack's hand rubbed her stubbled head as an involuntary shudder ran down her back. She pulled the ragged pair of makeshift goggles out of her pocket, stood up, and tossed them into the InstaMeal's reclamation bin.