Title: Another Planet's Hell
Author: Sita Z
Rating: PG 13
AN: Thanks to luna, Gabi, KaliedescopeCat (I know what you mean. My job can be like that, too ;-) ), WhtevrHpnd2Mary, Tata, Colleen (I don't agree with you. In my eyes, Trip and Malcolm are just normal people who are prone to weaknesses and mistakes, not heroes. Still, I respect your opinion; thank you for your comments), stage manager, Rinne, CordeliaBlack and The Libran Iniquity for reviewing.
Please read and review!
Chapter 7
Malcolm carried his tray through the verandah door out into the patio, passing several customers who shot him grumpy looks and muttered that they had been waiting for fifteen minutes at the very least.
He sighed. Today was weekend, and due to the warm weather the restaurant was more crowded than ever before. Customers kept calling for refills, and both he and Trip were rushed off their feet, serving drinks and meals and trying to carry the loads of dirty dishes back into the kitchen at the same time. The only good thing about the rush was that it kept Orven busy decorating the dessert plates and chatting politely with the customers, and didn't leave him any time to empty another one of his brandy bottles.
As he approached a table in the back of the patio, Malcolm felt apprehension rise at the back of his mind. The table was occupied by a large group of men, and Malcolm could see by their flushed faces that they were already rather inebriated, despite the fact that it was only late afternoon. Malcolm knew them; they came to the restaurant from time to time, always as a group and always in the mood for trouble. A week ago, Orven had even threatened them with the police when two of them had picked a fight, smashing glasses and knocking over the tables. But even when they were not starting a brawl, they always took great pleasure in giving him and Trip a hard time, deliberately spilling their drinks and dropping food to the floor.
"Hey midget, why the hell did it take so long?"
Malcolm ignored both the question and the insult, and proceeded to serve the men their drinks. He knew there was no use in reacting to their taunts, which was, of course, what they were aiming at. The man next to him belched loudly, and Malcolm could smell the beer on his breath. His friends roared with laughter, and the man, encouraged by their mirth, sniffed and spat on the ground right in front of Malcolm's feet. This caused another explosion of laughter, and Malcolm quickly picked up his tray, ignoring their jeers as he walked back to the verandah door.
"Excuse me... "
Surprised by the unusually friendly address, Malcolm turned and saw a woman a few tables away from the noisy group giving him a sign. As he approached her table, he saw that she had come with her husband and two kids, two little boys between six and eight. There was another woman sitting at their table, a young Denobulan who was presumably the boys' nanny. The younger one of the two kids was perched on her lap, looking at a picture book she was reading to him. Malcolm was surprised. Usually when some customers brought their servants - which didn't happen very often - they had them standing at the door or next to their chair, but never asked them to sit down at their table.
The Sar'veen woman smiled at him. "Busy day?"
Malcolm didn't really know what to say, and so he just smiled carefully in response.
"What can I bring you, ma'am?"
A long discussion with the children followed, and when they had finally decided that they both wanted the meat casserole but not the vegetable side dish, their mother looked at the Denobulan.
"And you, Meelan?"
Meelan didn't seem surprised that she was asked as well. After she'd ordered a drink and a salad, the couple placed their orders as well, and the woman gave Malcolm another smile.
"Thank you."
He turned to go, and on his way back to the verandah door he heard the woman's quiet voice. "Now that's a nice young man, don't you think so, Meelan?"
Malcolm risked a look back, and saw that the Denobulan was smiling embarrassedly. A faint blush was creeping up her cheeks. The Sar'veen woman grinned at him, and Malcolm quickly turned back, almost stumbling on the doorstep as he went back inside.
Trip was in the kitchen, loading a tray with various plates and glasses he pulled from the replicator. He looked rather flustered, and didn't even raise his eyes when Malcolm entered.
"Those damn idiots," he muttered, setting down a glass with a little more force than necessary. Some of the liquid spilled over, and splashed onto the tray.
"What idiots in particular?" Malcolm asked, and began to stuff the dirty dishes into the recycler. Trip looked up.
"Oh, generally speakin'," he said. "I'm fed up with people sendin' back stuff because two crumbs of salt are missin', and spillin' their drinks so I have to change the table cloths every two hours. And I'm fed up with everybody yellin' at me to get movin' when all I'm tryin' to do is gettin' everybody their damn food. I'm just so damn fed up with it."
With that, he grabbed his tray and disappeared through the kitchen door. Malcolm sighed. Usually, Trip wasn't that easily affected by the stress and mostly shrugged it off when some of the customers decided to be particularly trying, but not today. Today, Trip was having a bad day, and it had been obvious from the moment he had gotten up and had inadvertently knocked over their toilet bucket. Later that morning, he had dropped his tray (which had not happened to either of them for quite some time), and had cut himself rather badly while gathering up the pieces of broken glass. Orven, of course, showed no understanding at all for a slave who was having a bad day, grabbed Trip by the back of his head and shoved him hard against the doorframe when he saw the mess on the floor. Now Trip was sporting a big, red lump over his left eyebrow, and looked ready to bite off the head of anyone who got in his way. Except, of course, that biting people's heads off would have rather unpleasant consequences concerning his own head. A little worried over his friend's foul mood, Malcolm began to enter the ordered meals into the replicator, and filled his tray again.
As he went out into the patio, Trip and Orven were there as well, the latter chatting with one of the customers and from time to time throwing angry looks at the group of drunken men, who had just ordered another round of beer. Malcolm passed their table as quickly as he could, and carried his tray over to where the family with the two kids was waiting.
As he served up their meals, the Denobulan woman met his eyes and smiled a little. Malcolm noticed that she had green eyes like a cat, and felt his cheeks grow warm.
A customer called out from the adjoining table, and Malcolm left, though not without another quick look at Meelan. She cocked her head a little, and Malcolm decided that she did have a really nice smile. The Sar'veen at the next table barked at him to hurry up, and he quickly gathered up the dirty dishes, stacking them on his tray.
On his way past her table Meelan smiled at him again, and maybe it was that smile that distracted him when he carried his tray back to the verandah door. He never saw the man who had spit at him stick out his leg, and a moment later he stumbled, lost hold of his tray and fell, his left elbow making painful contact with the stony ground.
The men broke into noisy laughter, and Malcolm grit his teeth, scrambling back to his feet.
"You idiot, look at that!"
Raising his head, Malcolm saw that the customer at the next table had gotten up. The man's trousers were spattered all over with gravy from the plates Malcolm had been carrying on his tray, and his face was scrunched up in anger.
"Can't you watch where you're going?" he yelled, and a moment later Orven was there, grabbed Malcolm by the shoulders and shook him angrily.
"Reed, you stupid idiot! Sometimes I think you're doing it on purpose!"
"But, sir-" Malcolm began, but Orven only raised a hand and slapped him hard across the face.
"I don't want to hear it! Now get yourself inside and get some hot water - sorry, sir," he added to the angry customer who had taken a seat again, now that the careless slave had been punished for his clumsiness.
The man who had caused Malcolm to stumble in the first place had been watching the small drama with an air of amused interest. Now he turned to Trip and raised his empty glass.
"How much longer is it going to take? Where's my beer?"
Malcolm watched Trip slowly set his tray down on one of the tables, and pick up a glass of beer. The look on his face showed clearly that he had been watching the whole incident, and that he was furious. Malcolm recognized that expression; it was the look Trip got when nothing and no one could stop him from doing something very stupid. In a split second, Malcolm realized what Trip was going to do, and wanted to call out, stop what was going to happen, but then Trip had already reached the table.
"Here you go, sir!" he said, and emptied the glass over the man's head, soaking him from crown to crotch.
For a moment, the patio went completely still. The customers lowered their forks and glasses, all eyes fixed on Trip who stood, empty glass in hand, his chest heaving. Then the soaked man gave an inarticulate roar, lunging at Trip, but the engineer seemed to have anticipated the attack and quickly sidestepped it. The man stumbled, and one of his friends gave a low chuckle.
"Shut up!" the Sar'veen yelled over his shoulder, then turned around to face Orven who had been watching the whole scene frozen with shock. "I want this slave punished," he said, his voice shaking with barely suppressed fury. "I want him whipped, right here and now."
"Sir-" Orven began, but he never got to finish his say. The Sar'veen woman with the two kids had risen from her table, ignoring her husband who was quietly imploring her to sit down again.
"Listen," she said, frowning. "You've been picking on these two men from the moment you've entered this restaurant. I'm not saying what he did was right, but don't you think the fault lies partly with you as well?"
"This is none of your business, lady!" the man snarled, then turned back to Orven. "If you don't punish him here and now, I'm going to report you to the police for allowing your slave to attack a Sar'veen citizen!"
Orven hesitated for a second, then nodded. "Very well, sir."
The woman's cheeks were flushed, and she brushed off her husband's hand with an impatient gesture. "That's ridiculous! He didn't attack you, he only spilled a glass of beer over your head. And no offense, sir, but you were asking for it!"
"I told you to stay out of this!" The man turned to her. "If you allow your slaves to sit at your table, then it's fine with me. But I'm not going to let this little alien shit insult a citizen of this planet and get away with it!"
The woman stared at him for another moment, then abruptly turned away. "Let's go," she said to her husband who looked rather relieved. "I don't want the children watching this."
After paying their bill, they left, and for a brief moment Malcolm met Meelan's eyes. Her expression was sad, almost apologizing.
When the family was gone, Orven turned to Malcolm. "Go inside and get the whip."
Malcolm knew where Orven kept a whip, even though the Sar'veen had never used it up until now. He looked at Trip, who was rather pale but hadn't said a word so far, and then back at Orven.
"No," he said. "I won't."
"Reed!" Orven hissed, taking him by the arm and giving him a hard shake. "Do you want me to whip you too?"
"Would be for the best," the man behind them commented, and Orven let go of Malcolm's arm.
"I'll get it myself," he said with a weary undertone. "But we're still going to have a talk about this, Reed."
He left in direction of the house. The man, who was still soaking wet and smelling of beer, gave Trip a hard dig in the ribs.
"Well, you're going to catch it now, buddy," he said, sneering. "I'd do it myself if I could, and believe me, you wouldn't be spilling beer over people's heads after I was through with you!"
Malcolm opened his mouth, but shut it again when he saw Trip imperceptibly shake his head. Trip was right; there was nothing he could do or say that wouldn't make things worse than they already were.
Orven was back from the house, carrying a whip in his hand. Without another word he grabbed Trip by the arm and dragged him over to the fence that surrounded the "lawn". The crowd followed, and Malcolm saw that many of them were grinning expectantly, excited at the prospect of some free entertainment. Malcolm wanted to do something, anything to stop this, but knew that all he could do was stay here and watch so Trip wasn't all alone.
In the meantime, Orven had ordered Trip to take off his shirt, and when he didn't move, simply ripped it off in one quick movement and threw it to the ground. Pulling a piece of rope from his pocket, he pushed Trip to his knees and proceeded to tie his hands to the fence. Trip offered no resistance, and in a way, Malcolm was glad he didn't. This was going to be bad enough as it was.
The crowd watched expectantly as Orven moved into position behind Trip. Several of the customers had stayed at their tables, most of them acting as if nothing was happening, some throwing disgusted glances at the crowd in the back of the patio. The greater part of the guests, however, made no secret of the fact that they found the spectacle quite entertaining.
Malcolm closed his eyes when Orven brought down the whip for the first time. The loud smack hurt him almost physically, and he heard Trip gasp for air. One of the customers who hadn't joined the crowd of onlookers winced and got up, muttering something about "disgusting brutes" as he left.
Malcolm forced himself to watch as Orven raised the whip again and again. Somehow he felt it was the least he could do, stay here and not turn his eyes away even as the blood began to trickle down Trip's back, mingling with the sweat on his bare skin. So far, Trip had only given a few low whimpers, but Malcolm saw that his arms were shaking, his fingers clenched tightly around the fence post he was tied to.
Orven's face was flushed and the muscles in his jaw were working, but he didn't stop, not even when Trip finally gave a hoarse, agonized cry. Malcolm had never heard anything like that sound, so full of pain and helplessness. The crowd cheered, and encouraged Orven to go on. After another ten or twelve lashes Trip's voice broke, and that was when Orven finally lowered the whip.
Trip's back was covered in welts and open cuts, some of which were still bleeding, the blood trickling down his back and soaking the rim of his pants. For a moment, Orven stood completely still, breathing heavily, then dropped the whip with an almost angry gesture and set off for the verandah, not looking back at the crowd or Trip who was still tied to the fence.
"Take him back into the house," he said quietly when he passed Malcolm, his eyes still straight ahead. "But hurry up, the customers are waiting. Don't take too long."
He didn't wait for a reply and continued his way, disappearing through the verandah door without another look.
Now that the entertaining part was over, the crowd returned to their abandoned tables, resuming their meals and chatting as amiably as civilized people do on a nice, sunny day out. "Now that was a lesson he won't soon forget," Malcolm heard the Sar'veen man say to his friends as he passed their table. "Still, if I'd taken care of him, he wouldn't have gotten away that easily. I'd have whipped him until he begged me to stop."
And you would've been in for a long wait, Malcolm thought.
Trip was still slumped forward, his head hanging down between his arms. He didn't move as Malcolm approached, and for a moment Reed thought his friend had lost consciousness. Very carefully, he began to untie the knots of the rope, his hands shaking slightly as he did so.
"Trip?" he asked hesitantly, and for the first time, the man on the ground moved, slowly raising his head.
"M-Malcolm?"
Trip's face was very pale, his forehead glistening with sweat, and Malcolm noticed that his eyes weren't quite focused, as if he were running a fever. When Malcolm removed the rope, Trip's arms dropped limply to his sides and he swayed for a moment, but then managed to regain his balance. From up close, Trip's back looked even worse, as if someone had drawn a rake across his skin. Some of the cuts went rather deep, probably because Orven had hit the same spots twice, and Malcolm could only imagine how bad it must hurt.
"Come on," he said, gently taking Trip by the arm. "Let's get you inside."
Obediently, Trip tried to get to his feet, but his knees buckled under him and he couldn't get up. Malcolm did his best to help him, but it was difficult since he could only hold on to Trip's arm in order to support him. He knew that if he touched the raw, bloodied skin on Trip's back, he would only cause his friend additional pain.
Slowly, they made their way past the tables. Most of the customers didn't even look at them, except for the man and his friends, of course, who grinned when they saw Trip stumble and almost fall. Malcolm guided his friend through the verandah door into the dining room. As they passed the kitchen on their way to the stairs, Malcolm got a glance of Orven who was leaning against the counter, taking long gulps from his brandy bottle. He hadn't even bothered to get himself a glass this time.
Later, Malcolm didn't remember how they had managed to climb the stairs to the second floor. At one point, Trip lost his balance and Malcolm could only keep him from falling by grabbing him around the waist, but except for a sharp intake of breath, Trip gave no sound.
Finally, they reached their room and Malcolm helped Trip lie down on his stomach, careful not to touch the engineer's back again. He covered him up to the waist with one of the thin, gray blankets, then rolled up the other one and slid it under Trip's head as a makeshift pillow. All the while, Trip never said a word, and never even looked at Malcolm.
Reed had never felt so helpless before. Back on Enterprise, Phlox would have cleaned the wounds and given Trip something for the pain, making sure the Commander got the best medical care he could provide. The Captain would be waiting nervously next to Trip's bio bed, asking Phlox if the engineer was going to be alright, and the doctor would nod in that ever-cheerful way of his, saying that all Commander Tucker needed now was a good night's sleep.
But Malcolm didn't have any hyposprays with painkillers to inject Trip with, and he was pretty sure the people here would find the idea ridiculous - wasting medication on an alien who had only received the rightful punishment for his impudence towards a Sar'veen citizen. Except for him, no one here gave a shit whether Trip was in pain or not.
But he could clean the wounds, Malcolm decided. That was one thing he could do, waiting customers be damned. After he'd wet a cloth in the adjoining bathroom, he returned to Trip's bedside and laid a careful hand on the engineer's shoulder.
"Trip," he said, waiting for his friend to open his eyes before he continued. "I'm going to wash off that blood. If we leave it like that, the wounds are going to get infected."
Trip nodded silently. As carefully as he could, Malcolm began to dab off the drying blood, trying to wash around the open cuts and the worst of the welts. It wasn't easy, and more than once, Trip winced when the cloth made contact with his sore skin. He never said a word, though. His silence worried Malcolm, but he had no idea what to say to comfort Trip or at least get a response out of him. Trip had been whipped, and brutally so, in front of a crowd of people who had laughed and jeered at his suffering while his best friend had been forced to stand by and watch helplessly as it happened. So what was there to say?
"I'm sorry," came to Malcolm's mind, but the words sounded empty and meaningless to his ears. Of course he was sorry, everyone who had to put up with such things was sorry; the problem was only that no one here cared about it.
Finally, Malcolm was done, folded up the red-stained cloth and laid it on the floor next to the mattress.
"Is there anything else I can do?" he asked, hating himself for sounding so helpless. "Would you like a glass of water?"
Trip shook his head. "Thanks, Mal," he said hoarsely, then turned his head away so he was facing the wall. Orven's voice came from downstairs.
"Reed! I told you to hurry up! Get your ass down here now, or there'll be trouble!"
"I have to go," Malcolm said, getting to his feet. "I'll try to be back as soon as I can, okay?"
But Trip gave no answer, and Malcolm went down the stairs, only to be swatted across the face and barked at what had taken him so long.
XXX
Around midnight, the last customers finally left the restaurant, and Malcolm was what his best friend in ninth grade had always described as "absolutely bloody knackered."
After he'd finished wiping off the tables and putting up the chairs, he sat down on the bottom step of the stairs and waited for Orven to take him to their room as they had been told to do. He'd been sitting there for almost ten minutes when he heard voices from the kitchen, and realized that Orven's ex-wife had apparently decided to come by for one of her visits.
Malcolm didn't like that woman with her shrill voice and piled-up hair that smelled of perfumed styling mousse, but the good thing about her visits was that she kept the man distracted. The voices grew louder, and Malcolm decided that Orven had forgotten about locking up his slaves for the night.
Fine with me, he thought. At the risk of adding another slap across the face to today's score, he got up and walked up the stairs, too tired to listen to what the arguing voices were saying. When he had almost reached their room, however, he remembered that except for a piece of dried-up pie for breakfast Trip had not yet eaten anything today. Malcolm hesitated; he knew that with his ex-wife telling him off Orven wouldn't react kindly to any requests, but then decided to try, anyway. Surely, Trip must be starving by now.
On his way down the stairs, Malcolm heard that the tone of the discussion had grown softer, and when he approached the kitchen, he heard Orven's voice.
"... really, Varnee, I don't know what to do. First that thing with the supervisory board, and the overdue installments, of course... and now that trouble with Tucker. That guy threatening me with the police... he could've ruined me!"
The woman sighed angrily. "I'm fed up with your excuses. You said you'd pay her lessons, and she's been looking forward to it for months! Do you want me to tell her that her father can't keep his promise yet again, just because he's too much of a loser to keep his damn business running?"
"It's not my fault," Orven all but whined. "Varnee, you know I'm giving you all I can afford. But I really had a bad day today, so why don't we-"
"No, we can't talk about it next week, or the week after!" Varnee's voice grew louder. "You're always having a bad day, so don't give me that shit! If those slaves give you trouble, then why don't you just sell them again?"
Malcolm came to a halt, pressing himself against the wall next to the kitchen door.
"Sell them?" he heard Orven's voice. "And how do you expect me to run a restaurant with no one to wait on the guests and keep the damn place clean?"
"Well, then sell only one of them. You said he spilled the beer only because that guy was picking on his friend. If you keep only one, then there'll be less trouble and he'll be so busy doing all the work he won't have any time to spill beer over your customers' heads."
The chuckle in her voice showed clearly that she found the whole incident to be more amusing than anything else. Orven seemed to have noticed as well.
"It's not funny, Varnee! I don't need any trouble with the police, and if Tucker pulls another stunt like that, someone's going to report me sooner or later. Not to speak of the fact that I'll be losing my customers, and you know I don't have that many to begin with."
"You never listen, do you, Orven?" Varnee sounded weary. "If he gives you trouble, then sell him. Do you always need everything spelled out for you?"
There was a brief pause. "I don't know," Orven said then, rather quietly. "I don't think I can spare him."
She laughed, but it was a rather hollow sound. "Can't spare him? Where? In the restaurant or in your bedroom?"
"Varnee!" Orven sounded angry. "That's not fair! You know I don't-"
"Yeah, I know." She didn't seem entirely convinced, though. "But you know, Laris for example would pay quite a lot for one like him. Enough for you to pay both the installments and Renaj's lessons."
"Laris?" Orven asked, sounding uncomfortable. "But..."
"Oh, come on." Varnee's voice grew impatient again. "Don't be such a hypocrite, you've been to that place more than once. And Tucker will be better off there than he is here in this dump. No hard work, better food and everything."
Orven sighed. "I really don't know."
"Then sell Reed, if you think you can't spare Tucker." Varnee's voice had a slight sneer to it. "He's handsome and all, and Laris will make good money with him."
Orven was silent, and after a while Varnee spoke again, in a softer tone. "I understand you, Orven. I know it's not easy for you. But you have to think of Renaj, too. And me."
"I know." Orven's voice was sad, defeated. "Maybe you're right. Varnee..."
But Malcolm didn't stay to hear the rest. As quietly as he could, he walked down the dark corridor, and then hastened up the stairs, his heart pounding in his chest.
As he entered the room, he found Trip sitting cross-legged on his mattress, the blanket bunched around his waist. He wasn't quite as pale as he had been before, and looked up when Malcolm came in.
"Malcolm, what's-"
"Trip." Under different circumstances Malcolm would have been glad to see Trip up and talking again, but right now he could only think of what he had just overheard. "Varnee is here. She and Orven are talking in the kitchen."
Trip raised his eyebrows. "Arguin' again?"
Malcolm shook his head. "Not this time. But she wants money from him, and..."
Suddenly he felt strangely reluctant to tell Trip about it. They didn't need that now. Trip had apparently decided to put the events of the afternoon behind him, and the last thing that would help him do so was more bad news. Even though "bad news" might not be a quite appropriate term for what Malcolm had to say.
"And?" Trip asked. His voice sounded still somewhat hoarse, and Malcolm saw that he winced every time he moved. The Lieutenant stared down at his hands.
"Orven's decided to sell one of us."
Silence ensued. "No," Trip said quietly. "Did he say so?"
Malcolm nodded. "Not in these exact words, but he's going to do it. He's just not sure yet whether it's going to be you or me."
Malcolm looked up again. In the dim light of the ceiling lamp, Trip's eyes seemed almost black.
"And... did they say..."
Malcolm nodded again. He knew what Trip was going to ask. "To someone called Laris. Sounded like he runs some kind of..."
But Malcolm couldn't bring himself to say it. The very idea had left a nauseated sickness in his heart, and it was nothing he wanted to think, let alone talk about.
Trip, however, understood. He sat completely still for a moment, then slowly shook his head.
"No," he said. "I'd rather kill him. I'd rather kill you and myself before I let this happen."
"We'll kill him." A distant part of Malcolm's mind was startled at his own matter-of-fact tone, but he quickly suppressed those feelings. "We can do it when he's drunk again. Then he's too slow to fight both of us."
Trip shook his head. "We can't risk gettin' hurt. And we probably would, even when he was drunk. Those people are a lot stronger than humans."
"I'll take that risk." Malcolm noticed that his hands were trembling, and he clenched them around the edge of the mattress. "I'd rather die than-"
"I know." Trip's voice was very quiet. "Me too. But if we kill him, it'll be a lot more difficult to get away afterwards. I bet the police is lookin' for a lot of run-away slaves, but not many who killed their owners before they escaped."
"I'd love to kill him after what he did to you."
Trip nodded. "I know what you mean. You know, when... when I was out there, and they were laughin' and tellin' him to let me have it, I wanted them dead. Even those who didn't get up to watch. And that's somethin' that scares me really bad." He looked up. "We have to get away from here, Malcolm."
Malcolm nodded.
TBC...
Please let me know what you think!