Chapter Eight
A week later, and Allucia and Tom were still waiting to be rescued. Most of their time revolved around harvesting rutgai. It was similar to bamboo, but thicker, shorter, and much bluer, and used for practically everything on the planet from textiles to fuel.
Allucia was so badly sunburned that she could pass for a Thallonian, and was cursing herself every day that she didn't stay in bed longer like Tom wanted her to.
As for the elder pilot, he was still working on a way to get tools to fix her combadge with. Her wrists were still healing, so it was no problem to keep using that as the hiding place for it. Though, if it absolutely came to it, she still had other places she could hide the small badge.
Tying her bundle of rutgai together, Allucia hefted it onto her peeling shoulders with a grunt. It was heavier than she should have been carrying, but she could really care less. The pain gave her something to focus her attention on. She grabbed the smaller bundle with her other hand and began to leave the field with the other slaves. It was dusk, when all work thankfully ended until dawn. All Allucia wanted to do was to go to bed, and sleep for a long, long time. The fatigue and sunburn and hunger together made her shake.
She really hoped Tom had some tools today, she and him both hated biding their time on this hellhole of a planet and couldn't stand not being able to do anything about it. Not being able to contact Voyager was nearly unbearable, and Tom didn't even know if his last-ditch attempt to send Voyager their last coordinates had succeeded either.
Who woulda thought... a chick like me... sucked outta New York and zapped into the future. And now I'm a slave somewhere in the galaxy. She shook her head. It's so... so... like I'm in a scifi novel... or I'm dreaming. The girl grunted as the contents of the bundle on her shoulder shifted, causing some more discomfort to her fried skin. Of course... if I was dreaming, I wouldn't be in so much pain...
"I suppose it could be worse," she muttered. "I coulda ended up as a Barbarella." She thought for a moment, and tried to decide if that would actually be worse...but realized she was too young to have a basis for comparison.
Allucia exited the field and dumped her loads of rutgai on the waiting anti-grav truck, then turned and headed directly for the dried mud huts the slaves slept in. Upon reaching the bunk, she rinsed the grime and sweat off her face the best she could in the rain basin outside and went inside, quickly falling asleep on the pile of discarded pillows that had been acting as her and Tom's makeshift bed for the past few weeks.
It never ceased to amaze her, how a civilization with warp capabilities and advanced technology would use such a primitive and inhumane means for a labor force.
K
"Yoo-hoo, Lush, wake up." Someone-who-was-going-to-be-sorry was shaking her shoulder. The hand that belonged to the arm on that shoulder connected with the disturber's face just as Allucia realized who it was.
"Omigosh! I'm sorry Tom!" Allucia exclaimed, sitting up.
Tom chuckled. "That's a helluva backhand you got there," he said, exercising his jaw. "Ever consider taking up hoverball?"
"Damn it, I'm a softball player, not a tennis player!" Allucia said, giggling for the first time in a long while.
Tom shook his head, smiling, then held up a bowl. "You missed dinner again."
"What a pity," Allucia said, leaning over to peer into the bowl and making a face. "Tom, what the hell is that?"
"Believe me, it's probably better if you don't know."
"I think I'll pass."
"Allucia, you have to eat something." Tom scolded.
"I ate this morning."
"What?"
"A couple of yemack berries and what passes for bread around here."
"That's all?"
"Yup."
Tom shook his head then shoved the bowl at Allucia. "Eat."
"But—" she protested. Tom glared at Allucia, who sighed exasperatedly. "Fine." She took the bowl and sniffed it. Finding it acceptable, she took an experimental bite of the stuff inside that resembled a cross between hay and scrambled eggs, chewing it with a thoughtful look on her face.
"Do you know how you look, chewing like that?" Tom said, snickering.
"Not as bad as you're gonna look when it's on your face after I spit it," Allucia responded, sticking her tongue out with the food on it at Tom.
"Now that looks bad!"
Allucia quickly finished off the bowl. "Now are you going to tell me what this is?"
"Nope." Tom smirked.
The teenager rolled her eyes. "But I could be allergic to it!"
"With the way you eat, I highly doubt you're allergic to anything." Tom leaned closer and started whispering. "I'm fairly sure I can get some tools, but what I have in mind involves you doing the work."
Allucia lifted an eyebrow. "I'm listening."
"You would have to get into the main house. I can't get in 'cause I'm male; they only let females in, so you might be able to get in, asking for house duty or something."
The ensign nodded thoughtfully. "I'll do it."
"There's just one problem."
"How did I know there would be?"
"They keep the girls who work in the house under heavier security, in another dorm inside the house, and only let the most trusted ones out to go to town." Tom explained. Allucia immediately paled at the prospect of being separated from Tom. But if they were going to get off this planet, they had to work together. Tom went on. "They tag you, how I don't know, so they can keep tabs on you."
Allucia sighed deeply, and didn't say anything for a moment. "Let me sleep on it."
Tom nodded. "Okay. Let me know."
"But what if I don't?"
Tom's face fell. "I honestly don't know."
Allucia sighed and turned on her side to face the wall. "'Night Tom."
K
A few days after Tom proposed it, Allucia was working in the main house. She called it a prison. They vehemently accepted her when she requested to work there.
Allucia had approached one of the field guards and asked what to do, and he basically dragged her up to the house, where they stripped off the togas and shoved her in something like a sonic shower, dragged her out, clapped something on her ankle, then locked her in the dorm with clothes to change into.
Her ears were still ringing from the sonic shower, and her shoulders felt as though they had no skin left on them. She gently pulled on the clothes she had been given. A white sleeveless shirt with a squared collar and... well that was it. It was a shapeless cotton shift that ended five inches before her knees, and no shoes. Not to mention she felt like a candy cane with her sunburn.
She opened her clenched palm and her combadge clattered to the floor. She'd hidden it as she was dragged to the house, afraid that those there wouldn't be lenient. She looked at the delta imprinted in her palm for a moment before kneeling to pick it up and tucking inside the waistband of her underwear. She turned around as the door opened.
K
Tom watched as Allucia walked up to the guard on duty. She'd only gotten a few words out of her mouth when he'd grabbed her by (thankfully) her left arm and up to the house. He breathed a sigh of relief as she managed to hide her combadge before they got there. Tom and Allucia were very cautious with the combadge; it was their only way to get off this God-awful planet.
Allucia looked back to Tom just before being dragged inside the gate. Her face said it all: she was petrified. And he couldn't do a thing about it. If they hurt her, he thought, I won't be responsible for what happens to them.
K
"Follow me." The person who opened the door was Xelos, the aide who had brought her and Tom to the plantation from the market.
Allucia followed him, standing straight up, hands at her sides and her head held high. She wasn't going to belittle herself. She followed Xelos onto a large patio overlooking the fields. Sarix, as Allucia had learned her name was, the "master's" (Allucia thought with a sneer) wife, sat sunning herself. Being a cold-blooded (and cold-hearted) reptile, this somehow made sense to Allucia.
"My aide tellsss me you wished to work in zee house instead of the fieldsss. I have granted your request, but I would like to know your reasonsss." Sarix said, bored and indifferent in tone.
"Because I choose to." Allucia stated firmly.
"Really." Sarix said, opening her eyes. "And what of being ssseparated from your brother? The bond between you was zee only reason I purchased you." She sneered. "You should thank me, really. You're ssso ssscrawny, otherwise no one else would have bought you, except perhaps to work in a brothel."
Allucia's temper flared. But she kept control of herself. "Very well." she said. "I'll tell you why I'm here. My brother was concerned for me; I did not take well to the arduous work of the fields."
"You are very well ssspoken, for a ssslave."
"I was not always a 'slave,'" Allucia said the last word with obvious distaste. "Contrary to what you may think, we had lives and families before being 'purchased.'"
Sarix's eyes flashed with anger. "Put her to work!" she hissed.
Xelos grabbed Allucia by her bad arm. Ignoring the pain, she defiantly ripped it out of his grasp, glaring at him.