Kilotrix marched to the inversion table, flipping upside down as he studied a glowing sash of beads like a newspaper...for a solid hour.
I had a little intercom box above my cage. The first time I heard its tinny voice speak behind me, it practically scared me to death.
I didn't know what it said. It could have been reading prayers in Latin, giving a farm report, or telling the population that big brother is watching, but they have bingo on Friday night. It lasted about ten minutes, and would make more noise seventy five minutes later...And seventy five minutes after that...And so on...And so on...
I curled up in the most comfortable position I could shape my body into in that tiny cage.
Kilotrix kept reading.
I tried to sleep, but...not a great place for it. Instead, I sang to myself. "Oohh, if your screams don't make a sound...Ooohh, if your walls are crashing down...If your heart just cries too loud all the time...I know there's gonna be some brighter days..."
Kilotrix threw his wampum at my cage, telling me to shut up.
He drank large quantities of some fermented spirit. The substance went right through him.
Few have witnessed a Yautja urinate and live to tell the tale. This one performed his business with a 'squatty' toilet on the floor, and he didn't care what I saw. There are certain things you can never unsee.
As a reward for watching him, he urinated on my cage. Pleasant fellow.
Someone banged on the door. Loudly. Like the police.
Growling, Kilotrix dismounted his inversion table and opened the door.
A squatty, swirly blue-green version of Mincha, clad in a leather outfit, waddled into the chamber.
Her actions seemed friendly, flirtatious, even. Kilotrix seemed to tolerate it at first, growling softly as she made pleasant sounds and put her arm around him...A little grabby...I could tell that bothered him...progressively, as she continued to speak at length...
The female had a wooden bowl wrapped in her tail, which she brought out, and it became clear that she wished to receive some sort of financial assistance.
He dropped a few coins and a glowing marble into the bowl, but she kept talking.
With a roar, Kilotrix threw her into a wall.
Once the female had picked herself and her money' off the floor, he snarled and pointed to the exit.
The female, bowing like a servant before an angry Japanese Shogun, quickly excused herself.
"That was mean," I remarked.
Kilotrix only grunted and shut the door.
I lay in the cage for...hours, I suppose. Must have been, judging by the number of times I heard the broadcast. Eventually I managed to sleep in that wretched little compartment.
I don't know what time it had become, but the sound of gurgling water awoke me.
I craned my neck as far as the cage would allow, and noticed a pipe projecting from the back wall, from which now gushed a considerable amount of water, pooling around my cage. 'Master' snored from the hammock thing on the ceiling, oblivious to it all.
I tried, but couldn't sneak out of the cage while he slept. The bars of my cage had been crafted from acid proof material.
"Hey!" I shouted. "Kilotrix! Wake up! Your house is flooding!"
The Yautja's heavy eyelids only cracked a sliver as he grunted and shifted in the netting.
Water lapped at my feet. The water had a mildewy, soapy aroma, blended with something toilety like jasmine. Thoughts about Jesus sleeping in a boat during a storm sprang to mind. Couldn't quite do that myself, it was damp. "Hey! Wake up!"
"Grrr!" He only made a dismissive wave and shut his eyes.
"Wade in the water, wade in the water, gentlemen...!" I sang at the top of my lungs.
Greasy, oily water. It lapped beneath my legs, caused parts of the cell to spark. "I said amen, and it's still raining!...Louisiana! Louisiana! They're going to wash you away...There was six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline!" Then I sang There is a River in Judea.
Kilotrix finally opened his eyes and noticed the puddle. He climbed out of the hammock, jumping onto the floor.
'Master' stomped up to my cage, growling something about me pissing everywhere, how I was a spoiled incontinent pet. He only found out about the pipe after he had battered my cage with a few club like weapons and kicked me halfway across the room.
He attempted to repair the pipe, but something appeared to be seriously wrong with the plumbing throughout, for then a geyser erupted from the squatty toilet.
Kilotrix roared at the pipe in anger, disappeared from the room for a moment.
He returned with buckets, but by then we had an inch of water covering the floor. Guess it really would have been horrible if he'd owned a carpet.
With an angry growl, he opened my cage, ordering me to fill the buckets with water from the pipe.
Funny thing about being such a respective pillar of the community: His domicile lay down an inclined corridor on ground level, meaning that water had no good way to drain out.
He ordered me up this tunnel, to a considerably drier area, homes unaffected by this burst pipe.
After passing a couple doors, he instructed me on how to open one and...just throw the buckets into someone's nice clean dwelling.
Similar interior design, maybe a few less weapons and skulls. More electronic equipment, which I guessed would not agree with buckets of water.
I didn't know what I was doing. I knew it didn't make a lot of sense to throw water into another home just because yours was flooded, but an order was an order.
Kilotrix, grinning in triumph, just crossed his arms and supervised me return to his house, gather more dirty liquid, and dump it into the stranger's home.
At first my master made me wear a leash, but then to save time he took it off and just threatened to shoot me if I didn't obey him.
I must have dumped sewage into this room for more than two hours. The flood never stopped, the pipe just appeared to be 'kidding' us by slowing a fraction before gushing water full force.
I kept thinking about the sorcerer's apprentice, when the brooms came to life and carried water, me being the broom. Dum dum dum da dum da Diddy da dump...
I should have known something was wrong when 'master' disappeared suddenly.
When I opened the door this time, I found myself throwing water right into a stranger's face.
I couldn't stop myself. All the work had been tiring, and my brain had gone into zombie mode. I no longer thought, I just performed the action.
In their face.
The Yautja punched me, and gave me such a severe beating that I could scarcely stand up.
By the way, although my body exudes caustic slime, and I have serrated plates, the Yautja had thick boots, tough fists, and strong muscles. I did not harm him.
Kilotrix just stood at a distance and laughed.
The stranger snarled at him, but kilotrix only pointed to his bracelets and gestured to his home tunnel.
Exhausted and weakened from the beating, I dozed on the floor, uncaring what happened to my body in the meantime.
The pipes got repaired.
Kilotrix forced me to sleep in the cage again. I didn't fight so hard this time, due to fatigue and fear of his weaponry.
I dreamed it was my birthday. I observed the occasion in a dark cave.
A chocolate cake, with a single bent candle.
All alone. I had no one to celebrate with me.
When I lit the candle, it illuminated piles of dead bodies, human and Ss'sik'chtokiwij alike. My dead daughter and other family members I'd killed, arranged about me in a circle, a mockery of a real party. I sat in a shallow lake of blood.
I looked down at the cake and found it to be a child's skull, coated in fudge and ice cream.
I awoke crying. If Kilotrix had been awake at the time, he probably would have thought me sick, with all the emotional sneezing.
My cage still sat in a moat, from the burst pipe. I dreamt about being in a pool of blood due to the three inches of water in the room. I worried about the electrocution risk, but I guess aliens made better appliances. Yes, strange to be sleeping in such an awkward, uncomfortable situation, but what else can one do?
After more than two hours of sitting in water, and watching Kilotrix sloshing around and grumbling, he opened my cage, barking orders I didn't understand, as he thrust something like sheets of paper into my claws.
When I looked puzzled, he slapped me a few times and demonstrated how I would use them like towels (they absorbed an astonishing amount of liquid) squeeze them into buckets, and dump them into a fountain, currently empty and disused.
The fountain depicted a naked Yautja and a spider ostrich, both looking very serious and heroic, atop a mound of skeletons and plants. Smaller Yautja and spider ostriches did battle below, not sure what it all meant.
The fountain stood between a very basic sort of laundry, a temple devoted to that god whose statue I smashed with my escape pod, and some tent businesses, such as a jeweler, electronics repair, and a vendor of sexual appliances (unfamiliar with their methods of reproduction, the exact function and application of these devices baffled me).
Kilotrix made me wear the leash, but didn't hold the other end, he just threatened to shoot me if I failed to continue dumping liquid into the fountain.
I did this for an hour, but then my stomach rumbled and I felt really thirsty. I tried to explain to Kilotrix, but he just slapped me around, so I put up with it and kept...dehydrating his home.
Despite the suffering, it heartened me to do (dare I say Christian') service at a steady, reasonable pace. I fancied myself a nun or a friar doing work for a monastery, abstaining from food and drink to focus thoughts on God. I believe Kilotrix had the harder job: Constantly monitoring my every move to make sure I didn't use the opportunity to escape. He could have used his energy in far more constructive ways, such as eating or resting.
He didn't appreciate me singing hymns. It appeared this monk had been assigned an involuntary vow of silence. Any time I made a sound, he'd strike me on the side of the head.
I'd say I forgive you, my brother' the first couple times he hit me, but then, as me making sound caused him to beat me more, I refrained from speech.
Whenever he turned his back, I'd whisper prayers about resisting the urge to kill and devour him, lay an egg in his chest, or some combination of the two. Sometimes this led to more hymns, and being cuffed in the head again.
I know, you probably want me to say I shrieked and clawed his face off, maybe punched a hole in his forehead with my mouth claw, but you know I do not defend myself, I only act in violence to rescue those weaker than I.
"Um, are you certain I should be dumping this here?" I asked after an inch of water filled the fountain. He only slapped me for talking.
At the laundry, a short Yautja and beaked Yeti boiled blankets, armor and the small things the ostrich things wore, laid them out on racks to dry. Great clouds of steam wafted over me, its odors like skunk, epoxy and rubbing alcohol, mingled with alien things I cannot describe in words. The unpleasant scent proved to be a blessing, somewhat lessening me desire to eat.
An eyeless bilby the size of a human being, and a beaked Yeti creature sat beside the fountain, the marsupial rabbit playing an instrument with features of a Shamisen and a Koto. The Yeti creature...it made gargling sounds...I suppose that's what they considered song on their world. It did remind me of the Himalayan throat music I've heard on recordings.
The bilby thing smelled like sewage, and had warts all over its face, but it had very skillful feet, expertly manipulating the strings as it blew through the instrument's flute attachment.
The first couple times I came to deposit water, I paused to listen...to the point of getting cuffed by my slavemaster.
On one occasion, these musicians happened to be on break, and caught me (when Kilotrix had been distracted trying to broker a deal with someone) singing Let the Lower Lights Be Burning. The creatures froze, listening with rapt attention until Kilotrix growled and slapped me into silent submission.
The minstrels got up, protesting the abuse, I suppose arguing I was the greatest novelty since sliced bread, and maybe I could go on tour and make a bunch of money.
Kilotrix would have none of that, yanking on my leash to indicate ownership, making sounds that offended, likely something akin to You guys are worthless scum, your music, and your future, has no value.'
The musicians offered to buy me, but, alas, Kilotrix asked for too much, and they couldn't pay. They made apologetic noises to me, plus something else in a kind tone, something I didn't understand.
On I went with my chore. The musicians disappeared for awhile (likely to avoid Kilotrix, I believe he threatened them), but I could still hear them playing a few yards from the fountain, attempting to recreate the song I'd been warbling. It seemed I would receive no additional help from that quarter.
...Unfortunate, because I burned a lot of calories between the night and the present day's task, and, in my weakened condition, I found myself on my knees before the fountain.
Kilotrix hollered at me, perhaps Get up from the ground, you lazy bum' and when I shakily arose, attempting pantomime about my hunger, he screamed in my face about...not sure, maybe how I didn't deserve food?
I recalled a verse from scripture about how one should not be dramatic and disfigure themselves if one is fasting, voluntary or not, so I forced a positive face.
You know the owner of that dwelling I kept dumping buckets of water into? The last thing he wanted to see was me carrying a bucket. He beat me until I couldn't stand up.
Kilotrix just watched it happen with his arms crossed, not quite as amused as he'd been before. He growled something to my abuser when he'd gotten all the anger out of his system, I guess, You're lucky you didn't damage the merchandise.'
The other Yautja snarled and stomped away.
Kilotrix ordered me to rise, but I could not. When he yanked my leash, it only brought me to a kneeling position. He slapped me, yelling something about my laziness.
I didn't know Mincha had been watching all this until she rushed to my side and stroked my head, uttering consoling sounds.
She glared at my master, saying something in an accusing tone. Kilotrix only shrugged and made a noise like Me? What did I do?' The noises that followed probably meant I didn't beat him, the other guy did,' and maybe I didn't ask him to pour water into the fountain.'
A moment later, the bilby creature joined us, offering me a tray of food. Ignorant of my biology, the creature had presented me with plant items, a type of mushroom, and blue bread, the only meat-like item appearing to be a single zebra striped crab leg.
Before I had a chance to eat, Kilotrix slapped the tray out of the creature's paws, scattering the food on the floor. Both Mincha and the bilby cried in protest, but Kilotrix only tugged on my leash, indicating ownership. He shouted for them to leave.
Kilotrix dragged me to my feet, and I marched back to his dwelling to sop up more water.
When I returned to the fountain, most of the spilled food had vanished. When Kilotrix had his back turned, I picked up crumbs from the ground and put them in my mouth.
Although I found a rat sized pillbug creature devouring my stripy crab leg, I at least consumed the pillbug itself, and my acid saliva could melt down the otherwise inedible chitin that composed the remains of the stripy crustacean part.
Kilotrix, oddly enough, did not get upset at me attempting to fill my stomach. Instead, a thoughtful expression crossed his face.
A moment later, I'm being led down into a sewer.