Sholpan Read online

  The doctor turned to her again. In his hand, he carried a syringe.

  “No!” Stella cried, pulling her arms tight against her body. She scooted as far away from the doctor as she could.

  “Have no fear,” Narju cajoled her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “He only needs a blood sample. You’re doing very well.”

  The doctor stared impatiently at her with his droopy eye and false smile. Slowly, she held out her arm. As the needle burrowed into her skin, she clenched her teeth and closed her eyes. For nearly half a minute, the invasive device remained impaled in her body, until the doctor collected as much blood as he needed and pulled it out.

  When will this be over?

  As if in answer to her unspoken question, the doctor motioned for her to lie down lengthwise across the table. Stella did so slowly, careful to keep her gown from hiking up. When she was lying flat on her back, the doctor took her feet and put them in some sort of device, so that they were locked in place.

  What is he doing? she wondered with alarm. The next thing she knew, she felt a sharp pain in her ankle—the pain of an incision.

  “What are you doing to me?” she screamed in New Gaian, sitting up at once. Narju took her by the shoulders and forced her down, holding her against the table.

  “Don’t struggle,” he said. “If you struggle, the doctor might make a mistake.”

  “You told me he wouldn’t do anything!”

  Narju said nothing. Stella’s whole body shook, but she kept still as the doctor inserted something small and hard into the flesh between her Achilles tendon and the bone. He applied a thick balm to the incision, and the pain quickly faded, though she lost all feeling in her foot.

  “You lied to me,” Stella cried, staring up at Narju with tears of fright in her eyes. “You said it wouldn’t hurt.”

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “He won’t do anything more.”

  The doctor unbound her ankles and left the room. Stella swung her legs over the edge and gingerly tested her foot. It felt awkward to stand on, as if it had fallen asleep, but she could still walk.

  As she followed Narju out of the room, however, her movements were wooden and without feeling. This wasn’t a game anymore—how could it be, when the Hameji had more control over her own body than she did?

  * * * * *

  Narju returned Stella to the bathing room and had her change into new clothes—a blue knee-length skirt with a white blouse and an ornate, gold-embroidered vest. She found it a little ostentatious, but after the burlap tunic and the skimpy doctor’s gown, she was happy with whatever she could get. When she was finished, Narju once again led her out into the corridor.

  “These are your quarters,” said Narju, parting a bead curtain that covered the doorway to one of the bedrooms. “If you need anything, press the red button on the access panel. I live to serve you.”

  Stella stepped into the room, and Narju bowed and left. The beads made a light clattering noise as they fell shut. Stella could see through them to the corridor outside, giving her the feeling that she was still in a public place. The general lack of privacy unnerved her—all of the doors across the harem had been replaced by bead curtains, so that every space felt exposed to view. It was probably one of the ways the Hameji controlled them.

  She looked around the room, not sure what to think of the place. It seemed comfortable enough, if a little small. The walls were covered in light pink silks, golden tassels hanging in patterns from the ceiling. In the far left corner she saw a set of white pillows, piled at random on top of a threadbare couch. A double bunk bed jutted out from the wall on her right, while an arabesque Auriga Novan chess table stood off to her left, next to the couch.

  “Well, hello,” came a voice from the bunks.

  Stella jumped a little. It was a woman’s voice, speaking in New Gaian.

  “Hello?” Stella tentatively replied, also in New Gaian. She peered in the direction of the voice, and soon caught sight of the unknown woman lying on the upper bunk.

  She was fairly young, perhaps in her early thirties, with light blond hair that barely reached her shoulders. While she wasn’t exactly fat, she was a bit heavier than Stella had expected. She wore a fluffy blue bathrobe, tied loosely around the waist and open enough to show that she wasn’t wearing anything else. Her breasts were much larger than Stella’s, and she didn’t seem to have any qualms about letting them hang out.

  “Well, what’s your name, honey?”

  “My name?”

  “That’s right, darling. Don’t be shy.”

  “My name is Stel—I mean,” said Stella, taking a breath, “my name is Sholpan.”

  “Is that the name they gave you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sholpan. A pretty name, as far as Hameji names go.” She sat up and grinned. “My name’s Tamurin, dear, but you can call me Tamu.”

  “Is—is that what they named you?”

  “Of course, sweetheart.”

  “Are we roommates?”

  “You guessed it.” She slipped her feet over the edge of the bunk and slid to the ground. As she did so, her bathrobe fell open, completely exposing one of her enormous, pasty white breasts. Stella’s eyes widened.

  “Something the matter, dear?”

  She gestured with her eyes at the open bathrobe. Tamu laughed, and without any concern in the least, closed it—though not so tightly that it wasn’t in danger of falling open again.

  “Just a bit of flesh,” she said. “Nothing between roommates, eh? Believe me, honey, you’ll get used to it after a while. How old are you?”

  Stella took a second to recover. She hoped she never got used to letting herself hang out in that way.

  “I’m seventeen,” she said, her voice coming out as a croak.

  “So young!” Tamu shrieked, making Stella jump. “So very young. I would have guessed eighteen or nineteen. You’re quite beautiful for your age, darling.”

  “Thanks,” said Stella. She didn’t want to know whether that was a good thing.

  Tamu parted the bead curtain door and stepped outside. Still holding it open, she turned to face Stella with a hand on her hip.

  “Well, honey, are you going to stand there staring all day, or are you going to let me show you around?”

  “Oh,” said Stella, quickly stepping through. Tamu fell in step with her, and together, they walked side by side down the corridor.

  “The decor here might be a little different than what you’re used to,” said Tamu, gesturing to the kitschy silk hangings, “but it grows on you. Hi, Erdene.”

  “Hello, Tamu,” said a young, black-haired woman in a translucent green dress. She stopped in front of them. “Who’s the new girl?”

  “Name’s Sholpan. She’s my new roomie.”

  “So I gathered.” She smiled at Stella, who barely managed to return it.

  “Girl’s seventeen. Can you believe it?”

  Erdene’s jaw dropped. “No! So young?”

  “I know. Doesn’t she look mature for her age?”

  Stella squirmed a little. She didn’t like how they were talking about her as if she were an object.

  “Indeed, she does.”

  “One thing you’ve got to say about the Hameji, they sure have an eye for beauty.”

  “I know.” Erdene turned to Tamu and smiled again. “Well, I must be off.”

  “You’re looking lovely today, darling,” said Tamu, apparently in parting. She slipped her arm into Stella’s as they continued the tour.

  “The facilities are in there,” she said, pointing to a bead curtain doorway on the left.

  “Facilities?” As if in answer, the sound of flushing toilets and running water came from the other side.

  “The servants around here would probably wipe your ass if you asked them to,” Tamu continued, “but some things we can take care of ourselves, eh?”

  Tamu roared with laughter at her own joke. Stella laughed along too, more out of courtesy than anything else.
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br />   “This is the servant’s hallway,” said Tamu, pausing to open another bead curtain and show Stella the other side. The space was long, white, narrow, and completely devoid of silk hangings and golden tassels. Instead, a long counter lined one wall, complete with gray plasteel cabinets above and below. Almost a dozen white-smocked servants milled about, busy at their work. The smell of something sweet met Stella’s nose.

  “Are those food processors?” Stella asked.

  “Processors? No, darling,” said Tamu. “The Hameji synthesize all our food from some kind of chemical goop. It’s tasty enough to live off of, but believe me dear, it gets bland fast. Real fast.” She stopped abruptly. “Why? Are you hungry?”

  “No,” said Stella. She was still much too anxious to have an appetite.

  “Suit yourself, then.”

  Tamu led her through an open doorway offset with heavy drapes and into a corridor much wider than the first. They passed several servants and a couple more women, both in fluffy bathrobes like Tamu’s, though theirs were pink. Tamu greeted the women as they passed, but didn’t slow down to chat.

  “And here,” she said, leading Stella through yet another bead curtain doorway, “is the lounge.”

  Stella took one step inside and froze where she stood.

  Dozens of young, beautiful women lay sprawled out across the room on couches and piles of cushions. Some chatted in small groups, others played board games, while still others sat about idly chewing on nuts and fruit from ornate glass bowls on small end-tables. A thick, pungent smell issued from an enormous hookah in the opposite corner. Several women had clustered around the smoking device, their glassy eyes and vacant expressions evidence that they were all hopelessly drugged out.

  Stella mentally counted the women—thirty-three in total. Thirty-five counting herself and Tamu.

  “Honey, your cheeks are pure white,” said Tamu. “Is something the matter?”

  “These women,” Stella asked, “are they—are they all Qasar’s—”

  “Concubines? Why, of course.”

  Stella swallowed. “How many concubines does Qasar have?”

  Tamu paused to think. “Well, with the new additions to the harem since the last battle, almost eighty.”

  Stella’s jaw dropped. “Eighty?”

  “Of course, dear. How many did you expect him to have? Qasar is one of the Hameji’s top generals.”

  Stella slowly turned to face the room. The women around the hookah stared back at her, their eyes completely vacant

  “So—so many of them,” she stuttered.

  Tamu laughed. “Too true, dear. Though when you meet him, you’ll soon see why.”

  She winked in a knowing way that made Stella shudder.

  * * * * *

  As Stella slept that night, she dreamed that she was planetside on Kardunash IV. The bright blue sky shone through the vaulted glass ceiling of the main spaceport terminal just outside Central Dome, the planet’s capital. White marble pillars stretched up toward the clouds, giving the place a dreamlike feel. But that wasn’t what made her heart flutter.

  “Lars?”

  “Stella!”

  They both ran through the crowd toward each other, dropping their bags as they came together in a warm embrace.

  “Wow, it’s been forever—I’m so glad to see you!”

  “I’m glad to see you too. How has the apprenticeship been going?”

  He let go, and they stepped back to face each other. Stella smiled coyly and looked away.

  “Not too bad, I guess. Captain McClellan was a little hard to figure out at first, but we get along just fine right now.”

  “What about the boys? Are they treating you right?”

  Stella glanced up to read his face. Was he genuinely concerned for her, or just making small talk? From the tone of his voice, he seemed to lean more toward the former than the latter.

  “Yeah, sure. Petyr’s like a brother to me now.” She couldn’t help but notice the way he relaxed at her answer. It made her heart skip a beat.

  “So how long are you planetside?”

  “A couple of days. You?”

  “Same. Want to get a drink?”

  Stella smiled. She’d been hoping he’d ask.

  They went to a small, bustling cafe at the intersection of two of the spaceport’s major terminals. The juice bar sat in a little niche just outside of the main flow of traffic, so that the noise wasn’t nearly so bad. They took their seats at the counter and both ordered tannberry coladas. The thick, syrupy concoction was as sweet as she remembered it, with an aftertaste that made her shiver. Lars pulled out a cash datachip from his pocket and paid for them both.

  “So how was your first year out?” he asked.

  Stella paused for a moment to gather her thoughts. “A lot different than I’d expected.”

  “And what did you expect?”

  “I don’t know; nothing, I guess. But all those worlds, those strange places—like Belarius, for example. The fifth planet is on such an eccentric orbit that for more than half its year, all the surface water turns to ice. During the spring, it melts into these enormous oceans, then boils out into the atmosphere for an extremely hot summer. And people still live there!”

  Lars chuckled. “Did you visit that star?”

  “Of course not! I heard about it from the refugees. A lot of them are at AN-1, working on the mining operations. How they can stand living in a place like that, I don’t know.”

  “Maybe it reminds them of home.”

  “I suppose,” said Stella. She shifted where she sat. “It wasn’t just that, you know.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. I’ve changed a lot since I left, and that’s the weirdest thing. My family—that first month, I couldn’t stand being away from them. Couldn’t stand being away from home. But …”

  “But what?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, glancing down at her glass. “Is it wrong not to feel like you need the people you love?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like, now that I’m back again, a part of me feels restless—like I can’t wait to get away. But I know it’s wrong, because this is my family and I haven’t seen them in such a long time—”

  “Stella,” said Lars, gently cutting her off. She looked up at him, and their eyes met.

  “Yes?”

  “You shouldn’t feel guilty for wanting to strike out on your own,” he said. “It’s only natural, after all. If it weren’t, the Patriarchs would never have left Earth.”

  “I know,” she said. “But these are the people I love—the people who mean the most to me. I missed them when I was gone, but now that I’m home again, I—”

  He reached over and took her hand in his own. His touch was gentle, but it still sent a chill of anticipation down her spine.

  “You haven’t done anything wrong,” he said, looking straight at her with his deep blue eyes. “Everyone has to leave home sometime. They’ll still be there for you when you need them. You’re not abandoning anyone.”

  “I suppose not. It’s just—everything’s changing so quickly, and I’m afraid of …”

  “Afraid of what?”

  She swallowed hard, while Lars waited patiently for her to answer. She turned to face him, and everything else seemed to fade into the background.

  “Afraid of being alone,” she whispered.

  He leaned forward, so that their faces were only a few inches apart. Her breath caught in her throat, and her body grew tense. Her hand felt clammy in his, but he squeezed, and her muscles turned to water. She closed her eyes and tilted back her head as he came in for the kiss …

  … and disappeared into a quickly fading dream.

  She rolled over and blinked, the sound of clattering beads jerking her harshly awake. For a disorienting moment, she didn’t know where she was or how she’d gotten there. But slowly, the underside of Tamu’s bunk came into focus. She sat up and recognized the couch against the wall, the bead curt
ain doorway, the damnable silk wall hangings and shaggy carpet floor. An awful sinking feeling grabbed her by the stomach and threatened to pull her down into despair.

  “Milady?” came a voice—Narju’s. “Milady, I’m so very sorry to disturb you. If you would prefer to be left alone, I—”

  “No,” Stella cried, sudden loneliness threatening to tear her apart. Everything’s changing so quickly, and I’m afraid of being alone.

  Narju waited silently in the doorway. She glanced up and saw that he was holding a tray with a glass of juice and a bowl of something hot. Tendrils of steam rose in the stuffy air, and a wonderful aroma struck Stella’s nose.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “You slept in past meal time,” Narju said, shifting the tray to one hand as he set up a small stand with the other. “I thought you might be hungry.”

  Stella’s stomach growled, but she eyed him carefully. As much as she feared being alone, she didn’t dare trust one of the Hameji’s lackeys.

  “Where’s Tamu?”

  “Mistress Tamurin is currently in the lounge. Would you care to join her?”

  “No,” said Stella, shuddering as she remembered the vacant expressions on the women’s faces. The lounge was where they went to get high—to dull their senses until they were all docile. That wouldn’t be her.

  She had to get the hell out of this place.

  “What’s in this?” she asked, picking up a spoon and tentatively stirring the sludge in the bowl.

  “Only synthmeal, I’m afraid,” said Narju. “However, I added some additional flavoring that might make it more to your liking. The tannberry fruit is native to your home system, correct?”

  Stella froze. The tannberry coladas from her rapidly fading dream sprung into her mind, making her think of Lars. She swallowed her rising emotions and forced herself to forget it.

  “Yes,” she said, lifting up a spoonful. “Is there anything else in it?” Like drugs meant to pacify me?