Page 1 of Accounting for Taste

Chapter One

Reem felt the coldair with a chemical tang.It smelled like every hospital she had ever walked through.Well, she thought it did.Her memory was a little fuzzy.

She was on her back, and it felt weird because she never slept on her back.She sat up, and a series of alarms sounded, necessitating an orange being rushing toward her to silence them.Reem remained completely still as she tried to figure out what kind of hallucinogen had been put into her coffee.

“Oh, dear.You are the first of your kind with the procedure to wake.Your kind do not take kindly to the implant.”The words weren’t English, but Reem understood, which confused her.

Reem asked, “Where am I?”

“Experimental station.So many of your people were close to death that it was decided we could try and bring you back with implants.You lost a chunk of your skull and the brain behind it, so we put an implant in to improve recall and cognition.Your mind is functioning well, and if you can eat, you will be on your way to the blind auction.”

“Blind?”

“Your skills are all that is being marketed.We noted that you have scar tissue where your gestation organ would have been.So you aren’t of use as a breeder, but you do have an astonishing intellect, so you will be an information processor on some world.There is always a market for it.”

Reem carefully reached up and found a metal band wrapping around her skull.“Oh my god.What happened?”

The orange woman in scrubs said, “What do you remember?”

“Storms.So many storms.There was always debris flying through the air.”

“Do you know why there were storms?”

Reem tried to think, and her head ached, but she found it.“Asteroid.The Earth died.”

The orange woman smiled.“Excellent.Yes.We are adjacent to the space station that attends natural disasters and retrains the survivors for the worlds that need extra personnel.The survivors are trained, given a minimum bond that they will have to earn out, and put up for auction.If the auction price is more than the minimum bid, the bond servant will still have to earn out the amount, but with one notable exception, the bond is five to ten years, and then you are free to pursue citizenship and live your life.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad.”

“Yours is set for a three-year value.”

“Okay.”

“You are older.It would be unfair to confine you to a position when you have less time to seek out a world for retirement.”

“Oh.Thank you.It’s nice to know that my being past my prime carries on into space.”

The orange medic smiled, showing needle-sharp teeth.“Your active availability is put at twenty years, so the bidders will take that into consideration.”

Reem nodded slowly, still coming to grips with the smooth band that wrapped around her skull from behind, from temple to temple.“Do you know what happened?”

“Why don’t you check your med records and tell me?”The woman smiled again.

Reem blinked and thought about the medical records.Her mind began to play a vid of someone being pushed into the space, lying on its stomach with a large chunk of metal protruding from the back of her skull.“Oh, that would do it.”

The medic grinned.“You saw?”

“I saw.I stopped when you were about to pull the slab of metal out of my skull.”

“Excellent.Come with me, and we will test your eating.”

Reem looked down and saw that she was wearing a grey set of pyjamas in a crisp fabric that still felt soft.She was wearing slippers as well.

She turned and dangled her legs off the edge of the medical bed and then eased herself to the floor.“How long have I been out?”

“Six days.The first bond auction of your species was just held.”

“What about the blind auction for me?”

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