Page 5 of Soliv Four
“Crap! I guess I should have read that contract better.”
“My parents should have,” said Jazee.
“It must be profitable for them to transport us through space. The ship alone must have cost a fortune,” Jazee said.
“It’s humanoid trafficking,” Angie grumbled. “With Earth’s overpopulation and deteriorating ecosystems, it’s no wonder so many women are taking alien mates on other worlds. That’s why I signed up. I lost my job, and I was about to be evicted from my apartment with nowhere to go except indigent housing.”
“My father had too many daughters. He could only afford a dowry for three of us. I am the fourth daughter,” Jazee said. “He and my mother thought Many Worlds Matchmaking Service would find me a good mate, so he signed the necessary contract. But now, I don’t know what will happen to me.”
“I am afraid to guess. At least if we land someplace, we might have a chance to escape.”
“Or perhaps if we become someone’s sex slave, they will at least treat us kindly.”
“We can only hope,” said Angie. “I have to say these accommodations suck.”
All identical, the cells were about five feet by seven feet with a bare floor and a drain in the center. The toilet sink combo had a bidet attachment and no toilet paper.
“Do they even give us a blanket or a pillow?”
Jazee laughed, a sweet musical sound. “Nope. This is it, and wait until you taste the food. It’s either a bland paste you eat with your fingers or dry crunchy nuggets.”
“Sounds like dog food,” Angie muttered with a frown.
“You mean pet food?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“Well, you better eat it or get punished.”
“With that wand, they all carry?”
Jazee nodded.
“Is the food really awful?
“Just bland and boring.”
“Good to know.”
As the journey went on, Angie began to think the indigent housing didn’t sound so bad. The women were treated like livestock rather than sentient beings. Given just two meals a day, the first was a bowl of mush that was just a little too thick to drink from the metal bowl.
Angie was right about the nuggets they were served for the second meal. It even looked like dry dog food. She couldn’t say if it tasted the same; she had never tried dog food. None of it tasted bad; it just wasn’t good. But she never refused to eat it, not after she saw what the pain stick did to that woman who tried to escape.
The journey seemed endless, with nothing to do but chat with her across the hall neighbors. After the first couple of days, Angie started doing all the exercises she could remember and do in the tiny cell. With no idea of what was waiting at the end of her journey, she wasn’t just going to lay around and feel sorry for herself.
Sometimes she would sing while she marched in place or danced. She wasn’t a great singer, but she could carry a tune. Certain songs in her repertoire would encourage other women on her block to join her.
Other times, Angie would sit on the floor with her legs crossed and meditate to center herself to face whatever lay ahead. She couldn’t change what had happened or control what was going to happen next. She could only control herself, and she meant to survive whatever it took.
Angie moaned sleepily as the alarm sounded while lights blinked on and off in her cell. She was naked on the floor in front of the toilet. She opened her eyes, steeling herself for what came next. Cold water rained down on her from the ceiling for about a minute, then came the foam cleaner followed by a cold rinse.
She stood up as the first drops hit her so she could shield her face from the cleansing foam. Another endless day had begun. She had lost count of how many it had been.
After showers and first meal, an auto-cart came down the corridor shoving bundles through the meal slot in each cell on Angie’s side of the aisle. “You will dress and prepare for evacuation,” the disembodied voice came over the audio system in the cell block.
Two pieces of clothing dropped to the floor. There was a tunic top made from two rectangles of boring gray material with openings for head and arms and a pair of boxer shorts with a stretch waistband of the same color. It wouldn’t make a fashion statement, but she wouldn’t be naked.
Angie hardly dared to think of what might come next. She suppressed the urge to pace the cell and decided to sit against the wall and meditate to calm her nerves. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out.
