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his freedom.
Once again, he had stayed because of Calla. His stomach turned as he realized
how foolish they had been; Calla had been fearful, terrified that they would
be caught and killed.
He realized now that death was far from the worst fate a slave could suffer.
Moving through the passage, he counted down the vents until he reached the one
that opened on the hostel. With a flash of triumph, he discovered it was still
loose. The vent cover was supposed to be firmly welded directly to the
station, making it impossible for a man without sophisticated tools to open
it. The welds on this one had been broken for decades, but he had been half
afraid the Saurellians would have noticed and fixed it.
Keeping quiet, he pushed the grill open and lowered it to the floor. He
slithered out of the vent into the room
. Dank and dusty as ever
, he thought with satisfaction. Nobody was coming in and out of here
regularly.
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He crept across the floor and listened carefully at the door. Outside was
silence. Unless things had changed significantly, everyone would have been
asleep for hours. Calla would be in the kitchen, her pallet laid out with
those of the other women. For the first time he realized Calla might
not be the only slave who wanted to leave. His gut twisted. It would
endanger them all if he brought too many back with him to the ship, but he
didn't have a choice. If his fellow slaves wanted to leave, he would help
them.
It was the only right thing to do.
Walking down the hall, he looked carefully at each door, trying to determine
if anyone was awake. Jenner's office was open, although there was no light
inside. He'd never seen it left open like that before; she really was gone. It
was hard to imagine in some ways. Jenner had always seemed like a force of
nature to him, immovable and certainly unstoppable. Yet she had left for the
first time in years. Was it really a business trip, or had the Saurellians
frightened her that much?
He kept moving until he reached the kitchen. Fortunately, Calla always slept
closest to the door because she had to go to the fresher at least once every
night. He'd teased her about it mercilessly as a teenager. He eased the door
open, eyes searching the dimly lit room. Things were different, he realized.
Most of his life there had been four or five women who slept here, all slaves.
Now there was only one. Calla? No, whoever this was, she was smaller than
Calla.
Her body was completely covered by the blanket, a nicer one than he'd
remembered having when he'd lived with Jenner. What had happened, where was
everyone? And how was he going to find his sister?
He would have to wake the woman up and ask. It was likely that
he knew her. He doubted that Jenner would have bought another slave
so quickly; the old bitch was notoriously tight with her cash. He walked
carefully over to the sleeping woman and knelt silently beside her. Her hair
was a soft gold, familiar to him it. It was Hari, the kitchen girl.
They had been slaves together for more than a decade. She would never betray
him, he thought in relief.
He touched her shoulder softly, shaking her and whispering her name.
"Hari, wake up," he said. She muttered something, and tried to roll over. He
had to hold in a laugh. Some things never changed. Hari had always
been the last one up in the morning, and grumpy for hours afterwards.
"Wake up," he repeated, and she opened her eyes.
"What is it?" she asked sleepily, brushing her hair out of her eyes. "I'm
sleeping. Jess, is that you?"
She sat bolt upright, looking at him with wide eyes.
"Yes," he replied, unable to keep from smiling at her. She seemed so young.
They were nearly the same age, but now he felt like he was centuries older.
Life had been so easy here, he thought longingly. He hadn't known what
suffering wasÉ
"What are you doing here? We all thought you would be dead by now!" She
gasped, flinging herself into his arms. "Oh, I can't believe this. We have to
go tell the others that you're alive."
"Shhhh,"
he said. "No, we have to be quiet. I can't be caught here."
"No, everything has changed!" she said. "Oh, Jess, you're safe here
now. Jenner's gone."
"I know," he said. "But that hardly makes us safe, Hari."
"Oh, no, it does!" she said. "We're free now, Jess! All of us! The Saurellians
wanted to keep using the hostel but they didn't want to manage it, so they
turned it over to us and we're running it for them now. It's wonderful."
He shook his head, unable to understand what she was saying. The
Saurellians had freed Jenner's slaves?
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"Where's Calla?" he asked. Her face changed abruptly, and she looked away.
"I think we should wake Karin up," she said suddenly, referring to the head
cook. Jess narrowed his eyes.
"No, I want to hear where Calla is," he said, gripping her shoulders firmly.
She tried to turn away from him, and he shook her shoulders roughly. She
whimpered. "Where is Calla?"
"Jess, she's dead," Hari said quietly. Jess suddenly felt dizzy, and shook his
head.
"What did you say?" he demanded.
"She's dead, Jess," Hari whispered miserably. "It happened right after Jenner
sold you to the miners. She disappeared that night, and a few weeks later they
found her tracking implant in the recycling plant."
Jess shook his head, unwilling to believe what she was telling him. Calla
couldn't be dead. She was a sister, his other half. He had overcome
incredible odds to rescue her.
What Hari was telling him was impossible. He refused to accept it.
"Jess, I'm so sorry," Hari said miserably. "We never did figure out what
happened. We thought maybe she tried to escape, and got picked up by somebody
down at the port. You know what can happen to a woman alone down there."
Jess tried not to listen to her, but reality was sinking in against his will.
He was all too aware of what could happen to a woman alone. Or a even a man
alone, if he didn't know what he was about. There were certain areas of the
port where predators lurked. They were the very same kinds of places that
might attract a young woman trying to escape her owner, he thought
desperately.
It wasn't uncommon to find bodies in the station's recycling pits, either. Or
rather, parts of bodies. Her tracking implant was probably the only
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