Chapter Eleven

Sarden

I didn’t care for Count Doloroso—there was something strange about him. But I told myself he was just an odd male with a weird Assimilation obsession. What could it hurt to let him buy the medical instruments in my hold?

We made the deal, to be finalized when he came to my ship for the Assimilation equipment in a few standard hours. Though Gallana isn’t actually on a planet, it orbits around a star and its rotation is paced to mimic the thirty hour day of Femme 1, where the Empress lives. Since the day is long, it was still just mid-morning. I should still have time to find a mechanic to replace my panel after Doloroso made the pick up—I hoped, anyway.

Doloroso and I took one last drink on the deal and I left The Suck Hole, the thought of Zoe still in the back of my mind like a nagging song that won’t leave your brain.

“Call the ship,” I told Al, who had been keeping silent in his travel form during the negotiations. “Check on Zoe—make sure she’s well.”

“Don’t you wish to hear what I have found out about the local services and mechanics, Master?” he asked. “I have one you might care to visit but—”

“Not now,” I snapped, quickening my pace. “Check on Zoe.”

He was quiet for a moment, humming softly on my shoulder.

“No answer, Master,” he said at last.

“What? What do you mean, no answer?” I frowned. “She’s probably sulking because she wanted to go with me.” As if I’d bring her to a place like The Suck Hole! “She’s probably just refusing to answer.”

“No, Master—I don’t think so.” Now Al sounded worried as well—if an Artificial Life-form can be worried. “I’ve scanned her room twice now and I don’t detect a heartbeat or breathing. Either she is not there. Or…”

He didn’t finish and I didn’t need him to. I remembered Zoe’s big blue eyes, filled with tears she refused to shed last night when she’d begged me to take her home. Frozen Hells of Anor! What if she’d hurt herself in order to avoid being traded? What if she’d decided it was better to die than to live the rest of her life away from her home planet? What if she’d…?

I couldn’t let myself finish the thought. I sped up until I was almost running, drawing concerned looks from the Majoran Peace Keepers stationed in the docking area. I didn’t give a damn though—the worried feeling that had been tugging at me almost the entire time I’d been making my deal had worsened into a sick dread in the pit of my stomach. I hadn’t known the little Pure One even an entire solar week yet but somehow the idea of losing her was unbearable.

I tore into the ship, barely giving the hidden side panel door enough time to open before I was squeezing inside. As I pounded down the main corridor, I feared what I would find when I came to her room.

“Al, unlock her door,” I ordered, my boots thunk-thunk-thunking on the metal floor.

“No need, Master—it is already open. Look.”

Sure enough, as I skidded to a halt before the bedroom I had assigned to Zoe, I saw the door standing wide open. A quick look inside the room revealed no trace of her. My own door was unlocked as well but she wasn’t in there either.

“Frozen Hells of Anor!” I swore angrily, coming out into the main corridor again. “Where is she? Al—scan the rest of the ship.”

“Yes, Master. Scanning.” He hummed softly, still in his travel form on my shoulder. And that was when I heard it—over the quiet humming of Al’s processing, a faint splashing noise, like water sloshing in a tank.

And then a single, piercing scream which was cut off abruptly.

“Fuck!” I pounded down the corridor as fast as I could, feeling like my heart might burst. I didn’t know how in the Frozen Hells I’d known it or how she had gotten out of the Force-Locks and escaped her room, but my uneasy feelings had been correct—Zoe was in trouble.

The splashing sound came again from the back of the ship. But what was she splashing in? There were no personal cleansing pools located in the hold, where the sounds were coming from. So how in the hell…

Suddenly an image rose to my mind’s eye—the holo projection of the sensitivity tank Doloroso had been so eager to buy. The yellow liquid with its nest of black, writhing tentacles, the sensu-pods. “I imagine they will be quite hungry by now” he had said…

“Zoe!” I shouted, running for the door to the hold which I could now see was standing wide open, as were all the other doors along the corridor. She must have opened every one, looking for a way out. “Zoe, where are you?”

A faint splashing and the noise of liquid sloshing onto the ground was my only answer. I reached the darkened hold and started shoving my way through the medical equipment stored there, not giving a damn if I broke any of it or not. Up ahead I could see the yellowish glow of the tank and something was writhing inside it…black tentacles were whipping around like some creature from the Great Deep gone berserk.

And then I saw her—her long, red hair floating like a corona around her still face, the filthy tentacles wrapped around and around her smooth, pale skin.

It was Zoe—and she didn’t seem to be breathing.