The white-hot sun hammered down on the most enormous slave market of Jabin’s World, itself known as the greatest exporter of slaves in the Commonwealth. It seared the naked flesh of the merchandise like steak being cooked medium rare. Every breath drawn felt like fire scorching their lungs. Their manacled legs quivered and shook with exhaustion. Many pawed the metal dog collars they wore; trying to get relief from the devices that insured their obedience while it barbecued the flesh beneath. Each slave was fearful of the prick of the needle inside the collar that could bring unendurable pain or even death. The moans of the weak and the sick had to be stifled in case they offended a dealer or a passing aristocrat. A slave collapsed. The others edged away, fearful of blame. The tropical sun, however, was still the greatest danger, sucking energy, moisture, life, and color from everything. The once brilliant colors of the vendors pavilions were dusty and their potted plants had become shriveled sticks. A haze of heat, dust, and sweat obscured the distances. Buyers and sellers moved through a miasma of dread and pain in a weird slow motion.

Through the heat shimmer strode a young woman, clothed and hooded in black, her gray eyes roving the merchandise with practiced glance, annoyance visible in every step she took. Since the Commonwealth ban on hydrocarbon usage on planets, traveling across the city consumed far too much time. She hurried. She must get to the quarry before the officials could figure out her plan. The gray uniformed slave who followed at her left shoulder had pilots wings and space pilots shooting star tabs on his high-buttoned collar. The sharp peak of a visored cap shadowed his lean face and just visible beneath the hat, gray streaks accented his brown hair.

Stepping around a pile of three corpses, the woman wrinkled her straight, short nose at the stench. The darkness that lived within her threatened to rouse. Muttering inaudible curses under her breath, she paused in front of a faded blue, green and white striped pavilion, one of dozens that lined both sides of the narrow dirt street. The slave at her shoulder stepped forward and lifted the burning hot latch of the wrought iron gate. She proceeded and he shut it behind them. The coolness under the tent was almost shocking. A shiver ran through her body as the dark tried to rear its ugly head. She forced it firmly down while in the distance, a bell tinkled to announce the presence of customers. The proprietor waddled over.

“Seellia,” the woman called commandingly to a fat black man with a huge handlebar moustache.

Gravy stains marred the front of his blue, green and white-striped robe. He moved quickly toward her with startling suddenness for one so large. The whites of his eyes became very prominent as he recognized his customer.

“M-m-m-m-milady,” he croaked, how may this humble slave dealer serve you?

“Seellia,” she replied, you know me. “My requirements are just small and I am easily pleased.”

Seellia shivered in the heat and his eyes grew more terrified still.

“All I require this time are four male slaves and two female ones, and possibly a boy for training by me. Now, I need an accountant. That shouldn’t be too hard. They are always caught for fraud or double books or something. I also want someone with either engineering or construction skills. That might be rather hard, but I would even be willing to accept a final year student. The same with a physician. I know they are rare, so a final year student will be just fine. Then, I also want a gardener or landscape architect. The females will be easier. I want a cook or a chef. She must be able to do gourmet fare. Lastly, I want a housekeeper. She must be well trained, clean, and young. A born slave would be fine for that position.”

Seellia licked his lips greedily. “Milady, sit down in my chair. May my body servant bring you cool water or fresh fruit? We received a shipment just this morning from the offshore islands. The porple fruit is very nice this season.”

The woman shook her head as she seated herself in the slave traders grubby, wicker chair.

“Now, when do you think you can get the merchandise for me?”

“I cant give you an exact time milady, perhaps one day, perhaps seven. The market is large and so am I. If I don’t have what you require in my own stock, it will take some legwork on my part. Some items you request are rare. I know that in my own stock, I have an accountant, who although not young, is very qualified. He has a wife who ran a catering business. She served even the royalty of Galatia. They have a ten-year-old boy. I know you, milady, you like complete families if possible. So uncharacteristically charitable of you. Let me fetch them and you can see if you like them.”

At the woman’s nod, he lumbered out into the sweating ranks of human flesh standing row behind row, until vision failed in the distance.

The lady rose and followed Seellia. Her bodyguard followed her, grimacing at the bitter sight and sour smell of people offered for sale. Short steps from the tent, the woman stopped at a row of men. Seven of the men were not yet as burnt or severely blistered as most of the slaves around them. Fresh red bands of numbers, still swollen and not yet hardened into scar tissue marked this group. She checked the numbers on the arms of three of them against a list in her wrist comp. As the numbers were a match, she glanced at the bodyguard and nodded.

The first one she indicated was second in line. Over two meters tall, with raven black hair, he was very handsome in the aristocratic sense of the word. Dark blue eyes fringed with exceptionally long lashes glared at her from the perfect oval face of the royals and a soft, almost feminine mouth. The nose, however, made him very male, a strong, arched, narrow beak of a nose that dominated all his other features. Wide shoulders and strong bone development indicated that he had benefited from good nutrition during his childhood. Long legged and well muscled for one who was so thin, with a curling mat of dark hair covering his chest, he was slightly darker than the others around him were, but still beginning to burn, especially around the obedience collar he wore. Unslave like, he met her eyes with a belligerent stare and his body language was anything but humble.

Number three was also on her list. Suffering the most of any in his line because he was very fair skinned, with blonde hair and light blue eyes with a downward slant; she could see the beginning of serious blistering on his narrow back. He was two meters tall, slender, with long legs, long thin fingers and toes. His face however, was round and childish looking. He had a short up-turned nose, and full pouty lips. He carefully kept his eyes on the ground, sneaking a brief glance when he thought she wasn’t looking.

Number five in the line of seven was her third target. Around the same height, as starved as he was, he was burly looking. Very broad in the shoulder and narrow at the hips he looked as though he should be a wrestler. In a square-jawed face, his huge eyes were a velvety golden brown, fringed with even longer lashes than the first mans were. His nose was long, straight and masculine and the lips were thin, but well shaped. Dimples indented both cheeks, even though he was not smiling. An abundance of brown hair covered his head and most parts of his body. He gazed at her, trying to see her face under the hood. It was a look that implored.

In common, all three looked starved. With ribs and spines were prominent, they all had hollowed cheeks with dark circles under their eyes. The Lady steeled herself against a black tide of emotions as she inspected them.

“Seellia,” she called.

The slave master halted. “Milady, you should not be in the slave pickets. Please, I implore you, return to the pavilion.”

“Seellia,” she replied impatiently ignoring him, “Are these not exactly what I require?”

She pointed to the three men. Seellia blustered about consulting his wrist comp. “I don’t know. This is a new shipment. I just received it this morning. It is not yet approaching noon. I have had no time to process them. They are fresh from training school. Can’t you smell the disinfectant on them?”

“I can indeed,” she replied. Turning to the pilot she snapped, “Are those not the correct numbers, Rory?”

“Yes, milady.” These three are the ones you want.

“I’ve done my homework, Seellia. I have no patience that you haven’t done yours.”

The three men stared at the numbers branded into their upper arms.

“Seellia, fetch your accountant and chef, but unchain these for Rory. I will check them out at your pavilion.”

“This is my own merchandise. What if they bolt milady…”

She turned a gray, steel-eyed stare on him. Seellia faded to an ashy gray color.

“Yes, milady. At once, I will fetch the others.”

Seellia unchained the three she wanted, and handed a tazer prod to Rory.

“I could use the collar,” he explained beseechingly, “But that leaves them useless for days afterward.”

He shambled off between the slave pickets as the woman strode back under the shade of the pavilion and seated herself in the owners chair. She tossed back her hood and for the first time her face was fully revealed.

It was the perfect oval shape of the aristocrat; small, full of confidence and intelligence, but with a shadow of sorrow about the mouth and eyes. Her skin was perfect, pale porcelain, lips slender, rosy and well shaped. She had very large eyes, gray with dark rings about the irises and the midnight lashes brushed her cheekbones when she blinked her eyes. Her nose was small and straight. Her raven black hair spun indigo and violet highlights, even in the shade of the pavilion. It fell bluntly to her collarbone. Although reaching only to the slaves armpits, she carried an aura of power about her. The bulky robes she wore revealed nothing of the body beneath. At first sight, slave number two gasped and pulled back. She smiled a tiny smile, a mere quirk of the outside of the lips.

“Do you know me?” she asked the man with the sun-bleached hair.

“No milady, I thought you were someone else.” he replied staring desperately at the floor.

“Who did you think I was?”

“I prefer not to answer, milady.”

“You are a slave, and I prefer to know who you thought I was. Am I clear?”

“Yes maam.” He hesitated, clearing his throat. “I thought you were the royal they call Lady Death.”

A wide smile of pure delight spread across the woman’s face. The slave hung his head, shivering. The other two looked alarmed.

“Look at me!” she commanded. “Do you have a name?”

“We have no more names, milady, only numbers,” he replied extending his branded left arm.

“I am not good with numbers. Tell me your name before you were a number. Just a first name will do.”

His voice trembled as he replied, “William.”

“Very well, I shall call you Willy or Will. If you prefer I could use Billy.”

“Will would be fine.”

“Will, do you know why I am called Lady Death?”

“Because you wiped all animal life off three worlds, two of which had sentient beings.”

“That is correct, except all three worlds had sentients on them. A fine lesson to keep always on my good side. I am now restoring the third world. The other two are once again thriving ecosystems, which I own, of course, but good living worlds nonetheless. I am repairing the third. Therefore, you see, I correct my mistakes.”

“But what about the people that died?” he questioned, greatly daring.

She frowned, the great black tide tugging at her mind and replied, “Two were extremely warlike. I saved their genetic material and can recreate them, without the warlike tendencies. They will work for me one day. However, I want to talk about your medical training. How far did you go before they took you for unpaid bills?”

Will answered Lady Death and the interview continued. Then she interviewed the engineer with the beautiful eyes and the aristocratic looking black-haired gardener. Seellia came puffing up just as she had finished.

“Consider these three sold Seellia.”

“But I haven’t even put them up for auction yet; maybe I can get more for them.”

“Seellia, do I have to sneeze on you?” she asked in a voice like the steel in her eyes. “Besides, when did I ever cheat you?”

Seellia dropped to his knees. “No, no milady. Just as you say, just as you say. Take them as a gift. Just please don’t do that to me.”

“Thank you Seellia, I accept your generous gift. I trust you will pad the bill for the others sufficiently that you wont go out of business. Now I want clothes for them. They are scorched enough. Find clothes for all I am buying as well. Moreover, the clothing had better be free too. I will interview these two.”

Lady Death turned her attention to the three Seellia had brought her. The man looked to be in his fifties, small and shrunken and so thin every joint was a lump joining twigs. The woman was taller than he was by a little, in her middle thirties, brown-haired and dried up. Her breasts sagged like empty plastic sacks, matching the bags under her hazel eyes. Her mouth was determined and somehow proud. Behind her was an emaciated boy, thinner even than his father was. He looked hardly able to stand.

The lady asked a few perfunctory questions which the couple answered. She knew it didn’t matter what the answers were, she was going to buy them. She knew that the minute she saw the child.

Damn Seellia, she thought as she asked the woman, “Is this your only child?”

“It is now milady. I had a daughter, five years old when we were arrested; two years ago now. They raped and murdered her before our eyes. Even serving you, Lady Death, is preferable to watching my son starve to death. Please, I beg you, buy us from this hellhole!”

The woman had fallen to her bony knees and her face was in the dirt. The man had his hand on her arm to restrain her.

“Your name is Kaarl and your wife’s name is Aninya and I’ll call your son Dani. I don’t like to use numbers for my slaves, even if it is the custom.”

Aninya burst into tears, a downpour of relief and hope.

Seellia came puffing up with some ragged canvas shorts and six much abused tee shirts, so old that their colors were obscure. At Lady Deaths nod, he tossed them at the slaves.

“This family will be adequate Seellia. How about the housekeeper?”

Seellia jerked his head and his body servant prodded three young women into the pavilion. One, a redhead, was so blistered that her back was nothing but suppurating flesh, crawling with maggots. The smell of rotting flesh was worse than the slaughter yard. Flies buzzed around them.

“Oh, Seellia, how dare you!” whispered the Lady. “You presume on my mercy and compassion to buy your ruined merchandise. I don’t want your sick and enfeebled. Give me the bill of sale for these six. You will get no more from me today.”

Hurriedly jostling the three girls out, Seellia implored favor, but to no avail. The Lady transferred the funds, took the receipts and collar codes in hard copy, and stormed from the tent chased by the past. Rory followed with the prod aimed at the new slaves.

Lady Death rushed down the aisles and left the slave markets swiftly behind. She needed desperately to put the sight, sounds, and smells of the foul place behind her.

Milady, you should not go so fast in this heat. Your cloak will be unable to compensate. Nor can these slaves, in their weakened condition keep up with you! called the uniformed slave.

She slowed and allowed her slaves to catch up to her.

“Thank you Rory,” the Lady said looking closely at her purchases. “I had to get out of there. Those girls... she gagged, but I think these are in need of feeding. Noon is approaching rapidly as well.”

Slave market at her back, she led her entourage into the labyrinth of the city. Streets twisted away on every side, enclosed by two and three story buildings, usually adobe, but a few of the more well to do could afford brick. Not a blade of grass or tree existed anywhere in the city’s poor section. Piles of steaming dung were scattered up and down the streets, left by the altered dromedaries, used as beasts of burden on the planet. Slaves pulled masters in rickshaws at their best speed in the heat, while the freedmen and slaves bustled through every open space. The bawling of the animals and clang of the bicycles as the freedmen traveled on their business made talking nearly impossible.

She turned aside to an inn that catered to both owners and slaves. Stopping just inside the door, the slaves behind her surreptitiously wiped the sweat from their brows. The inn was immaculately clean and tidy, with wholesome odors of cooking food that were mouth-watering. She could smell savory soup and a roast of some sort as well as baking bread. The babble of voices and the clink of silverware ceased as the patrons turned to stare at her. She flipped back her hood, smiling at the looks of fear on the faces of the freedmen who were dining on the main floor. A fat innkeeper came bustling up to her, wiping his hands on his spotless apron.

“Let me escort you to the royals section milady,” the innkeeper murmured anxiously.

“First, I wish to arrange for my slaves, six, and a boy as you see. I want good soup; I doubt their stomachs will take anything heavy. No gruel. Rory, you check it out before I pay for it. I want many vegetables and plenty of meat in it. One bowl for each and a heel of fresh bread. Then fresh milk, one glass each, two for the child.”

The eyes of the slaves, except Rory, widened at her generous order. It was more than any of them had eaten at one meal since their enslavement. Aninya began to cry again. The innkeeper nodded and gestured to a serving girl to take the slaves to the back, but Rory hesitated.

“Milady, you’ll have no bodyguard.” He glanced meaningfully around the room.

She regarded him mildly, and then sighed.

“You’re right, but I want them all to be fed and I want you to oversee so they don’t get cheated.”

The black-haired man spoke up in a cultured voice, “I can wait until the others have finished.”

“What either great courage or great foolishness you have,” replied the Lady. “Rory has privileges that others do not enjoy.”

Her eyes glinted in warning and the man bowed low in apology.

“Nevertheless,” she continued, “it is a good idea. Rory, see them started while he comes with me. Then trade places with him.”

“Yes, milady.”

Rory and the other slaves followed the serving girl, while Lady Death and her temporary bodyguard followed the innkeeper to the stairs. Up two flights to a windowed chamber looking over the city, the tables nestled beside cool sparkling fountains, divided from each other by walls of flowering greenery. She sat down beside a vigorously blooming clematis vine. The snow-white blossoms contrasted beautifully with the black marble table at which she sat.

Sighing, she stared across the city, not seeing the dingy squalor, fighting once again against the darkness that threatened to claim her mind. Silence descended on the city gradually as the inhabitants began siesta. The white-hot sky intensified until all vision was lost in the glare, the pale buildings in the distance fading into the shimmer.

The innkeeper coughed slightly. With a start, she returned her focus.

“I’ll have a green salad and some of your famous wine,” the Lady said without ever looking at the menu.

Bowing the innkeeper scurried off.

“Your name?” the Lady requested of the new bodyguard, her eyes still fixed on the city.

“My name was Padr. And I was once one of the aristocracy, as you are. I lost my life, my real life, for fighting against slavery. All the conditioning in the galaxy isn’t going to turn me into a slave!”

Lady Death looked at him, one eyebrow raised.

“I know, she said quietly. Thats why I had to buy you today. Any other master would kill you immediately, put you to the blood sports or torture you to death. So just for me, will you try to pretend that the conditioning worked, for now? I can only cover for you so much. Okay?”

Padr swallowed and looked at this woman who had been represented as the epitome of evil. He slowly inclined his head.

Just then, following the innkeeper, Rory appeared, anxiety clearly wrinkled across his features. He hurried to the Lady’s side. Padr followed the innkeepers steps back down to the stuffy slaves section.

“We might have trouble with that one. Keep an eye on him especially, Rory.”

“Yes, milady,” replied Rory, taking his stand behind her chair.

When all had eaten, after the slight fading of the noons glare, Lady Death took them through a series of narrow alleyways to a tailor. It was a shabby adobe building two stories tall. The faded lettering on the front door had at one time been red, and it creaked complainingly as Rory opened it.

Inside were two large worktables, strewn with different fabrics in a rainbow of colors. The two sidewalls had shelving from floor to ceiling, all jammed untidily with bolts of fabrics and boxes of notions. Through the heavy red velvet curtain at the rear came a three-meter tall, skeletally thin man with golden brown skin pleated over his bones. His face was wreathed in smiles, showing his toothless gums, as he greeted her effusively.

“So, Jemediah, here I am again, to stave off bankruptcy from your door.”

“Oh, milady, milady Kirbyson, you are too late, he proclaimed mournfully. Just this last month I had to sell my oldest daughter, Jemelina, to the creditors. She will just now be returning from training.”

Lady Death looked at him with horror. “Oh Jemediah! How could you?”

“Milady, you well know how prolific my wife is. Eight, eight children in fifteen years! They cost so much to feed and clothe and educate. And my business isn’t much anymore. The aristocracy mostly goes to Kemmira’s World for clothes anymore, or their slaves wear whatever the stores carry. There is no pride in a slaves appearance anymore. So few are like you who care about fit and quality, especially on their slaves.”

Lady Death looked at him with sorrow. “Yes, Jemediah, I see. I will do what I can. Rory, find which dealer has Jemelina, if she is here and available, buy her.”

Rory at once got busy on his wrist comp as Lady Death conducted her business with Jemediah.

“Each one is to have a dress uniform in my new house colors. Each of them is to have two sets of work clothes and these three are to have bodyguards clothes as well.” She indicated the three younger men.

Rory lifted his hand and nodded at her.

“I will return in one hour for the slaves, when will the uniforms be ready?” she asked.

“Two days milady,” the proprietor replied.

Lady Death swept from the room with Rory her faithful tail.

“Lady Death has a name?” inquired Padr.

“Yes, indeed,” replied Jemediah, “the Kirbysons have been coming to my family for clothing for over fifty years. I remember Lady Kirbyson as a plump little girl, climbing over my shelves, into everything, always asking questions that one. That family has kept me in business all this time, he answered as he measured an arm.”

“But what is her name?” Padr persisted. “What is Lady Deaths full name?”

“Radhya, Radhya Kirbyson. Lady Death is only what they call her to make her feel bad,” was the tailors reply.

Outside the tailor shop, a hot wind blew up, flapping the hood around Radhya’s face and obscuring her vision. The stench of the dirty clay street offended her.

She turned to Rory and asked, “were you able to locate her?”

“Milady,” Rory answered, “she is set for dawn auction, at Gullentras, a quarter of the way around the world. It begins in thirty minutes. Theres no way one of us could make it on time.”

“Contact Zantis, the Greek. Ask him to be my agent in this specific purchase. I authorize ten minas for his fee and a further one mina for every one hundred he saves me from the average price of female slaves at the auction. This should provide an interesting diversion for them, don’t you think. Go.”

Rory nodded and slipped to the vrphone on the corner. Rory entered the coffin-sized space constructed of transparent beige plastic, and inside the narrow aperture took the copper helmet attached to the booth by a wrist thick cord from a peg which was supporting it. Slipping the metal helmet over his head, he made the call. Minutes later, returning the helmet to its peg, he wriggled out of the narrow opening in the front.

“He will do his best, and if he doesn’t cheat your planets from under you, his best is very good,” Rory said nodding.

“Thank you, Rory. It is a good thing I turned down the housekeeper at Seellias. The royals would have been suspicious of such mercy, anyway. This insistence on such an unusual housekeeper will hopefully give them a red herring to chase. I will pass it off as acquiring a slave of whom I know the reputation. We have to be very careful right now.”

“Yes, milady, you must be more cautious than a cat. You are our last hope now Lord Kent is gone.”

“Well, not entirely gone,” smiled Lady Kirbyson.

In an hour, Radhya returned for her slaves. After a short walk through the dusty streets, she took Will, Padr, and the other slave called Max, into a seven story, steel, windowless building. Rory waited in the streets with the other three. He was pacing in circles with the sweat trickling in rivulets down his back, dripping off his cheekbones and running into his eyes.

Radhya and her trio entered as far as the black metal bars at the end of the entry.

Name and rank? demanded an invisible source.

“Radhya Kirbyson, owner of Radhya’s World, owner of Kirbyson’s World, owner of Pleasant, co-owner of Petra’s World, co-owner of Stephan’s World, co-owner of Sparky’s World and member of the aristocracy status number 676. I have three male slaves for bodyguard training,” she spoke.

The bars sank into the floor. A very slender, short man with silver hair and liquid brown eyes stepped around the corner. His enormously curved drooping nose ruined his otherwise handsome oval face. The lips were thin and pulled down at the corners and he had a large chin for a royal with a circular dimple in the middle. He was dressed in red from head to toe, a body-hugging uniform, complete with high red boots. His wrist comp was a large size and he carried a whip in his right hand.

“Well, well, my little Radhya. Finally, taking my advice and getting yourself some protection?”

He lifted her chin with his whip.

“You especially cant be too careful. Many people are afraid of you, and thats always dangerous.”

“Indeed, my Lord Barone. I haven’t been able to get our last conversation from my mind. So, I had to buy some more men in order to still your voice warning me of danger.”

“Good. But why these three?” Lord Barone asked inspecting the slaves. The men stared at the dull metal floor, shuffling their feet uneasily.

“They are all tall, and don’t appear to have suffered too much starvation. They should bulk up well in your machines. Moreover, see, I chose those two on the width of the shoulders as you told me to.”

Barone nodded looking pleased. “I see you were listening to me after all. I didn’t think you were at the time. Super deluxe training course?”

“If thats your recommendation, milord.”

“It is. Too many of us skimp on that now. They take just the basic. Even the deluxe course isn’t as effective as the super deluxe. All my own guards have it. However, it’s three weeks instead of two. Any objections? he asked watching her closely.”

“Not at all milord. I have brief business on Kentucky. Then I will return for them before I go home.” Lady Kirbyson replied.

“Good.”

Lord Barone escorted his customers through a maze of metal corridors to a series of cubicles the size of coffins. There each man stripped and was hooked to the machine, their bodies entirely obscured by wires.

Catheters were inserted and an I.V. line put into their arms as a form-fitting metal helmet covered each face in turn and they were pushed backwards into their sarcophagus. A metal door descended and the training was begun.

“Now I just have to get your holographic image for the indoctrination sequence.”

“I want a three week auto-destruct on that sequence. You’ll not be selling my image to my enemies so they can zero in on me,” Radhya said.

“Very good,” replied Lord Noel Barone. You have been learning, haven’t you? What about a little fun sequence, just you and me?” he asked as he slipped his hand suggestively beneath her arm, caressing her breast on the way.

Radhya stopped dead. “Noel, I do business with you, business, not fun. I don’t appreciate your proposition.”

He removed his unwelcome hand.

He said stiffly, “I warn you Radhya; people are talking about you. If you want the distaff side thats fine, but when you want neither, people talk, and people don’t like different. I try and I try to be your friend, but if you keep rejecting me, you are making trouble for yourself. Jabin himself mentioned you to me the other day.”

Blood running icy cold, Radhya said in a conciliatory tone of voice, “Noel, I appreciate your friendship, I really do, but I cant concentrate on relationships, even just for sex, right now. Once I finish building my worlds, then I’ll be able to think of other things. Then Im going to retire, have fun, have a family. Why do you think I called my last world Pleasant? But for now, all I can think of is my work.”

“Just my luck to be attracted to a workaholic,” muttered Lord Barone. “Okay, lets get this over.”

Safely back on the street, Radhya looked at Rory.

“That man gets oilier and sleazier every time I meet him. I feel unclean. Did Zantis procure Jemelina?”

Rory nodded.

She continued, “They are there for three weeks so well go to Kentucky and get our stock and pick the men up on the way home. First though, well get Jemelina.”

Radhya shuddered at the thought of re-entering the training building in three weeks.

Steam was drifting slowly from the body of the dual ship Arrow, making lazy patterns in the air. The sleek double delta-winged spacecraft settled like a crouching tiger between the larger ships in the spaceport. Descending the metal stair, Radhya, Rory at her left shoulder, hurried across the steaming asphalt of the spaceport.

Turning right, they passed the tall metal gates into the city of Gullentra. She shook her head in weariness. Rory unobtrusively touched her elbow. She shook her head again.

Zantis, a very tall robust man with a full dark beard, strode forward out of the mist leading two naked, terrified slaves by chains attached to the collars around their necks. The girl was seventeen, slender but with a stunning figure. She had waist-length auburn hair; cornflower blue eyes and full red lips. Her oval face was dismayed and she appeared totally stunned and disoriented. Behind her followed a bulky man, very big, close to two and a half meters tall. With his brown hair, skin and eyes he was as repulsively ugly as the girl was beautiful. His nose had obviously been broken several times and never properly set. One ear was a ruined mess on the side of his head, and his face was asymmetrical with an odd shape, rounded on one side and flat on the other. He stared at the ground in proper slave fashion.

Radhya looked questioningly at Zantis, the slave trader.

“I am sorry, milady. Corvo was selling them only as a pair. There was no way I could purchase the girl without her husband. I did save you five hundred minas off the average price for husband and wife couples, mostly because of his ugliness.”

Radhya sighed. “Well done Zantis. You have earned your bonus. I guess I can always use another bodyguard.”

Rory escorted the Lady and two new purchases through the spaceport gates and back to the Arrow.

“Back to Jabin’s city Rory, please.”

Night had fallen as Radhya, Rory, and the new slave, Dave, approached the tall steel building for the second time that day. Once again, she entered and faced the bars. This time Lord Barone appeared instantly.

“What is this? Two visits in one day. You must have reconsidered my offer,” he muttered, a smarmy smile plastered his face.

“Lord Barone I have another candidate for your excellent training. It seems Zantis, the Greek, double-crossed me to double his fee, the snake. I ordered this girl as a housekeeper. I knew her from before as a hard working, trustworthy creature. When I showed up to get her, why, here is this hulk with her. Oh, they were selling them as husband and wife. Now Im stuck with this. Can you do anything with it?”

Lord Barone looked at the huge young man with narrowed eyes.

“Yes, Ill train him up the same as the others. You can go. I already have your image.”

“Thank you milord Barone,” said Radhya bowing low.