They all nodded with understanding and sympathy. Margie looked down at her hands, hoping to look as forlorn as possible. She whispered, “I hear that it’s better to be sold to a Federation officer than to…to a trader. Is that true?’
The male next to her asked, in a voice so low it was barely audible. “Are you being sold?”
She swallowed hard. The fear came back. Her hands actually shook, but it was because she was afraid they would know what she was really doing, trying to open a conversation that was forbidden. “I don’t know. I am trying really hard to please him so that doesn’t happen, but I am terribly afraid that he will sell me to recoup the credits, that he may find the credits more attractive than me.”
The green female said, “It happens. And yes, The Federation officers can be better, but it depends on which you gain as your owner.”
“And that applies to every owner,” the male whispered. “Speak no ill of The Federation.”
They all went silent. Dammit. That was not working at all. Jeval had hoped she would get some pillow talk, but it seemed that all of the slaves were too afraid to speak much at all.
She sighed inwardly. The green female leaned in close and whispered, right into her ear, “He speaks the truth. No matter what, never speak of them or what they do or want or ask for. They hold all, as you know, and we are less than motes of dust in their eyes.”
That went for all things, and not just slaves, but Margie doubted that that would make much of a difference to the slaves she huddled with.
The green woman asked, “That’s your owner?”
She let her eyes flicker to Jeval. Her heart fluttered, and her pulse raced. Her inner temperature spiked and spilled juices into her panties. “Yeah. Who’s yours?’
The green female let her eyes move across the room to a vividly green male with a strip of long hair tied up into a high knot at the crown of his skull. “He is, Ruckland…” the green female gulped. She averted her face and Margie knew that the pride that had made her use her master’s name had gotten the best of the female. She was clearly not supposed to say his name; it was probably some kind of rule, Margie guessed, and she glanced around quickly to see that the other slaves weren’t paying attention at all. They were busy gathering themselves up and going toward the stage that had been set up because, as predicted, the beings there nearest it were screaming for slaves to entertain them.
Jeval strode over, tugged at her hair briefly, and walked toward the door that led out of the Hall. She scrambled to her feet and went after him; following at the distance she knew would make it look like she was following a master and not a fellow spy.
They entered the chamber, and he drew her close, his mouth next to her ear like the green woman’s had been moments before. “Learn anything?”
She shook her head. He whispered, “I did. We have to get out of here and now. The Federation is on its way; looking to do a roundup of those they call fugitives and traitors.”
Panic settled in. “Why isn’t everyone running then?”
“Because they don’t know. I walked into the mind of a being not far from where I sat and found out that he is a Federation officer working undercover, looking for a being called Ruckland.”
She stiffened. “I know who he is.”
He grinned at her. “Then you learned something after all. Come with me; we need to get him out of here.”
“Why?”
“Because if Federation wants him, he must know something they don’t want him to talk about.”
That made sense but what made more sense was getting the hell out of there as fast as possible. Talon had earned a pardon from The Federation after that fight with the Gorlites, and only because the universe had been watching and they could have done nothing else, but the rest of the brothers had not been given amnesty.
Jeval was an outlaw, and he had a bounty on his head and a death warrant with his name on it sitting in every Federation Intel bank in the universe. He couldn’t be caught up in a sweep.
“We can’t take the time for that, not if that is going to happen soon.”
“I need him. Come on, let’s go.”
They headed back toward the Hall even though it was the last thing she wanted to do and the last place she wanted to go. She spotted the green-skinned female and whispered, “She’s his slave. That’s him over there; see the one with skin her color and the big gold hoops in his ears?’
Jeval moved. She tripped along beside him, her head down low and her eyes on her feet. Worry kept her emotions weaving between a raging desire to get the hell out of there as fast as possible and an equal desire to get to the creature Jeval said they needed and get whatever he had that the Fed wanted from him if possible.
More than anything else, though, she was scared that Jeval would get caught and captured, sent to some Fed hellhole where he would be tortured or worse and then killed.
Jeval moved close to the creature known as Ruckland and muttered, “See the human there with the brown hair? The one with the gold tunic?’
The creature muttered, in a voice pitched low enough not to be heard over the pounding music. “The Fed spy? Yes, why?”
“He’s looking for you, and he has corps on the way. A massive fleet. They are going to try to capture you under the cover of doing a sweep.”
