Betrayed (Hidden Worlds Book 1) Page 8

  Tentatively, I held them up. As I suspected, it was a pair of the trousers I'd seen the other girls wearing, and their construction was as I surmised. Two entirely separate leg pieces fell from the waistband, and the seam was open all the way from the middle of the belly to the small of the back. The broad waistband was one piece all around, and this was the only place the trousers were closed. Tentatively I slipped my legs down into the garment. The waistband was wide but firm, made of some stretchy substance, and when I'd pulled the garment all the way up, the band closed around my waist tightly, almost cinching me. From the waistband the legs fell, their soft woven fabric against my skin. As I stood completely upright, the crotch closed on its own almost totally, but I knew the moment I bent forward or spread my legs apart whatsoever, even to take a step, the seam would open slightly. And, from watching the girls in the classroom being punished, I knew just how far the seam could be parted, if someone wished to.

  And it seemed that they did wish to, all too often. The specter of the punished girls haunted me, all the images I'd seen combining into one horrifying impression. I'd seen the round bottoms, starting out so white, their colored tattoos brilliant against the pale skin, exposed high and vulnerable through the widely-parted trousers, the obediently spread thighs, with the completely shaved sexes, all delicate and dusky, visible between them. And then the horror: the cruelly-splatting leather causing the slightly divided cheeks to go from white to pink to red astonishingly quickly while legs kicked and spread frantically. Such punishments were terribly routine, I suspected; witness the number of girls with bared bottoms showing red in just the one stroll we'd taken through the hallways of this building. And I remembered the Matron in the office and her comment to the soldiers, that the girls we'd seen punished would be "spanked again… sent to bed on a hot bottom." Certain misbehavior merited two such punishments, apparently. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that if I were kept prisoner here for long enough, I would someday be punished in the same way. Their very clothing seemed designed to enable such torturing to happen very quickly. Even though the tunic's front and back flaps, which fell to my knees, covered me completely, I still felt open and naked.

  The Head Matron was holding out a square white cloth, and I realized that it was a white version of the black head cloth she and all the other Matron's wore. "We're going out onto the street, missy. Get your head covered, if ye please." Clumsily, I tried to wrap the rough cloth around my head, but couldn't see how to get mine to look like hers. Finally, her hands harsh and impatient, she folded the cloth in half, to form a triangle, then wrapped the front across my forehead in a tight band. After turning the cloth at an angle so it framed my face, she brought it down the sides of my face, then tied it at the back of my neck and tucked in the trailing edge of the triangle. Then the woman handed me a pair of lightweight shoes, with thin rubbery soles and soft black fabric tops. They buckled shut, like shoes I'd seen in historical costume books. My fingers were clumsy on the unfamiliar fastener, but finally I managed to thread the end of the tab through and buckle it.

  We walked back out into the waiting area. A girl sat, her covered head bowed, and as she raised her face, I was astonished to see that it was Christy. We were now garbed identically, and I realized that this act had ominous overtones. In a very significant way, we had already been assimilated into their society. I inferred that this white garb was the uniform, the costume, perhaps, of the young women who were no longer considered children, but were also unmarried. Supporting that conclusion was the poster that Christy was sitting directly under: the two "brides caught in mischief" were both wearing brightly colored tunics and trousers. I wondered briefly why our heads were covered, when none of the other girls we'd seen here had covered heads, and then I noticed that the brides in the poster had uncovered heads as well, while the women we'd seen on the street all wore the headgear. That's what the Head Matron had said: "We're going out onto the street." Perhaps the custom was to wear it only when out in public.

  But such speculation was short-lived. Christy was pulled to her feet by Jancy and we were hustled out, down the same corridor we'd been brought before. We clutched together for comfort, and Christy rested her tear-streaked face on my shoulder. Was she feeling the same things I was: the anus still itchy and a little sore from the penetration, the swollen, plumped clitoris, the irritated nipples? My whole body was throbbing with rawness, and I was intensely conscious of parts of my body I really wanted simply to ignore. From Christy's face and the stiff way she held herself, I judged she felt exactly the same.

  It appeared as if there had been a change of classes, as none of the girls we'd seen displaying punished bottoms were still in the hall, although we heard cracks and shrieks coming from behind one closed door, sounds that were now obvious to us. We reached the office, and the Head Matron looked around and sighed heavily. Where there had been two of the white-garbed girls waiting before, now there were six. We were now, I realized, absolutely identical to them, right down to the black cloth shoes. The only difference was that we wore headgear. Not one of them even glanced at us, very different from the slack-jawed expressions I'd seen on literally hundreds of faces as we'd walked through the open park on the way in here.

  The Head Matron's voice rose, heavy with exasperated irritation. "Six of you? What, has a devil gotten into the whole place? I've no time now to be giving switching after switching," she turned to fix us coldly, "or running out to Rohan because he can't be handling his own problems." She threw her hands up in frustration. "Well, the six of ye can just come back tomorrow, and spend your night thinking about the mischief that brought ye here and the red bottoms I'll be giving ye come morning." I found myself almost bowled over as the six girls, muttering, "Yes, Matron, yes, Matron," made a stiff-legged dash for the door, obviously moving as quickly as propriety allowed.

  The soldiers watched them go, chuckling condescendingly, and even the Head Matron managed a rueful shake of the head. "Maybe," she snorted, "they're thinking it'll be forgotten." She turned back to look at us. "One thing's certain. Rohan's not forgetting about the two of you."

  An hour later, we sat together in a small chamber in a part of the palace that was separate from where we'd been before. This seemed to be more of private area, for children's voices could be heard, and a bowl of fruit and pitcher of water sat out on a plain table. The stone walls were hung with bright pictures that were worked with material, and the floor was covered with a rug very similar to the antique orientals we'd owned on Earth.

  The Head Matron and Jancy had disappeared the moment we were situated in the chamber, and we were guarded by the two young soldiers. They eyed us with almost friendly curiosity from time to time, but didn't seem to be particularly interested in our behavior. We were free to chat, move around the chamber, even take some of the fruit. They stood quietly, at ease, near the chamber door, talking of personal matters, friends and their duties.

  After only a few seconds of hushed discussion with Christy, it was obvious she'd come to conclusions similar to mine. "It was intentional, Jen." She paced away from me nervously. "I think… I don't know, but this might have been directed at me."

  "What do you mean, directed at you? I don't understand."

  Christy put her head down against the window frame wearily, but I could tell she was seeing nothing of the court below. "About a year ago, I saw something that I shouldn't have. But you got to remember, Jen, before you think I'm a total idiot, that I saw only part of this thing, and the part that I saw, I only read once, and, well, it was very confusing…"

  I looked at her, mystified, yet feeling a cold sick feeling begin to grow in my stomach. "What are you talking about?"

  Her voice hushed, she continued. "I was in the office of my superior, Judia Contin. I'd had an appointment to talk about my next assignment, and I was there pretty much on time. She wasn't there when I got there, and the door was open, so I went it. She was very delayed, and finally I started to think I'd made some sort of mist
ake. So I went to her term to log-on to the Locator system, to see where she was. When her screen came up, I was able to see what she had on her term." She licked her lips nervously. "It was a document of some sort… a memorandum discussing some of the problems Unit had had introducing observers into certain societies on some of the colonies. I didn't mean to read it… but once I started, of course, who could stop?"

  She sighed heavily and turned from the window to meet my gaze square on. Since I was sitting on a small chair only a meter or so away, her voice was low, but in spite of the subdued tone, her emotion conveyed clearly. "Apparently, in a few colonies, where male observers had been killed, they'd introduced females… as slaves. Initially, the women were volunteers, and they'd been trained, prepared…" I could see her throat work as she swallowed hard. "It was supposed to be secret, but they found that some of the women had told their friends or their families before they went. Then, apparently, a couple of the women were killed, and Unit tried to cover it up, because they thought the families didn't know anything about the projects. So I guess that had caused some problems… I don't know, it wasn't very specific about this. Then there was the comment that a new system was needed, and there were a few suggestions." She licked her lips nervously. "Jen, one of the suggestions was that the women used be `cold.' That was the word they used, I'm sure of it: cold."

  "Cold? What?"

  "Well, at that second Judia walked in, and I didn't get a chance to read anymore… or reread any of it. I didn't know what it meant." She sighed. "Jen, you just got to believe me. I read it one time, very fast, and there was a lot of stuff in it I didn't understand… names of planets I'd never heard of… where I didn't think we even had colonies… all kinds of things. The part about the women being `cold,' well, it was just one more thing in a document where I didn't understand most of it anyway. But now," she looked at me flatly, "I think I understand it."

  I finished the thought for her, all blood draining from my face. "It means just… left, doesn't it? Abandoned untrained. Just like we were." I quite nearly could not force my mouth to shape more words, but breathing heavily I managed to ask, "What happened with Judia? What did she say? Did she know you'd read it?"

  "At the time, I wasn't sure. But I was stuttering and tripping all over myself explaining how I was just getting on the Locator." Christy shook her head. "No one ever said anything to me, and I managed to convince myself that she never realized. Hell, by the next day, I was convinced that maybe I'd read it wrong… or that it was some sort of archived document… something they were thinking about doing a hundred years ago, and Judia was just doing research." Her face very vulnerable, she looked up at me. "It could have been, you know. She could have just been doing research."

  The sick feeling in my stomach had grown to the point that I felt close to vomiting. "But she wasn't, was she?"

  "Obviously not. She must have realized I'd read it. And when they needed another 'volunteer,' guess who got chosen? They had to get me out of the way, because they knew that if any other Unit women had some sort of 'accidents' out on missions, I might talk."

  "Particularly when those missions were to unsecured planets," I said coldly. "But Christy, why didn't you suspect? When you were slotted in at the last minute like that… when we talked on the ship and I told you that I'd been slotted in at the last minute, too… when Turner sent us away? Christ, why didn't you do something?" My voice was rising, and I could see the two soldiers glance towards us, their faces darkening slightly. With an effort I controlled myself. "I'm sorry, I'm not really blaming you. It's just that, I don't know, it seems so…" I groped for another, more tactful word, and failed, finally blurting out exactly what I was thinking: "…stupid." My voice was low, a harsh whisper, as I continued. "Why didn't you suspect?" I repeated.

  She shrugged wearily. "I just couldn't accept it, couldn't believe that Unit would really do this. You've got to realize, Jen, that after I read that thing, at first, I was scared, really scared. But then, when days, then weeks, then months went by, and no one said anything, I began to think I really had read it wrong, or it was something historical. I really started to believe that the reason no one had said anything or done anything to me was because no one cared that I'd read it." She shook her head. "And remember, I'd said that some other women had disappeared and that there'd been trouble with the families? Well, I realized I'd never heard of anything like that. So, I started to think that that was further proof that this whole thing was ancient.

  "Then, when I was slotted in to this run, initially, how could I be suspicious? I mean," she shrugged, "I'm Unit, and really, where do Unit exploratory teams usually go? To unsecured planets. If they're secured, we don't handle it. Patrol does. The only suspicious thing from my perspective was that it was so last minute. It wasn't until I realized you'd been slotted in only hours before depart, too, and seemed so uninformed, that I started to get scared. But I still wasn't sure… I kept saying, 'Well, if one more suspicious thing happens, then I'll know.' And suspicious things kept happening and every time I'd say the same thing: 'If one more thing…'" Her voice trailed off. "But I never once thought they'd just take off and leave us."

  "But what about me, Christy? Why me? I didn't read any mystery documents."

  She shrugged. "Who knows? Have you ever been in trouble?"

  "Of course not," I snapped, but then I stopped. There had been something, years ago. When I was at the Uneversity, I'd taken a class on the history on the colonization, and, with the brashness of extreme youth, I'd written a paper critical of it, questioning the ethics and morality, not of the colonization itself… everyone knew that was completely necessary, but of denying the colonies basic medical and social assistance.

  My professor, another young woman, had taken me aside and quietly counseled me not to write any more papers like that one. Astonished, I'd asked her why.

  "I really like you, Jen. You're a good student, and, well, I probably shouldn't even mention this, but I've heard rumors that sometimes, just sometimes, people who write papers like this… just… disappear."

  "How can a person disappear?" I'd snorted. I'd never heard anything so ridiculous.

  She'd shrugged, seemingly unperturbed by my rejection of her advice. "Take it for what it's worth, Jen. I teach in a sensitive area, and I'm telling you I've heard of it. Every single paper turned in in my class is reviewed. Did you know that?"

  "Reviewed by whom?"

  "An S-I monitor."

  Everyone knew about the Sensitive Issues monitors, but I had always thought they monitored anyone who was trying to revive some of the old religions or had spoken against something fundamental, like population or hormone control. I'd shaken my head, and my skepticism must have shown in my face, because she'd just smiled a little sadly and walked away., repeating as she went: "Just take it for what it's worth."

  I'd muttered some thanks, and basically ignored her, even writing a few more papers on the same subject. Could she have been correct? Had I been marked as some sort of dissident or "troublemaker" then already? It was an extremely sobering thought, a perspective that I never thought to have about a society that I had believed to be completely egalitarian and free.

  Christy was watching my face: "What is it?"

  "I don't know. I was just thinking about what you said. Maybe some papers I wrote a long time ago…" My voice trailed off. "I don't know." Everything we'd been discussing rolled around in my head, and I found myself more confused than ever. "But Christy, I don't understand. How does this help anyone? We've been given no instructions on how to do research or what to look for or when we're to rendezvous with the ship. What good are we?"

  Her mouth dropped open cynically. "You don't get it yet, do you? We've been implanted, Jen. Our cooperation is neither necessary nor even particularly desired. We're basically little walking machines."

  I was so shocked I almost failed to breathe. "Implanted." Of course, I knew what it meant. A tiny camera had been implanted behind one of our eye
s, and a tiny listening monitor into one of our ears. Obviously, this had been done while we were in suspended on our flight to Gamma Rigel. This meant that at this very moment, high in the atmosphere above us was the Drakkon. Seated in that ship were researchers in front of vid screens. Everything we saw and everything we heard was feeding right out to them. Everything. A chill like icy needles ran up my spine.

  I'd seen replays of implant vids. They were very disorienting to watch because it was as if you were in someone's head… yet you weren't, since you couldn't feel anything they were feeling, and of course, you could not know their thoughts. But everything I'd seen and heard since I'd come onto the planet… they'd experienced right along with us.

  I remembered the horrible sight of two huge horses bearing down on us along a country lane, the humiliation of seeing Christy offered, naked bottom up to Rohan, of watching the girls being bared and punished while we looked on in the classroom. I flashed back to a brief, intense image of gazing back around myself, past the Head Matron who was holding my cheeks open, and watching the physician calmly rub cream onto the rod that was to penetrate my bottom. They'd seen that… all of that… and still they'd done nothing. I wanted to vomit.

  Realization hit me like a ton of bricks. They were watching this conversation. "They can see us talking, can't they?" I whispered to Christy.

  "You bet." She looked directly into my eyes and suddenly something snapped in her face. "Can't you?" she shrieked abruptly. "Can't you?" She lunged for me, grabbed my shoulders, and began shaking me. Limply, my head snapped back. "You pricks," she screamed into my face, "you fucking pricks. Get us out of here. Get us…"

  Her frantic diatribe was cut off as we were snatched apart by the two soldiers. "Ho, now. What's all this?" said the one holding a kicking, squirming Christy off the floor. She seemed to have had a complete collapse; the soldier's holding her just upset her more. She howled, her head flipping from side to side. Her legs flew everywhere, and I wondered quickly if she remembered about the trousers she was wearing. Apparently not. Even as I had the thought, a leg kicked particularly high and I, as well as the soldier holding me, got a clear view of curly hair, plump lips, and a pink, open sex.