Maryam Read online

  Maryam’s sur­prise was real. “Oh my gosh. Kalquo­ri­ans were in­volved?”

  “It’s not been ver­i­fied, but in all the miss­ing cases, Kalquo­rian ships had re­cently left those ar­eas. I get a bad feel­ing to see that de­stroyer sit­ting out there, with you here.” He frowned and glanced back at the shop­ping level’s con­course through the open door.

  “I’ll alert se­cu­rity if I feel threat­ened in any way.”

  “You do that. Thanks for the gin­ger­snaps and blan­ket. My sis­ter will love this.”

  Cap­tain Miller left, a pur­pose­ful stride re­plac­ing his saunter. Maryam stared af­ter him, mus­ing over his warn­ing.

  Though Kalquo­rian ships had docked at Pelk in the past, Maryam had only seen the aliens at a dis­tance, at least un­til Briel and her clan had shown up. Shops cater­ing to their species were at the op­po­site end from Maryam’s store. With the ex­cep­tion of Briel’s in­ter­est in the baby items, Kalquo­ri­ans had no mo­tive to shop for Earther tastes in snacks, sou­venirs, or clothes.

  Even when no Earth­ers were present on Pelk, Maryam had known not to go near the aliens her gov­ern­ment spoke so of­ten against. More im­por­tantly, she knew bet­ter than to give Earth any cause to sus­pect her of ques­tion­able acts, whether the men she en­coun­tered were Kalquo­rian or not.

  Her mother’s ex­e­cu­tion so long ago had taught Maryam not to give any hint of wrong­do­ing.

  * * * *

  The cur­tains hang­ing in the open­ing of the al­cove Der­gan hid in that late evening were usu­ally parted to show a dis­play of high-priced elec­tron­ics, avail­able for sale at a nearby shop. Since the niche sup­plied an ex­cel­lent view of the store Maryam worked in, Der­gan had closed the drapes, ex­cept for a thin slit through which he could ob­serve with­out be­ing ob­served.

  He scowled as mem­bers of the Earther space fleet wan­dered the eight open lev­els of the sta­tion he could see from his hid­ing place. The sec­tion was a cylin­der, with the cen­tral space open and each floor vis­i­ble from the ground level to the roof. Tube-shaped el­e­va­tors rose and fell in the mid­dle, with each level’s cor­ri­dors fan­ning out like spokes from the cen­ter.

  Check­ing with the Solns in charge had con­firmed the de­stroyer-sized Earther as­sault craft had made an un­sched­uled stop at Pelk, di­vert­ing from its usual route to do so. Ob­serv­ing ten­sion when Kalquo­ri­ans and Earth­ers crossed paths ver­i­fied his fears—the sit­u­a­tion had been brought on by the sud­den dis­ap­pear­ances of Earther women who lived off their home planet. Hands were set­tled too damned close to blasters on both species’ ac­counts, is­su­ing word­less warn­ings. With only a cou­ple of knives se­creted on his per­son, Der­gan felt naked in the face of such ag­gres­sion.

  The as­sault ship’s sud­den ap­pear­ance had done more than put the vis­it­ing Kalquo­rian de­stroyer’s crew on edge. It had forced Kels’s hand in the mat­ter of Maryam. In or­der to se­cure her, time was of the essence. There’d be no bar­gain­ing or bribery, no op­por­tu­nity to per­suade her to come with them. Ei­ther she’d im­me­di­ately say yes, or Der­gan would have to com­mit an un­palat­able act of cru­elty.

  His mis­giv­ings fell away as Maryam locked and left the store, re­placed by laser­like fo­cus. He watched as she walked to the in­ter­sta­tion trans­port tube. Her steps were pur­pose­ful, the an­kle-length skirt of her blue dress swish­ing around her legs. She walked as if she had an ap­point­ment and was in dan­ger of be­ing late, her gaze trained for­ward. She didn’t daw­dle or glance around even once. Der­gan won­dered if she al­ways hur­ried to her quar­ters in such a fash­ion or if the Earther crew had put her on guard. Or was it the Kalquo­ri­ans who made her de­ter­mined to reach home in a quick man­ner?

  Guilt was heavy in his gut. She had good rea­son to fear his peo­ple. Him, in par­tic­u­lar. He had his or­ders, how­ever, plus the weight of Kalquor’s des­per­a­tion. The em­pire’s need was far greater than the fu­ture plans of a sin­gle woman, no mat­ter how kindly she’d treated his Matara.

  Brush­ing aside the no­tion that a sin­gle per­son’s free­dom shouldn’t be tossed aside for any ex­cuse, Der­gan pulled on duty as he would an ar­mored form­suit. Clar­ity re­turned, at least for the mo­ment.

  Der­gan spied on Maryam as she en­tered the trans­port. It trav­eled up five lev­els to the res­i­den­tial floor. She got out, head­ing into the cor­ri­dor near­est to the el­e­va­tor car. Sec­onds later, she was out of the Nobek’s sight.

  He noted two uni­formed Earth­ers on that level emerge from their own cur­tained al­cove. They hur­ried to the cor­ri­dor and halted, look­ing down its length. Der­gan wasn’t the only man spy­ing on Maryam.

  Keep­ing an eye on the Earth­ers, Der­gan pulled out his com. With­out hav­ing to look, he clicked it to a fa­mil­iar fre­quency.

  * * * *

  Maryam hummed to her­self as she spooned quinoa into a bowl, then heaped it with grilled veg­eta­bles. A ship­ment had ar­rived that af­ter­noon from Earth. Though she en­joyed alien fare, it was al­ways a de­light to eat dishes she was fa­mil­iar with.

  She took her din­ner from the tiny kitch­enette to the sit­ting area and sank onto the lounger. She thought about putting mu­sic on. Her sur­round­ings were quiet with­out bub­bly Briel to keep her com­pany dur­ing her meal. Funny how a week’s worth of friend­ship changed her out­look. Maryam was lonely for the first time in a long while.

  Her door an­nounce went off, and Maryam dared to hope the Kalquo­rian woman—with­out her clan­mates—had dropped by. “Yes?”

  The gruff voice an­swer­ing de­stroyed all an­tic­i­pa­tion. “Se­cu­rity of­fi­cers from the as­sault ship Cho­sen. You’re or­dered to open the door and sub­mit to a search.”

  Maryam’s heart jumped in her throat. She set her bowl on the ta­ble. “Com­ing.”

  She’d no sooner stood when the door beeped and opened. Two black-uni­formed men burst in, blasters drawn.

  “Hey! I said I was com­ing.” She was too an­gry to pay heed to their weapons. That changed when the taller of the pair pointed his blaster at her.

  “Sit down. Don’t move. We’re here to search for ev­i­dence you’ve been en­ter­tain­ing men.”

  She had no choice but to com­ply. With a dis­grun­tled huff, she flopped down and watched the pair take her liv­ing space apart.

  They yanked her projects off shelves and kicked piles of blan­kets all over the floor. The shorter of­fi­cer swept ev­ery­thing off the ta­ble in front of her, in­clud­ing her din­ner. Quinoa and veg­eta­bles flew over her hand­i­work, the sauce stain­ing lov­ingly sewn pil­lows.

  “What is wrong with you? There’s no rea­son for a search to be so ex­ces­sive.”

  She should have kept her mouth shut. At her protest, the pair shoved her ta­ble over, then both the chairs. They smirked at her.

  “Any other com­plaints?”

  Her pulse pounded in her tem­ples, but Maryam said noth­ing else. No doubt if she did, their next step would be to smash break­ables and rip her projects apart.

  She’d en­dured searches be­fore, but they’d been cur­sory, lit­tle more than mi­nor ir­ri­ta­tions. This was down­right hate­ful. She tried to re­mem­ber what she might have said to make Cap­tain Miller or­der such abuse. When she came up with noth­ing, she de­cided that for all his smiles, maybe Cap­tain Miller wasn’t such a nice guy af­ter all.

  She hoped his sis­ter de­spised the blan­ket he’d bought de­spite the hours of work she’d put into it.

  One of the asshats knocked a glass bowl from the kitch­enette’s counter to the floor. When it didn’t shat­ter, Maryam was tempted to cor­rect that by smash­ing it over their skulls.

  Keep cool. It’ll be over in a few min­utes. They’ll be gone in a few days. I don’t have to put up with half the crap that hap­pens o
n Earth, so I can deal with this.

  “Room’s clear. Move on to the next.”

  They headed to­ward the bath­room, full of bot­tles of toi­letries for them to break. Maryam was forc­ing her­self to breathe deep in readi­ness when both their coms blared an alert.

  “At­ten­tion all per­son­nel on the sta­tion. Re­port to the sec­ond level Olosna Cantina to con­tain Kalquo­rian ag­gres­sion against our crew. Re­peat, re­port to the—”

  The rest was cut off by the pair run­ning out of Maryam’s quar­ters and the door shut­ting be­hind them. Maryam jumped up and locked the door. She turned to stare at the mess of her apart­ment.

  “I hope the Kalquo­ri­ans kick your asses.” It would be bet­ter if those Kalquo­ri­ans were Kels, Pana, and Der­gan. The thought brought a nasty smile to her face.

  It didn’t calm her anger, how­ever. At least be­ing fu­ri­ous leant her en­ergy to clean. Mut­ter­ing un­der her breath, she picked up the tum­bled fur­ni­ture and spilled food.

  She read­ied to scrub the stained projects her quinoa bowl had been dumped on when her vis­i­tor an­nounce went off. Maryam lev­eled a livid glare at the en­trance, but what could she do? Pelk Sta­tion al­lowed home planet ju­ris­dic­tion over its res­i­dents.

  “En­ter!” she shouted, un­able to con­tain her im­po­tent rage.

  In­stead of ar­ro­gant Earther se­cu­rity, Briel walked in. She gasped as she stared at the chaos of the apart­ment. Be­fore Maryam could re­act, her friend rushed over and grabbed her in a hug.

  “This is hor­ri­ble! Were you robbed? Are you all right?”

  Maryam pat­ted her friend’s back be­fore ex­tri­cat­ing her­self. “It would seem Earth takes ex­cep­tion to our friend­ship.”

  Briel looked around again. Draw­ing a breath, her ex­pres­sion of­fended, she picked up Maryam’s teddy bear. “Ass­holes. I’ll have Der­gan rip their heads off for this.”

  Maryam had big­ger con­cerns. “You need to go, Briel. If they re­turn and find you here, I’m afraid of what might hap­pen. I doubt they’d hurt you, but they’d no doubt be nasty. We don’t want a blowup be­tween our peo­ple.” Though she gath­ered from the alert that had drawn off her tor­men­tors, a blowup of some sort had al­ready oc­curred.

  As she at­tempted to tug Briel to the exit, the Kalquo­rian re­sisted. “That’s lu­di­crous. This sit­u­a­tion is un­bear­able. You shouldn’t have to put up with it.”

  “I have no choice. We must say good­bye now. Please take care of your­self.”

  Briel planted her feet in­stead. Her tone took on a wheedling tim­bre. “Come with me.”

  “Where, to your suite? Those se­cu­rity guards from Earth would re­ally be my best buds if I hung out with your clan­mates. That’ll win me lots of friends back home.”

  “Come with me to Kalquor. You can meet a nice clan. Our med­i­cal ex­per­tise is sec­ond to none. You could have ba­bies, Maryam.”

  Her words made Maryam’s stom­ach churn. She could have screamed at the false hope Briel of­fered. Yet the other woman meant well. She was gen­uinely up­set on Maryam’s be­half.

  “Thank you for the sug­ges­tion, Briel, but you re­ally have to go now. Take care of your­self, okay?”

  “I’m not jok­ing. This propo­si­tion is real. Please come with me.”

  “I can’t. It’s im­pos­si­ble. Be­sides, chil­dren are not in my des­tiny.”

  “You don’t know that for sure. My peo­ple can give you the chance.”

  Maryam wasn’t sure whether to hug Briel or slug her. Both were equally tempt­ing, so she stood with her arms stiff at her sides, hands curled into fists. “I’ve built a life here. Maybe it’s not much, but it’s okay.”

  “Maryam—”

  “Good­bye, Briel.” She stepped close to the door, trig­ger­ing it to open. Grim-faced Kels and Der­gan stood on the other side, fill­ing the open­ing. Maryam jerked back and nearly fell, but Der­gan’s hand shot out and grabbed her, steady­ing her.

  “What’s her an­swer?” Kels de­manded, look­ing past Maryam to Briel.

  “She said no, but my Dramok, I don’t think—”

  “We have no choice. My apolo­gies, Matara Maryam.”

  His hand flashed out. Mo­men­tary pres­sure pushed against the side of Maryam’s neck. Then the room tilted, turned, so that she faced her trashed apart­ment again, look­ing at the cry­ing Briel who hugged Maryam’s teddy bear to her chest.

  She was aware of arms hold­ing her, but the sen­sa­tion was grow­ing dis­tant. Maryam was los­ing con­scious­ness. Had Kels drugged her? Her gaze re­mained locked on Briel, dis­be­lief grow­ing fuzzy as her vi­sion edged into black­ness.

  “Why?” she man­aged to croak as her knees un­hinged.

  She saw Briel bury her tear-streaked face against the stuffed an­i­mal an in­stant be­fore fad­ing into dark­ness.

  Chap­ter Five

  Maryam’s eyes opened. She stared at the un­fa­mil­iar gray ceil­ing over her head, reg­is­tered the un­fa­mil­iar soft­ness of the mat­tress be­neath her, the cooler-than-usual tem­per­a­ture of her sur­round­ings.

  This was not her apart­ment.

  She lifted her head and blinked at her sur­round­ings. The bed she lay on was huge, big enough to ac­com­mo­date a fam­ily of six, with cream-col­ored sheets and a black com­forter. In stark con­trast, the room was tiny, with tight walk­ways on each side and at the foot of the sleep­ing sur­face. The only other fur­nish­ings were shelves. Fa­mil­iar toi­letries lined those; sham­poo, soap, and other items that had once taken up space in Maryam’s bath­room on Pelk. On oth­ers, she rec­og­nized cloth­ing from her closet, neatly folded.

  She’d no sooner thought, where am I? when the mem­ory of Der­gan and Kels loom­ing be­fore her re­turned. Briel beg­ging her to go to Kalquor with her. Had she been ab­ducted?

  Maryam jerked to a sit­ting po­si­tion, fling­ing the cov­ers aside and ex­am­in­ing her­self. She still wore the clothes she’d had on when the Kalquo­ri­ans had shown up at her quar­ters. They were rum­pled, but no more so than she’d ex­pect from hav­ing slept in them. She didn’t hurt any­where—par­tic­u­larly not where a woman who’d not had sex in years might ex­pect to feel pain. Ru­mors of sex-crazed Kalquo­ri­ans ea­ger to rape were ram­pant, but it seemed she hadn’t been at­tacked in such a fash­ion.

  Her gaze went to the two closed doors in the light-pan­eled walls. The larger was three feet be­yond the foot of the bed. The other was on the right. Maryam slid off the mat­tress and crept to­ward the smaller. It opened oblig­ingly at her ap­proach, re­veal­ing a toi­let raised high enough that her toes wouldn’t touch the floor if she sat on it. It also had a small sink and a shower stall.

  She moved on to the other door. It re­fused to open. Not hope­ful about her chances in the least, she tried to or­der then force it. No dice. She was trapped.

  Briel would never let any­one hurt me. It was small com­fort, es­pe­cially when Maryam com­pared her im­pos­ing friend to her even more im­pos­ing clan­mates. Briel had cried when Kels and Der­gan at­tacked her—she hadn’t wanted them to but had ap­par­ently been help­less to stop it. Lit­tle pro­tec­tion would come from that quar­ter. When it came to es­cape, Maryam had to as­sume she was on her own.

  Was she even on the space sta­tion any­more? The quiet room wasn’t en­tirely silent; there was a soft throb of sound that was vaguely fa­mil­iar. En­gines? Was she on a ship? The idea gave her a sud­den stab of ter­ror that Cap­tain Miller had taken her pris­oner. Yet if that had been the case, he’d have hardly put her in quar­ters that, while cramped, were far more com­fort­able than a brig.

  A space shut­tle, then. That gave Maryam hope. If Clan Kels had booked pas­sage on the first avail­able shut­tle, it wouldn’t nec­es­sar­ily be Kalquo­rian. She might find help from the crew—if she could get out of the room.

 
She in­spected the space, both the sleep­ing area and the bath. She came up emp­ty­handed when it came to large ob­jects she could beat the door down with.

  Bang on it. Yell un­til some­one in­ves­ti­gates. Hope­fully, it would be the right some­one, and not her kid­nap­pers.

  Maryam was just about to do so when the door opened of its own ac­cord. She gasped and flung her­self away from Dramok Kels.

  He en­tered, and the door closed be­hind him. “Lock,” he or­dered.

  Maryam’s blood ran cold.

  How­ever, he didn’t at­tack her. In­stead, the mon­strous male bowed. “I’m sorry to have star­tled you. How do you feel? Are there any un­pleas­ant resid­ual ef­fects from the seda­tive?”

  Un­pleas­ant resid­ual ef­fects? Who was this guy kid­ding? “What’s go­ing on? Where have you taken me?”

  “You’re on a de­stroyer head­ing to Kalquor.”

  A de­stroyer, the Kalquo­rian ves­sel of war. Only Earther bat­tle­cruis­ers were guar­an­teed to out­fight such ships. There would be no sym­pa­thetic crew for Maryam to plead her case to.

  Her op­tions dwin­dling fast, she asked the only ques­tion that mat­tered. “Why?”

  Kels’s ex­pres­sion flashed guilt for an in­stant be­fore it smoothed into po­lite con­sid­er­a­tion. “Briel ex­plained to you the death sen­tence that faces us. Few fe­male chil­dren are born alive on our planet. In fact, Briel was the last fer­tile fe­male to sur­vive to adult­hood.”

  Maryam had heard sto­ries that the Kalquo­ri­ans were in dan­ger of ex­tinc­tion, and Briel had shared a few de­tails. She hadn’t re­vealed she was the youngest of the women.

  Maryam set aside a stab of pity. “That has what to do with me?”

  “We’ve dis­cov­ered your race is com­pat­i­ble with ours. Kalquo­ri­ans and Earth­ers can pro­cre­ate to­gether.”

  Maryam’s heart slammed into over­drive. The aliens wanted Earther women to carry their chil­dren. It was the only an­swer to what had hap­pened. If what Cap­tain Miller had told her was cor­rect, she was a sin­gle vic­tim in a larger con­spir­acy to col­lect breed­ing slaves.