CHAPTER TEN

Kade

M y master was in a foul mood when he came out of the colonel’s office. I had never led a mission before, but I could imagine that having two deaths on your shoulders would be a terrible responsibility to have. Had the colonel taken it out on my master? While my loyalty and obedience were firmly tied to him, I was well aware that the rest of the world had its own sense of order and hierarchy. Not wanting to make things any worse, I kept my head down and stayed quiet.

“We’re going to get some dinner, then I’ll get you some clean clothes and we can both have a shower,” my master said, leading me down a long corridor. His meeting had taken a long time, and it was starting to get dark outside.

The corridor opened into a large hall, filled with rows of tables, many of them already crowded with people, and there was a counter at one end similar to the one that had been in the Honbasha base. But this one was longer, with a larger selection of foods available. “The military provides food for all of its staff while they’re on base,” my master explained, as we joined the end of the queue. “You can have pretty much anything you like.” When we reached the near end of the counter, he picked up a flat tray and handed it to me, then took one for himself.

“I haven’t had a chance to look up what sort of food you should have,” he said, his gaze wandering over the counters. “Is there anything in particular you can’t eat? Anything you’re allergic to, maybe?”

I shook my head. “No, sir. Vangravians have a very robust digestive system. I should be able to eat almost anything that you can. It’s one of the things that makes us so well adapted to being sent to different planets.”

His jaw tightened at that, and his frown deepened a fraction. What I had said displeased him. But very quickly, he brightened again. “Okay, well, that makes things nice and easy.” It wasn’t the first time he’d brushed an issue aside after I’d displeased him. He’d done the same when he’d asked me to call him by his name. He’d changed his mind before I could find a solution to the conundrum, but the idea had plagued me for days. Every time I addressed him, I was displeasing him. I’d been delighted when he’d finally found something else for me to call him, something that didn’t violate my training, but also fitted into his culture.

But why would he be upset that I could eat his style of food?

“Is there any kind of food you particularly like?” he asked next.

That stumped me, and I was embarrassed at the way I stood there staring blankly at him. I didn’t understand the question. “I am here to serve your desires,” I replied eventually, falling back on the firmly ingrained truths of my training. “I would be happy to eat whatever you provide.”

He nodded slowly, and I knew that somehow, I hadn’t answered the question properly. But I didn’t understand what he wanted to know.

“I know that you’re very keen to provide me with what I want,” he said, slowly and carefully. “But I want to know what you want. What do you like? What do you enjoy? What makes you happy?”

I had to smile at that last part. “Pleasing my master makes me happy,” I told him.

His optimistic expression faded, and my smile dropped. I had said the wrong thing again. I didn’t understand what he wanted. I didn’t understand what point he was trying to make. But I was not to question my master. If I couldn’t learn to do what he wanted, then I didn’t deserve any kind of pleasure or reward. I would have to work on that.

It had been simpler out in the jungle. Pleasing him had been so much easier out there. I stood quietly, waiting for him to tell me what I was allowed to eat. Or perhaps to tell me that I was no longer allowed anything.

He took a slow breath and turned away from me. “I would recommend the camel stew,” he said, facing the counter. “It’s actually a lot better than its reputation would suggest. Do you like bread?”

“Yes, sir,” I replied simply. I’d eaten a variety of different types of bread, and though I found it unremarkable as a food, I also had no objections to it. Not that I would tell my master that I disliked the food he gave me. But in this case, the happy coincidence was that my approval was actually true.

My master asked the man behind the counter for two bowls of camel stew and two bread rolls. He handed me one of each, then a bowl of what seemed to be some kind of chopped vegetable. Curious, I sniffed it. It smelled sweet, and I deduced that it was probably fruit. I wasn’t familiar with the fruits or vegetables on this planet, but I’d learned to eat almost anything, no matter how unpalatable, and this fruit smelled pleasant enough .

“Is that okay?” my master asked, seeing the attention I was giving the fruit, and I straightened quickly.

“Yes, sir,” I said. Balancing the food on my tray, I accepted the little wrapped package of eating utensils, then followed my master to a table. He chose one at the edge of the room, away from the main bulk of people. I made a note of that. Perhaps he preferred quiet and solitude to rowdy gatherings? Or small groups, as opposed to large ones?

We ate quietly, but my master seemed to be deep in thought. Every now and then he would frown, then tilt his head, as if listening to something I couldn’t hear. At one point, he broke a chunk of bread off his roll and waved it over his stew several times, as if deciding whether or not he should eat it. Finally, he looked up at me, abandoning his meal for the moment.

“Earlier today,” he began, “I told you that it’s fairly uncommon for a human to buy a dimari. Did that information concern you at all?”

I thought back to the conversation on the transporter. “No, sir,” I replied. “Given that I was not taught anything about humans during my training, that seems to make sense.”

“Uh huh. Right. Good.” He took another bite of food, chewing slowly. I hesitated, then resumed my meal, uncertain as to whether he wanted to continue the conversation. After a minute or two, he spoke again.

“You’ve seen the problems that can occur here because the Rendol system is on the fringe of Alliance space. So your combat skills are very interesting to me. And that was one of the main reasons I bought you. But I didn’t give a great deal of thought to what other skills you have. And I don’t know much about what your training process was.” He was speaking slowly, pausing between each phrase, as if to emphasise their importance. I paid close attention to him in response. “So over the next few weeks, I’m probably going to ask you a few questions about your training, or about what sorts of things I should be providing for you. And… well, first of all, would I be correct in assuming that you’ve been taught not to ask for things?”

“Yes, sir,” I replied. A dimari did not ask for things to fulfil their own needs. To do so was rude and self-serving. I was here to serve my master.

“So this creates a bit of a problem,” he said. “Because I don’t know all the things that you need, and you have been trained not to ask for them.”

He seemed to be waiting for a reply. So I said, “I am here to serve you, sir. I will be content with whatever you see fit to provide.” This time, I knew what he wanted me to tell him. I understood the question. But my training strictly forbade me from saying it. And somehow, it also forbade me from explaining that to him. I was here to serve my master. That was all.

“I suppose what I’m trying to say,” he went on, “is that I’m going to be asking you some odd sorts of questions, and most of them are because I’m trying to understand more about you. None of these questions are meant to imply that you’ve done anything wrong, or that I’m not happy with you. I have been very impressed with the way you handled yourself on our mission, and if I have any problems with your work, I will tell you plainly, rather than making vague insinuations and hoping you guess what I want.”

I was surprised by the relief I felt at his gentle announcement. I felt my shoulders relax, releasing a tension I hadn’t realised I was holding. Well, that certainly removed some of the burden of trying to adapt to his culture and expectations. And then I completely surprised myself by blurting out, “I would be very happy to receive any instructions you have on how to perform my duties.” Holy heck, I’d basically just begged him to give me some guidance on what I was supposed to be doing here. I was already supposed to know that! I may as well have just painted a sign on my face that read ‘Help me, I’m lost!’

My master was watching me closely, and I avoided his gaze out of embarrassment. But when I risked a quick peek at his face, I was surprised to find that he seemed… happy? Intrigued? Even satisfied, maybe? I hadn’t displeased him. I’d said something inappropriate, but he wasn’t upset about it. How very odd.

Once we’d finished eating, my master led me down a series of hallways into a different part of the base. We stopped at a small reception desk, where a short, furry creature with four legs and two arms was propped up on a wide stool. “Evening Lieutenant,” she greeted my master. “What can I do for you?”

“I have a guest for the night,” he said, gesturing to me. “Is there a spare room we can allocate him to? As close to mine as possible? And I was hoping I could get a uniform for him. He’s not on the staff here, but we’ve been trekking through the jungle for days and we’re both filthy.”

“Of course,” the woman chirped. “Let me have a look… Oh! You’re in luck. There’s a room right next to yours that’s empty. I’ll assign it to… What’s your name, sweetie?”

“Kade,” I replied.

She tapped something into her console. “Kade…?”

“Hill,” my master answered her implicit question, and it didn’t escape my notice that he had just given me a part of his name. There were presumably some unspoken cultural requirements at play here, and I was grateful that my master was navigating them for me, but… He’d given me his name! I was Kade Hill. I could hardly imagine a more obvious or more public announcement that I belonged to him. My heart skipped a beat, joy and desire warring inside me as I wanted to plaster myself to his side and grin like a lunatic.

Instead, I stood calmly, waiting patiently while the woman finished tapping at her console. She asked me to press my hand against a panel, which glowed and then beeped, and I assumed it was a biometric scanner of some sort. Then she hopped down off the stool to go and fetch a clean uniform. She looked me up and down when she got back, and I felt a little taken aback at being so frankly appraised by someone who was only slightly taller than my knee. “Lieutenant, you’re a size fifty-two, correct?” she asked, craning her neck back to look up at us, and my master nodded. “I got Kade a fifty-four. He’s a little taller than you, but not by much. Hopefully that should fit. And there’s a hygiene kit there as well. Soap, toothpaste, all that sort of stuff,” she said to me, holding out the bundle.

I took it, thanking her, then my master led me down yet more hallways, until we came to a stop in front of one particular door. There was some kind of symbol on it, but I couldn’t read it.

“This is your room,” my master announced. “You open the door by putting your hand here.” He indicated the glass panel beside the door. I did so, and the door slid open, revealing a small, sparse room that contained a single bed, a nightstand and a dresser. That was it. I was suddenly glad he’d already told me he had a villa elsewhere in the city. Living out of this gloomy little room for the rest of my life would have been… daunting.

“My room is that one,” he said, pointing to the one to the left. “And the bathroom is across the hall. You can take a shower, then get some sleep. I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted. I’ll come and get you in the morning when it’s time for breakfast. Do you have any questions?”

“Are there any regulations as to where I should keep my weapons?” I asked. I’d noticed that my master had returned his to a locker when we’d arrived at this base, and it seemed an important enough detail to bother him with it.

He flinched, as if he’d forgotten I had them. “Either keep them in your room with the door locked, or on your person. I’ll have to talk to Henderson tomorrow about what we’re going to do longer term. Anything else?”

“No, sir.” I headed into my room while he went to his own, and set my pack in a corner. I carefully removed each of my knives, cleaning the few that had been used recently, then stowing them in the case in my pack. I had a spare set of clothes in there as well – the same regulation grey as what I was wearing – but that set was also dirty, as I’d changed clothes midway through our jungle trek. I was grateful to have a clean set to wear, and I assumed that my master would let me know in the morning where and how I should do some laundry.

By the time I headed into the shower, my master was already finishing up, a pair of soft-looking pants on his legs and his head buried in a towel as he rubbed his hair. I set my things on a bench and headed into a stall, and by the time I emerged, he was gone .

Although he’d said he would collect me in the morning, I was anticipating finding him waiting in my room after my shower. Expecting us both to get clean first was pragmatic, but given his repeated praise of my work and his public claiming of me, the next event for the evening seemed entirely obvious. He would want to have sex with me. That was what I had been taught to expect, and I was actually a little surprised that it hadn’t happened already.

But then again, trekking through the jungle and camping with three other people around was perhaps not the most appropriate place for it. I knew that some masters were willing to share their dimari with other men, but since I hadn’t been trained as an erotic companion, it was more likely that my master would want to keep me to himself.

I was thrumming with anticipation as I gathered my dirty clothes and crossed the hall back to my bedroom. My master was a gorgeous man, and I’d spent plenty of time during our evenings in the jungle watching with surreptitious glances as he sat and stared at the fire. His intense focus was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen, and I could hardly wait to have his whole attention fixed on me. Would he take me fast or slow? Rough or gentle? On the bed? Or bent over the dresser? Or up against the wall?

I opened the door, having assumed that my master would have access to my room, since he owned me, and stepped into… an empty room.

I looked around stupidly, like he could have been hiding behind the non-existent wardrobe. I ducked my head back out into the hallway, wondering if perhaps he was waiting out there, if maybe he couldn’t unlock the door after all. But the hallway was also empty.

I turned back to my empty room, feeling a cold chill settle in my bones. Why wasn’t he here? Did he not want me? I had expected…

No, not expected . I didn’t have the right to expect anything from my master. Any kind of sexual pleasure or release was entirely at his discretion, and I wouldn’t dream of asking for or expecting such a gift. But I had anticipated my role in responding to his desires, in being available for his use of me. He’d been so emphatic about being pleased with me.

So why was my room empty?

Did he expect me to go into his room? But that was impossible. That would be tantamount to asking for sex, which was something an obedient dimari would never, ever do.

I need you to explain to me why you’re rejecting me, I wanted to say to him. I want to understand what I did wrong.

Humans did not understand the way dimari worked, I reminded myself. My master had said as much. But if he did not understand, and I could not explain, how were we ever going to make this work?