“Please don’t be concerned,” Zeke said, watching the play of emotions across my face. “It’s just an informal chat. Nothing more challenging than that.”
A chat? The news was not reassuring. A chat about what? And why? I’d met this man scarcely twenty minutes ago.
But short of chasing after my master, there was little else I could do, so I settled myself back into the sofa, attempting to look comfortable, and sipped my tea. My eyes didn’t leave Zeke the entire time.
“I’m not sure how much Aiden has told you about me,” Zeke said, after a few moments, looking entirely relaxed as he leaned his elbow on the arm of his chair. “I’m a pilot in the Alliance military. Or I used to be a pilot, at least. I was sent on a mission a couple of years ago that went extremely badly. My crew and I were captured by a brutal species from a distant sector. We were tortured, a lot of us were killed, and I eventually managed to escape with just three of my teammates. It took us a long time to recover from it, both physically and psychologically.”
I felt myself tense as I listened to him. Death and torture were not the subjects for a ‘simple’ chat.
“A big part of my recovery was having Dax to help me. He’s a domestic servant, but I strongly suspect that his trainers didn’t really see the potential he had. He didn’t fit properly into any of their neat little boxes, and they didn’t like his attitude, so they took the easy option by training him as a domestic servant.
“But the thing is, Dax is wonderfully intelligent. He thinks outside the square. He’s persistent in getting me to do things when I’m being stubborn about it. His trainers thought he was belligerent. He’s actually just too smart to follow basic orders when he can see a better way of doing things.
“But at the same time, Dax had some significant difficulties in adapting to life on Rendol 4. Alliance culture is very different from most of the cultures the dimari are taught about, and given that we don’t buy many dimari, the Eumadians don’t see it as worthwhile to train you all in our specific cultural quirks. I’m guessing you’re wondering why Aiden brought you here today, and why you’re sitting here listening to me. He’s concerned that you’re having the same problem as a lot of dimari, in thatyou don’t quite understand the way Alliance culture works. But at the same time, a dimari can’t necessarily ask their master all the questions they have, for fear of being seen as rude or uncooperative. So first and foremost, this is an opportunity for you to ask any questions you might have, or express any concerns.”
The opportunity was presented as a kind, genial option; Zeke trying to help and my master doing me a favour by letting him. But the truth was far darker. Zeke’s dimari had a bad attitude – or at least, he had done, when he’d first arrived. I could see, even from the brief time I’d been with him, that Dax had improved dramatically, so that he now fawned over his master, as a good dimari was supposed to.
And here I was, with what would certainly be considered a bad attitude as well. So Zeke was supposed to turn me into a more cooperative dimari? I wanted to growl at the idea of being a simpering nit who got excited about the right flavour of tea.
“No, I don’t have any questions,” I answered Zeke. As far as I was concerned, Alliance culture wasn’t the problem. I understood perfectly well where I fitted in here. Kade was my master’s favourite, and I was an unfortunate spare who would only be tolerated until I’d run out of usefulness.
Zeke nodded, not pressing the issue at all. He took another sip of tea, then set his cup down. “There is something else about Dax that’s a bit unusual. You see, after I was injured, I needed someone to help look after me, but I was too distraught to make that kind of decision on my own. Most dimari are chosen by their masters out of the Eumadians’ catalogue, but I didn’t choose Dax; Henderson chose him for me. He made the best guess he could about what I would need, but it wasn’t a perfect choice. So when Dax arrived, I had no idea what to expect of him. I didn’t know what skills he had. I didn’t understand anything about his training. And I needed a lot of help with things Dax hadn’tbeen specifically trained for. Which doesn’t mean that I’m not extremely grateful for Dax’s help. But learning to work together took a bit of extra effort as a result of that.”
Zeke fell silent, and I continued watching him carefully. I couldn’t quite work out what point he was making. “That does not apply to me,” I said, in response to that last piece of news. “My master requested that I be trained in some very specific skills. It would not be a matter of simply choosing me out of a catalogue.”
“Ah, so you’re more of a custom design, are you?”
“Yes.”
“Hm. I often wonder though, if half the problem with me and Dax wasn’t just because I hadn’t chosen Dax, but because I wasn’t the sort of master he was expecting. Most domestic servants are bought by large households or small businesses, to do all the cleaning and administration and paying attention to the finances. But what Dax ended up doing was organising my medical appointments, calming me down after I’d had a nightmare and coming up with distractions to stop me from drinking. So I’m wondering-”
“My master has told you I have a bad attitude,” I cut him off, not caring that I was being rude. “He wants you to fix me for him.” Perhaps, if I stated directly why I was here, we could move past all these meaningless details and the piles of speculation. Nothing Zeke could say to me was going to fix the underlying problem that my master had bought me as an expendable piece of machinery.
Rather than snapping at me for interrupting him, Zeke sat quietly, still watching me with that calm intensity. “Is Aiden the master you expected?” he asked eventually, largely ignoring my outburst.
I opened my mouth to say yes, of course he was. He was in the military, he needed a combat specialist, and he was goingto throw me into some dangerous mission at some point in the future that he didn’t think either he or Kade could survive themselves. And whether or not I survived that mission was merely a matter of convenience.
But the words caught in my throat, as I suddenly had to consider that… Well, that my master’s behaviour over the last couple of days had been…inconsistentwith what I’d been expecting. “I… He’s…” I fumbled for the right words. “He has not yet… Did he bring me here to have sex with you?” I asked Zeke, the question tumbling out before I could think better of it.
“No, he didn’t,” Zeke said, without batting an eyelid. “I have my own dimari. I don’t need to be making use of other people’s.”
“Then I… I am confused,” I admitted. I certainly wasn’t enjoying the confession, but there was a growing list of things that simply didn’t make sense. It was a near certainty that Zeke was going to tell my master about anything I said to him today, but if it gave me a few answers about what was going on here, then it would be worth the potential backlash. “I was trained as an erotic companion. My master has not yet had sex with me. He hasn’t offered me to any of the other soldiers either. That’s not what I was expecting.”
“Uh huh. Is that the only thing that’s different from what you expected?”
He wasn’t going to offer me any insights into that side of things? I shouldn’t be surprised. Perhaps he was just waiting for a particular mission or situation. But despite the lack of answers, I decided to keep going. “He took me on a mission to rescue the crew of a damaged ship. He wouldn’t let me access dangerous parts of the ship alone. I was trained for solo missions, but he insisted that Kade go with me.”
Zeke nodded. “Yeah, he told me about that. He said Kade was injured. Which reinforces his point about it being dangerous togo alone. But you’re finding that difficult to deal with, because it’s not what you were expecting, right?”
I waited for Zeke to say something else, to explain my master’s motives or add some context that would help me understand his actions. But he merely waited. As the silence dragged on, I found myself stopping to really wonder what all this meant, for the first time since I’d arrived. I’d spent the past few days desperately trying to avoid the things I’d been trained for… but Zeke’s point so far seemed to be that those things hadn’t been happening anyway.
“How do you feel about your master?” Zeke asked me, after a few minutes had trickled by in silence.
“I… No, I don’t wish to answer that question,” I said. The honest answer was too raw and brutal, and it would likely earn me a serious punishment, even if my master only heard about it second hand.
“No, you’re right, that one was a little too intrusive. Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that. But back to our previous topic; it’s perfectly normal to take a little while to get used to one’s master. Learning what they expect from you takes time. I see that a lot with dimari on Rendol 4.
“For what it’s worth, Kade was much the same. I mean, you must have seen how much Kade loves Aiden. But it wasn’t always that way. See, Kade is a bit like Dax. He was originally trained for a particular master. He was taught some very particular skills. But then the person who was supposed to buy him was unexpectedly killed, and so Kade didn’t have a buyer. And then Aiden thought he would be an excellent choice for his work in the military here. So Aiden bought him, but once again, Aiden wasn’t exactly what Kade had been expecting in a master. It was very confusing for him. I mean, imagine how confusing it would be for you, if you found you’d been bought by a fruit farmer with six children. I don’t know what such a person woulddo with a combat specialist. Or an erotic companion, for that matter.”
