“I know you don’t like to leave the hardest ones for last,” Kade said, “but perhaps we should look at finding masters for a few of the others first? And keep Jai in the back of our minds as we go.”
“Yeah, that’s fair enough,” I said. He was right, I’d learned from experience that leaving the more difficult cases for the end was a recipe for disaster.
We had roughly seventy-two hours to get all eight dimari activated and bonded to their masters. Any longer than that and it tended to start having a detrimental impact on their mental health. They were packed into their crate with the expectation that they would meet their masters in the very near future, so a failure of their masters to collect them in a timely manner would trigger all sorts of fears of rejection in the dimari. And rejection was the one thing theyreallydidn’t deal with well.
“Okay, let’s look at the database,” I said, pulling up a different list of people. Over the past year and a half, we’d had a grand total of three incidents where a dimari had arrived in a crate and we’d had to find them a new master at short notice. What had most often happened throughout Rendol’s short history was that dimari in crates would be abandoned somewhere on the planet – usually as a result of a Eumadian ship being critically damaged – and then some hapless hiker or explorer would open the crate without realising what was inside, and instantly find themselves as the designated owner of a dimari. I’d spent over a year helping them all adjust to their lives together.
But there was a significant difference between helping two people learn to work together when they’d been forced together by fate, versus asking a person to deliberately bond themselves to a slave who would need constant attention and care for the next eighty years. In the three cases we’d had to deal with, we’d just about managed it, but the first two in particular hadbeen nerve-wracking, panic-fuelled bouts of mental and social gymnastics to find someone who genuinely wanted to care for the dimari, rather than just taking advantage of some free labour.
After the second crate had arrived, I’d spent a great deal of time putting together a database of people who were genuinely willing to take on the responsibility, in preparation for the inevitable day when another crate landed with an activated dimari inside. But it wasn’t just about having a list of willing people waiting in the wings. It was also necessary, for the dimari’s long-term mental health, to match them as closely as possible to someone who could allow them to use the skills they’d been taught. Dimari were not proud by nature, but they did tend to fixate on using the skills they’d worked so hard to perfect for their master’s benefit. That made it a bad idea to allocate a dimari trained as a pilot, for example, to a person who owned a bakery.
As a simple outworking of the social circles I moved in, almost everyone on the list in front of me was either military, or military-adjacent; the friends, family or business associates of someone who was in the military. I’d quietly put the word out about six months ago, and spent a significant amount of time screening whoever had volunteered, in order to have a list of people with various different lifestyles ready to go.
“Okay, let’s start with the pilot,” I said, putting a few search words into the database. “That would necessarily mean a master in the military. They don’t have to be a pilot themselves, but they would need to be working in a role that involved a certain amount of space travel…” I pulled up half a dozen profiles, then displayed the dimari’s skill list on another screen, and we spent the next ten minutes in silence, scrolling through all the available data and trying to find whoever would be the most appropriate match.
“Perhaps Captain Gell,” Kade suggested finally. “He’s currently running frequent diplomatic missions to the fringe colonies in the Zoga sector. Having another capable pilot on his missions would be a good thing, and since he’s also a diplomat, he would be well suited to dealing with the social adjustments of learning to work with a dimari.”
I nodded. “And it’s also largely a non-combat role. I know diplomatic missions can turn sour, but I always prefer to avoid putting dimari into combat if they’re not actual combat specialists.” To be totally honest, I hated the idea of puttinganydimari into harm’s way, combat specialist or not. But I couldn’t say that quite so bluntly to Kade. He took great pleasure in serving me in a combat role, and had an almost fanatical need to protect me under those conditions. As much as I feared the idea of him being hurt, I knew that stopping him from serving with me would be like locking a lion in a cage. “I’ll send the Captain a message and see if he’s up for it. Okay, next on the list… I think I know someone who would be perfect for the domestic companion. A friend of Captain Rhodes.”
Captain Ezekiel Rhodes had lost most of his crew and suffered severe injuries in a mission gone terribly wrong, and now he and Dax, his bonded dimari, spent a decent portion of their time coordinating support services for other injured or traumatised veterans. “Zeke mentioned him the last time we caught up with each other. Lieutenant Drevarious lost his leg in a battle with space pirates. He needs the help, just on the side of keeping his house clean and functioning, but Zeke’s worried he’s also going down the path of isolating himself socially. Having a domestic companion would cut that habit off before it picked up any steam.” I sent a message through to Captain Rhodes – not to the lieutenant himself – to see what he thought of the idea. Okay, one more dimari on the way to finding a master, six more to go.
CHAPTER FOUR
AIDEN
We worked for the rest of the afternoon and well into the evening. The dimari nurse could be paired up with a doctor who worked at the Central Hon Hospital, and with the best intentions in the world, I couldn’t have dreamed up a more suitable pairing. The three domestic servants were the easiest to place, given that all they needed was a decent sized house to look after and they would be happy. Throw a few children into the mix and they’d be set for life.
But where to put the erotic companion was a far more difficult dilemma to solve, and by the time we’d scrolled through no fewer than fifty profiles, I still wasn’t convinced there was anyone here who would be a suitable master.
“I think maybe the best thing to do would be to send a bulk notification to everyone else on the list, letting them know that we have an erotic companion and asking them if they know anyone who might be suitable,” I said to Kade… just as his stomach rumbled loudly. I glanced at the clock and saw it was ten past seven. With everything else that had been going on today, we hadn’t stopped or eaten anything since about midday.“Okay, it’s time to get something to eat,” I announced, shutting off the five different screens I currently had open. “I could use a break anyway. My brain’s just running in circles.”
Kade said nothing, which I took to be disagreement with my plan. “We’ll come back and have another look after dinner,” I told him. “But that probably means we’ll end up sleeping here tonight.” Kade and I had a dedicated room in the barracks, for the odd occasions when we were required to spend the night on base. It was a rather spartan place, with little more than a bed and a dresser, and a bathroom shared with the rest of the dorm, but it served its purpose.
“How many of the potential masters have replied?” he asked, as we headed out of the administration wing and towards the cafeteria.
“You’re concerned about us not finding enough masters in time?” I asked him. It was rare for Kade to offer any real objections to any of my plans, but if I paid attention, it was usually possible to parse out how he was feeling about things from the sideways comments he made. Being restricted to such indirect communication could be incredibly frustrating. But that was one of the reasons I had to be so careful about who to assign the new dimari to. Kade was a major asset in combat, or when I simply needed an extra pair of hands to get any given job done, but it also took a huge amount of energy making sure I was always giving appropriate consideration to someone who wasn’t able to advocate for their own needs.
“I’m concerned that not everyone we’ve contacted so far will accept a new dimari. There’s a difference between accepting one in theory, versus the reality of one showing up on your doorstep.”
I nodded. “Either way, we still need food. And we have two definite masters already.” The new owners for the nurse and the pilot had both accepted the offer, and both of them were goingto come to the base tomorrow morning to pick up their new charges. “Oh, shit,” I muttered, as we came around the corner into the cafeteria. “We’ll have to find a safe place to activate the dimari, then have them meet their masters without the risk of them imprinting on the wrong person. I hadn’t even thought of that.”
“That’s easy,” Kade said. He looked pointedly in the direction of the cafeteria counter, when I didn’t move. Gathering my wits, I headed for the end of the long counter, collecting a tray from the stack. “We can put them in one of the other conference rooms,” Kade said. “There’s an intercom system you can use to activate them, then send their new master into the room alone for the imprinting.” He picked up his own tray, but didn’t go any further. Despite numerous discussions on the topic, he was still very much inclined to wait for me to serve myself first at mealtimes, only willing to take his own share after I had enough. Not wanting to hold up our conversation, I moved swiftly along the counter, collecting a bowl of chicken pasta, a salad and a cup of fruit for dessert. Kade made slightly different choices – a club sandwich with thin sliced camel meat, salad and cheese, and a slice of carrot cake. I was privately pleased with what he’d chosen, if only because it was different from what I was having. Early on in our relationship, the choices of food to eat had overwhelmed him, and he’d either have chosen the exact same thing as I had, or else preferred it if I’d chosen something for him. Now, he was at least comfortable enough with the freedom he had to choose his own food.
As we sat down at a table near the side of the room, I wanted to continue the conversation about activating the dimari, but the instant I set my tray down, I realised I hadn’t checked the video feed of the dimari in the conference room even once since we’d farewelled Henderson. But just as I went to activate the feed, a notification came through on my comm. I opened it and reada short message from one of the people who’d been offered a domestic servant, saying she’d changed her mind and no longer wanted one.
“Oh, fuck,” I muttered, the urgent and necessary tasks piling up until they seemed overwhelming. That was one more dimari to re-home, plus I needed to check all the other messages to see where each situation was up to, plus the video feed. And tomorrow, there would be training the new masters and possibly screening someone to take the erotic companion…
I felt a hand on my arm and looked up to see Kade peering at me in concern. “Is Henderson still here?” he asked. While it wasn’t exactlyroutine, it wasn’t uncommon for Henderson to spend the night at the base, particularly if there was something unusual going on. I shot him a quick message and got a rapid reply. “Yes, he’s still here. He’s planning on spending the night here.”
“Then perhaps after dinner, I could go and talk to him about how to safely activate the dimari while you reply to some of the messages from the potential masters?” Kade suggested. “And as far as the erotic companion goes, I think it’s a good strategy to reach out to the rest of the database for suggestions. A lot of them already understand the complexities of an erotic companion’s needs.”
That was true. In the interests of efficiency and accuracy, everyone on the database had already read the lengthy instruction manual I’d put together designed to teach new owners how to care for their dimari, and detailing all of the dimari’s complex emotional needs. There was an entire chapter dedicated to how to approach sex, and the fact that sexual activity was an intrinsic part of a dimari’s reward system.
“Okay. Good plan,” I said, trying to calm down a little. Yes, there was a lot to do. But that didn’t mean I had to do it all alone. “I’m going to check the video feed,” I said, shoving a forkful ofpasta into my mouth. I activated the link security had set up, simultaneously setting the screen to privacy mode, so that no one else in the cafeteria would be able to see it.
At first glance, the scene in the room was unremarkable. The three large tables had been pushed to one side, and the rest of the space was taken up with mattresses laid out in two neat rows. Three of the dimari were sitting at the table, eating, and I was relieved to find that catering had remembered to take them some dinner. The rest of them seemed to have finished their food, and four of them were standing at the foot of their beds, in a standard ‘at ease’ posture; feet apart, hands clasped behind their back. That, I’d learned some months ago, was perfectly normal for a dimari who was waiting to meet their master. Kade had explained to me a while ago that back when he’d first met me, he’d spent several days essentially doing nothing more than standing in his crate, waiting for his master to arrive. It meant the dimari were calm and comfortable, and as rigid as the postures might have looked, it was an indication that things were going well.
But one dimari wasn’t behaving like the others, and I was somehow unsurprised to see it was the tall, black one. And yes, his scales were still set to that jet black pool of nothingness. Not every dimari was capable of getting the pigments in their scales that dark, but Jai had clearly mastered it. He looked almost surreal, on the holographic screen. But it wasn’t his colouring that was the cause of my concern. Rather, it was the fact that he was… sitting on his mattress.
