Page 2 of Summer

The gates yawned open as the carriage drew closer, halting just before the threshold where two guards stood. They wore tall hats with a feather on top and crisp blue suits, making them look like twins. A few other guards paced the grounds in similar attire.

The guard barked something to the carriage. I didn’t recognize the tongue and lamented the loss of my translator chip. It was expensive, or it would have been if I’d paid for it and not stolen it. The guard and the computer system on the carriage continued to converse as I counted the guards. Did they move in the same pattern? Did they deviate?

The carriage jerked forward across the lawn toward the building. It was a four-story monstrosity, shaped like a rectangle. The walls were an off-white and crumbling, the paint peeling. Ivy crawled along the edges of the building up to the roof, where it tangled with the barbed wire there. A few human women walked the yard, holding umbrellas to shield from the afternoon sun. A guard trailed behind each group of women.

The carriage pulled up to the front of the building and stopped. I tried the door, and it didn’t budge. I grunted and tried again, shaking the handle to no avail. I hiked up the skirt of my dress so I’d have better access with the heel of my shoe, shoving it against the door.

I struck it once, twice, three times – no avail. The carriage barely moved, much less the door. I grunted and dropped the hem of my skirt, adjusting it over my lap.

I wasn’t used to the ridiculous outfit. It was constrictive, with a bust tied too tight over my aching ribs. I was used to leggings and boots, not the flowing skirts of this ridiculously backwards planet. I laughed when they thrust the dress at me, looking like something out of those old romance novels I remember from Earth.

My protests had died on my lips at the reminder of the alternative.

On had gone the stupid thing.

It felt like hours before the door to the carriage opened and I was ushered into the building. That was where I met the headmaster, Nikili, also known as the Green Devil. He thought the name was a compliment.

A guard helped me into a seat across from his sprawling desk. The walls of his office were decorated with paintings of other planets, of him leading a fleet of ships into war. I tried to suppress an eye roll unsuccessfully.

“Summer Human,” Nikili said, spreading his fingers over his desk. He was a Kapu, a type of alien I was all too familiar with. Insectile, with large eyes that took up most of his face. His mouth was small, making speaking a task. His kind mostly communicated via a series of vibrations of their antennae, which then formed words from a box that hung from their neck. Kapus were a dime a dozen in space, mostly because they were extremely fertile and had upwards of a hundred children in each clutch.

Nikili was older, likely old enough to have been part of the war that thrust Emperor Frin to victory.

“I am Headmaster Nikili, the overseer of this fine establishment. You have…quite the record,” he said, his chest moving in the semblance of a laugh as he spoke.

I sneered and didn’t answer, crossing my arms over my chest. “My name is Summer White, not Summer Human. Human is my species,” I corrected, unable to keep the venom from my voice.

Nikili tittered, his long fingers tapping the top of the desk. “I will let that go as you’ve not been informed of the rules yet. This is your only pass. After that, insolence will be punished.”

I raised an eyebrow, unconvinced. “Punished? For correcting you when you’re wrong? Quite the school.”

Pain flared along my ankle, and I cried out, hopping up out of my seat. One of his legs wrapped around my ankle, the barbs along the length of it digging into my flesh. My eyes watered as I tried to kick away, only serving to dig the barbs deeper into my flesh.

“You’ll soon learn that the less you struggle, the less painful it is,” Nikili said. It was one of his many lessons over the next three years – that to struggle was to earn pain. Disobedience, talking back, walking too loudly, chewing with your mouth open…these were all beaten out of us.

A human woman from Protegre was to be like the human women of the 1800’s on Earth – to be seen, not heard. To keep the house clean, to tend to the affairs, to raise children. Affording a human woman was a status symbol, breeding with one was a sign of virility.

That’s what Protegre really was – a training ground for rich aliens to buy something pretty to look at. An ornament for their shelf, something to parade in front of society, a status symbol.

That night, I sat in my bed in a room I shared with three other human women. One gave me a salve to apply to my wounds, another one of her hand towels to help clean myself. I would have to earn the ability to have these items by proving I could be a tame human. Until then, I was allowed only what I wore on my back and a cot as a bed. No linens, no blankets, no pillows.

I’d sworn that night that I would run. I’d escaped worse situations. I had plenty of friends – well, acquaintances – across the galaxy. If I found them, they’d help me. It wouldn’t be hard to hide out, it was a huge galaxy after all.

I plotted and planned and assessed every angle.

I fought everything and everyone. I refused friendships and alliances. I drove a wedge between me and all the other women, even my roommates. I was going to get out, and I wasn’t going to drag them down with me.

Three weeks into my stay, I’d only earned bruises and wounds, no pillows or blankets or soap. You could smell me from across the room, the women had taken to complaining to the workers and the headmaster. They only shook their head, their faces impassive as they ignored their pleas to clean me.

It was three weeks and two days into my stay when a woman tried to escape.

I recognized her face as they dragged her back into the building. She’d only made it a few feet outside the gates before she was collared and dragged back by her hair. By the time she was back to the building she barely had skin left on her legs, gravel sticking to mangled flesh. Her face was red and sticky with tears.

She’d bribed a guard to look the other way as she ran.

They dragged her back to the house and deposited her shaking body at the bottom of the steps. Then they called us all to witness her punishment.

“What is the twelfth rule of Protegre?” Nikili called, his voice amplified by the box on his chest. The legs about his middle vibrated with excitement, distorting his voice.