Back to the Archive.
Visionary trudged back to his chamber and keyed in the door code. It was a fair trek from Aunt Sally’s maintenance bay but it was the nearest bathroom he even half trusted.
His room was occupied.
The green-skinned slave girls didn’t all fit on his bed. Some of them had to kneel before him on the floor.
Vizh quickly checked the room number.
"Hail," said one of them, bowing low and displaying far too much cleavage for a man desperate for the lavatory to deal with.
"Er, hail right back atcha," the possibly fake man nodded manically. "Can I help you?"
The girl gestured to her companions. "We are here for your pleasure."
"I see," Vizh answered. He pointed to the bathroom. "Excuse me a moment."
"Do you require assistance, master?"
"No, that’s… that’s fine thanks. I’ve been able to go to the bathroom on my own for quite a while now."
Nine pairs of soft green eyes watched him pick his way into the lavatory, and waited for his return.
It took Vizh some time before he was ready to come out. Finding nine near-naked green-skinned slave girls draped across one’s bed wasn’t conducive to going to the bathroom..
"Okay," he breathed when he finally came out (he was worried when the girls looked like they might give him a round of applause). "Whose little joke is this? Trickshot? Nitz?"
The girls looked puzzled. "We do not understand, master, but instruct us and we will learn whatever we must to please you."
Visionary remembered that the Librarian had rescued some two dozen or so of the Slimy Slaver Lovetoad’s victims along with Dr Blargelslarch. Some of the prisoners had needed medical attention, but had all been returned to their respective worlds' representatives on the Gameship. "You were on the slaver ship? You’re free now."
The girls blanched. "F-free?" one of them stammered. "We have no master?"
"Sure. Free as birds. You can go home."
The green-skinned beauties exchanged horrified looks. "Home? Without an owner? With no-one to protect us from shame and starvation, and no status except as non-persons not fit to be owned?" A couple of them started to sob.
Vizh realised there was going to be a cultural difficulty here. "Why are you… here?" he asked desperately. "In my room, I mean?"
"Where do you want us, master?"
"Why me?"
The woman who had spoken first looked puzzled. "Do you not wear the yellow mantle of clan leadership amongst your people? Do you not speak with the voice of authority, commanding those around you? Did not your chattels rescue us from the Slimy Lovetoad?" She looked as if she too might burst into tears. "Don’t you want to keep us?"
"Please don’t send us away outcasts!" another pleaded.
"We’ll do anything!" promised a third.
Visionary fled back into the bathroom and bolted the door.
