Slave by Cheryl Brooks Page A

stuff out of the hold and sell it while we’re in the process of locating Ranata. She shouldn’t be terribly hard to trace, given that she’s from Earth, but the people might not be very talkative.”
    I hoped they were blind, too, for the outfit I had bought to wear while on my search was far too revealing for my own personal tastes, and had undoubtedly been designed for a woman much more well-endowed than I was—in the boob department, you understand. I suppose you might have figured out by now that I was as flat-chested as a boy, since I had considered it possible to masquerade as a man. The trouble was, I just didn’t have the dick to complete that particular ensemble, so Cat
would have to wear it. He’d probably look quite nice in it, actually, though it was difficult to picture him wearing anything at all since I’d only seen him in the nude— unless, of course, you were to count his shackles as garments, and I didn’t think they qualified.
    My smuggler friend had been the one to suggest that I get someone to go with me to pose as my master. He’d offered to do it himself, of course, but I wouldn’t have trusted him not to sell me and leave me there to rot. He was a nice enough fellow, but since nearly all smugglers are seduced more by money than by any noble cause like freeing the slaves, I doubted that he would have been much help. He wouldn’t have been allowed back on the surface of the planet if he’d made off with one of the women, either, which would have been bad for his business. Besides, finding Ranata was my job, and I doubted that she would have gone willingly with that particular smuggler anyway, for he was a bit creepy-looking— though certainly an improvement over any Nedwut I’d ever seen or heard tell of.
    However, the information I received from him seemed to agree with what I’d already learned, so it seemed reasonable enough to believe him. I’d paid for the information, of course, and had put him onto a good bargain on another planet I’d visited; so he was pleased enough with the outcome of our deal to add another little tidbit of info for free, which was that if I was going to Statzeel, I’d better take along someone that I could trust.
    I just hoped Cat would fit the bill.
    Slave 221107.qxd 1/30/08 4:36 PM Page 76

Chapter Four
    I PUT THE JOLLY ROGER INTO ORBIT, SENT OUT A HAIL TO
    the surface, and sat back to wait. Some places take hours to respond to hails, so I knew better than to seem overly anxious by making the mistake of hailing them again.
    Some of those landing authority guys are real impressed with themselves and like to throw their weight around by making you wait for days just because they can. Besides, I had come a long way in six years and a few more hours of waiting wouldn’t kill me, and hopefully it wouldn’t kill Ranata either.
    To pass the time, I went and got the clothes for Cat and told him to get dressed. He was still reluctant to put on anything, but I insisted. “Look, when they respond to our hail, they’re gonna want to talk to the man in charge, and they’re gonna want to see you, not me.” I took a quick gander at what I was beginning to believe to be a permanent erection and added: “And don’t worry about that, either. These clothes will accommodate it very nicely.”
    My smuggler friend had informed me that even visitors to the planet were required to dress like the natives, a practice which I found to be a bit odd—particularly since nearly every other world I’d ever visited didn’t give a damn what the aliens had on, as long as they were wearing something decent. This was the first I’d ever heard of where the visitors to the surface were required
to take things off, as it were. I could understand the women having to be properly clothed and chained, but I wondered why the men had to display their genitals. I never got a straight answer to that question, but the smuggler did tell me that a man could not legally even land on Statzeel