Commodity

We paddled slowly into Hyrasamoura in the sweltering late afternoon heat; the dirty, sprawling city seemingly reaching out around us to draw us in towards its vile, tainted heart and enclose us in its brutal embrace
And that’s what this place is: It’s brutal
Utterly brutal
The Haruk rule with an iron fist, remorselessly oppressing the enslaved Ssala majority with such imaginative cruelty and implacable efficiency, that it’s at once both fascinating and yet terrifying to observe
In the three days I’ve been here, the catalogue of horrors and barbarities that I’ve witnessed are bewildering; I’ve seen casual murder and torture, the rape of both men and women, and punishments so vicious and cruel that they almost defy belief
The aura of misery and fear that envelops this hell on earth is an almost tangible, palpable thing, and Jay, wherever you are my love, I hope you never come here, for I’d rather your soul was spared the horror of this pit of misery and torment on my account

At the moment, I think I’m more or less safe from harm as the object of curiosity and fascination amongst whichever perfumed social elite that Ulhurath, the grand matriarch of this house, belongs to; and from the almost endless stream of houseguests she entertains, she seems to be garnering some degree of kudos from owning such a strange and unusual slave as I, as I’m constantly paraded in front of appreciative visitors and required to subserviently serve them wine and food
It won’t last, though – The best I think I can hope for is to be traded between a succession of owners (I hate that concept) for a few months, until my novelty wears off and my servile ineptitude or cultural inexperience eventually betray me, and I do something that’ll result in me being killed
Or worse

We docked at one of the many tiny wharfs crowding Hyrasamoura’s harbour, where the other captives and I were unloaded onto the jetty and chained to restraining posts to wait in the sticky, late afternoon heat, while the dock workers - mostly slaves overseen by lower caste (as far as I've been able to determine) Haruk, gawped openly at me, their eerie yellow eyes scrutinising me with curiosity and suspicion - Evidently humans are either unknown around here or are the stuff of legend, although I’ve not been able to make up my mind as to which
After about thirty minutes, a thin, malnourished-looking Ssala slave-child appeared, leading another half dozen Haruk, who it seemed were acquainted with Scarface and the other slavers, or at least knew who they were, as there followed some discussion between them, with occasionally raised voices as the group bickered, pausing only occasionally to glare in my direction
I’ve no idea what they were arguing about, but if I had to guess, I suppose they might have been questioning the prudence of bringing me into the city, when my companions had (oh so hopefully) killed six of their cohorts some days previously
Whatever it was that concerned them, a decision was eventually reached, and amidst much shouting and cracking of whips, we were unchained to be hurried through the alien streets towards the markets; Scarface, obviously mindful of his bounty for me, ever present at my side as we marched through the chaos and alien confusion of the city

The overriding impression I got of Hyrasamoura as I passed through it, was one of imposing scale, crowded bedlam, and fear and filth; I mean I’ve been places before now where there have been all those things to some degree or other, but never so extreme as here, or as bewilderingly alien
Everything’s big; the Haruk are three times as broad as me and around one and a half times my height, and the females are even taller, so the buildings are, for the most part, massive; their exotic facades and stone pillars loom high above the streets, massed together and banked up against the occasional towering starbase structures, such as the ruined monorail towers where Ulhurath and the other perfumed super-wealthy make their domiciles; and yet all this is dwarfed by the ancient and partially ruined departure terminal that looms large above everything, a brooding black, vine strewn mass that dominates the skyline

Perhaps the thing that most surprised me about the place (other than the dinosaur-like creatures being used as pack animals and mounts) is that they have lights here – Real, working electrical ones!
I don’t know how these primitives have even managed to figure it out, but the Haruk seem to have engineered themselves some sort of rudimentary power grid, utilising (I’m guessing) the energy from the generator that we found in the caverns and, no doubt, others like it, to power the carbon arc lights that the wealthy use to illuminate their homes
Now, I’ve no idea why or even how these work in relation to the EM fields that surround this planet, but my best guess would be that the spaceport’s possibly some sort localised nexus where the fields cancel each other out, although without a psi-scanner, I couldn’t say for certain; but the fact that we have power here gives me very real hope that I might be able to do something to help myself!

Anyway, after we were herded through the streets, we came towards what I later found were the slave markets - a series of ugly looking buildings arranged around a large empty square, where the Ssala males and females were processed and separated, to be incarcerated in different holding cells beneath the buildings surrounding the market square - Probably, I assume, to minimise the risk of contact and, I don't know, pregnancy even; which would probably lower the value of a slave
That said, I don't know how the Ssala reproductive cycle works; the males look almost identical to the females, although the latter, as with humans, tend to be smaller and with finer features, but what their courtship or mating rituals are, I couldn't say
As for myself, I was separated from the other captives and locked in a cell on my own, where I spent my first night in the city chained underground to a dank wall with nothing but my own uncertainty and fears for company
Believe me, when I say that I tried to escape that night; I tested each link of the chain, I scraped away at the stones and the mortar surrounding the bracket on the wall that I was chained to; I even tried to lever the collar open, but all to no avail – Iron is tough stuff and I'm far from superhuman, so even if the door had been left wide open I would still have had to sit there, meekly awaiting whatever fate was in store for me

As it was, morning came soon enough and I didn’t have to wait long to find out, when, with the sun having barely risen above the departure terminal, I was taken from my cell up into the empty courtyard above where I was forced to strip and wash myself with a bucket of cold water, before being dragged, still humiliatingly naked up into an audience chamber, where four of the huge Haruk females awaited
I guess at this point, I should say something about the matriarchs that rule the Haruk society
Now, the males, who outnumber them by about ten to one, are large, but the females are massive – About twice my height, and as a rule, hugely obese, given, as they are, to a life of pampered inactivity with their every whim catered to by both the males who seem obey these repugnant creatures without question, and the multitude of Ssala slaves, dedicated to ensuring that they want for nothing
In my opinion, the very fact that four of these vile creatures had emerged to view and bid on me in a private auction, gives credence to the idea that humans might be the stuff of legend around here - Maybe they've seen representations of us in ancient images or other artefacts they’ve found around this spaceport?
I don’t know, but it's something to bear in mind as possibly useful in the future
Anyway, I was presented to the matriarchs by the auctioneer - an aged male Haruk, who made much of my long hair and weird alien body, which I found humiliating in the extreme
And, yeah okay, you might think as an ex-exotic dancer (oh, alright – stripper), that I should be used to that kind of scrutiny and attention; but regardless of the number of cretins you hear telling tales of how empowered stripping made them feel, in my estimation, they’re completely full of shit - The work’s humiliating and utterly, utterly degrading and I hated every smegging minute of it - and it’s still something of a disappointment that Jay spent so much of his spare time in that club, even though I occasionally flatter myself to think that he was maybe only there to see me...
I shouldn’t speculate
We never discussed any of that stuff while we were together and we’re long past the point where it’d be prudent to mention it now - That chance is long gone ...and yet I still can’t help my heart skipping a beat when I occasionally catch him looking at me
I...
I, ah... I... I digress...

After I had been thoroughly scrutinised, and prodded and paraded back and forth in front of the bloated matriarchs, the bidding began in earnest; Ulhurath eventually emerging as the victor after about ten minutes of bad-tempered haggling and bickering
I’ve no idea what she paid for me - For all I know she might even have bartered favours or influence; but whatever she paid, she seemed well pleased with the price as I was dragged over and forced down onto my knees in front of her and the chain attached to my collar was reverentially placed into the obese hag's bejewelled hand
The first thing she did was haul hard on the chain, pulling me forward onto my hands and knees to drag me towards her to better scrutinise me, her hot, foul breath and heavy perfume washing over me as she ran my still damp hair through between her clawed fingers, murmuring appreciatively
They seem to do that a lot with my hair
The Haurk are, as far as I can tell, completely hairless, although I've seen several of the females sporting headdresses and elaborate wigs, so while I've no proof it's going to happen, I've a horrible sneaking suspicion that it's only a matter of time before I'm forced to have my head shaved for a wig for Ulhurath, which, if I'm honest, is a depressing thought - I know it's only hair, but our culture historically attaches great significance to the act of forcibly shaving a woman's head, and more is the point: It took years to grow and my hair's one of the few concessions I get to make towards my femininity aboard the Dwarf, so I like it the way it is

The three other matriarchs made moves to depart almost immediately following my sale, one of them pausing to exchange words with Ulhurath on the way out, whereas the others just swept from the chamber without so much as a backward glance, the elderly auctioneer fussing around them in their wake
A tall, gaunt-looking Ssala, who I later established was Tsaru, the head slave of the household, approached during the exchange between the two matriarchs and stonily handed me a breechcloth, indicating that I should dress myself in it; my efforts, I’m sorry to say, producing wide hilarity amongst the assembled Haruk as I wrestled with the unfamiliar article of clothing, and only eventually managed to dress myself with help from another female slave that Tsaru summoned with an irritated clack of his clawed fingers from the other side of the room
I managed to take advantage of general the levity by begging, by way of mime and the few appropriate Ssalan words I know, another cloth to wind around my top, which again prompted much snickering and comment until Ulhurath made a show of graciously acquiescing to my request and before long, we too departed

<tbc />