This work is copyright 2000-2004 by Xaltatun of Acheron (A Pseudonym). It may be posted on the Internet to any free forum, provided it is not modified in any way, and provided that this notice is included in its entirety. It may not be sold, or included in any compilation that is sold, or posted on any forum that requires a fee for access, without my written permission. My permission will require payment, terms to be negotiated. For purposes of this notice, sites guarded by Adult Check or similar packages are considered pay sites. Posting on any site must include this copyright notice.
Adult Content Warning - this story contains adult themes, including non-consensual bondage/slavery and forced sexual acts. If you are under the lawful age for such materials (18 in most jurisdictions) or if you would find such material offensive, please go elsewhere.
Safety Warning. This story may contain descriptions of practices that are decidedly unsafe, either in general, or if performed by someone without adequate training. There are a number of good books available on safety in the BDSM scene. Most large cities, and some not so large ones, have organized BDSM groups that will usually welcome a newcomer. I'm not going to point out which practices are safe, and which aren't. Any practice is unsafe if performed by someone with inadequate training and experience, or if performed when not paying attention. Please think before you act. Don't make yourself a candidate for a Darwin award.
OK - now on to the story -------
Chapter 1. We leave the Old South.
Chapter 3. If You Want It Done Right, Do It Yourself
Chapter 4. The Cheap Help Shows Up
Chapter 5. Now That We�ve Got Them, What Do We Do With Them?
Chapter 6. We Look At A Pyramid
Chapter 7. Frank is Frank With Us
I really hate it when I start a story in the middle, so I suppose I should mention that my story really begins in Carriage Team of Freehold. Or maybe a bit earlier, at the end of Delivery Ponyboy. It continues in Escaped Ponygirl. If you�ve read them, just trot on down to chapter 1, and we�ll get this story on the road. If you haven�t, here�s a quick briefing.
I am, or was, Lucy Smyth. I had a great job as a combination assassin and impersonator for one of those government departments that isn�t ever mentioned, even in the scandal sheets or the worst of the paranoid press. My usual assignment would be to get a complete body makeover, courtesy of the Dodecahedron, which specializes in such impossibilities, and then take out my target and replace her for long enough to lay a false trail before she either mysteriously vanished or otherwise met her well deserved demise under circumstances too mundane to merit investigation.
My last assignment had blown up on me. A man named Fred was supposed to be supplying the muscle if any was needed. The assignment hit a snag, and then one of his old associates walked up, said �Hi, Fred, long time no see�, and waved his hand. Next thing I knew, I was in a cell on Freehold. They gave me another full body makeover, this time to my specifications, and then turned me into a ponygirl.
The ponygirl program is what Freehold uses instead of prison for people who can�t be trusted to behave in a socially responsible manner. They obviously thought that trying to assassinate one of their officials was not socially responsible. I couldn�t argue the point very well at the trial.
Freehold uses us for transportation. Why, I have no idea, and the training advisor, an AI who you will meet later, blandly refuses to tell me. There are no powered vehicles on the island. They seem to get along quite well without them.
I got trained for taxi, and then I got trained for pulling a carriage. The guy who owned the carriage was one of the aristocracy, his driver and valet was Fred�s old associate. I�m now Running Flame, my partner is Fast Fox, and we also have two prototypical dumb blondes, twin sisters named Rippling Stream and Sparkling Brook. How dumb are they? They got assigned to farm work because they couldn�t figure out that they needed to study a map for taxi.
At the end of the last memoir, we were in the Old South Plantations. I�d been told that the next stop was the Ancient Egypt recreation, and boy, was I confused. The AI had even less data on it than it had on the Old South Plantations, and that was going some.
I came awake when the grooms entered the stable and started making noise. I stretched out and pulled my hooves under me, or my hands and feet imprisoned in their hoof boots, if you want to be depressingly accurate about it. I flicked a few stray pieces of straw off my skin with my tail. Then I slurped up a couple of mouthfuls of water to clean out my mouth, and nibbled on a stray carrot in my food bowl. One of the grooms, a tall guy named Oscar, opened the stall door and then used this big, ornate key to unlock my collar.
Boy, was I glad to see the last of that thing. They didn�t chain ponygirls in their cells in Freehold proper. They knew they had you solid; there was nowhere to go, and there were lots of things worse than being a taxi ponygirl. The ones that had a tendency to wander found their stall doors locked instead. Here in the Old South Plantations enclaves, they chained us up for the night. Like the rest of the Old South, the lock was straight out of the middle 18th century: it was this massive thing with a key that looked like a jigsaw puzzle piece. It was also about as easy to pick as my teeth.
Once he unhooked me from the back wall, I trotted on all four hooves out of the stall into the yard, where I joined all the other ponygirls and ponyboys for our morning feed and grooming. Grooming was just as simple as the rest of this place. They hosed me down, lathered me up and then hosed me down again. I shook myself dry, or at least, dry enough not to drip, and walked over to the food trough.
What do I look like? Well, I�m a ponygirl. When I�m on four feet, which is most of the time that I�m not actually harnessed to something, I�m a bit less than a meter at the shoulder. My flame red hair grows in a mane; it�s about six inches long in an inch wide strip from my forehead down to just below my shoulder blades. The rest of my head is covered with a short, thick coat of the same red hair.
All four hooves end in pony boots, with real horseshoes. The front boots have some kind of stilt arrangement that evens things out so my back is level.
The only other interesting thing is my tail. It�s a real tail, not a fake. It looks like it was designed by a committee that couldn�t decide between a cat�s tail and a horse�s tail. Or more properly, a monkey�s tail and a horse�s tail. The thing was prehensile, and I was getting pretty good with it. Real horses use their tails to swish at flies; I use mine to kill the little pests. For some reason, my hearing is good enough that I can locate them by the buzz of their wings. One quick flip of my tail, and another fly meets its well-deserved doom in midair.
Of course, tails are useful for other things, too. Like sex play. I can also pick up small objects and throw them, which is something that neither cats nor monkeys can do with theirs. I�ve got no idea why they built all that capability in; I was always told that tails were for balance. I�m told that a fair number of former ponygirls keep theirs when they graduate. It seems to be true; a lot of the grooms, and some of the trainers back at the stables in Freehold have them.
There was, I suppose, one other strange thing about me. I had a knife strapped to my right thigh. Oscar had done a double take when he saw it this morning; normally the thing hung on a peg in my stall. It stayed there, too. None of the grooms were allowed to touch it. They were slaves, and the rules didn�t allow them to touch weapons. You might think that the rules didn�t allow ponygirls to have weapons, either, and you�d be right. So why did I have one?
It�s a long story, and it�s been told elsewhere, so I�m not going to bore you by repeating it. The thing that had puzzled Oscar wasn�t the knife on my thigh so much as how it had gotten there from the post. He didn�t know that my front hoof boots had quick release leavers inside. I found out by accident, and practiced. They hadn�t been there before the incident where I�d acquired that fabulous sliver of Damascus steel. I knew there had to be a reason for all of this; and I had a pretty good suspicion about it. I�d been an assassin, and the Freehold authorities were giving me all the rope I needed to either hang myself or prove that I wouldn�t.
�Hey, Flame,� Oscar called. I trotted over and butted his hip with my head playfully. He scratched me behind the ears. �Time to get harnessed.� Big surprise, what? I stood up while he bustled about, fastening the parts of my harness around me. The foundation was a waistband that curved around my hips and ribcage. It had a front piece that came down between my legs, up the back and split just under my tail, finishing with twin buckles in back. The top was a series of straps that crossed between my breasts, went around my torso and anchored the shoulder pads.
My front hooves came next. He pulled them in back and clipped the hoof boots together with the rings on each side.
My bridle was the last piece. That was several inch wide black leather straps that circled my head and focused on rings on either side of my mouth. Like the harness, it fit snuggly enough that it wouldn�t chafe. I tossed my head when he held up the bit, but then opened my mouth like a good girl so he could install it. The bit left my tongue free so I could swallow, which was quite nice. As a final step, he added blinders. This I did not like, but so far I hadn�t been able to figure out how to avoid it.
The blinders told me that we were going to be hitched to the Prince�s carriage today; I certainly didn�t wear them for taxi, which was what I did most days. I didn�t need them for carriage, but our two blondes, Sparkling Brook and Rippling Stream, had a tendency to become distracted and lose the pace if they didn�t wear the things, so Fast Fox and I had to wear them for balance. I�ve got nothing against dumb blondes in principle, but I wish they�d learn to concentrate better.
Today, Oscar put me on the front left position, which is the pacemaker. Once he got us harnessed to the coach, Steel Rivers showed up. I whinnied at him, and he chuckled. Steel is the Prince�s valet, and an ex-assassin from Fast Fox�s old department. He checked all of our harnesses, admired my ten inches of very sharp Damascus, and then swung up onto the coach, causing it to pull against the traces.
CRACK! The whip cracked right over our heads. I flipped my tail twice to set the pace, and then we all shoved off, heaving the carriage into motion. Moving that thing took real work; it�s a heavy sucker even though it�s built of lightweight materials throughout. We got out of the stable yard onto the streets of South City. Government House, where the Prince was staying, was all the way on the other end of town.
We got there, and spent some time just standing harnessed in the traces as household servants loaded the Prince�s kit into the carriage. Once that was done, Steel Rivers cracked his whip again, and we were off. This time, we hit the main road out of town. The going got a bit easier as we left the cobblestones for plain dirt. The traffic wasn�t bad, except that it was all horses and horse drawn wagons. I suppose horses are ok for something, but as far as I�m concerned, they belong on a racetrack or in a circus, not on a road preventing me from getting up some speed so we can leave this idiotic place. Much as I want to get this ponygirl thing behind me, I have to admit we�re better than horses for most things. We�re faster, we�re smarter, we eat less, we have more stamina and we don�t leave horseshit all over the place. Which is why you won�t find horses on Freehold proper.
An hour passed, and we got to the main highway around the island. The Freehold highway is totally different. It�s properly paved, it�s got two strips in each direction, and it�s graded to be either dead flat or a slight enough slope so it�s easily negotiated by teams of ponygirls and ponyboys. There are places where it isn�t possible, but they are rare.
We hit the inner strip, which was for long haul taxis, delivery, and light carriages that could handle the pace. The pace is 15 kph, and it�s mostly adhered to. People who want to can go faster, but it isn�t common, especially since the long haul ponies are trained in maintaining it exactly.
Long haul isn�t boring exactly. It�s more hypnotic. You just keep going, and keep going, and keep going. The rhythm gets in your blood.
Our next destination was the Ancient Egypt enclave. Unlike Old South, this wasn�t a tourist destination. I�d never heard of it until a couple of weeks ago, when the advisor told me it was our next stop.
What briefing there was said it was a group of devotees that were trying to recreate Ancient Egypt so they could unravel the Egyptian mysteries from the inside, so to speak. My briefing on the enclave mentioned that they hadn�t been able to find a river that flooded like the Nile, so they were trying to adapt what they thought practices might have been like in northwest Africa before it dried up and became desert. They were also trying to build a pyramid, which could have been interesting, for a few minutes, at least. The big difficulty for us was that they didn�t speak English, like everyone civilized. They spoke Ancient Egyptian, or at least as close as they could get. I had this suspicion I was going to become more acquainted with how a real pony feels than I wanted.
Part of that was that the advisor hadn�t been able to supply us with maps of the place. One of the things that taxi ponygirls do in Freehold City is, obviously, pull taxis. Like taxis everywhere, we were expected to take the address from our customer and get him, her or them there with a minimum of fuss and bother. So we studied maps. And I knew that Prince Andy thought he had better things to do than take the reins in hand to get his ponygirl where she was supposed to go, an attitude that I could hardly disagree with, especially since I didn�t particularly like backseat drivers.
I�d done the next best thing, which is badger the AI until it coughed up some aerial photos of the place. Fast Fox and I looked them over. I suppose they were better than nothing.
Eventually, we got to the turnoff. I came out of my trance when I felt the reins pull my head right to the exit ramp. It was, I suppose, real obvious: the sign had some kind of weird pictograms of birds and squiggles that matched my exceedingly dim memories of a school visit to a museum that I thought I�d successfully repressed.
The ramp brought us down at a sedate percent or so grade, which the carriage brake managed handily so we didn�t have to push back in our harnesses. Once we got down, we were on dirt, rather than the concrete they used for the roads. This particular road ran next to a mediocre river. At least, it was mediocre compared to the magnificent Nile, which I�d seen on another assignment. But then, you take what you can get, I suppose.
Fortunately, we were headed downriver. I say fortunately, because I could see the occasional ox team pulling the empty barges upstream on the other side. The checkreins kept me from shaking my head; following oxen might just be worse than following horses. On the other hand, the oxen probably had it easy; the barges headed downstream had these large stone blocks on them.
We trotted down the tree-lined road, raising a cloud of dust. A little ways down the road, a little brown man in a white linen kilt bolted out of the shade of one of the trees and attempted to grab a hold of my reins. Before he could succeed, I felt, rather than saw, Steel River�s whip flick past, just missing his hand. He backed off, and started yelling. Steel started cursing him back, and then shut up and pulled on the reins to stop. I felt the carriage shift behind me as Prince Andy got out, and then heard the mutter of some kind of a conversation. Then the carriage swayed the other way as the prince swung himself onto the driver�s bench beside Steel Rivers. He flicked my reins, I flicked my tail, and we were off, the little brown man walking in front of us.
I felt my reins twitch, and grinned around the bit as I leaned into the harness and lengthened my stride. In a moment, we almost ran the little brown man down. He looked over his shoulder at us, and then began trotting faster, working his legs under that white linen kilt. The drag on my bit told me to hold the pace, it seemed that Steel Rivers didn�t really want us to run our guide down. Pity. I�d taken a dislike to him the moment he tried to grab my bridle.
In a little while, he turned off the road into some kind of estate complex. I managed to see a brown brick building, a well with a bucket, a cylindrical building and a path to something farther back. Four more of the little brown men squatted under an open framework of some kind, setting on two parallel poles. After a moment, I recognized it as some kind of panequin. The little brown men gave us an incurious look, and then went back to their dice game.
Steel Rivers pulled the carriage to a stop, and I stood and waited while he and our guide transferred Prince Andy�s kit to the carriage on the two poles. I wondered why the four men under the carriage didn�t help them. After a moment, they finished transferring stuff, and the Prince and Steel Rivers got into the contrivance, with both of them still gesturing to the little brown man and pointing at us. He kept making gestures, like, don�t worry, it�ll be taken care of.
They relaxed slightly. Our guide picked up a staff, and the four men under the contrivance quit their dice game and squatted under the poles. Then they stood up, lifting the poles, and the carriage on their shoulders. Now that I got a clear look at them, I understood why they hadn�t helped. Each of them was attached to one of the poles by a chain that attached to a metal collar. The guide stamped his foot, and the bearers walked away with their load.
I stood there in the broiling sun, wondering where our grooms were. Unfortunately, the checkreins kept me from turning and looking at my companions. After a number of minutes, and a similar number of dead flies, I shrugged my shoulders metaphorically. Well, it had to be metaphoric; the harness was too firm to actually let me do it in reality. Either the grooms were late, or they weren�t coming. And I was getting thirsty, and there was this nice, stone well sitting not ten meters away. With a bucket on the rim, no less.
Another metaphoric shrug of my shoulders, and I felt for the quick release buttons in my front hoof boots. A moment later, I felt the pop as the locks unlatched and the sides split down a seam that you would have sworn was solidly sewn leather. I brought my hands back around and unbuckled the straps that held me to the carriage shafts. The reins and my bit were next, and I was free. God, did that water ever taste good.
I turned around and looked at the other three ponies standing in the shafts, looking back at me accusingly. Well, the two blondes looked at me accusingly, Fast Fox looked slightly disgusted around the bit in his mouth. I saw the slight movements that showed he was trying to find the quick release trick. I caught his eye and shook my head slightly.
Then I picked up the bucket and a ladle, and walked back to water them. As soon as I took the bit out, they started to ask questions. I shushed the two blondes quickly; whatever they had to say, I didn�t want to hear. As you might guess, I didn�t have a very high regard for their mental prowess. Still don�t, as a matter of fact.
Fox, on the other hand, at least managed to stay on topic. �Where�s the f***ing grooms!�
�Darned if I know, big boy. How much do you want to bet there aren�t any?�
�S***t. No bet. Now what?�
�I suppose I get to play groom.�
�Will they let you?�
�Either they figure it�s an appropriately responsible response to the situation, or they boot my ass. I�d rather get comfortable right now, and take my lumps later.� I walked to the adobe building and looked in.
As I�d suspected, it was some kind of a stable or barn. There was a row of eight open stalls against one end, each with a three foot chain and a metal collar and lock. The stalls were about three feet wide and six feet deep with six foot high walls. I walked into one to check it out. The end was the adobe brick of the outside wall; there was no food or water bowl, nor was there a cabinet for the VR helmets. Sigh. This made the stable back at the Old South Plantations look good. Then I thought a moment. It was probably a slave kennel, not a ponygirl stable. Or any other kind of stable, for that matter.
The other side of the building was simply the outside wall. There was a lot of what looked like agricultural equipment in various states of disrepair. Or at least what I assumed to be disrepair, I was hardly an expert in what it should look like if it was in working order.
The cylindrical building was completely occupied by a shaft with three crossbars, in a star pattern. Well, almost. There was a circular stairway around part of the inside; the crossbars barely cleared the stairway, leaving enough space for a walkway around most of the device. Most puzzling. Being curious, I walked up the stairway. It went through a hole in the roof and up between the outer wall and an inner wall. Then it came out on a platform overlooking a hole. I was about four or five meters above the roof, and the wall next to me went up another meter or so. The sides and bottom seemed to be glazed. On closer inspection, there were a number of what looked like bamboo rods sticking up from the floor, around the edges, and one bamboo rod sticking out from the wall just below the platform. It was absolutely nothing I�d ever heard of, until some part of my mind presented me with a smiley face painted on the side of a water tower. The damn thing was a cistern! With that size, it had to be for irrigation. Then the crossbars below were undoubtedly a slave powered pump. Well, I had some ponygirls that might feel walking around in a circle was better than being chained in a stall with nothing to do. Then again, they might not, but they weren�t going to be consulted.
The building behind the water tower and slave kennel (now a ponygirl stable) turned out to be a house. At least, it had well appointed rooms, some of which looked like kitchens, latrines and sleeping rooms. As well as a storeroom that turned out to hold a bin of some kind of grain, but not much else.
Well, I supposed the next thing would be to settle the ponies.
I walked back out and unhitched Fox from the carriage and started to lead him in by the bridle. �Hey, what?� he exclaimed.
�You�re going to do something productive for a change?� I riposted.
�Aren�t you going to let me loose?� he asked in surprise.
I looked back at him like he was a somewhat slow child. �No.�
He dug in his hooves. �Look, idiot,� I said. �What do you think being let loose will get you?�
�You�re loose,� he said. Men. Always trying to be logical, and usually failing miserably.
�Yes. And if you had the quick release levers, you could be too. I�m not going to release you on my own responsibility. Yet.�
He snorted, and then came along docilely enough. I hitched him in front of one of the crossbars in the water tower, and told him to stand there until I was finished. �I�ll be back with more water as soon as I settle the other two,� I said as I turned and walked out. Then I did the same with the twins, placing them on alternate bars so that they would balance and not pull the shaft to one side.
�Walk.� Rippling Stream and Fast Fox leaned into their harnesses while Sparkling Brook just stood there until the arm of the crossbeam behind her came up and whapped her in the ass. Then she lunged forward. That startled her sister enough that she stopped, and then the beam came up and whacked her in the ass. She lunged forward. They both settled into a steady walk. I thought I heard a gurgle, so I went back up and checked. Yep, water was coming into the cistern in a nice, steady stream. I went back down and told the blondes to keep going until I told them to stop. That earned me a dirty look from the one facing me at the time. I wasn�t sure if it was because I was giving them orders, telling them to do something that she didn�t want to do, or because she wondered if I thought they were so stupid that they would stop without orders. On reflection, I also wasn�t sure I cared.
Next I got water for Fast Fox, who was assiduously ignoring me, and the two cistern slaves. They, at least, gulped it down with every evidence of gratitude. I started them back up on their eternal quest to fill the cistern, and briefly wondered if the twins knew what their labors were accomplishing. Somehow, I doubted it, and somehow, I doubted that they would care if they knew. There were advantages to being a dumb blonde. Fast Fox had probably figured it out from the sound of the water gurgling, if nothing else.
I stepped back to consider the next thing. I still didn�t have a clue about food, although I supposed I could cook the grain somehow. Then I stopped as a thought occurred to me. The freight course had mentioned that each freight wagon carried VR helmets for all of the ponies for when they stopped away from a regular stable. Freehold was nothing if not consistent. Therefore�
I hunted around the carriage for a while until I finally found them under one of the seats. Four helmets, sitting in a row like four peas in a pod. There were a couple of other gadgets, including a chord board and a screen, as well as a number of somethings that looked like they might be PDAs, except that they didn�t have either a keyboard or a screen. However, they did have an on/off button, what looked like a microphone and speaker, and two little holes.
Curious, I pushed the �on� button. Words formed in the air.
Please identify yourself vocally.
�I�m Running Flame.�
Why are you using this unit instead of the headset?
�We got left here. Prince Andy and Steel Rivers are off somewhere else, there aren�t any grooms and there isn�t any usable food. I�ve been trying to retrieve the situation.�
One moment.
There was a pause, and then the words being painted on the air changed subtly.
What�s your situation?
I described it.
It doesn�t look like you�re in any immediate danger. I�d like to let the situation develop a bit. What do you think you should do next?
It�s asking me? I thought a moment, and then chorded: �Keep watch for a while.�
That sounds like a good plan. Anything else?
�If I�m going to be out and about, I�d like something to wear.�
Good idea. The ancient Egyptian culture seems to like full length dresses for women. Look in the closet in the first room. Check back in two hours if nothing has changed.
That sounded like a sign off, but then words formed above the unit again before I managed to get to the off switch.
I see you have determined how to use this unit. Are you having any trouble with it?
�It�s the weirdest communicator I�ve ever seen; I suspect I haven�t figured out most of it.�
�I�ve put the course on your curriculum. This is an experimental unit, and the course authors would like your feedback when you get around to it. So would the designers.
I decided to take a moment to look at the course. It was a good thing I did: it turned out that manual input was a virtual keyboard: all I needed to do was wave my hands in the air as if I was typing or writing. I managed to get it to accept handwritten English, which was, I suppose, a great thing.
I left a message for Prince Andy and Steel Rivers, and signed out.
The closet contained a pull over dress that I would swear wasn�t there the last time I looked. I let it fall over my head, and shimmied it down around my hips. There was a slit in the back in the right place for my tail. I looked through the closet again for a belt. It was a nice leather, all kinds of loops to hang things from, with an ornate buckle that might mean something hereabouts, or maybe it was just intended to impress. Whatever. I hung the communicator on my belt and paused. Then I hiked up my skirt and transferred the knife to the other side of the belt, making sure the loop held it just right so it lay flat against my hip, and wouldn�t stick out or bounce around.
The sun was heading toward the western horizon. Two hours should put it about� there. I started walking around, looking at the building and grounds, wondering if suddenly grooms and food would sprout from the eternal dust. I even looked at the trees; none of them seemed to be bearing fruit at the moment, not that I�d have a chance of climbing one to get it.
While I looked around, a number of parties walked past on the road, minding their own business. Eventually, a party of five people and one loaded donkey stopped in front of the courtyard. There were three of the little brown men, all armed, one larger male and one even larger redheaded female. They came trooping in without so much as a bye-your-leave. The leader (at least, he was the one with the sword) said something incomprehensible, and the odd man out unharnessed the baskets from the donkey and put them on the ground. The troops turned around and left, leading the donkey, and not incidentally, leaving me staring at two wicker baskets, one young man and one young woman.
��Well, I hope you speak English,� I said from the shadows.
The male jumped and spun around. The woman stiffened and then resumed her intense study of the ground in front of her.
He was about 5� 6� tall, brunette, dressed in the white linen kilt that seemed to be standard for all the men I�d seen (except for the bearers, I remembered. They�d worn loincloths.) He looked more the thin, enduring type than the thicker, batter down the wall by leaning against it type, which was just as well. She was taller, maybe 6�1�, redheaded, and dressed in a relatively simple linen pullover that made mine look like high fashion. On the other hand, from what I could see, her figure would probably make a feed sack look good, assuming she ever looked up and got some spirit.
I walked out into the sun, giving them a good look at my tail. He stood his ground, eyes bugging out. Brave man. Then he relaxed a bit.
�You�re a Freehold ponygirl, right?�
�I suppose the mane is a dead giveaway,� I responded dryly. His eyes jerked away from my tail. The clod hadn�t even noticed my hairstyle! �What are you supposed to do here?�
�They shoved us in here and told us we should do whatever needs doing.�
�Did they tell you what that was?� I asked.
�Uh, no, ma�am.�
�Well, lets get these baskets inside. The house is at the back. Tell me who you are and what you can do while we do it.�
The young man started the recital. It turned out his name was Frank, Fhaqed in the local dialect, and he�d been a slave for a couple of years. He took care of livestock, mostly donkeys and oxen. It took a bit of probing to find out why he�d been enslaved, but eventually the story came out. He�d been with a gang of drug runners and had crossed the boss. At the time, he�d been here picking up a shipment and he managed to get away before they killed him. The locals had thumped on him a while before he had decided that cooperation was better. Once I looked closely, I could see the scars.
The young woman was named Bonnie, and I didn�t even try to remember the hash they�d made of that name. She�d been here with her father, who was an anthropologist studying the local culture. He�d died suddenly and she�d been taken before she had a chance to call home and make arrangements. Since then, she�d had several owners, who�d used her as a housekeeper and concubine. Her story didn�t sound at all pleasant.
The baskets yielded food and various supplies, some of which I could identify. It also yielded two small scrolls.
�Can either of you read this?� I asked after one look.
�Ma�am?� Bonnie held out her hand as if she expected it to be slapped. Hard. I gave her one of the scrolls. She looked at it. �They�re bills of sale for us. They say we now belong to some ruler named, uh, Andy.�
I nodded. It looked like things were headed in the right direction.
�Bonnie. You first. Get all of this stuff stowed away, and then get us a hot meal. If you�ve got time, start cleaning.�
�Frank. All three ponies need to be groomed. They�re easy to get along with as long as you treat them like livestock. Like real valuable livestock that the owner will kick your ass from here to the waterfront if you damage them. Understand?� He nodded. I�d noticed him stumble a bit when we walked past the water tower with its three pony-power pump.
�By the way. If those two make an advance on you, you can follow up. Just do it before you wash them down.�
He stared at me as if I�d given him the keys to the candy store, and he was scared that the lock wouldn�t work.
�Those two are bisexual nymphomaniacs. They�ll fall down in front of anything with a penis, legs spread, once. If you do a good job on giving them their orgasms, they�ll eat out of your hand. Come to think of it, they�ll do that anyway, at least if you�ve got a sweet for them. Scratch them behind the ears, ruffle their mane, and they�ll behave.�
I turned to Bonnie. �Get to work, girl. And you don�t have to keep looking at the floor; I don�t want you to run into anything.� She picked up one of the baskets and scooted off toward the storeroom.
�We�ll start with Fast Fox. One of the things you need to know about the ponies is that they go on all fours except when they�re hitched to something.� I stopped the pump, and unhitched Fast Fox. Then I moved one of the blondes forward so she was on the same crossbar as her sister, and got them started again. This time, they both managed to start up at the same time, which avoided the slapstick comedy routine.
�Here�s how it goes.� I unsnapped the hooks that held his front hoof boots together behind his back, and pushed on his shoulders gently. He obediently bent over and planted his front hooves on the ground.
On all fours, he came to around my waist, or an inch or so higher. He was simply taller than I was, and his legs were correspondingly longer. On the other hand, he came up to Frank�s rib cage. The difference was the hoof boots; they kept our feet at full extension, adding at least six inches to our height, and that much leverage to our pulling ability. The front hoof boots had a stilt arrangement so that the wearer�s back stayed level.
Frank finished his inspection and picked up the reins. He led the ponyboy into the slave kennel, and looked at the wall. He found a coil of rope, and walked back, tying knots in it as he came. Then he took the bridle and bit off, and slid the halter over the pony�s head before he had time to object. Fox whinnied in surprise.
He led the puzzled ponyboy out to the front, and looped the rope over a post, tying it off with a knot. Then he got a bucket of water and sloshed it over Fox. Next, he soaped the ponyboy down, and then rinsed him off. He ran his hand through the mane, wringing out water, and then did the same for Fox�s tail.
Finally, he picked up a brush, and proceeded to comb out the ponyboy�s mane and tail. I nodded in approval; he�d done a nice, fast job. Then, he started to lead the ponyboy back into the stable.
I held up a hand. �Switch him with one of the ponygirls. They don�t look like they�re working up a sweat, so he shouldn�t.�
He grinned, showing white teeth against the sun-browned skin, and walked away, towing the ponyboy behind him. We stopped at the windlass. He held up his hand and said: �Stop.� They stopped, fortunately at the same time so that neither of them got whacked with the crossbar.
I broke in and asked: �Which one of you is Rippling Stream?� One of them whinnied at me, fortunately the nearer one. Frank efficiently unharnessed her from the bar, and harnessed Fast Fox. Then he stripped the halter off of the Fox, and changed Rippling Stream�s bridle for the halter. She smiled nicely at him, teasing her lips with her tongue. As he turned around, she slid her tail up under his skirt, causing him to jump and look down.
�She likes you, big boy,� I said as he walked past, leading his prize. I went on into the kitchen to see what Bonnie was doing.
What she was doing was grinding some of the grain with a pair of small stones and a hand crank. She also had a pot of water that was just coming to a boil. That was curious; I hadn�t noticed a stove when I�d looked, and I didn�t see anything burning.
�How�s the stove work?� I asked.
�Oh!� She turned around. She actually hadn�t noticed me? My horseshoes weren�t exactly quiet. Which reminded me that I�d probably be better off with sandals.
She laughed. �They like to pretend this is Ancient Egypt, but that�s true only when it�s inconvenient for us. It�s solar powered. There�s a collector on the roof, and I adjust it with this.� She pointed to some leather straps that were hanging from the ceiling. I walked closer and admired the design. The pot was sitting on a bronze plate that was perched on top of four bricks. A hot bronze plate. I had the impression I didn�t want to put my hand between the plate and the hole in the ceiling.
�Kind of hard to do a hot meal at night?� I asked.
�True,� she said. �It�s just one of those things. There�s also a fire pit out back for roasts and such. At least, there should be if this is like most other places. Then, we keep supplies in the cellars where it stays cold.
Since everyone was productively occupied, I took the opportunity to sit on the raised platform that seemed to serve as a bed, legs tucked neatly under me. I turned on the communicator, and the words formed in the air.
I see you�re back with us, Running Flame.
�Yes, I am. I think the situation has been resolved.� I dictated. �Check my mail, please.�
You have one message.
It was from Prince Andy, and said that he thought everything was going to be taken care of, and please keep him informed.
I sent off a message detailing what had happened, and asking advice about what to tell the two slaves about their future. Then I asked the advisor about mine.
As I have said before, advancement review is not my function. You would not have been given the releases in your hoof boots if the review board had not wanted to see what you would do with them. They will decide whether you acted appropriately given the situation and what, if any, corrective measures will be needed.
Humph. Well, if it was going to be opaque, then it was, and there wasn�t a thing I could do about it. I switched to the coursework.
It looked like I�d been buried under a tidal wave! There were well over a dozen new courses. I backed out hastily and asked about it.
This is the curriculum for deputy supervisor, which is what you are currently doing. You should take the course detailing what can, and cannot be disclosed to whom, under what circumstances first. The others can be taken at your leisure.
Gee, thanks.
As soon as you�ve finished it, there�s a letter from the advancement board waiting for you to discuss with your two assistants.
I set a timer for half an hour and plunged in. When I came up for air, there was another message from Prince Andy.
You�ve done well so far. Finish up the disclosure policy course, and then discuss their future with Frank and Bonnie. Frank will, of course, go into the ponyboy program. Explain why. We don�t have enough information on Bonnie; see what you can collect. Her story makes me suspect that there is something she has not told you. Concentrate on personal and social responsibility, in particular, whether she tended to irritate people.
Try to find out more about the drug smuggling. In particular, how deeply are the locals involved? You can release Fast Fox to work with you on that, after you have gotten into the deputy supervisor course. Make sure he understands that he�s going back into harness afterwards; if he shows resistance, don�t release him.
Other than that, have fun. Go look at them building the pyramid; it should be instructive or amusing. Expect us back in about a week.
I sent an acknowledgement and headed back out to see how Frank and Bonnie were doing.
When the Sun headed toward it�s daily appointment with the western horizon, I had Frank put all three ponies down for the night. The two girls were practically purring; apparently he knew how to keep his women happy. I put the helmets on Fast Fox and Rippling Stream. Sparkling Brook was still looking at them like they were from the fourteenth dimension or something. Well, the rules were the rules; she had to ask first. I wasn�t allowed to cram her head into one and tell her to learn something or else.
A quick check of the water tower showed that it was about half full. That bothered me slightly; I wasn�t sure what I was going to do to keep the ponies occupied for the rest of the week.
Bonnie had done a simple dinner of something delicious wrapped in a bread that certainly wasn�t made from wheat. I congratulated her; she mumbled something to the effect that if she hadn�t learned how to cook, she�d have been toast.
I grabbed her chin and pointed her head so she was looking me in the face.
�Bonnie, cut that poor me act out right now! You did an excellent meal, you look like you�ve got the housekeeping under control, and you�re probably quite good at keeping a man sexually satisfied. There�s no reason I can tell for you to go around like a whipped cur! Tell me about it if you want, or not, but drop that act. Now!�
She tried to pull back, and I released her chin. Then she shook herself and relaxed a bit.
�So, what do you think will happen if you�re just yourself?�
�They always tell me I�m trying to take control,� she whined.
I lifted my hand. �Say it again, like it�s all right.�
She flinched and then took another deep breath. �They always complain when I try to tell them how they should do something.� I cocked my head in a question, and the tip of my tail lifted slightly. �But they�re all so stupid! I want to show them how to do it easier!�
�So what happened when they told your father to send you home?� I asked. It was a pure guess, of course, but it made sense, and I�ve never liked the weepy scenes where the problem is obvious to everyone except the participants until after the final commercial.
She straightened up. �He refused. Then � they killed him!�
�They killed him because of you? Are you sure?�
She fell over sobbing. �Yes � No, � I don�t know! But when they took me, they said that they�d waited long enough to humble the proud bitch.�
I pulled her in and let her sob it out on my shoulder while I slowly massaged her back. Eventually she took a long breath and relaxed.
�What�s going to happen to me?�
�Truthfully, I don�t know for certain. There are a number of options. First, you could decide to stay here, so we�d put you up for sale when we leave.�
Her back straightened in hastily suppressed rage. Then her face smoothed and she took a deep breath. �You did say I could decide. What else?�
�Well, you could contact your country�s embassy, and ask for passage home. Technically, you haven�t done anything wrong on Freehold territory, and what�s on your record doesn�t merit correction as long as you behave yourself while you�re in Freehold proper.�
�I�ll probably do that. What else?�
�You could decide to immigrate. Then you�d either go into the correction sequence or the immigration sequence. The review board hasn�t decided which would be appropriate yet.�
�Correction or immigration?�
�The correction sequence is for people who demonstrate low social or personal responsibility. It starts at ponygirl or ponyboy, then goes to personal slave, household slave and finally to supervised citizen. You�re functioning at household slave right now, although there�s a lot you need to know to do that in Freehold. The immigration sequence is for people who have the appropriate level of personal or social responsibility, and simply need to learn the ropes before being turned loose at supervised citizen. Essentially, it�s a lot of coursework, and you can play tourist while you�re doing it.�
She was lost in thought for a couple of minutes. �What do jobs here pay?�
�They don�t. Freehold doesn�t use money in any form. No medium of exchange at all.�
She pulled her head back and looked at me like she didn�t believe I�d said that. �How does that work? I thought Marxism had been disproved.�
�Any economic theory can be wrecked if it�s implemented by ideologues with oatmeal for brains. Freehold tries to operate everything at an economic surplus, so there are never shortages, and has economic monitors for resource wastage, again set to be fairly liberal. The old Soviet Union didn�t do either of those things, and also had an idiotic planning cycle. It was much too long to adjust production, and much too short to keep things running smoothly long term.�
�How do I find out more?�
�Everything they want you to know is on the system. I�ll see if I can get you approved for access.�
Her eyes narrowed in thought. �You know, experiencing that might just make staying worthwhile, even if I have to start as a ponygirl. I assume that the system includes immigration requirements?�
�Of course,� I smiled at her, and she smiled back.
�Now that you�ve settled her future, what�s going to happen to me?�
�Well, you�re going right into the ponyboy program, unless you want to stay here and keep grooming the livestock and sleeping chained in a stall. We can arrange that.�
�Why the ponyboy program?�
�Remember what I told Bonnie about social responsibility? Dealing in highly addictive psychoactive drugs demonstrates that you don�t care about what happens to the people that get addicted to them. That puts you on the bottom, and you�ll have to work your way up.�
He shrugged. �So, I spend some time in stir. That beats the heck out of getting rubbed out. What happens after that?�
�If you finish the program in the time limit set, you can stay. Also if you immigrate. Otherwise, you�ll be kicked out when the time limit runs out, and the police will be waiting for you when you get off the boat. At least in your case. Most countries count time served on Freehold as time served, but if the crime carries a decade or more, they won�t dismiss it.�
�I�m less worried about the police than my old associates. What�s this social responsibility thing?�
�All Freehold requires of a citizen is that they do something socially useful, keep within the laws as administered, and treat their neighbors at least as well as they want to be treated. Essentially, you won�t be allowed in a position where you affect more people than you can be trusted to treat well.�
�So, how do I get to the top of the heap?�
�You don�t. It�s too complicated to explain, and I don�t understand all the ins and outs myself, but you can take it that anyone that would be qualified for the top jobs would not consider drug running. Period. The people at the top consider everyone on the planet to be their brothers and sisters, whether they�ve met them or not, and they simply wouldn�t do that.�
�Why the ponygirls and ponyboys? If you have to do time, why not a prison?�
�They tell me that prisons simply don�t work for rehabilitation. I don�t fully understand the livestock program. The explanation I�ve been given is that it�s a place for people of demonstrated low social responsibility where they can�t do any damage, and are doing something socially useful. In any case, it�s not permanent; you can go as high as you can manage to pass the tests. Just remember that most of the tests are behavioral.�
�You�ve got a mane and tail, so you must be a ponygirl? Why aren�t you in one of the stalls?� Bonnie asked slyly.
�It�s a long story, but you can be assured of one thing. When we leave here, I�m going to be in harness. I�m out because we need a supervisor right now, and there�s no one else available. The blondes are totally unsuitable. Fast Fox could probably do as well as I can, but this is the way the die fell.�
�So, what�s this system you were telling Bonnie about?�
�It�s the advancement system. �Everything�s computerized. There�s an AI with a very dry sense of humor that runs the thing. That�s what Fast Fox and Ripping Stream are doing right now. Sparkling Brook hasn�t figured it out yet, or maybe she just doesn�t care.�
�She doesn�t want to learn things?� Bonnie sounded shocked.
�Some people don�t. Calling those two dumb blondes is an insult to the species. The only reason Rippling Stream is on the system is that she�s caught on that she really doesn�t want to go to farm work, and some of the things she needs to know to avoid it are only available online.�
�Which reminds me,� I turned to Frank. �I don�t know how good you are on training, but those two have a lot of difficulty keeping a pace without a pacemaker. Even with a pacemaker, they tend to get distracted, so they have to wear blinders when they�re doing anything. I wouldn�t care, except that it means that Fast Fox and I also have to wear the damn things when we�re in a foursome. If there�s anything obvious you can do, tell me and I�ll probably tell you to go ahead and try it.�
�So, how soon can I get started with the system?� Bonnie asked.
�I�ll check. It could be tonight, we�ve got the equipment, but it�s not my decision.�
�So, where do we sleep?� Frank asked. �I doubt if you want us in with you.�
�What did your owners usually do?� I riposted.
�Mine chained me up in one of the stalls,� he responded glumly.
�Some of mine left me loose, some of them had a collar and chain in their bedchamber,� Bonnie said.
�I can do either,� I said. �How are you on sex? Want some tonight, or would you just as soon stay celibate for a while? Male, female or both?�
�Mmm�� she said, dreamily. �That ponyboy sure turned me on. He�s built like��
�Ok. If Fox likes you, you can have him tonight. I can put a second collar in his stall.� She wrinkled her nose at that, but didn�t actually say anything.
�Which,� I turned to Frank, �means you get me, assuming you want me and can still perform after this afternoon.� The bulge in his skirt was all the answer I needed. I patted it lightly to make it feel welcome.
The next morning I woke when the communication unit beeped. Frank kept snoring gently next to me, which was a nice feeling. Waking up with someone sexy in your bed is one of those things that you don�t really know you missed until it happens to you again. Not that I wanted Frank there permanently. He wasn�t bad, but I not only preferred the Fox, we had a tentative agreement to find out if we could make a go of it after we both made supervised citizen.
Dawn filtered in through the high, barred windows. I lit a candle to get some more light. I�d woken Frank by all the moving around, so I unlocked his collar and sent him out to see to the livestock, and not so incidentally release Bonnie so she could make us breakfast.
I made a cursory appearance, and then checked in on the computer. There wasn�t anything urgent I had to take care of, so I wandered out to see what they were doing. Bonnie, as I expected, was in the kitchen making something. Frank had taken our three ponies out into the yard where they were slurping water from a trough, occasionally swishing their tails in the process. He�d tied their front legs together somehow into a crude hobble, and had them all haltered, with the halters tied to a handy protrusion. They weren�t going anywhere.
I liked the idea. It got them out of the stalls, and seeing one brunette and two blonde heads bobbing up and down as they sucked in the water and swallowed did something for me. Then Bonnie came out carrying food. She dumped it into another shallow trough, said �about ten minutes,� and walked back into the stable. I tried to avoid a giggle; Bonnie�s dominance was showing through.
Breakfast was whatever kind of grain they used, boiled into porridge, and seasoned with several kinds of fruit. I wondered briefly how Prince Andy was making out; if his cook was any better, he must be somewhere around the fifth heaven, well, fourth for sure.
After it broke up, Frank went back out to harness the two blondes to the pump so they could refill the cistern. I started making lists of things that needed maintenance, and had Bonnie put together a shopping list for a week�s supplies. When we got together over lunch, it looked like we had supplies for about two days, which meant a shopping trip today or tomorrow. I opted for tomorrow, based on a lack of money.
That meant the afternoon was free for sightseeing, and Prince Andy�s suggestion was still the best thing I�d heard of. Looking at them building the pyramid was it. Frank had found a chariot. It was a big sucker with a bench on the back for someone important to sit, and space in the front for a driver and one or two factotums, standing. The biggest problem was that it didn�t have any shafts to hitch the draft animals to. The wheels weren�t that good either, but they would do on any kind of hard surface, and they might not be that bad on sand. I hoped. I walked around it, looked at it, and began to grin evilly. Fast Fox might never speak to me again. The twins might not either, but that wouldn�t ruin my day.
I had Frank hitch all three of our ponies to the chariot, Fast Fox in the middle and about one stride ahead of the other two. Just to make a point, the twins were outfitted with blinders and checkreins, while I left Fast Fox with his head free, other than the bit, bridle and reins, of course. We had them decorated with the full set of plumes and bells, as well. If I was going to go sightseeing, I wanted to do it in style. Besides, putting on a show would impress people with our importance, which might be useful in avoiding problems.
I�d left the last little detail for last. Bonnie thought she was coming along as kind of a guide; her father had been an anthropologist, and she knew a lot about the culture from an outside viewpoint. Well, she was right in a way. I was sure I would find her comments on the art and craft of building a pyramid interesting.
Her jaw dropped when I handed her the reins. �But � I�ve never driven a ponygirl!�
�Neither has Frank. I haven�t either. Tell me why you�ve been appointed.�
�Um �� She consulted the sky, and then the ground. �I don�t know,� she almost wailed.
�Because you like to tell people what to do,� I told her. �So figure it out.�
�Oh. It�s an object lesson.�
�Partly. And partly because someone has to do it, and I�d rather that it not be Frank.�
She thought about that for a moment. �Oh.�
�And don�t worry if you go real slow around corners. Turning this thing has got to be a bitch.�
�I�ll bet.� She walked around it, shaking her head. She climbed in and set her feet in the center. Frank stood to her right, and I ascended the bench like it was a throne.
�Let�s go,� I said. She looked at the mess of leather reins she held, and sorted them in her hands until she had somewhat equal tension on all three sets of bits. Then she flipped them once and pulled on the left reins, which she had put into her left hand. The ponies pulled, and the chariot jerked behind them, slewing to the left as Rippling Stream (on the right) took up the load. It pivoted, wheels complaining as they tried to move at different rates on a common axle. I shook my head. No wonder they used sedan chairs!
She got them straightened out to the gate, and then managed to get them turned right more by brute force and awkwardness than planning, and not a few choice words that I didn�t recognize. I heard Frank chuckle. Once we were headed in the right direction, I leaned over and asked her to tell them to trot.
�Trot!� Now that we were under control, she had a nice, firm command voice. Fast Fox picked up the pace, and the blondes fell in automatically.
It was a spectacular view. The bench was high enough that Bonnie�s head bounced just below me, and I had a great view of our three ponies straining in their harnesses, brunette and blonde heads and tails bobbing in time with their steps. I noticed that Fox had his tail out, tip flicking back and forth in time with his steps. Well, if it kept the twins on step, it helped.
Frank turned his head and asked: �Isn�t this kind of a heavy load for them?�
I laughed. �Not really. It�s not much heavier than a fully loaded taxi or package cart, and it only takes one ponygirl to handle that. Of course, taxis and package carts have lots better suspensions. Having all three of them for this is overkill.�
We were coming up on a woman leading a laden donkey. Bonnie�s head kind of stiffened slightly as she sorted the reins between her hands. Then she pulled with her left hand, and the ponies went left. Well, at least Fast Fox went left properly. The twins shifted around confusedly for a moment before they fell in behind Fast Fox, like they were supposed to do. Once we were safely past the woman and her donkey, Bonnie pulled on the right reins, but this time I noticed that she just pulled Fast Fox�s rein, leaving the two blondes to their own devices. I raised my eyebrows, and then relaxed as they simply followed the leader. Frank nodded slightly as he watched the maneuver.
I looked behind me; the woman was still walking stolidly on, leading her donkey. I decided not to wave my tail at her.
We trotted down the riverside road for a few miles, looking at the barges floating downriver, which was the direction we were going, and being hauled upriver by teams of oxen on towpaths. The right side had walled villas; very like the villa we were occupying, and fields stretching into the distance. The pyramid loomed in the distance, gradually coming nearer as we trotted on.
Eventually, we got to where a low dock fronted the river, with a crossroad leading directly to the pyramid. Bonnie hauled on the reins, saying �Stop!� All three ponies slowed down to a stop in good order. I�d been looking forward to this maneuver with some trepidation, considering the comic opera that the twins had given us the previous day with the pump and crossbar, however, we didn�t have any trouble. The chariot simply had too much rolling friction � it stopped dead as soon as they quit pulling.
A man I took to be the supervisor walked up and started talking to Bonnie. Frank translated for my benefit. It seemed that he knew Bonnie from before her father had died, and for a wonder, had left any irritation with her behind. They chatted for a few minutes, and then he asked if he could inspect the ponygirls. Of course I said yes, and got out of the chariot. We gathered around Rippling Stream. He squatted down and looked at her tail, admiring the way she swished it back and forth. Then he looked at her mane, and quirked an eyebrow at me. I nodded, so he reached over and ran his hand through it.
He backed off and said something in Coptic. Frank laughed. �He says that the Freeholders are even greater sorcerers than he�d heard, to have merged a horse, a woman and a cat! He wants to know if the gods were pleased?�
�Well, they haven�t objected yet,� I replied. Frank translated, and the supervisor laughed.
Just then, he looked toward the river, and started yelling orders to his crew. A barge with two large blocks of sandstone was floating toward the dock. Two of the dockworkers flung lines with loops on the end toward the barge, and caught some kind of attachment. Then they ran the lines around thick bronze poles and paid them out swiftly. The rest of the crew came up in what had to be a practiced movement, and pulled, slowing the barge down and bringing it gently into the dock. They tied it swiftly, and retired.
He pointed up the road toward the pyramid. Two groups of men wearing leather straps trotted toward us, maintaining a strict formation, and pulling little wheeled carts behind them. As they got nearer, I saw that the leather straps were harnesses, and that they didn�t have much choice about the formation: they were harnessed together in two columns of four. When they arrived, the supervisor detached the carts. They turned around in a well-practiced maneuver, and backed up to the blocks. The supervisor hitched each of the groups to one of the blocks, and said something. They leaned into the traces, and the massive sandstone blocks moved behind them on what I saw were little carts, one on each end.
In a moment, they were receding slowly into the distance toward the pyramid. I chuckled to myself. They were using ponyboys to build the pyramid! Once they had a head start, he waved us down the road. As I looked back, they were releasing the barge, and polling it to the other side, where there was a waiting team of oxen to take it back upriver to the quarry.
We trotted down the road, keeping pace with the massive block in front of us. The country changed from fields and farms to open grassland, with some clusters of trees. We passed a number of the haulage teams coming back our way for their next sandstone block.
Once we got closer to the pyramid, we saw the teams taking the blocks up the face on sand ramps. One of the ubiquitous supervisors waved us to the side, and then waited for the next block, and trotted next to the team toward the pyramid. We were close enough to see that he was guiding the team to one of the sand ramps that lead diagonally up the structure. As we watched, they pulled it up the ramp, onto what seemed to be a flat surface. They hauled it around the side and vanished from sight.
That got me curious. I could see the blocks going up, but how did they get them into place? I asked Bonnie, and she just grinned and asked if I was up to walking up and looking? Hell, yes. Especially if I could bring the chariot. She frowned and asked the supervisor something. He walked around the chariot looking, and then said something.
�He says we can go up, just watch out and follow the guide.� Fast Fox didn�t look like he had been listening, but his tail gave me the high sign; it seemed that he was just as interested as I was. Just then, another team of sweating haulers walked past, followed by another big block of sandstone. We clambered back on, and Bonnie flicked the reins. Fast Fox pulled out behind the block, and we were off.
I heard the grunts as we hit the ramp. Up to now, we had been on very flat terrain. The ramp was not flat, and our three ponies were hard pressed to pull the chariot. I thought a moment and then shrugged. Those blocks were at least three times as heavy as we were, and if those teams could move them, then my three ponies shouldn�t be in serious difficulty. So it proved. About ten minutes later, the ramp leveled off onto a three block wide platform. We followed the block around the corner. Halfway around the side, the block in front of us stopped. A work team heaved the block back and forth a bit until they had it lined up exactly the way they wanted, and then used levers to tilt it over against the wall. It fell into place with a thump! We got out and looked at the result. I didn�t see how they could have gotten it any closer!
We got back in, and followed the haulage team around the new course of stone until they got to a down ramp, and then followed them down. All in all, I couldn�t see what the big deal was. It looked like precision rock cutting, and then a precise roll, and it was done. I must have mentioned something about it, and Bonnie laughed delightedly. It seemed that all the Egyptologists had gotten in a huff about the reports. It couldn�t have been that simple!
�Well,� she said thoughtfully, �it probably wasn�t. They still have to true up the structure and then put the limestone cover on it. That�s going to be a bit harder, but not all that much. They�ll just have to use some scaffolding. And of course, building around the rooms takes some other techniques, but they�re finished with that now.�
We headed back after what I considered a quite successful day.
Over dinner I asked Bonnie what she had learned driving the ponies.
She thought a moment. �I assume you don�t mean what I learned about how to use the reins, angles and so forth?� she asked in return.
�Right. I didn�t mean that.�
�Well,� she said thoughtfully, �I learned that Fast Fox is quite competent in handling the chariot. Just give him a minimal signal, and he�ll do the rest. And the twins get totally confused if I try to use the reins to control them. They�ll follow Fast Fox, and that usually works out.�
�And what does that mean?�
�That I was being an idiot, telling people what to do when they knew perfectly well what to do.�
I nodded. �That�s one of the lessons of supervision. If you have to stand over someone with a whip, you�ve got it organized wrong.�
�But what would I do if I didn�t have Fast Fox? I don�t think either of the twins could lead the team.�
�You�re right on that. You�d have to supervise them a lot more closely. However, that�s a process problem. They aren�t trained for that kind of chariot.�
�Oh. No shaft.�
�Exactly. Hitch them up to a wagon with a proper shaft, and they�ll do quite well. That�s the way they�ve been trained.�
�So what do I do for shopping tomorrow?�
�Take one of the twins with a taxi. We�ve got two taxis stored in the back of the carriage. It�s got enough space for you and a couple of baskets, and it�s got proper shafts.�
�I thought Fox was the only one trained on taxi?�
�Taxi needs a few things they haven�t been trained on, like being able to get a passenger where they want to go just from the address, without the passenger having to use the reins. Also taxi stand procedures, and a bunch of other things.�
�None of which matters around here. I see,� she said thoughtfully. �That does make sense, most taxi passengers wouldn�t want to drive a pony.�
The next morning I watched Bonnie as she harnessed Sparkling Brook to the taxi, and guided her out the gate toward the neighboring village. Bonnie, I expected, wouldn�t have any problem. She was a known quantity, even if Sparkling Brook wasn�t.
Frank was outside, cleaning leather. I walked up behind Fast Fox and ruffled his mane. He butted his head into my stomach playfully. �Fox,� I said. �Want a special assignment? I need to pump Frank about how the drug trade works around here, and I might need some backup.�
�If it gets me out of harness.�
�For a few days. You�re back in when Prince Andy comes back.�
�What about hitching those two to the carriage instead?� he asked, trying to sound reasonable.
�Well, Frank�s going right to the stables, but Bonnie most likely won�t, and anyway, they aren�t trained. Pulling that thing for any length of time would kill them.�
�I take it you want my promise to go back nicely when you tell me?�
�You got it.�
He shrugged. �I�d just as soon not have to wear that damn collar. It chafes! You�ve got a deal.�
I put my hand on his rump and he stood erect. Then I clicked the locks and pulled the zippers, and he slid them off of his hands. He stood there a few moments flexing them, and then reached out for me. One thing lead very swiftly to another until we came up for air a couple of minutes later, all flushed and excited.
�Well, I see I�d better get you a skirt, big boy,� I said, turning toward the storeroom.
I walked out into the sunlight, and spotted Frank finishing up Rippling Stream. I told him to come in when he was done; I needed to talk to him. He walked into the main room without noticing Fast Fox standing by the door.
�Sit down,� I gestured. �I want you to tell me about the drug trade around here.�
He whirled for the door and stopped dead when he saw Fox standing, arms crossed.
�Oh, just sit down,� I said a bit crossly. �You�re not in any trouble with us. Not any more than you were already, that is. You can tell us now, or you can let the interrogators get it out of you later. Your choice.�
He turned around and sat in front of me, legs crossed. �What do you want to know?�
�You said you were here to make a pickup, when your boss got irritated with you and you had to run for it. Who was your contact? Is he a local or not? Is this just a drop, or do they grow and process it here?�
He clamped his jaw shut.
�Don�t think of trying to escape. I�m an assassin, and Fast Fox is heavy muscle from some security agency. Freehold caught us fair and square. Now it�s your turn. Talk.�
He sagged. �Yes, they grow and process it here.� He continued to outline what he knew of the operation. He wasn�t sure how it had gotten started. He had heard someone had gene engineered a normally innocuous plant to create something that they then processed into pure heroin. And a few other things. He wasn�t at all certain about that part of the story, he wasn�t close enough to know for sure. What he did know was that they harvested one of the normal food plants. The processing plant was in a chamber in the pyramid, accessed by a tunnel that came all the way from the river. And another tunnel came to the waterfront warehouse area, where they stored exotic foodstuffs for export.
What had lead to the blowup with his gang?
Frank sagged even further before straightening up in resignation. Some nosey professor was checking discrepancies in the stone used to build the pyramid. He and his redheaded bitch of a daughter were getting on everyone�s nerves. The gang wanted him to kill both of them for safety. He�d refused. The professor, yes, but he�d arranged for the daughter to be taken by a local slaver, saving her life. Then the blowup came, and he�d run and been picked up himself.
Had he ever seen the daughter?
Frank blinked at the question and then turned pale. No, he hadn�t.
�So,� Fast Fox rumbled from behind him, �let me see if I�ve got this straight. There�s a food crop that gets harvested, taken to the waterfront warehouse, then moved to the pyramid underground to be processed. A courier picks up the drugs at the end of the other tunnel. Someone has got to be covering the warehouse discrepancies, and someone has got to be getting the money back to the farmers. Who?�
He didn�t know for sure. He thought it had to be high up, though. The entire operation was simply too well greased not to have high-level connivance.
�Well,� Running Flame said, �digging it out isn�t our job. We�ll just turn it over to our security department, and let them sort it out.�
Frank relaxed slightly. �What about Bonnie?�
�If she wanted to have your guts for garters while you watched them tanning, I�d help her. I do not like drug traders. However, I�m not planning to tell her, if only because killing you would send her to the ponygirl stables, and she doesn�t need that. So you�re safe as long as you mind your manners.�
�We�re done with you. Rippling Stream can handle the pump alone, just make sure the imbalance doesn�t bind it.� She waved her hand in dismissal. Frank got up, thoroughly shaken.
�Let�s move to the bedroom, love,� I told Fast Fox. He followed me, a bulge beginning to show at the front of his skirt.
�Not that,� I swatted at it playfully with my tail. �We need to report in.� I handed him one of the experimental units. �Push on and follow the instructions.� A moment later, I was perched on the sleeping platform, sitting on my heels with my tail curled around my hips, focused on my own system terminal.
A half hour later, we came up for air and walked out. Rippling Stream was doing her almost eternal circles in front of the horizontal beam without a partner. Frank was out in the courtyard, cleaning out one of the troughs. I heard the rapid clip-clop of horseshoes on the outside pavement. A moment later, Sparkling Brook turned the corner into the courtyard at full speed and brought the taxi to a graceful stop as she answered to Bonnie�s hands on her reins.
Bonnie alighted from the taxi, throwing the reins to Frank almost in passing. Then she walked up front and removed the startled �girl�s bit and held up her hand. Sparkling Brook leaned forward to investigate it, and then rolled the sweet gently into her mouth between her tongue and upper teeth.
�I think,� I said, �you�ve made a friend.�
�I guess so. Once I found out how she likes to respond to the reins, she was real easy to handle, and she just lapped up all the attention in the market. I think she likes playing the pony a bit more than she normally gets to.�
�Now, that�s a thought. They�re definitely exhibitionists. How�d you like to be part of a circus act?� I ran my fingers through the �girl�s mane as I asked.
Sparkling Brook stamped one of her hooves and whinnied. Bonnie scratched her behind the ears, and then picked up the basket of groceries and headed toward the kitchen. Frank moved in to unharness the �girl from the taxi, wash her down and groom her.
The message from Prince Andy was to the point.
You�re doing well. Security is evaluating the data you got from Frank. I tend to agree that there is very high level complicity in the drug running; there are subjects that I�m being discretely steered away from.
I want your opinion of the ramifications of shutting this enclave down. They�re clearly not doing Ancient Egypt the way the Egyptologists say it existed, so there isn�t any formal reason to continue it, and it would allow us to deal with the drug problem in passing.
Get Frank and Bonnie�s opinions on the subject. Be discrete. Pose the question about how much adjustment the average inhabitant would need if they had to immigrate to Freehold society.
When I�d digested that, I asked the advisor what I should look at for the next enclave. It never paid to be slack on the maps.
The next enclave on the schedule is a small contemplative religious community that normally poses no problems whatsoever. Prince Andy usually stops there for a day or so, just to maintain the personal linkage with the Abbott.
After that, the schedule calls for the Gorean enclave, and the Prince has not yet made up his mind about how he wants to approach it with you.
That night, after I finished my system time, I put Frank and the twins into an expanded stall I�d had him build by removing a partition, and then left them to their own devices. They didn�t seem to have any trouble figuring out what to do about the arrangement. I heard the twins start in on him before I�d managed to get to the bedchamber. He didn�t sound at all unhappy about it, either.
By the time I got back and dropped the bar in the slots across the door, both Bonnie and Fast Fox had put their terminals away. They looked at me expectantly. I looked at Bonnie, and then we both attacked Fast Fox. I took him high, she took him low. A half hour later, we snuggled up against each other on the platform, pulled up the furs and went to sleep.
My head ached abominably. The straw I lay on scratched as I tried to bring my hands up to cushion my aching head, and the collar around my throat chafed and jerked my movement to a stop as the chain tightened with a twang.
What! I came fully awake and moaned as muscle aches and a queasy feeling just short of utter nausea joined my headache. What was going on? I managed to open my eyes, which just confirmed through a bleary film that I seemed to be in one of the stalls in the slave kennels. I must have been drugged, not that the knowledge was likely to do any good.
I considered going back to sleep, but somehow I summoned up a reserve of strength. Or maybe just perverse stubbornness: whoever had done this was going to taste my wrath. Before I sent them to, what was the Egyptian god that judged the dead? Ma�at? Whatever. A couple of deep breaths cleared my head somewhat, and I tried to think out what had happened.
The last thing I had remembered was going to sleep on one side of Frank, with Bonnie on his other side. I�d put the bar across the door, so either they�d done me in, or something else had happened. I groaned again as the headache intensified. Damn my dislike of strategic thinking. Well, either I could stay here, or I could break out and chase the miserable traitors to their lair.
The question was: how? I felt for the quick release studs in the hoof boots, and found them. However, they didn�t release. They stayed exactly where they were, as solid as if they�d been welded in place. I moaned again, quietly. Damn Bonnie. Somehow I knew that Frank wouldn�t have been clever enough to disable them.
I tried to relax, and the headache receded enough for me to think a bit. I�d escaped from the Old South Plantations, how? Oh, yes. I focused my bleary gaze on the wooden walls that separated the stalls, and finally found a protruding nail. My arms felt like lead as I twisted the lock around the nail, until I was finally rewarded with a light pop. Then I twisted around until I managed to catch the zipper on the nail, and pulled it open. One hoof boot off. Now that I had a hand free, the second one came off.
I tried to back out, and was jerked up short for my troubles. Oh, right. That damn slave collar. The key should be right behind me. I twisted to look. Yep, it was hanging on the wall, completely out of reach. I tried to brush it down with my tail, but I couldn�t quite make it. I collapsed in the stall, just about ready to cry in frustration. The straw dug in. The straw? I grabbed a bunch, aligned the stalks, and twisted a couple around it to tie them into a bundle. Then I assaulted the key with my tail. It fell to the ground, and I collected it.
Insert. Twist. It didn�t work! I twisted it around until it sunk in that it was the wrong key. I felt like breaking down and crying. Instead, I thought back to my prior escape. I hadn�t had the key, had I?
No. I�d used the nail. I worried the nail out of the partition, and picked the lock.
Success! It seemed like my headache was going down, and I wasn�t feeling queasy any more. I got up and checked the other stalls. As I half expected, Fast Fox was in one, and the twins were in the big stall. All three seemed to be breathing, but they were still out cold from whatever the bastards had used on us.
Damn again. The twins would be useless, but Fast Fox would be invaluable. I supposed the next thing would be to reconnoiter and see if the perfidious duo had run, or if they were still around somewhere I could turn the tables.
It looked like they�d run. At least, I knew how. There was a hidden door in the cellars that lead to a tunnel. I had no doubt that it went into the complex that centered under the pyramid. At least, if I could trust Frank�s carefully prepared spontaneous confession, which I had reason to doubt. Whatever. I tried to block it with a cabinet, although I had my doubts that it would work because the door opened into the tunnel, not out into the cellar. At least, it would make a clatter if they tried to come back through.
It did seem that they had left the food. A couple of fruits and some water helped immensely. The terminals we�d been using were nowhere in sight. I suspected that they were probably at the bottom of the well, or in the cistern, or some other place that would render them useless. Fortunately, I didn�t think I�d told either Bonnie or Frank where the rest of them were. There should be another helmet and another one of the experimental units.
They were exactly where I�d left them, under one of the seats in the carriage. I took out the last of the experimental units, reserving the helmet either for an emergency or for Fast Fox.
Good morning, Running Flame. What can I do for you? One of the standard openings. At least, it was working.
�HELP! Fast Fox and I were drugged last night. Frank and Bonnie seem to have vanished.�
That�s not good. Do tell. One moment.
The words changed slightly.
What is your situation?
I described it again.
How did this happen?
�Stupidity on my part. I trusted those two bastards.� I described how I�d been taken in.
I will leave the evaluation to the review board. Yeah, right. What a relief. Frank and Bonnie appear to be in a room in the port. Prince Andy and Steel Rivers seem to be in no present danger. I�ve put a monitor on them to insure that they come to no harm.
What is your evaluation of the likely course of events?
It�s asking me? �They�ll escape from the enclave on a ship?�
Then what?
It should know I�m no good at this, I wailed silently to myself. Prince Andy comes back and we go back to Freehold, of course. Oh, shit.
�I don�t think they know about what Justice can do, so they need to keep Prince Andy from finding out what�s happened. Someone is going to come and kill us. Soon, so they can cover the lack of communications.�
Possibly. Or they plan on killing the Prince and Steel Rivers, and taking you for slaves. Keep the communicator close. We will keep you informed if anything happens you need to respond to. Meanwhile, just keep on as if nothing has happened.
�All right. I don�t think I need to stir from here until the Prince arrives. Or doesn�t. We�ve got food for that long, but I�m short one helmet. Well, I�m short three, but I only need one right now.�
I�ll see about replenishing the equipment. Anything else?
�I think I�ve pretty much recovered from whatever they gave me, but I don�t know about the other three.�
It�ll be taken care of before you get back to them. Anything else?
�I don�t think so.�
Whoever I�d been talking to vanished from the virtual screen, and the advisor reappeared.
Is everything satisfactory?
�For the moment. Are there any messages?�
There was a message from the Prince, now woefully out of date. I wrote him a message describing the situation. I figured he would be able to get more information about what else was going on faster than I could, anyway, so I went a bit light on suspicions, and heavier on things he might want to know about our condition.
I sent it off, and decided that course work was so low on my priority list that it was practically invisible.
So, back to the stable. By the time I got there, all three of the ponies were awake. The twins didn�t look like they knew anything unusual had happened. If they�d noticed that Frank was missing, it hadn�t occurred to them that it meant anything, which was just as well. Fast Fox, on the other hand, was standing on four hooves in a stance that made me just as happy that I wasn�t the one who had put him back where he belonged. And that he wouldn�t be able to do anything to me before I had a chance to explain.
I walked up behind him, and he glared at me.
�Hey, big guy. Do you want to calm down so I can tell you what happened, or should I just put you in the pump room and let you heat the water as it goes by?�
That confused him enough that he got a laugh, which is what I intended.
�So. Why did you put me back in the stable?�
�I didn�t. Bonnie drugged us and put both of us back here. She and Frank escaped to the port. Justice is keeping close tabs on the situation.�
He stared at me while it percolated. �Shit!� That expletive said it all. �So, let me out of here.�
�No.�
�What?� Fortunately, he kept his voice down.
�Big boy, you�re a ponyboy until the review board decides otherwise.�
�So are you.�
�Please. Ponygirl.�
�Forgive me,� he said, more than a little irony in his voice. �Well, it was too good to be true. What�s on the schedule for today?�
�You emulate a big shot.�
�Huh?�
�Blessed are they that go around in circles, for they shall be known as wheels,� I quoted one of the proverbs.
�Oh, well. I suppose it�s better than staring at this damn wall.�
�Frankly, if you could figure out a way of getting Sparkling Brook onto the system without just cramming her head in a helmet and telling her she�d be flogged if she didn�t learn something, I�d give all three of you more study time.�
I thought for a moment.
�Now that I think of it, would you stay in the back garden if I put you there? More important, do you think the twins would stay there?�
�It�s fenced, isn�t it? They should stay there if you tell them to.�
I noticed he didn�t say he would stay, but I decided not to challenge him on it. He�d already had a rougher morning than any ponyboy should have.
I found one of the halters and put his head in it, and then tried to unlock the collar. The damn key didn�t work! I swore at it for a minute while Fox stared at me, and then slapped my head. The key from the stall they�d had me in worked, all right. They�d just swapped them. I led him out to the courtyard and filled the water trough, and then I brought the two blondes out. I watched their heads bobbing in the trough, manes fluttering in the light breeze for a moment. I put a selection of native fruits into the other trough, and waited until they�d had their fill. Then I hitched them to the windlass, and watched them start refilling the cistern.
I wouldn�t have claimed life was good, but at least the current problems had been dealt with.
I spent some time exploring the rest of the villa. If I remembered correctly, one of the rooms was a Roman style bath, currently empty, complete with massage table. I�d ignored it originally as being of no earthly use without water. Now it looked like I had too much. Keeping my three ponies busy was more important than my wearing a hair shirt when I didn�t need to. Or so I told myself, grinning.
A little hunting found the stopcock. I turned it, and watched the water jet out of the bamboo pipe and puddle onto the bottom of the pool area. It was cold, which actually wasn�t surprising, now that I thought about it. The cistern was shielded from the direct sunlight. Pity this place didn�t run to hot water, though.
That thought made me look at the ceiling. There was a hole in it, like the one in the kitchen. And a set of leather straps near it. Warm water! It almost made me glow with anticipation. I tried to get whatever it was focused, but the target under the hole stubbornly refused to warm up. I was doing something wrong, somewhere.
So I trotted up the stairs to the roof to look at the apparatus. Both solar heaters were curved bronze mirrors in wooden frames. I twisted the mirror above the bath around until something kicked loose from that same useless science class that had seen me taking an even more useless wilderness hike. The damn thing needed to be adjusted every day because the Sun was never in the same place twice.
I ran it back and forth again, and this time I looked. There was a line of glazed bricks that went right through the center of the hole, and the image of the Sun wasn�t on it. That, I thought I could handle. I studied it a moment, and then adjusted the height to bring the image where it should be.
Then I went over to the one over the kitchen, and made a much smaller adjustment.
Back down. Now the target plate in the bath had warmed up. Time for some more exploring. If there was one hidden room down in the cellars, then there might be more.
It wasn�t really that hidden, either. Now that I was looking, the door was rather obvious. I pushed it in, and found myself in a dungeon. A real, not quite modern fetishist�s dungeon. I�d had to deal with one of them on a previous assignment, so the St. Andrew�s cross that dominated one end of the room didn�t surprise me. Neither did the padded horse, or the leather implements that decorated the walls. The cages didn�t surprise me either, but the body in one of them did. Bad housekeeping; the charnel smell was not pleasant.
I took a good look at the implements with which the former inhabitants of the villa had amused themselves, and then left, closing the door firmly behind me. I also added �body, 1, legal disposal of� to my to-do list.
It was heading on toward noon, so I decided to release my ponies from their circular lack of reasoning and give them a couple of hours in the garden. That didn�t take all that long. I brought out a platter of fruits and veggies, and set it out for them to chow down. They went after it with every evidence of enthusiasm. Fox, as usual, studiously ignored me, but the twins butted me in the stomach a couple of times as they went past, earning a good scratch behind the ears and a ruffle of their blond manes.
I settled down to watch them for a while. One of the twins came up and plopped herself down in front of me, cat fashion. �How do you file a complaint around here?�
�You must be Sparkling Brook,� I said. She looked at me funny at the apparent non sequitur, but then bobbed her head up and down. �Yes, I am.�
�I thought so. I�m still having trouble telling you apart. So, what do you want to complain about?�
�You�re out, and we�re not. And there aren�t any proper grooms. And this stable is worse than the last one, and �� she ran down.
�I figured you had to be Sparkling Brook because your sister would have known how to find out the answers.� I shut up to see where she�d take that. Apparently she didn�t take it very well, because her tail lashed back and forth for a minute while she put it together.
�You must be talking about those stupid helmets you put on Fox and sis. What are they?� I tried to avoid falling over in relief. Finally, she was asking about them.
�Access to the system, sugar. You ought to know how to use it, didn�t you grow up around here?�
She looked at me in utter disbelief. �You mean that ponygirls get to use the system? I can play games and talk to my friends? Why didn�t anyone tell me?�
�Sugar, you had to ask first. That�s one of the rules. It�s also the advancement system. It�s your choice as to whether you take courses or you simply ignore it.�
�All right. Show me how to use it tonight. I assume it�s tonight? But what is going on around here?�
�If I�ve still got three helmets, you�re on. As to what�s going on, you�re part of Prince Andy�s carriage team. The Prince goes to the enclaves, so ��
Her eyes got real round. �We�re in one of the enclaves?� she burst in, excited. �Which one?�
�Ancient Egypt. The last one was Old South. There�s a monastery and then Gor scheduled next.�
She wrinkled her nose at that. �I�ve heard about Gor. Why don�t they get rid of it? I thought Amazonia sounded neat, though.� Amazonia? Oh, well, put it on the list to ask the advisor about. �But what is going on?�
�To answer one of your questions, the enclaves don�t have proper ponygirl facilities. We have to make do. And this one is worse than most. They almost didn�t give us any staff, and then they ran off last night.�
�So you�re trying to fill in.� She nodded as if she understood. �One of my sisters was always trying to do that. On and on about behaving responsibly. I absolutely hated it.�
�And decided not to do that,� I said into the sudden silence.
She sat up straighter. �Huh? How�d you know that?�
�Good guess, sugar. Think about it.� I tried to look bland, and with the amount of acting I�ve done, I can get bland enough that even a rock will figure out that there�s stuff I�m not saying.
She gave me a sharp look, got herself onto all four hooves, stretched and trotted off, tail in a U shape behind her.
The terminal at my belt beeped. I thumbed the on switch, and words only I could see formed in the air above it.
Frank and Bonnie are in the tunnel, headed your way. They�ve got standard Freehold pistols; they should be coming out in about half an hour or so.
�Any suggestions about how I should handle it?�
I�ll stun them when come through the door. I�ll also close the tunnel entrance so nobody can follow them down this branch. You handle it from there.
�I presume that handling it doesn�t including killing them.�
According to your dossier, the review board would probably take a dim view of that action.
�Well, there are some arm binders handy. I can always use more help on keeping the cistern full.�
Arm binders?
�You miss so much when you lead a virtuous and upright life. There�s a dungeon in the basement. Now that I think of it, one of the cages comes complete with a corpse. I need some advice about what to do with it. It�s attracting the rats.�
Me, virtuous and upright? I tell anybody you said that, they�d die laughing.
�Then don�t. The review board might not like it.�
Talk to you later.
He hadn�t said what to do about the corpse. He also hadn�t said how long they�d be out when he stunned them, so I headed to the tunnel entrance, and moved the cabinet I�d used to block it out of the way.
Then I went to the dungeon and picked out a selection of equipment. I hesitated a bit between regular ball gags, ring gags or those leather padded dowels that enthusiasts thought were ponygirl bits. I finally decided on ring gags; they were safer than ball gags, and the so-called ponygirl bits were just amusing; they�d find out how the real thing felt soon enough.
I had time to spare. I settled down outside of the storage room and thumbed on the communicator while I waited. The words hovered in the air: two minutes or so. Move back a little more; you�re still in range of the stunner.
I moved back one more room and looked at the communicator. This time it showed me a picture of the two of them walking up the tunnel. Frank was wearing pants and a sweatshirt, Bonnie had on pants and a sleeveless top. Both of them were wearing sneakers. I shook my head. Well, the gloves were off, I suppose that neither of them saw any need to go around like the unwashed heathens. Bonnie would look good in anything tighter than an army tent, but I thought Frank looked better in the short skirt. It displayed his muscles better, and was nowhere near as distracting as tight shorts.
Enough woolgathering. The dynamic duo found the door the way they had left it, and walked cautiously around it, guns held ahead of them. I nodded. They weren�t professionals; that stance might look good on the 3v, but nobody properly trained used it.
Then there was a very low sound, more felt than heard, and the two of them just collapsed like they were puppets and someone had cut their strings. I almost collapsed as well, but managed to get myself together and walk in, carrying my payload.
I rolled Bonnie over first, and slid the leather under her arms. I inserted her hands into the glove, and then buckled several of the straps. The top straps went under her arms, over her shoulders, and then buckled to the top. Tightening them properly could come later.
Then I did the same for Frank. By the time I finished, he was stirring. The stun hadn�t lasted all that long. I shoved a ring gag in his mouth, and tightened the strap around his head, and then I tightened the straps on the glove.
�What the �� That was Bonnie�s voice as she came around and discovered that her arms were pretty much useless.
�Open up, sweetie,� I said as I put a knee into the small of her back. �I�m going to install a ring gag, and I don�t want to break any teeth.�
She clamped her mouth shut. Why do the victims in the scenario have to act so predictably? I didn�t bother with the nose thing. I just put one of my thumbs on a nerve point. She arched back and screamed fit to wake the dead. When she tried to draw a breath, she discovered that her mouth had been nicely propped open with the ring gag. I finished buckling it and let her head down while she panted, recovering from the pain.
Then I stripped off her trousers and panties, taking her sneakers in passing. I added a hobble to her adornments; I had no idea if she kicked, or was even trained to, and I wasn�t in the mood to take chances.
She looked like she was done, but now Frank was twisting around, trying to get his arms free and making garbled noises through the gag, which did nothing to suppress the sound. Well, that wasn�t its function. I pushed him over and unbuckled his belt, then I pulled his pants and drawers off, again taking his sneakers in the process.
A leather collar and leash finished the process. My two captives still had their tops on. That was easy enough to correct. Bonnie�s came off with a satisfying rip of abused cloth. Frank�s was made of sterner stuff, but yielded to some determination and a few grunts from the wearer.
I picked up both leashes and pulled. The two of them stumbled clumsily to their feet, inhibited by the hobbles. I yanked them behind me. In a few minutes, they were tied on opposite sides of one of the crossbars below the cistern, stumbling around in a circle. I thought briefly about taking off the hobbles so they could walk better, and then decided against it. It wasn�t like the water level in the cistern was a crisis.
I looked at the mechanism thoughtfully. Five slaves would unbalance the thing. I�d put the twins back on later, and then see if Fast Fox would let his penis cheer him up.
That was a pretty good scuffle, if I did say so myself. In fact, I was feeling better than I had since I offed that politician in Central Europe. I wasn�t entirely sure why she�d earned the ire of my mysterious superiors; there were entirely too many possible reasons, some of which might have been offensive enough to earn her a fast ticket to her next lifetime. I took a moment to examine my reaction, and then I relaxed. Part of it was personal pique, of course, but the rest was irritation with their involvement in the drug trade. I shrugged. If there was anything I was ignoring, the interrogators would get it when I turned in my final report.
Meanwhile, this mess still wasn�t finished. I can�t say I wanted to go back to being a ponygirl in harness, but that was my permanent position until the review board chose to say something different, and the last thing I wanted to do was make waves, at least waves that would rock the review board.
I wondered. Was there any way I could trust Bonnie to cook and clean without one of her delicious dishes coming with a delicate seasoning of arsenic, or the local equivalent. And Frank wasn�t half bad as a groom. I just wanted them to know they couldn�t get away with anything before they went to the training stables.
Either someone in authority could do it, or they couldn�t. Either way, I would learn something. I sat down next to the slowly filling pool and pulled out the communication unit.
What can I do for you today, Running Flame?
�I�ve got a problem with Bonnie and Frank. I�d like to use them as a cook/housekeeper and groom, but after this last mess, I don�t know how I could trust them. Is there any way of making certain they don�t rebel?�
I�m transferring you to Justice.
The letters in the air shifted after a moment.
We could do that. There are certain capabilities we don�t advertise, and that require higher level authorizations. Prince Andy could authorize it, and since he is your supervisor, you need to talk to him.
�Thank you.� I hate runarounds, but this wasn�t one. He was absolutely right, and I should have started out with the Prince anyway.
So I put a report together for the Prince together with my suggestion that our situation would be improved immeasurably if I could use them rather than have to keep them under duress.
My communication unit came back an hour or so later with the Prince�s reply.
Congratulations on capturing those two.
Well, it wasn�t like I�d gone out after them, but still, the praise felt nice.
I agree that you need more support, but the situation here is still too delicate for me to get it locally. I�m still not certain who is in charge, or more precisely, whether the entire society has been taken over by the drug runners, or if there is still a valid power structure.
I�m instructing Justice to put both of them under remote restraint. They won�t be able to escape, or to do anything that would cause you harm. Please remember that remote restraint is a computer system, and that nothing of this kind is perfect; you will still have to take precautions. Also, remote restraint does not keep them from arguing with you, or keep them from taking action that they think is in your interest, but is actually not.
Keep up a reasonable guard, but you shouldn�t have any trouble.
You should, by the way, know that they can�t lie to you. The advisor will have details of the protocol to use.
Good Luck. My schedule calls for me to be back there in about five days. We may get one of my associates to you in another two; make sure there are rooms prepared for her.
It took me a while to figure it out. Who hasn�t read the occasional deal with the devil story, or stories about clever people weaseling out of a supposedly airtight set of constraints?
Then the note about their inability to lie caught my eye. Was I supposed to interrogate them? Well, considering the problems the Prince was running into, that did seem to be advisable.
�I suppose,� I said as I lounged around the pool after dinner with Bonnie and Frank, �that you�ve got a few questions.�
�I know I have,� Frank growled. �I�ve had an opportunity to kill you about five times. Then I just forgot about it. Spooky.�
I grinned at him. �Yes. Somewhere, there�s a computer with your name on it, that�s doing something incomprehensible. If you just relax and accept it, you next few days here will be fairly pleasant. Not a vacation, mind you, but I�m easy to get along with as long as you do your jobs. If you keep trying, it�s just going to get more and more bizarre. And remember that this particular system has quite a bit of experience.�
�I believe you,� Bonnie said from the depths of her couch. �Making dinner was an absolutely miserable experience until I focused in on just doing a good job.�
�You did your usual marvelous job, dear.�
She snorted. �It could have been better.�
�So?� I shrugged. �Anything could be done better, and you usually do get better if you keep at it.�
�Besides,� I continued, �we�re about to shut down the entire drug operation here, from one end to the other. The restraint system doesn�t claim to be perfect, but there�s no way you can escape. There�s also no way you can lie to me, so don�t even try.�
�That�s unbelievable,� muttered Frank, who was clearly having a hard time with this.
�So? What color is the wall?�
�It�s kind of reddish, with some blue and green and ��
�Tell me it�s a very intense yellow.�
�It�s � mostly reddish.� He sounded a bit shaky.
�And what did I ask you to say?�
�Uh. I don�t remember!�
�Exactly. I don�t know how it works, but it�s the same system the interrogators use. And they�ve got the reputation of being able to squeeze truth out of a stone. What I want to know first is how close to the top you are to the drug operation.�
I was met by silence. �Bonnie?�
�Damn you. We�re in charge of local security.�
I kept at it for a while, drawing out details of the operation. They went from resistant, to resigned, to quietly gloating over details they were happy with. Occasionally, my communicator would pose a question, or suggest a line to follow. Clearly, Justice was on line and following the interrogation with interest.
Finally, it was over. Not that I thought I�d gotten everything there was to get from those two, just for the night. It was time to get to pleasure.
I shrugged out of my gown. �Last one in�s a rotten fish!�
I got two huh�s for my trouble. Then a hand clapped me in the back, and I tumbled in just in front of Frank. I hadn�t quite forgotten that all he had to do to disrobe was pull the knot on his skirt, but he�d recovered faster than I thought. Bonnie splashed in a moment later.
Half an hour later, we splashed out, toweled each other off, and trooped into the bedroom.
�Sorry about this, kids,� I said, �but I�m not taking chances.� I pointed to a pair of bronze collars lying at the head of the platform, dangling from bronze chains. Bonnie made a mouth at me, and then snapped one of them around her neck, shot the lock and handed me the key. Frank shrugged and did the same. I hung the keys on the other side of the room and blew out the lantern. Once again, Bonnie and I assaulted Frank, but this time he was ready�
A while later, I pulled up the sleeping furs and lay down, my two captives curled on either side.
The next morning I woke up, two warm bodies curled up next to me on either side. As I stretched, I reflected that this was immeasurably better than yesterday. In fact, I wondered how I was going to top it. Well, time to get everyone moving. I shook the two sleepyheads awake, and gave them a moment to discover the bronze encircling their necks in a gleaming grip. Then I unlocked them and sent them to get the day started.
I had Bonnie play maid, getting me all made up and dressed. She had a ball braiding my mane and tail, and then doing a magnificent job on makeup. After that, she managed to get a hot breakfast ready by the time Frank came back in from getting our three ponies up, fed and harnessed to the cistern pump. Well, he had two of them going around in circles; Rippling Stream was hitched to the taxi, ready for Bonnie�s shopping expedition to the village. I saw her off and sat back to watch what she did as Frank went back out to attend to some of the minor problems that had occurred over the months this villa had been unoccupied and open to the elements.
Bonnie arrived back, in a clatter of horseshoes, taking the corner into the villa at a full trot just like she�d done two days before with Sparkling Brook. Rippling Stream panted slightly, sweat gleaming on her skin, as she cooled down from the run. Bonnie flipped her reins to Frank, and walked in front, letting the ponygirl nuzzle her looking for a sweet.
I figured Bonnie had to be some kind of wizard trainer; she certainly hadn�t known to do that yesterday! Well, they were identical twins, what suited one probably would suit the other.
The rest of the day went swimmingly. I finished the interrogation, getting more details for Justice, and answering a lot of questions from Prince Andy. The whole organization had been laid out for our perusal. Well, not the entire organization, but most of the political part on this side. As Prince Andy thought, the local culture was simply riddled with it. Withdraw it and it might fall apart for lack of a management structure. I shrugged mentally. That was Prince Andy�s problem, and welcome to it. The nobility got their fancy titles and privileges solving this kind of problem.
The major shock came that afternoon as I reclined in the garden at the back of the villa. Frank was making himself useful trimming back bushes, pulling weeds and otherwise making it presentable. The three ponies were at the other end, lying spread out and talking quietly among themselves. So I pulled out my communicator, and logged in.
I see you are back again.
�Of course. Anything I need to deal with?�
You have messages from Prince Andy, the review board, and Princess Annabelle.
Princess Annabelle? I looked at her message first. It just said that she�d be arriving the next day, with a carriage, one maid and a mixed team of four ponyboys and ponygirls.
The message from Prince Andy just said that Princess Annabelle would be arriving, and confirmed me as the hostess. Annabelle�s maid wasn�t capable of running the household, so I was to carry on.
The message from the review board confirmed my position and told me they were satisfied with my performance as a ponygirl, and to start studying for the next levels. If I did well, I could expect to be transferred to the immigration sequence from the correction sequence.
�What�s that about?� I asked the advisor. �I thought the next step was personal slave.�
It normally is. You may be confused about social responsibility being linear.
�It isn�t?�
Mostly it is. The scale is constructed of steps that logically follow each other. However, someone can function at far below their basic social responsibility level because of personality problems or other factors. When those factors are cleared up, they normally advance rapidly. In your case, those factors contributed to your job as an assassin. Now that you�ve cleared the personality quirks that underlay it, you�re ready to advance. The review board sees no reason for you to go through the personal slave or household slave levels. Those levels teach certain attitudes to authority and responsibility, as well as concentrate on personal responsibility. There has never been any question about your personal responsibility rating; what you need to do, you do well, or you learn how. The other content, while useful, is mostly not necessary for living a reasonable and responsible life. The parts you do have to know to function in Freehold society are in the immigration curriculum.
�So, what do I do next?�
Keep the villa going, study, and hold yourself ready to support Prince Andy and Princess Annabelle. One of them will discuss longer range goals with you. You need not expect to be pulling Prince Andy�s carriage when he leaves.
You may need more stalls in the stable.
More stalls in the stable? I had eight, well seven standard and one double. If I needed more �
Humph. Well, this did look like the end of my career as a ponygirl. However, looks can be deceiving, as I was to discover shortly. But that�s another story.
Running Flame's story ends (at least for now) in Gor Meets Amazonia
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