Labor's Love Lost 11

“Normally it's a matter of Ownership,” the Breed Lord said, “but in this case, there are some … circumstances which make this idea a lot more likely to happen.”

The man with dusty blue skin, bright teal short hair, and pastel pink eyes breathed a sigh of relief.

“So you mean that our child,” Mormo said of the man and herself, “would be born with Kisz' Status, and not mine?”

Nlaldes nodded, “essentially yes. You would still care for him in my Holds, Mormo, not in his, but eventually the child would go home with Kisz and lead its own life.”

Mormo looked at the Land Master, who seemed a little uncomfortable in the Third Degree Breeder's office. He knew, as many did not, the rules about Ownership. Average folks like him didn't usually require that knowledge, but it was there to anyone who looked it up.

He'd been contacted by the Breeder, asked to donate or contract for a Breeding. Not because of his looks, which were fairly average, or because of his skills or position. Largely, because of his faint but present mutations and powers. Complimenting the subtle powers that Mormo displayed would be a challenge, and it was one that her Lord wanted to meet with style.

The man's webbed fingers would turn out interesting, he thought, combined with the already-present fusing genes she had. But his sense to determine metals and ores, as well as to heat the area around himself, they were documented and in demand.

Ironically, he was from Tuer, born a few years after Mormo. It was both facsinating and tender for Mormo to discuss their shared childhood home, she asked about places she hadn't been to, only seen while being dragged about by Tanirom, and he got a detailed account of the Falls, since she lived quite close to them and he couldn't afford the ‘good' tour.

Mormo and Kisz hit it off well enough that Nlaldes just left them alone for a while, they would come to terms with the breeding when they decided to. Bormim was just over four years old, and being trained in sensing and controlling the same electric and mechanical devices that her father used. For the time being, as Mormo was being ‘wooed' by this client, her daughter resided in the main estate with her father.

Soon enough, after only three weeks of trying, Mormo tested positive for pregnancy, and was allowed to return to her normal work day. Kisz would be contacted and kept in the loop, but for the time being he was out of the picture again. Mormo rather missed him, but then two of the Slaves in the estate had given birth almost at the same time, and now needed all the help they could get. She was busy enough that she hardly noticed the time passing in her own pregnancy.

By the time that Bormim was ten, her little brother Kosmi was ready to be sent home to his father. The little denim-green skinned and turquoise haired boy had the same pointed ears as his mother, toes which were split only barely from the end of his feet, and webbing between his three fingers. Otherwise he seemed bright and clever, learning to speak quickly after his second birthday. Bormim was proud of him, but also ready to take on whatever her Lord was going to sak her to do.

Mormo continued on in the Breeder's fostering house. She seemed to truly enjoy her work, and never once asked to be Raised back to her prior Status. She was protective of every child that came through, but also of their mothers. Bormim inherited a certain amount of her pride and dedication, but also a good amount of her father's patient diligence.

Bormim was the one Slave that Mormo bore who was never sold off to another Breeder or Lord. She eventually would have three sisters and four more brothers – quite a lot who never knew she existed at all.

They all led their lives apart, but sometimes Mormo would be given a trip or allowed a visitor. One such visitor turned out to be a pleasant surprise for her.

Ramo, seasoned from years working at a massive agricultural Hold, had hunted down information about his cousin-sister, smiled at her from across the room as he came inside. Outside it was raining heavily, an unseasonable amount of fog and rain had plagued Teklel this spring, but Mormo and her daughter hardly noticed. Bormim was twenty, and having never met any of her mother's family she was curious. Breed Lord Nlaldes obliged his favored Slaves with this day on their own.

“It's been ages,” Ramo said, his voice was fairly loud – used to having to project across a field or through tall grasses. “And you're looking so much healthier than last time we met.”

Mormo smiled, an honest, happy and toothy greeting. “Ramo, I can't believe you've come to see me! How in the world did you find me here?”

“It wasn't easy,” he admitted. He told her how he had to track from Tuer, the last place he knew that they'd lived. It took an actual visit to the small mountain town to collect some further impressions, that Ramo happened to meet up with Kisz and Kosmi. “They told me about someone they thought met your description, but when they said you were a Slave, I … wasn't sure it could be you, after all you're animal Tuned, Mormo.” He sounded halfway disappointed. “What happened?”

Since Bormim had not been told either, Mormo stood and poured all of them some zpara and served up a plate of cakes. “It too wasn't easy,” she said, and began to tell her story. The abuse that she suffered had never ended, Ramo realized, until she dropped herself from her Status. It seemed almost impossible to him, that someone would do such a thing. But the way she described it all, and the way she appeared to be truly happy now, he couldn't argue with her.

“I still don't quite…” Ramo stammered, until he settled on just coming out with his true feelings. “I'm uncomfortable with you here. I would offer to buy you and raise you, but you haven't … I mean, you want to stay here, bearing children for this Breeder?”

At that, Mormo smiled widely. She had had two more children in the time since Kosmi was born, around once every five or six years. It was not even tiresome to her, she never felt ill at ease, never had a hard labor. “I do enjoy it. I do want to.”

“But Mormo, you're a Slave . You're not free! Even though you could be!”

Bormim watched this with interest. She'd been brought up with Slaves, brought up with the idea that to serve was her highest goal. She'd never sought freedom, mostly because she'd also spoken at length and watched the Bayaran in the Breed Lord's service, and she knew well enough that to be free meant to be risking debt and all else. Apparently her mother thought the same thing.

Mormo stood and had a serene, almost sly look on her brightly green face. “Ramo, there is something very important you're missing. I am Free, in such a way that you can't understand. I don't have to work for myself, when all the work I can do here is waiting for me. I'm not overburdened, I'm not forced, I don't have to degrade myself like you must believe I do.” She turned, looked at a portrait of Nlaldes' family. He stood proudly in it, paler than his father who was a blustery red-skinned man from Stetil, darker than his white-skinned mother who was a Breeder working out of Hisai now. “Breed Lord Nlaldes has done me a tremendous service. He's freed me of the burden of need. I don't need to worry when I will have my next meal, nor if I'm going to have proper clothing, and I don't have to worry about whether my husband-to-be is cheating on me or looking for my Inheritances instead of love. It is true that I do not have my own say in where I live or who I am paired with. But I have considered my Lord to be quite sensible in who I mate, and all the children I will and have borne for him are quite fine.”

“They're all Slaves too,” Ramo pointed out, as though trying to hold on to his last conception of the Status.

“Yes, and they all serve their Lords as proudly as I do – or at least they will when they're grown. Did you know that Bormim here has helped invent a new device that helps power the house? She can always tell when wiring is bad, or a connection is faulty – and that is why she remains here with me. But she could serve another Lord just as well with that power – perhaps someone working in a plant, or making convienent appliances.”

“I'm happy that our Lord decided to keep me here,” Bormim admitted, with a grin to her mother. “But you know I enjoy the challenges they bring me. They only let a Slave at things once all the properly trained and well-paid Workers can't figure out what to do.”

Ramo laughed at that, “well leave it to you, they should – and I know just what you mean. When the fields keep getting blight everyone always rushes to put new fertilizer down or wash the plants more often, when they really just need me to help spruce them up a bit.”

The women nodded. Finally, Mormo stood once again and collected their cups and plates. “Ramo, I understand that you are concerned. But I was an adult when my mother dragged me to Breed Lord Nlaldes, and I was an adult when I made this decision. And there truly are Owners and Breeders that one needs to watch out for. I am very glad that Nlaldes is as kind as he is. We're fortunate. But that is the difference between he and many others. A good Owner treats their Slaves as an extention of their own body – extra eyes and hands and limbs. Extra minds to put to a problem, or muscle to do work that one cannot do alone.” She turned to her brother-cousin and blinked, “not like a posession, not like a toy, or a beating bag. I would hardly have wanted to remain with him if he'd been more like my mother. But now that I've been here, I do know the difference between the right Owner and the wrong one.”

Satisfied, if a little confused, Ramo let that subject drop. They went over what he'd been doing, and Mormo asked about Kosmi. He seemed happy in his father's care, a bit excitable and so far only having passed his Worker exam. His father would probably allow him to Inherit some of his lands, but that time would be far off indeed. For now, Kosmi's address was handed off and eventually Mormo would ask permission to send him correspondance.

It never occurred to her to be annoyed that she must ask. Why should she be? She'd never be denied.

Though Bormim wasn't truly slated to be a mother-substitute like her own, Nlaldes did decide early on that she was healthy and fertile enough to be selected for other projects in his books. As he was in the profession of creating Slaves ideal for one or two specific needs, his selections for who Bred and who did not were strictly controlled. When he contracted with another Owner for her first official breeding, Bormim was curious as to the whole process. Her Lord was one who preferred the natural methods of conception to those of a clinic, which was a two-faceted gem. One was that compatability was an issue and Nlaldes did have a great sense for that. The other however, was that many of the other Owners didn't care nearly as much for the well being or competance of their Slaves as he.

Slave Nef was an attractive young man, several years Bormim's younger. His skin was dark with even darker stripes from his fingers to shoulders, toes to knees. Blue shaded hair, and pink colored eyes completed his rugged look. He worked on a farm not too far from Teklel, his hands were calloused but nimble. Though he was tall and strong, he was clearly not all that bright, nor did he seem to have been given the quality of clothing or dental care which Bormim was used to. She insisted that he bathe before they partnered, and then had to actually assist him brushing his teeth properly since he wasn't often asked to do so. While he didn't exactly resent this, he was a bit surprised at the behavior.

“I don't have t' take instruction from you,” he muttered as she had his clothing sent off to be washed and dried. Maybe mended too, she whispered to the other Slave who gave a wink and a bow upon smelling those same clothes.

“No, you don't, but I think you might enjoy yourself more if you did. And, you might not have such a pain in your jaw if you kept it up,” she indicated her own teeth which were bright and healthy. His had pits, she knew there would be decay and she shuddered inwardly for that.

He wasn't much on talking, but Bormim realized quickly that he was a passionate young man for physical needs. She almost wanted to test negative the first week, just to keep him around a little longer and make love to him more. Excessively fertile, she jibed to the other Slave women, he got too busy. She was pregnant within two weeks and sent back to his Owner.

While she was pregnant, Bormim noticed a distinct rise in her technological controlls – was it the baby? Or her own power just increasing? She'd find out soon enough, as the baby came almost a full month early. Finbor, a healthy if small girl, was born in the winter of 2030, dark as could be. Bormim's power increase remained after her birth, perhaps her pregnancy had just aided it enough to get used to.

Within a number of weeks, however, it became clear that Finbor was deaf – she had long ears, which served her not at all. Another of the Slaves was brought in to assist her, since Bormim was unable to truly communicate with her daughter.

“I know it's disappointing,” Nlaldes said to her while taking a tour of his new clinic facility in a nearby unZoned town. “But Nurr will be able to teach her, she's an adept telepath.”

“Wouldn't it be easier if we could just teach them all to read much earlier,” Bormim suggested, trying to put herself back together after her child was taken away, “Of course teaching them to write is hard enough…”

But Nlaldes saw the tears brewing in her large violet eyes, and put his thick finger under her delicate chin. “Bormim, you will be able to see her frequently, you know that I keep those who are unable to communicate easily.”

“Like my father,” she said, nodding and wiping the tears away, “I know, and it's so very kind of you, Lord. It just… So soon?”

“The sooner she gets used to her world without sound, where we all speak and listen, the better,” Nlaldes said. “And besides, if she is half as competant as you are in this field, she will hardly need to hear. We will work something out.”

“Thank you, my Lord,” Bormim said, bowing deeply.

Finbor's world was quite colorful. In it, she found endless paths of wiring, cable, power lines, communication networks, and mechanical toys. Slave Nurr managed to coax an understanding from the girl quite early on: the world was saying things that she didn't notice. Finbor's large pale red eyes were always scanning her surroundings. Looking for people who were speaking, trying to understand what they might be saying.

Before long, though, she had a good grasp of facial expressions, body language, and mouth-shape. By the time her brother Drambol was born, in 2038, Finbor was quite adept at communicating her own needs, while keeping up with those of her Lord.

Her mother Bormim cherished the times they spent together, but had a hard time expressing herself. Her second child Drambol was another challenge – when he was three Breed Lord Nlaldes came to the conclusion that he couldn't, or wouldn't, speak. With a grin on his pinky-yellow face, Nlaldes chided Bormim, “I see how this is, you're trying to keep every one of your children close to you.”

Though she knew he was joking, and she laughed along with him, Bormim hugged her boy child fiercely, as her daughter walked away with Nlaldes to help fix up the upstairs vid units.

“Lord?” Finbor said, aware that her Breed Lord was nearby. She waited until she could see his face, and then asked, “is my mother being punished for something?”

The surprise on his face told the girl that she was fortunately wrong. He said in her soundless world, “no, but I think she would be happier if you could hear, and your brother would speak.”

“Do I need to hear?” Finbor asked. That provoked a curious look on the aging Breeder's face.

“Probably not,” he replied, and nudged her toward the defective machinery. “Tell that to work again. I can't find what's wrong.”

Briefly the Slave girl reached out with her powers, and nodded. “Yes, it doesn't want to work any longer. It is very old, most of the wires are broken or rusted through, it should be replaced, my Lord. I don't think I can fix this.”

It shouldn't have surprised anyone that Breed Lord Nlaldes didn't want to part with his favorite vid unit. He'd had it for nearly a century, and after all, weren't things made to last in this modern era? It would be like selling or Freeing one of his old Slaves, he couldn't do that either. They meant too much to him.

Finbor stifled a strange laugh behind her hand. She didn't know that everyone could hear that laugh, but it always meant that someone was doing something that really did need to be giggled at. Lord Nlaldes slumped, and put his wide hand on the top of his precious beat-up old vid player.

“I suppose we should have someone take it away…” He sighed. He turned fully to Finbor and asked, “would you like to come with me and help me find a new one?”

The eleven year old Slave gave an inexpert gasp of amazement, and nodded eagerly. She had been out of the mansion three or four times a year, generally to help keep up the clinics machinery and then come right back. But this? Shopping with the Breed Lord?

She bounced on her hooved toes, and she knew that the broad smile on Nlaldes' face meant she could jump at him with a bold hug. She'd seen others do it sometimes, to greater or lesser effect. And in her heart of course, she knew that he favored her. He picked her up, she was tiny compared to the mountainous Stetil bred man, and as they left he was furiously tickling her.

Teklel was the best place to look, but Nlaldes thought perhaps they could jet somewhere more exotic and find him the right machine. He almost mistrusted the newest models, they looked too cold and sleek, he liked the clunky wood-panel boxes and fine craftsmanship that went into the old units. Of course, Finbor bolted straight to the newest and most metallic thing she could find, once they'd disembarked from their jet.

Finbor was used to flying, but this time she got to sit near the window and gape at the wide Zpara fields below, red dotting the brilliant green of Bohata. They had headed to Mada, where the technology for most of Nlaldes' breeding equipment was made. The huge plains surrounding the ancient city were filling up with Steed farms, hotels, race locations and the like, but most of the year they were empty. Fortunately, they'd come at a lull in the Steeding. If they had made it a few months later, not only would there be no room to bed down for the night before going home, but the whole place would be so packed with people and Steeds that they'd hardly be able to breathe.

Finbor pointed at the one vid machine, and nodded quickly. “This one, it is saying to me that it's so fresh and new, nothing will go wrong with it for years!” She glanced past him, in the large electronics department. Gliding around her Breeder, Finbor then looked at another, and another. She was, quite literally, a kid in a candy store. Only her sweets were setting off all her electronic senses!

“Well, find a small one for yourself and your room mates,” Nlaldes suggested, “and I will take the one you picked first.” He muttered while looking away, “though it's so flat looking, without any filigree or anything…”

With the excitement of getting their very own vid, the Slave knew that all her young companions would have a great time watching. Oddly enough, Finbor didn't need to hear the vid to know what was on it. The electronics did all that for her. She found a vid that she could almost carry – they were all almost too big for her to carry, her slender arms hadn't grown big and muscular like her fathers, she so took after Bormim. She tugged on the Worker's arm nearby, and pointed out the unit to him. Then she pointed back to her Lord, who was mulling over trying to adjust to the times.

Together they took the smaller unit toward him, but while they were doing so, Fimbor noticed something in a more dark and less visited area of the store. She went right up to the one wooden-boxed video and put her hands on it. It felt physically just like his old one, but everything inside sang that it was new.

Bolting around the floor, almost slipping here and there, she stopped Nlaldes right before he was going to pay for the other unit. “Come see!” She said, almost incomprehensible to the clerk and workers. Nlaldes of course could decode her odd speech since he'd heard it since Nurr taught her to use her voice.

It was clear to some other shoppers that Nlaldes should have restrained this boisterous Slave, in a public place of all things dragging him from one thing to the next! How spoiled was that Slave child! Extremely so, and with good reason. When Nlaldes saw the traditionally-finished wood carved exterior he almost yelped. He shook his fingers through Finbor's pale white-blue hair and gave her a simple smile and nod.