Pit Inspection

Suleiman al-Jazir pressed the silk handerchief to his nose again. The perfume took the edge off the smell, but enough blood and shit cut through anything. He wondered if you got used to it if you worked the pits long enough. He'd heard rumours that some Houses had their slavedrivers genejacked to get rid of their sense of smell. Definitely worth the investment in his opinion. The slaves wore no chains or collars; the expense was deemed unnecessary and the killfields between their pits and the walkway Suleiman now stood upon were well-named. A slave could not so much as throw a rock without the automated fire systems pulverising them, not that there were rocks to be thrown. If you didn't count the layer of piss and shit on the floor the pits were empty of everything but chattel.

Suleiman motioned to the driver, then made vague gestures at the batches of slaves below.

"I'll take batches C through F for export, batch H and batch K. Pulp anyone over fifty for fertiliser and send anyone below fifteen to the Pleasure Halls. I'll take the three big ones from batch A as well for personal service, the Mistress likes a bit of meat on them. Sell the remaining batches locally, Pendragon or the Bunnies should take them."

Business concluded, Suleiman hurried along the walkway to the lift. The lift doors sealed and there was a soft hum and a gentle breeze as the air in the chamber was recycled. Suleiman breathed in deeply. Bliss. He folded away his handkerchief and waited for the lift to take him to the surface.

By the time the driver (throughly showered and wearing a valet's uniform) returned to him, Suleiman was reclining on one of the couches in the Pit's pleasure lounge, being fed grapes by young nubile slaves. The pleasure lounge was everything the holding pens were not: delicately perfumed, spacious and well-lit, with broad glasteel windows overlooking the majestic purple-brown sands of Ascella.

Suleiman vaguely appreciated the tragedy of this beautiful world. The economy had divebombed after the fall of House Ragnarok to the point where people were practically selling themselves into slavery to get by. More accurately, people were selling one another into slavery. Crime was officially low in Ascella but the thin population was spread far and wide, mostly in small nomadic groups moving between automated or slave-operated mining installations working the abundant palladium deposits in the vast deserts. It was almost local tradition that when the nomads feuded they would take slaves, and the huge Fluffy Bunny mines always needed new workers, as did the Pendragon construction crews.

It wasn't all grime and horror, of course. Ascella's one city and spaceport, Ascelon, had survived the collapse of the rest of the world's economy. The shining towers of the Pendragon Psi Institutes still towered above the sands, as did the shimmering peak of the Galactic Bank. Of course the lower city had devolved into a bunch of slums around the manufacturing core of the HohenTek plants, but what could you do? Suleiman saw urban decay as inevitable, so why not take advantage of it? It had made an excellent place to invest in the Pit.

Suleiman waved away the serving-slaves, though he did not bother to rise to greet the driver. After all, there was no need to stir oneself before another of such low rank. The driver bowed low and presented Suleiman with a small slip as receipt for the slaves purchased, along with the three slaves he had picked out below. The slaves, all young well-muscled men, wore nothing but a standard-issue loincloth and the collar implants at their throats. Suleiman, who had grown up taking slaves and putting them in ancient-fashioned iron chains, was very fond of the implants (a local product of the HohenTek plants). They neatly combined tracking device, comm-unit and kill-switch in one minute package that could only be removed by cutting the slave's throat. Expensive, but worth it for personal slaves. Suleiman made a mental note to specifically request they not be included next time; the slaves wouldn't need them for their particular service.

"Are they to your satisfaction, master al-Jazir?" asked the driver.

Suleiman licked his lips at the sight of the three young slaves, their bodies slathered with palm-oil to make their muscles look more appealing.

"Oh yes," he replied. "Yes, the Mistress will love these. In fact, I think she'll eat them right up."


Cast

Suleiman al-Jazir, 48: A Retainer in service to the House al-Sabat.  A morbidly obese, lecherous man stuffed to the skin with venial sins.  The only 'public' member of House al-Sabat.