Suddenly there was clear space ahead of me and I sat back, my shoulders and arms aching from the tension. Almost immediately Icaan flicked the ship onto autopilot."Nice flying," he said. "I guess you've earned those strawberries."I grinned, not sure what else to do suddenly. It had felt good to be controlling a ship again, guiding it where it needed to go and trusting the instruments and my reflexes. Despite that, I was also glad it was over. There was only so much pressure a person could take before they fouled something up.At the moment I looked good in Icaan's eyes. That was enough."So what's our next stop?" I asked."The market," Icaan replied."But it's another eight days away. Are you really not stopping anywhere in be

 Tired, and not sure what to do with myself, I continued to sit in the gunner's seat on Icaan's ship and tried to work out how I could get Icaan to talk more. There had to be some way to get him to open up. But he ignored me, not even flying the ship, but sitting in the pilot's seat anyway."So, what makes a slave valuable?" I asked. "If certain qualities make me worth more and your culture places value on what a slave can do as humans do on their free people, then it sounds like I should know what I can claim to be good at and what skills I might want to get better at."Icaan swiveled the seat around, his eyes a little wider at the question I'd asked. Had I surprised him?"There's a lot of different things," he said, rubbing his chin with his hand while he looked into the distance, thinking.I waite

 "It's clear that you were trying to hide something, and I'm willing to bet she's it. If I scan her, what am I going to find? And I warn you, Icaan, you can't afford to break another law while you've still got a debt to deal with."Icaan opened and closed his mouth a couple of times."You won't find a chip," he eventually said, glancing at me with a sadness in his eyes that was hidden again almost immediately.I exhaled, knowing that I was about to be taken by the enforcers."I didn't think so. She'd best come with us then. No doubt the human government will be pleased to get one of their citizens back.""We both know you're not going to return her to the humans," Icaan growled."If she requests to stay with us once we've... show

 I gulped as Kaemir came closer, still staring at me. The pheromones were still making me far more aroused than normal and I couldn't help but look over his strong muscular body, the bulge of his chest muscles and contours of his arms evident in the tight fitting t-shirt he wore.A part of me wanted him to untie me, take me over to the bed and have his way with me, but I wasn't going to get that unless I declared Icaan to be a criminal. And I had a feeling that would get Icaan into a lot more trouble. The commander had implied that could result in some kind of severe punishment.No matter what happened, I had to keep to the same story. I had to tell them Icaan was innocent. But I really wanted to be screwed, and as Kaemir walked up to me, I didn't have a problem if it was him.He knelt down in front of me and reached out to put his arm

 Putting the ship on autopilot, Icaan got up and came to me. I'd been crying for a couple of minutes, the fear I'd felt and what the men had done to me so fresh in my mind I wasn't sure what else to do.Slowly I told the story while Icaan crouched beside me and handed me his handkerchief. When I was finally done, I wiped my eyes and tried to calm myself down."I'm sorry," he said. "The enforcers aren't meant to do things like that. No Frentin is meant to abuse the relationship like that.""Well, it's clear they do and have done plenty of times in the past. They didn't hesitate. They use all the human women they find, deliberately overwhelming them with pheromones until they can't say no even if they'd have wanted to."Icaan shook his head and looked away."You must