Page 5 of Born for Silk
Cairo smiles, but it is snake-like. Wider than needed, with no alliance from his eyes. “Each and every Trade citizen is protected.”
“My sweet Odette.” Colt, her father, touches a small bruise marring her jaw, and she closes her eyes on a deep sigh filled with meaning.
“You won’t take any of the older girls?” Colt finally asks turning back to us. The traumatic night of carnage creates an obvious desperation in him. One that goes against his own beliefs. “We have two boys and three girls under twelve?—”
“We cannot,” Cairo dismisses.
Ahead of me, there is suddenly movement and murmurs, the dishevelled Common parting to allow four young girls through. Small, slim, wiry girls. Vulnerable as they already are, they also carry babies, two each, one in each arm.
Seven Guards set their weapons down, ammunition rattling and clinking, metal on metal. The unnerving sound widens the girls’ eyes and slows their small feet.
“Give the babes to the Guards,” Cairo orders with an unaffected tone that pacifies others but bothers me.
Sobs dissect the air, the women protesting this exchange. Each babe begins to mewl as they are given to the huge Xin De Guards. Direct and businesslike, the men scan the babes for sickness, running a warm laser across each plump cheek.
The babes cry louder.
“Wha- What is that?” Colt stares, eyes widening. It is likely he has never seen this level of technology before.
“It doesn’t hurt,” a Guard confirms.
“Anything we should know?” Turin asks, and I hear indifferent due-diligence in his tone.
Defeated, Colt shakes his head. “Thank you for taking them, Sire. We cannot care for them.”
An assembly line of Guards passes the infants along and up the tank before handing them through the hatch. The sound of mewling disappears within the metal fortress, but the moment of quiet soon twists into wails and sobs from the watching Common girls.
“We are lucky,” Colt says to his people. “They will be safe. We cannot care for them here. Can you? No. Settle yourselves down now.”
“There is no God across The Strait,” Odette says. “She will need me. Can I go with them? Protect my sister.”
“They do not believe. And will not allow you to practise.” Her father holds her hands between them as the last infant is loaded into the tank.
“Well then.” Odette turns to Turin. “Sire, you must know the little black-haired one is allergic to Opi Latex. She is my baby sister.”
“That is a genetic burden.” Cairo looks the girl up and down as if she is to blame. “A weak woman produces a weak child.”
Lifting her chin, she says, “She is strong in all other ways. She fought through a fever without intervention. Strong things survive because they are strong. Fragile things survive despite it.”
Turin almost smiles at her. “Very well.”
“You will look after her.” Her eyes hit mine like a hammer to a skull, and I frown. She asked me—directly. I should say no; it doesn’t concern me, but I don’t. I want to be their saviour—her saviour.
The Cradle’s Monarch and Protector.
And the teenage boy in me is idiotically envisioning the rosy skin between her thighs. To see if she feels the same as a Xin De girl. Her eyes are so… telling. Watery. Red. Wide. Vulnerable. I want to see them pop open when I sink inside her.
“I will,” I say like a fool, and the silence that precedes could shatter glass.
Kong clears his throat behind me.
I feel Cairo’s eyes slicing parts of my flesh from bone, but I gaze straight at Odette—such a Common name.
She interests me.
What could this God have over her… This fairytale that some Common still cling to. Didn’t we prove there is no God when we altered his apparent creations? When we enhanced and fast-tracked evolution with genetic engineering? We changed the entire damn homosapien species as it was, improved it, and birthed the genus Xin De.
Ignorant Common.