Chapter 14: Reception

The porterbots who were moving the cages into the terminal were rather badly scratched and looked, and in some cases sounded, in dire need of repair. The one moving her cage had a squeak that would not have been left uncorrected for ten minutes on Earth. Jacqui thought that this was perhaps because the Authorities were uncaring of the prisoners' welfare, but it didn't make sense in terms of efficiency to use defective equipment.

Jacqui noticed with a sinking heart that the women prisoners were being kept separate from the men. She expected that indicated another set of leering men making crude offers of friendship and help in order to get a free fuck or something worse. She shuddered as she thought of how the bastard on the space ship had tricked her.

Then a woman with a badly scarred face came into the room. Her left eye was almost buried in scar tissue where a cut had run from the top of her left ear across the left eye socket and down to just below the edge of her mouth. The eye was virtually closed, but it soon became obvious that she was still able to see out of it. It made it impossible to judge her age, and Jacqui wondered why she had not had it treated to correct the disfigurement. A new face didn't cost that much, surely?