Chapter 15: Processing

The first group of cages to be taken out were the ones containing corpses of people who had not woken from the DeepSleep. Jacqui was surprised that she was selected to be the first live prisoner moved out of reception. When she was pushed into the next room the porterbot opened her cage and pushed her out to stand in front of a battered old desk behind which Kate was sitting.

"You present me with an unusual problem," said Kate, not unkindly, "It is obvious from the datacube that you should not be here. You were only sentenced to three months in an Earth prison. Why did you end up on the space ship?"

"I refused to fuck the Guard boss on the first night I was in prison," said Jacqui bitterly, "how soon can you send me back to Earth?"

"Sit down, please," said Kate, which made Jacqui very nervous indeed, "I have some very bad news for you, and it has kept me awake half the night trying to find a way out of this."

She paused.

"Nobody has gone from Csadia to Earth for over thirty years, and it is just not possible to send you back. Some of these people have only ten year sentences, but every sentence here is life. There is one young girl in this batch who is only eighteen and only got ten years. Here she could live another forty years, but she will live those years on this prison planet among prisoners."

"But the authorities have to send me back. At worst I shouldn't spend any time with the prisoners," Jacqui protested.

"There are no authorities here, only the prisoners. I am a prisoner," said Kate, "We regulate our own society and it may seem odd to you how we do it, but it keeps us alive, just. I can think of no way of treating you other than as a normal prisoner. I'll bend the rules as far as I can to see that you get a decent owner, but even that may not be possible."

"Owner?" asked Jacqui in astonishment.

"Owner," asserted Kate, "Every woman on Csadia is owned by a male prisoner, without exception. Every male prisoner is owned by some other male prisoner, except for a very few who actually run the planet. You will have to be auctioned this afternoon like every other one of the batch you came in with. If I make an exception for you, nobody will understand and you will be in terrible problems."

She paused before continuing in a more businesslike and less sympathetic manner, "Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Which is it to be?"

"What do you mean?" asked Jacqui.

"You can cooperate in the auction and do as you are told, or I can use this to make you," Kate answered, waving the neural whip.

Jacqui shrugged her shoulders and said in a resigned tone, "If you're not sending me back on the space ship outside, I suppose I'll have to go along with your charade. Nevertheless, I intend to contact the authorities and make them send me back."

Kate sighed and pointed out, "There isn't a space ship outside, it left while the cages were being brought in. I am one of the top half a dozen people on the planet. In so far as there are authorities, I am it. You don't think we would let just anyone run around with one of these do you?"

She waved the neural whip under Jacqui's nose.

"I suppose not," Jacqui acknowledged, "So, what do I have to do?"

Kate decided to be brutal about the next phase of Jacqui's introduction to Csadian life.

"You strip and go into the medibot for a check. Then you come out again and learn to display yourself on the auction platform, still naked, so that the buyers can see you are fit and well and have interesting tits and cunt."

Jacqui was shocked, but she slowly took off her clothes and walked into the medibot. Like everything else on Csadia it looked old and pretty well worn out. She had never been to a human doctor, so the actual procedure was familiar, with its prodding and tests. The whole check-up took about three minutes and when Jacqui came out of the cabinet she was not particularly surprised to see that her clothes had vanished and a pair of overalls like Kate's were waiting for her.

"I see you didn't refuse to cooperate with one of the boys on the space ship last night," remarked Kate when she saw the marks of Jacqui's beating, "There is a lot of that particular form of entertainment goes on on Csadia as well."

Jacqui ignored this remark, since the beating hadn't bothered her much and the rape of her arse hole wouldn't show, so that was not what Kate was referring to.

"What do I have to do on this auction platform?" she inquired cautiously.