Calm, mature Arcadia looks good, but someone calls your name!

You and Xabel make a full circuit of the pleasure-merchants' stages. Girls call out to you, some of them even challenging Xabel.

"I show you good time. Little kitten there can barely play!"

A girl who looked like Xabel's sister called out, "Master, pick me, two Kibiyamas are better than one! I am Xiane!"

You pause to consider the resemblance.

Xabel looked at her through narrowed eyes. "**** marks, Master." she said. "The eyes. Even if Xiane is clean now we could never trust her." Xabel had a hurt look on her face.

"Sad," you say, and continue on. Xabel might be happier with another girl with her homeland, but having such a one in the house would just make her unhappy.

After a stroll through the pleasure-merchants stages, you stop by the central information kiosk to review the descriptions and offers for a few girls who looked promising.

You and Xabel compare notes. "This one, Arcadia, she will be good for you, Master," she said, pointing to the description of one of the mature pleasure slaves. "Brown hair, gold skin, big boobies, and she can cook too! I liked how she smiled and looked straight at us. No yelling or anything. We should talk to her and see if you like her."

You read over her description. Arcadia is a seasoned pleasure ****, with training in massage and domestic skills. A footnote said that she had worked as a midwife. It puzzles you that with her skills, she would be sold as a pleasure ****, but perhaps she had been captured and was long out of practice. Ten years with her previous owner, now being sold as part of a debt liquidation. Full standard sexual skills, and well practiced pleasing men and women. Evaluators gave high marks in oral, genital, and anal skills, both active and receptive. Female evaluator notes unusually good use of her small, flexible hands. Male evaluator notes excellent internal muscle control and enthusiastic sexual participation. Multiply orgasmic, complaisant, and even-tempered. A trust account was noted, but it was not sufficient to purchase her freedom, though under local rules, she could petition for emancipation after ten more years.

"You know, I believe you may be right, Xabel," you say. "We shall talk with her today." You use your market pass to register a request for an interview before auction time. You pick the earliest slot, right after lunch, and sigh with satisfaction.

"John!" you hear someone calling. You look about, expecting to see one of your fellow merchants. "John!" comes the call again, but you don't see anyone in the walkways or at the merchants' stalls who is looking at you. "Up here," you hear, and finally you look up on one of the stages.

On a "skilled bonded worker" stage nearby, you see a man in plain orange coveralls wearing an Argus collar, named after the unblinking watchdog of myth. Anywhere he went would be transmitted to the base station, and it saw everything he saw and everything he did. As a bonded worker, it only had stun capacity, unlike the laborers' collars, whose discipline protocols could kill.

He looks at you like he knows you, and you stare back in puzzlement. Finally a look in the eyes jogs your memory. He's Hadar Alioth, a shipowning merchant like you! Or he was, the last you knew. He waves for you to come closer.

You walk over toward the stage, wondering what could have driven Hadar Alioth, the luckiest of the lucky, into slavery. He tries to spill out his story to you, but before he can get much out, the bailiff separates you. "I'm last in the next auction," he says. "Buy me out and I can pay you back!"

He's shuffled back into line with the other skilled bondsmen, and marched into a converted shipping container for processing before the auction. You see the auction will be in a little while, right after your interview with Arcadria.

"Is it time for lunch now, Master?" Xabel asks. She looks in the direction where Hadar Alioth was taken, but is too well-mannered to ask after him.

You check your budget. It might be a little pinched if you choose to buy both of them, but you could probably swing it.

"Yes, Xabel," you say. "Let us take lunch, and plan our next move."