The bidding on the current slave on stage comes to a close – at fifty-seven silver and seventy-three copper coins. Instead of going to the person who bid on them directly, they move off to the left of the stage to another holding area. It seems that the auction hasn’t been going on for long – only three slaves are on the left hand side while there are twenty on the right.

  The group seems to have a higher proportion of men than women – only five women are in the auction at all and one of them is in the post-auction section. There are eighteen men present, including the purple-and-bronze-skinned damayar. They seem to be male based on their muscular structure and lack of breasts, but given that the damayar aren’t human, I can’t be certain.

  The women are all thinner than looks healthy, and are mostly huddled in poses that seem to scream that they would rather not catch anyone’s eye. Only one dares to look at those around her with defiance. Two of the men are also pretty jumpy – two of the group with slight builds, of which there are seven.

  The other ten men are all clearly strong with muscular builds, but they still have barely a spare ounce of fat to be seen on any of them. Among the humans, there’s a large range in skin colour – from very pale to darker than I’ve seen anyone else so far. But, apart from the damayar, they’re all what I’d consider ‘normal’ skin tones – no blues or purples or greens among them.

  My eyes rest for a long moment on the damayar and I decide to treat them as if they’re male until someone corrects me. He seems to be almost hairless – the only hair on him that I can see is on his arms and legs and that is long but sparse. He’s short – a head shorter than even the shortest other man – but is very stocky with broad shoulders and a heavy, muscular build. He’s glaring at everyone around with grimly-set lips that don’t quite mask the fear beneath them.

  The rest of the men are split fairly equally among those who seem to want to show that they’re not afraid, and those who just want the earth to swallow them up. All except one – he just gazes calmly at a point in space as if nothing can faze him. He’s one of the muscular men and something about his bearing tells me he was in the military at some point. Or perhaps law enforcement.

  “Sir?” Bullio starts hesitantly. “If you wish to purchase some slaves, there are better quality ones available on the lists or directly from the courthouse. Those sold at auctions like this tend to be the bottom of the barrel – damaged, unbiddable, worn out…. This isn’t a place for you, sir.”

  “I disagree,” I tell him, his words making up my mind for me. “This is exactly the place for me.”

  “Sir?” Bullio asks, his face creasing in confusion, worry in his eyes. I suddenly feel bad. He’s just with me to help – my protection detail.

  “I’m going to buy all of those slaves,” I tell him quietly. Hunter is surprised at my words but the shock is quickly followed with approval. River isn’t even surprised – approval emanates from her Bond from the get-go. Bullio, in contrast, looks both shocked and apprehensive.

  “My–Sir, if you buy them all, you’ll prove yourself to have deep pockets. It will attract far too much attention – you’ll have every thief in the quarter heading towards you like a fly to a carcass!”

  “And do you think that I’m in any danger? Genuinely?” I ask him honestly. “Given your abilities, my companions, and my own capabilities?”

  Bullio regards me for a long moment, then exchanges a look with Leileh. Then he deflates a little.

  “If we’re not trying to keep a low-profile, not much,” he admits. “But it still seems like courting the possibility of danger for no real reason. These slaves are practically worthless – that’s why they’re here.”

  “And that’s why I want to buy them. Because to me they’re not worthless,” I tell him quietly but firmly.

  With both guards now giving me speculative looks, I move closer to the stage, joining the bidding crowd properly. The next person is only now being brought up to the stage – a thin-faced woman. Hard use and abuse is written all over her body – dressed in little more than rags, the skin that’s visible through rents in her clothing is discoloured and her skin is tight on her bones. Her head is down, her posture hopeless. This is someone who has practically given up on life. Worn out, Bullio would say, I think scathingly to myself.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  But what if she no longer faced a bleak future where every day would be harder than the last, where everything she had would be taken until she was sucked dry – and then thrown to the next person who would manage to squeeze even more out of her, a process that repeated again and again until she was dead?

  She might have committed a crime – theft, if the auctioneer currently up on stage is to be believed – but is this what the rest of her life should be relegated to?

  I don’t believe so. And so I’ll buy her. And the rest of them. The damaged, the unbiddable, and the worn out. I’ll use them to prove to Nicholas – and myself – that there are other alternatives to dealing with crime than either the current system of slavery here, or the system of imprisonment in the world from which I came.

  What’s happening? Bastet asks, and I briefly tune out of the auction to focus on her. I do my best to explain an auction, but I’m not sure that she understands the concept. Nor do Lathani or Sirocco who join in the conversation.

  The samurans grasp it more easily – barter existed in their society even before I got involved. Once I took over, I introduced money in the form of Energy Heart fragments, so this is just a step further. The most difficult concept here for them is that the value of the ‘goods’ on offer is determined by how high the bidders push each other rather than any intrinsic value as they’re used to.

  Sirocco and Bastet, though, struggle to get their heads around a monetary system that doesn’t use things that anyone can eat – they haven’t been impressed by coins so far, deeming them worthless. For me to engage in an event where people pay more than they intended to just because they want to win against someone else is inconceivable to them. And I can’t deny that they have a point.

  I have to tune back into the auction when the bidding begins – this is the first auction I’ve been to and I don’t accidentally want to miss the sale because I’m too engrossed in trying to explain human economics to two cats and a bird.

  The auctioneer announces the original service contract price – two golders – and then starts the bidding at fifteen silvers.

  I was struck by the absurdity of counting a man’s life in coins when I handed Loran the three to pay off his contract. This is even more absurd. Fifteen silvers is a decent sum by many standards – enough for food for a couple of years if someone eats the bare minimum to sustain life. It’s also enough to pay for perhaps half a month’s lodging and board at a bare-bones inn. But to be the price of someone’s life?

  I suppose that it is an auction in the eastern quarter. The people here have to have a certain amount of wealth or they wouldn’t live in the city at all, but that doesn’t mean they have much left over at the end of each tenday.

  Unskilled labourers, even experienced ones, tend to count their daily pay in coppers and a single silver is two hundred of those. They’re unlikely to be able to afford a slave like this since even the starting bid is more than half their annual income. Though if they could, that would transform their lives – if they could find a job for their slave, that doubles their sources of income immediately for only the ongoing cost of food for an extra person. And based on how little fat is on all of the slaves there, I doubt that providing more than the minimum is something most masters do.

  Looking around at the crowd, I’d guess that the bidders present are largely lower-income merchants and crafters – fifteen silvers would be within the means of a journeyman crafter if they saved up for a year or so. A slave might present an extra income for them, or be someone to deal with the monotonous tasks that anyone could do, saving their time for more profitable endeavours.

  Fifteen silvers would also be easily affordable by a reasonably successful master craftsman or merchant. A successful craftsman, even a non-Classer one, might earn most of the cost in a tenday – which means they’d probably go for a ‘higher quality’ class of slave. Bullio’s reaction to the auction has told me everything I need to know about how these slaves are considered.

  Of course, the price doesn’t stay at fifteen silvers. The auctioneer might have set a price that’s only a fraction of the original service price, but the amount rapidly rises as people nod their heads, touch their caps, or hold up a finger to indicate their bid.

  The dealer has an eagle eye and the babbling mouth of any auctioneer I’ve seen on TV, rattling off prices so fast that I would once have been overwhelmed by it.

  Finally, the bidding war slows down.

  “Seventy-three silver, ten copper any takers? Going once.”

  No one says anything.

  “Seventy-three silver, ten copper any takers? Going twice.”

  “Seventy-four silver,” I call out. The dealer glances my way.

  “Seventy-four silver, ten copper any takers?”

  I make eye contact with the other man who had been sitting with the earlier bid. He glares back at me and accepts the bid the auctioneer’s offering. Once again, I round up to the next silver. This happens twice more until the bid’s sitting at seventy-six silvers. The man on the other side of the bidding war hesitates.

  “Seventy-six silver, ten copper any takers? Going once.”

  He snarls at me, then shakes his head as the dealer looks at him.

  “Seventy-three silver, ten copper any takers? Going twice.”

  There’s moment of silence.

  “Sold to the gentleman in the dark blue cloak.”

  And just like that, for the first, but not the last time, I’ve bought a slave in an auction.

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