He moved to Skidoo and considered the Tlellan thoughtfully for a moment before taking a device out of a pocket. “I’ll numb you up before I put it on,” he said to her, “but you gotta get tagged. The others can’t slip out of that bracelet, but you sure as hell can.”

“You are being a handsome one. Perhaps is being a deal possible?” Skidoo gave a seductive, sinuous wriggle.

His eyebrows rose. “Honey, I’m not wired that way. But points for trying.”

She extended a tentacle with a sigh. Atlanta noted it wasn’t one of the ones she thought of as Skidoo’s “arms” but rather one of the thicker tendrils she used in order to move from one place to another. After sliding a bracelet onto it, Turo played a violet light from his device over the skin just below the bracelet, then pushed a button that extended a clamp, affixing it to either side of the tentacle. When he thumbed another button, Skidoo shuddered as prongs slid into her flesh with a squishing, meaty sound, fixing the loop of gold into place.

Atlanta’s stomach roiled and she gulped back bile. Her fingers and mouth pulsed pain with every heartbeat, every breath. She desperately wanted to wake up, to find herself back in the palace on a pleasant morning, with a tray of tea and rolls waiting for her, along with a single neat little sheet of blue paper.

She had resented those sheets, how they moved her around from place to place without consulting her wishes. Now she would have given anything to open her eyes and see one.

Turo put bracelets on the rest before going back to Niko.

He said, “Pet really hates you now, you know.”

“I know,” Niko said, her tone sliding away from cheer to wear. “Believe me.”

“Can you blame them? Waiting all this time. Last’s kept tabs on you. They got to see the ceremony where you were decorated.”

“Not the one just after that where I was court-martialed, I wager,” she said. “I don’t believe that one was broadcast.”

“It wasn’t, but we heard about it. He thought you’d be back as soon as you were out, but you weren’t. He told Pet you’d forgotten about them. That once you got away, you were just like all the rest, out only for yourself.”

“That’s not true,” Niko said. “I was getting ready.”

“Yeah?” he grinned. “Words are cheap. Pet knows that. They know it better than most.”

“Does he hurt them like that a lot?” Niko said.

He paused. “What?”

“When he touched them, the bruise. That’s sap being brought to the skin to repair damaged tissue. It hurts, both in the damaging and the rebuilding. Does he do it a lot?”

“Some,” Turo said. “But they never act like it hurts.”