let the sleeve fall back down.
35 "Don't worry," he said, "they won't punish you whether we do it or
not. I'll see to that. You don't have to be afraid, just sit down
awhile. I want to talk to you."
36 The woman looked up with a sweet smile. "You're a lot nicer than the
other boys," she sighed.
37 "You've done this a lot?" Morn asked.
38 "Yes," she answered. "I look rather girlish. I mean, I'm not too
tall, and I don't make the boys feel awkward, as a bigger woman would."
39 "How did you become a slave?" Morn asked.
40 "My husband," the woman explained. "When my parents arranged the
marriage, they thought they were making a good choice. They were rather
old, you see, in their last rejuvenation, and they knew they wouldn't
be around long to take care of me. We'd been married about one-hundred
years when my parents died. They left me everything. As soon as it was
signed over to my husband, he began spending it, and very little on me.
41 Within five years what it had taken my parents years to accumulate,
he spent, but he'd gotten used to high living, and involved with the
wrong kind of people. He was an Acquiring Agent for the commoner store
system. He began accepting paybacks, signing slips for high
quality merchandise, when he was really distributing seconds and thirds.
42 When The Lord's Guard finally came for him, he stuck a dagger in his
mouth and burned out his brain. Unfortunately, I didn't know what he
had been doing and they took me alive. I suppose you could
say I was lucky. The local Governor liked my looks, and thought it a
shame to burn me. So he made me a slave, said that after I paid off the
debt my husband had caused, I could be free again.
43 Anyway, he had a friend that made movies, that I'd be perfect in. So
my first assignment was working for him. Somebody in the Palace must
have seen one of the movies