Doug Baird looked up at the restaurant sign. Goose Girls it read, with the ‘oo’ enlarged and shaped to suggest full breasts on display. When he looked back at his partner, Williams returned an excessively innocent expression.
“Right,” Baird said. “We’re here for the tenth chance, and to earn brownie points from the Boss. I’ll remember the drill.”
They entered the restaurant and were guided to a table by a waitress wearing the iconic costume of the Goose Girls chain: A costume-jewelry tiara, metal bands on wrists and ankles, a dirndl top with a missing sleeve, and a short skirt of asymmetric cut. The tiara suggested a princess-crown, and the missing sleeve and lopsided skirt suggested ‘dressed in rags.’
The costume was scrupulously clean, as was the rest of the restaurant. A lack of stockings and shoes was the final element of the Goose-Girl costume, and the chain’s fights over the bare-footedness of their waitresses were as famous (or notorious) as its fights with local blue-noses over the low-cut sexiness of the rest of the costume.
Another waitress brought menus. “Good day, my lords. I’m Princess Caroline, and I’m to be your serving wench.” she said. “Might I beg you for a drink order?”
“Just water, for now,” Williams answered. Baird nodded agreement, and Caroline smiled and whisked off.
The menus weren’t the usual tablets set up for remote ordering and robotic delivery. Instead they were fixed-print plastic sheets of the sort now found only in the snootiest of restaurants – or in specialty places like Goose Girls. In this case, the menus listed a mundane selection of casual food, along with the low-alcohol beers and wines of a limited liquor license. A separate plastic sheet listed the chains available.
The specialty of the Goose Girls menu was not the food or drink, but the chainings that patrons could buy. The chains ran in length from fifteen to fifty centimeters, with two, four, and six minute timed locks at the ends. A patron who purchased a chaining could direct a Goose Girl to attach those timed locks to her wrist and ankle bands.
Two tables away, a pair of young men directed this self-chaining of their waitress. She was human, like all but one of the waitresses here. A few more tables away, a trio directed the self-chaining of the one bisnik Goose Girl. She was the one that Baird and Williams had come to check up on. Informally, of course, and politely. The Coordination Division of the Hostage Corps was deliberately set up to encourage its agents to use a light touch. They did, after all, have to coordinate with their bisnik counterparts.
=O+O+O=
Saandi Yuun Munooz attached the short chain to link her wrist bands. The chain’s locks were green, indicating two-minute timers. She held up her confined wrists to display them and offered a human-type smile to the two human men who had purchased the chaining. “Give me a bisnik smile, princess,” one of them said.
“Yes, my lord,” Saandi answered as she complied. She jerked the chain gently, demonstrating how they held her. Most of the patrons here in Goose Girls preferred her human smile, the one that now felt familiar if not completely natural. A rough third, however, requested the bisnik style.
Saandi stood a few centimeters shorter than most of the other waitresses, about average for a bisnik woman. Most of her skin was covered with short fur of a lighter blue than usual for a bisnik. Her scalp-fur ran longer, if not to the extreme lengths human women could produce. She wore the Goose Girl costume easily – she could wear most human clothing, if she picked the right sizes. Her face featured large green eyes that both human and bisnik men found charming and her neck was encircled by a genuine slave collar.
Saandi jerked the chain again, careful not to pull too hard. It wasn’t a real chaining, like the ones her master put her in. A strong pull could part this lock, and the bands themselves were only latched on. Saandi could remove them even if her wrists were chained behind her.
The timers ran out on the short chain and Saandi caught them on her tray as they fell off. “Will there be anything else, my lords?”
“Another Smalls,” one of the other men at the table said.
“Two Smalls,” said the one who had ordered her chaining.
“And a Zip,” the third man said.
“Right away, my lords.” Saandi picked up the tray and headed to the back. She’d rack the chains to have the locks reset, pass by the dispenser, and return with the three drink orders.
Saandi was a member of Ustan’s Hostage Corps. An active member, as she was also the slavegirl of Master Frank – Frank Pollard. Ustan and Earth had been at war for decades, with space battles that had produced large numbers of prisoners and very few casualties – starships were just that tough. Those prisoners were exchanged for women who had volunteered for their planet’s Hostage Corps. (The direct exchange of prisoners was a quirky human idea, not shared by any other species.) The exchanged prisoners could then go back into service, while the women were sold into slavery. A comfortable slavery; it was a matter of planetary pride that the hostage slave women be treated well.
Of course it wasn’t perfect. Abuses were rare and quickly stomped, but they did exist. More annoying, if less serious, was the opposition by those who opposed the war and the Hostage Corps system as a matter of principle, or simply because they wanted something to oppose.
=O+O+O=
“There she is,” Baird said. Williams turned to look. “Here she comes.”
Baird thought that the Goose Girl costume looked both odd and appropriate on the one bisnik woman among the waitresses. Perhaps the lack of shoes helped; shoes were notorious for being the one item of bisnik clothing that fit humans poorly, and vice versa. Saandi came closer, Baird said, “Excuse me, princess.”
“Beg pardon, my lord,” Saandi answered with a bright, human-type smile. “I have duties to perform.” She passed on and entered the back.
“That’s Saandi, my lords,” their own waitress – Caroline – said as she came up with their food. “She’s a real slave woman – and a real princess, too. It’s a tiny kingdom, and her title is ceremonial, she says. But it’s official. I looked it up.”
“A snooty alien princess?” Williams asked. Baird approved; it was a deliberate leading question.
“Oh no, my lords. Well, she is an alien, of course, or she wouldn’t be here with the Hostage Corps. The bisnik Hostage Corps, I mean. But she gets along well with everyone. We all like her. Will there be anything else, my lords? Refills?”
“Yes. Refills, please,” Baird said. He lifted his glass and gestured at Caroline’s Goose Girl costume. “You’d think Saandi would be annoyed by that.”
Caroline gave him a brief considering look. “Oh no, my lords. She finds it amusing. She says that working here had made her even more fond of her master. But from what I could see, she was already very fond of him before she started here.” She smiled. “I’ll bring the refills right away, my lords.”
After Caroline left, Williams said, “She thinks we have ulterior motives and was warning us off.”
“We do have ulterior motives,” Baird said. “Just not the ones she thinks we do.”
“That’s a mark against the troll,” Williams said. “Our Saandi isn’t being picked on by her coworkers. What do you make of her body language?”
Baird watched as Saandi brought out a tray of drinks and carried them to a table of three. “She’s cheerful. A relaxed sort of cheerful. Yeah, that’s another mark against the troll,” he admitted. “Let’s file a 4414-A. If they endorse it without a fuss, it’ll be a third mark against the troll and we can close the ticket.”
“And if not, you’ll get to say ‘I told you so,’” Williams said. “All right, I did want to keep this completely unofficial, but that’s probably the best plan.”
=O+O+O=
Saandi looked out over the ground-car parking lot between Goose Girls and the towering air-car hanger. She still wore her slave collar – she would always wear it, here on Earth – but she had left her wrist- and ankle-bands behind, along with the rest of her Goose Girl costume. She was in street clothes now: A muted-yellow blouse, dark-brown slacks, and utility shoes. The first two, along with the belt-purse, had come from the Generics store. The shoes had been a special order. Bisnik feet looked like they could wear human shoes (and vice versa) but her feet couldn’t tolerate human shoes at all. Human socks, yes. Human shoes, no. She saw Master Frank wave at her and waved back as she started across the parking lot. He left his ground-car to meet her half-way, and as always they met in a tight embrace. When they finally separated, Saandi looked up at Master Frank with a silent question. Sometimes he did, and sometimes he didn’t.
This time he did. Obeying Master Frank’s nod, Saandi held out her arms to be cuffed and wrist-leashed. Saandi bisnik-smiled as Master Frank secured her, and kept smiling as he led her to the ground-car. Being a Goose Girl suited her: She’d made friends, it let her go out and do something when Master Frank was away at his job, and having a little money of her own was nice too. Best of all, it whetted her appetite for the pleasant and personal games that Master Frank played with her. Saandi had worried that it might have sated her instead, and had been prepared to quit Goose Girls if so, but that worry had turned out to be unfounded.
“In you go, your highness,” Master Frank said as he helped her into the passenger seat.
Saandi’s smile turned into a bisnik grin. Master Frank always helped her into the ground-car, even when she wasn’t wrist-cuffed, but he rarely teased her with her ceremonial title of Lesti vo Vont – Princess of Vont. When he did, it was with an unerring sense of timing. Yesterday or tomorrow it would have annoyed Saandi. Today it made her feel warm and well-brushed.
When they got home, Master Frank would unlock her for the necessary business of preparing and eating supper. After that the ropes would come out. Saandi sensed that Master Frank was in a rope sort of mood this evening, so yes, the ropes would come out.
=O+O+O=
Neither Saandi nor Frank Pollard noticed Douglas Baird watching them from an unmarked ground-car. Baird had departed Goose Girls after lunch with lingering doubts, despite what he’d seen there, and despite Williams’ certainty that their troll was just being a troll. Now he shook his head in disgust, mostly at himself. “And that’s the third mark against Mr. Troll,” he said aloud to himself. A video drama would have put in little popping heart-bubbles around Saandi and Mr. Pollard as he led her wrist-leashed across the lot.
Baird pulled out his cell-thing. The 4414-A was loaded and ready to send, but he hesitated. “No, I said I’d send it,” he told himself. But he could and did set up a delay before pressing Send. Ninety minutes ought to be plenty of time for the lovebirds to get home and settle down.
=O+O+O=
Supper was finished and cleared away, and now Saandi wore nothing but her slave collar, a spare princess-crown from Goose Girls, and rope. Lots of rope. Master Frank had tied her wrists and ankles. He had tied her upper arms. He had tied her legs above and below her knees. And he had tied her toes. Saandi squirmed. It felt too good not to squirm, especially now that Master Frank was teasing and soothing her with his expert male-human hands. “And now your highness,” Master Frank said. “We will discuss your plans to escape.”
“Yes master,” Saandi said. “But as a Princess of Vont I must try to resist you.”
Master Frank’s timing was good. Tonight Saandi enjoyed being a princess, rather than being annoyed by that reminder of her title. In fact, one of the minor benefits of being a Goose Girl was pretending to be a human princess, rather than a real bisnik lesti. But tonight it felt right to be a captive Lesti vo Vont, exciting rather than annoying. Saandi squirmed again, with a big bisnik-style grin.
Master Frank grinned back, human-style. “Do not expect your minions to rescue you, your highness. You are far from Vont, and they will never find were I’ve hidden you.”
Master’s hands teased her left ear and her right breast, and Saandi giggled. Her coworker Caroline had once remarked at how human her giggles sounded. Saandi had answered that she’d been surprised to hear how bisnik the laughter of human women sounded.
“Now we are making progress, your highness,” Master Frank said. “Next will be the comfy – damn.”
His cell-thing had tweedled, demanding attention. A moment later Saandi’s cell-thing tweedled as well. Master Frank propped Saandi upright, and tapped a command into his cell-thing. Both cell-things fell silent.
“I’ve put it on a twelve-hour delay, whatever it was. It wasn’t a ‘man-eating tiger’ alert, so it can wait until morning. Now where were we?”
“You were going to feed me to a man-eating tiger, master?” Saandi asked brightly. “Unless I talked?”
Master Frank chuckled. “I think I’ll keep you from talking, for a time.” He picked up the bright red gag he’d laid out ready. “Open wide.”
Saandi opened wide. With the gag in place, she couldn’t do anything but mew. With the ropes in place, she couldn’t do anything but squirm. She mewed and squirmed, sprawled on the comfy couch, as Master Frank attended to her. He adjusted her tiara and her collar, reminding her of both of them. Then he began to curry her fur, using a softer brush than the ones used for Earth-horses. Saandi mewed happily, with only an occasional squirm. It felt good. It felt especially good because she couldn’t do anything about it. She wouldn’t be speaking until Master Frank removed her gag. She wouldn’t be escaping before Master Frank untied her. And that felt right.
She was Saandi Yuun Munooz, Princess of Vont. That title had been raised both as an argument against and as an argument in favor of her joining the Hostage Corps. She had listened to her friends and family, she had made her decision, and at this moment she felt very pleased with it.
=O+O+O=
The 4414-A forms came back to Baird midmorning the next day, with endorsements from both Saandi and her human owner. “Mission accomplished,” Baird said softly to himself as he filed them. Ticket closed, and maybe they could tag the troll if she (Baird rather suspected the troll was a she) showed up again. His desktop machine booped at him, spitting out a rejection warning.
Two hours later, Baird snarled at the stupid machine. Literally stupid. A business would have an Expert or an AI in its system to deal with errors, but the Hostage Corps was attached to the military. Baird had finally managed to track the problem down to a name being rejected as improperly entered. But after that he was stuck. The data-check accepted ‘Saandi Yuun Munooz’ as matching her Ustan Hostage Corps ID, but the filer kept rejecting it as “Name incorrect, incomplete, or unknown. Please check, correct, and resubmit.”
Williams came up and looked over the low part of the cubicle’s wall. Like Baird he was in uniform today: Space Marine undress, with the Hostage Corps administrative flash. “The Boss asked about our troll that slipped through the troll-filters. I told her you were filing a 4414 to take care of it.” When Baird didn’t look up, he asked, “Problems?”
“Problems,” Baird said. He deliberately did not snap at or glare at Williams. “The filer is being snooty about names.” He went on to describe the problem in salty detail, and to list all the things he’d tried.
“Better not let the Boss hear you talk like that,” Williams said. “Um… My first thought is that ‘Saandi’ is a bisnik nickname, rather than a proper name. But you said you’ve already checked that.”
Baird nodded. “Yes.”
“My second thought is that she has a nickname that the filer wants. There’s a hidden field for it.” He pointed at the display. “There.”
Baird flicked to expand the field. “I didn’t know about that,” he admitted, “and I still don’t know what to put in it. I haven’t been able to find any nicknames or AKAs for our Saandi. Pollard’s Saandi, I should say.”
“You could ask her,” Williams said. “Which reminds me. Tim and Hong plan to visit Goose Girls after work, and asked if you and I wanted to join them. I can’t, but I said I’d pass the invite along.”
“Maybe I should,” Baird said. A thought started wiggling, just out of reach. “Wait.” Goose Girls. Their princess-serving-wench had said something yesterday. Something about Saandi being a real slave woman. A real princess as well as a real slave woman.
“Titles,” Baird said.
“Titles?”
“Titles,” Baird repeated. “Remember what our waitress said yesterday? She said that Saandi’s a real princess, back on Ustan.” He called up a search box and entered a query. “I looked for nicknames and AKAs, but not for titles. And here it is.” He enlarged the display and pointed.
“‘Saandi Yuun Munooz, Lesti vo Vont.’ Princess of Vont,” Williams translated. “Her family is royalty, with the family ranch as their kingdom. The designation and the titles are all ceremonial, of course, but still official.”
Baird entered Lesti vo Vont into the now-revealed title field.
The machine booped at him. Name incorrect, incomplete, or unknown. Please check, correct, and resubmit.
“Try–” Williams began to say.
“Try Princess of Vont,” Baird said. “The system may have had a ‘helpful’ translation put into it.” He did so, and the machine accepted the 4414-A endorsed by (name) Saandi Yuun Munooz, (title) Princess of Vont, currently the slave woman of Frank P. Pollard, under the auspices of the Hostage Corps.
=O+O+O=
“Good evening, my lords. I’m Princess Saandi, and I’m to be your serving wench.” She handed out the menus to the three uniformed men with Hostage Corps administrative flashes. “Might I beg you for a drink order?” “A Small.”
“Small.”
“Three Smalls, your highness,” the third man told her.
“Right away, my lords.” Saandi transmitted the drinks order so that the dispenser would have them ready, and set off to fetch them. The tables were widely spaced to allow the Goose Girls to move about and show off their sexy serving-wench costumes. There were seven here for this busy evening shift, six human women and one bisnik.
Saandi returned with the three Smalls and set them down with a human-type smile. As usual it felt familiar but not quite natural. “Are you ready to order, my lords? Or do you wish for more time to decide?”
“We’re ready, I think,” the third man said. “And go ahead and give us a bisnik smile.”
“As you wish, my lord,” Saandi said. She switched to a bisnik smile – a bisnik grin, actually – and all three of the human men nodded appreciation. But then they were with the Hostage Corps, and so should be familiar with bisnik expressions.
Saandi took the three orders in turn, and the third man added, “And don’t worry about us being official, your highness. Your endorsement is safely on file, waiting for the troll to come out from under his bridge again. We’re just here for a meal and entertainment.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Saandi said, making a mental note to ask Master Frank what trolls had to do with bridges. Later.
She remembered to switch back to a human-style smile as she walked the order physically to the serving window. She’d transmitted the order as the usual backup, but again the obsolete delivery of meal orders by live waitresses had the function of showing the Goose Girls off to the patrons.
Master Frank had tied her as a princess last night. Tonight, after her shift here, he’d want something different. He might want her to be a harem’s serving slave, dressed in a wisp of silk, bringing him a tray of grapes, apple slices, and other exotic fruit. Then the rope would come out. Lots of rope. Or maybe the leather cuffs, this time.
But until her shift ended, she was a Goose Girl. That meant being a princess, as well as a serving wench.
(end)