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Quail was awoken by someone kicking her in the side.

“Get up, where do you think this is, a hotel?” said a gruff voice.

She was about to say of course it is a hotel when she realised that she was naked and lying on the floor. Quail’s eyes flew open and her old reflexes had her on her feet at once.

Chains bound her hands and restricted the movements of her legs. Also it was dark and the only light was from an opening ahead of her. She could see the outline of a man but little else.

“Alright, we haven’t got all day,” the voice came at her again.

So she had moved on again, she pondered, now unconcerned. The voice cajoling her was familiar and so were the smells of the place; cold and metallic, yet musty like a space dock or… a sick feeling assailed her stomach even as she was pushed into the familiar hall outside.

She was in the slave pens of Xajule Six. She was certain of that because she had been there just a few months before. She had gathered some excellent slaves from a raid on a passenger hauler and had even bought a cute girl from there.

Strangely although she had been quite taken by the girl, she had thought of her since she had sold her…

“Move,” the man bellowed.

Quail staggered forward towards what she knew was the bidding arena. It was hard to look up on account of the strong light, but she had a sense of space.

“Fifty credits,” someone called.

“I’ll bid 80, let’s cut to the chase.” Quail took a moment before she recognised her own voice.

“Too rich for my blood,” the first voice chuckled.

I’ll go 90, Quail remembered.

“I’ll go 90,” said a new voice.

“I am bored now, 200 mega credits or you can keep her,” Quail’s voice sounded cocky like she didn’t want the girl and was just making a point.

A few weeks back the ploy had worked. But how could she be in the arena and bidding?

There was plenty of laughter, but it was pretty obvious that no one would go as high. Quail tried to make out the faces above her. Although her eyes had adjusted they were in silhouette still. Then she saw her own reflection on the far wall; a cruel piece of theatre to humble slaves up for sale.

It was not her own face she saw, but… Cutie was all she had called her; a tall woman with wide hips and sad eyes. Her bottom had taken the whip and paddle well, but there had been no true submission.

Finally Quail had sold the woman on an agrarian world. It had looked like a shit hole, a fate worse than a city bordello, Quail had thought. She had felt bad about it afterwards and had got drunk.

Why can’t I be me this time? Like before. Then I could… I could set her free on a good planet with some money this time. But it hadn’t happened like that and nothing about this virtual replay could change that.

*

The next few weeks played out scene by scene as it had happened. As Cutie, Quail experienced every indignity at her own hands, which was weird enough. But worse still was the hatred she felt for the pirate woman who whipped her just for fun.

How can I hate myself? It was a question that tortured her night after night as the chapter played out. It would serve me right if… Quail felt physically sick as a thought occurred to her. She was going to spend the rest of her life as an agrarian slave, she was certain. None of the other chapters had been this long.

Let me be me, she screamed inwardly at the universe. I can put it right. But such prayers are never answered. The adventure didn’t end until she was ankle deep in excrement and watching herself fly away.

“Work hard and maybe one of these grunts will buy you for a wife,” a scornful voice rasped in her ear.

Quail had heard some such comment on the dock before the transaction. At the time she had laughed.

*

Quail awoke with a start and swung her legs down off the bed. There was a pristine mirror facing her and this time it was her own face that stared back at her. Quail almost wept with relief. Almost and then for the first time since home-world she did.

Hunched over with her head in her lap, she cried for a long time, until finally she was totally spent. The hollow-eyed woman in the mirror was only very slightly older than Quail remembered. Only a tiny fresh scar and a single wisp of grey at her temple had changed. Then she noticed the lack of implants and the bright orange jump-suit. Prison coveralls, she thought.

“Okay, I get it,” Quail said bitterly, “This is Christmas future and I have been a bad girl.”

There was no response. No one cared; she was just one more captive on a backwater somewhere. Well she had been in worse places. She would soon see her chance, Quail promised herself.

Strangely her prevailing thought was that she could go back to the agrarian planet where she sold Cutie and rescue her. If only she could escape, that was.

*

Quail spent a night and another day in her cell before anything other than grey goo and water came to her. But finally the door slid back and a rather dour woman in a grey business suit was standing there.

“Ms Quail,” she said imperiously, adding tentatively, “I have some… good news, yes, I would say so.”

Quail stood up and wondered where the woman would sit. She recognised her of course. They had never met, not in fact, but even Quail had forgotten that. Somehow she had forgotten everything, or could not bring it to mind just then, which was much the same thing. But the woman she knew. She was her lawyer.

“I am not going to stay, my work is done,” the woman said, “I have entered the guilty plea and…”

“What…” Quail gasped.

“We agreed,” the lawyer looked puzzled. “The death penalty, it has been set aside. We got everything we asked for, don’t you understand?”

Quail frowned, she couldn’t… she sighed.

“It has been… could you just run it by me again.”

“The death sentence, personality wipe, indefinite incarceration… we had them all set aside. In return for a guilty plea the judge has recommended the alternative,” the woman was nervously excited now. Maybe Quail had gone mad.

The woman opened a file that she had been holding under her arm and began to read aloud.

“Letitia Quail, 39,” the lawyer glanced up at her once glamorous and youthful client. Not bad for 39, but that won’t last, she thought, “Eh…” she continued, “Unproven charges of murder and grand larceny. But piracy and kidnapping all substantiated. It is recommended…”

“An agrarian world right?” the knowledge came to Quail suddenly and she remembered the deal. “It is appropriate I suppose.”

She was thinking of Cutie again.

“There is just one thing…” the lawyer licked her lips.

Quail shrugged. It didn’t matter, nothing mattered anymore.

“You have to serve 30 years as I told you but…”

Quail shrugged. She knew that part, but with remission she could get out in 15 or even 12 years.

“…the sentence doesn’t start until you have been… well there is an assessment and a period of… strange planet this… it will all work out but… you have to atone first and they have to believe that you have atoned,” woman gabbled.

*

Quail was naked again.

She had been stretched over a frame so that her head was down and her bottom uppermost. It was a classic punishment position, but instead of the floor in front of her nose, there was a platform for an audience and beyond that a large screen that displayed her bottom on a big screen in tri-vid HD.

The whole structure reminded her of a museum rather than a correctional facility. There were certainly enough gawping people passing by to watch.

She knew that she had been wired to some sensors that monitored her brainwaves and every other bio-response she had to her punishment. Three weeks in and she had never felt so meek. The day had only just got started and she would remain in strapped in place for another four hours.

Every other day was an exercise day, but each night she had to fill-out a journal and undergo automatic psych tests.

“How long… I mean…?” Quail had gaped on her first day.

“Oh it is indefinite, I assure you, if you and your smart off-world lawyer have pulled a fast one then you are in for a… well let’s just say, I really do hope you are sorry,” the warden had told her.

The round-faced sweating man looked as if her regrets were the last thing he was hoping.

Nor did it help that she didn’t appear to be alone. From her vantage point she could see other women in various states of undress either undergoing a strapping or facing the wall to await their turn.

Quail wasn’t even the centre of attention. She was just one more woman to be punished. Then even this realisation was robbed from her thoughts.

The prison strap landed with a painful thwack that dragged a grunt from Quail’s lips. On the screen her bottom bucked and then shimmered from side to side. Then before she could shake out the sting another blow landed and she began her dance again as he bottom slowly reddened.

“I’m sorry, okay, I’m sorry,” she yelled.

But the only acknowledgement was another blast of prison strap across her bare bottom. This time the fire in her tail started off bad and then got worse. On the platform opposite the glass outside two young couples stood in a grinning group. As the strap seared Quail’s behind for eighth or ninth time they began to applaud.

“I’m sorry,” Quail shouted at them in a pleading tone, but they were no longer paying her any attention and had gone to gawp at another woman being punished.

To be continued.