[Orual]

The children had been unresponsive to his teases and attempts at friendliness, so Jem had taken to simply watching them. They were frightened, he could see that. But still he admired their bravery, that they did not cry out or break during the sometimes overly harsh interrogations that they underwent. This time it was different, though, as the corsair questioning them had taken it upon himself to strike the girl, who Jem still referred to as "Myself".

Jem strode forward and caught the man's hand as he prepared to hit her again. "Don't hit a lady," he said in a low voice.

The man looked at him quizically. "What's gotten into you, Jem?"

"You don't hit a lady," Jem said, still gripping the man's wrist. His voice was a deadly whisper. The girl was staring at him.

"You've seen girls hit before. You've hit girls before. I don't think that you'd mind me hitting Airan. Besides, they hit girls where you came from, didn't they? In the slums?" The man's voice had now taken on a mocking tone, and he sneered at Jem, looking the young corsair up and down. "Yr Saldan was too good to you when he gave you this job. Even your street life didn't toughen you up enough for a corsair's life."

Jem's face twisted in rage. Letting go of the man's hand, he gave a roar and struck him full across the face with his fist. "Don't you ever speak of my childhood! You don't know what I went through. You don't know what I still go through! No child deserves to live like I did, and no child deserves to be hit like you hit her! I am their guard, and I refuse to submit them to this treatment. If you value your life, you will run. Very fast."

With Jem looming over him, the older corsair stumbled and fell, then took off.

"Don't mention it," he snapped to the girl, who hadn't even opened her mouth. "I don't want your thanks. I would've done it for any girl. I--"

"Jemennan, Yr Saldan wants to see you," a guard called, panting with exertion. He had apparently run the whole way from Saldan to Jem. "It's urgent."

Jem nodded curtly to the guard, then turned back to the children. "I'll be right back," he assured them, though he didn't know why. They probably didn't care.

He jogged to the garden, and found Yr Saldan. "You call--"

"Tomorrow," said Yr Saldan, "tomorrow we will move the children. And if we cannot get the information we need from them, we will kill them..."

Horror-stricken, Jem backed up, nearly tripping over the threshold back inside, and took off at full speed back to the cell, trying to find some way to save the children that he had been ordered to protect, from the man who had ordered him to protect them.

[ March 27, 2003: Message edited by: Orual ]