It is 3550 and has been fifteen hundred years since five families from Earth decided to find a new planet to live on. After terraforming they settled on a planet to call home and to set up a new society. Evil men on Earth wanted to make the population into Serfs and now they can start over.
Unfortunately, after hundreds of years the population forgot about Earth and believed Pleione was always their home. The society that was built was worse than Earth, Serfs, slaves, and a place run by the original five families’ relatives and a place where the rich were in charge.
Jericho Goldsmith was one of the original families and his father spends his time reading all the history of Earth, books that are illegal. Jericho invested in a gold mine that is dwindling much like their wealth. Jericho now has one servant, Odin who works on the outdoors and is like a friend, but he needs someone to clean but can’t afford to hire a servant, so he does what he must and goes to the slave market.
The Goldsmith’s do not believe in owning slaves but with his back against the wall Jericho has no choice. He sees a young man, weak and thin and buys him with the promise that he will gain his freedom someday. He takes his metal collar off and gives him regular clothes, he also gives him his own room with a bed and blankets. He also has his own bathroom to use.
Tenzin Fenn once a serf and now a slave for the past six years has suffered at the hands of the masters who owned him. He was beaten, raped and every other indignity he could be subjected to. His owner was Xerxes Ore Miner who brought him to the slave market after discovering his brother was having sex with him. The brother didn’t suffer but Tenzin did.
When Jericho saw Tenzin, he immediately knew he had to purchase him and give him a better life but being a slave had to be kept a secret from the family. Odin helps Tenzin and when Jericho’s uncle pays for them to have a cook everything, but their finances are working out. But keeping secrets is hard and those secrets become known by a person looking to hurt Jericho. Jericho has found a new gold mine but needs money to stake his claim, money he hoped his uncle would lend him.
Finally, when Jericho’s uncle shows up with a check, he sees Tenzin dressed in his slave clothes and with his collar around his neck. His uncle rips up the check and from then on trouble surrounds Jericho. In a fit of anger Tenzin lashed out and it had a substantial negative result for Jericho and his plans for a new mine.
This story was sad, slaves brutalized with no one caring. Lies, betrayals, romance and sex and a society that punished the poor while the rich flourished. How Tenzin became a slave was a secret he didn’t share but it was just another thing that made this story so sad.
Gold 
