Abandoned of Yan, The

The Abandoned of Yan by Donald F. Daley - The Abandoned have neither rights nor hopes. They only have revenge! After her husband left her, Marigold filed a protection-request form and an availability form. She did not do this immediately. She stayed up for the better part of the night, hoping that he would come back. She could not bring herself to believe that he would really walk out on her and leave her available for confiscation, or for the slavery pool. She also thought for quite a while about the possibility of somehow getting back to Earth, where she would not be available for either. She even went to the fantastic expense of televiewing there to talk with her father and mother. They had been shocked and unfriendly. They had said good-by with a finality which left little room for doubt as to what they thought of an Abandoned. They had never had one in their family, they had pointed out, neither of them, and they did not intend to have one in their family now. They had warned her that they intended to report the call to the Beta III Protection People. This did not worry her much. The call almost certainly had been monitored anyway. If they wanted to go to the considerable extra expense of reporting it, in order to impress the Protection People with their loyalty, that was their own lookout. She understood that, now, she had no family. She thought for a moment of going up-ramp to say good-by to the children, but she knew that this would not help. Besides, it was illegal. They were no longer hers. She was an Abandoned.