Gateway To Xanadu (19 page)

I’d infiltrated a secret, fanatical terrorist organization that was headquartered on that backwater world and was doing fine discovering the leaders of the group-until word came through to those leaders that there was a fly in the soup. They separated out the last dozen people to join the organization-which included me-and took us one by one to be questioned. Truth drugs we notoriously unreliable against those people you most want to make talk, so they fell back on a very old method of questioning which consisted of stringing us up by the wrists and letting a heavy whip do the asking for them. I was the third newest and therefore the third to be questioned, and I hate to admit how close I came to telling them everything they wanted to hear. The pain in my arms and wrists from supporting my weight, the trembling fear I was showing that wasn’t entirely acting-and then the agony of my back being torn open, the blood flowing, the flesh parting, the unbelieving shock even as I screamed and screamed and screamed. -The fourth victim turned out to be a snoopsheet newsie who had wormed his way into the organization for an exclusive story, and he broke almost as soon as they first began stroking him. He thought admitting the truth would make them stop hurting him even though it would also get him thrown out before he had the rest of his story, but he was wrong on both counts. They did stop whipping him, but only until they had brought the first three of us back in. We three had been badly and unnecessarily hurt because of him, and it was only just if we were allowed to watch him being whipped to death. The newsie had forgotten it was fanatics he was dealing with, and that was the last mistake he ever made.

Toward the end, watching him had almost been worse than getting it myself . . . .

“That’s much better,” Val said, raising my face in the dimness to look down at me. “The trembling is gone, and your muscles have finally relaxed. Want to tell me about it now?”

“There’s nothing to tell,” I said with a shrug, noticing how gentle his touch was. “Dreams like that are an occupational hazard, something that goes along with the territory. What time is it?”

“Not too early to get up, but I don’t want you doing that yet,” he answered, tightening his arm around me to keep me from sitting up. “After something like that, you need a few minutes to pull yourself together-not to mention the ordeal you went through last night.”

“You’re as funny as a terminal illness,” I told his idiotic grin, then pushed his hand away from my face.

“If you ever again try telling me you don’t believe in rape, I’ll call you a liar to your face.”

“Rape means forcing yourself on someone who is unwilling,” he countered, the shadowy grin still there.

“Oh, you were looking for unwillingness,” I said in tones of great revelation, ignoring the rest of his nonsense.

“My definition of unwilling includes bodily reactions,” he said, then bent his head to quickly kiss my breast. “Right now I’d classify you as unwilling, and your body supports the contention; last night was another story. You seemed to be afraid of something at the same time, but that something wasn’t me.

What were you afraid of, Diana?”

“I was afraid that something unacceptable would happen because of the disadvantage you had me at,” I answered without taking my eyes from the dark gaze looking down at me. “Happily, nothing of the sort happened, and now I’d like to get up.”

“If nothing happened, why are you in such a hurry?” he asked in a murmur, lowering his head to my breast again. “Say, look at this! I think your unwillingness is changing its mind.”

He was lying to my right with his left arm around me, me on my back, him on his side, that stupid grin above me and widened now. When his right leg moved over both of mine, I didn’t need a formal posting of his intentions to know what he was up to; I just knew I couldn’t let him do it. Val was starting to get the wrong ideas about me, and that was something that had to be stopped fast. As his head bent down toward me a third time, what I could see of his eyes in the dimness filled with confidence, I quickly snapped the back of my right hand against his nose, catching him sharply and just in the right way. He yelped and pulled back fast, both of his hands going to his face, and I was able to roll out of the bed and to my feet.

“If you’ll notice, that time I used words first,” I said to the anger looking at me over cupped hands. tears of pain filming the eyes. “If you’re starting to feel put-upon, consider that my thank-you for last night. I know you earned a lot more, but all I can manage right now is a down-payment. Expect the balance later.”

I turned my back on him and strolled out of his room, crossed the sitting room, and made it back to my own bedroom before I began cursing under my breath. We had a job to do and he was nothing but my partner, and it didn’t matter how good he was in bed! It also didn’t matter what he thought, I was the one running the assignment! No softheadedness over him, and no softheadedness from him! The assignment was what counted, and I’d see that it got done! I stopped my furious pacing in mid-stride, tried to get back control over myself, then said to hell with it and went to take a shower.

Showers don’t always do the trick, but by the time that one was over I’d spent a considerable amount of time thinking, and was more than ready to get on with that assignment. My most important decision was to stay away from Val, and also make sure he stayed away from me. If he was starting to come down with infatuation, it was my job to cure him, not catch the same symptoms. The Special Agent who got involved was a damned fool, and if I hadn’t learned that over the years I deserved whatever I got. I took one last look at myself in the mirror to check the jumpsuit and deck shoes I wore, then went out into the sitting room.

“Good timing,” Val said when he saw me, looking up from the couch he was sitting on. “I only just got out here myself. ”

“I hope it’s a preview of future timing,” I said with a nod, ignoring what had happened earlier just the way he was doing. “We’ve got a lot on the schedule today and you’ll be doing most of it, so we’d better get with it. The first order of business will be that reservation on the Xanadu shuttle.”

“And the second?” he asked, watching me sit on the couch not far from him. He looked more resigned than rebellious, but there was a faint glint of hope in with the resignation.

“The second has to be Little,” I said, heartlessly crushing the spark of hope. “Pick him up, get buddy-buddy, then let him know we’re going down to Xanadu. Pay close attention to what his reaction to that is; if he jumps for joy, we’ll have to watch our step.”

“If he jumps for joy, he better not do it in my direction,” my partner grumbled, running one hand through his hair. “If it was you and a female Little, you’d probably think of a way around the need.”

“Why would I waste the time?” I asked, getting up again for a cup of coffee from the wall server. “If Little was female and gave me the come-hither sign, I’d smile and go thither. It would hardly be the first time, and if that was the worst my job ever called for, I’d go through life with a big grin on my face. ‘that sort of loving has a lot going for it.”

“Like what?” Val demanded, his eyes on me as I carne back with the cup, his outrage stronger than the day before, then he waved a hand in dismissal. “Never mind, I don’t want to know. You’re probably just stringing me anyway, to sell me on what you think has to be done, but you’re wasting your breath.

Buddy-buddy is as far as I’m -willing to go with Little, and nothing you can say will make me change my mind.”

“There’s something you’ll have to go into a little more intimately than that,” I said, paying a lot of attention to the coffee I was sipping. “When the time seems just right, you’ll have to let him know I’m for sale.”

“You’re-what?” Val said, freezing in the middle of brushing at the dark green slacks beneath his yellow shirt, his eyes coming up to stare at me. “Are you out of your mind?”

“No, I’m just covering all the bases,” I explained, using the coffee to keep myself from smiling at his new outrage. “You’ll make it clear that I’m rot for sale to the Pleasure Sphere, only to private customers, and that should guarantee a meet with Radman. If he wants to know why you won’t sell to the Pleasure Sphere, tell him you know you can get a better price in a private sale, and don’t let him talk you out of it.

When I get down there, I don’t want to find myself belonging to them.”

“You’d rather be a one-man slave,” he said with a nod, then snorted with ridicule. “I think that whacking you got last night rattled your brains.”

“And just in case, don’t let Little pay for anything that involves us on Xanadu,” I went on, ignoring what he’d said. “If we go down as his guests and he suddenly yanks his backing, they won’t give us the time to establish a line of credit of our own. Looking the way we do, we’ll be arrested for vagrancy so fast you’ll get a chill in the wind generated, and then we’ll be on our way to the Pleasure Sphere to work out our sentences. Maybe you’d enjoy serving their women patrons, but I’m hardly likely to be as crazy about the men.”

“They’d never try making me a slave,” he said with another snort, then grinned at the idea. “I’m not built the way you are, and I’m not soft and cuddly and easy to make squirm. It’s the little girls they want, not someone like me.”

“Guess again, pal,” I said with an evil leer, not about to let him get away with garbage like that. “Most women don’t want something soft, they want something big and hard as a rock. They’d drug you if they had to, and after that you’d use a knothole in a fence if nothing better was available. Would you like an estimate of how much they’d charge just to let some fat, slobbering matron run her hands over your chest and shoulders? To go down below belly level they’d charge even more, and by then you’d be begging her to drop her girdle and bend over. If you want to bet on it, we can put the stakes to one side until you get a chance to see how it works with your own two eyes. I wouldn’t want you to think I was stringing you.”

“If you ever gave up stringing me, you’d have trouble holding up your end of a conversation between us,” he growled, nothing left of his recent amusement. “And no matter how you try to distract me from the point, I still don’t like your idea. What if someone offers me an amount I can’t refuse? Do I just take it with a polite thank-you?”

“Certainly,” I agreed with a grin. “You accept the highest bid, then arrange to turn me over to my new owner as soon as we get back to the Station. They’ll know how unwise it is to get the Management involved, so they’ll be glad to wait. Once we’re back here the assignment will be over, so I’ll be able to take care of the problem myself. ”

“Like hell you will,” he said in a flat, no-arguments tone, those eyes cold as dark seas in winter. “If I have to make the deal, I also get to break it. And I still can’t see any real reason why it has to be made in the first place. Why can’t we simply be two of the people going down to the Pleasure Sphere?”

“Val, you don’t really know what goes on in the Pleasure Sphere, and I’m supposed to be less than seventeen years old,” I said with a sigh of exasperation. “Use your imagination to fill in some of the gaps, and then tell me how many of the people down there will be bringing along teenagers to indulge in it. Do you expect me to find Radman in the middle of their kiddy park? Don’t you think your potential customers will know how well-primed I’ll be after going through some of the Sphere’s specials? That’ll be your reason for taking me along, so that I’ll have some idea what to do when I find myself in my new circumstances. The Sphere gives almost the best preparatory training there is.”

“Almost the best, huh?” he said with no change of expression. “Who gives the best?”

“The Adepts of Saccarion,” I answered without hesitation. “But they’ll only train you if you convince them that you’re joining them permanently, and they’re not interested in words of sincerity. Or you can find yourself a renegade Adept, the way I did.”

“Well, there you are,” he said, gesturing with one hand as he moved to get more comfortable on the couch. “You don’t need any more preparation. You happened to meet a renegade Adept, and she taught you all you need to know.”

“He,” I corrected with so much satisfaction that those eyes came back to me. “The Adept was male, and you don’t just ‘happen’ to run into one. And you also don’t get trained overnight. You mention anything like that, and you’ll blow this whole deal. If I were Adept-trained, I’d be worth more as permanent rent-out than you could possibly get in a single sale, and they’ll all know it. If you’re that determined to screw this up, Val, let me know and I’ll take it from here alone. ”

“You can’t do it alone,” he came back, those eyes still mightily displeased. “If I don’t get you down to Xanadu, you have no way of getting there.”

“Legally,” I qualified. “You’d be surprised how many illegal options I have, but the risks involved are too high to consider if there’s any choice in the matter. If I have no choice, though, it becomes the only game in town. ” –

“And you’ll play the game no matter what you have to go through to do it,” he summed up, definitely unhappy with me. “It looks like I’m the one with no choice this time, and I don’t like it any more than you did. This clever idea of yours is going to cause trouble.”

I watched him grow vexed, knowing the idea had already caused trouble.

“All right,” I compromised, taking another taste of my coffee. “Suppose we change the clever idea just a little, to make it easier for you to live with. Don’t come right out and say I’m for sale, just hint at it when the need arises. If it’ll make you feel better to hesitate dramatically over such immoral behavior, go ahead and do it. You don’t know what Xanadu’s regulars are like, and we don’t need more trouble than we already have.”

“You can say that again,” he agreed with a snort, looking considerably happier. “If I’m wishy-washy enough about committing to it all the way, I might not even have a deal to break when we get back.

What’s your attitude supposed to be about this whole thing?”

“I haven’t completely decided yet,” I answered, getting up a second. I wasn’t crazy about the sort of agreement I’d gotten out of him, but it would have to do. “I won’t know anything about your horrible plans, of course, but I can’t decide just how innocent I ought to be. Pretending you don’t know things when you do is dangerous, especially when a slip is so easy to see. You just make sure to be interested in everything female coming past you but…”