Mercenary (37 page)

I stared at her, suddenly knowing that she would do it. She would kill when she had to, to honor whatever commitment she had, even if she had to kill me. She had survived among pirates; she was made of sterner stuff than I was. There was no one she loved more than me, but she would do it. And then probably kill herself. I had to perform.

I forced my voice to be calm. "I see the complication. I have no intention of killing her. Or of hurting her.

Spirit, I just can't do this thing, no matter how all of you insist on sugar-coating it! It's primitive, it's brutal—"

"Hope, you've got to. We need that alliance just as much as Straight does, and you need that woman.

You've been too long on the Tail. Just pretend she's a warrior, trying to kill you—because sure as hell she is! It's you or her, and there's only one way to beat her. Focus on that and everything else will fall into place. This is the way it has to be, Hope. If I could rape her for you, I would. But I can't."

The way it had to be. Yes, I understood that, intellectually, not emotionally. What I understood emotionally was that my sister was requiring this of me. Anything else that I could not handle, she would handle for me, such as the overseeing of the necessary executions, but this I had to do myself.

I realized that it would be easier to perform the rape than to balk Spirit.

The dreadful nuptial was scheduled for the evening. Already they were setting up the gallery and cameras. I had several hours to prepare myself, and I knew it wasn't enough. Eternity would not be enough! How could I school myself to rape a lovely eighteen-year-old girl?

I struggled like a fish on the hook, in the lake of a fishing-resort bubble, only I was not the fish but the fisherman, and the line was pulling me in and I was drowning. I was committed, yet I flopped on the ground as if seeking escape.

I talked to Isobel Brinker, she of the unshoed Little Foot who needed no man, but she did not support me. “Were I in your place, I would do it,” she said. “That's what Spirit said. But how can you, a woman—”

“I am also a pirate. I share the culture.”

“If you married, you would expect to be raped?”

She laughed. “He'd damn well have to rape me!”

“But you masqueraded as a man, avoiding that.”

“And would again, if I returned to piracy.”

“I see more merit in your position than I once did.”

“Oh, I approve of the system. I just don't happen to like the role.”

“Neither do I!”

“I never enjoyed killing, either, but I did what was necessary—as did you.”

Yes, I had probably killed more people than she had. But never dispassionately. Rape was more personal, and more ugly, to me. It was the brutalization of the act of love. Helse had taught me the true nature of sex as a function of love, and I did not see how I could go against that.

“You keep thinking of her as a pretty girl,” Brinker said. “She's not. She's a pirate. She can kill as readily as I can. If you don't get that straight in your head, she'll kill you —and all that you have worked for will be lost.”

Brinker was a pirate, telling me my business. Of course, she was correct. I knew and yet still could not accept it. The abhorrence of rape was as deep in me as anything. I would not be the person I am, were this not so.

I called Straight, half-expecting him to refuse my call, but he accepted. “You know what I contemplate?”

“Certainly, Captain. It is scheduled for tonight, your time. Do you want my advice?”

The victim's father—preferring advice! “Yes.”

“Strike swiftly and hard. Parry the knife, score on the jaw. Grab her hair and lock her head down so she can't slip free. Don't let it drag out. If you don't succeed in the first minute, back off and send her back to me; that's the only safe course. Don't delude yourself with any notion of fair play; that will only make you the third notch on her blade.”

I remained amazed that he could speak this way of his daughter. “If I backed off, would there be a treaty then?”

“No. My men would not serve. My power exists only so long as I honor the necessary conventions.”

I shook my head. “You actually want this to happen to your child?”

“What I might want, in a more civilized situation, is beside the point. It has to happen, Hubris. I want my daughter to be well married; I have exerted my influence only to select the proper man, after making two mistakes.”

“What of your wife? Does she approve?”

“Ask her.” The screen divided to include Flush's face.

“I never would have respected Straight if he hadn't tamed me,” Flush said.

“But rape—”

“Do you think he would have respected me if I'd submitted without struggle? What man wants an easy woman?”

“I—suppose that's true,” I mumbled.

“And what would my clan have thought?” she demanded, making her point. “I want my daughter to have the same respect I have had. Only one man ever touched me, and he had to fight.”

Defeated again, I cut the connection. I sought out Shrapnel, the Fiji prisoner who refused allegiance. “A question, if you would,” I said.

“It's your time, Cap'n.”

“Have you ever married?”

He was surprised. “Sure—once. Didn't last, though.”

“And you raped her?”

“Of course. She liked that. But six months later she found a rougher man.”

“She left you for a more violent pirate?” I asked, amazed again.

"That's right. I retained some of those old civilized ways, and they turned her off. She didn't respect me.

She didn't have a mark on her when she left. I like it better now, with your Tail; they don't mind if it's not violent."

“Thank you,” I said dispiritedly. I turned away. There was simply no getting away from it. I was the only one who wasn't in step.

“Cap'n,” he said.

I turned back. “Yes?”

“I know this isn't much, but Miss Roulette's a pirate. I would serve her.”

“Even if she became our Navy S-3?”

He spread his hands. “A man's got to compromise a little, sometimes. I'd give her something special for a wedding present.”

“Thank you,” I said, and turned away again.

I returned to my chamber and lay in my hammock, seeking sleep or inspiration or a new outlook. None came. I stared at the ceiling. It was blank. I tried to think of a better approach. None offered. I was stuck with a job I knew I would botch, perhaps at the cost of my life and mission.

Someone entered. “Go away,” I said, my eyes closed.

The intruder ignored that. A hand touched my shoulder. I shook it off, opening my eyes. I saw a boy of about fifteen, in civilian clothes; by his complexion I judged him to be Hispanic. What was he doing here?

“I think you need me, Hope,” he said. His voice was adolescently high and somehow familiar.

“Do I know you?” I asked.

“I think so,” he said with a smile. “You were going to marry me.”

Startled, I looked at him more carefully. He wore a close cap that concealed most of his hair, and his face was smooth and without beard or blemish. His arms were thin; he had not graduated from any military training program.

I reached up and took hold of his cap, drawing it loose. His brown hair fell out, flowing to his shoulders.

His? Her shoulders. “Helse!” I cried.

My beloved smiled. “When you call, Hope, I am here.”

“But you're dead!”

“For a time, yes. But I will live for you when you ask me to.”

“Oh, Helse, I love you, but I can't believe in you!”

“I know.” She removed her masculine shirt, showing the binding about her chest that masked her bosom.

She unwound that, letting her breasts free. They were not the splendors that Juana or Roulette possessed, but they were the first I had loved. Helse was, after all, only sixteen, still maturing.

“You're lovely,” I told her.

“I know.” She stripped down her trousers and panties and stood naked for a moment, appraising herself.

Then she joined me in the hammock. It was a squeeze, but I welcomed it.

Hungrily I kissed her. But then I paused. “The last time I was with you, Helse, it turned out to be—”

“But I can't come to you in my own body, Hope,” she protested.

“I can't love you through a substitute!”

“Yes you can. Megan—”

Megan, the girl of the picture who had looked so much like Helse. The scientist's niece. The one QYV

had promised me for the key. For an instant I was tempted; then I rebelled. “No! I want you—only you!”

“You wouldn't like me now, Hope,” she warned.

“Yes, I would!” I insisted foolishly. It was as if I were a boy of fifteen again, heedless of reality in the flush of first love.

She sighed. “I must do what you want.” She began to change. Her clear complexion became rough; then her skin flaked away. Her hair came out in tufts. Her lovely breasts shrank like dehydrating fruits and fell off. Soon there was no more than an ancient corpse beside me, with the bones beginning to show.

I realized I had been a fool. Of course this was her physical nature now; she had died fourteen years ago. “Oh, Helse! I'm sorry!”

“But you will join me,” the awful skull said. “When the pirate wench slays you.” She tried to laugh but lacked the wind for it.

I woke, shuddering. I was alone in the hammock. Neither living nor dead flesh had visited me physically; it had been a vision.

In my visions I can believe almost anything, but in the waking state I am more cynical. I did not believe that my death would bring me to Helse; it would only extinguish me. I would be absolutely foolish to let myself be killed.

Which perhaps was Helse's point. She had always known when my feelings were going astray.

“Thank you, Helse,” I said to the empty room.

It was the hour of decision. I went to Roulette's chamber. For this I was dressed, and I had a knife.

I stood before the door panel. Something nagged me, and I paused until I had it. This was a play, of course, a choreographed ritual, but aspects were real. The pirate wench knew I was coming, and she was pledged to fight me; would she simply remain in her hammock?

I tried one of the oldest tricks in the business. I removed my shirt, opened the door, and tossed the shirt into the darkened room. It flared, ballooning in the breeze of its motion before falling to the floor.

Something leaped at it. Immediately I jumped in, catching her from behind. She had stabbed the shirt. I put her in a neck strangle, expertly squeezing so that her carotid arteries were constricted in their deep locations. In five seconds she was unconscious, because the blood flow to her brain had been cut off.

She never had a chance, because she had been too eager to strike and had fallen for my countertrap.

Quickly I laid her down and used my shirt to bind her wrists, and the sheet from the hammock to secure her legs. I had not forgotten the lessons of the rehearsal! I tore off a section of sheet to gag her, then picked her up and draped her over my shoulder. The abduction was in progress.

I carried her to the groom's chamber—actually, for this special occasion, a converted recreation room—and laid her on the bed.

The groom's team was present, seated in chairs near the walls. Repro, Phist, Mondy, Emerald, and Spirit. Brinker operated the video camera, and Juana was in a corner making shorthand notes. Seven people in the gallery. It was time for the second act. I remained uncertain I was up to it.

I stripped until I was naked, disposing of clothing and knife, preparing for the nuptial rape. At the same time, Spirit untied Roulette, who had, of course, recovered consciousness; a proper blood strangle puts the victim out only briefly. Had I not tied the bride, she would have come suddenly alive at the least convenient moment. Now she was ready for me.

She wore a pale blue negligee that offset her red hair dramatically. Her tresses were artfully wild, making her resemble in my mind a waiting jaguar. Her eyes blazed out at me defiantly. Perhaps it was her striking beauty and softness of form, merged with her evident readiness to explode with tooth and claw that enhanced the feline impression; or maybe it was a carryover from my drug-vision of some time back.

Whichever, I found this alarmingly sexy.

Sexy? Well, that was, after all, what I was here for.

I was naked now, and Roulette was clothed. It didn't help that three men and four women were watching, and that I had had sexual relations with two or three of those women. The moment I experienced the masculine reaction, fourteen eyes would be on it in addition to those of the bride; that daunted me. If I did not experience that reaction, I could not complete my mission. What ignominy it would be to render her helpless and then be unable to complete the act.

It is said that a watched pot never boils, and that the main cause of impotence is the fear of impotence.

That seemed to be true. I was defeated before I started.

Roulette stared at my face with her blazing hate. Then her eyes traveled down my torso, and she smirked.

That was a tactical error on her part. Shame converts readily enough to anger, and it was so with me.

The audience faded somewhat from my awareness, as if fogged out by technical means to enhance the foreground. Flushed with reaction, I advanced on her. I was supposed to brutalize her; that much I could do!

And with that realization I felt a tug at my groin. Ouch! The thought of hurting a beautiful young woman gave me a sexual reaction! I was , to some extent, a pirate!

That, in turn, cooled me. But now I was at the bed, and I had to act or retreat. I almost retreated, but then she made her second error. She struck at me, swinging her small fist at my groin. Automatically I blocked her arm, and then her other hand swung out, bearing the knife, the blade driving directly at my face.

Now the battle was joined, truly! My head moved aside before I even realized, consciously, the nature of the thrust. Her hand passed by my ear, and in that moment she was vulnerable. There are ways in which a weapon handicaps a person, for it limits the variety of attack. I knew how to handle a knife-fighter. Before she could bring her blade back, I had her arm in a pain lock.