Refugee

by Piers Anthony

  “A father.”

  I smiled. “A father? I’m only fifteen!”

  “You have proved you are old enough. I could be pregnant.”

  “Pregnant!” That particular aspect had never occurred to me.

  I shared the ordinary adolescent’s self-imposed unawareness of the natural consequence of sex. Nature does not require awareness, merely performance.

  She laughed. “I didn’t say I was, Hope. Just that I could be. That it is possible. You could be a father.”

  She was right. “I’m not ready,” I said. “But for you—oh, Helse, I want you forever!”

  “And I want you,” she said. “Hope, I’ve never dared to love before, but now I do. Now I do! I don’t care that you’re younger than I am, or that we were thrown together randomly. We’ve been through more together than any regular couple, and when you risked your life for me on Io I knew, really knew, that I could trust you, and—”

  I realized that she was leading up to something, and I had a notion what, and I wanted very much to have it, but still I wanted her to say it. “What do you mean?”

  “Hope, I want to get married.”

  That was what I had waited for but still I reacted carefully. “You mean an ad hoc marriage, like the ones in the military service?”

  “If you want.”

  That was her way of suggesting I try another tack. “This isn’t the military service.”

  “True.”

  “I’d prefer a civilian marriage.”

  “Yes.” That was her way of agreeing.

  “We could arrange a suitable term—”

  “If you wish.”

  I cut it short, unable to hold back any longer. “What do you want, Helse? I want anything you want.”

  “Till death do us part.”

  When Helse loved, I realized, she loved completely. Now she was testing my love. I hardly felt worthy, but I was willing. I knew I loved her absolutely, and would never love another like this. “Till death do us part,” I agreed, and suffered a momentary spell of dizziness, awed by the profundity of the commitment. There were all kinds and lengths of marriages, and this was the most binding.

  “Oh, let’s do it now!” she exclaimed.

  “Well, it wouldn’t be official without a priest,” I said.

  She kissed me, and my head spun again. “We’ll do it by common law,” she said. “We can have a wedding. It will be like a party for the children. They can rehearse it and take parts—and it will entertain the group while we travel, and—” Here she stopped and kissed me again, passionately. I had never before seen her so turned on, and I liked it. Her love had been well worth waiting for. “Maybe I had to love a younger man,” she said. “I’ve always been used by older men, so I can’t relate to them the same way. But you—you’re a virgin boy, and you’re all mine.”

  “I’m yours,” I agreed, overflowing with love for her. I suppose her description of me as a virgin boy might have been taken as uncomplimentary, yet I knew she didn’t mean it to be so, and it was true. She had introduced me to love, in all its forms outside the family love I had grown up with. I don’t know whether the harshness of our situation in the bubble had the effect of intensifying my emotion or whether I would have loved her as ardently anyway, but certainly this was the most positive emotion of which my being was capable. Helse was older and far more experienced— but I was the first man she had loved this way, and that was enough.

  “And I’m yours,” she said. “I will be Helse Hubris.” The cumbersome double surnaming of our culture had gradually faded out in favor of the Jupiter custom of using the masculine surname only.

  “Helse Hubris,” I agreed, liking the alliteration, liking the meaning, liking every aspect of it.

  You might think we would have made love then, but we did not. It could only have distracted us from the greater excitement of our engagement. Sex had always had a different meaning for us; this was more vital.

  We fetched Spirit and put her in charge of operations. She was delighted to participate. She had, it seemed, gotten over her earlier jealousy of Helse, realizing that Helse was no threat to our brother-sister relationship. Indeed Helse was not; she had stabilized me during each crisis, so that I was better able to help others, including Spirit. Yet I suspect I misjudged the nuances of Spirit’s acceptance, though I doubt I will ever be certain in what way. The same emotional involvement that prevented me from using my talent to judge Helse properly also interfered with my judgments of Spirit. Of course I knew Spirit; she was my sister and closest companion, and would never betray me in any way; that was never in question. Still, there may have been something.

  The kids set it up with gusto. They assembled stray bits of cloth into a wedding gown for Helse, and they made plans for a big cake. These seemingly simple things were not simple in the bubble. A choir formed and practiced singing the wedding march. The problem of the lack of a priest was solved by working out a ceremony in which the two of us would exchange vows ourselves, in the manner of the old Quaker religion, each speaking his or her piece, and sealing the vow with a kiss. That public kiss was very important; the children planned to applaud it. I found myself getting genuinely nervous; they were making it too real.

  Too real? That isn’t what I meant to convey. This was ultimately real. This was the most solemn commitment of our lives. Maybe what I meant was that I did not want it to become too much of a show, as if it were not genuine. But weddings, as I learned, are not just for the nuptial couple; the crowd must have its satisfaction too.

  It took several days to put it all together, and several major rehearsals. Spirit insisted that every single detail be right. We worked up to full dress rehearsals, orchestrating it right through to the kiss. That kiss had to be right, too; the imps made us do it over and over, just so, not too long or too brief, too intimate or too distant. They even practiced their applause. Kids, I learned the hard way (though I really didn’t mind this particular exercise, despite Helse’s tendency to break up with mirth in the middle of it), are the worst sticklers in the universe for specific detail.

  I wondered just what the difference was between a full dress rehearsal, with all the participants, and the official ceremony, but knew better than to raise that question. I suppose it was merely a matter of designation: This one is a rehearsal, that one is the production. Besides, this was an excellent distraction from the tedium and grief we all would otherwise have had time to dwell on. This was more than a wedding or a rehearsal for same; it was group therapy. So we didn’t push the date; we let the kids extend the rehearsals as long as they had a mind to.

  Helse looked wonderful in her home-fashioned patchwork wedding dress. She would have looked good to me in rags, though. I was in my space suit. You see, no one knew how to make a man’s formal wedding outfit, so Spirit, in her authoritative office of manager, decreed that one suit was as good as another and insisted that I be garbed as a space captain on duty. I even had to have the helmet on; then, ceremoniously, I would tilt it back for the nuptial osculation. I felt like an ancient knight in armor, especially since the suit was decorated for camouflage. Embracing her was awkward, not nearly as pleasant as it had been in non-dress rehearsal, where her body was all soft and feminine against mine. And the inordinate laughter, when one brat advised me to remove the suit on the wedding night because it didn’t have the necessary attachment—that actually made me blush, which set the little fiends off anew. But anything to make the kids happy! And though I protested the unnecessary elaboration, it was therapy for me too. It made me really believe that Helse would be mine forever.

  We were amidst the umpteenth such rehearsal, and I had just noticed that some mischief-maker had pinned a label saying HELSE HUBRIS to the gown so she would be able to remember her new name when the time came, when our lookout sounded the alarm. “Ship ahoy!”

  I felt dread. “Suit up!” I told Spirit, and she scurried off to do it. I was already suited, coincidentally; that was the lone silver lining in
this cloud. The other kids milled about, uncertain what frame of mind to be in: festive or frightened. But soon they decided on both: Each fetched his or her weapon, concealed it in the costume, then returned to the wedding rehearsal. This was stage one, innocent children playing.

  Fine for them, but I wasn’t satisfied. “Get suited!” I called to Helse.

  But someone needed to keep the children organized while Spirit and I were busy with the air lock, so Helse elected to remain in her wedding dress. If a pirate attacked her, Spirit would blow the whistle. I didn’t like this, as Helse in that gown was entirely too attractive, but understood the need. Even so, I would have argued, but there simply wasn’t time. I was the nominal leader of the bubble, but already I had learned that leadership exists largely with the consent of the followers, and that compromise is essential, and that the true will of the majority must always be taken seriously. So I sealed up my suit, and made sure Spirit was ready to seal hers after blowing her whistle, if it came to that. We were ready for whatever might come.

  The ship closed on us, matched velocities, and connected to our front portal. As I watched, it occurred to me that the mechanism of a ship and a bubble was very like that of a man and a woman. The ship was long and slender, resembling a phallus, while the bubble was round in the manner of aspects of a woman. And all too often the roles became ferociously literal.

  The ship took hold and made an entry, I thought as I heard the clang of merging locks. The bubble had to receive. Sometimes this connection was pleasant for both parties, but sometimes disaster for the bubble. Perhaps there is a fundamental parallelism in all things, if we could but perceive it.

  The air lock opened and the men came in—and they did look like pirates. I stood behind the baffle, watching, my hands sweating inside the gauntlets of the suit. Spirit had her hand on the whistle. How well we knew how serious this could be!

  “What have we here?” the lead intruder demanded. He could have passed for Redbeard.

  “We are children, seeking sanctuary,” Helse informed him prettily. “Our parents were killed by horrible pirates. We are orphans in the void.” I hoped she wasn’t overdoing it, though her words were literally true for everyone except herself. I had my helmet on, but in the ambiance of air could hear reasonably well. I could also see them, by peering though the partially filled netting of the doughnut hole that was between us.

  The man eyed her appraisingly. This was the first time Helse had stood before a stranger to the bubble in her female guise. Oh, I worried! “No women except you?”

  “None,” she assured him innocently.

  The man consulted the one beside him, who could have passed for Bluebeard. “Slim pickings here. What’s the current market for children?”

  “There’s connections for small ones,” Bluebeard said. “And girls of any age are in demand. I’d say, take all the girls and dump the boys.”

  “Good enough.” Redbeard strode toward Helse. “But this one we’ll use ourselves, here and now.”

  They were pirates, all right. I had a momentary vision of my sister Faith, spread out by the Horse. Spirit blew the whistle; she had probably seen the same vision. We would not let Helse suffer that fate!

  Pandemonium erupted. The children drew their weapons and swarmed over the pirates. Their reactions were amazingly swift and sure. Maybe the smaller bodies of children permit faster interplay of the nervous systems. Never, in all the entertainment projections I have viewed in Maraud, including historical recreations of ancient wars, have I seen such a savage turn of events. Those children were absolutely vicious. It was as if all the pain and horror of the past month was being released in fifteen seconds.

  They scored. Oh, they scored! In a moment the men were screaming, and blood was flowing. Blinded, some men staggered around, hands at their faces, the blood leaking through their fingers. Others dropped to the deck, clasping their crotches. Redbeard reeled back, blood cascading from the side of his head where his ear had been; he had suffered a near miss. Three children stalked him like rabid puppies, their knives raised, their teeth gleaming. It was nightmare, but it seemed that we had won. I had underestimated the effectiveness of our ploy.

  But we had reckoned without the resources of the pirate ship. A new man appeared in the lock, carrying a solid, squat device. “Take him out!” Spirit screamed. “Now!”

  Half a dozen children turned, well understanding the threat of an unknown weapon. We needed no pacifier here!

  They charged the new pirate like little kamikazes. But he was ready. He pulled the trigger, and the thing burped.

  Something splatted against the body of the nearest charging child. It looked like brown taffy, but it spread out tentacles as it struck, wrapping around the body, pinning the limbs. The child fell, bound by strong elastic bands.

  Three other children were close. The taffy gun burped again, catching each, and the elastic enfolded each. One child tried to cut the strands that enclosed him, but there were too many; though he severed two, his arm remained bound by those he couldn’t reach. In time he might have worked his way loose, but everything was happening in seconds. This was a personnel control device, incapacitating without hurting, and it was effective.

  The pirate swung the taffy gun around, and the children everywhere paused, realizing that they were overmatched.

  More men appeared from the pirate ship. “Take your pick,” the one with the gun said to them. “No sense wasting taffy on brats we’re going to kill anyway.”

  The other men drew knives and advanced on the children. None of them seemed to care about the wounded pirates of the first wave, who were moaning and, in some cases, dying. Helse turned to face me. “Do it, Hope!” she cried, and bolted for our cell, where her suit was.

  The pirate at the air lock aimed his gun and fired. Helse fell, wrapped in taffy. Naturally they intended to salvage her!

  I started back from the rear lock, appalled. But Helse screamed from the floor: “Do it! Don’t wait for me! Do it, or we’ll all die!”

  I knew she was right. The other children were scurrying for their suits, and the new pirates were starting after them, wary about ambush-traps. I had to do my part, and do it immediately, or everything would be lost. I could not fight off the pirates here, or even rescue Helse. I didn’t even have my laser pistol, with which I might have taken out the pirate with the taffy gun; then we could have turned it against the other pirates and—but this was foolish dreaming. Already the brutes were methodically stabbing the children they had caught. We were at war.

  I entered the lock, glancing at Spirit. Grimly she nodded, standing beside the old drive unit, her hand near the switch for the new one. She was ready.

  Practice had made perfect. Quickly I worked the lock and moved out onto the hull, anchored by my safety line. I was afraid of the void, but I had rehearsed this and knew exactly what I was doing. I braced myself and the drive cut off on schedule, and I dived across and anchored my rope on the nearest eyelet. The drive came on again, a wall of flame as seen from this vantage; Spirit’s timing was perfect. Now no one could follow me or stop me. The tricky part was past.

  I clambered around the hull, carrying my massive wrench. Then I was at the key tank, exactly as rehearsed. I lifted the wrench, ready to bash off the one nut holding it.

  I froze. The realization hit me now with full force: Helse was not in her suit. Caught by the taffy, she could not get to it. If I let the air out of the bubble, she would die.

  But if I didn’t do this, we would be subject to the will of the pirates. Last time they had raped and killed.

  I visualized a pirate raping Helse, as the Horse had raped my sister Faith. Then my mind’s eye saw Bluebeard slitting Helse’s throat. I knew this was not only possible, but likely.

  “Helse, forgive me!” I cried in my helmet. Then I swung with all my clumsy force, half hoping it wouldn’t work.

  The wrench caught the nut squarely and bashed it off. The tank, released without first having its pressu
re abated, crashed out of its slot like a missile being fired. I was thrown back and flew out into space myself. This I hadn’t rehearsed, of course; I had always stopped short of the final bash.

  The last thing I saw before I lost consciousness was the plume of freezing vapor and debris from the bubble. I fancied some of it was red. Red from the blood of my beloved, whom I had sworn never to hurt.

  CHAPTER 17

  FEMALE MYSTIQUE

  Space, 322’l5—Spirit was tending me when I woke. I clutched at her arm. “Was it all a dream?” I demanded desperately.

  “I wish I could lie to you, to give you ease, my brother,” Spirit said. I saw the marks of tears on her face, and on her soul. “It was no dream.”

  “Helse—”

  “Dead.”

  The confirmation was no longer a shock; I had known my love was dead. I had killed her.

  “Hope, you must seal it off, the way you did for the others. We need you to pull us through. Otherwise Helse’s sacrifice is for nothing. Remember, she told you to do it. She knew.”

  There was only one thing worse than losing Helse, and that was losing what she had fought for. She had died as bravely as any of the other women had. She had indeed known, and had not faltered.

  I cast about for something to lean on that would support my failing equilibrium, and found it in an oath:

  “I shall extirpate piracy from humanity,” I swore.

  I had not honored my oath never to hurt Helse, but if I lived, I would somehow honor this one. I had no notion how or when, but I would do it.

  From that point I strengthened. Helse had been my support before; now it was Spirit. Spirit was stronger than I. I do not pretend this was steady or sensible; I gyrated wildly. But when I screamed with grief, Spirit understood, and when I was lucid she talked with me, and when I could function, she encouraged me. My oath and Spirit; these were the pillars of stability during my nightmare sequence. The wildest tempests of my confusion and grief beat about these pillars and did not topple them, and in time I was able to function again.