We moved on through space alone, trailing the lifecraft on its triple tether. I had to do more of the work of maintenance and navigation, for we had lost key personnel. I had a lot of learning to do, but that was good, for it kept me almost too busy to think.
The kids eagerly set up the holo projector and tried a cartridge marked Animal Fun, We thought it might be a juvenile fantasy about animals, or a documentary on the ways of wildlife as it once had been on unspoiled Earth. Either way, excellent distraction for children.
The scene formed, a three-dimensional image in air that could be viewed from any side. It was a comely young woman and a donkey. Good enough; the riding of animals was a popular subject with children; the few equine animals on Callisto were always in great demand for two-minute rides.
But in a moment the kids' delight turned to dismay. I left my position by the lens control to see what was the matter.
The woman in the image had stripped naked, and—well, no need to detail it further. It was a porn show. I should have realized that pirates would stock that sort. If our bubble had been filled with animals instead of people, the brutes would have been raping and killing the animals, hardly noticing the difference. "Turn it off," I said, disgusted. "Check all through the cartridges. Maybe there are some regular family shows in the pile."
But now that the children realized that this was supposed to be forbidden adult material, they got interested. They wanted to know exactly how a woman could do it with a donkey, and why she would bother. I gave up and returned to my station, not caring to admit that I was curious too.
Actually, I needed no hard-core holos for my forbidden entertainment. It came to me unbidden when I slept. Some dreams were inchoate, almost formless fragments of horror that seeped out of the locked chambers of my mind like oozing blood and invaded that lonely illuminated spot of consciousness where I huddled. It had been bad when my father died, and when my mother died, but Helse had braced my equilibrium. Now Helse herself was dead, and all the shock of loss she had shielded me against, by interposing her marvelous love, now swept down on me in an avalanche of sulfur.
I tossed about and scrambled and woke—and found the waking nightmare was as bad as the sleeping one. I had come to depend almost completely on Helse, on the love we shared, and she was there no more. I retreated from that reality into sleep—where the oozing blood and sulfur lava were assuming shapes more awful than the shapelessness had been. I screamed again.
I don't know how many times I cycled through it before Helse came. I must have been in an in-between state of consciousness, for I knew she was dead. But she was welcome any way she chose to appear. "What brings you back?" I inquired almost socially.
"Hope, I finally realized," she said.
"Realized what?" I asked, knowing this was crazy, that it was no more than a vision like the one involving my father, but so eager for her presence that I clung to whatever shred of interaction it offered.
"About the tattoo. Why it protected me. It identified me as a courier."
"A courier?" I didn't follow her line of thought.
"I was conveying something to Kife. Something very valuable and secret. So I had his name and the mark, so no one would interfere with me. It is death to mess with a courier, and every criminal knows it. Kife must be very high in the hierarchy of thieves. So I was safer than I thought; I probably didn't need to masquerade as a boy."
"I'm glad you did," I said. "That way, I got to room with you, and to love you."
"You are the first I loved," she said. "But about the tattoo—you can protect yourself too, Hope. Draw the letters on your thigh, and when a pirate attacks you—"
"But I'm no courier!" I protested.
"They won't know that. They won't dare take the chance. I think Kife would destroy anyone who bothered even a fake courier, just to make his point. Of course, then the fake would have to settle with Kife. That might not be fun."
"What were you carrying?" I asked. "The man gave you no message—"
"Now I remember something I heard once," she said, becoming more real and lovely moment by moment. She wore her patchwork wedding dress, and oh, I loved her with an agony of intensity. "They do not tell the couriers what they carry, so the couriers can't give away the secret. It is carried in little bags that they swallow, which adhere to the lining of the intestine and can only be detached by a certain formula in solution. So when the courier arrives, he or she is given a drink, and the bag is freed and passes on out harmlessly. The bags can hold anything—diamonds, secret code messages, concentrated drugs—but whatever it is, Kife wants it, and only he has the formula to collect it without hurting the courier."
Now my own memory confirmed what she was saying. I had heard about this long ago and forgotten it. "So you were engaged in criminal activity," I cried, appalled. "Perhaps drug-running!"
"Hope, I didn't know!" she protested.
"Of course you didn't," I agreed immediately, hating to hurt her even in death. "Kife used you, exactly as the pirates used the others."
"They must have fed me the bag while I was unconscious," she said. "And when I got to Jupiter, Kife would have collected—" She cut that off. "I'm glad he won't collect. Don't let him get my body, Hope."
"I won't let him get your body," I promised.
"Thank you." She began to fade.
"Wait!" I cried. "I must apologize! I promised never to hurt you—but I killed you!"
"I forgive you," she said, smiling. "I know you didn't want to kill me." She faded further.
"Don't go!" I cried, leaping to catch her. "Stay with me, Helse, to love and be loved!"
That got to her, of course. In life or in death, in reality or in vision, she lived to share love. She reversed her fade and intensified, and became preternaturally natural, and suffered herself to be drawn in to me. I kissed her, and she hesitated, as she often had, being afraid to confess love. But I kissed her more passionately, and then she melted, as was also her way, knowing she could trust me not to betray her.
Not to betray her? I had killed her!
But she caught my mood, and took me in her arms as I started to draw away, and comforted me. "I told you to do it, Hope, to let the air out," she said. "We had rehearsed it. It had to be done. I love you, Hope."
"And I love you," I said. We proceeded to the natural act of love, and she was a little unresponsive, as though it was harder to do this in death, but I took it slowly and it finished well enough. Her body did not even feel cold; it was warm and soft, and in the end she was moving with me, hugging me as if there had never been any gulf between us. Then I slept, and the turmoil of my dreams eased, as it always did when Helse comforted me.
I woke alone, of course. But I knew I had not been alone. My vision-dream had become too real, the culmination too complete. One of the distinctions between illusion and reality is the element of surprise, of things happening not precisely as expected, and I had had that experience. Helse had been with me.
I lay there and thought about it. Helse had been with me in spirit, of course, but not in body. Her body was frozen in a bag on the hull. Yet there had been a body; I was sure of that. A man may dream of love, and of sex, and his body may respond to the point of nocturnal emission—but the experience Helse had given me while she lived enabled me to know the distinction between fantasy love and reality. For one thing, there was no stain of emission in my clothing, as there should be in fantasy sex. There had been a physical girl with me. I thought.
Helse was dead, and I surely had not visited her on the hull. So if not Helse, who? Who had shared that physical expression of the longing of the spirit?
Spirit? That was my sister's name!
I recoiled, from the thought, disgusted. But it seeped back at me, refusing to be banished merely because it was detestable. Had Helse been with me—in Spirit?
My nightmares of darkness paled as the nightmare of day came forward more strongly. In my agony of loss I had suffered a vision, as it seems I was wont to do. I
could have acted out that vision physically. I should have known there was something wrong about it while it was happening, but reason is not my strong point when I'm hallucinating. I had not understood the message from my father at the time, and I had not understood the significance of Helse's warmth and solidity and seeming unfamiliarity with the act. I could not entirely condemn myself for my ignorance of the moment.
Spirit, however—how well did I understand her motives? If she had been present, as she could have been, she would have been awake. She loved me as a sister, but she had been jealous of Helse. She had inquired about the nature of what Helse and I did together. I had explained to her the distinction between voluntary and involuntary sex—but did she appreciate the distinction between woman and girl, or between romantic love and family love? If she saw me hallucinating and heard me crying out for Helse, and she thought she saw a way to come to my rescue, as she had when I fought a man—what would she do?
I fought against it, but could not completely deny the conclusion that Spirit could have done it. I was not sure that she had done it, just that she could have, emotionally and physically. That perhaps she would have. I really could not judge her reaction in this respect; she was inscrutable, opaque to my talent. The only way to know was to ask her.
I sat up—and Spirit heard me and came to the cell. I opened my mouth to ask her—and could not speak. I was abruptly aware how preposterous my question was.
"Are you all right, Hope?" she asked solicitously. She was neatly dressed in blouse and pants, her fine dark hair brushed out, and she seemed well rested. I realized that she had not suffered the loss I had, once she had come to terms with the fact of our orphaning. My support had been Helse, who was now gone; Spirit's support was me.
Had she or hadn't she? I had to know, yet could not ask.
She landed lithely on the floor of the cell. Low gravity made such acrobatics easy, yet she seemed healthy enough. And she was maturing; her blouse did not conceal her nascent breasts, and her pants fit her tightly enough to reveal a developing posterior. She had a distance to go, yet she was definitely on the way. She would be a handsome girl in due course, perhaps not beautiful the way Faith had been, but certainly enough to please any man.
Had she already pleased a man? Damn it, I had to know!
"Spirit," I said. "Were you with me when I slept?"
"Hope, I will always be with you," she replied. "We are family."
"No, I mean—"
She looked at me with disconcerting directness. Was it a stare of challenge? "You mean what?"
"I mean with me. When—"
"When you screamed for Helse?"
Why did the way grow more difficult, the closer I got? "Yes."
"Hope, I tried to hold you down, so you wouldn't hurt yourself. I knew you were having a bad dream. You were banging on the wall, the way you did after Father died. Finally I got you quiet, and then I left you. I had to check the lenses."
How had she quieted me? I knew how Helse had done it. "Did I—hurt you?"
"You can't hurt me, Hope."
That was no comfort; it was what Helse had said, the first time we made love. "I mean—"
She took my hand, squeezing it gently, as I had squeezed hers when I explained the different types of sex. "Hope, I am your sister. I will do anything I have to, to keep you safe. I would die for you, as Helse did. Does anything else matter?"
She was not giving me any direct answer. She would die for me; I believed it. She would more readily do lesser things, by her definitions. Other things did matter—but did they matter to her the same way they did to me? "There are things you must not do for me, Spirit."
Her gaze was innocent. "Like what?"
"Like—" But I choked again.
"Like lying to you?" she asked. "Ask me anything, Hope; I won't lie."
Wouldn't she? I wasn't sure. To her, a lie was a lesser thing than death. If she believed a lie would safeguard my mental health, she would probably use it. Again I realized that Spirit was made of tougher fiber than I was. I found I could not pursue this matter further—for fear she would lie to me... or that she would not.
"You are my sister," I said, squeezing her hand.
"Always." She kissed my cheek.
Then she was off again, running the bubble. I knew I would never know the answer to my question. Perhaps I did not want to know.
Did it matter, really? Spirit was one terrific sister, who it seemed, understood how to do what was necessary and how to conceal what was necessary. She had learned such arts from her mother. She had just faced me and backed me down, and I could not fault her for it.
Could I afford to let my courage be less than hers? I climbed out of the cell and went to help her run the bubble.
Chapter 18 — PIRATE TREASURE
Space, 3-27-'15—We traveled another period, settling into routine. It wasn't that we mourned our lost ones less, but that there was nothing to do but go on and to keep ourselves busy, so as to keep the nightmares away. Even if we hadn't been out in blank space, away from the Jupiter ecliptic, in peril for our lives if we miscalculated the vectors of the enormous reaches of space, we would have had to keep ourselves active until the specters faded. There were few pirates out here, for this was off the travel lane; we almost missed them! But we had set up another refuse tank for quick-vacuum, just in case.
However, we were not left long to our own devices. Yet another ship overhauled us. Our luck had changed, and we wished it hadn't; this almost certainly meant more trouble.
We set up as before, except that we cut our crew of "innocents" to two, so the other six could have a better chance to survive the decompression. We didn't like taking losses, but had to play out our play, if only to lull the pirates so our trap could spring. We knew we had a defense that worked, and we didn't want to compromise it.
The ship docked, the lock opened, and the first pirate entered. I could not see around the curve of the Commons, since I was stationed right at the rear lock and our doughnut-hole chamber was well restocked with supplies, obscuring my line of sight, but I heard them. Spirit was halfway around, able to see both locks.
Spirit blew the whistle.
The two children attacked; I heard the scuffle.
"Hey, what—?" I demanded, amazed. There had not been time to ascertain the intentions of the intruders.
"It's the Horse!" Spirit hissed. "Move, Hope!"
The Horse! I stood frozen, remembering the rape of my sister Faith. I had sworn to kill that man!
The men caught the children before suffering more than scratches, and disarmed them. Two children could not attack five or six men with the same effect possible for thirty children attacking the same number. We should have realized that. The sounds penetrated my consciousness as if from a distance. The Horse, come to our bubble again!
"Do it!" Spirit snapped, and closed her helmet.
That finally jogged me out of my stasis. I closed my own helmet and jumped into the air lock. Already the pirates were coming around the Commons, and Spirit was backing toward the drive-control panel, almost tripping over the old, small drive unit parked beside it.
I closed the lock, decompressed it, opened the outer panel, and swung out, ready to cross when the drive cut off. We would lose two, this time; the innocents, who would not be able to get to their suits. They had known the risk, and it had to be done. I waited—but the drive did not cut off.
At last I realized that the pirates had caught Spirit before she could use the panel. I had no way to cross the ring of fire that was the drive. With the old, small columnar drive there would have been no problem. Or we could simply have cut off the new one when the pirates docked. So many little things we could have done—but it was now too late. We could not spring our trap.
Then I remembered something else, and that made me feel worse yet. We had weapons now—lasers and the taffy gun. Why hadn't we thought to use them? One kid behind that gun, shooting taffy at the pirates—we had never needed to go
the vacuum route at all! What had possessed us to overlook that?
Grief and shock, that was what. We had had the sense to fetch the weapons, but then had lapsed into our suffering, and had never done the hard intellectual work of devising a new strategy of defense. What a colossal error! Even Spirit had missed it.
There was nothing to do but go back inside. Bad luck and poor planning had foiled our grand play. Maybe I could get to the taffy gun yet, however.
It galled me that it should be the Horse who had us at his mercy a second time. The one who had initiated our descent into horror. Objectively I knew he was not the worst of pirates; he was a rapist and robber and opportunist, but not a wanton killer. But he was a symbol in my mind, and he had to be destroyed. For the sake of my sister Faith.
Now, I realized, I might see him rape my sister Spirit. Unless I found a way to get at one of our power weapons so as to take him out.
I reentered the main bubble. The Horse was there, his laser pistol pointed at my midriff. He was garbed exactly as I remembered him: black shirt, yellow pantaloons, bright-red sash, and broad buccaneer hat—all of it worn and dirty. He stank the same too; no wonder they called him the Horse!
We were all captive, exactly as before. All our savage experience seemed to have changed nothing. They bound us and set us in a line against the wall of the Commons, near one of the operative heads. The two innocents were somewhat battered, but the others weren't hurt. Spirit and I had been removed from our space suits; no hope of escaping to the hull now! But maybe some chance would come to get to a weapon.
I shifted my wrists. Two pirates had bound us with lengths of rope about the crossed wrists and crossed ankles. They had a light touch, and had made the knots only tight enough to hold us effectively, not enough to interfere with the circulation in our extremities. They obviously knew what they were doing. I didn't recognize either of them—but of course we had seen so many pirates since our first encounter that they tended to fuzz in my memory. But for what it was worth, I didn't think these particular two had raped Faith, while I thought the two standing with the Horse had done so. That provided me with a set of priorities; whom to attack first, when I had the opportunity.
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