The City and the Ship

by Anne McCaffrey

  "Nobody ships interstellar C.O.D.," she said firmly. "At the very least I'll need credits up front that will pay the expense of the trip. I'm not interested in getting to Schwartztarr and finding out that this has been a joke."

  He pursed his lips. "So, what would that come to?"

  "Two thousand," she said firmly.

  He raised his brows and laughed faintly.

  "You'd better check your engines, Captain. Your fuel consumption is way off the mark."

  "I'm going to have to bribe my way off this station. I consider that a legitimate," she smiled briefly, "expense of the trip."

  "They're supposed to let you continue to operate your business so you can pay your fine."

  "Yeah, and they're not supposed to fine me the value of my ship for a misdemeanor, too. Two thousand up front, my man; twenty-five thousand on delivery. I won't even consider it without."

  * * *

  Joseph raised his brimming stein to his nose and sniffed dubiously.

  "It smells like meat," he said.

  "Meat!" Alvec sniffed his. "Mine's okay. Whaddaya mean, it smells like meat?"

  "To me," Joseph explained, "this 'beer' smells like raw meat."

  Alvec looked at him.

  "Yeah, well," he grinned, "I can't wait to have a steak on your world."

  Joseph took a tentative sip and smiled.

  "You shall have one of the best when you visit my rancho," he promised, "if you will bring the beer."

  He was raising his still brimming stein to touch glasses with Alvec when a shabby fellow in a once-yellow ship suit elbowed him aside; beer slopped over Joseph's sleeve and down the front of his robe. He set the remainder down and wiped the fabric with a napkin. The spacer ignored him . . . until he poked a rigid finger into the man's shoulder.

  "That," he said, "was clumsy."

  The spacer turned to him; when he spoke it was with a strong accent, wheezing and sharp. "Donchu touch me you bastard son of a whore!"

  Ooops. Alvec thought. Joat had told him a little about Bethel, and he'd accessed more from the Wyal's database. That was not a good thing to say to a Bethelite; especially in Joseph's case, because it might well be literally true.

  * * *

  The bearded man handed Joat a credit chip and a blue datahedron.

  "The information is protected by a very nasty virus, so I warn you, don't try to access it or you may find yourself drifting in hyper-space until you become a ghost story."

  She smiled. "Smuggling is like any other business, there has to be an element of trust or nothing can happen."

  He leaned his head to one side in acknowledgment, then looked over sharply to the bar.

  Thwack.

  She had never seen Joseph look quite like that. His face was pale, with paler circles around his wide blue eyes. He was holding a spacer in a yellow suit with one arm twisted up behind his back. Blood ran down the man's face from a broken nose.

  "Apologize, you furrower of pigs," the Bethelite said quietly, in a voice that carried. "For the insult you gave my mother."

  "Fardle you and your mother, like your pig daddy!"

  "That was unwise."

  Joseph's other hand gripped the spacer by the back of the neck and slammed his face into the glassteel surface of the bar again. Thwuck. This time something else broke.

  Joat started to rise; that was not like Joseph. She also started to shout a warning, as another spacer in a yellow shipsuit rose with a chair in her hands. Alvec moved before she could speak, a quick snatch for the chair and a short chopping punch to the stomach—much less hard than he could have dealt, because the spacer simply staggered back clutching her gut rather than collapsing. The bartender had ducked down; he rose again, with a short bell-mouthed weapon in his hands.

  Sonic riot gun, Joat thought, as she prudently dropped flat. That didn't block her view of a beer stein sailing through the air and thunking with solid authority between the barkeeper's eyes. He fell backward, and this time stayed down.

  Her new business acquaintance had vanished silently. Good idea, Joat thought, crawling towards the bar. Good idea, prudent idea. The tables were bolted to the floor, providing reasonably safe passage to the thick of things; bodies and pieces of furniture sailed through the air above, and grappling pairs dropped down to her level but couldn't roll past the table legs.

  Joat encountered the waitress under one of them, just lighting up the stub of a dream-smoke stick and looking mildly entertained.

  "I like the little blond one," she said to Joat, blowing a stream of smoke towards Joseph.

  The Bethelite had just kicked a tall humanoid in the crotch, seized his head under one elbow as he bent over—evidently a vulnerable spot in that species, too—and was energetically punching him in the face.

  "I got a thing for guys with muscles," the waitress went on. Alvec picked up another yellow-suited spacer and threw him in the direction of the door, clearing a pathway.

  "He's married," Joat told her.

  "So?"

  "Uh," Joat shrugged, "whatever. Have you called Station Security?"

  "Oh sure. We got a button under the bar, they'll be here in a couple a minutes." She drew deeply on her dream-smoke stick and offered it to Joat.

  Joat shook her head. "No, thanks. I'd better be going."

  She crawled under the next table and found herself beside Joseph and Alvec. Joat leaned out and grabbed their sleeves to get their attention.

  "We're leaving. Now. Out the back."

  "Aw, Joat—" Alvec began.

  Another spacer was struggling with a stationer just behind him; the stationer staggered away, clutching at an arm. The spacer waved a long blade and shouted something blurred, lunging wild-eyed for Alvec's back. Joat and Joseph moved with the perfect coordination of dancers; Joat grabbed handfuls of cloth at wrist and shoulder and pulled the attacker forward, redirecting his force and hip-checking him into a sideways stagger. Joseph whirled aside like a matador as the lunge was thrown his way, stepping inside the curve of the outstretched arm and driving the stiffened fingers of one hand up under the spacer's ribs.

  The figure in yellow collapsed, wheezing, and curled into a ball. Joseph toed the knife up against the brass rail and broke it with a quick stamp of his heel.

  "Yeah, I see what you mean," Alvec said. "Fun's fun, but knives are cheating. Let's go, Cap'n."

  Joat picked up a pseudosilver tray; Alvec picked up a chair and pulled it apart, like tearing the wings off a chicken. That left him with two lengths of gleaming alloy. Joseph walked between them; a knife of his own appeared in one hand, curved and looking sharp enough to cut light. They put their backs together and moved in a rotating circle towards the doors at the rear of the bar, through a kitchen that made Joat glad she hadn't ordered any food, and then through a hatch marked danger into an access corridor.

  The lights blinked. "Station Security," a voice said, vibrating through the metal of the circular corridor. "All wrongdoers will cease disturbing the peace and submit to arrest. Station Security—"

  "This way," she gasped.

  The access door three spaces down was dogged shut, and she fumbled in her jumpsuit for the picklock. It hung beeping for a nerve-wracking twelve seconds, and then the hatchway hissed open and they tumbled through into a dark and narrow corridor smelling of greasy food and dirty rest rooms. A weedy youth pushing a floater full of dirty plates and glasses stopped and gaped at them, his eyes going wide, and paled at the sight of the weapons.

  Joat tossed her tray onto the floater. Behind her she heard a clank as Alvec dropped his chair-legs; Joseph's knife had never made any noise, coming out of the hidden sheath or going back in.

  "You never saw us," she said, tucking a half-credit piece into the pocket of a stained white apron.

  The chinless face smirked. "Saw who?" he said, and pushed the floater on through a door whose lying stencil read sanitation.

  "You two go clean up," she snapped, looking at their grazed, bloody faces. "I'll get us
a table, and we'll make innocent. Just what I needed, arrest on a breaking-the-peace charge with stolen goods on me!"

  She pushed through an opaque forcefield door; it was maladjusted, and the harmonics set her teeth on edge. There was a corner table by the wall-window free; it gave an excellent view of Rimrunner's patrons being dragged out of the premises next door by helmeted Station Security police in light-impact armor. Shockrods snapped amid shrieks and curses; brawlers were lifted and tossed bodily onto the flat-body back of the Black Mariah, where a tanglefield held them in uncomfortable stasis, just as they fell. One of the police was sitting on the pavement with a compress on his flattened nose.

  "Hid deb one for be!" he called. A comrade boosted his captive onto the flatbed with an enthusiastic boot.

  Joat looked up as the two men returned, and jerked a tight-lipped nod towards the scene.

  "I—" Joseph began. Then he looked down at his hands, opening them and closing them once. "He should not have insulted my mother . . ." He looked up. "And there has been no news of the Benisur Amos for more than three weeks. He is my Prophet, my brother, my friend . . . and I have failed him."

  Joat sighed and let her shoulders relax. "Okay."

  It was Joseph who'd taught her to keep her emotions out of business, though. Nobody's perfect. I guess learning that's part of growing up. Even Simeon lost it sometimes, and he could control his emotions, literally, by regulating the endocrine feeds to the body inside his Shell.

  "You are right, Joat," Joseph admitted. "It was foolish of me and it will not happen again, you have my word."

  "Mine too, Boss."

  She sighed. "Thank you. And you're right, no harm came of it. Except for your bruises." And I hope they hurt! she thought.

  She reached over and gripped Joseph's hand. "I realize you're under pressure, Joe. Sorry I snapped at you."

  "Hey, Boss, what about me?"

  Joat looked at Alvec out of the corner of her eyes and growled softly.

  "Yeah," he said, "that's kinda what I figured."

  She stood. "Let's go, I want to hustle up a cargo if I can. It won't look good if we leave with an empty hold."

  "D'ya mind if Joe and me stick around here and have a few, get acquainted?" Alvec asked. "We're going to be on the same small ship for a long time." He shrugged: "Unless you need us for something?"

  "No," Joat said, a little surprised. "Go ahead. Just remember . . ."

  "You have my word, Joat," Joseph said firmly, but with a smile.

  "Well, see you later then," she said, uneasy.

  I trust them not to get into another fight, she realized as she left.

  It was what the heck else they might get up to that worried her. Alvec had a positive gift for trouble, and Joseph was half-crazy with worry over Amos. Rightly so, if Amos was in the hands of the Kolnari.

  She didn't believe in the Bethelite hell, but being in the Fist of High-Clan Kolnar was a pretty good approximation.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  "Clan Lord," Karak called.

  Belazir paused on the threshold of his quarters and turned his head to look coldly at his approaching son.

  "May I speak?" Karak asked him.

  Belazir considered the request, wondering what aggravation his eldest son had in store for him. Then he surrendered to curiosity, gave a short nod.

  "The scumvermin female languishes in her cell, Great Lord, ignored and lonely."

  Belazir sighed and turned towards his son, contempt visible on his face.

  "When I was your age, child, I too was excited by the terror of the prey. But I am older now and have known the pleasures of conquest often. I refuse to feel obliged to take every screaming, worm-colored girl I come across simply because it is expected of me."

  Karak's face was expressionless, but the stiffness of his posture told Belazir that he was humiliated by his father's response.

  Had his son asked for the girl outright Belazir might well have given her to him. But this behind-the-back way of asking annoyed him. He had never been easy to manipulate and this exceedingly clumsy effort was an insult.

  "Leave her to my pleasure, Karak. See to her health and well-being, but do not touch her."

  Let the young hot-head chew his spleen over that, Belazir thought in amusement. With a nod to his son he turned and entered his quarters.

  * * *

  Soamosa paced her small cell, seven paces one way, five the other. She counted her steps. She had walked nine thousand one hundred and fifty four steps since waking. The cell was featureless save for its minimal furnishings, a neutral-gray box of ship metal. Doubtless intended to weaken prisoners by sensory deprivation.

  The thought came to her that she should be praying. That she should find solace on her knees instead of on her feet. But she had tried that and it didn't work. Soamosa found herself praying for things that reminded her of the terrible fate that she and the Benisur Amos and the Captain shared.

  At first, the prayers had been for deliverance, and for the safety of the Benisur, and then she had prayed that she not be raped, or locked in and left to starve. With every prayer Soamosa had brought herself closer to mindless panic. And so she paced and counted her steps, to keep her mind cleared and calm. And that worked.

  Her back was to the hatch when it opened and she froze. Soamosa had made it her habit since being imprisoned in this cell not to look at the Kolnari who brought her food.

  She had found them disturbingly beautiful, uniformly tall and blond, with shapely figures and stern features. Her mother had warned her not to be fooled by their appearance.

  "You can tell that they are not human by the way that they despise all that is. If ever you should be so unfortunate as to meet them do not let their beauty blind you. They are devils in the world of flesh, inhumanly cruel and selfish. You dare not look upon them lest you should be lost."

  Their leers and gloating remarks had made her all too aware of her torn dress and unbound hair and she had been unable to keep the tears of shame out of her eyes. Her only means of preserving her modesty and her dignity was to keep her back to them when they came.

  Besides, she did not want to see their faces as they attacked her; which she knew they might do at any time. She had resolved to keep her eyes closed if it came to that. And she would sing a hymn, the one about smashing the enemies of God like pottery. That would show them what Bethelites were made of.

  "Turn around, scumvermin," a stern voice commanded.

  Soamosa stiffened, and after a moment complied.

  "Look at me, scumvermin."

  She bit her lips to keep them from trembling.

  "No," she said coolly and clasped her hands before her.

  Karak was astounded. It had never occurred to him that this tiny female would defy him. He was honestly puzzled and completely put off his stride by her refusal. What would his father do? And how did he make her obey without touching her? Coercion he knew all too well, of persuasion he was ignorant.

  She turned her head away from him and looked up at the ceiling before lowering her eyes again.

  "What do you want?" she asked haughtily.

  Karak frowned. He'd lost the initiative and must wrest it back from her. This is not like the simulations. One did not allow prisoners to ask questions. He felt a spurt of anger. It wasn't as if she was a person.

  He stepped close and began to circle her, allowing her to become aware of his bulk and to feel him looming over her.

  Soamosa fought her trembling, fought to keep her eyes lowered and her feet firmly in place while her heart hammered and mind demanded run, flee, hide! She could feel the floor vibrate under his heavy tread and the heat from his near-naked body was extraordinary. He felt like a dark sun orbiting her.

  The girl wasn't intimidated in the least that Karak could see. She kept her place, her face a mask of cool disdain.

  His own face warmed in shame. All of his life he'd been laughed at and called soft because he lacked ambition in the arts of war. "The Poet" his age
mates had named him and made his life a hell of mockery. Only his elder brother had befriended him:

  "You will be a perfect second to me, brother. We will be a team," so you said. But you died, and I must stand in your place.

  A place that everyone, from his father on down, knew he could never fill.

  He came to a halt before her, looking down on her and quivering with rage. Lucky for you I have been forbidden to touch you. Because I would rip you limb from limb.

  He said softly, in a deep uneven voice, "Your dress is very torn."

  Soamosa clutched at the worst of the rents in her gown without thinking and she felt the color rise in her face. She was very ashamed.

  "Yes," she forced herself to say, "it is."

  "Perhaps I should find you something better to wear," he taunted.

  "Thank you, that would be very kind," she replied automatically, while her mind screamed in panic, Be silent! Don't provoke him!

  Karak blinked. She was either very brave or very stupid. Within him curiosity began to bloom and feelings of amusement and admiration mixed. It pleased him to be generous, he decided.

  "I shall see to it then," he said and left her without a backwards glance.

  Soamosa looked up when she heard the hatch close behind him. She stood staring at it for a long minute with her hands pressed hard against her rib cage, as though to hold in her frantically beating heart.

  Then she turned and stumbled to her cot, falling back on it to gaze at the ceiling.

  I did it! she thought. I faced down the enemy without flinching!

  And then she burst into tears.

  * * *

  Belazir laughed until tears ran down his cheeks and he began to choke. At last the spasm passed and the laughter slowed to sighing chuckles until he could once again get his breath. Then he sat smiling before the surveillance screen.

  "Perverse," he said to himself, chuckling again. "Utterly perverse. Yet oh so amusing." He knew he should be mortally offended, furious almost beyond his own iron control.