The City and the Ship

by Anne McCaffrey

  But he had never been close to this particular child of his loins, nor to the wife who had bred him. And the girl had shown incredible spunk, given the circumstances.

  He wondered if he was going to kill Karak the next time he saw him.

  Belazir knew that, for his honor's sake, he should. But, he thought with a sigh, since The Great Plague ravaged the people we have bred but slowly. Our numbers are as nothing and worse, the children are puny. And Karak has four healthy brats. He concluded that satisfying his honor with Karak's blood was a luxury the people couldn't afford. Yet.

  Would that Karak's brother had lived instead. Belazir's lips curled in a wry expression. He had better use for a decent second-in-command than he did for comic relief. On the other hand, the boy's brother would have been a threat.

  But he also wanted to see how this foolishness with the scumvermin female played out. He smiled again. His sense of curiosity had always been one of his besetting sins. He decided to indulge it in this case as he could not see any way in which it could become too costly to do so.

  He'd intended to amuse himself by experimenting on the girl with the other new drugs he had bought and taunting Simeon-Amos with holos of her reactions. Well, obviously he couldn't use her so and also have her available for amusing episodes with his son.

  No matter, he'd have a technician cobble together some sort of holo, extrapolating from the predicted responses that had been described to him.

  That would be better, in fact! He wouldn't be distracted and could truly enjoy the Benisur scumvermin's reactions. No doubt opportunities for live experimentation would arise in the course of events; and it would add a certain frisson to known that Amos's despair and anguish were for nothing at all . . .

  "Yes," he murmured. "Let him think the scumvermin girl destroyed—and then I shall show her to him, whole and well. And destroy her again!"

  Belazir sighed contentedly. Surely anticipation is one of life's true pleasures.

  * * *

  I hate my father, Karak son of Belazir thought, as he paced through the corridors of the Kali—the Dreadful Bride, his sire's old warship.

  A pack of Kolnari children went by, in the wake of something bulge-eyed and long-clawed that squealed and snarled as it ran. They dashed after it with high shrieks of excitement, long razor-sharp knives in their hands. The sight distracted him for an instant; how long had it been since he was an innocent child, with nothing more to concern him than lessons and running down a drgudak with his friends? All of five years, now; since he turned eight and came to manhood. The infancy of Kolnar was brief.

  I hate my father. What child of the Divine Seed didn't? But it's worse than that. I hate them all. He shivered. He was weak, too weak, hiding in his quarters and watching the tapes of the scumvermin female. He told himself it was honest lust, but it was not. She is weak. Yet she does not despair. The strangers were like that. His father had thought them weak, when the High Clan took Bethel, when it took SSS-900-C . . . and found that its meal was eating its way back out.

  Decision crystallized as he fingered the injector in a pouch. He slapped palm against a communicator.

  "Duty officer," he said. "I shall be unavailable for the next hour."

  * * *

  "No," Soamosa pleaded, "please don't." Her blue eyes were full of tears and terror.

  She was held by two Kolnari, her slender form dwarfed by their muscular height. One of them held out her arm with the inside of her elbow uppermost. Despite her increasingly frantic struggles the arm didn't move. So that when the nozzle of the injector was placed on her arm it was right against a vein.

  "Don't, please don't," she was weeping helplessly now. "No! No, NO!"

  She tore herself free and huddled in the comer of the room; there were streaks of blood on her arms.

  Belazir leaned down and grasped her chin in his huge hand.

  "In only a moment, Benisur, it will begin," he said and turned to smile at Amos.

  * * *

  "No!" Soamosa insisted, holding her hands up defensively.

  Karak smiled at the gesture, it was completely absurd. Seated beside him she looked like a creature made of gossamer and air, frail as a candle flame. And yet, he knew that she was the one in control. At all of their meetings it was she who had set the tone. Deep within himself, Karak sighed.

  "You have nothing to fear from me," he said aloud. "I will not harm you."

  Soamosa looked suspiciously at the earnest young Kolnari. Even in the midst of her fear his beauty struck her; and the lost look in the yellow eagle eyes.

  "I do not trust you," she said severely.

  Karak brushed back his long silver-blond hair distractedly.

  "I am concerned for you," he said. "It is terribly dangerous for me to even offer you this protection. If my father knew," his lips tightened, "death would come to me as a friend."

  Soamosa narrowed her eyes.

  "I do not believe you," she said. "It is some Kolnari trick. My mother told me all about the Kolnari sense of humor."

  "Lady," he said and the expression in his eyes firmed. "It is my intention to save you, not to harm you. I will set you free." Karak blinked rapidly and swallowed hard. "And your companions if that is possible. I swear it."

  By the sound of his voice, the oath might have been flayed from him. She raised her arm, the inside of her elbow uppermost and he placed the nozzle of the injector unerringly over the vein.

  "Now that I've submitted to your injection, you must tell me what it does," Soamosa demanded, radiating poise and dignity and the mysterious power she held over him.

  "It will keep you safe from a most dreadful disease," Karak told her. "My father means to use it against your people."

  Suddenly, like a splash of cold water, Karak realized that with those words he was forever cast adrift from the Kolnar. He had betrayed them. Even if he failed to save Soamosa and her companions, if it ended here with his leaving her and never returning, he was a traitor. And he was glad. He felt freer than he ever had in his life, liberated from impossible expectations and deeds that he was not proud of. He was free. And the unnameable feeling he bore for this tiny young woman was the cause of it.

  Karak leaned forward and Soamosa gasped in alarm. He closed his eyes and very tenderly kissed her forehead in gratitude.

  * * *

  Amos stiffened as the image of Soamosa screamed. Screamed until her mouth sprayed blood, as though she had burst a vein in her throat. And still she screamed, writhing in agony, until at last she lay still, gasping, her eyes rolling back in her head.

  Tears ran down Amos's face unchecked. His arms held the weeping Captain Sung who clutched him in terror. The Captain had soiled himself in his fear, not understanding the screaming, nor Amos's soothing words.

  "You are evil," Amos murmured, "and you shall be destroyed by your own evil. He shall break you with a rod of iron."

  Belazir appeared before him.

  "We shall let her rest for a bit," Belazir said in a conversational tone. "Then, if you like, I have some other drugs whose effects might interest you."

  Sung whimpered and screwed his head tighter against Amos's ribcage, trying to hide from Belazir.

  Amos glared at the Kolnari Lord. "She is only an innocent young girl, Master and God. Why do you torture her so? Is there no pity in you at all?"

  Belazir crossed his arms on his chest.

  "How can you ask that, scumvermin? Have I not given the Captain there to the only person on this ship who would care for him? It would be more convenient to space him than to feed him."

  Amos tightened his grip on the Captain's quivering shoulders.

  "Captain Sung has been injured in my service, Master and God," he said humbly. "It is my duty to care for him as best I can."

  Belazir's lip curled. "How touching. And he stinks so." Then the Kolnari smiled, he glanced at Soamosa where she lay at his feet. "Why, you have touched me," he said as though in surprise. "I believe that we shall give her a more
relaxing injection this time." He looked back at Amos. "It will intensify feelings of pleasure and give her an overwhelming desire to please." He grinned evilly. "So you should enjoy watching this."

  * * *

  Belazir burst out laughing as the image of Amos and the brain-scrubbed spacer faded, to be replaced by his son in the cell of the Bethelite woman. He'd seen sleazy adventure holos created for scumvermin fools that were more believable than what he was watching.

  Belazir pounded the arm of his control couch and shouted laughter. Ah, the rock-jawed righteousness of that Amos, he thought. And Karak, mooning over a piece of walking meat barely fit to serve a moment's pleasure and breed slaves.

  It was pleasant that Amos was totally convinced by the holos his technicians had prepared from a pirated Central Worlds program. There were flaws, but Amos appeared to have missed them. Due, no doubt, to the harrowing content of the recording. And it was exactly the sort of thing Belazir would do. Always easier to believe what one expected.

  He really would have to think of something suitable as a punishment for Karak. And yet, he wanted to see just how far this . . . romance, for want of a better word, would go.

  He sat shaking his head in amazement as he watched Soamosa looking in wide-eyed wonder at Karak's stoic face. Then, tentatively, she placed her small hand on his and smiled.

  Belazir began to laugh again as he started the next holo for the Benisur Amos's edification. His youngest wife called from the chamber within:

  "How I yearn for you, lord of my life!" There was a waspish note to her voice.

  "Anticipation heightens pleasure," he called back, "And silence averts beatings."

  Yes. This compendium of erotic fantasies. Tame to Kolnari eyes, but it would torment Amos unceasingly, playing on the insides of his eyelids when he squeezed them closed to shut it out. Run a modification program here—

  CHAPTER SIX

  Mr. va Riguez:

  I need to speak to you immediately on a matter of extreme urgency. Wyal is scheduled for departure at 03:00. Please contact me before then.

  Sincerely,

  Captain Simeon-Hap

  She should have signed it desperately instead of sincerely, Bros thought, a wry smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He leaned back in the big, faux-leather chair in The Anvil's office. Still, I'm surprised she said please. That lonely plea didn't seem to go with the imperious tone of the rest of her note. Dyson must have taken me at my word. He'd known the little weasel would.

  Sperin had authorized the clerk to fine Joat up to twenty thousand credits. Or at least to tell her he was fining her that much. In reality the fine shouldn't be more than five or six thousand. Even that amount would be tough for Joat to scrape together. But twenty thousand . . . That was an absolutely staggering fine for any ship, let alone a struggling independent freighter like hers.

  Bros grinned. Ridding her of a fine that size ought to engender a lot of gratitude, he thought comfortably. Then his pleasure slowly faded. Joat Simeon-Hap wasn't someone he'd like to see broken to the plow, jumping when he snapped his fingers, dancing when he pulled her strings.

  He didn't want CenSec to lose her. But I don't want them to own her soul either.

  Them? he asked himself in mild surprise. He frowned. It had been many years since he'd thought of CenSec as other than we, or I. Some of that girl's independence is rubbing off on me, he thought ruefully.

  "Sal," he said. Getting up he went to the heavy-shouldered man seated at an overburdened desk and dropped Joat's note in front of him. "Take care of this for me, would you? Joat Simeon-Hap's ship, the Wyal, has been fined by the station. Pay it out of my special account."

  "Sure, Mr. va Riguez, no problem," Sal said. He had a voice like stones grinding together.

  Bros picked up his jacket and swung it over his shoulder. "And if Captain Simeon-Hap should call looking for me, you don't know where I am."

  "I never do, sir," Sal agreed with a gap-toothed grin.

  "But you might ask her if she'd like to leave a message."

  Sal's sandy eyebrows went up. "I'm not sure I'm old enough to listen to the kind of language she's liable to use, sir."

  Bros chuckled. "You tell her that," he advised.

  Sal stared at the door after it had closed behind Sperin, then he glanced at the note again. I'll take care of it tomorrow, he thought. It's not like they charge interest. He put the note aside and went back to work.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  "Rand, I want you to record this as it plays, all right?"

  "Certainly, Joat. I had intended to anyway," Rand said. There was a faintly injured tone to the AI's voice.

  "All right, people, got your note screens ready?" Joseph and Alvec nodded. "Well, okay, it's showtime!"

  Joat entered the datahedron Bros Sperin had given her and keyed it up. For a few moments, as a fluid computer voice relayed the facts of Nomik Ciety's life, the only sound was the click of styli as they took notes. But with the first holo snap, Joat looked up, and froze.

  Her heartbeat speeded up until all she could hear was the sound of her own blood rushing. Pounding through her, beating against her fingertips, pulsing in her temples. Her sight narrowed to a tunnel sparked with black and white.

  When at last she took another breath it roared in her ears like a cyclone.

  Nomik Ciety, Nomik . . . Ciety. The face on the screen shifted from the scrawny, mad-eyed youth with a number across his chest to a grown man's, well dressed and smooth. A respectable businessman to all appearances, with a friendly smile and a twinkle in his eye. Her own blond hair, face a little angular. Cheekbones like those that greeted her every morning in the screen.

  Uncle Nom, she thought. You're not dead! I was so sure you were dead. She felt numb now, and her heart rate was returning to normal. It was in the nature of humankind, to believe in what they most deeply wished to be true.

  Joat closed her eyes and took a slow, quiet deep breath. Amos comes first, she thought desperately.

  But memory bubbled up, eating away at the failing barrier of her will. She tightened her fist around the stylus, gripping it like a lifeline.

  The part of her he'd betrayed screamed in frustrated rage: You were only seven! You were just a baby and he sold you to that sick bastard!

  She was looking back at Uncle Nom as a big, smelly, shambling man led her away, his grip like a clamp on her skinny arm. Uncle Nom was waving and smiling.

  "Bye-bye," he called.

  "Uncanom," she heard her own thin, little girl's voice call out, "Uncle Nom!" Tears blurred her vision.

  She blinked, her jaw was clenched so hard the muscles jumped and she felt sweat begin to bead her upper lip. Joat took a deep breath, trying to keep control. Trying to deny what she felt, because it was joy. Sheer, undiluted joy; a savage intensity of feeling that nothing in her life had ever rivaled.

  How nice that you're not dead, Uncle Nom, she thought, fighting back a giggle. Knowing that she wouldn't be able to stop if she started. And then they'd ask questions. I don't want any questions.

  Uncle Nom was hers. All hers. My toy to break, she thought with gleeful viciousness.

  But she didn't have to hurry. Now she knew about him. There was no way he could hide from her, no place in all the worlds.

  Don't look back, she warned herself. There's nothing back there that isn't going to cut you.

  The reminder didn't work . . .

  It was dark and she was huddled in a tiny space, a space that soon would be too small for her to hide in. She starved herself so that she could still fit, because he couldn't reach her here. There was a crash of metal on metal.

  "Come on out you little wharf-rat! You're only makin' it worse!" His voice rose to a hoarse shout at the end that promised broken bones.

  There was a rattle then, and with a clatter the cover over the air duct fell away to reveal the captain's fleshy, red face. He glared down at her, teeth gritted, breathing in a harsh rasp. Then he pulled back, thrusting his arm in to ma
ke a grab at her. Joat plastered herself against the duct, breathing in to make a hollow of her stomach. The blunt fingertips just brushed her clothing.

  He pulled his arm out with a cry of rage and smashed his fist against the wall. Then his face appeared again.

  "You'd better come out, little girl," he sang softly, with the purr of madness underneath. It was very bad when he stopped shouting and went quiet. "Or you're gonna be sooorryyy."

  And she knew that she had to leave her shelter and let him have her. Or he'd seal her in. He'd done that once before and . . .

  A hot hand touched her and she started with an angry hiss, turning to glare into Joseph's puzzled eyes.

  "Jeeeezzz, Joe! Don't do that!"

  "I am sorry," he said. "I spoke and you did not answer. I did not mean to startle you."

  "Sorry," she said curtly. "What did you want?"

  "I said that this man is more dangerous than I had expected. I am uneasy allowing you to take all of the risk in this matter."

  "I'm not helpless, Joe! And I'm not Rachel, so don't even try to treat me like I am! I don't appreciate it."

  She saw surprise in the way his eyebrows quivered, then settled down. For Joe that marked a profound change of expression.

  Joat sighed, a little ashamed of her outburst. "I see nothing in this recording that gives us a reason to change our plans at this late date. Especially since our plans were to play it by ear and see what happens. You can't be more flexible than that, Joe."

  "As you say, Joat," he murmured.

  * * *

  Joseph caught Alvec's eye over Joat's head. An imperceptible nod confirmed his judgment. He had never seen Joat afraid, in all the years he had known her—not even when the Kolnari occupiers had walked the corridors of SSS-900-C. Or could she fear for her ship? That was more than danger, it was a threat to her dream.

  "Joat," he began tentatively, "if you cannot pay the fine to New Destinies what will you do?"

  "Lose the ship," she said succinctly, and shrugged. "My fault entirely. The fine thing really wasn't such a good idea."

  "Whatsisname, that guy?" Alvec said. "He'll take care of it, right?"