House of the Silent Moons

by Tom Shepherd

  “Mom will be heart-broken,” Tyler muttered, fighting the urge to knock the rest of Curilak’s teeth out. “Does that mean you personally take responsibility for turning our legal mission away from Pirate space?”

  “What if I do?” he said. “I’m the Gatekeeper. I got the right to run off anybody I choose.”

  “Your Codes of Common Law state very clearly, ‘Every privateer is entitled to a fair trial before popularly elected judges, represented by whomever he or she requests.’”

  Curilak sneered. “What if I just kill all of you? Who’s gonna know?”

  “Oh, believe me, if we turn up missing, somebody up your food chain will know eventually. And when the Free Enterprise League learns that you, personally, broke the Privateer Code and killed visitors to Pirate space bearing a safe conduct pass, you’ll wish Star Lawyers Corp were available, because you’ll need a good attorney to pull you out of the shithole your superiors will find for you.”

  Curilak raised a fist, then lowered it. “I’ll grant you a transponder code,” he said. “But every Gatekeeper is authorized to demand an entry tariff, which is my fee.”

  “How much?” Tyler said, unblinking.

  “Not money. Where can I spend it? They made me perimeter guard at the fucking end of nowhere.”

  “Okay. What then?”

  “I want a night with one of your bitches.” He glanced at Julieta, Suzie, and Yumiko. “Any one of them will do. And she better screw me like it was our honeymoon.”

  Tyler tighten his fists. Suzie gave him a look that said, Steady, luv. You’ll trigger a chain-reaction from our team.

  For a spiteful instant, Tyler considered offering him Julieta, because she’d murder Curilak soon as the cabin door closed behind him. But he needed this dickhead alive to issue a transponder code, or they weren’t going anywhere near the trial of Flávio Tavares.

  “Well, which one do I get? The Jappo is cute, but a bit on the lean side. Your crew, you pick.”

  “That isn’t possible,” Tyler said. “I’m not a slaver or a pimp.”

  “Now you’re the one violating the Code.” Curilak grunted. “Your application for entry is rejected. No pussy, no proceed.”

  “I’ll go with him,” Julieta said.

  “No!” Tyler said.

  “Why not?” Curilak leered at the beautiful Latina dispatcher. “I like her—tall, dark hair, good face, nice tits.”

  Because I don’t want you dead, dumbass. “I have something better to offer, Capitão.”

  “There ain’t nothing better than pussy.”

  Tyler nodded. “You got me there, bucko. But would you settle for a holo-projecting device?”

  “A what?”

  “Haven’t you visited a holographic alternative reality?”

  “What, you mean those battle games for kids and cowards? You go in with a sword and can’t be hurt.”

  “No, no, bandido amigo. I mean, like, a holographic den of pleasure, complete with solid, warm female characters to serve your every whim.”

  Curilak didn’t respond. It was like his brain couldn’t go there.

  “Let me repeat,” Tyler said. “Women to serve your every whim.”

  His eyes popped. “Do they really have those?”

  “That’s not all.” Tyler swung into traveling salesman mode. “You can create whatever location you want by selecting from a wide array of templates. A romantic café in Paris near the Eifel Tower—the 19th century original—packed with beautiful French women. How about riverboat gambling? Imagine games of chance surrounded by a boatload of pleasure ladies, paddle-wheeling down the Missouri, circa 1852.”

  “Down the what?”

  “Forget the riverboat. How about a beach house in a tropical paradise, with holographic hula girls and your own private luau?”

  “And the females come with the program?” His voice trembled with excitement.

  “They do, but instead of presets, would you rather design your own woman? No, cancel that limitation, my privateering compadre. Would you like to design as many women as you can imagine, to serve all your biological and physical needs? They can be anything you want. They’ll do anything you want. Forever.”

  “You’re punking me.”

  “No, sir,” Tyler assured him. “I have a complete mini-MLC program with holographic capabilities an old time Sultan would die for. And you can be their King. All you need is a computer net with enough memory and a fast processor.”

  “What are the requirements?”

  Tyler told him, sparing the geek-speak, because the only points of similarity between Curilak and the original designer of this program, Rodney Rooney, was that they were both carbon cycle lifeforms.

  “Do you want to test it?” Tyler said. “Invite Chief Léon and me aboard, and we’ll set it up for you.”

  “I suppose we can give it a whirl.” He turned to his armed crew. “Watch them closely, but keep your hands off the ladies.”

  Good advice, Tyler thought, unless you have a death wish. “I’ll walk you through the program. All you need is an empty space about the size of a handball court.”

  “Cargo compartment six is empty right now. What about the hardware?”

  Tyler handed him one of Chief Léon’s “magic bracelets” which allowed a holographic entity to travel beyond the base unit. “Clip it on your arm and let’s get you a playmate.”

  “That’s it?” the Capitão studied the bronze wrist band.

  Tyler shrugged. “Well, you need to get a couple of your people to carry the hardware package aboard. It’s right over there.” He gestured toward a stack of matched components lashed to the deck with a cargo net. “Grab it all and we’ll set you up.”

  Curilak motioned to his thugs and two of them took the components over the jet bridge with their leader watching from the entranceway. While the Capitão pressed his men into service, Suzie moved beside Tyler.

  “Be careful,” she whispered.

  “You, too.”

  “Ty, I’m standing between a martial arts master and a professional assassin. And I can always computer-hop out of harm’s way. You’re alone with him.”

  “Nope…I’m taking Paco. And I’ve got this.” He held up a second bracelet, this one silver. “I kept Rodney and the Chief busy on the trip from the Quirt-Thyme Empire.” He gave her a peck.

  Curilak sneered at Tyler. “Don’t worry. They won’t hurt your women.”

  “Oh, I believe that, completely.” You have no idea, you dumb sonuvabitch. “Let’s get your harem-generator up and running.”

  For the next ninety minutes, Tyler and Paco set up a makeshift holo-studio in a cargo compartment of the Dead Dog Maker and ran Curilak through a short course on how to generate, shape, edit, and save holographic scenarios, characters, and storylines. Tyler explained the difference between the two basic options. A scripted holo-adventure—like the juicy quest to find the world’s most passionate slave girl in The Vagabond Prince Meets the Queen of the Sirens. The second option was called a sandbox, an unscripted situation where the participant interacted with free-roaming characters in a wide variety of locales without predetermined goals or storyline.

  Finally, Tyler introduced the Gatekeeper to the joys of creating the perfect woman. Body, face, hair length and complexion, language and temperament, sexual tastes and adjustable lust factor. Curilak was like a hound dog before a day of hunting, wild with excitement.

  “Now, here’s the important point,” Tyler said as they stood on a white sand beach by an azure sea. “Take off the bracelet. See the color coded squares on the skin-side metal? If you want a woman who will drive you crazy—and I caution you to do this carefully—then punch four red, four green, four yellow.”

  “Four…red, yellow, green..”

  “No, no! You must get the sequence right. Four red, green, yellow.”

  “There be four colors. Not blue, too?”

  “Absolutely not! Nobody can handle a woman who’s punched up to four blues.”

/>   “Badalhoca, eh?” Curilak smiled toothlessly. “We’ll see about that.”

  “Sir, don’t forget the other one,” Paco said.

  “Oh, yeah!” Tyler fished the silver bracelet from a pocket. “When you find the perfect woman, give her this.”

  “What’s it do?”

  “It’s a surprise. Give her that, and she’ll drive you crazy.”

  He guffawed. “Will she, now? I’ll keep it for the right moment.”

  Paco said, “The program can handle several players, so you can share it with your crew.”

  “Share with those flea-bitten mongrels?” Curilak was aghast.

  A line of bikini clad blondes paraded past, followed by redheads.

  “Canalhas like my crew dunno what to do with adorável boceta. This be my tariff prize. I’m the Gatekeeper.”

  “So, you’re satisfied with the deal?”

  “I suppose it will do.” He took out a datacom and ordered his admin officer to send a code sequence to the Howling Tadpole’s transponder. “You may proceed to your trial site. And I hope you lose and the court hangs that filha da puta.”

  “How do I find the capital?”

  “Already sent you the coordinates. Lay in a course when you clear the copper ring.” Curilak grabbed one of the passing holo-females and she kissed him enthusiastically. Two other women, topless this time, pushed into Curilak’s embrace, giggling and joining the kissing festival.

  “Uh, what do you mean, emerge from the copper—am I going back through the Traveler Gate?”

  “You’re goin’ through Roger’s Gate.” Curilak waved him off. “Ask the Denny. Send my men back and get gone. I got some ladies to satisfy.”

  “Okay. But remember—do not press the blue square.”

  The Gatekeeper may as well have fallen overboard. He was done communicating with anyone except the increasing mob of shapely beach bunnies, who pushed each other aside for a chance to be kissed and fondled by their Pirate lover.

  Tyler exited the jet bridge and found Dr. Solorio examining the two pirate guards, who lay on the deck, tangled like a pretzel. Arrupt stood over the doctor as she examined the unconscious desperados.

  “What happened?” Tyler demanded.

  “Just a little intensive, interpersonal counseling. These two have boundary issues.” She gave both an injection at the side of the neck.

  Tyler glared at her. “What did you do to them?”

  “It wasn’t me.” Julieta nodded at the petite Asian who stood a few paces away.

  “They fall down, Tyler-san.”

  “This guy looks like somebody nearly ripped off his arm.”

  “They fall down hard.”

  “Is it serious?” Tyler said to Julieta.

  “Simple dislocation. I can reduce it painlessly.” Julieta put a foot in the pirate’s underarm and yanked. Even totally zonked, he howled. “Or I could do it that way.”

  “Where are Suzie and Mr. Blue?”

  Julieta dug around in her med bag and gave the comatose brigands shots of painkillers and smart-meds.

  “Suzie was monitoring your progress internally. When she gave the ‘all clear,’ Mr. Blue returned to bridge duty with wife number two.”

  “You mean to that stack of unopened box lunches,” Tyler said. “Suzie, if you’re listening, tell Lovey to close the airlock and disengage from the jet bridge on my command, then hop to the XO chair and prepare to get the hell outa here.”

  “Got it, luv.”

  “Kilub Riff, you and Paco drag these two sleeping beauties over the jet bridge, dump them inside the hatch, and skedaddle back here. Julieta, go with them, get your patients back to their vessel. You are authorized to use lethal force if they engage.”

  “No problema, Jefe.” Julieta pulled a thermal blaster from her medical bag. She smiled mischievously. “La doctora still makes house calls.”

  * * * *

  Tyler leaned forward in the command chair as the copper Jump Gate loomed larger by the second. He ordered Arrupt Kilub Riff to take the semi-circular auxiliary command station starboard of Lovey Frost’s position at nav-helm. Mr. Blue, who despite his protests had proven rather adept at scanning, operated the sensor post beside second wife Lovey Frost.

  “Suzie lady,” Arrupt said in Terran, “please to fix readout? Kilub Riff no can read Blue-doodle.”

  Suzie laughed and returned the Pharmaadoodil instrumentation, which she had created for Mr. Blue, to Dengathi Regalik. She croaked a few phrases in Arrupt’s native tongue and he replied.

  “Let’s do this, folks.” Tyler released all ship’s flight and nav systems to Arrupt, and he prayed to the Virgin Mother that his froggy fellow-Catholic crew member knew what the fuck he was doing.

  “Kilub Riff have ship helm-nav,” the Dengathi said.

  “Mr. Arrupt, if we came here to get the transponder code and find the Free Enterprise League’s capital, why are we leaving Pirate space?”

  “Yes-no, Matt Junior. We get ‘ponder code, but this not Pirate space. This Gatekeeper outpost. We no going back to golden Gate. We go Roger’s Gate take us Pirate space.”

  “What?”

  “Roger Gate, you no hear? Name after Dirt Monkey Roger somebody. Him discover, allza quick get zap-blown by Gate. Long time later, pirate find. Now, Gate take them home.”

  “How do we get to Pirate space by going back to the Traveler’s Gate?”

  “You not understand. ‘Ponder code tell copper Roger Gate, take us way far jump, Blue Gate. Gas nebula, starry cluster, above Milky disk.”

  “Where?”

  “Want see image?”

  Tyler bolted from the command chair and peered over the Frog’s shoulder.

  “Pirate space is inside a globular cluster?” Suzie’s eyes told Tyler what she was thinking, but she said it aloud. “How did I miss that fact? I’ve merged with the Tadpole’s MLC.”

  “Not in library computer. Deep shelter, bottom of data pond. Keep secret good for privateer. No want visitors.”

  Mr. Blue said, “A wise precaution.”

  Arrupt displayed a series of images, which began with a huge ball of stars and moved progressively closer to the mini-galaxy’s starfield, finally settling on a robin’s egg cloud of dust and gas which filled the screen. The massive nebula looked like see-through lingerie, light blue, crisscrossed with tangerine filaments, edged by frayed, golden hairs of illuminated dust.

  A dark spot dotted the center, visible only because it occluded the wispy blue clouds of the nebula behind it. That they could see the speck at all meant the Gate was surprisingly close to the camera which recorded its image. Arrupt’s screen indicated the distance at slightly more than two hundred kilometers. But they were still a long way from a live image of their destination.

  Tyler said, “Suzie, tell me what I’m looking at.”

  “Globular clusters are clumps of stars orbiting the galaxy,” she said. “This one is designated NCG 2808, and it’s a corker. Over a million stars, thirty-one thousand light years above the galactic plane. Some scientists say it’s a dwarf galaxy, something captured by the Milky Way long ago.”

  “And that baby-blue, gas nebula is within the cluster?”

  Arrupt clucked and whistled. “Gassy lagoon, edge of Pirate space. Long way, FTL. Copper Gate Roger take quick, if have right code.”

  “Roger’s Gate has a selection system?” Tyler said. “No other Gate has one. You go to the next Gate region and come back to your original location.”

  “How you know? Maybe need code, then allza Gates take you allza other’n.”

  “Sonuvabitch! The Gates have a keypad?” Tyler slapped himself on the forehead. Dad would kill for that information. “Indigo, did your people know that?”

  “No, friend Tyler,” Prince Zenna said. “We Quirt-Thymeans have always assumed the Gates were point-to-point. Perhaps some are multi-locational, others are not.”

  “Save the image, Mr. Arrupt,” Tyler said. “I have more questions.”

  “
Approaching—uh—Roger’s Gate?” Lovey called the distance to the event horizon. “Forty-two kilometers, Boss-man. We’re on a perfect approach vector.”

  “Well done, Mr. Arrupt. Please release helm-nav to Lieutenant Frost. Prepare to send the transponder code.”

  “Decrease to docking speed. Arrupt release ship control. Got ‘ponder code ready.” He twittered and Suzie croaked in response.

  “I have the helm-nav,” Lovey said in the age-old pilot’s reply to a transfer of flight controls. “My, my. Look at the marking on the Gate.”

  She tossed a close-up of the copper ring onto the main viewscreen. A dark rectangle decorated the portal’s portside, the only marking Tyler had ever seen on a Jump Gate. It was a black flag with skull and crossbones.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said. “Roger’s Gate—the Jolly Roger. Somebody has a perverse sense of humor.”

  “Roger not jolly. Gate kill stupid Dirt Monkey.”

  “It’s a play on words, Mr. Arrupt. Somebody thought it would be funny to name the access to Pirate space after an ancient symbol of buccaneering and the unlucky guy who discovered the Gate.”

  “Terrans love metaphors, friend Arrupt,” Mr. Blue said.

  “Ty, we’re getting an unpleasant barrage of messages from the Gatekeeper’s ship,” Suzie said. “I think the bugger must’ve pressed the blue square.”

  “Put him through. Visual and voice.”

  Curilak’s balding head appeared in the main screen. His wide, panicky eyes told the story. Tyler smirked. “Capitão, how may I help—”

  “Matthews, get these women off my ship!”

  Tyler sat back, summoning a puzzled expression. “I don’t understand, sir. Did they not perform as advertised? When I left the Dead Dog Maker, a mob of beautiful, bare-breasted sirens were swarming all over you.”

  “Swarming, yes—like bees from a busted hive! The putas loucas won’t leave me alone.” A pair of topless, buxom redheads giggled and climbed into his lap in the command chair on the Gatekeeper’s bridge. “They’re all over the ship, not just cargo six! You said these cadelas would stay in that holo-whatever you installed in cargo six!”

  “Tut-tut, Mr. Pirate. I never said they’d stay in the holo-studio. In fact, I thought you’d be happy that they can tap into your MLC and appear anywhere aboard. That’s what the silver wristband was for. Did you give a special girl that silver wristband?”