by Tom Shepherd
“I still hate you,” Tyler said.
“You hate your father, too.”
“That’s different. Love-hate. You and me, hate-hate.”
Tavares offered a hand. “Maybe hate-hate-cooperate?”
Tyler nodded. “I can sell that to the jury in my head.”
As they shook hands, Tyler felt the tectonic plates undergirding Reality shift beneath him. He still hated Tavares, but not as much.
Sixteen
Quirt-Thymean Tertiary Sub-Prince Zenna-Zenn Ringadool-Khelida-LeBokk, Junior, pulled his thick blue penis from the gasping Vida Decuir, public access courtesan, and rolled beside her. She could not speak for a few moments, so Mr. Blue gently licked her smallish breasts with his long, green tongue. Fortunately, her chambre d'amour was pressurized with oxygen-rich air, a feature installed by one of her many satisfied customers.
When she caught her breath, Vida rattled a few sentences in French and kissed him profusely, sucking on the green tongue and flicking it with hers.
“Mon Dieu, monsieur! Are you like that always?”
“No, mademoiselle. I am a little tired today. Your oxygen booster is very nice.” He fingered her nipple. “Is it acceptable to have coitus again, or must I pay more?”
“No, no! Of course we can do it again.” She put a hand over her mouth. “Can you do it again?”
“If you allow me about ten minutes respite between intercourses, excellent-tasting whore Vida Decuir, I can continue indefinitely.”
“Baiser toute la nuit!” she babbled in French and kissed him.
“Would you mind answering a few questions?”
“Oui, oui! Anything, anything!”
“Do you know Capitão Flávio Tavares?”
“But of course! Flávio was my favorite hobbyist.” She winked, “Before tonight, mon Chéri.”
“Hobbyist?”
“Ah, the language of my profession. Clients like to call themselves hobbyists. I am the provider.”
“John, hooker.”
“Those terms are for street girls. A good provider sees hobbyists by appointment only.”
“Do you have an exit plan for moving beyond provider-hood?”
She laughed gaily. “Why would I do that? I love this life. More money than I’ve ever had. Plenty of good lovers. No commitments. Maybe someday, I move on from Port Royal. Start a Sensual Spa on a world where voluntary sex work is not the crime. A place where women who love the romantic arts can play the girlfriend and entertain lonely men and women while earning good money. Modern geisha, oui? But I do not have enough savings. So, work and save, while I am young, no?”
“Very well spoken.” Mr. Blue rolled on to his back. “What have you heard about the Capitão from others who sailed with him?”
“Let me see. I have entertained several from his crew. And his executive officer, Augusto Cellar, is a regular. He never tips, but finishes quickly.” She began massaging Zenna’s penis. It responded immediately.
Zenna removed her hand. “I am working, too.”
“Oh, you tease!”
“Has the Capitão ever given you gifts, jewelry or other valuables taken as prizes from his line of work?”
“A string of Amber pearls from the giant mollusks of Turkose-3.” She raised an eyebrow. “Are you working for the—what is that Terran expression—LEO?”
“I am on the Capitão’s defense team. That is why I must prove he is guilty of numerous dreadful offenses.”
She chuckled. “Ho-ho-ho. Quirt-Thymeans, I am told, have the very kinky way of looking at things.”
“Tell me a few things, then we can kinky.” He slid a finger down her belly and thrust into her wet vagina, repeating rhythmically.
She moaned. “Oui… oui..”
He stopped. “What crimes has he committed? I need big ones to save his life.”
“Your big one is all I care about tonight, Chéri.” She sighed. “The Henrique captured a Parvian passenger liner two years ago.”
“Are you certain it was a Parvian vessel?” Tyler’s words rang in his memory. Don’t fuck with the Parves.
“That’s what his First Officer told me.” She put Zenna’s hand on her breast and squeezed. “They fenced the ship at Sedalia-3.”
“Oh, dear.” S-3 was a Matthews Corp repair facility at the rim of the Perseus Arm, but he kept that information out of the conversation.
Vida continued. “They removed all humanoids before scrapping the ship and sold them to bidders for the outworlds slave trade. Augusto Cellar sold them to the Lutzak Horde. Plaise-moi baise maintenant!”
“We shall resume in a moment. Did they kill anyone?”
“The Captain of the vessel resisted. Pirates slew the Parvian crew.”
“Capitão Tavares told you this in bed?”
“Not Flávio. His executive officer.”
“Augusto Cellar?”
“Look, my blue stud-man, I have given you much. Now, give it to me.”
“Please notify me when you have achieved sufficient orgasms.”
She squealed, laughing. “So you can climax with me?”
“No, I have more questions.”
He mounted Vida and spent an hour listening to her shriek. After she slept a few hours more, he woke her and resumed his interrogation. The pattern continued all night, and by morning Mr. Blue had enough information to convict Flávio Tavares of piracy and start a full-scale war with the Parvian Republic.
Prince Zenna dressed while she snored loudly. He found the datacom on Vida’s dresser. It was an all-purpose, personal-professional model, so he left a tip in Galactic Credits and note in Terran.
Vida Decuir:
Because you are a nice person with good dreams, I have deposited a gratuity in your account. Please add it to your savings for that lovely sensual spa. If you build it, I will come.
zenna
Mr. Blue accessed the datacom’s financial links, deposited three hundred thousand Galactic Credits into her Central Bank of Rahjen account from his personal funds in the Quirt-Thymean Empire, and left her oxygenated love den to report back to Tyler Matthews aboard the Howling Tadpole.
* * * *
Tyler called a staff meeting after evening mess. He waited half an hour for Mr. Arrupt and André, who had not yet returned, then decided to start without them. This time Dorla insisted on reading the roll and waited until each person responded “Here” when she read a name.
“Lieutenant Lovey Frost, Dorla Léon, Chief Paco Léon, Suzanne London, Officer Yumiko Matsuda, André Mercier, Dr. Julieta Solorio, Prince Zenna-Zenn-whatever, Tyler Matthews Fourth.” She added, “Arrupt Kilub Riff, absent. He’s running a diagnostic on the Tadpole’s FTL package.”
“You forgot the guest of honor.” Tyler pointed to the defendant.
Dorla sneered. “Oh, yes. Flávio Asshole Tavares, murdering cutthroat.”
“Present.” Flávio smiled slightly. “I was not aware you knew my middle name, Mrs. Léon.”
“All right, everybody stand down. I don’t care who hates whom or why. God knows, nobody round this table is perfect.” He smiled faintly. “Except perhaps Suzie.”
“Bugger that,” she snapped. “Quit practicing for married life and get to business.”
Flávio stifled a laugh. “I see why your mother likes her, Tyler.”
Julieta slapped the tabletop. “I’m not ready to invite you to the Matthews-Solorio Family business, so respond when you are questioned. Otherwise, shut the fuck up.’
Tyler cleared his throat. “Now that we’ve established this is not a happy gathering, let me remind you—we have a job to do, assigned to us by my mother and father. You all volunteered. So, I’m going to need you to take one for the team, and treat the defendant like he wasn’t the low-down, dog-fucking sonuvabitch we all know he is. Objections?”
None voiced.
“Let’s hear your reports,” Tyler said. “Lovey, the charges?”
“Pretty much what Admiral Matthews said in her mission order
. Treason, collusion with pirate-hunters, working with Law Enforcement and M-double-I to break the pirate network and destroy their star nation, plus murdering or causing the death of fellow privateers.”
“You did all that?” Julieta sneered.
Tavares nodded. “Guilty.”
“Bueno,” she said grudgingly.
Lovey Frost continued. “Files on similar cases go back a century and a half. Badly kept records. However, one statistic stands out. In cases of treason against the privateer league, one hundred percent conviction rate.”
“We’ll break the streak.” Tyler said.
“I copied a few hundred pages of pertinent files. It’s in your datacoms,” Lovey said. “That’s all I’ve got.”
“Suzie, the Henrique’s MLC?”
“I’m having problems,” she said. “A large part of the memory core is blocked by technologically advanced encryption and fire walls the size of Everest. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Tyler fidgeted in his seat. “Not meaning any criticism of your bioenergetic—”
“Yes, I’ve lost a little processing speed.”
“How much?”
“About a billionth of a percent.”
“Is that significant?”
She twitched her lips. “Only if you’re used to being the fastest girl in cyberspace.”
“You’ve never failed to hack a system before.”
“I’ve never seen a bloody system like this before.”
He glanced at Flávio. “You want to explain?”
“I have no idea, Tyler. The Henrique received an MLC overhaul about a month ago, but it was a refurbished older system. A step down, in fact, from the Segerian 87V-K3 unit previously installed.”
“What kind of system, from where?” Tyler said.
“I am not certain,” Tavares said. “I was looking for J.B. at Lerrotica when the work was done.”
“It has large, dark places,” Suzie said. “Something is going on, and I can’t break through.”
“Where is Rodney when I need him?” Tyler grumbled.
“In a hospital rejuvenation unit, where he needs to be,” Julieta said.
Tyler glanced at Suzie. “Try again?”
“I’ll take Chief Léon with me.”
Paco nodded. “I installed lots of new systems at Sedalia. Maybe something will ring a memory alarm.”
Tyler gestured to the French hologram. “André, you’re up.”
“I located Félix Koshka at the courthouse cantina,” Mercier said. “The poor man is mourning his client, blasted in court.”
“Were they friends?” Tyler said.
“No, no, no. But he died before paying the bill.” That brought a few chuckles around the table, even from Tavares.
Tyler pressed on. “Did you learn anything useful?”
“But of course! Monsieur Félix said the ‘Sakura House mob’ arrived last week. Kaito-shitza, Félix called him, bribed the Judge Camran to let him prosecute this case.”
Tyler grunted. “La connerie! Hypocritical mother-fucker objected when I did the same in open court.”
“Oui. The bool-sheet is Tsuchiya currency.”
“Anything else?”
André shrugged. “This is all I learn. Félix was very drunk.”
“Find him again, sober him up. Pay him for information if you must.”
“Oui, Monsieur Tyler.”
“Indigo, you’re next. Any luck with Vida Decuir?”
“Luck is not required to couple with a sex worker,” Mr. Blue said.
“Minimize the gory details, please. We need testimony about Flávio’s criminal activity.”
“The delightful provider will testify that the Capitão’s second in command, Augusto Cellar, told her after unsatisfactory coitus due to—”
“Zenna, the point?”
“Two years ago, the Henrique seized a Parvian passenger liner.”
Tyler’s mouth dropped open. “Flávio, are you out of your fucking mind? The Parvians, for the love of God!”
“Madre de Dios.” Julieta shivered, as if a chill swept through her shapely body.
“They are relentless,” Tyler said. “They take no prisoners. They will hunt you to the farthest star system and kill everybody you have ever known. They will attack your homeworld if they suspect other Segerians assisted you.”
“I know,” Tavares said quietly. “Please, let Prince Zenna continue.”
Tyler whirled to Mr. Blue. “What happened? Talk!”
“The gory details?”
“Indigo…”
“Well, to my surprise and delight, Vida was very tight, and she moved like a dancer while we—”
“Not those details! The attack on Parvian shipping.”
“Oh, yes. It was very bad. They captured a civilian transport, slaughtered her crew, and sold all the passengers into slavery. They chopped the ship at Sedalia for scrap and salvage.” Mr. Blue wiggled his floppy ears. “Augusto Cellar seems to enjoy bragging to women he hires for sex. Likely, he was an unhappy child.”
Chief Paco Léon seldom spoke unless questioned, but this was different. He knew Sedalia. He and Dorla lived at the colony for years.
“Capitão, you took the ship to Safe Harbor?” Paco said. “Parvians land there regularly for maintenance. I’ve worked on their ships.”
“The Sedalia colony will cease to exist,” Tyler said.
“God help us if they think you acted for M-double-I,” Julieta said. “Kansas City, Madrid, all our colony worlds. Do you realize—”
“I did not do this,” Flávio said.
Tyler crossed his arms. “Explain.”
Capitão Tavares drew himself to a sitting position of attention, head level, spine straight. “Test me. Have Esteban take a reading.”
“My cousin sails with J.B., far from here.” Tyler nodded. “Talk to us, Flávio. We’ll stop howling and listen.”
“Augusto Cellar was my executive officer.”
“Was?” Tyler said.
“I fired him two years ago, right after the incident.”
“Describe your role in the incident,” Tyler said.
“After a series of successful raids on Zenji shipping, I suddenly became ill. Weak, feverish. Shallow of breath. My heartbeat irregular.”
Julieta said, “Probably contracted a virulent pathogen aboard a captured vessel. The Zenji host a wide span of virus strains—harmless to dog-men, lethal to humanoids. Your ship’s doctor should have prepped you better.”
“I have no ship’s doctor.”
“You are an idiot.”
“Não muitos médicos vão navegar com piratas.” Not many doctors will sail with pirates.
“Então não navegue.” So, don’t sail.
“Terran Standard, por favor,” Tyler said.
Tavares nodded. “The Henrique dropped me off at Mindorius where I was hospitalized for three months. Cellar was my second in command, so he took over as acting captain and continued to raid commercial traffic along the Jayendra corridor. That is when he encountered the Star of Parvia, a luxurious passenger vessel for rich members of Parvian society.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” Tyler whispered.
“Cellar knew their vessels were off limits. We had letters of marque from New Osaka and three alien star nations, but none of them authorized an attack on Parvian shipping. He should have known better.”
“But the target was low-hanging fruit,” Tyler said, “and the dumbass couldn’t resist Eve’s apple.”
“Exactly,” Tavares said. “He disabled their communications and FTL before they knew what was happening. Parvians have a reputation which wards off attacks and protects them in most ports of call. They simply did not believe a Segerian privateer would be foolhardy enough to incur the wrath of the fearsome Parvian Republic.”
Julieta cursed in Español Nuevo.
Tavares continued his grisly narrative. “When the crew resisted his boarding party, Augusto Cellar killed them all. Executed the wound
ed himself. Then he rounded up the passengers, murdered all the men and boys over fifteen, and threw the women and younger children into the Henrique’s holding pens. Cellar sent a prize crew to sail the Star of Parvia to Sedalia for salvage. Then he took my Henrique to Redo-Shia 3, where he sold his prisoners into slavery.”
“I don’t know that planet,” Tyler said.
“One of the few remaining colony worlds of the Lutzak Horde,” Suzie said. “Rimward edge of the Perseus Arm. Spinward from Terra.”
“When he showed up at the hospital on Mindorius,” Flávio said, “Cellar was all smiles. He had a profitable voyage to report.”
“How did you respond?” Tyler said.
“The nurses and attendants had to pull me off him. Five days in the ICU from the damage I did to his stupid, grinning face. When he was released, I intended to kill him in the hospital parking lot, but he escaped to Pirate space. He has been living off the money he made on that attack. Before we leave Port Royal, I will kill him. Painfully.”
“Good,” Julieta said. “Save me from tracking down the pendejo.”
“I wanted to undo the damage,” Tavares said, “but have no death wish. I was in no hurry to let the Parvians know my ship had committed such atrocities against their citizens.”
“So, the victims are still enslaved?” Tyler said.
“Yes, God help me. I don’t have the connections to free them.” Flávio sighed. “My sin is that I chose survival. I did not do the crime.”
“You covered it up?” Suzie said.
“Sim, Senhorita London. I am a coward, not a blackguard.”
“We need to establish your street creds as a bad guy,” Tyler said, “but that particular example is off the table.”
“What if Kaito knows?” Suzie said. “We might prove the Capitão is a scoundrel but provoke the Parves to war against the Terran Commonwealth.”
“Another problem,” Flávio said. “I should have reported this earlier.”
“Oh, Jesus. Let’s have it,” Tyler said.
“A Parvian frigate may lurk somewhere in this star system.” Tavares caught Tyler’s surprised look. “I hear things.”
“What’s your source?”
“A privateer captain. Old acquaintance. No one of significance.”