by Mark Eller
"It's proper to use a Mister, Miss, or Mistress before a person's name," Aaron explained to Aybarra. "Using profanity at all is thought to be crude at best, insulting at worst. Using profanity in the same sentence as a person's name is the highest insult. Ladies, this is a different place. People are commonly addressed by either their first or last names here. Unfortunately, the use of profanity is not an unusual occurrence."
Neither woman relented. "Apologize," Sarah demanded.
Miss Hawks looked like one of the furies incarnate. "You will speak respectfully to us all, or we shall be forced to repeat this lesson."
Aybarra spoke quickly. "Mister Turner, I apologize for being disrespectful to you, and I promise never to be so again, especially when you have these two bodyguards nearby."
Sarah released him and came fully into the suite. She looked around curiously. "Good enough for now. Aaron, you have to explain how everything in here works. Miss Hawks, you can leave that poor man alone, and please stop breaking the place up."
"He's black as an Afran." Hawk's anger had dissolved.
"I was born and raised in this country," Aybarra said firmly. "I am a Jeffersonian the same as Mister Turner." He looked offended, and Aaron did not blame him. The racial wars had ended just over seventy years ago, but tensions were still high.
"Miss Hawks," he said. "In Jefferson it is considered rude to refer to a person's race or color."
"But he is black," she defended.
"And I am white. Both of us are in the minority here. Most people in this county are either Asian or Hispanic. After them come the Indians. Race and color prejudice has caused a lot of strife in this society for the last couple of hundred years. The issue of color is now either ignored, or it is delicately sidestepped.
"Oh." She looked abashed. "Sir," she said to Aybarra, "I offer my apologies for my rudeness. Is there anything you wish from me to make up for my lapse of manners?"
Aybarra patted his pockets. "Tell me where my pen fell, and I'll forgive you."
"Why, that is easy," Miss Hawks said. "It fell outside this room and rolled about six feet down the hallway. You should find it on the third tile out from the left wall." She looked suddenly startled. "How did I know that?"
* * *
Aaron and Sarah tested her after Aybarra left. Aaron hid the ashtray while Sarah guarded Miss Hawks in another room. Miss Hawks always knew where the ashtray was. Always. Without looking, without leaving the room, proving that she had a Talent for finding. She might even have had the Talent to shield, but there was no particular way to prove that since shields generally did not work if there was no perceived threat. When asked, she admitted that early tests had shown the Shielding Talent in her just as they had shown her Finding Talent. Those Talents had always been with her, but she had never had the strength to use them.
Sarah's Talent proved to be singular and very strong. She had gained a great deal of speed. She could move faster, react quicker, than anyone Aaron had ever seen.
Their abilities hummed strong and neither of them knew why. They had no Talent Stones. In fact, Miss Hawks had never seen one, had never even wondered where she could get one to increase her strength. Although most people had Talents, few of them were strong enough to operate without a Talent Stone. Those Talents that were usable without a Stone were almost universally weak and unreliable.
Under questioning, Miss Hawks admitted that she had always been a superior tracker. Sarah confessed to always being just slightly faster than most of the people she trained with, although she recalled half a dozen who were faster than she.
Aaron tried a few different things to see if he had changed. In the end he proved to be very average, just as he had expected. He knew what his Talents were. As best he could tell, he was no different than before. After thinking about it, he decided he liked it better this way. His life was already strange enough. He did not need anything that would make it stranger.
The lights flickered off and then on.
"This is absolutely fantastic," Sarah exclaimed. "Light on demand. What else can you show us?"
"That box on the wall will adjust the temperature," Aaron said. "Do you feel hot or cold?"
"I feel okay," Sarah said just as Miss Hawks burst out of the bathroom.
"Mister Turner, I finished my business in the outhouse like you said. How do we get a chambermaid to change the water?"
Smiling, Aaron walked into the bathroom and showed them how to flush. The fact that the bowl refilled fascinated them, so he showed them how to adjust the volume and temperature of the water at the sink. That impressed them more.
Miss Hawks eyed the tub speculatively. "This looks like it might be a place to bathe, and it has one of those faucet things, too."
"The drain can be stopped if you want a soak," Aaron said, "or you can pull that lever and stand under the shower. It's like standing in rain only the water can be any temperature you want."
Miss Hawks smiled and started removing her clothes. "Now that sounds like fun."
Totally naked, she stepped into the tub and reached for the knobs. "Is this how it's done?" She twisted the knobs and water flowed out of the faucet, cool and then hot. Yelping, she turned the knobs more. "This takes a little practice. How do I get the water to fall from high up?"
She turned her defiant gaze to Aaron but did not quite meet his eyes. Frowning slightly, Aaron studied her, looking for the remaining signs of her ordeal. Her body was bright pink from her face to her belly, but he doubted that had anything to do with her injuries. However, her previously lacerated breast, stomach, and thighs now looked firm, showing only faint, soon to be gone lines where she had been cut. The new skin on her repaired breast was taut and shiny. From personal experience, Aaron knew that within two days the artificial graft would become a perfect color match.
Flushing because Miss Hawks really looked damn good, Aaron silently went over to the tub and pulled the knob out on the spout. When water poured down from the shower he quickly drew the curtain shut to keep the floor and himself dry. "Something like that," he said. Gods, it was warm.
"Wow!" Miss Hawks exclaimed from behind the curtain. "This feels wonderful. Miss Townsend, you have to try it."
"I will." Sarah kicked off her shoes and started unfastening her buttons. With only two undone, she paused. "Aaron, be a dear and close the door behind you."
He did. Maybe he closed it too hard.
* * *
They had a table to themselves for dinner because Sarah insisted on privacy, and Aybarra was able to ensure it. The women liked the idea of cafeteria style food, if not the actual food itself because it tended towards institutional bland. However, dessert proved to be a big favorite. Soft-serve ice cream was unknown to them. While listening to them throw praises at the genius who had come up with the idea, Aaron decided not to tell them they were eating the cheap stuff.
"I don't get it," Aaron said when Miss Hawks got up for more ice cream. "Why did Miss Hawks do that? First she wanted to hurt me for seeing her naked, and then she just went and stripped down without a by your leave."
Sarah looked amused. "But what is the problem? You already saw her naked so you weren't seeing anything new."
"Yeah, but I didn't pay her body any attention that first time."
"And she made sure you noticed her this time," Sarah said. "Aaron, she was more insulted by you not looking than she was by you seeing her in the first place. And then she was really insulted by you saying you saw nothing worth looking at, so she made darn good and sure you would notice what she had this time. How did it make you feel?"
"Uncomfortable," he admitted. "It made me feel as uncomfortable as this conversation is starting to make me feel. Yes, she looked good, and I'll admit that she sure made me feel something. I felt nervous and embarrassed, and I looked real hard for a place to duck. Worse yet, I wasn't sure who I should be more afraid of, her or you."
Sarah grinned evilly. "Now why would it bother you that I was there?" She took another
bite of ice cream. "I said you were more than welcome to wander. You could have had her the other night, and I wouldn't have said a thing."
Aaron was aghast. "You do happen to be my intended. I heard you tell that to Aybarra so it must be true even if it's news to me. To be honest, I thought you might cause trouble for Miss Hawks for undressing in front of me, and I was afraid you would start swinging at me for looking at her even if you two did play games with me that night, and then I wondered if you might not get familiar with her yourself when you were both in the shower."
Sarah turned serious. "Aaron, dear. I know now that we really come from two different cultures. Mister Aybarra showed me that when he was so surprised that calling you by your last name was an insult, and I am still having a difficult time dealing with the idea that a person's skin color is significant to others. Now, you have just given me further proof."
Reaching out, she took his hand. "You know there are at least three or four women for every man in Isabella. Women just have more female children than they have males. A lot of our males die in their first year for some reason nobody understands. Because of this, women have learned to share. We have to accept that men wander even after they are married. Most times, jealousy is the one sure method a woman can use to assure that she will never have children, so we never get jealous. If our men start seeing another woman often, we talk to her and then we sometimes invite her into our marriage. If we don't like her we forbid our husbands to marry her. The one thing we don't do is forbid him from being with her because our men always come back home to us. Always."
"I would find that hard to do," Aaron said. "The thought of my wife being with somebody else would drive me crazy. I don't even like the idea of a man running around on his wife."
"Women don't look for other men," Sarah said. "Getting one man is hard enough. The truth is, most men are quite happy at home. Almost every first wife I know actually chose the second wife and then arranged for her husband to be trapped. Most women really do not like the idea of having to take care of a man without some help, let alone caring for the children. Aaron, I once fought on the border with a man who had only one wife for ten years. One time, when the regiment returned to his hometown he found his wife was waiting for him with eight other women at her side, all of them friends she had made over the years. Before the day was out she made him marry every one of those women." Her smile grew at Aaron's horrified expression. "Now, I'll admit that my example is a little extreme. I don't know of anyone else with more than five wives, and a good number of men stop courting when they have only one. Now, I want some more ice cream so I'm running away. But I'll be back. Promise."
She stood up and then leaned over to kiss him. "Don't be surprised if Miss Hawks is not finished making your life miserable. She was really insulted."
After she left Aaron realized that she had never addressed all the points he had brought up. She had not said one way or the other if she had born thoughts of getting closer to Miss Hawks.
Gods, he hated this not knowing.
Later, Aybarra came to sit with them after they finished eating. Sarah allowed that he could since the meal was over, though she might have agreed only because she had eaten so much ice cream that her stomach bulged slightly. Miss Hawks was just as bad, if not worse.
"We would like to run some tests on you in the morning, Mister Turner," Aybarra said. Sarah smiled with satisfaction when he used the honorific. "There is some ability in your brain that allows you to do whatever it is that you do. If we can find out what that something is we might be able to come up with a way to duplicate the effect electronically. At the least, we would like to run some thorough scans in order to find out exactly what the Militia doctors did to you."
Eyes intent, Miss Hawks leaned forward. "Why would you want to do that? Mister Turner can already access our world."
Aybarra shifted. "Well yes, he could before our doctors disconnected some of his wiring, and he will be able to do so again, but he is only one man. If something happens to him the Jefferson government loses access to your entire world."
"The government is not going to get access through me," Aaron said emphatically. "I played that game once and did not like it."
Sarah patted his leg encouragingly. "I see no reason to allow people into my home so they can exploit it."
"Somebody is already trying to mess up that world." Aybarra pointed out. "Please remember that your General sends people over there every few months through the efforts of Colonel Klein. They intend to assume military control over Klein's area, and then they plan on expanding their influence to other parts of the world. There is no telling how far they will go."
Aaron stared him straight in the eyes. "And you think I should let the Jefferson Government decide how to deal with the problem? Mister Aybarra, I have studied Jefferson's history. This country has been messing around in other nation's affairs for the last century but the results have not been good. Just look at the record. Almost every time our interference has caused far more problems than it has helped. I'll tell you something, Mister Aybarra. People are not stupid over there. They have their own governments. They have their own armies. I promise you, they will control Helmet, especially if I give them inside information. So no, I will not help you invade."
"We don't want to invade," Aybarra protested. "We only want to help. Look Turn--Mister Turner. We need to know how this thing works for more reasons than just the ones I mentioned. Two of the people you brought over with you escaped the bus station and have killed at least thirty people. We tried to stop them, but, quite frankly, nobody knows how to do that. They strike and then they are gone before the police get there. Thirty people dead, Mister Turner, in only four days."
Aaron went cold. "Four days?"
"You were unconscious for two of them."
"I really don't see how you can learn anything from me that will stop them." Thirty people dead in only four days. A blanket of guilt slid over him. He had brought Eric and Melissa over. People were dead because he had run away and brought them with him.
Sarah grabbed his hand. "Mister Aybarra, I need to talk this over with my future husband. I'm sure I can talk sense into him. Will you be able to run your tests in the morning?"
"Yes," Aybarra said cautiously.
"Why don't you get them ready?"
"We will, Miss Townsend."
"Thank you. Another thing, please. You probably understand that everything here is very new to me. I find myself longing for home. Could you please return all our belongings? Having a few familiar items from home would help me a lot."
"I think we can do that," Aybarra said slowly. "You do understand that your clothing has been destroyed. It was bloody and torn, but I will see to it that your shoes and pocket knick knacks are returned."
"Thank you Mister Aybarra. You are a gentleman. Aaron, Miss Hawks, I think it is time to return to our room."
* * *
"If you think--" Aaron began loudly in the corridor.
Sarah jabbed him in the chest. It hurt worse than it should have. Those once broken ribs were sealed but they were not yet solid.
"Darling," she said, "do you realize that I keep seeing the same six people wherever we go? Isn't it amazing how small a building this size can be?"
Aaron had not noticed, but he was not stupid. Now that it had been pointed out to him, her conclusion was obvious. The burly man far in front of them looked familiar, and so did the woman who had just turned into the corridor. Aaron could not find the others Sarah referred to, but he trusted her to know her business.
"I won't do it," he whispered furiously. "The government would do worse to your world than the militia ever could."
Miss Hawks nodded. "I see it that way too."
Mock frowning, Sarah looked him straight in the eye. "Aaron, don't do it." She grinned. "There, see what I just did. I talked sense to you just like I promised that nice man I would." She walked quiet for a few moments. "If I ran this I would have people posted outside
our room in such a way that they can overhear everything we say."
Aaron started and mentally kicked himself in the head. She was right. Why had he not thought of that before? What an idiot.
"They have little machines," he admitted, "that can hear everything we say and pass it on to people." The two women looked uncomprehending. "Like the holovision in our living room," Aaron expanded. "Those people said the words you heard months or even years ago, yet we heard the words as if they were being said for the first time."
Sarah was quiet a while longer. "Miss Hawks," she whispered, "I think it would be best if you became frightened of sleeping alone tonight. I don't think you want to be alone. I know I don't."
Miss Hawks said nothing but Aaron knew from the set of her face that she understood.
The personal items Sarah had asked for arrived minutes after they entered the suite. For the most part it mostly looked like junk to him so he was stumped as to why she wanted them. Very little of it was clothing, and the rest had no real purpose inside this building.
Sarah, however, was pleased to see the folding knife Aaron had bought for her. She pocketed it immediately as well as the five gold and seventeen copper she had been carrying. Aaron pocketed his own money, another three and a quarter gold, eight copper. He wanted to pitch the rest of his personal junk away because he had a tendency to collect things, moving them from pocket to pocket until those pockets were full.
Sarah made him keep everything, three pebbles, an arrowhead that had a tendency to poke him in his thigh, a wad of tangled string, and the somewhat deteriorated refrigerator magnet.
He still did not know what Sarah had in mind.
She quirked a suggestive eyebrow. "Bedtime, darling. Are you coming with me?"
Twenty-five and still a virgin, Aaron did not need to be asked twice. He followed her to their bedroom, closing the door behind them.