Taken Liberty v5

by Steven H. Wilson

  Right now, Cernaq was quietly enjoying what was often referred to as 'local color.' At the bar, two couples – one pair of females and one male and female – were vying for the attention of the crowd with some particularly acrobatic feats of sexual intercourse. This sort of performance was common on Quintil and its outposts. Quintil was reputed to be the most sensual of human worlds. Displays of sexuality – live and depicted artistically – were everywhere. Any Quintil would have laughed – or become furiously indignant – at the suggestion that such displays were indecent or harmful to those who viewed them.

  "See something you like, Cernaq?" Aer'La asked.

  He looked appraisingly at the man astride the woman on the bar. "I would think that would be uncomfortable for the female," he said blandly. "His... equipment... is misshapen."

  Aer'La nodded. "Gotta be an enhancement."

  "His rhythm is erratic," Cernaq went on. He tilted his head and squinted thoughtfully, as if studying a blueprint. "The irregularity of motion is not conducive to – why are you laughing, Aer'La?"

  She covered her mouth. She hadn't meant to be rude to him. "It's just so damned funny. Cernaq, the Phaetonian sex expert. You've come a long way."

  "I suppose I am somewhat unique," he said. "My people value the mind, to the exclusion of all else. Anything of the body is suspect. Since we reproduce artificially, we don't need sex. And it's caused a lot of grief throughout history – via jealousy, prudery and disease –"

  "You're lecturing again."

  "Sorry."

  "I just think it's funny to see you being so open about it. When you came on board Arbiter, I'd have sworn you had no interest in sex. My crewmen told me you had no balls."

  "A common misconception about my people. We don't use them, so we've lost them." He turned up one corner of his mouth in a smile. "You know the truth, of course."

  Aer'La nodded at the copulators on the bar. "Yep. So, maybe you should go show him how it's done," she said.

  Cernaq appeared to consider that. His pale brow wrinkled, and he studied the copulating pair more closely. Finally, he announced, "I don't think so. While engaging in this act, the young lady is contemplating the purchase of a new type of urinary absorbent for a small mammal she keeps at home. I'd rather have a partner with more interest in the process. Besides, I don't know her. I'm not that comfortable with sexuality."

  Aer'La reached forward and brushed a blonde curl from his forehead with her fingertips, letting the fingers trail lazily across the skin of his face. "Comfortable enough for me," she teased. "Maybe," she added, with a wicked glance at the public display on the bar, "we should clear this table and show everyone what good technique looks like."

  "I..." Cernaq stammered, "I don't think..."

  "C'mon, Cernaq," Aer'La chided. "As a public service. Think of all the lousy lays you could prevent." She began unfastening her tunic, exposing magnificent cleavage.

  "I owe the public nothing," replied Cernaq, no doubt devoting some mental energy to the task of canceling the involuntary reflex which the sight of Aer'La's breasts brought on. "And... my sex life, like the rest of my life, is private."

  "What did I just walk in on?" asked Terry Metcalfe, their Terran shipmate, as he plunked three overflowing mugs on the table.

  "Aer'La wants me to have sex in public."

  "With her?" wondered Metcalfe.

  Cernaq eyed the girl. "Not necessarily."

  "A little encouragement here, Navy," Aer'La said to Metcalfe. "You'd do it, wouldn't you?"

  Metcalfe sat down and hefted one of the mugs. "You forget, my people are almost as backward as Cernaq's."

  "More backward," said Cernaq. "Since your people actually believe in sex, but feel ashamed of it." He shook his head. "Why is that?"

  "Control," said Metcalfe carefully. Unlike Cernaq, he could not prevent the alcohol they were consuming from affecting him. His speech was starting to become slurred. "It's all about keeping us in line. We're supposed to believe that the Church of Terra is more important to us than anything else. If we get caught up in our own sex lives, we're being selfish."

  "Freedom of sexual expression leads people to feel ownership in their own bodies," agreed Cernaq.

  "And thus in their own souls," finished Metcalfe. "We're supposed to remember that the gods own us, body and soul. The Church speaks for the gods, so..."

  "So it must control all forms of expression," said Cernaq.

  Metcalfe nodded. "For the good of the people." He took a large swallow of his beer, frowned at it. "Ah, anyway. Sex is a damned nuisance. I wonder if the Phaetonians don't have the right idea. Maybe it is time to train the race to live without it."

  "Because you're not getting any?" wondered Aer'La.

  "Who said I wanted any?"

  Aer'La laughed. "Your face does, every time you look at Kaya." She nodded to where Captain Atal's daughter, their fellow midshipman, sat a few tables away.

  "Not just your face," added Cernaq. "Don't ask me to enumerate all the physical symptoms you experience in her presence."

  Metcalfe made a rude gesture. "Kaya and I are over, all right? Done."

  "Wasn't it fun while it lasted?" asked Aer'La.

  Metcalfe rolled his eyes. "It was great while it lasted. I just wanted more."

  She gestured around the bar. "Lotsa willing partners, Navy. No waiting."

  "I wanted more from Kaya," Metcalfe said, too loudly. He lowered his voice. "It's not just about being horny, I... never mind."

  "You're in love with her," said Cernaq.

  "I was," said Metcalfe. "Maybe I still am. It doesn't matter. She's moved on. I guess I... crowded her."

  Aer'La smiled, feeling genuinely sorry for him. There was a time when she hadn't liked Metcalfe. He was too young and eager and by the book for her. Then she'd come to admire his courage and stubbornness. "Hey," she said, "you can crowd me anytime."

  He nodded at her gallant offer, but didn't seem to cheer up. "I guess," he said, "I'm a hopeless romantic."

  "Hopeless," echoed Cernaq.

  "It's just... when I was growing up and going to Sunday School, I heard all these stories where the hero gets the girl... because he's been good, and true and... I thought life would be like that for me. Like Abraham and Sarah, or Odysseus and Penelope... The Vision and the Scarlet Witch."

  "I hate it when he gets religious," muttered Aer'La.

  "Sorry," said Metcalfe.

  "Navy, your church's teachings were crap! You said so yourself!"

  Metcalfe colored. "Not all of them," he said quietly. "I still believe..."

  "Okay," said Aer'La, "but lighten up! Have some fun! Get laid!"

  Metcalfe slumped his shoulders, and his dark eyes seemed somehow darker. "As a matter of fact, I tried. Last night."

  Aer'La grinned and pounded the table. "Details, details!"

  Metcalfe leaned back in his chair. "Attempting to shed my annoying, backwater attitudes and romantic inclinations, I came here, in fact. I came looking for a girl and an evening of empty, erotic bliss."

  Possibly realizing that his voice was growing loud again, he stopped and looked around. "I found what must have been the only girl on Quintil who was looking for a husband. After agreeing to my proposition to spend the night, she begged me to marry her, to begin planning our children, to take her with me on my next assignment –"

  "No!" countered Aer'La.

  "Yes. I sure can pick 'em! Every man in the Navy – except me! – is capable of finding a loose, shallow woman for a night."

  "What did you do?" asked Cernaq.

  "I..." Metcalfe inhaled dramatically. "I told her about the accident."

  "Wait," said Aer'La. "What accident?"

  Metcalfe ignored her and went on. "I told her how a quirk of my unplanned, Terran genetics caused my body to reject cloned tissue, so bionics was the only answer. The doctors were confident that – eventually – the appliance would be sophisticated enough for something like normal sexual activity; but a bionic penis
is still a bionic penis –"

  At the word 'penis,' Aer'La laughed so hard that she sprayed beer all over the table in front of her and choked. After a few coughs, she recovered and said to Cernaq, "Hey! How about a slap on the back for a choking person here?"

  "Slapping the back does not aid a choking victim," he said calmly. "I did send signals to your nervous system to relax the smooth muscles of –"

  "Yeah yeah yeah," Aer'La said, waving him off. "So, Navy. What happened to your wife-to-be?"

  "She excused herself to the restroom," he replied. He looked nervously at the doors to the public facilities. "For all I know, she's still hiding in there."

  It was just as Aer'La was about to offer to go and investigate that the very fat drunk sat on Metcalfe.

  Two tables away, the former object of Metcalfe's affections was attempting to drink an admirer under the table. Kayan'na Atal had learned to drink hard liquor as a very young girl, living with her father aboard a series Naval ships, on occupied worlds, and at the Academy. As attentive as Jan Atal had been, he couldn't prevent the pretty, precocious girl from associating with the younger members of his staff, and from picking up their vices.

  Kaya's drink of choice was Quintillian Rum. She preferred its sweetness and smoothness to the harsh, wooden bite of whiskey. Her fellows aboard Arbiter had been whiskey drinkers, however, so she knew how to handle the stuff. She was winning her battle with the admirer, who also preferred whiskey to rum.

  She didn't need Cernaq's telepathy to tell her that the man seated across from her had one goal: to get a pretty girl drunk and take her home – or take her right there on the table. "Take her" was the important part of the operation.

  He was one of those career good-looking types. Someone had spent a small fortune having his appearance engineered, and he was obviously spending another keeping it up. His teeth were too white and too straight, his eyes too blue, his skin too smooth and tinted too deep a hue of the currently fashionable color, which was a reddish bronze. He wore a white silk shirt, open to the navel, exposing hard pectorals and a sharply defined abdomen. The opening of the shirt formed an arrow, pointing to a cloth-wrapped package which Kaya was confident included a significant volume of excelsior. She had no intention of finding out, one way or another.

  She was actually surprised that he'd invited her to have a drink (or twelve) with him. Kaya had no illusions about her looks. She was pretty, with skin that had a natural golden cast, and had never felt the gentle sting of color alteration. She had eyes a few shades either side of violet on one end and magenta on the other. They were perfect genetic duplicates, she was told, of her mother's. Her father had paid the designer a hefty bonus for them. She was not tall, but slender and athletic, with small but elegant breasts. Her hair showered around a pixie-like face in dark copper ringlets. Men liked her. Women liked her. She'd had her share of both, but she knew she was no Aer'La. She was surprised this predator had chosen her over her more flamboyantly well-endowed friend.

  She had agreed to join him at his table, though. She was tired of watching Metcalfe try so hard to pretend she hadn't broken his heart. She thought it would be fun to have a distraction.

  Sadly, the man was as stupid as he was good-looking. His sole topics of interest seemed to be professional zero-G wrestling and, well, amateur zero-G wrestling. The latter, pseudo-wrestling, being the kind he wanted Kaya to join him in practicing.

  "Shall we have another?" he asked her, raising the whiskey bottle and pouring several ounces of it on the table, with a few drops accidentally landing in his glass. It would not be long now, Kaya thought. She'd have to pay for the bottle when he dropped from his chair to the floor, but she'd have the satisfaction of knowing she could outlast a pretty fool.

  She took the bottle from him. "Why not? I think I'll pour mine."

  "Careful," he giggled. "You've had quite a few, and you might spill it. Aren't you worried that I'll take advantage of you, while you're this drunk?"

  Kaya smiled. "You wouldn't take advantage of an innocent little thing like me, would you?" she asked sweetly. She knew the answer was no, of course. Whether he would like to take advantage or not, she hadn't met the man she couldn't physically incapacitate, if necessary. Again, she was no Aer'La, but she held her own.

  As it happened, Kaya did wind up spilling as she attempted to pour a shot. This was not the result of inebriation, but of a body flying across the table, on a course for the opposite side of the room.

  This unexpected human missile not only interrupted the flow of conversation, it caused Kaya to realize that her friends, as usual, were in trouble.

  Upon finding himself reclassified as furniture, Metcalfe had objected. At least, he had objected as much as he could from beneath the very fat drunk's bulk. The drunk, noticing him for the first time, had advised him to move elsewhere. He, the very fat drunk, had business to transact with the charming lady whom he had just witnessed exposing her charming breasts.

  In his best clipped, military manner, Metcalfe had instructed the very fat drunk to move along. The very fat drunk had found this amusing, and had informed Metcalfe of same.

  There had followed two unpleasant, crunching sounds, and a blur of motion. Then the very fat drunk was on the floor, cradling one injured arm in the other, his mouth open in a silent scream as Metcalfe stood over him, smiling pleasantly. Metcalfe had then advised the very fat drunk that he might should have his hearing checked at the next opportunity. He had then attempted to return to his seat. It was at this point that he learned that the very fat drunk had five very drunken friends. Those friends had taken the opportunity to make their displeasure known.

  By the time Kaya reached her friends, the battle was in full swing. Metcalfe struggled in the grip of a man twice his size, who held him in a half-Nelson. Nearby, one man screamed as Aer'La lifted him over her head, begging that she not hurl him to join the broken bodies of two of his friends, on the wrong side of a shattered glass window of the tavern, where Aer'La had already thrown them. The first one had shattered the window with his impact, and suffered the worst injuries. The second had fared somewhat better, but the third had no wish to join him.

  He joined him anyway.

  In front of Cernaq, a prospective assailant was slowly lowering his raised fist, a blank expression in his eyes and drool trickling from the corner of his mouth. Cernaq had obviously paralyzed a few nerve centers.

  Kaya decided that Metcalfe needed the most help, and pounced to his aid. An earth woman would have known that it was dangerous business to save her ex-lover from injury at the hands of a man twice his size. An earth woman would have grown up in a misogynistic culture, riddled with double standards, and well-versed in the care and feeding of the male ego. Kaya was not an earth woman. She was one of the highest-ranked intellects on Quintil, and had grown up in a sexually liberated world where men and women were political and social equals.

  Sometimes the very intelligent and well-adjusted suffer when attempting to deal with those from less fortunate backgrounds. They break rules they didn't know existed, and they are often mystified at the results. So Kaya would be completely bewildered when Metcalfe, for the next forty-eight hours, would be unable to look at her without feeling an outburst of unbridled rage which would cause Cernaq, if he and his empathic abilities were nearby, to wince in physical pain.

  Across the barroom, seated on a stool with a nude young woman in his lap, and another draped around his shoulders, Kevin Carson watched the developing brawl with clinical detachment. He didn't tend to worry about his friends in a fight, if Aer'La was there.

  He was an attractive young man, with bright, blue eyes and dirty blonde hair, which spilled over his collar. He dressed and groomed in a manner which said he noticed his own appearance, and wanted others to notice it. They did notice it, especially in settings such as this tavern, where all ages and genders came seeking a sexual thrill. The two nubile beauties with him, whose names he hadn't learned and probably wouldn't, were typical
of an evening's entertainment for him. Quintil had always suited him well, providing plenty of sex, and almost no danger of serious entanglement. It was a vapid culture, but it was always exciting. Barroom brawls were rare on Quintil proper, but this was an orbital station, hosting primarily foreign guests. Their diverse cultures often clashed... violently.

  As Carson watched the fight, he occasionally shouted advice, or proudly claimed that he had taught Aer'La everything she knew. This was, of course, for the benefit of his young, naked admirers. (He only assumed they were young. One had two children older than he.) He was so engrossed that he failed to notice as a small figure flashed into existence by his elbow.

  Though a normally proportioned human male, it was six inches in height, clad in the full dress uniform of the Confederate Navy. Had he been looking, Carson would have recognized the small hologram as the image of Scutley, the holographic herald of the Confederate Naval Vessel Titan. No one knew for sure whether Scutley was modeled on a real human, perhaps a crewman from Titan's past, or if he was the fancy of some forgotten designer.

  Scutley had been the voice of Titan for as long as anyone could remember. He was one of the voices, anyway. Titan's A.I. was massive in scope and capacity, and could interact with its human customers via thousands of personality models at once. The Scutley program was the one reserved for public announcements, particularly calls ashore to officers and crewmen on leave. Scutley's appearance was rarely welcomed, for it signaled the end of the party. Scutley's personality was suited to his task. He might have been called "rat-faced," but for the happy fact that few of the genetically engineered residents of the Inner Worlds had ever seen a Terran rat. He had all the personality traits classically associated with a scavenging rodent.

  "Midshipmen of the CNV Titan," Scutley called out from his position beside Carson's empty beer mug. "Deputy Captain Phyn Darby hereby orders you to –"

  A fragment of a chair passed through Scutley's mid-section, continuing in its flight until it came to rest, with a tremendous crash of broken glass. Shards rained upon the floor behind the bar, shards of bottles which once had held very expensive liquors. More recently, and until that moment, they had held the cheapest substitute for their former contents which the tavern proprietor could acquire. Now they held nothing, for now they were a starscape of glistening fragments on the midnight black of the floor. A robot sweeper scurried from beneath the bar to collect them before the wait staff, whose skimpy outfits did not include shoes, could step on them.