"No, that was before my time. Ellen and I were accepted for training only last year. As I said, this is our first mission."
"You say there are about three hundred staying behind. How many of them have had previous mission experience?"
Gary gave that a moment's thought and answered, "About fifteen or so. We all know what we're supposed to do, so we really don't need much supervision."
I nodded. A boatload of eager newbies led by a tiny core group of old hands. It was beginning to sound and smell like some of the corporate 'goodwill and prosperity' programs that I'd encountered in Africa.
They'd used idealistic students to set things up; young people who would have to go back to foreign colleges and start their careers soon. People who would forget about their activities in the field for XYZ Company's goodwill program until they had occasion to brag about their youthful exploits over drinks later in life.
The entire small towns they constructed - ostensibly to bring the joys of civilized living to the more remote regions - became company towns that housed only the families of the company's laborers.
Wages were higher than elsewhere, which attracted workers and their families, but prices at the company-owned market and housing rents were higher, too, and to spend your money anywhere else meant traveling a hundred miles or so.
After a year or so most laborers were in debt to the company and couldn't afford to move back to wherever they'd come from. Their families were economic hostages to their continued production, and when the kids were old enough, they usually wound up laboring for the company, too.
Some argued that such people would be in the same situation anywhere they happened to live. That may have been true for most, but at least some of the kids might have had a future beyond mine labor if they'd been anywhere else.
"Gary," I asked, "Do they handle their own marketing, make their own deals, or transport their own merchandise? Do they own a starship yet?"
"Oh, no," he said. "We still handle all that for them, but they've paid us back our investment and now they're putting credit aside in order to buy one."
I nodded. "How much longer do you think it will be until they can afford one of your big ships?"
"Probably not more than another decade or so."
I thought about that. Given thirty or forty years, could Earth's space programs barf up a starship? Not a chance in hell in twice that time. The leaders of Earth were jumping at the short-cut to the stars and they'd pay any price for it, including turning the whole damned planet into a factory. I wondered if they'd stop short of re-legalizing slavery in order to meet production goals.
Whatever. The program was already underway and those issues would have to be someone else's. It seemed likely to me that in the long run such issues would take care of themselves.
I was also issued a neural stunner like Ellen's and shown how it worked. It was keyed to me and I was told to simply point it and think it should "fire". When it didn't work the first time, I visualized a beam reaching out to the target and heard a soft chime. Although I saw nothing happen, the tech told me to check my target, and the monitor on the dummy's chest read close to thirty percent.
"Practice," said the tech. "Take this monitor and use it as a target. It will chime when you hit it. That was very good for a first effort. Try to reach for full power and remember that you don't have to aim only at the chest. It will just as easily disable an arm or a leg with the amount of power you just used."
Over lunch I suggested to Linda that Earth make stunners as well as the flitters. She said she'd already passed that idea on after the first time she'd seen one work, but the word had come back that if we wanted stunners, we'd have to trade flitters for them. Someone else was already making them.
"On the other hand," she said, "They're cheap, and flitters aren't. One flitter would probably buy every cop in New York a stunner."
My afternoon was spent in martial-arts brush-up with Gary and Ellen. Linda watched from the edge of the mat as we tossed each other around as gently as possible without losing the purpose of the training.
A few things I knew surprised them and a few things they knew startled me and some new ground was broken between Ellen and me when she found that she flatly couldn't break free from some of my holds and couldn't block some of my strikes. She knew she was in much better physical condition than me and couldn't figure out how that didn't somehow weigh in her favor.
It irritated her to no end when too many of my touches of her throat and trunk connected past her best blocks, and at one point Gary felt the need to call a timeout to let us all cool down a bit. Ellen went over to one of the wall pads and slammed it with her fists a few times, then came back to sit with us.
"I want to know how you're doing that," she said. "Now, please."
"You've just been taking things at face value, ma'am. It starts as one thing and ends up as something else. You're still guarding against what you thought you saw coming at you when the something else tags you. We won't be trying to win trophies for perfect form out there. Lose the styles and form."
Ellen was a perfectionist who had trained hard and learned well. Breaking a form was - to make a pun - alien to her nature, but as the session progressed, so did she. Fewer and fewer of my strikes succeeded and Ellen was wearing an 'I've got you now' grin most of the last half hour, so just to be difficult I closed our last session with a couple of moves and strikes she'd never seen before.
I was tired as hell when I left them to clean up before dinner and knew as I stood soaking in a hot shower that I'd be feeling that afternoon for a day or two. When I joined them for dinner I made sure that none of the aches and pains showed, of course.
Across the table Gary and Ellen were comparing mental notes on our afternoon, seemingly blithely unaware that I should have any discomfort, but Linda knew better. She leaned over to whisperingly ask me how I was feeling.
I looked at her and whispered back, "Abused."
Linda grinned. "That's what you get for chasing the young stuff."
"Chasing them doesn't make you feel like this. Letting them catch you does."
I wrapped a little roast beef in a napkin for Bear and excused myself, but Linda put a hand on my arm and said there was to be a briefing at seven.
"A.M. or P.M.?"
"Tonight. My office. Mug shots of all the top potential troublemakers and overviews of their organizations. Discussion. All that."
"Sounds thrilling. Ring me half an hour early in case I'm napping."
She nodded and I left the table. Bear enjoyed his roast beef and I stretched out on the bed. I'd thought I was in reasonable condition for some stupid reason, but I was quickly becoming disabused of that notion.
I realized that if I took that nap I'd probably need help getting out of bed, so I took some aspirin from my backpack and spent some time doing stretching exercises while Xena saved the ancient world yet again on my wall. Damn, but Gabrielle was looking good these days. I liked her new persona better, too.
My door chime sounded. I said, "Come in."
The door opened for Linda and she rolled into my room. From a side pocket in her chair she produced a bottle of aspirin and a few other pain remedies.
"Take your pick," she said. "The pharmacy's open."
"Thanks, but I already took some aspirin."
She nodded and started putting the stuff back in the chair pocket.
"Well, you know who to see if aspirin isn't enough later. That girl's going to be the death of you if you try to match her at everything, macho man."
"Linda," I said.
My tone made her look up at me quizzically. I turned off my watch. After a moment, she turned off hers and straightened in her chair.
"Okay, I'm ready. I'm sitting down, anyway. What's on your mind?"
"Why would an engineer study all the way to brown belt in a couple of different styles, then get all worked up when she sees a gun? What's the difference between being able to rip a guy's throat out or being able t
o shoot him?"
"You tell me. I'll tell you if it makes any sense."
"Could be it really was just a training measure to help them protect themselves on Earth, but I think we need to know more about them."
She nodded slightly. "Could be just routine training for rough planets, but I was wondering about that myself. I've been fishing, Ed."
"Any luck?"
"No luck. There's nothing available that couldn't have been manufactured."
I thought out loud. "Gary's less comfortable in English than Ellen and he's consistent in his misunderstandings. Ellen isn't consistent that way and she ranges from precise diction to using contractions. Gary tries to be cool, too, but you can still hear the quote marks around a lot of the words. Could be she's been to Earth before with another group."
Linda said, "Maybe she was with the ones who determined whether we were ready to be approached. They'd have had to spend some time here for that."
"In which case, why would we be told it was her first visit? Why was she so shocked and upset when she saw herself on my wall next to Kim Basinger? There's no way she can not know she's gorgeous, so why would looking very much like a much-adored film star upset her? Beauty will get you in a door, close to someone, or make people automatically respond to you, but looking like someone famous could get you too much attention and get in your way."
"If you had a hidden agenda, it could definitely be a problem."
"Not much to go on, is it?"
"Not much."
I scribbled on my yellow pad, "Okay. The bait's in the water."
Linda nodded and said, "But how much does any of it matter, Ed? A year from now Earth will be a flitter factory headquarters. Why suspect there's anything more than a business deal going on? Let's just play our parts as always and get the job done."
Linda took the yellow pad and wrote, "Let's close with a happy note."
"Yeah. Might as well. Let the bosses and lawyers worry about how badly Earth may be getting screwed and for how long. At least we'll wind up with starships and whatever else, right? Could be worse."
Linda said, "Damned right it could. With their technology, it's lucky for us they're friendly."
She turned her watch back on and said, "Old home week is over for now. We can reminisce later. I have to go get some things ready."
I turned on my own watch and walked with her to the door.
I pressed the door panel for her and said, "Yeah. It's been nice, Linda. See you in a while."
As I tore up the two yellow sheets and dropped them in the toilet, I checked the pad for impressions. We'd used a felt pen, but what the hell. I tore up two more sheets and flushed them with the others.
Chapter Ten
My aches and pains were laughing at the aspirin. I decided to take another hot shower and hope things loosened up a bit more before the meeting. I was about to step into the shower when the door chime sounded. I turned off the water and wrapped a towel around myself, then stepped out of the bathroom.
"Come on in," I said.
The door opened and Ellen stepped into the room, but a look at me stopped her after a couple of paces. She was wearing one of her t-shirt and shorts jogging outfits, but something was missing. Her watch. She hesitated, then raised her right hand to show me a small bottle and shook it slightly to make it rattle.
"I thought you sounded less than enthusiastic. Sorry. I just thought you might have use for these."
I walked over and took the bottle. The label was incomprehensible to me.
"Amaran aspirins?"
"Yes. Well, not quite. They're better than aspirin. They contain a mild analgesic and something to help you flush the lactic acid out of your muscles faster."
"Sounds good to me. Thanks, Ellen. I can't read the label, though. How many should I take?"
"Two should do it. Don't take more than two every six hours or so, though."
I nodded. A moment passed, then two, but Ellen made no move to leave and seemed to have nothing to say.
I looked up from the bottle and said, "Um, was there anything else?"
She fidgeted a bit, then said, "I really don't want to embarrass you, Ed, but it occurred to me that you might be in more pain than you'd admit. I could... uhm, give you a rubdown if it would help. We have almost two hours."
I just looked at her for a moment, then said, "I guess I need to know what we're really talking about here so I don't offend you again. Just a rubdown?"
Ellen's eyes met mine and she softly said, "Not necessarily."
I just stared at her for a moment, drinking in the sight of her bare legs and her slightly-grinning face. I had questions, but there was no way I'd turn her down.
"This may be truly stupid of me, but why the change of heart, Ellen? And won't your brother be more than a little pissed at me when he finds out?"
Ellen smiled and said, "Oh, he'll find out. From me, Ed. We've already talked about the possibility. Gary won't be a problem. Give me your watch."
I slipped my watch off and put it in her extended hand. She deftly turned it off and walked past me to put it on the nighttable, then pulled her shirt off over her head. When she turned around to face me I saw the bruise on her left side.
"Jesus H. Christ! Did I do that? I'm sorry, Ellen. I didn't mean to."
"I know you didn't mean to. This was one of the things that helped me decide to come here this evening, though."
I didn't bother concealing my consternation.
Ellen said, "I'm good and I know it. That you could do this to me made me realize that I still have a lot to learn, Ed. That you made me do this to myself made me realize that more than anything else. It happened during one of my attacks. You turned my own elbow strike against me."
I looked at the bruise again. "That would seem to mean that you intended for me to have one of those, Ellen."
She nodded. "I was going get even a little for cornering me in Linda's office."
Ellen chuckled and said, "My instructor, Mr. Kiyoshi, told me many times not to let anger play a role in fighting. Now I know why. If you miss, it hurts like hell."
"Yeah, that's definitely one good reason. Maybe I should be asking if I can rub you down, ma'am. You're too beautiful to have bruises like that. They may be the one thing that doesn't look good on you."
"Trade you," she said, then added, "Rubdowns, not bruises."
"Glad you clarified that. You have yourself a deal, lady."
I stepped over for a closer look at her and her bruise, then ran my fingers up her arm and across her shoulder, letting the motion end with my fingertips on the side of her face. I leaned to kiss her and felt her firm breasts against my chest as I put my arms around her.
Ellen's arms wrapped around me and after a moment one of her hands slipped down to tug at my towel, which fell to the floor. Her hand then moved to wrap itself around me and she broke the kiss to look down in surprise.
Ellen disbelievingly said, "I can't quite wrap my fingers around it."
Yes, it occurred to me to wonder whether the surprise was real or not, but I didn't really care. Whether I was simply being seduced in an attempt to ensure my future cooperation or to influence my attitudes and opinions didn't matter a damn to me, either, as I knelt to pull her shorts down and kissed her thighs.
Ellen placed a hand on my shoulder as she stepped out of her shorts and underwear. I took the opportunity of her slightly-upraised leg to plant another kiss, this time on her inner thigh.
"Kiyoshi told me something else, too," she said. "Young tigers who don't learn from older tigers don't usually become older tigers."
"A-ha," I said, pausing from licking my way upward. "Then this is just your way of making sure I share my aged wisdom with you?"
"Oh, definitely," she said, then she gasped softly as my tongue found her golden bush. "Oh, yes. That's it exactly. I want you to show me all you know."
I stood and kissed her, then asked, "What about those rubdowns, ma'am?"
"You can show me what
you know about those later."
"No problem. I suddenly don't mind being a bit stiff in places."
Ellen laughed and said, "You don't look at all unhappy about it."
"Absolutely not. I figure a little exercise will actually help matters."
She moved to the bed and let herself fall flat backward across it. I grabbed her ankles and maneuvered the rest of her onto the bed, then kissed and caressed my way up her legs to join her. My tongue again found her bush and then her magic button and I busied myself in the pleasuring of her for some time before she let her breath out in a rush, groaned softly a few times, and seemed to clench tightly all over for a few moments.
I kissed my way up her belly and breasts and then to her lips, which opened hungrily as her arms enfolded me. I found the dampness I'd created between her legs and let myself slowly slide into her until she gasped and arched slightly.
"Wait!" she breathed. "Wait! Go back and forth a little right there."
I kissed her cheek and whispered, "By your command, miLady."
I slowly posted in short strokes as Ellen maneuvered herself slightly. She suddenly took in a great breath, held it as she moved herself against me, and just as suddenly let the breath out as she came hard.
Her arms wrapped around me and her legs rose to pull me into her in an almost violent shove. I was suddenly as deep within her as it was possible to go and I was locked in an embrace that almost hurt.
When all of me had slid into her Ellen froze for several moments with her head thrown back against the pillows, her mouth open and her breath a series of ragged gasps. I decided to let her decide when I should start moving and did no more than kiss her face and lips and stay as deeply embedded in her as possible.
After a few moments Ellen shuddered and relaxed somewhat and let her breath escape in a rush. Her hands fluttered on my back and she bucked slightly to tell me it was time to start moving. I began using long, slow strokes.
"Mmmm, this is nice," she whispered. "I think I'm going to like being your roomie, Ed. This is a lot better than I thought it would be."
I stopped in mid-stroke. "What did you think it would be like? Jump on and jump off? A dozen strokes and a squirt?"
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