by David Drake
Slade left the bridge as the spacers shifted into the critical minutiae of landing. He wore a puzzled expression. “Wonder if I saved anything with my souvenirs in the hold?” the tanker mumbled to himself. “Not even sure I’ll be able to find the right box, of course. . . .”
The air still rocked with the echo of the thrusters. The landing site was in the flood plain of a creek. The water’s encroachment could presumably be controlled by the dam at the valley’s head, but there was no need of that now. The shallow water sprayed to either side of the service vehicle crossing to reach the starship.
The outlaws were restive. Their partying on Windward had been recent enough that there was not the need to let off steam that a longer Transit would have bred. Further, the party on Windward had ended sharply—brutally, for those who had the bad judgment to try to resist the local authorities. The men who could not be chivvied back were carried aboard the ship. Seven of them were dead. Now the survivors looked over the latest landfall in sullen frustration. The disaster that swallowed their fellows on Mandalay had left GAC 59 too weak to protest the treatment its complement earned.
Slade and Levine waited at the forward hatch. Bourgiby and Rooks, the two surviving members of the Ship’s Meeting, were with them. The port’s visible defenses were of the bare-bones variety to be met with on rural worlds: two powerguns on opposite sides of the valley. They were probably 15 cm, probably old; certainly able to open the ship like a ration packet if they were functional at all. Erlette would have been a good target for the original fleet to raid—if there were anything here to loot. The planet appeared to have nothing to recommend it to GAC 59 alone, except that the inhabitants did not seem to intend to slag the vessel.
Just yet, at least.
The service vehicle was a small bus. It pulled up at the ramp. Partly-uniformed personnel began jumping out of the cab and rear door. A few of them wore coveralls, but most made do with a flash-breasted jacket over nondescript civilian clothes. “Well, Ibe hanged,” said Rooks.
There was no need for him to amplify his statement. A female driver/co-driver team was normal enough. That some of the port officials greeting the new arrivals were female was no cause for surprise either. However, there were about a dozen people in the service vehicle, and every one of them was a woman.
The trio which strode briskly toward the ship’s command group was led by a lithe brunette. She was as leggy as Slade, though a decimeter shorter in the torso. “Captain Levine?” she said to the tanker as she approached.
Slade stepped back, thumbing toward Levine. The woman’s extended hand shifted smoothly toward the spacer, though her eyes retained a glint of awareness of the bigger man. “Captain Levine,” she repeated as they shook hands. “I’m Delores Rodrigues. I’m Mayor here on Erlette. This is Deputy Brandt and Deputy Morales. I can’t tell you how thankful we are. And I assure you, there’s been no recurrence of the disease in fifteen years. It’s perfectly safe.”
“What?” said Rooks angrily.
Levine’s smile took a sickly cant. Instinct wiped on his trousers the hand that had just touched the woman.
“Why yes,” said Rodrigues, looking across the eyes of the startled men. Slade was trying to place the comment with what he had heard of Erlette, but that heading was still all blank. “The officials on Windward gave us to believe that you were coming as a sort of, well, relief mission. Didn’t they tell you?”
“Blood and martyrs!” Rooks snarled. “Warn us, you mean, those bastards! What do you mean, disease?” The outlaw had backed a step up the ramp. Bourgiby, his fellow, was silent but as clearly concerned.
“Ah, Mayor Rodrigues,” said Slade, “I’m not sure how much garbling there might have been in your message from Windward.” Message capsules were radio transmitters slung into on-stage Transit by a ground unit. They had considerable margin for error. “But this is simply a freighter with a cargo of landing thrusters and a need for some specialized crew . . . that we hope you could help us with.”
“Well, yes, but . . .” the Mayor said. She turned her head. The main hatches had been opened also, against orders but inevitably. Outlaws and probably some of the ship’s crew were beginning to exit warily. Though their total number was not yet obvious, it was already clear that they were greatly more numerous than the complement of an ordinary freighter. “They said you had over two hundred men aboard. Males. And surely you have, don’t you?” She waved toward the groups spreading from the cargo hatches.
“Well, yes, but we’re not specialists,” the tanker said. Slade had concealed his surprise when the others froze at mention of disease. Via, he’d been in hellholes in service. Though the Slammers’ excellent Med Section was no longer behind him, the big veteran’s subconscious could not really believe in danger from microbes. Unreasoning confidence armored him against the unproductive fear that wracked the others. “We’re not, ah, medical specialists I mean,” he added.
Deputy Morales was a short, plump woman. Now she laughed briefly. “Via, mister,” she said, “we don’t need doctors. Like Delores said, there hasn’t been a sign of the disease since it killed just about all the men on Erlette fifteen years ago. What we need is a little more variety for our sperm bank.”
Morales pointed—her hands were surprisingly delicate—toward a white stone building. It was also one-story, but it was more imposing than the others of the community. Beside the building was a cooling plant, breathing a plume of vapor into the humid air. “And maybe some variety for us, too. What do you say, mister?” She popped Levine in the ribs and gave him a simultaneous leer. Her expression seemed to rock the Captain as much as the physical contact.
Brandt, the third of the greeting team, was brunette like the leader, but smaller and with fox-sharp features. “We’ve summoned citizens who might want to participate in, ah, direct methods,” she said. Her voice was prim. Brandt kept her eyes focused so that they did not make contact with the eyes of any of the four men. “That isn’t by any means all the, ah, women on Erlette. In the time we’ve been alone, we’ve made certain adjustments, of course.”
Morales gave a coarse snicker and prodded Levine again.
Blushing but undeterred, the prim woman continued. “You and your crew will find an adequacy of entertainment, however. In exchange, we will expect cooperation with our efforts to increase the permanent gene pool.” She too pointed toward the sperm bank. is no risk, of course. But we are aware that some males import an emotional significance to what is only a mechanical act, the transfer of sperm.”
“Ah, Mayor,” Slade said. “Sirs—” That was wrong, wasn’t it, hell and blast this situation. “There’s still the problem of our navigators. Our lack of them. Is there any chance that you have qualified people that might be hired on a temp—”
Rodrigues touched Slade’s forearm to halt him. “Mister . . . ?”
“Slade,” the tanker said. “I’m—well, it’s complicated.”
“Mister Slade,” the woman resumed, “there’s a great deal about the future to be discussed. Right now, there are organizational details to be handled. This is—” she turned up her palms with a smile—“an embarrassment of riches for us, incredible riches. But I’ll call on you later this evening, if you don’t mind. We’ll be alone at my home, and we can work out a number of things.”
The prim brunette beside the Mayor made a moue.
The memory of Mayor Rodrigues’ smile lingered long after the trio of women had driven away.
“You know, Captain Slade,” said Snipes, the ship’s tall, bearded Administrative Officer, “I really respect you.”
Slade put down the laser pencil. He had just completed soldering the final lead to a post on the non-functioning commo unit. Slade’s palms were sweaty. It scared the bleeding cop out of him to work with electrical blasting caps. Even before they were inserted in the block of high explosive, they could shatter your hands or your eyes if something went wrong. And the one poor bastard Slade remembered, the fellow who had three ca
ps in a front pocket of his trousers at the spaceport on Friesland . . . A maintenance crew had switched on a Transit generator for testing. The powerful field induced enough of a current in the leads to detonate the blasting caps.
The screen on the upper wall of the shop was fed by one of the external vision blocks. There was nothing in particular to see. Erlette’s port and capital were quiet except for light vehicular traffic in the dusk.
“The way you run these, these soldiers,” Snipes continued. He was a good-sized man, one of those who used the exercise machines more as a matter of religion than of muscle tone. “But without getting, well, hardened like most men in your position would be.”
“Now, do you have some luggage that’ll hold all this?” Slade asked. “A box might do if it had to, but I’d like something that looked like it was a change of clothing without anybody asked. And not military.”
The crewman glanced at the assembly, phony electronics and ten very real kilos of plastic explosive. “Well,” he said uncertainly, “there’s my own leave bag. I guess you could borrow it.”
“Might I?” said the tanker. “Fast?”
Snipes was back in less than a minute with the bag. It was a nice one, self-adjusting to hold its contents firmly but without crushing them. Slade began to pack it with care. First the gray, taped blocks of explosive, then the guts of the commo unit. All of them were connected by looped wires and the blasting caps buried in the mass of explosive.
“I can tell,” said Snipes, “that you understand women, too.” His mouth worked. “I swear, there was no decent woman ever born but my mother. Lord rest her soul.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Slade. He was arranging the leads with great care. “I was set to be married once. Turned out she married my brother Tom . . . but the way I was then, I wouldn’t say Marilee was indecent. Or even wrong.”
“But it made you look at yourself, didn’t it?” Snipes pressed. He reached out and touched the hand with which Slade was shifting the charge. “Made you realize there were things, that for you—for a real man like you—a woman couldn’t do as well as a man.”
“Tell the truth, Johnsie,” the tanker said, “it was more the Slammers that did that.” Slade folded over the top of the bag and watched it seal itself into the smallest six-sided prism that would hold its present contents. “In twenty years under Hammer, I met curst few women I’d trust to close my back in a firefight. For killing, I’ll take a man any day.”
He stood up. Snipes extended his arm to hold the fingers in contact, but the thought behind the Admin Officer’s eyes was changing. “And that’s fair, I guess,” Slade went on, “because for screwing, I don’t have a darned bit of use for men.” He smiled. “Most other duties, I’m pretty well neutral.”
“Well, why are you still on board, then?” Snipes demanded. “You could be out there, having a, having an orgy like the rest of them. Couldn’t you? Even Webb. ‘Come on Johnsie, it won’t hurt. They’ll be so willing.’ It just makes me. . . .” He trailed off with a grimace.
Slade was studying the view screen, partly to avoid looking at his companion’s face. “Well,” the tanker said, “I checked some of the old briefing cubes in the hold luggage you found for me. Didn’t like what I learned.” He shrugged. “Most everybody else had gone off already, like you say. There wasn’t any point in raising a fuss then. So I—” He smiled again, tense with pre-battle nerves. The apparatus was complete and he had nothing to occupy his mind but the future. “I called my date and told her I’d need a couple extra hours to clear up some business. Which was true.”
Slade wiped his hands very carefully with a solvent towel from the dispenser on the bulkhead. The skin of his hands prickled for a moment as it was cleaned. The skin of his neck and biceps continued to prickle for reasons unconnected with the towel. “She ought to be—yeah. I think that might be Delores right now.”
Slade shook himself to loosen his muscles. “Take care, trooper,” he said. He wore a cape against the chill and beneath the cape a civilian suit of brilliant silk from T’ien. The only military touch was a heavy belt on which a commo unit balanced the weight of a slung wallet.
On the screen, Delores got out of the same small bus she had arrived in earlier. This time she was alone in the vehicle. The tall woman began walking toward the vision block over the bridge hatch, growing on the screen. The garment she wore covered but did not hide her breasts, even in the screen’s blurred image.
“Hold the fort till I get back,” the tanker called over his shoulder. As his boots echoed down the corridor, Snipes heard him add, “Won’t say I’m not used to the work, but it’s a curst strange context.”
Mayor Rodrigues’ house was a low dome sunk a meter deep in the soil. The skylights, now shuttered, would not open without noise. There was no door except for the one which the woman now opened onto a flight of steps.
“Ah, you don’t have a, a roomate?” Slade asked huskily.
The tall brunette smiled. “Not tonight,” she said. “Not unless you want one.” Rodrigues stepped to the tanker. She swept his cape clear with her arms before she squeezed as much of her length against him as their position made possible. Slade shifted awkwardly at the woman’s weight and strength. He returned the hungry kiss and felt his groin return it also, despite his tension.
“Come, dearest,” Delores said. She broke away to lead Slade down the short flight of stairs. Her fingers felt warm and moist on his. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted this.”
Slade paused to lock the door. A twist of the handle set bolts in both transom and threshold.
“Some things I don’t like disturbed,” he muttered, nervous and seemingly embarrassed. His luggage was in the bus outside. Slade had not wanted to call attention to the case by bringing it inside at once.
The room they stood in was the whole front half of the circular dwelling. There was a table and a variety of cushioned benches for seating. The floor was of rush mats, fresh and green-smelling. In the wall bisecting the interior were three doors. Two of them were ajar. Slade could see the corner of a low bed in the center room. The room to the left had a tiled interior, surely a bathroom though the fixtures were of unfamiliar style. The third door would lead to the kitchen, closed off for no reason other than its inappropriateness to the intended activity.
Probably.
Delores was in Slade’s arms again. His left hand flicked the brooch holding his cape. The fabric slithered away from his shoulders. The tanker’s belt gear pressed against the woman’s thrusting belly. She backed off, panting, and reached for the belt hook.
Slade caught her fingers with one hand. “Just a second, darling,” he muttered. His free hand tucked down the indigenous lace of her blouse so that he could kiss one broad, dark nipple. “Just a second,” he repeated as he straightened. He walked quickly to the right-hand door. One hand reached into his slung wallet.
“The bathroom’s the other way,” Delores said. She did not sound concerned, only out of breath. She was reaching behind her for the blouse fasteners.
Slade opened the door, onto the empty kitchen as he had expected. “Oh, to hell with that anyway,” he said as he strode back to the woman. It was not particularly necessary that his movements make sense; only that they be seen as non-threatening to a woman in the Mayor’s present circumstances. “Here,” the tanker said as Dolores nuzzled his throat, “let me help with the blouse.”
She turned willingly. As willingly, she extended her hands behind her. She gave a throaty chuckle as Slade guided the hands to his groin, and she did not first realize when the tanker taped her wrists that the program had changed abruptly.
“Dearest?” the woman said in puzzlement as she turned back to Slade. “If you like this, we can, of course . . . anything. But I hoped first . . . ?”
“Here, love,” Slade said. He lifted the tall woman onto a bench. She still did not object, though she was frowning. “Just for a moment,” he added as he taped her ankle to one leg of the bench.
It was solid wood, fifteen or twenty kilos; heavy enough to keep Rodrigues from jumping quickly to a hidden weapon or communications device.
The tanker was breathing hard. His body had told no more lies than his victim’s body had. “Via.” he said. “Via.” He drew the pistol from his wallet and held the small weapon loose in his hand. “Don’t pull against that,” Slade went on with a nod toward the obvious strain of the woman against her wrists behind her. “It’s freight tape. You can cut it, and alcohol’ll release the adhesive clean. But you couldn’t pull it apart with tractors. The loops are tight enough that it won’t help you to tear your skin loose.”
“But why?” Delores said. She did not struggle for the moment, but her body was tensed for a last hysterical burst before expected death convulsed her. “Donald, almost anything. . . . If not me, then somebody on Erlette will—want whatever you want. Willingly.”
Slade sat down on another bench, facing his captive. “I was on Sphakteria,” he said. “Were you?”
Rodrigues shook her head without comprehension of either the words or what was happening to her. Her blouse hung free of one of the breasts it had not hidden very well to begin with.
“I was, the Slammers were,” the tanker went on. “Both sides pretty well financed. We got a book from Central on a dozen or so merc units operating against us.”
Delores’ eyes began to widen. She tensed still further.
“You won’t be hurt,” Slade said sharply. In his calmer voice of moments before, he continued, “But you’re right, there was a company of scouting specialists from Erlette. All women and ready to prove they had more balls than any man they were going to run into.” Slade shrugged. “The background, though. . . . All the men on Erlette had died, not a few years before from a sex-linked plague, but thirty-odd years back even then. And they’d been killed by the women.”