Northern Stars

by Glenn Grant

  Tuagi grinned without changing the pace of his currying. He had not the slightest notion of what his brother desired, but was willing to let his imagination speculate outrageously. “That’s an obscene idea, me knocking up a horse just to amuse a one-balled veteran like you.”

  “A horse!” Kartiel raved with horror. “Here I am, I’ve come all the way from the antipodes to offer to you the magnificent Elieta as a parting present out of my love for you, and you just stand there and call her a horse.” He patted the mare. “Elieta has a cave that would put this huge animal to shame.”

  Tuagi, suddenly, was too embarrassed to speak.

  “Come,” said Kartiel. “I ship out tomorrow. We see her now. The mare can wait.”

  Tuagi shook his head without looking at his brother. “Let me handle the women my way,” he replied coldly. “I’ll be ready for them when I’m ready for them. I haven’t finished my training yet. You don’t have to do me any favors.”

  Kartiel roared. “Do you want to land on Enclad and disgrace all Bezeks by not knowing the difference between a sword and a sheath? When I was your age I’d already had twenty women, old ones and little girls fresh out of the tank.” He smiled. “Listen, stew meat, I’m not doing you a favor, I’m doing her a favor.” He took the comb out of Tuagi’s hand and guided the boy irresistibly out of the stalls. He sat him down at a heavy wooden table carved with the signs of soldiers long gone, and poured two mugs of ale.

  “I’m fond of that wench, Tuagi. I’d take her with me if I could. She’d come if she could—I think. But it’s not possible. She’s going to die here in the cauldron. It’s hard for us to really understand in our guts, but out there”—he pointed with his mug and slopped ale—“out there where we’re all going, time flows a hundred times slower than inside the Base. I’ll just be getting my ground legs on Enclad, just be getting used to belonging to a regiment rather than a family, three hundred days will have passed for me—and her?”

  Kartiel paused and sighed. “In that time she’ll have matured into a little old lady and maybe withered away. In this place time is a flying demon. I’m leaving tomorrow. Thirty Encladian days after I debark, some troop transport will bring you in, but you’re not going to be a kid anymore. You’ll be a man with a beard, as old as I am. How can we conceive of how fast time is moving here? Do you know what I’m going to do when I get to Enclad? I’m going to look up Jolly Barak Bezek—he was before your time. He taught me how to shit in a pot and I’d get so mad at him I’d pick up the shit and try to throw it in his face. He was a father and mother to me—and now he’s fighting on Enclad and I’m as old as he is.”

  Kartiel raised his mug. “To time.” Then he drank. He rubbed the inscriptions on the wooden table. “So for me and Elieta it is goodbye forever. I asked her what she wanted as a going-away present. Whores are strange. You’ll find out. There isn’t any master plan to their life. They get excited about something and a while later it is something else. Elieta just discovered horses. She wants to learn to ride. I promised I’d get someone to teach her how to ride. You’re going to do that for your brother, and if by chance you get your wick dipped in wax and set on fire, just relax and enjoy the flame. I want you to take care of her. I’ll meet you at the Ganatil spaceport thirty of my days from now, three thousand of your days from now, and you’re going to tell me exactly how well you’ve taken care of her or I’m going to put your glass balls in a gravel crusher. Your memory won’t be so good by then—but my memory will be fresh. Now bottoms up on that ale. I’m making out a four-day pass for you and you’re getting your glass balls melted down. Come on.”

  “How can you tell she’ll like me?”

  Kartiel roared with laughter. “She’s a whore! Of course she’ll like you! What else has she got to do with her time but like you!”

  Kartiel took Tuagi through the labyrinth that was the whore’s quarters, which had been designed unlike any other section of the Base. The only rapid transportation was by bicycle along winding shrub-lined tunnels that occasionally opened up into small parks. Mostly you had to walk. Corridors ended abruptly. A hidden stairwell would take you down to some entertainment district or perhaps to a plaza of restaurants where there were pretty hostesses to drink with you.

  After a zigzag course they came up into a small courtyard with a tree and a garden. Ten apartments faced the courtyard: five on the ground floor and five on the second floor with balconies. One woman was sitting on her balcony and Tuagi knew instantly she was Elieta from her reaction. She smiled at Kartiel with full lips shaped for smiling, stood up and went inside. Hair flowed to her waist and she wore a loose robe vertically striped—vermilion, white, with smaller stripes of gold and blue.

  Tuagi followed behind his brother, up the stairs, glad that he did not have to meet this woman alone. A greenhorn had better go into combat with a veteran at his side. He was wryly amused that he had suddenly assumed the mental attitude he always did in the battle simulator when he was presented with a tactical problem for which he had no ready solution. As the door opened and he saw Elieta begin her smile, he was wondering what kind of decision General Guderian would be making.

  But her radiance was all for Kartiel. “I didn’t think you’d make it! I thought you were gone!” Tuagi she had placed leagues away from their embrace, and he became an astronomer deducing facts from spectral line and photograph.

  She had a face typical of the Encladian women he had studied—the cheekbones of the Akirani, a touch of Christmas in the subdued curling of her rich hair, the hint of a Kartan jawline. But the way her nose smoothly met her forehead seemed more like the nose of the Getan officers he knew. Certainly she came of standard soldier stock. He saw that she was older than Kartiel—at least twice Tuagi’s age—every quality of her face had the rubbed polish of experience. He noticed the way her fingers moved in Kartiel’s hair. Those weren’t the gestures of any Encladian woman from any training sim he had ever seen. Enclad was stiffer, more restrained than this woman would ever be. His mothers back on Enclad, whoever they were, would never be so free.

  He glanced at her apartment. Here was the richness and balance of a long-perfected battle plan—a fortress of a bed, screens that seemed to provide privacy, but to the tactical eye looked more like traps to intrigue the unwary into ambush, and everywhere the loot of some carefully conceived conquest designed to fill a corner with exactly the right object. His eyes touched successively the pale green glass goblets handcrafted by an enchanted soldier, the carved chair, the open electronic circuitry shimmering in the delicate colors of gas-kiln glazes worth a fortune not because of the accuracy of resistor or module but because of their beauty and arrangement.

  “Heartsweet, I brought you a present,” Kartiel smiled, and Tuagi saw that it was the same smile he used for his younger brothers.

  For the first time Elieta’s eyes enveloped Tuagi. “Him?” And the energy of her smile explored his body while she looked at his face. “How cute.” She came over to him, gently touching the top button of his tunic as if she meant to open it. “May I unwrap my present now?” It was the softest hand that had ever touched him, yet he felt its enormous force pressing on him. In a disturbing way he couldn’t seem to measure the direction of the force. “How long may I keep him?”

  “I gave him a four-day pass.” Kartiel was grinning. “I’m not sure he could survive longer than that.”

  “Oh! But can I survive that long near him without losing my mind? He’s gorgeous.”

  “He’s not gorgeous. He’s my cavalry fanatic. He’s going to teach you how to ride a horse.”

  Instantly her energy deserted Tuagi and again he was left leagues away from her. “You remembered! Oh … Mug-face, you remembered! You gave me exactly what I wanted. I’m surprised. I really am. I didn’t think you would.” She was holding Kartiel. “Horses! I’m so frightened of those beasts.” She began to undress herself, to Tuagi’s horror; he hadn’t gotten over his drills in Encladian morality. “Frightened but awed by the
ir beauty. I so want to ride one. Do you think they’ll let me ride through the Black Forest?”

  “No, but Tuagi will arrange it. Sometimes we have to put it over on the cannibals.” He was referring to their Getan officers. “We Bezeks work together when it is a good cause. You’ll have to wear a uniform. Have to pass you off as a soldier. Too bad we can’t pass you off as Female Army. At the moment I can’t think of a way to hide those cantaloupes”—he saluted one of her breasts with an affectionate cup—“but my brother is more cunning than I am at camouflage.”

  “Why do you have to go?” Her voice was petulant. “You’re somebody who really loves me!”

  She was already half nude. Tuagi didn’t know whether it would be more strategic to leave or to stay. None of his studies of military-civilian morality were applicable here. Physically paralyzed, his mind lingered on the graceful way the line of her waist flared into her hips, not like a man at all. Kartiel caught his emotion of discomfort and nodded to him a subliminal gesture that all Bezeks knew how to read. It meant: it’s her skirmish, let her control it her way.

  So he did nothing. He watched her move Kartiel to the bed and snuggle him while she cried. He stood as if he were evaluating a strange new weapon. In time Elieta noticed him and called him over. She motioned for him to sit down and took his hand, rubbing it seriously. Shooting people was easier.

  “When can we go horseback riding?” she asked innocently while Kartiel kissed her neck.

  “Tomorrow.” Slowly, gently he moved a finger against her thigh so she wouldn’t notice.

  “I told you I’m a little afraid of horses. They’re such enormous brutes.”

  “I’ll give you Field Marshal Keitel. We call him that because he does everything you tell him to do. A very easy horse.”

  “Would you do me a favor?”

  “Anything,” he agreed. Kartiel was grinning at him. Tuagi was just grinning foolishly.

  “I’m in charge of a little girl—she’s a hellion. She’s disoriented right now. We just received her from the Female Army. I don’t know why she wasn’t making it as a soldier and I couldn’t care less. I’d like you to take her out for a few kilosecs. Be nice to her. Bring her back at the seventy-third kilosec. That’s when Mug-face here has to go. We can talk then.” Unobtrusively she had trapped his finger against her thigh and wouldn’t let it go. “Domat!”

  “Yes, madam,” said the robutler from a speaker in the wall.

  “Ask Wefia to come here.”

  “Yes, madam.”

  Memories were stirring in Tuagi. “Were you once a soldier?” he asked Elieta.

  She laughed. “Heavens, no! I came out of the womb-tanks feet first, legs spread apart ready for action. Girls like Wefia are a problem. She’s already two kilodays old; reorientation at that age is a trauma. We don’t get many ‘broken cannon’ anymore, less now than a few generations ago.” She paused, then added sternly, “By the way—no sex—she’s young and underdeveloped physically. It would hurt her.” The woman’s voice was as stern as that of any Getan officer.

  Elieta sat up when Wefia came in and kissed the child on the forehead. “I’d like you to meet Tuagi Bezek. You’re to take him out and entertain him till he brings you back.”

  “Yech.”

  “Wefia!”

  “Sure I’ll take him around.” She went over and picked up one of the delicately blown goblets.

  “Wefia, you don’t have to touch that.”

  She set it down. “Come, soldier Bezek.” Tuagi followed her out the door. “Have a good fuck,” she shouted over her shoulder. Tuagi glanced back at Elieta and found her rolling her eyes.

  “Do I have to wear shoes?” Wefia asked in the courtyard. She looked up at him with brown eyes and a pug nose, patiently.

  “I don’t care what you wear.”

  Suddenly smiling, she took off her shoes and hid them in the flower garden. Her robe was translucent, revealing her body in the same shape as that of a young boy. She was obviously uncomfortable in the filmy stuff. Tuagi could see that she’d rather be in a combat uniform.

  She took three of his fingers in an iron grip. “I’m supposed to hold your hand. It’s supposed to be sexy or something. Lesson number one.” She jerked her thumb toward the apartment. “Do you like her?”

  “A lovely woman,” said Tuagi diplomatically.

  “She’s not a woman. She couldn’t even shoot a rifle. She drools over horses and if you set her on top of one she’ll fall off on her head!”

  “Well, well, well,” said Tuagi.

  “Let’s go down here. We’ll probably get lost. I’ve only been here seven days. Do you know your way around Skintown?”

  “I’m lost already.”

  “So you’ve been staying away from these crazy women? You’re a smart man. I’ve never seen so many crazy women in my life!” She looked up at Tuagi and rolled her eyes in imitation of Elieta. “That Elieta!” Then, pulling her robe up around her hips, she disappeared down the stair ramp. When he rounded its curve, he found her sitting on the bottom stair gazing absently at the plaza scene. He sat down beside her and sneakingly took three of her fingers in an iron grip.

  “What would you like to do, old man? I have orders to entertain you. We could do it in the trees or over there on a tabletop.”

  Tuagi was imagining her in a frying weapons carrier on a frying desert under two frying suns and thinking that she would be doing well for a little soldier.

  “Thirsty?”

  “I could take you to a place where a naked lady will serve you beer. That’s something you’ll never see on Enclad. There aren’t enough crazy women on all of Enclad to do that. Not one, I’ll bet.”

  “Suits me. Let’s go.”

  She took him across the plaza via a circuitous route through the bushes. “Sometimes you can flush some gushers kissing in here.” She giggled and held her hand over her mouth to suppress the sound. They emerged on a windy terrace overlooking a fountain. A woman wearing scanty beads came over to their cushions and low table. Wefia ordered a bowl of eggnog with a double rum. She stared at the waitress as she left. “I’m the one who needs the double rum. That’s what I’m going to grow up to be. Yech. Look at those lovely buttocks. I don’t want you to miss the entertainment. I’ll bet you’d rather be in a trench.”

  He stared at her. She stared back at him levelly. He wondered what you said to a little girl like this. It was totally beyond his experience.

  “Do you have a penis?” she asked casually.

  “Why ask a question like that?”

  “It’s whore talk. Whores talk like that all the time. They’re so nimby-bimby they drive me crazy already.”

  “What would you like to talk about?”

  “Rifles.”

  “Ah,” he said, lighting up. “You’re a rifle buff?”

  “I was,” she said sadly.

  “Ever made a rifle?”

  “No,” she said, lighting up. “Did you?”

  “Yeah, an M-1. Got good at shooting it, too. Made my own cartridges. I still have it. Maybe you’d like to shoot it—it’s got a wicked kick.”

  “Gee,” she said.

  “What’s your favorite rifle?”

  That started her off. The more she drank of the eggnog the more eloquent she became. She had an amazing fund of knowledge about early gunpowder weapons, some of it obviously biased by Akiran sources. She spoke often of the tanegashima, the name given by the Japanese to firearms after the island where Portuguese traders first appeared.

  Finally he interrupted her. “Would you like to make one; bore the barrel yourself, everything?”

  She looked stricken. “They wouldn’t let me.”

  He chuckled. “There’s always a way to get around the cannibals.”

  Later when they were walking along the plaza together, Wefia leaped up on a table and flung herself on him for a piggyback ride. She held her arms awkwardly around his head and leaned over to whimper in his ear, “Will you be my sister?” />
  For a moment he didn’t understand. But of course. She wouldn’t know what “sister” really meant. She only knew she’d lost her whole family of sisters and was now living with women whose behavior she couldn’t comprehend. He was a soldier. Her sisters were soldiers. “Sure I’ll be your sister.”

  Her hug tightened. “I’m a dangerous sister to have. Very dangerous. I real-killed three of my sisters. That’s why the Vicksburgs don’t like me anymore. I’ll be careful not to kill you.”

  Tuagi knew what kind of a whore Wefia would grow up to be. She’d never like women. But men she would love. The men she would know would be soldiers and soldiers she could understand.

  They returned to the apartment by kilosec-73. Elieta handed him a message from Kartiel. “See you soon with a beard,” it read, the traditional farewell from a soldier to his younger brothers.

  “He’s sweet,” she said melancholically. “I made him promise to remember me for the rest of my life—just as a joke. I’m sorry to be so sad. It’s not good. Usually I’m very gay.”

  “If you want to be alone…”

  “Anything but being left alone right now. Don’t leave me. Wefia, we’ll take Tuagi to the baths.”

  It was very different from the barrack showers, a running stream with pools and bathers and waterfalls. Wefia splashed around while Elieta quietly soaped his body, humming to herself. This, Tuagi thought, would be what it was like to have a mother. He wondered at that recurring fantasy of his.

  The way the Getans created men made motherhood meaningless. Still, all the soldiers of history had been born from women. He remembered the image of the mother of Alexander the Great praying at the altar of her gods for them to give her son the powers of a warrior general. Closing his eyes, he tried to imagine Elieta as his mother and couldn’t.

  He rinsed himself in a falling spray and allowed his two women to towel him dry. They wouldn’t let him dress. They dragged him back through the streets naked, Elieta laughing and hailing her friends, Wefia clinging tightly to his hand, only once leaving him to rescue her shoes among the flowers.