by Moshe Ben-Or
Had she stayed aboard that ship instead of coming with William Sleager to Paradise…
Kang Jian had never talked about his plans for the clan in detail, thought Patty, but his customized Argo had come with a lot more than the usual self-sufficiency provisions one would expect of an independent fringe runner. He’d sacrificed over half the ship’s cargo space to customizations.
The Lucky Lady II had extra fuel tanks and an exploration-grade gravimetric survey package. She’d been equipped not just with the standard sensors, but also with a high-end deployable sensor net and bots for astronomic interferometry. Instead of the usual inexpensive pinnace, Kang Jian had bought a medium-lift shuttle rated for landing and return to orbit in hostile atmospheres, in hurricane conditions, and at surface gravities of up to two gee. The Lucky Lady II had a top-line PGS-capable nav calculator and extended-lifetime drive chambers and an AI with extra databanks, and an upgraded sickbay, and a high-thrust torch, and a ramscoop, and coldsleep pods, and a vertical garden, and a life support system designed to indefinitely accommodate many more than a production Argo’s standard maximum of twelve.
This war would never come to the Fringe, thought Patty, but it would echo there nonetheless. Perhaps, amid the rolling thunder of that echo, the new Lucky Lady would turn her stern upon Known Space once and for all. Perhaps, she’d done so long ago.
Almanacs ended, out there in the Black, but the universe didn’t. The Goddess cared naught for almanacs and jump drives. The Holy Mission was Her sole concern. By any and every available means, to the very ends of the universe and beyond.
Perhaps there was already a world, somewhere far away from this damned war and this dank cave. Kang Jian and Ling and Ai would be there. There would be another Bo. A blonde; clever and pretty, just like the one she’d replaced. There would be other girls also. A Ying, perhaps, and a Jia, and a Huan, and a Mei and a Qi...
There would be a well-behaved, gentle star. There would be friendly gravity and liquid water, and warm sunlight, and a low radiation count. There would be a stable orbit in a quiet, unremarkable system like a million others. A system far out in the Black, for which there were no almanac solutions. A system which even a custom ship with extended range could reach only after multiple self-surveyed PGS jumps, and a trip of many years’ duration. A system where no one had any reason to ever go.
There would be a custom Argo parked in a stationary orbit around that world, and a medium-lift shuttle on the surface. And domes strung out along a stony shore, amid spreading patches of lichen. And children playing in a garden, and oceans turning green with algae, and a sky that would one day be blue.
She could have had a place in that world, out there far, far away. A place as proud mother and beloved wife. A place as skilled spacefarer and invaluable member of the clan. A place as Founder. A place with Kang Jian.
She would have fit into that world. She would have belonged there. She had earned her place in Kang Jian’s world long ago. She’d been a perfect Kang Bo.
But that evil bastard William Sleager had ripped her away from that world. He’d stolen her happiness and her future, and there was no way back. She’d cried and begged, but he wouldn’t listen, and violence could not be used. They’d been too deep into Civilization for that by then, surrounded and outgunned by evil Core Worlds scum, with their evil Core Worlds so-called “gods” and their evil Core Worlds so-called “laws”. There’d been no way out of the trap, by the time it had become apparent.
Kang Jian had cried also, at their parting. Just a single stray tear, but she knew how much that tear had meant. That was when she’d truly come to hate William Sleager, thought Patty. Had she known in advance, she would’ve poisoned his gin. Or simply shot him through the head and fed his corpse into a waste processor. The bastard wasn’t worth her spit.
At her first boarding school she’d been ten, and the only blanca. She’d been behind by five grades in Paradisian language, history and literature, and ahead by six in mathematics, Standard and the exact sciences. They’d assigned her a remedial tutor in the humanities. A teenage upperclassman who’d volunteered to bother with the strange alien girl.
Her father’s newly-acquired wealth had bought her a place at that school, but it had bought her neither an iota of welcome, nor even a smidgen of kindness. Those two things didn’t come included with tuition. She had to buy them separately, all on her own. And she did. She already knew how.
She was with Alfredo every evening, after hours, at the library, all alone. From the very first session, she’d had a pretty good idea as to why he’d volunteered. The library door had a lock, and there was no surveillance back behind the stacks. It had been easy as pie. But Alfredo was no Kang Jian. His bargains didn’t last. None of their bargains lasted. It ended, every time, and she had to start all over again.
She’d learned to pick them out. She’d learned to reel them in. She’d learned how to figure out what they wanted. She’d learned how to get the rewards. But she’d never figured out how to make it last. She simply didn’t fit. She was the blanca. She was the alien girl.
Alien could be repulsive, but alien could also be exotic. There were those who liked the exotic, until they got tired of it, and moved on. And then she had to find another connoisseur of the exotic. It was the only way to fit in.
There’d always been a boy, or a man. Sometimes a girl or a woman. If she did what they wanted, they would do what she wanted. They would like her. They would be nice to her. They would give her rewards. What they wanted was easy. She’d learned how to do it all, long ago. She was good at it. Kang Jian had been a pious man. His wives had been well schooled in the Guidebook of the Sacred Way, the way a proper Vessel of the Goddess should be. She was always the best her connoisseur of the exotic had ever had. If they were shy, or scared about it, she could take the first steps.
The rewards didn’t have to stop when they got tired of her strange, white-skinned body, and wanted to leave. Not when what they had sampled was highly illegal to sample, and the cost of failing to provide what she wanted far outweighed the cost of continuing to provide it. She knew that her implant kept no records, and it would be her word against theirs. They didn’t. Paradisian implants were required to keep records, by law. All Core Worlds implants were.
She’d built a mask for herself. A whole separate other-Patty, bit by tiny bit. A shell around the real Patty, the one who needed to belong at any price, or just wanted the rewards. She’d gone from one to the next. Classmates, roommates, teachers, coaches, dance and music instructors, college professors. Boys, girls, men, women. Often more than one at a time, with each thinking that they were the only one.
She’d reveled in the power of it, and in the thrill, and in the momentary pleasure, and she’d hated everything around her. She’d hated this world because of the way it was. She’d hated her body for making it necessary. She’d hated those whom she used, and she’d hated herself for using them. She’d hated herself even more for reveling in the hate. She’d gone from boarding school to boarding school, hating each more than the next.
Once, when she was fourteen, she’d set out to get straight fives for the quarter without ever cracking a textbook. Five teachers and a coach later, she’d succeeded. She’d had all six in one day afterward, and then spent the evening alone in her room, crying into her pillow for Kang Jian.
That night she’d dreamt of the Lucky Lady. Kang Jian still ruled from Engineering, the way he always had. Ling was captain, she was the navigator and Ai was first mate. They all had sons, just like they’d planned. Ling had twin daughters, like she’d wanted. They went from star to star together, far, far away, out beyond the Fringe. They all belonged. And they were happy.
The next morning she’d slit her wrists, but her roommate had come along and called security.
They’d sent her to a different boarding school and given her pills afterward, but the pills didn’t stop her from hating everything, or make her fit in. There was only one way to fit in for t
he likes of her, and the key to it lay between her legs. The pills did nothing for her problems. They just made her wits dull.
One day she’d thrown away the bottle, and simply kept climbing. No more showing the hate. The hate had to stay inside. On the outside, there was only the climb. William Sleager’s birthworld was her home now. She had to make it work. She had to think like them. She had to be like them. She had to become one of them. She had to fit in.
Somewhere up there, far, far away at the top, there was a place for her. When she had enough money and enough power, she would belong, the way Klaus Weinberger belonged. The way Ugo van Pieterzonn belonged. The way anyone could belong, if they just had enough.
One to the next, stepping stone to stepping stone she’d climbed upward, until she’d come to Roger van Pieterzonn. She’d hated him more than she’d hated all the others put together, but he was going to be her ticket to the top. And then Invasion Day had happened, and the aircar had fallen out of the sky, and she’d been screaming in terror, sure that she was about to die, when the flechettes had come snapping out of the bushes and showered her with alien blood. And she’d known of no other thing to do, but to fall back upon her mask. It hadn’t even taken thought. Just instinct. By that point she’d worn the mask non-stop for so long that she didn’t truly know anymore where real-Patty ended and dumb-blonde-fucktoy-Patty began.
She’d had nothing else but that. The mask and the shock and the terror.
Their presence had sent her quaking on sight. She’d been saved from alien beasts, she’d thought, by a pair of alien beasts. There was no one in Known Space who wouldn’t recognize those green coveralls with the impossible camouflage pattern that the eye simply couldn’t stay focused on.
Leaguers. Merciless, vicious, ruthless killing machines who fought bloody duels at the drop of a hat and carried military-grade guns with them wherever they went so they could always unleash an instant wave of mass slaughter. Jackbooted militarist thugs who taught kindergartners how to handle firearms and spent a full fifteen percent of their GDP on endless preparations for total war. Psychopaths who’d bullied the government into granting them extraterritorial rights in four whole provinces so they could swagger about with their pistols on their hips and terrorize the natives by their mere presence. Savages who slaughtered tens of millions at random with fusion warheads and impact torpedoes, deliberately collapsed whole planets’ ecosystems, and starved billions using bioweapons. Monsters who would match the Archduchy atrocity for atrocity, and then double and triple down without blinking. Barbarians whom even the Empire, with its mighty fifty-seven worlds, was terrified of. The people who, her every third acquaintance was sure, would one day soon simply march in and take over this world at gunpoint.
She’d been scared to death of the rough, angry one who’d done the shooting and then carved apart a headless alien corpse for no apparent reason, as if he was considering whether or not it would make good steak. And so she’d clung to the big square one, the one who was kind, and had gotten hurt. He was light-skinned, like her. He seemed to like her. She didn’t care that he was a different species. He was being nice to her, and maybe he’d keep her safe. Safe from the giant alien cats, and safe from the dark angry one who treated her as the worthless fucktoy that she really was, and threatened to leave her behind to be eaten if she didn’t shut her yap.
He was the one in charge, not the dark angry one. He was a prince. A lord. She’d seen him on the cube. Roger had been glued to the thing for half an hour, watching men pound each other into bloody pulp, when they’d finally gotten to the main event and the big square one had beaten a huge Imperial to death with his bare hands in just under seven minutes.
He was a brutal killer, like the dark angry one, but he was being kind. It had to be because of the thing she had between her legs. She had nothing else to offer anybody. She’d known instinctively that if she clung to him, she’d be safe. She just had to give the thing between her legs, and he’d be kind and protect her. That’s how it had always worked before, all of her life.
But she’d been petrified of him. Never in her entire existence had she feared a man more. There was terrible power in that square body. She’d seen it crush bone and smash the life out of another human being, live, on the cube. She’d seen it again, there in the clearing. He’d gotten hurt, badly, but the alien cat had been hurt just as bad, before the other Leaguer had shot it. He was a savage. He had to be. That’s what they all were.
She’d done whatever he said, like a robot, frozen in fear the whole time. She’d even slept when he told her to. Not just pretended, but genuinely lost consciousness, obeying out of pure terror. She’d shuddered at the thought of what he would be like, in bed. She’d dreaded the moment when he would simply reach out and take.
And then, suddenly, she found herself longing for it. It was the only thing she had to offer. If he didn’t get it, he would surely throw her away to die. If he didn’t want it, she had to make him want it. She was good in bed. There’d been others who liked to hurt her, before. She would give him pleasure enough, no matter what he did.
She’d spent days working up her courage. The first time she tried, she’d broken into hysterical tears from fear. He’d held her and let her cry, and told her that nothing would hurt her. That he wouldn’t let it.
“Of course you won’t,” she’d thought as his hands slid all over her body, sending her insides aquiver with every touch, “I am your meat now. And who will protect me from you?”
The Beast claimed. He was possessive. He grasped with His claws, He forced to submit, and He used as He willed. He settled for rings and hair clips and name changes when restrained. But let loose He would brand and tattoo; He would swathe in a sack and lock behind walls, and chain by the neck, and murder on mere suspicion. And given the tools of mind, He would do one better, and wreak mighty fetters of DNA to replace the weakness of stone and the fragility of steel. Just ask the Titan Holy Council.
The Paradisians’ pathetic corpse-on-a-stick was no use to her here, in the claws of the Beast set loose. Her only hope lay with the Goddess. With Her Mighty Weapons, and Her Sacred Way. There was no other way out. There could be none, face to face with the Beast.
But he was gentle, when he’d accepted her offer. Gentle and kind, and good, and soft. And she’d suddenly found herself falling back upon the little rituals she’d left enshrined and unused for twelve long years, and giving herself in all the special ways that she’d reserved, all of her life, for only one man.
She would wake that night snuggling up against him, whispering: “I’ve missed you, ai-Jian! I’ve missed you so much!”
She’d burst into tears again, but he didn’t understand. He was half asleep himself, and she’d spoken not the perfect formal Standard they’d taught her at the boarding schools, but the gutter dialect of the Lucky Lady’s crew. But he’d held her anyway, and kissed her and caressed her, and told her that it would be all right, just like Kang Jian used to do.
And then he fell in love with her. Not with the mask. With her. He hated the mask. He’d seen right through it. Maybe from the beginning. And one day he simply told her to stop it. Just stop it. You’re not stupid, he’d said. Stop pretending that you are. Stop giggling like a fool. Stop speaking in that little-girl voice. Stop batting your eyelashes and talking nonsense. Stop hiding the real you. Just stop it.
You’re smart. You know things. Give me advice. Teach me your language. Teach me about this world. I don’t want a stupid toy, he’d said. I want a real woman.
A real woman. Like the one whom he’d loved before. Like the one who’d betrayed him and set him up to be murdered. A replacement for that other one, the one whom he still loved. He didn’t say that part, but she’d felt it. She knew that it was true.
That woman ruled a world. That woman had the body of a goddess. That woman was the greatest seductress in Known Space. That woman was ethereal and glamorous and mysterious and grand and without equal, and nothing at all like worthle
ss fucktoy Patty Sleager who couldn’t fit in anywhere without spreading her legs.
But he thought that she was like her. He believed that she was. He believed it so completely that he’d fallen in love with Patty Sleager, the way he’d once fallen in love with Isabella van der Rijn. And because he believed it, he’d forced her to believe it, too. And then she’d fallen in love with him.
Leo Freeman was the first man she’d slept with since Kang Jian whom the real Patty Sleager didn’t hate. It was the first time she’d come to love anyone at all, since the day when that evil monster William Sleager had ripped her brutally away from the only place where she’d ever belonged.
And that’s why she’d done everything she could to help him. Not just because his survival was her survival. Because she loved him and she always would.
This war would end one day, and he would go back to his world. And she would remain here, because there was no room in a Spartan prince’s real life for an alien girl from a distant foreign world who wasn’t even the same species as him and could never give him children, let alone a legal heir. He would go home, and she would never see him again, and he would marry a princess and have a bunch of little princeling kids, and he’d forget all about her. But she would still love him. Forever.
She would love him forever, but first they had to survive this war. On paper, they controlled three districts now, and a goodly portion of a fourth. Six small towns, eight villages and eighteen haciendas now lay within FPA territory. When Paraibuna and Guararema fell, the FPA would control three district centers. But that was all on paper.
In reality, thought Patty, they controlled nothing at all, save the ground under the feet of their men. To control a place, one had to rule it. And to rule, one had to administer. And that’s where the rubber hit the road. Yosi and Leo were failing.