The Iron Maiden

by Piers Anthony

  Her understanding was expanding. “You know you can’t touch me, outside of this hour.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But we can get along.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And in this hour you can touch me. And you’re telling me that the way I feel about you is more important than the sex, or at least greatly enhances it.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Tell me how I can fake it.”

  He shook his head. “That’s no good, kid.”

  He had misunderstood. “There will be other men after you, every week. For them I’ll have to fake it.”

  “Oh. You mean—?”

  “For you I’ll mean it.” That wasn’t entirely true, but also not untrue. He was far from her notion of the ideal lover, but she did want to make him feel good, in thanks for the way he had helped her.

  He wasn’t entirely fooled. “I think you know it already. But men want to be fooled. If you smile, and maybe sit in my lap, and–”

  “Like this?” She smiled and sat on his lap. Then she turned enough to embrace him and kiss him.

  “Yeah.”

  They continued with increasing passion, and before the hour was out had had sex again, this time more rewarding for them both. As she left, Spirit kissed him once more. “Thank you, Bruiser, for everything.” Then she left for the captain’s quarters.

  “How was it?” Brinker asked as Spirit cleaned up more thoroughly.

  “He’s a good guy. He didn’t want to hurt me. We did it twice, and I learned a lot. He doesn’t want feelie sex or whore sex, he wants caring sex.”

  “True, for Bruiser. But some of them aren’t good guys.”

  “I think I can handle them, as long as they follow the rules.”

  “They will follow them, or be removed from the eligible list. If anyone forces you, report him. Your word will not be questioned.”

  But Spirit knew they could push the limits, putting her in an awkward position, not wanting to draw too narrow a line.

  There turned out to be no problem about that. When Bruiser was questioned about his session, all he said was “I’m in love.” That meant that he would take it personally if another man abused her. When Spirit, as cabin boy, went on routine chores, and some men started obliquely razzing her, Bruiser appeared, closing his big fists. The razzing stopped.

  As it happened, the winner of the next raffle was one of the razzers. Spirit played up to him shamelessly, pretending to like him. He wasn’t fooled, but he liked the notion, and thereafter he treated her with greater courtesy. It was true: men wanted to be fooled, to think that they were doing their women a favor.

  In the course of the next year, she won over the whole crew, and it was clear that it wasn’t just the sex. It was that, for an hour, each had had the taste of what she might me like as a girlfriend, and that appealed. She was only fourteen, but by now fully formed along the lines of her sister Faith, and she had perfected her courtship strategy. She was satisfied that she now knew how to impress and win any man she chose to, despite her scarred face and hands and her missing finger. Actually, for the hour sessions, she donned gloves with one stuffed finger, and applied foundation makeup to mask her facial scars. She became beautiful; she knew the men were not lying when they told her so.

  “You’re doing what you have to do,” Brinker told her. “But you do have a talent for it.”

  Meanwhile she pursued the search for her brother. The pirate network was imperfect, but Brinker was able to access certain records, which showed that Hope had made it safely to the receiving station at Leda, then disappeared. But after a year he had reappeared as a Navy recruit. The feelies were big on the military gray market, so she was sure Hope had access to them. He would know that she survived, and remained on the pirate ship, and was doing all right for herself. When she turned sixteen she would be eligible to join the Navy; the minimum age was a year lower for women than for men, perhaps because they matured earlier, or maybe because men preferred younger women.

  She was in no hurry. She wanted to be reunited with her brother, but her situation here was good, and she did need to be somewhere until she was old enough. Brinker had promised to let her go when the time came, because Spirit had more than paid her way. She watched Hope Hubris from a distance as he made E3 rank and took a buxom Hispanic woman his own age as a roommate. As he made E4 and trained in ship-raiding. As he made E5 and disappeared on a mission.

  Meanwhile Spirit was now sixteen. It was time.

  “You don’t have to go,” Brinker said. “You have captivated all the men, and done good work on the feelie trade. You can make it as a pirate.” She did not pretend friendship; they had mutual respect and convenience, but were personally wary of each other, as many pirates were.

  “I know. But I’ve got to be with my brother.”

  “We can’t go to Leda,” Brinker said, unsurprised. “But we can trade you to another ship, and you can transfer from there to a gray market ship that transports feelies to Leda.”

  “That’s good enough,” Spirit said. But she was cautious. “You know I have not betrayed you, and will not. You have no call to betray me.”

  “I will not send you to your death,” Brinker agreed. “I have treated you more generously than I needed to. Have you wondered why?”

  “Yes. That’s why I suspect there is unfinished business between us.”

  “It is this: the tenure of no pirate is secure. The time will inevitably come when I lose my position. If I survive, I will need an ally in the Navy. You are my reserve knife.”

  Spirit nodded. “Come to me then, and I will do what I can. That will acquit the debt. We are not friends.”

  “That will do.”

  But as it happened, things changed before Spirit could go. They came across a Naval vessel, the Hammerhead, that had lost its drive and become a derelict. The personnel must have been evacuated, because the Jupiter Navy did not desert its own. Probably there was a caretaker crew to maintain the vessel while a new drive unit was requisitioned and transported to the site. Meanwhile it was vulnerable. This was a rare opportunity to sack a destroyer-class vessel.

  “I don’t trust this,” Spirit told Brinker privately. “A derelict Navy vessel right in our path? It’s bound to be a trap.”

  “It is,” the captain agreed. “But we have a countermeasure.”

  “It’s still too dangerous. Better to leave it be and get the hell out of here.”

  “I appreciate your opinion. Now report to your battle station.”

  Spirit knew better than to argue. The captain had made up her mind. She remained where she was: her battle station was the captain’s cabin, guarding the captain. She quickly removed all her clothing, retaining only a knife. That was so she could move silently. Now that her gender was known, this had become standard practice; she was naked for every salvage mission, and no man touched her. She was also the courier for the captain’s orders, so that no electronics had to be used. It was said with a smirk that nude news had to be believed.

  “This will be a swift mission,” the captain told the crew. “It surely will not be long before the Navy comes on the scene. We must clean it out and get away before that happens.” Then she shut down the intercom; the rest would be done silently.

  They oriented on the Navy ship and fired. The third strike holed it; they saw the air puff out. They moved in to mate locks, and the suited three man boarding party moved trough efficiently. They would make sure the ship was secure: that all aboard it were dead.

  Then the Hidden Flower’s power died.

  “What happened?” Spirit asked, alarmed. “Our power shouldn’t fail like that.”

  “They have a suppresser.”

  “A suppresser!” Spirit said. “They were ready for us! We’ve been betrayed!”

  “Carry the word: all personnel back off. Do not engage the enemy until I give the word.”

  Spirit moved into the passage. She knew exactly where everything was, so needed no light, and
the men knew her voice. They would obey without question.

  The locks remained mated, and the Navy personnel were boarding. They must have ambushed the Hidden Flower boarding party, and taken out the backup party. Six men gone—and Brinker wasn’t concerned? But Spirit went rapidly to the other stations, gave the word, and retreated to the captain’s cabin before the Navy men got there.

  “They had suited men waiting for their ship to be holed?” Spirit asked the captain.

  “They have a double hull.”

  “A double hull! You knew—and mated anyway?”

  “Yes.”

  Then, suddenly, the Navy boarding party withdrew. “Damn,” Brinker muttered. “Have they caught on, or are they merely suspicious?”

  “Caught on to what?” Spirit asked.

  “We have an agent aboard their ship. He will turn off the suppresser.”

  “An agent?” Now it was coming clear. The Navy had set a trap for whatever pirate ship it could catch, but the pirates had infiltrated a man to turn the tables on them. Play and counterplay.

  Then the Navy boarders returned. “Did they catch on—or didn’t they?” Brinker asked rhetorically.

  “We should close the lack and disengage immediately,” Spirit said. “Don’t gamble on it.” She didn’t like the chance of the Hidden Flower losing its air pressure; she would be the first to die.

  “They would shoot us out of space. We are in this until it finishes, win or lose.”

  “That sounds like a 50-50 chance,” Spirit said glumly.

  The ship’s power came back on. “Engage!” Brinker said, satisfied.

  Spirit moved out to the stations, carrying the word. In her wake the pirates moved out, ready to kill the boarders. They had lasers and knives, so that there would be operative weapons with or without the suppresser.

  There was a period of silence after Spirit returned to the cabin. The pirates should be reporting back, but they were not. Then the suppresser came back on.

  “Damn!” Brinker whispered. “Betrayal.”

  Spirit nodded in the darkness. She had not trusted this from the outset.

  “They will come for me,” the captain said. “You will engage them first.”

  “Yes, sir.” It was now a matter of life and death, and Spirit was pledged to defend Brinker. She gripped a knife in each hand; she had trained with these too.

  There was a noise in the passage. A hand drew the cabin’s entrance panel aside. Without power, it was not locked in place. Beyond it Spirit was aware of a suited figure, pinpointing it more by smell than sight. She hurled the right knife into the figure. It would not kill the intruder, but would hole his suit, and his reaction should distract him a moment. A holed suit was always a matter of immediate concern, even in a pressured environment.

  The suit fell over. By the sound if it, it was empty. She had fallen for the old hat-on—a-stick trick, but she was already moving through the aperture in her follow-up attack before she realized.

  Of course the man was lurking. He dived for her in a tackle. She knew why; in darkness one needed to be sure of the enemy’s location before making a lethal strike. Or maybe he simply wanted to capture the captain alive. It had to be something like that, because this counter-trap had been too well planned to be for a simple elimination of a pirate ship. They surely wanted to interrogate Brinker and get information on other pirate ships.

  These thoughts were parallel to the action. Spirit was already turning, twisting to avoid the tackle. If the man did get hold of her, he would have a surprise: a naked woman in his arms. That should make him pause that instant necessary to allow her to make a deadly stroke with her second knife.

  He sideswiped her, but was already countering her move. He caught her right arm, yanked her off-balance, and used a foot to sweep her ankles out from under her. She realized she was up against a trained hand-to-hand fighter. This was mischief indeed.

  She had not even hit the deck before she swung hard with her left hand, trying to knife him before he knew. It was her only chance.

  But he caught that hand, somehow knowing, and clasped it with his strong fingers, seeking leverage on the knife. They landed on the deck, torso to torso. She inhaled, trying to make sure he picked up on her gender now, while their hands wrestled. If she could free that hand even a moment—

  His finger fell across the stump of her little finger. “Spirit!” he whispered.

  She froze. Then she placed the voice. “Hope!”

  “I got your message. EMPTY HAND. Where’s Brinker?”

  Then it was his turn to freeze, for the captain had come upon him silently during the struggle. Spirit knew Brinker’s knife was touching his flesh—and he could not get away, being entangled with Spirit. “What is your offer, Captain?”

  “Life for life,” Brinker said. “Yours for mine.”

  “Agreed.” Thus simply the two had bargained and made the deal. Hope kissed Spirit, giving her a two-second taste of heaven, then disengaged and got to his feet, addressing the captain in the darkness. “You can take your lifeboat out, as I did before.”

  “Yes. I know you are a man of honor, Hubris.”

  “Spirit,” he said. “Go get dressed, then stay clear while we deal.”

  They had already dealt! But Spirit didn’t argue. She returned to the cabin and donned her clothing, becoming Sancho. It was only a moment.

  They were still talking in whispers as she returned. “Company,” she murmured. She meant that another person was approaching from the far side.

  “We’re done here,” he said. He raised his voice. “Navy in charge here. Is the ship secure?”

  “Secure, Sergeant,” one of his men agreed from the control room.

  “Losses?”

  “One, inside. No report from outside.”

  They had taken the ship with only one loss! This had indeed been a polished mission.

  They went to the lifeboat in single file, Hope, Brinker, and Spirit. “You knew!” Spirit said.

  “Kife informed me,” the captain agreed. “I planned to capture the ship and ransom him back to the Navy, letting you go with him. But he outmaneuvered me.”

  So Brinker hadn’t tried to have Hope and Spirit kill each other, though it would not have bothered her unduly if that had happened. Spirit suppressed a surge of anger. The captain had remained within the letter of their understanding, but hardly the spirit.

  Brinker entered the lifeboat. “Perhaps we shall deal again, Hubris,” she said.

  “Perhaps,” Hope agreed noncommittally. He was no better pleased with the captain’s ploy than Spirit was; she felt the controlled anger in him.

  The hatch closed. Hope found Spirit again, this time embracing and kissing her like a long-lost lover. Indeed, she was all of that, in her heart. They had so much to catch up on!

  “You are going to join the Navy,” he told her.

  “Of course,” she agreed, as if there had never been any question. Because he was already there.

  The power returned. They separated in body, but not in soul.

  CHAPTER 7

  GERALD

  The next two years were quite busy, but in terms of Spirit’s life represented a necessary interstice. She entered the Jupiter Navy’s basic training; Jupiter citizenship was not necessary for this, and indeed it was a route many immigrants took to facilitate citizenship. Hope entered officer school at the same time, and about the time he made O1, she entered officer school herself. Training was tough on both levels, but she had little trouble with either, because her soul had been hardened as a refugee and her mind and body had been trained aboard the pirate ship. The requirement to patronize the Tail did not bother her either; she was long accustomed to weekly sex with indifferent men.

  Actually she had come to know the men of The Hidden Flower quite well, and had prevailed on Hope to arrange for lenient treatment for the survivors: one year’s imprisonment followed by service in the Jupiter Foreign Legion, where they could earn immunity from further puni
shment if they merited it. Bruiser, by special dispensation, was allowed to enlist in the Navy, provided he kept his nose clean. She made it a point to meet him once in the Tail, just for old times’ sake.

  “God, kid,” he said when he recognized her. “I love you.”

  She knew it. “You saved my life; I gave you back yours. We won’t meet this way again; I’m going to officer’s school. But I do care for you in my fashion.”

  “I love you,” he repeated as he climaxed in her. She knew she had given him a gift that he would cherish indefinitely. Not the sex, for that was always available in the Navy, but the contact. He did love her, knowing they would never have a social relationship.