Andrew J. Offutt - Spaceways 19 - King of the Slavers

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The Call of Duty The aristocratic Lady Seerava was going home to her native
planet of Suzi. The Sham-banafest, marking the thirtieth decade since the
founding of the Sariks and two allied families, would last for weeks. Every
wealthy young man would receive points based on the number of older women he
had made love to. Seerava intended to let no young man be disappointed. She
would try to help them all to win. Were there extra points for doubles with
the same woman?.. SPACEWAYS #1 OF ALIEN BONDAGE #2 CORUNDUM'S WOMAN #3
ESCAPE FROM MACHO #4 SATANA ENSLAVED #5 MASTER OF MISFIT #6 PURRFECT
PLUNDER #7 THE MANHUNTRESS #8 UNDER TWIN SUNS #9 IN QUEST OF QALARA #10
THE YOKE OF SHEN #11 THE ICEWORLD CONNECTION #12 STAR SLAVER #13 JONUTA
RISING! #14 ASSIGNMENT: HELLHOLE #15 STARSHIP SAPPHIRE #16 THE PLANET
MURDERER #17 THE CARNADYNE HORDE #18 RACE ACROSS THE STARS #19 KING OF
THE SLAVERS BERKLEY BOOKS, NEW YORK The poem Scarlet Hills copyright (c)
1982 by Ann Morris; used by permission of the author. SPACEWAYS #19: KING OF
THE SLAVERS A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the
author PRINTING HISTORY Berkley edition / January 1985 All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 1985 by John Cleve. Cover illustration by Ken Barr. This book
may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means,
without permission. For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group, 200
Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016. ISBN: 0-125-07134-0 A BERKLEY BOOK
(r) TM 757,375 The name "BERKLEY" and the stylized "B" with design are
trademarks belonging to Berkley Publishing Corporation. PRINTED IN THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA for Jape Cleve and another
quarter-century SCARLETHILLS Alas, fair ones, my time has come. I must
depart your lovely home- Seek the bounds of this galaxy To find what lies
beyond. (chorus) Scarlet hills and amber skies, Gentlebeings with loving
eyes; All these I leave to search for a dream That will cure the wand'rer in
me. You say it must be glamorous For those who travel out through space. You
know not the dark, endless night Nor the solitude we face. (reprise
chorus) I know not of my journey's end Nor the time nor toll it will have me
spend. But I must see what I've never seen And know what I've never
known. Scarlet hills and amber skies, Gentlebeings with loving eyes; All
these I leave to search for a dream That will cure the wand'rer in me. -Ann
Morris Let us each forsake every other kind of knowledge and seek one thing
only ... to learn and discern between good and evil. -Plato, The
Republic Prologue She wore black. It was a jumpsuit, black, and it looked
sprayed on. The sinister night-gleam of it was relieved only by her skin, at
face and neck and bosom. Her hands were sheathed in filament-thin gloves of
black. They looked painted on, as the jumpsuit did. It caught highlights where
the form inside rounded it out, seeming to strain it. At the upper back, and
over the buttocks, and at the calves, which were unusually prominent. It
showed a lot of skin in front, skin that was pale and looked almost white in
its shocking contrast to the black fabric. The suit was cut down the front not
in a V, but in a U, a huge capital U. Partway down were the curves of her
breasts, bare inside the jumpsuit and within its cleavage, and they were firm
unto hardness, those breasts. Warheads, the currently-in slang called
them. Her skin was pale and her hair was more pale than that and her eyes,
too, a silvery gray with only the ghost of a hint of sky-blue. Her name was
Janja, and she was black and white. Mix those, and the result was gray. Janja
was gray, and she was with The Gray Organization. Actually the super-policers,
the war-preventers, the super-spooks were named TransGalactic Order. That
yielded the initials TGO, and they in turn yielded the 1 2 sobriquet-the
nickname, in plainer terms-The Gray Organization. Aristotle had written that
black represented evil and white represented good and that the two could not
mix. The result, Aristoteles of Athenos wrote, was gray: good and bad, neither
bad nor good, both bad and good. And that, the philosopher-scholar wrote, was
impossible. Good and evil could not at one and the same time exist in the same
entity, Aristotle said. White and black could not coexist; gray was
impossible. (In that, Aristotle was dead wrong. TGO existed, and so did Janja,
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in black and white.) She was from a planet called barbaric, and the planet was
a gentle idyll of lovers where war was unknown. She was from a planet called
Protected and she had been stolen off that world, all unprotected, as a slave.
She had never known violence on that "barbaric" world, and she hated it-and in
time she slew her masters (her owners)-and sliced away their manly attributes
as trophies. She abhorred violence and lawlessness and, back on her own planet
before her capture and use, had been saving herself for marriage; and she
became mistress of a pirate, a space pirate all in black. She wore a weapon
and she had used it. She was of Aglaya where men and women, girls and boys
were Lifemated, and she believed in that, and she had been sex-slave of her
masters on planet Resh-and had killed them-and on planet Knor (she killed
them, too, in order to escape) and lover to a woman named Hellfire and a
non-human named Cinnabar and now a man . . . a man who bore five names (that
she knew about), one of which was Rat. She despised the race that had enslaved
her. Them, the Thingmakers, and she had joined them. She abhorred killing and
had killed two of those men who had stolen her away to slavery to begin with.
One, the one 3 named Jonuta of Qalara, she had killed twice. (And the
anti-Aristotelean contradictions continued: Jonuta was alive.) She was Janja
and she was gray. She moved with the ease and grace of the shadow of a soaring
bird, or of a cat. She did not swagger. Instead she glided, using muscles
developed on a planet whose sun was legend and whose gravity was not. It was
high, that gravity. It created short people, strong people, strong-legged
people of strong will. She was Janja, gray in black, and she was a hunter, a
prowling hunter among the Thingmakers. She had become one of their guardians,
their police. Only she knew that she was an alien among Them, a true
alien. Oh, she resembled their dark race, except only in pigmentation. It was
her mind that was different. In the mind, she was not human, not what They
called "Galactic." She was more than that; more than Galactic and thus a pace
beyond human. In her mind and because of her mind, she was an alien among
Them. Stolen from her own world and her own kind-her very life-and trained
only as slave and pirate and mistress, she refused to be any of those. And so
she was with TGO, because she had to do and to be, and she could not return to
Aglaya. Not with all the knowledge she had from Them. Native planetary
populations should be allowed to develop in their own way at their own pace,
the Galactic Accords said, and TGO enforced the Accords. She was Janja, and
she was gray, and she was a cop. With The Gray Organization. She was working.
Right now she was on a mission for TGO. White of hair and "white" of skin and
sheathed 4 in black, she functioned grayly for The Gray Organization. In the
dark, dark gray night. She was also being pursued. A slender belt angled
rakishly across her hip and almost nonexistent belly. Four slim strips of
leather-imitating black plastifabric called equhyde were braided together into
the slim belt buckled with shining mother-of-pearl. From the belt hung a
holster. Slim, straight, and narrow; a holster designed for a form of sidearm
called a stopper. Her holster was empty. She was working and her stopper was
in her black-gloved hand. Merely a squeeze-actuated black cylinder in a
slim-fingered fist that did not squeeze. She was also running as hard as she
could. That was hard indeed, propelled by those churning tensing muscular legs
developed on her high-G planet, and it was fast. City buildings fled past the
fleeing Janja, in the night. Aglaya's gravity was one-and-a-third-standard;
this world's was only three-quarters-standard. This planet was called
Franji., She ran fast and silently on Franji, on heels and soles of extruded
prostyrene that was like rubber crepe and, made to TGO specs, was a lot
better. She ran without looking back. That was part of her training. To look
back while fleeing accomplished nothing, she had been taught. It did tend to
slow one down and increase risks both known and unknown. Looking back to
assess danger while running was natural to the human species and to the
Aglayan species so much like it. A better model was the cat. Members of that
species did not trouble even to glance toward the sudden noise or menacing
smell that set their legs moving. They merely sprinted, at speed and without
looking back, until they 5 knew they had taken themselves well away from the
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source of the noise or the odor-the catalyst to their running. Then and only
then did a feline pause to look back-pause, while poised to fight or to sprint
on. Janja ran, stopper in hand, silently along a silent street. Since she made
no sound with her feet and only a little with her breathing, she heard clearly
the slapping feet behind her, the steps of her pursuer. She rounded the corner
of a building of the same material as the soles and heels of her boots, and
charged across a plaza and down thirty plascrete steps with a blurry churning
of her black-sheathed legs, and around a neon-lit fountain all beautiful in
six colors and eight hues, and past the menacing uniformed policer she knew
was only a holoprojection designed to frighten potential lawbreakers (who knew
of it and laughed and strove to perform obscene acts on the projection) and up
thirty broad imitation marble steps, and around a corner again- In near
darkness, she stopped almost as swiftly as if she had run into an invisible
wall. She hadn't. She was fast, and she could stop fast, too. Gray Janja of
far Aglaya. She waited, staring, holster empty and stopper in hand, up and
ready. Poised. Footsteps clomped unevenly down the last of the steps,
slap-slapped across Fountain Plaza, and came less rapidly up the steps she had
taken with such ease. She heard those feet reach the top. The man who had been
chasing her came hard-breathing, a man desperate to overtake her because she
was intensely dangerous to him and his career. Winded from the steps he
skidded around the same corner she had rounded, with his legs moving almost in
the manner of a cartoon figure. Treading air while he turned, gun in 6 hand.
His hair was the blue that was fashionable on Franji and his conservative
clothing was expensive. He saw her for something on the order of an instant
before Janja said: "Hi. Chasing me here where we're alone is your second
mistake, demagogue." And she squeezed the grip of her cylindrical weapon. He
fell down unconscious. She did after all abhor violence and most of all
killing and would not set her stopper on its killer setting, its number Three
setting. She had set the modified outworlder stopper on Two. That sonic attack
rendered the "victim" quite unconscious, almost in an instant. The man who had
been lured into following her until she tired him and trapped him, a handsome
man and magnetic-charismatic, fell down like a bundle of laundry and lay just
as forlornly. Janja holstered her stopper. She stepped past him to look both
ways. No one followed them. She squatted, there in the alley off a street of
Marucan on a planet named Franji, and proceeded to strip the unconscious man
until he was entirely naked. His clothes she took. His incriminating weapon
she left in his hand. She touched the stud of his own beeper, knowing it would
alert newspeople. They would come at the rush, because he was who he was, and
more importantly what he was. The Marucan policers were coming now, noisily.
Janja, taking his clothing even unto his boots and chronometer though not his
government-issue beeper, disappeared. Disappeared by running silently up the
dark alley. What she had done to him was, for a man of his sort (a doubly,
hyper-male male of much pride and power and swagger), a fate worse than death.
She had lured 7 and embarrassed and demeaned him. She had assured that he
would become known as a butt. The newspeo-ple, already on their way, would see
to that. Pictures would be taken. Telecommentators would grin, perhaps giggle.
He would be a butt, a joke. Oddly, that would benefit the people of his
world. Within twenty-one minutes Janja was offplanet. Within an hour she was
in space. She had successfully completed her first solo mission for
TransGalactic Order. Grayly. Doing good by doing bad. It took a while-until
the next election-but that ended the career of Senator Takiman of Franji, who
had been so stupid as to make a promise of loyalty to TGO and accept its funds
and then, in the arrogance of high office, fail to keep it. His wife left him,
too. Worse, so did his mistress. 1 Biologically, the question is: Can the
human brain gain control over inherited impulses that were appropriate for
prehistoric man but are inappropriate in the twentieth century? -Harvey
Milkman and Stanley Sunderwirth, in Psychology Today, October 1983 Manjanungo
and Sibanda met on the gigantic wheel of a spaceship docking station that
orbited the planet Qal-ara. The meeting was a fortuitous one, and pure
serendipity. Once three princes from a place called Serendip went off in
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search of a lost lady. Each struggled and squeaked through various adventures
and wound up with something of value entirely different from what he had been
seeking. The word serendipity was born. It applied to Dr. Alex Fleming's
accidental discovery of penicillin, when he was looking for something else
altogether (since a broad-spectrum killer of bacterial infection was obviously
impossible). Serendipity applied to a million other fortuitous accidents. It
applied to the meeting of spacer captains Sibanda and Manjanungo in the busy,
ever-noisy lounge on Qal-arastation. Both ship's masters had business on the
planet below; business involving this or that matter of 9 cargo, replacement
part, and supplies for their galaxy-spanning ships. Both were awaiting the
return of their agents, down on Qalara, and for the moment had little to
do. The very striking Manjanungo soon learned that the underclad woman was not
just another pretty face and desirable, well-displayed form. Her color was a
golden tan: skin, hair, and eyes. A jewel-flashing jerkin over nothing but
skin and a pair of low-on-the-hips pants, snug and white and arabesqued in
gold, left bare her nicely tucked-in waist and a navel around which had been
painted a starburst, in Bonestell blue. She affected arabesquery-traced gloves
to the elbow, snug-as-skin and of a perfect blue that matched her longish
vest. A single pair of golden frogs and a single taut, royal blue lacing
prevented it from showing more than half of her very round breasts. This was
Captain Sibanda of spaceship Serendip. In her turn she soon learned that this
Manjanungo was more than the oddly-attired, foppish, and imperious dandy he
appeared. As a matter of fact she had heard of Manjanungo of Jorinne. He
affected long hair drawn straight back into a queue and held by a scarlet bow.
His long coat of shining black taffetas-a wrinkle-free synthefabric, of
course-imitated the attire of a more than ancient sea captain of Espanya. With
his own modifications: the coat was long and belted, and skin-hugging black
pants or tights disappeared into equally black jackboots. The fancily-tooled
ball-and-cap pistole tucked into his wide belt was surely a replica-surely a
stopper, the common weapon of the spaceways, was concealed in the ridiculously
primitive and inefficient handgun. Not tall and not unhandsome, this was
Captain Manjanungo of 10 spacer Starwolf and other names. Sibanda and
Manjanungo discovered that they were in the same business. In a privatized
booth, they talked. Just how it came about is neither here nor there; suffice
it to say that the two struck a bargain. It involved their mutual business,
which was piracy, and a certain huge luxury spaceliner well advertised as
being well-armed. The liner was called Starqueen and its master was Captain
Trinn Yosef. The finest prize in space, Starqueen-and any pirate would have to
be a fobbin' fool to tangle with the liner with its new armaments and capable
master. Two pirates, however, met serendipitously and made such plans. One
possessed Starqueen's precise voyage plan, and Manjanungo agreed that in
exchange she would receive 60 per cent of the proceeds of their joint
venture. The rendezvous with Captain Lortice would keep, Manjanungo thought,
his gleaming sable taffetas rustling as he strode back to his ship's docking
berth. He was a deeply tan man of absolutely normal height and weight, neither
ugly nor handsome. He walked, however, like a king. Some people gave him
stares, but somehow none remained in his way. A man perhaps to be scorned or
pointed out with smiles behind his back, but not to be crossed. So it is the
second-largest and best-armed liner along the spaceway, he mused. / hardly
have time to await something small and safe. And once we have Starqueen
awallow in space, we shall see who receives sixty per cent of nothing and who
takes all! He was met at Starwolfs inner airlock by a quiet beauty, unrelaxed
of face and very erect in her tighter-than-skin one-piece skinnTite of
gleaming white. It 11 flaunted her waist, which was corseted, surely
painfully, to an unbelievably tiny 43 sems.* A stern woman, respected by the
several female creatures Captain Man-janungo kept onboard for his amusement.
They were not called women; this one was. "My Lord," she said quietly but with
clear enunciation, with her head deferentially bowed as he required. (Once one
of his girls, in the throes of passion in her lordly captain's lordly bed, had
quite forgotten herself and called him by name. She had spent the next 25
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hours painfully bound in a standing position: elbows snugged quite together
behind her back, her offending mouth stuff-gagged with expandafoam so that her
jaws creaked. And she was plugged both fore and aft. Man-janungo had intended
the punishment as a lesson, and as her shoulders and calves first told her
they were dying and then went into a fearsome chill numbness, she learned. Now
she was chief of girls, and she stood before him. Never mind her name; now she
was called Intaglio. And no one on Starwolf called its master other than
"Captain" or "my lord.") "Kenyo?" he queried, striding past her. He had used
the commlink concealed in a button of his coat's sleeve to order contact made
with his lieutenant. "Javad began comm-seeking him at once,
Captain." Manjanungo nodded shortly, striding to his ship's con-cabin, which
he liked to call the bridge. There he found Javad, one of the two Joser
jailbirds he had taken on as crew, waiting. The link was made, with Kenyo.
Manjanungo snatched the commlink and gave his instructions quickly. The moment
he had Kenyo's very-long distance and succinct "Firm," Manjanungo passed * 43
centimeters: 17 inches, Old Style 12 the commlink to Javad and took up the
inship unit. "As soon as Jenk comes up from onplanet," he announced to all
onboard, "we clear and redshift. We have a most important mission in concert
with another captain, and we will be boosting. You brats had better ease each
other's corsets and strap down. Topaz: to my cabin. Intaglio, see to our
guest. Ah-shipdoc will be a nice safe place for her! See to it!" Elsewhere on
the ship, the girl whose hair he had caused to be dyed yellow and then named
her for its hue disengaged herself from another girl and hurried without
reluctance toward the master's cabin. While Intaglio was covered chin to toes
and past the wristbones in refulgent white, Topaz wore only the corset
Man-janungo mandated. It proffered her breasts without covering them above a
full, semi-transparent swish-skirt of pale cream yellow. Quite short and
propped on tall slim heels, she nevertheless walked rapidly and with ease.
Intaglio had trained her well. Topaz had no desire to spend further hours
stuff-gagged and with her elbows touching, behind her back. Alone in the
captain's carpeted and wall-hung cabin, she prepared a drink and inserted a
redjoy stick in his holder before she took up her pose of awaiting her lord.
On her knees. A considerable time later and a long way from Qalara, the two
pirate captains had arrived at their widely separated rendezvous points and
made commlink. Hanging like tiny ornaments in the eternal twilight of space
here near the center of the Galaxy's tightening spiral, they made more
specific plans and oversaw shipboard preparations. And then both their
SIPACUMs reported the approach of a third spacecraft. 13 "Give me a plot,"
Manjanungo said, while Sibanda said or keyed in a similar command to the
Ship's Inboard Processing And Computing Unit (Modular) over on her
Serendip. SIPACUM obligingly brought up the simulation on its main screen: the
twin dots that were Serendip and Starwolf- lately Ruy Diaz, in the Great
Five-Year Race. Less than a hundred thousand kilometers away bulked the big
mass of Starqueen-a ship twice the size of either of the two lurking in
wait. "Closer to you," Manjanungo said. "Want to move back five degrees off
opposite, and when you're in position I'll move in from here?" "Firm,"
Sibanda's voice crackled into his con-cabin. "Actuating scrambler." "Scrambler
actuated here." "And here. To our mutual good fortune then,
Captain!" "Indeed," Manjanungo said, and his lacy white shirt-cuffs flashed
against the black of his coat as he off-commed. He and a silent Intaglio
watched Tigress move away on the simulation screen. Javad and Jenk were at
their DS posts, standing by Defense Systemry that, not unusually, would
shortly be employed in an aggressively non-defensive role. Topaz, having
displeased, would ride out the operation in the master's cabin, strapped to
the ring-equipped wall. Manjanungo of Jorinne was smiling. What Sibanda of
Serendip did not know was that Kenyo-the former Manhar Uls-was on his way at
speed in the excellent spacer he had stolen from his former employer,
CongCorp. Three ships would be even better against Starqueen than two ... and
after 14 that, Manjanungo mused, his eyebrows coolly lifted, after that,
two-to-one odds will change Captain Si-banda's notions about splitting the
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take! Captain Trinn Yosef of Archducal Lines' Starqueen had been delayed
nearly a week, thanks to an overbooking snarl that had left several would-be
passengers stranded on Ghanj. Some of them vowed personal vengeance. The
nobles promised lawsuits and pressure. On top of that came delays because the
thrice-be-damned ministell-pinching Ghanjis had taken half an eternity to
repair a beacon-which had not one damned thing to do with Starqueen's
departure lane anyhow. What called Captain Yosef, as he watched passengers and
crew devour groceries, was that any ne'er-do-well stepson of a noble Ghanji
lordling's younger brother would walk away from more small change than the
beacon repairs would have cost. Now it would come out of Saf Yosef's share. At
last came the day and the hour: "SIPACUM loaded," the mate
advised. "Ready?" The chief steward's haggard face appeared on the display. "I
think so, sir." And the face instantly disappeared. The "jump into subspace"
(conversion of Starqueen and everything and everyone on it to tachyons in
order to race out past the stars at a velocity faster than that of light
itself) was the usual bitch. It was violently disorienting even for an
experienced spacefarer. As usual, the identity problems of some passengers
demanded that they demand to be on their unrestrained feet. Beautiful. When
they ended up bleeding and vomiting from double bank shots off this or that
(bulkheads/walls/seats/the bar/other passengers/etc), machismo invariably
trans- 15 lated into whiplash and a "You should have forced us" attitude.
Stewards stayed busy. Yosef could sympathize with the poor dogs of stewards.
On the other hand, he had problems of his own. Stewards had been racing about
the ship for over two hours, buttoning down passengers and coaxing those who
resisted. The ancient offer of "free drink" helped in some cases. In others, a
steward provided the final solution: a discreetly administered shot right
through the passenger's clothing, to supplement the whopping load of tranq
already packed into the "midday" meal. "Here goes," Captain Yosef said. Before
SIPACUM could initiate the jump this time, the hull of Starqueen resounded
with a faint yet ringing clang and six several meters and telits went
wild. "Abort," SIPACUM said. "Evaluating damage from missile." "What?" the
mate sounded as if he'd been goosed. "Oh Lady Booda's bleeding cervix!" Trinn
Yosef moaned. "Another flaining pi-rat! Why can't TGW spread a little flea
powder?" He flicked on the inship comm. "Report!" Starqueen's Defense
Systemry, which was strictly that, could baste, fry, and bake any ship in the
Galaxy. As a matter of course SIPACUM had long since advised that two small
craft-presumably pilot boats or private yachts, maybe lost miners-were in the
neighborhood; i.e., within a hundred thousand kloms of the liner.* It
certainly had not occurred to Trinn Yosef that either or both might be in the
area by design. Or that one or both might presume to annoy him! After all,
Starqueen's DS fitting had been well publicized and as usual the media had
fallen for the glamor and given the Line and the * 100,000 kilometers: about
60,000 miles, Old Style 16 ship billions in free advertising. Superior
weaponry was supposed to be a deterrent, wasn't it? Well, Trinn thought
grimly, so is execution . . . "Forward cargo section holed," SIPACUM reported
blandly. "Conversion delayed until hull integrity is restored. Is return fire
desired?" "You're sure it wasn't a mistake?" Captain Yosef asked. The signal
was so close that the comm blasted it out at a volume that drowned SIPACUM's
reply and threatened eardrums. "Starqueen! Prepare to be boarded." "Hmp!
That's what I call a-" "Never mind," Trinn Yosef snapped. "Give the bastard a
direct answer. And when you fire, hold the beam an extra half-sec. Melt the
sisterslicer into a solid globule we can haul along as a trophy!" If he
swatted one fly hard enough maybe the other would go away and let him get on
with his business of hitting the Tachyon Trail. He still hoped to pick up one
of those lost days, at least. With the unipolymer plasteel and cyprium of its
hull sublimated away, the metal of that audacious bastard out there might
almost pay for the hole it had shot in him. The hole that was self-healing
right now. The con-cabin was quiet. Lights dimmed momentarily as one of the
many arms of SIPACUM main drew energy from the ship's drive, stored it in
enormous capacitors, and released a bolt sizzlingly powerful enough to rock a
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moon. An instant later Captain Yosef's straight, short-cropped hair stood on
end. The con-cabin's air crackled with ionization. Coronas formed on the ends
and sharp corners of every object. "Musla's . . . balls!" the mate gasped, and
it was the first time Yosef had ever heard him shaken. 17 Yosef was
astonished, if not shaken. He had hardly expected a yacht (which SIPACUM
clearly showed was the attacker) to be equipped with energy weapons. Usually
the pleasure-craft used drives not large enough to charge the devices. He had
a sudden deep-stomach feeling of having erred. "I.D.!" he demanded. "If you
are a duly constituted policer ship, ID yourself immediately. We are a
passenger liner-and loaded with passengers!" His hair lifted again as another
bolt hit Starqueen. "Damage sustained in peripheral DS," SIPACUM unemotionally
reported. Captain Yosef slammed a fist onto the console with force enough to
make needles waver. "Don't waste time! Blow the bloody bastards away!" He
still could not believe that his magnificent liner was in any real danger. It
was just that repairs were expensive and they always came out of his share.
Still, just to make sure, he decided to call battle stations. The crew were
not really combat types but they'd had some training. They could even handle
swivel pods if SIPACUM should be disabled and it came down to the
primitive. "Third ship approaching," SIPACUM dispassionately advised, and
routinely put up a display onscreen. Trinn Yosef gritted his teeth. If the
piratical swine were going to keep popping up like breeding rabbits this could
get serious. He worked to keep his voice at a level command tone: "Override,"
he said. "Forget about hull integrity. Convert!" "Hull breached in four
places. Coriolis strains during conversion to tachyon and ftl movement allow a
survival probability of .0001." "Cap-tainn-" a voice said, on a rising note
and starting to quaver. 18 Yosef was stuck. He would have to fight it out
with this veritable swarm of pirate scum. "Give it your best shot," he said,
"and call ship's company to battle stations." Sirens began whooping. An
instant later the ship shuddered, and the wailing sound began dying. SIPACUM
was crippled! "Suit up! Suits, suits! We may have to repel boarders!" "Red
Rover," the outship comm said in the pirate's voice, as if on cue: the usual
code for "We're coming over"-meaning to board. A new voice intruded, close to
hand. "Captain: I am the Viscount Sirandary. I must demand that we surrender
the ship, lest we sustain more hits-Captain, we can all be killed!" Yosef
swung around in the master's chair to face this unauthorized newcomer in his
con-cabin. "They don't want to kill us, they want to rob us. No pirate is
going to blow away a-" "Captain Yosef I insist!" "Red Rover, Starqueen," that
other voice came. "Stand by to receive us. Want one across the drive
intakes?" "Get this . . . person out of my con-cabin!" Trinn Yosef snapped in
one direction, and in another: "Listen, pirate, we can blow you away and you
know it!" "Why don't yer ask your passengers, Captain. Think all those
richies'd rather die, or let us come onboard and take a few well-insured
baubles?" Behind Yosef as he started to reply, someone yelled. A moment later
a cool pressure against his neck made the captain turn, carefully, to face his
mate. "Sorry, Captain. Someone's got to do something sensible, and it isn't
sensible to try to bluff it out or fight 19 with three well-armed attackers.
Your pride is in command, sir, and it's endangering us all." " You
rotten-" Captain Yosef started moving, getting up, turning toward his
stopper-wielding mate, reaching for his own sidearm tucked into the pocket of
the master's chair -and receiving a number Two holt from his mate's stopper
that set him all ajiggle and kept him that way. "Open outer airlocks to
boarders," Starqueen's mate said, to crew and SIPACUM alike. One or the other
had to be functioning. Trinn Yosef no longer could. And to the outship comm:
"Arvaga here, in charge. Red Rover." "What the Santa Maria Mahal is that
about?" Man-janungo demanded of his own outship comm, the one linked with both
Kenyo's Gelor and Sibanda's Serendip. "Who's Arvaga? Is that a code?" "Arvaga
is my person onboard Starqueen," Sibanda advised in an equable tone worthy of
a computer. "The liner is ours. Shall we board together, partner?" Manjanungo
stared at the commlink. "Your p-you have a person on-you've had a spy on that
liner all along?" "Pos, Captain. I had a spy onboard that you didn't know
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about, and you had another ship that I didn 't know about. Looks as if we both
sort of lied by omission, hmmm ? Honesty among thieves, where art thou, hmmm?
Shall we board together? I'd say we're even now." "Even?" Manjanungo smiled.
"I have two ships, Captain, and you are one. My other ship's DS isn't trained
on Starqueen, Sibanda-but on you. What is even?" "I had better give you the
opportunity to reconsider, 20 Captain Manjanungo. My employer outranks you.
You might call him . . . admiral." Manjanungo could not keep out of his voice
the fact that he was rattled. "Wha-at? Employer?" "Pos, Captain. I know that
you are working at collecting a fleet, and will doubtless soon be calling
yourself admiral. No one begrudges you that. . . so long as you tangle only
with victims and such minor forces as TAIandTGW... . " What kind
of-Manjanungo's mouth was open. TAI was a minor force, sure. But TGW! Abruptly
it wasn't that he had opened his mouth; it acted for itself. It was agape. He
closed it with a conscious effort. Swallowed. Licked his lips, with a glance
at the wounded Starqueen on his screen. Before he could comment or ask the
obvious question, Captain Sibanda answered it. "My employer, and Arvaga's, is
Ramesh Jageshwar. We really mean you neither harm nor ill will, Manjanungo.
Just please don't cross Ramesh Jageshwar. You just aren 't
ready." "Shit." That third voice was Kenyo, on the private commlink to his
ship, stolen from CongCorp and named so as to embarrass the company-after the
man who had showed CongCorp up as a bunch of murderers.* Manjanungo snapped a
glance at that commbox, then back at the one from which came Sibanda's
voice. Santa Maria and Lady Vike, is it possible? I've been hearing about this
Ramesh Jageshwar for years. "King of the Slavers," they call him. A legendary
figure . . . but not a legend? Is he real, truly real? If he is, he is the
most powerful of us all-though hardly so powerful as In SPACEWAYS #16, The
Planet Murderer 21 to make TGW "minor," as she brags. She may also be lying,
of course. Damn! Do I dare risk it? Ramesh Jageshwar! Manjanungo had to make a
decision, and he did not like making it. He made it. It cost; oh how it cost,
in terms of his vaunting ego! "Kenyo. Captain Sibanda of Serendip is our
valued ally. Do be sure that you have not so much as a stopper aimed at her."
As he spoke, Manjanungo half-rose to depress a button on his console, locking
his own ship's DS here at the con. "Jenk? Javad? You heard?" The dull "Aye
Captain" came from two comm-boxes in three voices. The fourth voice was
female, and it carried no sound of triumph. "Captain?" Sibanda said. "Shall we
board together, Manjanungo and Sibanda?" She wasn't even going to rub it in
with a "Wise of you" or a sarcastic "Thank you," Manjanungo thought. A real
professiona-sweet Lady V! She must really be what she says!
Ramesh-name-of-Hell-Jageshwar! Manjanungo did not want to board that liner.
Not now. Not with her, and not with her spy on it. Not with her and her "corps
of cybers." Yet, assuming that she was sincere about sharing-he just couldn't
let her go onto Starqueen alone. He had to be with them! He swallowed, and
swallowed again, and seized control of his voice. "Captain Sibanda," the
pirate Manjanungo said; "partner. My trusted Captain Kenyo will bring his
eminently maneuverable Gelor in close, and board with yer.
Kenyo?" "Shit." 2 It must have been three real days now that she had been a
prisoner. Nine times the tiny hatch had opened in the door of the too-small
cabin. Each time an orange hand with two thumbs had pushed through two trays
of food. Seera never knew which of the Jarps that hand belonged to-Vampy, or
Serendip, or Vermillion. Although each of those perfectly round-eyed,
point-chinned, orange-skinned, and oddly sweet-faced bisexual aliens had had
carnal knowledge of her, Seera could still not distinguish among them. At
first she had wondered: What was Karmal Pak up to? Now she knew the answer to
her own question: Mutiny, that's what! I'm kidnapped by my own crew and a
prisoner on my own space-yacht! If the handsome rascal wanted a ship, why
hadn't the dear boy just asked her on that tender, tender night when he could
have asked anything? It took Seera a moment to realize the answer. Because she
was the Lady Seerava and he was her hired help, her ship's steward. The reason
he had not asked for a ship was that he knew she would say no. What he had
done instead was worse than outrageous. Of course she knew that Karmal Pak
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could not 22 23 have seized the ship alone. Captain Lortice had to be in on
it. Probably in charge. And the ship's mate? No. She did not believe that
Najendra could be involved in mutiny and spaceship seizure and kidnap. (On the
other hand, Seera had thought better of the captain, too. She had to-she had
hired him. And Karmal Pak! And they had all treated her so shabbily.) Mutiny!
Kidnapped on her own fine spacegoing yacht by her own chosen crew. Ah God, it
was all so unjust! Spaceyacht Lewuvul was hers. Well . . . technically, the
ship, larger than many liners, belonged to the Clan Sondelayne. So? Few in all
the Galaxy were richer than the clans of planet Jorinne. Only two of those
were richer than the house of Sondelayne. Even this superbly constructed and
equipped yacht with its sumptuous interior was a mere bauble, to Clan
Sondelayne. Such a bauble would hardly be missed by the sprawling clan.
Besides, there was the insurance. Besides, they wanted to get rid of me
anyhow, Seera reminded herself miserably. Lewuvul was hers. She had had it
withdrawn from parking orbit, with her own funds. She had interviewed and
employed the crew. She had refused family help and advice; she'd had enough of
their damned comments and advice. A Most Noble Lady could make her own
decisions, and her own mistakes. Most Noble Lady See-rava had done
both. Captain Lortice, she had been told, had a mind like a computer. She
sought him. What she didn't consider was that puter chips had been known to go
fobby; to go plain bad. Lortice was a handsome Older Man and she admired and
liked the honesty of his grayed hair. How really different of the man, to have
it grayed to match his age, the 24 way the hair of the ancients had done!
Everyone of the Galactic race had dark hair. Both the genes controlling
balding and graying had been brought under control and adjusted centuries ago.
Hair no longer departed heads, prematurely or otherwise, and it no longer
turned gray much less white. Many dyed their hair something other than the
standard browns or black; Seera had worn hers orange, for a while (to the
yammering tune of the usual criticism of That Woman, That Outsider: Seerava
off planet Ghanj). Nearly everyone dyed at least some area of skin, too (often
way down at the cellular level, with skindye or permadye, rather than the
temporary but keep-it-as-long-as-you-want-it sub-skin dye), and lips, and even
eyes. Making something else of the uniformly brown eyes the one race old
Home-world or Urth had produced was simple. Some even dared flaunt blue eyes,
after all these centuries. So-Lortice, and his handsome hair. Despite her
preference for younger males, she had not been averse to the wiry Lortice's
subtle hints that his cabin was suitable for more than a captain's solitary
rest and reflection and gaming. It had proven so, too. He did well in bed,
too. Of course Seera did; Lady Seereasy, some of the more cruel tongue-waggers
had called her back on Jorinne. She hired Lortice. Lortice engaged a ship's
mate. Seera had expected and hoped for another male. Na-jendra, however, was a
competent spacefarer with excellent papers. What really sold Seera on her was
Na-jendra's unattractiveness, her absolutely zero clothes consciousness and
color sense, and her lack of interest in those activities dear to Seera's
heart. Lortice looked upon Najendra solely as ship's mate, not a potential
temporary one, and that was just the way Seera wanted it. 25 Najendra wore her
almost-black hair in a whacked-off-at-the-cheeks cut that did nothing to
enhance her face. She preferred comfortable baggies to the usual skintight
spacefarer's garb. Furthermore she didn't seem to bulge anywhere. Good! Too,
the colors of the short young woman's pants and tunics never matched and
seldom complemented. Green with orange seemed to be her favorite combination.
Enough to twist the eyeballs. For some reason she had caused her irises to be
a very, very pale bluish-gray; washed-out eyes. If there had to be another
female on Lewuvul, Seera could not have sought out a better choice than
Najendra. Accordingly she applauded Lortice's wisdom, and Najendra was taken
on in the softest berth she had ever known. It was Seera's bemused impression
that First Mate Najendra was so ignorant of such matters that she wore
clothing to keep warm and to protect her body from scratches. Not so Karmal
Pak. She had been warned that the steward had done time for smuggling. So?
What were half the members of the Twelve Clans up to? The difference was that
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Jorinne's nobles made the laws to suit themselves. That way, when Clan Caldera
or Jacath or Katara did it, smuggling became astute business practice. (Hardly
the same as that dreadful Manjanungo of the Jacaths, who had secretly headed
an operation that enslaved who knew how many of his fellow Josers of
Jorinne-until the whole slaving ring was uncovered and Manjanungo escaped.* To
become a pirate, no less! How declasse!) Besides, Seerava thought it likely
that what Karmal had been smuggling was that iron bar in his pants. Cheerfully
and charmingly unrepentant, the new stew- * Both Manjanungo and Pak first
appeared in SPACE WAYS #8, Under Twin Suns, which concerns itself with the
Satana Coalition and the slave-ring on Jorinne. 26 ard of Lewuvul adorned his
slim elegant body in shim-mery glow-fabrics that were a bit garish for old
money. Still, after having been arrested on Jorinne's space station Soljer*
and having done time, who could blame the dear boy? On the other hand there
was no excuse for what he had done. Try to give a convicted criminal a chance,
even let him into your bed, and look what came of it! Seerava had been almost
asleep that night. Alone. When the knock came she had naturally expected a
visit of a different sort. This time it was Karmal who entered. Since
Lewuvul's temp control was naturally set to Seera's exact liking, she slept in
the altogether. One never knew who might care to visit, and she was proud of
her well-kept altogether, and she did hate to waste time. Splendid in his
shimmery glow-in-the-darks, Karmal looked down on her nudity. "Please come
with me, Lady Seerava." "So formal! What's wrong with right here, Karmal?" "A
surprise, my lady ..." "Oh. How nice." After three days in space, Seera was
ready for some diversion aside from these little drop-ins of this or that of
Lewuvul's complement. She slipped a peach-and-gold colorswirl negligee around
her altogether and followed the steward down a ship's corridor-"tunnel"-
toward the anomaly: the cargo area. The clans were like that. Always the
streak of practicality. Even a pleasure craft paid its own way, when possible.
Seera and Captain Lortice were hauling a load of multicolored Joser fabrics,
clothing, and a load of * Both Manjanungo and Pak first appeared in SPACEWAYS
#8, Under Twin Suns, which concerns itself with the Satana Coalition and the
slave-ring on Jorinne. 27 concentrate for the smelter on Franji. Had the Lady
Seerava not put her foot down firmly, Lewuvul would also have been messily
surrounded by a "deck load" of external cargo pods. Fine way for a noble lady
to travel, much less appear in a foreign capital! "In here, my lady." She
raised her stare from Karmal's tightly-clad butt to see him step aside with a
polite gesture. With a little smile, Seera went right in, "accidentally"
brushing him, and stepped over the slight threshold of the cabin's emergency
air seal. She stood uncertain in the darkness, idly pinching a nipple through
the silken-thin peignoir while she waited for the steward-her steward-to
switch on the light. Or just lay lustful hands on her, in the darkness. That
was a nicely romantic concept. What other purpose could he have, fetching her
here to this remote section of the ship in the middle of its scheduled
"night?" Karmal Pak had another purpose. Karmal Pak had not reformed, to walk
the path of righteous-but-poor lawfulness. He departed and closed the door
behind him. Against her. That was when the Most Noble Lady Seerava
Sonde-layne, widow of the Lord Hivala Sondelayne, began to suspect that she
had made an error in judgment. First she discovered that her voice did not
actuate the light. Even after she found the switch and could see, Seera could
not get the hatch open. Cargo holds locked from the outside. A glance around
showed her her pet man-mountain snoring on one of the close, narrow chamber's
two narrow bunks. She made her tone imperiously noble. "Wake up there,
Boroboodhi! Open this door for me!" The giant lay inert. Seera approached and
poked at him. She slapped his broad face. No response. With a 28 growing
sense of planned betrayal, she knew that the only man on Lewuvul who was not a
stranger, who had served her husband and stayed on to serve his lady widow ...
had been drugged. Boroboodhi was a peasantish Joser who'd have spent his life
in the gem mines or back-hectares, farming. Instead he had long ago been taken
in, befriended and trained by Seera's husband. Boroboodhi had all but
worshipped the man and extended his fealty to the widow. Juggernaut, Ship's
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摘要：

TheCallofDutyThearistocraticLadySeeravawasgoinghometohernativeplanetofSuzi.TheSham-banafest,markingthethirtiethdecadesincethefoundingoftheSariksandtwoalliedfamilies,wouldlastforweeks.Everywealthyyoungmanwouldreceivepointsbasedonthenumberofolderwomenhehadmadeloveto.Seeravaintendedtoletnoyoungmanbedis...

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