Andrew J. Offutt - Spaceways 12 - Star Slaver

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Slaving was not legal everywhere, but TransGalactic Watch understood the facts

of economic life. As long as the raids were not on member planets or too

blatant, TGW looked the other way. Piracy was different. Since property was

more difficult to obtain than people (who reproduced automatically) TGW took a

dim view of any activity that hindered the legitimate acquisition of wealth.

Trade was sacred. Life was cheap. 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 BERKLEY BOOKS, NEW YORK The poem Scarlet Hills copyright (c)

1982 by Ann Morris; used by permission of the author. SPACEWAYS #12: STAR

SLAVER A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author PRINTING

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: 0-425-06074-8 A BERKLEY BOOK " 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 to

Kelly P. Cast, M.D. A: AH planets are not shown. B: Map is not to scale,

because of the vast distances between stars. SCARLET HILLS 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 One: ZO 1 Three things are necessary for the

effecting of Witchcraft: the devil, a witch, and the Divine permission. -Part

1, Question 12, Malleus Maleficarum: Kramer & Sprenger Candila was bathing in

the river just below Daresslam. Her home took its name from the calm water

just below the big bend in the river, which permitted krill netters to dock

with some relief from swift current. The port was usually sheltered from the

storms that ripped up from the gulf. A half-klom upstream from the cloud of

shrieking birds that hovered, diving for the offal from krill stomping, brush

had been cleared to leave a thirty-meter stretch of bank where some geological

accident had left more sand than mud. Here the Daresslamites bathed. Men

monopolized the tiny beach on Mondays, Wednesdays and, most important for

ritualistic reasons, on Fridays. Women, being (by God's Grace!) of a lesser

nature and more unclean, had the run of the beach on the other four days. This

generosity also allowed them time to do the laundry. Candila Suhay was three

and a half (fourteen and a half-ess) and living proof of an ancient proverb to

the effect that it is extremely difficult for any girl to be ugly at fifteen.

Lucky Candila was also possessed of what was once known as "good

bones." 3 4 Unbound hair was as unthinkable as an uncovered head for any girl

of her advanced years but here, at the village's combined bath and laundry,

she was permitted total nakedness. Because she was here helping her mother

wash clothes. And because (after some stormy midnight sessions at homes a

century ago) the elders had reconvened at the djeme and had acceded to their

wives' demands. Now the guard who sat in the bamboo and rattan tower four days

each week to warn off intruders (and oversee the bathers) was a woman. She was

also too old for more vigorous work. Too, like most Daresslamites, she had a

skinful of boils from their high-iodine diet of krill. Like any Daresslamite

of advanced years, the old woman also suffered from trachoma. Candila's

mother, at twenty-eight, was constantly laving bleary eyes with the river that

had already flushed a continent larger than most inhabited planets. Village

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boys knew the old watchwoman was practically blind. Village girls knew it too.

They were torn between modesty and the need to capture a husband. Waist deep

in the water and with unbound hair like a shawl over the upper half of her

burgeoning pubescence, Candila was a lost cause to the village voyeurs.

Understandably, they persisted anyway. Enduring shrew bites and the myriad

humming, buzzing, stinging bloodsuckers that infested the canebrake around the

beach. Someday maybe Candila would forget . . . straighten up for a moment . .

. stretch. With God's Grace anything was possible. And Candila's skin, by

village standards, was flawless. She bore a few minor scars but only one major

disfigurement. Still, the cavity in the middle of her forehead had been turned

into an asset: the scar made a convenient carrier for the topaz gleam of her

caste mark. The watchwoman was near-blind and the gawkers came so close that

it was impossible to pretend they were not there. Mothers flung gobs of mud at

the tower where the old woman dozed. She dutifully whanged away at her gong.

Disappointed, the village voyeurs scuttled back 5 through the brush. All were

very busy when the imam came sniffing through their customary workplaces. With

no reason to delay or display, girls finished the laundry in record

time. Mother and daughter pairs came from the water and stood for a moment

sunning themselves dry before donning all-encompassing chadors and balancing

bundles of clean clothes on their heads for the stroll home. Most of the

voyeurs had departed. Not all. Candila's mother was feeling her years. They

finished last. Standing on the bank, waiting to dry off, Candila was abruptly

frightened out of her fourteen-and-a-half-year-old wits. Her mother, tired,

bleary-eyed and worn, lay prone. Umm's nostrils were nearly in the water. It

had happened with such suddenness! Umm was twitching and jerking. Candila knew

the signs. She did not like her father but abruptly she knew that like him or

not, from now on all the housework would be hers. Before she had time to

shriek her despair, a stranger appeared. He was not a villager. Not in those

skintight black clothes! Anyway, his eyes were wrong and his skin too

golden-yellow. He was putting something she had never seen before back into a

sheath at his belt. "She'll be all right in a few minutes," he said. His voice

was not villager either. Candila heard a mechanical quality, as if the words

were coming from one of those talking machines the elders reminisced about.

Abruptly she realized that she was naked, displaying her frontal all to this

apparition. She grabbed at her chador, pulling its tentlike shape over her

head as she knelt by her mother. Then abruptly Candila lay twitching too. When

she awoke in a pod, Candila Suhay knew another language. She also knew that

she was no longer in Daresslam. Captain Katushiro, who was barely taller than

Candila, initiated her with brutal swiftness. Sobbing and bleeding, 6 the girl

knew that even if she could go back, there was no longer any place for her

along the river. In spite of this knowledge, that was exactly where she

went. "Wear these," Katushiro said. Candila considered the filmy hareem pants

and twin prass cups. Since she wore nothing at the moment, she put them

on. The cabin was all mirrors. She saw herself from in front, from behind,

from the sides, and from above. Looking down, Candila even saw herself from

the bottom up. Externally, she could see no change. Nevertheless she was

intensely aware of the unique treasure that had been stolen from her. Only

gradually did she become aware of something else. Her scars were gone! She

felt . . . "It's not just the lighter gravity." The slaver was not reading her

thoughts. He had been through this sort of awakening many times. "Your skin

has been cleaned up and you'll never have another of those sores," Katushiro

went on. "You've been wormed and immunized and will live three times as long

as anyone else in your village. You'll look much as you do now until the last

year or two of your life." Candila didn't believe it. But. . . could mirrors

lie? The mirrors of Daresslam had been hand-polished bits of metal and she had

never seen herself with this clarity before. Studying her slim body in

near-transparent hareem pants and twin prass cups, she knew she could outshine

any village belle. "That strange feeling is known as good health. You've

probably never experienced it before." Candila had not. Nor had she ever been

allowed to speak with strange men. This man had just raped her but still she

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did not know what to say. What was she supposed to feel? "You will learn to

thank me," the short man with the narrow eyes said. "But at the moment there's

work to do." 7 Candila Suhay learned to fly a lander. She learned how to get

about without gravity and how to become comfortable with the augmented visual

angles and waldos of a spacesuit. Between lessons Katushiro relieved his

frustrations between her shapely thighs. Candila still did not know what to

think about it all. Nothing in village life had prepared her for this. Village

life had, though, prepared her to submit to a dominant male. She endured his

huffing and grunting and realized that this was what women married for-what

they raised children and husbands and washed and cooked for. To Candila it did

not seem a sufficient reward. Not that it didn't feel nice sometimes . . .

when Katushiro was not too tired and could take his time. But how many years

would she have to put up with it? ' 'You've been wormed and immunized and will

live three times as long as anyone else in your village. You'll look much as

you do now until the last year or two of your life." Candila sighed and

struggled to master the foot controls of the jetboat that Katushiro insisted

she learn to handle. The inflatable craft lay low in the water, virtually

invisible. It was capable of some twenty kloms at best, barely able to stem

the current of the river. The engine was totally silent and it left no

wake. "You go sleep in crew's quarters tonight," he said. Candila had not

really enjoyed Kat's nightly rapings. Still, she was puzzled. Accelerated

learning had taught her some things but she could still not understand a ship.

Nor could she understand men. "So he's found a new one?" The girl in crew's

quarters was taller than Candila. She wore the usual skintight spacefarer's

shipboard clothes, designed for ease in zero G and not to snag while diving

down some passageway. Ships did not normally operate under zero G but it was

often turned off to facilitate handling heavy cargo. Also, some gravity

generators broke down so often that crew, fed up with nightmarish awakenings,

left them turned off. 8 Crew wore this skintight style out of habit-and

because Suravomaru had an ugly habit of losing G unexpectedly. This

crewmember's suit was grass-green. Candila stared. She had seen the girl

before. Including Jarps-who had frightened her half to death the first time

she saw one-Suravomaru carried about twenty crew. Candila had no way of

knowing this was unusual. "I've been on board at least a month," she said. "I

know," the taller girl said. "I'm your predecessor. My name's

Onesima," Candila did not understand. "Now you're some other new girl's

predecessor." "Oh!" Onesima looked sympathetic. "Don't take it so

hard." Candila considered this for a moment. "Half the time it wasn't hard at

all," she said. "I think he just does it out of habit." "Captain Kat does

nothing out of habit," Onesima said. "He considers it his duty to educate

girls but his real love is cosmetic surgery." Candila stared. "Who do you

think fixed your skin and your nose? Who wormed you and immunized

you?" "Katushiro did that?" "The Earl of Scheib raids planets no other slaver

would waste fuel on. He's the only one that knows how to touch up damaged

bodies fast and cheap." "But I-" ''Was the village beauty and all that crap?

Compared to most places in the universe, the mouth of that

thirty-thousand-klom open sewer you Alachins call a river is not exactly a

breeding ground for pulchritude." Onesima laughed. "Don't take it personal,

kid. I come from a pretty lousy planet too. But at least he didn't sell

us." "Is ... is that what he does?" Onesima gave her an unbelieving look.

"What do you suppose happens to slaves?" They showered and fixed each other's

hair and Candila slept unraped for her first time in a month. Toward morning

she awakened to find Onesima in her bunk. The tall 9 girl kissed her. Candila

liked it. Unlike Captain Kat, Onesima was neither male nor abrupt. She

discovered that Onesima knew how to do all kinds of nice things. "Time to go

to work!" Katushiro's voice came tinny over the comm. Yawning and stretching

luxuriously, Candila forced herself back into reality. Onesima grinned. "Ain't

love grand?" "Today you go out for the first time," Katushiro said when they

had snatched a hasty breakfast of vaguely food-tasting ship's stores. From

tubes. Candila felt wary. Though she had been coached in her new role, she had

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never actually worked at it. Despairingly, she wondered: could she do

it? "Onesima will go with you this first time." Onesima raised her

eyebrows. "Sometimes you can do even better in pairs," the captain said. It

was the same river. Candila stared, never having seen it from above. Onesima

explained that, although they had been away while she was in a pod learning

the ways of space, Suravomam was now back orbiting Candila's native

Alachi. "We'll land about ten thousand kloms upstream from where you grew up,"

the taller girl said. The silent-running inflatable jetboat was now surrounded

by reeds bound into highpeaked bow and stern. It looked very like those rafts

the Alachins of this middle stretch of river used to fish wherever the stream

widened and the current permitted. Wearing filmy hareem pants and prass-cup

bras, Candila and Onesima drifted downriver. Candila guided the raft away from

obstructions with gentle nudges of the foot controls and tried not to giggle

when Onesima tickled her in unexpected places. "There!" Around the bend four

men in a reed raft were pulling themselves slowly across the river as they

baited a trot line. 10 Onesima stood. Bright yellow sun glinted off prass

breast cups and diaphanous pants could not conceal the shape of buttock and

thigh. "Oh sirs!" she wailed. "We have no oars." "Save us!" Candila added. Men

accustomed to long skirts and high collars stared unbelieving at this

miraculous bounty. Half-naked women and no man to protect them. Actually

begging them to come! They immediately lost interest in fishing. Rowing

furiously, they headed for the girls. Candila guided the camouflaged jetboat

unobtrusively, never actually going against the current. That would arouse

suspicion in the most sex-starved of river men. While Onesima held her most

appealing and helpless pose, stretching out arms in desperate invitation to

the sweating, panting men, Candila kept the reed boat just a meter beyond

grabbing distance. Two kloms downstream three more fishermen joined in the

chase. When eleven exhausted men still panted after them, Onesima actuated the

comm. "Ready?" "Another klom," Captain Kat's voice came in her ear. "Past

those old women on the shore." Safely out of sight, Candila guided the jetboat

toward a bank. The girls stepped ashore and walked slowly up toward the edge

of the forest. Gasping and panting men threw down oars and paddles to lope

after them, eyes so lust-inflamed that they never even saw the businesslike

little man with a stopper set on Number Two. "You girls can have some lunch

now if you want," Katushiro said. "But you'd better get drifting soon. I'll be

back in fifty minutes for the next load." Nothing had happened aboard

Suravomaru for the first thousand kloms downriver. After the first day Onesima

had gone back to her more risky work in the narrow tributary streams. There it

took more skill and occasionally a stopper to escape the zeal of her

passion-fogged saviors. Candila worked the main stream. 11 Since she had never

been taught to think, thought did not come easily to her. She was nearly

fifteen now. For the first time in her life she was not constantly busy. It

was a troubling period. She gave little import to Captain Katushiro's abrupt

sexual initiation and his equally abrupt abandonment of her for the next

apprentice. Even less, once she got to know how nicely she and Onesima could

get on without any men. Floating downstream, she tried to decipher what was

happening around her. Am I becoming more used to this upstream dialect? Or is

the language coming closer to Daresslamite? Meanwhile, she did her job. The

reed boat and its scantily clad lorelei drifted lazily toward the sea. "You'll

end up in your own village if you're not careful," Onesima had joked. That was

impossible. Candila was still at least nine thousand kloms upstream unless

Katushiro was faking maps- and he had no reason to do that. She had bagged

nearly fifty head of ... cargo. Working the backwaters and tributaries,

Onesima was doing better. Suravomaru's holds were about full. Your own people.

You're helping to sell them. It sounded just like Umm's voice. Candila looked

around, startled. She was alone on the river. Was her mother still alive? Or

had Captain Kat lied? Candila knew about stoppers now. She decided that he had

not lied, that Umm was probably still alive. Her mother would be alone now,

with no one to help her with the laundry. Umm was going blind. So was her

father. Her father's predicament affected Candila less. "Of course they're

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your own people," Onesima said. Not really my own people-not yet. "Why doesn't

Katushiro use me on some other planet?'' "It doesn't work." "Why?" Onesima

shrugged. ''Only reason I have any luck here is that I look like an upriver

native-a slightly taller and lighter-skinned version of you. Ever notice that

it's not really the nakedness that 12 drives them insane? What always flushes

them out of the cattails is to start combing your hair." Candila still did not

understand. "Men and fish are extremely conservative animals," Onesima

explained. "Strange, offplanet bait scares them away." Though Candila had not

been educated and would have been unable to explain it in formal terms, she

saw now that something was wrong with Daresslam. Another time or another

culture might have laid it all onto male chauvinism and talk of pigs-whatever

they were. That contributed, of course. But Daresslam's problems stemmed

mainly from an unhealthy climate at the end of a thirty-thousand-klom open

sewer. Daresslamites were darker than their upriver neighbors. Their noses

were more tipped. Daresslamites professed an orthodox belief in the

indivisibility of God, but still retained caste marks. They ate krill and

other foods the upriver people considered unclean. They drank water into which

upstream neighbors had . . . Your own people. Candila could not feel guilt.

Perhaps one in a hundred out of all that . . . cargo would have rescued her

and let it end there. Providing he was a eunuch. She remembered the village

boys and how she and the other girls had known they were being spied on at the

bathing place. Some had endured it. Others had gloried in it. With gulf storms

that decimated the krill fleet each year, with two and a half girls for every

eligible boy, no one could blame some poor girl for trying. Now the men were

all chasing Candila and they were all getting their just deserts. She

experimented with total nakedness one day and discovered that her luck was

better with the hareem pants and prass nosecones for her warheads. "Always

hold something back," Katushiro had advised. The captain was an expert in his

field. 13 "Don't come up to the ship tonight." "Why?" "Don't ask," Onesima

said. "Just comm Kat that you're onto a big haul. Tell him you'll be busy and

for him to zero in on your transponder in the morning." Undercurrents had

flowed on Suravomaru since before Candila's capture. Used to the petty grudges

and feuding of Daresslam, she had accepted the tension and the smiles that

turned into fingerflips when a back was turned. It was just a normal part of

life. Candila had been happy under Onesima's wing. She preferred not to know

about what was going on among the rest of crew. She accepted the wiser girl's

advice. The river was dangerous for reed rafts in daylight. No sane Alachin

ventured on it after dark. Candila slept at anchor in midstream under a plass

canopy and waited for a signal from the ship. Morning came and she dismantled

the plass canopy before some early-rising native could become suspicious. Then

she remembered that she was still close to yesterday's fishing. She was

traveling downriver barely ahead of a growing grounds well of legend. She and

her associates had done their best to harvest captives only out of sight, and

to make sure no one escaped. In spite of all their efforts, the story grew:

the river was possessed of a lorelei on a raft who combed long raven tresses-a

Circe who lured men into some swinish oblivion whence none returned to the

everyday annoyance of family. She had to keep ahead of the stories. By the

dawn's huge yellow light Candila sped a hundred klorns downstream, adding the

jetboat's speed to the current. She waited for Katushiro's morning

instructions to home onto the inflatable's transponder target. Nothing

happened. Nothing would ever again happen to Captain Katushiro. Nor to

Onesima, nor any of their newcaught flesh, nor any of those whose plans for

mutiny had ended in a brief flash in the sky on the other side of the

planet. 14 After a week Candila stopped trying to contact Sura-vomaru. She was

more than halfway down the river. Somewhere ahead lay Daresslam. For the first

time in her life Candila was alone. Nobody was raping her. Nobody was

comforting her. Nobody was telling her what to do. The inflatable held months'

worth of emergency rations, She didn't know how long the power pack would

last, but who cared? The river was taking her home. She gave fishermen a wide

berth and kept the far side of the stream from any village. She wished she'd

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had the foresight to bring along some clothes. No, that would have tipped off

Katushiro. She folded away her hareem finery. Floating downriver was no

different from doing laundry. As long as she kept low and held the camouflaged

raft beyond the grasp of would-be saviors, nothing would happen. Daresslam

came as a surprise. Candila had been napping and the excited voices had

awakened her an instant before the proximity radar would have given its silent

alarm. Peering through the reeds that camouflaged her inflatable, Candila

gasped. One of the men who rowed frantically in an effort to capture the

drifting raft was her father! She almost rose to greet him. Then she saw the

hardness of his aging face. Abruptly she realized that Daresslam might have

been a mistake. Still, it would be nice to see Umm again, if only long enough

to assure the old woman that her daughter was still alive. Candila activated

the silent jet and kept beyond reach until the men gave up and resigned

themselves to the long upstream row back home. After dark, she scooted upriver

and turned into a tule-infested rigolet off the main channel. She noted the

alignment of three huge trees in the swamp, maneuvering her craft until it was

centered on an imaginary intersection. Then she pulled the plug and sank

it. 15 "You!" Umm stood naked, waist deep in the bathing place, her hands

filled with Candila's father's dirty thawb. The thirtyish crone splashed water

into her milky eyes and stared. "Apparently the dead eat well," she said at

last. "I'm not dead, Mother," Candila said. "You ought to be." "I'm

sorry." "Now what am I to do?" Umm wailed. "It was bad enough to lose a

daughter." "I'm back." "You can't come back." Candila had really known it all

along. Women were surplus in this man-scarce village. Katushiro had destroyed

the negotiable capital between her thighs. Who would want a stranger's

rape-leavings? "But it wasn't my fault," Candila protested. "What did I do

wrong?" "Girl, for the love of God, get some decent clothes on!" "I don't have

any." Umm sighed. "He'll not have you," she warned. Candila knew that he was

her father. "I can help everyone," she said. "I know things now that can make

life easier in Daresslam. I can help drive away the slavers so that what

happened to me will never happen again to anyone." "It should happen to me,"

Umm snapped. "How did you get rid of all those scars? What have you done to

make your hair shine like that?" Abruptly Candila realized that Umm

was^probably younger than lovely, lissome Onesima who had been her friend and

protector-and no girl at all! "It's a long story," she began. "Most stories

are," Umm said briskly. "Do you think anyone's going to believe it?" "Why

shouldn't they?" Umm sighed. This time tears washed her bleary eyes.

"Daughter," she said, "it makes no difference what story you tell. You're

damaged goods." 16 "What am I supposed to do?" "Do you suppose widows commit

suttee from love of their dead husbands?" Candila did not know. She had

witnessed funerals and had often puzzled at the way a woman whose life had

been one constant bicker would shriek an outraged farewell and throw herself

alive atop the ghat where a husband's corpse-fat hissed and smoked. "With your

man gone," Umm explained, "you can starve or you can whore." "Is there no

other way?" Umm gazed at her daughter with bleary bleakness. "Maybe your new

friends taught you another way. Maybe you'll change Daresslam. Maybe krill

will fly." "From my sight! I have no daughter!" Umm and Candila exchanged a

look at her father's words. Candila slipped into the black tentlike folds of

her chador and went into what served Daresslam as streets. There was no point

in making things worse for her mother. She considered the tiny stock of

plunder that had been kicked aside in Katushiro's disarming of his captives.

Upriver knives had always drawn a good price in metal-short Daresslam. She

went to the suq. An hour later Candila had a secure room at the inn. Secure

because she still had some bits and snippets of security devices from

Suravomaru that could impart a holy terror into anyone who came prying at her

door. She did, too. Within hours the rumor spread that a strange sorceress had

come to town. It startled Candila that no one recognized her after half a

year. She had grown some. Matured a little. It was her skin mostly, she

decided. She had the only unblemished skin in this town. She began to wonder

why she had come here. Mainly, she decided, because I had nowhere else to

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go. But I can save them! I sold a lot of strangers up the river but I can warn

my own people-keep it from happening to them. 17 The length of time that a

small room at an inn could be endured depended on temperament and on climate.

Candila's was wrong and so was sweltering Daresslam's. She donned her chador

and was forced onto the streets. Nobody recognized her. Everyone saw her.

Women stared openly at the sorceress. Inside the all-encompassing chador

Candila's cosmetic improvements over her already high local standard of beauty

were totally invisible. For this reason she became of an even more unholy and

unattainable loveliness than if she had flaunted her flawless body in

Katushiro's work clothes- and been immediately stoned to death. Women stared,

wished, dreamed, and made furtive gestures lest their dreams come true. Umm

and her father lived on the far edge of town and kept their silence. Men

averted their eyes. They all knew that trachoma and blindness came from

looking on unholy things. But why did unholy things have to be so compellingly

eyecatching? Candila informed herself of the day. It was one of the women's

days. She had once been comfortable in this climate. Now . . . the black

chador was suffocating her. She went to the bathing spot. Immediately every

workplace in Daresslam was deserted. The imam left his study. The muahh'din

abandoned his bamboo-framed minaret. "Sorceress!" a woman accused. Standing

naked and kneedeep, Candila turned. "With God's permission such things may be

possible," she said quietly. "But if God permits me to exist, perhaps He

allows me to take the sores from every skin in the village and visit them all

onto someone who displeases me." Gasps rose as the women suddenly understood

how this stranger had achieved an unflawed body. Those whose eyes burned as

they endured creeping, stinging things in the bushes and tules around the

bathing place did not hear Candila's voice, but that evening the whole village

knew. 18 '' Sorceress!" His spittle landed on the skirt of her chador. Candila

opened the latticework veil and blasted him speechless with the smooth

perfection of her face. Emitting a faint mocking smile, she continued down

Daresslam's principal street toward the djeme. When she was half a block away,

the muahh'din began screeching an exorcism from his tower. At the entrance to

the mosque the imam stood stern on the steps. "What do you here?" he

demanded. ''If I am unholy or unclean God will strike me dead for entering

this holy place," Candila said. The imam's jaw dropped. No woman had ever

stood up to him this way. Before he could improvise a reply, Candila had

brushed him aside and was within the sacred precincts. With that

all-encompassing chador the old man could not even see whether she had any

shoes for obligatory removal. He hurried in after her. "Tell that screeching

old buzzard up in the tower to call everyone to the djeme." Candila was

peremptory. "By everyone I mean women too." "You cannot-" "God strike me dead

if I defile this place!" Candila's in-mouth bullhorn made her clearly audible

out in the street. The imam rocked in the holy thunder of her voice. "And God

blind any of His servants who presumes to interfere with my holy work!'' Clear

across town Umm heard the voice. She muttered and made the proper

gesture. Candila faced the old man down. Thought she did, anyhow. Then, with

surprising speed from a man of his age, the imam was driving a knife into her

face. "God will stay my hand if you are truly holy," he gasped. The pain was

so sudden, so sharp that Candila could not even gasp. She felt viscous fluid

running down her cheek. Then, as the old man's knife sought her other eye

Candila again became the little girl she had once been. She was not

holy. 19 She was blind! "Since you are not dakhiil," the old man muttered,

"perhaps that smooth, firm body can now be used for God's intended

purpose." He began peeling off her chador. 2 For 'tis the sport to have the

engineer Hoist with his own petar. -Christopher M. Bacon Having been raped

before, Candila found no novelty in the experience. She was amazed only by the

old man's insatiable joy in inflicting pain. In days to come she learned to

feel and smell the difference between the musty imam and the equally gamy and

equally lusty muahh'din who occasionally brought a cold dish of krill and

mashed taboub, giving her time to eat only after a fresh round of rape. Flies

infested her eye sockets. Candila consoled herself with the realization that,

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even with Katushiro's worming and other preventives, she would not long endure

this pestilent cell. They put some kind of cloth bag over her head and at

first Candila thought the two old satyrs were repelled by the sight of her

eyeless face. Then she sensed that others-an endless flow of men-were raping

the sorceress. She slept fitfully. Once she thought she heard Umm's voice

pleading. No; women were not allowed so close to the djeme. It had to be a

dream. On another night came the dream in which God's thunder descended on

Daresslam, killing the righteous and the wicked with His usual lack of

favoritism. Candila had not been able to form a clear idea of the

20 21 interior layout of the djeme. She knew, though, that her improvised cell

lay quite close to the imam's private quarters because she could hear him

moving about. At times she caught a mumble of perfunctory prayer. Just after

the dream of God's thunder she awoke to the sound of a strange voice. It was

tinny and mechanical. Abruptly she knew it came from a translahelm. From a

nearly worn-out translahelm. She struggled to listen but the voice was not

loud enough. She caught meaningless mumbles, punctuated with an occasional

"nova" and a strident "eleven days." Abruptly Candila recalled a story Onesima

had told her about one long-disappeared pirate's ploy. Just as abruptly,

Candila knew this was her only chance. Gathering breath, she

hyperventilated-the best she could do since her in-mouth bullhorn had stopped

functioning. "Walking cargoman!" Candila screamed in Galactic, from which

Daresslamite had drifted so far that she knew the imam would not understand

the term. ''Slaver! Kill me quickly ere I expose your profession!'' The

coincidence was considerable that the man talking with the imam was indeed a

slaver-and further that he was an Alachin whose career had begun the same way

hers had. But for right now . . . For Zo, the worst part of it was not

knowing. He was almost certain that Artisune Muzuni & Co. had been destroyed.

If they had not. . . and then he knew something else was still onboard the

damaged Murtadd. Something that lay quiescent but far from dead. Zo, along

with Red and the other Jarp, had defected- with such a thoroughness that he

had not a nebula of an idea where they were until Red's SIPACUM location-runs

had ID'd Alachi. Zo's home planet! With a leaky ship, with TGO on his tail-and

very possibly a testicle-hungry Muzuni too ... Zo had no time for

niceties. 22 "Either we repair this ship or we get another one," Red had

said. Either took money. Neither the human nor the Jarps had ever learned any

other way of making money. "Downriver," Zo decided. "Where life's so grubby

we'll be doing the brutes a kindness." Down as far as possible from home. "Can

you handle it alone?" Red asked. "One look at you and it'd be weeks before

they came straggling back out of the swamp. Besides, you've both got to stop

that crack in the hull from growing." Riding the shuttle down, he traced the

outlines of delta and gulf in the infrared of nightside. Zo had never heard of

the village but it was in a protected spot and it lay nearly on the equator .

. . Mine managers on Bleak were always complaining. Worming about in the

constant 52°* and kneehigh headroom of a twisty piggotsite vein, underground

help just didn't last. If he could just round up a few warm bodies used to

heat! Conditions were rough but if Muzuni or TGO caught up with him, Zo might

face worse. He put down in a swamp just above town. The shuttle's weight

stabilized until it floated with the cargo bay door just about right for

loading from whatever the locals might have in the way of a skiff. The only

problem was that Daresslam, or whatever this festering mound of krill shell

was called, had descended even deeper into isolation and savagery than Zo was

capable of guessing. "Nova?" the imam asked. "The word is strange. What does

it mean?" Zo struggled for just the right amount of patience and urgency.

"Stars are not constant. Stars are born, they live, and they die just as

everything else. The final dying gasp of your sun will burn Alachi clean of

all life-boil its ocean away and dry the river." * About 120° Fahrenheit, Old

Style. 23 The imam shrugged. "So the Prophet has always told us. If that be

God's will then we must accept it." "It is not God's will that all die," Zo

said. "The wise and the just will live. They must first help prepare for the

final day by helping me rescue the young." "Why?" "God does not punish those

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who have not sinned. God is just." "Fine lot you know about God," the imam

snorted. "Probably you come from the same place as that-" He stopped himself

in time. "Your sun will go nova," Zo snapped, "in exactly eleven days.

Everyone on this planet will die. I can only save a few." The conversation was

interrupted by a scream. When a voice in Galactic threatened to expose him, Zo

drew his stopper. (The imam did not see-or chose not to notice-the

weapon.) "Who's that?" "Nothing that concerns you." Zo fixed him with a

stare. "When anyone in a place like this speaks that language it concerns

me." The imam frowned. He was reaching to whang on a gong when Zo gave up on

persuasion and used his stopper. The imam began a little shuffling dance and

the gong-stick fell from his numbed hands. "Lead the way," Zo snapped. "Or

I'll give you a preview of God's lightning." The stench was beyond

belief. "Gas gangrene," Zo muttered. "Get that flaining bag off her

head." "Kill me!" Candila shrieked. "Now why should I do a thing like that?"

Turning to the imam Zo added, "Just stand quietly out of the way for a while."

Lest the old man dream up some mischief, Zo Number Twoed him. There was a

satisfying thump as the old man's head hit the floor. 24 "Hold still a moment,

girl." Zo wrestled to tear the first aid kit from his belt. "Shiva's Scrotum,

who did this to you? How'd you end up marooned here?" Holding his breath

against the stench, he dusted maggoty eye sockets with sarcophage. Candila

writhed and he was abruptly aware of how long since he had seen a woman. Even

in this condition her smoothskinned nude body was still . . . "Feel better?"

he asked. "My light is out forever." "Oh, don't take it so hard. Somebody's

always going blind working around that effing double-P Drive. Once we get to a

decent planet you can pick up a new set of optics." Candila had not been

onboard Suravomaru long enough to realize that only death was permanent. "Look

on the bright side," Zo added. "As long as you're getting new ones you can

have any color eyes you want-oh, Booda's bollocks, what a stink!" "You are a

slaver, aren't you?" "Well I-" the question caught him by surprise. "For a

pair of eyes I'll deliver the whole town." Candila hesitated. "I'd help you

anyway." "How can you manage it? I'm-" Zo glanced at the paralyzed imam. The

old man would not understand Galactic anyway. "You hate these people?" "I pray

you have some special hell in mind for every man who raped me-starting with

that old-" Zo fumbled through his first aid pack and found what, at first

glance, seemed a pair of welder's goggles. They contained considerably more

circuitry than appeared. "Try these for now," he suggested as he fitted them

over her empty eye sockets. "I can see!" "Of course you can. How'd you ever

end up down here without a spare pair of eyes?" Candila told him. "So how are

we going to get our . . . cargo?" he at last asked. 25 "Revive that priapic

hypocrite," She pointed at the motionless imam. "Can you keep him alive but

give him a hurt he'll remember?" Zo considered. "Looks old. I wonder if he'd

enjoy a few coronary symptoms." The old man did not. "Now," Candila told the

old bastard briskly, "you will live forever. You will suffer that same

excruciating pain once a minute." "Please, gracious lady. Kill me." His voice

quavered just . . . beautifully. "You shall receive the same kindness you

showed me. And you'll do exactly as you're told." "Yes, my lady!" The imam was

slobbering with eagerness. "Business as usual," Candila said. "First you get

the muahh'din in here for his nightly funfest. Afterward you can let the usual

string of clients in-one at a time." Turning to Zo she added, ''Give him

another twinge just to keep him honest." She thought a moment. "When there's

time," she decided, "I think I'd like to bugger his holiness with a bottle

brush." Zo grinned. Considering what she'd been through, this long-limbed girl

was making a remarkable recovery. "Know anything about ship handling?" he

asked. "Put me in a learning pod. I'll work at it." It became an assembly line

process after he gave her one of his stoppers. As one stiff-slicered

Daresslamite was blueshifting in the front door, Zo was redshifting the last

via another entrance. He stacked Number-Twoed bodies on the roof of the djeme

until he could bring the shuttle closer. "One hundred and three," he finally

said. "No more?" "Those," Candila guessed, "are only the ones who got into the

habit of using me regularly." "You sure?" She was not. He fiddled with his

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translahelm. A moment later his 26 in-mouth bullhorn created a credible

imitation of the muahh'din's screechy voice. "Hear me all the virile!

Daresslamites, prove yourselves. Come work your will with the discredited

sorceress." It was not yet the middle of the night when they finished bagging

another twenty. "Looks like about the last of the sinners," Zo said. "Can you

hold the fort while I go get the shuttle?" "With a stopper I'll do more than

hold it," Candila promised. Zo was checking his bearings back to the

half-sunken shuttle when they heard still another noisy arrival. This time

some virile Daresslamite was having trouble with a wife who refused to stay

home where she belonged. "If you go in there," she shrieked, "I'll tell

everything. You'll have to kill me if you want to silence me!" "Speak not of

killing, woman," the man's voice growled. Zo waited behind the door. Still

naked, Candila lay on the pallet where she had spent her lonely blind durance.

The man came in and she gasped. "Father! You too?" "Daughter." His voice was

hoarse and Candila's borrowed eyes saw his tears. "This has gone too far. I

have come to free you." As her father thrust the knife, Zo stopper-zapped

him. He stared down at the seamed old man. "Is he really your father?" Umm

burst into the room. "Candila! I kept trying but they would not let me see

you. I have some poison." Abruptly she saw her husband prone on the floor. Umm

spat. Zo gave Candila a questioning look. She shook her head. "I suppose he

meant well. Don't take him." "Is this your mother?" Candila studied Umm's

bleary, half blind eyes. "Mother . . . how old are you?" "Almost eight," the

old woman said brokenly. 27 "Thirty . . . standard . . . years . . ." Zo

muttered, stricken almost inaudible. Candila studied her rescuer. "It's been a

good night, hasn't it?" He had gained some small experience in female logic.

"If I can, I'll give what you're about to ask for." She nodded to the other

woman. "Umm." "Your mother? Shiva's Scrotum, girl, I wouldn't take the poor

old lady!" "Take her." "As . . . cargo?" "Clean her up. Worm her. Give her a

'normal' lifespan. Umm, would you like to be young and healthy-have an owner

who'd treat you with kindness?" "I'd like to see krill fly too," Umm

snapped. Zo grinned and Number Twoed her. "You drive a hard bargain, girl.

Your mother's going to need a complete overhaul." He chuckled. "Which leaves

only the imam. We can offload him on Bleak but even with every effort

mine-slaves live only a couple of years. Don't you wish something better for

your benefactor?'' Candila did. She sat, stopper in hand, while Zo scooted

back to the swamp and brought the shuttle into the courtyard of the djeme. The

noise aroused every Daresslamite who had not been awakened by all the previous

commotion. The more bold among them converged on the djeme but heeded Zo's

bullhorned suggestion that they remain outside. It was dawn before he finished

loading. Even with mechanical aids the job was exhausting. Finally, clad in

skintight spacer-black, the wiry, raven-ringleted man faced the remainder of

Daresslam. "It will profit you to remember this night," he said. "Over a

hundred of you will not come home. Although I'm tempted also to take the

traitor who sold them, I leave him for you. Try to keep him alive at least as

long as you remember your loved ones." "Reverend sir," a timid voice inquired,

"who sold our men to you?" 28 Zo pushed the just-reviving imam down the steps.

Amid shocked silence, Zo retreated and barred the djeme door behind

him. "Ready to redshift this cesspool?" Candila smiled. "Whenever you

are." 3 Who loves not wisely but too well Will look on Helen's face in hell,

But he whose love is thin and wise Will view John Knox in Paradise. -Dorothy

Parker When he was young, Girdek Jaris cursed his luck at being born on such

an out-of-the-way planet. Later he learned that even on Nevermind there were

worse fates than being big frog in a small puddle. In midlife he discovered

that the puddle could be expanded with as little effort as his girth. Both

ends were achieved in the same fashion: by gobbling up everything in sight.

Weight control was easy and cheap and was practiced by nearly everyone through

the galaxy. Girdek Jaris did not bother. A little extra bulk, Jaris thought,

gave a man substance. People got out of his way. Since his wife had always

been healthy, many were surprised when the One True God saw fit to leave

Factor Jaris her ample portion without the shrill inconvenience of her angular

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Slavingwasnotlegaleverywhere,butTransGalacticWatchunderstoodthefactsofeconomiclife.Aslongastheraidswerenotonmemberplanetsortooblatant,TGWlookedtheotherway.Piracywasdifferent.Sincepropertywasmoredifficulttoobtainthanpeople(whoreproducedautomatically)TGWtookadimviewofanyactivitythathinderedthelegitima...

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Andrew J. Offutt - Spaceways 12 - Star Slaver

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