Andrew J. Offutt - Spaceways 01 - Of Alien Bondage

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JANJA WASN'T THE STRANGEST PIECE OF CARGO HE'D CARRIED, BUT SHE WAS THE MOST

VALUABLE. Captain Jonuta of the spaceship Coronet stood In the hatchway

yelling at his crewman. "It wasn't enough that you fried the male with her,

you had to shove her in here with the others. Youte lucky they haven't torn

her apart, you underbrained sisterslicer. Look other! She's... white!'' The

chagrined crewman moved forward, toward the small, pale girl He reached out

for her-and she pounced. In an Instant her fingers closed around his

throat. This Is no scared little prey Jonuta realized. She actually means to

kill him. He matched her speed and pried her loose from the limp crewman,

bending her arm back and nearly breaking it. He held her In a grip of iron,

debating his next move. "If I release you," he said, "what will you

do?" "Whatever i can," Janja said. SPACEWAYS #1 OF ALIEN BONDAGE #2

CORUNDUM'S WOMAN #3 ESCAPE FROM MACHO #4 SATANA ENSLAVED #5 MASTER OF

MISFIT #6 PURRFECT PLUNDER BERKLEY BOOKS, NEW YORK The poem Scarlet Hills

reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system

or transmitted in any form by an electronic, mechanical, photocopying,

recording means or otherwise without prior written permission of the

publisher Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada by PBJ

Books, Inc. formerly PEI Books, inc. Distributed by Berkley Publishing

Corporation, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York S0016. Printed in the

United States of America. ISBN: 0-425-06061-6 First printing May 1982. Second

printing September 1982. The name "BERKLEY" and the stylized "B" with design

are trademarks . belonging to Berkley Publishing Corporation. A: All 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 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 Somewhere on the

Spaceways Captain Jonuta of spaceship Coronet stood at the con, nodding over

computer display and scanner readouts. Good, good. The planet that Coronet

orbited was on the Protected list. Its inhabitants did not even have iron,

much less technology, and non-tech planets were to be left alone. So they were

Protected. Except that there wasn't a sign of a law enforcement craft within a

million kilometers. Jonuta smiled. Good, good. He was no friend of policers.

They didn't like his business and they didn't like his shrewdness and they

didn't like him. They did want very much to meet him, but not to discuss his

caution or his shrewdness, and not just for a nice visit. If ever he slipped

and was caught by any policers anywhere in the worlds-teeming galaxy, he would

be in for a long, long visit. If he survived. Captain Jonuta's business was

people. Humans, mostly. He sold many, though he bought few. They were

available for the taking on non-tech planets, provided one was cautious, and

careful. Jonuta was called many things by many people. At least one of those

nicknames he had earned: Captain Cautious. He was a thick, tallish man of

about 180 centimeters, called sems. His build was powerful and he exercised on

shipboard, twice daily. His black eyes were ambushed beneath thick, straight

eyebrows at the base of a lofty forehead. (It was growing loftier, as wavy

black hair crept back from it.) His nose was broad of nostril and thin at the

bridge, and his mouth was full and bow-shaped. He had big harry hands and

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excellent legs within grass-green tights of equhyde-which meant simply a

simulated leather hardly distinguishable from the real thing. The fabric even

breathed. His long-tailed coat 10 with its double row of buttons was

scarlet. Those sixteen buttons (of prass, and purely ornamental) were its only

adornment, and they were enough. They flashed like purest brass. From his very

broad cordovan belt (equhyde) hung a pistol called a stopper. From the end of

the holster swung two strips of rawhide-imitating equhyde, because Jonuta

understood and enjoyed romantic attire. The big buckle was a fancy coat of

arms, though Jonuta did not know of whom or what or from where. The tall black

boots were evershine equhyde too, or Jonuta could not have borne them. Captain

Jonuta of Coronet was no fool. He knew he looked striking and formidable. He

looked like a pirate of another era. He was not; he did not attack other

spacecraft in quest of booty. Jonuta was a slaver. Now, in Coronet's

con-cabin, he spoke into the little grille set just at head level: his, when

he stood. It connected him with Coronet's in-gravity spaceboat. "There are two

humans or humanoids down there. Pheromonal readings are a bit confused, but

they are definitely of different sexes-mostly, at least. You are

ready?" "Ready and standing by, Captain." "Boat away." Thump and hiss, and the

boat was away. It swooped downward, slicing through this uncivilized planet's

ridiculous cloud layer. It made the waiting bulk of Coronet quite

invisible. Jonuta did not sit back to wait. He fed two little pieces of

information to SIPACUM-ship's computer -and peeled gunbelt and coat. It was

nicely lined and under it he wore a sweat-absorbing short-sleeved, col-larless

shirt of Panishi cotton. While the boat carried his two procurement agents

down to the planetary surface, Jonuta calmly began exercising. One:

Barbarism God saw that the light was good. God separated the light from the

darkness, calling the light Day and the darkness Night. Genesis, 1:.4,5 1 It

resembled a single white, drooping feather trailing a thousand cloud-white

pieces of fringe. It was not; it was a large bird, and it paused on a

leper-bark branch to coo its quivering cry into the rain forest. An answering

ululation came from the mass of trees and foliage. Only the golden-chested

bird could distinguish the call from one of its own sex. It did. It seemed to

slide off the branch and swung delightedly in with a flapping of wraithy wings

to pick up speed. The fringebird swept in among thickly clustered trees with

leaves of chartreuse and turquoise, puce and yellow. Dangling nonchalantly by

his three-fingered tail, a vaguely anthropomorphous swinger watched the

passage, in beauty, of the fringebird. Then he twisted his yellow-furred head

to chuckle at the other swinger, a couple of branches below. Nestled among

extravagant scarlet blossoms nearly as big as she was, she simpered and

twisted. She bent to show him the heart shape of her vulva. It was a brilliant

white badge amid bright yellow fur. The swinger ceased chuckling. He raised

the ridges above his eyes and grunted. Then he swung swiftly down to the

female. A few trees away, an orange-maned feline lay. Its four-inch claws were

retracted and its fangs showed only because it snored. It lay snoozing noisily

beside its mate of the moment. It too was weary after the violence of then

lovemaking. There would be more. At the edge of the rain forest a heavy-laden

phrillia bush bowed. It snapped aside, losing one enormous blue blossom that

would have shamed a giant orchid. A pearly gray antelope sprang from the bush

to bound in ten-foot leaps across the veldt. Its bluish tail was 13 high;

beneath it showed a patch of scarlet. Just behind her, curveting amid the

thick blades of the grass, followed a slightly larger member of the species.

It was superbly antlered. The two animals fled across the savannah in a series

of slow-motion bounces-until the female spotted the two-legs. She veered

sharply. So did her pursuing swain, as though attached to her by some

invisible pheromonal thread. Both were lost from sight in the flicker of a

coquettish eyelash. Afar, thunder rumbled. The only clouds in evidence were

big, straggly puffs of white afloat on a sky almost coppery. One of the humans

laughed. She did not even glance toward the sound of thunder. "The fringebird

. . . the swingers . . . the leapfoots! We are all alike today," she said. Her

eyes were pale and gray and her mouth was smiling in delight with the animals,

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with herself, with the early summer. Almost spring had been skipped over, this

year. The Rites must have been potent indeed! Praise the Tribe-mother and her

Mother, the sun! The young man pretended to sulk. Perhaps it was not all

pretense, at that. "Fringebird and leapfoot and sillyswingers do not have to

go and confer with mother and Tribemother," he complained. He was a

magnificent young Apollo, almost heavily muscled and almost unclothed in a

very short tunic that bared one side of his chest and that arm. His long hair

was a pale yellow against his faint tan. Their planet's sun was not all that

bright, and too there was the shimmery cloud layer. Else they'd have been more

richly pigmented. A heavy atmosphere with a unique permanent inversion almost

at the tropospheric level served to trap warmth and water vapor. It enabled-or

forced-them to live in a tropical climate without fear of sunburn, without

racial traits to turn sun and release heat. Their genetic heredity instead

equipped them to cope with high and constant humidity, and with Aglaya's

strong gravitational tug. Short, 14 both of them. Hardly sylphlike. Calf

muscles like fists under the skin. Thighs visibly hard under taut skin, with

overdeveloped muscle down the front; the pusher-lifter worked hard, on

Aglaya. "Formalities, Tarkij," she said. Formal names were seldom used and

certainly not between these two: his was Tarkjadar'rahj. She fell back

happily, almost chuckling as tall grass enveloped her. Its yellow-green was

decorated with little blue shadeflowers like dropped sapphires. "Just

formalities," she went on, "no more. You know my mother is delighted with

you-and father too. You are the second best mate-son available." He jerked up

onto his knees. Light olive, his short tunic fell in rumpled furls on his

thighs. Like rocks, those thighs. "Second best! Second best, Janja!" She

laughed. With her eyebrows arched in a pretense of cool lack of concern, she

tossed her head. The brief pale cap of her hair did not fly. The maidens of

their people trimmed their tresses, as the men did not. It was blond as his,

her hair; pale as the clouds that drifted overhead like wind-puffed fleece.

Clouds and hair were as if faintly gilded here and there-gilded by the soft

lips of Sunmother and Her loving spouse. A huge phrillium was caught in the

smooth short thatch of Janjaheriohir's hair. Tarkij had plucked it from among

many, only a few moments ago. It covered half her head on that side. "Welll .

. ." she said, teasing without showing it, "there's Pansij. ..." Tarkij fell

to one elbow beside her. He bent over her with strong teeth poised in

imitation of feral menace. "Pansij! Huh! He will be fat and jiggly and almost

hairless within eight hardrains. Probably seven. Pansij! Hmm ... I think ... I

think I shall bite this off." Tarkij had no fangs to bare; his canines were

barely developed, the same as hers. His threat was to the mounds of her

tunic-covered breasts, firm in their muscular youth. That was of short

duration, on Aglaya. Heavy gravity soon dragged them 15 down. In natural

consequence, long slopes were considered beauty. There was little premium on

firmness on Aglaya-except in the legs, where it was necessary. Janja wriggled

as if fearful, deliberately making her bilobed bosom quiver beneath her loose

tunic of turtle white. She chuckled low hi her throat. Then she closed her

eyes while he bent to kiss one nipple. It was only just discernible through

the fabric. He nuzzled. His hands moved onto her. Her body's instant response

was unconcealable, but she masked the response of her mind. She wriggled,

rolled away. She pounced to her feet: a woman-girl girl-woman whose firm

musculature barely showed along her 156-centimeter shortness. She was a gentle

buff color all over from the warmth of Aglaya's Sunmother. Sunmother hid Her

face but was generous with Her heat, and some ultraviolet bled through

Aglaya's strange sky to touch the skins of Her people and h'ghtly toast their

pinkness. (For two woman-cycles of the year, She sent them less heat and the

rain fell both harder and colder. Sunmother, the Tribemother said, was

occupied with Her loving mate and could not be bothered with mortals. That was

as it should be, they all agreed, for even a god must have love.) Now Her

daughter Janja had pounced to her feet and was gazing down at Tarkij. Those

pearly eyes could be soft and liquid as the brook that giggled in shade

through the forest. They could also be as cold as the droplets that hung from

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broad leaves after a downpour. Tarkij knew about the coldness that could

harden her eyes, but she had not shown it to him since her body had responded

to the call of the nearer moon- the male, at this time of year-and began to

follow its rhythmic pattern. Not since Tarkij had changed her, that day in the

dark coolth of the forest, from youth to woman. All infants were circumcised

on Aglaya. And there were no frigid women among their people. Gazing down at

him now, aroused, she remembered that time in the forest. She had enjoyed it.

And 16 they had promised, as they were Promised. She was a woman of Aglaya

and that had been the time of the mooncall, and Janja was worthy of Aglaya.

That afternoon in the forest she had clung to him with all the strength she

possessed-which was not inconsiderable. Pain was swiftly forgotten as they

loved beneath the trees. Everything of their environment was forgotten,

everything but themselves. There was no frigidity among their people, and

Janja was worthy of Aglaya. It was golden; it was rain-clear sky, it was white

and sunshiny and all the things she thought beautiful. She heard herself cry

out and only by hearing knew that she had. Then his eyes had bulged and he was

groaning, quaking, and she smiled in delight and in pride. She had become

older at that moment. She lay asmile with maternal delight while he shuddered

and groaned and weakened, as males must. But she had not thought of him as

only a male. She had held him to her then as she might have held a son.

Tenderly, solicitously she held him. They lay long in the grass, smiling and

sighing. Arms and legs were twined anar-thrously like weary serpents. They had

trailed back home. Now and again they stopped to kiss. The constant looks they

exchanged were bright with joy and love. Bypassing her parents, they went to

the Tribemother. She pretended horror at their news, for that was her duty.

(Although she had received many such visits and admissions in the past. Who

could resist the call of the moons?) Yes, Aglii would be disappointed. So

would the mother of Pan-kirasij, who had arranged with Janjaheriohir's mother

for then- lifemating. (The Tribemother always used all formal names.) But yes,

certainly now Janja was Tarkij's and Tarkij was Janja's. They were one. The

parents must be told. Eventually Aglii would be as pleased with them as with

any couple who loved in Her name on Her world and brought forth children to

cavort on Her bosom beneath Sunmother's smiling face, continuing the ancient

cycle. The call of the moons took precedence over agree- 17 ments made

between mothers. Did not the moons serve the Sunmother, and light the time of

Her rest? After that they had met, all of them. The Tribe-mother whose name

was unspoken: she was the Tribe-mother; and both of Pansij's parents, who were

on the cusp; and the mothers of Janja and of Tarkij. All had pretended shock

and some horror-while Janja knew that her parents had behaved identically,

some years ago, her mother aggressing. All agreed that they were one. The call

of the moons took precedence. Janja and Tarkij were Promised, and then

Dedicated. Yet they were punished as well. They must wait until after the next

period of hardrain. (They groaned, for that time had so recently ended and was

so far away, especially for yearning lovers.) And they must promise to

sacrifice their pleasure to Aglii, to dedicate to lonely Her their coupling,

until the final ceremonies. They had no choice. They had agreed. And so this

day, out on the savannah, Janja sprang up from Tarkij. Already he was

breathing more heavily. A strange male, Tarkjadar'rahj. He would be worthy of

Aglaya. Janja was sure he was worthy of her! He gazed at her, smiling. His

eyes openly admired the tender curves of her just-ripeness, the liquid ripple

of smooth muscle beneath taut skin. Her legs were the lithely hard, strong

limbs of a god-dancer-or an orange-maned nightprowler. She was young, and

aglow with laughing vitality and feminine allure. All over sunlight and gold

laid in a thin patina over pink. But there was about her too an aura of

strength, firmness of more than body. And Tarkij knew about the aura of firmly

curbed sensuality. It simmered beneath the taut surface of her, needing only

the touch of flame to boil over. Now it was their own private, joyous war

game, about the only conflict their people had to cope with. Tarkij sought to

apply the spark while Janja kept her fires banked-until after the Visit, and

the Announce- 18 ment, and the Dedication, and the mingling of their blood

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in the eyes of the Sunmother and Her lifemate. "It is not easy for me,

Tarkij," she said now. "Please -do not make it harder." His smile faded. "We

promised together, Janja. I would have stopped. Were you to offer yourself

naked, I would turn from you. We promised." She gazed at him a moment. Then

she hurled herself forward. She crushed her body against his, molding the

tunicked forms at chest and belly and pelvis and thigh. A rumble of thunder,

closer, went unnoticed. Her arms were strong and firm about him; her hands

were tight at the hard muscle of Ms back. "I love you Tarkij, love you!" "Oh,

I love you, Janja." "I am yours Tarkij, yours, yours." Her voice was fierce.

It emerged through clenched teeth that wanted to taste Mm, to consume Mm, to

welcome him again in the union of their bodies. The words were of the rite

they had not yet undergone, and so were his: "I will protect you always, from

all things, and come to cusp with you, JanjaherioMr, and clear new fields for

our planting, and seek meat in season." For they were planters, seldom

hunters, and never warriors. For their Aglaya was a gentle world. "My blood is

your blood!" "My blood is your blood." "My loins are yours. I bare fang and

claw for you, Tarkjadar'rahj," she said, from the rite, and none knew how old

the ritual words were. "I accept the fertile fields of your loins and vow claw

and fang for your protection, Janja," he murmured into the pale hood of her

hair. It was ritual, only ritual; what on Aglaya might he ever need to protect

her from-or she him from? "We will bear each other many-Tarkij! Look!" It was

gray and blue arid white-streaked, designed to be invisible against the sky of

other worlds. It swept down and down, seemingly diving upon them for some

1.9 reason of its own. Janja thought of the clawbeak that swooped down on the

fringebird and the diminutive longtails that inhabited the tall grass of the

savannah. "Tarkij-what is it?" "I don't-Janja, run! It must be ... it must be

the Sky-demons!" Her little cry became an un-pretty snarl. She was strange,

Janja was, and her hand rose to the short flint knife she wore high on her

left arm. Her eyes were suddenly feral, dangerous. Tarkij was shocked as he

glimpsed in her something he had not known existed. Even then he was turning

her. Pushing her. They ran, racing and leaping through the tall chartreuse

grass as the leapfoots had run. On their backs a dark shadow grew. It flitted

over the grass, pacing them. The tall spears of grass rustled and swished back

into place behind them. It quivered as if in fear of the adumbral darkness

that swept, rippling, over it. They reached the place where they had emerged

from the rain forest. He pushed her so that she sprawled amid convolvulus

underbrush and enormous blue orchids. Her own fell from her hair. Its young

beauty was crushed forever beneath one flailing arm. There was good reason for

the orchid's having been in her hair; there was no reason for its

destruction. Yet there was reason for fear. They knew about the Sky-demons.

Now and again they came down to pluck and carry away the blossoms-and there

were other stories, ugly ones. Certainly the Sky-demons possessed the power of

lightning without thunder. And obviously they were more powerful than Aglii-or

She tolerated them, for some divine but undivinable reason. As Janja fell

noisily into the greenery, Tarkij snatched up his bow and quiver. He slung on

the quiver and snapped the bowstring into place all in one much-practiced

movement. Tarkij preferred hunting to planting and weeding and harvesting,

which made him as strange among their people as Janja was, with her love of

meat. His body was suddenly dark, all in bluish shadow. 20 The thing above,

him was of smooth, full metal, painted to resemble sky, though not this one.

There were markings on it: CORONET. The grass prostrated itself beneath its

dark majesty, and the thing dropped down with the sound of rushing air. Its

rounded carapace quivered and emitted a menacing noise. It rose. A helmeted

head appeared. The helmet was transparent and Tarkij gasped. Neither he nor

Janja had ever seen dark-skinned faces, or black hair and beards. Obviously

this was a demon. Demons were hardly the same as people! His arrow sliced

through the air where the strange face had been. The demon's head popped once

more into view and a hand appeared. Something flashed in it: the metal

Tarkij's people were learning to work from the Long-Daggers of the North.

Tarkij's second arrow was nocked. He drew back the string to Ms nose even as

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the man said something he did not understand. The demon yelled. The sound was

very strange. At Tarkij's feet Janja watched with eyes flaring wide in awe and

fear. Demons! In daylight! Come right down to- She heard a faint insect hum.

There came a wavering in the air, like the occasional ray of sun that filtered

down after a rain. A bright flash. And Tarkij, her TarMj, her intended

lifemate Tarkij, became a bright flash in which molecules danced like motes in

a sun-ray. And when she opened her dazzled eyes he was gone and there was a

strange odor in the air, fhe pure air of Aglaya. Janja shrieked. She pounced

to her feet-and then she behaved strangely for one of gentle Aglaya. She flung

herself at the two dark demons that came boiling out of the thing she had no

name for. It was a spaceboat, and one of the demons was enormous of eye, as

orange of skin as the blossom of the sleejan, and intensely dark red of hair.

A demon! From its small mouth emerged a weird whistling warbling

trilling. "Your damned translator's off again," the other one 21 snarled,

the one with the dark skin and black hair on its face. "You idiot

sisterslicer," the orange one yelled. "You had the setting on three! You fried

him! Jonuta will have your ear!" Janja heard, but she did not understand the

words. Nor did these demons understand the females of Aglaya. Just now not

even Janja understood Janja. Her dagger had never been used as a weapon

before, against a person. "Look out!" The first demon, the darker hair-faced

one who had so easily and so swiftly slain the man who would have been Janja's

forever, threw up Ms arm just in tune. That arm protected the demon from her

dagger, somewhat. Sharpened flashing flint tore heavy fabroprene and scratched

a thin red line in the flesh beneath. His other hand, the one holding the

stopper that should have been set on shock but was not and had carbonized

Tarkij, swung hard. It connected with the side of Janja's head. The sound of

impact was ugly. She crumpled with no more than a moan. "Filthy pale-eyed

barbarian stash! She tore a damned good suit and-blast her! She cut me!" He

squinted upward at the sky before turning to his companion. He wore a mean

look. His grin was sly and ugly. "He'll never know, Sweetface. He'll never

know. Let's slice out this little barbarian's nest before we take her back.

You know she's no virgin-look at the butsy slut! These savages slice their own

sisters before they're old enough to bleed." The orange head shook. "Get her

in the boat, Srih. You are thinking with your crotch. Bad enough you fried her

boyfriend-the captain knows there were two of them." That demon also squinted

at the sky, but the spaceship was not visible beyond that unique cloud

cover. Grumbling, Srih glanced into the rain forest. An animal made a giggly

sound. "Right. Let's get off this 22 stinken planet. Lookat all those

phrillias-all that beauty wasted on this barbarian cess-ball!" The orange

humanoid helped the dark human load the unconscious woman into the spaceboat.

Srih managed to grab a pinch of breast. Hard as a rock. Even in this dam'

weight-a-man-down gravity! "Buggerslicing barbarians!" he muttered. 2 The

cautious seldom err. Confucius To err is human; to compute divine. Trust your

computer-~but not its programmer. Moris Keniston "Captain, that ship matches

everything computer has on Jonuta's Coronet." Captain Vratsa looked rather

sharply at his aide. He regarded the scanner reports; the other ship was at

eight thousand kilometers. It was moving at an easy cruising velocity. Vratsa

looked again at Lieutenant Masrur. "Get me a condensed M.O. history on him,

Sirah. Display: personal facts and habits of the very wily Captain Jonuta of

Qalara." He saw Sirah Masrur swallow, then move to obey. Vratsa swallowed,

too. Outwitting Jonuta and bringing him to justice--or just blowing him away,

Vratsa thought-had long proven impossible. Too long. Jonuta was known more for

caution than ruthlessness, but Vratsa knew a feeling of fear at tangling with

him. The damned slaver was practically a legend. He and that pirate rival of

his, Captain Corundum. If this was 23 Jonuta, approaching Coronet could be

about as safe as playing tag around a Black Hole. Still, here they were and

there was that ship, and Vratsa had the duty. Maybe it wasn't Jonuta. He keyed

in the other ship's coordinates and velocity, waited a few seconds while

Masrur completed making the request of SIPACUM. Then Vratsa updated the

coordinates. The two sets of figures would be enough for SIPACUM to read the

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ship's direction. Vratsa set up for track-and-intercept. He turned to Masrur,

who sat regarding him. The lieutenant looked as nervous as Vratsa felt and

hoped he did not look. "Suppose you try calling up what you know about the

infamous Jonuta, Lieutenant." "Well." Masrur's eyes took on a recollective

expression. "He's called 'Captain Cautious' for good reason. We know he calls

his SIPACUM 'Mate' and frequently trades them in, on this world and that. Some

of his trade-ins have been found to be better than the equipment on policers

in that area. Obviously he keeps up with every new development and pounces on

any he sees as improvement or potential, uh, safety enhancement. That way his

Coronet's whole inboard systemry is taken over and directed by new computry

with a frequency that borders on the ludicrous." "And so he's also called

'Cap'n Chicken,'" Vratsa said, nodding. "Semantics don't matter. He has no

need of saying that he has the best First Mate in space. The fact is

self-evident! Jonuta doesn't just survive, he flourishes. He has for a long

time." "I've ... thought before that we who seek Mm could, ah-learn plenty

from Captain Cautious," Masrur said. That was dangerous ground, but her

captain had, after all, just said that Jonuta's computer alone was better than

Vratsa's computer and Surah Masrur. Vratsa sighed. "Some have learned that by

demonstration-always at a distance. His overhead is higher than a lot of

others' in his slimy business. On the other hand, he pays a lot less in

bribes." Neither of them would go quite so far as to men- 24 tion it:

personnel on government payrolls were seldom capable of admitting they could

learn from a private entrepreneur-particularly when he was an outlaw wanted

absolutely everywhere. And known to be a flamboyant bastard up to here with

pride. Next would have to come the admission that Jonuta's pride was

merited. Masrur looked at the screen. Blip. "If that really is Jonuta-" "If

that's really Jonuta, Lieutenant Masrur, I hope we're smart enough to outthink

him." And if we're not, I hope we live to file our embarrassing report!

"Ah." They regarded the big crescent-shaped console; a myriad of bright

multicolored buttons, toggles, mini-displays, readout panels, telltales,

scan-winkers. Twin displays came alight in eye-eez turquoise. Computer was

advising that Jonuta had been in business for at least seventeen years, which

was a record among slavers. In seventeen years he had never sustained serious

damage to ship, inboard personnel, or "cargo." Nor had he been caught, hurt

(to all available knowledge), prosecuted, or even in serious trouble. All his

attention to detail, his precautions, his trading in of computers-this he

called "overhead" and the price of staying alive. He also called it his

hobby. "Hobby," Masrur said thoughtfully. "That means he enjoys it." "Yes,"

Vratsa said, almost snarling. "He enjoys the game. He doubtless enjoys

outwitting and eluding our kind of underpaid and underequipped little local

police, Sirah." She looked grim. That was insulting to her blue TSP uniform

and to her. She was a serious policer. "Do you think that's his ship,

Captain?" Their TSP destrier had come about on a new course to intercept. At

the end of a long wedge, their course would intersect that of Coronet. "We're

certainly going to find out, Lieutenant. We have to. Let's start recording for

headquarters while 25 we study the tricks Jonuta has used to escape others

just like us." "Maybe it isn't Jonuta," Lieutenant Masrar said. Sitting at

Coronet's con was dull and Kenowa loved it. She was delighted to do it for

Jonuta and proud that he entrusted the duty to her. The dullness resulted from

lack of necessity. The price of success and freedom from Authority and rivals,

Jonuta of Qalara said, was eternal vigilance at the con, along with attention

to every detail and some that did not exist. On spaceship Coronet, that meant

watching Coronet run Coronet. Presently Coronet's double-P drive hastened it

toward Resh in accord with a precomputed preplan that had been prechecked,

recomputed, rechecked, and prerecorded. Not only coordinates but the entire

course guidance plan was contained in the cassette that directed the computer

as well as any person-and better. The computer directed ship functions.

Officially it was Ship Inboard Processing and Computing (Modular): SIPACUM;

Jonuta called it "Mate." His First Mate. Backup SIPACUM took up valuable space

and stood ever ready, in the event of failure of the primary or any

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component. There had never been a SIPACUM failure on Jon-uta's ship. "I've had

nine First Mates," Captain Jonuta said. "None ever quit or died, and I never

fired one. Not one ever back-talked me, either." Each old Mate was wiped

before being traded in, on-planet. Each new Mate was fed stale old coordinates

and instructed to program a new cassette. After that, both Mate and Jonuta

compared that new cassette with the old. They always matched-unless Jonuta had

added an update, always minor but based on new information or a new Jonutan

thought. The new ones were numbered and slipped in to serve as Coronet's

navigator and pilot-along with SIPACUM, automatic systemry, and cybernetics.

Jonuta insisted on naming 26 the last two; they differed in that automatics

were not capable of functional modification by reprogramming. The old

cassettes were wiped. Jonuta saw to it that Kenowa recorded music on them.

Jonuta left no loose ends that might aid others or incriminate him. He left

not even potential loose ends. Kenowa was delighted to mind the con for

Jonuta. Or to do anything else for Jonuta. He had saved her life, and more. He

had saved her from her. Rerecord-ing music onto old cassettes for him was

fine. She liked music. It was nice background. She could even do that while

she sat in the large cabin at the sprawling bright con. With telltales and

alarms throughout the ship-including the one at all times on Jonuta's

person-as well as parallel/backup Mate and cassettes available for retrieval

and recording, spaceship Coronet was perfectly capable of taking itself where

its captain wanted it to go. It did. Since it was not afflicted with human

pride, it also advised when it needed help. At some tune on every voyage-a

time arrived at purely on a whim of Jonuta's-the course guidance cassette was

pulled. Jonuta himself activated manual systems, along with defense and

protection-aggression systemry. He had them meter-checked at every

planet-fall, as well-barring the necessity of an impropri-etously hasty

departure. All this produced results in the form of efficiency and safety. It

also cost heavily. Overhead, Jonuta shrugged; cost of doing business. And his

hobby. High overhead for high income, and he continued free, successful, and

safe in a dangerous business. Captain Cautious was Cap'n Chicken and other

things to other people, most of them envious. Some even applied the

centuries-old buzzword paranoia. Jonuta did not mind. "Semantics can't hurt

me," he said. " 'Paranoia' is one of the most misemployed words in all

history. It's also a stupid term to apply to intelligent apprehension and

caretaking, even fear. No 27 one can accuse Jonuta of not knowing fear!

That would be embarrassing." Kenowa did not believe him, but then Kenowa owed

him everything; her very self. Too, having known many men, Kenowa appreciated

him in bed. He knew women, Jonuta did, and Kenowa's years of EF addiction had

not dulled all her senses. Bound to market on nicely cooperative Resh, out

past the Tri-System Accord, the cassette reached the point at which it

activated the warning impulse. SIPA-CUM sounded the warnings. There were

three, spaced so that sufficient time was allowed all onboard personnel to

prepare for subspace transition. Cassette and Mate guided them into it, but

Jonuta was always in the con-cabin. Time and space compacted while mass tried

to. Stars vanished into a streaky mess that turned color spectrum laws into a

maniac's dream. Ears popped and stomachs imitated earthworms. Some members of

the cargo threw up, as always. (Not the new one; she was strapped into the

Learning recliner.) Jonuta saw it through, while impossible distances were

traversed in an impossible brevity of time. Cassette advised when return to

normal space-time was imminent. With Coronet back in "real" space among suns

and planets, its captain troubled to compare the new reality with the

cassette. They matched, as always. He was where he expected to be. Returning

the cassette to service and restoring all systemry to what he preferred to

call "cybernautomatic," he turned the con over to Kenowa. She minded the

boredom far less than Sweetface and Arel. Jonuta went immediately to inspect

both holds, male and female. They contained twenty-one human beings stolen

from nontech and supposedly Protected Worlds. Sweetface double-checked the new

one. Kenowa's way was to hitch every telltale and sensor display to a parallel

telltale and sendisp, in an exaggeration of Jonutan caution. That done, she

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sat/lay back to lose herself in a holodrama. Jonuta did not 28 mind in the

least her using a holographic projector to give her immediate area the

semblance of a luxurious onplanet apartment. Her favorite viewing matter was

the equivalent of what had been called, centuries and centuries before,

truconfessions and bodice-rippers. Those who took into consideration the

difference between masculine response, which was objectifying, and feminine

romantic subjectifying, maintained that such dramas constituted female

pornography. Still, no antiromantisex laws had ever been seriously

proposed. All that was meaningless to Kenowa. She was being entertained, while

performing an important function for Jonuta. All she had to do was make sure

Sweetface had no access to her holodramas. Anything that smacked of sexuality

brought swift response from Sweetface, and the Jarp didn't much care which

human sex was available. Until now Kenowa's non-vigilant vigil had been

interrupted only once. This was the second tune. SIPA-CUM broke into her

drama. It needed help. Her foot pressed off the projector in the middle of a

dungeon scene while her left index buttoned the signal. (On Kenowa's planet of

origin few parents had bothered with fetal correction of such nondebilities as

left-left-handedness, at the time of her birth.) Her elbow flipped off her

holoprojected surroundings while the signal ding-ding-dinged throughout the

ship-and vibrated in the bracelet Jonuta never removed. Next she ordered full

scanreport at once. Jonuta reached the control cabin in less than a minute.

Kenowa sat forward, watching the displays while scanners and sensors triggered

search/scan/display. Her blue wig lay beside her, forgotten; she wore the

close-fitting senstimulator helmet he had had calibrated with her holodrama

projector. In the excitement of possible emergency, she had forgotten. She

hated to be seen with a wig and would be mortified, but Jonuta's eyes were on

the displays, not Kenowa. "What are we getting?" The voice was a deep rum-

29 ble from his chest; he had cultivated that resonantly deep voice. It

definitely went with his eclectic-eccentric attire. Some maintained that

Jonuta must have had dramatic training. No records were available. Authorities

on Qalara had no idea why their retrieval systems failed to come up with

anything on Jonuta at all. She said, "Empty-three destroyer breaching

four-thousand kilometer perimeter and closing on intersect course

at-" "-seven," he completed for her, standing before the console that, because

it was designed for a standing Jonuta, required a height-adjustable chair for

Kenowa and Arel. "Destrier class MT-III, right? Oncoming, umm. Looks like

deliberate intersect, hmm? Ah. That hump portside means she's no more than

three years old. Tri-System Police, I'll bet, with the newest tractor

capability. That ship can wiggle about thirteen percent better than we can.

Still closing, too." She said, "Sixty-three-bee?" "No, dammit, we have a date

on Resh and I want to go in. There's money on Resh, and Reshi will go fobby

over the new acquisition. We don't flee, and I certainly don't want to fight."

He had removed the gunbelt and was opening his coat. "Suit time, Kenny.

Strip." Kenowa knew little of MT-III destriers and nothing of portside humps;

hers were ventral and they were big. She wasn't supposed to know about those

things and didn't want to. She knew what TSP was: enemy and potential big

trouble. She knew Jonuta. She knew what "suit tune" meant, too, and she was

good at stripping. Her experience was more than abundant. Both of them moved

swiftly. They paid no attention to each other's movements and nudity. This was

business, not bed. (Although she knew that once they were out of this his

elation would make him a rutting bull. Good!) She was out of her clothing

before he was. Discovering her wig, big and blue, she bit her lip, raised a

hand to touch her senstim coif, and left it on. 30 Jonuta kicked the pedal

to make the little square compartment pop open to his left. He drew out two of

the five silky but rather bulky coveralls there, checked their collar marks,

and passed one to Kenowa. The evergreen-colored suits were clingy, with

attached hoods anciently called coifs. And a most pervasive inner network of

wiring. The aura-projector was made to look like a garish bauble. The fact

that it was attached to the suit was not obvious. "Look the other way," she

said. Naturally he glanced immediately at her, took in senstim helmet and the

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wig beside her chair, and looked away. Jonuta understood vanity. Jonuta, who

exercised twice daily and always stood before the console rather than sat, got

into the suit and dropped into the pilot's chair. He was still drawing the

dark green suit's extended cowl down over his face. All the way down, over the

chin. He could not see through it. His vision was total and clear, however, by

means of the telepresences available to the non-implantable blind. TPs could

serve as hand-extenders (even across kilometers, electrically),

grip-enhancers, special devices once called "waldoes"-and eyes. The suit's TP

camera was smaller than his thumb. It moved with his head and he saw what it

saw. Feedback was two-way. The viewscreen was inside the coif,

self-illuminated, because he could not bear the direct retinal attachment.

Jonuta had the adjustable ratio locked at one to one, for sanity's sake. He

was not presently interested in being able to turn bis head a quarter way

around and see behind him, a full half turn. That capability was useful under

some circumstances; this was not one of them. Jonuta's vision was more perfect

than had the coif-mask been equipped with eyeholes. He was about to interface

with the Enemy-in a manner of speaking. He glanced over as Kenowa plopped into

the other seat. Enveloped in the suit, she had become a dark green humanoid

with no face. She hated the suit, whose necessary tightness suppressed the

bemazing ebullience 31 of her bosom. In it, she almost appeared to be a

normally constructed woman. Almost. "Suit on." At his words she activated the

suit by means of the rather ostentatious "ornament" on its chest, and Ke-nowa

was gone. The dark green almost-human was gone. Through the "eye" of his TP

camera, Jonuta was looking at a vice-captain of TransGalactic Watch, silver

piping and all. Now the busty, blue-tressed Ke-nowa was a homely, slightly

overweight woman of apparent-age thirty. She had ridiculously short

walnut-hued hair under the silvered black comm-coif helmet of TGW. The only

diminution of bust came from the tightness of the coverall beneath. Jonuta

nodded. He tripped two toggles, tapped a button, and twisted around. Behind

him stood another uniformed TransGalactic Watcher. The life-size holographic

projection was excellent. She wore engineer's insignia, was young and almost

astonishingly attractive, and could be seen breathing. There was a reason her

holopic image could be projected only after the performance of three

operations: Jonuta wanted no accidental manifestation of a superpolicer in his

con-cabin! The projection's purpose was to distract staring, suspicious eyes

from Jonuta. He lifted a hand to his chest and triggered his suit's aura

projector. "What do you see, Kenny?" "Captain Farz, TGW, I believe." Her lips

didn't move as she spoke. "Indeed," Jonuta said, in the voice changed by the

tiny and simple tweeter built into his mask. He reminded SIPACUM to stand by

for Manual-and-Continue. Then he flipped up the cover on a thumb-size toggle

and poked a finger into the hole there. With a half-hearted series of clicks,

a panel cover flipped up. The course guidance cassette popped loose to extrude

like a brown tongue. "Captain Farz" pulled it. He passed it to Kenowa. The con

was his. Already 32 alerted to Manual-and-Continue, his Mate held Coronet

unwaveringly on course, "Blip now at two thousand kloms and closing on

intersect," the un-Kenowa reported. In less than half a minute Jonuta had

transferred eighty percent of monitoring, interpretation, and control to

SIPACUM. He sat waiting, thinking. He had never used the aura-suit ploy with a

TSP ship. That did not guarantee that it had to work. Tension tried to build

and he warned it back, breathing deeply. Jonuta used no drugs in Kenowa's

presence and disliked drugs in general. "Blip at thirteen hundred and

closing," un-Kenowa told him, unnecessarily. A small pale green panel taletold

that Coronet was being scanned with efforts to probe. Jonuta punched on the

intraship mike, which would not activate in response to his modified voice. No

ship had ever succeeded in monitoring intraship communications on

Coronet. "Arel," he said. "Sweetface." "Tdlo-wheet!" Sweetface's whistle meant

"Captain!" "Dammit, Sweetface, your translator's off again." "Captain!" Arel's

voice. "Sorry, Captain." That was the voice of Sweetface's translator,

expressing his/her whistles as words. Both crew would have gone to their

stations when Kenowa triggered the alarm. Both would have been waiting for

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