Had she already pleased a man? Damn it, I had to know!
“Spirit,” I said. “Were you with me when I slept?”
“Hope, I will always be with you,” she replied. “We are family.”
“No, I mean—”
She looked at me with disconcerting directness. Was it a stare of challenge? “You mean what?”
“I mean with me. When—”
“When you screamed for Helse?”
Why did the way grow more difficult, the closer I got? “Yes.”
“Hope, I tried to hold you down, so you wouldn’t hurt yourself. I knew you were having a bad dream. You were banging on the wall, the way you did after Father died. Finally I got you quiet, and then I left you. I had to check the lenses.”
How had she quieted me? I knew how Helse had done it. “Did I—hurt you?”
“You can’t hurt me, Hope.”
That was no comfort; it was what Helse had said, the first time we made love. “I mean”
She took my hand, squeezing it gently, as I had squeezed hers when I explained the different types of sex. “Hope, I am your sister. I will do anything I have to, to keep you safe. I would die for you, as Helse did. Does anything else matter?”
She was not giving me any direct answer. She would die for me; I believed it. She would more readily do lesser things, by her definitions. Other things did matter—but did they matter to her the same way they did to me? “There are things you must not do for me, Spirit.”
Her gaze was innocent. “Like what?”
“Like—” But I choked again.
“Like lying to you?” she asked. “Ask me anything, Hope; I won’t lie.”
Wouldn’t she? I wasn’t sure. To her, a lie was a lesser thing than death. If she believed a lie would safeguard my mental health, she would probably use it. Again I realized that Spirit was made of tougher fiber than I was. I found I could not pursue this matter further—for fear she would lie to me ... or that she would not.
“You are my sister,” I said, squeezing her hand.
“Always.” She kissed my cheek.
Then she was off again, running the bubble. I knew I would never know the answer to my question. Perhaps I did not want to know.
Did it matter, really? Spirit was one terrific sister, who it seemed understood how to do what was necessary and how to conceal what was necessary. She had learned such arts from her mother. She had just faced me and backed me down, and I could not fault her for it.
Could I afford to let my courage be less than hers? I climbed out of the cell and went to help her run the bubble.
CHAPTER 18
PIRATE TREASURE
Space, 327’15—We traveled another period, settling into routine. It wasn’t that we mourned our lost ones less, but that there was nothing to do but go on and to keep ourselves busy, so as to keep the nightmares away. Even if we hadn’t been out in blank space, away from the Jupiter ecliptic, in peril for our lives if we miscalculated the vectors of the enormous reaches of space, we would have had to keep ourselves active until the specters faded. There were few pirates out here, for this was off the travel lane; we almost missed them! But we had set up another refuse tank for quick vacuum, just in case.
However, we were not left long to our own devices. Yet another ship overhauled us. Our luck had changed, and we wished it hadn’t; this almost certainly meant more trouble.
We set up as before, except that we cut our crew of “innocents” to two, so the other six could have a better chance to survive the decompression. We didn’t like taking losses, but had to play out our play, if only to lull the pirates so our trap could spring. We knew we had a defense that worked, and we didn’t want to compromise it.
The ship docked, the lock opened, and the first pirate entered. I could not see around the curve of the Commons, since I was stationed right at the rear lock and our doughnut-hole chamber was well restocked with supplies, obscuring my line of sight, but I heard them. Spirit was halfway around, able to see both locks.
Spirit blew the whistle.
The two children attacked; I heard the scuffle.
“Hey, what?” I demanded, amazed. There had not been time to ascertain the intentions of the intruders.
“It’s the Horse!” Spirit hissed. “Move, Hope!”
The Horse! I stood frozen, remembering the rape of my sister Faith. I had sworn to kill that man!
The men caught the children before suffering more than scratches, and disarmed them. Two children could not attack five or six men with the same effect possible for thirty children attacking the same number. We should have realized that. The sounds penetrated my consciousness as if from a distance. The Horse, come to our bubble again!
“Do it!” Spirit snapped, and closed her helmet.
That finally jogged me out of my stasis. I closed my own helmet and jumped into the air lock. Already the pirates were coming around the Commons, and Spirit was backing toward the drive-control panel, almost tripping over the old, small drive unit parked beside it.
I closed the lock, decompressed it, opened the outer panel, and swung out, ready to cross when the drive cut off. We would lose two, this time; the innocents, who would not be able to get to their suits. They had known the risk, and it had to be done. I waited—but the drive did not cut off.
At last I realized that the pirates had caught Spirit before she could use the panel. I had no way to cross the ring of fire that was the drive. With the old, small columnar drive there would have been no problem. Or we could simply have cut off the new one when the pirates docked. So many little things we could have done—but it was now too late. We could not spring our trap.
Then I remembered something else, and that made me feel worse yet. We had weapons now: lasers and the taffy gun. Why hadn’t we thought to use them? One kid behind that gun, shooting taffy at the pirates—we had never needed to go the vacuum route at all! What had possessed us to overlook that?
Grief and shock, that was what. We had had the sense to fetch the weapons, but then had lapsed into our suffering, and had never done the hard intellectual work of devising a new strategy of defense. What a colossal error! Even Spirit had missed it.
There was nothing to do but go back inside. Bad luck and poor planning had foiled our grand play. Maybe I could get to the taffy gun yet, however.
It galled me that it should be the Horse who had us at his mercy a second time. The one who had initiated our descent into horror. Objectively I knew he was not the worst of pirates; he was a rapist and robber and opportunist, but not a wanton killer. But he was a symbol in my mind, and he had to be destroyed. For the sake of my sister Faith.
Now, I realized, I might see him rape my sister Spirit. Unless I found a way to get at one of our power weapons so as to take him out.
I reentered the main bubble. The Horse was there, his laser pistol pointed at my midriff. He was garbed exactly as I remembered him: black shirt, yellow pantaloons, bright-red sash, and broad buccaneer hat, all of it worn and dirty. He stank the same too; no wonder they called him the Horse.
We were all captive, exactly as before. All our savage experience seemed to have changed nothing. They bound us and set us in a line against the wall of the Commons, near one of the operative heads. The two innocents were somewhat battered, but the others weren’t hurt. Spirit and I had been removed from our space suits; no hope of escaping to the hull now! But maybe some chance would come for one of us to get to a weapon.
I shifted my wrists. Two pirates had bound us with lengths of rope about the crossed wrists and crossed ankles. They had a light touch, and had made the knots only tight enough to hold us effectively, not enough to interfere with the circulation in our extremities. They obviously knew what they were doing. I didn’t recognize either of them—but of course we had seen so many pirates since our first encounter, that they tended to fuzz in my memory.
But for what it was worth, I didn’t think these particular two had raped Faith, while I thought t
he two standing with the Horse had done so. That provided me with a set of priorities; whom to attack first, when I had the opportunity.
The interrogation began: Where were all our other people? How did we get the pirate weapons and supplies? Where were we going, since we were now spiraling away from Jupiter and out of the ecliptic? The Horse knew there was something strange about us, and he sought to turn it to his advantage. I realized that he was basically a scavenger, seeking whatever other pirates had missed.
We did not answer him. We all remembered his prior visit. We owed him nothing.
“Then we shall do it the harder way,” the Horse said. “I’m not much for torture and killing, but I do like to turn a profit and I don’t like being balked.” He looked us over. “You,” he said, pointing to me. “You’re the oldest, and as I recall, you had a fine piece of a sister you’ve managed to hide somewhere. You will answer my questions.”
I remained silent. It was the only way I could get back at him, at the moment.
He pointed at Spirit. “Strip her,” he said.
The two pirates beside him went over and hauled my little sister out, untied her, and ripped off her clothing, though she struggled and tried to bite and scratch. Then they held her upright and naked before us.
The Horse studied her. “Not quite old enough,” he said with evident regret. “Another year and she’ll be fine, but I don’t get my kicks from children. Anyway, that won’t make this kid talk; it didn’t before. We’ll have to go the other way.” He drew his knife.
I broke out in clammy sweat. I had somehow been braced for rape, much as I detested the notion, but this was worse. He was going to torture Spirit!
The Horse faced me. “This is your sister, by the look of her. Put her in your clothes and she could be your little brother. I don’t want to have to hurt her, but I will if you don’t talk. I ask you once: Will you tell me everything I want to know?”
“He won’t!” Spirit exclaimed.
Guided by her, I remained silent. Maybe the pirate was bluffing, trying to scare me into talking.
The Horse sighed. “Okay, we’ll start with a finger.” He grabbed Spirit’s left hand and wrestled with it until he had hold of her smallest finger, while the two other pirates held her legs and other arm, preventing her from struggling effectively. It struck me how similar this process was to rape.
Then, without ceremony, he brought the knife up and sliced into the base of her finger, near the knuckle.
Spirit screamed with ear-deadening intensity, and wrenched with all her strength, but the pirate hung on and kept carving. Blood spattered out. I rolled over, trying to break my bonds, and the children on either side of me started crying. They had been toughened to the wounds of combat, but this was different. I could not get free; I landed on my side, my head on the deck.
Something landed before my nose. I stared cross-eyed at it. It was about five centimeters long and tattered at one end.
It was Spirit’s little finger.
I looked up, my eyes hazed by tears of shock and fury. I saw and heard Spirit sobbing, her hand covered with her own blood.
“I ask you again,” the Horse said, grinning. “Are you ready to talk?”
Now I knew he wasn’t bluffing. He would keep cutting off parts of Spirit until she died. Then he would start on another child.
What did it matter, what he knew of the adventures of our bubble? We had no secrets worth dying for.
But I tried one more thing. “Kife,” I said.
Suddenly I had the complete attention of all the pirates. “So you’re into that, are you?” the Horse asked, licking his lips. “All right, show me the mark and I’ll turn you loose.”
“I have no mark,” I said. I hadn’t thought to mark myself, and probably that wouldn’t have been convincing since it wouldn’t have been a tattoo. A lie would get me nowhere, and I really didn’t have much taste for lies anyway. Lies were for pirates and scions.
The Horse squinted at me cannily. “Not everyone knows this, but I do: There’s always a mark. That’s to stop impostors from making claims. If you can’t show me the mark, you’ve got no claim. And even with the mark, you can’t protect anyone else. You’re the only one exempt. So show it, and I’ll put you in that lifeboat you’re towing and send you off, and I’ll interrogate someone else here.”
The trouble with the Horse was that he was canny. My bluff had failed. I couldn’t save Spirit anyway. “Let my sister go, and I’ll tell you everything,” I said, capitulating.
“I won’t let her go, but I’ll let her be,” the Horse said. He gestured to the pirates holding Spirit, and they let go her arms and stooped to bind her ankles. Crying brokenly, preoccupied with her mutilated hand, she did not try to escape, and of course it wouldn’t have done any good if she had. She tried to put her fist in her mouth, but the blood was still flowing, and she only smeared it on her cheek.
Oh, Spirit! Better had they raped you!
One of the pirates who had tied us went over and gave her a bandanna, and she wadded it against the stump. All the fight had gone from her. They put a blanket over her and let her sit down, and she huddled in it. The pain was evidently diminishing—but never again would she have that finger.
I swore again, to myself, to kill the Horse, who had savaged both my sisters. But until I had the chance to do that, I would have to cooperate. I could not watch Spirit be tortured any more.
I talked. I told the pirates everything, summarizing our entire misadventure in the bubble. The Horse was especially interested in the QYV aspect. “And the body of the courier is frozen on the hull?” he asked.
“Yes,” I agreed shortly.
“So you were the one who killed her, not a pirate.”
“Yes.”
“Which means you will have to settle with Kife.”
I hadn’t thought of that. “I suppose so,” I said, resenting the very fact of agreement with him. If I ever encountered Kife, however, I knew it would not be amicable.
The Horse smiled. “I will make sure you go free, then. wouldn’t care to be the one to deprive Kife of his vengeance. He’s an ugly one.” He pondered. “Still, I understand those couriers carry some really good stuff. We’d better take a look at it.”
“No!” one of the other pirates exclaimed. “It’s death to mess with—”
“With a dead courier?” the Horse asked. “Whose body will be lost in space, tied to a drifting bubble? I think even Kife knows where to cut his losses. He’ll deal with her killer and let it go at that.”
“I don’t know,” the other pirate said.
“That’s why I’m the leader here,” the Horse said. “I’ll take the responsibility. I’ll never have another chance to see exactly what a courier carries.”
It occurred to me that if the Horse let me go and Kife caught up with me, Kife would learn from me of the Horse’s part in this. Then the Horse would be marked for vengeance too. I had killed Helse to save the bubble; the Horse would be interfering with the privileged material itself. Surely the Horse realized this. Therefore he probably intended to kill me and the other children, once he had all the information we could provide, so we couldn’t implicate him. If Kife tracked the bubble, without any living witnesses, he would discover that the great majority of the refugees, including Helse, had died in prior encounters with pirates; there would be no evidence that the Horse had ever intercepted the bubble a second time. He could probably get away with it.
It all depended on our being dead. I had to kill him—to save us all. But still I had no way.
Under the Horse’s direction, two pirates suited up and scrounged on the hull for Helse’s body. It took them some time, for there were many bodies there and they had to inspect each one naked for the mark. I had told them Helse was female, but evidently they weren’t sure of me, so checked males too, just in case. Actually, it was probably hard to tell until the corpses were pretty well stripped, anyway.
They found her and brought her inside the b
ubble. I had never looked at Helse after her death; now I had to. This, I think, is the most visceral grievance I have against the Horse: I had known Helse was dead, intellectually, but some part of my romantic mind had remained hopeful that she might live. Now no part of my mind could doubt any longer. My last faintly fond illusion had been banished. The utter bleakness of reality took its chill hold on my soul.
I looked, terribly compelled. It was appalling. They had cut away her wedding dress and brought her in naked. She was not pretty at all in this state; she was frozen like a statue, her eyeballs and tongue protruding grotesquely, her body bloated by the decompression that had occurred before it froze. I would not have recognized her at all, if I had not known it was her. But it was; the aspects of familiarity loomed larger as I slowly perceived them. Her brown hair, her breasts, the QYV mark at her thigh—oh, Helse, the woman I had loved!
They tried to cut her open, but she was like rock. They had to thaw her—and that was the worst thing of all. We had thawed the bodies of our men for food, but the adult women had handled that, concealing it from the children as much as possible, and I had not cared to watch. But I understood that they had selectively heated only those portions they intended to carve, leaving the main part of each body intact. A leg, for example, could be heated and even cooked to a certain extent while on the bone, and when it was soft enough to carve, the edible flesh was stripped and the still-frozen remainder of the body was taken back out to the hull. Helse, in contrast, was being thawed entire. This was a much slower and uglier process, for they did not use fire for fear of destroying what it was they sought: the container anchored to her intestine.
In fact, it took several days, as I reckon it, for the body to thaw to their satisfaction, for the ice in the central body cavity melted very slowly. For all that time we had to wait and watch, tied and guarded by the pirates. They released us periodically to eat and drink, one at a time, and to use the head, but watched us so closely that we never had a chance to escape.
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