The instruction leading up to the confirmation of manhood was fairly graphic and led by men who’d been through it recently themselves. Each had to both relate to the neophytes on a level that would earn their trust, yet be sufficiently bold and superior to make it something the younger ones would want to do.
Father Alex and a few of his young acolytes watched but seldom interfered. These sessions made him uncomfortable—not the instruction in sex and sexual technique, but the sodomy that was a part of it. Each time he couldn’t help but wonder if such practices, long associated in religious instruction with legendary Sodom and Gomorrah, the archetypes of debauchery, were really necessary. Certainly they’d led to a male hunter-gatherer-warrior subculture that thought it almost routine. The same haremlike structure that protected the women had made the sexes view each other almost as different species who united for only one purpose. This was surely not, he thought, what God had in mind, no matter what Mother Paulista had rationalized and now enforced.
Littlefeet and Big Ears had been selected, he suspected, because he’d sent them on that trip, not because they were any more due for this than half a dozen other boys. All the instruction, all the prayer and fasting and then the interactions, all the thoughts of pending status combined with fear of what they had to do to get it and an even greater fear that they might not be able to all consumed them and kept them from dwelling on the mystery of the ghost in the mountain.
He and all the other men knew exactly what they were going through, though. Because of the numbers there was no asceticism among priests in the Family; everyone contributed to the gene pool even if they didn’t understand that this was what they were doing.
He led them to the nearest stream and bathed them in it, and asked for them to repeat their vows of fidelity to God and the Family, and accept their direction as God’s will. Once that was done, he went over to the women’s kraal and saw the two girls, looking too much like children even with the evidence of puberty in their breasts and pubic areas, as wide-eyed and scared to death as the boys, and he did much the same with them, save only that he asked each to confirm that they had passed blood at the same intervals in the month for three successive times or more. When they said that they had, he told them of Adam and of Eve, although they knew the stories, of course, and the commandment to go forth, be fruitful, and multiply. And he bound them, as well, to obedience of authority and devotion to family and duty above self. Then his acolytes brought the two boys to the place the women had provided, quiet and off to one side of the camp, but guarded.
There was a good deal more riding on their success than mere breaking of virginity and the final passage to adulthood. The older men and older women without children waited for their trysts, a bit more casual and social and usually but not always random; they could not begin until these four had finished, and this was one of those Stamights when the measurement of blood to blood said that children were possible.
Only the sentries, the oldest and most experienced of men, and the priests, sisters, and brothers of the Church would not participate. They would have their own time at a Stamight when there were none like these to be confirmed, and the younger ones could stand guard for them.
It was a system that, pretty much, worked. Whether God had anything to do with it or not was a point nobody cared to bring up.
Growing up in such an exposed culture did not, of course, leave many secrets, even for the youngest. They had seen this lovemaking, even when they were not supposed to have seen it, and they knew all the stories and brags. Still, for Littlefeet to stand there close up to this girl who looked different and seemed so different was scarier than going back and taking on that ghost.
“H—hi,” he managed.
“Hi,” she breathed back, betraying less nervousness than he but showing the same emotions in her eyes.
“Let’s sit,” he suggested. “What’s your name?”
“My mama named me Aphrodite. Funny name, ain’t it? But most everybody but her calls me Spotty ’cause I got this white spot in my hair. See?”
Even in the darkness, his trained eyes could see it. He’d seen some folks with streaks, but this was the only one, male or female, who seemed to have a nearly round spot of white hair right on top of her head, with the rest of the hair the common jet black.
He laughed. “Well, they named me Plato, which is just as silly, but everybody calls me Littlefeet ’cause I got feet smaller’n most anybody else my size.”
“I—I think they’re kinda cute. I was hoping you’d be cute, and you are. There are some mean, ugly boys over there I seen.”
He decided not to press for their names. She thinks I’m... cute! He found himself with mixed emotions on that one. Warrior guards and runners weren’t supposed to be cute, they were supposed to be tough and manly and strong and all that. On the other hand, there was a part of him that really liked the idea that she thought him, well, good-looking.
“Well, I think the spot’s kinda cute, too,” he responded, unable to think of any other way of expressing the same sentiments except by echoing her. But she was kind of, well, “cute.”
It went on like that for some time, as they traded totally inconsequential comments and felt each other out verbally. She offered him a ceremonial drink made from the fermentation of certain plants by a process known only to the Sisters. It was very sweet and tasted like nothing he’d ever tasted before, and he took half and then she drank the rest out of theome gourd.
Ultimately, each began to regard the other as another kid their own age rather than as some alien girl creature and boy creature. He found himself wanting to impress her with some tales of adventures, and she seemed to relax and lap them up. Girls were kept on a pretty short leash by the Mother and the Sisters, and they didn’t have, well, adventures, only routines.
There was no set time when it happened, nor was either really aware of it until it was well underway. They just were very close, and then they kissed the way they were supposed to, and the sweet taste in both their mouths seemed to consume them. They knew what to do and they did it, all inhibitions and thoughts fleeing.
It was, for all that, a quiet consummation; one of the things the drink, a mild natural drug also used to quiet the cries of babies, did was numb the vocal cords. It would not do to propagate the race and betray the Family at the same time.
In the end, he was surprised, almost shocked to discover how totally exhausted he was, and sore, too, almost like he’d run a whole day carrying a full supply load. Still, he was startled when he saw how much blood was on both of them.
“Is that from you or from me?” he gasped. Or maybe both of us, as a part of this act?
“It is from me,” she assured him, in a very soft, sweet, but tired voice. “When we have rested, we will go down to the pool and cleanse ourselves, but there is no hurry. We will do it when we want to, ’cause we’re not children anymore...”
SIX
A Tale of Two Women
Bambi the Destroyer was not very pretty when she was pissed, and she was plenty pissed. Almost as pissed as he was.
“I want to know how the fuck you did that!” she spat, sitting down on the stool next to his at the club bar. It didn’t have drinks as strong as at the Cuch, but it didn’t have the roaches or the smell, either, and you didn’t have to put on false hair and such just to be presentable.
It was odd how thin, how vulnerable, she looked without that combat suit on. She was short, no more than 155, maybe 160 centimeters, and if she weighed fifty kilos it would be amazing. Still, her martial arts skills and gymnastic-type moves, even like this, were the stuff of legend among her troopers.
“I opened fire and cut you down,” he responded, sipping his whiskey and soda and trying to sound nonchalant.
“That ain’t what I mean and you know it! I been beat before, sure, when I was just out of school and a smartass second looey, but I ain’t been beat on the sims since. Not on one that easy, particularly!”
“No
t so loud,” he responded playfully. “Do you want the word to get around that you got took? Think of what your troops will think of you if that gets around! They might actually shoot you in the heart instead of in the back.”
“Don’t get smartass with me! I don’t like bein’ beat, but I recognize it when somebody does somethin’ I never saw before. I can’t figure it out, unless it was somethin’ brand new they added to your suit.”
“Nothing like that. I just did a flee, execute, and defend in three-sixty mode, that’s all.”
“Bullshit! That’s what all the data said, but I seen a ton of the best of the best and I ain’t never seen nobody able to do that. The human mind and the interface ain’t good enough to make it work.”
“It’ll work. It did work. I can’t tell you how, because I don’t know. I just know that something about that kind of knack is what got me recruited for the Commandos a few years back now. It’s like explaining to a groundling what it’s like to be inside the suit and fight. You either have it or you don’t. Those who have it they somehow spot and train and train and train until it can be executed when needed. I’m surprised I could still do it. Last time I did it I died. They scraped up the pieces and got me into a pickle wagon fast enough to restore me, more or less, but I didn’t know if I still had it until I tried it in there.”
“Teach me!”
“I can’t. I told you. Not even the Commandos and Rangers, the only two organizations where it’s even attempted, can teach it. They can only make you better if it’s already there. Some way in which the brain works. Maybe a mutation, maybe even brain miswiring. They aren’t sure. They been trying to build it into the suits for those who don’t have it for a long time, but they never seem to be able to. The wiring, both suit and soldier, seem to have to be just exactly so. It’s luck. Or a curse. I spent two years in a pickle jar because I could do it, and that’s only because I was lucky. You ever spent any time for major repairs in one of those units?”
She shook her head. “Nope. They had me in for a few days for some burns, but it wasn’t the full treatment and it wasn’t any big deal. Just boring as shit, even with the feelgood stuff they put into you.”
“Don’t let ’em put you in one for the kind of injuries I had. Just—don’t. And don’t let ’em give you that bullshit that you’re not really in pain, that it’s all the consequences of surgery and healing drugs and the reconstitution process and all that. You’re there, you’re aware, you’re in real pain, and you keep living that last hour over and over and over again. When they finally bring you out, you’re whole, but it’s not fun anymore. It’s not fun at all. Enjoy it while it’s still a game, Fenitucci, and then die when it’s your time.”
She looked at him with a grim expression. “It’s really that bad?”
He drained his whiskey. “It’s really that bad. And it never really ends. That’s why they call us the Walking Dead, or, sometimes, the Zombie Corps. There aren’t too many of us. Most blow their brains out in the first year after getting back to duty, or they quit the Navy, or they wind up in rubber rooms. They made me a cop, and I kind of liked the job. It’s busy, always a little weird, and not too demanding.”
“Then why are you gettin’ back in the suit? Hell, man! You’re Navy! You don’t have to do this shit no more! You ain’t Commando now! What’re you tryin’ to prove?”
“Prove? Nothing. They made me a cop, and I just told you I liked it. Beats the Zabulon Five Rebellion three ways from Sunday. Trouble is, once I get a case, I can’t let go until I solve it, or at least find out all there is to know. I’ve got the granddaddy of all cases right now, and I’m gonna need a suit just to see it through. I got to admit, though, I’m so damned rusty I’m beginning to wonder if I can hack it.”
“Rusty! You just zapped the best fuckin’ Marine in the service! I don’t care what you say, you didn’t win them medals and commendations sittin’ on your ass. I seen ’em in your files. You got the Cross of Honor, man! I never met nobody who won that—nobody alive, anyway. You could get busted to swabbie and still rate a salute! And you still got it. I can tell you that.”
“Then I guess you didn’t know. They didn’t tell you?”
“Huh? You didn’t make it out in time?”
“I didn’t make it thirty seconds after you went dark. I got so wrapped up in myself at the kill that I forgot to watch my back and something just swallowed me whole and then chewed from the inside.”
“Shit! But that’s why we train, right? I mean, so you remember those things. Besides, if you won all the time, you wouldn’t play no more.”
“It’s no game. I told you that.”
“Hell, man! Everything’s a game! Life’s the game, and then the game’s over. We’re goin’ to hell in a handbasket, ain’t we? I mean, maybe we’ll get off or away ’cause it’s slowed down, but you and me both know humanity’s had it. We’re policin’ the rear guard. Frontier reported some new Titan ships cornin’ in now. They’re goin’ to spread at least another hundred light-years after this round. They’ve already started the evacuations, for all the good those’ll do. We’re out of places to put ’em and we’re out of the worlds with the factories and resources to build things where we need ’em. So we may as well all play games, play hard, fight hard, love hard, die hard, ’cause in another couple hundred years, give or take, we’re gonna run out of worlds, and then everything people did in the past thousands of years gets flushed down the toilet. All the books, all the plays, all the pretty pictures, all the ideas. Kaput! Finito! So when you gonna get in the sack with me, huh? They did regrow that part in the pickle jar, didn’t they?” He chuckled, even though it was an old line—and one of the most asked questions, in fact. “Can’t do it, Fenitucci. I’m afraid I’m beginning to like you, and that makes it impossible.”
“So you want I should kick you in the balls?”
“No, just keep it professional, that’s all. See, there were a whole lot of other people I knew, maybe even loved a little, who got scraped up with me, and while I got four back out, the rest—well, I’m the only other one that made it, period. I don’t like going to bed with somebody and then having to scrape her up later.”
“Christ! I’m not talkin’ about a romance! Just a roll in the hay, that’s all. You’re one of the few officers left, male or female, and I got a reputation!”
“You lost. I got to sleep with the sea monster.”
She gave him a sneer but didn’t hit him.
“Seriously,” he continued. “Tell me—who sent you in there? You didn’t just happen in.”
“I got a call from Colonel Palivi’s office suggesting it would be a nice time to go down to the base simulator in the kind of terms that indicate that, well, we’re not ordering you to do anything, but you’d better get your ass down there. I got, and they had my suit ready and the tech there told me that I was the live enemy in your sim. Now you know as much as me. More, really, ’cause I don’t know why the hell you need the suit and training. You’re good, but you’re out of practice or you would never have gotten swallowed. Anything that needs a suit is something that should be handled by people whose business it is to fight in them.”
“I agree,” he replied. “But this isn’t about a fight. It’s dangerous, but it’s no fight, because if it becomes one I’ll lose hands down. I just can’t say more right now.”
“Word is you’re gonna try to ride the keel down a hole. That’s suicide, man!”
He stiffened. “Who told you that?”
“Nobody. Well, somebody, but I don’t remember who. It’s kinda the buzz all over.”
“Any other—buzz? On me, that is?”
“Lots of shit. Something about the Dutchman and that parked freak show up there, lots of other crap. Hey—where you goin’?”
“I think I have to have a little talk with somebody,” he replied. “It can’t wait. I’ll see you around.”
“Hey—you really gonna ride a keel?”
He felt a mixture of relie
f and irritation. “Probably not,” he responded.
Commander Tun He Park did not like to be roused out of a sound sleep, and he was in a pretty foul mood when he let Harker into his quarters. He instantly saw that he wasn’t in nearly as foul a mood as Harker himself, though. He instantly leaped to the wrong conclusion. “The ship’s filed a flight plan?”
“Not that I know of, Commander. But when it does, I’ll be the last to know. The whole damned ship, and, for all I know, the whole base will know first.”
“Huh?” Park took out a joystick and pressed it against his arm. In about a minute he’d be far more awake and alert. “What are you talking about?”
“Just had a go-round in the sim with Fenitucci. I got her, so she tracked me down in the club. Turns out just about everybody knows what I’m training for and at least as much detail as I do. You’re G-2 here. If everybody knows I’m supposed to ride the keel of the Odysseus when it moves out, do you suppose that the people on the Odysseus won’t know it, too?”
“It’s possible. Sticking around all this time is what does it. You can’t keep a secret worth a damn on a small port like this when they just sit out there and drop by the local bar every night or two. It was expected, although I don’t think they really believe anybody would actually do it. N’Gana wouldn’t do it, and he’s a first-order psycho. Of course, they’re being so all-fired conspicuous that I almost think they want you along. Or somebody from the Navy, anyway. Maybe as insurance against the Dutchman, maybe for their own reasons. If that’s the case, I expect that they’ll get you inside just before they inject. In the end, it doesn’t matter.”
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