Being a girl on the Crescent Worlds had been the first handicap, and the second had been her face and body—typical of her colony, but not like anything she'd seen in a Fleet uniform on the newsfeed vid. Delicate features, narrowing to a pointed chin, sloping wine-bottle shoulders, and generous hips—all prized in her culture—did not fit her dream.
Her parents had been shocked when she told them what she wanted—but at ten, even girls could speak to the sept as a whole, not just parents, about important decisions like marriage negotiations. She had taken her argument to the Aunts' Gossip, where her desire to go offworld was quickly approved—she was too intelligent by far to fare well in the local marriage market. Biosculpting, though—it wasn't until her father's mother approved that she knew she had a chance.
"They will not know she is from here, if she looks so different, so her unwomanly behavior will not disgrace us."
Three years of surgery—of the pain that strengthening her redesigned body caused her—and then she took the Fleet entrance exams, passed them, and left home forever.
Once at the Academy, Casea discovered that her new shape was not considered sexless and unfeminine by her peers. Her honey-blonde hair, falling sleekly to a razor-cut angle, was unique in her class. She had all the interest she could handle, and discovered that the behaviors she'd observed in her older sisters and cousins had quite an effect on the young men in her class.
Protected by the standard implant provided all Academy cadets, she moved from interest to experimentation, and from experimentation to enthusiastic activity. Lectures on the ethics of personal relationships rolled off her confidence without making any impact. If Fleet had been serious about it, she reasoned, the young men of renowned Fleet families wouldn't have been so eager to take her to bed, and the young women would not have received implants. And after all, the young men and women of the Chairholding Families made no secret of their sexual activity—Casea watched enough newsflash shorts to know that.
She was angered, rather than alarmed, to discover that some of her classmates were making snide remarks about her behavior.
"Casea—if it's alive, she'll take it to bed," one of the women drawled in the shower room one morning. That wasn't fair; she had no interest in the ugly or dull.
"She'll get herself in trouble someday," another one said, sounding worried.
"No—not the way she's going. Which of those guys is going to accuse her of seducing him?"
Others simply radiated quiet disapproval. Esmay Suiza, whom she had expected to be a natural ally—they were each the only cadet from their original worlds—turned out to be either a sanctimonious prig or a sexless lump. Casea wasn't sure which, but didn't care. After the first year, she gave up on Esmay: she hadn't the right qualities to be the plain friend of a popular beauty, and Casea could not tolerate the chilly, stiff earnestness of the girl.
But after graduation, she slowed down—sex itself was no longer as exciting—and began to consider her targets with more care. Her cultural background had taught her to look for more from a liaison than physical pleasure alone. Carefully, with an eye out for trouble, she explored the limits of Fleet's policy on what was delicately termed "personal relationships."
In her first assignment, she discovered that if she stayed away from men already considered "taken" by other women, she could hunt at will without arousing comment. So that had been it! She felt a happy glow of contempt for the idiot girls who hadn't simply told her which boys they fancied themselves. Testing this understanding, she turned her violet eyes on a lonely jig, who was quite happy to console himself with a lovely ensign.
But he wasn't enough. She wanted someone in command track. All the command track jigs aboard were paired already—she wrinkled her nose at the two who were wasted on each other, as she thought—and she was not attracted to the single male lieutenant. A major? Could she? She did not doubt her ability to get his interest, but—regulations were supposed to prevent him from dallying with junior officers in his chain of command.
Regulations, as everyone knew, could be bent into pretzels by those with the wit to do so. Still it might be better to look elsewhere . . . which led her to a major in another branch of technical track. It never hurt to have a friend in communications. On her next assignment, he was followed by a lieutenant in command track, and then—with some difficulty in detaching from the lieutenant—by another major. She learned something from each about the extent of her talent, and what advantages could come from such close associations.
Now, though, she was through with casual liaisons. She had found the right man. Against all expectations—she was sure that her grandmothers and aunts would be amazed—she had found a respectable, intelligent, charming young man whom even her father would consider eligible. That he was an ensign, and she a lieutenant, two ranks higher, meant nothing to her. He was mature for his age, and best of all . . . he was a Serrano. Family is everything, she had heard all her life. The one-eyed son of a chief is better than a robber's by-blow. And better family than Serrano—grandson of an admiral, with other admirals in the family tree—she could not hope to find.
The only snag was that rumor said he was, or had been, interested in Esmay Suiza. Casea discounted that. Esmay had been a nonentity, even aside from being a prig. Not pretty, with a haphazard set of features topped with fluffy, flyaway hair of nondescript brown. The boy had hero worship, that's all it was. Suiza had turned out to be a hero of sorts, but nothing could make her beautiful or charming. And now, if rumor were true, she was in trouble for being untactful—Casea could believe that, no question. If she ever had a lover, which didn't seem likely, it would be someone as unspectacular as herself, another nonentity, probably just as tactless and doomed to as inglorious a career.
Still, Esmay's present disgrace would make it easier for Casea to pursue Barin Serrano unhindered. And surely that Serrano grandmother wouldn't want him connected to someone like the bad Lieutenant Suiza. It would take very little, Casea thought, to make absolutely sure that no one ever admired Lieutenant Suiza again.
Elias Madero
It was getting harder to get up off the floor to use the toilet; Brun realized that in addition to the pregnancy she was getting weaker because she didn't exercise much. How could she? The compartment would have been small for one person; with an adult woman, a girl, and two small children, it was impossibly crowded. And at any time, one of the men might look in; she could imagine how they would react if they caught her doing real exercises. She tried to make herself pace back and forth, but she quickly ran out of breath, and leaned on the bulkhead panting. The girl watched her with a worried frown, but looked away when Brun tried to smile at her. As Brun had shared more of the work, the girl had accepted that help, but always with reserve.
That night when the lights dimmed, signalling a sleep period, the girl slept at her back, curled around her. Brun woke to a breath of air in her ear. She started to lift her head, and felt a gentle push downward. The girl?
"Elias Madero," came the words. "Merchanter."
Brun squirmed as if trying to find a comfortable position. Merchanter . . . the merchanter ship. This girl must be off that ship. Excitement coursed through her . . . she knew something now.
"'M Hazel," the girl breathed. Then she too squirmed, as if moving in her sleep, and rolled away.
The rush of joy from those five words burst through her. This must have been how Lady Cecelia felt, when she first made contact with the world again.
A wave of shame followed. Lady Cecelia had been locked in paralysis and apparent coma for months . . . and months more of painful rehab . . . and she had been old. Brun was young, healthy . . . I am not defeated. I am only . . . detained on the way to victory. So she might bear children for these animals . . . so she might be a prisoner for months, for years . . . but in the end, she was who she was, and that would not change.
She rolled over with difficulty, and looked through narrowed lids at the girl . . . at Hazel. She had been impres
sed before at the girl's patience, her consistent gentleness with the little girls, her endless invention of quiet little games and activities to amuse them. But she had given up hoping for any real contact, after the first long stretch of days . . . the girl was too scared. Now she appreciated the courage of this thin, overworked, terrified girl . . . still a child herself . . . who cared for two younger children and Brun. Who dared, in the face of threats, to say a few words of comfort. She had lost everything too—parents, most likely. Were these children even her sisters? Maybe not, but no one could have done more for them.
She pushed herself up to use the toilet; on the way back she noticed that Hazel had rolled over again, as if offering Brun a niche convenient to her ear. Brun lay down, grunting, and pretended to sleep. Her arm slid sideways, touched Hazel's. She twisted—she was uncomfortable—and traced the letters of her name on Hazel's arm before moving her arm away.
Hazel turned, burying her face under her hair, and a soft murmur came to Brun's ear. "Brun?"
Brun nodded. A wave of excitement ran through her; the baby kicked vigorously as if aware of it. Someone besides the men knew who she was . . . an ally. She had made contact . . . it wasn't much, but it gave her hope, the first real hope she'd had.
The next day, she watched Hazel covertly. The girl seemed the same as always—busy, careful, quiet, patient, warm with the children and remote with Brun. When Brandy's restlessness grew toward a tantrum, Hazel intervened, steadied her . . . and Brun was reminded of an expert trainer with a fractious young horse. When she thought of it that way, she began to grasp how Hazel was using the children's need to steady herself. She could be calm, she could follow the senseless rules, because she had someone for whom she was responsible.
And who was Brun's responsibility? The words she had heard from Lieutenant Commander Uhlis came back to her. If she had been a Regular Space Service officer, her duty would have been clear—to escape, or if that was not possible, to live, gathering information, until she could escape. But she wasn't. And even if she had been—even if she pretended to be—was that duty enough to sustain a lifetime such as she faced? What if she never had a chance to escape?
The baby inside her moved, as if it were doing a tumbling act. Surely one baby couldn't make that much disturbance. Some people would say that it was her responsibility, but she did not feel that—it had been forced onto her, into her, and it was not hers at all. It was an abomination, as the men claimed she was.
Was she then her own responsibility? Her mouth soured. Not enough to make a lifetime as these men's slave tolerable, or even bearable. She had spent too many hours already planning how she could escape life, if not them, once they lowered their guard. Eventually they would.
But . . . what if there were a chance, however slim, to keep Hazel and the little girls from her own fate? Somewhere, she was sure, her father was searching. Fleet was searching. It might be years; it might be too many years . . . but it might not. Hazel was compliant not entirely from fear, but also from hope, the hope that some help might come—if she had not had some hope, she would never have dared share her name, and her ship's name, with Brun. So she, Charlotte Brunhilde Meager, could fix her mind on Hazel and the little girls—on saving them.
She did not let herself think again about how unlikely success was. Instead, she began thinking what information she needed, and how to get it. And she quit trying to catch Hazel's eye, quit trying to entice her into communication. The last thing she wanted now was trouble for Hazel.
Only a few days later, the men came for both of them, and the little ones. Brun almost panicked—had they realized Hazel had talked to her? That she had written her own name on Hazel's arm? But they were led along the corridors, farther than Brun had ever gone. Her bare feet were sore; her pregnancy made her awkward at the hatches. To her surprise, the men were patient, waiting while she lifted one leg then the other. They helped her down a slanting surface . . . to a space that opened out around her. She looked, her eyes unaccustomed to the distances after those months in the compartment. The docking bay of a space station, it looked like. All around were men, only men . . . she and Hazel and the two little girls were the only females. The men guided her, gently enough, to a hoverchair. With Hazel walking beside her, the men pushed her chair a long distance. Chair and all, she was moved through another docking bay into a shuttle. Only five men now. At their command, Hazel strapped the children into seats, and herself into another. The men locked the hoverchair down.
When the shuttle hatch opened, Brun smelled what could only be a planet. Fresh air . . . growing things . . . animals . . . hope rose in her again. Planets were big; if she could once get loose, she could find a way to hide, and then to escape. But right now she could barely stand in this gravity, and the heat almost took her breath away.
The men moved her hoverchair from the shuttle, through a low-ceilinged boxlike building, and then into a wheeled vehicle, also large and boxlike, where they locked the chair down again. It had no windows in back, but up front she could see out . . . until a partition rose to cut off her vision. Panic choked her—she was alone in that back compartment; Hazel—the only person she knew—hadn't come with her. Hazel wouldn't know where she was, no one would know, she was going to be lost forever.
Hazel watched under lowered lids as they took the pregnant woman away in a groundcar. She still wasn't sure of the woman's name, even though the woman had traced it into her arm. Could "Brun" be right? What kind of name was that? A nickname for something, most likely, but they had not dared talk enough to make sure. Her yellow hair shone in the sun of this planet, much longer than it had been when Hazel had first seen her.
"I'm taking the children," one of the men with her said. The others nodded, and moved away.
"Come along, Girlie," he said. Hazel followed him, a little breathless with the unaccustomed exercise and the oppressive heat, Brandy holding one hand and Stassi the other. She wondered where the boys were—she hadn't seen them for a long time. She wondered even more about Stinky, and pushed that thought aside too.
The man led them through a gate and across a wide paved space so hot her feet burned. The little girls began to whimper. The man turned. "Here," he said. "I'll carry them." He scooped them up; they stiffened, turning their faces to Hazel's, but they didn't cry out. "Only a little farther," he said. Hazel stepped as lightly as she could. He stopped at last, beside a row of groundcars. A strip of something soft lay there. "Stand on that," he told her. Hazel stepped onto it—and it was cool beneath her feet. She let her breath out in a sigh. He put the little girls down and they each grabbed a hand.
He punched something on a control panel set on a post, and one of the groundcars popped its doors. The man got in, fiddled with the controls, then put his head back out. "All of you, into the back," he said. Hazel pushed the little girls into the back of the groundcar—it was soft inside, with cool air coming out of vents. After she climbed in, the door closed without her touching it. She noticed that there were no door handles on the inside, either.
"I'm taking you home, for now," the man said. The car moved off. Hazel looked out the windows . . . but they were frosted, so she couldn't see. Between the back seat and the front, a dark panel had risen so that she couldn't see out the front, either. The car moved smoothly, though, with no sudden jerks. After some time, the car stopped, and the man opened the door from the outside.
"Come along now," he said. "And be good."
They were on a wide paved street between stone buildings perhaps two stories tall, with a park of some kind just down the block. Hazel caught a glimpse of bright flowers arranged in some sort of pattern, but dared not take a real look. Instead, she followed the man across a stone-flagged walk to the entrance of the nearest building, a heavy carved door opened by a shorter man wearing white trousers and overshirt.
Her escort led them into the house, down a hall, into a large room with big windows opening on a garden. "Wait here," he told Hazel, pointing to a place near t
he door. She stood, holding the little girls to her. He walked across the room, and sat in a chair that faced the door. A girl about Hazel's age, wearing a plain brown dress, scurried into the room, carrying a tray with a pitcher of some liquid and a tall mug. Hazel noticed that she kept her eyes lowered, moving with quick short steps that didn't stretch her ankle-length skirt. Hazel did not dare to watch her all the way to the man's chair, but she heard the gurgle of liquid, the tinkle of a spoon in a glass, stirring. The girl left, her busy feet slipping hurriedly past Hazel. Did she look at Hazel? The littles were looking at her; Hazel squeezed their shoulders in warning.
Across the silent room, she could hear the man swallow. Then more footsteps, from outside the room, hurrying. Short light steps, short heavier ones, and someone running . . . as those legs flashed past her, bare to the knee, in sandals, Hazel realized it must be a boy.
"Daddy!" The boy's voice was still a shrill piping, but full of joy. "Youah home!"
"Pard!" The man's voice, for the first time that Hazel had heard it, expressed something softer than command. "Were you good? Did you take care of your mothah?"
"Yes, sir."
"That's my boy."
The others were passing her now. She saw the small bare feet of three girls, the slim skirts that hobbled their ankles, and—so astonishing she almost forgot and lifted her eyes—a woman's feet angled up on high pointed heels, beneath full skirts that rustled when she walked.
The girls rushed forward; the woman strode, her heels clicking on the floor. Hazel peeked through lowered lids . . . to see a child hardly bigger than Brandy throw herself at her father's lap, giggling. "Daddy!" she said . . . but softly. A larger girl, head down, moved up to nestle against his side. One still larger moved to his other side.
The man kissed each girl, murmuring something in a voice that made Hazel want to cry. Her father had made that soft voice for her, when she sat leaning against him, her head resting on his shoulder. A sob rose in her throat; she choked it back, and stared at the floor again. She could feel the littles trembling; they wanted a cuddle too; they would break away any moment now. She clutched at them harder.
The Serrano Connection Page 58
