Asimov's SF, February 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Holstering his pistol, the man helped Deirdre up, and led her out of the shelter, stepping over the bodies of strangers and schoolmates, finding her a seat on a shuttle bound for orbit—bumping off a huge, heavily armed felon with hideous tattoos and a horrendous price on his head. Justice was closing in, and slavers were in a mad scramble to board, facing automatic death sentences if they failed. Slaving was the only capital offense left on New Harmony—since the King taught mercy and tolerance, not total suicide. Yet the fleeing raiders cheerfully made room for her, talking softly and trying not to scare her. All the way into orbit, a tattooed killer held Deirdre's hand, telling her not to be afraid as they left home far behind.

  That was when she was twelve. Slavers saw that she grew even more beautiful, blossoming into a radiant young woman under strict diet and constant exercise, with biosculpt ridding her of any incipient blemish. At eighteen she was stunning, which made the hateful looks from the Fafnir's crew all the more appalling.

  Worse yet, Deirdre knew it was true. She was the Angel of Death, for them and for her. Konar would not have brought her aboard unless he meant to die. If Konar thought he could win the upcoming fight, he would have left her on Hades, which was honeycombed with blast shelters and secret bunkers dug by slavers over the centuries. Bringing her aboard was as good as saying there were no safe refuges, and this was the last fight. Konar would never leave his flagship alive, and had brought his sex toy aboard to die with him.

  Her stomach heaved as she entered the starboard lift, and slavers hurriedly got out, leaving it to her and the SuperCats. Recycled air reeked of sweat, fear, and synthetic sealants. She ignored the hostile looks, knowing it was not her they hated, just what she represented—the ghastly fate hanging over them all. Nuclear annihilation was about the nicest future they could anticipate. Or explosive decompression.

  Doors dilated for her. Tubes and ducts snaked overhead. Fafnir began life as the high-g survey ship Endurance, but slavers had taken her on her maiden voyage, turning her into a warship, with blast shields and armored bulkheads, stripping and reinforcing the hull, making Fafnir stronger, faster, more focused to a task, ruthlessly discarding whatever they did not want. Not unlike what they did to Deirdre.

  Commander Hess of the Hiryu greeted her on A-deck; dark eyed, black-haired, and alert, he wore his dress uniform thrown open to show the flying dragon tattoo curled round his left nipple. Too professional to display fear, Hess bowed neatly, with a flick of his black curls, and a curt click of his heels. “If my lady will follow me.” He showed the way with his palm.

  “How goes the Hiryu?” This was a silly stab at making conversation, since all of Konar's ships were surely doomed.

  “Could not be better,” Hess lied casually. Things could hardly be worse, with Navy cruisers headed insystem, slowing from near light speed. Hiryu faced a losing battle along with the rest of Konar's little fleet, but the one nice thing about Hess was that he never deigned to show his feelings. Deirdre appreciated this reticence, since Commander Hess's inner workings sickened her. Physically. Being this close to Hess made her want to barf up her gourmet lunch.

  Her quarters had a hemispherical pressure hatch, a sad indication that someone thought the main pressure would fail. The slaver on duty gulped at seeing her, asking Hess, “Is she wired?"

  Hess nodded curtly. By now Deirdre was used to being discussed in third person. “Where's her remote?” the guard demanded. Hess gave him a “where-do-you-think” look, and the slaver shut up. Dismissing the SuperCats, Hess led her through the hatch, into the cabin.

  Immense vistas opened up before her. Picture windows looked out over forest and sea, as if the cabin sat on a pine-clad pinnacle above a river valley filled with woods and farmland. In the foreground she saw a fishing village, and, farther down river, a port city stood at the mouth of a fjord. Storm clouds hung over the distant ocean, but an orange-red sun shone down on the cabin, framed by a small pair of moons. All extremely unreal, since the cabin was buried deep in a starship, behind layers of armored bulkheads. Living quarters on Fafnir were still those of a deep space survey ship, using 3V and sensurround to keep claustrophobia at bay.

  Deirdre could smell the pines, and hear birds singing above the drone of insects. Rock climbers waved to her from a nearby pinnacle, a fun group of healthy young people, close enough to call to from the “balcony” beyond the windows—if you wanted to talk to holos. She asked Hess, “Is this world real?"

  “Elysium, Delta Eridani II, we raided it once.” Hess grinned at the virtual landscape. “Not a full out landing—Delta E is too far in for that—just a picked team with pre-set targets.” Hess meant a kidnapping. Not all slaver crimes were on the horrific scale of the New Harmony Raid; sometimes they slipped into civilized systems, snatching up valuable individuals for ransom, or resale. “But a rousing success nonetheless.” Hess preened, as if she should congratulate him.

  He already had her missing the SuperCats. “Can I change it?” Deirdre asked. Delta E meant nothing to her.

  “Your bunkmates might object.” Hess nodded at the balcony, where two children had come out to call to the climbers—a boy about eight or nine with impossibly purple hair, spiked on top, and a girl a couple of years older, whose squared-off blonde hair ended in a shoulder-level blue stripe.

  “Bunkmates?” She thought they were holos. The purple-haired boy scrambled up onto the balcony rail, leaning over the virtual gap, waving vigorously at the climbers, while the blonde girl with the blue fringe looked bored. Alike enough to be brother and sister, they wore expensive Home System outfits, cut down versions of adult fashions. Appalled to find these were real kids, Deirdre hissed, “Who are they?"

  “Insurance,” Hess replied airily.

  “What does that mean?” It was bad enough that she was going to die—did she have to watch kids die as well?

  “They are the grandchildren of Albrecht Van Ho, Director General of River Lines,” Hess explained. “That pair of AMCs headed insystem belong to River Lines. They might be a shade less eager to vaporize us with these two aboard."

  Maybe. Personally, she hated staking her existence on corporate pity. River Lines had not operated for centuries in the worst stretches of the Eridani by pulling punches. Having no mercy themselves, slavers misjudged kindness in others—taking it for weakness, or stupidity. Did anyone really think the Navy would give up and go home rather than fry some CEO's grandkids? For Priscilla's sake, why not just load Fafnir up with baby puppies?

  Deirdre had long ago stopped trying to explain compassion to Commander Hess. New Harmony had taught her to do good for others. “Love thy neighbor,” is what the King said, and what he practiced, moving Priscilla in next door to Graceland. It worked for Elvis, and it worked for her. Compassion came easy, when a kind word or a simple favor from a girl so lovely as her brightened anyone's day. Deirdre liked people thinking her a darling angel—not knowing how little effort it took. Like giving away Cadillacs, when you owned a zillion of them.

  When she first arrived on Hades, Deirdre tried diligently to live by the laws of New Harmony, treating everyone with kindness, sympathy, and understanding, hoping for fairness in return—vastly amusing her captors. Slavers raised the price of compassion, teaching Deirdre to keep such feelings to herself. They cared not a whit how others felt, which was their biggest failing, the one most likely to get them all killed. But try telling that to an Eridani slaver. Otherwise they were orderly and efficient, and extremely good at what they did, which was kidnapping people for sale, ransom, or personal use. Deirdre complained, “Do I have to bunk with them?"

  Her best chance of getting away was to convince some man that she was well worth saving. Hauling two kids about easily halved her slim chances.

  Hess shrugged, “No room. Ship-of-war, and all that. Besides, this is not so bad,” he looked happily about, running a keen reaver's gaze over the cabin's real ivory inlay, and pre-atomic cut crystal. Commander Hess was mysteriously immune to the pall her arriva
l cast over the flagship. Did Hess know something that she did not? Probably. His smile broadened, the first real smile she had seen since coming aboard. Hess asked, “We have come a long way, haven't we?"

  Deirdre did not answer. Hess had saved her life, forming a weird bond between them, though it hardly made them close. She had been living with slavers since she was twelve, but Commander Hess was the one that gave her nightmares, scaring her more than any of them, more than Konar himself. Just being in the same room with him gave her the cold, screaming shivers.

  Hess was the slaver who went through that Goodwill City blast shelter, killing everyone but her. Six years later, she could still hear her classmates’ pleas and screams in her head, echoing off steel reinforced walls. And she always feared Hess would one day kill her, just to finish the job. Some nights Deirdre dreamed she was back in the blast shelter, staring into the pistol muzzle, only this time Hess pulled the trigger, and she felt the silent bullets strike.

  Commander Hess of the Hiryu did another little heel-clicking bow, then left. Thank Gladys. Deirdre sank down into a glove leather chair, mulling options. The two well-dressed kids were still out on the balcony, waving stupidly at the holos—at least the boy was. Deirdre had friends and contacts on Hades that she ached to talk to, but Fafnir was under communications lock down—leaving her on her own.

  Shutting her eyes, Deirdre tried desperately to think. She could not die, not with rescue only light hours away. Somehow she would save herself. But how? Behind her blemishless, biosculpted features, lurked the hideous truth that beauty was only skin deep—it did not make her better, smarter, or more noble. It did not even make her nicer, though people liked to think so. So far it just made for incredibly weird relations with men.

  “Cool boots."

  She opened her eyes. Both kids had come in from the balcony, and the boy with spiked purple hair stood in front of her, staring at her black leather boots. He looked up at her, saying, “So, what are you doing in my Grand-dad's cabin?"

  Her inquisitor wore a natty man's jacket, cut just for him, and neatly tailored pants. His own shoes were a pricy pair of snake-skin slippers over silk stockings. He asked again, “What are you doing in Grand-dad's cabin?"

  “He still thinks we are on Elysium,” the girl explained. She was older than her brother, but not by much. Up close they were clearly brother and sister, even though his hair was purple, and hers blue-blonde.

  “Prove we are not,” the boy insisted. His sister rolled her blue eyes—like she really had to “prove” they were abducted by slavers, and light years from anywhere.

  Deirdre sighed. “Chuck him over the balcony rail, that will show him.” Despite the yawning virtual cliff, there was no drop “outside.” A swan dive off the balcony would end in a belly flop on the cabin deck, masked by holographic display. But it was not Deirdre's job to disillusion him. If the boy wanted to believe he was safe at home—instead of on a slaver starship about to be obliterated—what was the harm?

  “Who are you?” the girl asked, wearing the junior miss version of her brother's outfit, right down to the snake-skin slippers, except she had on a pleated skirt in place of pants, and cuffs trimmed with lace. There was no need to ask their names—"Heather” and “Jason” were on their jacket collars.

  “Deirdre.” She made an effort to smile, sitting up in her seat. Just because they were all going to die was no reason not to be cheerful.

  “Where are you from?” Jason demanded. “We're from Elysium.” He pointed to the panorama outside the picture windows.

  Right. She glanced at the supposed scene outside. Skycycles circled over the village below, riding thermals off steep pine-clad cliffs, red-gold afternoon sun glinting on their control surfaces—too bad it was not true. “I'm from New Harmony,” she admitted, sinking back in the chair, knowing what children raised in a place like this would think.

  “New Hicksville,” scoffed the boy. “Hippie planet."

  Heather told him, “It's not nice to say that,” though you could tell by her tone the blonde girl thought it was true.

  Deirdre widened her smile to include Jason, thinking, “At least New Harmony is a real planet, you little preppy-suited marmoset. I'm not making do with a holo, and pretending it's home.” But she did not say it, meeting rudeness with a smile. Her “hippie planet” had taught her not to taunt helpless doomed children, no matter how richly they deserved it.

  “Where do you think we are?” Heather asked, stepping closer, ignoring her brother's pretense of being safe at home.

  “You're off planet,” Deidre told them, trying to break it to them slowly. Way off planet.

  Heather nodded soberly, “I guessed that. We have been gone for so long without anyone finding us.” She was smart, belying what folks said about dyed blondes. Smart enough to be far more scared than her brother.

  “But if they could take us off planet, they could have taken us to Grandfather's lodge,” the boy insisted. Kept alone like this, brother-sister bickering must be the main entertainment.

  “Where off planet?” Heather asked, not bothering to contradict her brother.

  “Tartarus system.” She saw their blank stares. “Way the heck into the Outback. Triple system in the Far Eridani, a small red dwarf primary, Tartarus A, and a distant pair of white dwarf binaries—too far away to much affect Hades. That is the planet we are orbiting."

  “Orbiting?” They both looked askance—the cabin seemed solidly rooted atop its mountain ridge.

  “We are aboard a starship."

  Jason scoffed, but Heather asked, “What starship?” Above hiding behind fantasy, Heather wanted to hear the whole truth.

  Not that the girl would get that from Deirdre, who did not mean to tell these kids they would soon be blown to photons. “She's the Fafnir, used to be the survey ship Endurance. Slavers have her now.” She must let the kids know that these were evil men, never to be trusted; though, needless to say, slavers had no sense of privacy, routinely recording everything important prisoners did and said, preventing escapes and providing amusement.

  “Slavers?” Heather looked less horrified than she should have—but the girl could not possibly imagine how bad things were. So far they had treated the kids royally. “Is that who that man with the dragon tattoo was, the one you talked to?” Heather had been watching her and Hess.

  “One of the worst.” Deirdre nodded solemnly, knowing Hess would relish the compliment. “But their leader's name is Konar."

  “Why have they brought us here?” Heather's hand took hold of the silver hem of Deirdre's kimono, silently twisting the fabric where it rested on the chair, the only sign of how much the question scared her.

  “For ransom from your grandfather.” Sort of. No harm in letting them hope to get home alive.

  “What about you?” Jason asked, resenting her taking his sister's side. “Why are you here?” He stubbornly refused to admit that “here” was not his home.

  Why indeed? “I was kidnapped too, from New Harmony."

  “He means, why did they kidnap you?” Heather guessed that no hick from New Harmony had a trillionaire grandfather.

  Deirdre heaved a sigh, not wanting to go into this too deeply. “Because I am pretty. And I am now Konar's girlfriend.” Sort of. His property more precisely, but who needed to hear that? She had spent her teen years working her way up the slaver hierarchy, and at eighteen had hit the top. “He is the head slaver who commands this ship. The whole system, really."

  “Why?” Jason looked disbelieving. “Isn't that gross?"

  “Do you love him?” asked Heather.

  Like she had a choice. Deirdre was saved from having to answer by a chime going off in her head—one only she could hear. She sat up in her chair, saying, “Have to go."

  “Go where?” Heather was appalled to find her leaving.

  Deirdre gently untwined Heather's fingers from the kimono, solemnly taking the girl's hand in hers. “I'll be back,” she promised, hoping it was the truth. In les
s than an hour, she had gone from not wanting to see these kids, to not wanting to leave them. Even the condemned craved human contact.

  Deirdre called out to the door, and it dilated. The slaver on duty stuck his head in, and she told him, “He wants to see me.” By “he” she meant Konar. Konar had a garish title—Grand Dragon of the Free Brotherhood—but no one ever used it, least of all Deirdre. Konar was “he” or “him"—or in rare moments of affection, “the Old Man” or “Old Snake Nick.” Otherwise, he was just Konar. Like Hitler, or Satan. Everyone knew who you meant.

  Except for these two little rich kids. “Where are you going?” Heather asked plaintively. Jason looked truculent, but if he meant to throw a tantrum he was out of luck. Fafnir ran on raw testosterone, and when Konar called for her services, even a grandson of General Director Albrecht Van Ho had to wait.

  “So let's not keep him,” the slaver suggested. He casually aimed a remote at the kids, his finger on SLEEP.

  Standing up, she bid the kids good-bye, following the slaver down to C-deck. Konar did not need holographic vistas to stay sane, and his command cabin seemed incredibly spare compared to the sumptuous quarters of his hostages—just four bulkheads and a float-a-bed. Slavers cared little for status, valuing people for their own sake. That was the sole way they resembled folks on New Harmony.

  As she entered, Konar was meeting with his captains around a virtual conference table. Hess was there in the flesh, but the captains of the Fukuryu and the Hydra, and their first lieutenants, were holograms beamed from the ships.

  Speed-of-light lag delayed their reactions to her entrance, but several looked shocked. None showed fear, though they knew best how thin the odds were. These were old-time slavers, who had lived with their death sentences for so long they almost seemed born with them. All of them had survived botched raids, grueling life and death chases, hairbreadth escapes from hopeless situations, ghastly torture sessions, and gruesome prisoner eliminations. Incoming government cruisers did not frighten them much, and pretty teenagers did not scare them a whit. She was just one of the perks that made such horrendous risks worthwhile.