Torchship Captain

by Karl K Gallagher

  Iroth read it out loud. “Michigan Long, Commander, Akiak Space Guard . . . you’re really her.”

  “Yep.”

  “Ohmyohmyohmyohmy—can I call my friend Blythe? Can she come join us? Blythe will kill me if she finds out you were here and I didn’t tell her.” Iroth’s professional façade fell away, revealing a star struck fan.

  “Why Blythe?”

  “She, um, well, she does you.”

  “What?”

  “Well, there are guys, who’ve heard of you, and, um, obsess, and she, um, scratches that itch for them.”

  This was an aspect of infamy that had never occurred to Mitchie before. “Yeah, call her.”

  ***

  Blythe was scary.

  She wasn’t a perfect mirror-image. Just a bit too tall, the face was too narrow despite Fusion medicine’s best efforts, and just looking at the breasts made Mitchie’s back ache.

  The clothes didn’t match either. Mitchie wore a blouse and slacks in don’t-notice-me grey and brown. Blythe’s outfit might have started as a jumpsuit, but it was tailored to follow every curve. She wore it only partially zipped, leaving her navel as anchor to the bare skin above.

  “Oh, my God, it is you, it is!”

  “I told you,” said Iroth.

  “Oh, wow.”

  “Hi,” said Mitchie. “So what exactly do you . . . do for these guys?”

  Iroth gave Blythe a goblet and topped off Mitchie’s. Three armchairs made a cozy circle for them to sit in.

  “Usually he’ll have a case in mind. I just follow the script and bam, he’s happy.”

  “A case?”

  “One of your documented interrogations. Fusion Counter-Intelligence back-tracked all your operations. There’s weeks of public surveillance video of you, detailed transcripts from everyone you targeted, even simulations of some incidents.”

  “How do you know all this? Isn’t that classified?”

  “It’s an interrogation fantasy. I have to ask them about something classified.”

  “Your customers are FCI agents?”

  “Sure. That’s how it starts. They go through your surveillance file, start doing themselves at work, then at home. Finally they go looking for a short girl.”

  Iroth quipped, “And we send them to her.”

  “Good God,” said Mitchie. “FCI is using their database as a pornography library. No wonder they’re so bad at catching spies.”

  “It’s not all agents. The Wentworth interrogation is public. There’s a lot of guys who see that and your pictures and come to me.”

  Mitchie’s face scrunched up as if she’d found half a worm in her apple. “They want to be suffocated?”

  Blythe shrugged. “I try to give them what they want.”

  Boys are so strange. “Why?”

  Blythe looked helplessly at Iroth. The older whore said, “We make our money figuring out how to give them what they want. There’s no money in why.”

  “Okay, I believe you, I just can’t wrap my head around it.”

  “Speaking of how.” Blythe was suddenly shy. “How do you make a guy pass out without killing him? I strap him down and put my hand over his nose and mouth but I always lose my nerve before they pass out. Some of them demanded their money back. But they thrash so much I’m afraid of a heart attack.”

  Mitchie swigged down her wine. “I couldn’t do it by holding my hand on his face. That’s too intimate.” She felt her boot knife slide into a heart, chilling her spine.

  Shop talk was more comfortable than the conversation she’d planned on having here. “I had him in a pressure suit. Airtight, I just turned a valve to cut off his air. He could still breathe in and out, just got bad air. So less stress than covering his mouth.”

  Iroth topped off Mitchie’s wine again.

  “You need to have medical sensors. Full set. Pulse, blood pressure, oxygen fraction, carotid and jugular velocity, neurotransmitter levels, all that. The readouts will tell you if he’s hitting a danger level on any of them. So just sit back and wait for him to pass out.”

  “Perfect. Thank you. That’s exactly what I needed to know. What book were you reading?”

  “Book? When?”

  “Wentworth said you were reading a book but he didn’t remember the title.”

  “Does it matter?” asked Mitchie.

  “For what they’re paying I should get every detail right.”

  “Um . . . probably Marooned on Akiak. But I don’t recommend it. It’s terrible. Kind of a guilty pleasure.”

  “That’s okay, I just need the cover.”

  Blythe went on to demand more details, some on incidents Mitchie barely remembered. Iroth ordered two more bottles from room service. Mitchie used the time Blythe spent typing in notes to sip more wine.

  “Next. There’s a recent rumor that you hide a knife in your pussy.”

  “Ow. Hell, no. It’s in my underwear.”

  The whores looked hopeful and expectant.

  “Fine.” Mitchie unzipped her slacks, pulled out the hide knife, and dropped it on the coffee table.

  “Oh, that is sneaky,” said Blythe.

  Iroth laughed. “I wouldn’t want to stick that inside me either.”

  “If you want every detail right you need to fix your belly button.”

  “This is my original. There are no naked pictures of you at all. Do you know how rare that is? What does it look like?”

  Mitchie pulled up her blouse.

  Blythe leaned forward to study the navel. “Right. I can describe that to the doc. Fixable.”

  “How much did you already get fixed?”

  The whore shrugged. “Usual amount of work for a professional.”

  “The eye color work was the worst,” said Iroth. “I was living with her for a week until the bandages came off.”

  “Boys notice details like that. Especially if they’ve spent who knows how long staring at a picture.”

  Mitchie snarked, “You’d think they’d notice the breasts are the wrong size.”

  “Some do. But they react anyway. It’s an instinct.” Blythe twisted in her seat, dropping the pseudo-jumpsuit to her waist. “I had them get the shape right, I hope.”

  “Um.” Mitchie glanced down. It was a lousy angle to compare them. “Guess so.” Looked back up. “Nipples are the wrong color.”

  “Oh? What should they be?”

  “Pink.” Mitchie regretted her last two glasses of wine.

  “Blythe’s are pink,” said Iroth.

  “Yeah, but a darker pink. Oh, hell.” It was easier to unsnap blouse and bra than to try to find the right words.

  Iroth pulled a make-up kit out of her purse. She spun the dial before holding it up to Mitchie’s chest.

  “That’s it,” said Blythe.

  “Rouge LM,” Iroth read off the gadget.

  “Now you know everything you could possibly need to know,” said Mitchie.

  “There is one more thing.”

  “What?”

  “The sounds you make when you climax.” Blythe flinched back from Mitchie’s glare. “They tell me I’m getting it wrong!”

  “How the hell would they know?”

  “There’s an audio recording. It’s highly classified, nobody’s willing to let me hear it.”

  Mitchie cursed at length. “Who did that?”

  “I don’t know his name. A fighter pilot.”

  “Housefly Seventeen. Yeah, he’s enough of an asshole to do that.”

  Iroth giggled. “Going to kick his ass?”

  “Can’t. He’s already dead.”

  That alarmed the whores. “I didn’t think you did much of that,” said Blythe.

  “I didn’t do it. Combat loss. His squadron was destroyed trying to protect a freighter full of refugees from a Betrayer attack.” Her freighter. Being grateful to him for that didn’t mix well with being angry over the recording.

  “So you understand why I need to know.” Blythe was kneeling in front of Mitchie’
s chair now.

  Crap. I didn’t zip up my pants after taking the knife out.

  Iroth leaned down for a kiss. “Relax, sugar. We know what we’re doing.”

  ***

  Pillow talk was a chance for Mitchie to unload the rant she’d come to this room to give. The whores listened attentively.

  “You’re pissed at him for doing what you asked him to do?” said Iroth.

  “I’m not pissed. It’s . . . the guy was always paying attention to me. I thought it was just high situational awareness. Didn’t even realize he liked me. Now she walks into the room and it’s like I’m invisible.” Who ‘she’ was had stayed vague in her story.

  Blythe asked, “When did you realize he liked you?”

  “He killed two guys who’d taken me captive.”

  “That’s not in your file!”

  Mitchie threw her hands into the air. “Thank you, Lord! There’s one part of my life that FCI isn’t using for entertainment.”

  “Have you talked to him about the invisible thing?” said Iroth.

  “I haven’t tried to talk about it much. After the first time he was mad at me for rushing things. When he found out I wanted it for politics he blew up. Now we sorta tiptoe around it.”

  “But he’s still fucking her.”

  “They’ve probably fallen asleep by now.”

  “You need to talk to him,” pressed Iroth. “Explain what you need. Ask him to give it to you. You’re not asking much. Just attention, recognition. Acknowledging you exist while she’s there.”

  “How can I demand more for me while I’m insisting he give so much to her? She’s so damn needy I think he’s at his limit as it is.”

  “Is he getting what he needs?”

  Blythe laughed. “He’s getting a hot teenager. What more could a guy want?”

  Iroth stayed focused on Mitchie. “Seriously. Is he?”

  “I don’t know. He’s not a complainer.”

  “Then you’d better check.”

  Mitchie thought on this.

  Iroth had her own chain of thought. “Guenivere Claret was a virgin?”

  “How the fuck did you—I didn’t say that!” blurted Mitchie.

  “Only person in the CPS or Active Groups who fit the description. But I thought a trillionaire’s kid would have partied harder than that.”

  “There’s Lorraine Q,” interjected Blythe.

  “Lorraine is using her Active Group to hunt down the guys who gang-raped her and send them to the guillotine. She may need to learn what good sex is but she’s not naïve.”

  Mitchie pleaded, “Between her mother’s murder and the kidnapping attempts Guen was locked up tight until now. Please don’t share this, it could get her killed.”

  Iroth said, “These days anything can get someone killed—”

  “Or nothing,” quipped Blythe.

  “—but the first one to die is always the whore who talked too much. She’s safe from us. And so are you.”

  The “Conscript’s March” from Three Wars In Five Generations set Mitchie’s datasheet quivering. She crawled over Blythe to grab it from her pants. Before answering she made sure nothing but her face and the wall would be visible.

  “Hi, baobei.”

  Guo looked tired. “Hey. She just left. I miss you. Can you come back soon? Where are you?”

  “I ran into a couple of fans in the bar. We’ve been chatting.”

  “Oh, good. Glad you weren’t bored. I need a shower.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll probably be back before you’re done.”

  They exchanged kisses.

  When Guo disconnected Mitchie said, “Are there towels in there?”

  “Of course,” answered Iroth.

  “Right. I need to rinse and run.”

  Iroth followed her into the bathroom.

  “I don’t have time for anything, I need to run,” snapped Mitchie.

  “You want to let me do a lipstick check.”

  ***

  The whores pointed out joining Guo in the shower would be easier than drying off completely. He didn’t hear her come in. With his head immersed in the spray he might not have heard a gunshot. She pressed her torso against his back.

  “Hey! You’re back.”

  They pivoted to both stand in the spray.

  “All clean now?” she asked.

  “Mmmm. Haven’t really washed. Just wanted to get the sticky feeling off.”

  “Did you?”

  “Everything except my conscience.”

  Mitchie grabbed the soap. “Let’s see if getting you all the way clean helps with that.”

  Once she soaped him head to toe he wanted to return the favor. Which led to other things. Eventually they collapsed on the bed wrapped in towels.

  Mitchie finally broke the cuddle. “How’s your conscience?”

  “Still unhappy.”

  “You regret fucking her?”

  “The sex isn’t the problem. However we started this,” —yep, he was still mad— “she knows what she’s doing now. It’s listening to ‘boo-hoo, I signed death warrants for a thousand people half of whom are innocent, but I’m afraid to say no,’ and then I have to kiss her and say it’s all right.”

  Guo glared at the ceiling. “It’s not all right. It’s a Goddamn atrocity. She’s enabling it. And now I’m enabling it.”

  Mitchie had to admit Guo wasn’t the best fit for this kind of influence operation. “Did you tell her that?”

  “Hell no. You’re right, we need her in charge and liking us. So I made her happy and gave her a pep talk about power growing as she uses it.”

  She wriggled out of her towels and sat cross-legged facing him. His eyes locked on to her, easing her heart a bit. “How are you handling the stress?”

  “I don’t know that I’d call it stress. I’m okay. I just hate having to lie. It’s worse lying with my whole body.”

  “The sex?”

  “Sex is the easy part. It’s when we’re cuddling and she talks about some atrocity. Keep my voice sympathetic, easy. Fake smile, fine. But I have to keep my arms and legs wrapped snugly around her like I’m holding a pretty girl instead of a venomous snake.”

  “Sounds like you’re doing a good job at it.”

  “Mostly I think she’s too clueless to realize I’m screwing up.”

  Mitchie laughed.

  “I’m handling it,” Guo said firmly.

  She squeezed his shoulder muscles, feeling the tension. “How long can you keep it up? Do we need to get you out of this?”

  “No. I can keep doing this. She’s someone we need to keep on our side.”

  “So she’s a decent lay,” teased Mitchie.

  “She’s learning fast.” He wasn’t amused.

  “Are you getting what you need?”

  “I think so. Letting me vent helps. Seeing you’re not mad helps. How about you?”

  She shifted position closer to him. His eyes flicked down as her breasts jiggled. “Just having you look at me helps.”

  “I always look at you.”

  “Eh . . . not while she’s in the room.”

  Guo looked upwards in thought, then back at Mitchie. “Yeah. She wants all of my attention. If I look at something else, even a clock, she moves into my line of sight or says something I have to answer.”

  “I hadn’t realized it was intentional.”

  “I’m not sure it is. She’s just insecure. Probably just subconsciously trying to hold my attention. I’ve been going along with it to keep her happy. I’ll make sure I keep looking at you while she’s here.”

  “No . . . no, focus on her. Better that I’m insecure than Guen. You can make it up to me later.”

  “I’ll work on that.” He gripped her hand. “Tell me about those fans you met.”

  “Oh, that’s a story. I wound up doing professional consulting for them.”

  “Piloting or captaining?”

  “Worse. They poured a bottle and a half of wine into me and asked me how t
o torture people.” Mitchie explained about Blythe’s clients. Seeing Guo look as boggled as she felt reassured her about men in general and him in particular.

  “Sheesh,” said Guo. “This sounds like the opening of a porn holo.”

  “Yeah, well, um . . . they’re whores. They have only one way to say thank you.”

  He burst out laughing. “If I wasn’t so drained right now I’d be angry. With someone you just met?”

  “We’d gotten to know each other. And Blythe is just like me so that makes it masturbation not sex, right?”

  “Hmmm. Looks just like you . . .”

  “No. Fuck no. Absolutely not. Never. No fucking way.” In the back of her head a mocking voice quoted, I’m completely confident in my body. My breasts are the perfect size.

  A broad grin spread over Guo’s face. “That’s why we should talk about it before screwing other people. What if I’d met her first? I’d be telling you, ‘Sorry, honey, I didn’t realize she wasn’t you until—’” The pillow cut off the rest.

  There were plenty of pillows in Guo’s reach but he made it a tickle fight instead.

  ***

  An invitation to join Guen in ‘pressing the flesh’ was considered a high honor by the other CPS members. To Mitchie it felt like a good way to get shot.

  When Annie urged her to bring a pistol Mitchie asked what the rules of engagement were.

  “I trust you to use your judgement,” said the bodyguard.

  My judgement says to stay home.

  The Van Rijn Plaza was a popular gathering spot for Capitol City’s upper middle class. Post-revolution it became a “members only club” but the armed guards only checked stipend kids for membership cards.

  Guen bought memberships for herself, Annie, and Mitchie. The dozen bodyguards were left in the greensward by the drop-off zone. Annie didn’t complain. The set of her jaw said it took effort to not complain.

  Once in the covered plaza they fit in better. Guen and Annie were in elegant dresses, a notch above what the patrons were wearing. Mitchie’s Space Guard undress uniform wasn’t too far from the men’s suits. It looked a decade behind fashion instead of a class below.

  A wandering wine seller decided it was safer to accept the three women’s custom than avoid them. He poured them each a glass of his “finest red.”