‘Near-death experiences and the loss of people you care about can lead to celebrating the life you have,’ Ella stated, rather morosely. She had been out of sorts all day. Aneka had noticed the signs: the fidgeting and restlessness; Ella was having trouble overcoming her desires today. And Aneka had offered to take the edge off, but Ella had declined, saying there was nothing wrong, she could handle it herself.
So Aneka danced with several of the men, accepted drinks, and enjoyed herself, while Ella got quietly drunk and watched the younger townspeople wandering off quietly in couples. After a couple of hours, Aneka looked around for Ella and discovered that she had gone.
‘If she is determined to deal with this herself,’ Al said, ‘then it might be best to allow her to do so.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ Aneka replied. ‘I just hope she doesn’t do anything stupid.’
‘Like what?’
Aneka had no idea and there was Mark offering to take her for a turn at dancing…
~~~
Abigail entered the guest house quietly, heard nothing in the lounge, and so deciding to walk through the small porch and in. She had seen Ella slinking away, looking unhappy, and it was her job to make sure the guests were happy, even if that normally applied to Citizens and Ella had made it quite clear that she did not want to be treated as such.
She heard a sound from upstairs and decided that a cup of tea was in order. She had heard Aneka make a joke about Ella’s tolerance to alcohol. In truth, she was not much better herself and she found a good, strong cup of tea often made her feel much better when she had a buzz on like she had right this minute. They were all friends now; she could have a nice cup of tea with her friend and maybe Ella would tell her about the stars.
The idea of being out there in the blackness of the night sky fascinated Abigail, to be honest. She would have given anything to go up there into space. Okay, so it was frightening. She had been terrified of the shuttle at first. The more she thought about it, the way it had glided through the air on invisible strings, the ‘anti-gravity’ system, the more she wanted to know more about it. She wanted to fly among the stars, but she doubted she would ever get to do so.
She poured boiling water into the teapot and turned, letting out a squeak of surprise as she found Ella standing in the doorway of the little kitchen. The redhead was naked. Just standing there with one hand on the doorframe. Abigail wondered how long she had been standing there, saying nothing.
‘You know,’ Ella said, ‘you’ve got nice legs, you should show them off more.’
Abigail blushed. She was wearing her Sunday party outfit; the weather was good enough, warm even though it was after dark. Her best dungarees in dark-blue denim, flat running shoes, and a little dyed tank top she had bought from one of the travelling salesmen because she liked the swirling pattern. It did show her legs, that was true. ‘Thank you. I, uh, made some tea. It always helps me when I’ve had a bit too much to drink.’
‘That’s not…’ Ella began, and then seemed to change her mind. She smiled and said, ‘Would you bring it upstairs? I thought you were Aneka so I came down, but I’m not that warm…’ She turned, walking away with an obvious swing in her hips.
‘Sure.’ Abigail set out cups and some milk in a jug, and then followed Ella up the narrow stairs. She found the redhead sitting up in bed, the sheets pulled up to her waist. Those magnificent, pale breasts were on full display, and Abigail had to stop herself staring. Her own chest had never graduated beyond training bras; both Ella and Aneka had the kind of substantial bosom that Abigail aspired to. And then there was the slightly unnatural shape. She had never seen anything like them.
Putting down the tray, Abigail poured the tea and sat down on a straight-backed chair to drink. The first sip made her feel less fuzzy. ‘What’s it like? In space, I mean.’
Ella smiled and took a drink of her tea. ‘It’s… contradictory. It’s cold and hot, and dark and too bright to look at. It’s incredibly dangerous, and it’s fantastically beautiful.’
‘I’d love to see it.’
‘Maybe you will, but I thought the shuttle was scary.’
‘It was, but… I think it would be worth it. What about the world you come from?’
‘New Earth? It’s a lot like this world. It was chosen because it was like here. There’s no moon, and it’s a bit warmer. The weather is a lot more stable than it is here. And just about everyone lives in a city, but the cities are aboveground, not under it.’
‘What about farming?’
‘There are farms, but our technology is closer to the cities here so fewer people are needed on them to make enough food. I live in a huge city called Yorkbridge with Aneka. I work in a university with a bigger population than Matlock. Much bigger in fact.’
‘It sounds… wonderful.’
Ella gave a little shrug; Abigail’s eyes were immediately drawn to the bounce of her breasts. ‘It’s normal for me. I think Matlock is wonderful. It’s like… It’s a simpler life. There are things I miss when I’m away, but I like it here.’ Ella saw Abigail’s eyes move down. I shouldn’t… ‘You seem fascinated with these.’
Abigail’s blush went all the way down to her throat. ‘I’m kind of small. I wish I had bigger… I wish I was bigger.’
‘I had mine made bigger. Some surgical plastic foam was grown under the skin to give them a better shape.’
‘That sounds… Aren’t they kind of hard with plastic in them?’
Don’t do this, Ella. You know you shouldn’t. ‘It’s a very light foam. Not hard at all. Try one.’
‘What?’ Abigail’s eyes widened.
‘Touch one. I don’t mind, really.’
Curiosity got the better of the girl, and she stood up, moving closer and reaching out tentatively. Ella held herself rigid, willing herself not to shudder as Abigail’s slim fingers made contact, squeezing gently. ‘That feels just like normal,’ Abigail said, her voice tiny.
Ella swallowed and covered Abigail’s hand with hers, pressing it harder against her breast. ‘You barely touched it.’ Even to her, her voice sounded husky. ‘See? It’s quite soft.’ Stop now, before this goes too far.
‘Y-yes.’
Ella looked up into the girl’s bright, blue eyes and knew she could not stop herself. Reaching out, she snaked a hand around Abigail’s neck and pulled her closer.
~~~
Aneka opened the inner door of the porch and stopped, blinking, as Abigail came to a grinding halt in front of her, eyes wide.
‘Abigail? Hi. Is Ella okay?’ A flare of worry burned through Aneka’s mind as the dark-haired girl gave a tiny whimper and then scurried past toward the door. Had there been tears in her eyes? ‘Abigail?’ But the front door was closing and Abigail was gone. Frowning, Aneka started up the stairs.
‘Aneka… You’re back.’ Ella was sitting up in bed. The bed was rather more rumpled than Aneka would have expected, or wanted to see. And Ella looked… guilty.
‘I just saw Abigail leaving. She looked upset.’ Ella’s fists tightened and the guilt shifted toward worry. ‘Ella… You didn’t…?’
‘I… I tried… She was there and…’
Aneka’s voice rose; she could not help it. ‘She’s barely out of her teens! She’s not into women! What the Hell were you thinking?!’
Ella shrunk back into the bed, pulling the covers up. ‘I wasn’t… I tried to stop. I…’
‘You just had to wait. I’d have helped. I offered this morning and you said no, and then you seduce… Damn it! You knew it was wrong and you went and did it… You cheated on me! You cheated on me with someone who didn’t even want it!’
Ella let out a wail and burst into tears, but Aneka was in no mood for consoling her.
‘Fuck it! The poor girl will be mortified. You… You sort yourself out.’ Turning on her heel, Aneka left the room. A second later her boots could be heard tramping down the stairs at a near run.
‘Aneka!’ Ella wailed, but the only response she go
t was the slamming of the front door.
18th August.
It had taken fifteen minutes to persuade Abigail to allow Aneka into her room. Her father was confused; his daughter had refused to tell him what was wrong and he was not a terribly empathetic man at the best of times. He had been willing to let Aneka try to talk to Abigail because he did not really know how to get her to open up.
Then it had taken almost an hour to persuade the little brunette that she was not to blame for what had happened, that Aneka did not blame her at all, and that she had done nothing wrong. All the while Aneka had wanted to quietly strangle Ella. By the end of it she was just holding Abigail in her arms and letting her cry. Eventually the sobbing subsided and Abigail fell asleep; Aneka sat there on the edge of her bed and held her, and the anger subsided.
Ella had been wrong, in every way possible, but she had had something done to her that had diminished her capacity to behave properly. It was an excuse, nothing more, and she really hoped that Ella was not going to use it to try to worm out of her responsibility. However, Ella was also a victim and Aneka was being cruel to heap all the blame on her. If anyone deserved that it was Yrimtan and she had already paid for her cruelty.
There were noises out in the hallway just after dawn. Aneka’s sensitive hearing picked up urgent tones in the voices which someone else would not have heard. Reeve Linden was talking to someone, and he was worried. Wondering whether there had been another case of plague, Aneka laid Abigail down on the bed and slipped out.
Linden was talking to two men, both looking tired. He turned as she approached, his face creased into a frown of worry. ‘Miss Jansen. I’m sorry, did we wake you?’
‘I wasn’t asleep. Abigail is. What’s wrong?’
The Reeve sighed. ‘A truck has been found about a kilometre outside of town to the north. It looks like there were a number of Citizens on it as well as some guards. The men are dead, but there is evidence of women and they are missing…’
‘Ogres?’
‘We believe so. Probably quite a large group to have taken on an armed transport.’
Aneka rubbed the bridge of her nose. She had been up too long, but if they were to find the women there was no time to lose. ‘Can one of these men take me to the truck? I’ll take it from there.’
‘It’s too dangerous,’ Linden replied urgently. ‘We’ll get a party together and…’
‘I can move faster on my own, and I can take on a group of ogres. Trust me. I need to stop at the ship and get my weapons. I’ll meet one of you two on the north road in fifteen minutes, all right?’ She used her firm voice, the one she had employed for giving orders in the Army.
‘As you say,’ Linden replied.
~~~
The transport was a wreck at the side of the road, one wheel detached from the front axle entirely and the back door of the rear cabin ripped off its hinges. Aneka frowned at the damage. ‘Ogres did this?’
‘Who else?’ her companion replied. His name was Lofts and he seemed to have very little in the way of imagination.
‘Ogres commonly use anti-materiel weapons?’
‘What’s one of those?’
Aneka looked around, spotting a section of wall at the side of the road where stones had been knocked out of place. ‘Never mind.’ She walked over to the wall and looked over it. Her edge detection software picked out boot prints in the grass and mud on the other side. ‘They went this way. I’m going after them. You’d better get back into town. Go to the shuttle and tell one of the Citizens that Miss Jansen wants a team of Enforcers up here as soon as possible. If they argue, tell them that Citizens are in danger, but they won’t.’
Lofts did not look particularly confident, but he nodded. ‘You sure you don’t want me to come?’ He hefted his shotgun. ‘I can use this, y’know?’
Aneka vaulted over the wall. ‘No offence, but you’d slow me down and I’m better suited to this kind of work.’ With that she set off at a run across the grass in the direction the ogres had gone.
Lofts blinked at her speed across the uneven ground carrying two pistols and a huge rifle. ‘Okay then,’ he said. ‘I guess I would at that.’
~~~
Ella sat on the couch in the living room of the small cottage and stared at the cup of tea she had managed to make an hour earlier. It was, she figured, cold by now and she was not really sure whether cold tea was drinkable. It did not look drinkable. It looked, in fact, disgusting, but she was still contemplating drinking it because the alternative was getting up to make another pot and then failing to drink that.
She had cried herself to sleep the night before. Then she had woken up, found no sign of Aneka in their bed, and cried some more. Then she had got up, washed her face, dressed, and walked down the stairs, hoping all the while that Aneka would be on the couch. When she was not there had been more tears, and it was hard to make tea through a haze of water.
She had, she thought, really fucked up. Aneka had really been angry. Not the kind of angry where you were trying to make a point, but real, proper, ‘How could you do this?’ anger. And she was right! Ella knew she could make excuses for her behaviour, but when it came down to it they were just excuses. She should have told Abigail to leave as soon as she saw her. She had known she was going to screw up if the girl stayed…
Ella’s head lifted at the sound of the front door opening. She held her breath, her heart hammering in her chest. Then Abigail walked in, stopped briefly to look at her, and then looked quickly away as she started toward the kitchen.
Thinking it best, Ella stayed put. ‘I, uh… I didn’t think I’d see you today, Abigail.’
‘It’s my duty to see to the houses and the guests in them,’ Abigail replied. ‘Have you eaten?’
‘I’m not hungry. I could use a cup of tea. I made one earlier… It’s gone cold.’ Ella swallowed. ‘You haven’t seen Aneka, have you?’
‘Last night. She talked to me. When I woke up, Dad said she had left town just after dawn.’
Oh Vashma! She’s left me! ‘D-did he say where she was going?’
There was a pause and the sound of water being run into the kettle. Then, ‘No.’
Ella pulled herself up straight and forced the tears back. She was not really sure she had any left to shed anyway. Well, if Aneka had gone then she could at least do one thing right. Standing up, she walked through to the kitchen doorway. Abigail looked at her, a flicker of fear in her eyes before she got it under control.
Ella took a deep breath. ‘Abigail, I’m sorry. I did an absolutely terrible thing last night. I knew what was going to happen as soon as I saw you, and I should have told you to go before it did. There was no excuse for it. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I want you to know I’m sorry. I’m… not quite myself at the moment and I’d never normally do something like that to someone I thought might not like it. I’m sorry.’
‘But I did like it,’ Abigail mumbled, turning her back on Ella and watching the kettle boil.
‘Sorry?’
‘I did like it. Even when you made me lick… I did like it, but it’s wrong and I shouldn’t have.’
Ella’s brain did a double take. Abigail was feeling guilty?! Oh, that just makes it worse! Ella took a step forward, starting to reach for the girl, then thought better of it and backed away. ‘Um… Look, Abigail… It’s not for me to question your beliefs or anything, especially after what I did, but there’s nothing wrong with enjoying sex, no matter what gender your partner. It’s the most natural thing in the world. Humans evolved to enjoy it. Most animals don’t so there has to be a reason we do, right? I could give you the scientific theories on it, but the fact is, Humans like sex and there is absolutely no reason for you to feel guilty about it.’ She sighed. ‘Me, I can feel guilty about it because I hurt you doing it, but not you. Okay?’
Abigail turned around again. Maybe it was the vehemence of the statement, or that the brunette really wanted to believe what she was hearing, but she managed to crack a bl
eak little smile. ‘I… guess.’ The kettle started to whistle and she took it off the heat quickly. She looked back, eyes widening. ‘What if I never find a man that can do that to me?’
Ella laughed. ‘I’ve had a lot of practice. You will. You’ll find some young man and fall in love with him, and that can make a lot of difference. Believe me. Aneka’s not as skilled as a lot of people I’ve been with, but the way I feel about her makes everything…’ Her voice choked off and she had to swallow hard to force the tears back again. ‘Everything is better with her.’
~~~
Aneka crouched in a hedge line watching what had probably once been a small farm complex about one hundred and twenty metres west of her position through the scope of her rifle. There had been two large barns there at one time, but they were now nothing more than the remains of metal frames. There was also a stone-built farmhouse and that seemed to be the centre of operations for the little band she was currently assuming had taken the women.
There were ogres there. She counted ten, but there might have been a few more. None of them seemed to be armed with anything more threatening than a pickaxe. The more worrying thing was the more normal Humans she had spotted. The two she had seen were dressed in Enforcer armour and carried the same gravity-pulse weapons she had seen before. Those were going to be more of an issue and she was not sure even the rifles explained the broken truck. There had to be something bigger in there.
‘Al, I’ll need full tactical analysis running. I’m going to take out as many as I can with the rifle and then go in with Bessie and Claret.’ Bessie was her antimatter blaster; Claret was the one machine pistol she had managed to rebuild from the two matched ones she had. She still had not named the rifle.
‘Tactical map, such as it is, compiled,’ Al replied. ‘I’ve marked the visible targets and lines of sight.’
The Winter War Page 4
