Kaspar's Box tk-3

by Jack L. Chalker

  And now they had collected a bit more than they bargained for.

  * * *

  Captain Kim had always been a hardware man. He’d begun as an ensign overseeing robotic systems and repairs, gone up through the ranks, eventually commanding a destroyer and finally being selected by the destroyer captains to take over full command of the cruiser Thermopylae after its previous captain had reached the final stage of promotion, one of the three rotating Fleet Admirals, who were no longer bound to their bodies but were integrated with the great ship. Command at that level was always split, since the power any of them wielded was close to absolute, but the price was more than just becoming cybernetically wedded to the cruiser; demands on the human brain in that configuration were hard, particularly at the ages when they were integrated, and so Fleet Admirals, even rotating as they did, tended to wear out after only twenty or thirty years.

  Captain Kim loved being the captain. He’d been the captain now for over twenty years and it was in every way the ideal job, the position to which he’d been born and bred. A man totally without personal fear, or so it seemed; the only nightmare he had other than running into something that would cost him his ship was being promoted to Fleet Admiral.

  He was not, however, quite prepared for the likes of Captain Patrick Murphy.

  They could not have seemed more opposite had they planned their meeting. There was Kim, a tall, muscular man with shiny pale skin and a uniform that somehow was so clean and perfectly tailored that, even on the captain, it looked as if it had never been worn; and Murphy, hairy, with cracked and burnt complexion, a uniform that looked far too worn almost to being worn out, and a kind of aura that suggested that flies should have been buzzing around the old man’s head.

  Kim looked at the old freebooter with some disgust, but finished reading the console in front of him before formally acknowledging the other’s existence. Finally, he looked up, leaned back, and asked, “You were once a priest?”

  Murphy laughed. “I hadn’t expected that one to be first out of your mouth, Captain. Let’s just say the Vatican in any incarnation and I haven’t been on speakin’ terms in a long, long time, and I ain’t heard much from God lately. No matter what they say on Vaticanus, I am convinced that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are somewhere on the other side of the Great Silence. Still, it’s a useful identity at times, I admit. People tend to trust a priest, dumb as they are.”

  “Such as handing over their daughters to your care?”

  Murphy found that even more amusing. “Ah, yes. Irish and Mary Margaret and Brigit, I suppose you’re talkin’ about. No, they aren’t with me because their families trusted me with ’em. They’re with me ’cause they all paid me good to get ’em as far away from their families as fast as possible, all of ’em havin’ got themselves knocked up, as it were, and unfit on pleasant little Tara Hibernius for regular lives after that. Or, that’s their story, anyways. Me, I got to wonder why anybody, particularly folks what can afford even the likes of me, would get themselves accidentally knocked up when it’s a simple monthly pill or potion and you don’t have to worry about that unless you want to. Me, I think they got themselves knocked up so’s their parents would have to pay their way someplace else. To avoid the disgrace, y’see.”

  Kim shook his head. “No, I don’t see.”

  “Ah, you navy types,” Murphy sighed. “You make yours in bottles after the computer mucks with ’em and you then throw away the equipment like it’s an appendix or tonsils or something else disposable. Meanin’ no offense, but you folks are raised almost like machines in a nice, sterile, controlled environment where there’s no real questions ’cept maybe how far in rank you’ll get. That’s the trouble with you military types. You just got to follow orders.”

  “That is a problem in your eyes?”

  “Sure. No lying, cheating, stealing, no con men, no deception or sin to speak of. Kind of permanent adolescents who think being bad is sneakin’ off and havin’ a forbidden beer or a funny joke not to let the toilet flush. The culture these girls come from is different. It was founded by folks who wanted a simpler, more primitive life, one devoted to the soil and the soul and to their misbegotten nostalgia for traditions and culture that not only are long gone, they probably never were. Lots of colonies like that out here once upon a time. That’s why so many of ’em are in trouble. So they work the land in the ways their hardscrabble ancestors did back on the Aud Sod, or at least a kind of traditional working excusin’ the robotics and chemistry and all, and the fact that they eat like pigs with what they grow rather than starve and never once knew the meanin’ of the word ‘famine.’ But, never mind. It’s a whole world of fifth-generation play actors who really think they’re livin’ the simple life and that makes ’em clean of spirit and closer to God or somethin’ like that. A land where all the boys and girls are conscious virgins and all the marriages are perfect and there’s no unhappiness. And they gather at the pub and they drink pints of perfect dark stout and they sing authentic fake Irish folk tunes and they play the pipes at weddings and funerals and everybody’s the perfect Catholic saint.” He stopped for a moment and saw Kim’s blank stare. “And you don’t have a bloody clue what I’m talkin’ about, just like them legal and psychologist folks, do you?”

  “Not exactly. I believe in plain speaking and being straightforward.”

  “Indeed? Well, it’s hypocrisy, Captain. You know the word? One of dozens, maybe hundreds of worlds where everybody pretends to be what everybody else thinks they should be but nobody really is. And these girls’ parents, they got fed up with it but they got noplace else to go. So they create a situation where the girls can’t remain hypocrites and they ship ’em out to someplace where maybe they got a chance at a life.”

  “And you accused us of being thieves, I believe? What you are saying sounds both insane and quite sad. What are these young women to become with no family or friends and new young mothers without resources? It won’t do, Murphy. A good story, but it just won’t do. We may not burden ourselves with the old ways of reproduction, but I know enough to know that at the first evidence of pregnancy any of them could have taken a simple pill and had done with it.”

  Murphy sighed. “I was afraid I couldn’t make you get it,” he said, trying to find an alternate way in. “There are no such pills in God’s country. It’s a monstrous crime to even possess them. Oh, sure, it’s done, but in their own way, their culture and their parents’ culture is as rigid to them as your military culture is to your people. These girls got pregnant in that culture, they were dead. The only way out for them was to give themselves and their children to the church and become nuns. ‘Missionary work’ is the euphemism that’s used to explain where a young woman went. Oh, they have birth control, although it’s illegal, but something went wrong. They shouldn’t all have gotten preggers from a roll or two in the hay. So, either the families wanted them out or the church was short on nuns. Maybe both. But, given the choice of the nunnery or me, they took me. And I was takin’ them to one or another place where they could have some kind of support and future. A place or places where it simply wouldn’t matter. And that’s when you stepped in.”

  Captain Kim shook his head in disbelief. “I still believe you are not telling me the truth, or at least not most of it, but I’m not here to judge you nor to save the souls of young women. But I do know that you’ve been running all sorts of elaborate contraband back and forth between these benighted worlds in this sector since I was a lieutenant, and you knew that there was a fee to be paid, and you have a very long history of not paying that fee, Captain Murphy. In fact, you’ve run from and successfully evaded Navy collectors for the past several years now. I don’t care what you do or what you run to these poor people down there, but I do care that you have decided to work outside our system. We can’t have that, Murphy. This fleet depends to a large degree on our fees and levies. There’s no more spare parts for critical systems, and nothing to make them. Keeping things maintained and
running costs an increasing amount of money. If everyone doesn’t pay their share, then this fleet will simply grind to a halt, impotent, unable to do its mission.”

  “And what mission is that, sir, if I might be so bold as to ask?”

  “Protection! Pirates raid and steal from traders both honest and dishonest like yourself all the time, and they don’t care if they kill. Legitimate trade alone keeps those colonial planets running, even at more basic levels, since they have the same problems with parts, supplies, and repairs that we do. Billions of people depend on things they can’t grow or make, or whatever getting to where they’re needed. We’re the only ones keeping it working. The only ones who could keep it working. You know that, Captain.”

  “I know you say that, probably even believe it,” Murply responded. “But it’s a losing battle even if you do it honestly. Piracy and political and religious fanaticism are rampant and getting worse as things grow harder for people here and supplies run down. You not only can’t stop it with this little independent navy of yours, you hardly even try. You spend all your time collecting your fees even while those characters invade whole colonies, raping and looting. Since I think you have a strong code of honor, I don’t think you even see it, but I don’t know anybody who doesn’t hate you and fear you. They can’t tell the difference between you and the bad guys, Captain. That’s what I mean about being machines. You have a system that’s blind to reality and you still go through the motions and justify your actions even though they’re entirely motivated by self-preservation urges having nothing to do with your so-called ‘mission.’ You just keep doing it because that’s what you’re programmed to do.”

  “I don’t think we’re quite as soulless as you make us out to be. I admit we can do less and less and things are going down and that we’re like a small child holding up the collapsing wall and getting more and more tired as we do so and the weight of the wall comes down on us, but what is your alternative? Lose all sense of duty and honor, quit, watch it fall from a drunken amoral haze or some drugged stupor and say the hell with everybody? That’s your problem, Murphy. You’re so busy looking at us as machines that your total loss of faith prevents you from looking in the mirror and seeing what I see here before me now.”

  “Indeed? And what is that?”

  “An empty suit. A dead man who doesn’t have the sense to know he’s already in Hell. So what am I to do with you, Murphy? You and your… cargo?”

  The words had little effect on the old man, but he felt he had to defend his pride against this martinet. “That’s Captain Murphy, sir!”

  “Captains have ships,” Kim replied. “And you don’t, Citizen Murphy. Not any more. We will fumigate that scow and then take it to the nearest salvage yard and trade it for something we can use, even though its trade value isn’t all that much. We can’t do much to or with you, though. You’re too old and too much the physical and mental corpse to have any value, and you are a deficit if we keep you around as a consumer of our resources. But since you haven’t done anything to us that would warrant execution, we’ll probably simply drop you penniless and stark naked on the first planet we come across and see if you can start from scratch.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time,” Murphy responded, although inside he was seething. “And the girls?”

  “We haven’t decided on that yet. I have all my staff recommendations here, but I’m not about to make any decisions until I’ve personally interviewed each of them and made up my own mind. Why do you ask? Do you really care what happens to them? Or is it that you didn’t get full payment until you delivered them?”

  “I ain’t no buyer and seller of human flesh! Them girls paid for their passages and I’m responsible for ’em until they get where they were goin’. What are you gonna do, you starched bald bloodsucker? Take their babies as your taxes?”

  “I hardly think their babies would be of much use to us. It is far too late to genetically enhance them, and we begin with raw sperm and raw egg. No, Mister Murphy, I rather think I’ll speak with them and then decide. They are not on our account books, but are, shall we say, left in the lurch by your actions. So unless you want to give me an account somewhere that will cover your back and present taxes and levies, I think you are out of the loop. You are dismissed and confined to quarters for now. Avail yourself of the facilities there. For God’s sake, at least take a shower.”

  Murphy gave him a sour grin. “I don’t think I can afford your water bill,” he responded, turned, and started to walk out. Just before he reached the door, though, he stopped and turned back towards the captain. “Only one thing will I give you, sir. Don’t put ’em together. Mix ’em up. Keep ’em separate. Otherwise you’ll mightily regret it.”

  “What? What are you talking about, man?”

  “The girls. Keep ’em apart. I’m pretty sure they’re only dangerous when they’re together, and I guarantee you they’ll be bored to death on this antiseptic platform.”

  “Why in the name of heaven should we worry about those… ladies?”

  Murphy grinned. “Well, you’ve been warned.” He gave the captain a smirk and a half-hearted salute and turned and exited.

  The captain shook his head in wonder. This was a ship that could destroy a planet. There was simply no more secure place in the known universe. He didn’t appreciate the old boy trying to play mind games with him.

  Another officer emerged from behind a panel near the captain’s seat. Commander Sittithong looked close to the captain’s age but she had aged less well than he.

  Kim turned and looked over at her. “That man is hiding something.”

  Sittithong nodded. “Probably a lot, sir. But I doubt if we could tell truth from lie even with our best interrogation systems. I’ve seen his like before. Pathological. Whatever he’s spinning, he believes—at least when he’s spinning it. To get down to the core and learn the truth would probably destroy his mind. His sort made great spies in the old days.”

  “Indeed. I’d like to crack that nut, but for something like back taxes it’s not something I could justify to the Admiralty and would certainly be beyond regulations. Perhaps we’ll learn more from the young ladies. Perhaps you should question them, or at least the first one, while I duck out of sight. They might feel more comfortable.”

  “I doubt that, sir. Still, if you want to try, I can take the first, then if I have no luck you can take the second, and perhaps both of us will take the third if that doesn’t work.”

  He nodded and got up. “Good idea. I confess that I am going to find dealing with them to be most uncomfortable. Compared to our ways, it is almost as if dealing with an alien species.”

  Sittithong shrugged. “I am not much closer to them than you in that, but let’s see.” The thought of actually having a man put his thing inside her and squirt fluids up into her insides, and maybe for the result to be a baby actually growing in there was enough to make her shudder, she who would have thought nothing of charging into a nest full of pirates with only a sidearm. It was all so… ugly. And messy. And to be controlled by hormones that overrode rationality was almost unthinkable to her, as it was to the other naval personnel. Like most, she thought of “ordinary” humans as closer to the animals than to the purity of mind and body the military way represented.

  Still, she’d dealt with a lot of them, both men and women, in her time, and even though she couldn’t remember dealing with pregnant young women, she was certainly ready to give it a try.

  As the captain settled in on the chair behind the partition, Commander Sittithong took the command chair and pressed a small disk on the thin, crescent-shaped desk in front of her. “Send in the first woman. No preference. Any one of them will do.”

  The door across from the exec slid back and a young woman entered, looking not just hesitant but downright scared.

  Murphy had stood, but there was a thin, rigid but functional chair facing the command chair. “Please have a seat if you like,” the commander said as softly and as
friendly sounding as she could manage.

  “Uh, yeah. Thank you, Mum,” the woman muttered, and sat. She looked no more comfortable sitting than standing, but apparently it was better than nothing.

  The screen area of the desk lit up with the complete files and digest of the initial interview with this young woman. “You are Irish O’Brian? Your true name?”

  “Yes, Mum. Me folks thought it sounded good, and I’m certainly Irish.”

  Sittithong realized that the young woman wasn’t making a play on words; she meant it.

  “You are…” Good lord! “… seventeen standard years?”

  “Yes, Mum. But I’ll be eighteen next March.”

  The commander quickly adjusted to the stock military calendar. “Then you were only sixteen when you… became pregnant?”

  “Aye, Mum. Old enough, it seems, though the old superstitions said it was too young and couldn’t be done on the first time. Guess they were wrong ’bout that.”

  O’Brian had a thick accent that was related to Murphy’s but was much, much more pronounced. Sittithong guessed that it was the Irish dialect, whatever that meant.

  The infobase picked up her mental query and gave her the details on a thin frame to the right of the personnel record. Some small island on Old Earth. A nationality, as it were. The planet the girl was from, though, was Tara Hibernius, a midway colony near the border beyond which they could no longer go. The colony had been established by a group of wealthy conservatives who wanted to found an agricultural society based on an idealized vision of an ancient state of their native land that probably never existed in the first place.

  The pattern wasn’t uncommon, particularly in the early days of colonization. In fact, such things had been encouraged. The irrational revolutionary nut cases with money and influence and possibly fanaticism as well could be bled off by giving them a chance to prove their ideas, and if you had a wealthy enough benefactor or group, then the Confederation hadn’t even had to shell out much to set the places up. When the dissident and the dangerous actually paid to take themselves out of your society, how could you not help but ease the way?