by John Bowers
Erik stopped and glared at him. He slammed the backpack into Hans’s chest.
“See for yourself.”
Hans caught the backpack, looking slightly startled.
“Goddess, Erik, no need to get angry.”
“You’re acting like a Sirian, Hans! If you want to take your place in the New Vega, go ahead. But don’t treat me like the enemy. I’m your goddess-scorn brother!”
Hans returned the backpack and got in the car. Neither spoke to the other all the way back to Reina.
Chapter 24
Sunday, 30 March 0200 (PCC) – Reina, Vega 3
Brandon Marlow’s deluxe suite was every bit as elegant as Erika’s own. When Erika told the software her name, Tascha answered the door, a delighted look on her face. She impulsively threw her arms around Erika’s neck, which momentarily startled the Vegan blonde.
“Erika! I am so glad to see you. Please, come in!”
Erika stepped inside; she’d been having second thoughts about coming here, but after Tascha’s greeting she was now having third thoughts.
“Is Brandon home?” she asked.
“He is in the shower. Can I get you anything? Some Lightning?”
“Uh, no, thanks. Lightning is a little powerful for me. I really don’t need anything right now.”
Tascha insisted she sit down, then sat across from her, crossed her legs, and began chatting excitedly. It was girl talk, but decidedly juvenile stuff, like listening to the kittens back at the Marlow plantation. Erika was annoyed at first, then realized with a rush of sympathy that the slave girl was lonely, thrilled to have another woman to talk to. So she relaxed and began to enjoy the conversation. Tascha’s galaxy-view was limited, and so was her sophistication—her only real value in the world she inhabited was as a sex object—but she was a genuine human being, a real person. She had feelings and she had opinions, and she was smarter than she looked. Erika discovered that she liked her.
Brandon came into the room twenty minutes later, naked except for a towel around his waist. Erika pinked when she saw him and he grinned at her reaction.
“Well-well-well,” he said pleasantly, “look what the kitten dragged in.”
Erika smiled. “I thought it was time to see how the other half lives.”
“Well, I’m glad you did. Can I get you anything? A drink?”
“Tascha already tried. Thanks anyway.”
“Well, then…”
Brandon suddenly whipped the towel away. Erika’s mouth dropped open, then she realized he was wearing cut-offs. He laughed at her expression.
“Just playing with your head.” He dropped onto the sofa next to Tascha and reached for a cigarette. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Erika stared at him a moment, then glanced at Tascha. The slave girl was listening eagerly, like a child in the presence of her parents.
“Tascha, can you give us some privacy?” Brandon asked. “I’d like to speak to Erika alone.”
Tascha smiled. “Okay!” To Erika, “I am so glad to see you again. I hope we will visit again soon.”
“I’m sure we will.”
Tascha hopped to her feet and disappeared down a hallway. Brandon waited until he heard a door close. He lit the cigarette and waited.
“I haven’t felt good about the way I treated you the last time,” Erika said slowly. “I wanted to apologize for being so blunt.”
Brandon shrugged. “I’d rather know where I stand than be lied to,” he said. “You were completely honest.”
Erika tongued her lips. “Maybe not completely honest,” she said.
He frowned. “What d’you mean?”
“I…have feelings for you,” she said.
“Really! Well, that’s interesting. What kind of feelings? Hatred? Disgust?”
She reddened even further.
“Of course not. Please, Brandon, don’t take this lightly.”
He inclined his head. “Sorry. What’s on your mind?”
“Conflict.”
He said nothing.
Erika wrung her hands and sighed. “I went down to Princess Carlena County yesterday,” she told him. “To visit my friend’s grave. I just got back an hour ago. I want to thank you for finding out where she is. If it hadn’t been for you, I might never have known. Neither would her family.”
“Glad I could help.”
“That’s the thing about you, Brandon. You’re one of them, but you don’t act like one of them. You’re different.”
“How am I different?”
“You’re human. You have feelings, you care about people. The rest of them—”
“Are no different than me,” he finished for her.
“Yes they are! They rape women! They enslave women!”
“Erika…” His voice was low, steady. “I work for the SE. I own slaves.”
“I know!” she cried. “That’s the conflict! You do all that, yet you’ve been a hero to me! How does that add up? It doesn’t!”
“It adds up because I love you,” he said.
“That doesn’t explain everything. You saved me—you did a decent thing—before you fell in love with me.”
“I did it for a friend. Because I’m loyal to him.”
“Oliver.”
“Yes. Everything I did for you before we got here was for him. Somewhere along the way I started doing it for you.”
She stared at him for a long while, tears glittering in her eyes.
“How can you treat me like a princess and send other women into slavery? Women just like me?”
He grimaced and stubbed out the cigarette.
“I don’t know if you can understand this,” he said. “You have to think of it from a male perspective…and not just a male perspective, but a Sirian perspective. I fell in love with you because I got to know you. I found out what you were like, what made you a unique person. I know full well that every Vegan woman leaving here on a slave ship is also a unique person, with traits both good and bad, and if I got to know them individually I would find endearing qualities in them too. Any Confederate soldier on this planet would do the same.
“But from a Sirian male perspective, Vegan women aren’t quite human. As a group, as a class, when we look at them we see something that ignites our lust. We see something so physically stunning that it isn’t quite real. It’s like a dream, and we want it. In that respect we’re no different than any other man on any other world; you take a teenage boy from any world and put him in a strip club, let him see the naked dancers, and he doesn’t see a woman with hopes and dreams and a family somewhere, he sees something he wants to fuck. His lust kicks in and his reasoning goes bye-bye.”
Brandon paused a moment, letting her digest that.
“The difference,” he continued, “is that Sirian society, a few hundred years back, let that mentality take root, and now it’s a planet-wide attitude. The Confederacy nurtured it, capitalized on it, and used it as a political tool to gain empire. We used it against Beta Centauri and we used it here. We even used it at home, to overpower several regions that resisted us. Entire industries have been built on it, and now it represents a significant percentage of our economy.”
Erika stared at him in dismay. “And you’re okay with all that?”
He sighed. “The other night you objected to my use of the term ‘cultural difference’, but that’s exactly what it is. I’m a product of my civilization. I can’t change the society that created me, and if I had the power to do so I’m not sure I would. It’s a moral dilemma that I choose to avoid. I didn’t create the situation, and yes, I have profited from it. Is it wrong? Absolutely. But what can I do about it?”
“You could get out of the SE! Stop participating in the destruction of women!”
He spread his hands. “Would you rather leave that job to the monsters? Like the men on that slave ship, or those soldiers who raped you in a field? You said yourself that I’m different. Well, I’m different because I choose to be. Yes, I help with the sl
ave program, but I’m not brutal about it. I don’t beat women, I don’t whip them, and I don’t shoot them in the head like what happened to your friend. I didn’t join the military to be a slave taker, but when the SE position opened up it was a good career move, so I took it. Ten more years and I can retire, and I’m not going to give that up.”
Erika lowered her head into her hands, her shoulders shaking.
“You’re not making this any easier!”
“I’m not making what any easier?”
She looked up, tears on her cheeks.
“I love you, Brandon! Goddess help me, I love you! And you’re a major in the SE! How can I live with that?”
His eyes narrowed as he watched her intently.
“I guess only you can answer that,” he said quietly. “It depends on how you want to live.”
She wiped her eyes. “This morning when I was standing at Jacquje’s grave, I was grateful to you that I was able to be there. At the same time, I was filled with rage at the infantry sergeant who put her in that hole. He shot her as if she were nothing, as if she had no worth. I saw him do it, and I thought he was going to shoot me next. What kind of man does something like that?”
“You’ll find men like that in every army,” Brandon said. “The Guard had them, too.”
“But she was a civilian! She was helpless!”
“In war, men do terrible things. Oliver Lincoln joined the Guard—did I tell you that? After what happened to you, he was so angry that he joined the Vegan Guard. They used him as a sniper. He killed people from ambush, people who didn’t know he was there. There is no right in a war, but there’s an awful lot of wrong.”
“All I know,” Erika said, “is that every fiber of my Vegan soul tells me to run as far away from you as I can. But here I sit, a comet attracted to a star.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I simply don’t know.”
“Well…” He rocked forward, elbows on his knees. “You don’t have to make a decision tonight, do you?”
“No. I guess not.”
“We can still be friends.”
“Are we friends? I’m not even sure about that.”
“I think we are. In fact, I’m such a good friend, I’m even willing to let you use me for sex.”
A laugh of consternation escaped her. “What!”
“When was the last time you had sex by your own choice? When was the last time it wasn’t forced on you?”
She shook her head. “I have no idea.”
“That’s what I thought. Don’t you think it’s time you took control of the situation?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you looking around a room, pointing at a man, and saying, ‘I want to fuck him’.”
Erika laughed again, slightly put off by his audacity.
“Is that what you think I want?”
“Don’t you think it’s time?”
She stared at him, trying to gauge her own feelings. Her heart began to pound.
“There’s only one man in the room,” she said quietly.
Brandon spread his hands in surrender. “Then I guess I have no choice.”
* * *
In another apartment building not far from the university campus, Erik Norgaard made love to Valyn Kristensen in the darkness of her bedroom. It was only the second time they had done so, partly because of Valyn’s religious beliefs, partly because the things done to her at work left her in no mood for consensual sex. Valyn was conflicted over the whole thing—Sophiaism dictated that virginity was a virtue in unmarried women, yet Valyn had betrayed that belief when faced with certain rape at the hands of her employers. Since then, it seemed futile to remain celibate with someone she loved when the abuse at work continued.
Tonight she had given up the fight and asked Erik into her bed. He was only too willing to comply, knowing full well that any time they spent together might be the last—his own choices made that very likely.
He had arrived at her place shortly after ten. She was getting ready for bed when he unexpectedly showed up at her door. She had to work the next day and couldn’t stay up too late, but she took time for Erik because she missed him, and she also felt a premonition of doom. She held him tightly when they finished and they lay together, warm and safe in her room. Outside, the temperature had dropped below freezing as another winter night settled over Reina.
“Valyn,” he said quietly, “I don’t think I should come here anymore.”
She pushed him away so she could look into his eyes. “Why?”
“You know why. It’s too dangerous for you. If they catch me, and they probably will, everyone I know will be investigated. The more distance between us the better it will be for you.”
She compressed her lips but didn’t respond. Tears glittered in her eyes, but in the darkness he didn’t see them. She pulled him close again and buried her face in his neck.
“I love you, Erik.”
“I know you do, but that’s not worth taking the risk. Your life is already complicated enough.”
“When will I see you? Or will I?”
“I don’t know. It isn’t a good idea to be seen together, and phone conversations are too easily monitored. I think it would be best if you just pretended I never came home from the war.”
“Maybe this will end some day?”
“I’m the only one who can end it, and I’m not willing to do that.”
“What do you expect to accomplish? You know you can’t beat them. Not by yourself.”
“I know. I just want them to hurt a little. Let them know what fear tastes like.”
“Is that worth your life?”
“If necessary. Valyn, think of all those women who left here on slave ships, and all those who will leave in the future. And the married women who have to sleep with teenage soldiers, and those raped on the street—this is for them. It won’t change a scorn thing, but it will exact a price for what those women have to suffer.”
“The sword of Sophia?”
“Maybe. I don’t believe in the prophecy, but if some people do, and it gives them hope, then that’s fine.”
She kissed him again, then lay silent for a moment.
“Erik…”
“Yeah?”
“The prophecy says the sword was broken…”
“I know. That’s what I’m telling you—it’s too dangerous.”
“Then you do believe in the prophecy!”
“No, I don’t. But, if by some odd coincidence…”
He disengaged from her and sat up. He checked his watch, backlighting the dial in the dark room.
“It’s after eleven,” he said.
“What does that mean?”
He crawled out of bed and walked to the window. He drew the drapes a few inches and peered out to the southwest. The city sprawled in that direction, a glitter of lights interspersed with the dark shapes of buildings. Multitudes of them.
“Come and see,” he said.
Valyn crawled out of bed and joined him. He picked up his pocket phone and dialed in a number.
“Over there,” he said, and pointed.
Valyn peered through the window. “I don’t see anything.”
“Just watch.”
He pointed the phone in the direction she was looking and pressed the Send button. Instantaneously, the darkness vanished as four brilliant flashes erased the night.
Valyn cried out in shock and turned her face away as the brilliance pierced her retinas, but was compelled to turn back and look as the flashes faded and tiny mushrooms of heat rolled into the cold night air.
“Goddess!” she gasped. “Did you do that? Just now?”
Erik slid an arm around her and pulled her close. He nodded.
“Payback,” he said.
Chapter 25
Monday, 31 March 0200 (PCC) – Reina, Vega 3
“God damn it!” Brandon Marlow breathed as he strolled through the wr
eckage. “Mother fucker!”
Daylight had come, a chill grey dawn that seemed even colder because of the devastation at his feet. Flecks of snow crystals brushed his cheek as he moved through the ash. The fire hadn’t taken long to burn itself out—the explosion had pulverized most of the building and the plasma had incinerated it almost instantly. All that was left to burn were the fragments, bits of wood and paper that had survived the blast and were quickly consumed; nothing remained but ash.
Brandon saw traces of human bone, but they were fragments; no skeletal remains had survived, nor anything that could be used to quickly identify the dead. Identification would have to wait for DNA analysis from bone fragments.
“How many?” he demanded of an ashen-faced Confederate soldier who had met him at the scene.
“Nineteen, sir. That’s how many were billeted here. I’m not sure if everyone was home, but that late at night, they probably were.”
The building had been a boarding house before the war. The Confederate Army had commandeered it, along with others like it, to quarter men who worked the checkpoints and street patrols. Several barracks had been built around the city to hold larger units, but they were still intact.
“Nobody saw anything?”
“No, sir. We’re still checking, but nobody has come forward yet.”
“No security cams?”
“They were destroyed with the building, sir.”
But the footage they recorded would have been transmitted and stored elsewhere, Brandon knew. He would be looking at those.
He walked out of the ash pile and stood on the sidewalk. This was bad enough, but three more houses had also been destroyed. All within a mile of each other.
He turned to look as a command hovercar came down the street and settled down beside him. Two people got out—one was a woman in SE uniform, a sergeant; the other was a young Vegan man in an ebony uniform that looked like SE, but wasn’t—couldn’t be—because there were no Vegans in the SE. The Vegan looked about nineteen or twenty, healthy and handsome, blue eyes and blond hair, a real Nordic Aryan. He came to attention and saluted.
“Who the hell are you?” Brandon demanded as he returned the salute.
“Lieutenant Hans Norgaard, sir! Vegan Elite Guards.”
