Amazon Planet up-5

by Mack Reynolds

  The major was scowling. “You mean that Avalon has a surplus of columbium?”

  “Not Avalon herself, but her sister planet of Catalina. They’ll work out a deal between them. They can supply your industries with an almost unlimited quantity of either niobite ore or ingots of columbium.”

  “I don’t know anything about titanium or columbium.”

  Guy said reasonably, “No one would expect you to. I suggest you allow me to land, in spite of the minor error on my visa, and consult with your engineers. Your earthside embassy issued me a visa. You don’t think they’re a bunch of flats, do you?”

  The major made a quick decision. “Minythyia, get back to the boat and report all this to headquarters. Get instructions.”

  Minythyia left. The major turned back to Rex Ravelle. She gestured with a thumb at Guy. “Get all this cloddy’s gear out and let’s take a look at it.”

  “The Captain is waiting up—”

  “I’ll go talk to the Captain. Clete and Lysippe can check his things. I don’t like this. Something smells like curd about it.”

  Rex said, “Happy, take the major to the skipper’s quarters. On the way, tell a couple of the boys to bring all Citizen Thomas’ things to the salon here.”

  “Practically all of it’s in my cabin,” Guy said unhappily. “I’ve got only one footlocker in the luggage hold.”

  “All of it,” the major rasped. “No matter what instructions I get from the port, nothing leaves this ship we haven’t checked. And I mean checked.” She glared at her two underlings, who had meanwhile returned to the food and drinks. Earthside food, Guy had decided, must be a treat for them. They ate like troopers. Well, he supposed they were troopers, in a way.

  The major began to follow Happy Harrison. She said over her shoulder to Pat, “Go on back to your quarters. We’ll let you know.”

  The check of Guy Thomas’ possessions was as thorough as it could possibly have been. Indeed it was carried to the point of the ludicrous. Aside from going over every article of clothing, through every book and pamphlet, toilet articles, personal items of jewelry and such, Lysippe and Clete seemed to have several types of detectors unknown to either Guy or Rex Ravelle. When a bag a trunk was empty, they slowly went over it with their gadgets, seeking out, the two men supposed, secret compartments, hidden devices, or whatever.

  While the two Amazonians searched, Rex looked at Guy questioningly. “About this stage of the game, I’d call it quits,” he said. “What’re you so keen to go to Amazonia for? After they’d given me this amount of gruff, I’d stick right on this old kettle and return to Earth.”

  Guy closed his eyes in anguish, as Clete shuffled through his once neatly packed shirts.

  “I can’t go back,” he said plaintively. “I’ve got to pull this assignment off. It’s the first time I’ve been able to swing an interplanetary job. You think you spacemen are the only ones with the dream? The rest of us, back on Earth, are just as keen as you are to participate in the big explosion out to the stars. Nine men out of ten would give their right arms for an interspace job.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Rex nodded, his voice gruff. Although he was talking to Guy, he was eyeing the Amazon Lysippe with appreciation. These girls improved in appearance considerably as you grew used to them. This Lysippe, for example, had a figure beneath her uniform that any mopsie back on Earth would have been proud to display in one of those new bottomless bathing suits, out on the beach.

  Guy was saying, “This is my chance. If I pull this off, I’ll get other over-space assignments. I’ve just got to make good.”

  Clete looked up from her search and growled to Guy, “What’s this?”

  Guy said, “My tool kit.”

  “Jetsam! You think I’m a flat?”

  “What’s the matter?” Guy said plaintively. He and Rex approached.

  The girl warrior had opened the kit. She gestured. “That’s a shooter. What does a mining engineer, or whatever you’re supposed to be, need with a shooter?”

  “What’s a shooter?” Guy complained. “That?” He pulled it from the case. “Just because it’s got a pistol grip? That’s a combination drill and cutter.”

  He flicked a stud and took an edge off the corner of one of the messhall tables. The invisible beam cut through the metal like cheese.

  “Hey!” Rex protested. “Next you’ll be drilling a hole through the hull.”

  “All right, all right,” Clete growled. “Put it back. What’s this?”

  Guy said plaintively, “Would you know if I told you? Are you up on the tools we use in assaying and…”

  “Don’t be so stute,” she snapped at him. “These look like explosive charges.”

  He groaned. “I keep telling you. I’m here to check the possibilities of exchanging ores or ingots of titanium for columbium. I have to assay. How do you extract ores on this planet, with eyebrow tweezers?”

  She looked at him coldly.

  He went on. “These are mini-chargers, for sample blasting, yes. I doubt if I’ll have need of them. Confiscate them if you want. How about my pocket knife? You want that too?”

  “You looking for trouble, Sweetie?” Her eyes were level on his.

  “Oh, leave him alone,” Lysippe grumbled. “The poor boy’s got to have tools, doesn’t he? Imagine using a man for a mining engineer.” She looked at Guy in honest inquiry. “Doesn’t it upset you to get your nice soft hands all dirty?”

  Rex chuckled.

  “No,” Guy said. “Besides, I’m not a mining engineer. I’m an expediter. I…oh, Zen. Forget about it. I’ll explain when I meet your people down on Amazonia.”

  Lysippe said interestedly, “You really figure on landing, do you?”

  “Of course.”

  Clete chuckled, as she continued the minute search of his effects. “You better look out for Minythia,” she grinned.

  “What’s Minythyia?” Guy said.

  “Not what, who,” the girl who had demonstrated her knife throwing prowess laughed. “Our buddy who went back to the pilot boat to report and ask for instructions on you and that Pat O’Gara kid. She hasn’t any husband.”

  Lysippe took Guy in again. “I might take you on myself, Honeybun.”

  “You’ve got a couple of men,” Clete said.

  “Ummm. But I kind of like these effeminate types.”

  “Effeminate!” Guy bleated.

  Rex had still been eyeing Lysippe. It came to him that he’d been in space a long time.

  He put out a hand experimentally, and ran it along the girl’s arm which was bare from shortly below her shoulder where her leather-like jerkin terminated in a short sleeve, to a trio of heavy golden bracelets on her wrist.

  “Just how effeminate do you have to be to…” he began.

  But her response had been instantaneous. Those heavy bracelets were not mere decoration. In fact, they turned out to be a rare combination of brass knuckles and blackjack when competently used.

  She backhanded him, sending him asprawl. She stepped closer, as he tried to stagger to his feet and cut loose with her right hand, the fingers gathered and pointed so as to be spearlike, toward his solar plexus.

  “Artimis!” Clete yelled at her. “Easy! You’ll hurt the poor boy.”

  Lysippe pulled her punch, albeit growling.

  “Listen,” she snapped. “If there’s any pawing done around here, I’ll do it, understand?”

  Rex Ravelle shook his head, for clarity, and slumped into a chair. “Holy Jumping Zen,” he complained. “What hit me?”

  “What in the name of the Goddess is going on here?” the major said from the entry. Behind her was Captain Buchwald.

  “Aw, nothing,” Lysippe grumbled. “Sweetie, here, got a little unmanly and I had to tap him.”

  The major said, “Effeminate cloddy.”

  Guy cleared his throat. “Uh, Major, I think I’ve got a solution. This problem of my landing on Amazonia and being subjected to Amazonian law.”

  “That you wo
uld be, Sonny, and you’re of marriageable age, too.”

  “Don’t you ever make exceptions to these laws of yours?”

  “No,” the major said flatly. “Laws you make exceptions to, don’t remain laws very long. We don’t have many laws, but those we have are not only laws but also religious beliefs, unchanging custom, never to be broken except to be punishable with greatest severity. In that manner our laws are observed.”

  “But look. Why can’t I simply base myself at the UP Embassy? Traditionally, an embassy is the soil of the planet being represented. So if I was there, I would be subject to United Planets law, rather than Amazonian.”

  The major looked at him sourly. “Just one short coming to that, Sonny. There is no UP Embassy on Amazonia.”

  Guy said, “But there has to be. You’re a member of United Planets. You have an embassy on Earth. UP must have one here.”

  “I didn’t say we didn’t have a UP Embassy, I said there wasn’t one on our planet. We make no exceptions to our laws. If UP personnel landed on Amazonia, the men would be subject to our marriage laws. The women, between the ages of eighteen and thirty, would be subject to our military draft. Consequently, it was necessary that the UP Embassy be placed on an artificial satellite orbiting our planet. The personnel seldom, if ever, comes down to the surface. We conduct all business by our representatives ferrying up to them.”

  She looked at Guy thoughtfully. “Could you handle your business from a satellite orbiting Amazonia?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said weakly. “I’m afraid I might have to be seeing your mines, your smelting facilities, that sort of ting.”

  Minythyia entered, scowling.

  The major said, “Well?”

  “Could I speak to you alone, Madam?”

  “Come out here into the companionway.”

  As they left, Minythyia tipped Guy Thomas a wink. The trade expediter groaned softly.

  The Captain looked at him. “How’d you get yourself into this mess?”

  “I volunteered.” He looked very unhappy.

  Rex Ravelle, who had finally recovered from his brief bout with Lysippe, growled, “You’d think those flats back on Earth would have known better than to send a man. Don’t they have any curves they could have given the assignment? You heard what she said. Just like Jerry told you. Go down there and you’ll wind up in some muscle bound mopsy’s harem and she’ll most likely get drunk every Saturday night and come home and beat the bejazus out of you.”

  “Very funny, Mister Ravelle,” the captain said.

  “You think I was kidding?” Rex muttered, rubbing the side of his swollen face.

  Clete said, “What’s the matter with you boys, don’t you believe in marriage? I thought a boy didn’t really feel fulfilled until a warrior took him under her wing.”

  Guy Thomas looked at her in agony.

  “Easy, Clete,” Lysippe said compassionately. “You’ve embarrassed the poor fella.”

  The major came in, Minythyia trailing behind looking resentful.

  “All right,” the Amazon officer said. “This is the way it will be. From, your papers, Guy Thomas, you’re a single man well into marriageable age. By Paphlagonian law you are subject to be chosen by any citizen whose gynaeceum includes less than three husbands.”

  “You mean I don’t have anything to say about it?”

  “Of course you have something to say, Cutey,” Minythyia told him soothingly. “If some old drunken brawler chooses you and you don’t like her, you can always appeal to any other warrior of your choice to take you into her gynaeceum. That is, of course, if she has fewer than three husbands.” She added, smiling encouragingly at him. “I haven’t any at all. Can you kiss the way they do on the Tri-Di shows made on Earth, Cutey?”

  “Shut up, Minythyia,” the major rapped. “I’ll explain this.”

  “I won’t land!” Guy blurted. He shut his mouth stubbornly.

  The Amazon officer sighed. “We’ve got it all figured out,” she said. “Obviously, if your job is going to be done, you’ve not only got to land in Themiscyra but travel about Paphlagonia. And the you’ve got to return to Avalon and Earth to complete the barter deal. We’re not any more interested in your being married by some semi-pervert sex bitch who likes off-beat men such as effeminate types from other planets, than you are.”

  “Stop calling me effeminate! Why not just pass a rule that I’m unmarriageable?” Guy demanded desperately.

  “I told you. On Amazonia, a law is a law and there are no exceptions. The Goddess Artimis would frown on any attempt to subvert her holy marriage laws. But this is what we’ll do. We’ll seclude you. Clete and Lysippe will guard you.”

  “How about me?” Minythyia said.

  “Shut up,” the major rapped. “I don’t trust you. I don’t think your patriotism would stand up under the provocation of being in constant proximity to a cute trick like Guy, here—no matter how badly Paphlagonia needs columbium.”

  Minythyia’s face was petulant. “I’m just as human as the next warrior.”

  Clete chuckled. “That’s prettty damn human, since I’m standing next to you. But I’ve got two men, and they’d probably scratch Guy’s eyes out if I brought him home. Besides, he’s too feminine for me. I like my men soft and willing.” She leered at the Earthling.

  “Knock it, you two,” the major said. She looked back at Guy Thomas. “We’ll hide you and we’ll guard you. We’ll keep you away from predatory men-seekers to the extent we can. You want to take the chance?”

  Guy Thomas swallowed.

  Rex Ravelle chuckled idiotically. The captain glowered at him.

  Guy choked out, “I’ve got to. It’s my big chance.”

  “All right,” the major snapped decisively. “Remember, stay away from warriors. Stick to the company of the men we’ll quarter you with. Don’t ever go out unless Lysippe and Clete are along to run interference. Themiscyra is man-short since a Lybian raid we had six months ago; half the newly emerged warriors are on the prowl, looking for somebody to keep up their homes.”

  Guy Thomas said, an element of plaint in his voice. “I’m missing some things here. What’re Themiscyra and Paphlagonia, and what are Lybians?”

  Clete grunted disgust. “Don’t you know anything about Amazonian affairs back on Earth?”

  The major summed it up briefly. “Amazonia is divided into two major continents, Pahlagonia and Lybia. Our capital city is Themiscyra, theirs is Chersonesus.” She shrugged under her heavy cloak. “We’re often at peace, but just recently relations are, uh, strained due to the raids they’ve been pulling to capture men.”

  Rex said, “Don’t they have their own men?”

  The major looked at him as though the question was too silly to bother answering, but then said, “The Goddess allows each warrior three husbands.”

  Clete chuckled and said, “The idea is, you have one to take care of the house, one to raise the children, and one—”

  “Shut up, Clete,” the major rapped, “you’ll have these boys blushing.” It was two full twenty-four hour periods before Guy Thomas was allowed to land. They had explained to him that they would have to make arrangements for his secretive entry into the land of the Amazons. The government had evidently quickly brushed aside the fact that he was male, although they had been surprised. They wanted Niobium and they wanted it both quickly and badly.

  Pat O’Gara had returned with the four Amazons on the first trip, saying goodbye to the officers and such crew members as she had come in contact with during the trip, rather briefly. She had an air of confusion about her.

  “Not quite what you expected, eh?” Rex Ravelle grinned.

  “Exactly what I expected,” she snapped.

  Rex, even as he was shaking hands goodbye with the girl, looked over at Guy Thomas who was sitting, hunched over a cup of coffee, staring blankly before him.

  “Hey, Guy,” Rex called. “If worse comes to worse, and some old mopsy tries to get her hooks into you, yo
u can always look up Pat. Throw yourself on her mercy. Maybe she’ll take you into her, what’d’ya call ’em?” The last was directed at Clete, who was standing to one side, waiting for Pat O’Gara to finish her farewells.

  “Gynaecum,” Clete said.

  Guy Thomas, as though in spite of himself, said, “What’s a gynaecum?”

  Rex leered. “I never heard the word before, but ten’ll get you only one it’s the equivalent of a harem.”

  “What’s a harem?” Clete demanded.

  Rex turned his grin to her. “Back on Earth, in the old days, where a man kept his several wives and his kids in seclusion.”

  “Don’t be disgusting,” Clete rapped. Her face was dark and involuntarily her hand dropped to her knife hilt.

  Pat O’Gara had flushed. “I’m sure you’ve all got this situation very much confused.”

  Guy groaned.

  Rex said, “You weren’t around when they gave us the word, Pat, old girl. From what I understand, shortly, you’ll be running up and down the streets yourself, trying to nail any unattached yoke not stute enough to keep himself hidden.” He had to laugh at his own attempt at humor.

  Nobody else did.

  After Patricia O’Gara and the Amazons had left, the Schirra remained in orbit, suffering lighters from the planet below to come up and laboriously unload the cargo destined for the rival Amazonian nations. For although Guy Thomas had professed unawareness of the nature of the political situation on the woman dominated world, Captain Buchwald’s manifests had included shipments for both Lybia and Paphlagonia. The lighters came up separately, never conflicting. Evidently, there was some sort of truce which applied in space.

  It made sense, Guy Thomas decided. Obviously, there were some commodities Amazonia needed to import. It wouldn’t have done for them to have fouled up interplanetary trade, with their off again, on again, hostilities.

  On the third day the major’s customs launch reappeared bearing not only that officer but Clete and Lysippe as well. They had brought some clothing along with them.

  Guy stared at it when they laid it out on the table of the lounge.