by George Olney
As she started to turn away, she remarked casually, "It's a pity this has to end so soon. There's not enough enjoyment in beating you this easily."
Frenchy spat and glared. "Don't bet on it, bitch."
One of the gang stepped close in front of her and cupped her chin in his hand, pinching her cheeks roughly against her teeth with his thumb and fingers. "Aw," he sneered, "little girl's trying to be mean. Don't worry, sweetie, you'll like what I do."
The man was just close enough. Frenchy kneed his groin with all of her strength. The kick bowled him over, gasping and vomiting as he curled up on the floor, holding himself. Another goon jumped closer and she tried to kick him as well.
She missed. He didn't.
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It was the screaming that brought her around. She shook her head, groggy from the blow that put her out. At first she couldn't place what was assaulting her ears, but as her brain slowly cleared it became horrifyingly certain what was happening. The screams were Maev's. She strained at her bonds for a moment, driven as much by fear as anger, but got nowhere.
She heard a laugh. It was the man she'd kneed. He was still a little hunched, but it looked like he’d mostly recovered from her earlier blow and that was too damn bad. If she could get free, she'd rip out his guts with her fingernails.
It was plain the goon knew exactly what she was thinking. "Well, blondie, get a good earful. They told me I could play with you next. How're you goin' to sound, huh?" The man continued on in the same vein, trying to get to her. Frustratingly, he didn't get within her reach.
She tried to ignore him. She noticed a window, one with a solid surface, on the far wall of the bay. There was a shadowy figure outlined on the window's translucent surface where someone was doing something on its outside. The smuggler didn't see it, too intent on trying to get her goat. Several others came from somewhere and joined her tormentor, grinning and joking as he got ever more explicit and vulgar. Meanwhile the screams slowly died down. The material in the window pane started to melt, caused by a device the figure held. It was too dark to see clearly, but she prayed with everything in her that the intruder was who she hoped it was. God, let it be Grae!
She started thinking fast. Motor mouth was still involved with his monkey gibbering. The rest were watching him. She had to keep it that way. In the movies, the heroine always did this sort of thing with sexy acts to attract the attention of the villain.
Not good. First, this was real life, not the movies. Second, there was no way she was going to be nice to those scum sucking slugs. She decided on a more appropriate way.
She started replying in kind to the man, telling him just exactly what to do with himself in great and anatomically impossible detail. The grins of her audience began to fade as the heat rose. Finally, her original harasser so forgot himself as to step forward and grab her by the throat.
This was getting to be routine.
She kneed him with the full power of her hips and a vicious, scientific twist at the right moment. He hit the floor in a repeat of the original performance. His screams brought other smugglers at the run. One of them drew a bolt gun. "Bitch," he yelled, "I don't give a damn what anybody wants! I'm going to spread you across the landscape and let your boyfriend mop up the pieces!"
She cringed as the muzzle swung in her direction. Inanely, she wondered what it would feel like to die. A wonderful and intimately familiar dry voice came from the shadows, distracting the man with the gun, "If you jerks were looking for me... I'm here."
For a moment, the bay and all in it seemed frozen in time. Then everything happened at once. The man with the pistol started to swing around, but a bolt from Grae's gun caught him and knocked the body several feet backwards.
Frenchy heard a THWACK, just above her hands, and suddenly the tension on the ropes around her wrists was gone. She forced herself to ignore the numbness and screaming pain of returning circulation, she shook off the ropes and reached up, willing her nearly useless hands to grab, to no surprise, the hilt of her ax. She knew with perfect certainty Grae was going to bring it when he got here.
Now to put it to good use. She jerked the ax free and swung down hard at the head of a smuggler who was just drawing his gun. The man didn't even scream, but simply fell to the floor, cloven to the teeth.
After that, there was a confusion of bodies going in all directions as the smugglers tried to fight or flee. Grae had brought a few friends with him to the party and those friends were as enthusiastically lethal as he was. Frenchy watched him in action for a second, charging, twisting, firing with the bolt pistol in one hand or slashing with the knife in the other, deciding that he could only be described as "awesome." Then she found herself realizing that she had just killed a man.
The thought brought her up short. A passing smuggler noticed her and tried to bring his gun around, and she swung at him by reflex. Her ax landed first. Another one down. So much for philosophical reflection in the middle of a fight. Remembering Maev's screams, she decided the world really needed fewer slimeballs rather than more ex-strippers with compassionate impulses. That satisfyingly resolved the problem.
She started to re-enter the fight, but there wasn't one anymore. Everyone on their feet seemed to be an Enforcer. All of the gang members were on the floor in various states of disassembly and none of them moved.
The Enforcers, it appeared, were not interested in capturing bad guys.
Grae approached her, smiling. "Good job, Frenchy. Glad we got here in time."
She grinned back at him. "You almost didn't. If you’d been a few minutes slower, you'd be minus a blonde. As it was Maev-
"OH MY GOD, MAEV!" she screamed, dropped her ax, and headed for the back of the warehouse bay at a dead run. As she ran, she searched frantically for the office or back room that was the source of the terrible screams. Grae was pacing her, guessing immediately what was wrong and what she why she was searching.
They found Maev in a small side office fitted out as a crude bedroom. She was lying on her side, curled into a fetal position and weeping as she held herself. Bloodstains spotted the sheets and Maev herself was smeared with blood. All trace of the sleek, arrogant girl Frenchy first met was totally gone. Frenchy felt nauseated. Grae approached Maev tenderly. "It's all right," he said in a gentle croon. "You're all right. The Enforcers are here. We got them all."
"No!" she wailed. "Stay away! Just stay away from me! I'm infected! Help me die!" She sat up and pleaded with the two of them, tears streaming down her face.
"Please, please kill me. Let me die with honor."
"The hell with that," Grae growled, gathering her up. He started to carry her out to the main bay. "We'll get you a full decontamination immediately. They're already set up in the bay. The disease won't have a chance to start."
She tried to struggle, thrashing in his arms, then abruptly went limp. "Decontaminate if you want," she said listlessly, "but you can't take away the dishonor of rape. Only death cures that."
Grae stopped and set the girl firmly on her feet. Grabbing her shoulders, he forced her to look in his eye. "Only a free woman can have that dishonor. You are no longer free. I saved your life, and by Custom of the Tribes I claim you as mine. You are bound to me."
Maev's face showed an abrupt change of expression. From a desolate hopelessness, she took on the look of a frightened little girl, listening to an adult tell her it was all right. "Now," Grae said, releasing her, "go decontaminate and get cleaned up."
Turning to a stunned Frenchy, he added, "Go with her. She's in a bad way and needs help. Make sure she gets taken care of, and watch her closely.
"And you get decontaminated, too," he added as an afterthought.
Not really making sense out of anything, Frenchy decided following Grae's instructions was the best thing to do for the moment. Then she had to think.
Grae watched her gather up the smaller woman and shepherd her tenderly to the decontamination station, now in full operation in the bay. He silently breathe
d a sigh of relief. Giving Frenchy orders was always a chancy thing. He looked at Maev again and mentally kicked himself. He knew he had to claim her, he thought, but what had he let himself in for, now?
As soon as the decontamination team finished treating Maev, a medic began working on her physical injuries. Once she was treated for a possible concussion herself, Frenchy went to Maev's medic and took him aside. "Look," she said, "she's been brutally raped. I don't know what hit her worse, the disease or the rape, but she's definitely in shock. I've seen enough of it to know."
The medic nodded. "No problem. I knew about the rape and I'm going to administer emotional first aid. That should take care of the shock and the emotional aftereffects of the rape. After that, she'll be okay if she's allowed to recover from it like any other injury."
Frenchy added worriedly, "But she's also talking about suicide. I'm scared she'll do it."
The medic snorted. He was a Galactic. "The standard Tribal reaction to anything is killing. Themselves, if they can't decide on anyone else. What she's saying is typical of the breed and she means it." He looked closely at Maev for a second. "She doesn't appear suicidal now. She looks almost totally passive."
Frenchy shook her head in disgust. "When she started talking about killing herself, Grae grabbed her up and told her he was taking possession of her. He said she's bound to him, now."
The medic nodded. "Then he saved her life. They have a goofy psychology and, as far as she's concerned, she doesn't have the right to destroy his possessions, damaged goods or not. I'm glad you told me. It'll help me with the treatment, but the one thing she won't do is kill herself unless he further dishonors her by setting her free."
Frenchy watched the medic work on Maev, fuming. Dishonors her by setting her free! That was insane! What was worse, here was a whole culture that firmly believed it. That was stupid! Dumb, stupid, and perverted! The whole damn bunch was out of its collective mind! The very idea of Maev's acceptance of her bondage was repugnant to her, but she finally cooled down enough to admit alien cultures have alien ways. That didn't mean she had to like it. Wait till she got Grae alone.
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That happened later that night in the hotel suite. It was a different hotel from the original one. Grae had taken great pains not to be followed to this one, including medical examination of both Frenchy and Maev for homing implants. He was sitting in the living area, staring pensively at the wall, when Frenchy came out of the bedroom. She'd just put Maev to sleep, again struck by the personality change in the woman. She was behaving just like a little girl.
Frenchy flopped tiredly in a chair, not really caring if her fatigue and irritation were showing. Besides that, her own lumps and bruises were bothering hell out of her, although the medic assured her every sign of the fight would be gone by morning. She wasn't in the best of humor, but there was something she had to resolve with Grae. As usual, she took the direct route. "Dammit, Grae, what's going on here? That girl in there is devastated. Why in the hell did you have to grab her up like some kind of vulture? Wasn't one plaything enough for you?"
Grae didn't react to either her tone or her insults. He continued staring at the wall as he replied in an abstracted voice. "She'll be back to normal soon. The treatment they gave her regressed her personality back to preadolescence and damped the emotions involved. She'll mature emotionally by tomorrow morning, growing past the damage. She'll always know what happened to her, but the emotions and damage will be resolved."
He looked at her thoughtfully. "I wasn't looking for another plaything, as you put it. I don't consider you one. It was just something I had to do.
"I knew a woman that happened to once, and nobody was there to help." He looked back at the wall. "Believe me, this was not anything I particularly wanted."
She watched him silently for a moment, irritation forgotten. She had a suspicion she knew who he was talking about, and that made all the difference in the world. "Well," she said finally, "what do we do now?"
"We go after these bastards. I don't want to do it, but I'm taking both of you with me. You won't be safe here." Grae winced mentally as he said that. Safety for the women wasn't his real reason. Frenchy needed to be free of him, but he had to find a way to do it without dishonoring her. Maev being bound to him only added complications. Complications he had to resolve before he took on the smugglers. He meant to be without ties for the final battle. Somewhere along the way, there would be a solution.
Frenchy accepted his spoken reason with a little thrill. She had scores to settle, especially with the woman leading the smugglers. "Okay," she said with an air of mild satisfaction, "sounds like a plan."
She got up, went over and took his hand. "Come on, it's been a long day. Let's hit the hay."
He didn't move immediately, but sat there looking up at her. He made no attempt to remove his hand. "You know, Frenchy," he said in an affectionate tone, "I said you were tough, resilient, but you're more than that. I'll say it again, you're very special."
She dimpled, then leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "Thanks. That's the nicest compliment I've ever had. Come on, let's go to bed."
He stood up, but shook his head. "We go to bed, but separately. In her present state, Maev shouldn't wake up and find herself next to a man. I'll sleep out here. You join her."
She was mildly inclined to argue, but decided to agree and keep the peace. Besides, she was as tired as she'd ever been. The bed felt wonderful. She was too tired to be uncomfortable at the fact that there was a nude woman in bed with her instead of a man. For a few minutes, she lay there and thought once again about the fact that she'd killed two men. She had no illusions about scumbags, not after an adult lifetime spent in bars and strip joints. The world was a better place without them. What bothered her was the fact that she'd literally sliced a couple of them in two like something from a slasher movie and she felt nothing about it. Was she becoming a brutal killer? Was this what it was like? She knew she was going to have to kill again to live through her time on this planet. She regretted that, but she was living! For the first time in her life, she was really living!
She snorted. The hell with this! She did what she had to do when she had to do it, and that was that. She wasn't a killer, just a survivor. She turned over and went to sleep.
Her dreams that night were warm and affectionate. They obviously had an effect, because she found herself snuggled with a friendly, compassionate arm around someone when she awoke. That someone was Maev.
Maev was awake. Maev was looking at her with a peculiar expression.
Frenchy disengaged herself with a mumbled apology and decided it was high time to get that bum in the living room to take them to breakfast. She wondered if there was ever going to be a time she would stop doing things to embarrass herself on this world.
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There was a surprise waiting for Frenchy when they went to Enforcer headquarters after breakfast. Locar wanted to see her. She found herself ushered into the back office and seated in the same chair Grae used several days ago. She watched Locar glide silently over the floor with excited and eager curiosity as he busied himself at several of the data banks that crowded his office. He was the first true humanoid she'd ever seen.
Wow, a real alien! Just like TV!
He returned to his desk and studied her silently for several seconds before opening conversation. "I've been watching and having you scanned since Grae first brought you here. Did you know you possess a high degree of psi talent?"
"What's that?" she asked, puzzled. Then the light dawned. "Oh," she blurted, suddenly remembering her Babylon 5. "You mean telepathic? But I can't read thoughts!"
He shook his head. "No, as far as we know, there is no truly telepathic life form in the universe. You do, however, have potential to sense things around you and to project impressions, as well as your desires in certain cases. Apparently, you are already doing it. What else you can do, I'm not really sure. These things need training, but just the knowledge
the capability exists is enough to start the development process in most sentient beings. I assume you are no different. It's just something else you'll have to be trained in later."
"Later?"
"After you come back from this mission. Grae has enrolled you in the Arm."
She gasped. "What?"
He nodded solemnly. "True. He gave you a strong recommendation and your actions yesterday confirmed that recommendation. You are the kind of person I need."
She sat back in the chair, her mind whirling. "Me!? What does that mean, anyway? Look, I don't have the education for that sort of thing. I'm just an ex-stripper that met the wrong guy in a bar one night."
He shook his head. "No. You are more than you think you are. What you know is not as important as your ability to learn and use what you learned. You excel in that.
"Think it over," he added. "In any case, you will always have the benefits of Arm membership. I want the work that goes with it. Now, leave, I have other projects. Just think over what I said."
Automatically, she started to get up then stopped as his last speech sank in. "Wait a minute! You said I had the benefits of membership. What does that mean?"
"Before you leave here," he replied, "we will have your electronic pattern in our computers. No matter where you go in the universe, you will never be far from our help, should it ever be needed. You will be able to ask any Enforcer for assistance at any time."
She mulled that over for a minute, standing there. "That means, in effect, I'll never be left alone, doesn't it?"
"Yes."
"Thanks." Her comment was brief, as abrupt as his, as she turned to leave. The implications of what he said gave her a lot to think about.
Was that what Grae meant by never again being alone against the universe?
And did she now have a future?
CHAPTER FOUR
Frenchy had never ridden an animal before, but the rocking of the gort beneath her was something she found she could get used to easily enough. The gait of the riding beast covered ground with deceptive rapidity and treated its rider to a gentle rolling motion while it did. The motion was so natural she didn't have to concentrate on riding after her initial half hour or so. That gave her time to contemplate the barren beauty of the desolate arid land around her and think over how she got here.
