In the Year of Our Lord 2202

by Edward Lee

  “Go ahead and bust my balloon.”

  “Tom, this is Brigid, my new dom-mate. She’s Civilian Branch.”

  “Sister,” Tom said, eyes darting back and forth over Brigid’s bosom. “It’s a pleasure to serve God with you.”

  “Likewise.”

  “Tom keeps getting demoted because he has a foul mouth,” Sharon appended. “But he’s a nice guy.”

  “I’m real flattered.”

  Sharon’s eyes narrowed when she noticed Tom taking the yellow pill from his synthcup and slipping it in his utility pocket.

  “See?” Brigid said to her.

  “See what?” Tom said.

  “Nothing.” Sharon grabbed Tom’s shoulder enthusiastically. “Brigid’s a remote-viewer. Isn’t that exciting? She can channel through walls and see things thousands of miles away.”

  Tom cut a big sarcastic grin. “Yeah, and I can bend spoons with my cock.”

  “I told you he had a foul mouth,” Sharon apologized.

  But Brigid grinned right back at him. “That’s real funny, Tarzan. By the way, this morning when I was channeling into the men’s shower unit, I noticed that cute little scar on your ass. How’d you get it? Shrapnel?”

  Tom paused over his electrolyte drink, took a moment to consider the revelation. “Lousy parlor trick, honey. Any guy in Security Corp could’ve told you about that.”

  “Um-hmm. Then how could I possibly know that you jerked off twice yesterday?” Tom spat a mouthful of the solution across the table, his face turning red.

  Brigid chuckled in a long stream.

  “You’re making a believer out of me already,” Tom admitted.

  But Sharon looked at both of them, confused. “What’s jerking off?”

  (II)

  After “dinner,” Sharon reported via intranet order to the med unit. Commander-Deaconness Esther explained upon her entrance: “The MAC processed you for a physical, Sharon.”

  “But I had one just before we debarked.”

  “Yes,” Warrant Officer Simon said, “but since then you’ve suffered several traumatic ordeals. First, the attacker in your duty station, then the bomb going off in your proximity. We just need to make sure you’re okay after all of that.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sharon said. The man in the cove unsettled her. She understood that he was Dr. Esther’s medical adjunct but there was something unsettling about him. Thin neck, pointed chin. Eyes she might describe proverbially as beady.

  “Relax, Sharon!” the Deaconness exclaimed. “You look as nervous as I was earlier today during the inquest.” The fiftyish woman lost the stiff veneer of her high rank once she spoke. She’d aged attractively, all fine lines, graceful curves, and a bright, warm smile. “I thought I was going to faint.”

  “Me too,” Simon admitted.

  The Deaconness frowned at the remark but kept her attention on Sharon. “We mainly just need to do a quick tox screen, to ensure that you didn’t absorb any of that ethanolamine-based coolant when you threw it at the infiltrator. And the concussion from the bomb could possibly have caused some microscopic ruptures.”

  “Now if you’ll just step into the tome,” Simon said, “we’ll have this done in no time.”

  Sharon nodded uneasily, began to take off her jumpsuit. Simon’s eyes seemed like a rake over her skin. “Um, ma’am, if you don’t mind—”

  “Oh, of course.” She shot a hard glance to Simon. “You’re dismissed.”

  Simon left the cove in a swift turn.

  “He’s such a creep,” the Deaconness commented when he was gone. “Reminds me of a lizard. I can’t stand those Security Corp plants.”

  Sharon stepped out of her uniform. “Plant? I thought he was a medical technician.”

  “By training, he is. But that’s just a front. On these sub-light flights, Security Corp always puts someone like him in the general duty population. I even heard a rumor once that he was Federate Intel.”

  “A spy?”

  “In a sense, yes. But he’s spying on his own people, which infuriates me. And what can I do about it? Nothing. Just go along with their game.”

  Sharon saw the woman’s point. “I’m ready, ma’am.”

  “Just step into the tome, dear. Put your feet in the outlines.”

  Sharon entered the tall cylindrical scanner, shivered slightly when the door sucked shut. She never really liked this—mechanical voyeurism—and the outline in which she placed her feet seemed painfully wide. In a moment, the scanning lumes came on, a fluttering meld of violet and vermillion, which ran top to bottom. The light on her skin felt cold.

  “Just a little prick,” the doctor’s voice flowed softly through the chamber, and then a rod lowered, pressed a tiny cup to the side of her arm. She didn’t wince when the microneedle pierced her skin for a blood sample.

  “How’s your cycle? Is it regular?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Any pains, aches in the pelvic region?”

  “No, ma’am. I’ve never felt better.”

  “Good.” A distant pause as processors hummed. “Thyroid panel, lipid panel, and CBC and platelet count look just fine,” Esther said. “Blood sugar, PSA, and RPR—great.” A pause. “You know what comes next. Some women love it, some hate it, I’m afraid.”

  Sharon pursed her lips, closed her eyes. She could hear the tiny servos as the GYN node rose between her legs. The lubricated node—the size of a baby’s fist—nudged into her vagina perhaps an inch, then just seemed to throb there. Next, the fleet of nanoprobes emerged. She felt several tickle up her urethra, then scores more caterpillared through the natural perforations of her hymen and up into her cervix and reproductive tract.

  “PAP, good; ketones, good; creatinine, good.”

  Sharon’s breath oddly began to grow short.

  “Ligations secure—zero deformity. Fallopial channels clear, negative for lesions, blockages, and cystic activity.” A distant beep could be heard. “Ah, just a moment. Looks like you’ve got a neoplastic cyst on one of your Graffian follicles. Not to worry, it’s benign. Give me a sec and I’ll fix it.” Like mechanical ants, the nanogroup swarmed, each with different roles: identification, anesthesial, surgical, and cauterization. In moments, the tiny nanobots performed a textbook operation.

  But Sharon trembled. A pocket of the most foreign sensation churned up inside between her legs. A sensation she’d never experienced before.

  Something like pleasure.

  “There. Finished. Sharon, I’m pleased to inform you that you’re in perfect health. Sing praise and thanks to God.”

  At first, Sharon didn’t quite hear the doctor’s conclusion.

  “Sharon? Did you hear me?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” she blurted out, and quickly quoted Ecclesiasticus: “There are no riches above a sound body.” Her teeth clamped her lower lip as all the nanoprobes withdrew, leaving intense, thrilling trails deep in her most private flesh. Her breasts felt stuffed with tantalizing warmth; her nipples stuck out like bolts.

  “Praise be to God. Okay, we’re done.”

  The door sucked back open; Sharon stepped out. The confusion overwhelmed her, but she kept silent about it. What’s happening to me? she pleaded with herself. Back under the med unit’s harsh lumes, she noticed that she was flushed from breasts to groin, and her nipples seemed embarrassingly distended.

  “You needn’t worry, dear,” the Deaconness assured her, noting the obvious. “God doesn’t hold us responsible for autonomic responses. Some women actually orgasm during the exam.”

  The bare, forbidden word—orgasm—embarrassed Sharon further. Her face pinkened. She was speechless.

  “A gynecological nanoexam is perfunctory, Sharon. It’s a cold, impersonal medical procedure. The free will that God gave you is not involved.”

  Free will. Sharon immediately recalled the comparable remarks that Brigid had made in the galley. It’s only a sin when you invite it.

  But that conciliation did nothing to cease the dizzied
dismay, nor her “autonomic” responses.

  When she had her jumpsuit pulled up to her waist, Dr. Esther said, “Here,” and handed her a small sterilized pad. “Dab your arm.”

  Sharon noticed the spot of blood on her arm, from the blood sample taken. She swabbed it, felt a tiny sting from the pad’s antiseptic/coagulant compounds.

  “But what might be more important in this instance,” Esther went on, “are the potential psychological ramifications.”

  “I don’t understand, ma’am.”

  “You’re a brave young woman, but you’re only human. The terrible things that you’ve witnessed today could develop into some considerable after-effects. Seeing your covemates killed, nearly being killed yourself by that bomb. Post-traumatic stress is what I’m talking about.”

  That was the least of her worries. “I’m fine, ma’am. Really.”

  “Good girl. But if you notice any problems, psychologically speaking, I want you to come and see me at once. That’s an order.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The Commander-Deaconness took back the anti-septal pad and dropped it into her waste disposal unit. “Go in peace now.”

  “To love and serve the Lord,” Sharon replied, zipping up the front of her uniform.

  She left the med unit, winded, abashed. Her nipples tingled more intensely now, as the valcron of her jumpsuit abraded against them. However naive she might really be—and however impersonal the nature of the exam—Sharon knew that the eruption of sensations she’d experienced in the tome were unquestionably sexual.

  And she knew something else.

  When Commander-Deaconness Esther had discarded the antiseptal pad, there was another item awaiting disintegration in the waste disposal’s tray: a long yellow pill.

  Brigid was right. Everyone onboard knows that it’s really a sexual suppressant—even Dr. Esther doesn’t take it!

  That might explain at lot. By not taking it herself today, her sexual responses went unblocked for the first time since puberty. And if she continued not to take the pill—as Brigid insisted…

  Will I be able to control myself?

  A struggle tugged inside of her. She felt inclined to return to her dom, to shower off the lusty perspiration. But then the sublimation nozzles might only inflame her more. Another thought: Go to Confession, seek council.

  But she had no confidence that she could frame the words to properly express her emotions—especially to a man.

  Get your mind off it.

  This option made the most sense. She took herself quickly back to her dom, sat down and turned on her intranet screen. She remembered the odd file-and-store data she’d read earlier on Kim’s intranet—the photospectroscopic probe readout from the Extrasolar Array. She thought a moment to recall the information.

  “Something about an elemental molecular scan,” she muttered to herself. “A pyroxene compound of…aluminum and silicate of sodium?”

  She input the information and executed a definition command.

  An instantaneous reply read:

  —Monoclinic geometric crystallization of NaAl (Si0333) commonly [from historical archives]:

  a) crystalline variety of quartz, a vitreous amphibole attached to mineral groups known as pyroxenes.

  b) Jasper, a gemstone with ancient roots.

  Must be a compound analysis from a planetoid or debris belt, she concluded. The holoimage showed several examples of hand-carved trinkets of an opaque greenish stone.

  But…

  A gemstone? Why would such non-descript information be relegated to the restricted data-channels that Kim had processed?

  Hmm.

  She switched on Kim’s holoscreen, expecting it to have been deactivated by now.

  It’s still up!

  Sharon hoped for more analysis files to have been tagged for redeposition, but there weren’t any. Then she tried to retrieve the initial file but got this response:

  —data-retrieval request denied.

  —requested data has been quarantined.

  “That’s strange,” she told herself. What could be so important about this? So much for that, she thought. But as she was about to turn off Kim’s unit, the flag-tone sounded. Another file was incoming on the system’s download band.

  Sharon clicked it on:

  MOS WORK CALL

  DATA REGIMENT/ANALYSIS TECHNICIAN

  Priority Code: NON-URGENT

  Re: MADAM and ESA-2 Photospectroscopy Probe Order

  De: Data Reg do Security Corp

  READ: Cartographical Probe results: positive for Target-Object (interior) configuration.

  —fixed geometric object (in exactitude):

  HEIGHT: 1500 unrefracted miles

  LENGTH: 1500 unrefracted miles.

  WIDTH: 1500 unrefracted miles.

  Observations: Target-Object exists as a fixed perimeter in geometric exactitude.

  ORDERS: File & Store for Analysis

  STOP

  Sharon squinted at the accommodating diagram of whatever this “target-object” was. She couldn’t imagine what it could be.

  This is useless, she decided. There wasn’t enough information, and even if there had been, so what?

  She clicked the FILE & STORE icon and closed it out. But at least the distraction, however useless, had taken her mind off her previous problem.

  Her body felt normal now, unflushed. This relieved her…until she remembered something Brigid had said in the galley, the bizarre word.

  Sharon input the word into the language program: masturbation.

  masturbation: 1) excitation of the genital organs, often to orgasm, by means other than sexual intercourse. 2) more commonly, the act of sexual self-excitation with one’s own hand. Judicially condemned by the Christian Federate’s Mental Hygiene Board as a venal sin and statutory third-degree misdemeanor. (Public Law 1163-05/2157)

  The words seemed to stare back at her. Sexual self-excitation. The sharply clinical term sounded forbidden in her own mind. With one’s own hand.

  Without realizing it then, she’d closed the language program and had already re-delved into Kim’s personal directory.

  The cyberfiles.

  The pornography.

  Don’t, Sharon ordered herself.

  In a fit, she shut down the holoscreen, rushed out of the dom and into the corridor. Yes, she wanted to do it, watch more of it, and—

  Masturbate?

  She didn’t know and she didn’t want to know. Two more words sounded in her head.

  Free will.

  Blessed are they who endureth temptation, for when they are tried, they shall receive the crown of life.

  She sailed down the accessmain with no idea where she was going. Away from there, she thought. That was all that mattered. She knew she should confess—she’d nearly touched herself.

  But hadn’t she also willingly turned her back on the desire. Hadn’t she resisted the temptation after it had already blossomed in her mind?

  “Hey, Sharon?” A hand touched her shoulder.

  She spun around. “What!”

  It was Tom, just exiting a serviceway. Her outburst clearly startled him. “What’s bugging you?”

  Sharon pulled her composure back in. “I’m sorry, Tom. I’m just… a little frazzled right now.”

  “Well, it just occurred to me,” the tall securitech said. “With all the excitement in the property vault, I never got a chance to tell you the rest of the story.”

  “The rest of what story.”

  “You know, the stuff about the Red Sect’s deity,” Tom replied. “The demon. Kilukrus.”

  (III)

  She typed the bizarre name into the mythology databank:

  K-I-L-U-K-R-U-S

  “You’re sure this is the name of the demon that the Red Sect worships?” she asked.

  “Yup.”

  They’d gone to the ship’s library station, which was unoccupied and quiet. Tom sat back on a grav-chair with his feet propped up on a table.


  “Well, like I said before, I’ve never heard of this particular demon,” Sharon pointed out, “and I took a lot of demonology blocks in the academy. And—look, see?”

  The holoscreen read: SEARCH OBJECT NOT FOUND

  “That’s because there is no demon named Kilukrus,” Tom told her.

  “But I thought you said—”

  “Just listen to the rest of the story. There’s more, and it goes back almost three hundred years. Everyone thinks the Red Sect are like the Druids, that they deliberately left no written records of themselves.”

  “Yes?”

  “That’s not entirely true. They did create a written record—one written record. It’s just a little pamphlet, hundreds of years old, called The Order of Kilukrus.”

  “Then there’d be a reference to that in the archival banks,” Sharon challenged.

  “No, no there wouldn’t. Not these archival banks. Because it’s classified. That’s why you can’t repeat anything that I’m telling you.”

  Sharon nodded her consent.

  “Keep in mind, nobody knew what this pamphlet was at the time—it was simply considered arcana. There was nothing to link this Kilukrus to the Red Sect, until—”

  “Until that Federate raid you’d mentioned in the Old Besthesda ghettoblocks,” Sharon recalled.

  “Right, the distribution warehouse. But by the time Special Ops got there, the place was rigged with explosives. There was only one Red Sect member there, and right before he blew the place up, he shouted, ‘Death to the Christian Federate and all enemies of Kilukrus.’ It was the first and only time a Red Sect member ever mentioned the name.”

  “Now I get it,” Sharon understood. “Once the name was mentioned, they entered it into the F.C.I. computers and it was immediately matched to this 300-year-old pamphlet called The Order of Kilukrus.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So, it’s fairly useless information,” Sharon considered. “The Red Sect worship an invented demon.”