The Valkyries of Andromeda

by Lindsay Peet

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

  While from the outside it appeared I had the universe by the tail, realistically I judged that if Wanliet and I couldn’t get clear of Zeno and the PU soon we’d be ‘disappeared’. So there I was, thinking and calculating in my head while my body was feeding and screwing and farting – come to think of it, my mind was farting a lot, too. While the motions I was going through were very pleasant, I couldn’t put my energies into them properly, and when your consciousness, energies and actions are not lined up you end up getting fatter, clumsier and stupider.

  In my moments of quiet introspection it occurred to me that maybe, after all, this role was its own kind of prison, a velvet one where maybe I would just get so comfortable and lazy that I’d forget about the dreams and schemes and scams and plans for glory and redemption that I held close to my heart, and settle for the soft mediocrity of having the P. U. run things, and tell me what to do, and keep me sloppy and happy as long as I continued to serve their purposes. A strange mood took me.

  “W, you remember on Mobahey, there was a plant they called vagea?”

  “That’s the main ingredient they use to make quetali, isn’t it?”

  “And vagahey -- yeah. They use the juice, press it from the pulp. It comes out a kind of yellow-orange gold color, but deep, hinting at some subtleties and complexities.”

  “Are you thirsty? Is that where this is going? Because we can be going to where they have the solution – which is different from having a solvent. As different as vagahey and quetali.”

  “No, no, that’s not it. I was thinking about Sirah’s hair, and I think that, in all the universe, the juice of the vagea is the closest match.”

  Wanliet was struck dumb for a bit. He stared, then shook is head, then stared at me some more. “Really?” he asked. “In the midst of all this thusness and thatness you suddenly bound round the bend for a bit of bint?!”

  “She’s not that, and this isn’t so sudden. It’s only because of the thusness and thatness that I didn’t tell you about her before. She’s smart and devious, two qualities we both appreciate. And, she’s sexy, which I at least appreciate. How long did it take you to figure out she was playing me, Wanliet?”

  He smiled enigmatically.

  “Okay, so I’m not the first man who let his dick lead him on, blind him to the obvious. But since then I keep thinking about her. Not just how she smells, but how she smiles. Not just the lies that she tells, but also her wiles.”

  “She’s got you bad, son, you’re rhymin’.” He paused. Finally, “You’ve been around, Jaf. I can’t believe you’ve fallen so hard, so fast. This complicates things. A lot. Not only are you being stupid, but you’re thinking about staying here, aren’t you? Think about what’s going on!”

  As I thought I warmed considerably to my subject so the words left my lips without my even thinking them. “And her skin – it burns with life, I tell you! Glowing from within, and so soft I want to dive in, steal a few moments in that glow! You can see it in her eyes, can’t you, W?”

  “You’re going to need an escort, aintcha?” Wanliet now glared at me. “Because love makes a man a fool, a drooling dummy, a tool. We can’t have your hormones dump us moaning in this hole, your lusts leave us lost with nowhere to go.

  “And much moreso – if you’re going to tell me how wonderful she is, tell me something with some oomph! Her tender thighs, her opulent breasts, her velvet lips, her yielding buttocks, her slick sweet quim! Tales with details, share the sweetness! Be a cad, be a bud! Let me be a vicarious stud!”

  That far I couldn’t oblige W. Sirah was mine, and the best of her was going to remain only mine. I shook my head, declining. Still I wondered, had I had the best of her? What was going on with her and Aspe? But who was I to talk?! I knew I hadn’t given her the best of me – I’d given that to nobody, not to Sirah, not to Wanliet, not even to myself, I knew. What more was there for me to know of her, of me, and how many years might it take? Years where she aged, and I didn’t. Each day separated from her increased that gap, moved her balance of days from ‘youth’ to ‘aged.’

  Wanliet answered my silence. “So that’s how it is then?” Wanliet asked. “You’re more ‘n halfway to writin’ sonnets, aren’t you? Plannin’ to ‘rescue’ Sirah, and take her along when you figure out where you are, and how to get to where you want to get to.” Sidelong I looked at W, guilty of his charges and unable to deny anything. “”Okay, Mr. Daskal, I think it’s time for you to lay out what you’ve got in mind. Seeing as how we’re stuck together, and you’re my aide-de-camp and all, maybe you’d best have some input from somebody whose brain isn’t running on idiot-hormones.”

  I pleaded my case for the velvet prison. “Look, it’s not looking like we’re going to be leaving, is it? We don’t even know where we are! The plan all along has been to get our co-ordinates and beat it, but in truth we might be stuck here for a long time, maybe until our last days.

  “And if the P. U. decides they don’t need us any more it’ll be good to have somebody in our corner. Right now, we’ve got nothing and nobody to back us up if things get tight. We’re working t back the PU and isolate Caliuga, and I bet nowhere in the SCU do they know what ‘loyalty’ means. On this whole planet Sirah and her father and all those quaint Caliugans are the only ones we might look to for help, who might see us as more than tools to be disposed of when they’re done with us. If we have Sirah in our corner, and the mayor, we might all be safe, no matter how things fall out here,” I said.

  “This is all just happening because you’re down about bein’ lost. Feelin’ trapped, worried about torture, and this time you can’t get involved in sex or a scheme and then run off the way you usually do, so you’re thinking about the alternatives. Fair enough. That’s all that brought this on, ‘though I have to admit that Sirah’s mighty fine. But don’t lower your pennant just yet.

  “I’d wager the P. U. like as not knows where Caliuga is. They’ve got plans to run the whole show here – stands to reason they must’ve figured out where ‘here’ is, so they could plan better, minimize bumps in their road. Be dicey if it turned out they were on the Empire’s back porch, and didn’t realize it” he pressed. “The plans to export zoocaine didn’t pop up when we arrived, they were in the works before. They just needed to know where they were, and a way to leave. I think they already knew where they were in fact, but couldn’t do anything about it until we showed up. You remember ours is the first ship that landed and can leave again.”

  “Yeah, I see your point. Don’t suppose you’d be interested in taking a shot at Pex-al-Pex yourself, next time our paths cross, would you? Try to firm up our ties with the PU? You take the low road, and I’ll take Sirah.” I asked.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve gone monogamous now! You’re the one the girls like, I’m the one they cross the street to avoid!” he chuckled and shook his head. “Get your head together, man! You still have a job to do, and only you can do it. Find out where we are!”

  “But you’re the Inspector General, W. Aren’t you supposed to know all that, already?”

  “The uniform makes me powerful, not all-knowing. Besides, the people who’d really know where we are also know who we aren’t.”

  “I guess. But things could go wrong, very wrong.”

  “No shit! Jaf, it’s not like this is the first time we’ve been in a fix like this. But I’ll tell you again what I told you before -- try to pull back and play it safe and I guarantee they will go very wrong. Play your role rightly and they could go right. You know how to handle this. Just the way you handled Pex-al-Pex. Subtly assert your authority. Could be that some here are happy the Inspector General’s arrived. Don’t know how or why; and there also may be a faction that would be on our side in crunch-time.”

  “And it could be that the P. U. is running a con, too, and at the bottom it’s all fakery.”

  “Why run a con when you get to write the rules? And police them? Nah, for whatever good it does you, in their own skewed way,
figure that they’re on the up-and-up. But speaking of cons, what are Jedub and Lordano up to? Any idea?”

  “Um, no. I’ve been kinda preoccupied. You?”

  “Nope. Jedub got locked up, but by now they might have recruited him. As for Lordano, well, more and more I wonder where he wanders” said Wanliet.

  “I guess I should try to find out, before he manages to bollix up this whole situation. It is kinda delicate.”

  “Kinda delicate? Kid, you got a gift for understatement!”

  No doubt, this time I’d have to mean it when I vowed to straighten up and fly right. Days had passed and I sensed we were nearing a critical node when I’d have to take decisive action; maybe that was why I was pining for Sirah and a secure future. Assuming we lived, too soon these days would become weeks and months and before I knew it I’d be stuck here, not by chance or choice but by passive design. I wouldn’t want to leave, to change things, and I’d settle down with Sirah, or Pex, or maybe even Ambassador An-Tine would select my mate. All very pleasant, I’m sure, but not for the Jaf Daskal I’d imagined myself to be. Some weird quirk of character made me turn away from that happy prospect, even as I felt its draw.

  That wasn’t why I was here, why I was, period. As scary as the universe and Basoolah were out there, I planned to master my own fate, and that meant getting down to business, my business. Sober, meditative, deliberate business, or as sober and deliberate as I could manage in this crazy cosmos.

  Chugtallis was to be our next-to-last stop, where we’d meet some more holdouts to the P. U., find out if Zeno really would allow us back to our ship, and where I’d likely get my new vows of focus and chastity tested severely, again. I had a feeling that some things were coming to a head. While we rode in the speeder I found a quiet corner and retreated into myself, reconnected to my inner core, and steeled myself for whatever was to come.