Spaceways - Purrfect Plunder Part 1

Andrew J. Offutt.

s.p.a.ceways.

Purrfect Plunder.

"BY TAO'S TONSILS -THE PIRATE ASKED. WHAT'S THIS?" They stood over an unconscious creature sprawled on the floor. The captain replied, "That's a HRal; they're only recently discovered.' "So what's it doing lying here in the tunnel with its clothes ripped and no less than four itty-bitty b.r.e.a.s.t.s exposed?" Before the captain could reply the pirate leader turned to one of his men. "Get it- I mean, her," he ordered. "She'll come with us. This dull merchanter doesn't appreciate exotic stash -but we'll make sure to provide a nice exciting life for this kitty-cat woman!" s.p.a.cEWAYS #1 OF ALIEN BONDAGE #2 CORUNDUM'S WOMAN #3 ESCAPE FROM MACHO #4 SATANA ENSLAVED #5 MASTER.

OF MISFIT #6 PURRFECT PLUNDER #7 THE MANHUNTRESS #8 UNDER TWIN.

SUNS PLAYBOY PAPERBACKS s.p.a.cEWAYS #6: PURRFECT PLUNDER Copyright (c) 1982 by John Cleve Cover ill.u.s.tration copyright (c) 1982 by PBJ Books, Inc., formerly PEI Books, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by an electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording means or otherwise without prior written permission of the publisher. Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada by PBJ Books, Inc., formerly PEI Books, Inc., 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016. Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 82-80838. The poem Scarlet Hills Copyright (c) 1982 by Ann Morris; used by permission of the author. ISBN: 0-867-21148-2 First printing"September 1982. Second printing November 1982. Vast is a size, and size is a distance. Along the s.p.a.ceways, time is a measure of distance and events and lifetimes, and the s.p.a.ceways are vast. The crew of the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p Satana-Captain h.e.l.l-fire, First Mate Quindy, Janja, Cinnabar, and Trafalgar-must have spent some two months-standard in the marvelous self-sufficient city of Survival. As in the novel immediately preceding this in the s.p.a.ceways saga, most of the events of this book take place before, and during that time. Janja and company return in s.p.a.ceways #8, month after next! A: All planets are not shown. B: Map is not to scale, because of the vast distances between stars. SCARLET HILLS Alas, fair ones, my time has come. I must depart your lovely home- Seek the bounds of this galaxy To find what lies beyond. (chorus) Scarlet hills and amber skies, Gentlebeings with loving eyes; All these I leave to search for a dream That will cure the wand'rer in me. You say it must be glamorous For those who travel out through s.p.a.ce. You know not the dark, endless night Nor the solitude we face. (reprise chorus) I know not of my journey's end Nor the time nor toll it will have me spend. But 1 must see what I've never seen And know what I've never known. Scarlet hills and amber skies, Gentlebeings with loving eyes; All these I leave to search for a dream That will cure the wand'rer in me. -Ann Morris 1 Anybody can be a hero. All it takes is a fast-acting simpleton without enough sense to be scared. -Trafalgar Cuw The fleet thundered up through the thin atmosphere of the unpeopled rallying planet and into s.p.a.ce. Giant carrier s.h.i.+ps lumbered out of their parking orbits to move into the fleet combat pattern. Inside, their hulls were pregnant with deadly little attack craft ready for the close fighting they had to antic.i.p.ate. Only the foolish looked forward to it. The entire fleet swarmed out in quest of the enemy. The nearly airless little planet's apparent size diminished until it was a marble in the indigo domain of interstellar s.p.a.ce, and then only a disk of reflected light among the billions that cluttered the s.p.a.ceways. Spread out over hundreds of thousands of kloms, kilometers, the fleet was a covey of wood-ticks in the immensity of the cosmos. The lead formation was close-packed, with a mere five thousand kloms between the streaking s.p.a.cers. It was a gap that could be closed in a minute. Radio waves emanating from the lead formation blanketed s.p.a.ce along all three bands while their crews waited tensely for contact with the enemy. Time seemed to 11 12 move with incredible slowness. Time measured distances, and these distances were incredibly great. On the s.h.i.+ps' hulls, sensors and autogunnery moved restlessly like live things. Their sensitive detector mechanisms sought constantly for the telltale radioactive emissions of s.p.a.ce-drive systems. The drive "signatures" of the fleet s.h.i.+ps went unnoticed by the killer devices.

They were recognized and keyed out. The autoguns were programmed to commence firing at the moment of detection. The enemy they sought was not known for parleying or even bothering to offer surrender before attacking. Onboard s.p.a.cer Dauntless, Kenowa was thinking about how long it was going to be before she got Captain Sword in bed again . . . and the autoguns went berserk. Those on the other lead-craft flared at the same instant. s.p.a.ce was webbed by a h.e.l.lish network of neutron streams reaching out to detonate atomic nuclei in their targets. Then brilliant lavender beams were stabbing back toward them, even before the strange s.h.i.+ps appeared onscreen. The heavy neutron cannon sizzled into action, hurling bolts of pure energy at the approaching enemy.

DS, the guns were called. Defense Systemry, whether used defensively or otherwise. The main fleet began converging on the area of contact. A herd of elephants charging. Great engines raged with power. Enemy s.h.i.+ps came swarming out of the pa.r.s.ec abyss like killer sharks of s.p.a.ce. Their deadly purplescent beams stabbed out with deadly precision. The heavy guns of the fleet poured back a h.e.l.lfire barrage of neutrons. In flaming silent starbursts that a.s.saulted even combat-s.h.i.+elded eyes, the invaders began flas.h.i.+ng into oblivion. Nevertheless the enemy streamed into battle in numbers that seemed ever to increase. Kenowa caught h.e.l.l from Captain Sword (tall, dark, 13 handsome) for not having donned her protective nitration lenses. As she turned to race for her cabin, he slapped her backside, hard. The big woman skipped and grinned without glancing back. She hadn't expected him to be able to resist the moving effect of metallic white silkeen SpraYon, tight enough to show a pimple. That was the reason she wore, unusually, a high-necked bodys.h.i.+rt with flowing sleeves. Kenowa knew herself, and she knew how to dress for maximum effect. Gleaming pants tighter than skin and the barbican jut of her overgenerous bosom were sufficient, without displaying bare cleavage. "Plaining h.e.l.l! We've shot hundreds of those sister-slicers out of s.p.a.ce and still they come on, and on! They're sure as h.e.l.l bent on conquest!" "Another woman-hunt," a rumbling voice said. Kenowa recognized the voice of Captain Sword's aide and advisor, the very attractive Jonuta who was technically his superior officer. She swallowed as she rushed into her cabin.

Absolutely luxurious, it was snuggled between the cabins of Sword and Jonuta. While she searched for the combat s.h.i.+elding lenses she was supposed to keep close at hand, the fleet slammed into battle. The awesome power of neutron cannon tore a devastating path before it. The s.p.a.cescape became a flaring network of ravening force that turned its brooding indigo into a kaleidoscope of blinding energy. Ghastly killer beams swept through the enemy like a multi-bladed scythe that left gaping emptiness where alien craft had been. Fleet and leadcraft alike combined their full firepower. The fantastically destructive barrage decimated the enemy and swept back to decimate it again. And again. It went on until s.p.a.ce was swept clear of the craft that had come beyond the vast collapstar called The Maelstrom. The remnants of the enemy attack force continued 14 suicidal rushes at the fleet s.p.a.cers, but those few remaining aliens were rapidly wiped out of existence in soundless eruptions. The awful weapons, a nice euphemism for guns called "Defense Systemry," went silent. The last of the enemy s.p.a.cers vanished in a blaze of disrupted atoms. And just then Dauntless shuddered and lurched violently. Kenowa was flung onto her satin-sheeted bed, and off it. "What the vug-we're hit! Locate damage sector! Report, report!" "Just aft of Sector Five, Captain. Starboard side." "That's my cabin! And Kenowa ran back there for her d.a.m.ned combat s.h.i.+elds!" Captain Sword whirled and raced in that direction. (It was one of several ways in which the heroic captain-who looked just like the co-star of The Masters of Survival, Akima Mars holomelodrama #3- differed from Jonuta. Jonuta would first have seen to the safety of his s.h.i.+p.) What Kenowa was hearing, meanwhile, was the hideous screechy sound of the tearing of impervious materials. Plasteel and cyprium-monofilamental hydrogen bonded at the electron level and stronger than steel. The construction materials of s.p.a.cecraft Dauntless. Slivers of it speared through the cabin as a section of the hull was torn away like ripped paper. And the blizzard began. Every whiff of the cabin's air raced eagerly out in an attempt to fill the unfillable vacuum. It incidentally tried to suck everything in the cabin out with it. That included Kenowa, who heard the whistle of rus.h.i.+ng air but could not hear her own despairing cry. What would Akima Mars do in this kind of situation? 15 Not die, surely, Kenowa thought, but knew that she would. She began by blacking out. Death was not supposed to be like this.

There were more stories of what happened after death than there were religions, and religions cluttered the planets all along the s.p.a.ceways. The lore depended on the planet and the G.o.d and the imagination of the local priesthood and explicating computers. None of the stories resembled this. Just to begin with, Kenowa was absolutely naked. She sat up on the hard deck and tried not to whimper at sight of the great many-jointed metallic tentacles that were coming at her. One arched up into the air like an impossibly large, fleshless cobra. It must be staring, focusing an optic lens on her. The other tentacle, thick as her calf, snaked around her bare body. I am not dead, she thought. Then: But this is what a fate worse than death must be! She struggled and may as well have saved her energy. She whimpered her uncontrollable fear all the while she was lifted easily and removed from the cabin. She was borne through a scene of destruction and carnage. Giving up her useless struggle, she viewed the nightmare reality that Dauntless had become. She was too stunned to react. Her captor was a totally unfamiliar machine mounted on a set of tentacles that permitted it to move easily over obstacles-such as wreckage, and bodies. Its convex dorsal surface sprouted another set of tentacles. Some were equipped with the amber lenses that served it as eyes. Two of the other four held her firmly captive. Exactly why one had to be crammed uncomfortably between her upper thighs so that she "rode" erectly astride in a ride-the-horsey pose, she could not imagine. The thing was obscenely abrading her l.a.b.i.a. b.l.o.o.d.y remains of men lay scattered amid the wreck- 16 age the machine crawled over with such spiderish ease. That created a great deal of swaying, but her erect sitting posture was maintained, crotch and waist grasped and her arms pressed to her sides. Her mechanical captor was taking obvious care to keep its nude burden away from any dangerous projections. They pa.s.sed by and over many, on wrecked Dauntless. Now she saw other, similar machines. She wondered why they bore only female captives. This is like being in some Akima Mars mellerl They rounded a corner in the s.h.i.+p's tunnel and she saw other captives being boosted through a ragged hole in the s.h.i.+p's side. No air rushed out. Only then did Kenowa realize: she was without s.p.a.ce helmet or respirator! Yet she was alive, and breathing. This . . . thing's craft has to be airlocked to poor dead Dauntless! She noted that every sc.r.a.p of clothing was wrested from each wailing woman before she vanished into that aperture into the unknown. As Kenowa was brought to the opening, she again came alive.

In a panicky resistance she tore at the tentacles holding her. That accomplished only the breaking of her nails and the abrading of fingertips.

She was squeezed a little more tightly and the other tentacle pressed up into her crotch until her eyes bulged. Gasping, she was lifted through. Her gasps changed in tone as the tentacles slid away and she felt other flexible arms enfold her. "Ah! Ow! d.a.m.n it-you're squas.h.i.+ng my warheads!" But her efforts to loosen the tentacle that mashed both her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were as fruitless as her previous attempts to escape. Admittedly, Kenowa was mostly b.r.e.a.s.t.s to the bottom of her ribcage, and not long-waisted, either. Fighting wildly, she was pulled into a small, dimly 17 lighted chamber. The light emanated as a glow from every wall. It was an eerie blue-green. Then something sharp stabbed her in the b.u.t.t and she went limp in less than five seconds. Although she was breathing normally enough and was entirely conscious, she had no control over so much as a single muscle. She could not force any sort of sound from her throat. She could not twitch a single finger-joint. She was not uncomfortable; she was numb and barely aware. Like a sensuously molded sack of meal, she was placed on what had to be a conveyor belt. Helplessly she was moved down a tight little tunnel. Her eyes, unable to close, could see only the racing past of the tunnel's ceiling, about eight centimeters above her head. The tunnel opened into another chamber. The belt's burden was lifted from it. Her naked form hung lax in the tentacles. A faint trace of perfume teased her nostrils.

It was not hers. Her body was being arranged in a small niche in the wall. A creche? A morgue-like slot? As she was pushed into it she was aware that she was pressed firmly back against it and arranged in position: fiat on her back with her arms close to her sides. The tentacular things were both neat and mindful of the conservation of s.p.a.ce. . . , A sliding hatch closed the opening and she was in total darkness. There was nothing she could do and she knew it.

Her favorite form of entertainment was just such O-The-Poor-Girl mellers as this. Eons ago, such a meller-drammer was called a bodice-ripper. Her name should be Shanna or something equally exotic and feminine. She had "read"-watched hundreds, several of them more than once or twice. Favorites were those in which The Poor Girl had a t.i.tle. Countess, or Baroness, or even Princess or the more exotic Contessa or Marquisa. At 18 least "milady!" It was just that Kenowa had never before tried one of the experiential kind, the ones in which the viewer or "reader" was more than that. Those personal involvement mellers were called expies or sensies, or more crudely, feelies. 7 wish this was one of those, she thought. Just fiction. At least ... 7 think 7 wish that! Well, she couldn't do anything about it. She wasn't Yasmina, or Alexia, or Desiree. She was Kenowa, and she'd just have to ride it out, and hope. Then even that thinking ended. Her thought processes were neutralized. Although she was entirely aware of her nakedness and her predicament if not what it was, she was unable to respond to it in any emotional degree. The injection that had turned her muscles to soup had also tran-quilized her. That was a mercy. Now time had no meaning. She lay in the pitch-dark compartment, arrayed alongside other soundless helpless women like so much stacked wood. Or like so many slabs of meat awaiting the butcher. Had that ugly thought occurred to her, she would not have reacted in any way.

There was only the darkness, the odors and aromas of the other female bodies, and the silent waiting in silence. She had no thought of intake or output; food or the necessary evacuation of its residue. Was there food? Did she and others evacuate or were they evacuated? She did not know. Perhaps. Kenowa was the tree that fell in the woods. She did not know if there was sound or not. All of them lay there, ranked and packed neatly, with the infinite patience of the resigned, or the d.a.m.ned who could not care. Or the mindless.

They might as well have been carrots or cabbages or s.p.a.cesuits. She did not even wonder if she was breathing, because she did not think about that. The alien s.h.i.+p hurtled through s.p.a.ce. (She knew 19 that. How? She didn't wonder, or question.) An alien craft of alien shape, carrying its cargo of meat.

Female Galactics to-what? Horror? Not a better life, surely. At incredible velocity, the s.h.i.+p shot outward from the close-set suns of Galaxy center. It was less than a fineline dot in the glittering magnificence of the star fields. Outward it raced, flaming toward that odd starless vastness called the Carnadyne Void. Onboard, minds functioned, but disconnected from their experience. They did not experience it. They were just there. And on. Past stars in red and orange and bluish and flaming yellow and blinding, marmoreal white. Toward a gigantic red sun. In, in to one of its planets. (Kenowa could not see this. She knew. It was as if she saw it. It did not occur to her to think about how she could know. What was reality, anyhow? A word.) The giant planet drew steadily nearer until its Jovian bulk hung ominously in the dark clasp of s.p.a.ce. The s.h.i.+p adjusted course, slightly. It flashed toward an oblate sphere orbiting that mighty gray planet. Kenowa knew this without knowing how she knew, or wondering. What was reality? Some said that reality was a crutch for those who could not handle fantasy, or science fiction, or the awareness of TGO. The s.h.i.+p entered the atmosphere with a whistling crash and boom. (That disturbed no one onboard.) With unerring precision, it dropped toward a fabulous system of spiring, aspiring structures linked by swirling cruiseways at every height. Indifferently Kenowa's ears recorded the sound of metal sliding against metal. The portal opened to admit dim light. Metallic tentacles curled about her nakedness without a hint of fondling or pleasure.

She was lifted out. She was carried a short distance before feeling the cool surface of another conveyor belt. 20 On her back, she traveled rapidly along another tight tunnel. Ha, she thought, or thought that she thought, They are bringing me, Akima Mars, right into their stronghold! They will soon learn what happens to those who kidnap the greatest secret agent along the s.p.a.ceways! At its end she was nudged off to slide down a small incline. That unpleasantness did not instill panic. It was not even unpleasant. It just happened. She came to a stop against the body of another woman, facing her. They lay quietly, staring into each other's eyes without interest or concern for the fact that their unclothed bodies were pressed together and their lips were almost touching. Kenowa could feel the other's breathing, b.r.e.a.s.t.s against her own. Kenowa hoped she enjoyed it. Not many people got to press up against The Biggest Pair In The Universe. Time pa.s.sed. How much time? It didn't matter. Some minutes or some hours or some days-standard.

Surely not years, -standard or otherwise. Kenowa's mind wandered. She remembered how she had met Captain Sword. She had walked into that bar in Sopur on Terasaki. And there he was. Eyes like cracked eggs and a body going to waste. Down and out in a backstreet bar on Terasaki, and him not a Terasak at all. He was an addict, she could see that. The poor devil was on EF, she could see that. She ordered a drink, a High Green, told a s.p.a.ceman in worn adjustaboots to slok off, crossed one spidermesh-stockinged leg over the other and, waggling a laserbeam-thin heel idly, gazed thoughtfully at the down-and-outer. Poor bug. Not a bad build, she saw. Could possibly be pretty good looking, if he was got from under the eroflore that kept him happy inside his head while it 21 consumed him. She wondered what he did to support his habit. A man coudn't very well sell his body, could he-or rather rent it out, one piece at a time? Surely not. "Say, me'n my friend got a bet on." She turned her head leisurely toward that voice. Another s.p.a.cefarer, L.S. only, surely. A Bleaker, chest dagger and all, although his armored left glove was tucked in his belt. He looked stupid and so did his grin. "You and a friend have a bet on. Congratulations on having a friend." "Uh-" "Did either of you bet on one-thirty-four E?" "Wha-?" d.a.m.n, this downer must've used his whole vocabulary with his approach line! She turned her wrist, which made her chest move and tighten, on that side. "That silly leer tells me you and your friend were betting on me," she said. "Measurements, probably. I told you.

134E-64-100, top to bottom." "Muslah! I-I don' believe it!" She shrugged, deliberately bouncing her over-abundance. "I don't give a vug, s.p.a.cefarer.

That's the way I measure out, though. Back away. You touch that warhead you're staring at and you'll have a major decision to make." She spoke casually, and she was readier to move than he knew. "Wha-what's that s'poseta mean? What decision?" "Whether to try to get another hand or go for a prosthetic." He stared, and she met his gaze coolly. He dropped his hand to his side, then self-consciously lifted it a little to hitch the thumb in his belt. "You-not too friendly, are ya?" "Firm." "Ease back, Fard." That was another voice.

Another 22 man, moving along the bar behind her accoster. "They's only one woman in the universe got those measurements. Can't you see, man? It's her. We was bettin' on The Biggest Pair In The Universe." He looked at her. "Wasn't we." She nodded. "Firm, s.p.a.cefarer. Better pull him back a little. I need s.p.a.ce. Room to ... breathe." "Muslah! You-you're really her?" "You two boys must've learned your grammar from an illiterate Franjese grat! Yes, I'm she." "Muslah. Akima Mars! In the fles.h.!.+ Right here on Terasaki!" She shrugged. So she was Akima Mars. Who might he have thought, with this build and these s.e.xy clothes, walking so unconcernedly into a downer dive like this?

It was then that the EF addict started to yell. He got to her. However it was, he got to her. She slid off the stool and went to him. He kept yelling. She clamped a hand on the back of his neck and forced half her High Green down the poor flainer's gullet. He gulped, his eyes bulged, he tried to yell some more, coughed, gagged, made choking noises, and pa.s.sed out. As expected. Alcohol placidated an EF addict, fast. Not everyone knew that, but Akima Mars knew most everything. She had not, however, noticed this poor bug's worn old go-bag. It was a master's bag, sure as she was alive and he was barely. She had an idea that he had not stolen it, that this was his name printed on it: Sword. Just a feeling. Akima Mars was like that. This poor down-and-outer was-or had been-a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p's master, and here was his s.p.a.cefarer's standard personals container to prove it. "Muslah!" the Bleaker swore again, from behind her. Way behind; he hadn't left the bar. "Akima Mars!" She bent and scooped up the unconscious addict. 23 With Ms EF-wasted body in her arms, she turned to face the pair of dolts. "Right," she said. "But you can call me Kenowa." And, carrying Captain Sword, she walked out. She bore him straight to her s.h.i.+p and locked him in the hold with a sealed waterjug-and-straw. He awoke to the pains of nascent withdrawal and did a lot of yelling and banging about and screaming for the next two days-Terasak. After that she had begun to nurse him out of it, sometimes literally. Bringing him back. And that was how Captain Sword had returned to the s.p.a.ce-ways, as master; eventually master of Dauntless. With him always was his savior, to whom he owed more than his life.

Akima M-no no. Kenowa. I am Kenowa, she thought with some firmness as she lay naked, staring into the dull eyes of another woman and knowing her eyes were just as dull. Kenowa. Not Akima Mars, and not The Biggest Pair In The Universe. I must have been dreaming. True, that's more or less how I met Sword, but . . . me? Akima Mars? No thanks. A hundred and three in the chest*

is entirely adequate and troublesome enough for me, thanks. So is Jonuta my love-I mean, I mean Sword. I don't want to be any secret agent, m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic or otherwise! (Better that way than otherwise, but . . .) I-I . . . More time wandered by and the tentacles returned. They lifted Kenowa away from the other woman, who Kenowa noticed had The Biggest Pair In The Universe. The tentacles placed her in a small, coffin-like container. An unpleasant comparison, but she was incapable of any emotional response to that fact, or any * The well-known measurements of hyperstar Setsuyo Puma, portrayer of the fictional Akima Mars, were indeed as Kenowa remembered stating them in the bar: 53E-25-40, Old Style, at five feet, nine inches, Old Style (175 sems) in height. If her bemazing measurements were artfully enhanced, Setsuyo Puma wasn't telling, and neither was her agent, and no male cared, all along the s.p.a.ceways. 24 other. The lid was closed to herald the pa.s.sage of another timeless, lightless period. This time she spent a few months as odalisque in the hhareem of Sheikh Jonuta, who used her a lot and punished her for the slightest transgression. But that was all inside her head, of course. When the container was opened, Kenowa felt herself lifted. She was borne into a small chamber. The walls were a pale metallic green and studded with too many strange, unpleasantly threatening objects that extended toward the room's center. From opposite walls two tentacular extrusions hissed out. Softly sheathed clamps at their tips found her wrists and fastened firmly to them.

(The machine that had brought her here meanwhile scuttled from the room. The portal closed.) The wall extruded two more jointed metal arms that clamped onto her ankles. The segmented arms glittered as they began to retract. Kenowa felt the strain, and then she felt it even more in her chest. She was going to be disjointed. That was bothersome, though not horrifying, and she couldn't scream or anything anyhow. The movement stopped. She was held spread-eagle, in the center of the alien chamber, in the middle of the air. She was dimly aware of the sharp stab in her b.u.t.tock. Awareness heightened at once as the induced lethargy began to slide from body and mind. She began twisting her head frantically, dark eyes wide with terror. Although she had been unable to react to it at the time, her mind had recorded every minute of her experience. Now it all flooded to the surface on a wave of fear that crested in her brain and tore a cry of horror from her. She tried to struggle against the clamps that held her 25 arms and legs so widely spread. After a time she gave up the fight and whimpered at realization that she was a helpless prisoner. She seemed to be surrounded by tentacles of varying sizes, all moving with that peculiar hiss of their friction-less joints. Each was equipped with an optic lens or set with some oddly-shaped instrument. Each looked unbearably sinister. Her skin, coppery tan, crawled at the approach of a host of fiendish-looking devices. A cl.u.s.ter of small tentacles surrounded her head and grasped it firmly. Her wig, a tall Terasaki coil, was long since gone. They knew her secret. The tentacles were cold against her her bare head. Small filaments plucked at her lips. She grunted an objection and clamped her mouth. She might as well have tried to stop a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p's rise by standing on its hull. Her jaws were pried apart. Her mouth was stretched inexorably until it was wide open. A tentacular tip entered her mouth. She fought back her gagging reaction. That thing moved around inside her mouth, leisurely examining every tooth and tissue surface for what seemed hours. Her eyes filled with tears of outrage and frustration when it began entering her throat. It did. Cold metal slithered down her esophagus. The muscles of her stomach jerked spasmodically as the device entered and squirmed about inside her. Then it was smoothly withdrawn, triggering another clamping spasm deep inside her stomach. Warmer now, the filamentous tentacle slithered out of her mouth. Instantly she was coughing and drawing in shuddery gasps of air. And moaning at the humiliation. "Who are you?" she demanded in outrage, almost in hysteria. She fought it. "What-why are you doing this to me?" Her voice echoed hollowly in a room of turquoise 26 metal. There was no reply. Tentacles probed her bared, suspended body. "N-oh! No!" she cried, but ended in a gasp while some . . .

instrument probed between her b.u.t.tocks. It ignored powerful anular muscles. It breached her a.n.u.s and slid down into her r.e.c.t.u.m. (A pressure at her v.u.l.v.a was all she felt of the cup that attached itself there, reading reactions. Minute, almost microscopic filaments were entering her skull.) That chilly invader moved inside her, seemingly seeking her bowels, and she knew without pleasure that her nipples were firming. The heat she felt was a flush spreading over her cheeks. (Slender filaments were tracing the length of her legs, the circ.u.mference of thighs and calves and ankles, scanning the joints of her knees, while others performed identical measurements on her outstretched arms.) The pressure of the covering cup left her crotch. She was aware of it because of the sudden sensation of coolth there. She drew in a deep breath when a twin-filamented device carefully parted those lower lips and probed curiously at her c.l.i.toris. Instant lancets of pleasure zipped through her belly. Her body glistened with a film of sweat and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s trembled with quickened breathing. That swiftly she knew she had also gone wet inside. She could not help her ecstatic moans and attempts to writhe, all of which was crus.h.i.+ngly demeaning. At the same time she experienced minute stabs in various parts of her body. Needles were being inserted. They trailed fragile filaments. Two long ones, almost invisible but for their glitter, easily punctured the skin of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. They slid in. Each probed carefully, sinking deep. "Ah! Wh-oohhh!" Tiny vibrations had commenced to pulse from each 27 needle. The seemingly planned pattern sent delicious tingles of pleasure through every part of her body. (Ex-tending and extending, the rearward probe was slithering steadily along the coils of her bowels, and it did not hurt a bit. She felt only a little cramped. Within her v.a.g.i.n.a, the twinned probes were joined by a dozen more. They banded together and swelled to exert pressure in every direction. That, too, was far from painful.) Delicate filaments hung now like a gossamer robe around her, trailing from the many hair-slender needles inserted in her flesh. Still she felt nothing that even approached pain. Only the ecstasy that vibrated from the deeply penetrating points to spread through her system and drive everything else from her staggering mind. (Which was being monitored and scanned by nine needles thinner than hairs.) She made little complaining sounds when the instrument was withdrawn from her c.l.i.toris, and then its companions slithered out of her v.a.g.i.n.a. The ma.s.s of . them glistened wetly from what she had experienced as erotic ministrations. Then she made a high-voiced sound of helpless response to the larger object that pressed for entrance there. She heard her demeaning pleas. Whether heeding or in inexorable obedience to the command of whomever her captor was, the metal object forced its way firmly and steadily into her. And more. It warmed. It seemed to fill her entire abdomen. It took on her own temperature of 37 degrees. The delirious response was beyond her ability to control. She was totally conquered, by machinery. A metal slicer was ensconced well within her stash and, in the most common euphemism along the s.p.a.ceways, was slicing a piece. Yet now that vernacular sounded unduly sinister and violent, while this was beautiful. She was not being 28 sliced, or cut. Not literally. The totally helpless and humiliatingly delighted subject was being machine-f.u.c.ked, and by a mechanical lover that constantly varied its temperature between 35 and 39 degrees C. Her whole body trembled as that inhuman lover began a rhythmic shuttling. She trembled. She gasped. Her eyes rolled and she shrilled wild and wordless sounds while the warmth in her belly fanned out to a furnace of pa.s.sion that shot up the scale to seemingly insurmountable heights. Then it surmounted those limits and sought new ones. And all the while, slowly, the needle withdrew from her bowels as, at the rate of two hundred times a minute, the far larger probe plunged in and out of her adjacent channel. Its action was accompanied now by obscene wet sounds. And by her cooing moans and vocal sighs. Only when it seemed that her body could not withstand another second of such exquisite sensual torture did her belly go nova. She exploded in a ma.s.sive o.r.g.a.s.m that made her scream at the glory of it. Her brain had been scanned. Adjustments were made. The face of Captain Sword loomed over hers.

Abruptly it changed to become the face of Jonuta- and the object planted so deeply within her began extruding a filament to enter her cervix. The big woman's spread-eagled body hung exhausted in the center of the turquoise chamber. Her lips curved in a smile of gamic happiness. All of it had been mechanical, all. And all of it formed the best and most erotic overload her organism had ever experienced. A long, long pause while she drifted down from that flash that had sent her soaring. The taut, supremely feminine body sagged into complete relaxation. She felt that she had become only a puddle of used liquid. Her universe was soft, and pink. Then it began again. 29 She felt the needles begin to vibrate. They pulsed away deep inside her b.r.e.a.s.t.s to bring her gradually higher and higher until she was flas.h.i.+ng, reaching another peak of absolute s.e.xual pleasure that sang through her willingly imprisoned body like a Wagnerian symphony. And again she collapsed, or would have but for the padded metal bonds that held her spread so wide. And again there was the pause, while she came down . . . The v.a.g.i.n.al probe adjusted. It moved a scant few sems, nuzzling. It entered her relaxed rearward channel. Her sphincter might as well have been a puddle of warm wax. And it all began anew, and rose and rose anew, and she soared and flashed and shrieked in climax all over again. The s.e.xual stimulation was applied anew. And again. And again until her entire world became the alien chamber and her cybernetic lover and the orgias-tic-orgastic pattern it forced her through, subjecting her sweating flesh to s.e.x and s.e.x and more s.e.x. The universe vanished in a haze of pink while Kenowa floated on a soft warm pink sea of mindless ecstasy. MEANWHILE .

. . "Mayday! Red Rover! Mayday!" The appeal was carried out into the cosmos as beams of light, calling out in code that shortened it to "C Y R! C! C Y R!"

The code was based on Erts, the Galactic language born centuries ago on the planet called Urth and more latterly Homeworld. "CYR" meant Mayday! Red Rover!

to anyone who might hear it along the star-spattered pa.r.s.ecs. The signal was a desperation appeal. It was directed at anyone and everyone. Everyone would not receive 30 it. Someone might. s.p.a.ce was vast; vaster than millions, more vast than billions. Never mind millions or billions of what; just the figures were inconceivable to most. The coded signal streamed out from s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p India Spring in every direction and went on and on, riding beams of tightly-bound light that rushed through the cosmos at 300,000 kloms per second (-standard).

It would streak through nine-and-a-half trillion kloms of s.p.a.ce in a year-ess. Such a velocity and distance would have been fantastic if it hadn't been for the fact that they were meaningless. That distance might separate any two given stars ... of the 340 billion stars in the Galaxy. This one, of many, many galaxies. Theoretically the message from s.p.a.cer India Spring would go on forever, riding those beams of light. Except that the beams lost their coherency, their tightness, with increasing distance from their origin. And so the message became incoherent too, in the other meaning of that word. Besides, many of the message-freighted laser beams would, by chance, intersect the position of suns. Stars. Such beams were swallowed by those mighty hydrogen furnaces, at a gulp. Mayday! Red Rover! Mayday! In the language of the farers along the s.p.a.ceways, the words meant: "Help! I'm in trouble and beg help.

(I/we am/are) being boarded by unfriendly persons bent on no good. Help! I'm in trouble and beg help!" In the star-flecked enormity that was s.p.a.ce, distress messages-called C! messages-were only occasionally received. They were responded to even less frequently. s.p.a.ce was vast and s.h.i.+ps were expensive, and few, and the people in them were busy. The profit motive continued strong, despite various experiments with societal forms that encouraged and rewarded lack of industry. So Someone was in trouble, and beaming out a 31 C! message. So there were a hundred billion Someones here toward Galaxy Center, where stars were thick as sand on the beach of a carbon-nitrogen planet. It was that very fact which made piracy possible, in s.p.a.ce. That, and the absence of a central government, for the concept of interstellar empire was impossible to maintain as reality. s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p India Spring had run afoul of a pirate. There were more than a few. Most were competent s.p.a.cefarers in good s.h.i.+ps. In fact their s.p.a.cers were usually better and better equipped than those of their prey, merchanters. Often they were better than policer craft. Nevertheless few pirates lasted long. The occupation, like that of slaver, was a high-risk one. Perhaps it was true that only idiots undertook either course along that path still called the outlaw trail. Yet Harry, later Sir Henry Morgan, model for Sa-batini's Sea Hawk, had been no idiot, not by a very long shot. Neither had the English "privateer"

Frank Drake. Neither was Captain Corundum an idiot, nor Quindy of Captain h.e.l.lfire's Satana (there was some doubt about Captain h.e.l.lfire); or fat s.h.i.+eda, or Orohi-ko, or Captain Astrasia of Pentagram. The slaver was not an idiot either, by a long broadside. And the slaver Jonuta, the Qalaran called Captain Cautious, was one of the most brilliant s.h.i.+p-handlers and tacticians along the s.p.a.ceways. Perhaps the most brilliant. All that was entirely beside the point to Captain Pentamahomet Ramzi of India Spring, and his crew and two pa.s.sengers. He was a smallish over-serious fiercely theistic man in the employ of a cartel of n.o.bles of Ghanj, and he was under attack. That was the problem of Captain Pentamahomet Ramzi (who was more often called Moosejaw) and his crew. One thing could be said in Cap'n Moosejaw's favor: he was too smart to fight pirates. It was the problem of his pa.s.sengers, too. Yet in a 32 way it was a boon, however temporary, to his pa.s.senger HReenee. She was of HRalix, the newly-discovered planet with a newly-discovered nonhunian-but-human-oid race: the HRal. Despite her non-humanity and unique position both among humankind in general and on the s.h.i.+p, HReenee of HRalix was in the process of being raped by India Spring crewman Rathna PA32-4976m. Rathna was a homely but homy smallbrain from Panish whose princ.i.p.al duty onboard was providing muscle when it was needed. He was unduly proud of his biceps and chest, and of his 22 sems. Rathna was sure that every female l.u.s.ted after him or would if only she knew about his 22 sems. That is, the beautifully-built Rathna's slicer or p.e.n.i.s was an impressive twenty-two centimeters long in the erect state, which was the only way HReenee had seen it. Not that she wanted to see it at all. Rathna had torn enough of her garment, a clingy scarlet one-piece he was sure had been chosen to excite him, to bare five of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and was busy cramming the first couple of centimeters of his best parts (which was definitely true, in Rathna's case) into the sprawled alien. He grunted in pleasure. The HRal were mammals, all right. And man oh man was she hot in there! Then the emergency lights began flas.h.i.+ng, red-blue red-blue, and the Klaxon began hooting. Emergency. Emergency. All hands to emergency stations. At that visual and aural alarm, Rathna froze and cursed his luck.

His dark visage rose to stare accusingly at the air, which was eerily changing color every three seconds. While he was distracted, his victim wrenched one hand free. Instantly it leaped at his face. Four fingers of the same length as the thumb, all with perfectly normal nails. Then one was far from normal. 33 In mid-rush upward the middle finger extruded its slim curving claw. That nasty natural weapon was the last of the paw-full of extrusible-retractile talons once possessed by her remote, four-legged ancestors back on HRalix. The HRal had long since evolved past that. The HRal even ate some vegetables, now. The claw was slender but hard, and strong. Well over a sem long, and needle-sharp. Rathna jerked his head back just in time.

His eyes were bulging in a combination of shock and natural fear. That reflex movement saved his deepset dark eye (her target) and his big nose and lip-next in line below her target-but gained him a gash all down his chest. Nine centimeters long, that reddening furrow, and a full sem deep. He screeched and struck at her, also losing his erection and sustaining another deep, thin slash in his right forearm, which was muscularly meaty. (Rathna really was beautifully built.) The Klaxon continued hoot-honking and the lights continued their eerie strobing and poor Rathna was in bad trouble and knew it. Best he kill this nasty tiger-b.i.t.c.h and get about bis s.h.i.+pboard business, welling blood or no blood. At that moment s.p.a.cer India Spring was jolted, and jerked violently. s.p.a.cer India Spring was attacked, and hit. Everyone on board heard the scary sounds: the groaning of the unipolymer called "plasteel" and stronger-than-steel cyprium. While Rathna was working at getting himself together-not literally; the coffinish container called s.h.i.+p-doc or daktari would see to his cuts, later-his incredibly supple prey seemed to go all liquid muscle. Powerful muscle. Knees slammed in under Rathna's b.u.t.tocks as he knelt between her legs. His eyes bulged wider and he was catapulted forward over the sprawled native of HRalix. 34 As he went over, her talon tore another scarlet gash in him. This one was down his mid-line, a half-sem deep. It caught chest, stomach, and best parts. Rathna screamed. He crashed down beyond her, partly on her, and he was in agony. Quicksilver sinuous, she suppled from under him. She gave only one yellow-eyed glance at his upturned, bare, hairy, tautly round backside. It was definitely tempting. Claws ran in and out of her middle fingertips with the swiftness of a serpent's tongue. She chose not to attack. Talons retracted, she half-bent, all flowing muscle as if without bone, to hold her ruined garment up before her in red tatters. HReenee fled the cargo hold where he had dragged her. She paused to slam the big plasteel hatch. It snicked. Now it could be opened only from out here, in the s.h.i.+p's corridor or "tunnel." Inside, Rathna lay gasping, holding himself and moaning, crying a little and bleeding a lot. A second horribly jarring jolt made s.p.a.cer India Spring shudder and groan. The cargo s.h.i.+fted with various grating groaning sounds. A 60 x 60 x 60 crate slid off the one beneath it and toppled.

It fell onto Rathna. The crate contained five thousand, seven hundred sixty Qalaran ball-bearings. That ended Rathna's problems, and Rathna. The same violent jolting shock-the locking onto India Spring of the attacking s.p.a.cer, piracy bent- hurled HReenee along the tunnel and into a safety stanchion running along its wall. Never mind that the stanchion was padded; she flopped and lay still, four b.r.e.a.s.t.s exposed. She had come a long way (and voluntarily) to learn of the violence and venality of the people who called themselves Galactics, descendants of the sons and daughters of Urth. Wherever that was.

Now she was doubly their victim. The attack proceeded. Feet tramped past the 35 sprawled HRal, running. The second severe jolt had been the pirate craft, traction-linking itself to India Spring. There was a lot of shouting. Someone tripped a switch to restore the lighting to normalcy, but the Klaxon was left to continue its raucous sounding. Now it was only a lonely dog barking into the night, owned but not mastered. And Able s.p.a.cefarer Rathna PA 32-4967m was not at his emergency post. (Near the captain, because of his strength.) "I'll get that flainin' malingerin' sunuvab.i.t.c.h once we're outta this," the Mate snarled, but he would be too late. Now and then, crime failed to pay. "Red Rover," someone from the other s.h.i.+p said. The voice came in on Captain Pentamahomet Ramzi's comm receiver, and he knew what was meant. The sisterslicing thieves were going to come over: to board his s.h.i.+p. Resist and it would be about the same as tangling with an army or Gri's priesthood, on Resh. He actuated the radiant laser-beamer on his hull. It flashed out into s.p.a.ce, freighted with a distress call repeated a hundred and fifty thousand times a second. The signal rushed away into the pa.r.s.ec abyss, radiant from India Spring. Out and, out on its beam of light, seeking a computer-monitored comm-rec, a friendly ear, TGO, TGW, someone who would tell TGO or TGW, a local policer cruiser-local to anywhere. Anything and anyone. C Y R! C! Mayday!

Red Rover! Mayday! MEANWHILE . . . Captain Jonuta exercised twice daily and did not sit at the con, but stood. The captain of Coronet thus stayed lean and fit, in his skintight pants and boots and the long piratic coat he affected, with two rows of (purely ornamental) bra.s.s-imitating pra.s.s b.u.t.tons. Captain of Coronet, yet, and Kenowa was his woman. 36 There was no Dauntless, no Captain Sword, and no body of s.h.i.+ps worthy of the impressive phrase, s.p.a.ce fleet. Jonuta was Captain Cautious and he was not pleased. His woman was supposed to be on watch. Admittedly that was dull duty on a s.h.i.+p supervised by computer on a course dictated by guidance ca.s.sette, and Kenowa did often occupy herself with one of her mellers. This tune, though, she was plugged into one of those d.a.m.ned feelies. She was totally oblivious to anything else.

To the screen before her, for instance. Autosystemry had hi the course of routine happened onto a laser-sped message. The message was routinely intercepted and displayed. MAYDAY! RED ROVER! MAYDAY! RED- Over and over. Judging by her face, her squirming and the little moans that escaped her slack lips, the woman who was his constant companion was experiencing something vehemently erotic. Kenowa's favorite viewing matter was the equivalent of what previous eras had known as truconfessions and bodice-rippers. Those who were aware of the difference between masculine responses- objectifying-and feminine romantic subjectifying maintained that such holodramas const.i.tuted female p.o.r.nography. And they really came down on the feelies. Still, no antiromantis.e.x laws had ever been seriously proposed, and such holomelodramas-mellers-went right on being very very popular among many many women indeed. Jonuta sighed. Here she sat, wearing the close-fitting senstimulator helmet he had had calibrated with her holoprojector. Her blue wig would be tucked out of sight, on the other side of her. d.a.m.n! Probably having herself grabbed and bared and misused by some Booda-d.a.m.ned impossible fictional alien, he thought. And he was far from pleased. 37 MAYDAY! RED ROVER! MAYDAY! RED ROVER! M- A tiny screen, the color of a nice blue sky on most planets, flashed the precise coordinates of that signal's source. It didn't take long to come up with that, if the message was received a few hundred thousand times in a few seconds. Its source was ahead and just off Jonuta's course. Wearing a grim look of displeasure as he stood staring down at Kenowa, he considered. Then the probes began whipping in and out of both her nipples and her stash at an absolutely incredible speed and Kenowa was thrust to another peak of barely bearable s.e.xual pleasure that jangled through her willingly imprisoned body until she hung there too weak to gasp, now, a liquid puddle afloat on a soft pink sea of ecstasy. "Oh d.a.m.n it," Jonuta rumbled, and made a swift adjustment to the sensavision helmet Kenowa wore. He unplugged ins.h.i.+p comm-mike, plugged it into the helmet. "All right, s.l.u.t," he snarled, "now all thirteen of us are going to take turns raping you for the next thirteen hours with this Narjeelan roobaball bat!" And he grasped her nearer breast, a warhead nearly the size of her head, and gave it a squeeze with every bit of Ms strength, briefly. "And this unsightly projection we tear off to dry and use for a belt tool-kit, unless you Come Out of Itt!" And he twisted. He knew Kenowa; he twisted hard. (He had cultivated that resonantly deep voice, which definitely went with his eclectic-eccentric attire. Some maintained that Jonuta must once have had dramatic training. No one could prove it. Or disprove it; no records were available. Authorities on his own Qalara, as a matter of fact, had no idea why their retrieval systems failed to coine up with anything at all on 38 Kislar Jonuta, prior to his past seventeen years as a self-employed businessman in s.p.a.ce. A slaver.) At his words and twisting squeeze, the luxuriously constructed woman in the snug helmet snorted in a sharp breath. She squealed it out, lurched, and shuddered through a violent o.r.g.a.s.m. Her years as an EF addict had definitely not burned out her irrepressible sensuality. That eroflore addiction was long in the past, thanks to Jonuta, whom she owed her life and her self. Her empathic and often indecorous sensuality was very much the present and presumably the future, also thanks to Jonuta-and her senstim holodramas. Jonuta rolled his eyes upward as he stood before the broad and colorful console. Since it was designed for just that, a standing captain, the Mate's chair was height-adjustable for Kenowa or whomever else sat at watch. "Incompetent s.l.u.t," he muttered in a dramatic and menacing snarl, "we have you now! You'll spend the rest of your s.l.u.ttish life our prisoner here in Castle Perilous, while Igor and Hogface push pins in and out of you . . . here and there!" Kenowa convulsed in another ecstatic orgastic peak. "Booda's eyes," he muttered disgustedly, in that deep nimbly voice. I'm not about to interrupt her involvement by making s.e.xual threats, and certainly not s.a.d.i.s.tic ones! Hmm . . . "All right then, dolt," he said, "we're going to lock you up, feed you nothing but starches, and deny you s.e.xual activity for the rest of your (un-) natural life while you swell up into a doughball that would make one of those s.h.i.+ras.h.i.+te jelly-blobs look attractive! You'll be too gross to fit into a con-cabin, much less a bed." There, that ought to do it, he mused, and he began rasping his thumbnail across the mike's head while he considered another matter. The C! call. 39 "Why not," he muttered at last. He'd answer the d.a.m.ned distress call! Why shouldn't a slaver interfere with the boarding-and-stealing operation of some sisterslicing pirate? Hadn't he once gone zipping to the rescue of Samarkand-saving the colonys.h.i.+p and all the dolts...o...b..ard from a raid by Firedancer? Besides, maybe this beleaguered s.h.i.+p was menaced by Firedancer, too. He'd love another shot at that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Corundum! Despite his displeasure with Kenowa, Jonuta smiled. That would make it worthwhile! He and Corundum were old acquaintances, but most definitely not friends. Srih and Arel-and others, others-were dead because of the attempts Corundum had engineered, on Jonuta's life. Jonuta would not forget. Now and again he even wondered (idly) what had become of that singer, Copperhead, who had played fair damsel in distress that time on Lanatia ... so that a bravely rescuing Jonuta would and did become target for a Corundum-hired a.s.sa.s.sin. (Jonuta had kidnaped her and left a recording of her confession with Lanatian policers; wallowed in bed with her across the light-years until she did not want to leave him. And had dumped her on Panish. He had wondered-idly, no more-if she had found a singing job there or had been able to support herself on her back or her knees for men, or ... but he didn't really care. She was just one more attractive hard-luck cake looking to be sliced-and used, and used. About the only one Jonuta gave a d.a.m.n or two about was that compact little barbarian he had s.n.a.t.c.hed off Aglaya and sold on Resh. More pluck than any six others, that one, that Janja. Janja. Hair like a G-zero sun. Could it possibly be true that after orchestrating and bloodily implementing her own escape she had taken up with ... Corundum!) 40 Corundum and Jonuta! Both were rather too well-known along the s.p.a.ce-ways. Both outlaws; both austere yet sometimes flamboyant, dramatic. Both were more than bright, more than competent, and more than successful. Both were respected by many and probably by each other, feared by many and perhaps (never admittedly!) by each other. Both had broad-based contacts all along the s.p.a.ceways, contacts who were competent and nearly always loyal. Both men kept up with technology and with opposition, policer and otherwise, and both kept up their s.h.i.+ps and equipment. (Jonuta did not know that it was a Corundum trick that had recently nearly ruined him, or that Janja had indeed joined Corundum onboard Firedancer, becoming a pirate and his woman-and left him a few months later, as enemy.) Well, all that was neither here nor there. Right now Jonuta issued a few simple instructions to the computer he called his First Mate. Others called it SIPAc.u.m: s.h.i.+p Inboard Processing And Computing Unit (Modular). Two lights flashed, one just after the other. Off-white for Understood and glowing turquoise for Initiated. A couple of seconds later all lighted panels flashed, three times. SIPAc.u.m's signal to its master. Coronet had changed course. Jonuta nodded in satisfaction. There had never been a SIPAc.u.m failure on his s.h.i.+p. "I've had nine First Mates," he had said rather more than once. "None ever quit, or died, and I never fired one. Not one ever backtalked me, either." While Kenowa moaned and stirred, he pushed the intra-s.h.i.+p mike's link back where it belonged. "Course change and acceleration," he announced to his abbreviated crew. "Explanation in a few minutes. Captain out." 41 He pushed the commlink away and wheeled to stare down at Kenowa. He shut off her helmet, pulled it off his woman's head, and dragged her up out of the Mate's chair. Using his thumbs, he started trying to push her nipples back between her ribs. He did it until she was writhing and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up her face in pain, fighting to keep from crying out or grasping his wrists. Then, "Get your hair on," he said, and thrust her back into the big swivel chair. She was still apologizing for having so completely lost herself in a (semi-auto, semi-experiencer-imput) feelie when Sakyo came to the con. With loyal old crewmembers Arel and Srih blown away (Corundum's work, one way or another), and Sweetface left on Front at its own request, Sakyo was no longer "new" crew. The s.p.a.cefarers First from Terasaki, s.h.i.+ganu and Sakyo, had become Coronet's long-time crewmembers, after Kenowa and Captain Cautious. A frown pulled thin, extremely black brows down and spread over his old-gold face when he heard what Jonuta had decided to do.

Then the edges of his thin-lipped mouth were tugged back by a little smile. "I like it, Captain! We can use a bit of excitement- and evil slavers go to rescue of poor pitiful s.h.i.+p in clutches of eviller pirate, hmm! Any odds that we never receive a nice letter or a commendation?" Jonuta waved a hand. "Oh shut that off, Sak. You Terasaks are romantic idiots, you know?" "Sure, Captain. Firm. Ever since the days of the Shoguns! Sakyo he return to post now, boss-captain sah. You wan' me to send Therandah yes-boss?" Kenowa-purple-wigged, rather drained by her experiential holo and beset now only by a tingling in the mistreated ma.s.ses of her bosom-giggled at the short man's parody. Then she shot a glance at Jonuta and bit her lip. This time she had really fobbed it, and 42 Kenowa knew it. Best to keep a very low silhouette with very few emissions. She bit off the giggle and looked properly guilty. Jonuta, standing, was proving why he was called Captain Cautious: he was manually checking the new course. They all felt acceleration. SIPAc.u.m meanwhile allocated another portion of its circuitry to adjust s.h.i.+pboard means for making that easier for them. s.p.a.cer Coronet fled toward the C! signal at max bearable velocity. Jonuta did not turn at Sakyo's slavish imitation, either. He was busy advising s.h.i.+g to see to m.l.s.s.'s and get himself strapped in with the suits. Still without turning, Jonuta said: "Stop that skuz, Sak. I'm getting to like you, you know? You're properly cracked. No, you are guidelined to return to station. Strap in at forward DS station. Check the guns. We'll be pus.h.i.+ng it and I intend to make us uncomfortable before we're done, so we'll get there faster. That signal didn't exactly originate just a stone's throw away! Be nice to get there in time to interfere with the attack.

I'll call Therandah." Sakyo showed Jonuta's back the crown of his head in an ancient bow, and reds.h.i.+fted. Jonuta still couldn't be quite sure of Therandah.

He had checked the L.S.-Licensed s.p.a.cefarer, no frills, but terribly bright and proving efficient-as carefully as he could, on Front. Once he had put off his old crew and friend Sweetface and its idiot innamorata Tweedle-dee (Tweedle-dumb, Kenowa insisted) there, he felt the need for one more crewmember to help the four of them get Coronet to his home planet. He talked, he checked as well as he could, he listened, he tested briefly, he took on Therandah. He also told her that the con-cabin was off limits to her, and quietly asked s.h.i.+g and Sak to keep an eye on her, without seeming to. 43 A close-lipped woman of apparent-age forty or so, Therandah. She did her best to keep to herself. Jonuta and Kenowa respected that and knew the two Terasaks would. He was glad (and Kenowa gladder) that she was not s.e.xually interesting-or interested either, apparently. Therandah had good recs and was quick to respond; all the harried Jonuta wanted was to get the vug home to Qalara. He was seeking security. He had been hit, badly, presumably by TGO.

Millions in secret credac-counts gone, vanished. Stolen from him, impossibly. As for Therandah-what the vug else was there, aside from knowledge, good recs, and quick responses? And, on Coronet, a well-curbed curiosity. "Captain to L.S. Therandah." The answer came crisply: "Here Captain." "We've caught a CYR call. Fve decided to respond. Stand by for heavy acceleration and possible trouble at the other end." "Standing by Captain!" He glanced at Kenowa. He was impressed. No comment, no question, just "Standing-by-Captain!" crisp and emotionless. Therandah would do. He had wondered about the possibility he always had to consider: that she might be a policer plant. Now, with him going after a C! call this way, she might well be wondering if he was an undercover policer. After all, answering a distress call from a totally unknown was hardly a standard or even highly intelligent act. Pirates and slavers had been known to lure other s.h.i.+ps with a faked CYR. "No comment? That give you no problem, s.p.a.ce-farer?" "No Captain. I know who my captain is. I'm in the best and safest s.h.i.+p along the s.p.a.ceways!

Captain: 44 I'm qualified: want me to stand by suit for possible boarding?" Again he was impressed. "Neg. If we board, s.h.i.+g will go with me, and maybe Kenowa. You'll be backup DS, Therandah-I remember you're qualified on that, too. We'll see first what side of the bandit we come in on." "Right, Captain." "Oh, and Therandah. You say you know me. And my nickname as well?" "Pos, Captain Cautious." Kenowa suppressed her giggle this time, while Jonuta nodded without showing a thing. "Firm. My way is to use DS only when we absolutely have to. With me, that means a lot later than most others reach for the guns. 'Absolutely have to' means just that. I'll be trying a little of this and that deception first, Therandah. Maybe we'll try making him think we're some blundering painfully-young richies looking for a thrill. Mister Pirate will-I hope!-think he's got another . innocent bug in his clutches and guide us right to his emergency airlock." Therandah's voice chuckled, oncomm.

"Right Captain. Oh. Question, Captain?" "Of course, s.p.a.cefarer." "Why the emergency airlock?" "That Red Rover call would tend to mean the pirates forced the other s.h.i.+p to surrender. In that case they'll be linked by main airlock to prey's lock. Any pirate can be expected to have some sort of getaway hatch, airlock or not, for emergencies. Policer emergencies, for instance." "Thank you. I firm, Captain Cautious-sir." Captain Cautious-who even kept backup SIPA-c.u.m modules...o...b..ard, seconds away from on-line status--was still intent on his console. He said: "Action ahead, L.S. Therandah. We are not policers. 45 Thou shalt not return to con-cabin or contact con-cabin unless it is necessary." Kenowa smiled. Souded as if Jone intended to use some of his special deceptive measures. Holoprojection disguise and telepresence helmets, for instance. He was still not sure enough of Therandah to want her to know about those. They had fooled a dozen policers, over the years, including TGW.

As a matter of fact more than once they'd even "been" TGW! The Licensed s.p.a.cefarer from Rahman said crisply, "I firm, Captain." "Good. Go check aft Defense Systemry, and strap in there. We'll be piling on acceleration, in about a minute." "Strapping in for check of after DS station, Captain. Test fire?" "We'll make one test, Therandah, when I give the order. DS systemry is locked at- the con-cabin. Keep your comm open." "Right, Captain." And she was offcomm. "Military sort," Kenowa commented, "isn't she." "Go batten our cabin, Kenowa. You want to use your mouth, suck your thumb." Chastened, reminded of a transgression unforgiven, Kenowa looked down. He'd called her by name, too, rather than his customary "Kenny." Abruptly she pumped her legs and was on her feet. A large woman molded into and by a jet body-stocking and a scarlet tabard splashed with an all-over design, in black: plus-or-minus symbols. "Battening captain's cabin, Captain," she snapped in brisk imitation of Therandah-the longest name on Coronet in years!-and left the con-cabin. She moved fast, tail down, although Kenowa was not of a size for scuttling. "SIPAc.u.m: give me a synopsis of the feelie Kenowa was involved in just now." And at first opportunity I'll 46 treat her to a scenario and a rape she won't forget for a while! And Captain Cautious grinned. The s.p.a.ce fleet thundered up through the thin atmosphere of the unpeopled rallying planet and into s.p.a.ce. Giant carrier s.h.i.+ps . . . And s.p.a.cer Coronet raced for s.p.a.cer India Spring. MEANWHILE . . . Captain Menekris of s.p.a.ce freighter Satyagraha was both a bulky and garish figure in his s.p.a.cesuit, which was pale yellow-green with electric blue arms and legs. The helmet was opaque; Captain Menekris saw via a telepresence camera and projector built into the ovaled helmet, and his vision was better than had he been bare-headed. One of his men stood alert and ready in a cerulean s.p.a.cesuit with yellow arms and legs. He bore a laser beamer in both gloved hands. The crew of India Spring had suited up too, each in his mlss-mobile life support system-but the boarders had ordered them to remove their helmets. Thus they were vulnerable, and thus the laser was a constant deadly threat. The pirate didn't have to zap anyone who might try something unwise. A stray beam, one bolt, would hole India Spring's unipolymer plasteel interior and go on through the hull as if it were cardboard. That would mean air-out, and that would mean death to India Spring's crew and pa.s.sengers. The trio of invaders, helmeted and secure in their temp-controlled s.p.a.cesuits supplied with good air-mix, would merely watch them die swiftly and hideously, and then go on about their business. Menekris tramped along the stanchion-bracketed tunnel of the captive s.p.a.cer. Behind him backed one of his men, stopper leveled. Next came the captain and 47 crew of India Spring. The pirate with the beamer came last. Menekris stopped abruptly. "What's this? By Tao's tonsils! It's one of them new ones I've only heard about, isn't it! Ralix, is that it?" He looked at the India Spring crewmembers, then snapped, "Answer, answer!" He was standing over an unconscious . . . creature. Humanoid, but- "HRalix," Captain Pentamahomet Ramzi said quietly, dully. "She is HReenee, a HRal. She is a writer of fiction among the people of HRalix." "People!" Me