My Life: An Ex-Quarterback's Adventures in the Galactic Empire (14 page)

T
etragrammaton was more closely linked to the Inner Empire than Orgumuni, and was, therefore, a bigger and busier trading hub. There was a substantial flow of trade between the Inner Empire and those portions of the Outer Empire that were still functioning. As one might expect, with the standard of living lower in the Outer Empire, the cost of goods made there was also less than in the Inner Empire. This economic advantage helped buttress what civilization remained in the Outer Empire, but it would last only until the deterioration reached the point that the risk outweighed the price advantage. This had already happened in many areas. The result was an even greater decline as the Imperials pulled out. Until that happened over most of the Outer Empire, however, places like Tetragrammaton would continue to do a brisk business. With such a heavy credit flux, it was a good place to fence a starship. It was also a good place to exchange a kidnap victim.

Carvalho docked both the Flying Whore and the Flower. Once docked, the prize crew left the Flower and security personnel from Tetragrammaton sealed off the ship. The only way back onto the Flower would be to buy it from Carvalho and then pay Tetragrammaton’s docking fee to have it unsealed. I believe the station took a percentage of the sale price as well. For those of Flower’s crew who hadn’t joined Carvalho, the station was also the last stop. Once the fight was over, as Ruoni had said, the freebooter held no grudges. Carvalho even paid off those who were leaving, half the wage they were due from the merchanter, and then turned them loose. They had to find another crew to join before their money ran out, or they had to wangle passage down to Tetragrammaton and find something to do there. My guess was that finding another crew would not be all that difficult and I spent little more thought on them. For our crew, it was liberty on the station in shifts.

Our turns on the station were drawn by lot. I was more eager than I can remember since my first Saturday night out with a girl. This was going to be my first good look at galactic civilization and I was the first person from Earth, other than Angel as far as I know, to have the opportunity. I was more than ready to play tourist, lacking only a camera with a bagful of lenses. Not even thinking about Jaenna was going to spoil this. Naturally, I wasn’t chosen to go on the first shift. For that reason, I was on the ship bringing Jaenna’s meal that evening.

I had just entered the room, had not even set the tray down, when the door opened behind me. The hiss of the door in its tracks startled me so much that I almost dropped the tray. Nobody else was allowed through that door but the guard and me and, in the entire time I had been bringing her meals, it had never been opened from the outside while I was there. A quick look while I was juggling the tray showed me that the intruder was Carvalho. He was alone and let the door slide closed behind him. It didn’t take me long to realize that Carvalho was high on something. High, hell. He was in orbit. I don’t think he even noticed I was there.

He took three steps into the cabin and stopped, swaying slightly, his nostrils flaring and his pupils dilated. On the other side of the cabin, Jaenna stood to face him. It was an uneven match. Carvalho was bigger than I; he towered over Jaenna and was armed with a blaster to boot. Jaenna, of course, had nothing while I was armed only with a tray of puree.

“Cursed little bitch!” he roared. “There’s no message at the station.” For a moment I was surprised that he had waited until we’d docked to find that out. Then I realized that he would not want that kind of information transmitted, even in code.

“Well,” he went on, “do you want to tell me what this means?”

“It means my father will not pay your ransom,” she said evenly. “That does not surprise me. It also means that you are going to kill me.”

I looked for some evidence of emotion in Jaenna’s voice, or on her face, and found none. None at all. I couldn’t believe her control.

“Kill you?” Carvalho laughed unpleasantly. “Kill you after the crew and credits I spent to get you? Not a chance!” I guess Jaenna was a little naive. So was I. “I’ll tell you, little girl, just what I’m going to do. After we’re through at Tetragrammaton, this ship will call at Brgunne next. They trade in raw materials there. They also trade in Srihani. If there’s no message there, I’ll sell you to one of their brothels and get a little back on my investment. But, before I do that, I’ll turn you over to my crew for a while. After putting up with you all this way and getting nothing for it, I think they deserve it. Do you want to guess how that will go? By the time you land on Brgunne you’ll need a diaper because your asshole won’t close anymore.” With that, his drugged mind lurched into a train of thought which, for sheer sadistic imagery, dwarfed anything I have heard, before or since. I was petrified, afraid that any movement or noise would make him notice me and turn on me. He did not, though. He just continued to spew forth a catalog of physical and sexual torments. Through it all, Jaenna just stood there, not a word, not a movement in reaction.

Eventually, Carvalho ran down. Either the drug was starting to sap his energy or even his imagination had its limits. He growled incoherently a few times and moved his hand to the blaster. Right then, I thought it was going to end, but he pulled his hand back. With a last glare at Jaenna, he turned and stomped out through the door, which barely had time to open in front of him.

Once I was sure he was gone, I turned back to Jaenna. She had changed. Her face was even paler than usual and the cloak could not hide how badly she was trembling. Slowly, she folded at the knees and sat down on the bed. She looked up at me as though she wanted to say something.

“What?” I asked. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“You wouldn’t. You wouldn’t do that to me. Would you?”

I tried to reassure her, but she wasn’t listening. Tears started at the corners of her eyes.

“Please, just get out!” she cried. Then she threw herself on the bed to muffle the sobs.

I left her cabin (what else was I going to do?), dumped the food in a trash chute and brought back the empty bowl. There was no point in finding out how much trouble would result if it came back full. Then I walked around in a daze for the rest of the ship’s evening. I didn’t want to talk to Angel, and I certainly didn’t want to talk to any other crew. Unfortunately, in a spaceship there is no place to go to get away from it all. I logged a lot of yardage waiting for the official night.

Night finally came, but it was no help. Sleep wouldn’t come, leaving me the choice of twisting in my bunk or going back out to roam the corridors. I could not push the image of Carvalho out of my mind, nor could I forget the feeling he had put into his words. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear “You wouldn’t do that to me” over and over again. I wouldn’t, but I was well aware that there were many on the ship who would. Jaenna was nothing more than cargo to the rest of the crew. I worried that reality might match the depravity of Carvalho’s thoughts.

It occurred to me, as I tossed in the dark, that up until then I’d spent my life sliding along the path of least resistance. Football had been easy. Believing life was an eternal party had been easy. Tagging along with Angel, when you come right down to it, had been the easy route to take. I had even adapted easily to the idea of being a pirate. Unfortunately, I had run out of easy options. What was staring me in the face was not easy. I was going to have to do something hard, and it scared me because I had no choice. I couldn’t say that there was nothing I could do about the situation because, if I did, I couldn’t live with the result. If I stood by, I’d be no better than any of the crew who took part. Worse, because Jaenna was not cargo to me. Danny Troy would have to rescue the damsel in distress. It would be the first worthwhile thing I had ever done in my life—if I could do it. (Football doesn’t count. Football is a game, life is not.)

The decision, however, brought me no peace of mind. We’ve all read those stories where the hero, having wrestled with the temptation of evil and goodness having won out, chooses to go forth into some righteous, hopeless battle, whereupon he is able to sleep like a baby. Bullshit. I hadn’t the faintest idea of what to do. Until very recently, the only pirates I knew played in Pittsburgh and starships belonged on TV. I didn’t know enough to even decide which direction to run. I finally fell asleep listening to her ask me, “Would you?”

I woke with a start in a deserted bunkroom. It was my liberty day, so no one cared whether I slept late or not. I cared, however. A day ago, I’d been itching to play tourist on the station. Now, I had a better reason for not wanting to lose any free time off the ship. The station was probably the only place where I would have a chance to find the means to help Jaenna. I probably set a galactic record for the shortest time from bunk to dock.

Once on the station, though, I was at a loss. Corridor led to corridor, or to large enclosed plazas, and it was all strange. The station was full of Srihani dressed in a welter of costumes, plus many in the Fleet gray and black with a variety of kvenningari insignias. I saw members of two non-Srihani species (not Aalori), as well. Only a sense of time pressure kept me from gawking. There were shops that sold everything from artifacts like intricate carvings in an iridescent wood from a world called Pelliara, to computers in all sizes and capabilities, to information, to weaponry. Tetragrammaton probably held a wider variety of goods and services than all of Earth. Nowhere, however, did I see machinery designed to pry young girls away from sadistic fiends.

Part of the reason I didn’t know what I was looking for was because I didn’t have a plan. The simplest idea, taking a blaster and burning a hole through Carvalho, I had discarded before I left the ship. While it might give me brief (very brief!) satisfaction, it would not have helped Jaenna. So I drifted, looking this way and that, hoping that something I saw would give me inspiration. That was how I happened to see Ruoni, as I passed an establishment like the one Angel and I had visited at Orgumuni.

He was seated alone and tipped a half-glass of something to me. I was getting footsore and frustrated, so I decided to take a break and say hello.

“How fare you?” I asked, ritually.

“Like shit,” he answered, not so ritually. Some epithets translate exactly.

“I can sympathize,” I said. “I’m not faring so well myself. I take it you haven’t been able to find another ship?”

“It’s not that,” Ruoni said, swirling his drink and taking a sip. “I have had offers, but to take them would be to give up most of my status. No one will give me a position near to what I held, probably because they figure I have no choice. Soon they will be right and I will have a choice between swallowing my pride or vacuum.”

Listening to him, an idea began to form in my mind.

“Ruoni,” I asked, “if you could get the Flower back and be her fire controller, would you do it?”

It was a question from out of the blue, or the black in this case, and it took him totally by surprise. He put his drink down and stared at me through narrowed eyes.

“That is an odd question you ask. Of course, I would.”

How do you ask someone if his word is good? You take it and see what happens.

“I’m offering.”

Some people prepare in endless detail, but when it comes time to execute, they can’t move worth a damn. Not me. I’m more the Napoleonic style, engage first and then scramble around after opportunities as they develop. It’s how I played football for years. Now, I was playing that way again, only this time my neck was on the line. Ruoni took a while to answer, though.

Finally he said, “I will accept, if you will tell me how it’s to be done. I don’t believe you can afford to buy her.”

In fact, I could not. However, first things first. “Could you raise a crew to fly her by this time, day after tomorrow?” I asked. That would be my next liberty day.

Ruoni frowned. “If you mean to fly her and not much else, the answer is yes. To raise anything close to a full crew would cause talk.”

“That’s enough. We can fill the roster later.”

Ruoni nodded. “Correct. However, it’s useless to plan for a crew without a ship and you have not told me how you are going to get one.”

“All right, I’ll give you the outline. There’s no need to go into details.” I had no choice. I hadn’t thought about the details. I barely had the outline.

“I can pay the docking fee and have the station unseal the port. While I’m doing that, I need you to create a good diversion, preferably a full-scale riot, that will pull both the station guards, and Carvalho’s, away from the port. With all the kvenningari and freebooters around I guess that should be achievable.”

He nodded again, this time with a faint smile. “Some money will help light the fire.”

“Of course.” What was I agreeing to? I went on anyway. “That will give you a chance to get the crew on board Flower. It will also give me an opportunity to bring some cargo from Carvalho’s ship. Once I get to the bridge, I’ll have the station release the ship.” I figured the last was my insurance policy.

“How do you propose to pay your crew, both the ones I recruit and the ones we’ll need later?”

I had to laugh then. “I’ll do what I do best,” I said. “Be a freebooter.”

For the first time ever, I saw a full smile on Ruoni’s face. “I like it,” he said. “If nothing else, we will die quickly instead of slowly.”

I wished that Ruoni hadn’t brought that up. Dying was all too likely, and the biggest risk was going to be mine. True, Ruoni would have to put together a skeleton crew without alerting anyone to the nature of the enterprise. However, I saw no reason to doubt his statement that it could be done. The station was a beehive of activity and, given Ruoni’s position, raising a crew would look realistic. In contrast, I was going to have to spring Jaenna from the Flying Whore and bring her safely to the Flower. The moment I left Ruoni I began to wonder if hadn’t bitten off more than I could chew.

The best cure for jitters is action, so I set off to work out how to make good my boast. The Tetragrammaton authorities maintained many small offices throughout the station, any of which could be used to transact routine business. The official in the first one I entered looked so bored I wasn’t sure he was awake.