by John Benson
The meeting broke up for now. Cdr. Baker got up and stretched. His exec excused herself and hurried for the can. An NCO entered with an indigenous woman in tow. "She asked to speak with you Sir," he said. "Her Standard's pretty good."
Baker looked at the young woman, not much more than a girl, really. Her face was too round for his taste, the eyes too wide apart, the nose too broad. But youth and health will forgive much. She wore the short dress of a slave, but her gaze was unafraid, as if she were a noble woman.
"Leader of Leaders," she said. Her Standard had their odd vowel shapes, but was indeed not bad.
"I have five minutes," Baker said. "If what I hear interests me, I'll have five minutes more."
She bobbed her head. "I am Okasha," she said. "My uncle is Speaker for the Great Ones. He killed my father to take over the God House. He slutted my mother and he slutted me. I hate him. Let me be your weapon for vengeance."
One of the ruling class, and she had passable Standard. The ethnologists would be ape-shit. Baker saw his exec re-enter the room. Viki sat down quietly and stayed out of it. "Your people might see us as a threat," he said. "You sure you want to aid us and be thought of as a traitor?"
"Speaker for the Great Ones must fall," the girl said. "You use me for that end, and I use you."
"Maybe we're a threat," Baker said. "But the truth is maybe we are, and maybe we aren't. The truth is, the ones who sent us haven't decided." Viki cleared her throat in polite protest.
"I don't understand," the girl said. Viki looked at him pointedly, but she had made her point and did not pursue it.
"The Polyculturalists want only to study you," Baker said. "The Human Rights Party is horrified and wants to intervene."
"Let me be your slut," the girl said. "While far away your thinkers are making up their minds, let me be your slut. It pleases you, the thought of a woman who must do what you want. Use me when I am good and beat me when I am bad. You'd like that, wouldn't you? It stirs old dreams, that thought."
Viki yawned, feigning disinterest. Baker found the girl's arrow uncomfortably close to the mark. "You're guessing," he said. "You don't even know me."
"I do not guess, Leader of Leaders. I hear the Soul Music, and yours yearns for a girl who must submit."
An Empath. There were old rumors of Empaths lost out among the stars, but up 'til now they'd always been proven false. But there are so many planets men have gone to. So many suns. "We don't take slaves," he said. "The Basic Covenant of Human Rights forbids it. But I won't lie to you and say the thought's not tempting."
"So tell your people I am your ally," the girl said, "and tell the Yoralba I am your slave. And what we tell each other when we are alone, well, it will be our secret."
The possibilities made her seem lots prettier than she had been. "I need you to talk to others," Baker said. "Students of culture and language."
"Of course," the girl said. "And when you choose to strike, I will be your weapon."
"You can be my translator," Baker said. "If you really can sense feelings you could make an important difference. Tell the man who showed you in that you'll be staying. I'll see you later and introduce you to the scientists."
"This Human Rights Party," the girl said. "They hate to see a usurper in the God-house?"
"Nothing like that," Baker said. "They are horrified because your people perform human sacrifice and slavery."
"But they only sacrifice strangers," the girl said. "And they only enslave women."
"I am a stranger," Baker said. "And you are a woman."
Okasha shrugged. Baker's pointed barb had somehow failed to stick. She went out, and he could hear her announcing to the NCO that she was supposed to stay.
"Going native?" Viki said.
Baker suppressed a twinge of shame, even though he had a ton of justification. "She'll feed the scientists, Major. That's reason enough to keep her around. And what if she really is an Empath? Do you know what a breakthrough it would be to genotype an Empath?"
"She could be a spy," Viki said.
Ah, but he was ahead of her on that one. "Yes. And I've told her something worth passing on. We'll surveil her and see if she's a conduit."
"And meanwhile you get your rocks off," Viki said.
Was she jealous? "She expects it. And technically she's an ally so I'm in the clear. The culture team gains. I gain as a side effect. So what. And maybe she's an Empath."
"I'm betting that's an ancient legend, nothing more," Viki said.
"Then tell me how she's picked up so much Standard in only six months, Major. Look at her vocabulary. It's as good as most of the crew. A lot of language learning comes from context. An Empath would have a richer context, wouldn't she? Less reason to misunderstand. A stronger cue than body language."
Viki turned really quiet, and didn't say a thing.
He worked late, too distracted to be very effective. He wanted to go to the girl. Use her. Take her up on her offer. But it was far from wise. Oh it wasn't forbidden outright as a liaison within the chain of command would be, but if he got involved, someone later on might decide it had amounted to bad judgment, and the report would dog him. Screw it. He wasn't really deciding, he was just putting off the time.
He went into the LQ module and knocked on her door. Nothing happened. Maybe her people didn't knock. She was in there, the 'occupied' light was on. He opened the door.
She stood there, head bowed. "You want to spank me, don't you?" she said.
His groin heard the words as if bypassing ear and brain. He closed the door and faced her. "You're guessing," he said. "It's part of your culture. Spanking you short-skirted sluts is a favorite pastime around here."
"You want to have control," she said. "Hurt me a little. Make it so my will doesn't matter and it's all the way you want. But why are you ashamed of it? It just means you are a man."
He must have already decided, or else he would have not let himself be alone with her. "I'll sit on the bunk," he said. "You put yourself across my lap." It didn't sound much like the voice of command. He was too nervous for that.
She did as she was told, wriggling herself against his obvious erection. He flipped the short skirt up, to find only fetching flesh beneath. He gave the rounded rear a tentative swat. She said something, muffled by the fact she was face down in the bed clothes. It sounded a bit like 'harder,' so he hit her harder. Yes. She said it again, and it was definitely 'harder.' So he hit her harder. And harder, until he was using all his strength and her sounds no longer came out as words. She squealed and squirmed and her brownish skin took on a reddish tint. He turned her over and crawled on top, and fumbled with his fly. As he entered her, she laughed softly deep in her throat, so that he wondered just who had conquered whom. It ended before he hoped it would, but she didn't seem to mind.
"I'm sorry, I'm out of practice," he said. Their bodies were slick and sweaty. She looked up at him and smiled.
"Never apologize to a slave," she said. "It is a sign of weakness, and I need you to be strong."
"For your vengeance."
"Yes, Leader of Leaders. For my vengeance."
"Okasha. Listen. Vengeance is a crappy way to run a life. It will sour you if you fail, and it will sour you if you succeed. You say that you're an Empath. Well, wouldn't an Empath have more empathy? Commiseration? Forgiveness?"
"To hear the Soul Music is a gift," she said. "And the sweetest song of all is the suffering of one's enemies. It's the greatest gift the Great Ones ever give. I want to hear that song before I die."
"You're too young to die," he said. Baker usually liked to cuddle. Liked to sleep with the woman he made love with. But now he felt somehow impure, so he just kissed her one more time and went away.
He was half asleep when the comset pinged. "Baker. What is it?"
"Orders from the Council, Sir. They've finally decided."
It was Viki. He sat up and composed himself. "Thank you, Major. What have we got?"
"The Expansionists have made nicey-nice with the Human Rights Party, sir. They both want this society overthrown for different reasons. So we have our orders. Pacify the natives, and prepare for colonization."
As a soldier, it was attractive to go active rather than passive. But this sounded a whole lot more like what was good for Central than what was good for the indigenous people. "All right. We'll go talk to the high muck-de-muck tomorrow. Okasha can translate."
"I don't trust her, Sir."
Was Viki jealous? "I don't trust her either, Major. So we'll record everything and go over it later and make sure she isn't hosing us. But she can translate real-time at a level beyond 'see dog run,' so we're going with her."
"Aye aye, Sir." Viki sounded just a tad reluctant.
"I'm going to get some sleep. Perhaps you should do the same."
"Yes, sir," Viki signed off.
Cdr. Baker tried to sleep but it didn't really happen. He was going to depose a vicious and bloody regime held in place by slavery and human sacrifice. But how many were going to have to die so the rest could live under the Declaration of Human Rights? And was Okasha a part of the solution, or part of the problem? Sex was usually a great sleep aid. But this time, his recent bout didn't seem to help at all.
They built with stone. Sometime in the distant past the ancestors of these people had come to a naked world and seeded it and made it bloom. And sometime in the distant past their technology had failed them and left them as primitives in the garden of their creation. Primitives, but not innocents. Their weapons were sticks and stones. Blades of chipped obsidian lashed with sinew to wooden handles, but they could kill.
They built with stone. Limestone walls covered with carved glyphs. Rectangular public buildings. Raised patios. Truncated pyramids with many shallow steps, and all of it made with blocks of limestone fitted together so tight there was not room for any mortar, nor any need.
Viki observed, and wore the recorder in her hair. Baker had his side arm, and four soldiers with energy rifles, and the translator Okasha. Strange woman. Had her distant ancestors modified their own genome and come up with Empath? The sequencer would know in a few days. It was hard to believe she wasn't an Empath, as perfectly as she knew him. But why would a race of Empaths tolerate such casual cruelty? It didn't make much sense.
People watched them as they walked into the heart of the city, in amongst the huge stone structures. Watched with curiosity but not alarm. Seven strangers represented an oddity, not a threat. The calm arrogance of security was everywhere. People called out to Okasha as they passed by, and she said nothing.
"What are they saying?" Baker asked.
She looked at him with her wide dark eyes. "They ask if strangers fuck as skillfully as real men," she said. "If I say 'yes,' they will become angry. If I say 'no,' you will become angry. So I say nothing."
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