Part 1 (2/2)

Janja holstered her stopper. She stepped past him to look both ways. No one followed them. She squatted, there in the alley off a street of Marucan on a planet named Franji, and proceeded to strip the unconscious man until he was entirely naked.

His clothes she took. His incriminating weapon she left in his hand. She touched the stud of his own beeper, knowing it would alert newspeople. They would come at the rush, because he was who he was, and more importantly what he was.

The Marucan policers were coming now, noisily. Janja, taking his clothing even unto his boots and chronometer though not his government-issue beeper, disappeared. Disappeared by running silently up the dark alley.

What she had done to him was, for a man of his sort (a doubly, hyper-male male of much pride and power and swagger), a fate worse than death. She had lured 7.and embarra.s.sed and demeaned him. She had a.s.sured that he would become known as a b.u.t.t. The newspeo-ple, already on their way, would see to that. Pictures would be taken. Telecommentators would grin, perhaps giggle. He would be a b.u.t.t, a joke. Oddly, that would benefit the people of his world.

Within twenty-one minutes Janja was offplanet. Within an hour she was in s.p.a.ce. She had successfully completed her first solo mission for TransGalactic Order. Grayly. Doing good by doing bad.

It took a while-until the next election-but that ended the career of Senator Takiman of Franji, who had been so stupid as to make a promise of loyalty to TGO and accept its funds and then, in the arrogance of high office, fail to keep it. His wife left him, too. Worse, so did his mistress.

1.

Biologically, the question is: Can the human brain gain control over inherited impulses that were appropriate for prehistoric man but are inappropriate in the twentieth century?

-Harvey Milkman and Stanley Sunderwirth, in Psychology Today, October 1983 Manjanungo and Sibanda met on the gigantic wheel of a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p docking station that orbited the planet Qal-ara. The meeting was a fortuitous one, and pure serendipity.

Once three princes from a place called Serendip went off in search of a lost lady. Each struggled and squeaked through various adventures and wound up with something of value entirely different from what he had been seeking. The word serendipity was born. It applied to Dr. Alex Fleming's accidental discovery of penicillin, when he was looking for something else altogether (since a broad-spectrum killer of bacterial infection was obviously impossible). Serendipity applied to a million other fortuitous accidents.

It applied to the meeting of s.p.a.cer captains Sibanda and Manjanungo in the busy, ever-noisy lounge on Qal-arastation. Both s.h.i.+p's masters had business on the planet below; business involving this or that matter of 9.cargo, replacement part, and supplies for their galaxy-spanning s.h.i.+ps. Both were awaiting the return of their agents, down on Qalara, and for the moment had little to do.

The very striking Manjanungo soon learned that the underclad woman was not just another pretty face and desirable, well-displayed form. Her color was a golden tan: skin, hair, and eyes. A jewel-flas.h.i.+ng jerkin over nothing but skin and a pair of low-on-the-hips pants, snug and white and arabesqued in gold, left bare her nicely tucked-in waist and a navel around which had been painted a starburst, in Bonestell blue. She affected arabesquery-traced gloves to the elbow, snug-as-skin and of a perfect blue that matched her longish vest. A single pair of golden frogs and a single taut, royal blue lacing prevented it from showing more than half of her very round b.r.e.a.s.t.s. This was Captain Sibanda of s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p Serendip.

In her turn she soon learned that this Manjanungo was more than the oddly-attired, foppish, and imperious dandy he appeared. As a matter of fact she had heard of Manjanungo of Jorinne.

He affected long hair drawn straight back into a queue and held by a scarlet bow. His long coat of s.h.i.+ning black taffetas-a wrinkle-free synthefabric, of course-imitated the attire of a more than ancient sea captain of Espanya. With his own modifications: the coat was long and belted, and skin-hugging black pants or tights disappeared into equally black jackboots. The fancily-tooled ball-and-cap pistole tucked into his wide belt was surely a replica-surely a stopper, the common weapon of the s.p.a.ceways, was concealed in the ridiculously primitive and inefficient handgun. Not tall and not unhandsome, this was Captain Manjanungo of 10.s.p.a.cer Starwolf and other names.

Sibanda and Manjanungo discovered that they were in the same business.

In a privatized booth, they talked. Just how it came about is neither here nor there; suffice it to say that the two struck a bargain. It involved their mutual business, which was piracy, and a certain huge luxury s.p.a.celiner well advertised as being well-armed. The liner was called Starqueen and its master was Captain Trinn Yosef.

The finest prize in s.p.a.ce, Starqueen-and any pirate would have to be a fobbin' fool to tangle with the liner with its new armaments and capable master.

Two pirates, however, met serendipitously and made such plans. One possessed Starqueen's precise voyage plan, and Manjanungo agreed that in exchange she would receive 60 per cent of the proceeds of their joint venture.

The rendezvous with Captain Lortice would keep, Manjanungo thought, his gleaming sable taffetas rustling as he strode back to his s.h.i.+p's docking berth. He was a deeply tan man of absolutely normal height and weight, neither ugly nor handsome. He walked, however, like a king. Some people gave him stares, but somehow none remained in his way. A man perhaps to be scorned or pointed out with smiles behind his back, but not to be crossed.

So it is the second-largest and best-armed liner along the s.p.a.ceway, he mused. / hardly have time to await something small and safe. And once we have Starqueen awallow in s.p.a.ce, we shall see who receives sixty per cent of nothing and who takes all!

He was met at Starwolfs inner airlock by a quiet beauty, unrelaxed of face and very erect in her tighter-than-skin one-piece skinnt.i.te of gleaming white. It 11.flaunted her waist, which was corseted, surely painfully, to an unbelievably tiny 43 sems.* A stern woman, respected by the several female creatures Captain Man-janungo kept onboard for his amus.e.m.e.nt. They were not called women; this one was.

”My Lord,” she said quietly but with clear enunciation, with her head deferentially bowed as he required.

(Once one of his girls, in the throes of pa.s.sion in her lordly captain's lordly bed, had quite forgotten herself and called him by name. She had spent the next 25 hours painfully bound in a standing position: elbows snugged quite together behind her back, her offending mouth stuff-gagged with expandafoam so that her jaws creaked. And she was plugged both fore and aft. Man-janungo had intended the punishment as a lesson, and as her shoulders and calves first told her they were dying and then went into a fearsome chill numbness, she learned. Now she was chief of girls, and she stood before him. Never mind her name; now she was called Intaglio. And no one on Starwolf called its master other than ”Captain” or ”my lord.”) ”Kenyo?” he queried, striding past her. He had used the commlink concealed in a b.u.t.ton of his coat's sleeve to order contact made with his lieutenant.

”Javad began comm-seeking him at once, Captain.”

Manjanungo nodded shortly, striding to his s.h.i.+p's con-cabin, which he liked to call the bridge. There he found Javad, one of the two Joser jailbirds he had taken on as crew, waiting. The link was made, with Kenyo. Manjanungo s.n.a.t.c.hed the commlink and gave his instructions quickly. The moment he had Kenyo's very-long distance and succinct ”Firm,” Manjanungo pa.s.sed * 43 centimeters: 17 inches, Old Style 12.the commlink to Javad and took up the ins.h.i.+p unit.

”As soon as Jenk comes up from onplanet,” he announced to all onboard, ”we clear and reds.h.i.+ft. We have a most important mission in concert with another captain, and we will be boosting. You brats had better ease each other's corsets and strap down. Topaz: to my cabin. Intaglio, see to our guest. Ah-s.h.i.+pdoc will be a nice safe place for her! See to it!”

Elsewhere on the s.h.i.+p, the girl whose hair he had caused to be dyed yellow and then named her for its hue disengaged herself from another girl and hurried without reluctance toward the master's cabin. While Intaglio was covered chin to toes and past the wristbones in refulgent white, Topaz wore only the corset Man-janungo mandated. It proffered her b.r.e.a.s.t.s without covering them above a full, semi-transparent swish-skirt of pale cream yellow. Quite short and propped on tall slim heels, she nevertheless walked rapidly and with ease. Intaglio had trained her well. Topaz had no desire to spend further hours stuff-gagged and with her elbows touching, behind her back.

Alone in the captain's carpeted and wall-hung cabin, she prepared a drink and inserted a redjoy stick in his holder before she took up her pose of awaiting her lord. On her knees.

A considerable time later and a long way from Qalara, the two pirate captains had arrived at their widely separated rendezvous points and made commlink. Hanging like tiny ornaments in the eternal twilight of s.p.a.ce here near the center of the Galaxy's tightening spiral, they made more specific plans and oversaw s.h.i.+pboard preparations. And then both their SIPAc.u.ms reported the approach of a third s.p.a.cecraft.

13.”Give me a plot,” Manjanungo said, while Sibanda said or keyed in a similar command to the s.h.i.+p's Inboard Processing And Computing Unit (Modular) over on her Serendip.

SIPAc.u.m obligingly brought up the simulation on its main screen: the twin dots that were Serendip and Starwolf- lately Ruy Diaz, in the Great Five-Year Race. Less than a hundred thousand kilometers away bulked the big ma.s.s of Starqueen-a s.h.i.+p twice the size of either of the two lurking in wait.

”Closer to you,” Manjanungo said. ”Want to move back five degrees off opposite, and when you're in position I'll move in from here?”

”Firm,” Sibanda's voice crackled into his con-cabin. ”Actuating scrambler.”

”Scrambler actuated here.”

”And here. To our mutual good fortune then, Captain!”

”Indeed,” Manjanungo said, and his lacy white s.h.i.+rt-cuffs flashed against the black of his coat as he off-commed.

He and a silent Intaglio watched Tigress move away on the simulation screen. Javad and Jenk were at their DS posts, standing by Defense Systemry that, not unusually, would shortly be employed in an aggressively non-defensive role. Topaz, having displeased, would ride out the operation in the master's cabin, strapped to the ring-equipped wall.

Manjanungo of Jorinne was smiling.

What Sibanda of Serendip did not know was that Kenyo-the former Manhar Uls-was on his way at speed in the excellent s.p.a.cer he had stolen from his former employer, CongCorp. Three s.h.i.+ps would be even better against Starqueen than two ... and after 14.that, Manjanungo mused, his eyebrows coolly lifted, after that, two-to-one odds will change Captain Si-banda's notions about splitting the take!

Captain Trinn Yosef of Archducal Lines' Starqueen had been delayed nearly a week, thanks to an overbooking snarl that had left several would-be pa.s.sengers stranded on Ghanj. Some of them vowed personal vengeance. The n.o.bles promised lawsuits and pressure. On top of that came delays because the thrice-be-d.a.m.ned ministell-pinching Ghanjis had taken half an eternity to repair a beacon-which had not one d.a.m.ned thing to do with Starqueen's departure lane anyhow.

What called Captain Yosef, as he watched pa.s.sengers and crew devour groceries, was that any ne'er-do-well stepson of a n.o.ble Ghanji lordling's younger brother would walk away from more small change than the beacon repairs would have cost. Now it would come out of Saf Yosef's share.

At last came the day and the hour: ”SIPAc.u.m loaded,” the mate advised.

”Ready?”

The chief steward's haggard face appeared on the display. ”I think so, sir.” And the face instantly disappeared.

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