The tavern was surprisingly large, and there were perhaps a hundred men and women in it. Evidently this was the main social nexus of Bright Hope. We showed our stunners to the clerk at the entry, whose eyes widened as he recognized me. “You know what you’re getting into, Cap’n?” he asked.
I nodded, accepted back my stunner, and waited while he checked Brinker’s. The point of the check was not to disarm customers but to make sure that their weapons could not harm the premises or precipitate blood feuds thereon. Then we entered and found seats at a central table.
I looked around. This place could have been taken from a page of thousand-year-past history. There was no automation in view; the crude wooden tables were served by human waitresses, or more correctly, bar girls. The customers were informally, even raggedly, garbed in simple trousers, shirts, and boots, the women in low-and high-cut dresses. The beverage of choice was ale, foaming in big pewter mugs.
I concealed my reaction. In the Juclip, wood was a precious commodity, because of the space and time it required to grow it, and home-brewed intoxicants hardly existed, since the commercial processors were so much more efficient. Here in the Belt the sunlight was more concentrated and anchorages for domes common, so farming of all types, including tree farming, was relatively simple. Thus wood was cheaper than artificial material, and it showed.
A waitress arrived with stems of ale for us. We hadn’t ordered; it seemed this was standard. We paid, and Brinker reminded me to pay a little extra; this was a “tip,” a gratuity to the waitress for her service. I had heard of such a thing but never before experienced it; Brinker was already helping me.
The floor show commenced: dusky-skinned young women with full breasts and skirts formed of grass. Grass! Nowhere in the Juclip did grass like that grow. The girls were of Melanesian stock, as were many folk in the Belt, and they did their best to preserve fragments of the historical culture they identified with. Watching them move their bodies, I mentally applauded their cultural effort. I suppose the commander of a Jupiter Task Force is supposed to be above noticing such an elementary thing as sex appeal in natives, but I was between marriages and quite tired of the Tail. These local women were of course off limits to Navy personnel, by my own order, because venereal disease did indeed exist in this undisciplined region of space. But psychologically this made them forbidden fruit, and in any event there is something about a well-moved grass skirt....
I forced my attention, if not my eyes, to business. “As you know,” I murmured to Brinker, “we have gained a ship.”
“And lost two,” she said. “You’re lucky you didn’t wipe yourself out.”
“Yes. Inexperience was very nearly disastrous. I need an experienced captain for the new ship—one I can trust.”
She gazed at me. “You are asking for a recommendation?”
“No. Can I trust you with such a ship?”
“I am a pirate. You know that.”
“My staff advised me to be open-minded about pirates,” I said. “It is not easy. I did not want to hire you, but you have served well. You could serve better. I am prepared to provide you with the means to escape my command and revert to your old ways—if you undertake not to do so. Will you serve me as the captain of a fighting ship?”
Brinker was a hard, controlled woman, but now her eyes shone with tears. “Yes,” she said. “For such a command—body, mind, and soul.”
That, from this particular person, was the ultimate commitment. “I will settle for loyalty,” I said. “The Navy way. Discipline by the book.”
“Yes.”
“And it ends when the mission does, without record. You are, after all, a civilian, without security clearance.”
“Yes.” Her secret past remained secret, officially.
“I will see to the assignment,” I said.
She shook her head ruefully. “I think this is the first time in my life I have said yes to any man three times in succession.”
“It is the first time I have given a fighting ship to a pirate.” But my talent told me this was the proper gesture. It was command that lured Brinker, not piracy. And I knew she could do the job. This assignment could save many lives.
A tall, elegant man of about forty approached our table, trailing a woman and a girl. He paused, glancing at me. “May we join you, stranger?” he inquired politely in English.
“Happy to have you, stranger,” I responded, aware that in this region stranger was equivalent to mister or sir. “If you don’t find it crowded.”
“Cozy, not crowded,” he said with a smile, fetching chairs from the nearby tables and fitting them around ours. He and his companions sat down. It was tight but feasible. “I thought you might like information, and I possess the best.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Let me introduce myself. I am—”
“Let’s keep it anonymous for the present,” he interrupted with a smile. “Or at least on a first-name basis.”
Already I was reading him. This was no casual encounter! He was a highly disciplined man who recognized me and had sought me out. “As you prefer, stranger. I am Hope, and my companion is Isobel.”
“Charmed,” he said. “I am Straight; this is my wife, Flush, and my daughter Roulette.”
Straight! But I damped down my reaction. “How quaint,” I said. “Your family is like mine, with symbolic names. I have sisters named Faith and Spirit.”
Straight smiled pleasantly. “Indeed! I was certain we would get along.”
The waitress arrived again. She glanced at Straight and almost dropped her tray of ale.
“At ease, wench!” Roulette snapped.
The waitress recovered herself and set down three new mugs. Straight paid her generously and with flair, as if long accustomed to this. Then he refocused on me. “I’m sure you have questions, Hope. Perhaps I can be of service.”
Questions! An understatement. But still I kept it quiet. “As a matter of fact I do,” I agreed. “I am concerned that the natives here seem hostile or fearful of the Navy, when it should be otherwise. But they won’t say why.”
“Elementary, Hope! The Navy is here only for a moment; the pirates are eternal. When the Navy departs, the pirates will return—and take reprisals against any colonists who collaborated with the enemy.”
I knocked my forehead with the heel of my hand. “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Because you are not a pirate, Captain.”
I nodded. “And you are.” Yes, we knew each other’s identities.
“Piracy has a long tradition in the Belt, Hope,” he said blandly. “The Carolines are famous for their coconut-toddy orgies—another tradition. There are other points of interest, such as the huge stone coins, or the ruins left by a mysterious alien civilization. Tradition is important, where law is not.”
“Oh?” I asked, interested. “Nonhuman artifacts?” In the tavern, music was starting, and some couples were dancing.
“My daughter is fascinated by those ruins,” he said. “Tell him about them, Rue.”
“I’d as soon kiss a snake,” Roulette said.
I looked at her more carefully. She was stunningly beautiful, like a female jaguar, with red hair and deep gray eyes and fine lines, and righteous anger fairly radiated from her as she glared at me. She was not pretending; she hated me, and her father knew it.
“You don’t like him?” Straight inquired mildly of his daughter. “How can that be, when you don’t even know him?” My question exactly.
She made a facial gesture as of spitting. “I know what he is!”
“I doubt it,” Straight said. “Ask him to dance with you.”
“That isn’t necessary,” I said quickly.
“Ah, but it is,” Straight said. “It is never wise to judge a person without proper knowledge of him. My daughter obeys me until another man breaks her will.” He looked at Roulette, and his face hardened abruptly.
Roulette flushed. She jumped up, her chair crashing to the floor behind her, her r
ight hand flashing into her blouse and emerging with a small stunner. Then she froze, for Brinker’s stunner was pointed at Roulette’s left eye. None of the rest of us had moved.
Roulette’s flush receded. Slowly she put away her weapon; it seemed she had a holster under her left armpit. “Would you care to dance, stranger?” she asked me.
Now I was thoroughly intrigued. “Certainly, Roulette,” I agreed, standing. I knew that Brinker would cover my rear, as it were; I have never seen a faster draw or more accurate aim than hers.
Roulette turned abruptly and walked with me to the dance area. She was graceful indeed, in motion. Behind, I heard Straight say: “You did not learn that move in the Navy, Isobel.”
“Perhaps not,” Brinker agreed wryly.
We reached the dance floor, and Roulette turned to enter my arms. Her figure was like that of the proverbial hourglass, with a remarkably generous bosom and a waist so tiny I wondered whether she constricted it with a corset. But when I put my hand on it, her flesh was soft, not rigid, and her waist was supple. Her shape was genuine.
The so-called ballroom dancing was one of the arts I had mastered in Basic Training; the Navy did not leave such things to chance. I was familiar with the moves, and my talent enabled me to pick up her variations, but I hardly needed to, for she was skilled and light on her feet. I had danced with many women but none like this. She was caviar.
“Why do you hate me?” I asked into her fragrant hair.
“Because you come to destroy my father,” she answered, her body tensing.
“Why, then, does he seek me out?”
“He is a clever man. He always understands his enemies.”
More interesting yet. “Why does he throw us together?”
“That is too horrible to contemplate!” Again she tensed; she meant it.
“What horror is this?”
Her dance step did not falter, but she turned her lovely face to gaze into my eyes with such muted yet intense rage that I was daunted. Truly she hated me! “Your very touch appalls me,” she murmured.
“I have no designs on you,” I said. “We do not mix with the natives in that manner.”
“I have killed two men who tried to, as you so quaintly put it, mix.”
What continued to bother me was that she was serious. She spoke of murder as if it were merited, and she felt justified. “They tried to force it?” I asked.
“One thought I was bluffing; I gutted him with my knife. The other thought I was unconscious; I severed his spinal column at the neck.”
“I saw my older sister raped,” I said. “When she was as old as you are now. She was beautiful, as you are—not as pronounced of figure, but of a lovely face and an innocent mind. If I had had a knife, I would have done as you did. But the pirates had disarmed me and tied me. As it was, I swore to extirpate piracy from the system.”
Her reaction surprised me. “Where was her own knife?”
“She didn’t carry one. She regarded weapons as unfeminine. They held her down and did it.”
She stiffened again. Her whole body reflected the swift passions of her mind. “Several? Who?”
“Pirates of the Juclip. Their leader was known as the Horse.”
“Where is he now?”
“Dead, I believe. My younger sister blinded and castrated him, and probably his own men killed him. We set them adrift in space.”
“I like your little sister.” Then she shifted moods again, mercurially. Her left hand came up and clubbed me on the side of the head. Reading her blow, I shifted away from it, so the impact was less than it seemed.
“Damn you!” she cried as she struck. Then she tore away and strode back to the table.
There was a smattering of applause from the adjacent tables. “I saw you didn’t goose her,” a man said. “So it must’ve been what you whispered in her ear. What’s your secret?”
“I have a certain way with words,” I said wryly, and walked to the table. Roulette was strange indeed! She had killed men who had assaulted her, and approved my sister’s mode of vengeance against a rapist. She had just begun to soften toward me, then reacted savagely, as angry at herself as at me.
Ah, there was the key! She didn’t want to like me, or anything relating to me. She wanted to maintain her original hatred, and I had made that difficult. Her father was a pirate, and she hated all who opposed him. Yet her father evinced none of this emotion himself; to him, it was more like playing a game of skill with a respected opponent.
Ironically, I now understood Roulette’s attitude well enough. I felt the same way about pirates. My situation, and my advisers, were requiring me to modify my rage against the breed, and I didn’t like that. A prejudice is always most comfortable when undisturbed.
“I regret I upset your daughter,” I said as I resumed my seat.
Straight smiled. “Few men stir Rue’s emotion as you have.”
“And the others are dead,” I agreed.
“They were not worthy of her.”
“So it seems.” I changed the subject. “May we exchange introductions now?”
“By all means. I am the leader of the Solomons.”
The pirate band we planned to tackle next. “And I am the Commander of the Jupiter Naval Task Force, whose mission it is to eliminate the piracy of the Belt.”
“Not merely the incursion of the Marianas?”
“As you point out, a temporary presence at one location does not eliminate the threat to it. To protect Jupiter’s long-term interests I must destroy all piracy here.”
“So it seems we must do battle,” Straight said. “I really prefer to conduct my business in peace.”
“It is an illegal business.”
“True. But that is because interplanetary law is not always responsive to the needs of the people. My organization serves such a need, and serves it well. We are, in fact, a legitimate business in every respect except for the technicality of an outdated law. Many of our clients are important figures in their governments, and few have cause to complain.”
“Unfortunately, another band overstepped the bounds of interplanetary propriety,” I pointed out. “It is foolish to spit in the face of the Colossus.”
“Agreed. But that is the Marianas band, noted for arrogance and indiscretion. That band and its kindred perhaps require disciplining. But why move against others who have not overstepped and are not likely to do so?”
He was making uncomfortable sense. “Jupiter does not distinguish between pirates. Too often before, Jupiter has dealt with specific annoyances when, in fact, they were but symptoms of a larger malady. This time we propose to deal with the malady, though it may require the excision of some healthy flesh as well as the diseased.”
“I perceive the logic.” He shrugged regretfully. “Can you be sure that you are not placing your mission in peril by tackling more than you may need to? I do not seek this battle.”
“You are too competent to leave at my rear,” I said.
“Shall we then establish reasonable terms of encounter? There is no sense harming more people or wasting more hardware than necessary.”
“I agree. How about a region of space outside the inhabited Belt, off the Solar Ecliptic, so that no settlements are affected?”
“Excellent. Two fleets in space, alone. Shall we say in forty-eight hours?”
“Agreed.”
Straight glanced at his silent wife. I saw now that though she was more heavyset than her daughter, she had similar bones. She would have been a phenomenal figure, in her prime, but twenty years of comfortable living had fleshed her out too much. That offered an insight into Straight’s family life. “Shall we go home, my dear? Our business here seems to have been concluded.”
They departed. “That man is dangerous,” Brinker said. “So is his daughter. We’d better get back to the ship ourselves.”
We did so. As we traveled, Brinker briefed me on another aspect of pirate diplomacy. “Straight is trying to vamp you with his daughter.”
“I noticed. And she is having none of it.”
“Not necessarily. You have to appreciate the pirate mode of courtship.”
“Courtship? That girl hates men!”
“No. She is strongly attracted to you. She hates herself for it, because she perceives love as a weakness, a submission. Pirate men don’t love, they rape; pirate women don’t seduce, they fight. Sex is a battlefield.”