Rules of Engagement

  Once she was through the airlock, she saw the Boros Consortium logo on the bulkhead . . . so she must be on the Elias Madero. The men hustled her down the passage-wide enough for a small robot loader-past hatches with symbols and labels she felt she should recognize. Past a galley with its programmable food processor humming, past a gymnasium . . . to the bridge, which ­reminded her instantly of the bridge where she’d stood when she’d broken the second mate’s nose . . .

  But the man who stood in the center of the bridge was no merchant captain.

  He had to be the commander. He wore the same uniform as the others, but the star-in-circle insignia on his collar was larger, and gold instead of silver. She met his gaze with all the defiance she could muster. He looked past her to her escort.

  “Got the papers?” He had the same accent as the others.

  “Yep.” One of the other men came forward with her ID packet. “She’s the one, all right. We checked the retinal scans and everything.”

  “You done good, boys.” The commander glanced at her papers, then at her. “Not a single shred of decency, but what can you expect of that sort?” The other men chuckled. Brun struggled to spit out the gag; she knew exactly what she wanted to say to this . . . this person. The commander came closer. “You’re that so-called Speaker’s daughter. You’re used to having your own way, just like your daddy. Well, all things come to an end.” He waited a moment, then went on. “You probably think your daddy will get you out of this, like he’s gotten you out of all your other scrapes. You may think he’s going to send that Regular Space Service”-he made a mockery of Fleet with that tone-“to rescue you. But it ain’t gonna happen that way. We don’t want your daddy’s money. We aren’t scared of your daddy’s power. They won’t find you. No one’s gonna find you. You’re ours, now.”

  He grinned past her, and the other men chuckled.

  “Your daddy and that Council of Families, they think they got a right to make the laws for everbody, but they don’t. They think they got a right to set fees and taxes on everbody comes through their so-called territory, but they don’t. Free men don’t have to pay any mind to what perverts and women say. That’s not the way God made the universe. We’re free men, we are, and our laws come from the word of God as set forth by the prophets.”

  Brun wanted to scream at him: They will destroy you, but she could not make a sound. She thought it at him anyway: You can’t do this; you won’t get away with it; they will come after me and blow you to bits.

  He reached out to her face, and when she turned away he grabbed her ears with both hands and forced her to face him. “Now your daddy may try-or maybe, because he’ll know we’ve got you, he’ll have the good sense to let us alone if he doesn’t want to see his little girl in pieces. But he’s not gonna get you back. No one is. Your life just changed forever. You’re gonna obey, like the pro­phets said women should, and the sooner you start the easier it will be on you.”

  Never. She threw that at him with her eyes, with every fiber of her body. Maybe she couldn’t do anything now, but now was not forever. She would get free, because she always did come out on top. She was lucky; she had abilities they didn’t know about.

  But the fear edged closer. Someday, Sam had said, Esmay had said, your luck will run out. Someday you’ll be helpless. Someday you’ll be stuck. And what will you do then?

  The words she had thrown at them sounded thin now, faced with these men. But she had meant them. She would not give up; she would not give in. She was Charlotte Brunhilde . . . named for queens and warriors.

  He moved his hands down the sides of her head to her neck. “You don’t believe me yet. That’s fine . . . doesn’t matter.” He slid his hands out her shoulders, then curled his fingers into the neck of her jumpsuit. Brun would have curled her lip if she could. Here it came, the predictable move of a storycube male captor. He was going to rip her clothes off. He would be surprised when he tried; she hadn’t spent all that money for custom-tailored protective shipsuits for nothing. But he didn’t try to rip the suit, just ran his fingers inside the neck, feeling the cloth. “We’ll need the slicer, boys.” Well, hackneyed, but smarter than dirt, maybe.

  The knife the other man handed him was large enough to gut an elephant, Brun thought. He wanted her to be impressed with it-some men always thought bigger was better-but she had seen knives that big before.

  “Now the first thing,” the man said, sliding the tip of the long blade into the neck of her suit. “Women don’t wear men’s clothes.” Men’s clothes! How could anyone mistake a custom outfit designed for her body as a man’s outfit? With those darts, it wouldn’t have fitted any male she’d ever seen. But the man was still talking.

  “Women who wear men’s clothes are usurping men’s authority. We don’t put up with that.” He made a single rapid slice downward, and the shipsuit opened from neck to crotch. He could just as well have pulled the tab, but he had to make a dramatic thing out of it, ruining an expensive shipsuit.

  “Women are not allowed to wear trousers,” he said. Brun blinked. What did pants have to do with it? Everyone wore pants if they were doing the kind of work in which pants were more comfortable. But this was probably just an excuse to cut her clothes off. He inserted the tip of the knife into the lower end of the opening, and sliced open the leg of the shipsuit . . . then the other leg. Brun stared ahead. They would want her to react; she wouldn’t react. “Women are not allowed to wear men’s shoes.” At a nod from the commander, two men grabbed her legs and pulled off her boots. Stupid, stupid, ­stupid. Custom-made boots, her boots, and she was a woman, and therefore those were women’s boots, not men’s boots. Then they dropped her legs; her bare feet thudded on the cold deck.

  Next the commander gestured and someone behind her pulled the ripped sides of her shipsuit behind her. This she’d expected. Her chin lifted. Take a good look. You’ll pay for every leer. But the commander’s frown was not a leer. He was staring at her abdomen, at the Registered Embryo logo with its imprinted genetic data.

  “Abomination . . .” breathed one of the other men. “A ­con­struct-” He pulled out his own big knife, but the commander’s gesture stopped him, just as Brun was sure she would be gutted right there.

  “It’s true that none of the Faithful can tamper with God’s plan for their children, but this woman is the result of tampering. What was done to her was not her responsibility.” Brun relaxed muscles she didn’t realize she’d tensed. The man leaned over, peering at the mark, then rubbed his finger over it. Brun thought of kneeing him in the face, but there were still too many of them . . . she would have to wait.

  “I don’t like it,” one of the others said. “What perversions have they bred into her . . .”

  “None that will survive our training,” the com­mander said. “And she is strong, well-grown. By all reports, she carries genes for intelligence and good health. It would be a waste not to make use of them.”

  “But-”

  “She will be no threat to us.” He looked Brun full in the face. “You-you are thinking still that you will be rescued, that you can go back to your abominations and perversions. You do not yet believe that your old life is over. But you will soon. You have already spoken the last words you will ever speak.”

  What did that mean? Were they going to kill her after all? Brun stared back, defiant.

  “You will be used as you deserve . . . and as a mute breeder, you will be no threat, no matter what.”

  Brun felt a shock as her mind caught up with that. Mute? What was he . . . were they going to cut out her tongue? Only barbarians did things like that . . .

  He laughed then, at a change in expression she did not know she’d made. “I see you understand-that much, at least. You’re not used to that-not being able to plead and beg and wheedle your way around your weakling father. Or the other men you’ve whored with. But that’s over. The voice of the heathen will be heard no more; yea, the tongues of those who know not God will be silenced. And, as
the holy words also say, Women shall keep silence before men, in respect and submission. You were born in sin and abomination, but you will live in the service of God Almighty. When it is time, when we choose, you will sleep, and when you awake, you’ll have no voice.”

  Her body jerked, in spite of herself . . . she struggled, as she had not struggled before, knowing it was useless. The men laughed, loud confident laughter. Brun fought herself to ­stillness, hating the tears that stung her eyes, that ran down her face.

  “We’ll put you away now, to think about that. I want you to know ahead of time, to understand . . . for this is part of the training you will receive, to learn that you have no power, and no man will listen to you. You are silenced, slut, as women should be ­silent.”

  It could not be happening. Not to her, not to the daughter of the Speaker of the Grand Council. Not to a young woman who could rappel down cliffs, who had earned badges in marks­manship, who could ride to hounds, who had never done anything she didn’t want to do, with anyone she wanted to do it with. Things like this happened, if they happened, in dull history books, in times long past, or places far away. Not to her. All this, she knew to her shame, was in her eyes, was in the tears, in the shaking of her body, and the men laughed to see it.

  “Take her back-be sure you’ve cuffed her. Start an IV, too. Just saline, for now.”

  For now. For however long. She believed, suddenly. It was real, it was happening . . . no, it couldn’t be! The men holding her moved her firmly along, her bare feet stumbling on all the rough places where her boots had protected her. She was cold, frozen with a fear she had never understood when she saw the storycubes or read the old books in her father’s library.

  In the compartment, four of them laid her on the bunk, ignoring her struggles, and cuffed her hands to the sides, her feet together. She tried to plead with her eyes: loosen the gag, just for a minute, please, please. They chuckled, confident and amused. Another one came, with a little kit, and turned her arm . . . inserting the IV needle deftly. She stared up at the bag of saline hanging from a hook overhead.

  “When we’re ready,” one of them said, “we’ll put you to sleep.” He grinned. “Welcome to the real world.”

  She hated them; she writhed with fury. But it was too late for that.

  She would go to sleep . . . it would be a dream, when she woke. A bad dream, a scary dream, and she would go tell Esmay about it and apologize for having laughed at Esmay. She would . . .

  She woke to a sense of pain, and fought her way to conscious­ness. No gag in her mouth; she could breathe through it. Had they-? But she could feel her tongue, too large it seemed, scrubbing around in her mouth. So they hadn’t. At least not yet. She swallowed. Her throat felt raw and scratchy. She looked around, cautiously. No one . . . she was still cuffed to the bunk, with the IV running in her arm, but no one was there. She took a breath of pure relief . . . ahhh.

  And froze in horror. No sound. She tried again. And again. No sound but the rush of air in her throat, which hurt a lot now. She tried to whisper, at least, and realized that she could shape words, she could make hisses and clicks (though moving her tongue made the pain in her throat worse) but she could get no real volume out, hardly enough sound to carry across a small room.

  Almost at once, the door slid aside, and the one who had inserted the IV came in.

  “You need to drink,” the man said. He held a straw to her mouth. “Swallow this.”

  It was cold, minty. She could swallow . . . but she could not say anything. Her throat hurt as the liquid went down, then eased.

  “You’ve realized what we’ve done,” he said. “Cut your vocal cords, some muscles. Left your tongue-you can eat normally, and swallow, and all the rest of it. But no speech. And no, it won’t grow back. Not the way we do it.”

  It had to be a dream, but she had never felt a dream this real. The cold air on her skin, the ache from being bound in one position too long, the pain in her throat, and . . . and the silence when she tried to speak. She tried to whisper, to mouth words, but at that he put a hand on her mouth.

  “Stop that. You don’t talk to men, ever. Make faces at us, and you’ll be punished.”

  It wasn’t making faces, it was communication. How could he not know that?

  “Nothing you have to say is important to us. Later, if you’re obedient, you can lipspeak to other women, in the women’s quarters. But not now, and never to men. Now-I’m going to examine you. Do as I say.”

  His examination was clinical and complete, but not brutal; he handled her body with the same smooth competence she had received from doctors in her father’s clinics. He spoke the results aloud, for a recorder. Brun learned that she was now catalogued as Captive Female 4, slut, gene-altered, fertile. Her instant satisfaction at the error in that disappeared when he held up her fertility implant, and she realized they had removed it. Through the haze of drugs, she now felt the pain in her left leg, from the incision. She was fertile, then-or soon could be, if they also knew about fertility drugs. She thought they probably would.

  When he was through, the man called others; they carried her from that compartment to another, some­what larger, but empty of anything she could use as a weapon against them or herself. She was still cuffed, this time one arm to the corner of the bunk. Beside her the men left a soft tube of nutrient gel and a carisack of water. She had just dozed off when the commander appeared with the man who had waked her.

  “How long?”

  “Well, she’ll be strong enough in another two or three days, but she won’t ovulate for another twelve to fourteen. I gave her the shots, but it takes that long to cycle.”

  “We’ll move her in with Girlie and the babies when she’s strong enough. She can start sewing, though I doubt she knows any more about it than Girlie did.” He stepped up to the bunk. “Now you know we spoke truth; living among liars as you did, you might have doubted us. Now your next lesson. You aren’t who you were. No one will ever call you by that heathen name you used. Where you’re going, no one will even know it. Right now you have no name at all. You’re a slut, because you aren’t a virgin or a wife. Sluts are any man’s pleasure. When you’ve borne your third child, if anyone wants you and if you’ve been obe­dient, you’ll be available for junior wife.”

  He left, taking the other man with him, before she even thought to curse him in whispers. Brun wanted to cry, but tears would not come. Instead, despair settled over her like a dark blanket, tucking itself around her mind until she could see nothing else. She struggled against it briefly, but it held her as firmly as the cuff on her arm, and she was so tired.

  She slept again, and woke. Her throat hurt; she sucked at the nutrient tube, and the chill gel eased it again. The move to the other compartment had to be better, Brun thought. If she lay there alone she would go crazy. Another human-even women belong­ing to these men-had to be better.

  * * *

  Hazel looked up from the littles only as far as the men’s waists . . . she saw the woman’s bare legs and almost forgot to keep her gaze down. They had told her about this woman, and Hazel’s heart had ached for her . . . but it frightened her, because they had shown Hazel pictures of what they’d done to her, and threatened to do the same to Hazel and the littles if Hazel disobeyed. Now they pushed the woman down onto the pallet along the wall. Hazel pulled the littles back into the corner. The woman was pale, almost as white as milk, and dark bruises stood out on her skin. She had a rough red scar on her leg, and her face . . . Hazel didn’t want to look at her face, but the burning blue eyes seemed to reach for hers and demand a response.

  “Girlie, you take care of her. Feed her. Make sure she eats and drinks and goes to toilet. Keep her clean. But don’t talk to her. Understand?”

  Hazel bobbed her head. They’d told her and told her-if she talked to the woman they were bringing in, they’d do the same to her. And to both the littles. She couldn’t let that happen.

  “You teach her to sew, if she doesn’t
know how. Make her a decent dress. We’ll bring more cloth.”

  Hazel bobbed her head again. The men left, leaving the strange woman alone. Hazel hitched herself across the deck, being careful not to uncover her legs, and retrieved the food sack. She held out a tube of paste concentrate. The woman put her hand in front of her mouth and turned away. Hazel went back to the littles, who were staring at the woman with wide eyes.

  “Who she?” asked Brandy, barely breathing the words.

  “Shhh,” Hazel said.

  “No clothes,” breathed Stassi.

  “Shh.” She handed the littles their dolls, and started them on the dancing game she’d devised.

  * * *

  Every word Brun had said to Esmay seemed etched on her skin in acid. Simply a matter of practice, she’d said. Just think of pistons and cylinders, she’d said. Easy . . .

  In the silence, in her mind, she apologized again and again, screaming the words she could not say. How could she have been so wrong? So stupid? So arrogant? How could she have thought the universe was set up for her convenience?

  Her body ached, raw and sore from waking to sleeping again. They had all used her, over and over, for days . . . how many days she didn’t know. Through one cycle, at least, for she had bled heavily. They didn’t touch her then, and would not even enter the compartment. Not until she was “clean” again . . . and then it started all over.

  When her breasts swelled up, sore to the touch, she winced away from one of them. He stopped. “Slut . . .” he said warningly. Then he prodded her breasts, and moved away. She lay slack, uncaring. If it wasn’t hurting right now, that was enough. Another one came . . . the one, she now recog­nized, who was some kind of medic. He felt her breasts, took her temperature, and sampled her blood. A few minutes later, he grinned.

  “You’re breeding. Good.”