Refugee

  My mother was one of the first to understand. “My child is among those drugged. How may I purchase her reprieve?”

  “You have money?” the officer inquired. “Gold? Gems?”

  “None,” my mother replied.

  “Then you must earn it.” The officer glanced meaningfully at his men.

  After a pause, a burly older crewman stepped forward and gazed at her. For a moment I saw her through his eyes: a woman in her forties, no young thing but still a fairly handsome figure of her sex. The kind a middle-aged man would find comfortable. I began, inwardly, to curse the condition of masculinity, then felt Helse move slightly beside me and remembered her lesson. The evil was not the use, but the abuse. “I’ll give you my little vial of fluid, woman,” the crewman said. He held a small bottle, but his entendre was obvious. These were more sophisticated rapists; they compelled the women’s cooperation without overt violence. But for all its nonviolence, it remained rape. My muscles clenched.

  “Don’t do it!” Señora Ortega cried to my mother. “They’re bluffing.”

  The officer shrugged, glancing at the collapsed children. “We are not killers, certainly; that decision is yours. We can only remain with you for an hour—after which time it will hardly matter. Any woman who prefers to take a chance with her child is free to do so. As I said, we do not wish to coerce anyone.”

  The hypocrite! I started to move, but Helse put her hand on my shoulder and though her touch was light, it held me back. Helse had known better than I about the candy; her judgment probably remained better. I sank back, my teeth clenched.

  My mother looked at Spirit, who was now unconscious. She wavered, afraid to gamble with her child’s life. Probably the men were bluffing and had only put knockout medicine in the candy. They seemed more like unscrupulous opportunists than hardened killers. Surely men who spent much time in space did get hungry for women, though why they didn’t bring women along with them in their ship was a mystery. But they were also pirates, and we knew how careless of life pirates could be. If they were not bluffing—I felt the same stress my mother did. That was Spirit, my little sister! If I let her die when any action of mine could save her, how could I even endure myself?

  I tried to use my talent to determine the intentions of the men, but I simply had not interacted with them enough to judge. I could not tell to what extent they were bluffing.

  “I will buy her life,” my mother decided.

  The crewman smiled. I started climbing down into the Commons, going through the hole in the netting and using one of the guy ropes that held the netting in place so that I would not sail down sidewise and attract unwanted attention.

  “No!” Helse hissed. “Don’t do it, Hope! You can do nothing except make it worse!”

  I paused, knowing she was right. Yet how could I remain idle while my mother prostituted herself to save my little sister?

  While I debated this, hanging on to the guy rope, my other sister, Faith, approached me. She had put on makeup and arranged her luxuriant hair, and looked like a goddess. She wore a rather tight skirt and blouse. The half rations seemed not to have diminished her at all; probably she accepted them as just another diet. “I can’t let this happen,” she said.

  A new horror gripped me. “Faith, stay out of it!”

  She met my gaze. “You understand, Hope.”

  The terrible thing was that I did understand. Faith felt she had nothing to lose; now she could redeem her lost honor in some measure by saving her mother and sister from this awful dilemma.

  “You promised, Hope,” she reminded me.

  I could not say her nay, though I hated every aspect of this. Slowly, unwillingly, I nodded.

  Faith made a tiny quirk of a smile. I had, in my fashion, given permission, and this was a thing she required. I had implicated myself in the decision, and would have to defend it. I was sending her in to be raped—again.

  Faith took a breath and walked up to the men. She was slender and full and lovely and young, standing out like a beacon amidst gloom, and in a moment all their eyes were locked on her. It was obvious that none of these men would choose any older woman if he had a chance at this young one. I could appreciate the feeling myself, shamed as I was by the thought; I would choose a girl like Faith instead of a woman like my mother. God! What abominations infested my thoughts!

  “How many children can I buy?” Faith asked them softly.

  “Faith!” my mother exclaimed, shocked.

  “Better me than you, Mother,” Faith replied. “I am already lost; you must care for the family.” And Charity Hubris could not deny her, any more than I could. Faith turned back to the men, breathing deeply—and when she did that, she was spectacular. “How many?”

  “All of them,” the officer said, impressed. “Given time.” His gaze flicked to a lieutenant beside him. “See to the valuables.”

  “No,” Faith said. “You shall not rob us also.”

  “No?” The officer seemed amused.

  “Take me—on your ship. Nothing else.”

  “Faith!” my mother repeated.

  The officer glanced again at the other men, whose mouths were virtually drooling. Yet again I could appreciate their thoughts, though I resented my very ability to do so. To have a creature like this with them all the time, no one-hour stand—

  “You drive an interesting bargain, young woman.”

  Faith half turned, and her body accented itself. Somewhere along the way she had learned a lot about sex appeal. “What pittance does anyone here have, compared to what I offer?”

  My mother put her hands to her face, but did not speak again. She knew what the rest of us knew: it did make sense.

  Once more the men considered. “It’s the same deal I made as a child,” Helse murmured in my ear. I had not seen her climb down to join me, since I had been distracted by the uncomfortable drama of the Commons. “I think these really are merchantmen, pirating on the side. It’s not necessarily a bad life, if they like the girl. These aren’t really violent men; they just don’t think it is wrong to coerce a woman into sex.”

  “But she’s not doing it because she wants to!” I protested somewhat irrelevantly.

  “Yes and no. Few decisions in life are completely voluntary. She’s doing it for her family. She is making a sacrifice for your benefit—and for every other person in the bubble.”

  I had to file this away for later digestion.

  “Take this young woman aboard the ship,” the officer said. “Give her decent accommodation.” He reached inside his jacket and brought out a packet of vials, passing it to my mother, who stood in seeming shock.

  The men left the bubble and Faith went with them. I feared I would never see her again.

  The ship disengaged and jetted toward Jupiter. Faith had bought our reprieve with her body. I could only hope it was a fair deal.

  My mother’s eyes were glazing with the reaction, but she took a vial and opened it and tilted its liquid into Spirit’s mouth, carefully, so the child would not choke. Other women did the same with their children.

  I shook myself and went to the group. Several vials were left over. I opened one and put a drop on my tongue.

  The fluid was completely colorless and tasteless. It could have been pure water.

  I thought about that, then left without speaking. If it was only water, it meant one of two things. Either the children would die—or the drug in the candy was not truly toxic. Either way, the merchant-pirates had deceived us. But what else had I expected?

  Helse rejoined me. “What is it, Hope?”

  “Water,” I said in disgust.

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “You suspected? Why didn’t you say something before?”

  “All men are pirates at heart.” She caught herself. “I mean figuratively. Some are violent, like the outright pirates. Some are disciplined and honorable, like your father. Most are in between, as I told you before. They take what they can get, but they prefer not to have
too much of a fuss. They don’t mind lying to get their way. If they can get a woman to submit without violence, without any real danger of hurting the children, such men consider this to be smart management. That’s just the way they see it.”

  “But then Faith sacrificed herself for nothing!”

  Helse caught my hands in hers. “No, Hope. She did it to protect her mother and sister from risk or shame. She refused to gamble with their lives.”

  I knew this, yet felt constrained to argue. “But if—”

  “If we had called that bluff, those men could have turned savage and raped the women violently. They were armed; they could have killed anyone who tried to stop them. The danger was not just in the candy; it was in the men. Honorable men would never have used coercion. Faith understood that. So she offered them something better. Because she was beautiful and willing to deal, they accepted. They weren’t all-the-way bad, they just wanted sex. She made it easy for them to be generous.”

  “They’re still pirates!” I hissed.

  “They’re fallible men. There’s a difference.”

  “But my sister condemned to horror—”

  “Your sister is so lovely, I think some ranking officer will soon claim her for his own. I have told her some of the arts of pleasing men. In time—”

  I turned on her ferociously. “You told her!”

  Helse stepped back. “Hope, she asked me. She wanted to know. I think she suspected something like this could happen, and she felt guilty for hiding when your father was killed. She had to redeem herself. She had to make the sacrifice the others were making.”

  I clenched my fists, not answering.

  “In time she may command an officer’s love and be well treated,” Helse continued. “Her future may be more secure than ours is.”

  “By practicing the arts of prostitution!” I gritted. “As you practiced them on me!”

  I was sorry the moment I said it, but Helse only smiled. She had learned to accommodate my moods. She must have done the same as a child, with Uncle. “We do what we must to survive, Hope. Women don’t have the brute power of men. Compromise is forced on us all our lives. I practiced my skills on you to help you, not because you forced me. Do not be angry with me, my lover.”

  I was angry, but mostly with myself. “If you taught my sister well enough, she will have the captain of that merchant ship in thrall.”

  “I hope so.” She drew on my arm, turning me to face her as we stood above our cell. “Please understand, Hope. Faith was publicly raped. She believed she had been rendered forever unclean, worthless for marriage. This was a psychological thing, not a logical one; it was part of her self-image.”

  I remembered how Faith had asked me whether she was still my sister. Yes, I understood about self-image; I had been going through a similar mill myself. Logic alone is not enough to change such deep perceptions.

  “All that was left to her was to do some good thing for her family,” Helse continued. “She really cared for the rest of you, though she thought herself unworthy. She found the thing she could do, and she did it—and that key sacrifice may ironically bring her as much good as what she did for the rest of us. She would never have married a man she considered to be good, for fear she was unworthy of him. But a bad man is all right—and if he turns out later to be a good man, she will be able to accept that too. Because she did make her act of expiation. It was her dishonor she was sacrificing, for the best possible cause.”

  I was not sure I followed her logic or agreed with it, but I hoped she was right. How much better it would be for Faith to be happy than miserable, by whatever rationalization. But still I hated the way it had worked out. Helse was educating me in the real ways of men and women, and it was not an education I liked. Yet I knew, deep down, that I did have to come to terms with the realities of the human condition.

  Worse was to come. Hardly six hours passed before we were raided again. We saw the ship bearing down on us, and it was no merchant vessel. This time we hid all the children in the cells with orders to remain there until the pirates had gone, no matter what. Helse and I were included, but we were sent back to the doughnut hole with the remaining food packs. Perhaps the women did not realize how well we could see what was going on from that vantage. Spirit, still groggy, went with us, as it didn’t seem wise to confine her alone.

  The pirates burst in with drawn daggers, and it was obvious from the outset that resistance would be futile. Evidently news had spread that this was a helpless bubble, and they were flocking in to take advantage of it. That, too, caused me to seethe with suppressed outrage. Why couldn’t they have flocked in to help, or at least signaled the Jupe authorities where we were so they could fetch us? I was ashamed for my species—the male species.

  The women fell back, cowed by the blades. They had no equivalent weapons, and there were too many men to overwhelm by force of numbers.

  “It’s submit—or die,” Helse murmured. “And if the women die, the children are alone, and maybe dead too. They know that.”

  “That’s my mother down there! My sister just sacrificed herself to prevent—”

  “Yes. It is ironic. Don’t blame your mother for what she does.”

  A week before, I never would have understood. Now I did. Whether I would have without Faith’s recent sacrifice or Helse’s present help I don’t know. But now I understood that the women had to do what they had to do, to stay alive and protect their families.

  I understood, but my revulsion overcame me as I saw a hairy, dirty, pirate strip the clothing from my unresisting mother. I launched myself toward them, determined to kill the foul rapist.

  Helse caught me around the shoulders, her inertia shoving me into the containing net. I tried to fight her off, but she clung with a strength in that moment equal to my own, and even in my desperation I could not bring myself to apply real force on her. Still, I managed to achieve a partial disengagement, and soon would get away from her.

  “Spirit!” she whispered. “Help me hold him!”

  My sister snapped out of her remaining stupor, throwing off the lingering effect of the drug. She bounced across and caught me about the legs. In this trace gravity I could move her about by flexing my body, but I could not dislodge her. “But our mother’s getting raped!” I hissed. None of us dared talk loudly, for fear we would only bring the knives of the pirates to bear against ourselves.

  “I know it,” Spirit said, and did not yield.

  I continued to struggle, and Helse was tiring. She was as big as I, and weighed as much, but the distribution differed. I had more muscle and better leverage, because I was male, and now my advantage was telling.

  But Helse managed to get hold of my head. Her shirt had torn open, and her chest-band had slid askew in the struggle. Now she hugged my head to her half-bared breast. “If you go, I will follow!”

  There is something uniquely compelling about the breast of a woman. My will to fight was sapped. I lay with my face half against the net, half against her breast, and did not move.

  But in that position I could see a woman below. Probably she was not my mother; I could not tell, for most of her naked body was obscured by that of the pirate on her. Even if her whole body had been clear except for her face, I might not have been sure, for I had never seen my mother naked. Only by the face could I recognize her, and that I could not see. Yet if she was not my mother, she was someone else’s mother, and she was getting raped. It did not matter that she was not resisting, for to resist was to die.

  I struggled again, determined to do something to stop it. But Spirit took a tighter hold on my legs, and Helse nearly smothered my face. In retrospect, I think that might be the nicest possible way to die, smothered by a breast, but at the time I was almost tempted to free myself by biting her. Thank God I did not.

  “Let it be,” Helse whispered. “Let it be, Hope. Those women are trying to save our lives.”

  “At the expense of their honor!”

  “Their honor is n
ot of the body. It is of the spirit.”

  That coincidental use of the word that was also my sister’s name had a strange effect on me. Suddenly I knew that if there was one person I had to protect more than my mother, it was my sister.

  Helse took my silence for negation. “Please, Hope. Give over. It must be!”

  It was a woman getting raped, and here were two girls urging me to let it proceed. They should have protested more vehemently than I did, but they were more realistic than I was. A man fights, a woman compromises: It was true in this microcosm as in the macrocosm.

  The pirate thrust, and the woman’s body jumped. I tried again to launch myself.

  Helse clung to me with her divine death-hug. “I’ll tell you I love you!” she breathed pleadingly.

  She didn’t love me; I knew that. She was older than I, and more mature in more than the physical sense; I was beneath her. But she cared enough to pretend she loved me, in order to protect me from myself. That small share of love seemed inordinately precious. Why should I struggle, here, as if indulging in my own rape, when I could please her by relenting?

  I relaxed and turned my face in to her. Helse squirmed about, sliding her breast down, and met me with a kiss. It was savagely sweet. I wanted to believe that she loved me, at least a little, for I surely loved her.

  But at the same time I knew that I was forcing Helse to do something untrue, to sell a profession of love as another woman would sell her body. That wasn’t right. And this acquiescence of ours was permitting my mother to get raped. Now my other thought, comparing our situation to that of my mother, returned more strongly. In an ugly transmogrification, my love for Helse seemed to identify with my mother’s horror. It was as though the flesh so tightly against me was my mother’s. As though I was participating in that rape. I knew it wasn’t literally so, but it was figuratively so, and the stigma was there, emotionally.

  I’m sure the time was not long, but it seemed an eternity. Then the pirates were gone, and the air lock was closed, and we children were free to return to the Commons.