The Sword of Sophia Read online

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Be patient with him.”

  “I will, Captain. Thank you.”

  Blackwell rose, dropped a fatherly hand on Hans’s shoulder.

  “Back to work, son.” He walked out of the room.

  * * *

  As he walked away from Camp Martin Vaughn, Erik was more heartsick than angry. His little brother appeared to be in excellent health, looked rugged and handsome, and could probably take his pick of Vegan women if he were so inclined. But he was wearing an enemy uniform, and seemed to think he was being patriotic by doing it.

  Sophia scorn!

  Was the kid blind? Didn’t he know what the Sirians were doing to Vega? Did he know nothing about the slave transports? The wholesale abuse of Vegan women?

  Of course he did. He had to know. Even Erik hadn’t known about the domestic thing, where Vegan housewives had to sleep with enemy soldiers—Hans himself had told him about that, and was proud that he’d spared Birgitt from such a fate. Well, Erik was also glad Birgitt had been spared, but at what cost? If he asked her, he was willing to bet that even Birgitt would agree it was too high.

  He hadn’t shown his displeasure to Hans, not wanting to get into a screaming match at their first meeting in five years. But, dammit, couldn’t the kid see he was being used?

  Apparently not. Hans felt he was being persecuted, by his parents, by his friends, by anyone who “didn’t understand”. Well what was to understand? That Vega had lost the war? That a quarter million Guardsmen had died to protect their homes? That the Sirians were lions among antelope?

  And Hans had become a lion.

  Erik wondered if Hans, like the other lions, was also preying on the antelope.

  He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.

  He had planned to return home after visiting Hans, but now he wavered. He wasn’t ready to answer Birgitt’s questions, wasn’t even sure how to answer them. Instead, he just walked. The air was cool, almost chilly, but the sky was clear and a fresh wind was sweeping down the river. As he walked, he scanned the skyline. Two miles in the distance he spotted the Queen’s Clock Tower, a magnificent, gleaming spire visible from any point in the city. Minutes later, he walked past the Temple of Sophia, one of the largest in Reina. He’d been baptized there as a child, but hadn’t been inside since the war started. He stopped and admired it from across the street, debated going inside, but decided against it. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Sophia at the moment.

  He walked on.

  The streets looked busier today, but there was far less traffic than he remembered from before the war.

  Every ten or fifteen blocks he had to pass through a military checkpoint. The Sirians were keeping a tight grip on civilian movement—he had to show his ID every time.

  As he walked past the university, he was amazed at the new construction in the neighborhood. The university was green and spacious, the architecture picturesque; it had once been surrounded by fountains and parks, almost isolated by open spaces, but now those open spaces were eclipsed by new structures. Civilian construction crews had one street blocked as they used cranes to lift building materials, and a sign near the intersection declared this the future home of the Market Annex…whatever that meant. Erik sighed and walked on. Reina was being transformed into a crowded city. In a few years it would bear little resemblance to the artistic style in which it was designed.

  It took him a half hour to reach the downtown area where the big money was concentrated. Skytowers gleamed in the sun and a little of his nostalgia returned. They hadn’t desecrated this part of the city yet, though they probably would. Here traffic was almost normal, the streets busy with vehicles, hundreds of pedestrians on the sidewalks. He passed through yet another checkpoint and strolled down Kongelig Alle, the main street of Reina’s financial district. Here the pedestrians wore expensive suits, the women looked like fashion models.

  Erik sucked in his breath at the sight of some of the women. He hadn’t been around very many women over the past five years, and the sight of so many gorgeous females in tight skirts set his heart racing. He was a Vegan man accustomed to stunning women, so if this affected him, he could only imagine how it inflamed Sirian lust. They swirled around him as he walked down the street—secretaries, clerks, and female executives moving in and out of office buildings, taxis, and private vehicles. Something was different about them, he thought, but couldn’t pin it down. Maybe it was his imagination, since he’d been away for so long, but there was something, not easily definable…

  And then he realized what it was. Two things, actually—most of them were wearing dresses a size too small, and…none of them were smiling.

  He turned a corner onto Fjerde Gate and almost ran into a Confederate soldier. He stopped short as he locked eyes with the redheaded Sirian, who didn’t look a day over seventeen. The youthful soldier wore a sidearm and carried a slung rifle; his freckled features were crinkled in a frown, as if he were making an effort to look tough.

  “Keerful, buddy,” he said.

  Erik lowered his eyes a fraction. “Sorry, didn’t see you.”

  “Okay.” The soldier inclined his head for Erik to pass, and Erik stepped around him. It was then he saw the second soldier.

  The other Sirian looked a few years older, close to Erik’s age. He was pressed against the corner of the building, holding a woman who was at least ten years his senior. The woman stood rigid, her back pressed tight against the wall, her face frozen with fear. The soldier’s face was buried in her neck and he was talking to her, but too quietly for Erik to hear. His intentions, however, were perfectly clear—one hand was gripping her shoulder and the other had closed over her left breast.

  Erik stopped cold and stared at the scene; he’d heard that soldiers raped women right on the street, but found it hard to picture—at the very least, he thought, they would take them somewhere private to do the deed. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  The woman was trembling as the young Sirian mauled her, sliding his hands over her body, alternately sucking at her throat and kissing her on the lips. Tears ran silently down her bloodless cheeks but she didn’t scream. Her only sounds of distress were the sobs she was unable to suppress. Erik felt his mouth turn dry and his muscles tense with anger. He found himself unable to move.

  “Hey, buddy!” The red-haired soldier, keeping an eye on the crowds streaming past, had noticed Erik was still there. “Move along. This ain’t no peep show.”

  Erik glared at him, but didn’t respond. The Sirian took a step toward him, sliding his hand toward his sidearm.

  “I said move along, goddammit!”

  Erik glanced back at the woman, whose eyes were tightly shut, and the man actively assaulting her. He returned his gaze to the younger Sirian.

  “Is he going to fuck her right here on the street? Is that how you do it?”

  The Sirian took a step forward and gave him a shove.

  “Move on, asshole!”

  But Erik didn’t budge.

  “Sophia scorn, man! You could at least take her inside where people couldn’t watch! Let her keep at least a shred of dignity! Don’t you people have any pride?”

  The teenage soldier’s face flushed with rage and he swung. Erik ducked easily, then seized the man’s arm and twisted it, shoving him face-first against the wall. His own anger had mounted dangerously and he barely stopped himself from smashing the man’s face into the starcrete wall. Instead he took a step back, ready to continue the fight if necessary. People on the sidewalk scattered, forming a ragged semicircle around the scene, their faces registering shock and fear.

  The second soldier, aware of the scuffle, released the woman he was tormenting and spun toward Erik. His hand came up with a laser pistol; the woman darted around the corner of the building and fled into the crowd. Erik raised his hands and took a step back. His heart thundered as he realized his mistake. The bartender had warned him the night before not go around running his mouth, and he had done
exactly that.

  The older soldier advanced on him, the laser pointed at his heart.

  “Up against the wall, pig fucker!” he ordered, and Erik complied.

  “Yew okay, Chigger?”

  The redhead nodded, rubbing his arm. His face looked like a thundercloud.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. But I’m gonna skin me a Veggie!”

  He took a step forward and swung his fist into Erik’s cheek. He wasn’t very heavy but he was stronger than he looked, and Erik rocked sideways under the force of the blow. The Sirian swung again, and then again. Erik’s fists clenched but he forced himself to keep them in the air and not fight back. The soldier was about to deliver a fourth blow when the older man stopped him.

  “That’ll do, Chigger. He didn’t hurt yew.”

  “Motherfucker!” Chigger yelled.

  Erik glared at him but didn’t move, blood running down his cheek. The other one still had the laser pistol in his hand; he edged Chigger aside and stood in front of Erik.

  “What’s yewr fucking problem, Veggie? Yew lookin’ for an early grave?”

  “No.”

  “Yew assaulted a Confederate soldier! That’s some purty serious shit!”

  “I did no such thing. I just asked him a question, and he swung on me.”

  “That ain’t the way I saw it.”

  Erik sneered. “You didn’t even see it! You had your face buried in that lady’s neck, with your back to the whole thing.”

  The man with the laser glanced to his right, where the woman had disappeared.

  “That’s another thing,” he said angrily. “Yew let the pussy git away. Now I gotta find me another one. And I liked that one!”

  Erik’s face was starting to hurt like hell. The pain increased his anger.

  “Well, I don’t think she felt the same way about you. Why don’t you go to a whorehouse? Vega has thousands of them.”

  The soldier’s eyes narrowed. “Where the hell yew been, Veggie? We closed down the whorehouses three years ago!”

  Erik blinked at him. That was one bit of news he hadn’t heard.

  “Why did you do that?” he asked. “The way you guys like to fuck…”

  “Whorehouses are a disgrace! Women sellin’ their bodies for money like some kind of cheap merchandise. It’s sinful, is what it is! A disgrace to Gawd almighty!”

  Erik stared at him a moment, not sure he’d heard correctly. He laughed in consternation.

  “Whorehouses are sinful but rape isn’t? Is that what you’re saying?”

  The soldier lowered his weapon but didn’t put it away. Chigger stood to one side, rubbing his arm and scowling.

  “I got to give yew a lesson on ethics?” the Sirian demanded. “Okay, here it is. The Bible condemns whores and whoremongers, but in every Bible story the chosen people were allowed to take slaves when they won a war. In some cases they killed all the men and fucked all the women. So there yew have it.”

  Erik shook his head in wonder, still trying to wrap his mind around the logic.

  “You justify the wholesale rape of Vegan women with religion?”

  “I don’t need to justify it to yew at all, Veggie. Yew lost the goddamn war, and that means we make the rules. But since yew as’t, and since I’m a nice guy, I thought I’d explain it to yew. Now, lemme see some ID.”

  Erik took a deep breath and lowered his hands. He handed over his ID packet. The Sirian studied it for nearly a minute, then handed it back.

  “Veggie Guard,” he said. “When did yew git home?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “War’s been over for three years. Where were yew?”

  “Prison camp. Place called Camp Clinton.”

  “For three years? Most of the POWs were released a few months after the war.”

  Erik put his ID packet away and shrugged.

  “I was real popular with the staff. They couldn’t bear to live without me.”

  The Sirian glared at him for five seconds, then burst out laughing.

  “Well, I gotta hand it to yew, Veggie, yew got a sense o’ yumor. Tell ya what I’m gonna do…since this is all new to yew and yew was just reactin’ to the shock of change, I’m gonna let yew go.” He holstered his pistol. “But only this one time. Yewr name is goin’ into the database, and if yew fuck up again, yew’ll think Camp Clinton was a Vegan whorehouse compared to where yew’re going. Yew got that?”

  Erik frowned and chewed his lip, but nodded.

  “Yeah. I got that.”

  Chapter 6

  Tuesday, 7 January, 0200 (PCC) – Marlow Plantation, Texiana, Sirius 1

  Erika had been impressed by the sheer magnificence of the plantation house. Placed literally in the middle of nowhere, it was an imposing structure, rising four stories above lush green lawns. The bottom floor established the architectural footprint; the upper floors were staggered, like an ancient Roman villa or Egyptian townhouse, each floor smaller than the one below, each with its own patio or veranda. The top floor was a sort of penthouse, completely glassed on all sides. The view from there must be fantastic, but she had never been inside.

  The house was situated on the bank of a fast-flowing river perhaps a hundred yards wide. It was the only dwelling in sight—from horizon to horizon in all directions she saw nothing but farmland. Occasional tree lines in the distance marked the borders of fields, and small utility buildings gleamed in the sun.

  The interior of the house was as lavish as the outside, everything in plantation décor; lots of wood and rattan furniture; drapes and hangings of colorful woven fabric; ornaments crafted from natural elements such as tree stumps, river driftwood, and polished stones. The house smelled faintly of roasted meat mingled with native incense. All in all, the atmosphere was quite pleasant.

  As big as it was, the house was largely empty. The first person she saw was an ancient black man who introduced himself as Jeeter. He looked eighty, but might have been older; his leathery face was weathered by years of exposure to the elements, his frame frail and his steps measured. He essentially ran the household, acting as butler. Four women also lived in the house, one of them Jeeter’s daughter, Maria. She was fiftyish, plump, and opinionated. Maria ran the kitchen.

  The other three females were much younger, in their late teens or early twenties…Erika couldn’t tell. They were neither black nor white, but of mixed blood. Jeeter called them the “kittens”.

  “They be Mastah Brandon’s puhsonal toys,” he said.

  On the rare occasion of guests or a dinner party, the kittens were drafted to help out in the kitchen. Aside from that, their only duties seemed to be some light housework that consumed two or three hours a day. Mostly they kept to themselves, concerned with clothing, hairstyles, and keeping their bodies trim and sexy.

  The master of the house was Jason Marlow, a widower of about fifty, who spent most of his time running the plantation. Erika rarely saw him more than once a week, usually from a distance. She’d been there a week before he spoke to her.

  It had been a memorable week. Jeeter had given her the run of the house, advising her only to avoid the fourth floor, which was “Mistah Mahlow’s private quatahs”; she had explored a little but spent most of her time in solitude, trying to come to grips with her situation, and figure out what it meant. Who was Brandon Marlow? Why had he singled her out?

  She was sitting on the second floor patio staring at the river when a figure appeared in the breezeway to her left. She glanced up and saw Jason Marlow staring at her. He seemed to hesitate, then came forward, his deeply tanned forehead wrinkled as if with indecision. He stopped twenty feet away and she stood slowly, not sure what behavior was required of her. For thirty seconds he merely stared, as if appraising her for market value.

  “You’re the Vegan woman?” he asked, as if there were any doubt.

  “Yes,” she said evenly.

  “I’m Jason Marlow.” He didn’t offer to shake hands.

  “I know.”

  “What’s your nam
e?”

  “Erika Sebring.”

  He nodded, almost uncomfortably. “I guess they weren’t kidding about Vegan women. Do they all look like you?”

  “Most look even better.” She was surprised that a man of his obvious wealth didn’t already know the answer.

  He nodded again, almost distracted.

  “Not everyone on Sirius approves of what’s happening on Vega,” he said.

  She didn’t reply. Was that supposed to make her feel better about her situation?

  “I imagine you’ve been through a little hell,” he went on. “But no one will bother you here. If anyone gives you any trouble, you tell me or Jeeter, and it won’t happen again. Understood?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded and turned away.

  “Mr. Marlow…”

  He turned back.

  “I have no idea who your son is. I’ve never met him, never even heard of him. Can you tell me what this is about?”

  He looked a little surprised, but shook his head.

  “I don’t have a clue.”

  He walked away.

  That was three years ago.

  * * *

  She had only been off the plantation once. Shortly after her arrival, she’d been allowed to go shopping in New Angeles—she had no clothing except what she’d been wearing on the starship. Mr. Marlow had sent Maria to escort her. They spent several hours in a department store that sold Vegan products and Erika picked out several outfits, complete with accessories, and stocked up on cosmetics and perfumes.

  She was acutely aware of the stares. Everyone was looking at her—clerks, customers, children. She overheard one little girl ask her mother, “Why does that lady have silver eyes?” Clearly, the sight of a Vegan woman was still a novelty, especially when she wasn’t in the company of a Sirian slave-owner.

  The problem arose after they left the store. They were waiting for the shuttle to take them to the parking lot when three men walked past, saw them, and wheeled.

  “Good God-amighty!” the oldest one bellowed, and the women turned to face him. He was about fifty, a burly, disheveled sort who looked as if he worked outdoors. Two younger men who were probably his sons flanked him; one was about twenty-five, the other perhaps nineteen. The father planted himself in front of the two women, ignoring the other passengers who waited for the shuttle.