Flesh (16 page)

It was neither Stagg’s fault nor Robin’s that this had happened. And Robin certainly was not in love with Stagg. Stagg, poor devil, was doomed to a short but ecstatic life.

The immediate fact for Churchill to deal with was that he wanted to marry a woman who was going to bear another man’s child. That neither she nor the father could be blamed was beside the point. What mattered was whether he wanted to marry Robin and to raise the child as his own.

Eventually, by lying still in bed and relaxing himself through yogoid techniques, he managed to go to sleep.

He woke about an hour after dawn and left his bedroom. A servant informed him that Whitrow had gone to his offices downtown and that Robin and her mother had left for the temple. The women should be back in two hours, if not sooner.

Churchill asked after Sarvant, but he had not as yet appeared.

Churchill ate breakfast with some of the children. They asked him to tell them a story about his trip to the stars. He described the incident on Wolf when the crew, while crossing a swamp on a raft in their escape from the Lupines, had been attacked by a balloon-octopus. This was an enormous creature that floated through the air by means of a gas-filled sac and seized its prey with long dangling tendrils. The tendrils could deliver an electric shock that paralyzed or killed its victims, after which the balloon-octopus tore the corpse apart with sharp claws on the ends of its eight muscular tentacles.

The children were wide-eyed and silent while he told the tale, and at the end they looked at him as if he were a demigod. He was in a bitter mood by the time he’d finished breakfast, especially when he remembered that it was Stagg who had saved his life by chopping off a tentacle that had seized him.

When he rose from the table, the children begged him for other stories. Only by promising to relate others when he returned that day was he able to free himself.

He gave orders to the servants that they should tell Sarvant to wait for him and tell Robin that he was going in search of his crewmates. The servants insisted on his taking a carriage and team. He did not like to be any more in debt to Whitrow than he was but decided that refusing the offer would probably insult him. He drove away at a fast clip down Conch Avenue, heading toward the stadium in which the
Terra
stood.

Churchill had some difficulty in finding the proper authorities. Washington had not changed in some respects. A little money here and there got him the correct information, and presently he was in the office of the man in charge of the
Terra.

“I would also like to know where the crew is,” he said.

The official excused himself. He was gone for fifteen minutes, during which time he must have been checking on the whereabouts of the
Terra’
s ex-personnel. Returning, he told Churchill that all but one were at the House of Lost Souls. This, he explained, was a rooming and eating house for foreigners and traveling men who could not find a hostelry run for their particular frats.

“If you were the Sunhero and in a city, you could stay at the Elks’ Hall,” the official said. “But until you are initiated into a frat, you must find whatever public or private lodging you can. It is not always easy.”

Churchill thanked him and walked out. Following the official’s directions, he drove to the House of Lost Souls.

Here he found all the men he had left. Like him, they were dressed in native costume. Like him, they had sold their clothing.

They exchanged news of what had happened since the day before. Churchill asked where Sarvant was.

“We haven’t heard a word about him,” Gbwe-hun said. “And we still don’t know what we’re going to do.”

“If you’re willing to be patient,” Churchill said, “you might be able to sail back to home.”

He outlined for them what he knew about the maritime industry of Deecee and the chances they might have for seizing a ship. He concluded, “If I get a ship, I’ll see that you have a berth on it. First, you have to be capable of filling a seaman’s position. That means you’re going to have to be initiated into one of the nautical frats, and then you will have to ship out for training. The whole plan will take time. If you can’t stand the idea, you can always try it overland.”

They discussed their chances and, after two hours, decided to follow Churchill.

He rose from the table. “All right. You make this your headquarters until further notice. You know where to contact me. So long and good luck.”

Churchill allowed the deer pulling the carriage to set their own preferred slow pace. He dreaded what he might find when he returned to the Whitrow home, and he still did not know what he would do.

Eventually, the carriage pulled up before the house. The servants drove the team off. Churchill forced himself to enter the house. He found Robin and her mother sitting at the table, chattering away like a pair of happy magpies.

Robin jumped up from her chair and ran to him. Her eyes were shining, and she was smiling ecstatically.

“Oh, Rud, it has happened! I am carrying the Sunhero’s child—and the priestess said it will be a boy!”

Churchill tried to smile, but he could not do it. Even when Robin had thrown her arms around him and kissed him and then had danced merrily around the room, Churchill could not smile.

“Have a cold beer,” Robin’s mother said. “You look as if you’d had some bad news. I hope not. Today should be a day of rejoicing. I am the daughter of a Sunhero, and my daughter is the child of a Sunhero, and my grandchild will be the son of a Sunhero. This house has been triply blessed by Columbia. We should reward her with the gratitude of laughter.”

Churchill sat down and drank deep of the cold dark beer in the huge stone mug. He wiped the foam from his lips and said, “You must forgive me. I have been listening to the troubles of my men. However, that is no concern of yours. What I would like to know is, what will Robin do now?”

Angela Whitrow looked shrewdly at him as if she guessed what was going on inside him.

“Why, she will accept some lucky young man as her husband. She may have trouble making up her mind, since at least ten men are very serious about her.”

“Does she favor anyone in particular?” Churchill asked in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner.

“She hasn’t told me so,” Robin’s mother said. “But if I were you, Mr. Churchill, I’d ask her here and now—before the others get here.”

Churchill was startled, but he kept a stiff face.

“How did you know I had that in mind?”

“You’re a man, aren’t you? And I know that Robin favors you. I think you’d make her the best of husbands.”

“Thank you,” he murmured. He sat for a moment, drumming his fingers on the table top. Then he rose and walked to where Robin was petting one of her cats, and seized her by the shoulders.

“Robin, will you marry me?”

“Oh yes!” she said, and she went into his arms.

That was that.

Once Churchill had made up his mind, he proceeded on the assumption that he had no grounds for resenting Stagg’s child or Robin’s conceiving it. After all, he told himself, if Robin had been married to Stagg and borne his child, and then Stagg had died, he, Churchill, would have had nothing to resent. And the situation in effect amounted to the same. For one night, Robin had been married to his former captain.

And though Stagg wasn’t dead yet, he soon would be.

The upsetting factor had been his reacting with a set of values to a situation in which they did not apply. Churchill would have liked his bride to be a virgin. She wasn’t, and that was that.

Nevertheless, he had more than one moment of feeling that, somehow, he had been betrayed.

There wasn’t much time to think. Whitrow was called home from his office. He wept and embraced his daughter and son-inlaw-to-be and then got drunk. Meanwhile, Churchill was taken away by the female servants and given a hair-trimming and a bath. Afterwards, he was massaged and oiled and perfumed. When he came out of the bathhouse, he found Angela Whitrow busy with some friends arranging a party to be held that night.

Shortly after supper, the guests began pouring in. By this time, both Whitrow and his daughter’s fiancé were deep in their cups. The guests did not mind. In fact, they seemed to expect such a condition, and they tried to catch up with the two.

There was much laughter, much talking, much boasting. Only one ugly incident happened. One of the men who had been courting Robin made an allusion to Churchill’s foreign pronunciation and then challenged Churchill to a duel. It was to be knives at the foot of the totem pole, the two to be tied by their waists to the pole, and the winner to take Robin.

Churchill punched the young man on the jaw, and his friends, laughing and whooping, carried off the unconscious body to its carriage.

About midnight Robin left her friends and took Churchill by the hand.

“Let’s go to bed,” she whispered.

“Where? Now?”

“To my room, silly. And now, of course.”

“But, Robin, we’ve not been married. Or was I so drunk I didn’t notice?”

“No, the marriage will take place in the temple next weekend. But what does that have to do with our going to bed?”

“Nothing,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Other times, other mores. Lead on, Macduff.”

She giggled and said, “What are you muttering about?”

“What would you do if I backed out before we got married?”

“You’re joking, of course?”

“Of course. But you must realize, Robin darling, that I don’t know much about Deecee customs. I’m just curious.”

“Why, Id do nothing. But it would be a deadly insult to my father and brother. They’d have to kill you.”

“I just wanted to know.”

The following week was a very busy one. In addition to the normal preparations for the wedding ceremony, Churchill had to decide what frat he was going to join. It was unthinkable that Robin would marry a man without a totem.

“I would suggest,” Whitrow said, “my own totem, the Lion. But it would be better for you to be in a frat directly concerned with your work and one which is blessed by the tutelary spirit of the animal with which you will be dealing.”

“You mean one of the fish frats or the porpoise frat?”

“What? No, I do not! I mean the Pig totem. It would not be wise to be breeding hogs and at the same time have as your totem the Lion, a beast which preys on pigs.”

“But,” Churchill protested, “what do
I
have to do with pigs?”

It was Whitrow’s turn to be surprised. “Then you’ve not discussed it with Robin? No wonder. She’s had so little time to talk. Although you two have been alone every night from midnight until morning. But then I suppose you’re too busy tumbling each other. Oh, to be young again! Well, my boy, the situation is this. I inherited some farms from my father, who was also no slouch when it came to making money. I need you to run these farms for me for several reasons.

“One, I don’t trust the present manager. I think he’s cheating me. Prove to me that he is, and I’ll have him hung.

“Two, the Karelians have been making raids on my farms, stealing the best of my stock and the good-looking women. They haven’t burned the houses and barns down or left the help to starve, since they don’t want to kill the golden goose. You will stop the raids.

“Three, I understand that you’re a geneticist. Therefore, you should be able to improve my stock.

“Four, when I return to the bosom of the Great White Mother, you will inherit some of the farms. The merchant fleet goes to my sons.”

Churchill rose. “I’ll have to talk to Robin about this.”

“Do that son. But you’ll find she agrees with me.”

Whitrow was right. Robin did not want her husband to be a sea-captain. She couldn’t stand being separated from him so frequently.

Churchill protested that she could go with him on his voyages.

Robin replied that that wasn’t so. The wives of seamen could not accompany them. They got in the way, they were extra expense, and, worst of all, they brought bad luck to the ship. Even when the ships carried paying women passengers, the ship had to be given an especially strong blessing by a priest in order to avert ill-fortune.

Churchill retaliated with the argument that, if she loved him, she’d put up with his long absences.

Robin retorted that if he really loved her, he wouldn’t want to leave her for any length of time. Besides, what about the children? It was well known that children raised in a family where the father was weak or was often absent had a tendency to grow up psychically twisted. Children needed a strong father who was always available for love or discipline.

Churchill took ten minutes to reflect.

If he went back on his promise to marry her, he would have to fight Whitrow and his son. Somebody would be killed, and he had a conviction that eventually it would be he. Even if he could stand his ground against her father and brother and killed them, he’d have to fight the next of kin, who were very numerous.

Of course, he could force Robin to reject him. But he did not want to lose her.

Finally, he said, “All right, darling. I’ll be a pig-raiser. I only ask one thing. I want to take one last sea voyage before settling down. Can we take a ship to Norfolk and then travel overland to the farms?”

Robin wiped away her tears, smiled, and kissed him, and said she would indeed be a hardhearted bitch if she denied him that.

Churchill left to tell his crewmates that they must buy passage on the ship that he and Robin would be taking. He’d arrange it so they had money enough for the tickets. After the ship was out of sight of land, they must seize it. They would then sail across the Atlantic and points east. It was too bad they hadn’t had a chance to learn seamanship. They must learn as they sailed.

“Won’t your wife be angry?” Yastzhembski said.

“More than that,” Churchill said. “But if she really loves me, she’ll go with me. If she doesn’t, we’ll put her and the crew ashore before we set out.”

As it turned out, the crew of the
Terra
never got a chance to seize the vessel. The second day of their voyage, they were attacked by Karelian pirates.