Loralynn Kennakris 1: The Alecto Initiative (5 page)

“Bent?” Kris asked as she shook the other woman’s hand. “Oh,
my name’s Loralynn. But they call me Kris.”

“Funny—my brother’s name is Chris. But he goes by Antoine
now. Which do you prefer?”

Kris looked down. “Well . . . Kris is fine.”

“Is that a middle name?”

“No.” She looked up, shook her still damp hair. “It’s from
Kennakris—Loralynn Kennakris.”

“That’s beautiful . . . such a lovely name.”

Kris winced inside, eager to get off that subject. “What’s
bent
?”

“Oh, you know. Messed up—out of sorts.” She shrugged.
“Bent. It’s not their fault really. Most of them were taken a couple of months
ago. I think it must have been pretty bad. But they won’t talk to me about it.”

“Why?” Kris asked. Mariwen seemed to be the first nice
person she’d met in . . . how long? Not since . . .
Stop that
. She
exhaled silently. “I mean, why won’t they talk to you?”

Mariwen laughed. She had a delightful laugh. Kris couldn’t
remember ever hearing one like it. It made her insides ache. “Because I’m a
lesbian.” She tossed a look back over her shoulder, indicating the Great
Unwashed no longer present. “They’re from Harkness mostly—Iron Heads. You
know, Amalekites. They don’t like us very much.” Then she caught Kris’s look
and a sudden concern clouded her exquisite features. “Sorry, maybe I went a bit rough
there. Does it bother you?”

Kris could only shake her head perplexedly. She wasn’t sure
she’d met a real lesbian before, but her experiences in that vein weren’t
something she wanted to think about right now. “Ah . . . no. I’m—well—I don’t
think I’ve known any homosexuals . . .” Kris abruptly shut her mouth, sure she
was saying something stupid. Then, a little sheepishly: “You seem nice enough.”

Mariwen laughed again. “Thanks. You seem very nice also. I’m
glad—but don’t worry, I won’t make a pass at you, even as beautiful as you
are. Really. It’s just that I’ve missed having someone to talk to
so
much. Exiles together, you know.”

“Um . . . exiles?” Kris had no idea what that meant. Then
she thought of the other women—the
bent
women—the Amalekites. She
recalled people back home talking about Amalekites when she was growing up,
calling them religious extremists, and she could kind of understand them
having a problem with Mariwen. But what had she done? “I don’t understand.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” A flustered look passed over Mariwen’s
face. “I guess I put my foot in it. I didn’t realize you didn’t know.” Kris
couldn’t imagine what there was to know. “Well, it’s about you and that slaver
captain,” Mariwen explained, wincing a little.

Not that again
. Kris tensed her lips, unconsciously
balling one hand into a fist.

“I’m sorry,” Mariwen repeated softly. “I can’t imagine what
it must have been like . . .” She looked away—the first time she’d done that.
“I wish . . . I hope . . .if I’d been in your place I would have done the same
thing. You’re very brave, you know. They just have trouble dealing with it, I guess. And
with everything that’s happened to them . . . well, you understand.”

Kris did, but that didn’t alter her opinion much. “You seem
fine.”

Mariwen rolled her eyes. “I’m a
lot
better now. I was
only on board a week. I don’t think I had time to get used to the idea—it just
wasn’t real. I kept thinking it couldn’t be happening—and then it wasn’t.” She
shrugged. “But when we were under attack I was
so
scared.” Mariwen
rolled her eyes again and added a groan. “I was sure we’d all get killed. It
was awful . . .”

Not as awful as some things
.

Then Mariwen brightened. “But you know all that, don’t you?
Besides, you’re famous. That’s another thing that makes us a pair.”

“We’re famous?” Mariwen kept saying things that made no
sense.

She laughed again. “Not making much of a first impression, am I?
I hope I don’t usually babble like this.”

No, you’re doing fine
. Wasn’t quite the way Kris expected Homeworlders to be though,
based on the few she’d met. They had been—
stop thinking about that
. . .

“But I guess you probably wouldn’t know. Anyway . . .” She pressed a
hand to her lips as if stuffing in a giggle. “I’m Mariwen Rathor. Without
the makeup.” If she was expecting comprehension, she was disappointed. But she
didn’t look disappointed as she elaborated, “I’m a model. I’ve done vid work
too—but mostly print and covers.
Shi-an
,
Metra
,
Veronique 2M2
,
Cosmo
—stuff like that.”

“Oh.” Even Kris had heard of
stuff like that
. She’d
never read any of them, but the second woman her dad had married got
Cosmo
and
Metra
all the time—he hated them, said they were trash—but Kris
had liked her. They’d only been married a season though and when she left, his
drinking got really bad. It’d been less than a year after that . . .

Kris blinked, seeing him again that last time, standing in
the road in the billows of red dust, one hand raised, all the life beaten out
of his face, still trying to smile—nothing behind it, nothing at all, just
hollow . . .

Tears welled up, hot and unpleasant, and Mariwen put a hand
on her shoulder. “Oh shit,”—the expletive was so alien on her lips that it
shocked Kris—“I said something stupid, didn’t I?”

 “No.” Her voice choked. “No, it’s okay. Really.” She
reached up, touched Mariwen’s arm lightly and shrugged out from under it.

Mariwen bit her lip as her hand slid off Kris’s shoulder.
“Like hell.”

Kris sat down on her bunk, put her face in her hands.
Dragging up years of hard-earned control she forced the tears back where they
belonged. She raised her head and smiled at Mariwen. “Look, I’m okay. Really.”

Mariwen was unconvinced. “If you say so.” She paused, then
said, “It might be better if you just let it go. There isn’t anything wrong
with that, you know. If you want to talk . . .”

Kris shook her head, politely but firmly. “No. I don’t wanna
talk. It’s fine. I’m used to it.”

Mariwen nodded, relenting with a smile. “Okay.” Then a second
later, she said: “You know, it’s nice not to be
the
supermodel to
someone. You haven’t even asked for my autograph.”

“Yet.” An attempt at a witty repartee—Mariwen seemed to
expect that and it was the best she could do at the moment.

“Don’t be in a hurry. Are you hungry?”

Kris drew a couple of deep slow breaths. “Probably.”

“Want to get something to eat? They already won’t talk to
us. We could start a rumor.”

“You don’t think there’s enough rumors already?”

“Oh, come on.” Mariwen held out her hand. Kris hesitated,
then took Mariwen’s hand and gave it a quick squeeze before letting their
fingers slip apart. Mariwen cocked her head, her look becoming a little
pensive. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be pushy. I’d just really like the company.”

 That teased a smile out of Kris, slim but real. “Okay,” she
answered, “Yeah. Thanks.”

“Thank
you
,” Mariwen said with a grin. “I’m not quite
up to being alone with my legions of rabid fans just yet.”

LSS Arizona
entering Sagittarius

Dinner was something of a disappointment. It was, in
fact, the same concentrate-based stuff that Kris had learned to loathe. This
didn’t do much for her appetite, but she found that if she listened to Mariwen,
she could ignore the food. She hadn’t known how to take Mariwen’s comment about
‘legions of rabid fans’—she seemed to be kidding, but Kris couldn’t tell about
which part. There certainly did appear to be legions of fans, to say the least.
Everyone
knew her, and the same things that made Mariwen a pariah to the
Harkness Amalekites—her sexual orientation and chosen profession—made her a
deity to the crew. They were stopped constantly on the way to the mess and had
their dinner interrupted half a dozen more times once they got there.

But they were hardly rabid. In fact, they all were on their
best Sunday-school manners. Still Kris was amazed at the graciousness with
which Mariwen met them. She smiled, chatted, signed everything—including a
nude flat-photo from an old ‘zine—leaving all her admirers grinning and many
of them tongue-tied and flushed.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Mariwen admitted when the beaming crewman
with the nude pic left. “You have to get started in this business somehow.
That’s one of the best ways. Besides”—she took another dainty bite of the
lousy food—“it was fun. I’d do it again, if my agent would let me. But she
says it would cost me too much. The money’s all in the tease. Of course, I
might tell her to go to hell one of these days.”

Kris couldn’t get her mind off the image. “And you said
I
was beautiful.”

“You are,” Mariwen said, suddenly serious. She put down her
fork. “You’re one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.”

Kris blushed. Mariwen started eating again. “I
am
going to get invited to the NCO mess,” she muttered. “Say, you wouldn’t be
interested in a job, would you? Lora’s a good agent. She doesn’t often handle
newcomers, but I know she’ll work something out if I ask her to. If you want,
that is.”

“You
know
?”

“I
know
,” Mariwen answered with a twinkle in her eye.
“I’d stop speaking to her. She’d lose her twelve-and-a-half percent and her
meal ticket. Besides, we’re married.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t look like that. We’re not
that
married.”

Kris’s ears began to go red. Mariwen giggled and shook her
head. “That’s a joke. Are you interested? I’m serious. About the job, I mean.”

Kris shook her head. “No. I don’t think so. I’m—well . . .
Thanks for asking, though.”

“Okay. But if you change your mind . . .”

Kris changed the subject instead. They chatted for awhile
and it turned out that Mariwen had been a paid pick. A gang had picked her off
while she was vacationing on Hestia alone—Lora had returned just the day
before to negotiate her next contract.

“God, I’m glad she wasn’t there,” Mariwen moaned. “I mean,
what would they have done?”

Kris didn’t have the stomach to tell her.

“They were very polite and all that. No violence—no
real
violence. They didn’t hurt me or even threaten me really. Mustn’t damage the
merchandise or anything.” She stabbed a chunk of reconstituted vegetable with
controlled viciousness. “I’d cheerfully cut the balls off each and every one of
them. With a nail file.” The vegetable disappeared in a single snapped bite.

Mariwen had no idea who’d paid for her kidnapping. The small
ship she’d been brought in on docked with
Harlot’s Ruse
and left; her
handlers had been killed in the attack.

“Handlers?” In all her years as Trench’s slave, Kris hadn’t
heard of that.

“Handlers. When you’re special, you get handlers. I was
special
.”
She dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “They keep you from scarring yourself. The
re-gen marks still show to a connoisseur”—the venom in the inflection burned
hot and acid-bright through the word—“and they keep you from killing yourself.
And, yes, I thought about that. All the time.”

Kris mashed her napkin under the table and said nothing.

Mariwen asked where they were going. When Kris told her,
Mariwen looked blank with surprise. “That’s where Lora is. We live in Nemeton.”
That was a city on Nedaema, Kris gathered. “Christ, I hope she hasn’t gotten all
worked up about this. I wonder what she’s heard . . .” Mariwen fretted over the
thought. “I hope she hasn’t found out too much. She’ll have every goddamned
producer within fifty light-years out to bid for my ‘story’. One week with the
bad guys in a stinking little ship.” She shook her head. “I’ll be sick. Now if
I had your story,
that
would
be
something—”

“You don’t want my story,” Kris said, more harshly than she
meant.

Mariwen put hands in her lap, looked down at them. “I did it
again, didn’t I? I’m sorry, Kris. I really am. I just keep forgetting. I don’t
know why.”

Kris touched her arm lightly. “It’s fine,” she lied. Then
they talked about other things.

After dinner, they went back to their quarters again. They
were full this time; as crowded as she’d been led to expect. Commander t’Laren
came in as promised and talked to them—
addressed
was maybe a better
word. Isabeau t’Laren was a rather hard-looking woman with short roan-red hair,
younger than middle-age and attractive in a muscular sort of way. She didn’t
smile easily, and then only with the lower half of her face. She was polite but
very formal. Most of the other women watched her with a kind of silent awe. She
told them much of the same information that Lieutenant Huron had already given
her and Kris listened with her eyes closed. She wasn’t sure if she liked the
commander or not.

After she spoke to the group, t’Laren progressed around the
room and talked to each of them briefly. When she reached Kris she asked the
expected have-everything-you-need questions, and Kris mentioned it would be
nice to have some underwear.

The commander smiled—she was warmer up close—and
apologized. “We did up your kit on rather short notice. I’ll speak to the
ship’s purser tonight. They will have something more suitable for you in the
morning.”

Why short notice? That was just
weird
. . .

Kris decided she was acting paranoid, said thanks and
t’Laren moved on. Kris thought that the warmth could go on and off like a
light. Finally, she made a brief exiting address and left.

Kris lay back on her bunk, reading a book on the swing-out
viewer and trying to ignore the ripple of gossip that lapped at her ears.
Lights-out sounded after awhile; she flipped off the viewer, rolled over, and
went almost immediately to sleep.