Mercenary (38 page)

“Oh!” she cried involuntarily. She tried to fight it but could not; I could readily have broken her elbow.

She tried to retain her hold on her knife, but slowly I increased my pressure, and she had to let it drop.

She relaxed. “I guess you've got me, Captain,” she said.

I let her go, and instantly she arched off that bed and leaped at me, claws and teeth flashing. A jaguar indeed! But I had not been deceived; I caught her by shoulder and thigh and lifted her as I might a mannequin, and flung her down onto the bed. It was a hard fall she took, and part of the air of her lungs whooshed out. I dropped with her, pinning her with a judo hold down, my right wrist angled to press at the back of her neck, my head close to hers. She struggled, but when she did, the cutting edge of my wrist brought pain that forced her to desist. That is part of the technique of a hold down; it is not strength or weight alone that makes it effective. A midget could have pinned a giant with this one.

I murmured almost in her ear: “The wife of an officer of the Jupiter Navy is exempt from civilian prosecution. She can travel with him anywhere in the Jupiter Sphere. Wherever she goes, she will be treated with the deference due her husband's position. She must, of course, entertain visiting officers in a formal manner, but she has a maid for the busywork. She dresses prettily and listens politely to their droll stories, while their wives eye her jealously. I can't say it's much of a life for a women as lovely and talented as you, yet perhaps it has its appeal.”

I let her go. Again she sprang up like a released steel spring, grabbing for my hair while her two knees came up. Had her move been successful, she could have caved in my face with those knees. But, ready for this, I simply lifted my head clear, caught her rising right leg, and gripped her right buttock through the negligee. With that leverage I turned her over. Before she could react, I caught her negligee and hauled it up toward her head. Then I grabbed for her nightgown beneath it and hauled it up likewise, exposing her classic bottom. I spanked it smartly.

She seemed virtually to spin in air, outraged. But her elevated skirts hampered her, and the material started to tear. I grabbed it again and swept it over her head, stifling her with two layers of cloth while her body was exposed to the breasts.

She was helpless again for the moment, head and arms entangled. I stared at those perfect breasts; half-dazed, I had never seen a better pair of structures in my life. Now I had the male response.

Suddenly I wanted to fling myself on her and do what I had come to do. But caution prevailed.

I gazed and spoke to her again. “There are sights to be seen in the Jupiter System that few pirates are privileged to experience,” I told her covered face. “One day I mean to see them myself. The great city-bubbles, some of the largest in the Solar System, floating the massive atmospheric currents of the Colossus, laid out with streets and parks and small lakes. I understand the freshwater fishing-bubbles are fun for the honeymooners; the water is in a channel-river that makes a spiral loop several times around the bubble before reaching the lake at the equator. Couples float down it in canoes and keep any fish they catch. I think that would be fun, especially with the right company.”

She finally burst out of her confinement. “You can stare at my naked body and talk of fish?” she demanded. “You're supposed to be ravishing me!”

“But I don't believe in rape,” I said innocently.

She wrenched about, striking at my face with her fists. I swung clear of her blows, and she sat up and pushed me farther away, causing me to lose my balance and fall on the bed. Her knees came up; I jerked my head up, and she spread her legs and caught me in a head-scissors. My error; I had been warned about this very thing. I knew I should have knocked her out when I had her entangled. A head-scissors is not the most serious situation, but it can be awkward to break, because the legs have more power than the neck. She had me pinned, and my arms could not pry her knees apart.

Furthermore, I was facing into her naked split. Supposedly this is a position to inflame a man's passion.

Actually, I don't regard the genital region as the most esthetic part of a man or woman, and I was desperate to free my head before she found some more deadly way to capitalize on her advantage, but every part of Rue was a marvel of rondure and symmetry, and I was indeed impressed by what I saw.

She shifted position, and I gained leverage, and got my arm between her thighs. There are nerve complexes there, and I jammed my thumb into one, and the sudden pain forced her legs apart. I yanked my head out, sat up, and discovered that she was reaching to the floor to recover her knife.

I grabbed for her arm, but it was too late; she had the knife. She blocked my hand with her left arm while her right hand raised the blade.

I disengaged and threw myself to the floor as the knife plunged forward. I wasn't quite fast enough, and she grazed my leg. I felt it only as sensation, not pain, but the blood was welling out of my calf. That knife was sharp!

I paused, but she knew better than to pursue me. The bed was her bastion. She awaited my next attack, her blade poised. She might not be expert at unarmed combat, but she did know how to use that knife.

A portion of her negligee trailed over the side of the bunk. I dived and caught it, feinting at her knife hand as I did so, to conceal my purpose. Then I stood back and yanked on the material.

No good; it simply tore loose, leaving her with a ragged but sufficient covering. But I realized I had a device here; she could not protect both her knife and her clothing. I made another pass at the knife and got another handful of cloth. I tore it free. After several such sallies, I had her halfway naked; after several more, I had stripped the rest of her.

I had thought this would at least disgruntle her. It did not. She remained poised, her blade awaiting its opening. She had come close to scoring on me again as I tore away her apparel, and now none remained to distract her. She was one lovely, firm-fleshed young woman, and knew it; it was harder than ever to concentrate on what I was doing.

What was I doing? I should be trying to knock her out so I could rape her in peace, and my own weapon was hardly ready. It was dangerous to let this drag on like this; sooner or later she would score with her blade. Every adviser, including her own father, had told me to finish it quickly.

But now, having suffered first blood, I knew emotionally as well as intellectually that this was a serious fight. She would stab me if I didn't stab her. Yet still I clung to my idiotic notion that she would somehow submit without violence, once she saw the light, so that it wouldn't be rape. I knew better, but it prevented me from undertaking the brutality I was supposed to practice.

“An Operations officer has status in her own right,” I said. “She does not have to play hostess for her husband if she chooses not to. She exerts significant power, organizing the operation of the command, answering only to the commander himself. She salutes only him. This is not ordinarily a prerogative of marriage to the commander, but in this case the marriage is required for legitimacy, and the office can only be assumed while this mission exists. But for that limited period, it's about as much power as any woman can have.” I knew, now, that she craved legitimacy and power beyond all else, as some women do. Her father had encouraged this attitude in her, making her his heir in nature as well as in office.

“Damn you!” she flared. “Shut your mouth!”

“Just thought you'd be interested,” I remarked innocently. “You did very well when you organized the arrangements with the Solomons. I appreciate competence wherever I find it.”

“You're not fighting fair!” she protested.

“Well, as they say, all's fair in love and—”

“Next you'll tell me you love me!” she cried indignantly.

“No. I could never love a pirate. I merely want to use you.”

“Well, get on with it, then! You won't use me by talking at me!”

All too true. Her knife had never wavered. There was no easy way to conquer this hellion, certainly not by words.

I became aware again of the audience sitting around the chamber, making no sound or motion. I certainly wasn't following their advice. It was evident to all that I simply wasn't ready, physically or emotionally, to finish this business. Even the victim was getting disgusted. Probably I should retreat, giving up the effort. No rape, no marriage, no loss of life. But also no alliance, and no continuation of my mission in the Belt. That was no good, either.

I studied Roulette, trying to fathom an opening so I could disarm her again. Once I got the knife away and held her struggling body close, I thought I could do the rest. But I wasn't sure. If I still couldn't perform—

I looked into her eyes. Was there a pleading there? She knew what I had to do, and why, and knew what it would mean for her. She knew that if she killed me, or even escaped me, all would come to naught. If ever a woman could be said to want to be raped, this would be the occasion. I knew I had to do it, and she knew she had to be the victim, but neither of us was able to overcome our aversion to it. I could not force her, and she could not accede without violence, however much we both might desire the consummation. An impasse of a sort, like that Juana and I had suffered in the Tail, and I did not know the solution. We were locked in a situation neither of us wanted.

Then I looked through her eyes, and her face changed. The jaguar aura faded, and her features became rounder, older, and beautiful in a different way. Her naked body became less pronounced but just as feminine. And—I loved her.

“Helse,” I whispered.

“No,” she said.

“Who, then?” For now I saw that she was not precisely Helse, who was dead, but another woman very like her in appearance, though older. The woman Helse might have become, had she lived to her thirties.

Had she been Saxon.

“Megan,” she said.

And so she was. The one other woman I could love, perhaps, though I had never met her. I stepped toward her. “I hardly know you,” I said. “Only through your picture, that I glimpsed with my beloved.”

“I am older than you,” she said.

“I know. I could never love a younger woman.” I moved in to kiss her. A part of me was surprised to see this ready acceptance of a woman I had never met, yet I also knew she was as close to Helse as I could ever come. For even the suggestion of Helse, I would give up virtually everything else I valued.

She met me partway. I felt a sting at my left shoulder; I shrugged it off. There was another. I ignored it and brought my lips to hers. The kiss was sharp, almost painful, but wonderfully sweet. I felt her body tight against mine, gradually relaxing. What a woman she was!

We drew apart, a little. She gazed at me wide-eyed. “Oh, Hope, I'm sorry!” she said.

“Sorry?” I asked, surprised.

Then her lovely features clouded and changed and reformed to those of the jaguar maiden. A smear of bright red was on her chin. My lower lip hurt; I brought my left hand up to check it, and discovered I was wounded in the shoulder. Pain stabbed through me, and I saw there was blood down along my arm from two deep knife wounds. An artery had been punctured.

“You stabbed me!” I exclaimed. “And you bit me!”

“Well, you hugged and kissed me!” she retorted.

“And you're not Megan.” That, more than anything else, I could not forgive her.

“Who the hell is Megan?”

I struck her, a slashing openhanded blow across the side of the head. Her head rocked back, her mouth open, but I caught her again on the other side with my backhand. She fell on the bed, blinking. “Who the hell are you? ” I demanded.

Her right hand swung up, bearing the blood-tipped knife. My own right hand moved so quickly my eyes did not follow it and caught her wrist. I stared into her eyes as I brought her knife hand down to her own face. Strength for strength, she could not compete with me. “You prefer sadism?” I inquired. “Shall I make you slit your nose? Men would not find you so pretty, then.”

She fought, but she could not budge the knife except by letting it go. She did so, and it fell flat across her mouth, not cutting her, and slid to the bed. “I never saw you like this!” she gasped.

“You never saw me at all, you arrogant bitch!” I snapped. “You like me better now?” I jerked my right hand and forced her right hand to strike her face. “Suppose you chew off your finger while I watch?”

“You brute!” But it was neither fear nor horror that governed her now. Her tone was one of discovery and admiration. “Kiss me again, I won't bite!”

I released her hand, moved my face close to hers, and spat in it. Blood and saliva splatted against her cheek. “I'd as soon kiss a snake!”

She shuddered, not with anger but with rapture. She spread her arms and her legs. “Do it now!” she breathed. “I can't fight you when you're like this! You're a real man after all!”

I drew away from her and stood by the bunk. “Look at me,” I said. “I don't want you. You're not Helse, you're not Megan. What good are you?”

“Revile me!” she whispered. “Hit me! Make me scream!”

“You aren't paying attention, you pirate slut,” I said. “Look at my member. You don't turn me on at all.”

Now she looked. She saw I was not bluffing.

“I can't believe it. You brutalized me; you must want me.”

“You have failed as a woman,” I told her.

She snatched the knife from the bed beside her. She pointed it at my groin. “I'll cut it off!”

“Go ahead.” I raised my arms and set my hands behind my head, not retreating from her.

She thrust and aborted, making a feint. I did not budge. I had called her bluff. She knew that if she castrated me she would lose the only man who had broken her will.

Slowly she brought the blade to her own throat. “If you won't have me, no one will,” she said.

“Spirit,” I said.

My sister rose from her chair. “Yes, Hope.”

“If she dies, you are bound by honor to kill me.”

Spirit hesitated. I had been in awe of her before; she was in awe of me now. “Yes,” she whispered.