I am not sure by what stages our struggle converted from opposition to love, but the rest of the universe tuned out and we found ourselves thrusting desperately against each other, our tongues performing what our torsos could not. We rolled on the bunk, her legs twined about mine, our arms clasping each other.
Our breathing became savage, but our lips did not separate. For a moment it was like mutual resuscitation: I breathed into her lungs, and she breathed into mine. Then we shifted; obviously, God gave man a nose so he would not have to break a kiss to breathe. Then my urgency overwhelmed me, and she shuddered in my embrace, and our mouths pressed together so hard there was sharp pain on our lips.
For a timeless instant we remained in a tension of passion, saliva squeezing past our lips to smear our faces. Then slowly, we relaxed.
I realized that I had climaxed in my steel crotch-guard, and she in her wet suit. We had not touched, physically, technically, anywhere but at face and hands, but we had in fact made love.
My recovering gaze traveled past Emerald's head to spy Spirit and Mondy standing silently beside the bunk. Did they know? They had to!
“I told you I'd get even,” Emerald said, and I realized she was addressing Spirit, not me. But I was too preoccupied with my own embarrassment to analyze that. I just wanted to get out of my trunks and take a shower.
In this manner I trained for my wedding night. But though I perfected the mechanics of it, my mind and emotion did not proceed apace. “I'm just not constituted to rape anyone in reality!” I protested.
They tried to reason with me. “It is necessary,” Phist pointed out. “We must have the resources of the Solomons, both human and material, if we are to conclude the Belt campaign successfully. I assure you that without replacement for our supplies from Jupiter, we cannot prevail. With the money Straight is prepared to provide—”
“Money?” I asked.
“We need it to continue purchasing food from the colonists. Straight deals in money; he has huge amounts. What he lacks is legitimacy, and a formal alliance with us would give him that.”
“It's his daughter I'm raping!” I exclaimed. “How can he give us money?” I was talking foolishly, trying to cover my inadequacy, but Phist was answering seriously.
“I have talked with him and with his Logistics officer. The understanding is as I have described. This is the way the Bands of the Belt make alliances: not by treaty but by marriage. This is his desire.”
“Shoving his daughter at me!” I snapped.
"It was necessary to show you what he had to offer, just as you did when you sent your sister to me.
This is not so different from what our unit has been practicing, sir."
Damn his logic! Of course he was correct.
“It's a good offer, sir,” he continued. “She is esthetically desirable—I doubt there is a prettier woman in the Belt—and a good officer despite her age. You will have to appoint her S-3, of course—”
“ What!? ”
“Sir, we have a vacancy at Operations, and she is qualified. Sergeant Smith is competent, but an enlisted man can never officially assume the office. Straight saw immediately that the position was open....”
I am so accustomed to my talent that I tend to forget that others have talents of their own. Obviously Straight had a fine eye for the exploitation of potentially profitable situations and was willing to gamble for gain. He had noted the authority of women in my unit, so had played his trump card early, and I, perhaps dazzled by the stunning body and fierce temperament of the girl, had not realized.
“But she hates me,” I objected weakly, knowing that this argument would be shot down as effortlessly as before.
It was. “Talk again with Repro. He says hate is akin to love. But you have to win her her way.”
“How could I trust her as an officer?”
“Marry her and she's yours,” he assured me. “She will be as loyal to you as she has been to her father, even if she hates you. Accept the judgment of those of us whose talents are not blocked by private emotion: She can be trusted in this respect. She is well worth your effort.”
“But rape—it's just not my way! I saw—”
“One moment, sir, while we switch specialty teams.” And in a moment Phist was gone and Repro was present. “You were saying?”
“I saw my older sister Faith gang-raped,” I said. “At the time she was beautiful and just eighteen—” I broke off. “My God! Rue is beautiful and eighteen!”
“Yes, of course,” he agreed smoothly. “Naturally you do not wish to put yourself in the position of raping your sister.”
“Roulette isn't my sister!” I protested.
“But she is, as you pointed out, virtually the same—”
“No! She's entirely different! She's Saxon!”
“You have prejudice against Saxons?”
“No! But Roulette's fiery; Faith was quiet. And Faith was no—”
“Go on,” he said calmly.
“No pirate,” I finished somewhat lamely, realizing that I was wading into a quagmire.
“So the situations are reversed,” Repro said. “The pirate is not raping the innocent; the innocent is raping the pirate.”
“Damn you!” I exclaimed.
“Why don't we explore the implications?” he suggested in his best psychiatric manner. The bastard was competent! “Pirates wronged you by raping your sister. Isn't it only fair that—”
“No!”
“But a long-standing grievance could be—”
“Rape is evil! I never want to be part of it!”
He frowned. “Would you want to be part of an affair with another man's wife?”
Ouch! “Rising Moon! I never intended to—”
“Of course. It was merely a rehearsal for your coming marriage to the woman for which Rising Moon stood in lieu. Peat Bog understands that.”
“Damn you!” I repeated. “You're saying I have to follow through with this rape, or—”
Repro spread his hands. “I'm not saying anything, sir.”
For sure! I was accusing myself. How could I face Mondy? I should never have let that rehearsal get out of hand! What I had done— was it any better than rape?
Someone cleared his throat. I looked up, startled. There was the one I dreaded: small, middle-aged, brilliant Mondy. How could I even apologize to him?
“Something I must tell you, sir,” he said.
I tried to speak and could not.
“You gave her up to bring me into the unit,” he said. “It was understood at the outset. I was the interloper—”
“No! A deal's a deal!”
“Yes. And you honored it, sir. Never once did you reproach me in any oblique manner for sleeping with your woman.”
“She's not my woman!”
“She was, sir. She loved you—”
“There was no love!”
“And so, for you, she gave you up. And for the good of the unit. I was more selfish; I took payment in flesh for coming in. As time passed, I regretted that increasingly. I knew this unit was where I belonged, where I had always belonged. It is, as you promised, a family. I thought at first that the singing was foolish, but now my song gives me a sense of identity within the community I never had before. The unit has become my life; the nightmares are gone. I can no longer justify keeping Rising Moon; her purpose has been served. I was seeking the courage to do what was right, to return her to you—”
“No, Peat Bog! She—”
“She loved you. She gave me all I asked, more than any woman before, and I loved her from the outset, but I knew the sacrifice she was making. It was wrong of me to use her. But I was addicted to her. I couldn't give her up. I could not afford the luxury of generosity the way you could. I—”
I shook my head. “Damn it, Mondy, you've got it all wrong! I never loved her with my heart, only with my body. I never really loved any woman since my beloved died. I used Rising Moon myself; that's how I brought her into the unit. Because I needed her strategic skill. I bought her—and then I sold her. To you, for your skill.”
“But after the rehearsal,” he continued without seeming to hear me, “something changed. She had thought of you, even in my arms; this time she—”
“Damn it, Mondy, I'm sorry! I had no right to—”
“She had you, as she had in the old days. And—” he shrugged—“this time it changed. Maybe she felt guilty. She came to me contrite, and for the first time in our relationship, I had her, body and soul.” He smiled wistfully. “I'd have given my life for that, for the reality instead of the courtesy—and instead you gave it to me free. She's mine now. She just had to try it again with you, to discover that. She's a good woman once she knows her mind.”
“Yes,” I said, relieved and amazed.
He smiled. “So go get your own woman, sir.” He turned and went to the door, and Emerald entered, passing him with a quick kiss.
“I suppose I knew it when we were in trouble in the Discovered Check ,” she said, coming to me. “But now I am sure of it. He truly understands me, as you never did, sir.”
I nodded affirmatively; evidently it was so.
"Now you've got a woman of your own to catch. You can't treat her the way you did me. She'll use her teeth, for one thing; don't even try to kiss her. And she's fast with that knife; she'll make a feint at your face, then cut out your crotch. Don't fool with her at all, sir; first foil that blade, then club her on the head.
Make sure she's out, then do it, fast and furious and hard. Bruise her inside. When she wakes and knows you've been into her, she'll have to yield. She won't use the knife, because it'll be too late; her treasure will be gone. Next time you take her, she'll fight, of course, but she won't have the knife and she won't try to kill or maim; it'll be much easier for you to rape her and easier yet each succeeding time until she can drop the pretense."
“Each time I—!” I protested.
She flashed her metallic smile again. “Pirates always rape. Their wenches expect it. It'll be long before you tame her in bed. But in public she'll serve you loyally, and that's what counts. The alliance. But on the wedding night, don't take any chances at all. This bitch is deadly!”
“Emerald, I couldn't bring myself to rape anyone!”
“Oh, come on, Worry! What do you think you did to me?”
“But you—”
“I responded—after you pinned me. That's the way it is. A girl fights as long as she can; then she relaxes and enjoys it.”
“I don't believe that!”
She laughed. “I'm speaking mythically, you idiot! Of course it's male propaganda! But with the pirates, it's more than a myth. They believe it. Roulette will fight you tooth and nail, literally, until you conquer her; then she'll accept you, exactly as her mother did her father. It's in their culture, Hope; you've got to play the game their way.”
“I don't think I could even get an—”
“Next to a shape like hers? Who you kidding, sir! You'll be bursting to get into her.”
“Thanks for the encouragement,” I said wanly.
“Same's it was with me. You never intended to do me; in fact, you didn't think it was possible, with the crotch-guard and wet suit. But you got into the spirit of it, and—” She broke off. “Spirit, that's right. I'm overstaying my turn. Good luck, sir.” And she was gone.
Spirit entered. “All right, Hope, it's all set. I slipped her the knife this morning, and the news about the S-3 slot. So now she knows what she'll lose if she kills you.”
“But—”
“Repro advised me on that. Rue is tough; she really will fight you. None of this token stuff. But after you take her, and she wakes and has the knife—she's allowed her strike then, and you can't resist; that's when this will weaken her resolve. She knows her father wants this alliance, wants legitimacy more than anything else, and what she personally will gain from it—much more than the average pirate bride—and that you keep your word. She has a good life coming up if she spares you in the aftermath. I think she will. But first you have to beat her and take her maidenhead; there'll be no gift there! Tonight.”
“Tonight! I'm not ready!”
“Repro said it had to be soon, before you lost your nerve.”
“I never got up my nerve for this! Spirit, do you realize what this is? You saw Faith raped!”
“And I saw how Faith recovered from it, too. But this isn't the same, Hope. Roulette is a pirate . This is the only way she'll ever marry, and she knows it, and wouldn't have it otherwise. She likes you—”
“She hates me!”
"I think we've been over that before. She hates you to protect herself from loving you before it is time.
All that emotion will flip 180 degrees once you take her. Once you savage her. And she's a lot of young woman, Hope; don't sell her short. Her father raised her for this from birth: to be too much for any ordinary pirate to take. I think we've set up a pretty good bride for you, and she does have a body you'll enjoy." She smiled knowingly, and in that instant I saw her as she had been as a child of twelve, not exactly a child even then.
“You know I believe in gentle love,” I said weakly.
She put one arm about my shoulders and squeezed. “I know, Hope. But think of this as a battle. A competition. If you win, you both win; if she wins, you both lose. You both know it. She may even help you unconsciously; she may not slash as hard as she can, or she may give you an opening to knock her out. Take it, Hope! Knock her out, rape her, and be done with it. We'll have the cameras on you, of course—”
“The what?”
“In case something goes wrong. A complete record of the proceedings, EMPTY HAND style. So everyone can see she has the knife, that you're naked and unarmed, and that she fights for her honor and you rape her fair and square. Her father may want to review that tape before he recognizes the marriage.”
“Her father!”
“And we of the staff will be present personally—”
“What?”
She smiled. “It's the pirate way, Hope. The groom's clan has to witness the victory, so that no one can claim he didn't perform. And if anything happens to the bride, I will be obliged to seek revenge—”
“ You? ” My staff had ganged up on me, hitting me with point after point; now my sister was putting me away.
"I gave her the knife, Hope. It's real; no rubber one this time. I'm responsible for her until you win her.
So whatever you do, don't kill her, because if she dies and I don't kill you, her clan will be honor-bound to do it, and—"