Stranded on Haven Read online

  “But Westin has a small, mysterious organization, simply labeled ‘Security’ in their annual budgets. That budget item has been getting larger every year for the last ten. Be careful. Most of their people are ‘true believers’ in the ‘manifest destiny’ of Westin.

  “I’m certain that their agents told you they just want to be left alone, and that’s true, as far as it goes; but they want to be left alone to take over the rest of the continent. Some of their people will see you as a wonderful opportunity for Westin and Haven. But others will see you as a serious threat. Now, Westin Security doesn’t usually use assassins. But all of their agents are trained to kill, and if their leaders come to see you as a threat to Westin or to their ‘manifest destiny’, they may very well decide it is the most effective way to end the threat.”

  I frowned. “I don’t know, Heidi. Maybe Len sees them as a threat, but I don’t think they’re a threat to me. Oh, I’m sure they’re planning to take over the whole western part of the main continent. I’m just not as sure about the ‘economic domination’ part. That sounds like Len talking, to me. With millions of hectares of unoccupied land to their west and south, there’s nothing to keep them from growing west as long as they wish, unless Cellia invades them, of course. They’re isolated enough from New Home to not be threatened by them, and of course Cornwell has its own problems. Oh, I’ll keep my eyes on them, of course, but I think they and the Refugers are sincere.

  “The main reason I asked you in, though, was to ask your opinion about my school proposal. Do you think they’ll go for it?”

  Her smile lighted the room. “I think Duke Richard is furious, Madame President is dancing around her office, President Tyree is lying awake trying to figure out who the winners and losers will be, and the Maximum Leader is remembering that Startrader wasn’t included in your message. He’ll figure he’ll be able to push his way in, but he’ll be worried about how much it will cost. Expect Cellia to vote ‘no’. He’s still playing for the whole pot.”

  I must have looked dubious, because she continued, “Look. He’s still working on getting his hands on you. What if he could torture you to transfer command of Adventurer and Startrader to him? He’s busy daydreaming about King David bowing down to him in order to get some stuff.”

  I nodded. “That’s about the way I have it figured, too.” I decided that the time had come to teach the leaders of Haven that my ship might be unarmed, but that didn’t mean I was helpless. I paused. “How would you like to be the first Colonist to visit Adventurer in over 500 years? If you’re going to be my bodyguard, I’d like to get you some training with modern weapons.”

  Again the blinding smile flared. “I’d love it!” I couldn’t tell whether her excitement was due to visiting Adventurer, or my mention of modern weapons. Maybe it was both.

  We left early the next morning. I left the viewport of the gig unpolarized, of course. My passenger would want the full treatment. I belted her into the copilot’s seat and then lifted. Heidi gasped as she felt the upward acceleration, and saw the ground drop away below her. But her face, on the other hand, showed only excitement.

  As the blue sky turned to the black of space, I explained that I must polarize the viewport, to protect our eyes from the sun. But I activated the viewscreen. Heidi was obviously mesmerized, and I wanted her to get the full effect. Her eyes didn’t move as the bright speck I’d indentified as Adventurer swelled into a disk and finally into an ever-enlarging ball. The silence was total, but it was not uncomfortable. Heidi was so engrossed in the image that conversation would have been impossible.

  She paid very little attention to Startrader, orbiting close aboard Adventurer. Her eyes were locked on the old colony ship as it swelled in the viewscreen and the hold doors gaped open. She gasped again as we were swallowed by the hold’s blackness.

  As we entered, though, lights flared, directing us to a landing pad. The grapples pulled us in with a barely perceptible thunk. I had Adventurer extend a boarding tube from her hold airlock so she wouldn’t have to pressurize the entire hold, and we wouldn’t have to suit up to move from the gig to the airlock.

  But still, full decontam was necessary. Once pests like lice, fleas and other small nasties get aboard a ship, there is only one certain way to get totally rid of them: decompress the entire vessel. Unfortunately, there are many things aboard a starship that do not react well to vacuum, and it can take more than a week to find and protect or remove them. And then, of course, you always miss some. So, if vermin once get aboard, they’re aboard to stay. No matter how complete the fumigation, some always manage to survive. As a result, we go to extreme lengths to make sure they don’t get aboard in the first place.

  So, once we were in the airlock, and the door was secured, we stripped naked, which amused Heidi greatly. “Now I know why you’re a spacer,” she said. “Bring the rest of your ‘assistants’ up here, and by the time they get aboard, the orgy will be well underway.”

  I grinned, but I felt my face grow warm. “Not exactly.” I handed her a breathing mask, and showed her how to use it. “In a moment, the airlock will be flooded with poisonous gas,” I explained. “That will kill any unwanted guests. Uh, it’ll also kill you, so make sure you breathe through the mask. Once I tell you, you can take off the mask and we’ll go aboard. Then, we’ll hit the ‘freshers long enough to shower the dead bugs from our hair, and we’ll get dressed. You’ll find a shipsuit in the ‘fresher.”

  She nodded, but she was looking at me oddly. I think she was wondering why I hadn’t moved on her. The first time we’d met, she’d made it clear she was available.

  I couldn’t believe it either. Here I was alone and naked with the most beautiful woman I’d even seen. Why wasn’t I jumping her like a rutting animal? I supposed that it was because when she made that offer, she’d been working, and offered herself whether she was really willing or not. A vision of Jess’s face flashed through my mind but I dismissed it. I mean, I was attracted to Jess, but it wasn’t like we were involved or anything.

  Even in a plain shipsuit, hair still wet from the shower, Heidi was still beautiful. She made a shipsuit look tasteful and elegant, trousers and all.

  And me? Slum rat turned cargo handler. Heidi was ‘way out of my class. Maybe that was why I wasn’t attacking her.

  I took her to the nearest VR gym, a large space whose walls were lined with VR helmets and supplies.

  “What’s your favorite hand-to-hand weapon? I mean what do you most enjoy practicing with?” I asked.

  She frowned. “Stick, I guess."

  I nodded, and called up a sample stick program. I had her select a stick that she felt would be good for fighting, which turned out to be a simple straight stick some 75 cems long.

  “This is called ‘virtual reality’ training,” I began. “When you don this helmet, everything you see, hear, and even feel will seem real to you. Yet, you will really only be in this room. Everything you see will be bodiless images, and you cannot hurt them.”

  I showed her the controls on the helmet, and she put it on, though her expression was anxious as the helmet covered her eyes and ears. She tensed as the tactile pads attached themselves to her head, but after standing stiffly for a long moment, she reached up and switched on the program.

  She jumped slightly, and dodged. After a moment, she assumed a crouched position, and waved the stick. Then she jerked it up, holding it for a moment before swinging it left and right. Finally, she began moving, and her actions became more positive, more confident. In a couple of minutes, she was jumping, sliding, rolling, and dodging exactly as if she had an opponent. After some fifteen minutes of frenzied exercise, I had Jane switch off the program. The tactile pads receded and she removed the helmet. She was sweating. She looked around the bare room, as though looking for the opponents she’d just faced.

  “Incredible!” She shouted. “There was this man, a big man, with a stick, and then another. And when I hit them, they fell, just as in real practice! And wh
en they hit me, I could feel it. Oh, not pain, but a twinge that let me know I’d been hit!” She grinned. “A great workout!”

  I nodded. “Let’s try something else. Something less strenuous.” I picked up a training laser, shoulder model. “This is a laser. It’s a long-range weapon like a rifle. This will be the basic training program.”

  She grimaced. “I’m not really sniper-qualified,” she said. But she donned the helmet again. When she activated the program, her head bowed toward the weapon, as though her eyes weren’t covered. Her fingers traced the controls. Finally, she raised it to her shoulder, pointed it. Her finger jerked on the firing stud, and even I could see the end of the focusing jewel move. She suddenly stopped. After a few moments she nodded, and raised the laser again. This time she froze, and her finger was much gentler on the firing stud. After a moment, she nodded, raised, and fired again. And again, then four more times. She stopped to pantomime reloading. She finally stopped after what I estimate to be twenty shots.

  “Did you see that?” She asked excitedly. “I hit a man at over 200 meters, firing offhand! Only the most skilled rifleman could do that! And that weapon fired six shots without reloading!”

  By the time we left Adventurer, Heidi had tried every weapon we had, and had garnered several hours of practice with her chosen favorites, the hand laser and fighting knife.

  Before we left, I introduced Heidi to Jane, and authorized her to access weapons information and training resources. She was wide-eyed. Adventurer knew her! Would take her orders!

  There is no ‘night’ or ‘day’ in space, of course. But we’d spent most of a ‘day’ aboard Adventurer. So, we didn’t return directly to Haven. Instead, upon leaving Adventurer, we jumped over to Startrader. As her docking clamps clunked into place, Heidi reached for the seal of her shipsuit. I stopped her. “Not this time, Heidi. We won’t need another decontam.” Lisa ran out a boarding tube and we cycled through the airlock. “Welcome aboard, Captain,” Lisa said.

  I nodded. “Thank you, Lisa. This is Heidi. She is my personal assistant and bodyguard. She is to have access to any facilities that will assist her in performing those duties.

  “I am afraid, Captain…” Lisa began, but I cut her off. “Yar, yar, I know.” I went to the Captain’s command chair and mashed my thumb on the ID panel. “Heidi’s access is specifically authorized to the armory, and to the weapons and information we brought aboard from Adventurer.”

  “Yes, Captain. Welcome aboard, mistress. Please place your thumb on the panel the Captain just used, and then put your eye to the sensor. These procedures will register you with my systems, and permit you access to the areas the captain noted.”

  Heidi was looking around for the source of Lisa’s voice. “She’s all around you,” I reminded her, grinning. “Remember? She is part of the ship, an Artificial Intelligence. Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it.” Heidi gave me a dubious look, but registered her thumbprint and retinal print without complaint.

  I was in no hurry. We had a lot of planning to do, and I didn’t like some of what we needed to plan. At any rate, there was time to introduce Heidi to Startrader, and get her to thinking of Lisa as a person, not a machine. Normally, it’s bad to anthropomorphize AI’s. People have actually been known to fall in love with them. I suspect I’d been on the verge of it myself.

  But Heidi was unaccustomed to AI’s, or even comps. So I needed Heidi to think of Lisa as a partner; to accept her advice, and even ask for it. If I got in trouble, I wanted Heidi to run for Startrader. She’d be out of reach of our enemies, and command more power than any of the governments below. Between Lisa and Heidi, I could be confident that anything that could be done to rescue me, would be done.

  I took Heidi to the wardroom, and dialed myself a caf and her a choc. I’d learned that caf didn’t exist on Haven, though they did have several bitter teas. But so far, I hadn’t encountered a local who actually liked caf. Choc, on the other hand, was a sensation.

  Dinner was a bit of a problem. Meats, and even edible plants differed greatly between Haven and the Galactic standard ship’s rations. What the locals called ‘beef’ more closely resembled the taste and texture of Galactic ‘pork’, and the closest analogy to local ‘pork’ was something the Galactics called ‘chicken’. It was all a bit confusing. But finally I managed to dial Heidi a meal she considered ‘delicious.’

  After dinner, to help begin the familiarization process, I asked Lisa to have one of the ‘bots gather the women’s clothing aboard, and bring it to the wardroom for Heidi’s examination. Of course, I didn’t mention that the former owners of the clothing were dead crewwomen. I chatted with Heidi until a ‘bot came in carrying a double armload of clothing. Heidi squealed with delight, and began rooting through the pile, while I slipped into the pantry and opened the armory.

  I selected another of those fine Atkins fighting knives for her, with scabbard, and the least-worn looking hand laser, along with four power packs and a belt and holster. Almost as an afterthought, I grabbed the silver needler in its fancy box. The box was obviously both case and camouflage. The highly ornate, innocent-looking little silver box looked like any of a dozen items that might be found in a woman’s bag.

  I had pondered over the intricate locking mechanism. Why have such a thing on a weapon? It certainly meant the user could not get to it quickly. I concluded that the idea was that the thief would become frustrated trying to open the box, and would ‘force’ the owner to open it, thus handing the owner the means to kill him.

  If that was the plan, I didn’t like it. I’ve been on both sides of stickups. This thing was just far too complicated, and depended on your enemy doing just what you expected him to do. Most of the stickup artists I knew just weren’t that curious. If they couldn’t open it immediately, they’d either toss it in a bag for melting down later, or throw it on the ground and stamp or pound on it. This thing was the kind of overcomplicated toy produced by ‘boutique’ armorers for people with more money than good sense. Still, it was pretty, and it was a weapon, and I thought Heidi would like it.

  When I returned to the wardroom, Heidi was gone. “She’s next door, in the Astrogator’s quarters,” Lisa reported. “That was the nearest compartment with a mirror, besides the Captain’s quarters.”

  The robots found almost two dozen various women’s outfits and accoutrements. When I entered the Astrogator’s tiny quarters, Heidi had skinned out of her shipsuit, and was busily trying to squeeze her well-developed body into a top that was obviously too small for her. I smiled and crammed myself into a corner of the bunk while Heidi, who was scandalized at the shortness of the skirts and the lowness of the necklines, insisted on modeling every one, being sure to point out its indecencies. But she was delighted with the fineness of the materials from which they were made.

  I guess a lot of guys would have been bored to tears, but I can’t understand that attitude. How can one be bored when a beautiful woman is displaying herself just for you in a large array of finery? Sorry, macho men. I can’t relate.

  She settled on a number of tops, skirts, trousers, and even, to my surprise, something called a ‘bra’. With access to easy, cheap body sculpting, few woman bother with these things anymore. Spacers were an exception. Since we may visit high-G planets, spacer women find it useful to keep a few of them around.

  On Haven, though, they were everyday wear. Apparently, modern designs are much more comfortable than local ones. She was talking about partnering with a local manufacturer to market a ‘space bra’. She was quite sure we’d make a fortune. We’d split the profits, she decided, and she would become the richest bodyguard on Haven. After a moment’s thought, I realized she might be right.

  Besides the other items, she wanted a dozen shipsuits. She maintained that they were the perfect ‘uniform’ for when she was ‘open’, not trying to be inconspicuous. She claimed they gave her good freedom of movement, and would draw attention to her holstered weapon.

  Delighted as she was wi
th the clothes, she squealed even louder when I presented her with the weapons. The Atkins impressed her greatly. She knew a quality fighting knife when she saw one. She was familiar with the hand laser from her VR lessons aboard Adventurer, of course. She cleared it expertly, and checked the power packs on the belt. We had to go back to the armory to change the belt, though. There turned out to be only one that could be made small enough for her, and even that one hung low on her hips.

  Somehow, with the weapons belt, laser and knife worn diagonally from left waist to right hip over her shipsuit, she struck me as sexy, in a way that none of the feminine clothing had. It was the first time I’d had that reaction to her. Even in her classiest Haven clothing, even in her nudity, I’d reacted to her as though to a work of art. A beautiful woman, of course, something, someone to be admired. This was the first time I’d thought of her as sexy, someone to be desired.

  I didn’t do anything about it, though I’m not quite sure why. Bedtime was clearly approaching, and she’d been jumping in and out of clothing all evening. Yet, just when I finally admitted to myself that I wanted Heidi, I found myself showing her how to use the ‘fresher, and backing out of the Astrogator’s cabin after wishing her good night. I thought I might have detected a flash of disappointment on her face, but I dismissed the thought, telling myself that I didn’t want to have sex with her if she considered it a ‘duty’.

  She seemed a bit irritated the next morning, and breakfast was a bit uncomfortable. Finally, though, the three of us, me, Lisa, and Heidi, settled down to planning.

  “We’re all agreed, then,” I began. “Len will try again, and will keep trying until we slap him down hard.”