Spaceways - King Of The Slavers Part 9

a mistake. He kidnapped and enslaved a TGO operative. That can't be allowed."

Seera gazed at the younger woman for a time before she nodded. "Pos, I can see that. The members of the peacekeeping force must be inviolate, hmm? We all think that TGO is mysterious and superior; that nothing is impossible for TGO. Above all and everything, but without dictating or even trying to rule. I learned that TGO is the law itself; I admit that I haven't given that much thought. I haven't had to. Now I see what you've said, and why you came for him. TGO has to keep proving those things we all believe about it, doesn't it?"

Janja nodded, "But TGO isn't an it, Seera. I'm Jan-ja. The big woman is Val, Val See. We are TransGalac-tic Order." And some others. Rat ran Yao, for one. An extremely competent man and a habitual liar who may or may not be afflicted with a heart.

Lady Seerava was watching the rippling tightening of the muscles of the pale, pale woman's jaw muscles.

"Well, governments and police forces are always its. And we don't even know who is the-Janja? Do you know who is the head of TGO?"

"Neg." Unless it's Rat Yao. A sort of Haroun al-Raschid, who does indeed go about among the people, seeing how they live and hearing their complaints . . . and killing some of them, blackmailing others.

"I... really shouldn't care to be in TGO," Seera said in a quiet voice.

Me, either, Janja thought. Staring at a gauge without registering what she saw, she said, "You don't want me to say 'Someone has to do it-someone had better,' do you?"

Seera considered, and shrugged. "Some cliches get to be cliches because they're true, don't they! Shots don't 'ring out'-ding dong!-and people don't really turn on 122.

their heels, but . . . pos. I can see that in a lot of cases ... 'someone has to do it.' Someone had better!"

Janja nodded, half hearing. The ship plunged through the twilight of s.p.a.ce here near Galaxy center, at an incomprehensible speed that neither woman felt. She was hearing, somewhere inside her head, the words of Rat-ran Yao during her training: "Can I trust you?" she had asked, and he had looked at her with those dark, dark eyes and said blandly and baldly, "I can't think of any reason you should. I offer you no promises, Janja. Just purpose. I mean purpose after Jonuta, Janja."

And: "Some offenses are almost impossible to prevent, Janja. Those that affect a few are not worth trying to prevent. Really trying to stop drug-dealing, for instance. What a way for governments and policers to waste millions of stells and people-hours! How silly! There are piracy and slavery and drug-dealing and graci-ous-me p.o.r.nography, too. TGO drew a line and those things are below the line. I'll tell you what's above the line TGO drew, Janja. There are no wars in the Galaxy. The job is to maintain a balance along the s.p.a.ceways. We stop wars before they start. That prevents the deaths of millions-or billions. We don't protect individuals, Janja-we protect societies. Make that Society."

She remembered Aristotle, and had quoted him to Rat Yao: "Gray and white color do not belong to the same thing at the same time; therefore their components are opposed. ... It is impossible that contrary attributes should belong at the same time to the same object.''

Ratran Yao had yawned elaborately. "Ah, philosophy. An ignorant ancient who spoke for the teensy little part of the little world he lived on. Pure black and pure white just can't exist, in Aristotelean terms." And he had mentioned the Director of TransGalactic Order.

123.

Rat had said it was he: "I am the Director." He had hinted that it might be a woman. He had said that it was the pirate Shieda, and Janja had thought what could be more fitting; more gray for The Gray Organization. A pirate chief of the policers! More gray!

She was sure that the Director of TGO was not Rat, and that he was not Shieda, and she felt that if it were a woman, TGO would be even less direct than it was; even more inscrutable and . . . gray.

It didn't matter any more. Janja was TGO. The Man-janungo matter was over, and she had another a.s.signment. She had been prepared. The woman beside her on s.p.a.cer Lewuvul had no idea that Janja had been changed; nearly as much as Seerava, she had been changed both mentally and physically. If Januta had noticed, he had chosen to say nothing. The chances were that he had not. The changes were more subtle. Despite what artists would probably imaginatively depict if ever she was written of, Janja was smallish of bosom, not-quite white of hair, thick of thigh and large of calf. Her native Aglaya's air was rich in oxygen and breathing was no problem; it was the gravity that was high, so that Aglayans tended toward shortness and needed st.u.r.dy legs to stand up and walk on a planet that tried to press or pull them down. Janja grew up in the twilight of a world whose cloud cover blotted its sun; in the dragging pull of a gravity 30 per cent greater than standard. She had no idea that she was fighting that pull, of course, or that the people of other worlds did not develop such legs-she and her people of Aglaya had no idea that there were other worlds, much less other peoples.

Ratran Yao had had her changed because she was going after the man called King of the Slavers. Not because he wore a crown or sat enthroned; he was the biggest and most successful there was. Slavery was legal 124.

I.

on plenty of planets. A person could choose to enslave itself, and some did. Not Janjaheriohir of Aglaya. She had been stolen off that world, mistreated, sold, and mistreated a lot worse on Resh by the owners and slave-master she eventually killed. She was more than delighted to be going after the King of the Slavers.

RAMESH JAGESHWAR. OFTEN CALLS SELF RAMESH KSHATRIYA. THE CONCEPT APPEALS TO HIM: THE DRAMA OF IT. FOND OF DRAMA AND THE DRAMATIC. WEALTH INESTIMABLE. NO KNOWN LIKENESSES. a.s.sUMED TO HAVE HOLDINGS ON MANY PLANETS BUT CAN BE LINKED TO FEW. T.M.S.M.Co. CONNECTION? CONGCORP CONNECTION?

"Very wealthy, yes. Incredibly rich, Janja. After all -the most successful slaver in the universe. He swallows up most compet.i.tion-or they vanish. No way around it ... the man is incredibly competent. Either Jonuta works for him or they have an arrangement or-" Ratran Yao paused to make an open gesture with both hands. "Or 'Kshatriya' just thinks Jonuta isn't big enough to consider compet.i.tion and to bother with."

Janja had nodded without speaking. Good! She had a Mission again. She liked it. It would feel far more than good, getting Ramesh "Kshatriya" Jageshwar.

"He is next to insatiable," Rat Yao told her. "s.e.xually, I mean."

"Oh, wonderful," Janja said, and had a flash of another dramatic man in bright, bright colors and great big hat; him and his flourishing bows and gestures and his satirical use of "Oh, wonderful." Trafalgar Cuw. Was he with TGO? Rat wouldn't tell her.

125.

Rat flipped his fingers. "Listening is easier when you aren't making comments, Janje. Also, he likes only slender women with skin and hair as pale as possible . . . like his sister. She was his partner until she disappeared. Neither he nor she is married but we are just short of certain that both have been. They are close in age, Ramesh Jageshwar and his sister-if she is his sister. Their partnership is not confined to business. Was not, I mean."

"Before your people s.n.a.t.c.hed her on Lanatia."

"Our people, Janja, our people. He's beside himself searching for her, bet on it. We have some evidence and infer that already he has gone through a string of pale-skinned girls whose hair was subcutaned into paleness. They don't last. It's his sister he's trying to replace, of course, and they can't measure up."

"Poor dear Ramesh and Daura! I was kidnapped in the name of evil: slavery. A while later she was kidnapped in the name of law-by you, from her slaver brother. How . . . interesting."

"Delicious, even," Rat said.

"So. I am pale of skin and hair. So you have her locked up tight and . . . you want me to pose as her?-as his sister?"

"Oh no. We wouldn't dare try that. We will just make you look a bit more like her. We teach you her ways. We stuff you with her knowledge. I think that will be enough."

"Uh. Then what? You going to ship me to him, express?"

"Afraid not. The plan is to put you in his way, make sure you attract his attention."

"What? Then what? You mean you intend to arrange for me to be out there and a.s.sume-what? That I'll be kidnapped?"

126.

"Probably."

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, Rat! That's . . . you-"

"You're, ah, blither-blurting, Janja."

"Everything is just so d.a.m.ned flaining gray! We kidnap her. We make me as like her as we can. We set me up, hoping that he'll kidnap me."

"Right." His bland expression did not change.

Janja heaved a big sigh and sat back in an accepting att.i.tude. "Right. Is it going to hurt, this making me look like his sister?"

"Naahh."

Some of it did hurt, of course. Janja was sure that some of Rat's lying was just to keep his hand in. Just as he went out on mission-"diplomishes," meaning he was going to kill someone or someones, in the name of Galactic order. He kept in shape; he kept his skills sharp, whether for making instant decisions or killing or bribing or hand-fighting or lying.

She received knowledge by implant and by remifica-tion and hypnolearning. She received physical implants and transplants, too. Her eyes were changed a little, and her teeth. Her thighs were slimmed a little-a result she did not at all mind and that she could never think of as anything but incredible; the things these Thingmakers could do! Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were puffed up a bit. That was easy and understandable. So was the subcutaning that turned her nipples almost red, after they too were puffed up a little, turning the aureoles into shiny-swollen hemispheres. She was questioned and drilled by men and women monotonously dressed in gray or white. Sometimes she was nude, as test of her self-consciousness, of her compunctions. Sometimes she wore bodypaint and skindye, in accord with orders, and 127.

sometimes it was obscene. That was more conditioning, more testing, she realized. Janja endured. It was interesting. And she did like the goal, if the d.a.m.ned learning and training and conditioning ever ended!

They drilled her in Daura, which was the name of the woman they had captured so neatly on Lanatia, incidentally wiping out four of her bodyguards.* Presumably they had been among Ramesh Jageshwar's best.

Daura they kept well locked up. They observed her at all times. They "let" Janja watch edited films of Daura, and hear her voice, her startling vocabulary. They tapped Daura's brain with machinery and with hypnorb drugs and others that put her in orbit. That way they could observe and listen to and record her responses, her reactions, and words while she was high.

"Many a masquerade has failed because the imposter was drugged or was gotten drunk," Janja was told.

"Uh," Janja said, without bothering to say that she was not supposed to be an imposter. From time to time she did try to tell them that making her too much like Daura was surely a mistake; wouldn't Ramesh Jagesh-war suspect such an almost-simulacrum and never trust her-or worse?

The answer was the standard of the imperiously self-certain: "Let us worry about that."

Janja let them worry about that. Meanwhile the distillation of the information stolen from the slaver-sister blond they fed into the TGO blond with machinery and hypnotic drugs and vocal drill, drill. She went to bed and awoke with more knowledge: the process of remification imparted learning during normal sleep, rather than in hypnosis or under drugs.

* Detailed in the prolog to Jonuta Rising!, s.p.a.cE WAYS #13 128.

"All right Janje, you are not Daura but you are almost exactly like her, and he is making love to you. React."

"That's silly, Rat. Can't do it, just do it sitting here. Want to appoint someone good-looking for me to tryst with?"

"b.i.t.c.h. See you later, brat."

He did, and she was able to remember and react in Daura fashion when he entered her: she moaned and screamed, acting out what she had learned, for Daura's reactions during lovemaking, particularly while slicing, were extreme. She was Janja, responding to Ratran Yao's slicer goring into her where she wanted it, d.a.m.n him, but she responded as Daura would have done, in a screaky throaty voice: "Oh slice me, slice me, jam it deep, shove it up me till I can taste it ... unhh unhh unhh ... oh what a lovely big slicer get it in (this is ridiculous she's an idiot) get it in deeper, farther ungh unhh cram me with that big thing, you slicer, you corker, you f.u.c.ker, you bullish sister-slicer!"

He did that, digging in his toes and thrusting hard and bullishly. Her moans and screams were not simulated. They were Janja and Daura; Daurajanja.

"Not bad," he murmured later, lying in post-coital sprawl with his hand on her newly puffed-up breast. "I hope you can duplicate that with him in you."

"All that hollering and urging is ... ridiculous!"

"Uh-huh. Well he is built big, Janja; we got that from Daura. And he loves 'dirty talk' from the woman he's trysting with."

In a teeny silly little voice she said, "Oh oh oh hump it to me big boy," and they broke up. Then he began squeezing and palpating her b.r.e.a.s.t.s with force, and 129.

twisting her nipples; Ramesh the Warrior, Rat a.s.sured her, also loved playing rough.

"Oh, wonderful."

"Where'd you get that phrase, anyhow?"

"Ow! Who knows. All right, isn't that enough practice? Suppose he likes it both ways?-suppose he can take if, too?"

"Naahh, we big strong men are the agresOW!"

and "No no no. First you pick it up like this, Janja, and then you raise it, just so high, and then you inhale from the cup, this way-and then you inhale again. Remember! Twice! Only after that do you sip-sip-and you set the cup down at once. Not with a bang-set it down, I said, and I said sip, not guzzle. Drink kerala that way and he will consider you a slumguzzler and you'll be out of it in ten minutes besides."

"d.a.m.n it, you sisterslicing grat's a.s.s, I'm thirstyl"

"Not bad, not bad. You're starting to sound like her. But drink something else then, dammit, because we are going through this and over this until you do it right if we have to take time out long enough to pump your stomach!"

"Get that finger pointed elsewhere before I bite it off, twitch!"

"You're so full of hostility I'll bet you could do it, too. I'd rather you didn't. Can we ease off the belligerence and get back to drinking kerala again?"

"I'd like to drink your flaining blood!"

"I'll come see you tonight and give you something to drink all right, d.a.m.n you and your d.a.m.ned belligerence! I'll stuff your mouth until you can't breathe and give you a deep protein injection directly in the stomach!"

130.

Who cares-it won't do a thing for me since you 're not an Aglayan, she thought. But she chermed his genuine anger with that extra Aglayan sense he didn't even know about, and she returned to the kerala ritual.

and "You not only lied to me again and again, you kidnapped Daura right off a s.p.a.ce station and the plan is to stop Ramesh by extralegal means and trickery and . . . what then, murder?"

" 'Murder' and 'a.s.sa.s.sination' are both loaded words, Janja. Euphemisms. The one is used to make killing sound worse and the other makes it sound almost nice. It's all killing. And it can't be 'extralegal means,' Janja. We are the law. We keep the peace. We try to maintain order. Can I see that walk again? Think: Daura. Arrogant. Queen of the world 'cause brother's the biggest there is."

"How was that?"

"Looked good. Or like Daura's walk, anyhow. Oops -negatory. Daura never flips her fingers. She shrugs with the shoulders-she's aware of what it does to her warheads."

"But I'm not supposed to be Daura."

"Arguing for the sake of argumentation, Janja. Tsk! You are, though, supposed to be aware of what a shrug does to your t.i.ts."

"Arrgh."

and, two days later, maddeningly: "Hmm. Maybe you should go back to the standard finger-flip, Janje, and just throw in an occasional shoulder-shrug."

"Arrgh!"

and "But-Rat! It's the second time I've been promised some time-only a couple of hours, Rat-to myself, for 131.

myself, and you've s.n.a.t.c.hed it away at the last min."

"Sorry, Janja. This is mighty important business here. We can't just stop and let you play-"

"You slime! You rat, Rat! You blueballed graygutted no-nutted sisterslicing Shirashloving Jarpsucking marinated calcinated masturbating furbagging gimp-brained SLIME!" All that in one yelled-out breath, in the newfound wealth of slanguage given her from the astounding vocabulary of the captive languishing in a leaden cell far below Ratran Yao's office.

He sat back nodding and smiling. "All right! Beats the vug out of a mere girlish 'argh'! That's good, Janja. You sound just like Daura. I was beginning to think I was never going to be able to get you to blow up. You've got your time; let's make this all for the day."

For that she had no answer at all. She sat staring at him, mouth open. The son of a grickhead tricked me again!

As she rose in silence and started for the door, he said, "Like some company later?"

"Neg-a-tory! I'd rather m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e, thanks."

And now-now she was heading in toward Qalara on s.p.a.ceyacht Lewuvul, with Lady Seerava beside her at the con, still mouth-dribbling about how she felt so good about helping those poor girls of Manjanungo's and how it was going to make her feel so good, important at last, a new lease on life, and Janja wanted to gag her with a boot.

They made it without incident, Lewuvul and Star-wolf. The first person Janja saw, right there at the berth on Qalarastation, was an extremely handsome stevedore who walked with a lurch. The handsome face came off and the lurch disappeared, once they had privacy. Ratran Yao wanted to confer, and he did love his disguises.

11.