The Iron Maiden (6 page)

“You're pretty,” a little boy told her.

“Thank you,” she said, exactly as she should. The children needed her to be pretty, because pretty Helse had become their mother figure, and now it had to be Spirit. She had taken Hope's early advice to heart, enhancing her body with clothing and hair and expression, though she used no makeup. She needed to be pretty, not adult, right now, for a reason it was best they not understand.

She checked on Hope frequently, and when she saw him stirring, she joined him. “Are you all right, Hope?” she asked, peering down into the cell.

He looked up at her, seeming troubled. Yes, he definitely suspected!

He was going to ask. She could not avoid it, but it was best that this confrontation be private. She dropped down into the chamber beside him.

“Spirit,” he said. “Were you with me when I slept?”

There it was. The hour of trial was upon her. But she would not volunteer it. “Hope, I will always be with you,” she replied. “We are family.”

“No, I mean--”

She looked at him, bracing for disaster. She had to answer, but she wasn't going to make it easy. “You mean what?”

“I mean with me. When--”

“When you screamed for Helse?” That was of course not the same. He knew she had been with him, every night, trying to ease his pain.

“Yes.”

“Hope, you had a bad dream. You were thrashing about. I tried to hold you down. Finally I got you quiet.” Literally true, but not the whole truth. If he asked her how she had gotten him quiet, the game was lost.

He considered. “Did I--hurt you?”

“You can't hurt me, Hope.”

“I mean--” But he did not finish. She understood with a flash of revelation that he didn't want to know.

She played on that. “Hope, I am your sister. I will do anything I have to, to keep you safe. I would die for you, as Helse did. Does anything else matter?”

Still he struggled, visibly “There are things you must not do for me, Spirit.”

She put on her most innocent look. “Like what?”

“Like--” But he choked again.

“Like lying to you?” she asked. “Ask me anything, Hope; I won't lie.” Please God, let him not ask!

He gave it up. “You are my sister.”

“Always,” she agreed. Then, trusting her luck no farther, she left him and went on about her business.

Soon he rejoined her. He never brought up the dread subject again. But it lingered long in her dreams.

*

Only a few days later the next pirate ship came. They set up for the three stage defense, this time with only two innocents to greet the visitors, because that was all they could spare. But the men had hardly entered before Spirit blew the whistle.

For an instant Hope and the others were at a loss. “It's the Horse!” Spirit hissed. Then they understood.

“Do it!” she said, meaning stage three.

But that moment of delay was too long. Even as Hope went out the lock, a pirate leaped forward and caught Spirit. She could not go to turn off the drive, so that Hope could reach the key valve. They were caught.

Horse wasted no time interrogating the captives. “Where are all the others? How did you get this pirate stuff?” he demanded. They refused to answer.

“Then we shall do it the harder way,” the Horse said grimly. He pointed to Spirit. “Strip her.”

They were going to rape her? But of course she had proved she was old enough, and of course no girl was too young for a pirate. She struggled, but soon they had stripped her naked.

The Horse studied her. “Not quite old enough,” he said with evident regret. “Another year and she'll be fine, but I don't get my kicks from children. Anyway, that won't make this kid talk; it didn't before. We'll have to go the other way.” He drew his knife.

The Horse faced Hope. “This is your little sister, by the look of her.” He brandished the knife. “So are you going to talk?”

“He won't!” Spirit exclaimed bravely. But she was terrified. Rape was not necessarily the worst, with pirates.

The Horse sighed. “Okay, we'll start with a finger.” He grabbed her left hand and wrestled with it until he had hold of her smallest digit, while the two other pirates held her legs and other arm, preventing her from struggling effectively. So far this wasn't much different from rape. Was he really going to cut her finger?

Then, without further ceremony, he brought the knife up and sliced into the base of her finger, near the knuckle.

The pain was overwhelming. Spirit screamed so piercingly her own ears hurt. She wrenched with all her strength, but the pirate hung on and kept carving. Blood spattered out and the pain continued.

Then it stopped, somewhat. Spirit stared at her hand, which was awash with blood. Her little finger was gone!

“I ask you again,” the Horse said, grinning at Hope. “Are you ready to talk?”

What Hope said then surprised Spirit through her pain. It sounded like “Kife.”

Spirit was awash in pain and horror, but she was aware that all the pirates took note. She didn't know what the word meant, or how Hope had learned of it, but it had obvious power.

“So you're into that, are you?” the Horse asked, licking his lips. He had for the moment forgotten Spirit.

“All right, show me the mark and I'll turn you loose.”

“I have no mark,” Hope said.

That evidently didn't wash. “There's always a mark,” the Horse said.

“Let my sister go, and I'll tell you everything,” Hope said, obviously defeated.

The pirates holding Spirit let go of her arms and put ropes on her ankles instead. She tried to put her fist in her mouth, but all she did was smear her own blood on her face. A man gave her a dirty bandanna, and she wadded that against the stump to finally stanch the bleeding. In a moment she found herself sitting on the deck with a blanket over her. She felt cold and faint, and her hand still hurt horribly.

Hope talked, and she listened despite her pain. It seemed that Helse had been a courier for someone named QYV, pronounced Kife. The Horse concluded that she must have been carrying something valuable in her body, and he wanted to know what it was. So while the eight children sat bound on the deck, the pirates suited up and went out on the hull to fetch Helse's body back in. It was frozen grotesquely stiff, so they waited while it slowly thawed, because they did not want to destroy whatever it was inside her.

It was an agonizingly long wait, several days, and all that time the pirates kept the children bound and guarded, released only singly to use the head. They allowed Spirit to rummage ineffectively through her own belongings for better bandaging material for her hand. The tacit deal was that then she would stop moaning so much. There was nothing suitable, so she had to settle for soft undergarments wrapped voluminously around and anchored clumsily with elastic. At least it stifled the bleeding, and she did stop her noise.

Actually she wasn't hurting quite as much as she let on. She had realized almost immediately that the pirates were keeping all of them alive mainly so that they would have plenty of children to torture if they needed to make Hope talk some more. Once they had what they wanted, they would probably either kill the children, or leave them in the bubble without the drive, so that they would inevitably die when their food and air ran out. They were doomed--unless they found some way to overcome the pirates. That was why, in the guise of clumsiness, she fetched her finger whip, and the tiniest of weapons: a knife fashioned from an ancient-style razor blade. It had been one of the weapons they had used in Stage Two.

She hid it with in the bandage, next to the gore of the stump. It was unlikely to be discovered there.

But she had no chance to use it, because a pirate was always watching, day and night. One even watched while she pissed in the head, licking his lips; there was no privacy at all. They were children, but she was pretty sure they would get raped before the pirates departed. Not all of the men would be as finicky about age as the Horse. They were just waiting for his word that the mission was done; then they would grab the particular children they had decided on and do it. Spirit had a fair notion which pirate wanted which child for what; they were hardly subtle about their glances. When it was the Horses's turn to return to their ship and sleep, two pirates would stand guard duty in the bubble, and sometimes they talked, not caring who heard. “That one with the finger--she's got half a breast,” one said, staring at Spirit. “Got tight little pussy too, I'll bet.” They even played a series of games of dice to determine which one of them would get the first dip, as they put it. Spirit pretended she didn't hear or didn't understand, and so did the other children. They had all learned the pretense of innocence, but all knew exactly what the pirates were talking about, having seen it happen before.

Meanwhile in the long hours they sat while Helse's body thawed, and the deathly stench slowly intensified, Spirit reflected on her life and situation, trying to understand why it had come to this pass. She concluded that she had brought it on herself: she had let her brother put his digit into her, so she had had one of her own digits cut off. God's punishment, a tooth for a tooth. If she ever did it again, she would pay again. It was not a lesson she was ever likely to forget. It might be that the whole second appearance of the Horse was to effect that punishment. She had brought it on them all.

But they had not yet been killed. That meant that God was giving her time not only to repent, but perhaps to redeem herself. Maybe she could somehow save them, when her punishment was complete. But she would have to be ready whenever the time came.

At last Helse had melted through, and the Horse was ready. He took out his own blade and sliced carefully into Helse's belly, looking for whatever might be inside. The other pirates crowded around, watching avidly. Spirit knew that Hope was wincing; the woman he had loved was being further violated, even after rape and death.

None were watching the children now. Spirit slowly brought her swaddled left hand to her mouth and worked at the wrapping with her teeth. She found the blade and picked it up with her lips. Then she held it between her teeth and used it to saw at the bonds that held her hands together.

The child next to her turned his head to see what she was doing. She did not try to conceal it from him.

Then he looked straight ahead, at the clustered pirates. “Pause,” he whispered, and she flipped the blade into her mouth with her tongue and made with the innocence. When no pirate was glancing their way, the boy whispered “Go.”

The process seemed agonizingly slow, but the blade was sharp and a single strand was all it had to sever.

Her hands were loose, but she kept them together as if tied. When no pirate was looking, she nudged closer to the adjacent boy. He moved his bound hands toward her, and she held the blade in her right hand and sawed more efficiently at his cord. He kept his eyes on the pirates, warning her when there was danger.

When she had his cord severed, she passed the blade to him. It was a good one, holding its edge for a long time; it would cut more bonds before dulling. He knew what to do with it. She rearranged herself and watched the pirates, whispering warning when necessary. At the same time she used her nine fingers to work at the bond at her feet, loosening it without removing it.

What the pirates were doing was awful. Horse had cut Helse open from breast to crotch, and across the belly, and now they were drawing out her intestines and inspecting them length by length. They did not want to miss whatever it was inside her.

Finally Horse found it, and drew it out of her: a tiny capsule. But Spirit could not look at that; she was trying to catch Hope's eye. The child next to him nudged him, and he looked at her. She made a gesture with her hand as of cutting, indicating that she had a knife. Then the blade itself reached him. Not all the children between them had had time to sever their bonds, but they knew that Hope should be first, being more effective when free. So the child beside Hope was sawing at Hope's bond.

Meanwhile the pirates were trying to figure out the capsule. They were hesitant to break it open, lest it contain a deadly poison, or some precious oil that would be lost.

Hope gave Spirit a signal with a finger: when they acted, she should go first for the weapons. She nodded; that had been her idea, and she was glad to have it confirmed. She was closest to the cache.

“To hell with that,” the Horse exclaimed, settling the pirates' dispute. He twisted the capsule apart.

An object fell out. Another pirate caught it. They looked at it. “A key!” the Horse said, disappointed. “A stupid little plastic key!”

But they didn't know what lock it might be for. It was useless to them.

The man threw it to the deck. “Three damn days gone--for this! For nothing!”

The children could wait no longer; it was time. Spirit got up quietly and walked toward the weapons. She tried to project an aura of innocence, as if she had been released to go to the head.

She almost made it. But then the Horse spied her. “The little bitch is loose! Who forgot to tie her ass?”

She saw Hope launch himself toward the Horse. He crashed into the man, distracting him for a moment.

The other children were attacking the other pirates. Spirit broke into a run. A pirate intercepted her, but she flicked him in the face with her finger whip. He clapped his hands to the wound. But another pirate was between her and the weapons cache. She hesitated, looking wildly around.

Hope had been thrown aside, and the Horse, all too quick to catch on, had drawn his laser pistol and was bringing it to bear on Spirit. She couldn't outrun that!

But Hope acted with hellish inspiration. He was going for the corpse. He was going to hurl that at the pirates! But it would be too late for Spirit; the Horse was about to fire.

She changed direction, leaping up into the upper baggage section, curving as she did because of the spin of the bubble. The laser shot missed her, burning a food package. Then she was scrambling through the packages, effectively losing herself among them. Unfortunately there were no weapons there, so her objective had been blunted.