Time Enough for Love (28 page)

I got up to forty-five hundred and he got down to seven thousand and there we stuck, as I had to hold out cash for last-minute squeeze, whereas it felt to me that he was close to the point where he really could not sell without risking the Bishop’s wrath. If there was a bishop—

He turned away in a fashion that says that a dicker is over and he is through flattering you, and told the girl sharply to step back into her steel harness.

I got out my purse. Minerva, you understand money; you handle the government’s finances. But possibly you don’t know that
cash
money affects some people the way catnip does Diablo. I counted out forty-five hundred blessings in big red-and-gold bills under that scoundrel’s nose—and stopped. He was sweating and swallowing his Adam’s apple but managed to shake his head a tenth of an inch.

So I counted more bills, very slowly, and reached five thousand—then started briskly to pick them up.

He stopped me—and I found that I had bought the only slaves I have ever owned.

He relaxed then, in a resigned way, but wanted lagniappe for the exhibits. I didn’t care one way or another but offered two hundred and fifty for the pix and tapes, take it or leave it. He took it and again started to put the girl back into her harness.

I stopped him and said, “Show me how that works.”

I knew how—a cylinder-type ten-letter combination lock you could set to a new combination each time you used it. Set the combination, slide the ends of the steel strap that went around her waist through the ends of the barrel, spin the alphabet disks of the cylinder, then it stays locked until you reset whatever ten-letter combo you picked. An expensive lock and good steel in the girdle—alloy a hacksaw couldn’t touch. This was another thing that made his story convincing, as, while there was a market for virgins on that weird globe, a trained odalisque fetched about the same, and this girl wasn’t being reserved for harem stock either way. So an expensive custom-made chastity belt had to have some other reason.

With our backs to the slaves he showed me the combination: E,S,T,R,E,L,L,I,T,A—and was smug about how clever he was to pick a combination he couldn’t forget.

So I fumbled on purpose, then pretended to catch on, and opened it. He was about to put it on the kid again and send us on our way. I said, “Wait a moment. I want to be sure I can work it in place. You step into it and let me get you out of it.”

He didn’t want to. So I got snotty and said he was trying to cheat me—put me in a position where I would have to send for him and pay through the nose to get my property unlocked. I demanded my money back and started to tear up the bill of sale. He gave in and stepped into the contrivance.

He could squeeze into it although the ends of the steel belt barely met; he was bigger around the waist than the girl was. I said, “Now spell that combination for me”—and leaned over the lock. As he spelled “ESTRELLITA,” what I set was “HORSETHIEF,” then jammed the ends together as hard as possible and spun the disks.

“Good,” I said. “It works. Now spell it again.”

He did so and I carefully spelled “ESTRELLITA.” It stayed locked. I suggested that he had had me spell it with one
l
and two
t
’s the first time. That didn’t work either.

He dug up a mirror and tried it himself. No go. I said it might be jammed, so suck up your gut and we’ll shake it. By now he was sweating.

Finally I said, “Tell you what, goodman—I’ll
give
you this belt. I’d rather trust a padlock anyhow. So go to a locksmith—no, you won’t want to wear this outside; just tell me where to find one and I’ll send him here and pay him myself. Fair enough? I can’t hang around; I’ve got a dinner engagement at the Beulahland. Where are their clothes? Faithful, gather up this junk and fetch the kids.”

So I left him still blatting about telling the locksmith to
hurry
.

As we left his tent, a taxicab was cruising by. I had Faithful hail it and we all piled in. I didn’t bother with a locksmith; I had the driver head for the skyport, then stopped on the way at a slopchest and bought the kids proper clothes, a clout for him and sort of Balinese sarong for her—uh, that’s much like the dress Hamadryad wore yesterday. I think those were the first real clothes the youngsters had ever had. I couldn’t get shoes on them; I settled for sandals—then had to drag Estrellita away from a mirror; she was admiring herself and preening. I threw away those auction robes.

I shoved the kids into the taxi and said to Faithful: “See that alley? If I turn my back and you run down it, I won’t be able to chase you; I’ve got to keep an eye on these two.”

Minerva, I ran into something I’ll never understand: the slave mentality. Faithful didn’t get my meaning—and when I spelled it out, he was aghast. Hadn’t he given good service? Did I want him to
starve?

I gave up. We dropped him at the Rent-a-Servant, and I got my deposit back—tipping him for good service—and my slaves and I rode on out to the skyport.

Turned out I needed that deposit and almost every blessing I had left—had to pay squeeze at outgoing customs to get the kids aboard my ship, even though the bill of sale was in order.

But I got ’em aboard. I immediately had them kneel, put my hands on their heads and manumitted them. They did not seem to believe it, so I explained. “Look, you’re free now.
Free,
get me? No longer slaves. I’ll sign your manumission papers and you can go to the diocese office and get them registered. Or you can have dinner here and sleep aboard, and I’ll give you what blessings I can just before my ship lifts tomorrow. Or, if you
want
to, you can stay aboard and go to Valhalla, a nice planet though chillier than this one—but where there is no such thing as slavery.”

Minerva, I don’t think ’Llita—pronounced ‘Yeetah,’ her everyday name—or her brother Joe—Josie, or José—understood what I meant by a place that did not have slavery; it was foreign to anything they knew. But they knew what a starship was, from hearsay, and the prospect of
going
somewhere in one had them awestruck—they would not have missed it if I had told them they were going to be hanged on arrival. Besides, in their minds I was still their master; manumission hadn’t taken hold even though they knew what it was. Something for old and faithful retainers, that is, who stayed on at the funda where they had been all along, but maybe got paid a little.

But to travel! The farthest they had ever been in their lives was from a diocese north of there to the capital, to be sold.

A little trouble next morning—Seems that one Simon Legree, licensed dealer in slaves, had sworn a complaint against me alleging bodily harm, mental duress, and assorted mopery and dopery. So I sat the cop down in my wardroom, poured him a drink, called in Llita and had her take off her wonderful new clothes and let the cop see the scars on her hips, then told her to skedaddle. I happened to leave a hundred-blessing note on the table while I got up to fetch the bill of sale.

The cop waved away the bill of sale, saying there had been no complaint on that score—but he was going to tell Goodman Legree that he was lucky not to face a countercharge of selling damaged goods…no, on second thought it was simpler if he just couldn’t find me until after my ship lifted. The hundred blessings was gone, and soon the cop was gone—and by midafternoon, so were we.

But, Minerva, I got cheated; Llita couldn’t cook worth a damn.

It is a long and complex passage from Blessed to Valhalla, and Shipmaster Sheffield was pleased to have company.

There was a mild contretemps the first night of the voyage caused by a misunderstanding that had started the night before, dirtside. The ship had a cabin and two staterooms. Since the Captain normally operated by himself, he used the staterooms for casual storage or light cargo; they were not ready for passengers. So that first night dirtside he put his freedwoman into his cabin, while her brother and he slept on transom couches in the wardroom.

The following day Captain Sheffield unlocked the staterooms, switched power to them, had the young people clean them and move the clutter to a gear locker until he could see what space he had left in his holds, and told them each to take a room—and forgot it, being busy with cargo and final squeeze, then with supervising his piloting computer while they got clear of that system. It was late that “night,” ship’s time, before he had his ship on her first leg in n-space, and could relax.

He went to his cabin while considering whether to eat first or shower first, or possibly neither.

Estrellita was in his bed—wide awake and waiting.

He said, “Llita, what are you doing
here?
”

She told him in blunt slave lingo what she was doing in his bed—waiting for him—as she had known what would be expected of her when milord Shipmaster Sheffield had offered to take them along, and had discussed it with her brother, and Brother had told her to do it.

She added that she was not a bit afraid; she was ready and eager.

The first part of this Aaron Sheffield had to believe; the addendum seemed clearly a white lie; he had seen frightened virgins before—not often, but a few.

He dealt with her fear by ignoring it. He said, “You impudent bitch, get your arse out of my bed and into your own.”

The freedwoman was startled and unbelieving, then sulky and offended—then she wept. Fear of an unknown that she had felt earlier was drowned in a worse emotion; her tiny ego was crushed by his rejection of service she
knew
she owed him—and had believed he wanted. She sobbed, and dripped tears on his pillow.

Female tears always had a strong aphrodisiac effect on Captain Sheffield; he responded to them at once—by grabbing her ankle, dragging her out of bed, hustling her out of his cabin, into her stateroom, and locking her in. Then he returned to his cabin, locked its door, took measures to calm himself, and went to sleep.

Minerva, there was nothing wrong with Llita as a woman. Once I taught her to bathe properly she was quite attractive—good figure, pleasant face and manner, good teeth, and her breath was sweet. But taking her did not fit any customs. All “Eros” is custom, dear; there is never anything moral or immoral about copulation as such, or any of its nonfunctional frills. “Eros” is simply a way of keeping human beings, individuals, each different—keeping them together and happy. It is a survival mechanism developed through long evolution, and its reproductive function is the least complex aspect of its very complex and pervasive role in keeping the human race going.

But any sexual act is moral or immoral by precisely the same laws of morality as any other human act; all other rules about sex are simply customs—local and transient. There are more codes of sexual customs than a dog has fleas—and all they have in common is that they are “ordained by God.” I recall a society where copulation in private was obscene and forbidden, criminal—while in public it was “anything goes.” The society I was brought up in had the reverse of those rules—again “ordained by God.” I’m not sure which pattern was harder to follow, but I wish God would quit changing his mind—as it is never safe to ignore such customs, and ignorance is no excuse; ignorance like to got my ass shot off several times.

In refusing Llita I was not being moral; I was following
my own
sexual customs, worked out by trial and error and many bruises over the centuries: Never bed a female dependent on me unless I am married to her or willing to marry her. This is an amoral rule of thumb, subject to change according to circumstances and not applying to females
not
dependent on me—another negotiation entirely. But this rule is a safety precaution applicable most times and places with widely varying customs—a safety measure for
me
…because, unlike that lady from Boston I told you about, many females tend to regard copulation as a formal proposal of contract.

I had let impulse lure me into a predicament in which Llita was temporarily my dependent; I had no intention of making matters worse by marrying her, I didn’t owe her that. Minerva, long-lifers should never marry ephemerals; it is not fair to the ephemeral or to the long-lifer.

Nevertheless, once you pick up a stray cat and feed it, you cannot abandon it. Self-love forbids it. The cat’s welfare becomes essential to your own peace of mind—even when it’s a bloody nuisance not to break faith with the cat. Having bought these kids I could not shuck them off by manumission; I had to plan their future—because
they
did not know how. They were stray cats.

Early next “morning” (by ship’s routine) Captain Sheffield got up, unlocked the freedwoman’s stateroom, found her asleep. He called her and told her to get up, wash quickly, then get breakfast for three. He left to wake her brother—found his stateroom empty, found him in the galley. “Good morning, Joe.”

The freedman jumped. “Oh! Good morning, Master.” He ducked and bent his knee.

“Joe, the correct answer is: ‘Good morning, Captain.’ It amounts to the same thing at present, for I am indeed master of this ship and everyone in it. But when you leave my ship on Valhalla, you will have no master of any sort.
None
, as I explained yesterday. Meanwhile, call me ‘Captain.’”

“Yes… Captain.” The young man repeated obeisance.

“Don’t bow! When you speak to me, stand tall and straight and proud, and look me in the eye. The correct answer to an order is ‘Aye aye, Captain.’ What are you doing there?”

“Uh, I don’t know—Captain.”

“I don’t think you do, either. That’s enough coffee for a dozen people.” Sheffield elbowed Joe aside, salvaged most of the coffee crystals the lad had poured into a bowl, measured enough for nine cups, made note to teach the girl how if she did not know, then have her keep coffee ready during working hours.

As he sat down with his first cup of coffee, she appeared. Her eyes were red and had circles under them; he suspected that she had wept some more that morning. But he made no comment other than a morning greeting and let her cope with the galley unassisted, she having seen what he had done the morning before.

Shortly he was recalling fondly the scratch lunch and supper—sandwiches he had made himself—of the day before. But he said nothing other than to order them to sit down and eat with him, rather than hovering over him. Breakfast was mostly coffee, cold ship’s bread, tinned butter. Reconstituted accra eggs with mushrooms were an inedible mess, and she had managed to do something to heavenfruit juice. To spoil that took talent; all it needed was eight parts of cold water for each part of concentrate, and the instructions were on the container.