Cristopher Stasheff

Escape Velocity

Warlock in Spite of Himself - 1

1

She was a girl. Dar knew it the moment he saw her.

That wasn’t as easy as it sounds. Really. Considering that she was shaved bald and was wearing a baggy gray flannel coverall, Dar was doing pretty well to identify her as human, let alone female. It would’ve been a much better bet that she was a department-store mannequin in one of those bags that are put on them between outfits, to protect them in case somebody with a plastic fetish comes along.

But she moved. That’s how Dar knew she was human.

And he was just in from a six-week trading tour and was just about to go out on another one (Cholly, the boss, was shorthanded this month; one of his traders had been caught shaving percentage points with Occam’s Razor). Which meant, since the Wolmar natives didn’t allow their womenfolk to meet strangers, that for the last six weeks Dar had seen things that were human, and things that were female, but never both at the same time; so he was in a prime state to recognize a girl if one happened along.

This one didn’t “happen”—she strode. She nearly swaggered, and she stepped down so hard that Dar suspected she was fighting to keep her hips from rolling. It sort of went with the gray jumpsuit, bald head, and lack of makeup.

She sat down on a bar stool, and waited. And waited. And waited.

The reason she waited so long was that Cholly was alone behind the bar today and was discussing the nature of reality with a corporal; he wasn’t about to give up a chance at a soldier.

Not that the girl seemed to mind. She was ostentatiously not looking at the two privates at the other end of the bar, but her ears fairly twitched in their direction.

“He niver had a chance,” the gray-haired one burbled around his cigar. “He but scarcely looked up, and whap! I had him!”

“Took him out good and proper, hey?” The blond grinned.

“Out! I should say! So far out he an’t niver coming back! Mark my words, he’ll buy the farm! Buy it for me yet, he will!”

The girl’s lips pinched tight, and her throat swelled the way someone’s does when they can’t hold it in anymore and it’s just got to bust loose; and Dar figured he’d better catch it, ‘cause the soldiers wouldn’t understand.

But Dar would. After six weeks without women, he was ready to understand anything, provided it came from a female.

So he sidled up to lean on the bar, neatly intersecting her line of sight, smiled with all the sincerity he could dredge up, and chirped, “Service is really slow around here, isn’t it?”

She got that blank look of total surprise for a minute; then her lip curled, and she spat, “Yes, unless you’re looking for death! You seem to dish it up awfully fast around here, just because you’re wearing a uniform!”

“ ‘Uniform’?” Dar looked down at his heavy green coveralls and mackinaw, then glanced over at the two soldiers, who were looking surprised and thinking about feeling offended. He turned back to the girl, and said quickly. “ ‘Fraid I don’t follow you, miz. Hasn’t been a killing around here all year.”

“Sure,” she retorted, “it’s January seventh. And what were those two bums over there talking about, if it wasn’t murder?”

She had to point. She just had to. Making sure Dar couldn’t pretend she’d been talking about two CPOs walking by in the street, no doubt. To make it worse, judging by their accents, the two privates were from New Perth, where “bum” had a very specific meaning that had absolutely nothing to do with unemployment.

The older private opened his mouth for a bellow, but Dar cut in quicker. “Points, miz. You can believe me or not, but they were talking about points.”

She looked doubtful for a fraction of a second, but only a fraction. Then her face firmed up again with the look of someone who’s absolutely sure that she’s right, especially if she’s wrong. She demanded, “Why should I believe you? What are you, if you aren’t a soldier?”

Dar screwed up his hopes and tried to look casual. “Well, I used to be a pilot …”

“Am I supposed to be impressed?” she said sourly.

“They told me girls would be, when I enlisted.” Dar sighed. “It’s got to work sometime.”

“I thought this planet was an Army prison.”

“It is. The Army has ships too.”

“Why?” She frowned. “Doesn’t it trust the Navy to do its shipping?”

“Something like that.”

“You say that with authority. What kind of ship did you pilot—a barge?”

“A space tug,” Dar admitted.

She nodded. “What are you now?”

Dar shrugged, and tried to look meek. “A trader.”

“A trader?” She spoke with such gleeful indignation that even Cholly looked up—for a second, anyway. “So you’re one of the vampires who’re victimizing the poor, helpless natives!”

“Helpless!” the old private snorted—well, roared, really; and Dar scratched his head and said, “Um, ‘fraid you’ve got your cables crossed, miz. I wouldn’t exactly say who’s doing the victimizing.”

“Well, I would!” she stormed. “Stampeding out here, victimizing these poor people, trying to take over their land and destroy their culture—it’s always the same! It’s all part of a pattern, a pattern as old as Cortez, and it just goes on and on and on! ‘Don’t give a damn what the people want; give ‘em technology! Don’t give a damn whether or not their religion’s perfectly adequate for ‘em—give ‘em the Bible! Don’t ask whether or not they own the place—herd ‘em onto reservations! Or make slaves of ‘em!’ Oh, I’ve heard about it, I’ve read about it! It’s just starting here, but you wait and see! It’s genocide, that’s what it is! It’s the worst kind of imperialism! And all being practiced by the wonderful, loyal soldiers of our miraculously democratic Interstellar Dominion Electorates! Imperialists!” And she spat.

The two soldiers swelled up like weather balloons, and the weather was going to be bad, so Cholly yanked himself out of his talk and hurried down to the end of the bar to put in a soothing word or two. As he passed Dar, he muttered, “Now, then, lad, whut’ve I told ye? Reason, don’cha know, now, Dar, reason! Try it, there’s a good fellow, just try it! An’ you’ll see. Sweet reason, now, Dar!” And he hurried on down to the end of the bar.

Dar thought he’d been trying reason already, and so far it hadn’t been turning out sweetly; but he took a deep breath, and set himself to try it again. “Now, then, miz. Uh, first off, I’d say we didn’t exactly stampede out here. More like a roundup, actually.”

She frowned. “What’re you talking about? … Oh. You mean because this is a military prison planet.”

“Well, something of that sort, yes.”

She shrugged. “Makes no difference. Whether you wanted to come here or not, you’re here—and they’re shipping you in by the thousands.”

“Well, more like the hundreds, really.” Dar scratched behind his ear. “We get in maybe two hundred, three hundred, ah …”

“Colonists,” she said sternly.

“… prisoners,” Dar finished. “Per year. Personally, I’d rather think of myself as a ‘recruit.’ ”

“Doesn’t make any difference,” she snapped. “It’s what you do after you get here that counts. You go out there, making war on those poor, innocent natives … and you traders go cheating them blind. Oh, I’ve heard what you’re up to.”

“Oh, you have?” Dar perked up. “Hey, we’re gettin’ famous! Where’d you hear about us, huh?”

She shrugged impatiently. “What does it matter?”

“A lot, to me. To most of us, for that matter. When you’re stuck way out here on the fringe of the Terran Sphere, you start caring a lot about whether or not people’ve ever heard about your planet. Be nice to feel even that important.”