Chapter 4

As I pulled away, I keyed my implant "Hey, Mark..."

"Where the Hell have YOU been?" Decurion Marcus Tillotson asked querulously.

"I, uh, tripped over a woman," I replied, embarrassed.

"Already? Where did you lock her away?" Having a prospective concubine running around for several days was a security breach at the very least, and given time, they started conniving about how to get you to ship Great Aunt Sadie, too...

"I, uh, haven't broken the big news," I related.

"Well, THAT works," Mark laughed. "You dog, you! One night on planet and you managed to put some sweet young thing on her back? I didn't think you were such a stud..."

"It just happened..." I explained.

"Well, if it doesn't work out, no harm, no foul," Mark chuckled. "You just put her on the street and take something ELSE at pickup..."

"You're a predator, Man," I chided him. "The only question is species. Wolf or hyena?"

"Hyena, probably," Mark replied, and laughed eerily. I don't think his vocal cords could make that noise, but he could subvocalize and substitute the sound effect. "You haven't seen what I've seen in the Civil Service dorms. Where are you?"

"Six blocks out."

"Okay, I'm at the gate getting a visitor's pass. I'll alibi you so we can meet the Major on schedule."

Two minutes later, I wheeled up in front of the gate for Seifort Academy -- our reason for being here. Mark waved at the guard, confirming my ID and I followed Mark's rental car to the visitor spaces in the parking lot in front of the administration building. Major Howard was waiting on the steps. "Where have you two been?" he demanded.

"Breakfast was slow," Mark replied, "And Jack, here, had to peel a woman off his leg."

"I did not!" I stood there smarting under the Major's disapproving glare.

"It's early," he grunted. "VERY early!"

"It was a date, not a pickup," I insisted. "I haven't said anything to her about any pickup."

Mark grinned. "The sly dog is getting a lengthy test drive in before making any choices -- pretty slick..."

"Actually, it's a little embarrassing," I objected, "False pretenses and all that..."

"Oh, come on!" Mark scoffed, "If the chick dropped her panties for you on the very first date, she OBVIOUSLY has round heels and therefore CLEARLY has diminished expectations..."

"Actually," I replied, "she was a virgin."

Mark's eyes popped, and the Major erupted, "What?"

"I was surprised, too," I admitted.

"She must know, then," the Major opined.

"No, I don't think so," I insisted. "We just... connected... at a much more basic level than you get from telling some chickie, 'Let me take you to the stars...' She's a little bit unique, anyway; I doubt that she would be of interest to either of you."

Major Howard eyed me, "Let me know if it turns out that you're wrong and that we have a security issue." I nodded. "Let's go inside."

Classes had already started for the day so the uproar at the front counter of the administration offices was muted. We waited while the woman at the counter handled issues for a couple of students, then the Major announced us: "Mr. Howard, Mr. Tillotson, and Mr. Harper to see Dean Atkinson. We have an appointment."

"I see," the woman said. "Follow me, please -- I'll take you to Ms. Bowman, Dr. Atkinson's secretary." She waved us around behind the counter and down a hallway to a reception area. "Mr. Howard, Mr. Tillotson, and Mr. Harper to see the Dean," she announced us to a decent-looking redhead in her mid-thirties.

The redhead eyed us and said brightly, "From the Nuevo Angelino Education Department?"

"Yes, Ma'am," the Major confirmed; Mark and I flicked a glance at one another. Was the jig up? Both of us went on alert...

"I'll let him know you're here..." The tone confirmed that we were going to have an interesting few minutes.

I figured they were going to attempt a brush-off -- a stupid tactic, given what we were offering -- but Dean Atkinson wandered out of his office momentarily and shook our hands, waving us into his office. I whipped out my scanner and swept the office under cover of checking my email, then cued the AI to trigger the damping field from the drone tracking us from above as we settled into chairs. This wasn't the standard grey interdiction field that everyone knows about; this one merely damped electronic communications. Emitters still worked, because the drone received transmissions and relayed them -- but the AI was filtering all inbound and outbound signals, picking and choosing what would pass the filters and what wouldn't. "I admit to some curiosity," the Dean noted, eyeing us. "Where IS Nuevo Angelino, exactly? I couldn't find it. If there isn't such a place, as I suspect there isn't, what ARE you here for?"

I got back up and went to the office door; the AI indicated that the channel Dr. Atkinson had set up to relay the contents of our conversation to his secretary had been chopped -- and she was up and out of her chair as a result. As she popped open the door to check on things, I surprised her, taking her by the wrist and murmuring, "Come in! No reason to sit in the bleachers when you can sit in the front row!" Surprise and confusion kept her from fighting me; I closed the door behind her and waved her into a chair.

Dr. Atkinson frowned and reached for his telephone; we did nothing -- the line was dead. He took a breath and asked, "Would you care to explain yourselves?" I thought it was a pretty good front, frankly, but the AI said his pulse rate was considerably elevated...

Major Howard steepled his fingers and announced, "We mean you no harm, Sir -- quite the opposite, in fact. Nuevo Angelino does, in fact exist -- but you won't be able to Google it, because its location isn't public knowledge."

"So where is it?" Dr. Atkinson asked.

"About a hundred seven light years from here."

After THAT little shocker, we got down to business. We were there because Governor Sharpe was unhappy with the flow of fourteen-year-old male concubines we were getting as the offspring of existing families reached their minimum age of majority; we weren't getting troops, we were getting unwanted males theoretically only good for stud service. Clearly, their education wasn't up to snuff; most of that education was happening without any concerted direction, when and if someone took the initiative in individual families. We needed a fix...

Seifort Academy was a private school servicing grades one through twelve. Half of the student body was domiciled in the dormitories, and the other half walked or rode the bus; the school serviced thirty-six hundred students. Unique about the school was the curriculum; the administration had gone out two years before and begun collecting everything they could discover about Confederacy culture and technology and began fashioning a two-tier curriculum designed to either produce a highly qualified sponsor or an exceptionally talented concubine. Classes included the theory and use of advanced Confederacy technology (such as was released on Earth), strategy and tactics and other items of value to soldiers. They concentrated on moral behavior (not the crap you might expect, based upon someone's religion, but rather personal responsibility, loyalty, teamwork, honesty, and other admirable traits that would stand a student in good stead on a CAP test), and advanced sexuality and reproduction. Students were pre-screened with a school-developed 'CAP Pre-test' in the fourth grade and track recommendations were made then -- but parents could opt to ignore the results. When students were actually tested, however, their track was fixed -- but they could add cross-track courses if they wished and showed any aptitude for the subject matter. Such cross-tracking tended to be in one direction -- but there were a few surprising cases of sponsor-tracked students taking concubine courses...

Seifort Academy was already showing signs of considerable success after only two years -- enough for their data to show up in the database when Governor Sharpe went looking for a resource to fix his ailing educational system. So the Governor dispatched his Lieutenant Governor -- Major Howard -- a senior functionary in the Support Directorate in charge of Education -- Mark -- and a troubleshooter to help organize the physical movement of personnel and assets -- me -- to deliver a remarkable offer...

The gist of said offer, from Dean Atkinson's perspective, was 'We want YOU!' -- just like an old Uncle Sam recruiting poster. We wanted the staff of Seifort Academy -- and to get them, we were willing to take immediate families, the entire student body, and THEIR immediate families! If needed, we were willing to take a good deal more than that; Governor Sharpe had convinced the Navy to allow him to 'borrow' a prototype cube ship for the effort! The Valhalla was in orbit, waiting to carry as many as twenty thousand passengers on its maiden voyage to Nuevo Angelino -- all we had to do was make the whole thing work without turning the academy into a major Earth First terrorist target.

Dean Atkinson was nonplussed. "You propose to evacuate the entire school?"

"We do indeed," Major Howard agreed. "Your staff is doing a fine job of turning out sponsor-capable students -- and you don't ignore skills that improve the value of concubines in the process. We have several thousand school-aged children on Nuevo Angelino who are NOT receiving a proper education -- a situation that virtually guarantees that they will not ascend to sponsorship status. This is unacceptable -- we MUST have a high percentage of the upcoming generation qualify for sponsorship and assume the ongoing responsibility for the conflict with the Sa'arm, because there is no easy fix -- neutralizing the Sa'arm won't occur any time soon. To stop them requires not only a large quantity of human troops -- those troops have to be of adequate quality to make their mark! Today, if we lose one human in the process of killing a thousand Sa'arm, we lose! The Governor believes that proper education is a force multiplier that we cannot ignore."

"What do you propose to provide?" Dr. Atkinson asked.

"Clearly adequate classroom facilities -- although, if necessary, we are prepared to extract structures from the existing school..." Major Howard began.

"What?"

"Force bubble technology would allow us to extract uniquely suitable structures and carry them to the colony," the Major explained, "but as of this moment, we're unaware of any school structures that are truly unique."

"I would tend to agree," the Dean mused, nodding. "We have commitments to the present student body..."

"Commitments we intend to more than fulfill," Mark interjected. "We're prepared to evacuate not only the staff, but the entire student body. That's a guarantee of extraction, rather than an improved chance of extraction. In addition, the staff and students will gain access to technologies and information not released on Earth for fear that the Swarm will discover it here when they arrive. Every effort will be made to ensure that the school's knowledge base is updated constantly to the absolute latest data available to the human race."

"Not all of the staff are, ahem, sponsor quality," Dr. Atkinson pointed out. The redhead blanched.

"We don't propose to make them sponsors," Mark replied, "we can't, actually. But concubines perform a number of functions on Nuevo Angelino under the aegis of the Support Directorate, according to their skills and aptitudes. We don't allow it to interfere with procreation, which is a primary concubine function, but concubines have plenty of bandwidth. A credentialed teacher need not be a sponsor -- and need not be concerned unduly about the classic issues associated with a concubine's role. In the first place, certain of the restrictions placed upon us by the Confederacy regarding concubine conduct and sponsor responsibility for same have tended to be expressed somewhat more harshly that is absolutely necessary. Concubines are a resource -- a valuable resource -- and disposal of a concubine more or less at will by a sponsor just isn't done on Nuevo Angelino. I won't say that disposal of a concubine for any one of several reasons never occurs, but it doesn't without due process -- or a review at the very least. We're going to want to assign concubine-class teachers to sponsors -- or, at the very least, to a staff contact from the Support Directorate who will ensure that their needs are taken care of. They -- everyone, actually -- WILL inherit the secondary mission of propagating the human species, but the extended nature of the family unit on Nuevo Angelino is designed to facilitate sharing child-rearing responsibilities, so the impacts to their function as teachers should be minimized."

Dr. Atkinson nodded. "There are some embarrassing seniority issues, too."

"That will be a problem," Major Howard replied. "There is a basic expectation that a sponsor is a more valuable property than a concubine, so concubines in a supervisory position over sponsors are going to face issues. How many of these supervisors are actually performing duties that could be delegated to a good secretary?"

Dr. Atkinson coughed. "Oh, my..." He looked embarrassed. "How well do you know the staff?"

"We have dossiers," Mark admitted. "Some hard decisions will need to be made, but they are fewer than expected."

There ensued ten hours of planning and negotiation. We Nuevo Angelinos came prepared to be open-handed, but it wasn't wise to just hand over everything on the first pass; any negotiator knows that the more you give away, the more your opponent wants. We and the school administration had to walk a fine line -- we had to attempt to attract the maximum number of parents, students, and staff to the extraction WITHOUT having the secret get out. Dr. Atkinson invited several staff members to his office during the day to assist in the planning. I was in charge of ensuring that those staff members were suitably inhibited against revealing the privileged information they were receiving and working with, using a device that induced a hypnotic state that the team AI then capitalized on to apply blocks, supplemented by certain tailored nannites. Now, nannites are too small to be sophisticated enough to actively control someone's tongue -- but they CAN detect stress levels and react to them. And if the individuals involved are prepped to become stressed when a particular subject came up in the wrong environment, inflicting uncontrollable nausea is one of the simpler possible deterrents.

We were drafting a letter from Dr. Atkinson to parents encouraging them to appear for the upcoming Family Day celebration -- the event selected for the pickup -- when I looked at my wristwatch and exclaimed, "DAMN!"

"Excuse me?" Susan Bowman, the redheaded secretary replied.

"I, uh, have a date -- in fifteen minutes," I mumbled.

The Major glared at me, but Nadine Epperson, the Curriculum Coordinator, said, "Well, I'm starved! Why don't we continue this somewhere quiet?"

Dr. Atkinson nodded. "Antoine's has a private room, and the owner is the parent of two Seifort students. Let me make a call..." Ten heavily monitored minutes later, we had a table for ten for nine p.m. The Major gave me the eye, but waved for me to proceed, so I got on the phone...

"Beth? It's Jack..."

"Hi..." Beth sounded listless, but at least she wasn't yelling and screaming.

"Hey, sorry I'm late -- we ran into some issues and the negotiations have gone into overtime..." I hurried to explain.

"Uh huh..." Still listless.

I have to do dinner with these guys, it turns out..."

"Yeah, I understand..." Was that a sniffle?

"So, uh, do you, um, have a dress or something?" I asked tentatively. She didn't sound happy -- maybe she'd had a shit day...

"What?"

"Well, I thought I'd pick you up and, you know, bring you along. They're going to a nice place, I'm told..." I stammered.

"Uuuhhh... You mean, like, dress-up? Fancy dinner out? With other people?" Beth asked. Her voice sounded really odd...

"Yeah..." I wondered if she was afraid she would embarrass herself -- or me. "Hey, if they don't like the way you talk, fuck 'em, you know?"

"I'll... find something..." she said faintly.

'Maybe that's the problem...' I thought, so I apologized, "Okay, I know it's short notice -- but it's supposed to be a nice place... Antoine's? Maybe you've heard of it..."

"Uh huh..." was all I got. It was REAL HARD to figure out where her head was. I decided to just assume that she was going to go. "Give me your address -- we have reservations for nine, so I'll come by and get you in an hour, okay?" I took her address, rolling my eyes at her attitude, and hung up. If Mark had heard much of that conversation at all, he'd have crapped all over me, for sure!

Having fucked up once, I made sure I knocked on her door more or less on the dot -- and some woman threw open the door and lit into me with, "Who are you? Where did you come from? Whatever possessed you to do that to my daughter?"

Needless to say, I got REAL cautious! "What did I do?" 'If she says anything resembling 'deflower', I'm not going in there!'

"That mark on her neck!" the woman accused, "I'm a married woman and my husband doesn't do that to me! That's just... rude!"

"Oh, yeah, um, sorry!" I replied, thanking God we weren't discussing anything serious.

"Yes, well," she continued, eyeing me in irritation, "What were you two doing, anyway?"

"Momma!" Thank God Beth threw herself into the fray!

"Well?" 'Momma' turned to Beth and put her hands on her hips.

"We were making out, okay?" Beth replied.

"Making out... When did all this start?"

This couldn't lead to ANYTHING good. "Hey, uh," I interjected, "I'm sure we need to go into all this at some point, but we've got these dinner reservations..." I stepped forward and collected one of Beth's hands. "You look beautiful! Do you need a wrap?"

"She has to wear a scarf on her neck!" 'Momma' complained, "because SOMEBODY insisted on sucking marks on it..." She knotted a translucent scarf around Beth's neck. Checkout Chickie made herself visible by coming forward with a knitted shawl.

"Okay, I get it!" I rasped, drawing Beth forward. "I'll try not to get carried away!" I slingshot her forward through the door, probably overloading her balance in high heels from her gait, and got the Hell out of there!

"See to it that you don't!" Mrs. Hopkins delivered her parting shot as I handed Beth into the car.

"Whew!" I muttered as I got in the driver's side. "Think she would feel better if I gave you a matching mark on the other side?"

Beth let out a nervous giggle and announced, "I'm NOT wearing this scarf!" She reached up and tugged it free.

"Good," I replied. "If I like to mark my women, it's MY business -- and if you like being marked, it's YOURS!"

Beth eyed me with an interesting expression on her face. "Am I your woman?"

"Yes," I replied, as if I was stating the obvious. "Do you like being marked?"

"Yes..." I'd seen that sidelong look before; she did. After a moment, she said, "I thought I scared you away this morning when I mentioned going to my house. Then you called late..."

I turned this over in my head. "Sooo..."

"I thought you were calling to beg off," she amplified. "I was happy you'd even done that; I wasn't expecting it."

"So THAT'S why you were acting so weird!" I exclaimed.

"Yes." She sat there, picking her fingers, not looking at me. "Most guys..."

I just grunted. Most early twenty-something guys, maybe, but I'm thirty-six -- not that Beth knew that. Most young guys wouldn't have my agenda or my resources, either. But then, most young guys wouldn't have gotten wrapped around the axle by the likes of Beth... "I guess I'm not most guys," I admitted, at length.

"I don't know why..." she murmured.

"I don't either," I cut her off. "Let's not over-analyze it."

We pulled into the valet parking drop-off for Antoine's, and I got out, collected my car check and circled the car to open the passenger door for Beth. "Let's not run like we did at my house," she muttered, "I'm not used to these heels."

"We were escaping your mother," I chuckled. "They do wonderful things for your calves, though." Beth smiled. "How are you barefoot?" I added. THAT got me a look...

But we were inside. "Dr. Atkinson's party," I told the host.

"This way, please." I let Beth lead me as we followed a waiter to the private dining room.

The look on Mark's face was priceless; there could be no clearer indication that our tastes in women differed. Beth was a variant on an extremely common theme; Mark wouldn't have touched her with MY dick. Even the Major was amused.

Nadine Epperson came forward graciously and said, "This must be the young lady who made it possible for me to finally eat dinner!" she said, taking Beth's hands.

Beth blushed crimson and muttered, "Yeth..."

Nadine grinned from ear to ear and murmured, "How sweet!" I looked over at Mark; you couldn't have duplicated that look of shock on his face if you'd hit him in it with a live catfish! I watched him, grinning, enjoying it as I seated Beth before responding to his urgent nods by telling her, "I'll be back in a moment..." and following him out of the room.

"Are your eyes okay?" Mark asked, cornering me. "What about your ears? That girl LISPS!"

"Precious, isn't it?" I grinned.

"I don't get it," he muttered.

"Clearly," I agreed.

"This is a one-nighter, right?"

"No," I replied. "She doesn't know it, but I'm taking her back with me." Mark shook his head, confused, so I just said, "Maybe she smells perfect or something. I haven't figured it out. But she's too cute for words as far as I'm concerned, and she's great motherhood material -- and I need that."

"I'm guessing she fucks like a mink," Mark hazarded.

"No complaints," I agreed.

"Yet she was a virgin until last night," Mark mused. "That would seem to indicate that the locals don't see her as being too cute for words..."

"Somehow that doesn't bother me," I replied.

"It's your funeral," Mark murmured. "What are Tina and Dottie going to say?"

"Tina's going to be thrilled to death -- and Dottie will continue to rule the roost -- but with fewer worries over domestic issues. It'll be fine," I assured him.

"Famous last words..." With that, Mark waved me back into the dining room.

Dinner was an occasion for small talk and pleasantries. The owner, Jean-Baptiste Epalier, joined us for dessert. Dr. Atkinson brought us back to the subject at hand rather abruptly by asking, "Just how extensive are the resources available for the evacuation? Would there be assets available to allow Jean-Baptiste to duplicate this fine establishment at our destination?"

That brought the three of us up with a jerk. "Doctor!" I erupted, "There are people at this table who are not vetted for this line of discussion!"

"Jean-Baptiste has two students at Seifort," Dean Atkinson replied mildly, "he would be privy to it soon enough. Oh, you said 'people'." His head swiveled to Beth. "I'd assumed that Miss Hopkins was a candidate."

I grimaced; how badly was this going to reflect on me? "She is," I admitted, "but for security reasons, I've not discussed the fact with her."

"I guess you'd better now," the Major rumbled.

I nodded and palmed my stinger, set at low power. I had a drug kit that allowed me to administer an injection that would cause a momentary memory loss -- but I couldn't give two at once... "Monsieur," I addressed the owner, "If you would join me over in the corner here, I'll bring you up to speed." Turning my head to regard my date, I added, "You, too, Beth."

Both cooperated -- but neither was particularly unruffled. I addressed myself to Jean-Baptiste first. "Several of us at the table represent a Confederacy colony world," I explained. Beth gasped. "We are negotiating with the academy to evacuate the school -- staff, students, and families -- in the very near future."

Jean-Baptiste blinked. "Student's families?"

I nodded. "That's on the table. Clearly, we have security concerns; if Earth First were to find out, there would be a bloodbath. You have two possible roles -- co-conspirator, in which case I am going to have to ask you to undergo some hypnotic conditioning to maintain security -- or innocent pawn, in which case I would deliver an injection that would remove all memory of the past ten minutes or so. You might not even notice the lack of continuity."

Jean-Baptiste eyed me. "As a co-conspirator..."

"You would be in a position to assist more than just your family, perhaps," I replied, "not to mention the fact that you would be in a position to ensure that nothing untoward happened that might cause your family to be dispersed at a critical moment."

"Is either course dangerous?" Jean-Baptiste asked.

"Physically or mentally?" I replied, "Not particularly. As a co-conspirator, you will be able to discuss the project freely with others in the know, but will be inhibited against revealing it to the uninitiated. The inhibitions have a sliding scale to them -- the harder you try to reveal the secret, the more uncomfortable you will become. The memory injection takes moments to work, has no untoward side-effects, and flushes out of your system in minutes."

Jean-Baptiste nodded. "I think I would like to participate."

"Fine," I nodded. "Please examine the screen of this device..." I handed him the Game-Boy sized hypnosis generator, waited a few seconds to ensure that it was working, and turned to Beth.

She looked bothered. "I think you lied to me, somewhere..."

"I withheld the truth," I admitted. "Not because I wanted to, but because other people's lives depend upon it."

"You don't plan to live here." It was a statement, not a question.

"No."

"You were going to leave..."

"The plan was to offer to take you at pickup time," I explained.

"Can I believe you?" She was hurt -- I could tell.

"I had to walk a line," I explained. "I'm responsible for the lives of a LOT of people. In the normal course of events, I'd have filled my concubine allotment at pickup, just like everyone else -- but I met you -- at the wrong time -- and that complicated things."

"You're already in the Confederacy..."

"Navy," I supplied.

"Then you have concubines."

"Yes."

"Then you can't take me."

"I have an additional allotment," I explained. "Technically, the rules for concubine selection only apply at initial pickup. I'm allowed more now."

"How many do you have?" she asked.

"Two."

"They're probably hot-looking." She was working herself up -- I could see it. "You were toying with me! You never..."

"You are WRONG, young lady!" Mark appeared at my shoulder, drawn by the commotion. "He told me different, not two hours ago! And he has NO reason to lie to ME!"

Beth, confused, looked from one of us to the other. "But... why?"

"You'll forgive me if I tell you that I have NO idea!" Mark replied, "and I don't think Jack does, either. But he says you have good scores for child rearing..."

"Well, yeah..." Beth nodded.

"That's a valid excuse, at least," Mark muttered. "It's not the reason; the reason seems to be that he's hung up on you, somehow. But it's an excuse."

"That's pretty weird," Beth mused -- but she'd stopped clouding up, at least.

"Any weirder than what we did last night?" I challenged. "Any weirder than you being here with me?"

"No..." That 'cat that ate the canary' look stole over her features and she eyed me sidelong. "You're hung up on me?"

"You first," I retorted. "Don't get any ideas; if you accept, I'll have the power of life and death over you -- you won't be wrapping me around your little finger!"

Mark rolled his eyes. "That's a done deal already!"

Beth surfaced an impish grin. "Okay."

"Okay, what?" I prompted.

"I'll go with you."

"Fine," I grunted, taking the hypnotizer from Jean-Baptiste's slack fingers. "Get a load of this!" 'Is it registered?' I subvocalized.

"Done," the AI replied. "The female Elizabeth Hopkins is now registered as your concubine."

The meeting went on until after midnight. There were a lot of details to be worked out. Planning guidance allowed for an average of four family members per student or faculty member, which pushed us out to around 18,000 people -- many of whom would come under the heading of 'a pig in a poke' from a usefulness perspective. We were likely to get ANYTHING -- the only criterion being that the individuals involved were related to a student or faculty member. We would be breaching the rules for selection criteria, even though we would be TRYING to create family groups in transit. The good news was that as an established colony we could more or less do as we pleased. This wasn't an 'official' pickup -- but it WAS being watched by the regular naval and fleet auxiliary forces who conducted this type of operation. Cube ships were new -- and their utilization would be a learning experience; we would be learning the hard way.

Finally, though, the time came to take Beth home -- and face the music.