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armor glass --
definitely female, a mixture of Oriental and Caucasian features. She appeared
concerned. She and the others were putting him on a gray gurney suspended
from some sort of flying ship directly above them. He strained to identify
the ship through uncooperative eyes.
Massive. It filled the orange sky. Streaks of color along its length.
Chartreuse. He saw white and blue neo-Victorian decorations around
portholes, hatches and vents.
What the hell is that thing? Chink? Legion hospital?
Lutt found his voice. "Wha' kinda ship? Looks like a flying bordello."
A female voice from somewhere behind him said: "Smart boy. Let's see if we
can restore him enough to get a little life out of him."
A high-pitched feminine laugh greeted this.
Lutt tried to turn and see who laughed but an inceram pod clamped shut over
his gurney and he was left in gloomy green isolation with the sensation of
swinging on the end of a cable.
Something in the enclosing pod emitted a burring sound and he felt the
soothing departure of both pain and consciousness. They were using
sonosthetic! Maybe it was a hospital.
Lutt awoke strapped in a bed. Green ceiling and some red surface below that.
Medical connections to his body. He felt softly cocooned. A hospital room.
He saw his clear-lens glasses on a side table, still unbroken.
I should dump those things, he thought. Haven't needed them since I got
Ryll's eyesight.
There were sounds -- human activity, voices nearby, rumbling of engines and an
echoing series of thumps. Explosions?
Someone moved into his range of vision. He glimpsed svelte black clothing
that clung to a slender, sensuous body.
The lovely face he had seen behind an armor glass helmet bent over him. One
of his rescuers. Did the Legion use female medics?
She had brown eyes, a definite epicanthic fold to them. Skin dark and smooth.
Tiny black beauty mark on the right side of her full-lipped mouth. Nose
turned up slightly. A Caucasian nose.
"You feel better?" A softly lilting voice. Her lips opened to reveal small
teeth, evenly spaced.
She reached out a long-fingered hand and touched his arm. Electric sensation
of warmth.
"Where?" he managed.
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"You are in our infirmary. Do you hurt?"
"Sore as hell." He turned slightly and grimaced. "My back hurts."
"Don't try to sit up. Our doctors used red-laser acupuncture two days ago to
facilitate cellular regeneration in your back wound."
"Two days?"
He glanced around, seeing the room more clearly. Red walls, fuzzy surface and
tiny yellow flowers printed in it. Brass lamps. Furnishings dark and ornate.
Everything bolted down. An oval port on his left showed him a distant
Venusian landscape with a low mountain range coming into view.
"You have been here three days," she said. "Your ID says Peter Andriessen but
I have seen a rebroadcast from Earth that says you are Lutt Hanson, Jr.
Which?"
"Lutt."
"My goodness! We have a famous visitor!"
"What is this ship?"
"This is the Legion's flying bordello. We go where we are needed."
Keerist! A flying whorehouse!
He stared up at his rescuer. "Are you . . ."
"I am called the Virgin Chanteuse. I sing for the boys but I do not perform
on my back."
"You're one of the group that went down to the surface and rescued me, aren't
you?"
"That is another service we perform when the need arises."
"How bad . . . was I hurt?"
"Our doctors say you are remarkably lucky. Surface burns and contusions, no
serious internal injuries."
So my Dreen got in a few repair licks before he vanished.
"My back?"
"The injury missed your spine."
She smiled and dimples formed beside her mouth.
"Thirsty," he said.
There was a sensuous grace to her as she moved to a wall spigot and drew a cup
of water. He smelled carnation perfume when she helped him drink.
"So you sing," he said when she removed the empty cup.
"I also wait on tables, make my own clothes and supervise the ship's
seamstresses."
"And help with the wounded."
"I am with you partly because I speak your language well. And we were
curious. Why would a
Hanson risk his life here?"
"Business."
"But it is so dangerous."
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"Then why are you here?"
"We were poor and . . ." She shrugged. "But you, you really came here on
business?"
"Right."
"When we suspected you might really be a Hanson, one of our girls said, 'If a
Hanson jumps out a tenth-story window, you must follow him. Profit is to be
made there.'"
"Is this flying bordello profitable?"
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She tittered. "The better girls are no longer poor. Never call them whores.
They are love specialists. These are the women of the Legion, the toughest
and most deserving troops in God's creation."
"How did you . . . I mean, what . . ." He broke off, wondering if his desire
for this woman was visible in his eyes.
"My father and three brothers were legionnaires, all killed in battle against
those damnable Mao
Guards. But a woman cannot serve the Legion except . . ." She glanced
around. "Besides, I am
Catholic and I have a care for my soul."
"You're certainly beautiful enough."
"So I am told frequently, but . . ." Again, that gentle shrug. "I promised
my father and elder brother I would not sell my body." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]