Chapter 11 — SACRIFICE

Jupiter Orbit, 2-15-'15—Bubble life was routine, as far as possible. I still felt the terrible loss of my father, and knew it was worse for my mother and sisters. Helse had taken a huge segment of my aroused emotion and turned it positive, so that I had a kind of internal counterbalance. But my mother and sisters lacked that. I realized that, thanks to Helse's gift, I was now stronger than they, like a shipwrecked sailor who has found a barrel to cling to while others had nothing. I could not share my support with them, and could not even confess its nature, for they believed Helse was a boy like me.

Except Spirit. She caught me alone in the course of the day, and had to needle me. "How was it, brother?" she asked snidely.

A host of flip answers escaped before I could formulate any of them verbally. "I love her," I said simply.

She glanced at me a long moment, having the grace to be embarrassed. "I'm sorry."

I put my arm about her shoulders, forgiving her. "I know how it is," I said, remembering how snappish I had been before, when my internal problem radiated sparks at other people. I had no need of that anymore. "You're still my sister. You're the only one who shares that secret."

"Still, I'm jealous," she admitted.

"You have no need to be. You aren't competing with her."

"Yes, I am! If you had to throw one of us into space, which one would it be?"

The way to counter a question like that is to reverse it. "If you had to throw Faith or me into space, which would it be?"

"That depends who I'm mad at at the moment." But Spirit turned sober, considering the implication.

"When you grow up and love a man, I'll try not to be too jealous," I said.

"Oh, go ahead and be jealous!" she muttered. But she smiled. Then, in the treacherous way she had, she returned to her opening question. "Tell me what it's like," she begged. "Please, Hope—I really want to know."

Spirit was twelve. Did I have the right to tell her about sex? I had just learned about it myself! Of course we both knew the sterile mechanics as taught in school, and the applicable terms; we also both knew that such things had almost nothing to do with real sex or love.

I remembered the way older children, both male and female, had teased me in past years about my curiosity and ignorance. It seemed to be a conspiracy of silence, and I had never believed it was justified. I resolved not to do that to my sister. "I was inside her," I said carefully. "And heaven was inside me. I wish it could have lasted forever."

"What about all the pain and blood?" she asked, and I saw that she was really worried. She, too, had seen the rape of Faith. I should have been aware of her natural reaction before. I had to reassure her about the other side of sex, as Helse had reassured me, so she would not fear it.

"There was no pain or blood. Nothing but joy."

"But—"

"Give me your hand." I took her small hand in mine and squeezed it cruelly.

"Ouch!" she shrieked.

"That's rape," I said. Then I took her hand again, smoothed it out caressingly, and kissed it. "That's love."

She looked at her extremity. "But that's only my hand!"

"Just one part of you—and me," I agreed. "Another part was used to hurt Faith terribly—but last night I used it to love Helse. The difference is in how you use it. That's what she taught me."

Spirit smiled quirkily. "I thought you used it to pee." She was being humorous, resisting the notion, as I had resisted it during the night. Too simple a telling does not necessarily get the point across, because the listener isn't ready to believe. So I took stock again, pretty much as Helse had.

"That too," I agreed. "But not last night. Just about every part of the body has more than one use, like the mouth that is used to eat and to talk or the nose used to breathe and smell. You just have to keep in mind which use you want."

"Yes, it's hard to talk with your mouth full," she agreed. She still didn't accept it.

I caught her shoulder, making her face me, suddenly finding it vitally important to spread the new message. "When you grow older, Spirit, and you love a boy, and he loves you, don't be afraid of his body. What he has for you is not cruel and not dirty; it's a form of love. The great crime of the pirates is that they take something perfect and abuse it, making it terrible. Don't judge all men by them!"

"Oh, I don't judge our father by—"

"And how do you think you and I came to exist?"

"There is that," she agreed, with a wan smile. But her brow furrowed again. "Still, I don't know."

"Ask Helse," I said. "She will tell you."

"I will." Spirit left me. I hoped I had not wished something on Helse she would have preferred to avoid.

I talked with Señora Ortega, to learn how we were doing on our voyage. She squinted at me. "You're the lad who appointed me captain," she said with the trace of a grim smile. "Yesterday you looked ready to die; today you are alive."

"You're the right person," I agreed. "That funeral service really made me feel better. And I had a good night. I'll be all right now. Are we on course?"

"A good night," she repeated. "If I didn't know better, lad, I'd think you had discovered love." Maybe she was teasing me; it was impossible to know how much she had guessed.

She got down to serious business quickly. "No, we're not on course," she said frankly. "Our girls aren't as apt as the men were; we haven't had the training. The mechanism is simple, but the application takes practice. So we're handling the vectors clumsily. Oh, we're getting there, but it won't be on the original schedule. We'll have to stay on half rations."

Well, it could have been worse. I moved on to talk with children. I did not consider myself a child anymore, and certainly it had been a man's duty I did with Helse, but my talent related well to the young folk. I tried to cheer them, for they had the least resources to comprehend or deal with the calamity that had befallen us all. We set up games in the Commons, even organizing a soccer match, using a tightly wrapped bundle of paper refuse for the ball. It really wasn't much, in this confined and curvaceous space and with the trace gravity, but it did bring a few smiles to some faces and kept the kids occupied. I felt this was the most useful thing I could do, for now, spreading some of the balm Helse had provided me, as it were.

Helse joined me in the afternoon. She still looked just like another boy, but now I fancied I could perceive feminine contours and mannerisms in her, hidden from other eyes. I still had not seen her body clearly in its natural state, and now I wanted to, knowing the rapture it offered me. "I have been talking with your sisters," she said with a wry smile.

"I don't like keeping secrets from Spirit," I said, knowing my little sister had wasted no time on her fact-finding mission.

"She said you said you love me, and had great joy last night."

"It's true," I admitted. "She asked me and I told her. I wouldn't lie to my little sister. I didn't think you would mind. Spirit's curious about everything, but she never betrays a confidence."

"Then you don't mind if I tell her—" She shrugged. "—Anything?"

"No, of course I don't mind! I sent her to you. I don't want her to be afraid."

She shook her head. "You are remarkably open."

I frowned. "No, I'm not open with everyone. Spirit is special. We don't deceive each other. We fight sometimes, but we always understand. If she had a similar experience, she would tell me. Now that she's seen her sister raped, she needs to understand that it doesn't have to be that way."

"Yes, of course. I was surprised, that's all. Men usually talk about such things to other men, not to their sisters."

"Spirit is different," I repeated firmly.

"Not Faith?"

"Faith is more like an ordinary sister."

"She braced me," Helse said. "I had to tell her my secret."

"I don't see why," I said, annoyed. "I try to protect Faith, but I don't share secrets with her."

"She really cares for you, Hope. She appreciates what you've done for her. The siblings are much closer in your family than they were in mine; I envy you that. Faith saw the change in you today, and she worried."

"But I didn't talk with her today!"

"Still, she noticed. She's not totally out of it, Hope; she's recovering. Your support really helped her."

"Oh." I was pleased. "She must have figured it would take more than a talking-to to put me back on track."

"Yes. She guessed there was a liaison. And she thought I was male."

I felt myself abruptly blushing. "She thought—?"

"She hoped it wasn't so. But she feared for your orientation, right now, under this terrible stress. So I had to tell her."

"I guess you did!" I agreed, still embarrassed. "I'd better talk to her."

"No need. She was relieved. I think she thought she could be responsible for you turning away from the opposite sex, because of the rape."

"She was concerned for my reaction to what happened to her?" I asked, amazed. "Rather than for her own horror?"

"She's got that basic Hubris spirit of unity. It's a precious quality. She would do anything to spare the others in her family the humiliation she suffered."

"I guess I didn't give her enough credit," I said ruefully. "She, worried about me!"

"I was concerned too, maybe in a slightly different way. That's why I acted."

"You sure did!" I agreed. "In one hour you changed my life forever."

"I think Faith and I are going to be friends."

"Yes, I think so." I was both embarrassed and gratified: embarrassed for the way I had evidently seemed to those who were close to me, and gratified for the way they had tried to help.

After that I talked with Faith myself, explaining what Helse had done for me. "I'm not ashamed to be a man," I told her. "I don't for a moment condone what happened to you, but—"

"It's all right, Hope," she said. She looked better now; she had washed herself and brushed out her hair. She was indeed recovering, having more inner strength than I had credited. "We have all had a terrible education in the past few days. I'm glad you found her. I should have known better than to worry."

"How is Mother?" I asked cautiously. I was glad to see Faith regaining her equilibrium, but I wasn't certain how far it went.

"Hope, we have to take care of her! I thought I was badly off, until—it's so much worse for her!"

"What can we do for her?" I asked, surprised by my sister's animation. Faith had always been relatively sedate and retiring; Spirit was the wild one in our family, and I was in between. Now Faith was turning more decisive. Could her awful experience have changed her outlook?

"Helse told me a pirate tried to rape Mother, and you fought him off."

"More or less," I agreed. "Spirit smashed the pacifier box, so the rest of us could fight. I wasn't very effective. Spirit really saved us all."

"I don't want—that—to happen to Charity Hubris," Faith said firmly. "She's our mother, Hope! So if the pirates come again, and we can't stop them—" She broke off, evidently not finding it easy to speak her thought.

"We'll stop them somehow!" I said with a certain bravado.

"If they have that awful pacifier box, or something—" She took a breath and swallowed. "If it comes to that, Hope, I want you to send them my way, not Mother's way."

I stared at her, horrified. "Faith! You know what they do!"

She smiled wanly. "I think I know as well as any woman can. But what have I to lose, now? Hope, we can't let our mother be defiled."

"I hate even to think of this!" I exclaimed. "We should kill every pirate who comes into this bubble!"

"Yes. We should. But if we can't—then we must handle them another way. Promise me you will do it, if it needs to be done."

I resisted, but she kept at me, somewhat the way Helse had—and in the end I had to yield and give my promise. There is something about the way a woman can importune a man, even if she is his sister. But I felt unclean.

Perhaps it was prophetic, for within an hour after that the pirates did come again. Not the same ones—but already the term "pirate" was generic.

We did not know at first that they were pirates. Their ship was in good repair and bore the emblem of the Mars Merchant Marine. That did not signify much, because for reasons of interplanetary commerce many non-Martian vessels elected to register with Mars. Martian taxes were less than those of Jupiter, Uranus, or Earth, and fuel was cheap there, as the so-called Red Planet had much of the fuel of the Solar System. But mainly, as I understood it from my school studies, Mars had extremely lax laws governing the wages and treatment of spacemen. The large trading companies could operate more profitably by economizing on safety measures and payrolls and retirement benefits, so they enlisted with the planet that permitted this. The maritime powers of Jupiter professed to deplore such shoddy mechanisms—yet quite a number of their ships operated under the emblem of Mars. So a Martian trader ship could be anything. Except, we naïvely supposed, a pirate.

They locked onto us and opened the air lock. There was a pause before the inner door opened, and we knew they had discovered the dead and spoiling pirates. But soon the inner panel slid aside, and a man in a white uniform stood before us.

We had an innocent-seeming group of women near the lock to greet the intruders. Hidden around the curve of the Commons we had armed women, ready to fight viciously if that proved to be necessary. Normally women were not warriors, but the brutal experience of rape and murder had forged a new temperament in many. Before we allowed more of the same, we would fight and kill. We all understood that. Twice we had overcome intruders, and twice had our situation reversed—and twice suffered grievously. Experience is a cruel but effective teacher.

Spirit, garbed as a boy, was one of the display children. They were innocently playing—but she was armed with her finger-whip, and the others had small knives. If the others turned out to be pirates, she and the children were supposed to scream in simulated or genuine panic and flee, clearing the way for our fighting forces. If anything resembling a pacifier box made an appearance, Spirit would go for it. But if the children were caught, they would fight. We had to give the outsiders a chance to prove they were legitimate, just in case they were, for we were in desperate need of food and help. We dared not alienate legitimate visitors.

"You folk must have had a bad time," the Martian officer said in Spanish, looking about as his men followed him through the air lock. All were clean-cut and wore side-arms, not swords. "We discovered quite a mess in your air lock. It's all right now; we dumped the stuff in space and fumigated the lock."

My mother was in the "innocent" group of women. She had roused herself from her grief to participate in this, for she knew she was only one of many who had been abruptly widowed, and that someone had to carry on. Even as we children had to protect her, she tried to protect us. That was part of what it meant to be a family; I was coming to appreciate the full significance of it in this adversity. Major Hubris had been lost, but his family carried on, as if his strength had been bequeathed to each of the survivors. "We were raided by pirates," she said. "All our men were killed."

"Well, that's over now," the officer said. "We shall carry you on in to Jupiter, where you will be granted refugee status. Collect your things; we're on a schedule and haven't much time. Don't bother with extra clothing; we'll issue you uniforms from our stores."

Slowly I relaxed. This was almost too good to be true! If they towed us the rest of the way in to Jupiter, our hunger and fear was over!

I turned to meet Helse's eyes. The two of us had been relegated to the center chamber of the bubble, the doughnut hole. We were deemed too old to be innocent children and too young to fight. But we would fight, if it came to that, to protect the precious remaining food stores. As it was, we were out of the action but could see everything plainly.

Helse did not seem to share my relief. Her eyes were squinting, her mouth grim. That renovated my alarm; did she know something I didn't?

Uncertain, the women in the Commons below looked at each other. "Leave the bubble?" my mother asked, and I realized the officer had not actually spoken of towing, but of carrying.

"Obviously you can't remain here," the officer said reasonably. "Drifting in space, your supplies diminishing, vulnerable to the vagaries of fate. You are fortunate we spotted you. Fetch your valuables; you don't want to be classed as paupers when you arrive."

The women seemed almost reluctant to believe their good fortune. Slowly they dispersed while the merchantmen smiled at the children. One man produced a box of bright candy balls and proffered it. He was promptly the center of juvenile attention, as the youngest flocked to accept the goodies. We had not seen candy since leaving Callisto! Even Spirit, suspicious at first, in due course sidled close to the friendly man and accepted a treat.

My mouth watered. I was not yet so old that candy didn't appeal. "Look what we're missing!" I muttered.

"Never accept candy from a stranger," Helse said grimly. I thought at first she was joking, then was doubtful.

The smallest child abruptly sat down. She had been greedily consuming the candy. She did not seem sick, but she did not get up.

Another child joined her, then a third. Soon all of them were sprawled on the deck. Spirit was one of the last to go, and I could see she was fighting it, but her knees buckled and betrayed her.

Señora Ortega marched up. "What is the matter?" she demanded, alarmed.

The officer faced her. "The candy is drugged. But don't worry; we have the antidote. The children will not die if it is administered within an hour."

"Drugged!" Señora Ortega gazed on him with wild surmise. "Then you are—"

"Merely men who labor hard on short wages, and who have been too long in space," the officer said. "You are the leader here? Have your women deposit their valuables with us." His eyes traveled across the others, who were now frozen in horror. They had actually fetched their most precious things at the behest of this man! "We are not bad fellows, if you treat us right. We are not interested in killing anyone, or even hurting anyone. We believe in honest quid-pro-quo. Any woman who desires a unit of antidote may purchase it from one of us."

My mother was one of the first to understand. "My child is among those drugged. How may I purchase her reprieve?"

"You have money?" the officer inquired. "Gold? Gems?"

"None," my mother replied.

"Then you must earn it." The officer glanced meaningfully at his men.

After a pause, a burly older crewman stepped forward and gazed at her. For a moment I saw her through his eyes: a woman in her forties, no young thing but still a fairly handsome figure of her sex. The kind a middle-aged man would find comfortable. I began, inwardly, to curse the condition of masculinity, then felt Helse move slightly beside me and remembered her lesson. The evil was not the use, but the abuse!

"I'll give you my little vial of fluid, woman," the crewman said. He held a small bottle, but his entendre was obvious. These were more sophisticated rapists; they compelled the women's cooperation without overt violence. But for all its nonviolence, it remained rape. My muscles clenched.

"Don't do it!" Señora Ortega cried to my mother. "They're bluffing."

The officer shrugged, glancing at the collapsed children. "We are not killers, certainly; that decision is yours. We can only remain with you for an hour—after which time it will hardly matter. Any woman who prefers to take a chance with her child is free to do so. As I said, we do not wish to coerce anyone."

The hypocrite! I started to move, but Helse put her hand on my shoulder and though her touch was light, it held me back. Helse had known better than I about the candy; her judgment probably remained better. I sank back, my teeth clenched.

My mother looked at Spirit, who was now unconscious. She wavered, afraid to gamble with her child's life. Probably the men were bluffing and had only put knockout medicine in the candy. They seemed more like unscrupulous opportunists than hardened killers. Surely men who spent much time in space did get hungry for women, though why they didn't bring women along with them in their ship was a mystery. But they were also pirates, and we knew how careless of life pirates could be. If they were not bluffing—I felt the same stress my mother did. That was Spirit, my little sister! If I let her die when any action of mine could save her, how could I even endure myself?

I tried to use my talent to determine the intentions of the men, but I simply had not interacted with them enough to judge. I could not tell to what extent they were bluffing.

"I will buy her life," my mother decided.

The crewman smiled. I started climbing down into the Commons, going through the hole in the netting and using one of the guy ropes that held the netting in place so that I would not sail down sidewise and attract unwanted attention.

"No!" Helse hissed. "Don't do it, Hope! You can do nothing except make it worse!"

I paused, knowing she was right. Yet how could I remain idle while my mother prostituted herself to save my little sister?

While I debated this, hanging on to the guy rope, my other sister, Faith, approached me. She had put on makeup and arranged her luxuriant hair, and looked like a goddess. She wore a rather tight skirt and blouse. The half rations seemed not to have diminished her at all; probably she accepted them as just another diet. "I can't let this happen," she said.

A new horror gripped me. "Faith, stay out of it!"

She met my gaze. "You understand, Hope."

The terrible thing was that I did understand. Faith felt she had nothing to lose; now she could redeem her lost honor in some measure by saving her mother and sister from this awful dilemma.

"You promised, Hope," she reminded me.

I could not say her nay, though I hated every aspect of this. Slowly, unwillingly, I nodded.

Faith made a tiny quirk of a smile. I had, in my fashion, given permission, and this was a thing she required. I had implicated myself in the decision, and would have to defend it. I was sending her in to be raped—again.

Faith took a breath and walked up to the men. She was slender and full and lovely and young, standing out like a beacon amidst gloom, and in a moment all their eyes were locked on her. It was obvious that none of these men would choose any older woman if he had a chance at this young one. I could appreciate the feeling myself, shamed as I was by the thought; I would choose a girl like Faith instead of a woman like my mother. God! What abominations infested my thoughts!

"How many children can I buy?" Faith asked them softly.

"Faith!" my mother exclaimed, shocked.

"Better me than you, Mother," Faith replied. "I am already lost; you must care for the family." And Charity Hubris could not deny her, any more than I could.

Faith turned back to the men, breathing deeply—and when she did that, she was spectacular. "How many?"

"All of them," the officer said, impressed. "Given time." His gaze flicked to a lieutenant beside him. "See to the valuables."

"No," Faith said. "You shall not rob us also."

"No?" The officer seemed amused.

"Take me—on your ship. Nothing else."

"Faith!" my mother repeated.

The officer glanced again at the other men, whose mouths were virtually drooling. Yet again I could appreciate their thoughts, though I resented my very ability to do so. To have a creature like this with them all the time, no one-hour stand—

"You drive an interesting bargain, young woman."

Faith half turned, and her body accented itself. Somewhere along the way she had learned a lot about sex appeal! "What pittance does anyone here have, compared to what I offer?"

My mother put her hands to her face, but did not speak again. She knew what the rest of us knew; it did make sense.

Once more the men considered. "It's the same deal I made as a child," Helse murmured in my ear. I had not seen her climb down to join me, since I had been distracted by the uncomfortable drama of the Commons. "I think these really are merchantmen, pirating on the side. It's not necessarily a bad life, if they like the girl. These aren't really violent men; they just don't think it is wrong to coerce a woman into sex."

"But she's not doing it because she wants to!" I protested somewhat irrelevantly.

"Yes and no. Few decisions in life are completely voluntary. She's doing it for her family. She is making a sacrifice for your benefit—and for every other person in the bubble."

I had to file this away for later digestion.

"Take this young woman aboard the ship," the officer said. "Give her decent accommodation." He reached inside his jacket and brought out a packet of vials, passing it to my mother, who stood in seeming shock.

The men left the bubble and Faith went with them. I feared I would never see her again.

The ship disengaged and jetted toward Jupiter. Faith had bought our reprieve with her body. I could only hope it was a fair deal.

My mother's eyes were glazing with the reaction, but she took a vial and opened it and tilted its liquid into Spirit's mouth, carefully, so the child would not choke. Other women did the same with their children.

I shook myself and went to the group. Several vials were left over. I opened one and put a drop on my tongue.

The fluid was completely colorless and tasteless. It could have been pure water.

I thought about that, then left without speaking. If it was only water, it meant one of two things. Either the children would die—or the drug in the candy was not truly toxic. Either way, the merchant-pirates had deceived us. But what else had I expected?

Helse rejoined me. "What is it, Hope?"

"Water," I said in disgust.

"I'm not surprised."

"You suspected? Why didn't you say something before?"

"All men are pirates at heart." She caught herself. "I mean figuratively. Some are violent, like the outright pirates. Some are disciplined and honorable, like your father. Most are in between, as I told you before. They take what they can get, but they prefer not to have too much of a fuss. They don't mind lying to get their way. If they can get a woman to submit without violence, without any real danger of hurting the children, such men consider this to be smart management. That's just the way they see it."

"But then Faith sacrificed herself for nothing!"

Helse caught my hands in hers. "No, Hope. She did it to protect her mother and sister from risk or shame. She refused to gamble with their lives."

I knew this, yet felt constrained to argue. "But if—"

"If we had called that bluff, those men could have turned savage and raped the women violently. They were armed; they could have killed anyone who tried to stop them. The danger was not just in the candy; it was in the men. Honorable men would never have used coercion. Faith understood that. So she offered them something better. Because she was beautiful and willing to deal, they accepted. They weren't all-the-way bad, they just wanted sex. She made it easy for them to be generous."

"They're still pirates!" I hissed.

"They're fallible men. There's a difference."

"But my sister condemned to horror—"

"Your sister is so lovely, I think some ranking officer will soon claim her for his own. I have told her some of the arts of pleasing men. In time—"

I turned on her ferociously. "You told her!"

Helse stepped back. "Hope, she asked me. She wanted to know. I think she suspected something like this could happen, and she felt guilty for hiding when your father was killed. She had to redeem herself. She had to make the sacrifice the others were making."

I clenched my fists, not answering.

"In time she may command an officer's love and be well treated," Helse continued. "Her future may be more secure than ours is."

"By practicing the arts of prostitution!" I gritted. "As you practiced them on me!"

I was sorry the moment I said it, but Helse only smiled. She had learned to accommodate my moods. She must have done the same as a child, with Uncle. "We do what we must to survive, Hope. Women don't have the brute power of men. Compromise is forced on us all our lives. I practiced my skills on you to help you, not because you forced me. Do not be angry with me, my lover."

I was angry, but mostly with myself. "If you taught my sister well enough, she will have the captain of that merchant ship in thrall."

"I hope so." She drew on my arm, turning me to face her as we stood above our cell. "Please understand, Hope. Faith was publicly raped. She believed she had been rendered forever unclean, worthless for marriage. This was a psychological thing, not a logical one; it was part of her self-image."

I remembered how Faith had asked me whether she was still my sister. Yes, I understood about self-image; I had been going through a similar mill myself. Logic alone is not enough to change such deep perceptions.

"All that was left to her was to do some good thing for her family," Helse continued. "She really cared for the rest of you, though she thought herself unworthy. She found the thing she could do, and she did it—and that key sacrifice may ironically bring her as much good as what she did for the rest of us. She would never have married a man she considered to be good, for fear she was unworthy of him. But a bad man is all right—and if he turns out later to be a good man, she will be able to accept that too. Because she did make her act of expiation. It was her dishonor she was sacrificing, for the best possible cause."

I was not sure I followed her logic or agreed with it, but I hoped she was right. How much better it would be for Faith to be happy than miserable, by whatever rationalization. But still I hated the way it had worked out. Helse was educating me in the real ways of men and women, and it was not an education I liked. Yet I knew, deep down, that I did have to come to terms with the realities of the human condition.

Worse was to come. Hardly six hours passed before we were raided again. We saw the ship bearing down on us, and it was no merchant vessel. This time we hid all the children in the cells with orders to remain there until the pirates had gone, no matter what. Helse and I were included, but we were sent back to the doughnut hole with the remaining food packs. Perhaps the women did not realize how well we could see what was going on from that vantage. Spirit, still groggy, went with us, as it didn't seem wise to confine her alone.

The pirates burst in with drawn daggers, and it was obvious from the outset that resistance would be futile. Evidently news had spread that this was a helpless bubble, and they were flocking in to take advantage of it. That, too, caused me to seethe with suppressed outrage. Why couldn't they have flocked in to help, or at least signaled the Jupe authorities where we were so they could fetch us? I was ashamed for my species—the male species.

The women fell back, cowed by the blades. They had no equivalent weapons, and there were too many men to overwhelm by force of numbers.

"It's submit—or die," Helse murmured. "And if the women die, the children are alone, and maybe dead too. They know that."

"That's my mother down there! My sister just sacrificed herself to prevent—"

"Yes. It is ironic. Don't blame your mother for what she does."

A week before, I never would have understood. Now I did. Whether I would have without Faith's recent sacrifice or Helse's present help I don't know. But now I understood that the women had to do what they had to do, to stay alive and protect their families.

I understood, but my revulsion overcame me as I saw a hairy, dirty, pirate strip the clothing from my unresisting mother. I launched myself toward them, determined to kill the foul rapist.

Helse caught me around the shoulders, her inertia shoving me into the containing net. I tried to fight her off, but she clung with a strength in that moment equal to my own, and even in my desperation I could not bring myself to apply real force on her. Still, I managed to achieve a partial disengagement, and soon would get away from her.

"Spirit!" she whispered. "Help me hold him!"

My sister snapped out of her remaining stupor, throwing off the lingering effect of the drug. She bounced across and caught me about the legs. In this trace gravity I could move her about by flexing my body, but I could not dislodge her. "But our mother's getting raped!" I hissed. None of us dared talk loudly, for fear we would only bring the knives of the pirates to bear against ourselves.

"I know it," Spirit said, and did not yield.

I continued to struggle, and Helse was tiring. She was as big as I, and weighed as much, but the distribution differed. I had more muscle and better leverage, because I was male, and now my advantage was telling.

But Helse managed to get hold of my head. Her shirt had torn open, and her chestband had slid askew in the struggle. Now she hugged my head to her half-bared breast. "If you go, I will follow!" she rasped.

There is something uniquely compelling about the breast of a woman. My will to fight was sapped. I lay with my face half against the net, half against her breast, and did not move.

But in that position I could see a woman below. Probably she was not my mother; I could not tell, for most of her naked body was obscured by that of the pirate on her. Even if her whole body had been clear except for her face, I might not have been sure, for I had never seen my mother naked. Only by the face could I recognize her, and that I could not see. Yet if she was not my mother, she was someone else's mother, and she was getting raped. It did not matter that she was not resisting, for to resist was to die. I struggled again, determined to do something to stop it. But Spirit took a tighter hold on my legs, and Helse nearly smothered my face. In retrospect, I think that might be the nicest possible way to die, smothered by a breast, but at the time I was almost tempted to free myself by biting her. Thank God I did not!

"Let it be," Helse whispered. "Let it be, Hope. Those women are trying to save our lives!"

"At the expense of their honor!"

"Their honor is not of the body! It is of the spirit!"

That coincidental use of the word that was also my sister's name had a strange effect on me. Suddenly I knew that if there was one person I had to protect more than my mother, it was my sister.

Helse took my silence for negation. "Please, Hope! Give over! It must be!"

It was a woman getting raped, and here were two girls urging me to let it proceed. They should have protested more vehemently than I did—but they were more realistic than I was. A man fights, a woman compromises: It was true in this microcosm as in the macrocosm.

The pirate thrust, and the woman's body jumped. I tried again to launch myself.

Helse clung to me with her divine death-hug. "I'll tell you I love you!" she breathed pleadingly.

She didn't love me; I knew that. She was older than I, and more mature in more than the physical sense; I was beneath her. But she cared enough to pretend she loved me, in order to protect me from myself. That small share of love seemed inordinately precious. Why should I struggle, here, as if indulging in my own rape, when I could please her by relenting?

I relaxed and turned my face in to her. Helse squirmed about, sliding her breast down, and met me with a kiss. It was savagely sweet. I wanted to believe that she loved me, at least a little, for I surely loved her.

But at the same time I knew that I was forcing Helse to do something untrue, to sell a profession of love as another woman would sell her body. That wasn't right. And this acquiescence of ours was permitting my mother to get raped. Now my other thought, comparing our situation to that of my mother, returned more strongly. In an ugly transmogrification, my love for Helse seemed to identify with my mother's horror. It was as though the flesh so tightly against me was my mother's. As though I was participating in that rape. I knew it wasn't literally so, but it was figuratively so, and the stigma was there, emotionally.

I'm sure the time was not long, but it seemed an eternity. Then the pirates were gone, and the air lock was closed, and we children were free to return to the Commons.

Helse restored herself to her boyish state, resetting the band about her chest and pinning her shirt together. "You sure are pretty when you show," Spirit remarked to her. I had to agree, silently; this was the first time I had actually seen Helse's breast.

"You will be too, very soon," Helse told her, patting her strapped bosom as if it were a thing to be allocated impartially among females. "Thanks for helping me."

"I had to. My crazy brother would have gotten us all killed."

I was silent. They were probably correct.

We climbed down. I expected to find the women disheveled and sobbing and hiding their faces, and I was afraid to face my mother, but it had to be done.

I was completely surprised. All the women were in good order, clothing intact, hair brushed out, eyes clear. No one was crying or hiding. It was as though nothing had happened.

Helse caught on before I did. "Say nothing!" she whispered in my ear. "Nothing about—you know."

We found my mother. "Oh, I'm so glad you're safe," she said, smiling at us.

"We were sleeping in the loft," Helse said.

My mother glanced at her with the merest suggestion of irony, knowing it was a lie and thankful for that lie. "Of course, young man," she agreed.

Was my mother really still ignorant of Helse's sex? Or was she competent at keeping secrets? Perhaps she had seen more of our struggle in the loft than we realized. If we honored her privacy, she honored ours.

Later, in our cell, Helse explained it to me in more detail. "Degradation is mainly in the mind. She doesn't want you to share her humiliation, because that could further hurt the family. The kindest thing you can do is to forever refuse to acknowledge that any man but your father ever touched your mother. There must be no stain on the honor of Hubris."

"Is the whole universe made of hypocrisy?" I demanded, hurting anew.

"Sometimes it seems so," she agreed. "But it is a good thing your family does for itself. I wish I had belonged to a family like that."

"So soon after Faith sacrificed herself to prevent this very thing!" I exclaimed.

"What Faith sacrificed herself for has been preserved," Helse reminded me. "Never say otherwise."

I was blind at that moment to the significance. "And you—you told me you loved me, just to keep me quiet! You're a woman too!"

"I'm a woman too," she agreed.

I was perversely furious at her, but I loved her too, and maybe for much of the same reason. "And will you do what you did before, just to keep me quiet? Will you give me your body, and pretend to like it?"

"Yes."

"Oh, damn!" I cried, and then it was literally crying, the tears flooding from my eyes. Helse held me and comforted me, and in time we did make love, and she had the grace not to profess love, only caring, and it was wonderful. I couldn't accept what she was doing, in one part of my conscience, but in another part I knew it had to be and that I couldn't live without her. So I accepted what had to be accepted: her sacrifice, and mine.