The Warrior Within

4

I glared at Tammad over breakfast, but he just gazed back at me in amusement.

“Why do you thus look upon me?” he asked innocently “Have I done something amiss?”

“Everything you do is amiss!” I countered, wishing looks could kill. “Don’t even speak to me!”

“Words are not necessary between a man and his belonging,” he murmured, stroking my arm with his finger. I pulled my arm away as if it had been burned, and he laughed out loud. “Woman, it is not me you fear, but yourself. Was it not clear, but moments ago, that the fire burned high in you? That I took you and cooled your fire should not make you angry”

“The only thing you take is advantage of me!” I said, trying to crumple the eating prong in my fist. “I never invited you into my bed, and a gentleman would know when he wasn’t wanted. But, of course, I forgot. You don’t even know the meaning of the word, ‘gentleman’!”

“Exceedingly strange,” he sighed, applying himself to his food. “Perhaps your actions will become understandable when we have reached Rimilia. On this world, many things are unclear to me.”

I began to assure him that he would never understand me, when the visitor flash showed on the wall board. I left the food I had no real desire for, and went downramp to see who had come into my hall. Sandy Kemper stood there, an uncomfortable expression on his long, thin face.

“Well, well,” I drawled, folding my arms as I stopped in front of him. “To what wondrous good fortune do I owe this visit? If you’ve come to take the barbarian back, please, be my guest!”

“Now, Terry I’m sorry about what’s happened,” he mumbled, “but it wasn’t really my fault. I did tell you to go home, you know. If you had, you would not have gotten involved.”

“I wouldn’t have gotten involved if I could have stayed asleep,” I snapped. “Whose fault do you think that was?”

He looked even more uncomfortable, then glanced past my shoulder. Ah, Tammad,” he said in relief, “I came to give you a message from Murdock. Do you have a moment?”

“Of course,” Tammad answered as he came up to us. I noticed that he had his swim trunks on again, but was eyeing my sleep suit with considerably more disfavor than he had been showing. “Go you back to your food, woman. This talk does not concern you.”

“How would you know?” I countered. “You haven’t even heard what he has to say”

“I do not need to hear,” he answered. “Should some part of it concern you, you will be told.”

“I’ll just save you the trouble and stay around anyway,” I said, feeling the itch of another hunch. “Go ahead, Sandy, get it said.”

Sandy seemed upset, but Tammad didn’t hesitate. He lifted me off the floor under one great arm, carried me back upramp, and found the switch where he’d left it. By the time he returned to Sandy I was long since reduced to tears and sobbing. The switch is a painful instrument of teaching, and the barbarian’s arm had reminded me that he would stand only so much of my disobedience before the lesson was taught again. The second switching was more painful than the first, and I had no curiosity about a possible third.

I had nearly made up my mind to run away no matter what the consequences, when Tammad came back. He stood over me as I lay face down on a bed that was damp from my tears, and studied me. At last, he shook his head.

“In truth, the beating should not have been yours,” he said, almost in disgust, “Did your life not hinge upon your heeding of my word, I could not fault you for your actions. How else could you be, living your life among darayse?”

I sniffled and stared at him, and he crouched down to smooth my hair. “The Sandy Kemper asked what I had done to you to make you scream so. When I explained what I had done, and why it was necessary, a rage filled him. None but a barbarian would treat a Prime so, he shouted. A Prime was to be spoken to gently and persuaded, he insisted. And what, asked I, if she cannot be persuaded? Is her life to be lost should my tongue fail to be glib enough? He refused to consider this, maintaining only that a Prime is not to be touched. When he spoke his message and left, I was pleased to see him go.”

“What makes you so sure that you’re right?” I demanded weakly with a sniff. “I’ve never been beaten before in my life, yet I’ve managed to survive!”

“You were not upon Rimilia,” he said. “Therein lies the difference. But fear not, woman. I shall not save you from the lesser pain and allow you to be lost to the greater. I shall return you to your embassy as you will leave it. You may rest now until the soreness has passed.”

He stood straight again and left the room, graciously allowing me to rest. He was so sure that his way was best, so sure that I’d never survive without him. He, who had knowledge of no more than his one, small world, knew that I, who had visited dozens, would never survive! I was furious at that, furious that he considered himself so much better than I, furious that in his imagined superiority he dared to beat me. I resolved to teach him that he was wrong, to shame him as he had shamed me. I didn’t know when, but I knew I would do it.

He left me alone that day coming for me only when it was time to eat. I served him first, but was unable to sit at the table with him, instead carrying my plate back to my bedroom to eat, belly down, like an animal.

I was about to leave the kitchen with the last meal of the day, when the call sounded. Without thinking, I waved my hand in acknowledgment, and Murdock McKenzie’s face appeared on the screen. “Ah, Terrillian,” he said, his cold, narrow face wearing the faintest of smiles, “I’m pleased to see you looking so well.”

I blushed in embarrassment even though I knew he could see nothing more than my head and shoulders. The barbarian had stripped off my sleep suit to beat me, and I hadn’t dressed again.

“Sandros was most concerned about you,” he continued smoothly “He insisted that you were being mistreated abominably and that I was to do something at once. Tammad, my friend, have you been mistreating our Prime?”

“I have been teaching her obedience,” Tammad answered in a neutral tone, looking straight at the call. “It is something that should have been done sooner.”

“I’m afraid I’m forced to agree with you.” Murdock nodded with a rueful smile. “She is a most disobedient child, and is sorely in need of strict guidance. For her sake, I wish you success.”

“The Murdock McKenzie need have no fear,” Tammad murmured, showing a faint grin, knowing then that he wasn’t being criticized. “She shall be taught that which she needs to know”

“Good.” Murdock nodded again. “And when you go tomorrow to register for the voyage, have her show you Tallion City. You may not have the opportunity to see it again.”

“I shall do so,” Tammad agreed. “The Sandy Kemper felt she knew the location of where we must go. Is this true?”

“It is,” Murdock said. “Have you told her yet?”

“She will know when she must know,” Tammad answered. “There is time yet for the telling.”

“As you wish,” Murdock agreed, then moved his eyes back to me. “Terrillian, you’d do well to be on your best behavior. Tammad is not to be gotten around as easily as Sandros—or Jackson. Perhaps you’ve already discovered this?”

Instead of answering, I waved my hand and cleared the call without first announcing my intention. Murdock McKenzie was enjoying my torment, was gloating over my helplessness. When I returned from Rimilia a free woman again, I would have my revenge on him. Rathmore Hellman was keenly aware of all disservices done him, but also habitually acknowledged good turns. When I was successful, I would ask a favor.

I retired to my bedroom again to consider what I’d recently learned. There was only one “voyage” Tammad would be taking, so he was soon to return to his planet. If we were to register for the flight in Tallion City, he was no longer an unregistered alien to be hidden away. Also, the flight would take place within three days, reservations never being taken earlier. I was not unhappy at the thought of leaving Central; on the contrary, I wished the business over and done with. Since we first had to leave before I would be free to return, I was anxious to be started.

The barbarian said nothing to me about our visit to Tallion City until the next day. At the first meal, he calmly announced our destination and handed me a sheet of paper.

“The writing contains your instructions,” he said. “Read them well and dress yourself, for I would leave as soon as possible.”

I glanced at the paper, confirming my guess that he was to continue as “my associate from Dremmler’s sector,” and also to see what flight we were to book on, then handed it back without comment. The barbarian narrowed his eyes at me.

“Have you no further need of it?” he asked with something like suspicion. “No questions on our destination?”

“We leave for your world within three days.” I shrugged. “What more do I need to know?”

He stared briefly at me, then nodded his head. “It is no less than I would expect you to know. Dress yourself then, and let us be about it.”

We both dressed, he in a casual, dark gray coverall, I in a knee-length, fitted smock, then went again to my speedster. The trip to Tallion City was of its usual length, and I had little difficulty in finding the flight reservations office. I had been there before, but not often and not lately Prime assignments generally require special and immediate transportation.

Tammad and I were assured our cabins aboard a medium-sized transport that would leave Tallion City Outer Port late the following day, and I was then free to show the barbarian around the city. People come to rubberneck at Tallion City from all over Central, but why they do it is completely beyond me. There are very few Neighborhoods anywhere on the planet that don’t think of Tallion City as purely basically, evil, as most of Central is more backward than one would imagine possible. Our distant citizens want nothing whatever to do with people of other worlds, unless they themselves, choose to do the traveling, and visiting citizens of other worlds have even found themselves locked up if they dared to venture beyond Tallion City and its immediate Neighborhoods. More than a few Neighborhood Chairmen have been chosen for their posts because of outspokenly firm stands against Tallion City and its “unnatural” practices, and once a year, representatives from most Neighborhoods descend on the city demanding to know what is being done to save our planet from the savages and barbarians who are lined up waiting to invade and pervert us. All planetary governmental offices were located in the city, and governmental employees tended to live in and around the city just so they could live the sort of peaceful lives they prefer. Casual alliances between men and women aren’t permitted in other Neighborhoods, and if a cohabitation agreement isn’t firmly in evidence, the guilty couple is immediately ejected—if they’re lucky. If they aren’t lucky, they might find themselves the unwavering objects of Peacemen attentions, and thereafter find themselves explaining to a totally unsympathetic Neighborhood Chairman why they should not be punished in some way for their inexcusably heinous behavior. Natives of Tallion City tend to avoid non-natives, but it isn’t always possible, especially when those non-natives come thronging to sightsee in total disapproval. Nothing about our city appeals to them, but they continue to come in their hundreds and thousands, frowning and shaking their heads and spending as few of their Earning Pluses as possible.

That day was no different from any other, and the barbarian and I spent hours fighting our way through the crowds. I was asked why this and why that so many times that I lost count, eventually taking to answering as mechanically and shortly as possible. Why were people given numbers when joining buying audiences? Why was merchandise displayed on a large screen in the center of each category buying room? Why were harmless animals kept behind force screens where people stared at them? Why were there no greetings exchanged between people? How did one buy things when no one seemed to have dinga? I answered in desperation that people were given numbers so that they would be identified when ordering merchandise, that the merchandise could be more easily seen by all when displayed on the screen, and still not be shopworn, that most of the animals behind the force screens were far from harmless, and even if they weren’t, no one wanted them wandering around loose, that people exchanged greetings only with those whom they knew, and most of the people around us were strangers to each other, that one bought things with credit issued by the government, the same amount issued to all; the only time extra needed to be spent was when someone wanted something that wasn’t considered a necessity and then Earning Pluses, issued for necessary work done for Central central, were used. We went from place to place, and Tallion Central Exchange, two miles high and half a mile broad, impressed my guest no end, but I haven’t much of the sightseer in my soul. Museums and art exhibits held no interest for him, and riding the various speed slidewalks is a necessity, not an entertainment. I finally purchased a late meal for us in an eating place open to anyone, then suggested that we return to my home. “I would see more of this city first,” Tammad decided with a shake of his head as he examined the multicolored decorations and listened to the loud, blaring music with what was obviously approval. “Never have I imagined such things could be. Also, I have seen no saddle animals about. For what reason, then, are those watering places in so many locations?”

“Those aren’t watering places.” I told him with a yawn. “They are decorative fountains, to be looked at and appreciated, not used and dirtied.”

“The desert dwellers of Hamarda would use them well.” He grinned, leaning his arms on the small table between us. “Their beasts would roll beneath the spray as would the nomads themselves. They worship the fall of rain from the skies, reveling for days after such an occurrence. One may know the timing of such rains from the spate of nomad brats dropped at the end of their women’s cycles.”

“Fascinating.” I commented, sipping at my wine. After a day of Seeing Tallion City, I’d needed the wine as never before.

“There is one thing you must show me,” he continued, a little too casually. “I have twice now heard mention of that which are called ‘reals.’ The men who offered these to you seemed anxious that you accompany them—for a reason which I believe may be all too clearly seen.”

He was rating me with his eyes again, but this time there was disapproval involved, perhaps at the idea that others found me attractive. I didn’t understand his attitude, but that didn’t stop me from resenting it.

“Well, whatever their reason,” I said frostily “at least they asked, not demanded. They don’t consider a woman theirs for the taking.”

“Perhaps they spend too much time in the asking,” he murmured, staring at me from below half closed eyes. “I have not seen many children in this magnificent city of yours. Are the children kept elsewhere?”

“Some of them.” I answered, looking away from him. “Having children is out of fashion these days, for the most part. People are too busy to be bothered with children.”

“I see,” he said quietly—and somehow I felt that he did see—and then changed subjects again. “Where are these reals kept and how does one use them?”

“You experience them, not use them!” I snapped, annoyed again by his superior manner. “And I don’t know if you would be capable of experiencing them. Your mind may not be able to make the adjustment.”

“We will soon know,” he said, rising to his feet. “Take me there.”

He stood there tall and strong, already having given his orders, now waiting only to be obeyed. Familiar fury rose in me, but I didn’t let any of it show.

“If that’s what you want,” I said, “that’s what you’ll get.” I finished my wine in a swallow, then led the way without objection to a slidewalk. The idea must have been growing in me for some time, as there was no need to stop and think it out. Unhesitatingly, I chose the slidewalk that would take us to Bend Five.

There was a different greeter at the door of the house, and that made matters considerably easier. I requested private accommodations, handed over a block of Earning Pluses, then followed the guide to the room. By thanking the guide quickly and closing the door in his face, I avoided any extraneous comments about who should sit where. Tammad looked about at the almost bare room and was not impressed.

“The couches are not comfortably wide enough for two,” be observed. “There is little else to be done here.”

“Appearances can be deceiving.” I remarked with a small smile. “Take the couch on the right.”

He stretched out carelessly on the couch, supremely confident that there was nothing there that could touch him or harm him; I lifted the headset of contacts and handed it to him.

“Place that on your head just as I gave it to you.” I directed, picking up the other headset and sitting down with it. As soon as it’s on, close your eyes.”

He glanced at the contacts, still suspecting nothing, then reached up to position them. I quickly separated out two of the contacts from my own headset and placed them to my head.

Although the real sprang immediately into my mind, I could still see Tammad on his couch. I had no intention of submerging myself in a man’s role, and I wanted to see the barbarian’s reactions. He lay on the couch, much too large for it, and frowned.

In my mind, I watched from the anonymity of the giant trees as the big, blonde girl looked around hesitantly in the clearing. I knew myself to be bigger yet, big and male and all-powerful, and I knew that the helpless female soon would be mine. Although I was not fully experiencing the real, the compulsion of it was almost overpowering.

The blonde female turned to go back to the strange thing she had emerged from, and I moved quickly to head her off. She looked around as she hurried, and I was able to put myself directly in her path before she saw me. She stopped abruptly with a scream, covering her mouth with her hand, and looked up into my eyes. She recoiled from what she saw there, cringing back, but I didn’t wait any longer. I threw her immediately to the ground, shoved her over onto her face, then tied her wrists tightly behind her.

Tammad moved slightly on his couch, a deep frown on his face, flexing fists. He would be experiencing the helplessness and terror of a small female subjected to the brutality of a much larger male. He would know the reality of it, and later he would know the shame.

The blonde female screamed and cried out in an unknown tongue, but it made little difference. She was mine now, and I lifted her struggling but negligible weight to my shoulder, then returned to the home-forest. The presence of the great trees comforted me, telling me that I, too, was undefeatable and eternal. I found my way easily to the tree that sheltered me, then climbed to my limb in the usual manner.

My trunk dwelling was a welcome sight, and I put the female in a far corner of it. She had stopped screaming, but looked about herself in great fear. She was very beautiful, and her beauty drove me to hunger for her. I went again to the outer limb to pull up my vine and coil it, then returned to my blonde female. She gasped and quivered at the sight of me, and I knew a moment of curiosity

“From which tree do you come?” I demanded of her. “Are there other such females in your tribe?”

She responded in a low, fear-filled voice, but spoke nothing I could understand. Anger touched me then, and I struck her, taking her by the hair to force her to face me.

“From which tree do you come?” I demanded again. “What of the other females in your tribe?”

She screamed out in the tongue I didn’t know, and I could smell the fear on her. She was worthless to tell me what I wished to know, but she had other worth. I released her hair and turned my attention to her covering, but could not discover the opening of it. Impatiently, I tore it from her, and she lay before me, the swell of her breasts, the turn of her hip, all calling to me and heating my blood.

As from a distance, I heard her unknown words again, but cared nothing for them. Her body was mine to conquer and use, mine to pleasure in, mine to do with as I wished. She tried feebly to resist me, but her resistance was as nothing. I vented my need upon her and forced her to my pleasure.

I gripped the edges of the couch with tightened fingers, watching Tammad. His expression was hopeless and wild, and he writhed as if to escape from some unbearable sensation. I knew what he was feeling and I was glad he felt it, glad that the mighty barbarian had been reduced to a whimpering pleasure toy. I withdrew most of myself from the real and watched Tammad writhe.

When the brutal assault was complete, I removed the contacts from both of us. I had accomplished my aim, and had no intentions of burning either of us out. It’s possible to switch sexes in reals, but it isn’t recommended. It produces an unnatural strain that I’d never understood until right then. I felt drained in some strange, undefined way, and I didn’t like the lingering effects in my mind. I had no normal desire to rape anyone, and the residual urge toward it was very unsettling.

In a number of minutes Tammad opened his eyes, but they weren’t focused. He groaned as if he still felt the pain of his taking within him, and I wondered how it had seemed to him. I’d had sex with men before him, and for me the difference was one of intensity and volition. For him, it was an entirely alien experience, a true virgin rape. What would it do to a man to be taken like a woman?

I was beginning to think about Rathmore Hellman’s displeasure when Tammad sat up and shook himself. He got unsteadily to his feet and shook his head again, as if to clear away the aftereffects of a nightmare, but when I looked up into his eyes, I could see that he wasn’t entirely returned. I didn’t relish the thought of taking him back to my speedster across the slidewalks, so I called for a guide, told him that my friend had taken suddenly ill, and asked for an emergency lift to my parking building.

The operator of the emergency lift helped me get Tammad settled in my speedster, and I flew directly back to my house. The greeter and guide at the real house had stared at us suspiciously as we’d left, but they could hardly ask any questions. They let us leave unmolested, and were probably hoping that nothing would come of the incident.

I rolled my speedster into the hangar, wondering how I was to get the barbarian into my house. Without the help of the lift operator, I never would have gotten the giant into my speedster to begin with. I turned the engine off, and only then noticed the three men standing near the door to my house. Two of them came forward immediately, entered the speedster, and went to the barbarian. I left the speedster to them and went to face the third man, a coldly furious Murdock McKenzie.

“What sort of woman are you?” he demanded as I came up to him. “What sort of woman would subject a man to conscienceless indignity? How could you have...”

“Just as easily as you did!” I snapped, cutting off his tirade. “You gave me to him, to be beaten and used by him, and it didn’t bother you a bit! But now that your—friend—has had a taste of the same thing, you’re up in arms. Well, that’s too bad about you, but it’s too late to stop it. It’s done and I’m glad!”

His face twisted even more at the venom in my words, and his cold, grey eyes seemed made out of stone.

“We shall see how glad you are if he can’t be pulled out of it,” he said in a low, deadly voice. “If I hadn’t had you followed and watched, I would never have known about it. Stupid, vindictive woman!”

He turned away from me then, dismissing my presence as he watched the two strange men help Tammad out of the speedster. The barbarian moved as if in a dream, causing the men to struggle to direct him. They took him past me into the house and down the hall to my party room, Murdock McKenzie following painfully behind them with his twisted body. The door was closed, shutting me out, but I didn’t care.

I didn’t care if the barbarian never came back to himself! I ran upramp to my bathroom, bathed hurriedly, then went bed. I struggled out of the dream, bathed in a sweat I couldn’t control. I’d been lying in bed in my dream, and Tammad had come to me. I’d felt the fury I usually did, thinking he would use me as always, without my permission, but I’d been wrong. He lay in the bed next to me, staring at me fearfully, and he’d quivered and moaned when I’d turned toward him. He lay stretched out flat, his hands behind his head, but he wasn’t relaxed. He was tense and almost terror-stricken, his hands not resting behind his head but almost chained there. I’d put my hand out to him, feeling revulsion and a strong sense of wrongness, and he’d whimpered and turned his face away I’d been sick then, knowing I’d destroyed the mighty barbarian forever. He’d never be the same, and it was my fault, my fault, my fault ....

The queasiness was too much to bear. I ran to my bathroom and threw up, guilt emptying me of everything within. I’d wanted to have vengeance on Murdock McKenzie, using the barbarian to strike at him as he had used Tammad to strike at me. But Tammad was the one who had been struck, for no other reason than being himself. He behaved as a barbarian because he was one, and it was no fault of his. If he had been raised on Central, he would have been different.

When the spasms passed, I leaned weakly against the tub, transparented the wall, and looked out. The sky was dark with the loneliness of night, empty of the life that day seemed to bring. I hadn’t lighted the bathroom so I sat in the dark, in it but not part of it. My loneliness was a separate thing and I’d never be free of the guilt I felt.

“The sunless time is for sleep,” a voice said. “Why do you sit here awake?”

I gasped at seeing Tammad in the doorway, then got quickly to my feet and ran to him. “Are you all right?” I demanded, my hands flat on his chest to prove to myself that he really was there. “How do you feel? Are you changed in anyway?”

“How would I be changed?” he asked in amusement. “I have spoken with Murdock McKenzie for a longer time than is usual, but such a thing has no power to change me.”

“But the real!” I insisted.” Didn’t it hurt you?”

“I remember nothing of the real,” he murmured, folding his mighty arms around me. “The experience was of so little consequence that it is gone completely. When the next sun comes, you may remind me if you wish. For now, I have no desire for talk.”

He picked me up and carried me to the bed, and my relief was so great that I barely resented his use of me.