She glanced up, to where twelve-year-old Petra scrubbed a hallway floor on her hands and knees. Al Khalifa snarled, thinking, Nazrani bitch! And soon enough Besma will be married off and I'll lose control of her unless I can keep this little twat under my control. I know they've been plotting to get the Christian girl her freedom. Bah! As if a Christian is worthy of freedom.
Then again, if I can't keep control of the Nazrani, and lose my power over Besma, perhaps I can make it so that Besma infuriates her father enough that he cuts her off from her inheritance? She's hot tempered; that will help. Maybe if . . .
I must consult the law, was al Khalifa's thought. And then, if the law supports what I have in mind, I must consult with my son . . . and he with his friends.
Savannah, Georgia, 25 May, 2109
The strains of ancient music wafted up the stairs, seeping under the door of a small, green-painted room. Hamilton and another man— he'd given his name as "Caruthers"—sat at a wooden table covered by a checked tablecloth. Between them sat a bottle of Irish whiskey, two glasses, and a small metallic box the size and shape of a pack of cigarettes.
"All clear," announced a metallic voice, emanating from the small box.
Caruthers, a deliberately nondescript, middle-aged black man, with a receding hairline and clothed lightly against the city's oppressive late spring; He said, "It had best be all clear, Atkinson, or you will be canned. By that I mean—"
"—that I will be ground up, melted down, and stamped out into cat food cans. Yes, sir, I know. The room is clear."
Hamilton raised one eyebrow. "I've never before met a machine with personality. Atkinson?"
Caruthers chuckled slightly and said, "Atkinson was an intelligence warrant and the stupidest human being I've ever met, so I named the machine for him. It doesn't have a personality, but then neither did the real Atkinson. I programmed a certain number of smart-ass answers into the thing because, frankly, my job permits me minimal human interaction. And since the original Atkinson was barely human, and a smart ass, it sort of fits."
How does a recruiter have "minimal human interaction"? Hamilton wondered.
"Even recruiting," Caruthers continued, "isn't really human interaction. To me you're just a file, Lieutenant Hamilton, a block to check. Don't take that personally; if I allowed myself to think of my recruits as human it might bother me when they fail to return from a job."
Ah, wise, very wise. If we can avoid thinking of our losses as people then the pain is much less.
Caruthers said, "Atkinson, you moron, pull up Lieutenant Hamilton's file." Immediately a hologram mimicking a brown file appeared above the table. Caruthers didn't pretend to study it, nor even order the machine to open it.
"You were well regarded in your battalion, I see," the recruiter said.
Hamilton pursed his lips and shook his head slightly. "I think they felt sorry for me."
"Yes, perhaps," Caruthers agreed. "A pity about young Lieutenant Hodge; we always have openings for husband-wife teams. They draw much less suspicion and are about three times more effective— synergy, don't you know; that and teamwork—than two single operatives or artificial couples. Never mind that; we see you as more the lone operative at this point.
"Atkinson, you dolt: linguistic scores."
The holographic file opened to an equally insubstantial sheet documenting, among other things, Hamilton's Defense Language Aptitude Test, or DLAT, which was used not only by the military, but by State and OSI as well.
"We could teach you any language or combination of languages," Caruthers said, admiringly. "This would make you useful anywhere. Do you already speak any languages beyond English, Spanish, and French?"
"A little German, and I picked up fairly decent Tagalog in the PI campaign."
"Not much use for that anymore, except in the Philippine Scouts as the Philippine Army is absorbed into the Imperial Army and expanded. Certainly, we don't have a great need for the language. You didn't want to be a sepoy general, after all, did you?"
"I don't want to be any kind of general," Hamilton answered. "I don't think I ever did."
Caruthers shrugged. "If you join us, of course, you won't be."
"What will I be?"
"That I am not sure of, though the way we do business now I will be your handler, if you join and are accepted for field work. Several of my colleagues have looked over your file and suggested you might be best used for direct action, 'wet work,' as we sometimes say. That, however, is all speculation. Your exact training track will not be determined until you are well into the BIOC, the Basic Intelligence Operatives Course."
"I get to be a shavetail again, do I?" Hamilton asked, noticing the similarity between the letters BIOC and IOBC.
"Not exactly," Caruthers said. "For one thing, we won't get you up at two in the morning for a nine AM movement." Seeing the look on Hamilton's face, Caruthers added, "Yes, Lieutenant Hamilton, I was a grunt, too. That's where I met that buffoon, Atkinson."
Kitznen, Affrankon, 24 Jumadah II, 1533 AH
(25 May, 2109)
It was still early morning, though the sun was full up. Besma was at school, Ishmael having escorted her. Most of the other servants were off at their various tasks. Inside the house of Abdul Mohsem were only Petra, al Khalifa, her son, and two of her son's friends.
With a grunt, Fudail, al Khalifa's son, closed the kitchen door firmly, tripping the latch. Two of his friends, Hanif and Ghalib, stood leaning against adjacent walls with their arms folded. The three formed a U, trapping Petra against the last wall. Not liking the looks in the boys' eyes, liking even less the obscene wagging of Hanif's tongue, the slave girl backed away.
Her back pressed against the broad oak table, the same one upon which al Khalifa flogged her approximately weekly. She remembered that there was a knife on the table and turned to grab it.
Too late. Like a cat, Fudail sprang forward, grabbing the slave's arms in a firm grip. He pulled her from the table. "Move that knife, Ghalib," Fudail ordered. "We'll have use for the table."
"Let me go!" Petra demanded, trying to kick backwards, a blow Fudail easily avoided. In answer to the demand, Fudail released one arm, the hand of which found new purchase in her long blond hair. The other hand spun her around, causing her hair to twist and pull. He released the other arm and slapped her across the face, twice, hard. Petra would wear the bruises for many days.
"In France they call this 'le tournante,'" Fudail explained.
Taking advantage of the girl's shock, Fudail, still grasping her by the hair, reached up and tore open her bodice. Her breasts, still growing, were too small to actually need a bra. The ripped cloth exposed them to the boys. Ghalib and Hanif clapped their approval. Fudail's fingers grasped the right nipple, squeezed as hard as he could, and then twisted, raising a cry of pain and despair from Petra.