“So long as you don’t send us back to our deaths, anyplace is fine, Mum. We’ll get by.”
Yeah, sure. Seventeen, pregnant or with an infant, little possessions, no money or credit, no education, no skills. Oh, you’ll cope fine.
When O’Brian was gone, the commander called, “What do you think, Captain? You want to take the next one, or me?”
“I think these people are all lunatics,” Captain Kim replied. “I’ve been looking over the initial examinations and interrogations of all three and that’s about what we can expect from the other two, it appears. I’m not sure whether it’s worth losing any more time or sleep over this.” He got up and came around to the exec, who rose and yielded the chair to the captain. “Still, let’s see what comes of this, if anything. I don’t want to be hasty here, and we’ve got procedural problems.”
“Indeed. Most people in their circumstance will tell us where to drop them off.”
“Let’s take the other two together and see if we can make any sense of this.” He pressed a point on the desk signalling the marine outside. “Send in the other two together now.”
“Aye, sir,” was the response, and the door opened and the other two girls entered. Like O’Brian, neither seemed particularly awed by the room nor the presences within it, nor noticably concerned about their situation, either. If anything, the best either officer could sense was mild indifference to their situation.
The captain and exec looked them both over. They looked around in a bored sort of way but did not return the stares.
To the right of the captain was a short and somewhat chubby young woman with light brown hair and bright, almost impossibly blue eyes. To her right, his left, stood a taller, more striking figure with long blonde hair that was unnaturally pure and golden yellow, a sexy stance and baby face with lips that seemed to form an impertinent but sexy pout even when at rest, and strangely unnerving hazel eyes. The fact that this one was as pregnant as the others did not in the least diminish her radiant sexuality; even the neutered officers knew what she radiated and could sense it.
The exec went over and whispered to the captain, “Sir, doesn’t it strike you that these girls, all three, seem unnatural somehow? The colorations are natural according to the medical exam, yet have you ever seen eyes or hair of those colors in nature on any planetfall?”
She had a point, the captain reflected. Still, the fact that these girls were the product of some sort of genetic manipulation wasn’t extraordinary, only the superficiality of the tinkering. No humans had truly natural genetic lines any more, hadn’t for a couple of centuries at least.
“Ain’t you cold without no hair?” the brown-haired girl asked, looking at the exec.
“Isn’t it a bother to have to maintain all that hair?” the exec responded, used to the way dirtballers thought of service people.
“All you folks look kinda creepy to us,” the girl came back. This would be Mary Margaret McBride. The other, the blonde and sexy Brigit Moran, said nothing.
“People and lifestyles are different all over,” the captain told the girl. “You haven’t been off your world before, it’s clear, or you’d know that.”
“You mean folks elsewhere all look like you?”
“No, just military people. But there are other differences, quite a lot of them. None of us have much choice about that part.”
“Why not?” McBride asked, apparently quite sincere in the question.
The exec tried to rescue the captain. “Look, all that’s beside the point. The only thing we are trying to decide here is what to do with you. You wouldn’t like it here, I don’t think, and you would just be in the way of what we do.”
“That’s easy,” McBride said. “Just put us off on any world with folks who look and act more like us. We’ll get by.”
“You might at that,” the exec admitted. “The trouble is, you are very young, you have no experience outside a very primitive culture, and your—condition, let us say, makes it hard for us to just do that. We must make sure that you will not suffer or die because of what we do.”
“Why?”
It was such a strange question in that context that it threw the exec for a moment. Finally it was the captain who answered, “Because our ways include a code of what’s right and wrong and that would be wrong. Still, if you had friends or relatives on another world we might be able to arrange for you to be with them. Do you have any family like that?”
“We got some family of sorts most everywhere,” McBride assured him. “But not like you mean, I don’t think. Honest. We’ll be okay anyplace you drop us so long as the folks there ain’t like, well, you, for example.”
“Sounds like we should just arrange to get you back home to Tara Hibernius,” Commander Sittithong said flatly. “That might solve all our problems.”
Both girls seemed suddenly quite agitated. It wasn’t fear in their eyes, not exactly, but it was clear that this was the one thing that bothered them. “No, you can’t make us go back!”
“Never!” repeated the heretofore silent blonde in a high breathy voice.
“Perhaps a convent, then, on one of the developed colonies,” the captain suggested thoughtfully. “We could live with putting you in the custody of your church.”
“Convent? Our church?” McBride seemed to be suppressing a laugh. “No, sir. Not them folks. We don’t fit in with them a’tall.”
The captain noticed the necklaces the two girls wore around their necks, quite similar to the one worn by the first girl. He was going to ask about it, but then decided not to, at least for now.
“Well, those are the only two choices we’ve come up with. If you won’t tell us your stories of why you were on Murphy’s ship and why you are fleeing your native world, then we can hardly make any third decision.”
McBride was having none of it. “You’re just like them!” she responded angrily. “No, you put us back on our ship and let us go on, or you put us off on a big world with lots of folks. You better!”
The captain found this almost amusing. “We’d better? That’s usually followed by some sort of threat. We’d better or what?”
“You just better, that’s all! Can we go now?”
The captain looked over at the exec who gave a slight shrug.
“Why not?” he replied. “There’s little to be gained from this. You and your companions will have adjoining cabins and you must stay in them, together if you want, or not if you like, or in the lounge that will be nearby. Marines will be posted to make sure you don’t go start exploring and get into trouble. I’m going to have to take a look and see how long it’ll be before we’re within range of Tara Hibernius, and that’s that.”
“You won’t send us back!” McBride said flatly. “You won’t!”
“I will do what’s in the best interest of all of us, and you’ll have to accept it. Now, go. The sergeant outside will show you all to your quarters.”
Mary Margaret McBride looked at Brigit Moran and the two locked eyes and resolute expressions for a moment. It looked quite childlike. Still, they both turned in almost military fashion and stomped out of the room.
The captain sighed. “In the old days, I was a guest for a time at a private resort where military and trade representatives gathered to discuss policy. Many brought along their families in the old style because it was such a nice holiday spot. Many of their young children would act like that on occasion. I recall one small boy who did not want to stop swimming and go inside with his mother. He threw a loud screaming fit, one so awful I thought they would have to call the medical personnel, and it was only after a while that I realized I was watching unbridled and unchecked emotion. Finally, he threatened to hold his breath until he turned blue. He tried to do so, too.”