John Brosnan - The Sky Lords

“You’re saying that you’ll only continue helping me if I agree to have sex with you?” Jan asked angrily. She felt shocked and betrayed. After all his apparent sympathy for her she had begun to trust him.

He shrugged. “You have to be realistic, Jan. You can’t get something for nothing in this world. Especially in this world up here. And as much as I feel sorry for you I am not, by nature, an altruist. Now I find you very attractive and charming and I feel that, despite your appalling ignorance, you might make a stimulating companion. To be frank, I need a woman. But I am fastidious in such matters and, as you have already seen, the women in this floating zoo leave much to be desired.” He sighed and continued, “Since being captured three years ago I have had only a few brief and unsatisfactory couplings. I need something more and I believe you can provide it for me.”

She had shrunk back on the bed. “You intend to have sex with me even though I don’t want to,” she accused him.

“That’s putting it rather bluntly, but, well, yes. …”

“That’s rape .”

“No, no, not at all,” he protested. “I’m not going to force you to make love to me. It won’t be rape.”

“What do you call it then? You’re saying you’ll hand me over to the rest of the animals in here if I don’t allow you to penetrate me. That’s rape as far as I’m concerned.”

He regarded her coolly. “I assure you there’s more to my love-making than mere penetration, young woman. But again I stress I will not be taking you by force.”

“Just because you won’t be using physical force doesn’t make it any less a case of rape,” she told him.

He ran his hand over his scalp and said, “Look, think of it merely as a business proposition. You have to do something you don’t want to do in order to get something you need.”

“I see. I let you rape me and you let me live. Is that what you call a business proposition?”

He looked annoyed. “I’m not going to rape you and, yes, selling your body is a business proposition. It’s called prostitution and it’s one of the oldest businesses in the world. Women— and men—have been selling their bodies for money or food or other favours for time immemorial.”

“If someone doesn’t want to have sex with someone else but is obliged to do so for reasons of survival then that’s rape,” she said firmly.

“No, you’re being too pedantic,” he told her. “Take, for example, a woman who wants a more comfortable way of life and who therefore sleeps with a man in order to attain it even though she feels no sexual attraction towards him—that’s not rape, is it?”

Jan frowned. “Perhaps not, but I said ‘for reasons of survival’ and that’s not the same as your example. A woman obliged to sell her body just to stay alive is being raped by the men who take advantage of her situation, no matter how much money or food they may give her. They are rapists, pure and simple.”

“I don’t think …” he said, and faltered.

“What you’re offering me is the survival proposition,” she said quickly, pressing home her advantage, “sex or death. In other words, rape.”

He glared at her. “Enough of your Minervan dogma,” he said irritably. “What we have here is a problem of semantics and further argument is futile. I will give you my ultimatum. You have exactly a week to decide whether or not to accept my proposition. If you agree to it you will give yourself to me willingly with no talk of rape or any other Minervan nonsense. If at the end of the week you do not accept my proposition I will withdraw my protection and you will be on your own here. And you know what that will mean. Do you accept the terms?”

Jan was silent for a time, then she said, “I have a week to make my decision?”

“Yes. I guarantee it.”

“Very well. I’ll tell you in a week.” She leaned back against the flimsy wall and folded her arms. He seemed to relax. “Good,” he said and smiled at her. She didn’t smile back.

She had made her decision and felt relieved about it. Before the week was up she would have placed the fire bomb where it would do the most damage and blown the Sky Lord out of the sky.

After her apparent acquiescence to his sexual blackmail Milo once again became sympathetic and, superficially at least, charming. He offered her another biscuit, saying that they would eat something more substantial after they had slept. Then he took the thin mattress off the wicker-work bed and laid it out on the floor. “You can sleep on that. It will be more comfortable than the bed.”

She thanked him and stretched out on it. She felt exhausted but at the same time not really sleepy. She realized that the idea of going to sleep scared her. She was afraid of what she might dream.

He stood over her, looking down. He said, “You can remove your garment if you wish. I won’t bother you. I gave you my word.”

“I’ll keep it on.”

He shrugged and undid the fastener on his own pair of baggy overalls. As he stepped out of them she gave his body only a brief, mildly curious glance before rolling over on her side and closing her eyes. It had been an unremarkable body, as male bodies went. Completely hairless, true, but then Minervan men had very little body hair as well. His sexual organs seemed normal, though she was well aware that her familiarity with male sexual organs rested on her one experience with Simon. The only odd thing about Milo’s body was that it didn’t look very powerful. Certainly hot powerful enough to have done what she had seen him do to the heavily-built Buncher.

She heard the bed creak as Milo lay upon it. Through the thin walls she could still hear the murmuring of voices. Somewhere, a long way off, a woman sobbed. She wondered if the lights were ever turned down or off. She could see the glow through her closed eyelids.

The glow from the ceiling lights turned red. She saw leaping flames as Minerva again burned. She heard screams, heard the sounds of the bombs, saw Helen again, dazed and staggering while she clutched an arm that ended in a bloody stump. …

Jan opened her eyes. As she feared, the nightmare of the last two days was waiting for her inside her head. Even before she was asleep the images were pushing their way out. If she slept she would have to live through it all over again. But she was getting sleepy now. There was no way she would be able to stay awake for very long, despite the unpleasant itching of her skin as a result of that white liquid. Against her wishes her eyes closed again.

Who was screaming? It was an awful sound; high-pitched and penetrating. It shredded the nerves. Jan looked anxiously around but there was too much smoke. The screaming continued, getting closer. Then, out of the smoke, Jan saw Martha running towards her. The chimp’s hair was alight, from head to foot. As she got closer Jan could hear the crackling of her burning flesh. “No!” cried Jan as Martha, in her panic and fear, leapt up at her. She started to scream as well as the chimp’s powerful, burning arms hugged her in desperation. …

Jan screamed and screamed as she struggled to get free of those arms but she couldn’t, they were too strong.

“Shush, amazon,” said a voice in her ear. “Calm down, it’s just a dream. You’re all right …”

The feel of the flames on her flesh faded away, though the powerful arms continued to hold her tightly. She realized where she was; in Milo’s cubicle, though it was darker now. She stopped screaming.

“For Christ’s sake, shut that bitch up, will ya!” a man yelled from another cubicle.

“Feeling better?” Milo asked her gently.