Christopher Nuttall - Barbarians at the Gates

Once the victor in the fight had knocked the others down or out, he howled in triumph and then swept down on the female, lifting her ragged dress before entering her from behind. After a brief moment, the male pulled out, chattering happily. The female pulled herself to her feet, her expression unreadable, and gathered her possessions. No one stepped forward to help her—and none of the other males showed any sign of interest.

“They’re not like us,” a voice said from behind him.

He turned to see Elf.

“To us, that’s a disturbing sight—a rape, perhaps even a gang rape. To them, that’s normal. No one will think any less of her, while the males are doing what comes naturally to them. On the other hand, they may mock her for not being careful when she was on the verge of entering mating season. She should have been inside so she mated with the male she chose—if she chose any male.”

Roman blinked. “Have you been here before?”

“I read the file as soon as we arrived in this system,” Elf said with a wink. “Old Marine saying—learn everything you can, because you never know what might come in handy and you’ll feel a damn fool if you don’t know it when you need it.”

Roman nodded sourly. But they had to ponder what they read to make any use of it.

He looked back at the alien female and saw her walking away, almost waddling. The other aliens seemed utterly unconcerned, although he saw a few casting their lidless eyes in the direction of the two humans. A handful of other humans—all teenage boys—had chortled to themselves at the show before heading back to one of the human buildings. They’d thought it was hilarious.

“What are we doing here, anyway?” Roman asked after a long pause.

“Shore leave,” she said dryly. “I must say you’ve been a terrible disappointment to me as your escort. All you’ve done is drink, and you’ve visited an alien city. You should be being fleeced by a fast-talking dealer, or spending your credits in a brothel…I remember a young ensign who was reported missing during shore leave and we had to go track him down. It turned out that he’d been lured into a drug den, and honestly thought that it hadn’t been more than a day.”

Roman snorted. “And how long was it?”

“A month,” Elf said. “The poor bastard was completely out of it, utterly zonked. At least they’d fed and watered him, or he would have died before we pulled him out.”

“That wasn’t what I meant,” Roman said. He tried again, hoping she’d understand this time. “What is the Federation doing on Maskirovka?”

“We’re here because we have no other choice,” Elf said. “What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know,” Roman admitted. He still had three days before he was supposed to report onboard the Donna Noble , leaving him at loose ends. He couldn’t return to Enterprise , not now. “I just don’t know.”

“Come with me,” Elf said, reaching over and taking his hand. “There’s a place where we can dance—I love dancing—and then get some dinner, and more dancing…and who knows where it might lead?”

Roman looked up in surprise. He’d thought that she’d lost interest in him, if she’d ever had it.

“You’re the hero of the hour,” she said with a wink. “Relax and enjoy it—and all the free drinks you’ll get when you tell your story. Tomorrow is another day of woe and misery, in a universe of woe and misery, where death and destruction stalk us like…two giant stalking things.”

“Oh, shut up.” Roman laughed. “Lead on, fair lady.”

Earth, Sol System, 4092

It would have surprised many of the residents of Earth—particularly the poor unfortunates who spent their entire lives in the cities that housed hundreds of millions of human beings—that there were parts of the planet that had returned to an almost pristine state. The Federation hadn’t shared its predecessor’s obsession over preserving the planet’s ecosystem, but it had encouraged the development of off-planet industry and the transfer of as much manufacturing capability into orbit as possible. The development of fusion power, solar power satellites and other systems had reduced—and eventually eliminated—most of the sources of pollution that had so bedevilled earlier generations. As more and more people left the planet, or crowded into the growing network of interconnected cities, the planet had started to recover. Large portions of entire continents were slowly returning to a more natural state.

The citizens rarely saw any of it. The ones who managed to obtain a fairly good education and better themselves tended to emigrate, often finding work as contract labor, although their descendents might find citizenship on a colony world.

There were always rumors about tribes living in the wilderness, unaware or uncaring of the modern world, but no one took them seriously. Grand Senator Rupert McGillivray would have liked the rumors to be true, if only because they showed the indomitable nature of the human soul. No other race had achieved so much in so short a period of time.

He smiled as the first aircar—escorted by hovering gunships and private troops—settled down on the landing pad at the front of his mansion. Like almost all of the Senators, and all of the Senators who were part of the network of families that made up the Federation’s political elite, he lived in the countryside, inhabiting a mansion that had been in his family for generations. The Senate Hall was the public place for debates, but the mansions had always served as the place for private deal-making, all the more so now when a political catfight between the Conservatives and the Socialists could spectacularly shift the balance of power. The two visiting him today who would eat his food and drink his wine would hate the thought of being beholden to the remains of the Imperialist Faction, but they had little choice. Admiral Justinian had knocked down far too many old certainties.

The second aircar floated in from the opposite direction, forcing his house’s traffic control system to concentrate on keeping the two escorting forces separate. In these troubled times, Rupert wasn’t surprised that they both had heavy escorts, yet doing so ran the risk of an argument turning into an actual battle. Perhaps they were intent on demonstrating their power in the hope that they wouldn’t have to use it. There was nothing more worrying than a terrified member of the political elite.

He keyed the badge he used as a private terminal.

“Escort our guests to the Blue Room,” he ordered as he turned and left his private room. “I will be along shortly.”

Generations of his family had added their own improvements to the mansion. Examples of alien artwork—the loot of humanity’s conquests—littered the walls, joined by hundreds of paintings that had been liberated from various art museums and storage vaults centuries ago. Some of them were believed lost by the remainder of the human race—for example, a painting of the Battle of Pearl Harbor that hung on his wall from when Chinese forces had stormed the American base in the opening days of World War Three had been reported destroyed after San Diego was decimated by a nuclear bomb—while others were held in trust for the day they would be returned to humanity.