Chapter One  The Worth of a Woman

Sarah thought she could manage him right up to the moment Reggardi slapped her, so hard, her body spun sideways and threatened to tear the microhooks on the bottom of her slippers away from the grabbit carpet covering the control room deck.  As she brought her palm up to her throbbing cheek and tried to stifle the sudden shocked tears threatening to escape her eyes, it occurred to her that maybe her parents had not been so wrong in their evaluation of Reggardi after all.

“He’s a piss-ast jerk,” her father had said brusquely, and her mother had vigorously, if less crudely, agreed.

Sarah saw Reggardi in a slightly different light.  Yes, the ruggedly handsome senior was sometimes overbearing, especially to younger classpersons, but then what senior wasn’t a little overbearing to the juniors, the sophs, and the frosh?  And yes, he had been in a few, well several fights, but no one had been seriously hurt, except for that one time, and Reggardi had explained to Sarah that it had been an accident.  He had not meant to break the other boy’s arm.

She had snuck out of the house late last evening to go for a ride with Reggardi on his family’s space yacht.  He had promised her a quick suborbital trip, and then he would take her back to her home while her parents still slept, blissfully ignorant of their daughter’s escapade.

The first indication that this superb chance to be a little wicked was going awry was when Reggardi did a longer burn than she had expected and put them into a stable orbit instead of gliding back to the garage pad at his parent’s estate.  Sarah had taken enough astrophysics to know the difference.  It was going to take a lot longer to get back to her house than she had anticipated.  By dawn’s light seemed more likely now.  Still, all was not lost as far as secrecy.  Her parents tended to sleep late on Octoday, and they knew Sarah usually slept in even longer.  Then Reggardi became amorous, which wasn’t so bad, except when it came time to take “no” for an answer, he didn’t.  Instead, he became increasingly belligerent and demanding, and finally he slapped her.

For a moment, Sarah stared in shock at the bulkhead where the expensive holoscreens displayed the system status of the small spaceship on which she was trapped.  Then slowly she turned her head to stare at Reggardi.  He had calmed down now, and he did not seem particularly angry or disturbed.  Not a single hair of his soft, curly brown hair was out of place.

He was smiling, and his smile chilled her to her bones.  There was a hint of triumph in his hazel eyes, but the smile was that of a predator which had brought its prey to bay.  It was a smile of anticipation.  At that moment, Sarah understood what other girls meant when they referred to being seen by a man as “a piece of meat.”  Sarah had to force herself not to whimper.

Reggardi brought his hand under her chin and gently lifted it, so their eyes met.  His smile broadened, but there was no sign of human empathy in his straight white teeth.  Trembling, Sarah stood stock still, waiting for another blow but hoping he was finished.

“Do you understand now, Sarah?” he asked softly, causing her heart to beat faster.

Mutely she nodded, still working to hold back tears.  She suspected that he would like to see them fall from her eyes.  She had just enough defiance left to deny him this satisfaction.

“Now go into my stateroom and turn down the covers on my bed.  Get undressed and get in my bed.  I’ll be a few moments longer while I set the ship on automatic descend.”  He gave her a light push, and obediently she moved in the direction he indicated.

“And Sarah.”

She stopped with her back toward him.  His voice had almost dropped to a whisper, but she could hear the warning in it.

“If I’m not pleased with what I find when I enter my stateroom, it will be very unpleasant for you.”

She gave a tiny nod and continued past the wall dividing the control room from the rest of the ship.  In the narrow passageway that ran all the way from the control room entrance to the chemical engine complex, she came to the two stateroom doors, one on either side of the tiny hallway.  She hoped the door would not accept her palm scan, but apparently Reggardi had thought of that, and he had programmed his door to respond to her bone signature.  It slid open and closed once she was inside.

Sarah sat down on the bed and stared at the door.  She wondered if she could somehow bar the panel, but it opened by sliding into the wall, and the only thing on the door was a palm plate which was flush with the rest of the door.  To one side, she saw the terminal on his desk.  She wondered if the door could be programmed to stay shut, but she had never taken a rom programming class in high school and with graduation only a month away, she never would.

There was a mirror over the desk.  She pulled her long auburn hair away from her head and stared at the bruise beginning to show against her light brown skin.  This is what it means to feel and look numb, she thought.  What am I going to do?

She did not want to think about what he would do if she resisted.  She wondered if she even had time to cry.  She did not think so.  Almost in a state of shock now, she reached for the first button on her blouse, just as she heard a loud clanging sound and felt a bump though the thin gas mattress.  She sat still for a minute, wondering if something had gone wrong.  Then, thinking that what she had heard and felt was something normal for this ship, she forced herself to open the first and second buttons of her blouse.

Suddenly she heard a loud alarm begin to cycle over and over.  Sarah was no stranger to traveling on a space hopper, and with a start she recognized the alarm as one which was periodically sounded on the planet’s Common Entertainment system, so the populace of Marl would know what to listen for when they traveled off planet.  Usually she associated the sound with a feeling of annoyance, because the test broadcasts always seemed to interrupt one of her favorite programs.

Sarah refastened her buttons and left the stateroom.  In the control room, she found Reggardi frantically pounding on the touch screen at one of the terminals.  She silently watched him until he noticed her.  His superior, contemptuous mood seemed to have dissipated to be replaced by one of apprehension, and perhaps fear.  She watched as he used his hand to brush sweat from his perfect brow.

“I think we were hit by a micrometeor,” he explained as he took a deep breath.

His melodious, vicious voice sounded shaken.  That gave Sarah a tiny bit of satisfaction, even though she knew they might be in danger.

“All the comms are down except for a local laser.  And something happened to both gyros.  I’m trying to locate any ship heading our way with enough delta to match.  I think I’ve located a big freighter, but so far it hasn’t answered.”

Although she was frightened because of the damage to the ship, inwardly Sarah also felt a huge weight beginning to lift.  Maybe she was not going to be assaulted after all.  And surely, traffic control would notice that their ship was off course.  She said as much to Reggardi.

“Spirit!  You’re such a little twitch, Sarah,” he answered impatiently.  “Do you think I bothered to file a flight plan for this little excursion?  And even if I had, there are thousands of yachts this size in Low Marl Orbit.  There’s no way they keep track of them, unless one happens to intersect the path of a commercial ship.”

As the alarm continued to clang, he turned back to his console and asked the ship’s rom to recheck the comm systems.

Sarah didn’t care about his dismay.  She was happy his ship had been damaged.  Sooner or later, she would be missed, and then her parents would come for her.  They HAD to.  And she would tell her father what Reggardi had done, and her father would… do something.  She would be in trouble, too.  I might get grounded until graduation.  Right now, she just wanted to be away from Reggardi and back home, safe in her bed.

“They heard me,” Reggardi exclaimed when he saw a green blinking indicator light.  He grabbed his rom and slipped on a pair of head speakers.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Sarah heard him say.  “Can you match?  Fantastic.”

Reggardi took off the speakers.  “They can match in an hour,” he said with a tone of satisfaction and relief in his voice.

He smiled at Sarah.  It was the familiar coaxing smile he had often used so effectively on her.  It made no impression on her now.

“Guess that kind of killed the mood,” he stated with another smile.  “I’m sorry I got a little out of hand.”  He was trying now to be earnestly apologetic, she realized.

Sarah nodded and looked away.  She was trying to think of how to humor him for an hour.  Now is not the time to make a scene.  There would be plenty of time for that when she was sitting safely in a police station.  Her tears were gone, although she was still very leery of him.  She would never trust him again.  Now she was aware of a seething ember of anger trying to grow, but she tamped it firmly down.  Not yet.

An hour later, she tried not to let her relief show when the other ship matched their velocity and docked with Reggardi’s yacht.  Presently, the airlock on the side of the control room opened, and a teenager crawled through a tube tunnel and stood.

“Ho,” he said.  “What’s the problem?”

Sarah was surprised to see that he was a little younger than her, although he was taller.  He had very short black hair and brown eyes and skin about the same shade as hers.  He was thin.  Sarah wondered if he was getting enough to eat.  Maybe his captain did not feed him very well.

The young spacer was wearing a one piece jump suit, and Sarah could see that under the jump suit the boy was wearing a skinsuit, the strange garb worn only by those who inhabited the Hoop.  Around his waist, he wore a tool belt from which various devices hung.

“Ho,” Reggardi answered.  “Don’t really know.  Think I got hit by a micrometeor.  Gys are both out, and I can’t yell at anyone except on a straight line.”

“I can check it,” the stranger said.

He and Reggardi disappeared into the passageway leading to the engine complex.  Sarah waited anxiously and impatiently until they returned.  The stranger was wiping his greasy hands on an old shop towel.  He leaned lazily against one of the yacht’s bucket seats.

“I got the parts for your gys, so I can fix that,” he said.  “I can’t do anything with your voices though.  Those chips are fried, and some of the boards will need to be replaced.  You’ll have to wait until you get down to Marl and find an electro tech.”

So I can’t call home, Sarah thought.  Somehow this conversation was not going the way she had hoped.  She cleared her throat, and the young man looked at her.

“Ho, I’m Pall,” he said.  He had a nice smile even if his middle teeth were a little crooked.

“Ho, I’m Sarah,” she replied.  “What do you mean, ‘I can fix it’?  Aren’t you going to take us aboard and drop us?”

As the young man began to answer, Reggardi interrupted.  “There’s no need for that, Sarah,” he said in a soothing voice.  “Once the gyro’s are fixed, we can descend whenever we want to.”

Whenever you want to, Sarah thought.  She was becoming alarmed again.  What if Reggardi was planning to continue what he had started?

“I need you to manually align the gys on the ‘x’ axis,” Pall said.  “I’ll do the ‘y’ from here.”

Reggardi hesitated a moment, and then he disappeared down the passageway, but not before giving Sarah a warning glance.  It took Sarah only a few seconds to decide.  She quickly went to where Pall was bent over a display and grabbed his sleeve.  He glanced away from the display to give her an inquiring look.

“I have to get off this ship,” she said.

He turned from his task with a puzzled look on his face.

“What?”

“I have to get off this ship.”

“Why?  You’ll be able to drop in a couple of hours.”

Sarah pulled her hair away from her face and turned her cheek toward him, so he could see the mark on her face.

“Please.  I need to get off this ship,” she repeated once again, and then she explained how she had come to be on the space yacht.

Pall’s brown eyes widened as he heard the plea in her voice and saw the damage to her cheek.  He looked at the passageway, and then he looked back at Sarah.

“Did he do that?”

“Yes.  I truly need to get off this ship.”

“Great Captain’s Spirit,” Pall exclaimed.  “Yeah, I can see that’s true.  But I can’t take you off this ship without permission from the captain.  And he is the captain, right?”

“But there’s only the two of us,” Sarah wailed, becoming desperate.  This rescue was not going well at all.

“It’s the law,” Pall explained.  “And I can’t break it, Sarah.  He could get my ship banned from trading with Marl.  I have shipmates who have money invested in this ship.  We have to be able to return to Marl.”

“Can’t you do anything?”  Sarah asked, ready to beg if he would only respond.  Once again, she was feeling panicky.

The young spacer thought for a few moments.  As they waited, the ship’s comm dinged.  It was Reggardi demanding to know why Pall was taking so long.

“I’m having a little trouble aligning the gy,” Pall lied.  “Hold on for a few more minutes.”  He turned back to Sarah.

“Have you ever been united?” he asked hesitantly.

“What?  No,” Sarah replied, offended that he would ask such a personal question of a perfect stranger.

“Legally, I can take you off this ship if you’re willing to unite with me,” Pall explained.

A deep hurt settled into Sarah, and her throat convulsed.  So that’s how it is.  He’ll risk a brush with the law if I have sex with him.  She thought about refusing but only for a moment.  Still, she had to know something.

“Have you ever…,” she indicated her cheek, “…done this to a girl?”

“Never,” Pall replied emphatically.  “That’s despicable.  My shipmates would probably space me if I did something like that.”

Sarah gathered her courage.  “All right,” she said bravely if shakily.  “I’ll… I’ll unite with you if you take me aboard your ship.”

But even as she made the promise, Sarah was hoping that once she was aboard the young man’s ship she could get the attention of the captain, or of one the officers, or of someone else who could help her get away from this person, too.

Pall nodded and then to Sarah’s surprise, he put his hands together and pointed his fingertips toward Sarah.

He spoke.  “I, Pall Swiftcar, vow that I will protect you, Sarah…” He paused and looked at her expectantly.

For a moment, Sarah’s mind was blank, and then she said, “Talmaiz.  Sarah Talmaiz.”

Pall nodded and said, “Talmaiz.  And I will unite with you.  Now you say the words back to me.”  With a mental roll of her eyes, Sarah said the words.

“We can say the other words later,” Pall said, and he returned to his task.

A rather formal statement that he’s going to get laid, Sarah thought crossly.  With an internal sneer, she wondered if later, he would use her words to claim she had consented.

Pall turned back to the display, and after a few minutes, he said, “That’s it.”  He looked at the passageway and then he looked at Sarah.  “Be quiet.”

“I haven’t said anything!”  Sarah exclaimed, feeling more and more annoyed at the young man.

“I mean, when he comes back, don’t say anything.  I’m trader trained for body language, but I’m not that good yet,” he confessed.  “Other sounds and movements can distract me.”  Especially if they’re from a girl, he did not add aloud.

Sarah had only a vague idea as to what he meant, but when Reggardi returned, she faded away from the two young men.

“I have the proper alignments,” Pall announced.  “Now all we need to do is to settle on payment.”

Reggardi’s eyes narrowed.  He had not been expecting that.  He gave Pall a speculative look.

“Can you take an asset check?” he asked.

“No, I’m a trader.  I live for barter.” Pall easily told the lie.

Reggardi glanced around the control room.  “This is a private ship.  It’s not as if I’m carrying cargo.”

“You need your gys fixed,” Pall said.  “Without them and without your comms you’re in bad shape.  You’ll burn when you fall.”

“And?”

“And you have something I want.”

“What?”  Reggardi asked, truly mystified.

“I want the girl.”

Reggardi stared at Pall for a moment, and then he exclaimed, “You’re a slaver!”

Startled at the accusation, Sarah stared at Pall apprehensively.  Pall said nothing, and his face was expressionless.

“So you want Sarah in exchange for the gy parts,” Reggardi stated.  He stared at Sarah as if he was appraising her value.  “All right.  No choice, I guess.”  He nodded his agreement.

“I’ll take the girl aboard my ship and get the parts,” Pall said.

“How do I know you’ll bring back the parts?  No, you go get the parts, and we’ll make the exchange here.”

“Put the girl in my tube on your side,” Pall suggested.  “I’ll get the parts.  We’ll make the exchange in the tube.”

Sarah wanted to protest angrily that she should have a say in all this, but until she was safely on the other ship, she decided it would be wise to keep a grip on her temper.  Obediently, she let Reggardi take her by the arm and march her into the airlock connected to Pall’s tube.  She bent down and followed Pall as he crawled into the long narrow tunnel.

Pall kept moving and disappeared through a hatch, a long way from where Sarah settled down on the flexible material of the docking tube.  Shortly, the spacer reappeared with two boxes.  He pushed them to the center of the tube, and then he slid one box along the length of the tube to where Reggardi could reach it.  Reggardi, still gripping one of Sarah’s arms, opened the box and looked inside.

“How do I know these are the right parts?” he asked with suspicion in his voice.

“Look at the part number etched on the part and compare it to the part number on the part that needs to be replaced,” Pall suggested impatiently.

With his free hand, Reggardi pulled out his rom and flipped it open.  He had to set Sarah free in order use his other hand to slide the menus and study the contents, but eventually he was satisfied.  Pall slid the other box to Reggardi, and Reggardi went through the same procedure.  Sarah was afraid Reggardi would renege on the deal now that he had the parts, but she did not realize that Reggardi needed Pall’s expertise to uninstall the old equipment and insert the new parts.

Pall motioned for her to crawl toward him.  She did so hurriedly with one last wary look back at her former boyfriend.  When she reached Pall, he whispered for her to crawl around him.

Once he was between the other two, Pall said to Reggardi, “I’m going to take Sarah into my ship and show her where to stay.  I’ll be right back.”

Reggardi ignored them as he futilely studied the part schematics on his rom.  Sarah crawled forward until she passed the freighter’s outer airlock hatch, and then she stood.  Pall was close behind her.  Now that Reggardi was out of earshot, she had an important question she needed Pall to answer.

“You’re not really a slaver, are you?” she asked uneasily.  She held her breath.

Pall looked irritated.  “I never said I was.  But let him think whatever he wants.  This way, he’ll think he doesn’t have to worry that you’ll tell the authorities on Marl what he did.”

“Oh.  Yes,” Sarah said.  “That’s smart thinking.  You’re pretty swift.”  She looked around.  “Where are the others?  Are they on the other side of the lock?”

Pall did not answer her question.  Instead, he opened the inner hatch and led her into the ship proper.  Sarah saw a narrow dimly lit passageway that ran a long way forward and then ended at a wall.  She followed Pall until they came to the end, where they turned into another passageway perpendicular to the first.  Pall turned left and led her down this passageway until they came to another hatch, which he swung opened toward them.  Beyond that was another hatch which swung away from them and led into what might have been a cavernous room.  Sarah could not be sure, because the room was almost completely dark.  Only a little light shown on a small area that seemed to be the living quarters for someone.  To one side, but prominent in the small area was a bed with grabbit blankets.  Sarah’s heart sank when she saw it.

“D.. D.. Don’t I have to report to the captain or something?” she stammered feeling Pall’s strong hand on the small of her back.

“I am the captain,” Pall replied.  “This is an automated freight ship.  I did have other crew members, but my main shipping team only consists of three people.  Pai and Tai are on another trading voyage, so I’m alone.”

“I see,” Sarah said gloomily as her last hope disappeared.

She studied the bed.  So this is where we’ll be ‘united,’ she thought.  She had been telling a lie when she told Pall that she had never been ‘united.’  The truth was that Sarah had experienced sexual pleasure several times with a previous boyfriend.  The only reason she had not experienced it with Reggardi, was because she had been waiting for the right time.  If Reggardi had been smart and a decent person, sooner or later they would have ended one of their dates in his bed.

“You can lie down and rest here,” Pall told her.  “There’s a viver through that door.”  He pointed, and Sarah saw the door to one side.  “I’ll be back as soon as I finish fixing those gys.”

He stepped back into the passageway and closed the hatch, leaving Sarah alone.  Now her tears threatened to fall again.  She thought about lying down on the bed and letting her emotions go, but she was not ready to touch the bed just yet, so she opened the door to the viver.  Inside, she found the expected toilet and the radiant shower, but she was surprised to see an enormous empty tub.  Surely, this can’t hold water.  Where does he get water from?  How does he recycle it?  How does he keep it from sloshing around during a burn?

There were sanitary wipes in a container on the counter so after using the toilet, she wiped down her face, neck, and arms.  She had lost track of the time, and now she realized it must be almost daybreak back home.  Her anxiety and fear had left her tired, and when she left the viver, she forced herself to sit down on the bed.

She sat there thinking desperately of various ways to avoid what was going to happen, but she couldn’t think of anything.  Finally, she lay down on the bed and hooked a blanket over her body.  She wondered if Pall expected her to remove her clothing while she was waiting.  Sadly, she unbuttoned the top two buttons of her blouse, and then she remembered having already done this once before, hours earlier.  She decided to wait until the last possible moment.  Like the rest of her body, her eyelids were tired so she closed them for a minute.  She realized that she was feeling the pull of gravity, and she wondered how that was possible.  Soon, she was asleep.

When Pall left Sarah, he returned to the yacht.  Reggardi was waiting impatiently for him, and together they returned to the engine complex.  Once Pall had the parts installed, he sent Reggardi back to the control room to set the alignment.  After the repairs were completed, Pall cleaned the area thoroughly and returned his tools to his belt.  He went back to the control room and found Reggardi standing over one of the displays.

“Can you check this?”  Reggardi asked, standing aside to make way for Pall.

Pall looked at the display.  It was a schematic for the kitchenette recycler, and it looked perfectly ordinary.

“What about it?” he asked.

Pall turned and saw that Reggardi had moved to stand between Pall and the airlock.  He was holding a large knife, fully two feet long; it had an ornately carved handle.  He was grinning.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Reggardi said with a snicker.  “I think I’ll keep Sarah.  We have unfinished business together.”

Anger and contempt filled Pall’s thoughts.  He pulled what appeared to be a glue gun from his tool belt and shot a stream of microwaves toward Reggardi’s leg.  Reggardi screamed and dropped the knife as the soft tissues in his knee suddenly heated.  Pall stepped over the screeching young man who was clutching his leg.  The spacer grabbed Reggardi under his arms, dragged him to the control seat cage, and slammed him down in the bucket seat.  He strapped the moaning young man to the seat, tied the top of the cage door with some fabric tape, and then stepped away.

“You’ll be down in an hour,” he stated.  “So you probably won’t need a new knee.”

Pall found the ship’s recorder.  Wonder if he planned to erase it.  Maybe he wanted to watch himself and Sarah later.  Sick ast-wipe.  Pall programmed the recorder to broadcast a recording of this trip, and then he set the broadcast to loop.  He smiled with satisfaction.  By the time the yacht landed and Reggardi got someone to let him out of the control seat cage, the broadcast would be all over the graph, because some users were certain to download the recording and repost it.  Especially on those stupid social sites.

Pall returned to his ship.  He closed and secured the airlock, and then he engaged the mechanism that folded the tube back into its niche.  He went to his own control room, demagnetized the grips holding the two ships together, and did a quick thrust.  Slowly the two ships moved apart.  After a short wait, the coding of the automatic docking program on the yacht began to run, and it fired a small descent thruster.  The yacht began to fall toward Marl.

Pall started a burn, and then he went to check on Sarah.  The exhausted girl was asleep.  The spacer went back to his control room and over the course of several hours he changed the direction of the burn twice.  He checked on Sarah several times, but she continued to sleep.

The young man was tired.  It had been a long day with an unexpected adventure and a very interesting acquisition.  Uneasily, he wondered what to expect from Pai and Tai.  Theoretically they should be happy about this, but he had learned over the course of years that what seemed logical to him could seem like a crazy idea to them.  Hopefully they would not think he had lost his mind.

As he stared down at the auburn haired girl on his bed, he had to wonder about his actions, also.  Am I sucking vacuum?  He didn’t think so.  He did not know anything about this person, yet he did not regret what he had done.  The first moment he had seen her, he had been attracted to her, and the thought of being united with her had immediately crossed his mind.  When she had revealed her need to him, it made this whole series of events seem to be Spirit Blessed, although to be honest, it would have been nice if she had been a little younger.  He wondered if she was much older than him.  Hopefully, she would not try to boss him if there was a significant difference in their ages.  In his very limited experience, that seemed to be a problem with girls.  In any case, he was now united with this person.  He removed his clothing and lay next to her.  She did not stir, and soon he fell asleep.

Sarah woke in a dim light.  For a moment she was puzzled, wondering where she was.  Then the previous day’s memories returned.  I am in so much trouble.  Dad will be so worried.  And Mom is going to kill me, and then ground me for life.

With a start, she became aware of the young, naked man sleeping next to her.  She drew away from him.  Unhappily she remembered that before she could return home, she had to fulfill her part of their bargain.  She had to be intimate with him, although in this situation ‘intimate’ was not how she would described it.  She was not the most morally upright girl on the planet, she realized, and there were things she had done in the past that were painfully embarrassing to look back on.  But performing sexual intercourse with a stranger out of necessity would be a low point to which she had never dreamed she would fall.

She wondered if she should wake him and demand that they get it over with.  She could not bring herself to do so.  She would stall as long as possible.  A sudden wave of shame overcame her.  I was so stupid to get myself in this place, even if it’s Reggardi’s fault.  She felt like crying again, but she choked back her tears.

She felt the spacer stir, and then he sat up while rubbing his eyes.  Afraid, she pulled away from him as far as possible.  He stared at her with a look of concern.

“You okay?  That must have been Spirit tense, last cycle.  How’s your face?  I should have given you some salve for it.”

“It’s better.”  At least he’s not acting like a jerk.  So far.

“Everything is set on my ship, so I’m free.”

Here it is.  It’s time to pay for my passage.  “You promise that after we do it once, I’ll be free to go?”  She wondered if she was expected to have sex with him multiple times.

“Do what?”

“You know.  Bounce.  Have sex.”  Maybe he’ll turn out to be a jerk after all.  Could he be worse than Reggardi?

“Uh, about that,” he began.  He felt a blush happening, and he hated that his face was red.  “I can’t have intercourse with you until I’ve passed seventeen standard Marl cycles.”

He saw her light blue eyes widen.  He supposed that she saw him as an unsophisticated Hooper, which was not unexpected.

“Look,” he said feeling more and more uncomfortable.  “I understand that on Marl you have your own ways and well… your own values.  I’m not saying they’re wrong.  But out in the Hoop, we have our own principles.  Mine say I have to wait until I pass seventeen cycles before having intercourse, unless I get my shipmates’ permission; in which case I only have to pass sixteen cycles.  I’m only half way through my fifteenth cycle, so I have to wait at least another half cycle before we can bounce.  I mean, I don’t think Pai and Tai will have any objections.”  I hope.

Sarah’s mind was blank.  Then her natural optimism surged to the surface.  She was about to get a lucky reprieve which she knew she did not deserve.  She gave a quiet word of ‘thanks’ to the Spirit.

“Okay.  Okay.  Then just drop me on Marl,” she said as she tried to keep her voice calm.  “When you’re back this way, we can… uh, you know… finish it.”  Fat chance of that, boy.

Pall stared at her so long that her hope began to waver.  Something was wrong, and he did not want to tell her what it was.

“Sarah,” he said quietly.  “You agreed to unite with me.”

“Sure.  But you can’t right now.  So maybe later−”

“Sarah, we’re united now.  By the Spirit.  For the rest of our lives, or until the Great Captain returns for us.”

Sarah could see that he was unhappy now.  For several moments she stared back at him until his words sank in to her consciousness.  Then she gasped.

“You mean united as in… married?”  She gaped at him in horror.

“Married.”  He slowly repeated the word and turned it over in his mind.  “Yes.  That’s the Marl word for it, isn’t it?  We’re married.”

For a second she was too stunned to say anything, and then Sarah wailed, “I thought we were just going to have sex.  I can’t be married.  I’m still in high school.  I graduate in a month.  My parents are awake now, and I need to get ready for school, and I have homework to turn in.  I want to go home.”  She coughed as she controlled a sob.

Pall was feeling miserable now.  How come she didn’t know what I was saying?  This misunderstanding was bad, very bad.  He stalled before telling her the worst.

“Sarah, even if I wanted to, I can’t take you home now.  I started my burn while you were sleeping.  On our course and heading, I don’t have enough energy to take you back to Marl.  No ship in the system has that much plasma.  We’re too far away now.  We’re going to the Hoop.  We can’t return to Marl for another year at the earliest.”

Stunned, she did not reply.  She sat there on the bed staring ahead, eyes glazed, unwilling to accept what he had said.

“I have to check the ship’s rom.”

He was so troubled he forgot that he had just told her he was free.  He hoped she would not realize he had just told a lie.  He had to get away from her, even if he felt like a coward for doing so.  What had seemed Spirit Blessed a moment ago, now seemed like a death spiral into the fiery gases of Saif.

Sarah was barely aware that he was leaving.  Presently she fell back on the bed and buried her head in the pillow.  Now at last, she let herself cry, and she cried for a very long time.  Still feeling exhausted and now overwhelmed with despair, Sarah slept again.