Posted by PK on December 02, 2001 at 18:07:19:
Jeff woke before Ferrin did. "Of course I can't really eat her...." Had he really said that so
earnestly? As though he had been taking the possibility seriously? He replayed the entire
conversation in his head. No, he decided, it would pass as part of the repartee. Just a bit of
erotic fantasy. He slipped out from Ferrin's embrace reluctantly, leaving her sleeping
peacefully. Another phrase bubbled up from his subconscious mind as he went about making
breakfast.
"We may look like humans but we're not."
Reflexively, he switched on the vid as he prepared the ingredients for stuffed omelettes.
Timing was crucial here, he'd have to make sure Ferrin was awake in time to eat hers.
It was a newscast, the usual assortment of boring items, quotes from officials, incidents he
couldn't care less about. He waved it away.
"The inquiry into the disruption of the net by KLF hackers...."
Flix and Shay would keep him up to speed on that. Slice the mushrooms, plunge them into
boiling water before adding to the mix, change channels..
"Controversy surrounds the case of an ADC appointed executive said to have attended a
KLF sponsored barbecue. While it is not, of course, illegal to attend such functions, the
current administration does tend to frown upon.."
"I smell food." Ferrin appeared in the kitchen, wearing a dressing gown. Jeff started, almost
upsetting the saucepan. He muted the vidcom.
"So much for breakfast in bed," he said.
"What's that?" Ferrin was looking at the screen, wiping the sleep from her eyes. She flicked
the sound back on.
Jeff listened to the news report as he cooked. The gist of it was simple: several people,
mostly human, some Ruan, many of them offworld tourists, had attended a festival organised
by Ku sympathetic to the KLF. This involved Ku volunteers being spit roasted and served to
the guests as food. The servers were also Ku, scantily clad and wearing KLF insignia or
tattoos.
"Ever been to one of those?" Ferrin asked as he served her at the table.
"No," Jeff said shortly. He tucked into his omelette. "Turn it off."
Ferrin flicked the com off and took an experimental bite. "Good!" She got through it all before
speaking again. "If you ever get bored being the boss, you should get a job in the caff." She
poured the tea.
Jeff suspected he was going to regret asking, but he couldn't resist it. "Doesn't it bother you?"
"What?" Ferrin looked genuinely nonplussed. Jeff was reminded of a Zen story. He was still
carrying the thought, she wasn't.
"The festival thing on the news. People being roasted and dished up as party snacks. Your
people..."
Ferrin considered it seriously for a moment. "No, not really," she decided.
"You don't find it at all disturbing?"
Ferrin visibly collected her thoughts, looking for the words to explain. "Boss - Jeff - I grew up
expecting to spend my adult life, as long as it lasted, working for the Ss'Rith. I'm tech class,
trained and educated, privileged, I could expect to live longer than most if I was lucky. But I'd
have to be close to the Masters. I'd know that any time I might have to go to the Boss's office
if he wanted to see me, knowing that if I'd screwed up or he just felt like encouraging the
others, or he couldn't be bothered to send out for lunch he might just peel me like a banana
and eat me raw on the spot. Nothing personal in it, they didn't hate us, we just didn't matter to
them." She waved a hand. "You might consider that disturbing, I grew up knowing that's how
it was, and glad I wasn't common livestock." She gestured at the silenced com. "Those
people had a choice. You Feds came and took over because you're stronger than the lizards
were and now we own our lives because that's the way you run things. Fine by me. If some
people still want to get eaten, that's up to them. If some of you Feds oblige them, no big
surprise. You're predators too, just more civilised about it. A lot more, lucky for us."
"I'd just have thought that with the Ss'Rith gone you'd be glad not to be considered that way
any more. As food for whoever's in charge." Jeff shrugged. "Surely you don't sympathise with
the KLF?"
"Sympathise? Sure I do, I just don't agree with them. Not the same thing. If I decided to get
eaten, it would be my choice. They think you should just farm us like the lizards did. Not my
thing, but I can sort of see why they want that. Don't some humans do that anyway?"
Eat Ku? Evidently so, but that wasn't what she meant. Some people did it for fun, an erotic
fetish carried to extremes. Not unlike the other side of the coin of his own fantasies. "Well,
yes, I suppose so. Not very many." It was true. Almost any conceivable mode of behaviour,
given a large enough population, would find its adherents.
Ferrin spread her hands. QED.
"Why..."
"Boss, I think we're late for work?"
We may look like humans but we're not, Jeff thought on the way in. It was the KLF woman on
the vid who'd said that. At the time, he'd thought she was making a trite and shallow sound
byte, a slogan. Of course Ku weren't technically human, despite the puzzling similarities, but
near enough, they were people in any meaningful social sense just as the Ruan were, even if
the furries did eat their dead rather than bury them at the wake. Then he'd started to wonder
if she didn't have a deeper point. But did she, really? Or was it - what was the phrase -
culture determines who we are as much as a few superficial alterations to the genome.
The cleanup was nearly over, systems were back to normal.
"We on line?"
"Five by five, Boss," Flix said, grinning. Whatever that meant. Jeff smiled back and gave her
the thumbs up.
The morning went well. Katri still wore the T'saaish', and looked just as good in it as ever, but
her manner was different, she seemed almost subdued, her flirting half-hearted. Or so it
seemed to him. Either sleeping with Ferrin had immunised him or she'd lost confidence in her
ability to disturb him. Jeff had no illusions about female office gossip, he guessed they all
knew he was getting satisfactorily laid whether Ferrin had told them or not. He felt oddly sorry
for Katri: whatever her motives had been she'd enjoyed playing her games and now it wasn't
fun any more. Maybe Ferrin was right, she just wanted sex and didn't know how to approach
him. (Because I'm such a handsome dog...)
Jeff contemplated the possibility of giving her a mercy fuck, a little complacently, and
dismissed it as patronising. Nobody deserved that...
Unless there was another reason. How exactly had the KLF hacked their systems anyway?
Surely not....
He was in his private workroom, a small enclosed space separated from the main office,
contemplating what to order for lunch, when he heard a timid knock on the door. Not Ferrin or
Katri, surely, that didn't sound like either of them.
"Come."
The door opened and a small redhead came in. She smiled nervously. He didn't recognise
her.
"Yes?"
"Y-you ordered lunch?"
Had he? "I don't think...." Had one of the team ordered for him?
The girl slipped off her T'saaish and stood there nude and trembling, her head bowed.
Jeff could practically feel his canine teeth lengthening and excess body hair starting to
sprout. Damn those werewolf genes, he thought inanely. The girl looked absolutely delicious,
a submissive sacrificial lamb, a fantasy made flesh. She seemed hardly out of her teens, if at
all, though her Ku smallness might have had something to do with that. Smaller than any of
his elite private staff, anyway. He stared at her for a very long moment, drinking in the sight
of her pale, slim, tender, tantalising body. A natural redhead, he noted. He got up and
approached her, slowly and carefully so as not to startle her.
"What's your name?" he asked gently. He touched her shoulder carefully, the bones felt as
delicate as a bird's. This was surreal. She's not kidding, he realised, she really expects me to
eat her raw, right here. (And why not, a part of him urged...)
Down boy....
The girl looked up, brown eyes wide and dark with some intense emotion. Fear, certainly, but
something else too: awe? Reverence? He couldn't tell, couldn't trust his own instincts.
"Raya, Sir. From catering." Now she looked a little confused: surprised he'd asked?
"And somebody told you I wanted you for lunch? And you just came straight up here...?" Jeff
shook his head. He could hardly believe it. He knew intellectually that some of the Ku had
regarded their Federation liberators with near superstitious reverence, many of them were
poorly educated and identified them with semi-divine heroes from folk legend, but he hadn't
really understood it emotionally until now.
"Is something wrong?" she asked tremulously. "Should I have been cooked first?"
"You don't have do that sort of thing any more," Jeff told her gently. "Didn't you know? We're
not the Ss'Rith."
"B-but...you're the Boss." She said 'boss' in English but her manner translated it as 'Master'.
"Who sent you?" he heard himself say thickly.
"S-somebody from the office," she said. "Is something wrong?" she asked again. "aren't you
going to..." Consternation mixed with relief in her expression. "..eat me..." Her voice tapered
off.
"Put your robe on," Jeff told her with brisk authority, "and sit down. I'll get us both a drink and
then we're going to have a little talk." His decisive manner had the right effect, Raya did as
she was told and waited as he got them drinks from a dispenser, tea for himself and the
bland Kuari equivalent for her.
In the next few minutes he managed to extract all the information he could from the girl while
reassuring her that she wasn't in trouble. By the time he'd finished the fear was gone from
her face, but not the embarrassing reverence.
"Now you can get me my lunch," he concluded with awkward joviality, "just a hot steak
sandwich with horseradish. Beef steak, not yours, okay?"
"Yes Sir!" she responded with alacrity, and left, not quite running. Jeff followed as far as the
outer office. The description she'd given of the person who'd played the cruel trick on her
wasn't entirely coherent, but he had his suspicions. He caught Ferrin's eye and beckoned her
over. In a low voice he explained what had just happened.
"You think I did it?" Ferrin looked more surprised than offended. "Because of that bit of play
we had...?"
"Not really, but I have to ask. Did you?"
"No," Ferrin said. "If I'd done it, if I'd thought you were serious, I'd have gone in person and
asked for a volunteer. From what you've told me, the girl was just ordered to come on the
interoffice com.?"
"Yes. Some poor, gullible, dutiful kid who thought she couldn't refuse an order from the high
and mighty acolytes of the Master on the executive floor. Who would do that?"
They both looked the same way. "Almost too obvious," Ferrin commented.
"Which in a mystery vid drama means it's wrong. In real life..."
Ferrin nodded.
"Katri?" Jeff called. "I'd like a word." His blood was up.
Katri's body language was as overtly provocative as ever as she swayed over, but there
seemed to be something brittle about it, as if her brash confidence was more apparent than
real. Jeff felt he was getting better at reading them. Unless he was merely projecting his
suspicions...
"Yes, Boss?" Katri's expression was neutral.
"Did you..."
"Boss?" It was Flix, her tone urgent. "A word?"
Jeff held up a hand. "Later, Flix, okay? I'm a little busy ..."
"You need to hear this," Flix insisted. "Right now." Jeff couldn't help smiling slightly. The
team's systech wizard was not one of those Ku who were unduly overawed by their Great
Galactic Masters. Certainly not when there were matters she considered important to discuss.
It was refreshing after dealing with Raya.
"Okay, what is it?"
"I'm pretty sure the comnet was hacked through our local network. They used this office as a
gateway."
Jeff had a fairly good idea what that meant but he wasn't above asking, to be sure. "Please
explicate, Mr. Spock. Keep as close to English as you can."
"Certainly, Captain. We have privileged access to the comnet, security clearance levels the
public don't have. Similarly, the public can't access us at that level. Not unless somebody
gets through our security, and through us to comnet's admin level. Which means they
breached our security first, or..."
"Somebody left the back door open," Jeff guessed.
Flix nodded. "Exactly."
"How long to verify? Can we trace the entry point?"
"Don't know, possibly. I'm trying to reassemble the transaction logs, the temp data caches got
fragged. It's forensics from here on. Probability 75%, by tomorrow, best guess. Try it?"
Jeff could see her mind was already on the problem, leaving a few idle brain cells to handle
the conversation. "Affirmative. Report progress by morning. Go."
Leaving Flix to run with the bit between her teeth, he turned back to Katri.
"I don't suppose you'd know anything about that?" Jeff invited. She had to have seen Raya's
exit, and he wondered again if she'd really intended him to kill the girl, or if she'd just wanted
to fluster him again. Assuming, of course, that she'd done it. He noticed that Katri was
ignoring Ferrin, who was giving her a stony stare. Guilt or just jealousy?
"Me? About the system breach? Why would I? I'm not the systems genius."
Which was a fair answer if she'd assumed he'd been talking about diagnostics, Jeff knew. If
she was the mole she wouldn't need to be, she had authorised access. There was no point
pressing it if she wasn't going to rise to the bait, that would have to wait for Flix's report.
"Is that what you wanted to see me about?"
"No. I wondered if you might have any idea who sent one of the catering staff up here under
the impression she was to be my next meal," he said. "If that was supposed to be a joke it
was in poor taste. I don't mind so much for myself, but the poor girl was terrified."
"Didn't she see who sent her?"
"Not very well, apparently the link was bad and all she saw was a blurred image with distorted
colours. The description fit you as much as anyone, but she couldn't be sure."
"How odd!"
"Odd indeed. You might let it be known - discreetly of course - that whoever did it might get
off more lightly if she owns up before Flix finds a way to reconstruct the transmission
records."
"I'll do that." Katri nodded meekly and went back to her station. She seemed distracted and
made no more attempts to flirt.
Jeff managed to get through the rest of the day but it was a cheerless afternoon. He felt
oddly depressed and dissatisfied. Raya brought him his sandwich, which was just right, and
he thanked her warmly, taking some small comfort in her pleasure and relief at serving him
without getting devoured. He didn't feel he deserved her adoration and gratitude. At first he'd
felt triumphant for putting Katri on the defensive but now he felt like a bully. There was no
proof she'd done anything wrong. It smacked of petty revenge for his earlier discomfiture. He
had been on the verge of accusing her without evidence on a bluff, to see if she'd crack.
Hardly the way to build the team morale he'd hoped for. He left early without speaking to
anyone.
Hours later, Ferrin found him watching crap on the vid in his apartment, morosely sipping a
beer and smoking.
"Food," she announced, handing him a samosa, still hot in the street vendor's brown paper
bag . "I see I'm just in time."
"How did you get in?"
"Very easily. You left the door open. What IS this shit?" She waved the com off. "Put on
some of that weird Terran music you like, eat your samosa and give me a beer."
"That's an order?" He managed a wry smile.
"That or I can go home. Your loss."
Jeff put on the weird Terran music, lit a joint, got Ferrin a beer and nibbled his samosa. He'd
rather have had a cheeseburger. He'd much rather have had a rare steak. He'd rather eat
her, a part of him insisted. But he didn't want her to go. In more or less companionable
silence, they listened to a selection of Jeff's recordings and got slightly smashed.
"You can tell me what's bothering you," Ferrin said at last, "Or we can go to bed and fuck, or I
can go away and leave you alone. Or you can strangle me for a busybody and eat my liver
with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. Options one and two are not mutually exclusive.
Wild guess, it's Katri again, isn't it?"
"It's Katri, me, the whole situation, I don't know where to start."
"Start anywhere."
Jeff's thoughts were elliptical. They swooped and circled back to breakfast. "I suspect that
Katri is a KLF sympathiser, and possibly a saboteur. I think that she sent Raya to me as a
deliberate attempt to unsettle me or a nasty practical joke. Or at least I did, now I'm not sure,
I may be overreacting because I can't make her out. I don't KNOW anything. Well, I know
she's been provoking me deliberately." He shrugged. "What do you think?"
Ferrin shrugged. "You know what I think. You should have called Katri's bluff right away, if it
was a bluff, which I doubt. I still think you should just give her a jolly good rogering, then you
two could both stop obsessing on each other enough to see straight."
"Rogering?" Jeff smirked. "Where do you dig up this stuff?"
"English is a wonderful language, you should study it more deeply," Ferrin said primly. "There
are so many amazing words and expressions for sex. No wonder we love it."
"It's embarrassing," Jeff admitted. "I hardly know more than a few dozen Kuari words."
"There hardly ARE any more Kuari words, that's why nobody educated speaks it any more.
But we digress. I jumped to the same conclusion you did about Raya, because I thought Kat
was angry and jealous, and she's teased you before, but it's not really the same sort of thing
she did before, it's too vindictive. I just don't know."
"I thought you said Ku don't have jealousy."
"Not the same way humans do. More like simple envy. She's not bothered that I'm screwing
you, just that she isn't. Not the same thing at all."
Jeff nodded. It made sense, very good sense from a Ku viewpoint. He had rebuffed Katri's
advances, then slept with Ferrin. Maybe after that she'd thought the dam had broken and it
would be her turn next. Now she feels slighted. But enough to use Raya in retaliation for her
hurt feelings? And if it wasn't Kat, who?
"How well do you know the others on the team?" he asked.
"In a carnal sense?" Ferrin grinned.
"That too, if it's not a rude question." As if.
"What's rude about it? I know all of them a little bit, most not all that well. I've only slept with
Flix, which I can heartily recommend if you get the chance, she's nice. She's mostly with
Shay now, who is a steady sort. Del and Cory are glued at the hip, I knew them slightly when
we were kids, they're okay. Risha has someone outside the office, I don't know who, we don't
socialise much but we get on all right. Katri could get laid any time by anybody and probably
does, she's gorgeous. I would have, as I told you before. She's friendly enough to me, or was
until recently. Which doesn't help, does it?"
Jeff shook his head. "I'll just have to hope Flix saves my bacon. What gets to me is that I
haven't a bloody clue. How am I supposed to develop a sense of teamwork, a group morale,
when I can't even guess who the mole is? It's bad enough that we've got one at all, but what
sort of team leader am I going to be if I don't know my own people well enough to tell? I
wonder if I'm really cut out for this."
Ferrin nodded sympathetically. "It's a tough job being the Boss, isn't it? Well boo fucking hoo.
Who do you think should be in charge, Flix? She's a genius but she's a tech, not a leader,
none of us are."
"You could do it."
"No, I couldn't. Not yet, anyway. Maybe one day. I'm just your loyal lieutenant, friend and
lover. Or supper if it's a full moon. We're not used to this, Jeff, we need you. Don't go all
angst-ridden and brooding on us. Chuck that whiny soul-searching Sartre crap and mainline
some Kipling. Stiffen that upper lip. Keep your head when all about are losing theirs and
blaming it on you. Be a Man, my son. Etcetera."
Jeff stared at her. "Where DO you get all this stuff?"
"I read the classics, or at least I watch the vids, what else?"
"So much for the Prime Directive."
Of course, the real Federation didn't have one like the classic fictional one had, and it
wouldn't have applied on Kuar anyway. The Ss'Rith had already FUBAR'ed whatever original
culture the Kuari had. Once out from under the lizards, the Ku elite had absorbed Galactic
culture like sponges just to fill the void. They were apt and eager learners.
"Fuck the Prime Directive. Better yet, fuck me? I'll let you do it doggy style. Come on, you
know you want to..." Ferrin slipped off her clothes with the effortless grace that only females
seem able to manage. "See anything you like?"
Some time later, Jeff remembered what he'd been about to ask in the first place. "Fen, you
said you understood why the KLF want what they do. Before we were so rudely interrupted by
work.?"
"Mmmnnh? Oh, that." Ferrin was draped on top of him comfortably sated. "No mystery.
Culture shock. We've been slaves since before living memory, not everybody is going to
adjust to freedom right away. Slaves don't have to worry about the sort of things that you've
been fretting about. Before you lot came we'd got used to it, some people even rationalised it
as our place in the natural order. It's like religion, a way of dealing with something you can't
change by making it sound like it's somehow all for the best. Then everything changes and
all those beliefs don't make sense any more, but people hang on to them because it's all they
ever had to comfort them."
"I suppose so..."
"Besides, it's really sexy as hell. We're all females and humans have a lot of theories about
the erotic fascination of total submission.."
"All of which you've read, of course."
"Of course. And beautiful sentient males! What a concept. I used to fantasise about that all
the time, I can tell you. I was an impressionable teen when I found out about that. I was
training for Olympic standard masturbation."