The Space Guardian Read Online Free
instant, chuckling.
“Don’t pull,” she advised. “This is good stickfast. It will take the flesh off your bones before it lets go.” Her voice was low, pleasant, carrying no threat. The smile that curved her lips was quite genuine.
The youngster who faced her sullenly, his hand invisibly welded to her pouch, was just what she had hoped for. Well dressed, well fed, looking like the scion of any well-off family, he was typical of a Guild man in a transshipment area. Within seconds of having her pouch, he would have deposited it at a convenient drop and blended into the crowd gathering around the victim.
“So I take a fall,” he snarled. “Call Patrol and get me loose.”
“No fall—not if you are as smart as I think you are,” Lahks purred. “Just swing around, put your hand on my wrist, and we’re two old friends taking a walk.”
The suspicion in the boy’s eyes was enormous, but he obeyed immediately. Every moment that he could delay being handed over to the Patrol was a moment more in which something might happen to free him altogether. So quick was the sequence of events, so low and brief the exchange of words, that any onlooker would think a young man had drawn a young woman’s attention by touching her bag. Then they turned, greeted each other, and walked off together, the young man’s arm protectively across the young woman’s back. They did not hurry. Down the Street was a Place of Pleasure. Lahks turned in at the door, her eyes more than ever alive with amusement.
Doubt, fear, and incredulity were so mixed in her captive’s face that Lahks was tempted to ask for an amusement room just to see what he would do. It was, however, a very expensive joke, and there was the additional danger that the boy would be so frightened he would refuse to go. So young a male might prefer the tender mercies of the Patrol to those of a female who needed to trap her partner with stickfast. Lahks began to giggle. What an unholy mess it would make if the boy cried coercion and the case came to the Director’s ears (all of them).
The Patrol was very strict about coercion even if they winked a little at Guild thieves. At transshipment points there could not, of course, be any rules about physical or sexual behavior. What was normal love-play for one race or culture might be the depths of degradation or even torture for another. This policy made transshipment stations a haven for “degenerates” of every culture. That harmed no one. Nine times out of ten any type of “degenerate” found willing partners. To prevent the tenth case from preying on the public, the laws of coercion had been promulgated. Stripped of their elaborate legal verbiage, these said that any act freely agreed upon by both parties, that did not culminate in death for either one, was legal; equally, any act, no matter how harmless physically, that was forced upon one party by another was illegal and punishable by law.
Actually, in spite of the knowledge that such an involvement would throw all her plans off schedule, Lahks would have yielded to the promptings of her worse self. Only the realization of the serious consequences to the boy she had caught restrained her. She wished him no harm at all. The fact that he was a thief was totally irrelevant to Lahks. A Guardian’s morality was aroused by nothing less than a cosmic calamity. Thieves were part of the normal functioning of life, and no Guardian would interfere with one except for personal or tangential purposes.
Putting aside her vision of a really beautiful practical joke, Lahks requested a privacy booth from the attendant. A small quivering sigh by her side raised a whole new train of temptations, but Lahks ignored them firmly. Fun was fun, but if she wanted to do this business at all, she had better get on with it. Besides, the young man was so young—a lightfingers was very low on the Guild scale—that it was unfair to tease him.
When the soundproof panel closed behind them.
“Don’t pull,” she advised. “This is good stickfast. It will take the flesh off your bones before it lets go.” Her voice was low, pleasant, carrying no threat. The smile that curved her lips was quite genuine.
The youngster who faced her sullenly, his hand invisibly welded to her pouch, was just what she had hoped for. Well dressed, well fed, looking like the scion of any well-off family, he was typical of a Guild man in a transshipment area. Within seconds of having her pouch, he would have deposited it at a convenient drop and blended into the crowd gathering around the victim.
“So I take a fall,” he snarled. “Call Patrol and get me loose.”
“No fall—not if you are as smart as I think you are,” Lahks purred. “Just swing around, put your hand on my wrist, and we’re two old friends taking a walk.”
The suspicion in the boy’s eyes was enormous, but he obeyed immediately. Every moment that he could delay being handed over to the Patrol was a moment more in which something might happen to free him altogether. So quick was the sequence of events, so low and brief the exchange of words, that any onlooker would think a young man had drawn a young woman’s attention by touching her bag. Then they turned, greeted each other, and walked off together, the young man’s arm protectively across the young woman’s back. They did not hurry. Down the Street was a Place of Pleasure. Lahks turned in at the door, her eyes more than ever alive with amusement.
Doubt, fear, and incredulity were so mixed in her captive’s face that Lahks was tempted to ask for an amusement room just to see what he would do. It was, however, a very expensive joke, and there was the additional danger that the boy would be so frightened he would refuse to go. So young a male might prefer the tender mercies of the Patrol to those of a female who needed to trap her partner with stickfast. Lahks began to giggle. What an unholy mess it would make if the boy cried coercion and the case came to the Director’s ears (all of them).
The Patrol was very strict about coercion even if they winked a little at Guild thieves. At transshipment points there could not, of course, be any rules about physical or sexual behavior. What was normal love-play for one race or culture might be the depths of degradation or even torture for another. This policy made transshipment stations a haven for “degenerates” of every culture. That harmed no one. Nine times out of ten any type of “degenerate” found willing partners. To prevent the tenth case from preying on the public, the laws of coercion had been promulgated. Stripped of their elaborate legal verbiage, these said that any act freely agreed upon by both parties, that did not culminate in death for either one, was legal; equally, any act, no matter how harmless physically, that was forced upon one party by another was illegal and punishable by law.
Actually, in spite of the knowledge that such an involvement would throw all her plans off schedule, Lahks would have yielded to the promptings of her worse self. Only the realization of the serious consequences to the boy she had caught restrained her. She wished him no harm at all. The fact that he was a thief was totally irrelevant to Lahks. A Guardian’s morality was aroused by nothing less than a cosmic calamity. Thieves were part of the normal functioning of life, and no Guardian would interfere with one except for personal or tangential purposes.
Putting aside her vision of a really beautiful practical joke, Lahks requested a privacy booth from the attendant. A small quivering sigh by her side raised a whole new train of temptations, but Lahks ignored them firmly. Fun was fun, but if she wanted to do this business at all, she had better get on with it. Besides, the young man was so young—a lightfingers was very low on the Guild scale—that it was unfair to tease him.
When the soundproof panel closed behind them.
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