Rush Job
Chapter 2: Leave-taking

Copyright© 2012 by Zipper D Dude

Ahmad al-Haytham tried to relax in the crowded pod. The Confederacy was treating them like cattle! They had locked four families into this pod and there were too many children running around making too much noise. Things would be better on the Salah al-Din, the crew there would recognise his importance and give him the necessary respect. These ignorant infidels had no proper idea how to treat someone as important as himself.

His uncle Tareq had helped get him a place on the Salah al-Din, but now he was having to suffer through the indignities the Confederacy was heaping upon him while getting there. He was glad to leave Earth and get away from the Sa'arm, but leaving Noor behind was a disappointment; a disappointment he could feel in his groin. She was his uncle's youngest wife and, with his uncle's health deteriorating, he'd had hopes of marrying her himself after she became a widow. It was not to be. Instead, as a favour, he'd taken on Reema, the fourteen-year-old granddaughter of his uncle's Chief Secretary, together with her young school friend Yamina. He already had two older wives, Hamida and Adala, who could teach the two younger ones what they needed to know. If they didn't learn quickly enough then he would take a hand himself.

This pod the infidels had locked them in didn't even have enough beds for everyone! There were only six beds allocated to each of the four families. His family needed seven beds for himself, his four wives and two children: Omar and Bahiya. Two-year-old Bahiya had to share with her mother Adala. There wasn't any real privacy either. The beds were on the upper level in four bays, each holding six bunk beds, with only a curtain for a door. He expected far better facilities for his family. The Confederacy was treating him with gross disrespect.

As soon as he'd arrived on this ship they'd started ordering him around: "Go to your pod and stay there. You will not be allowed out except in an emergency." It was almost as bad as a prison, except that he had his wives with him. That was another thing; they'd told him he couldn't have sex with Yamina because she was too young. How dare they! She was thirteen and of legal age. He wasn't going to let some infidel computer tell him what he could or couldn't do with his own wives.

Hamida could sense her husband's mood and made sure that she and his other three wives stayed quiet and out of his way. When he was in a mood like this he could lash out and it was better not to be nearby when he did. Adala was playing quietly with Bahiya, making sure that the little girl didn't annoy her father. Omar was playing with two other eight-year-old boys nearby. Having finished his game, Omar returned to his family. Unfortunately, one of the boys had left a toy car on the floor, which caused Omar to trip and bump into his father.

Exploding with anger, Ahmad leapt out of his chair, grabbed Omar by a convenient wrist and slapped him hard in the face. "Behave yourself boy!" he told his son. Since he was already standing, he turned to his youngest wife and ordered her, "Come with me, Yamina." He led her towards the grav-lift to the upper level and the family's bunks.

Behind Ahmad, unnoticed by him, Omar was lying on the floor holding his wrist. "It hurts, mama," he told Hamida when she rushed over to him.

Private Philipson was monitoring the Red ring that shift. The AI highlighted the feed from Ahmad's pod, «There has been an incident in pod Red Twelve. A medical team has been alerted and is on its way.» He could see a boy lying on the floor with a woman, presumably his mother, kneeling by him. Two other women and a young girl were looking on. He switched to the corridor view in time to see the two-man Fleet Auxiliary medical team approaching.

For Ahmad anger and sex were almost the same thing. His rage at the Confederacy and at his clumsy son had focused on his cock, which was now stiff under his robes. He pulled Yamina after him into the family's bay and closed the curtain behind them. "Strip!" he told his young wife.

"I'm only thirteen. That voice said..." she started to say.

He slapped her angrily; "I am not some slave to follow orders from a computer. I will do what I want with my wives. Now strip."

Yamina saw that he would not be dissuaded. Two weeks ago she had been abruptly taken out of school and handed to this man as his wife. He was perpetually angry and had never been gentle with her. The only good things she could see about her situation were escaping the aliens and the company of her fellow wives. She had been friends with Reema at school, so she had a familiar face to talk to. Adala was nice and Hamida, while too old to be a friend, was a lot more reasonable than Ahmad. The four of them tried to work together to divert his rages as much as possible. Here and now though, none of the others could help her, so she complied and started to undress.

Private Phillipson was keeping a general eye on all the pods in his monitoring group, while occasionally checking the two medics in Red Twelve tending to the fallen boy. From the look of things his injury wasn't too serious. He couldn't let the one incident distract him from his other work. Instead it was the AI that distracted him, «Rape imminent! Prepare to stun perpetrator. Marine team dispatched.»

The red stinger button lit on his console as the display showed a naked man climbing onto a bunk with a young-looking woman. The cross-hairs centred on the man's head. "She isn't struggling," he told the AI.

«She is thirteen.»

He hit the button immediately and saw the man fall, stunned, over the young woman.

Yamina screamed as Ahmad collapsed onto her. What had happened to him? She was still trying to shift his unresponsive body off her when two huge soldiers burst through the curtain.

Lena took in the situation at a glance. She turned to her fellow Marine, "Ben, get out and keep anyone else out until she's dressed. I'll bring her down when she's ready. You can drag out lover-boy once she's clear. Better call in the Sub-Decurion as well if he's not already on his way."

As soon as Nick arrived, responding to the Marine's call, he did a swift triage. Ahmad would be held pending review and execution, the injured eight-year-old boy and the attacked wife would go to medical for checks while the others would have to wait until he'd sorted something out for them.

He ordered one of the Marines to remove the unconscious Ahmad. Not wanting to alarm the other families in the pod, he used his AI link to pass detailed instructions, «Don't recycle him yet, Private. We need to review things first. Leave him in the ship's brig for the moment.»

«Yes, sir.»

Nick was glad that Mohammed was with him to help translate. He hardly spoke any Arabic, and he wasn't sure that the AI could convey all the precise nuances. Mohammed's explanation seemed to calm things down enough that they could remove the two casualties. Hamida, Omar's mother, insisted on staying with her injured son, so she followed the female Marine carrying Omar to medical, along with Nick, Mohammed and Yamina. Before he left, Nick told the other husbands in the pod to carry on as normal. Not wanting any more problems, he emphasised that they were to leave Ahmad's other two wives and young daughter alone. He warned them, "We are watching you, just as we were watching Ahmad." They seemed to get the message.

Nick called ahead to tell medical that there were now two patients and an anxious mother on their way. When they arrived, the two Arab women were obviously shocked at the nurse's uniform: a very short white concubine smock with a gold-coloured Rod of Asclepius and her name, Ivy, on her right breast. Even Mohammed was a little shaken, though he'd seen more of the West. That was pre-Swarm, and Ivy was very definitely dressed in a post-Swarm style. Arab women in public would never show so much of their arms or legs. He barely noticed her long blonde hair since his eyes went straight to her barely covered crotch. There weren't any concubines in the pod he shared with Nick, so Ivy was the first Confederacy concubine he'd set eyes on. Naturally she'd been enhanced and, judging by the way she filled the upper part of her shift, her owner was a breast man.

Whatever her appearance, Ivy knew her job and quickly had the Marine lay Omar in the tube she'd prepared for him. Her calm, professional manner, together with the AI's translation, reassured Hamida that her son would soon be well. Both the men turned their backs as the blonde nurse helped Yamina undress; the young wife was still in shock after what had happened and neither of them wanted to add to her distress.

Hamida had turned away as well, though that was more to show her disapproval of the way the concubine was dressed, or scandalously undressed. She sat by Omar's pod with her back very definitely turned to the Confederacy nurse, radiating disapproval.

Ivy checked the readouts on Yamina's med-tube. She advised Nick, "Sir, we don't have a CAP estimate for Yamina. She's thirteen, so she should have one. Shall I run one while she's in the tube?"

"How much time will it add?"

"About five minutes extra, sir. We can run it along with her general checkup. Even with that, she'll be out before the boy. She isn't really injured, just shock. He's got a broken radius."

"Do that, Ivy," Nick told the blonde nurse.

"If his father was hitting the boy, sir, then he was probably hitting his other children as well. We should check them to make sure."

"Good idea, Ivy. He has a two-year-old girl as well as Omar. I'll bring her along once things have settled down a bit." The efficient way Ivy handled things impressed Nick. «AI, pass a message to Ivy's sponsor commending her for her work.»

«Yes, sir.»

Leaving Ivy to her work, Nick took Mohammed to meet the Captain. They would need to decide what to do with Ahmad, and Nick expected that Mohammed would want to play his part.

Mohammed felt some relief as they left medical. He'd known that female concubines didn't wear many clothes, but seeing it in the flesh, literally, for the first time was disturbing. He was glad that his wives didn't dress like that. Showing that much bare leg in public would cause a riot back home on Escardis.

The Captain and Sergeant Cole were both waiting in the Captain's office when Nick and Mohammed arrived. Once they were all seated, the Captain explained, "Lieutenant al-Umawi, the three of us are here as ship's Captain, senior Marine and senior Civil Service Officer to review Ahmad's actions and to decide what we do with him. We've invited you as an observer, since you have an interest in this case. You may speak but you will not have any input into the final decision."

"Thank you, Captain." Mohammed had anticipated a trial, but not this quickly. Confederacy justice was obviously faster than on either Earth or Escardis. He settled in his seat and watched proceedings. The evidence was the video footage provided by the AI monitoring Ahmad's pod. The first clip showed his pod getting the general warning about under age wives. The AI had trimmed the other announcements, just leaving the relevant part. The second clip was of Ahmad negligently waving a hand to acknowledge that he had heard the AI give him his own individual orders, specifically naming Yamina. The final, and longest, clip was of Ahmad taking Yamina to the upper level, slapping her in response to her complaint, making her undress and removing his own clothes. It ended as he collapsed after being stung.

"Any comments, Lieutenant?" the Captain asked Mohammed.

"Under your law the man is obviously guilty of attempted child-rape. I cannot see any extenuating circumstances. He was clearly warned, he acknowledged the warning and he had three other wives to choose from. Yamina even reminded him again at the end and he deliberately ignored her. This is your ship, so your law applies."

"Thank you, Lieutenant," the Captain replied. "As you say, he is obviously guilty. I say we execute him." Nick and the Sergeant both agreed.

"AI, please record that as the result of this review."

"Yes, Captain. So recorded."

"One point, Mohammed," Nick asked, "I assume that human flesh is haraam, forbidden."

"Absolutely, yes. Very definitely haraam."

Nick turned to the Captain, "Perhaps we should delay recycling Ahmad's body until after Mohammed and the other passengers have disembarked, sir. It's less than two hours now so we won't have to keep it for long."

"Very well," the Captain agreed. "Sergeant, order whoever you send to execute him not to recycle the body until after we've disembarked our passengers."

"Yes, sir."

Mohammed was silent as he and Nick left the captain's office. He realised that most things on a spaceship would eventually be recycled -- the Salah al-Din certainly did so. He had not realised that the Confederacy recycled things so directly, with a turnaround time of less than two hours. It was as well that Nick had foreseen the potential problem and avoided it.

While Mohammed was thinking, Nick asked the AI, «Where are Hamida, Yamina and Omar now?»

«They are back in pod Red Twelve, sir, having completed treatment in medical. For your further information, sir, Ahmad al-Haytham has now been executed and his body is being held pending the offloading of the passengers before being recycled.»

«Thank you, AI. Notify Lieutenant al-Umawi if you haven't already done so.» The AI obviously hadn't since Nick noticed Mohammed pause slightly in his step.

For Mohammed the surprise was not so much at the execution, but that it had happened so quickly. Confederacy justice moved very fast indeed. Ahmad probably hadn't even recovered consciousness after being stunned. Now he never would.

Nick stopped outside Red Twelve, "Mohammed," he explained, "I don't want to give them the news in public. I'd rather do it in my pod away from everyone else. This place is too crowded."

"Yes, that would be far better. I suppose you'll need me there as well?"

"I'm afraid so. I think I'll need you to help with translation and so on."

The four women were still a little shaken by events, but they followed the two men quietly enough. They were nervous; they knew that things were going on around them, but there was little else they could do besides follow.

Nick had arranged for one of the crew's concubines to babysit the two children. As instructed, Fleur wasn't wearing a smock, but had on a grey overall covering everything from her neck to her wrists and ankles, with a headscarf concealing her hair. He was going to shock these women enough without adding more on top -- the reaction to Ivy in medical had been enough. The four women sat down while Fleur organised coffee. Once they were all served, she took the two children off to another room so the adults could talk. The pause gave Nick time to organise his thoughts.

"Did you all hear the talk we gave you at the start, when you arrived in your pod?" he asked. The four of them nodded. "Did you hear the part about under age wives?" Again they acknowledged. "Was Ahmad specifically told about Yamina?" Four more nods. "Yamina, what do you think has happened to Ahmad?"

She started at his question being directed to her. "Erm ... The computer voice said you would execute anyone who tried to do that."

"So what has happened to Ahmad?"

"Oh..." She paused as the implication struck her. "You mean you've executed him?"

Nick could see Yamina's eyes go wide as she realised. "Yes. We executed him a few minutes ago, after we'd reviewed his case."

Nick thought their reaction was completely over the top: loud wailing and moaning. Mohammed didn't seem surprised, so it was obviously expected in Arab culture. Once he got used to the sight, Nick found their different reactions interesting. The two youngest wives, widows now, were doing the correct thing for appearances' sake, but were probably glad at Ahmad's death. Hamida's grief was genuine. She wasn't completely distraught, but was obviously very unhappy about the death of her husband and the father of her child. Adala was much harder to read. Possibly she didn't know herself what to think about the news, or else she was a better actress than the two younger widows. Nick left it to Mohammed when to step in and quieten the women down; he was far better able to judge the cultural nuances of how long to let them continue.

Once they'd settled down, it was Adala who spoke first, "What happens to us now?"

This was an unforeseen situation, so Nick was going to have to play it mostly by ear. It was lucky that between them, Mohammed and the AI could handle any translation problems. This would be more complex than simply, 'Go to your pod and stay there.'

"We have an unusual situation here," Nick started, stating the obvious. "I don't have any precedents to work on, but I do want to get the best outcome for everyone involved: you four women, your two children, Escardis and the Confederacy." He was glad to see Mohammed nodding as well as the four widows. He had deliberately included Escardis in his list of players so Mohammed did not feel that he was ignoring the Arabs' interests.

"So where are we now? When the four of you came on board the AI treated you as concubines, sponsored by your husband. He is dead, so he can no longer sponsor you. Under Confederacy law you are now unattached concubines, owned by the ship's senior Civil Service Officer, myself."

The four women looked worried at that, "Will we have to dress like that harlot in the infirmary?" Hamida asked.

"No, you won't. You will stay dressed as you are now until we have unloaded our passengers onto the Salah al-Din. What happens then is up to you."

Nick's attention was on the women, who were listening attentively. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Mohammed sit up as well.

"As I see it, you have three options. Your first option is to board the Salah al-Din, as you had intended, and travel to Escardis. Obviously you won't have your husband with you, but I'm sure Captain al-Basri can find new husbands for you, or set up some sort of guardianship."

Nick turned to Mohammed for confirmation, but Hamida broke in first. "I'm not an unmarried girl to need a guardian! I'm a widow and I can look after myself."

Nick raised an eyebrow at Mohammed, who shrugged, "Well, there are precedents both ways for widows. I don't see it as an insoluble problem. If they join us on the Salah al-Din, I'm sure we can make the necessary arrangements."

Nick decided to leave that problem for Mohammed and his Captain to resolve. Turning back to the women, he continued. "Your second option is to join the Confederacy. We'll test you for Capacity, Aptitude and Potential, what we call a CAP test, and depending on your score you will become either a concubine or a sponsor."

"Will we have to dress like... ?" Hamida waved her hand to indicate Ivy, the concubine in medical. The prospect was obviously worrying her.

"If you're a concubine, then you have to dress the way your sponsor tells you," Nick told her, honestly. He didn't want to misrepresent what she might be letting herself in for, and besides, Mohammed was listening. "It could be something like what Fleur is wearing. It could be something like what the nurse in medical is wearing. It could be even less. It is entirely up to your sponsor. Concubines don't get a choice."

That obviously shocked the four of them.

"And if we're not a concubine?" Adala asked.

"If you're a sponsor then you'll wear military uniform when on duty, like myself." Nick indicated his Civil Service greys. "Off duty, sponsors can wear what they want. As an off duty sponsor you could continue to dress in an abaya and headscarf, as you are now."

"How do we know if we would be a concubine or a sponsor?"

"That depends on the result of your CAP test. A score of 6.5 or better makes you a sponsor; less than that and you are a concubine."

Reema spoke up for the first time, "You said three options."

"Your third option is for us to return you to Earth, though I don't recommend that one.

"That makes it two options really, doesn't it?"

"Yes, but we can return you if you really insist." Reema and the other three shook their heads at that.

"What about our children?" Adala enquired.

"The children will go with their mothers, so Omar will stay with Hamida and Bahiya will stay with you, Adala. Yamina, if you join the Confederacy you will be a dependent for a short time, until you turn fourteen. We'll find you a sponsor to act as temporary guardian if you join us. We did a quick CAP estimate for you while you were in medical, so you're expected to score between 6.0 and 6.3."

Nick explained to her that it was a very difficult score. She would almost certainly be a concubine at fourteen and, though she could retest every year, there was no guarantee that she would ever improve enough to make it to 6.5 and become a sponsor.

"Can I get CAP tested?" Adala asked, abruptly.

Hamida erupted at Adala, "You're not thinking of going with these non-Muslims!"

Nick was pretty sure that the word the AI had translated as 'non-Muslims' was a lot stronger than that. It certainly sounded like it from the way the oldest widow had spat out the Arabic.

Mohammed stepped in to calm them down. "Thank you, Mohammed," Nick acknowledged. He rebuked the women, "You can discuss things between yourselves, but you will please do it quietly and politely." Hamida and Adala continued their discussion a lot less vigorously. As far as Nick could tell, Reema and Yamina had already made up their minds; they had whispered briefly to each other and were now waiting quietly. Looking at the two young women, Nick thought that Yamina was the more attractive; Reema's nose was rather too large to suit the rest of her features.

 
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