Soft Like a Woman

In 1986 I received a solicitation from David Drake and Bill Fawcett: Would I contribute a story to their forthcoming collaborative adventure series THE FLEET? I didn't want to agree unless I was sure I could come through, so I tried to work out a story. When I had the notion ready, it was as easy to go ahead and write it immediately as to wait. So in three days I had the 11,000 word piece complete. That was very fast writing; it just happened to come together well. I believe it was the first story they accepted, and I think it helped them place the series with a publisher. However, the internal chronology of the series required that my story be placed in the second volume, Counter Attack, published in 1988. As far as I know, the series did okay, and I'm glad to have helped.

I have been called a sexist by feminists. It's a smear, because I have strong attitudes about sexism, which I detest. I have a wife who went to work in 1962 so that I could stay home and try to be a writer, and who earned less than she would have in the same position had she been a man. That made it that much harder to survive the lean years of my writing career. I have two daughters I want treated fairly. If there's a job requiring heavy muscular effort, men are likely to do better. But most jobs today are intellectual or not heavily physical; women are as qualified for these as men and should be given the same chance and pay as men.

It became apparent that to some militant feminists, sexual interest is by definition sexist. I am a man, and I love the look and feel of women, but that is not sexism. Sexism is when a woman doing the same job as a man earns only two thirds as much, simply because of her gender. Sexism is when there are male and female workers on a job, but only the females get razzed. Sexism is when the teacher calls on boys rather than girls in class, because boys are supposedly superior. I think if the feminists got their definitions straight, they'd have a better chance of doing something about the problem.

While I do not consider sexual interest per se to be sexist, it can slide into it when men do not treat women with the same courtesy or respect with which they treat men. So I elected to make my point in a story. "Soft Like a Woman" is a savage indictment of sexism. I wonder what the feminists have to say about this one?

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"Now it gets tight," George said. "We're shielded, but they can spot us if they know where to look." He glanced up. "I need a break. Whose turn to pilot?"

"Mine," Quiti said.

"Never mind, cutie," George said. "It's a man's job."

"Listen, I'm qualified!" she snapped. "I've had the same training you had! I'll take my turn."

But Ivan came up behind, his big gloved hand sliding across her posterior as if coincidentally. "Soft like a woman," he murmured. Then: "I've got it, George." Just as if he was talking only about the piloting.

Quiti masked her outrage. Even here on the mission, they were treating her with the contempt they deemed due a woman! She had smoldered under it throughout training and her tour of duty at Port Tau Ceti, clinging to the hope that it would be different on an actual mission. Now she was on it, and nothing had changed. She might as well have been a housemaid.

"Hey, make me up a sandwich, will you, honey?" Ivan said without looking at her. "I forgot to eat."

The worst of it was, he wasn't even conscious of the insult. None of them were. They all took it for granted that she was along for tokenism, if not pure decoration. They did not abuse her, or force their attentions on her openly; they simply did not take her seriously.

There was no point in aggravating anyone right now; their mission was dangerous enough without that. She opened the supply chest and made a sandwich: actually two slabs of hardtack, as it was called, of complementary flavors. Any one slab contained all the nutrients a human being needed, but was too bland for interest.

She handed Ivan the sandwich. "Thanks, cutie," he said, absentmindedly, his eyes on the planet ahead. The shield made its outline vague, but made the outline of the scout ship even less clear to any observer on the planet.

"The name is Quiti," she reminded him. "Kwee-tee."

"Sure thing, cutie."

She gave up. He wasn't even listening to her. It was no worse than being called "monkey,"

as some of her training-mates had, because of her planet of origin. The truth was that the human species was beginning a new radiation, with subspecies forming in a necessary adaptation to the extremes of their host planets. In the three thousand years since colonization had begun, some changes had been engineered genetically, and some had been by mutation and drastic natural selection, so that evolution had leaped. Somehow all that other people noticed about her particular subspecies was its supposed simian characteristic, rather than its mental one. But her kind could still interbreed with the others, which meant it was definitely human, and no one could tell by looking at Quiti now that she was not identical to the "standard" variant of Earth. That, perhaps, was part of the problem: The men here saw her as a sex object, just because she was young and full-fleshed.

Morosely, she watched the growing planet of Formut. It was the most Earthlike of the bodies in this primitive system. Its only distinction was that it was the closest habitable planet to the neighboring system that contained the human colony of Bethesda, which the Fleet hoped to recover soon. It had two Khalian batteries that could inflict devastating losses on any passing convoy. It was the Fleet's intent to make a diversionary thrust, a decoy gesture, through this system, to distract the Khalians from the main thrust elsewhere. That would be useless if the batteries wiped out the token force at the outset.

Therefore those batteries had to be taken out. This could not be done from space without doing irreparable harm to the planet, and since the natives were not the enemy, that was out. But they could be tackled from behind, as it were: by a surprise attack from the ground. That was the present mission: Two five-man ships were to infiltrate the planet and take out those batteries. Then the ships would report and wait for the Fleet to pick them up in a week, as they lacked the power to escape the planet's gravity well.

It seemed simple enough—and it was, if all went well. Each ship had small arms and one plasma weapon. Because this was technically a hostile planet, there were no reloading cartridges; it was essential that the enemy not be able to take over the weapon and use it against the infiltrating party. The three shots of its initial loading should suffice; if not, it would probably be too late.

The loaded weapon weighed twenty-five kilograms. That was why there were two crews of two men each: to haul the hefty one-point-three-meter pipe expeditiously to an appropriate line of sight with the battery, and to haul it away again without delay. Whether there would be pursuit was uncertain; it was not known whether the Khalians had full complements here or merely minimal site crews. If the former, things could quickly become, as George put it, tight.

Their chances of survival and safe return were rated at seventy-five percent. Those were considered good odds for this type of work. The men acted as if there were no danger at all, calling it a milk run (with significant glances at Quiti's bosom), but they knew the risk. They used only first names, not even knowing each other's full names, to protect their identities in case any one of them fell into enemy hands and was interrogated. They were, for all their insensitivity, good men.

Two crews of two. Why, then, was she along at all? To guard the ship. If enemy forces threatened to take it, it was her duty to push the destruct button. That would strand the men and, incidentally, blow her to bits—but the ship would not fall into enemy hands. Would she push that button? Yes; that was part of her training. However lightly the men might take her, they knew she would do that much of her job.

Still, they wouldn't let her participate in the real action, despite her ability to do so. She was by their notion merely a woman, existing principally for the entertainment of a man. The men of the two ships on this mission had a pot on for the one who first managed to, as they put it, ground her. They didn't even bother to conceal this game from her. Each day they each put another credit in the "honey pot." The longer it took, the more the victor would have. There were of course certain rules: Force could not be used, and no false promises were allowed. Nine men and one woman: They figured the end was certain, with only the timing and the identity of the victor in doubt. That was her value to them: the challenge. It was all perfectly good-natured on their part. They all admired her body, and said so rather too often. They took it for granted that she admired theirs. They were, after all, men.

This was why so few women volunteered for front-line service. Even when they got it, they didn't get it. She had thought she could fight through, demonstrating her competence, and make a place for herself. So far, she had not been given the chance. Soft like a woman, indeed!

They made it to the planetary surface, and skimmed in toward the objective. The land below seemed to be solid mountain and forest, with no sign of civilization. The two Khalian batteries were a hundred and fifty kilometers apart; their companion ship would orient on the other, so that the twin strikes could be accomplished almost simultaneously. That was the ideal.

They glided to within fifteen kilometers. That was as close as they dared take the scout; they did not want to trigger any alarms. The indications were that Khalian forcefield alerts were limited to ten kilometers. That might change, after this mission! From here they should be able to climb a hill and establish a direct line of sight to the battery. That was all that was required.

Jack opened the port, letting the planetary atmosphere in. They had all been given shots to adapt them to the local air, and the ship's receptors had tested for verification of compatibility. This was an Earthlike planet, slightly smaller than Earth but with a denser core, so that gravity at the surface was almost the same. There was enough oxygen to sustain them; it was the trace elements that the shot protected them from, so that there would not be cumulative damage to the lungs and blood. The plants and animal life were similar too, not in detail but in fundamental metabolism.

George and Ivan were the first team. They girt themselves with water and rations, and each picked up an end of the pipe. "Be back soon, cutie," George said. "Catch yourself a little beauty nap."

Ha ha, she thought. Catch yourself some other beauty, chauvinist!

Henry drew his laser pistol. He checked it, then pointed it at the fourth man, Jack. "Disarm yourself, slowly," he said.

Jack looked at him, startled. "What?"

"I am a Khalian operative," Henry said. "I am taking the three of you prisoner. Your mission is over."

Jack smiled. "Some joke! The Khalia don't take prisoners. Come on, we have to go, so we can get the tube back fast when these weaklings wear out."

"Second notice," Henry said grimly. "I prefer not to have to kill you. I'm not a Khalian, I only work for them. Disarm yourself."

"I don't think he's joking," George said. He started to lower his end of the plasma pipe.

Henry's laser swung around to cover him. "Hold your position!"

Jack's hand dived for his own laser. Henry snapped his weapon back and fired. The beam seared across Jack's throat, opening it as if a knife were slicing. Blood spewed out as the man fell, his eyes wide with amazement rather than pain. The other two men dropped the plasma pipe and reached for their weapons. Henry swept his beam across both of their throats. Both fell, unconscious and dying; the blood pressure at their brains was gone.

Now Henry turned to Quiti. She, like a complete idiot, had stood aghast, unmoving, stunned by the speed and horror of the event. "Disarm," he said.

He had her covered. Slowly she removed her laser and dropped it.

"Out of the ship."

She stepped carefully across the bodies and out the open port. Why hadn't she drawn her weapon and fired while he was lasering the others?

The surface of the planet was lushly green. This was a jungle region, the kind the Khalia liked. They had landed in a long glade fronting the steep base of a mountain ridge; this provided both cover from observation by the battery personnel and a place to land comfortably.

She braced herself to run, but Henry was right behind her. "Make no sudden move, cutie. I especially don't want to have to kill you."

After what had just occurred, she had no doubt of his ability to kill her. Her training had been rigorous, but obviously he had had some that was not in the manual. She stood outside the ship, facing away from him, making no move.

She knew she had only a moment before he emerged. Anything she was going to do to protect herself she had to do now.

She put her face in her hands and sobbed. Her fingers pushed up through her pinned-back brown hair.

He emerged, his pistol keeping her covered. "Soft like a woman," he muttered disdainfully, echoing Ivan's remark. He stepped away from the ship, coming to stand before her. "You know the routine, honey."

Slowly she lifted her face, her fingers sliding down across her forehead and her tear-wet cheeks. She gazed at him, her fingers actually poking into her mouth.

"Don't try your pitiful look on me, cutie," he snapped. "Just get your clothes off. Be thankful you're to be a slave instead of a casualty. I won't see you again after I turn you in, so it has to be now."

It did make sense, she knew, in his terms. The Khalia did not take prisoners, they took slaves, and not many of them. They would interrogate her, not caring what damage they did to her body or mind in the process, and use her as a slave thereafter if she remained sufficiently functional. Her self-hypnotic ability could dull ordinary pain but would not help her against the savagery of that. She had known from the outset what to expect from the Khalia; not for nothing had humans named them after the ancient Hindu goddess Kali, dark creature of destruction and bloody sacrifice. Now she knew what to expect from their human agent, whose lust was of a slightly different nature. It was pointless to make open resistance; he would only laser her just enough to incapacitate her, perhaps severing the nerves of her arms and legs and blinding her, then have his will of her body as she suffered. Some men were like that, preferring the writhings of a woman's agony to those of her joy.

She removed her uniform, carefully folding the sections of it and setting them on the ground beside her. She did not take undue time, knowing that stalling would gain her nothing. He watched, evidently enjoying the striptease show as her breasts and buttocks came into view. She had counted on that, and even moved a little more than she had to, to make those portions flex and quiver. She wanted him watching her body. not her face. Her teeth were clenched, her lips very slightly parted. Soon she stood naked except for her heavy military socks.

Henry nodded. "Cutie, I always thought your body was the best," he said. "Now I'm sure of it. You sure don't look like a monkey to me."

She did not answer. She merely stood, teeth still clenched, waiting for his next directive.

"Very docile, aren't we," he remarked. "But I'm not fool enough to take chances. Go fetch the emergency cord."

She walked in her socks to the ship. The odor of fresh blood was strong inside; the bodies of the men lay in pools of it. She used her self-hypnotism to keep her mind clear, treating the bodies as if they were merely meat, and stepped carefully to the storage compartment.

Henry kept her covered from the port. She made no false move; she had seen how accurately he aimed his laser, and how quick his reflexes were.

She got out the rope and brought it back. Now there was some blood on her socks; she had been unable to avoid it. But this was no time to be squeamish about details; her own blood, and the success of the mission, were on the line. She said nothing.

Back outside, Henry made her go to a nearby copse of young trees. There he made her form nooses and put them over her own ankles and wrists; then he had her lie down while he looped the ends of the cords around trees and drew them tight. Only then did he put away the laser and strip off his own clothing.

Quiti was spread-eagled on the turf, her arms and legs anchored by the cords so that she could not bring them in. Still she kept her teeth clenched and spoke no word. Her fit of grief as she first stepped out of the ship was the only expression of emotion she had allowed herself.

"It doesn't make any difference, you know," Henry said as he kneeled beside her and ran his hands along her body. "I never expected your desire, or even your approval, I just want your body, one time. You can sweet-talk me or curse me or just play zombie, my pleasure comes from having a lovely woman who would never submit voluntarily." He squeezed her right breast, then her left. "Soft like a woman," he said again, trying to provoke a reaction.