"It isn't," Conley said. "At least, it doesn't do any physical
damage--unless the fall itself injures you, of course. But it does
leave you with a nasty migraine for most of a day."
"Interesting," Cortin said thoughtfully. A weapon that caused pain
without injuring its target sounded like an extremely useful tool for
an Inquisitor. "Does it cause actual unconsciousness, or is it the
pain itself that's incapacitating?"
"At standard intensity, it causes about four hours' unconsciousness.
The headache's just a side effect we can't seem to get rid of."
That was even more interesting, Cortin thought. If Kingdoms scientists
could isolate the "side effect" and eliminate the unconsciousness, the
severe migraine would do very nicely to intensify an Inquisitor's other
attentions. She didn't want to upset the young Imperial with that line
of thought, though. "I should be able to find a suitable test
subject," she said. "Not right now, though; I need to get to work.
Let's go back inside; you can explain the controls, then I can
familiarize myself with it if I get any breaks."
"Just a moment, please, Excellency," Odeon said. "I know you're busy,
but there are going to be a lot of troopers here soon, and if the
Imperials go into town, they may stop at the joyhouses; don't you think
they ought to know about our favorite plague?"
"Plague!" DeLayne exclaimed, his expression horrified.
Cortin chuckled. "Yes--the only one I know of that most people wanted
to catch. But you might not want to export it to the Empire, so
Captain Odeon's right; I ought to warn you. It's called the satyr
plague, which should give you some idea of its nature."
DeLayne nodded. "I think so--but I don't care to guess at the details,
so tell me about it, please. And what a large number of troopers has
to do with it."
"The troopers first," Cortin said. "Because of the hazardous nature of
our work, the Royal Enforcement Services have both Church and civil
dispensations from the sexual restrictions that apply to everyone
else--except their partners at the time, of course. So they won't have
any hesitation asking any of your people they find attractive, or
accepting offers from them. The joyhouses don't have that dispensation
yet, but since the plague appeared, working in or patronizing them's no
more than a venial sin and a misdemeanor the RES pays attention to only
if there's a complaint; we have far more serious crimes to worry about.
"The plague itself, of course, is sexually transmitted. There's no
danger of infection from casual contact, only about a one percent
chance from kissing, but the odds improve with the intimacy of contact.
As far as we can tell, intercourse with someone who has the plague
guarantees you'll get it; other genital contact is high-probability but
not certain."
"But what does it do?" Conley asked.
Cortin grinned at Odeon, who answered. "What it does, Miss Conley, is
increase both sexual desire and capability. That's most noticeable in
men, though it affects women as well. As you can probably imagine,
it's had quite an effect on our society the last three decades."
"What about immunization or a cure?" DeLayne asked.
"Who'd want it?" Odeon asked in reply. "I damnsure wouldn't; I like
what it's done for me. And for our wives and Family head."
DeLayne raised an eyebrow, then shrugged. "We'll work on both, then,
if you could provide a blood sample from someone who's infected."
"How big a sample?"
"A few drops should be enough." DeLayne grinned. "Scouts may be
small, but we get state of the art medical equipment, and people to use
it who want a challenge."
Odeon turned to Cortin. "If you don't mind, Colonel, I'll give him his
sample, then come help you."
"Fine. Take as long as you want, maybe get a tour of the ship." She
paused, thinking. "Yes . . . under the circumstances, I think I'd
better change your primary duty." She turned to DeLayne. "Captain
Odeon has been studying your Empire as well as possible from comm
intercepts and what's left of our Founders' records. If you're willing
to loan him books or have some of your people talk to him, I'd like to
make those studies his top priority. He can then brief me on whatever
he considers important."
DeLayne nodded. "Comm intercepts and fragmentary records won't give
you very good information, especially since your Founders obviously
weren't at all fond of the Empire--I'll be glad to help him learn as
much as he wants." He turned to Odeon, grinning. "Come on,
Captain--we'll go by Sickbay for the blood samples, then I'll give you
a ship tour and introduce you to teaching tapes. Can you read Imperial
English?"
Odeon looked up at the ship's name as he followed DeLayne up the
gangplank, then shook his head ruefully. "If that's a sample, no--I
can recognize most of the letters, but they don't make sense."
"Easy enough to remedy." DeLayne saluted the armed guard at the hatch.
"Permission to come aboard, sir? Myself and one of our hosts."
The woman returned his salute. "Granted, sir. Are you permitting him
aboard armed?"
"Yes. And no one's to leave this estate--definitely not the
compound--unarmed. I'll make that--"
"Captain?" Odeon interrupted.
"Yes?"
"If I were you, I'd have them armed any time they leave the ship. And
I'd have Miss Conley sent one of those blasters as soon as possible."