Mating center

by Frank Belknap Long

It was not too late, and the pleasure boats' recreational regimen had been designed to give such criminal impulses no encouragement at all. The original plan had perhaps been wiser in that respect than an earlier age had realized. Or perhaps the Monitors who had ordered the pleasure boats to be built and launched had feared that such impulses might someday arise, and had taken precautions to make sure that the recreational taboos would be strictly enforced.

There were security guards on all of the pleasure boats, but they wore no uniforms and mingled freely with the other passengers. Some were disguised as athletes, others as members of the crew or participants in one or more of the many intellectual games and archery contests.

In the pleasure boat which was now moving toward the open sea, its hull resplendent in the sunlight, one such guard stood on the open foredeck. He was a splendid figure of a man and quite unlike most security guards in build and carriage, with the slender hips and broad, straight shoulders of a trained athlete. There was nothing brutish or over-muscular about him, and he had handsome features and keen blue eyes. He was naked to the waist and wore about his loins an abbreviated, dark-blue tunic fastened at the waist with a silver buckle.

He stood motionless, staring at the high banks of the seaward-winding channel which the pleasure boat was just entering. Across the deck toward him another man was moving with an almost catlike agility, his hand at his waist, his face set in harsh lines. He was a little taller than the disguised security guard and outweighed him by fifteen or twenty pounds. The swiftly advancing man was accompanied by a woman whose face was contorted in a grimace of hate, a grimace so extreme that it marred the beauty of her features and gave her an almost demoniac aspect. Her dark hair, whipped into wild disarray by the wind and her flashing dark eyes made her seem even more like one of the Furies, a woman distraught and thirsting for vengeance.

The man at the rail did not hear the approaching pair until they were almost upon him. And by then he could do no more than swing about and stare at them in horror. The woman's companion had drawn a long, gleaming knife from the belt at his waist and the instant the security guard turned he plunged it into the startled man's stomach with a vigorous downward thrust, whipped it free and plunged it even more deeply into the security guard's side, giving him no time to ward off the attack with his hands or take a swift step backwards.

The guard groaned and began instantly to slump, a crimson stain spreading across his stomach from the gaping wound which the first thrust had left in the white flesh just above his tunic.

The face of the knife-wielder was dark with rage and the veins on his temples stood out like whipcords. He did not even permit the security guard to slump completely to the deck or to groan again and relieve a little of his torment. He caught him under the arms as he slumped, lifted him up, and slammed him back against the rail.

He shifted his hold on the mortally wounded man's body, gripping him firmly about the knees and bending him backwards across the rail until the sagging weight of his shoulders outbalanced the lower part of his body.

After that there was no need for the knife-wielder to shove vigorously to send the security guard toppling into the bay. But he did shove vigorously, in an excess of rage, breathing heavily as he watched his hated victim throw out one arm in a last futile effort to save himself. The woman screamed and covered her eyes as the guard went plunging downward.

The sound of the guard's body striking the water was drowned out by the drone of the pleasure boat's engines. There was a shower of spray and a bubbling froth on the water for an instant and then the bay was smooth again. They could not even see his slowly turning body as he sank, for the pleasure boat was moving rapidly.