Kystran, 2139 A. C. (After Colonization)

The demonstration against boskrat killing had been going on for three days, with ecology students marching in front of the Fanya Science Lab, their projector banners flashing on and off in neon colors, protesting the need for the extinction of another species in the name of science. The anticipated riot had come to pass and was now in full swing, joined by bored and frustrated Fanya citizens on the lookout for a little excitement and tension release.

If it were only the ecology people involved, who had protesting down to an art form, there wouldn’t have been any trouble. But the local Stress Clinic had been closed last week for remodeling and extension, and the unattached citizens of Fanya, those not having filed for double occupancy, were more aggressive than usual.

“If they don’t get their sex once a day in the clinics, they think their world’s coming to an end,” Fanya’s Chief of Science had complained to Garr Ce Bernn, present Director of Kystran. “These young people don’t remember what it was like before we had Stress Clinics in every city.”

“Neither do we,” the Director had replied dryly, but he’d sent a Sec 1 as requested to pacify the man.

Tedra De Arr was the lucky volunteer ordered to Fanya to take charge of the local Security Division. And she’d known after her first hour there that if the growing crowds got out of hand, there wouldn’t be much she could do about it without some serious damage to life and limb involved. The Fanya Security Division was nothing but a bunch of young graduates who didn’t know their phazor units from their communicators, the reason that they were never given combo-units. And if the cits decided to get destructive while rescuing the ugly little boskrats, she didn’t see much hope in stopping them with the kind of backup available in this small town.

With only forty Sec men on hand and at least a hundred citizens already breaking down the outer doors, Tedra thought about leaving quietly by the rear entrance. That was what those frightened scientists had done, and she didn’t give a farden damn about the scaly little creatures they’d left behind for her to defend. Defend, hell. She couldn’t stand the creepy things herself. Why would she want to defend them?

With unkind thoughts for the man who had volunteered her for this temporary duty, Tedra lifted the computer link from her belt which gave her a direct line to Martha, her personal Mock II computer. “You know the stats, Martha, and they’re breaking the doors down now. What are the odds on their grabbing the boskrats and running?”

“About sixty to one.” Martha’s very feminine voice came through the small, hand-sized link unit loud and clear. “If it weren’t for the Stress Clinic being closed-”

Tedra cut her off with a snarl, literally, returning the compact unit to her belt. “Farden sex,” she cursed to herself. “When did it get to be a be-all, cure-all, got-to-have-it-or-I’ll-fall-to-pieces-or get violent?”

“Did you say something, Sec 1?”

Tedra turned around to the kid behind her, and he was just a kid. Couldn’t be more than eighteen years. Of course, when she was eighteen, she’d been at the top of her class, had been actively working for a year even though she continued her training, and was already unmatched in her field. That was five years ago. Four years ago she had earned her present rank, Security 1, the highest rating for an expert in weapons and hand-to-hand combat. The young man who had spoken wasn’t likely even a Sec 5, the lowest rating, though he would have to be to be assigned to her. They shouldn’t turn them out for active duty until they are ready, but you couldn’t tell Administration that, not when there was such a shortage of Security available. Too many of the new crop of students elected to train for more fulfilling and less dangerous life careers, especially on a planet not at war and in a league of planets devoted to peace and profitable trade.

“No, I didn’t say anything to you, Sec 5, but I’ll say it now. We’re going to let the cits have what they want, because I don’t believe a building and a bunch of smelly, ugly boskrats are worth anyone dying for. Stay out of the way and hope they settle for the bosk-rats. But if they come at you, shoot to stun. If that doesn’t turn the tide, run like hell. Pass the word; stun only. If a single cit ends up dead when this is over, you Secs will answer to me.”

She didn’t have to add they’d wish they were the ones who’d died if it came to that. A Sec 1 was no one to cross. Using you as a rag to wipe the floor with was the least of what one could do to you, and the Sec knew it.

When the crowd came through the last door into the large, vaulted lab, there were unfortunately few of the ecology students among them. These were the unattached cits who had been denied their daily ration of sex therapy for a week, poor things, and they had no interest in the farden boskrats other than as an excuse to relieve stress and tension in the old-fashioned way, with a heady dose of violence. They went right for the equipment and the Secs, breaking and attacking what they could. Stunning didn’t help much beyond the first horde.

Tedra De Arr spent the next half hour doing some breaking herself, on bones and faces. The local med-itechs would be busy for the rest of the afternoon, but at least no one was seriously injured. But she was still angry as hell. She didn’t like to break bones and hear men scream while she was doing it, not for no farden boskrats anyway. At least the women in the crowd had stuck to damaging only the furniture and equipment, because she liked hearing women scream even less, and she didn’t need anything to put her in a worse foul mood.

But it was still a fiasco and a waste of her talent, and she was still angry about it when she later returned to the temporary quarters assigned to her. That kid, the one she’d just known had had no business being there, had shot his own foot with his phazor unit. What she wouldn’t give to get hold of his instructor for five minutes. He wouldn’t be releasing students before they were ready after that.

Marching to her door, she slapped her hand against the identilock without slowing her pace, and slammed right into the unmoving obstacle. She cursed a blue streak before calming enough to put her hand again to the lock for the required two seconds for identification. The door quietly slid open then under her fierce glower, but she wasn’t pacified, not in the least. The next time Garr Ce Bernn got the idea that she’d appreciate the extra exchange tokens an outside assignment could earn, she’d tell him what he could do with them himself, and she didn’t care if he was the head honcho of the whole planet.

She was a Sec 1, and the job of a Sec 1 was to protect and defend the leaders on the planet, not to be loaned out to any farden department. Her own job was the highest-paying in her field, assigned to Goverance Building and the Director himself. But to give him his due, he’d known she’d just bought a house in the suburbs outside the city, and likely thought she needed help paying for it. He thought he’d been doing her a favor. After she calmed down she’d see it that way, and probably even thank him when she got back to Gallion City, but she had to calm down first.

Picking up her pace again, she went straight to the Sanitary wall in the corner of the one-room quarters, pressed the wall activator, and started stripping as the walls slid out to enclose her in a five-foot-square area. The lights came on automatically as the newly created room within a room closed with a soft click around her. Out came the toilet if she should need it, a hair-and-eye changer, and a drawer full of lotions and perfumes and a few male colognes left over by the last occupant. All she was interested in, however, was the bath.