The Brave New World

He"d thought about lodging a formal accusation of a.s.sault against Sven Holm at the police station, but he decided against it. The police were a joke. All they were good for was writing parking tickets.

When Jokkmokk cops sometimes miraculously caught a criminal, they spent such a long time reading him his rights that the case often ended there and then: the suspect escaped, or confessed to everything while begging the cops to stop, or died laughing.

At least that was the way Elias Persson saw it. And that was why he decided he wouldn"t report to the police the beating he"d received from members of the Viking Motorcycle Club. The cops would go to see Sven Holm, and they would wag a finger in his face and tell him to watch his step.

Then they would go back to writing parking tickets, while Holm would pay Persson another visit and beat him up again. It probably would be worse than the first beating, too. No, this just wasn"t worth it.

And anyway, Sven Holm had given him quite a lot of money for the twenty sheep he had taken from Persson"s farm. Persson would have sold him the sheep, he had a large flock, but he had been stalling to squeeze even more money out of Holm. He could tell Holm wanted to close a deal very badly, and tried to exploit it.

What he didn"t know was that Holm was experiencing a hangover of monumental proportions after staying straight for a full day after a week of constant drinking and drug-taking. It made Holm very bad-tempered. The two thugs he"d brought with him were hungover and bad-tempered too, and trying to squeeze more money out of the deal wasn"t a wise move.

Persson got up and dusted his trouser seat with his hand and walked across the yard around his house. He stopped at the crude wooden fence and climbed onto the bottom beam, holding onto the fence post to keep his balance.

He could see Holm"s farm over the crest of the gentle hill on which his house was located. Holm"s farm was just over a kilometer away. At this time of the year, the sun appeared only for a couple of hours a day, hovering just over the horizon. But Persson had excellent eyesight; even though it was now operating at 50% efficiency, he could see that the road between the two farms was empty.

Amazing! Holm and his two thugs had already managed to drive the small flock they"d taken all the way to the farm! Persson wondered what the bikers would do with the sheep. It had to be something to do with transporting drugs, he was sure. What else could it be?

He got off the fence and got a fresh handful of snow. Pressing it against his swollen eye, he walked back to his house.

Down at Holm"s farm, a Viking named Vidar Karlsson was also pressing a handful of snow to his swollen eye.

He had been appointed as the shepherd of the newly arrived flock, and didn"t like it. He complained. No one listened. He complained again. No one listened.

He complained yet again, much louder this time, and Sven walked over to him and punched him so hard that he knocked Vidar down on his a.s.s. Then Sven told him, somewhat belatedly, to shut the f.u.c.k up and take the sheep to the barn and take good care of them, too.

Take care of them? Vidar had checked, and there wasn"t even any hay in the barn. But he had learned his lesson. And so, holding the snow to his eye, he meekly walked up to the sheep milling around the back entrance to Holm"s house, and herded them into the barn.

Inside the house, two sheep struggled in the firm embrace of two p.i.s.sed-off Vikings while Holm removed the implants from their heads. Olaf Berg, Holm"s deputy, had been watching the proceedings closely. He shook his head.

"They"ll go crazy if you keep doing that to them," he said.

Sven Holm threw his head back and laughed. It was his first relaxed, sincere laugh in almost three days, and it made him feel good. He said:

"You worried those two sheep will go mad?"

"Well, yes," Olaf said. "It"s not nice, being mad. Even when you"re a sheep."

This made Holm laugh so hard he actually had tears coming out of his eyes. When he stopped he turned to the Vikings holding the sheep between their legs and by the ears, and said:

"He could be right. Take those two to the barn and bring a fresh couple. And tell Vidar I"m sorry I hit him. I"m under a lot of pressure."

He waited until the two Vikings departed with their bleating charges. Then he turned to Olaf and said:

"Olaf, I want you to join Lena and Ingrid over there. We can"t leave all the hard work to the chicks."

Olaf looked at Lena and Ingrid. They were lying side by side on the silvery mats in the far corner of the room. They didn"t look as if they were working hard. They looked asleep.

Olaf said:

"But they are the ones who know how to skin animals. I don"t know anything about skinning animals and making clothes."

"You worked as an a.s.sistant in a butcher"s shop."

"I had to. I was on probation. I had to have a job, any job. But it was only for a year and I didn"t learn anything about skinning animals."

"Well, it"s high time you did. I told the chicks you"re coming last time I looked in on them. And by the way, you weren"t worried about my mental health when I was implanting myself over and over again every five f.u.c.king minutes. But you were worried about the sheep."

"Sven!"

"Admit it."

"I admit it. I wasn"t worried about you losing your mind. You just aren"t someone who would lose their mind. Ever."

"Nice one," said Sven. "But that changes nothing. You"re going. I promise I"ll bring you back after half an hour. From what I"ve seen, that"s several hours over there. That should be enough."

"Enough for what? To freeze my b.a.l.l.s off? Sven!"

"I"ve addressed that problem. The chicks said they"ll have a codpiece ready for you."

"Sven!"

"Stop saying "Sven". Thou shalt not use my name in vain. You"re going, Olaf. You"re my deputy. I need you over there. You have to go."

"Why now? Can"t we wait until it gets warmer?"

"Everyone around here will be waiting until it gets warmer. We"re not the only ones with hiber beds and timon implant kits, Olaf. There are other cubes, I"m sure. And I"m sure many people are making plans to conquer this new world, just like we do... We need to get a headstart on those people. Understand?"

"Yes," Olaf said sadly.

Sven took Olaf by the arm and led him over to the silvery mat lying on the floor next to the sleeping Lena. He held a loaded implant kit in his other hand.

"Okay," he said. "Lie down and relax. This won"t hurt, you know that already. And you know you can really freeze your b.a.l.l.s over there, but it won"t happen to the real you over here. And I"ll promise you this: if I see you"re having a really bad time, I"ll wake you. But it won"t look good on you, Olaf. Vikings are supposed to be tough."

"I"ll do my best," Olaf said in a tragic voice. He lay down and closed his eyes. He felt the sharp end of the implant kit touch his head -

- and it really wasn"t so bad, at first. In a way, it was exhilarating.

Once again, he found himself in the slight hollow between two gentle, heavily wooded hills. But this time around, the snow around him was red with blood.

Lena and Ingrid were squatting over a dead sheep and looking at him. They were wearing crude sheepskin shifts that didn"t cover their knees. Their faces and their bare arms and legs were red with blood.

"Look who is here," Lena said. They both giggled madly. Then Ingrid threw a b.l.o.o.d.y rag at him. It landed in the snow at his feet.

"Put it on and help us out," Ingrid said. "We need you to deal with all that meat."

She pointed and Olaf turned and saw three b.l.o.o.d.y carca.s.ses lying in an area that had been swept clear of snow. Ingrid said:

"You"ll have to find yourself a stone with a sharp edge first. There"s plenty of shale over there and it shouldn"t be difficult. Then cut all the fat off, and don"t eat too much."

She giggled. Olaf bent down and picked up the b.l.o.o.d.y rag and saw it was a piece of sheepskin, freshly torn off the animal. There were holes in the edges and long narrow strips of sheepskin in the holes. He guessed they were meant to tie the skin over his genitals.

Wow! This was clever. He wouldn"t have expected those chicks to be capable of doing something like that. He looked at them with new appreciation and saw that Lena was busy piercing a hole in the skin. She was using a long, sharp bone splinter.

"Hey," Ingrid said sharply. He refocused on her. She said:

"Once you"re done with the fat, cut out the tendons. Rub each tendon with the fat and bring it to us. We need them for the clothes. They hold the sides together. See?"

She raised her arm, and Olaf saw the tendon running through a row of small hairy humps down the side of her shift.

She looked mad, completely mad, dressed in the b.l.o.o.d.y sheepskin rags and with blood all over her face and arms. He stared at her as he put the codpiece over his personal gear, and began to tie the strips. She said:

"When we get cold, we"ll f.u.c.k. That will warm us up fast, all right. But now get going on those corpses over there. The quicker you work, the sooner you"ll get something to wear. Move!"

He began wading through the snow to the dark red carca.s.ses on the stony ground. As he drew near, he saw the entrails dumped in the snow further on. Two more steps, and he smelled them.

He gagged, then swallowed back the bile and walked on. He was a Viking. He was tough. He could handle it.

And there was a f.u.c.k waiting for him down the line, better than that, two f.u.c.ks. He already knew Lena was hot, and wondered what Ingrid was like, and whether he could come twice in a row while f.u.c.king in the snow.

He would be the first Viking to have an o.r.g.a.s.m in the New World. That was something.

He grinned to himself and stopped at the edge of the clearing and started looking for a suitable stone.

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