Khatia has been kidnapped and Beverly pulls out some stops to find her.

Spacetran 19.

List of Beverly’s children, grandchildren and their friends.

Girls,

Wendy, William’s twin.
Jessica and Charlotte, Ben’s (AKA Bennie’s,) twin sisters.
Dave and Eddie , Sherriff Jack Johnson’s boys.
Linda and Sandra, Sherriff Jack Johnson’s daughters.
Ray, Wendy’s husband, (Our son in Law.).
Khatia. Bennie’s secret Muslim wife.
Farina & Francine. Khatia and Bennie’s twin daughters.

When they got home the police at least realised the urgency of the case and efforts were soon in hand to try and trace Khatia. Bennie had her doubts however; the Wahabist Bradford Muslim Community where Khatia hailed from was essentially a small, tight-knit, ‘closed shop’ because of the origins of the founding immigrants. They were mainly Wahabist tribal peoples from Northern Pakistan. As a community, they had been one of the very last to even consider integrating into British general society and so far they had still failed to do it. Some who had either fallen foul of the oppressive culture or simply concluded it was too hard to endure, had left the village and lived their lives elsewhere. These were mostly men for women found it much harder to escape the strictures. The very real threat of abuse in some form or another even up to the extreme sanction of kidnap followed by ‘honour killings’ usually served to terrify women into submission. Khatia had been a very rare exception and she had done it without external help. That was why the Wahabist village had worked ceaselessly to find her and drag her back. In this they were worse than many cults.

Even the mainstream Muslim community deemed them to be primitive and backward in their utter refusal to move with the times. Honour killings were thus still occasionally practised. This area of Bradford had become a virtual tribal zone mirror of North West Pakistan. Wahabism ruled like a poison through the whole ‘village’. Beverly learned of it and quickly hated it. She immediately put her own resources to the task and vast resources they were.

Firstly that same evening, she fell upon Musah’s family and determined that the family were not the rogues she had first presumed them to be. Indeed the family had done exactly the same as Khatia insofar as they had moved out of the Bradford community to escape the same oppressive atmosphere. The women in the family, both mother and daughter dressed very much in the western style except the mother wore her Hijab even when wearing a sleeveless knee-length frock. She also wore the Burkah when delivering the children to the Lancashire village school for it was there that the Bradford village elders knew she would be attending when delivering and collecting her children. She wore her Burkah simply to avoid the hassle of some interfering Imam from the Bradford Wahabist village harassing her.

Musa’s parents were distraught when they learned of the kidnap for Musah’s mother and Khatia had grown fond of each other as they gossiped at the school gates. On learning of the kidnap, they immediately gave all the information they could, - including the locations and descriptions of all of Khatia’s relatives in the ‘village’. They could only offer that somehow, somewhere, the constant stream of village elders who had harassed the family for forsaking the village and its narrow religious strictures, had somehow learned that the ‘other Pakistani woman, who chatted at the school gates was the missing ‘Fatima’ who had run away after dishonouring the family by refusing to take the hand of her first cousin as her husband. Somebody had identified Khatia outside the school despite the surgery Khatia had had done to her face. However, now that Khatia’s family had apparently learned of Khatia’s whereabouts, the damage was seemingly done. Armed with this information Beverly was already in action that same Saturday afternoon.

Firstly her beloved ship Cold Albatross came to Beverly’s coded call from her usual secret ‘parking place’ beyond the rim of the Milky Way. Albatross arrived obediently on ‘automatic pilot’ like some faithful steed and Bennie sighed with relief as her father invited her and the twins to accompany her.

“So what’s the plan daddy?” Bennie asked.

“Firstly we must punish those who have kidnapped her.”

“D’you mean kill them Grandpy?” The twins chorused hopefully.

“No! Certainly not my little beauties. There are far more effective punishments than that.” I do not knowingly kill people.

Let that be my first lesson to you. Your mummy would call it Harram.

The girls fell silent but Bennie wondered at her father’s plan.

“So how are we to first find them and then punish them, and will that bring Khatia back?”

“Be patient Bennie, I’m trying here.” Beverly replied as she pushed the Albatross to her limits and streaked through the warp to the rim of the galaxy. “Here, take the con while I contact my friends.”

Bennie knew fully of her father’s immense pantheon of intergalactic friends so she asked what the strategy was. Beverly explained as the sub-ethereal communications webs hummed busily..

“You know of the protective shield, the gender-bender-belt that surrounds each civilised stellar community.”
Bennie smiled as she quickly caught on.

“You mean you’re going to use it? Isn’t that a bit of a sledge-hammer to crack a nut?”

“Yes. Frankly it is, but it’s small beer compared with what other means I have at my beck and call. However, I’m going to use a microscopic version around the Bradford Wahabist district. It’s like a primitive North-west Frontier village in there. They haven’t moved forward one iota even since learning of other peoples from other worlds. I mean just how bigoted can a community be? How blinkered; - how blind can such people be? If they won’t heed my words, I’ll have to use other ways to persuade them. So I’m collecting a cluster of micro-generators from the manufacturers on the Planet Toros and I’m going to set them up around that accursed village in Bradford. A few pulses of ‘gender-bender-blender’ and we’ll see what their Wahabist strictures will make of it.”

Within a couple of hours, even before the Sunday dawn, the system was in place. Bennie could only marvel at the resources her father owned but rarely referred to and had never employed before; leastwise not on Earth. Even more impressive was the speed with which her father had gathered and disposed her resources. Bennie quickly realised how much importance her father attached to Khatia’s safety.

With skills long ago learned during her knicker-stealing days, Beverly secretly tractor beamed each gender-bender generator down to the planet surface at critical secret locations surrounding the suburb of Bradford that had become the Wahabist Village. Very early on the Sunday morning before anybody was around, Beverly activated the ‘gender ring’. The whole district was now encircled by a ‘cordon-sanitaire of gender blending whilst mobile controllable hot-spots could be moved and relocated at the touch of a button. That button was in Beverly’s hands. Having exactly established the determinant positions she wanted, she set about searching the village in a provocative outfit that even Bennie was embarrassed by.

“You can’t walk around like that daddy. They’ll have a fit. That micro denim skirt is obscenely provocative. I can see your bum cheeks! You should have worn tights not those black ‘hold-ups’. And that top! You haven’t got a bra and you’re showing everything you’ve got. You look like some old tart! Somebody is bound to take offence.”
Beverly raised an enigmatic eyebrow.

“That’s the plan silly. I want to draw them out.”

Bennie regarded her father again as Beverly glanced down at her ‘dockside whore’ outfit.

“Nice boobs though, you must agree for an old tart!” Beverly grinned widely.

At a second glance Bennie was forced to confess, her mother wasn’t at all bad looking. Quite provocative in fact, - especially considering she was well into her sixties. She had far fewer wrinkles than other women of her age in fact she only looked about fortyish. However she did look exactly like a dockside tart plying her trade.

“Just watch darling,” Beverly replied as she pointed to a stray dog attempting to mate with another unwilling bitch in the street. The bitch was obviously not ‘in season’ but the dog continued to press its claim and the bitch was succumbing.
Beverly tapped in some figures to a tiny ‘controller’ then placed the controller in the tiny pocket of her micro-skirt. As the dogs finally ‘tied’, she casually slipped one slender hand into the pocket of her ‘fanny pelmet’ and pointed her other hand and fore-finger at the dogs. A soft green glow momentarily surrounded the pair and suddenly the male dog let out a whimper of surprise. Bennie stared stupidly and realised the male dog had been turned into a bitch. There were now two confused bitches wandering aimlessly along the pavement. To somebody uninitiated with the gender-blender technology it looked as though Beverly had simply cast some evil spell on the dogs.

Beverly briefly explained but Bennie had already grasped the idea.

“You’re going to do that to them?”

“Only if they offend me or try to be abusive. I’ll give them bloody misogyny! They’ll rue the day!”

This done Beverly chose to enter a cafe and order a pot of tea. It was early morn and few people were about but as men started to gather to go to mosque, Beverly immediately received censorious, accusative glares. Bennie could feel the aggression already beginning to accumulate. This was right in the centre of the Wahabist village. Even as they sat drinking their tea, a group of traditionally dressed men gathered outside the cafe and clearly demonstrated their dissatisfaction. Finally, as Beverly had hoped, an Imam appeared dressed in the traditional robes of the Wahabist clergy. Immediately he entered the cafe and started haranguing Beverly for her immodesty whilst demanding that she ‘leave their village’.

Beverly firstly tried to reason with him, claiming that they were in England and she was free to go wherever she liked in England and free to dress as she wanted. He would not listen to a single argument that Beverly offered. Finally he started verbally abusing her and accusing her of being a whore. For a moment Beverly smiled with quiet satisfaction; everything was going to plan. Then the man actually tried to manhandle her out of the cafe. Beverly put up a token resistance just as a ‘weak and feeble woman’ might but secretly she was pleased. The Imam had now physically assaulted her. She concluded he was a physical as well as a mental bully and an example perfectly ripe for the treatment.

It was obvious that the man thought he had the whip hand on his own turf amongst his own primitive, bigoted supporters and he started to push Beverly along the sidewalk as though trying to ‘expel the whore’ from the sight of Allah. Finally, after several painful shoves to her slender feminine shoulders, Beverly decided that she’d had enough. She stopped right next to one of the pre-arranged co-ordinates and cursed the man loudly for a blasphemer. In a self righteous rage the man roared at Beverly and stepped forward to strike ‘the whore’ with all his might. He raised his stick to her like a man would to a beast but it was his last act as a man.

As he stepped into the zone of the pre-calculated co-ordinates Beverly cursed him once again for a blasphemer and pressed the button of her tiny ‘zapper’ inside the little ‘money pocket’ of her cut-away ‘fanny pelmet’. The man visibly shrank before his followers and let out a pathetic, high pitched feminine wail as his hand plunged down to his groin for that was where the most pain was coming from. Then when he finally realised he was missing that which was so important to him, he let out shriek of despair and sank to the pavement. His/her followers stopped dead in their tracks and stared stupidly at the ‘woman’, still in an Imam’s apparel’ that now lay curled up in pain before Beverly.

Bennie looked on in admiration as her father faced the crowd.

“You who would abuse women thus shall suffer thus! He that strikes a woman shall become woman himself.”

“The babbling crowd became silent so Beverly seized her chance.

“There is now a curse upon this district and those who live here. Any who approach a woman with malice in their hearts shall be punished thus. From this day forward, any in this district, who maltreats a woman, shall suffer much worse! Heed the true spirit of Islam. Your sisters are truly your equals not your chattels!”

One of the elders stared down at the woman who had been their Imam then stared again at Beverly as though he was facing the angel of death.

“Who are you?” He croaked as fear cracked his voice.

“To you, I’m the angel of retribution. That is enough for you to know.”

A shout came from deep within the crowd.

“She’s that abomination, that half man, - half woman thing; - the creature who builds the space ships! The one who brought the obscenities from other planets, the devil’s creations, those who do not resemble Allah!”

Beverly was ready for him.

“They are as Allah in the spirit for Allah is not of the flesh!”

So saying, she activated the ‘zapper’ to locate the heckler precisely then she ‘zapped’ him with a deadly precision. The man let out a scream of agony as his genitalia felt as though they were on fire. Then Beverly spoke again.

“Yes. I am Beverly, Beverly Taff but I am still your nemesis, your angel of retribution. Remember that none shall leave this village as a man until the curse is lifted. Find for me the girl known as Fatima, find for me my daughter-in-law, the mother of my grandchildren and bring her here unharmed.”

“But there are many Fatima’s in the district. Who is to know?” Pleaded the elder nervously.

Beverly looked at him contemptuously.

“Those that know, - know. They have until noon to produce her or the curse will become fixed. Then all amongst you will be sisters!”

Another elder protested bravely.

“This is an evil thing!”

Beverly shrugged and smirked condescendingly.

“This is a Godly thing. Be thankful you are not all dead. Allah is merciful. Allah sends you a lesson. You could just as well be turned into pigs or dogs! Worse still, you could be killed and your souls despatched straight to hell!”
Bennie swallowed and glanced at her father for she knew it was not true. The technology only changed genders not species. Beverly was stepping out on a limb.”

However, Beverly’s gamble paid off. The crowd fell silent and quickly started to disperse as Beverly repeated her final warning.

“Remember, no men shall leave this district but they shall become women, - permanently! Only your sisters will go abroad. That curse will remain until the girl Fatima is returned unharmed!”

With these words ringing in their ears the last of the crowd dispersed while Bennie returned to re-visit her children. Beverly chose to await Khatia’s re-emergence and she returned ostentatiously to the same restaurant where the situation had started.
By ten o’clock, some women approached her including one very contrite woman who had once been an Imam. This particular ‘woman’ found herself staring licentiously at Beverly’s revealing outfit and bit her lip as she realised that her own sexuality was still male. Beverly had played an evil trick and the Imam had become that abomination in the eyes of Wahabism, namely a lesbian!
One of the other women approached Beverly with contrition writ large across her face as she confessed to the ‘Angel of retribution’.

“Please,” the woman pleaded, “my daughter was taken last night to be punished.”

“Punished; - how?” Beverly demanded as dread seized her heart and she realised she was talking to Khatia’s mother.

“She was to be beaten then stoned.”

“Where!” Beverly almost screeched.

The woman lost her voice and could barely croak her reply.

“I don’t know. She was to be tried by a Wahabist Sharia court and punished for her sins.”

“And what where those sins?” Beverly softened her voice but the menace endured, even more threatening for its message of implied vengeance.

The woman listed the ‘Sins’ but at each expression, Beverly shook her head angrily and countered with a snort or a contradiction. Finally she warned the woman.

“You have mobile phones. Warn your husband and whoever of her relatives has Khatia in their custody that we will not cease to pursue them to the very bowels of hell. Bring your sons and your husband here immediately!”

She glared at the ‘once-was Imam’ and added as a final warning.

“Take that perverted monstrosity with you as further persuasion and tell your men-folk that if they are not here in ten minutes they will be turned into women!”

Khatia’s mother and sisters needed no further persuasion, nor did the ‘once-was Imam’ for she was already suffering terrible pain as ‘The woman’s curse’ began to clamp her belly and it was a dreadful interlude. Beverly smiled evilly at the ‘once-was Imam’ doubled up in womanly pain’.

She spoke again softly to the ‘Imam’

“That is how it will go for you. The curse will pain you more than any ordinary woman and you will know of it every month! Thus you shall learn of womanly ways! Go and get Khatia’s father and brothers for I know that they were cunning enough not to be implicated in the kidnap or killing!”

The ‘woman’ scurried off with the other women and returned within minutes. Amongst them, Beverly clapped eyes on Khatia’s father and brothers for the first time. She felt a wave of revulsion sweep though her very core for if these evildoers had not actually committed the act, they had certainly organised it.

Beverly wasted no time on niceties. As the men were forced to approach her she spoke with a soft but definite menace.

“Where is she? Where is my sweet daughter in law?!”

“She is not in our village.” The father mumbled fearfully.

“So where is she?” Beverly pressed again.

They stood exchanging fearful looks but none seemed willing or able to give an answer. Beverly waited for what seemed an age but was in fact less than a minute then she lost patience.

“Very-well then. So be it.”

She discreetly lowered her fingers into the tiny skirt pocket and ‘zapped’ the father and his three sons. With screams of agony they collapsed to the floor and clawed with terror at their genitals. Beverly waited a further minute but nothing was forthcoming. With fear for Khatia rising like bile in her belly Beverly concluded she would have to move to plan ‘B’ She stalked away leaving Khatia’s male relatives screaming out in womanly pain as they not only changed sex but were flung instantly into a menstrual nightmare of pain.

This time she took off for the stars alone as Cold Albatross sped away to another galaxy to meet with and bring back a race of telepathic beings who would readily find Khatia provided Beverly could return in time. The Galaxy was a long way away and time was of the essence. Beverly realised she might have to exercise her most advanced warping technology.

The one avenue that Beverly always regretted in circumstances like this was that she could not ‘go back in time’ for it interfered with the present time line and caused unpredictable consequences.

Once again Beverly’s favours were called in as the telepaths quickly realised what was afoot. By the Monday afternoon, the telepaths were with Beverly back on earth but the question was, - Where they too late?”

This time Beverly did not tell her son Bennie what was afoot for if Khatia’s kidnappers got wind of the telepathy situation they might kill Khatia immediately to hide any evidence.

Beverly’s telepathic friends had agreed two different tactics.

Firstly was to try and seek Khatia by telepathy and if she was still alive, this was the most likely route to success. If, and the dreadful thought haunted Beverly; - Khatia was already dead, then Beverly’s telepathic friends would have to seek out the murderers and give Beverly the empty satisfaction of punishing them even though it would never compensate for the loss of Khatia.
During the remainder of Monday Beverly and her friends cruised the Wahabist village in several anonymous puls that prevented outsiders looking in whilst enabling the telepaths to quietly probe many minds whilst seeking the first leads. It was a long time coming and took some considerable telepathic, forensic profiling by Beverly’s friends. Eventually, after profiling the whole of Khatia’s extensive family and their friends, the aliens were able to construct several accurate profiles from the friend’s and relative’s memories. These could be used to create telepathic images of the kidnappers so that they could scan further abroad to identify and locate the kidnappers. Whilst the telepathic aliens were doing all this, Beverly made several more journeys to the far galaxy and collected several hundred more telepathic ‘foot-soldiers’ to add to the telepathic search parties. If Khatia was alive and still in Britain, they would soon find her while the telepaths were already hot on the trail of the kidnappers. Radiating outwards from the village the telepaths commenced their searches. Memories were secretly probed and tested and any pertinent information was quickly passed to a central telepathic ‘committee’ that processed the info and threaded it into the rapidly expanding ‘picture’.

Within hours the telepaths had a location and it only remained for Beverly to take the right steps. Khatia was alive but her signals were weak! She had obviously been badly wounded. Beverly developed an abiding hatred for her kidnappers.