The man was obviously sick, probably dying, painfully, spasmodically,
and not from natural causes.
He was a fairly young man, younger than Makvern, older than Brinna. He
was strapped onto a kind of flat cradle made of a plastic mesh, and
this was suspended in a circular pit, not very deep. Above the man,
almost but not quite in contact with his body, was a double row of
crystal rods, their bottom ends close together, their top ends spread
to form a V. They were served by power leads that went away somewhere
to the sides of the pit. Every so often, in answer to a signal, power
was fed into the double-rods, a rapid flicker of bluish light ran up
and down through them, and the man below them writhed and sobbed in a
grotesque and hideous agony.
Varsek gave the signals. He was sitting on a seat above the shallow
pit, where he could look down comfortably into Loran's face while he
talked to him. There was a ring of seats around the pit. Wyatt sat in
one. So did Makvern, and Brinna, and several other officers Wyatt did
not know. The pit was situated in the center of a quite small room with
soundproof walls and a single door, very thick and having a lock on the
inside. The room was deep in the most secret bowels of the flagship.
The crystal tubes were dead now. Loran rolled his head from side to
side and moaned. He had bitten his lips and tongue, and he was bleeding
slightly from the nose. Varsek watched him. There was not a sound in
the room other than Loran's moaning. Nobody moved. Nobody met anyone
else's eye. Nobody spoke. There might have been a concourse of waxen
dummies above the pit.
Except for Varsek. He spoke. He called Loran by name, several times,
with a dispassionate persistence, until he answered. Then Varsek said,
"Who is the leader of the Second Party?"
He had asked that question fifty, a hundred times before, in exactly
that tone of voice.
And Loran answered, as he had fifty or a hundred times before, "There
is no Second Party." Only his voice was weaker every time he said it.
And Wyatt was sicker. He clenched his hands and shut his jaw tight.
There was nothing he could do. He kept telling himself that. There was
nothing he could do.
Varsek said, "It's no use to lie to me, Loran. There is a Second Party.
Every ship in the fleet including this one has some officers and some
men who are not loyal to me--who are in fact dedicated to the task
of taking the fleet away from me. This I know Loran, I have absolute
proof. I'm only asking you who the leader is."
"There is no Second Party."
"Is he one of my staff officers, Loran?"
"There is no--"
"Which one?" And he named them through one at a time, including Makvern
and Brinna, every one that was there, and they sat in the bright light
with blank faces and fear in their eyes.
Loran said, "There is no Second Party."
"Let's be realistic about this," Varsek said. "Your friends, the men
you're so nobly protecting, can't help you now. I'm the only one who
can. I can have you up out of there in a minute, with the best medical
attention and everything you need to fix you up. All you have to do
is answer my questions. That's your duty, isn't it, Loran? Didn't you
swear an oath of loyalty to Uryx and the government of Uryx, and to me
as the duly appointed servant of that government?"
No answer.
"You're a young man, Loran. I don't imagine you love the idea of death.
Why leap at it? Tell me the names of the disloyal officers you know,
and you can live."
Loran said distinctly, "Go to hell."
Varsek gave the signal again.
The banked rods pulsed and flickered, and whatever nerve-searing,
flesh-torturing force was in them went to work on Loran.
* * * * *
Wyatt got up. He called Varsek the dirtiest name he could think of, in
a kind of choked and half-articulate voice, and then he started for
him. It was obviously a silly thing to do but he wasn't really thinking
about it. He just had a simple desire to stop Varsek from doing what he
was doing.
Several of the officers--Makvern was one of them--caught him before
he had taken two steps. Varsek glanced around. He smiled briefly. "I
thought you looked like a brave man," he said. "Brave men are usually
stubborn. That's why you're here, to see what happens to brave stubborn
men."
"There are a lot of them on Earth," said Wyatt fiercely. "They haven't
broken for other dirty little tyrants and they won't break for you.
Remember that."
Makvern snarled in his ear, "Shut up for God's sake. And sit down."
His face was rigidly controlled but in his eyes, deep down, there was
a wildness of hate and fury that startled Wyatt into obedience. He
allowed himself to be forced back toward his seat. And then Brinna
stepped forward and said to Varsek,
"It might be safer, sir, if I put him with the other prisoners now."
Varsek considered that, totally undisturbed by the deathly sounds from
the pit. He studied Brinna, who was looking rigidly past his head
at the opposite wall. He studied Makvern, who was now as blank as a
stone, so that Wyatt wondered if he had really seen what he thought he
had seen in Makvern's eyes. He studied the others, who showed varying
degrees of unhappiness, and then he said to Brinna,
"You look ill, Captain. How would you expect to command a battle fleet
if you can't stand to see one man die?"
Brinna's body was absolutely rigid. She said, "Are you accusing me of
plotting with the Second Party to take command? If so, I request a
formal--"
Varsek shook his head. "No accusation, Brinna. Merely a statement. I
know how it eats on your soul that you probably never will command a
fleet just on account of your sex." He grinned at her. "Sex isn't the
whole story, Brinna. I'm merely pointing that out to you. Ability and
toughness have something to do with it too. Isn't that so, Makvern?"
"I suppose so, sir."
The man in the pit howled like a tortured animal. Varsek pushed a
button impatiently and the rods stopped flickering and the howling
ceased.
"Very well," said Varsek, turning away, "take your delicate stomach
away from here. And maybe you can put your sex to some use with the
prisoner. Try it, anyway. The rest of you stay here."
Brinna saluted, turned smartly on her heel, snapped, "Follow me," at
Wyatt, and marched toward the door. Wyatt glanced at Makvern, who
refused to look at him, and went after Brinna.
He was thankful to get out of the room. Sick and raging himself, he did
not feel like talking and Brinna's face discouraged him anyway. The way
her bootheels rang on the iron floor he thought that she was wishing
Varsek's head under every one. Finally, when they had left even the
level of the pit-room behind and were walking together along an upper
corridor with nobody else in sight, he did speak.
"Are you plotting with the Second Party, Brinna?" he asked.
"No," she said savagely. "I am not. I hate everything they stand for."
"But you are plotting against Varsek?"
She stopped and looked at him with eyes as lambent as those of an angry
cat.
"If you have thoughts of helping your own cause by going to Varsek
about me, forget them. In the first place, Varsek helps nobody. In the
second place, I can have you silenced before you could ever get to him."
"No," said Wyatt slowly, "I wasn't thinking of going to Varsek. But
what he said about you is true. You do want the command. You figured
that Earth, armed and prepared, would give Varsek such a setback that
you might be able to oust him and take over."
"Do you blame me?" whispered Brinna. "He's a swine. A cruel,
treacherous, sadistic swine. You saw him. No wonder there's a Second
Party."
"How big is it, Brinna?"
"Big enough to worry Varsek. Loran is the third poor devil he's
tortured to death trying to find out who's in it. He hasn't managed
it yet, but he will. And then--" She made an expressive gesture of
slashing.
"You said you hated everything the Second Party stands for. What does
it stand for?"
"Peace," said Brinna, as though it was a shameful word. "They want
to take the Task Force home and force the government to stop this
galaxy-wide swing of conquest."
"And you don't want peace?"
"I'm a soldier. What use would I be at peace?" Her face was hard,
shining, exalted with ambition. "Not while I'm still young and
unsatisfied, anyway. Listen, Wyatt. I told you women are not segregated
and discriminated against in our society and that's true--except for
top positions of power in politics and the military. Even there it's
never stated openly. But somehow or other the women candidates never
quite make it. I'm going to be the first one to break that custom. I am
going to command this Task Force."
* * * * *
She put her hand on his arm, speaking rapidly, with urgent force. "I'm
not alone, Wyatt. I have a powerful group behind me. Varsek isn't
popular with the officers. The men love him because he wins battles and
looks the other way when they abuse the native women, but they don't
have to deal with him. All we need is an excuse--a demonstration that
Varsek has blundered badly--and we can step in. _I_ can step in. Earth
could give us that excuse, if your people put up enough of a surprise
fight. So you see our interests do run together."
"That far, they do," said Wyatt. "But afterward?"
"What do you mean, afterward?"
"After you take over. What happens to Earth then?" He shook her hand
away. "Don't treat me like a fool, Brinna. You don't take over from
Varsek on the grounds that he's failed and then admit that you too are
licked by the same situation."
Her eyes had narrowed and the anger-light was in them again. "So?"
"So you will then proceed to smash my world. You have to, to prove
you're more capable than Varsek. Otherwise, somebody will oust _you_."
"I warned you before not to let your cleverness betray you," she said.
"Let's be realistic about this. Earth is our next target, she's going
to be hit warning or no warning, and she's going to be beaten. Now.
Do you imagine Earth can get better and more merciful treatment from
Varsek, or from me?"
"When you put it that way," Wyatt said thoughtfully, "I can see a
preference. All right, Brinna. When do you think you can arrange the
escape?"
"The only chance will be some time during the attack on Alpha Centauri.
I'll get word to you as soon as the arrangements are made, but don't
get impatient. You heard Varsek. I'll have to move very cautiously."
"And what happens to me in the meantime?"
"You'll be questioned. Oh, not like that. Varsek reserves the pit for
special cases. By our Intelligence group, by subterfuge--the captives'
quarters are thoroughly monitored and don't forget it--and by Varsek
himself, probably. Don't antagonize him, Wyatt, or you could find
yourself in the pit at that."
They had come to a transverse corridor, and now Brinna gave him a
warning glance and said in a sharp impersonal tone, "That way." Her
hand was on the butt of her stunner.
Wyatt turned obediently, into the transverse corridor. A guard who
had been lounging midway of it snapped to attention. He was stationed
beside a door. Brinna marched Wyatt up to him and said, "Another one
for the tank," and the guard said, "Yes, sir." He did a complicated
series of things with his hands, apparently activating power sources
that released various locks, and the door opened.
"Inside," the guard said to Wyatt, and jerked his thumb.
With no further word to Brinna, Wyatt stepped through the door.
It closed behind him with the sound of a bank vault shutting for the
night.
The room he stood in was fairly large and it had bunks all around the
walls. About sixteen bunks, Wyatt thought, and there were about a dozen
men sitting on the edges of them, or sitting around a table bolted to
the floor in the center of the room. They were all looking at him.
They were the damnedest collection of humanity, or whatever you wanted
to call it, that Wyatt had ever come across. He remembered Brinna's
complaint that the accessible people, the ones easily picked up without
giving any wide-spread alarm, usually lived in isolated regions and
were without much in the way of technical knowledge.
He could see the problem, all right. Of the five Earthmen there,
one was an Arab in a dirty burnoose, one looked like a young Apache
Indian in old farm clothes, and one, at a guess, came from Chinese
Turkestan and smelled of camels. The other two were closer to home.
One was medium-tall and stocky, with a thick chest and thin strong
legs. He wore faded Levis and high-heeled boots and his face was
burned brick-red to the middle of his forehead. Above that his skin
was as white as a baby's. A Stetson hat hung on a peg over his bunk.
The fifth man, who sat beside him, was cut out of the same cloth, but
somehow with a difference. Wyatt was puzzled for a minute, and then he
remembered once seeing an Australian movie with a long lean leathery
actor named Chips Rafferty in it playing a stockman, and he thought he
had the answer.
The other six men in the room were not from Earth.
The other six men in the room were not human.
Not as Wyatt was used to thinking of human, homo sapiens, tracing a
well-fossilized descent back through the various _anthropus_ forms
and ultimately to the primal ancestor. These six walked erect and had
facile hands and humanoid bodies and quite handsome faces, but whatever
their primal ancestor had been it had not been like man's. It had left
them a legacy of body hair that could not be called anything else but
fur, and their skulls were curiously elongated rather than domed, and
their finger-tips still had their ancient claws, retracting catlike
into the flesh. Catlike, Wyatt thought, was a good word for them--and
yet not quite Earthly-catlike. The ears were too round, the eyes too
large and dark and capable of warmth. They wore garments of fine cloth
in bright shades to set off their individual color, and in size and
facial conformation they were as different from each other as the
Earthmen were.
They looked at Wyatt, sitting in two double rows on the edges of their
bunks. The Earthmen looked at Wyatt. And in no eye, human or humanoid,
was there a spark of friendliness.
Wyatt said, "Hello."
There was no answer. The stocky man and the long lean one got up, and
each one hitched up his pants and left the thumbs of his hands sticking
negligently in the waistband.
"Look," said Wyatt, annoyed, "I didn't come here because I wanted to,
but I haven't got smallpox or whooping cough, and I haven't wronged
anyone's sister."
The two men began to walk slowly forward. The young Apache rose and
came after them, a dark gleam flickering deep in his eyes. The Arab
rose, and then the Turcoman, and then the six lithe furry men came
dropping one by one from the edges of their bunks and all of them moved
toward Wyatt, not speaking.
A cold qualm of fear contracted his heart. He set his back against the
door and braced himself.
"What is this?" he said. "What are you doing? I'm an Earthman, a
captive like you. Why--"
"You're no Earthman," said the stocky southwesterner, in a very cold,
mild voice. "You're another goddamn lousy spy."
They came at him all together in a swift purposeful rush.