A hatchway in the side of the cylindrical interrogation chamber opened, and burly Captain McKey and one of his officers stepped inside. Asan turned his head to watch them. They weren’t quite in focus at the edges. He shut his eyes again. McKey reminded him too much of Saunders. Maybe it was that red hair and stocky build. Or maybe it was that dull look of immutable loyalty to the Galactic Space Institute.
“You turned it off,” said McKey. “Just when he was starting to talk? Are you mad, Ramer?”
“Sir. I thought you would prefer to conduct this yourself. The machine’s translator isn’t quite on frequency yet.”
“Damn.”
McKey stood over Asan and rubbed his chin. It needed shaving, Asan noted. A slight sense of superiority filled him. That was one of the nicer things about exchanging a human body for a Tlar one: no more facial hair.
The evidence of a beard also told Asan that McKey was something of a maverick. Beards were strictly against ship regulations.
“Well, Ramer? How the hell am I supposed to talk to this devil?”
“Here, sir.” Ramer stepped up and handed him a translator.
McKey held it in one enormous fist and frowned. He cleared his throat loudly. “Where is Blaise Omari?”
Weariness passed through Asan. McKey could have at least chosen a different way to phrase that question. Asan closed his eyes against this unpleasant angle of looking up McKey’s nose.
“Dead.”
That time the translator made it. Tlar-manufactured translators were better, Asan noted. Or maybe it was just easier to translate Standard into Tlar rather than the other way around. He certainly wasn’t going to betray the fact that he understood Standard.
“Damn,” said McKey. “Omari’s dead. I wanted to bring that little vat snake in myself. All right, you. What happened to him? How did he die? And when?”
“Shot,” said Asan, and went into another coughing fit.
His throat ached with thirst. It was too hard to talk. He longed to be able to communicate directly with McKey’s mind. But there were blanket beams switched on this chamber. The humans knew he was telepathic. Aural must have told them that too.
“Shot?” repeated McKey with a scowl. “Go on. Explain.”
“Executed by Leiil Hihuan, tyrant of Altian. Now also dead.”
As he spoke, Asan remembered that day of bewilderment in the black sands of the desert. Thinking his leg had been shot off, he’d lain out there beaten with exposure and pain until a Bban hunting party found him and dragged him back to their dara.
“Damn.” McKey was holding the translator upside down and shaking it. “I’m only getting about half of what he says.”
Ramer frowned. His face was almost too narrow to be human, with a quick nervous intelligence in his dark eyes. He took the translator from McKey and made a slight adjustment.
“I think he must be talking too fast, sir. The language also sounds inflected, which adds to our difficulties. This SK model has always been inferior to the newer—”
“That’ll do, Ramer,” said McKey. “We’ll try simpler questions. You, what’s your name?”
“Water.”
“We’re not at a garden party, you damned yellow giant. What’s your name?”
“Give me water.”
McKey was turning red. “Your name first—”
“Sir.” Ramer touched his sleeve. “He has been coughing blood. He might give us information more readily if it’s less painful to talk.”
“What? Oh, very well.”
Ramer vanished, returning more quickly than Asan expected with a short beaker of clear liquid. Asan strained for it, then his sense of smell warned him of chemical additions. He jerked his head away and scowled.
“Chielt! Pan’at cha. Muli’it nun part. Tel!”
The contempt in the Bban words was plain enough to color Ramer’s face. He stared at the beaker while McKey shook the translator in disgust.
“Not a word of that came through.”
“Different language, sir,” said Ramer quietly. “He detected the drug.”
McKey grunted. For the first time a measure of respect entered his eyes as though he finally considered Asan an intelligent being. “Well, then. We were doing better as we were. Go and get him some plain water.”
The liquid was soothing, incredibly cool against his raw throat, and not nearly enough. Asan swallowed in greedy, desperate gulps, straining against the vil-thread straps. When Ramer pulled the beaker away, Asan curbed the urge to demand more and let his head fall back against the board. Relief spread through his body along with the moisture. He felt almost ready to tell them anything they liked.
“My name,” he said, remembering the bargain, “is Asan. I am Tlar leiil, First of the Great and the Arm of Anthi.”
McKey’s brows shot up as though he hadn’t expected such cooperation.
“It is not of need to treat me in this way,” continued Asan. “To kidnap me and torture me for answers to unimportant questions.”
“The whereabouts of these people is vitally important.”
“How? Were they of rank? Was their house and lineage noble? Were they above caste? If so, how did they come to us as fugitives, homeless and destitute, to die far from their own world?”
McKey blinked through all this. “Omari was a petty criminal who hijacked one of our ships to escape detention and rehabilitation. You’ve told us what happened to him. What about the rest of the crew? Saunders and Captain—”
“All dead,” said Asan. He was anxious for this to end now.
But the quick answer was the wrong one. At once he saw that McKey did not believe him. McKey frowned.
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not.”
Asan frowned. “How could they live? You have seen our world. It is not a place for outsiders. Survival is difficult. Food is scarce. Protection from the black sun is hard to find. The sand will eat one’s flesh from one’s bones.”
“Sure,” said McKey. “But Queen Aural told us you had our people hidden away in your stronghold.”
Asan nearly laughed at the absurd title. Did she know what the translator reduced her to? A queen was a nonentity compared to a leiis of the blood. But his anger at Aural’s betrayal came back to kill the laughter. She was going to have to pay for all she’d done.
McKey was speaking again. Wearily Asan pulled his attention back to him.
“I have no stronghold. Aural lied.”
McKey snorted. “We’ll get the truth out of you.”
“I have told you the truth.”
McKey started at him, and with dismay Asan saw a look in those eyes which told him Aural had reached McKey’s mind and shaped it to her perceptions. He would never believe Asan. Aural had planned it that way.
Asan thought about trying to overcome the blanket beam and reach McKey’s mind himself, but he knew it wasn’t possible. Not in his present state. He sighed. Maybe he’d told them enough for a while. Maybe they would take him out of the TANK and let him rest. Maybe they would feed him.
McKey turned away, then glanced back at Asan. “Tell me this. We picked up trace indications of advanced technology on your planet when we were barely within orbital range, but close-up scanning found nothing. So we know you people have defenses you aren’t letting on about. Tell me about those. Tell me about your secret weapons that you’ve hidden away, and I might just accept what you’ve told me about the Forerunner crew.”
Asan stiffened. “What we have is no danger to you as long as you leave Ruantl in peace and do not return.”
McKey glanced at Ramer. “Funny. I expected an answer like that. Turn the machine back on, Ramer. Feed in a new tape. We still have a lot of questions to go.”
Chapter 8
The first thing Zaula noticed as she came slowly awake was the heat. She was sweating in her heavy robes, and a strand of her dark hair was stuck damply to her brow. Puzzled, she opened her eyes, only to shut them quickly against the dazzling light.
Then sh
e remembered. She’d been taken by the strange n’kai on their transport into the sky. They’d locked her into this cell and left her hours ago.
Rubbing her eyes, she sat up on the soft bunk and gazed around. Luxury surrounded her. The blanket on her bunk was of a soft gray material as light as air, yet warmer than borlorl fur. The light that had blinded her at first was clear and artificial. She glanced about, but saw no lightcubes. Nor could she find a source of the heat that throbbed through every muscle in her body. She felt pliant and curiously content.
Stretching, she took off her heavy robe of leadweave and tossed it over a chair of strange design. There was a table fashioned of a material that was neither metal nor wood. She tapped it with her fingertips and frowned at the objects sitting on top of it.
One was a faceted cube about the size of her fist. At first she thought it was a stone. When she picked it up, the surface was polished and cold. Its color changed from a brownish-gray to white to a face staring back at her.
“Ah’hi!”
She dropped the stone, and it bounced on the tabletop with a thud. The face disappeared, and after a breathless moment she felt ashamed of her fear.
Slowly she picked up the stone again and waited until the face reappeared. This time she saw that it was not a living creature trapped within the center of the stone, but only a representation. The face was alien to her, pale and grayish-pink in color with a shapeless bump of a nose, striped eyes, and a smile frozen in time. She found the n’dl ugly and put down the stone.
Beside it was a panel of machinery controls, all in different colors. She traced her fingertips over these, wondering what would happen if she pushed one, yet not daring to do so. Machines were fragile, precious things which only trained technicians of the House of Kkanthor must touch. No one else.
The pad and stylus did not interest her at all. Writing was for Henan scribes. A small bowl the size of a dye pot held small pebbles of different colors. She scooped some of these up in her palm, fascinated by the purples and pinks and ambers flashing iridescently in the light. Then she let them spill between her fingers back into the bowl. They tinkled musically as they fell.
Laughing, she scooped up another handful and let them fall. This time the musical notes were in another order as though different colors made different tones. Perhaps the n’kai were not such strange creatures after all. If they enjoyed music, they must be civilized.
She played for a few minutes, trying all kinds of variations and testing each color individually to listen to it before combining it back with the other pebbles. Then she returned the bowl to its place and continued her exploration.
On the other side of the cell was a door that vanished as she approached it. Startled, she jumped back. The door reappeared with a swift hiss. Frowning, Zaula tried to touch it with her hand. The door vanished again. This time, however, she saw that it was only recessing itself into the wall. She smiled in approval. The n’kai did not need slaves if they had such marvels as this.
She stepped through the doorway into a shadowy alcove. At once lights sprang on. She did not flinch this time. The floor beneath her feet was a gray, springy substance that gave slightly under each step. The walls were of the same material. The function of this alcove was plain. She stared at the nozzles overhead, then looked at the lever close to her hand. She hesitated a moment and pulled it.
A fine mist of water fell upon her. She laughed, lifting her arms to the water, then quickly stripped off her gown and let the shower stream over her.
Moments later, the water pulses began alternating with puffs of warm air, the latter growing more frequent until she stood dry and tingling under the lights. The water pooled around her feet drained away for recycling. Zaula approved. Even luxury should not be wasted.
A wall panel slid open, and in astonishment she pulled a garment from the recess. It was soft and supple to the touch. Always interested in clothes, she shook out the folds and smiled.
It was a ludicrous thing, all of one piece with tunic and trousers for a man. She cocked her head to one side, amused by the notion of herself in ka clothes. No self-respecting dl of a noble house would dare appear in something that exposed her limbs so boldly. And as Tsla leiis, she must never—no.
Bitterness twisted inside her, making her crumple the garment in her fist. She was leiis no longer. She had been given to the n’kai like a piece of bartered goods.
All her life others more powerful than she had shaped her life. From a childhood in the citadel of her house, whisked out of sight when adults of rank walked through the nursery, she had been annually inspected by a trio of the matriarch’s women in waiting. Her teeth, her eyes, the straightness of her limbs, the gracefulness of her walk, the shade of her skin, the sheen of her hair, the quality of her voice, the strength of her rings—all were checked and discussed as though she were nothing but a despised Henan slave of no caste.
When she became a woman, her own father consented to see her, but she knew nothing of the visit except that she was placed beside a fountain in the villa and told to play tunes on her bailanke. He watched her from the latticed balcony, spying on her, judging her beauty and ability to please a man. Two days later she was masked, robed, and taken to the palace of Leiil Hihuan, to become his leiis, to preside over his Court of Women, to have first consequence in the tiny circle allotted her.
The old resentment came back as she thought of those days as ring-mate when she was toyed with, ignored, summoned abruptly, expected to adore and reverence a man who never troubled to become other than a stranger to her. Without Fflir she would have gone mad in that perfumed prison. Lying in Fflir’s arms, she used to dream of the days when she would be free.
Zaula coughed in anger. What good were dreams? They were as clouds on the horizon of the Outerlands, mirages that promised the sweet rain yet never came.
And yet…She slowly turned around, frowning at her surroundings. If this was a prison, it was the gentlest one she had ever known. These n’kai were rich beyond belief, rich enough to provide captives with exquisite comfort. And the n’kai, no matter what terrible thing they might have planned for her, did not care whether she was leiis or deposed leiis. Rank and caste were beyond their limited understanding. The proud history of her house was as grains of dust to them. Even her beauty had ceased to enslave her, for to the alien eyes of the n’kai she could not be beautiful. Their idea of beauty was trapped in the center of that stone in the other room.
Aware of a sense of release, she smoothed out the crumpled garment where she had gripped it so angrily. Her fingers ran along the diagonal band of dark green, and the tunic opened.
Intrigued by the invisible fastenings, she closed and opened it several times, then smiled to herself in a burst of mischief and pulled the garment on.
It fit, more or less, being snug across her breasts and shapeless at the waist. She was about the same height as most of the n’kai. She stared down at her legs encased in the trousers and wriggled her bare golden toes. It felt good to do what was forbidden.
She put on her slippers and went back into the other room. Two men were standing there with drawn weapons.
Startled, she gasped and stopped in the doorway, gripping it with both hands.
One of them spoke and advanced on her. She backed up into the small bathing alcove, but retreat was futile. Annoyance twisted the human’s dark face. He spoke again, more sharply this time, and gestured a command she did not understand.
“What do you want?” asked Zaula, trying not to panic.
The human grabbed her arm, and she cried out in fear. His fingers were surprisingly strong for one of his small size. He pulled her from the alcove and swung her around so that she was pinned up against the table. Still holding her in that bruising grip, he pushed up her sleeve and held the pale golden length of her forearm extended.
The second human holstered his weapon and pulled a tube no longer than the length of his hand from his pocket. One end of the tube was pointed. Producing an
other instrument, this one a short thick cylinder also pointed on one end, he walked up to Zaula and made a deft incision in her arm.
She screamed, but to her surprise there was no pain. The man holding her pressed his free hand against the vulnerable spots of her throat. He spoke, but she already understood from the pressure that she was to remain very still. She obeyed, her heart fluttering erratically inside her. Her broken rings stirred, instinctively trying to form to save her. But she was helpless, unable to do more than watch these creatures as they opened her flesh and probed within the tissues of her arm.
The probe grated on bone, then touched something that sent a quiver through her. The n’ka grunted as though satisfied and fitted a tiny object inside her arm, then closed the incision. Zaula stared, still unable to believe there had been no blood and no pain. Only a faint pink line showed where the cut had been made.
“…should work adequately,” said the human with the instruments.
Zaula jerked, startled that she could suddenly understand him.
He bared his teeth at her. “Good. It’s working, Mike. She understands us now.”
The man holding her grunted and released her. Zaula sagged against the table, feeling bruised and still frightened.
“We’ve fitted you with a translator,” said the first human. He had the bony thinness of desert people and a gaunt, awkward way of moving despite his deftness with the instruments. His hair grew in white tufts that stuck out over his ears, and thick gray eyebrows jutted out above deep-set eyes. “Normally we put them in behind the ear where they work at maximum effectiveness, but we were a little dubious about getting you to hold still for that. How do you feel? Any discomfort in the arm?”
Zaula stared at him, not yet daring to speak. By the mercy of Anthi, how many wonders did these n’kai possess? Slowly she turned her palm down in answer.
Requiem for Anthi: Anthi - Book Two Page 9
