Sentenced to Prism

by Alan Dean Foster

"Then there's no one for us to mistreat, is there? Except you, if you persist in your stubbornness." Frazier turned to Winona. "See that they get anything they want in the way of food or drink." He looked back at Evan. "You must be ready for a regular meal after all those days out in the wilds. Maybe you'll feel more agreeable on a full belly."

  They were marched across the station grounds. They had to climb to the platform atop the observation tower because power was still out to the lifts. The platform itself was deserted, its instruments sealed against dust and wind-borne lifeforms. The current occupants of the station were not interested in scientific observation.

  Security bands were used to bind the prisoners' wrists and ankles. Evan and Martine were then made to sit against the wall. They did not look very threatening. Certainly it was a waste of manpower for three people to stand watch over two such helpless, unarmed intruders, so the guards chose among themselves to see which of their number would remain on duty.

  Winona and one of the men departed, leaving their unlucky companion to grumble at his ill fortune. After a brief glance at his two motionless charges, he let his attention drift out over the glistening, fascinating alien landscape. What he did not know, could not know, was that his seemingly silent prisoners were conversing nonstop.

  Evan nodded imperceptibly down toward the slim strap which bound his ankles together. "Self sealing carbon-composite cuff. Same thing that's on your wrists. Ten men couldn't snap one."

  "I could cut through it in a second, but I have to be able to straighten my arm in order to align the ulnar lenses properly."

  "Which reminds me: why didn't you shoot a few people when you had the chance?"

  "Too many guns around. I thought I'd wait for a better opportunity."

  "I hope we get one." He tried to peer over the low inner wall, to see into the forest beyond. "I think we'll have to ask our friends to make one."

  "I'd rather not drag the natives into human conflicts."

  "They're already involved, whether we'd like them to be or not. They became involved when this world was discovered. If we don't do something to stop Frazier and his ilk, our friends will be the worse off for it."

  Martine's tone was sardonic. "Will they? Is our company so altruistic?"

  Evan resented having to admit it, but she had a point. Who was to say that their employers would deal any more fairly with Azure and his kin than Frazier's? He could simply have told her they'd worry about that later, but that wasn't Evan Orgell's style. He was constitutionally unable to leave a challenge unrefuted.

  "No, it's not. If so, they'd have reported this discovery to the proper authorities immediately. They're after exclusive development rights for at least a year, you know that. And they haven't ordered anyone murdered. I can say for certain that you and I are better people than Frazier and that woman who was in the admin room with him."

  She smiled ever so slightly. "You're sure of that?"

  "Absolutely."

  "I wish I was as positive of my own goodness as you are."

  "Take my word for it, then."

  She turned away from him to look past the daydreaming guard. "I wish we'd been able to bring a talker with us. I don't know if anybody will pick us up at this range."

  "After the talkers the scouts are the ones with the best hearing, right? This one who's been traveling with me, Azure? He and I have become, well, close. Sensitized. If anyone picks us up it'll be him. We'll call together. And watch the left side of your face. We don't want to show any strain." He nodded in the guard's direction. "He's ignoring us because we don't look like we're doing anything. Let's keep it that way."

  "Supposing they do pick us up. What do we want them to do?"

  "I haven't thought that far ahead. Rut you know better than I how good they are at fixing what's broken. It might be interesting to see how they go about taking things apart."

  "You're assuming they'll take the risk of helping us."

  "I don't doubt it for a minute. I'm a member of their Associative. Friendship doesn't follow form. Ask a thranx."

  "I will. If we ever get out of here."

  "Ready? On three. One, two..."

  The guard continued to gaze out over the sparkling horizon. He was wondering when Frazier would give the word to leave the beautiful but dangerous place. He neither heard nor sensed the explosive cry for help that burst from his bound prisoners.

  There was no misunderstanding, no fumbling for the right words. Their cry was picked up and deciphered simultaneously.

  "What's wrong?" Azure asked. Evan knew the scout's voice as well as he knew his own. "Are you all right? What's happened?"

  "The people who have come here are not our friends. They are the associates of the human who killed Martine's companions and forced her to flee. They have made us their prisoners and plan to take us away with them on their ship. They have plans in mind for you and your world," and he proceeded to detail the likely course exploitation and development would take under the heavy hand of Frazier's superiors.

  It was library who finally responded. "You have lived with us, fought with us, and helped us. You are a member of the Associative. Your friend is a member by association with you, and perhaps even more than that. We have not had time enough to explore the philosophical implications of all these recent developments but we know who our friends are. Of course we will help you."

  "You're going to have to be very careful. These people are wearing survival suits. They're not as well equipped as the one I arrived in, but they're most than sufficient for dealing with the majority of native animals. That includes you, my friends."

  "But we are not animals." Azure's reply was quietly confident.

  "It may be necessary to hurt some of them in order to protect ourselves while we are freeing you." That had to be from library— worried about morality as always— Evan knew.

  Martine had an answer for such concerns. "Do what you have to do. You say I am a member of your Associative by relation. These people are murderers. They kill not to defend themselves or to obtain food but for abstracts. They won't hesitate to kill any of you simply to learn how you work."

  They overheard library addressing the other members of the Associative. "It is as I thought. These humans are more advanced in knowledge than we are but their system of ethics is woefully underdeveloped."

  Neither Evan nor Martine spoke up to dispute library's assertion. If the locals wanted to believe they were morally superior to their human friends, let them. It could not hurt, and there was always the possibility that library was right.

  "We will come in and free you," Azure told him.

  "It's not going to be that easy. I know what you're capable of, but you've no idea what modern weapons can do. You're familiar with the barrean's defenses? The kind that the other physicians installed in Martine? Well, these people all carry devices which are just as powerful."

  "We have dealt with the barrean." Azure tried to reassure his friend. "I myself have dodged their attacks on more than one occasion." There were a few barely audible comments from other members of the Associative which might have qualified as electronic snickers. Azure ignored them.

  "We will extricate you from your present situation with minimal loss of life," library said with great dignity. "Stay where you are. Give no indication that you are in contact with us or that you know what is happening."

  "Naturally. Wait a minute. Don't you want us to tell you what to do, how to proceed?"

  A faint suggestion of a mental smile. "Credit us with the intelligence you told your captors we possess. We will come for you before sunset, after we have had the time to bring ourselves to full strength. Until then we need to discuss how we are going to proceed among ourselves."

  A last, cheery "Don’t worry" came from Azure. Then the only voice in his head was Martine's.

  "We'd better try and get some rest. We want to be as alert as possible when your friends come for us."

  "I wonder if it's possible to sleep in this position."
He struggled until he'd worked his way onto his side. "I doubt it."

  But he was wrong.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The changing of the guard woke him. Marline was already conscious. Evan blinked sleepily, saw that Prism's intensely bright sun was just beginning to set. Their new guard had familiar features to go with the large needler she wore in her holster.

  "Winona, right?"

  The woman smiled thinly at him. "Hello again. Give me no trouble and I'll deal you no pain. Shut up and go back to sleep. It'll be easier on all of us." She turned away from him.

  A soft voice in his head. "It is beginning."

  "What?" In his surprise he spoke aloud. Winona looked back at him and frowned.

  "Say again?"

  "Nothing," Evan said sheepishly. "Just coming out of a bad dream."

  "Better get used to them. I hear they're going to turn you two over to Nodaway."

  "They may have restored the station's defensive perimeter," Martine was telling their would-be rescuers. "It's a powerful electric field that runs between pylons, metal posts. You'll have to find some way to avoid it. I'm sure the field is strong enough to wipe your memories if not kill you outright."

  "We know about the danger," Azure told them. "We have already bypassed it."

  "What?" Evan tried to look over the rim of the wind shield, past their guard. There was no sign that anything was amiss in the camp.

  Martine was equally confused. "If the fence is powered up and you came through it you should have set off a flock of alarms."

  "We determined not to disturb anything." Library was speaking now. "So we set several of our number to divert the energy flow around us while we walked past."

  "That's impossible," Evan said flatly.

  "You forget the conduits, my friend. They can carry other things besides water."

  Evan tried to envision his friends' approach, several conduits linked together, perhaps forming a neat arch between two charged pylons, diverting the lethal voltage harmlessly through their bodies while the other members of the Associative calmly strolled into the camp beneath this bypass. Since current continued to flow freely between pylons, there would be no interruption. No interruption meant no blaring alarms inside the station compound. It was an elegant solution.

  "You still have to watch out for guns," Martine reminded them. "A needler won't disrupt your own personal electrical fields but it will go right through you."

  Silence then for what felt like an agonizingly long time. It seemed certain to Evan that the attack had faltered. Had library changed its mind? Had they decided that their human friends were not worth the pain of deaths within the Associative?

  Then a pair of warriors clambered over the wind shield and things began to happen very quickly.

  One pounced on Winona while the other rushed to free the prisoners. Sharp rotating teeth sliced through the bands that bound Evan at ankle and wrist. He heard a moan from Winona. Thoughts of acid and other local forms of weaponry passed through his mind and he shuddered, not wishing that fate even on an enemy.

  As usual, his imagination was worse than the reality. Their guard was lying on the observation deck, her legs curled beneath her, her hands twitching slightly while the other warrior stood nearby. As it worked to free Martine, Evan's rescuer explained.

  "No acids. Library forbade it," the warrior told them in its usual clipped, terse phrases. "Been analyzing your old exoskeleton. Gatherers found the necessary ingredients, processors synthesized it. Spray it on your kind of exoskeleton and it kills."

  "Kills?" Evan murmured.

  "Kills flexibility," the warrior corrected.

  Martine bent over the guard, who was still moaning reassuringly. Sure enough, a dark sticky substance now clung to the survival suit at selected points. Where the liquid had hardened, so had the suit, with the result that every joint had been frozen. Their guard could not reach for her gun, could not stand up, could not even run away. Her survival suit had been turned into a straitjacket. And no blood had been spilled.

  The warrior reached forward. Winona's moan changed to a whine, but the powerful claws were not reaching for her. They opened the holster and withdrew the needler. The warrior examined it with professional interest. "Doesn't look very dangerous."

  "Neither do you."

  "Hmph. Own body is better than extraneous supplements." Silicate claws contracted. The metal housing of the needler crumpled like foil.

  "What— what are you going to do to me?" Winona blubbered. Her earlier bravado had vanished completely, "What did you do to my suit? Where did these monsters come from?"

  "Quiet," Evan ordered her. "And don't call them monsters. They're sensitive." He reached down and shut off her battery pack, eliminating power to her suit communicator. "Don't worry about your suit. You've lived on Samstead too long. The only suit that matters is the one you're wearing next to your bones." He reached down again and unsnapped her hood.

  "Please— no," she moaned.

  Pitiful, Evan thought to himself. He removed the hood, tossed it over the side of the platform as the sounds of yells and curses began to reach them. All hell was breaking loose below.

  He joined Martine at the railing. People were running out of buildings. Some of them were only half-dressed. Every now and then the brief crackle of a needler could be heard.

  Initial confusion slowly gave way to a semblance of organization as figures in twos and threes began to gather on the west side of the administration building. Moving in a body and firing as they did so, they began to retreat in the direction of the shuttle.

  "Your friends are cutting their visit short," Martine informed her. The guard's eyes went wide.

  "No, please, let me go with them! Don't let them leave me here!" She was staring in terror at the warrior who stood over her.

  "Why should we let you go?" Martine's reply was cold. "You deceived us and turned us over to Frazier. You'd have shot us without a thought if either of us had tried to escape earlier."

  "Please, I was just doing my job."

  "I— hell, Martine, let her go. Besides, if Frazier and his people still have any doubts that Prism is home to a Class A population, she should be able to help resolve them."

  Martine considered, then turned and bent to grasp their former guard with a sapphire-blue crystalline hand.

  "You see that these people, and they are people, are highly intelligent. We told Frazier that and he refused to believe us. Remind him." The woman nodded frantically. "This world is off limits to commercial development."

  "Sure it is." Her tone was bitter. "Your own company's just going to give up its investment here and walk out, right?"

  ""That's right," Evan told her, startled at his own words. "We're going to make sure the proper authorities are notified. There's not going to be any unchecked exploitation of Prism. The native sentients are going to be allowed to develop at their own pace and in their own way until they've progressed far enough to qualify themselves for Commonwealth membership." He blinked, gazed dazedly at Martine. "Did I actually say what I think I just said?"

  "You sure did," she told him proudly before turning to address the patient warrior standing nearby. "Loosen her suit so she can walk."

  "I am afraid there is no way to do that."

  "Then cut her out of it."

  Its teeth a rotating blur, the warrior obediently stepped forward. The air was filled with a high-pitched whine as it went to work on the guard's survival suit. She cringed, but need not have worried. No physician, the warrior nevertheless displayed a touch delicate enough to cut the suit without touching its occupant. In moments it was split neatly down the center.

  Like a snake shedding an old skin, the guard kicked the useless garment aside. Without leaving behind so much as a single thank-you, she was out the window and shinnying down one of the supporting girders.

  Leaning over the edge of the wind shield, Evan and Martine watched as their former guard sprinted to catch up to her retreating companio
ns. As they stared, it struck Evan that not all the bursts of light that were spotted around the scene of battle were coming from human weapons. He asked the warrior about it.

  "The physicians have been very busy. Conduits can carry many things, and Flects can concentrate much energy. The physicians conferred with library. As a result, we have a new type of individual in the Associative, one that is part Flect, part conduit, part gatherer, and part warrior— and part something else. Something new." Multiple hands gestured at Martine. "Something akin to what you carry within right upper limb." It moved to the railing and raised itself up enough to peer over the rim. Flat lenses scanned the grounds below. "See, there is one of our new relations at work."

  Evan and Martine looked. The warrior was pointing at a shape. It was bright red beneath and silver on top, sliced with grooves of deeper, embedded silver silicate. This new citizen of the Associative resembled a crystalline millipede.

  It straightened its tubular body and bent its head. From the back of its neck a thin beam of coherent light emerged to strike at the cluster of retreating humans. The light lasted for several seconds before the head raised. The millipede ducked out of sight as Frazier's panicked troops tried to return the fire.

  "I'll be damned." Martine stared wonderingly at this latest product of the physicians' collaborative genius. "A laser with legs."

  "So are you, sort of."

  "Not quite. I am an intelligence in possession of a weapon, not an intelligence possessed by a weapon."

  "Look, there's another one." Evan pointed to where a second millipede was harrying Frazier's staff from the cover of the water purification plant.

  There was a great deal of noise and light, but not much death, since it appeared that the humans' survival suits were just able to deflect the attacks, or were the millipedes capable of generating far more powerful effects but holding back under orders from library? The warriors who'd rescued them confirmed that this was the case.

  "Library orders that there be as little killing as possible." The warrior sniffed. Such directives were distressing to its karma.

  Frazier's people were stumbling into the shuttle now, their panic and confusion evident even at a distance. "They're being herded aboard." Martins was grinning. "Probably don't even realize what's being done to them."