The Imprisoned Earth

by Vaughn Heppner

  I waited, realizing the man liked to hear himself pontificate. I considered it a weakness and wondered how much I could learn from him.

  “I’ll let you in on a well-known fact,” he said. “If you attempted to hold me hostage, the corporation would use skimmers to bomb your clan into oblivion.”

  A cold feeling worked through me at the threat. Was he right about that?

  “Those aren’t my rules, by the way. Those are the corporation’s rules. Do you understand?”

  “I do,” I said.

  “Hmmm, I don’t know. You seem too calculating, like an angry man under tight control. Most people wouldn’t see that in you, but I do. Among my countless abilities is a keen understanding of body language. I can read you like a computer screen. Still, I don’t like the biofeedback method of controlling the cat men. Do you know what I’m talking about when I say biofeedback?”

  I shook my head.

  “Some of the observers took a hard dislike to you. I read their recommendations to the trustees. The trustees suggested I pass you over. They want me to wear a command helmet with brain-scan discs pressing against my scalp. The helmet would have a wireless connection to obedience chips inserted in the cat men’s brains. If any of the cat men attempted to harm me, I could punish them, or I could coerce them to specific actions by simply thinking. Do you know what the word ‘coerce’ means?”

  “Force.”

  Dr. Calidore stared at me, drumming his skinny fingers on the desk. “Will you take an oath that you will guard me to best of your ability?”

  “I will, with the proviso that I will do nothing that harms the Wolf Clan.”

  “Hmmm, I not sure I can accept that. You might combine the proviso with torturous logic and in the end do anything you want: claiming that to do otherwise would hurt your clan.”

  “If that’s so, what good would my oath be in the first place?”

  His brown eyes seemed to shine with delight. “I have just decided that you are an honest man. Notice, I did not say an honest barbarian. I rank you as a man.”

  I nodded.

  “Come, come, I’m clearly superior to you, a wog, if you will.”

  “Is wog a racial slur?”

  “It’s a statement of fact in the Allan Corporation Universe. Do you know what I mean by calling it a universe?”

  “Culture,” I said.

  “Clever, clever indeed,” he muttered, soon turning away, sighing. “There’s an emergency, a critical one possibly. The Allan Corporation is sending me, among others, to the problem to see if we can solve it. That means your duties would begin immediately, and that means in space. You’re not space trained, but then again, neither are the cat men. Their natural balance would give them a decided advantage over you in free fall. But your intelligence and presumably that of your friends might prove more important. Oh, this is a difficult choice.”

  “Not really,” I said.

  Calidore perked up, turning to me. “How so?”

  “You need guards, you said. I imagine that means to look after you, to keep you alive. Yet, if you choose the cat men, you would have to wear a control helmet as you kept watch over the half-animal protectors. That means you would be unable to employ your full intellect on whatever problem you’re supposed to handle because you’ll be too busy watching your guards.”

  “Wordy but logical,” he said. “Are you applying for the job?”

  I realized I was, and nodded. A space problem meant space technology. If the Wolf Clan could get hold of such tech…

  Dr. Calidore frowned as wrinkle lines appeared on his broad forehead. “Fine. I’ll let you know my decision soon enough.” He pressed a button on his desk.

  Abruptly, he vanished from the wall screen. And I was left waiting, wondering which way he would decide and how long it would take me to find out.

  -4-

  It took a week. We sat around in the barracks doing nothing but dicing and thousands of calisthenics as we waited. Then, the guards came and told me to choose two of my warriors.

  I pointed at Hector Trask, my right arm guard, and Lee McHenry, my left arm guard. Hector was broad and had heavy slabs of muscle. He hit whatever he aimed at. We used hammer-cock and fire revolvers out in the Badlands. After discharging them, we usually rushed with Roman swords drawn. Lee was silent, short and able to fix anything; even bringing ancient radios back to life. He had curly dark hair and brown teeth. The teeth thing was a wild mutation, one of the few that hadn’t killed its bearer.

  The guards marched us to an equipment-filled chamber. There, each of us took a space-useable weapon, a needler that shot tiny poisoned slivers. When I asked, a guard explained that a laser or a slugthrower might accidentally rupture the bulkhead of a space vehicle. Then, we each received a spacesuit, including its helmet, and a heavy welding unit.

  The guards showed us how to use the welders, which emitted a hot blue glow. They also showed us how to recharge the needlers, although after the presentation, they took all the ammo and welder energy packs back.

  After that, they circled us, marching us to an underground railcar. The guards didn’t wish us luck, they just kept their weapons trained on us as we boarded. There were others like us waiting in the railcar.

  Before we could ask questions, doors slid shut and the car whooshed away, plunging us into subterranean darkness. That was the beginning of a long and tedious journey.

  Several hours later, Hector, Lee and I separated from the others, lugging our equipment to a metal shed on a gigantic tarmac. In the near distance was a huge rocket standing beside a giant metal scaffold. Workers in enclosed suits and helmets detached a huge hose from the bottom of the rocket. A small amount of white liquid spilled out, causing vapor clouds to billow.

  We went through an airlock into the shed and took an elevator down. There, Dr. Calidore waited for us. He was in an annex of a long, brightly lit, well-ventilated, underground tunnel. He wore a spacesuit, with his helmet and a lumped-up tarp on a table beside him. Others moved hurriedly throughout the tunnel.

  “Your attention, please,” Calidore said, rubbing his gloved fingers together.

  What the heck? Then it hit me and I almost grinned. I realized he was trying to snap his fingers.

  “I’m Jason Bain. This is Hector Trask and Lee McHenry.”

  “There’s no need for that,” Calidore said testily. “Of course I know who all of you are. I’ve studied your test results in detail and seen photos. I’ll tell you frankly, after further thought, I had decided against you three. The trustees convinced me that I couldn’t rely on you, Bain. According to the observers, you’re a rebel, stubborn to a fault and a natural killer, the most dangerous of men, in fact. I had thought I wanted that, but now I know I don’t.”

  “Then why are we here?”

  “Because of a malfunction in the control helmet. Two of the cat men died when I attempted to coerce them. Seems I overloaded the control chips in their brains—burned out the gray matter. It was a grisly death. Quite repulsive, believe you me.”

  The doctor shivered at the memory.

  “We’re the second team?” I asked.

  “I want that oath,” Calidore said, ignoring my question. “If I don’t get the oath, I’ll leave here alone. I know that will put me at serious risk…” He shrugged, as if he didn’t really care about that.

  I frowned. “We’re heading for space?”

  “Not if you don’t give me that oath, you aren’t.”

  “That’s not the point. If we’re headed for space, who can possibly harm you? I don’t understand why you need bodyguards.”

  Calidore stared at me as if I was a fool.

  “You’ll be among corporation people,” I said, “not out in the wilds facing so-called barbarians trying to kill you.”

  Calidore shook his head. “Don’t you know why the corporations control the planet?”

  “Yes. Superior technology.”

  “Bah! That has little to do with it. The corporations are br
utally practical. Only the best serve in the highest positions. But how can one determine the best? In the end, actions speak louder than words. In the end, survival is the chief trait. I can keep my position by producing results and by keeping myself alive. That includes from any assassination attempts from my inferiors trying to climb rank.”

  “We’re to be your bodyguards against Allan Corporation assassins?” My eyes were wide.

  “It’s a cutthroat world at the top. I’ve outlived my colleagues because I’m as cunning as a fox and as deadly as a lion. The cat men were supposed to be—it doesn’t matter now. They’re dead. If I can trust you… But how can I trust a natural born killer and rebel?”

  “Skimmers,” I said.

  “Eh?”

  “I don’t want skimmers bombing Wolf Clan encampments.”

  Understanding lit his eyes. “An honest man who truly loves his people. You do love your people, do you not?”

  I nodded, knowing that if he’d asked Hector or Lee that, they might have slapped his face in outrage for thinking they might not.

  “Swear the oath,” Calidore said.

  “I swear to protect you to the best of my ability, providing it does nothing to harm the Wolf Clan of Nevada, so help me God.”

  Hector and Lee swore after me.

  “Hmmm…barbaric oaths, but they will suffice for the moment. Now, to the matter at hand,” he said briskly, removing the tarp and revealing needler ammunition and welder power packs. “Load up, gentlemen, and do exactly as I say.”

  “Do you expect immediate trouble, then?”

  “Oh yes,” he said, “because we’re the ones who are going to make it.”

  -5-

  “I want to make one thing perfectly clear, gentlemen,” Calidore told us as we rode an elevator up to the top of the waiting rocket.

  It was just the four of us again. A spaceport supervisor had interrupted Calidore in the underground port minutes after his grand pronouncement. We had been with other teams until then, stopping Calidore from telling us his secret plan. The four of us wore spacesuits and held our helmets. The three of us also lugged the doctor’s excess equipment as well as our welders and power packs. We couldn’t see out of the elevator, as it had enclosed walls.

  Four other teams had gone up ahead of us. Three more would come up after us.

  “If you remember nothing else I say,” Calidore told us, “remember this. Your fates are linked to mine. If I die, you three will die. If I fail, you three will die. Your sole objective is keeping me alive and making sure I succeed.”

  “That’s two objectives,” I said.

  His brown eyes glowed, and I realized he had become highly agitated. Maybe he was nervous, possibly frightened by what we were going to attempt.

  “Perhaps by becoming my bodyguards you are experiencing relief, as you’re alive and well instead of being used for further testing. That is a false security, I assure you. We are on a deadly mission, as Terra itself may be in jeopardy. It is, in fact, my contention that our species is facing extinction. Unfortunately, I am one of the few who understands this.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “I know. How can I expect a barbarian to understand when I have failed to convince anyone in the Allan Corporation about the deadly seriousness of our mission? Unfortunately…” He hesitated before admitting, “I have spoken to a fellow scientist of rare intelligence and perception in the Chin Corporation. I am certain she believed me, and I have reason to believe she convinced her superiors of the stakes involved.”

  Perhaps Calidore noticed the look on my face. “Do you know what I mean when I say Chin Corporation?”

  “It’s in Eastern Asia but otherwise a copy of the Allan Corporation, at least in structure.”

  Calidore’s eyebrows shot up before his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “How can a wog know that?” He produced a needler of his own, aiming it at me. “Are you a corporation spy?”

  “The Wolf Clan has books, a library, and I love to read.”

  “A barbarian who loves to read?” he scoffed.

  “You call us barbarians. Do you know that originally the Ancient Greeks called others that because to their ears the others made bar-bar sounds when they spoke?”

  “Of course I know that. The question is: how do you?”

  “For a brilliant man you’re showing an amazing depth of prejudice. I already told you how. Through reading.”

  Wheels seemed to turn in his mind. Abruptly, he holstered the needler. “The directors of the Chin Corporation appear to understand the importance of this mission. I have gained secret information that their voyager will possess nuclear-tipped torpedoes as armament.”

  “Space-launched torpedoes?” I asked.

  “Don’t interrupt me when I’m talking. And yes, of course space launched. You don’t know it, but all the corporations agreed that this would be an unarmed mission. I believe the Chin Corporation Voyager Sun Tzu will attempt treachery during the mission.”

  “Your superiors won’t read your secret data?”

  Calidore’s eyes narrowed again. “You don’t sound like a wog. Do you realize that what you just asked me is a loaded question?”

  I waited.

  “The answer is no,” he said. “The directors of the Allan Corporation don’t believe me.”

  There was something in his voice. “You didn’t show them your secret data, did you?” I asked.

  “If I had been so foolish as to do so, they would have likely ordered my execution. None of that is pertinent to our present situation, however. Know this. If you fail to do exactly what I say when—immediately when—I say it, all four of us will die. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  I glanced at Hector and Lee. “He’s telling us that he wants us to kill for him.”

  Hector thought about that and shrugged. Lee nodded after a moment.

  The elevator slowed. We were almost to the top.

  “This is going to be delicate,” Calidore said. “On all accounts, I must gain a voyager shuttle. The Manhattan will have two. That means you are going to follow me once we reach the voyager. Anyone who tries to block us, you will kill. You will also kill everyone in the shuttle but for us four.”

  “No,” I said. “I cannot in good conscience—”

  “The Wolf Clan dies if you don’t do exactly what I say,” Calidore told me, interrupting. “Think carefully about that. Your Wolf Clan will become extinct, and so will you.”

  I did think about that. Despite being a wog and a barbarian, I could not simply murder those Calidore pointed at. But if what he said was true… How did I know if he was lying or not? Why would the Allan Corporation directors have executed him for his secret data? There was something off with Calidore, but I didn’t know what exactly.

  “Well?” he demanded.

  “You will gain one of the shuttles,” I said, wondering how I was going to achieve that without murdering people.

  “A natural-born killer,” he said with approval, smirking. “I knew the cat men would do exactly as I ordered, but I wasn’t sure about you three.” His head swiveled forward. “The elevator is stopping. Act normally until I give the signal. This will be it.” He pointed dramatically.

  As the elevator halted and its door opened, I glanced at Hector and Lee. I tried to signal them with my eyes, and I think Hector understood me. I wasn’t sure about Lee.

  I could do no more as we shuffled aboard the rocket. I presumed it would take us to the voyager. On the rocket, we stowed the equipment where Calidore indicated and then buckled into our crash seats.

  -6-

  For once, I actually felt like a barbarian as the audible countdown reached zero and the rocket engines ignited. At first, we hardly moved, although I could hear nothing but the mighty roar of the engines spewing propellant from the giant nozzles on the bottom. We soon increased velocity as the rocket gained altitude. In no time, we roared into the heavens. The ride was exhilarating and frightening, the entire craft shaking dreadfull
y and my body shaking with it.

  The higher and faster we traveled, the harder the Gs pressed against us.

  Perhaps it’s difficult for you to perceive a so-called barbarian like me speaking as I do. The Wolf Clan people were not like the Germanic Vandals or Goths of the Ancient Roman Empire, fur-clad barbarians whooping their war cries as they invaded. For one thing, we had books, thousands of tech manuals, novels, biographies, all sorts of data of the pre-nuclear-war world. Even more, we had teachers who loved learning, passing on knowledge and teaching the brightest of us how to use our brains, how to think.

  That was the most important concept they taught me in any case: logic, reason or critical thinking and then acting correctly. We lacked high technology, but we understood many esoteric ideas and many mundane ideas, such as germs, hygiene, genetics, health and diet, aerodynamics and vacuum technology. I knew how the rocket climbed into space, meaning I did not think of it as magic or sorcery. It was not exactly the scientific method, as that only covered a small percentage of what a man saw. It was rational thought with the concept that this was an ordered universe with perceivable laws because a rational and ordered Lawgiver had created it.

  Abruptly and quite surprisingly to me, the engines quit. The terrible Gs pressing me down stopped. Weightlessness took hold, and I understood why we had straps crisscrossing our space-suited bodies.

  A screen on the capsule wall in front of us—I think there were thirty of us crammed into the capsule—flickered into life. At first, it showed Terra, as Earth was called these days, from our new perspective.

  Inside my helmet, my mouth opened in awe. I was in orbit, in space!

  I could see the breathtaking blue of Terra and the great curvature of the planet. There were clouds, and there were large green areas. A closer examination showed that the green had two dominant shades. One green looked healthy like grass. The other was the green of poison, or in this case, glowing radiated zones dotting the North American continent.