The Imprisoned Earth

by Vaughn Heppner

  As I opened my eyes further, I thought to see shapes moving around me. They were tall and stood before me as if watching. Pain jolted through me. I jerked, but I still floated.

  This was—a moment of clarity struck. I was wearing a breathing mask. Whenever I exhaled, bubbles wobbled out of the mask away from me. I could see because I had glass or some kind of clear visor before my eyes. I appeared to be in a giant test-tube-like cylinder as once the Avanti had held Doctor Calidore. Mine was filled with greenish liquid. That was why I floated, because I was in the liquid. There was a tube attached to my mask, supplying me with air, I suppose. There were other lines attached to my naked, floating body. The lines shivered at times, giving me jolts, and they surely did other things as well. The blurry images before me—those must have been men, scientists or technicians observing me from outside the liquid-filled cylinder.

  A mentalist’s soldier had captured me. Were the mentalist now performing experiments upon my person? I deeply resented that. It was one thing to have an ancient alien like an Avanti do such things. But to have a human—even a modified one—do this filled me with fury.

  I grunted. It felt as if cold and heat, in turns, washed through or against my mind. Were the experimenters beaming brain waves at my cranium? As the heat and cold stimulated my mind, I sensed thoughts other than just my own. The thoughts weren’t in English or the language I’d spoken on Aiello. They were alien.

  Was I directly sensing the Lorelai worm?

  Electric-like jolts struck once more. My eyelids fluttered and I lost sense of my physical reality as I mentally floated once more.

  Childhood memories surfaced, keeping me company. I smiled as I hunted with my father, sneaking through a grove of trees with ancient M-1 carbines in our hands. He raised his rifle, firing. I peered through the foliage as our meal crashed upon old dead leaves. It had been a perfect shot, leaving all the meat for the cooking pot later. The scene shifted, and I felt a gush of gratitude to my mother as she held my forehead as I vomited because I had a fever. She spoke soothing words to me. Once more, like flickering cards, a new image surfaced. I trembled as a she-bear rushed me because I had been playing with her cub. The cub scampered away to her, bawling. As the she-bear neared, strong hands jerked me out of the way, and a pack of hounds rushed forward barked fiercely, halting the she-bear’s attack. Flicker-flicker-flicker: I cried out as my father applied the belt of wisdom to my seat of knowledge. I’d disobeyed him about bear cubs and now received the punishment for it. I never did that again and was grateful that my father spanked me, taking the time to teach his son. I hadn’t been grateful at the time, but later…Flicker-flicker-flicker: I was back in the ruins of old Las Vegas, in a great building with rows upon rows of broken slot machines. There were hundreds of human skeletons on the floor—

  “Who are you?”

  The voice jolted me out of my memories. It was disorienting and frightening. I wanted to crawl back into my mind. Instead, I tried to look around but could see nothing. I had the feeling then that I couldn’t open my eyes.

  “What is your name?”

  I kept my lips tightly pressed together. I wasn’t going to say.

  “Why isn’t he answering?” a different person asked.

  For the first time, I ceased trying to crawl back into my mind. Something was going on, something real, not just another memory or mental fantasy.

  “It’s the worm,” the first questioner said. “It must be blocking his speech center.”

  I almost spoke then, or should say that I almost attempted to speak. A grim weariness stole over me instead. The image of Las Vegas—that I’d been holding—broke apart. I soared upward in a terrible fashion and—

  Confusion struck along with a sense of vulnerability, and I realized that more time had passed. I also heard people around me as metal instruments clicked on a tray. Slowly, I became aware that I lay on a cot and that ties held down my limbs. For just a moment, my eyes cracked open.

  Tall men in green garments and green masks stood around me. I saw a screen above me, higher above the men, too. On the screen was one circle within a circle within another circle. I did not know what any of that meant. Then, I saw a faint reflection on the tilted screen. I had to concentrate, and that tired me terribly. The faint reflection showed my supine body as working machines surrounded me. Much worse, though, I saw what seemed to be the top part of my skull on a tray. The tall green-clad men hovered around my exposed brain, using tiny silver instruments that poked and prodded.

  I wanted to weep at the injustice and horror of my position. Instead, I wearily closed my eyes, wishing I were back on Terra in the Nevada Territory.

  I could still hear, though, and listened to the experimenters speak to each other.

  “We can’t bypass the worm like this,” a man said. “We have to remove it.”

  “Impossible,” a different man said. “The worm’s tendrils are intertwined and sunk into his spinal cord. You saw the x-rays. Some of the tendrils have already inserted into his brain stem and are even now slowly advancing into the brain. It will control his thoughts soon enough.”

  “Then we must act at once.”

  “Are you sure? I keep returning to the frontal lobes here and here. They’ve clearly been altered and must serve some new and special function. Could Avanti science have advanced so far that they could alter a fully-grown brain without direct access?”

  “Maybe the better question is, what does the alteration do, as you’ve suggested it must? How has this changed the subject’s mental capabilities? I would also like to know why someone with Avanti science at his command would bother making these alterations.”

  “We must dissect the brain to discover the answer.”

  “I most heartily disagree. We must remove the worm and study the subject. Then, we will give him endless stimulations to discover his mental capabilities. Besides, rendering his brain inert is a foolish waste. Calidore is blocked. Our hope in discovering a living Avanti and his ship lies with this specimen and this specimen alone.”

  “Wait, brother,” the man said breathlessly.

  “What is it now?”

  “The subject hears us. He is aware. No, no, this will complicate matters considerably.”

  “Not necessarily… We could insert a memory block. He is an amazing find. This is proof of Avanti…”

  I did not hear the rest as a new lassitude rolled over me in a wave of cooling numbness. Soon, I reentered the lonely drift of self. Was it a longer or shorter amount of time than before? I had no way of gauging. There was just the drift, the long floating journey through nothingness and—

  Suddenly, it felt as if lightning pain surged through my body. I awoke to a nightmare, face down on an operating table. It was of silvery metal. Green-clad legs moved around me, all I could see from my prone position. Machines hummed and more electric shocks caused me to groan.

  “Twenty cc’s of—”

  Someone spoke, although I did not hear the rest. The pain was too sizzling, to all-encompassing to comprehend what was said or what was happening to me. Then cooling filled me, giving relief. That lasted a second at most before hot lightning pain surged through me once again.

  “He’ll be paralyzed if we continue like this,” a woman said.

  “I’ll risk that,” a man said. “Besides, he can still talk if he’s paralyzed. Now, we will remove each tendril, one at a time as planned.”

  I wanted to speak. I wanted to ask them what they were doing to me to cause such intense agony. Instead, as new cooling numbness rolled through my mind, I drifted off yet again.

  I had noticed one difference, though. The alien thought and presence had departed. I realized I had felt a constant weight against my mind. Now, that weight was gone. I had my own mind again without the endless alien surveillance. Despite my silent rejoicing, I feared that the green-garbed scientists would take off the top of my skull again and attach their probes to my exposed brain.

  As I floated, I wondered
how any of this was possible. It was beyond Terran medical science, beyond the best the corporations possessed.

  I had no answers, just the feeling of floating, of a great passage of time. Then, quite suddenly, I began shooting to the surface, to consciousness, and I realized that I was about to re-enter life. I dreaded to discover my present circumstances, and thus fought the upward ascent. It didn’t matter. I was waking up and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

  -32-

  I awoke feeling stiff, as if my muscles hadn’t moved for a long time. I also feared to move, afraid I would tear ligaments, open freshly healed wounds, and then my guts or blood would come gushing out. Yet I was beyond ravenous and parched. I felt like an empty balloon, desperately needing nourishment to fill me back up.

  I opened my eyes, but everything was blurry. It was as if I’d forgotten how to focus. I had no idea where I was, although I knew that I wasn’t in the bottom of the pit on a Kurgech Mountain plateau. I also knew that I wasn’t in a plane or hauler. There was no sense of motion or vibration. I was in a still place and could feel a psychic pressure of great weight pushing down on me.

  Slowly, my blurriness departed as my holding cell come into focus. At the same time, my hunger and thirstiness intensified to an intolerable degree.

  I lay on a cot in a small, warm cell. There was horrible itchiness around my skull, in my side and down the length of my spine in my back. I looked down at my side and could detect a faint scar, but I couldn’t remember being gashed there.

  I did recall someone speaking about a memory block. Was this evidence of blockage? Hmm… If I had a scar in my side, did I have other scars around my skull and along the length of my spine in my back?

  A terrible premonition filled me. What kind of monsters were these mentalists? What kind of sadists cut people willy-nilly as if they were only biological machines, not humans with souls and therefore the right to human dignity? What kind of psychopaths put a man in a giant test tube to study him? And why was I thinking such crazy thoughts?

  I’d been on the Fighting Hunge plateau, battling the mentalist and his hauler-hauled troops… With a groan, deciding it was time for some action instead of endless pondering, I swung my feet off the cot.

  Part of the cell wall lifted up as if it was a door or a hatch that I hadn’t noticed earlier. The timing would indicate someone was watching me.

  A towering, harsh-faced human with blue skin glared at me. He wore a black uniform with red shoulder boards and had a black military cap snugly on his head. There was madness in his eyes, a barely suppressed killing fury. He was big, and there was an animalistic aura to him.

  “Are you a neutraloid?” I asked, amazed at how raspy my vocal cords had become.

  “Come,” he said, the word harsh-sounding.

  He had a holstered weapon and a black baton at his hips. I had no doubt he would beat me savagely if I did not obey him.

  I struggled off the cot, swaying onto my feet.

  “You are weak,” he said, his voice filled with contempt. In a silky manner like a cat man, he entered the tiny cell and wrapped long blue fingers around my left upper arm. He propelled me through the hatch, forcing me to stumble along at his side as he marched down a metallic hall. We did not go far, thankfully, but entered a large room with a table stacked with food and drink.

  He marched me into the room and thrust me into a chair. “Eat. Drink. Lord Ammon will inspect you shortly.”

  The blue man stepped backward until he touched a wall and then stiffened into immobility, as if a spell had frozen him into a statue.

  I closed my mouth as my atrophied wits attempted to make sense of all this. Finally, I asked, “Who’s Lord Ammon?”

  My guardian did not answer, did not even indicate that he’d heard the question.

  My insatiable hunger forced me to the food and drink. Let the blue man stand like a rock if he desired. My mouth salivated at the fruits, nuts and vegetables before me.

  I ate sparingly at first, lest my stomach rebel. The first few bites made me even more ravenous. Then I could no longer contain myself, but began to cram food into my mouth. At times, it was hard to swallow I had so much in my mouth. I drank water, sniffed at it later, trying to detect drugs. I suppose Lord Ammon could have drugged me easily enough while I’d been asleep in the cell. He didn’t need trickery to accomplish that. So, I drank freely, gulping like a glutton.

  I realized I was much skinnier than I remembered. That would imply injuries that my body had healed, using up interior tissues to do so.

  I checked the faint scar on my side. What had caused that? The scar and the itchy sensations around my skull and spine made me uneasy. There were vague remembrances about those things that tried to struggle to the surface of my conscious thought. I could feel them bumping up against an invisible barrier, though.

  With a shrug, I ate even more, burping often. I found that I couldn’t stop eating. My body wanted sustenance. Finally, sometime later, I sat back in the chair, stuffed and beginning to feel sleepy.

  Suddenly, the blue man moved, his right hand dropping to the baton at his belt. “Remember,” he told me in his harsh voice. “You must speak with respect and decorum to Lord Ammon. Otherwise, your beating will be prolonged.”

  “You’ll beat me?” I asked.

  His black eyes swirled with a sick desire to inflict pain. I could feel it rove over me. What was wrong with him?

  Before I could ask the neutraloid about it, a door swished up and a tall, angular man entered the chamber with easy grace. He wore black and gray garments with the pants tucked into the tops of his ankle-high boots. He possessed a long, thin face and had a high forehead indicating extreme intelligence. He had short but thick silver hair like mink fur, and deep-set magnetic eyes of a strange golden color. I’d never seen their like. There was a compelling quality to his eyes, as if Lord Ammon—I assumed it was he—could look into my soul and read my very thoughts.

  “State your name,” he said, the voice rich and commanding. I also realized that I’d heard him before. The familiarity was stark, and troubling. Had he been in my dreams? And if so, what did that indicate?

  The neutraloid made a hissing noise.

  “Oh,” I said. “I’m Jason Bain.”

  “I see,” the new man said. “What is your planet of origin?”

  I blinked, wondering why he would ask that if he already knew, for I had the distinct impression that he did know. The memory block had failed in some degree, as I began to remember the clear cylinder, the operating table and the words passing between the experimenters.

  “Can you understand me?” the new man asked.

  “Perfectly,” I said, realizing the neutraloid had been hissing at me again.

  “What is your planet of origin?” he repeated.

  “Are you Lord Ammon?” I asked.

  Instead of hissing, the neutraloid growled angrily at me. Lord Ammon—if it was he—raised a languid hand. The neutraloid fell instantly silent.

  “Shall I unleash my Myrmidon upon you?” the tall man asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Then I suggest quick answers to my questions.”

  I finally sat upright, glanced at the Myrmidon—the neutraloid—noted his eagerness to lunge at me and decided to concentrate on the other.

  “I am adrift mentally,” I explained. “I have no idea where I am or who you are. Before I can answer questions—and I will gladly do so—I would like to know what’s going on.”

  “This is a beginning interrogation. You are my prisoner. I am indeed Lord Ammon, and you could refer to me in the common parlance as a mentalist. That, of course, indicates that I am a scientist not only of the mind but regarding the entire human animal. However, I am a keen student of the mind in all its ramifications and have thus unlocked many hidden powers in myself. You are here to aid me in my continuing research by answering questions.”

  “Thanks for the clarification,” I said. “I appreciate that. I, ah, also feel a
s if a long passage of time has taken place since I was last aware.”

  Ammon looked up as if I’d made a social blunder. With a twitch of one of his long fingers, he must have signaled the Myrmidon.

  The Myrmidon or neutraloid drew his baton with hardly any sound. In a bound, as if he was an uncoiling spring, he towered over me in my chair. The baton struck with brutal speed. I expected the swing to slow down, but that did not happen. Instead, the steel rod struck my thigh, and with a crack and an explosion of pain, my thighbone broke.

  I slid off the chair in agony and astonishment.

  The baton swung again, and my left forearm bone snapped at the impact.

  “Enough,” Ammon said quietly.

  The Myrmidon backed away. He wasn’t even breathing heavily or sweating in the slightest. There was a wolfish grin, though, and his black eyes seemed to shine.

  I blinked in pain from where I lay sprawled on the floor. What was going on here?

  “Attend me closely,” Ammon said. He was kneeling at my side. I hadn’t seen him walk near, which meant I must have been in shock. His long fingers set the thighbone. I swear I could feel the broken ends grinding together. Heat pulsated from his hands. It felt wonderful, glorious, even. The pain departed from my broken thigh. Next, he set my forearm bone, and similar heat—a most supreme feeling—crept over my arm. The pain was gone, and with it, my shock.

  “There,” Ammon said. “It is done.” He rose, selected a chair and sat down, regarding me. “I just healed you.”

  I must have looked at him in bewilderment.

  “Go head,” he said. “Test my statement to your satisfaction.”

  I touched my left forearm, and there was no pain. I rotated the wrist and flexed my left-hand fingers, and they moved easily enough. I climbed to my feet and jumped up and down. My left leg was as good as new.

  I stared at him.

  “I healed you,” he repeated.

  “How?”