in a private craft that had overturned. As they should
have. As they would have
had not AmericaState
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wanted them to believe any story he gave them
had
•
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not AmericaState wanted him to get to Tedus Nur _ . •
had not AmericaState rigged the jetcopter to trackback its
signals, so they would know where he was at any moment.
He knew, then, and the knowledge did nothing to
DOOMSMAN
soothe him. All this effort, all these machinations, were
all at the notice of the AmericaState officials. He had had
his memories of Eskalyo discovered when he had been initially probed, and the Probers had decided he, Juanita Montoya, would make a good decoy to find and assassinate Eskalyo, in Ciudad Rosario. Was Eskalyo becoming too much of a threat for the AmericaState system? Was
there more to this than Juanito suspected? Undoubtedly!
Yet they had pulled it off this far: they had aroused his
interest in Eskalyo, then planted Grice to let Juanito
know he was the petty ruler's son, then arranged it so
Juanita would think it was his own idea to seek out Grice
and the man in the Chambers, and Eskalyo himself. It
had all been a plan, and he had jibbered and capered
through it like the puppet they wished him to be.
He cursed himself silently, wishing he had never been
found by the Seekers. He cursed the invisible, omnipotent
Them who ruled the AmericaState, and for the first time
since he could remember, he doubted the stately system;
perhaps it was because he had been a child of freedom
. . . perhaps it was because he had too much individuality to fully accept what he had been taught at the School
. perhaps it was just that he was sick of being
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shunted about. But at that moment of realization he knew
the AmericaState way was not the best way to rule the
continent. The War had been a severe test, and the men
who had come through it with the most strength left had
been the ones to establish the School and the Seekers and
the Probers and all the other security checks and confining minutia of AmericaState government. But Juanito had never doubted that was the best way; the petty rulers
had to go; they were a menace.
Was it so, however? Was that the way of it?
Now he doubted until his brain hurt. Now he knew the
regimentation was no good, and the School was no good,
and there was a fear in AmericaState-a fear of Eskalyo.
Or if there were not .
why would they be going to so
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•
much trouble to convince Juanita he wanted to seek out
his father?
It had been chance, obviously, that Grice had been
captured. Chance-he had been sent on a mission to
keep him busy till Juanito arrived in Alaska-a harmless
DOOMS MAN
mission to keep him out of the way-and he had been
captured-and tortured-and died with bitterness red on
his lips.
That bitterness had compelled him to speak. To tell the
truth about this business to the man he y.ras supposed to
have duped.
So Juanita knew.
He knew he was being driven to find his father, and
the AmericaState officials would give him all the help he
needed. Such as an idling jetcopter . . . a ChiTroop cutter . . . or a free passage to Ciudad Rosario--wherever it might be.
Had not Grice been tortured in that way, had not his
bitterness overcome his training, Juanita would have
stumbled on, thinking he was escaping the assassin's
corps, thinking he was going to his father, when all the
while he would have been on his way to an assassination.
The ChiTroop cutter skimmed over the water of Lake
Michigan, speeding toward N. Chicago, as th� other
thought struck J uanito Montoya:
How were they going to insure that he killed Eskalyo?
What hidden factors had they? Was he a tool without
knowing it7 He struggled with himself for a long instant,
and finally scoffed it away; he had been trained to kill.
That was probably the hold they had over him. They felt
sure he would not go back on his training when the moment of assassination came. He chuckled in the sanctity of his mind. They were so wrong.
Unlike the many serfs and simple-souled draftees to
the School, Juanito had been a creature of the wind, free
and on his own: he did not feel grateful for the training,
and in an instant he woUld throw it over. When he
reached Eskalyo--his father-he would pledge himself to
allegiance no matter what the cost.
His assassin's training would come in handy.
But that was all in time. First he had to find Tedus
Nur, head executioner, field division, N. Chicago Chambers.
Tedus Nur was the most hideous creature ever
spawned.
DOOMSMAN
Not only his physical makeup-though that in itsctf.
was frightening, and perhaps reason for his other
defects-but his tone of voice, the look in his eye, his
gait, his attitude toward the political prisoners in the
Chambers, everything. In everything, his body was
reflected. In every word, every deed, every concept and
inclination, his dwarf's body was mirrored.
Juanito Montoya instinctively slouched when he met
Tedus Nur.
A man with a warped and twisted body such as Nur's
would be immediately antagonistic to a straight, tall youth
with unscarred, clean limbs. Juanito sensed this, and lessened his own stature accordingly. If it had any effect on the dwarf, Nur did not let on.
He was despicable from the first moment of their meeting.
"What do you want?"
The thin, gashlike mouth opened to reveal less than
half the teeth nature had intended. What few wined in a
broth of saliva were yellow and broken, save for two canines white and clean and deadly-looking, as if Nur were part animal, keeping those two· teeth in good case for his
animal stages. The mouth opened and a rank smell came
forth. The eyes narrowed as the mouth opened, and the
banked fires of hatred-an all-directional hatred, for
everyone and everything-blazed more brightly from the
thinned slits. Nur's eyes were bloodshot and stained about
the iris with orange flecks. His eyes were any color. Any
sick color. They were not brown, but mud. They were not
black but dirt. They were not blue but the color of veins.
Nor green but the color of mold.
The nose was a delicate, upturned sweetness, like a
cherry thrust atop a pie of dung, or an innocent child lost
in a colony of lechers, or a clean thought in the mind of a
pervert. The nose was not of his face, but merely loaned
from some other.
The head was pointed and nearly bald. It sat on a
nearly nonexistent neck that ran into huge, massively
corded shoulders . . . segment of a twisted and evil form.
Tedus Nur was a crippled dwarf of the most objectionable
sort.
"Dammit, I ask what you want? You gone answer?"
DOOMSMAN
Juanita loathed the dwarf at once, but this was the
man who would give him the words to lead a son to his
father. By plan of AmericaState, to be sure, but Juanita
had one ace they knew nothing of:
He knew they were maneuvering him, now.
So now he knew, and he knew this play-acting with
Nur was important; he must not let on that he knew their
plan. He must allow himself to be a dupe. So far as it
would bring him to the feet of Eskalyo.
For he had decided: there was where his destiny lay.
With his father.
So he swallowed his loathing of Tedus Nur and replied:
"I was in a private yacht that sank in the Lake.
A-uh-friend of mine, John Grice, once told me if I
ever had a problem, and was near New Chi, I should
look you up, that you would-uh-help me out."
Nur's eyes narrowed stjll more, if that was possible,
and his mouth slitted fine to a sharp reply. "No one is my
friend, man. You got a name, you got papers, what you
got I should know you come from Grice?"
Juanita swallowed hard. Tedus Nur could tell he was
an assassin. Only an assassin wore the ebony skintite and
pouch.
Yet he wanted Juanita to declare himself. "My name is
Lland Jackh. I come from Oklahoma, near Grice's birthplace. Grice said you would help me find a-uh-certain person."
Tedus Nur grinned. It would h�ve been more soothing
had he snarled. He knew Juanita was lying. Juanita knew
the dwarf was aware of his lie. It was part of the play-act.
Juanita spoke with the lilt of the Spaniard, not with the
twang of the Okie. He was obviously from the
Argentine-and what did it matter where he obviously
was from, or what he obviously was, for Tedus Nur had
had his instructions.
From the top.
It was his play, all the way.
"Come, man, I take you to my evening's work. I show
you how I earn my living."
The dwarf rose off the many pillows piled on the floor
of the office and capered toward the door. His wrinkled
DOOMSMAN
and crushed little body was all evil and all purpose as he
took a blacksnake bullwhip from pegs near the door.
Then he threw open the door-with its latch close to the
floor-and bowed low.
"After you, Mr. Lland Jackhl"
Juanito moved out into the corridor, composed of softly glowing green rock. Green rock that was the foundation of the Chambers. The New Chicago Torture Chambers, where political unfortunates were sent for confession and-in every case-execution. It was a huge tower in the center of N. Chi, surrounded by a force
mesh that went out for two blocks in any direction. Once
a man was condemned to the Chambers, no one bothered
to think of him again-he was dead. The tower rose one
thousand three hundred feet into the New Chicago sky,
the stone and not-stone of it glowing soft green by night
and by day.
Beacon to those who sought the stem authority of
AmericaState.
Bogey to children warned by their mothers at bedtime.
Source of information from those who sought to overthrow the regimented, assassin-strong, Seeker-filled, Probesman-laden culture of AmericaState.
Cradle of terror.
Gray-hailed, green-walled, silent and impregnable
graveyard into which a man might disappear and never
be seen again. Turned into the capabl� hands of
executioners like Tedus Nur.
"Are you coming, Mr. Jackh?" The little dwarf trotted
down the green-lit hallway.
Juanita's thought swirled back into his mind as water
swirls quickly down a drain. "Uh, oh yes, yes of course,
I'm coming."
He followed the dwarf, and wondered how long the
play-act would continue. He hoped his end would not
come here, between these walls.
From somewhere below, a scream swirled up to pierce
his reverie.
Tedus Nur enjoyed his work. In his warped, single-line
DOOMSMAN
way, in his own way and in no way Juanito could imagine
as sane, he was probably a top man in his field.
His field was cruelty.
Juanito followed the dwarf down a series of baflle
corridors and areaways, confusing in the extreme; a
minotaur's maze of strange angles and bewildering backtracks. This was another feature of the escape-proof Chambers.
Finally they came to a stairway, and the dwarf capered
and caroled down it as though he were a child bent on a
playday. Nur whistled and gibbered to himself like a
thing gone mad, winding down and ever down that :flight
of fearful stairs. A rank and hideous odor came up from
below, and though the green walls shone with equal brilliance at any distinct spot, there was a feeling of increasing darkness, of increasing dankness and depth as they descended.
The screams continued, sometimes rising, sometimes
falling in pitch, but always there, always commanding and
drawing them down down down into the bowels of the
Chambers, and perhaps into the bowels of N. Chi itself.
Juanito never knew.
When it seemed his legs would wear off at the knees,
Juanito heard the little maniac-who had practically
flown down the last hundred feet of steps till he was well
ahead of the assassin�all a huzzah, and urge him on.
He stumbled down the last steps, rounding a curve that
brought him in sight of a great hall, with low benches in
every direction, and a hundred green doors set in the
wall. The doors were all of plasteel, it was obvious, even
from that distance, and they were numbered from one to
one hundred. From behind the doors, strange sounds
could be heard, intermingling and mixing with the sounds
from other doors. Down here the screams were not terri'fying, but worse, heart-rending.
The dwarf took up an heroic stance, hands on hips,
bullwhip dangling, and legs apart, and smiled. He waved
a hand about proudly. "Mr. Jackhl My office!"
The benches were black with dried blood.
"What is this hall?" Juanito asked.
"Waiting room," . the dwarf answered simply, explaining no further. Yet the manner in which he spoke
OOOMSMAN
those two words was enough to send a tremor through
Juanita's shoulders.
"Come with me, won't you?'' the dwarf said, and it
was by no means a request.
Juanito followed hlm, expecting anything, and expecting even treachery that would leave him imprisoned in one of these cells for the rest of his life. But he followed, for in the warped and twisted mind of this warped and twisted dwarf lay the answer to the puzzle: Where is
Eskalyo? Where is my father?
Tedus Nur strode briskly forward, his eyes all fire and
yearning, his hand tight to the mailed grip of the blacksnake bullwhip. It was just as they reached door number 76 that Juanito noticed something about the whip.
It was not simply a material construction. There were
wire tips protruding from the cat that ended the stalk.
Wire tips that ran up through the stalk and into the handle. The handle was equipped with a series of studs that could be controlled from the fingertips.
As Juanito st
ared down at the whip, the dwarf turned
and caught his eyes. "Interesting, eh? A little thing I had
them send me from the SecuritySeek Research Labs in
Up-Dakota. Guaranteed to make my job easier." He
cracked the whip with authority, and sparks blazed a blue
and gold arc over his head. Juanita drew back as a faint
touch of that current stood his dark hair on end, and
burned in his eyes.
If he had ever doubted it, now he knew for certain: the
dwarf was criminally insane. A megalomaniac.
"You need a haircut," the dwarf observed, with no relation to anything else, and dismissing it, turned to palmlock open the door.
His prints were scanned and grooved and compared
and okayed, and the door slid back in its trough. The cell
within was large, but that did the prisoner no good.
She was bolted to the floor.
By her thighs, her biceps, her wrists, her waist, her feet
and her neck. Auburn-haired, closed-eyed, limp and
filthy, no shard of clothing left on her body, the girl started at the sound of the whip in the air as Tedus Nur entered, and as though the cry were being tom from her stomach, she screamed for the heavens to take notice.
DOOMS MAN
"Please, please," she whined, ''please beat me! Beat
me, but don't touch me, please, rm crying, can't you see
that, please, please
.'' Her voice was thick with emo
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tion, and her eyes filled with the sort of tears that were
not affectation.
She wished for a beating from that hideous whip, more
than the touch of the dwarf. What horrors had the man
inflicted on her, Juanito wondered.
"You asked me to help you find a man, Mr. Jackh,"
the dwarf said, looking steadily at the girl
"Yes."
"What is that man's name?"
"1-Eskalyo." The hesitation was momentary.
The dwarf turned then to Juanito, and his face was a
plea for understanding. My God, thought Juanito, the little scum has emotions after alii
"Mr. Jackh, in my business, rm told very little about
matters of consequence, aboveground. I am told there is
an important man on his way to me who will ask me
about Eskalyo. I am told to give him all the help I can. I
would not show what I am about to show to you, to anyone, sir. But I long for recognition my soul cries out
Doomsman - the Theif of Thoth Page 5
