by Colin Kapp
"That's murder!" said Dam.
She rounded on him immediately. "Of course it is, Lover! It's murder and sadism and brutality and every other stupid expletive your childish colonial mind can devise. What the hell else do you expect in a situation in which you've relinquished all human tights?"
"I know what happened to my claims on humanity." Dam knew he was sailing dangerously close to the wind. "What happened to yours?"
Momentarily, the anger flashed across her brow.
"I'm warning you, Lover. Don't try and take me on."
"What else are lovers for?"
"Right!" There was an angry decision in her voice. "You asked for this! Let's see what they make little boys out of on Castalia." She indicated a machine at the front of the lecture room. "Those two handles are electrical terminals. Grasp them."
Behind him, the guards with the electrical goads moved closer. Realizing that he had taken the exchange too far, Dam moved forward. The first touch of his hands gave no sensation at all, except that his hands became wetted with a kind of jelly with which the handles were coated. As his grip tightened, however, he received an electrical shock so violent that he was thrown backwards to the floor.
"Try again, Lover," said Absolute, and there was no mercy in her voice.
Despite his growing reluctance, Dam tried again. This time when he hit the floor he banged his head and partially stunned himself. He was a lot slower rising to his feet.
"Again!" said Absolute.
"It's impossible!" Dam was positive. "Nobody could stand that voluntarily."
"Nobody?" She walked up to the machine and grasped the terminals deliberately. Dam hobbled after her and watched her face, but apart from a slight hardening of her eyes she showed no reaction at all. Against the possibility that he was being tricked, he put out his hand to touch her wrist, and received a jolt which threw his arm high up into the air.
She released the terminals with a smile of triumph.
"Now do you begin to understand Absolute, Lover?"
Defeated in a way he could not have imagined, Dam nodded dumbly. The will-power he had to summon in order to lead himself back to the terminals and to conquer his leaping muscles was an achievement the level of which he would not previously have thought within his powers. Absolute watched his agony with a savage eye.
"That's good, Lover! You're learning," she said after a while.
Had Dam been forced to an admission, he must have said that the mainstay of his endurance was a grim determination not to be bested by Absolute. Without the psychological edge of this personal antagonism, all the others fared worse; and Worm, who was a native Terran, was driven to a state of frenzied hysteria by the conflict between the dreadful terminals in front and the excruciatingly painful goads of the guards at his back.
There were several exercises, each more painful than the last; and each Dam now met with the same savage attack and a determination to conquer which had enabled him to surmount the screaming messages of his nerves on the first machine. Absolute watched his progress with a critical eye, and if Dam faltered she renewed the spur by meeting the same challenge with iron-clad composure. Not to be outdone, Dam essayed the most painful test of all, and though bathed in copious sweat actually managed to laugh aloud while he did so.
At the end of the session Worm, whose skin had gone a peculiar grey, was taken away for disposal. Dam's three other companions had only conquered half the series and would have to return another day. Dam was singled-out by Absolute for special consideration.
"You did exceptionally well, Lover. But don't think I missed the fact that you were generating strength out of hatred."
"Did you also deduce whom I was hating?"
"Of course. It's a healthy sign. Something that will progress as our relationship develops. But it's a double-edged sword. I too have demons to conquer."
She turned and borrowed an electrical goad from one of the guards, then holding it before her, she met his eyes squarely.
"Walk straight towards me, Lover."
"Onto that?" Dam could see from the control that she had turned the intensity of the goad to its highest.
"You can make it the whole way, if you really try ."
Dam accepted the challenge and walked towards her, knowing that no matter what it cost him in pain, the price would be small compared with the cost of giving her the satisfaction of seeing him flinch away. With magnificent equanimity he walked straight on to the end of the goad. The burst of excruciating agony nearly robbed him of the surprise he felt as she let the goad slip backwards through her fingers so that he was pressed tightly against her when he stopped. Then she jammed the goad hard against him, and the rising crescendo of pain threw Dam into protective unconsciousness, and he collapsed like a sack at her feet.
CHAPTER XI
So fast had been the retreat of the Z-ship from the caudal of Di, that all attention to the signal monitoring had been forgotten in favour of crash flight priorities. The instruments, however, had been possessed with no such sense of urgency, and had continued to record the transmissions up to the point where the Starbucket had leaped into tachyon space. Without human knowledge or intervention, the last signals from Halcyon had been digitally encoded and fed directly into the ship's memory banks, from which they were only recovered much later when the miscellany of residual information was being 'cleaned-up' by the research teams in case any fragment of vital information had been overlooked.
Virtually beyond belief, the long-range camera viewing the scene on Halcyon showed that the sister vessel to the original ghost-wagon had indeed found survivors at the site of the blowup of the fortification, and that no less than four of the original twelve ghosts had been recovered before the recorded sequence came to its abrupt end. Liam Liam had the recording played many times before a rising suspicion caused him to study certain aspects more closely. Then he sat up suddenly as the image keyed a completely unexpected fragment of memory, which caused him to send the tapes for further processing to enhance the detail which had struck his interest. Finally satisfied with what he saw, he requisitioned the master copy, and ordered all other copies to be destroyed. With the master tape in his pocket, he left the research centre with a speculative look on his face.
Half an hour later found Liam in the central records department of Hub Intelligence, busily working his way through a reel of microfilm and occasionally punching the button which brought him a printed reproduction of what he saw on the viewing screen. Final comparisons made, he pocketed the printed copies and sauntered along to the briefing rooms where he was already overdue for a meeting.
This time he found the semicircle of faces more receptive than on the previous occasion. Sinter Pauls, sitting behind a desk burdened with files, greeted him cordially.
"You've really excelled yourself this time, Liam! The information you got from Halcyon is going to take months to digest."
"Months are becoming precious, you understand? Rigon, Zino, Ames' World, Sette, and now Halcyon. Who's going to be next?"
"That's what we were hoping you could tell us. Surely you've gained some idea of Terran advanced plans?"
"There's nothing I can tell you about something which doesn't exist."
"Explain that to me."
"The Terrans have no master plan. It's not that sort of campaign. They will merely attack anyone with whom they have a quarrel. Disagree with Terran colonial policy, and they'll claim to detect insurrection. They will attack and commit some atrocities with the intention of fermenting a genuine level of resistance. Having thus given substance to their insurrectionist claims, they then bring out their big guns and grind the defenders into dust. This achieved, they decimate the planetary population or sterilize the planet altogether, and look to pick a quarrel with the next."
Sinter Pauls shook his head doubtfully. "I know that's the superficial picture, but the deep logic still escapes me."
"That's because there is no deep logic. Terra is not attacking Hub territories
because she needs territory in the Hub. She is attacking them because she does not relish the idea of collective opposition. She would prefer there were no populated Hub worlds rather than risk the rise of a second power which might challenge her galactic dominance. A dog in an interstellar manger."
"That doesn't make sense."
"Look at it this way. Terra has always been the home and the mother of the entire human race. Now, in all save military strength, she finds herself being outstripped by her colonial offspring. If the Hub worlds had ever formed an effective Federation, even Terra's military might could have been matched. Therefore she feels the need to divide and destroy the strength of the potential opposition. It's collective paranoia: the old bitch refusing to acknowledge her whelps' claim to maturity."
"Surely you oversimplify. There must be more to it than that?"
"What do you think she does with the worlds she's conquered? I'll tell you what she does not do. She does not populate them with her own overcrowded peoples, you understand?"
"I know it, but I don't understand it," said Sinter Pauls.
"She does not populate them, because that's how the colonies were formed in the first place. In two generations, Terrans become colonials, and the demands for independence start anew. Therefore she puts on the conquered worlds no more than a strict military garrison. It is this which tells me that the Hub policies of low profile and appeasement are irrelevant to the problem. It is not who we are or what we do but the fact that we exist which Terra cannot tolerate."
"I'll pass your comments on to the Security council, Liam. But I doubt if it'll have much influence on their policy. The worlds currently in favor with Terra won't want to rock the boat."
"It's illogical, you understand? Sheep or lamb, they'll all be eaten nonetheless. Whom she fights is a matter of indifference€”it's the fighting itself which is important."
"Thanks for the viewpoint," said Sinter Pauls, obviously wishing to change the line of the discussion. "In the meantime, there are still authorized lines of action which remain the task of Hub Intelligence. Our research people have taken a preliminary look at the Halcyon information, and they think they can see how it's done. They estimate they can duplicate the process for inanimate objects within two years."
"When can they apply it to people?"
"No guesses yet."
"And produce defences against it?"
"Again no guesses, though something may be thrown up from other areas of research."
"Then I was not wrong when I estimated Terra had a ten year lead?"
"No."
"Sinter€”do you realize how few of the Hub worlds will be left in ten years time? Too few to make a last-ditch stand against Terra even if the method can be developed. The time for collective action is now."
"While I may personally agree with your arguments, Liam, warmongering is no part of our mandate. We can advise, but there's no way we can change the policy."
"It is not enough, you understand?" Liam was searching the faces of his audience. "Senator Anrouse€”you also sit on the Security Council. Can't you see the point I'm making?"
"I see it, Liam, but I know many who won't. You underestimate the terrifying responsibility placed on those called to make such decisions. Suppose you are wrong in your estimate of what motivates Terra? Have you really presented proof enough to justify all-out interplanetary war? Such arguments must swing most of the Hub territories or none at all: because if some go that route in isolation they are doomed to certain destruction. And the men who take the decision to commit them are themselves party to a form of genocide if they are wrong."
"Spoken like a politician! God willing, I shall write your epitaph: 'Here lies the Senator who took no decisions at all for the most impeccable of reasons'. Will it be easier for you to lose Castalia simply because Terran initiative took the decision out of your own hands?"
"That's unfair, Liam!" Anrouse was growing angry. "Despite your analysis, Terran activity in the Hub could be legitimately interpreted as the legal maintenance of the Terran Empire by countering insurgency. In which case, those territories who've kept their noses clean have absolutely nothing to fear."
"If you believe that, you'll believe anything!" Liam was undaunted. "The extent of Halcyon's 'insurgency' was to quibble about tithe-loan conditions to supply thirty ships to Terra. The Halcyon Space Army only had twenty-three ships at its disposal, you understand? They kept their noses clean and got their arses shot off as a reward. If that's the wages of legitimacy, I'll remain a confirmed bastard."
Later that evening, Senator Anrouse had an unexpected visitor. Liam Liam arrived at the door of the suite which the senator occupied when visiting from Castalia, and was immediately intercepted by Anrouse's aides. He was detained in a side room until the wishes of the senator had been ascertained. Anrouse agreed to see him immediately.
"Liam€”why didn't you contact me first? You'd have saved yourself a deal of argument."
"In my business it's unwise to announce your intentions in advance, you understand?"
"You're probably right." Anrouse closed the door and reset the security screens. "Now, to what do we owe the honour of this visit? You're surely not intending to follow-up our earlier exchanges?"
Liam smiled tiredly. "Hardly! Histrionics has its place, but without an audience it loses its effect. I wanted to show you this."
He took out the tape cartridge from his pocket and pushed it into the video player. Anrouse dimmed the lights and sat watching the screen intently until the sequence came to its abrupt end. Then he turned to Liam.
"The end of the Halcyon material, I presume. I've seen some of the earlier stuff already. What's particularly new about this bit?"
"Something the computers couldn't deduce. I missed it myself at first. Then a little bell started ringing . . ."
"I don't see . . ."
Liam re-wound the tape and set the image in motion again.
"I think you have not been too open with me, Senator. One of those ghosts I recognize, you understand?"
Anrouse let the sequence go to its end without speaking, then turned the player off and leafed gravely through the packet of photographs he had been handed.
"Was I right?" asked the Hub agent.
"There seem no use me denying it. You're a perceptive old devil, Liam."
"In my profession, I need to be."
"Knowing you, you didn't come here out of friendly interest. What do you want?"
"If you already had an agent in Terra's phantom warriors, why didn't you tell me before?"
Anrouse shook his head sadly. "For two main reasons. Firstly, no security system is absolutely secure. Therefore the fewer who knew about it, the better. Secondly, while it was possible to get that person among the ghosts, it has not been possible to get either him or any information out again. The project's surrounded by Terran hyper-security precautions, and in terms of intelligence returns, it's been an abortive exercise."
"None the less, it could have very positive uses, you understand? I'm as aware as you that the Security Council's not going to be provoked into interplanetary hostilities. Nevertheless, I think your sympathies lie with mine. But there's a quieter battle already under way, and that's what brings me here tonight. I want to persuade you to become a subscriber to Liam's private war."
CHAPTER XII
The sound began early one afternoon, continued all night, and reached full pitch the following morning. It had started as a dull, vibrant roar, which Dam initially had difficulty in identifying. As the day had grown dark, however, he had managed to trace the source. The sound came from a long, grey building running parallel to the cell block, and containing square, unglazed apertures instead of windows. By standing on his bed, he was able to see through the air-vent that some sort of great furnace had been ignited. The noise was that of enormous jets of gas engaged in heating a large brick chamber which appeared to occupy much of the interior of the grey building.
As the night had progres
sed, the illumination from the apertures had grown sufficient to throw a rose-red glow across the intervening space and suffuse through the air-vent into his cell. By dawn the sound of the gas jets had risen to a shriek, and such was the level of the broadcast illumination that the fiery light glancing from the walls woke him with visions of hell-fire. Remembering that he now belonged to the legions of the damned, he became fully apprehensive about the portent of the great furnace and what its uses might be.
He was not left long in doubt. Absolute herself came to collect him shortly after first-light.
"I'm advancing your training schedule, Lover. We've just verified your academic level, and its equivalent to three science doctorates at Terran equivalent grade. That means we can skip most of the preliminaries and take you straight into hard para-ion theory. Your performance in the practical sessions has been equally outstanding, so I'm going to start you on actual ion experience right now."
"Now?" Dam made a sudden and unwelcome connection between himself and the great furnace which had disturbed his night.
"We've a training environment heated to twelve hundred degrees Celsius€”hot enough to make gold run like water. I'm going to throw you in at the deep end, Lover, because if ever I saw a natural survivor, you're he. I don't know what motivates you colonial bastards, but I intend to use it to my advantage."
There ought to have been a smart answer to that, but nothing apposite occurred to Dam, so he merely shrugged and followed Absolute apprehensively to the grey building, whilst three guards fell in behind. The air in the vestibule was suffocatingly hot, and Dam began immediately to break out into a sweat, wondering how Absolute apparently remained so cool.
"Strip your clothes off," she commanded.
He looked for a changing room or even a curtain, but there was no cover available.
