Sonic Slave

by Paul Kenyon

  "Dog!" the Emir growled.

  "My dear chap," Le Sourd said reasonably. "Save yourself some pain. It's all over for you and your friends. You saw what happened at the village this morning. We'll catch up with your main force eventually. Just tell us where they're concentrated."

  The young man used the Persian word for pig. "Khenzir!" he spat.

  Le Sourd sighed. He flipped a toggle switch. A timer clicked. The man in the tub screamed again. His spine curved in an arch that almost broke his back.

  "How do you do it, Le Sourd my friend?" the Emir said admiringly. "Tell me again. By Allah, even Ebrahim with his little knives never got a response like that with so little damage to the body."

  "Science," Le Sourd said. "The ultrasound scanning device allows me to fish about inside the body at will. I can locate any structure, no matter how small, by increasing the magnification. Then I can center my phonon beams at the precise spot. I can narrow the beams to the thickness of a thread, or I can spread them out. Where they cross is a little hell — a tiny volume of matter where the molecules themselves boil. But I don't have to destroy the overlying tissue to get at it."

  "Show me how," the Emir said.

  Le Sourd demonstrated the controls, and the Emir sat down behind the console. He moved the cross hairs up and down on the screen, chortling with glee, like a child with a new toy. He flipped the timer switch, as Le Sourd had shown him.

  There was a hiss of boiling water and blood, and the young man gasped in shock. There was a hole the size of a thumbprint gouged out of his hip. A streamer of blood spread through the tub and was sucked away by the pumps. The Emir looked disappointed.

  "If I may make a suggestion, your Highness…" Le Sourd said delicately.

  "I was trying for the colon," the Emir said petulantly.

  "Your Highness spread the phonon beams too wide, and you positioned them too close to the surface. Allow me."

  He leaned over the Emir's shoulder and moved the green cross hairs up the length of the transparent body on the screen. He stopped at the face.

  "Precision," Le Sourd said. "That's the key. The pain receptors are crowded much closer together in the face than they are throughout most of the body. That branching structure you see there is the trigeminal nerve. It causes one of the most excruciating pains known to mankind — tic douloureux. It drives people to suicide. There, I've got it for you. Try it now."

  His eyes bright, the Emir flipped the switch. An animal shriek came from the man in the tub. The timer clicked off. The man was sobbing. His face drooped on one side, the eyelid and lips dragging downward.

  "Where is the rebel concentration?" Le Sourd said gently.

  "I don't know," the man moaned. "By Allah, that's the truth."

  "Are you the one who killed the soldier we left behind and mutilated the body?"

  "No, no, I swear it!"

  "Lying dog!" the Emir muttered. "I'm going to give his lying tongue a touch of your sound waves."

  "Good idea," Le Sourd said. "The tongue is one of the most sensitive parts of the body. It's richly supplied with nerve endings, like the tip of the penis."

  The Emir fiddled with the dials, moving the cross hairs on the TV image. The tongue showed plainly, a pulpy pink mass that seemed to have a life of its own. The green lines centered somewhere near the back of the throat and became blurry as the Emir's hand wavered. Le Sourd moved to stop him, but he was too late.

  There was a horrible muffled bellow and a gagging sound. Blood rushed from the man's mouth. An appalling thing slipped from between the lips and slithered into the water like some revolting pink fish. The man went on choking and choking.

  "I'm afraid you've done it, your Highness," Le Sourd said. "We'll never get anything out of him now."

  "The lying dog had nothing to tell us anyhow," the Emir grumbled. "Your machine is a miracle, Le Sourd, but it's too subtle for an old-fashioned soldier like me. Well, nothing to do now except butcher him. What did you say before about the tip of the penis?"

  The Emir settled down to his fun, moving the green lines over the screen like a wire cheese cutter. He had enough basic skill to keep the man alive for ten minutes or so. Then he carved what was left of the body into thin slices, like ham. The water in the tub bubbled and boiled, and there was a smell of ozone in the air. In the end, the pumps emptied the tank of blood and all the fragments of flesh that were small enough to go down the drain. The big pieces of bone stayed on the bottom, and there was a bloodless collection of human veal slices and some of the larger organs clustered at the outgoing drain, bobbing in the water.

  "Don't worry, your Highness," Le Sourd said soothingly. "We'll find the main rebel force before long and wipe them out. You have informants everywhere. Then you'll have a free hand to carry out the rest of the master plan."

  "I still can't believe it," the Emir said, shaking his head. "Allah must have sent you to me. To think, that with your weapon it will be possible to wipe out all human life on the entire Arabian peninsula. The Saudis, the Kuwaitis, all my old enemies in the United Emirates! Just by moving a line of trucks across the desert, broadcasting noises in front of them!"

  Le Sourd said, "Yes, and leaving the oil wells and drilling equipment and pumping stations intact. You'll control the world's major oil supply. Europe and the United States will be at your mercy."

  The Emir drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. "But Le Sourd, what if the West moves in with troops? We can't fight the major powers. Not for a while. I won't be strong enough."

  "We've been through this before, your Highness. These doubts are unworthy of you. Your secret arrangement with Communist China will make them think twice. The Chinese will announce immediate support of you, while the rest of the world is still stunned. They won't risk nuclear war. And once they have thought twice — once they've delayed — the moment will be past. They'll swallow the situation and be happy to get whatever oil you dole out to them. And you'll be generous — at first."

  "Yes. And when things have died down after a year or two, I'll wipe out Israel. That will make me a hero in the entire Arab world. They'll hail me as the Caliph, the true successor of Mohammed."

  Le Sourd laughed softly. "And that's when your true empire will begin."

  "An empire of eighty million people," the Emir said, his eyes glittering. "Enough to turn me into one of the major world powers."

  "The key is caution," Le Sourd said. "Take little bites. Don't frighten them, the way Hitler did. You can take over the Arab nations one by one. Their leaders will knuckle under. Their own people will be for you, hailing you as a savior. You can make it palatable to them. Call it federation, union, anything you want — to allow them to save face. But you'll be pulling the strings."

  "Allahu akbar," the Emir said piously. "God is great. And then, when I'm ruler of the entire Arab world, I can go on from there. A few modest demonstrations of the power of your ultrasound weapon. We'll have built many of them by then. The parts can be smuggled into the major cities of the world. New York, London, Paris. We'll wipe out New York first as an object lesson. It will take them weeks to target all the Arab world for their atom bombs. And I won't give them those weeks. They'll surrender, country by country. And, inshallah, I will be ruler of the entire world."

  * * *

  "I don't believe it," the Baroness said.

  "They're mad," Sumo's voice whispered in her ear. "Stark raving mad!"

  "They can't get away with it," she said. "Not all of it. But they can cause a lot of mischief along the way. Slaughter the entire Arabian peninsula. Grab the oil wells. Offer the oil quick to Europe and the United States to confuse us. Maybe even wipe out Israel. Once it was done — really done — the Western powers would probably swallow the situation as long as the Emir laid low for a while."

  "What can we do about it?" Yvette said into her throat mike.

  "Shhh! They're still talking."

  The bug was hidden under the stainless-steel tub itself. The Baroness had s
tuck the tiny microphone and FM pill there the other day, when Le Sourd had her arm in the tank, giving his demonstration. The MOSFET encoder, its millions of microscopic flakes embedded in a wisp of stretch fabric, was buried in a pile of cleaning rags. Even if it were found, no one would recognize it for what it was.

  Le Sourd's voice sounded in her ear again. "Now about the other problem, your Highness…"

  "Are you sure she's a spy?" the insect voice of the Emir whined.

  "Yes," Le Sourd said flatly.

  "But she couldn't have been out of her room all day. Your ultrasonic scanner showed her in bed, reading a book… I watched her myself."

  "I don't know how she did it, but the dead soldier in the desert has all the earmarks of her work. I'm sure she was the one who killed Zakar and his men. It's impossible that the rebel Amar could have gotten away by himself."

  "But…"

  "Evidence, your Highness. Your stallion El Fahda had commerce with a mare that day. And Zakar's black mare was found standing stunned in the desert. I asked your stable master to examine her with a vaginal speculum. There was no doubt about it. She'd been mounted by a stallion."

  The Emir's insect voice was angry. "Then the Baroness is the one who netted my falcons. Killed my beloved Hakim."

  "There's no doubt about it, your Highness."

  There was an embarrassing fit of sobbing. It took a long time for the Emir to regain control of himself. When he did, his voice was almost incoherent with rage.

  "Then arrest the bitch!" the Emir screamed. "She'll die! No, she won't die! I'll give her to Ebrahim. He'll keep her alive for months while he pares her down with his little knives!"

  "I've already taken the liberty, your Highness," said Le Sourd's suave voice. "I've sent a detachment of soldiers up to her quarters. They should be there by now."

  The Baroness moved swiftly, gathering up the things she'd need. She spoke savagely into her throat mike. "Tommy. Yvette. Inga. Lie low. Stay in your rooms. You're not in this yet. Act dumb and get out whenever you can."

  Sumo's voice was an agonized buzz in her ear.

  "What are you going to do?"

  Before she had a chance to answer him, there was a pounding at the door. "Eftah, eftah!" a rough military voice shouted. But even as she whirled, there was a violent splintering sound, and the door flew open.

  14

  There were four of them. They burst through the door in a cluster, an NCO with a brass emblem pinned to his headband and three privates. Two of the privates were holding sidearms: Walther P38 automatics. The third was carrying a Belgian FN automatic rifle. The NCO was making do with a swagger stick.

  Penelope faced them, nothing in her hands except a cigarette in a holder. She looked feminine and helpless in a black lace nightgown with her breasts loose under the transparent top, her dark hair tumbling down to her shoulders.

  "What's the meaning of this?" she said icily.

  They hesitated. It stopped them from grabbing her. They stomped across the floor, scowling, trying to look fierce.

  "You're under arrest," the NCO said.

  She took a puff of the cigarette. "Darling, you're out of your mind," she said. "The Emir will be furious."

  "It is by the Emir's orders," he said.

  They began moving in on her again. She forestalled their grabbing her by tossing her hair angrily and reaching for the peignoir on the bed.

  "We'll see about that!" she said.

  She whipped the peignoir around the neck of one of the privates. He threw up his hands, startled. That got one of the pistols out of the way for a second or two.

  She'd timed it just right. The cigarette in the holder exploded into a cloud of shredded tobacco as the needle-shaped crystal of synthetic black widow spider venom burst through it, propelled by a CO2 explosion. Penelope's exquisite jaw had been angled toward the most dangerous of the four: the man with the automatic rifle.

  All of a sudden he had a thorn sticking into his nose. He gave a blood-curdling shriek. It felt as if he were being stung by an entire nest of hornets all at once. The shock to the nervous system was instantaneous. He didn't know it when he died a second later.

  She was pulling at the peignoir the same instant. It was frilly and insubstantial, but there were weights sewn into the hem. It had curled around the first soldier's neck like a gaucho's bolas. The lacy lasso toppled him to the floor.

  The third soldier was next. He hadn't figured out what had happened to his stung buddy, or why the other man was off his feet, but his pistol was coming up by reflex. He was just out of reach.

  She kicked off one black satin mule. It flew upward, its forward point hitting him accurately in the wrist. His gun went off. But his aim had been deflected by six inches. The bullet thudded into the mattress behind her.

  By that time she was close enough to take the gun away from him. She plucked at his upper sleeve with her right hand and caught his wrist firmly with her left, keeping the gun pointing past her. She gave a quick powerful tug, hunching over as she did so. Her shoulder hit him in the midriff. He grunted, and then he was flying over her bent back. She held on to his wrist just long enough to break it.

  In the four seconds it had taken her so far, the NCO had backed off, his eyes widening, fumbling at the flap of his holster. He was ten feet away by now.

  She leaped straight into the air and did a back-flip. Her feet hit the mattress, springy as a trampoline, and then she was flying across the gap before he could get his gun halfway out, her legs spread in a vee. A second later she was riding his shoulders, her legs clamped around his neck, while he staggered back and forth trying to keep his footing, flailing at her with the swagger stick. He was making some kind of muffled complaint, his mouth buried in black lace. She took the black cigarette holder from between her clenched teeth and, holding it like a yawara stick, she drove it straight down into the weak place at the top of the skull, the jaggedly fused crack of the coronal suture. The cigarette holder plunged like a punch through the cerebrum and the brain's central fissure. She left it sticking upward like a little black mast in his head while she got back to the first soldier.

  He was struggling to his knees, the pegnoir dangling from his neck like an oversized necktie, scrabbling for the gun he'd dropped. She kicked him in the throat with her other mule. The hard edge of the sole caught him in the Adam's apple. All of a sudden his windpipe was full of the broken cartilage of his voice box, choking him to death.

  The man with the broken wrist was staring in horror at his three dead companions. He tried to back away when she walked over to him.

  "Sorry, darling," she said as she raised the hard, killing edge of her hand and broke his neck with it.

  She took a moment to catch her breath. She'd used up a lot of it in the minute it had taken her to kill the four men. She stared ruefully at the outside edge of her right hand. Already it was starting to hurt. Breaking bricks or necks was all right, but you also broke a lot of little capillaries, no matter how hard the karate training made that deadly blade of flesh. It was going to be a day or two before she could kill with it again.

  Le Sourd and the Emir would have seen it all on their TV screen. There were more troops on their way from the lower floors by now. Out the window? No, she glanced downward and there were guards boiling out of a side door, looking up at her and pointing.

  She ran barefoot out the door and down the corridor, her desert boots in her hand.

  A startled servant with a tray was in her way. She bowled him over, sending the tray spinning. She made it to the next bend and poked her head cautiously around the corner. There was the harem, an armed eunuch guarding the portals.

  She didn't have the Spyder to help her this time. She shinnied up a tall column, the marble cold between her legs. She perched at the top and put on the desert boots.

  Then she was walking upside down across the ceiling, holding the skirts of her nightgown out in a curtsylike gesture to keep them from falling down over her head. There was no sou
nd except the soft intermittent pop of her soles pulling loose from the ceiling with each step.

  She stopped over the harem entrance and strained backward with her magnificent muscles, plastering herself against the ceiling. Her. fingers found a grip in the ornamental fretwork and she waited, a spider of dangling hair and breasts and black lace.

  After a while there was the sound of pounding feet, and about fifteen soldiers came puffing down the corridor, carrying pistols and automatic weapons, heading toward her suite. Their leader flung a breathless "Khalü balak Amrekaniya!" at the eunuch as he passed. Watch out for the American woman.

  When the soldiers had gone by, the eunuch frowned. He drew his sword and tiptoed to the branch of the corridor, looking back every few steps toward the post he'd deserted. He peered quickly in both directions, then started back. He thought it over some more, then repeated the process at the bend that the soldiers had passed before they turned the corner.

  She was fifty feet in the air with no way to get down quickly. She had perhaps ten seconds.

  She stripped off the black nightgown. She held the hem against the ceiling and stepped on it with one foot. Would it work? It should; there ought to be enough space between the threads of the diaphanous material for the epoxy to ooze through. She unlaced the boot and dangled upside down by one foot. The nightgown remained anchored to the ceiling, a disembodied foot stamping on it. She grasped the gown's shoulder straps in one hand and unlaced the other boot.

  She fell. She slowed like a yo-yo, two thirds of the way down, as the synthetic elastomer material of the nightgown stretched to its limit. The eunuch was still at the far end of the corridor, his back to her. She let go and landed lightly on her bare feet, an easy fifteen-foot drop. The nightgown snapped back and dangled like a black banner from the arched ceiling. It was gloomy up there. She hoped no one would notice it for a while.

  And then she was walking naked into the Emir's harem.

  She wasn't alone. She slipped through the screened maze hiding the doorway, and she was suddenly part of a crowd of naked women.