INFINITY HOLD3

by Longyear, Barry B.

  "Yes." Her voice was flat. "Can you stand?"

  I felt the tears brimming in my eyes. Hell, she had been dropped into the Crotch for mercy killing. "Why didn't you let me die?"

  I felt the tears run down my cheeks, and almost as though it was in slow motion I saw Mercy Jane lift her hand and bring it down across my face. My head exploded and I fell backwards onto the cot. Immediately she grabbed me by my shirt front and hauled me up. Her face was still without expression. "Stop blubbering," she ordered. "You're not a special case. We've all been raped."

  In my mind a dim memory announced itself. Rape. It was the one thing that could not happen to Alna. If it happened she would die.

  "Alna?"

  "I said all and I meant all." Her face softened just a crack as she placed her hand on my shoulder. "Get strong, Chief. We can't spare you right now."

  Lights danced in front of my eyes as the pain in my soul drove me to bury my face in Mercy Jane's stomach and wrap my arms around her. I cried again and I heard her voice as she stroked my hair.

  "You have to be strong, Bando. Anna Tane is going to have you and one of your men bring her demands to the Razai. You've got to be strong so you can make it there and bring the army back and wipe these monsters."

  "They'll kill you before we can—"

  "Don't worry about trying to rescue us. Nance and I talked it over. You know how hostages are used. It doesn't work if the hostages are dead, and we figure we're already dead." She pulled loose of my grasp and squatted in front of me. Taking my hands in hers she looked me in the eyes.

  "Do you understand, Bando? You have to bring back the army and kill these bastards. Go to the Razai and make a law. You know what we need. Hostages are already dead. The hostage takers are guilty of murder. Make a law. Make sure we get our payback."

  I found my voice. "You said you and Nance talked it over. What about Alna?"

  She placed her palms on my cheeks. "Now is when you have to be the strongest." She held my gaze for a moment, then her eyes filled with tears. Her lips formed the words without voice. "She's gone."

  "Gone?" It came from deep inside me, the last remaining kernel of foolish Earth fantasy. Alna couldn't be gone. Not if there was any justice in the universe. Not if there was a god. Too many lousy things had happened to Alna for her to die without any happiness in her life. Too many lousy things had happened to me to lose her now. To lose her here. To lose her to Kegel and his flaming bitch.

  I pushed Mercy Jane out of my way and shot to my feet. She tumbled to the floor as I tried first one side of the tent, then the next, searching for the entrance. As I found the flap, Mercy Jane's hands clapped down on my shoulders and held them fast.

  "Now," she said. "Now is when you have to be strong."

  Someone else lifted the flap and the blinding glare from Alsvid hurt my eyes. There was a crowd of Hellborn guards out there. I started to cover my eyes and then I saw her. The realization of what I was seeing came a second later. It was Alna gut strung next to the brave man on the sticks. Held by her shoulders and knees, her naked bottom hung down, forcing her into a grotesque fold. The gut loop beneath her shoulders had forced her arms up giving her the pose of a scarecrow. Thousands of tiny green maggots made it seem as if her guts were writhing with green slime. Her face was slack, her eyes open, looking at me.

  This is not the world, I thought. This is not reality. This is the dark horse, a nightmare, a bad dream. There were words in the air, lips near my ear, saying things. I turned, hoping to awake, praying to open my eyes and find Alna whispering those words of love that we both found so very difficult to say.

  My eyes were already open. I was already awake, and the voice was Mercy Jane's. She was whispering, telling me to bring the army back. In my mind she became Alna. Alna's ghost. Her huge brown eyes holding me prisoner, her lips saying, "They don't know you love me. Keep silent or they'll use it. Bring back the army. Get our payback."

  Perhaps it was only my desire to survive talking to me through an image. Maybe it was her ghost, or maybe God finally woke up and threw a switch. Maybe it was Mercy Jane. Anyway, it was how to survive. Just like in the crowbars. Keep the blowhole shut and the eyes down, walk the walk, and don't let the stains know how much they've gotten to you.

  I kept wanting to faint. Alna had told me I was still a man. She told me that Kegel couldn't take that away from me, and all I did was beat my head on the ground until my bulbs burnt out. I never said good bye to her, I love you, or anything.

  Mercy Jane's whispers in my ear. "She couldn't take it. She died after a few hours."

  A few hours. How merciful.

  Be strong.

  Be numb.

  At that moment they were the same thing.

  A voice called out, then another. I moved forward and Mercy Jane followed. The remaining members of my patrol were there: Prophet and Keeper. Keeper's leg was bandaged. He was sitting on a bale of grass. Next to him, sitting on another bale facing Alna, was Nance Damas. She turned her head and looked at me as Gutty Kegel and Anna Tane emerged from the large tent and approached me and Jane.

  Nance didn't have to speak. The crowbars taught me how to listen with my eyes. Nance was giving me everything I needed to know about hostage situations and what to do about them. It was strange to remember Earth and how a couple of whacks could nab someone and paralyze entire nations by holding a hostage. It's easy to do to a nation of wimps who place the continued life of some individual and a good press image before what's right, before the nation, before justice.

  I could see the new rule for the law. It would probably have to be voted on when I got back, and getting back was the priority move. I took one last look at Nance and turned toward the unholy pair. Kegel and Tane. It sounded like a law firm.

  They stopped in front of us and Anna Tane asked Mercy, "Is he able to travel?"

  "Yes."

  She looked at me, her face again without expression. She held up a piece of paper. "I want you to bring this back to your boss, Captain Brady. In there is an offer. It is a way for the fighting to end and for the survival of the hostages. Understand me. What's in there can mean life or death for your people. I think perhaps you've seen enough now to know that I don't make empty threats. Make certain you are clear when you tell them about me."

  "I will."

  She cocked her head toward Prophet. "I'm going to let him go with you to be your nursemaid. Be certain that you two make it back to your people. If we don't receive a satisfactory response to our offer within four days, you'll be responsible for the deaths of the hostages." She looked beyond me and called out, "The lughs. Bring them here."

  One of the Hellborn led two critters over. The lughs had canteens tied to their backs. I glanced at Nance. She gave me a slight nod, glanced at Anna Tane, then scratched her ass. She plucked an imaginary dingleberry and flicked it to the ground.

  The critters were parked between Prophet and myself. He looked around for a moment, then climbed up on his. I reached to climb up on mine and Anna Tane restrained me by placing her hand on my arm.

  "Maybe you think you're some kind of big gun pezzo, but don't even think about doing anything foolish, Nicos. You're not that big. Understand?"

  "I understand."

  She examined me for a moment. "Nicos," she began, "I may have misread you. I don't think so, but if I have, just remember that we have your friends." She nodded her head toward Nance Damas, and a light went on in the back of my head. Anna Tane thought Nance was my bit. Nance was chili pepper, too. Bando and Nance, sure. It made sense, if you were a gibbering racist with your head up your ass. My head was splitting as I wrestled my rage to the ground.

  "Nicos, don't do anything that will make us kill them."

  "I won't make you kill them."

  I shrugged off her hand and mounted the critter. I didn't look at Kegel. I couldn't afford to. The important thing wasn't to squash just him. The important thing was to squash him, his monster, his army, and this part of the bloody planet
. To do that I would need my army. To get my army I had to get out of Kegel's camp alive. To get out alive, I had to be cool.

  First things first.

  It was one of the slogans from the CSA meetings, first things first. It'd been a while since I'd been to a meeting. Of course they'd say at the meetings that you were only as sick as your secrets.

  Now I had a secret. It wasn't much of a secret compared to the general crowbar run. At a meeting Rus Gades had talked about when he was raped back in the crowbars. So had a hundred others. Fodder had shared his whole childhood horror in front of everybody at Nhandi v. Nhandi. Maybe it'd help. I decided that when I got back to the main column I'd have to get in a meeting, toss my shit in the circle, and cut it down to size.

  Anna Tane gave the order and Prophet and I urged our critters forward. I kept my eyes down and looked at the back of my lugh's neck until we were outside the limits of the camp and had left Kegel's guards behind.

  ││││

  ││││

  ││││

  ▫

  The Murderer

  ▫

  I didn't look back until Prophet and I had climbed the switchback road and were on the upper plain. The sun was high, making the insects in the grass buzz. I felt the tears on my face and tried to hide from the twin-headed dragon that exhorted me to kill at the same time it urged me to die.

  No matter how badly a machine has been mistreated, if it's running at all, it will still punch some sort of hole or attempt to put A on top of B. Sometimes you throw a rad up against the cell wall, afterwards it'll still pick up a station or two. Not very well, but you can tell there's something there. There were things I had to do, too.

  When we were in the tall grass I stopped my lugh, turned on its back, and made certain that no one was following. "Prophet?"

  "Yes?"

  "Keep an eye open. I'm going to get the stuff." He nodded and I went down the side trail until I found our camp from the night before. It took a bit, but just behind the edge of the bluff between two clumps of grass stalks, I saw a small pile of rocks. I normally wouldn't've noticed it, except that one of the rocks on top carried no weathering. I dismounted, pushed the rocks aside and found our ammo clips, auto nuts, and a plastic bag containing Show Biz's camera and all of her discs.

  Then I tore off all of my clothes and used up most of my water washing myself. I kept making whimpering, gasping sounds like I was covered with leeches, and although I couldn't see them, I couldn't stand them being on my body. Finally I scrubbed myself with my fingernails until I bled. Between the blood and the water I was cleansed.

  After dressing, I didn't dare check out the camera. I knew that if I saw Jontine Ru right then, or heard her voice, I'd split wide open. I packed everything up, mounted my critter, and turned back to the main trail. When I approached, Prophet was looking down at Kegel's camp and laughing.

  I looked down at the camp and couldn't figure out what was so funny. Too much had happened. My eyes were foggy. I couldn't make out the tripods or anything else. I began to lead my critter toward the north when I heard Prophet laugh again. The sound of it was such an obscenity right then, I pulled up my mount and stared at him.

  He noticed me looking at him and he shook his head and laughed again. Reaching up his hand to dry his tears, he said, "For the love of Jesus, Bando, did you see what they did to that nigger wench? Did you hear her scream?"

  Tingling crept up the back of my neck as my focus fuzzed. "What?"

  "They hung that little nigger bitch up by her guts, and Jesus, you should've heard her beg and scream! God, I've never seen anything so funny in my life!" Prophet filled the sky with belly laughs.

  Strength, numbness, thinking, all of my resolutions dissolved. Jumping from my critter I landed on the ground at a run and pulled Prophet down to the ground. He was still laughing.

  My hands found his throat and I squeezed, every last ounce of pain in me making my fingers strong, crushing his windpipe as his hands dug at my fingers and beat upon my shoulders.

  His movements became strong with panic, then grew weaker and weaker until he was done past. I flowed over with rage. Killing him wasn't enough. I still needed to kill him over and over. There was a large rock by the side of the road. I scrambled over on my hands and knees, picked it up, and got to my feet. I took it over to Prophet's still body. Lifting it over my head, I pulled it down out of the sky onto Prophet's face with all of my might. Straddling his chest, I picked up the rock and brought it down again.

  Lifting the rock, smashing it down, again and again I pulped his face until his entire head was soup. I could feel the blush and think goo dribbling off my face. I could see it splattered on the dirt and grass and all over the front of my sheet. I cried and growled, grinding away Prophet's head, until my arms could no longer lift the rock. My breath was coming in shallow gasps as I cried in frustration, because what I had done was still not enough. No matter what I did to Prophet's still form, it could never be enough.

  I was still straddling Prophet's chest holding the rock as the sun climbed higher into the sky. The grass moved with a freshening breeze and I looked down at my front. I looked like a sloppy butcher. I was a sloppy butcher.

  I pushed the rock away, crawled off Prophet's corpse, and pulled off my sheet. The white side had been out, and I spread it on the ground and used dead grass leaves to clean off the gobs of blood, skin, and hair. With fresh grass stalks I dyed the front, covering the stains with green. When the sheet was dry, I wore it with the stain inside. I pulled Prophet's corpse off the trail into the tall grass and left it for the grass worms and garbage birds.

  I was hollow. All that was me was gone. All that was good was finished. Kegel had taken my manhood, he and his bitch had gut strung my imperfect love, and I had thrown away the last good part myself as I rubbished Prophet. The Razai Cops were due for another chief. By my own law, I was a murderer. I owed max payback.

  No one else knew about it. No one knew I was a killer. I played around with that for a few seconds. I could've gotten away with it. No one had seen me. After all, I was the man. If the Chief of the RCs couldn't slip through the cracks, who could? All that needed doing was the doing.

  I finally shook my head. It wouldn't work. Just thinking about it brought to life all of my ghosts from Dick Irish to Nuris Rhadmajani. Maybe it was a conscience.

  I took a life, and the payback for that was the max. I was the one who made that law just before I smoked Dick Irish out of his socks. Sure I was crazy, but insanity, disease, compulsion, none of them were acceptable exceptions. I made that law, too, just before I put the cannibal Yvonne out of her misery. I was the very thing Nance had fingered me to protect us from. I was what I hated the most on Tartaros.

  Now I knew how Cap Brady felt after he killed Diaper Lou Imagia back on Earth. It really didn't matter that Diaper Lou deserved—needed—to be thinned. To Cap that hadn't mattered at all. Diaper Lou didn't even figure into it. The only thing that had mattered was that Cap had become what he had devoted his life to fight. That was why he turned himself in. That was why he pled guilty before the black rag. That was why he no longer felt worthy to be a police officer. Now I understood. There was more to it, though.

  Prophet wasn't a kiddie-porn baby snuffer like Diaper Lou. Prophet was sick. Crazy. And all he had done was to laugh at something that had struck his bent bigot's head as funny. I had thinned him for laughing. I thinned him because I was full of pain. I thinned him because I was crazier than he was. I thinned him because I was not fit to live myself. My own Mad Dog Rule stood there and ordered me, as my last official act, to pull max payback on myself for Prophet.

  I could've done it, maybe. If I'd had a gun, a knife, a place to tie a homemade rope. Maybe it was meant for me to live. I didn't know. Maybe I was supposed to die, and maybe I'd get around to that. Maybe the yard smarts were the smart smarts after all. Maybe what I'd do is just take off on my own, be my own man, make my own way. It's a great way to live if you don
't love anything or belong anywhere. I had lots of options, but there were some scores to settle first.

  Stays would make a good Chief of the RCs. He knew what the law was about and why it was important to all of us. He knew more about it than I did, anyway, that was certain. Once I'd settled with Gutty and his monster, maybe I'd just turn myself in, accept the peace of an RC slug in my heart, and go back to the slime where I belonged.

  I climbed on my critter, took the reins of Prophet's lugh, and headed north. First I had to deliver the message to Cap. Then I had to come back with an army and find Gutty Kegel and Anna Tane. I put a fire beneath my revenge. It kept those shadows of guilt and pain behind that mental door.

  ││││

  ││││

  ││││

  ▫

  The Remains

  ▫

  The sun grew hotter, but it was still cooler than on the grit. As I rode north through the grass I reached to Show Biz's equipment bag. I opened it and pulled out the tiny camera. It was empty, and I looked at the neat rows of micro discs. About a quarter of them had been used. I turned on the camera, paged through the programmed index, and froze when I came to the notation about the interviews with the members of the posse.

  Prophet's interview would be in there along with nine yards of slime about the punishment of Ham for looking upon his drunken father's nakedness while his brothers averted their eyes. Zap, Ham, you're black. And the Lord slappeth his knee and said "Got another one!"

  That's what you get for looking at things as they are, Ham. It was like that bird that brought the bad news to Apollo. Crows used to be white up until then. Apollo didn't like the news, he zapped the bird, and crows were black from then on. They ought to call turning things black the old joke of the gods.