The sun was bright and warm and the water temperature comfortable. She closed her eyes and drifted along, and eventually she dozed in the pleasant weightlessness of the flowing current. She never sensed the increase in the strength of the current or heard the roar of the falls that spilled a hundred meters onto the rocks in the canyon below.
Chapter 26
Captain Sepp Dieter winced as the mild electric current coursed through a very sensitive part of his anatomy.
"Electricity is a very interesting and useful phenomenon of nature," the interrogator whispered. He was a pudgy, balding man of indeterminate age with ears that stuck out like handles from the sides of his head. His forehead glistened with perspiration—not from the heat, for the interrogation chamber was cold, but from excitement. He grinned a lot and spoke in a soft, intimate voice just above a whisper, as if he were talking to a child—or a lover—and he talked constantly, maintaining a rambling monologue, hardly missing a word even when his victims screamed in agony. When they did scream, he raised his voice slightly as if insisting that, even in their pain, they must pay attention.
"I don't know anything," Dieter said. He did not bother to protest his arrest or the torture; he knew it would do him no good, and he was determined not to give the monster the satisfaction of an easy confession. They had come for him not two hours after Bass and the others left for Haven. He now bitterly regretted that he didn't open fire on the SG men who arrested him. They had come in their own Hopper, a dozen of them led by a swaggering officer, barging into his command post, catching him totally by surprise. They arrested him immediately and, weapons at the ready, hustled him into the waiting aircraft. There was nothing his men could do but stand by and watch in startled amazement. The Special Group men had taken him straight to the cellars of Wayvelsberg for questioning.
Lieutenant Ben Loman, as the senior officer left in the reconnaissance company, would have taken command. That was a bitter cup for an old soldier like Sepp Dieter. He wasn't sure whether Loman had informed Battalion, but in any event his ordeal at Wayvelsberg would be over by the time army headquarters could learn of his arrest, too late to protest the action. Not that a protest would do him a bit of good.
"Oh, you know nothing, Captain?" The interrogator smiled. "On the contrary, my dear sir, you do know things, yes indeedy, you do!" The interrogator chuckled, rubbing his hands together, then flicked a toggle switch on his control panel. A stronger current caused Dieter to grunt. "That was a mere ten milliamps, my dear captain. Did you know that the average man can withstand up to sixteen M.A.'s? Parenthetically, I might add, women can only tolerate about 10.5 M.A.'s, some more, some less; everybody's different, heh heh heh. Vive the difference, eh? Those dosages, sixteen and 10.5, respectively, are known as the ‘let go’ levels? Heh heh heh. You can still let go of a wire at those charges, but any higher, depending on gender..." He gave Dieter forty M.A.'s. Dieter gasped and spasmed against his bonds. The interrogator, smiling happily, let the current go for twenty agonizing seconds. When it stopped, Dieter sat gasping for breath, his body covered in cold perspiration.
"This is an old but a tried and true method, Captain, and a lot more fun for me than drugs. I have an interesting formula for the application of electroshock in interrogations. Would you like to hear it? I call it ‘forty-sixty-eighty.’ By the time we reach eighty milliamps you'll be telling me everything I want to know. At levels of over a hundred, by the way, the subject usually goes into ventricular fibrillation and, unfortunately, dies. I do sincerely hope we don't have to go that route today. Shall we continue?"
Ben Loman sat behind Captain Dieter's field desk in the company command post. He put his feet up and placed his hands behind his head. He mused on how fickle fate could be. One moment a man is cast down, as he had been after the chewing out Dieter had given him, and the next—well, here he was now, commanding, and Dieter was... well, too bad. Now that he was in command, he'd make some changes around the company. First would be that sergeant, Raipur. Just wait until he came back—if he came back—he'd be Private Raipur henceforth! Ah, the fickle finger of fate!
The senior stormleader in charge of Intelligence looked dispassionately at the wreck that had been Captain Sepp Dieter. "Will he live?"
The interrogator shrugged.
"What did he tell you?"
"A very interesting story, Senior Stormleader. Those people whose transport to General Lambsblood's headquarters he facilitated were refugees from New Salem, apparently, the last of the City of God sect, I should think. Survivors of our attack on the place. One of them, however, is an off-worlder, a man named Bass. Strange name, isn't it? I think it's a kind of fish. Well, anyway, this Bass is looking for the young woman who was captured during the raid on New Salem. I believe, sir, she is here right now, upstairs with our leader. I also believe that is all this man knows."
The senior stormleader arched an eyebrow. "Who else back there knows anything about this encounter?"
"Our informant. A Lieutenant Ben Loman."
"Bring him up here. Question him. See what he might be holding back. Everyone holds back something." He turned and left the room. Moments later he stood before Herten Gorman. "I have information, Deputy Leader, that I believe you should pass to our leader immediately." He related what the interrogator had learned from Dieter.
Gorman sat silently for a moment, then put his office suite into its security mode so he would not be interrupted. He got to his feet. "Come to the window with me, Senior Stormleader, I have something to tell you." He laid a hand on the senior stormleader's shoulder and guided him toward the window. It was opaque. With the security system engaged, it reflected their images like a mirror. "Who else knows of this, old friend?" Gorman asked.
"Just me, Deputy Leader, and the interrogator, of course. Perhaps our informant with the reconnaissance company in the field too, but I gave orders for his arrest. He should be here in a few hours. I came right up as soon as the interrogation was over."
"Good!" The senior stormleader never saw the dagger Gorman plunged into his neck just below his right ear. Blood spurted all over the window as the man instinctively lurched forward in an attempt to steady himself against the glass, meanwhile trying to stanch the blood with one hand, bracing himself on the windowpane with the other hand to keep his footing. With each contraction of his heart, arterial blood sprayed between his fingers. Bloody handprints smeared down the glass as he slid to the floor, gurgling away his life.
Gorman stood back and looked for something on which to wipe his hands—blood had spattered on his uniform. He snatched up a nearby tablecloth, pulling a lamp to the floor as he did so, and wiped his hands carefully. What a mess! Well, he would wash and clean it all up later. It wasn't as though it was the first time he'd had to dispose of a body. He returned to his desk and activated his communicator. "Heeps?" He spoke to the interrogator in the bowels of the building.
"Yes, Deputy Leader!" Heeps's cherubic face replied from the screen.
"Get rid of that Captain Dieter. Same goes for that lieutenant who's coming back here for questioning. Clear? Keep all of this to yourself, understand? I'm going in to see our leader right now. Then when you're done with those two, come and see me." He switched off the device and grinned. Now all he had to do now was give this Comfort woman—what a ridiculous name!—a knife and let her do the rest! He leaned back and put his hands behind his head. How fickle, he mused, is the worm of fate, twisting first this way and then that, putting you on the bottom one minute, lifting you to the top the next! Well, it didn't hurt to give that old worm a little nudge now and then.
In the bowels of Wayvelsberg Castle, Heeps grinned. Captain Dieter was slumped in the chair, unconscious, nasty burns all over his body from the electric shock. Well, the Deputy Leader did not say when to kill him, so he would keep him around for a while, try out some technique variations, electrodes inside various body cavities, for instance. Yes! Slow death as the innards were gradually crisped! Wonderful! He never imagine
d when he awoke that morning the day would turn out so pleasantly. And then he'd have that lieutenant to work over. It had been a while since he'd had two subjects in one day!
It was the lunch hour. Again Comfort was de Tomas's only guest. They were having a delicious soup made from beta bitula, a beetlike vegetable native to Kingdom. The bloodred liquid was thick, tangy with a slightly salty but pleasant aftertaste. The vegetables were actually one of Comfort's favorite dishes, and in spite of herself, she spooned up the steaming liquid with evident pleasure.
De Tomas smiled, genuinely pleased that his consort was enjoying the soup. "Tasty?" he inquired.
"Yes. They are also good fried, with leeks and tomatoes. My mother," she paused, "used—used to make it that way all the time."
"I shall see that the cook prepares it for you tonight. Tell me, are your quarters comfortable?"
"Yes, as much as any prison cell can be comfortable."
"That is merely a precaution, Miss Brattle. Soon you shall be free to roam Wayvelsberg Castle as you please."
"Will that include the infamous torture chambers?"
De Tomas smiled. "Certain areas, of course, are off limits. We still have a police function to perform here. But Miss Brattle, much of what you have heard about this place and my role as former Dean of the Collegium is greatly exaggerated. We never really burned people at the stake, for instance." He laughed.
"But people have been executed," Comfort retorted. "There's a place at Castle Hurse the prisoners call ‘Suburbia,’ where prisoners are shot and the bodies are fed into incinerators."
"Castle Hurse is a prison. Felons are confined there, murderers among them. Of course executions take place there, my dear. And Comfort, I can hardly be blamed for the decisions undertaken by the criminal justice system, can I? I follow a strict hands-off policy on those matters. I just let the courts pursue justice according to our laws."
In times past, inmates at Castle Hurse had been executed and buried in mass graves on the prison grounds. After taking power, de Tomas had ordered the bodies disinterred and burned. The inmates had done the work, and then the laborers themselves were executed and their bodies fed into the flames.
"In fact, Comfort," he continued, "as Dean of the Collegium, I used my powers to spare the lives of many people. The power that office carried in the hands of another man could have unleashed genocide in the world, but I used it with restraint." That was pure rubbish. "And when I took power, I abolished the Collegium. Nowhere on Kingdom is anyone investigated or persecuted for his religious beliefs anymore. So you see, my dear, you simply cannot believe everything you may have heard about me." He smiled and poured her another glass of sparkling Katzenwasser '38.
"But I am classified as a political prisoner," Comfort protested, "and so are hundreds of others confined in Castle Hurse!"
"I can see that was a mistake in your case. But Comfort, you must understand that every government has its dissidents, people who oppose its policies, no matter how enlightened. The sects have ruled on this world from the beginning, and their leaders, large and small, were not willing to give up their hold on the people overnight. Those men and women, the ones who have not joined us, are dangerous enemies of the state. Every state has the right to protect itself! Thus, we have ‘political’ prisoners, as you call them.
"And Comfort, someone must be in charge! What is preferable, a government that changes every few years as happens in the so-called ‘democracies,’ or a government that is stable, run by the same individual for forty years? How would your church operate, for instance, if every two years you had to have a new pastor?
"But enough of this. Tell me about your family."
Comfort thought fast. What was it she had told her interrogators? She couldn't contradict herself now! She played it safe and described the bucolic life of New Salem. De Tomas listened intently. "I am very sorry about your family, Comfort. I think I would have liked to meet your father. If he were still alive, I'd be honored to have him here with us at this meal. I'd invite him here to live with us." He sighed. "Well, I have official business to attend to. Would you like something to read in your room?" He gestured at the book-lined walls.
"May I read the Bible?"
"Of course! Or anything else you see here you like—plays, novels, histories, works of art!"
"B-But I thought these books were banned!"
"Oh, they were, Comfort, they were. By order of the Convocation of Ecumenical Leaders. In their narrow-minded ignorance, they feared any ideas contrary to their own. So I was forced to burn whole libraries. These volumes I rescued from the flames, at great peril to myself, my dear. But I took the chance to preserve them for the future generations of this world. I will soon donate them to the Free University of New Kingdom, which I am in the process of endowing. They will form the nucleus of a great system of learning."
"You will give up all these?" Comfort took in the shelves crammed with books and pamphlets. She had never seen so many books before. The people of the City of God were familiar with books and printed materials, actually preferring printed Bibles to Bibles in electronic form, but they did not have libraries as such.
"Yes, sadly." De Tomas brightened. "But they go for the good of my people. Did you know, Comfort, that I do not even receive a salary for my work? Yes," he nodded, "that's right. Oh, I live well, as you can see, but I am paid nothing. I have no fortune. I have no estate. Were I to die now, I would leave only my good name and my good works." Actually, de Tomas was worth millions from investments he'd made using funds accumulated by the Special Group's business ventures, enterprises that flourished on prisoner labor.
"Thank you, thank you very much." Comfort searched the shelves and pulled down a dog-eared copy of the King James version of the Bible. Her face radiated her happiness. Despite all the lies he had just told her, de Tomas could not help being pleased to see her so joyful.
"Sir—Mr. Bass, if that is your real name—do you really expect me to believe this story?" General Lambsblood scoffed. Bass? He thought. What a strange name! Like that Marine commander, Sturgeon, wasn't that also the name of a fish? These off-worlders certainly were different, but as he'd often thought since 34th FIST had departed, he wished the Marines were back on Kingdom again.
Bass looked at Zechariah, who was sitting next to him, then back at the general. "That is our story, General, believe it or not. All I ask is your help getting into Interstellar City so I can lay our case before the Confederation ambassador. Captain Dieter said you would help us."
The general's scowl softened. "A good soldier, young Dieter." He drummed his fingers on his desktop. If this rough-looking character sitting before him with his fishy story really was a Confederation Marine—maybe he was, if he'd actually done all the things he'd just related—then he could prove very useful in the events that were about to unfold. Dieter believed him, and that counted for something. And that enlisted man, Raipur? Dieter had assigned him to escort these people up here. Well...
Lambsblood had the foresight to borrow some of Ambassador Spears's electronic surveillance equipment, so at least he could discuss matters privately in his own office now, instead of walking about out-of-doors. The technicians had discovered a dozen bugs during the first sweep. He regarded his guests, the man called Bass and this Zechariah Brattle, formerly mayor of New Salem. The man had a straightforward honesty about him that Lambsblood respected. He knew almost nothing about the City of God sect, and he didn't want to know anything more. They had kept to themselves mostly, and that was good from Lambsblood's point of view. They'd also been almost wiped out by the Skinks, so this Brattle might be the last of his breed. And, if it was his daughter and only child in the custody of the Special Group, well...
The communications console on the general's desk bleeped a high-priority message. "Excuse me a moment, would you?" he said to his guests. He read the message.
From where he was sitting, Bass was alarmed at the expression that passed over General Lambsblood's face. Ze
chariah noticed it too, and they exchanged nervous glances, but neither dared ask him what was the matter.
"Getting into Interstellar City is no easy task," Lambsblood said after a long pause. He spoke almost as if he were talking to himself. "The surveillance there is very tight and constant, everyone going in and out is closely screened. No, I think it'd actually be easier to get the ambassador out here."
"Then you will help us, General?" Zechariah asked, surprised at what he saw as a sudden change of heart.
"They've arrested Captain Dieter," Lambsblood said in a husky voice, "and if I miss my guess, we are next."
"You will help us, then?" Bass asked.
"You're damned right I will," the general answered firmly.
Chapter 27
The two heavily armed shooters stood on opposite sides of the gate leading into the sprawling compound on the outskirts of Haven known as Interstellar City. One checked foot traffic in and the other harassed the people going out. Other men stood by, ready to check any vehicles that might pass through.
"ID!" one demanded of an elderly woman going in.
"I pass through here every day, sonny!" the woman protested, but she reached for her identification crystal anyway.
"Orders is orders," the man replied, holding out a hand. "Besides, Mrs. Summara, you could be an imposter," he said, laughing at his own wit. "If you'd ever give me a little kiss in the morning we wouldn't have to go through this routine every day. I can always tell a woman by her lips," he said to his companion, winking at the old lady.
"You say that to every girl who comes through here, you beast," the woman groused, but secretly she enjoyed the little game. He took her crystal and popped it into a reader. She was employed as a charwoman. Her ID checked out, as he knew it would, and he waved her on. Passing by, she slapped him playfully on his rear, as she did every morning, and the other sentries roared with laughter.
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