“I must protest,” said the doctor, his cheek twitching.
Major Orlov raised her eyebrows.
After a moment, the doctor backed away, his tic worsening. He turned and strode to his place at the medical center.
Major Orlov regarded Marten once more. “Ten days, Mr. Kluge. My estimation is that you’ll break in three.” She waited a moment longer, glanced at the muscles of his back, then turned and made a gesture to someone.
Water gurgled overhead. Marten glanced up as green-colored water splashed him in the face. He groaned. His facial bones ached as if someone had slammed a board against his face. The water swirled at his feet, crept up his ankles and lapped at his calves faster than he’d expected. He grasped the lever. It was a little higher than waist level. The pump resisted movement. He strained, and he found the angle awkward. Then water sluiced out of the tube at the bottom. He worked faster. More water drained away. He pumped as fast as he could. It was hard, and soon he was gasping. By then, the water was no longer icy.
The intercom came on and Orlov’s voice was insidious. “How long do you think you can keep that up, Mr. Kluge?”
Startled, Marten saw that the major still watched him.
“I must admit that you have an excellent physique. Perhaps there are other ways for you to exit the tube.”
Marten ignored her. The idea of sexually wrestling with the major, a brutal woman lacking all femininity, nauseated him.
So he pumped, and time soon lost all meaning. His muscles ached and after each stroke, he yearned to quit. The hours grew second by agonizing second. Sweat poured. His shoulders, arms and torso felt as if they were afire. His eyes burned from lack of sleep. His stomach growled and gurgled by the minute—he was ravenous. When he wanted water, he tilted his head and drank. When he needed to relieve himself, he did so. A hundred different times he almost turned and shouted that okay, yes, he’d talk. Each time something hard and unyielding inside him refused. From time to time, an intern or doctor passed by, stopped, watched a moment or two, sometimes nodded, sometimes shook their head, often marking a slate and finally strolling on. Twice the major returned. She spoke to him over the intercom. He ignored her until she went away. Minute after minute he levered the handle up and down in stupefying monotony. After twenty-eight hours, sharp pains knifed into his back. He groaned, came close to collapsing, but then he gritted his teeth and pumped on.
Finally, he stopped and let the water cascade upon him. It rose to his thighs, his stomach, up to his chest.
“I suggest you pump quickly, Mr. Kluge,” the doctor said over the intercom. “The water acts as a drag and will make pumping later many times more difficult.”
The work stoppage felt so glorious that Marten almost let the water reach his neck. He didn’t really believe they’d let him drown. Then a sudden and elemental wish to live bid him grasp the pump and move it! Pain exploded in his back and shoulders. His forearms knotted and the lever slipped out of his grasp. A desperate cry tore from the depths of his being. He concentrated on grasping the handle and pumped with a will. Water touched his chin. He pumped as air wheezed down his throat. He pumped as the horrible pain in his forearms receded. He pumped as ever so slowly the water inched down to his chest, his stomach and finally to his mid-thighs. Then he could no longer keep up the ferocious pace. He leveled off and tried to think. It was impossible. Life was one long agonized blur of pain and pumping.
Later, through the distortion of his glass and that of the cylinder beside him, he saw a woman drowning. Her hair floated freely as she banged her fists against the stopper. Marten released his pump and banged on his glass. A nearby intern faced him. Marten pointed at the woman. The intern followed the finger, and his mouth opened in shock. The intern shouted. Marten couldn’t hear the words. Men rushed the platform to the tank.
As Marten pumped, he watched them take her out, carry her to the medical center and work on her. After a short time, the doctor shook his head and covered her face with a blanket. Terror filled Marten. The woman had drowned, died, ceased living! They hadn’t paid enough attention. He became depressed and paranoid. He might die in here. Perhaps he should talk. The very idea stole his strength. He felt his pains more than before. His will grew weak.
“What’s the use?” he whispered.
He turned his head to call, but then a burst of pride made him clamp his mouth shut. He pumped the lever. His hands were like lumps and his arm muscles quivered. Air burned down his nostrils. The endless rhythm was agony, and the agony stole pieces of his pride minute after minute. The woman had died. He would die soon. Up and down, up and down. The sheer exhaustion was too much. He couldn’t do this anymore. It was time to give up.
At that precise moment, Major Orlov marched into the room and halted at his cylinder. Perhaps she saw his despair. She grinned, and her eyes roved over his nakedness. Marten closed his eyes, refusing to look at her. But… yes, if that’s what it took. A great and mighty weariness stole over him. He opened his mouth and croaked, “You win.”
In the silence, the water rose around him. Marten opened his eyes. Major Orlov had left. He wildly looked around. She wasn’t in the room.
Marten pumped, and through the fog of exhaustion, he considered what that meant. Slowly, a new form of pride renewed his will and gave him more energy. He checked the wall clock. Thirty hours he’d been here. Could he go ten days?
“Pump,” he whispered.
He did.
At thirty-one hours, a final numbing fog came over Marten. Just a little longer, he told himself.
Then a thud, a shiver, shook the room and shook the cylinder. Marten blinked, wondering what had happened. The doctors, nurses and interns looked alarmed and pointed at the ceiling. Marten glanced up. He didn’t understand what caused their concern. Miraculously, the water falling onto his head slowed. It slowed and became a trickle. The trickle stopped. Marten didn’t understand. He didn’t need too. He simply collapsed and fell asleep.
He woke to the sound of interns removing the stopper. Groggily he looked up. They lowered hooks. He grabbed hold and they lifted him.
Major Orlov brooded at the bottom of the platform. Red-uniformed PHC thugs stood beside her.
“This is highly unusual,” the doctor told her.
Major Orlov glared at him. The doctor fidgeted with his clipboard
An intern draped a tunic over Marten. The thugs each grabbed an arm and marched him out of the auditorium and down a hall. Marten could barely walk. The muscles in his back, shoulders and arms had frozen. The thugs deposited him in the interrogation room with the bench. This time, however, Stick wasn’t there. The two held him up. Otherwise, he’d simply have fallen over.
“Your time runs short, Mr. Kluge.”
Marten wasn’t sure, but Major Orlov sounded desperate. A spark of something bade him keep his mouth shut.
“Give me your agonizer.”
Incredibly, the thug seemed reluctant. But at this point, Marten couldn’t be sure about anything.
Major Orlov twisted the setting and touched the agonizer to his chest. Marten bellowed and fell backward.
“I have decided to accelerate the process,” said the major.
The two thugs picked Marten off the floor and set him back on the bench. Smiles twitched across their lips.
Major Orlov lowered the agonizer for another touch. Marten squirmed as they held him tight.
“Well, Mr. Kluge?”
Marten stared at the agonizer. It moved closer, closer—
The door opened, and a guard said, “You’re needed, Major.”
Major Orlov hesitated. Then she tossed the agonizer to a thug. She glared at Marten and hurried out of the room.
After several moments, the red-uniformed PHC men moved to the door. They whispered urgently together. Somewhere outside a klaxon blared. Marten lay down on the bench. They didn’t say anything about it. So he closed his eyes and fell asleep.
9.
Months away from Earth in t
erms of space travel time—Tanaka Station orbited blue Neptune. Vast cargo ships circled this commercial clearinghouse. In the distance, a fat ice-skimmer worked its way up from the blue mass of the gas giant.
The Ice Hauler Cartel, which owned much of the Neptune System, also owed Tanaka Station. The habitat was run on strict capitalist lines. The general principle of the Solar System seemed to be that the farther one left the Inner Planets behind the purer became the capitalism. Unfortunately, for a first class-rated space pilot from Jupiter, this “pureness” came as a shock.
Osadar Di huddled miserably in a bar close to the docking bay where she’d berthed her ship. The owner of the vessel had just departed, leaving her in a dim cubicle. She held onto a beer, but she hadn’t sipped it. Around her in the packed bar mingled pilots, dockworkers, sex objects and gamblers. It was different from the Jupiter Confederation where she’d been born and raised, and only recently fled. The bar was like a caricature of an Old Asteroid Mining vid she’d watched as a child. The pilots and gamblers played cards, cheating, drinking and getting into fistfights. In other cubicles, shady deals were being hatched and nefarious plots conceived.
Osadar Di had short dark hair, dark worried eyes and an unremarkable nose. On the tallish side, she had long shapely legs in a tan jumpsuit. Along with her excellent piloting skills, she’d developed a deep-seated paranoia. Beginning at the orphanage, life had been out to get her. Now she was certain her bad luck had run out—from now on she’d have miserable luck.
Her friends had died in the Second Battle of Deep Mars Orbit. She remembered that time. The Jupiter Confederation had recognized Martian independence, and the rulers had sent a massive expeditionary fleet to the Red Planet. Social Unity had outfitted a reinforcing fleet, and the First Battle of Deep Mars Orbit had surprised everyone. The allied vessels of Mars and Jupiter won an annihilating victory. Back then, Osadar had wondered if she’d made a mistake, as she’d already fled the Jupiter system to escape service. Social Unity had outfitted a huge retaliatory fleet and sent it to Mars. The next battle with its grisly results had proven her wisdom. Ever since then, the Jupiter Confederation had scrambled to rebuild its fleet and had scoured everywhere for pilots.
Two months ago on a seedy hab in the Saturn system—still much too near Jupiter and its extradition treaties—Osadar Di had hired out to a disreputable ship owner who wished to travel to Neptune. Presently, Neptune orbited farther away from the Sun than even icy-dark Pluto with its eccentric orbital path. Now she waited for the ship owner to return from selling his cargo so he could come and pay her.
Osadar stared at the beer. What was the point of being alive anyway? She’d just suffer more. Maybe she’d be better off dead with her friends than sitting in this dump waiting for some sleaze ball who would probably run off with her wages anyway.”
“Osadar Di?”
Startled, she looked up. A beefy man wearing an armored vest and a visored helmet stared down at her. He held a computer slate and seemed to be studying it. A massive stunner rode on his hip.
“W-Who are you?” she stammered.
“Tanaka Station Security. Are you Osadar Di?”
“Yes. But how do you know me?”
He hooked the computer slate to his belt and drew the stunner. “Come with me, please.”
“What did I do?”
“Do you refuse to comply?”
“No, I—”
He waved the stunner. “Stand up and come with me.”
A dejected relief filled her. Here it was—the worst she’d been expecting. All her friends were long dead: space debris still floating around Mars. Why should it be any different for her? Only… she set her face into a grim mask as she marched out of the bar and into a tiny bubble-built vehicle on the street. She had to place her hands into the dash restraints and then they were off. Despite her paranoia, there was a spark within her, a willingness to resist. She was going to go down to some dark fate—she knew that with certainty—but that didn’t mean she had to like or accept it.
“Can you at least tell me what I’ve done?” she asked.
Upon entering the vehicle, he’d punched in the destination code and now watched the various pedestrians, centering upon the slinky women in outrageously revealing costumes. He glanced at her with his dark visor long enough to ask, “You were the pilot, right?”
“What do you mean?”
He snorted and went back to examining the skimpily-clad women who accosted the various dock and office workers along the street.
“Did… Did someone turn me in? Is that it?”
“Save it for the judge,” he said.
Thankfully, the ride was short. By the time they jerked to a halt in front of a squat gray building, Osadar was certain the ship owner had done something illegal, been caught and then spilled his guts in an effort to wriggle out of whatever he was in. In other words, he’d probably sold her out.
The security man released her from the dash restraints and marched her inside. A knot of security people stood to the side by a water dispenser. Other people in outlandishly long suits with enormous collars held onto computer folios and bantered together. Two men wore long red robes that reached the tiled floor. They wore large hats with three sprouting prongs and seemed older and graver than anyone else. Several burly-shouldered, combat-armored protectors hovered at their elbows. Everyone showed deference to the two robed men.
“In here,” said her security man, pointing to a door that had just swished up.
Osadar followed him into a tiny room—it seemed more like a closet—and sat down beside a bored old woman at a computer terminal. She wore a loose orange dress and wore silver bangles on her wrists that clashed as she typed on the keyboard.
“Name?”
“Osadar Di.”
The old woman typed that in and studied the screen. “From the Jupiter system, Taiping Hab?”
“Yes, but—”
“Pilot rated first class?”
“That’s right.”
“You piloted the Manitoba from the Saturn system, Winnipeg Hab?”
“Yes,” Osadar said with a sinking feeling.
“Do you freely admit to smuggling—”
“The owner lied to me about his cargo.”
The old woman glanced at Osadar. Then jangle, jangle, jangle went the bangles as she typed some more. “Your credcard number, please.”
“I don’t see what bearing that has on this.”
The old woman wouldn’t look up, but she said, “Dear, don’t be a trouble-maker. Just give me your card number.”
“MC: 3223-233-6776.”
The old woman typed that in, jangle, jangle, jangle, and she blinked at the screen. Her face tightened.
The security man noticed. He’d been leaning against the wall, watching. He groaned as he stepped near. “No credit?” he asked.
“None,” said the old woman.
“What!” said Osadar Di. “That’s impossible. I have over three thousand credits.”
“Deserters don’t carry credits out of the Jupiter Confederacy,” the old woman said sourly.
“That’s just great,” complained the security man.
“Why are you upset?” Osadar asked him.
“Come on,” he said, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her out of the room. The hall was empty now. She squinted. Far down the corridor, she saw the ship owner, a fat man with baby soft skin. He spoke urgently to one of those people with huge collars.
“Hey!” Osadar yelled.
The ship owner looked up and had the decency to blush. Then he turned his back on her and gently led the huge-collared man with the computer folio farther down the corridor.
Osadar tried to follow. The security man tightened his grip. “Forget it,” he said.
“He sold me out.”
“What did you expect?”
“Huh?” Osadar asked, looking into the security man’s dark visor.
“His fine was stiff. So he must have sold information to th
e court.”
“You mean about me?” Osadar asked angrily.
“You piloted the ship, didn’t you?”
“He hired me.”
“So you admit your guilt. I fail to understand your anger.”
Osadar shook her head. She knew this would happen. It was fated.
He marched her down a different hall. By a side door, they entered a larger room. In the front, a short man in a black robe and with thick gray hair sat behind a computer terminal. The rest of the room contained tables and benches. The two long-robed men with their three pronged hats sat apart in throne-like chairs. Their protectors stood behind them. The others sat at the tables, with computer styluses poised.
The black-robed man, the judge surely, studied his screen as Osadar entered.
“Osadar Di, a deserter from the Jupiter Confederacy Military Branch,” the security man said.
“That’s not right,” Osadar said.
“The smuggler?” asked the judge in a surprisingly high-pitched voice.
“Yes, your Honor,” said the security man. “She piloted the Manitoba from the Winnipeg Habitat, Saturn system.”
“Look,” Osadar said, trying to use a reasonable tone, “I think there’s been a mistake.”
“Silence,” said her security man, shaking her. “Stand over there.” He pointed to a red square near the judge.
Osadar debated refusing. She shrugged and stepped deliberately into the red square.
The small judge read from his screen. “Pilot rated first class. Induced into the Jupiter Confederacy Military Force for orbital fighter duty, Two-Five-Twenty-three Thirty-nine, went AWOL the same year. Pilot of the Manitoba, Winnipeg Habitat. Charge: smuggling dream-dust onto Tanaka Station. Status: Vagrant.”
“No credits?” asked a huge-collared woman.
“None,” said the judge.
Another of the huge-collared people, a man, raised his hand.
“Yes?” asked the judge.
“I’d like her to disrobe.”
The judge nodded to Osadar.
She frowned in disbelief, certain that she hadn’t heard correctly.
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