Endurance

by Richard Chizmar

  “Almost there, pal,” I said.

  The asteroid appeared perfectly round, like a planetary body, but wasn’t really white. As the launch drew closer, I saw towering faceted structures paved the surface, and refracted light like prisms in every direction.

  I squinted as the increasing brightness hurt my eyes and pierced the nimbus of indifference I’d wrapped myself in. “They built this prison?”

  “No. The asteroid was discovered fully formed by the Faction centuries ago.”

  Untouched by scaly limbs. “Why’d they pick this ball of plas for their little enterprise?”

  “Catopsa is not made of plas. It is well within Faction territory, and convenient to the bond merchant routes.”

  Location is everything, even in the slave trade. “If it’s not plas, what is it?”

  “A mineral similar to silicon dioxide, but one hundred times as hard and possessing an equally higher specific gravity.”

  We were close enough now for me to see tiny figures moving inside the clear pillars. “They hollowed it out?”

  “No. The mineral develops natural recesses in its growth clusters.”

  “Okay.” I didn’t want to get a lecture on quasi-quartz mineralogy. I noticed no star in the immediate vicinity. “All that light it reflects, where is it coming from?”

  “The Hsktskt believe it is generated from phosphorescent material near the core of the planet. The nature of the mineral mantle prevents any confirmation.”

  As the launch prepared to land, I saw an enormous array of artificial environment generators, which answered my only other question. Catopsa was the quintessential prison—cold and transparent, with glassy walls no one dared shatter, even if they could find a way to do it.

  The Hsktskt once more displayed their efficiency as the League prisoners, now wearing prisoner uniform tunics in a disgusting shade of sickly yellow, disembarked from the launch into a portable passage, where the centurons distributed shaded eye protectors and swiftly scanned PICs using a portable database unit. Prisoners were then arranged in a line and shackled together by lengths of plasteel cable fastened to their slave collars.

  Reever and I were the last to leave, which gave me time to process what I was seeing. I slid the shades over my eyes at once, suspecting overexposure to the asteroid’s natural light source would cause considerable damage.

  I studied the interior, mostly so I wouldn’t have to look at all the League prisoners being marched in, chained like animals.

  The passage ended inside an enormous chamber created by a dozen massive pillars that had grown together at different angles. More Hsktskt stood waiting, these dressed in heavier insulating uniforms. Even with the evident atmospheric enhancements, Catopsan air felt cool, barely comfortable for a Terran.

  The lizards didn’t bother with a prisoner indoctrination; they simply surrounded the League arrivals and began separating them into new, smaller groups to be re-chained together. Males, females, hermaphrodites, and various other genders were segregated and marched off in different directions to passages leading away from the tower.

  No one who came off the launch went quietly.

  “Well?” I could avoid the sights, but the sounds of weeping and despair that echoed through the icy corridors were harder to ignore. “Do you show me to my cell? Or—” I saw a blob of something ooze past my left foot and jumped away from it. “What is that?”

  Reever prodded the moving, dun-colored puddle with his foot, and it instantly changed direction and moved away from us. “Lok-Teel fungus. They are indigenous to Catopsa.”

  “Moving mold.” I made a disgusting sound when I spotted more of them moving along the sloping faces of the chamber. “Can this place possibly get any more offensive?”

  “Centuron.” Reever took Jenner’s carrier from my hand, and gestured to one of the Hsktskt standing nearby. “Accompany the Doctor on an inspection of the facility, then report to me.”

  “Yes, OverMaster.”

  “Where are you going with my cat?” I asked, but he only walked away and left me with the lizard. I glanced up at my guide and sighed. “Let’s get it over with.”

  The Hsktskt escorted me from the receiving area through the first corridor, which branched off after a few meters. The transparent walls produced double refractions that made me blink a few times until I got used to the “twinning” effect.

  “Bet head counts in this place are fun to do,” I said.

  My companion only grunted. We passed some Hsktskt supervising small groups of prisoners wearing orange tunics in different common area sections. Finally he spoke, identifying each chamber we passed. “Depot service administration. Population regulation. Food preparation and distribution. Fluid recycling. Inedible waste disposal.”

  Again reality punched holes through the numbness surrounding me. Inedible? They were feeding their garbage to the prisoners? And what was this population regulation business? I started to ask, but by then we’d arrived at the first of the prisoner habitats. The tiers I’d been threatened with, by GothVar.

  A hundred types of eyes peered out at me from small, six-sided cells. Five sides were composed of the quasi-quartz, the sixth barred by a huge plasteel panel. The natural walls of the structure must have been too hard to drill through, judging by the unusual clamping mechanisms that kept each cell door in place.

  Prisoners appeared for the most part healthy and very unhappy. They wore the same tunics we’d been given before leaving the Perpetua. The hideous shade of yellow didn’t look good on anyone. A few shouted some ugly words when they saw us, but the thick chamber walls muffled the sound.

  All male in this tier, I noted. “Why do you keep the genders separated?”

  The beast didn’t answer me.

  We got through the first tier and made a turn into another corridor. More exotic life-forms populated these cells, but they were just as impolite as the males had been. The only difference seemed to be a marked inactivity, something else I asked about.

  He ignored that, and I noticed some commotion down the long row of cells had snared his attention.

  “Wait here.”

  He left me standing in front of an Yturi’s cell. I looked in, tried a half-hearted smile. The sad-eyed creature beckoned to me.

  I walked closer to the cell wall and involuntarily placed my hand against the cool surface. “Are you sick? Are you in pain?”

  The Yturi took a moment to put on its headgear before it answered. Its normally strident voice barely emerged through the thick mineral wall. “Are you a physician?”

  “Yes, I’m Dr. Torin.” I frowned as I inspected its derma. For an Yturi, it looked very unhealthy. “Aren’t you eating?”

  “Yes, but the inhibitors they put in our food are disgusting.”

  “Inhibitors?”

  “Chemicals to prevent self-propagation.” It pressed a leaf-shaped appendage over its thorax. “It makes most of us sick—I should have bred months ago.”

  That’s what the beast meant by population regulation.

  By then the Hsktskt had returned, and I whirled on him. “You drug them to keep them sterile?”

  He indicated the next corridor. “We will proceed now.”

  I glanced at the Yturi. “I’ll be back.”

  It took time to tour the entire prisoner tier stockade. I tried to keep a running estimate of the number of beings, then gave up. “What’s the current population?”

  “As of this hour, fifteen thousand, nine hundred twenty-one, not counting the new captives arriving from Overlord TssVar’s fleet.”

  It was a staggering figure. More surprising was the number of empty cells I saw—the Hsktskt could easily hold three times as many prisoners.

  Each tier had its own administration chamber and services units, which were manned by supervised prisoners. My escort informed me that Hsktskt guards routinely prowled the corridors, so daily counts were considered unnecessary. Besides, where would anyone go? As we went along, one thing began to really bothe
r me.

  At last I had to ask. “Where are the medical facilities?”

  My companion swiveled one yellow eye toward me. “There are none.”

  “None?” I was appalled. “What do you do if they get sick, or hurt?” He didn’t answer me, only fingered his weapon. Pain began gathering at my temples as I processed that. “Right. Take me to OverMaster HalaVar.”

  Reever’s chambers occupied a tier in an enclosed, heavily guarded structure beyond the prisoner stockade. I found him there, deep in discussion over something with OverLord TssVar.

  “Where is my cat?”

  “He is waiting for you in your chambers.”

  Now that I knew Jenner was safe, I got right down to business. “There’s not so much as an medsysbank in this place, but you’re drugging prisoners. Why?”

  “I see you have completed your tour of the facility,” Reever said.

  “Yeah, I have.” I pushed a chair out of my way. “Don’t you know what the side effects are from long-term exposure to chemical inhibitors?”

  TssVar looked from me to Reever, who was busy inputting data on a console unit. “I remind you, HalaVar, not to neglect her training further.”

  “Space my training!” I thrust a hand through my hair. “You’re sterilizing them!” The big Hsktskt regarded me with that only too familiar tolerant expression. “This has to stop.”

  My ex-bondmate indicated the only other chair in the room. “Sit down, Cherijo.”

  “No thanks.” I paced back and forth in front of TssVar. “There’s no excuse for deliberately harming these prisoners like this. None.”

  Reever finished whatever he was fooling with and rose. “OverLord, it would be to our advantage to have Dr. Torin administer to the needs of the slave population.”

  “Indeed.”

  The abrupt turnaround made me stop and gape for a moment. “Wait a minute. Excuse me if I looked interested. I’m not. Nor am I drugging them for you.”

  “Any slave found physically or psychologically unfit for trade auction is terminated,” the Hsktskt Commander said.

  All at once the chemical inhibitors didn’t seem so bad. “I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but you guys are real humanitarians.”

  TssVar was ignoring me now. “I will allow it, HalaVar. See that she is put to work at once.”

  I lost it as soon as the beast went out the door panel. “I’m not working for you or the Hsktskt!”

  “That is your choice.” Reever input one last signal, then came around the console. “Unhealthy or damaged slaves will continue to be put to death.”

  Hale and hearty slavery, or meaningless extermination. And all up to me. “That’s not fair. You can’t make me responsible for that kind of decision.”

  “What about the Chakacat? OverSeer FurreVa? The League captives?”

  “Alunthri?” The last of the safe haze I’d been cocooned in evaporated. “Where is it? What did you do to it?”

  “Come with me.” Reever took my arm and guided me out the door panel.

  A few minutes later we entered a chamber in the center of the prisoner tiers. There was an impressive amount of diagnostic apparatus and instruments set up, waiting to be used.

  Medical equipment.

  “You must have been rather confident I’d agree.” I noticed the many different types of tech, jumbled together and badly in need of proper organization. “Do Hsktskt raiders routinely take anything that isn’t nailed down?”

  “Yes.”

  I thought of the avaricious traders I’d known back on K-2. “They should go into business with the Bartermen.” One of the Lok-Teel blobs slid up against my ankle and I shuddered and shook it off. “First order of business: get rid of this fungal infestation.”

  “It does no harm.” Reever took something from his pocket and tossed it on the floor. A tiny piece of dried fish—something I usually fed Jenner as a treat. The fungus immediately flowed over it and a moment later rolled off to start climbing a wall. The fish was gone. “It ingests most organic material, including natural waste products.”

  Which explained the lack of disposal units, and made me decide never to go to sleep in the presence of a blob. “How does it feel about living beings?”

  “Touch it for yourself and see.”

  Curiosity would eventually kill the surgeon, I thought, but walked over to the wall anyway. I started with a fingertip, and the pleasant, warm-silky texture I encountered made me murmur in surprise.

  “It feels … odd.” Like flesh instead of a botanical.

  Soon I had my whole hand pressed carefully against the blob, and jerked back only momentarily when it looked as if it was going to envelop my fingers. Instead, it gave me what felt like an amoebic version of a caress, then flowed out from under my hand.

  “Very strange.” Inexplicably soothed by the contact, I inspected the gear around me. “All right. I’ll need a pharmaceutical synthesizer, a half dozen nurses, and more berths. That’s for starters.”

  “I can give you everything but the synthesizer, for now.”

  He didn’t trust me. Reever, who’d lied and cheated and betrayed me, was worried I might try something with the drugs.

  “Get me a synthesizer and post a guard.” Before he could say anything more, I shook my head. “It’s not negotiable.”

  I noticed the lack of heavy equipment, thought immediately of FurreVa and gave him a few more items for the list.

  “I need a reinforced exam table for the Hsktskt, and special transport for FurreVa’s infants. Bring them down in those incubators, too. They should stay in them for a few more weeks.”

  “You intend on treating the Hsktskt?”

  “Why not?” The question astonished me. “Reever, we’ve had this conversation before, remember? I’ll treat anyone, for anything, any time. That’s what I do.”

  “So you have said.”

  The odd expression on his face annoyed me, so I picked up a data chart and began programming it to keep a running list of necessary requisitions.

  “Where’s Alunthri?”

  “On the Perpetua, awaiting transport.”

  “Have it transported soon. Get moving, will you? I’ll have to get to routine physicals for all the prisoners, but have the centurons bring the sick ones first, two at a time. And make that a dozen nurses.”

  Once he was gone, I shuffled some equipment around to make more work space and performed an item-by-item inventory. The numbness was gone, and my headache got worse, but I wasn’t sorry about that.

  It was time to get back to work.

  Several weeks after I’d arrived on the Hsktskt Faction slave-depot, I’d seen nearly a third of all the prisoners, requisitioned most of what I needed, and trained my nursing staff on how to assess and triage as the patients streamed in.

  Dchêm-os had been the first nurse assigned to me, much to our mutual displeasure. “For you, I will not work,” she said the moment the Hsktskt guard shoved her through the door panel.

  I didn’t like her, but she was the best nurse on the Perpetua. I needed someone who could handle the patients without running to me every five seconds.

  I knew what to say. “I don’t want you here either, but I don’t get a choice in how they punish me.”

  That pleased Zella, from the way her ear fur perked up. “Stay, then I will.”

  FurreVa reported with her brood, whose conditions were stabilized, and informed me she’d been temporarily stripped of her rank.

  “I remain restricted from duty, until the young are fully ambulatory,” she said as I checked over her back.

  “I need you off your feet for more grafts. Once those have healed, I’ll start the work on your face.” I checked the database, but even here Hsktskt medical data was decidedly scanty. “How long until the kids are up on their limbs?”

  “A few days, perhaps a week.”

  It beat the heck out of Terran infants, who took forty times that long to walk. “Get TssVar to assign someone to help you. Someon
e with thick skin. I’ll set up a chamber for you to stick close to the infirmary.” I handed her a data chart. “Study this. It details all the surgery I’m planning to do. You need to know everything before we get started.”

  She examined the chart for a moment. “Why?”

  “Because once I cut, there’s no turning back. Okay?”

  She set down the data chart. “I know you arranged for TssVar to discover my unauthorized interrogations.”

  “Yeah, I did. Then I found out you didn’t actually interrogate any of those prisoners. Why did you lie about it?”

  She ignored my question. “You do this surgery to assuage your guilt.”

  One of us might as well be honest. “That’s part of it.” I did something extremely stupid then. I lifted my hand and gently touched the terrible scar. “I’m a healer. You need to be healed.”

  She could have taken off a few fingers with one quick snap. Yet all FurreVa did was stare down at me, hiss something, then leave.

  Progress, I guessed.

  Although most of the prisoners were kept in their cells, a few were allowed to move through the compound corridors without escorts. I learned that those who did had to wear the darker orange “trustee” tunics to indicate they were performing some necessary function, like the sanitation crews and meal distributors.

  Not all of them performed their assigned tasks, naturally.

  I noticed shadows moving behind a privacy screen in the back of the infirmary. Since no inpatients were currently assigned to that particular berth, I went back to investigate.

  “Hello?” I swept the partition aside. “May I help … what are you doing?”

  A silly question, considering the position of the two beings on the berth. Tendrils and body parts jerked apart. A feminine squeak of dismay trilled out. Then a masculine grunt of displeasure.

  “Okay, you two.” I crossed my arms and sighed. “Let’s go. Break it up.”

  The male, a being of small stature, whipped his multiple tendrils as he swept a length of linen over the naked object of his affections. A beaklike orifice in place of a mouth snapped open and shut a few times, while close-set eye stems glared at me.