The Court of a Thousand Suns

by Chris Bunch

  "M'mum w'd nae likit you."

  Kilgour had been sniveling since the two had boarded the guard transport for Dru. Their identities hadn't even been questioned. Evidently even the security-conscious Tahn could not figure why anyone, for any reason, would want to go to the prison world of Dru.

  Not that a guard's life was without its comforts. A good percentage of Dru's luxury goods were filtered into the guards' compound. And of course there were human amenities, since any prisoner condemned to Dru quickly learned that his or her life expectancy would be significantly enlarged by volunteering to share a guard's bed.

  Sten and Alex had evaded the situation by claiming that on leave they'd both bedded the same woman, and been given the same social disease, which was slowly responding to treatment.

  Ohlsn had been right—for the peasant-class men and women the Tahn routinely recruited as prison guards, life was very sweet indeed.

  "Young Sten," Alex whispered, just outside the security door to the guards' barracks, "are you sure that all we hae't'do is lift this mad bomber? Wha' would happen if we set a wee bomb ae our own in the center ae this compound before we hauled?"

  "Good idea, Sergeant Major. No."

  Kilgour sighed and they entered their quarters.

  Alex waited until the machine finished cycling, lifted the plas door, and took the two mugs of narcobeer to the table he and Sten were sitting at.

  All of the recreation rooms in the barracks were the same—overly plush chambers that attempted to copy what the vids showed of warlord quarters. With additions. Like the narcobeer machines. Alex winced, and sipped. Coming from a free world and the Imperial military, he'd never experienced the dubious joys of narcobeer. Sten had slugged down more than his share on the factory world of Vulcan.

  "Nae only d' these Tahn no eat right," Alex grumbled, "but th' dinna ken beer."

  "That's not quite beer."

  "Aye. A camel pisseth better ale than th' Tahn make."

  "It's fermented grain of one sort or another. Plus about five percent opiate."

  Alex chugged the mouthful he'd been swilling straight back into his glass. "Y'r jokin't."

  Sten shook his head and drank. It tasted even worse than he remembered.

  "Wha's the effect?"

  "You get glogged, of course. Plus there's a slight physical addiction. Takes… oh, may be a cycle or two of the cold sweats to shake."

  "Bleedin' great. First Ah'm a pimp, then Ah'm a screw, an' noo Ah'm becom'it a clottin' addict. The Emp'll ne'er know wha' troubles Ah seen."

  Sten noticed, however, that the information didn't keep Alex from finishing his glass. Further complaints were broken by loud, raucous cheers from the other guards as they welcomed two others into the rec room—guards Sten and Alex hadn't seen during their three weeks on Dru.

  "The Furlough twins!"

  "How'd the luck of the draw play?"

  The slightly older and beefier of the two women motioned for silence. Eventually, the other guards shut up.

  "Y'wan a report? Awright. The late prisoner, our lamented whatever his clottin' name was—or was it her?—successfully passed to his reward and was recycled."

  "Clot the villain. Who cares?"

  "Me'n Kay found a new way to spend time back on Heath."

  Great interest was obvious among the other guards.

  "You people been using the body detail to hit the resorts. Lemme tell you, there's somethin' better. With the fleet bein' built up, there's a whole bunch of recruits.

  "Young they are. Stuck on post. Me an' Kay figured that they got credits, and nobody to spend 'em on."

  "Tell you, they spent 'em on us, since we used our guaranteed right an' spent time on base, in the R&R center."

  "Good times," someone snickered.

  "Tell you," the woman went on. "Back there, it's better. They sack with you 'cause they want to, not 'cause there's pressure. Tell you women a little secret," she leered. "It's a lot… stronger that way. Plus they pick up the tab."

  A watch sergeant stood and ceremoniously waved his mug at them. "We're glad to see you people back. Sounds like your stories are gonna be great. But the next time the lottery rolls around, if you guys take it again, somebody's gonna get dead. This is the third time in two years you two went back to Heath."

  Sten and Alex were looking at each other. There wasn't any need to discuss matters. They tabbed new narcobeers from the machine and joined the fray.

  The problem they'd never solved was, once they found Dynsman, how to get him—and themselves—offworld. Being experienced covert operators, they'd always assumed there was a way. But in three weeks they had not yet been able to find one. Dru was ringed by manned and unmanned guard ships. The only way on or off was in prisoner transshipments or on robot freighters lifting out the luxury exports. The prisoner ships were manned by heavy guard contingents, and not even Sten and Alex felt competent enough to take over a ship guarded by a hundred people. The export ships were uniformly refrigerated and nitrogen-atmosphered. This "lottery" sounded interesting.

  It was. The Tahn were very proud of Dru. Not only was the prison planet operating in the black, but the prisoners themselves were used, even beyond their death.

  Under stress, the human animal's pituitary gland produces a painkilling drug. The greater the stress, the greater the production. Since most prisoners who died on Dru died under extreme stress, their bodies were filled with the drug. The problem was acquiring the body, and freezing it before corruption set in. Prisoners died on Dru very frequently—but all too many of them died under conditions that made body recycling impossible. That was one reason why any of the prisoners sent to Isolation never reemerged, except in bodybags.

  A "good" body, Sten and Alex found out, went off-world, to Heath. The cycling was not done on Dru; for two reasons: the difficulty of getting skilled techs to accept assignment to an armpit like Dru, and the fact that the pituitary gland extract was, like all painkillers, a joyful opiate. Whichever one of the Tahn warlords came up with the idea of using prisoners for opiates, he or she was bright enough not to want an already troubled world like Dru to have access to a supernarcotic. When enough prisoners had died and been frozen and bagged in time, the bodies were escorted offworld by two guards. That was the only way off Dru other than the normal Recreation leave following the three-year tour of duty. And the escorts were chosen by lottery.

  By the end of the evening Sten and Alex were eyeball-crossing on narcobeer. But they had their way out. For Dynsman and themselves.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Step one was Alex's story. "Ah," he mock-yawned. "Nae a month on Dru, an a'ready Ah heard y'r best stories."

  "You got a better one, Ohlsn," a guard jeered. The tubby Scotsman had already established himself as a character and a favorite among the guards. Especially since he was more than willing to buy his round and another.

  "Since Ah'm buyin't, shouldna ye be shuttin' y'r mouth?"

  Silence fell.

  "Ah'm tellin't a story aboot Old Earth. Before e'en the Emperor. Back when we Scots ran free an' bare-leggit on a wee green island.

  "But e'en then, afore the Emperor, there was an Empire. Romans, they were call't. An because they were sore afrait a' the wee Scots, they built this braw great wall across the island. Wi' us on one side, an' them on the other.

  "Hadrian's Wall, it was namit.

  "But e'en then, bus'ness was bus'ness. So a' course, tha' were gates in th' wall, for folks to go backit an' forth.

  "A' course there were guard on th' gate.

  "On th' evenin' in question, there wa' two guards on th' wall, Marcus and Flavius…"

  Step Two was Sten.

  The first thing they needed was to find Dynsman. The third thing Sten and Alex needed was a way to mickey the lottery.

  Either task depended on having a terminal and accessing Dru's central computer.

  Guards were not encouraged to have personal terminals, and the terminals that existed were carefully controll
ed and voice-sealed to the appropriate authorities.

  However, Sten had discovered that the game machines in the recreation room were very sophisticated. If a guard won on them, he could be paid immediately in narcobeers (delivery through the slot) or by credits added to his or her banked salary. Losses, of course, meant immediate deductions. Sten had grinned in glee—the machines were exactly like those he'd grown up with on Vulcan—and exactly like those the Mantis team had boogered in their destruction of that factory world.

  So while Alex was occupying the guards, Sten seemed to be pinballing his heart out on one of the machines. Actually he was taking over the machine and using its lines to access the central computer itself. His tools were a microbluebox that they'd smuggled onto Dru in the guise of a music machine, a secondary high-power source that also had been smuggled, and Sten's occasional bashing left foot against the game machine itself.

  Sten reacted as the game screen flashed; he tapped keys and cut himself out of the circuit. Antiaccess device, but toad simple. He considered for a minute, then tried an alternate code. Another step forward.

  "… Now here's Marcus, who's been on this wee isle for years an' years. But puir Flavius, he's only been there for a month or so. An' the puir lad's scarit solid. He dinna like th' food, he dinna like th' weather, an' most a' all, he's messin' his tunic aboot th' Scots.

  " 'Dinna Fash,' Marcus tells him. 'Aboot nine a' th' evenin't, y'll be hearin't a braw whoopin't an' hollerin't an' carryin't on.

  " 'Tha'll just be the Scots comin't oot a' th' grogshops. But y'll noo have to worry.'

  "But Flavius is worrin't…"

  Sten was also worrying. He looked around—every eye in the rec room seemed intent on Alex's story. Sten slithered a microdrill from his pocket and touched it to the rear of the game machine. The drill whined in. Sten plugged the connection on the drill handle into an outlet on the microbluebox and keyed the analysis button. The blue-box hummed concernedly.

  "… So noo it's nigh nine, and sure enow, there's whoopin't an hollerin't an' carryin't on. And aye, doon the street toward our wee Romans comit this braw great cluster a' Scots. An' they're hairy an' dirty an' wearin't bearskins and carryin't great axes a' claymores.

  "And Flavius knows he's gone to die, here on this barren isle light-years from his own't beautiful Rome. So he's shakin't an' shiverin't.

  "But Marcus, he's got this braw smile on his face a' this horrible horde comit staggerin't up.

  " 'Evenin', he says.

  " 'Clottin' Romans,' comit th' growl, an' somebody unlimbers a sword.

  " 'You're lookin't good a' this night,' Marcus goes on.

  " 'Clottin' Romans' is th' solo thing he gets back, an' th' Scots are e'en closer, an' Flavius can smell their stinki't breath, an' he's a dead mon.

  " 'Nice night tonight,' Marcus keeps goin't.

  " 'Clottin' Romans,' comes again.

  "Flavius hae his wee eyes shut, not wantin"t' see the blade tha' rips his guts out an' all. But nae happen't. All th' braw hairy killer monskers pass through the gate.

  "An Flavius is still alive.

  "He relaxes then. Takit twa deep breaths, grins a' Marcus, an' says, 'Y're right. Tha Scots na be so bad.'

  " 'Aye, lad. You're learnin,' Marcus comes back. 'But in another hour, when their men get done drinkin't, p'raps there'll be a wee spot a' trouble." '

  As usual when Alex finished one of his stories, there was uncomprehending silence. Broken by two things:

  The game machine flashed the correct code. Sten now was inside the main computer; and:

  His microdrill had evidently gone too far, since the payoff sign started flashing, and narcobeers began dropping down the slot. As Sten quickly palmed the bluebox and microdrill, the guards whirled at the whirclunkthud of beermugs dropping into the serving pickup. A throng gathered instantly around the machine.

  "Clottin' luck," one guard said. "I've been ringing this game for a year, and the most I got was two beers. Look at that." The payoff sign read 387 narcobeers.

  "And what the hell am I gonna do with all that," Sten wondered.

  "Mr. Keet," one guard said, "you been takin' dumb lessons? We're gonna drink 'em, that's what we're gonna do."

  Sten and Alex exchanged glances, then braced themselves for what would prove a very, very long evening…

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The big man lolled on the beach, lazily watching the mollsk hunters plod across the bed. He was surrounded by half-a-dozen lovelies who were sunning themselves, but keeping one eye out in case Chetwynd should want something. Chetwynd barely stirred when he heard the flitter dust up behind him. And he pretended not to notice the whine of the engines cutting off, then bootheels grounding through the sand.

  "Chetwynd?"

  "Yar."

  "Get up when I talk to you!"

  Chetwynd slowly turned his huge head, then pretended surprise when he saw the two guards. Just as slowly, he creaked to his feet and struck a mock pose of respect.

  "Sorry, mister—I didn't know…" He let his voice trail off in pretended nervousness. "We wasn't expecting a visit."

  "Yeah, well too bleeding bad. Hate to inconvenience an important villain like you." Sten measured the bulk that was Chetwynd with his mind. Only the insolence in his eyes gave Chetwynd away. Everything else was as humble and respectful as any guard could wish from a villain of Dru. A very dangerous man, Sten thought.

  "We're lookin' for a villain," Sten snapped.

  "Came to the right place, mister," Chetwynd drawled.

  Sten ignored the subtle rudeness. "Name's Dynsman."

  "Dynsman… Dynsman…" Chetwynd puzzled, then he let his eyes brighten. "Yar. He's still alive. We got a Dynsman."

  "Where?"

  Chetwynd pointed, and Sten turned to see their target at the shoreline cleaning out a flat-bottomed skiff.

  "Useless bugger, if you don't mind me saying so, mister. Can't do a clotting day's decent work. I'd put him washin' pots if I didn't figure he'd poison us all with his carelessness."

  Sten and Alex ignored Chetwynd and began stalking across the beach, their bootheels grating heavily.

  Dynsman barely had a chance to see them coming. Just as he raised his head, Alex grabbed him by the base of the neck and lifted him off the ground.

  "Villain Dynsman?"

  "Yeeeesss, mister."

  "Wanna talk wi' y't lad."

  Alex tossed the little man into the boat, gave Sten a glance, caught the nod, and climbed in after him. He picked up the oars as Sten tossed off the tie, and clambered in after him. Alex began rowing out into the sea.

  "Honest, mister," Dynsman wailed. "I didn't do nothin'…" Then in a flash of inspiration, he pointed an accusing finger at the receding mountain that was Chetwynd. "He made me build that bomb!"

  "Is that right?" Sten said. "You're a bomb builder, are you?"

  Dynsman was in instant terror. Maybe they didn't know… oh, clot, what was he into?

  "Tell us aboot it, lad," Alex soothed.

  "Well, see, he asked me…and…and I said I had some experience at explosives… and…"

  "Shaddup," Sten hissed. "We don't give a clot about Chetwynd."

  Dynsman just stared at Sten as it occurred to him that something terrible was about to happen.

  "Tell us about the Covenanter," Sten snapped.

  "Oh, my god," Dynsman breathed.

  Alex gave him a cuff. "Ah canna abide blasphemy."

  "Forget it," Sten said. "Let's just kill him now. Get it over with."

  Sten curled his fingers and let the slim needle that was his knife spring into his palm. Dynsman saw it and began to sweat in real horror. "I didn't know it was political. I never do political work. Ask anybody. Ask 'em, and they'll tell you. I'm just a…just a…" He looked Sten full in the face, then burst into tears. "I don't do political," he sobbed.

  Sten felt like a bugsnipe.

  "For clot's sake's, Alex! We got the right guy. Do him, would you?"

  Al
ex nodded and reached into the pocket of his uniform.

  Dynsman screamed, coming halfway to his feet. It was the most chilling sound Sten had ever heard—despite enormous experience in listening to soon-to-be dead men scream. Then he realized that Dynsman wasn't screaming because of them.

  Sten turned his head.

  A thing was running toward the skiff through the water at about fifteen knots, closing so quickly on its spindly legs that it almost appeared to be walking on the surface of the water.

  Dynsman screamed again. "It's a gurion!"

  Alex desperately tried to spin the clumsy skiff around, but it had no centerboard and just spun freely on its axis. Sten grabbed for a punting pole, and just as the creature rose to its full height, vomiting out the awful stomach-mouth with its bleeding veins, he heard the sound of rushing water behind him.

  Whatever that was, he had to leave it for Alex, and he rammed the pole straight into the gurion's maw. The tip of the pole splintered and gave as it speared past the scores of rows of teeth into soft flesh. The gurion howled but continued its rush forward, lifting the skiff upward and slamming it over.

  Alex had even less time than Sten to react. A second after Dynsman's scream, he saw another gurion charging his side. He flailed out at it with an oar, and then felt a huge wave pressing under him, the sky rushing down at him, and then he was gobbling water. A thick arm clasped his body and squeezed hard as a tentacle tore at his uniform. He tried to get his feet under him—the water wasn't very deep at this point—and desperately fought for a grip on the animal.

  Sten was afraid he was being dragged toward the gurion's maw, and he lashed out at the thing in front of him with his knife and slit straight across the delicate membranes of the gurion's stomach. Suddenly he was hurled away. He twisted his body in midair, and then was plunging into the water. He landed with a jolt and found himself standing thigh-deep in water. A geyser of blood was fountaining from the first gurion. Sten immediately put the creature out of his mind and whirled in the water, looking for Alex.