Sunrise Destiny

by Mark Terence Chapman

  I looked at Shari and our eyes locked. I focused my thoughts so the others couldn’t hear. “I’m sorry, honey. I dragged you into this, and look at the mess I’ve made of everything. You could have stayed back home and been safe and lived a long and happy life. Instead, you’re here, and now we’re all going to…well, it doesn’t look good.”

  “Oh, shut up, Don. I only thought I was happy—the tough bitch holding her own against the evils of the world. Those months with you in Sweetwater made me realize how hollow my life had been before. I wasn’t living, only existing—getting by from day to day. If we don’t get out of this—well, at least I had those sixteen wonderful months with you. Hell, I got to meet real-life aliens and travel to another planet. How many people can say that?”

  I knew she was only putting on a brave front to make me feel better. Even so, I had to smile. After all, she was right. This had been some adventure.

  “None that I can think of, off-hand.”

  “Well, there you go. We’ll have quite the story to tell our grandchildren.”

  Her thoughts were light, playful. But the thought that we were never going to have another chance to have grandkids, let alone tell them this story, threatened to bring tears to my eyes.

  “Yeah. That’ll be some story. I wonder how it’s going to end.”

  “I guess we’d better get busy and come up with a doozy of an ending. Something exciting, with the good guys winning in the end, and bringing the bad guys to justice.”

  I chuckled and mock-saluted. “Aye, captain! I’ll get right to work on it.”

  Even though I knew she was simply trying to cheer me up, she still succeeded somewhat. I was marginally less depressed than I had been.

  That is, until I considered what fate Korr might have for captured aliens. I couldn’t help wondering whether the Azarti practiced vivisection. I didn’t much like the thought of watching as they cut the living organs out of my body.

  * * * *

  We stewed for the better part of an hour. With my sledgehammer apparently on the fritz, we had no bright ideas for escape. The problem with having tubes as accessways was that it would be impossible to rush the door and force our way out. Normally, a tube connecting two water-filled chambers was short and loose-fitting. After all, it didn’t need to be water- or air-tight. But this one was extra narrow, like the neck of a balloon. It took a fair amount of squirming to get through and ensured that no more than one person at a time could pass—and slowly, at that.

  We had nothing to do in that cell but talk. I was concerned that our captors might be listening in on our conversations. That thought was almost funny. They were likely to get more out of us through torture than we’d let slip in casual conversation. Still, we guarded our words, just in case.

  Eventually, the guard came for another of us. The fact that Essin didn’t return raised even more questions and provided no answers. We couldn’t ask her what sort of information they were looking for. Was her absence an indication that she was the turncoat and was now living in a luxury suite somewhere, enjoying the rewards of traitorhood? Was she recuperating in an infirmary from the effects of her interrogation? Or did it mean that she died a gruesome death on a torturer’s rack deep in the bowels of Grambala, taking the rebellion’s secrets to her grave? There was no way to know.

  This time, the guard took Keldor. I started toward him, with an ill-conceived thought of rushing the guard, half of whom stuck through the tube. But Keldor held up a hand to stop me.

  “You cannot prevent this. Save your strength for when it is your turn.” His voice was strong, almost calm.

  How could he be so calm in the face of impending torture and death? Perhaps stoic was the more apt term. Keldor followed the guard through the tube, which sealed itself behind him.

  That meant two of us were gone and only six remained: Shari, Karsh, three of our security detail, and me.

  Our world was shrinking fast.

  * * * *

  Over the next few hours, our numbers continued to dwindle. The security detail was taken one by one. As before, people left and didn’t return.

  Each time someone left, it meant the odds of Shari or me going next increased. If I was sure I would be taken out and executed, I could steel myself for that. If I knew I was to be beaten or tortured, I could mentally prepare myself for that as well. But having no idea what would happen next was eating away at my insides. And I was worrying for two. I don’t know if I was more worried about what would happen to me or to Shari. I wasn’t happy about it either way.

  Now we were down to the two of us and Karsh. Frankly I was surprised that they hadn’t taken him yet. Saving the best for last, I guessed.

  No one had spoken since the last prisoner left. Shari and I held each other, providing scant comfort. I felt sorry for Karsh, floating alone several feet away. He had to know it wouldn’t end well for him. Surely Korr would take special delight in making Karsh’s final minutes exquisitely unpleasant. I wished there was something I could do for him, but Shari needed me more just then. She shivered against me.

  Time passed, seeming to tick ever more slowly with each passing second. On one hand, I dreaded the return of the guard, knowing that the three of us might never see each other again. On the other, I wanted the waiting to be over. We hadn’t been fed since arriving and the acid eating away the lining of my stomach was making what might be my last minutes extremely unpleasant.

  The appearance of a tube signaled the return of the guard. Shari gripped my arm and I held my breath. This was it.

  The guard hesitated a moment.

  “Come on! Get it over with, you moron!” I called out. I was hoping that if he wasn’t coming for someone specific I could get him pissed off enough to select me instead of Shari or Karsh. I knew it was silly. If we were all going to die that day, it really didn’t matter in what order it happened. But I needed to take some small measure of control over my life. If I could get him to select me, I’d get it over with and buy the others another hour or two of life. It wasn’t much, but it was all I could manage.

  Shari’s eyes widened. “What, are you crazy? Shut up!”

  I wouldn’t be deterred. “Well? Who is it, jackass? Speak up!”

  The guard turned his head slightly. His finger jabbed at me. “You. Come with me. Now!”

  I almost smiled. How stupid is that?

  Shari gripped my arm tighter than ever. “No!” She began to cry. “No, no, no! You’re not going. I won’t let you!”

  “Honey, I have to. If not me, it would be you or Karsh. I can’t let that happen. I love you. And Karsh is too important. It has to be me.”

  “But—”

  I put a fingertip over her lips—or where her lips would be beneath the threl. “Shhh. I have to go.”

  I gently pried her fingers from my arm. At first she resisted, but when I insisted, she relented. As I swam toward the tube, I looked back toward Karsh.

  “Goodbye, my friend,” he said. He knew as well as I did that we’d never see each other again.

  “Goodbye, Karsh.” I turned my head toward Shari and blew her a kiss. She covered her face with her hands and cried.

  I approached the tube. “Let’s go,” I said to the guard. He withdrew and I climbed through the tube.

  I had no idea what would happen next, but I was ready.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The guard gestured toward the tube with his weapon. I squeezed through into another cell, much like the one I’d just left. It was occupied by three individuals. Two carried weapons. The third, I presumed, was the interrogator.

  Once again, there was no furniture in the room. But we were floating, so the lack of chairs wasn’t a problem.

  I steeled myself for whatever he threw at me. I knew I was going to die no matter what I said, so what was the point of giving away the rebellion’s secrets? Maybe the next leader would succeed where Karsh (and I) had failed. The best I could hope for was a less painful death. I decided that rushing the interr
ogator would probably be my best bet for a quick end.

  I took a deep breath and was about to charge when the interrogator spoke.

  “Are you hungry? I can have food brought here for you.”

  I blinked. That wasn’t quite the tactic I was expecting. Bamboo shoots under the fingernails, perhaps, or draw-and-quartering, but not food. For a moment, we sized each other up. To me, he looked much like every other Azarti I had seen. Small, with reddish-black skin, a bullet-shaped head, webbed fingers and toes, a featureless face, and a kilt around his hips. His had markings I didn’t recognize. Indications of rank, perhaps? Something about his mental voice seemed familiar. Did I know him from somewhere?

  He continued to examine me. What was he thinking? Had he met any aliens before? Humans, at least?

  I was about to refuse his offer when my stomach growled. I briefly considered and dismissed the notion that the food might be drugged. It didn’t seem likely that they would have truth drugs designed for humans. Even if they did, they could always inject me or find some other way to get the drugs in my system. So what was the point of refusing?

  I realized that this was probably a ploy to put me off my guard. Still, I figured that a) the meal might include something I could use as a weapon: a utensil, a fishbone—something—and b) there was no telling how long I might be here. If they weren’t going to torture me right away, I should keep up my strength for an escape attempt later.

  “Thank you. I’d appreciate that.” Maybe I could put them off their guard with a show of cooperation.

  “I am sorry that we have no human food here for you. I hope Azarti food is to your liking.”

  So, he knew I was human. Presumably the traitor told him that. I shrugged. “I prefer my food cooked, but I’ve gotten used to it raw.”

  “Very good. Shall we begin?”

  Presumably he’d sent a tightly focused mental command to someone about the food. Or perhaps it was prearranged, or there was no food coming—all part of the interrogation technique. Either way, I heard nothing. But maybe that talent had disappeared as well.

  I said nothing. I was pretty sure I didn’t want to begin whatever it was he had in mind. But I didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter.

  “I have no need for information from you about Karsh’s pitiful little rebellion. My sources are quite thorough. For example, you are Sunrise from the planet Earth. You were a peacekeeper there.” He seemed to look at me more closely. “You see through those two organs on your face. If they become damaged, you are effectively blind.”

  Was that a simple observation or a veiled threat? Did he know I was already blind in one eye?

  “How inefficient.”

  He paused for a moment. “You also have the ability to render Azarti unconscious at a distance. That could be useful. Unfortunately for you, I knew of Karsh’s plan early enough to take countermeasures.” I sensed amusement. “You see, we have people with the ability to nullify these and other abilities. As you have undoubtedly already discovered, only short-range communications will work in this wing of Grambala. Every other psychic ability is neutralized. After all, we cannot have prisoners calling for outside assistance, or assaulting their guards.” More amusement.

  Aha! So that’s what happened to my sledgehammer. I hadn’t lost the ability after all.

  He switched gears. “Karsh’s plan was doomed from the beginning, you know.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe so, but someone had to try to stop Korr.”

  “Really? Why is that?”

  Was he mocking me, or was that genuine interest?

  “Why? The murderous bastard’s ‘Brotherhood’ plunged the world into war in the name of ‘commerce.’ That’s why. Millions of people died for the sake of ‘stability.’ That’s why. He put military and political leaders to death for opposing him. That’s why.”

  By this point, my anger, fear, and frustration had all come to a head. I was practically screaming my thoughts at him. “He’s a butcher who needs to be stopped!”

  I didn’t expect to convince him of the justness of our cause, but you never know. Perhaps he had his own doubts about his ‘illustrious leader.’

  He seemed unperturbed by my rant. “Interesting. So that is the propaganda they have been feeding you? No wonder you helped them.”

  I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything else in response.

  “So…what? You’re trying to tell me it’s all a lie?” Perhaps my interrogator was actually the Brotherhood’s Chief Propaganda Officer.

  “That is correct. The war was not our doing. The superstates had been heading that way for decades. The war erupted over a land grab attempt by Jesern against Semstat that escalated. Rygola was pulled into the war by their alliance with Jesern. The resulting destruction and death toll were inevitable. In the aftermath, the Brotherhood was the only global entity with enough political strength to pull the shattered pieces back together. Without it, civilization might have collapsed under the weight of the widespread destruction and mutual hatred. The Brotherhood was all that held the planet together. We did what had to be done to save the world; no more, no less. Only idealists and fools fail to see that.”

  Naturally. War criminals have mouthed similar self-absolving garbage throughout the ages—usually followed by “I was only following orders.”

  I responded with a neutral, “I see.”

  There was no point in setting him off by arguing, and he’d know I was lying if I agreed with him. I sensed amusement at my hedging.

  “I don’t expect you to see things my way. You are new to our planet, and have heard nothing but the lies spread by the disaffected. I think your view will change once you have seen more of our world.”

  That was a surprise. I was expecting torture and death, not a guided tour of Lasharr. I felt the first stirrings of doubt about Karsh. Could I actually be wrong about him and his cause?

  I mentally shook myself. Stupid! That’s how propaganda and disinformation work. They feed you a bunch of pablum about how things will improve under the new regime, and it all sounds good—at first. Most Germans thought Nazism was a good idea at first, too. Communism also sounded good initially—even to many in the West. I had to keep reminding myself of that while my interrogator’s honeyed words tickled my brain. I had to assume that anything I was told would be a lie or a half-truth. After all, I was still his prisoner. It’s not like we were having intellectual discourse over cognac and cigars at a gentlemen’s club.

  The guard who’d been ordered to bring me food chose that moment to arrive. He held a mesh bag containing chunks of some sort of fish wrapped with sea vegetation, and a clear container of what looked like water, presumably fresh. He looked to the interrogator, who mentally nodded. The guard let the bag drift to the floor of the chamber and left.

  “Please. Help yourself. We can continue our conversation while you eat.”

  Conversation? Not interrogation? Right.

  I reached for the bag and opened it. Then I paused.

  “Is there a problem with the food? Is it not to your liking?” He seemed genuinely concerned. “Oh, of course. You are an air-breather; you cannot eat underwater. My apologies.”

  I vaguely sensed a mental command to someone outside the room.

  Within seconds, the water pressure changed. Air bubbled through the walls of the chamber, and the water level dropped. I stood. When the surface was low enough for my head to break through, I commanded my threl to detach and felt the familiar moment of pain as it pulled its tendrils from my eyes, ears, throat, and nasal passages. I tucked the threl in a pocket for later use. Moments later, the interrogator and his guards pulled threls from their kilts and donned them.

  I took a deep breath, grateful for the opportunity to remove the threl. Although it enabled me to breathe underwater, there still was something special about breathing fresh air. It had a salty tang—like a trip to the seashore—not canned. I rubbed my itchy eyes and then reached for the water. Although I was hungry, I was eve
n more thirsty.

  After taking a long swallow, I bit into the first piece of raw fish. Mild flavor, vaguely like tuna. Not too bad.

  “Thank you.” Another advantage of telepathic communication was that you didn’t have to stop talking to swallow. “What about my friends?”

  “How are we treating them, you mean?”

  “Right.”

  “The Azarti insurrectionists are being imprisoned pending a public trial. Your female is being treated much as you are, in another chamber.”

  ‘Imprisoned’ was better than ‘tortured’ or ‘summarily executed,’ assuming I could trust anything he said.

  I wondered how Shari was holding up. I couldn’t feel her mind. My interrogator wasn’t lying when he said that all but short-range communications was being blocked. She must have been beyond that range. “Can I see her?”

  “Of course. As soon as we are done here, you two will be reunited.”

  This interrogation really wasn’t going the way I’d expected. Was he playing mind games with me, or was I that wrong about Korr and the Brotherhood?

  Words are cheap. I decided to reserve judgment until I actually saw that Shari was alive and well and I had a chance to evaluate the honesty of my interrogator.

  “You said my view might change after I’d seen more of your world. Am I going to see more of Lasharr?”

  I waited for a convenient excuse as to why that wasn’t possible, why I’d have to stay locked up for the time being.

  “Absolutely. In fact, if you would like, I will personally take you and Lola on a tour of Ballan in the morning.”

  Once again, he surprised me. Still, he could be lying. There was plenty of time between the interrogation and the dawn in which to recant.

  “I don’t mean to doubt your word, but do you have the authority to make that promise? How do I know your superiors won’t refuse and keep us locked up indefinitely?”