My brain itched. At first, I didn’t realize what it was. Then it hit me: it was the lack of a dampening field. For the first time in over a week, I was free of its effects. When Korr had said that “this wing” of Grambala was protected by the field, what he really meant was that nearly all of Grambala was protected, including the detention wing.
“Do you feel it?” I asked Shari softly. She nodded.
The first thing I did was use my “big picture” sense to map out the parts of Grambala I could “see.” The dampening field kept me from seeing most of the stronghold. It was like looking at a floor plan of a house with a coffee-spill covering much of the diagram. I could see the parts of the plan around the coffee blotch, but most of the detail of Grambala’s layout was obscured. It was bizarre to visualize the sparks representing people inside Grambala, and then have them seem to wink out of existence as they entered the dampening field, and then appear, as if from nowhere, when they left the field. Still, even though more than three-quarters of Grambala was hidden from me this way, it gave me some idea of the dimensions of the field.
We returned to our room with dinner and the dampening field swallowed us up just as it did the other sparks. As we ate, we discussed tactics for locating the nullifiers. With nothing to go on but hunches and speculation, we decided to have Shari approach the rooms with guards outside and do the questioning alone. She was much closer to their size than I was, which we hoped would make them less apprehensive. Besides, I could listen in on her conversations from nearby and offer suggestions.
We split up and Shari reached the nearest target. It appeared no different from any of the surrounding chambers that didn’t have guards outside them. I continued on around the corner, to listen in.
“Hi, sugar,” she said to the guard. “My name’s Lola. I’m a personal friend of Korr.”
He didn’t respond, but stayed in position outside the tube with a sidearm clipped to his kilt.
“I asked him if li’l ol’ me could poke around this big ol’ place a bit an’ he said ‘sure, go ahead.’ So that’s what I’m doin’. I’ve been all over Grambala and this is the first place I’ve seen with a guard outside. So what is it y’all are guardin’?”
He still didn’t respond, but I sensed some discomfort at the fact that she was addressing him.
“What’s a-matter, hon, cat got your tongue? I asked you a perfectly reasonable question. What’s behind the tube?”
He seemed even more uncomfortable now. Perhaps he had been ordered not to talk to anyone, either about what was in the room, specifically, or at all while he was on duty.
“Sugar, you go ahead and call your superiors if you need to. In fact, call Korr himself. I’m sure he won’t mind if you interrupt his important meetin’. I ain’t goin’ nowhere ‘til I hear watcha got hidden behind ya.” She waited, putting the weight of the universe squarely on the guard’s shoulders. On one hand, he could follow orders and piss off a “personal friend” of Korr’s; on the other, he could answer her question and possibly piss off his superiors. Either way, he ran the risk of disciplinary action.
So, naturally, he did what any good soldier would do: he bucked the problem up to whoever was next in the chain of command. I didn’t have as much of a talent for eavesdropping on conversations at a distance as Shari did, but I sensed a background buzz that told me he was talking to someone elsewhere. The dampening field prevented me from hearing any details of the conversation.
It was no big shock when seconds later he apparently got the go-ahead from “above.” Bosses everywhere, it seems, have a dislike of being interrupted by underlings with frivolous questions.
“This room contains important archaeological remains. They are awaiting transport to a research facility for study.”
“See?” Shari responded. “Now was that so hard? Well, that’s all I wanted to know. Toodles!” She swam off toward her second target.
I stopped her. “Sweetheart, are you sure the guard didn’t lie to you about what’s in that room?”
“Positive. I heard both ends of the conversation. It was crackly, like with static, but fortunately the distance was short. The discussion was pretty predictable. ‘Uh-oh, I’ve got this crazy alien here making trouble. What do I do?’ ‘Just tell her what she wants to know and maybe she’ll go away.’ That sort of thing.”
“Okay, good. It doesn’t sound like they’re suspicious. But now that they know we’ve checked out one restricted area, we don’t want to be so obvious about checking out the others.”
“Good point.”
After that, she oohed and ahhed loudly over works of art on display in the public areas, while I chatted up the ceremonial guard outside the Council chambers and admired a collection of ancient weapons on display near the public entrance. We wanted to be sure that people remembered us as having been all over Grambala, not merely concentrating on sensitive areas like the restricted rooms and the detention wing.
The second room wasn’t what we were looking for either. This time the guard hesitated only a moment before answering. Apparently the word had gotten out that everyone should answer our questions. That certainly made our jobs easier, and probably reduced the risk factor somewhat.
The pretense of exploring all parts of Grambala added hours to our spying, so we decided that we might as well do it together. Splitting up wasn’t really buying us anything, anyway. Eventually we reached the third room. We were greeted by the sight of two guards floating outside the tube. This immediately raised red flags in my mind. There had only been one guard the previous time we’d been by here, during Korr’s tour, and only one each outside the first two rooms.
When we asked what the room contained, one of the guards answered immediately, “Merely some things related to internal security.”
When asked what kind of things, the other responded that they were “not at liberty to say.” That was as much as we were able to get out of either of them. But it was enough to pique my interest. Might Azarti with the ability to nullify other’s psychic abilities be considered ‘things’ related to internal security? We thanked the guard for his time and continued on our quest.
Even though we suspected that we had already found the room we were looking for, there was the chance that it simply held weapons or other ‘things’ and that the nullifiers were kept in the fourth room. And there was the possibility that the nullifiers were kept in more than one room.
It was nearly midnight when we reached the final room. There was only one guard, and he responded that the room contained historical archives. That meant either the third room was the one we were looking for, or we were totally off the mark and the nullifiers were kept in another part of Grambala altogether.
We decided to call it a night and widen the scope of our search the following night, to see if there were additional secure areas in other parts of Grambala.
* * * *
We awoke early the next morning and discussed escape plans. Even though we still didn’t know exactly where everyone was in the detention wing, and we still weren’t sure about the nullifiers—either where they were or how to shut them off—we had a much better idea of the overall layout of Grambala. That allowed us to formulate some ideas, subject to change as we gathered more data. Mostly we discarded ideas that either were unworkable or depended on too many things going our way. My motto has always been, ‘Hope for the best; plan for the worst.’
We decided to wait until the following morning—the day of Karsh’s scheduled execution—to stage our ‘prison break.’ That would give us all night to finish reconnoitering and refine our plans for escape.
That idea went out the window almost immediately. Shortly after joining Korr for our next round of trade planning meetings, he made reference to the executions.
“So, when are they scheduled for?” Shari asked. This was one of the pieces of the puzzle we still needed.
“Dawn.”
“Dawn tomorrow morning?”
“Correct.”
&n
bsp; That cleared away any lingering cobwebs from our short night’s sleep. We didn’t have as much time to plan and stage the escape as we’d thought.
“Dawn? Why dawn?” I asked. “That seems rather early.”
“Dawn is the traditional time of execution among the Azarti. It signals the end of one day and the beginning of a new one—one without the executed. Why, is that too early for you?”
Did I sense a note of condescension? “No, not at all. It’s just that the traditional time for executions in my country is midnight. It’s not a problem. We’ll make sure we’re up in plenty of time. Where will the executions take place?”
“There is a special chamber in the detention wing reserved for that purpose.”
“So, how is it done?” Shari asked.
Good question. I hadn’t thought it through, but clearly most traditional human methods wouldn’t work underwater: hanging, guillotine, or electric chair—unless they used something like electric eels—and I hadn’t seen any indication that the Azarti had any medical treatment along the lines of injection. Poisonous puffer fish, perhaps?
“A firing squad consisting of three soldiers will carry out the sentence of the court.”
“Ah, yes, of course,” I replied. “I’m sorry we missed the jury trial. I would have liked to watch Karsh’s face when he heard the sentence. When was the trial?”
“That is unimportant. What is important is finishing this list of trade items of interest to both worlds. You do want to return to Earth sometime soon, do you not?”
“Absolutely. By all means, Korr, let’s get this over with so Lola and I can go home.”
* * * *
The rest of the day couldn’t fly by fast enough for Shari and me. Although it brought us closer to the time of the executions, we had to get past the trade discussions before we could even think about finishing our escape plans.
At last we were done for the day and free to continue our explorations. This time, we found only one guarded chamber. It turned out to be the private quarters of Korr. I filed that information away for future reference. More importantly, we were now as certain as possible that we had already located the room containing the nullifiers.
That raised the question of how to find out what we were up against. Then, of course, we still had the minor chore of shutting down the nullifiers.
Just getting into the room was a big problem. There were two guards and we were unarmed. With a functioning sledgehammer, knocking them out would be a piece of cake. Without it I was stumped. Brute force was out of the question. Aside from the fact that they were armed, they were much more agile underwater than I was. That canceled any advantage I had in size and strength. On Earth, I might have considered trying to get the drop on them and hitting them with a right cross or an uppercut. Ever try to punch someone underwater? Forget it.
So how were we going to get weapons and kill or disable the guards?
We pondered the question as we went for dinner in the cafeteria. Once again, I felt the brain itch as we left the dampening field. That got me wondering. My abilities were nullified when I was inside the field. But could I use them on people inside the field when I was outside?
“Shari, do me a favor. Take the food back to our quarters. I’ll give you five minutes to get there. Then I’ll try to contact you.”
“But how? The dampening field blocks everything but very short-range communications.”
“That’s what I want to test. When we’re inside the field, it blocks both the sender and the receiver. Maybe if I concentrate on you from outside, I can punch through the field.”
“Okay, say you can. What does that do for us?”
I shrugged. “Maybe nothing. But maybe we can use it somehow. It’s worth a try, anyway.”
“Right. Okay, I’ll be waiting by the phone for your call.”
“Ha-ha. Scoot.”
“Bye, lover.”
I waited and then tried to reach her. No go. I tried again, concentrating on her familiar mental voice. “Shari, can you hear me? Shari?” Still nothing. “SHARI!” I shouted with everything I had. “SHA—!”
“Stop yelling, already! I hear you.” Her voice was faint, fuzzy, and strained, but understandable.
“That’s something, then. I can communicate with someone I know well. How about someone I barely know? Can I reach one of the guards we spoke with yesterday?” I tried to contact one of the two outside the room we suspected held the nullifiers. “Hello? HELLO!”
“Yes? He-o? Who—this?” His voice was even weaker and more garbled than Shari’s was. It appeared my voice came through equally garbled to him. I cut the mental link. “I can contact him, but I don’t know whether my sledgehammer would have enough kick to punch through the interference.”
“Will that be enough? We’ll be risking a lot on an iffy sledgehammer.”
“You think I don’t know that? But right now I can’t think of anything better, can you?”
Her voice grew even fainter. “No, I guess not.”
“All right. I’ll join you. Maybe we can figure out something over dinner.”
“Okay. Let’s hope our brains work better on a full stomach. We’re gonna need some damned good ideas.”
* * * *
Dawn crept up on little black cat’s feet, dark and silent. This far underwater, the predawn glow was barely perceptible. Shari and I were in position, but a lot could still go wrong with our plan. If it blew up in our faces, we could be dead in minutes.
Shari floated with the other witnesses to the event, in the chamber reserved for executions. I waited near the cafeteria, in a stretch of passageway that didn’t get much traffic this early in the day. I didn’t want anyone blabbing to Korr that they’d seen me this far from where I was supposed to be. More importantly, I was outside the dampening field.
Shari forwarded to me the conversations she overheard as she waited.
Korr, the master of ceremonies, was in high spirits as he breezed into the chamber and greeted old friends and visiting dignitaries from other parts of the planet.
“Welcome, my friends. This is indeed an exciting day, as we crush another feeble attempt to subvert the lawful government of Lasharr. It is my fervent hope that the events of today will convince the remaining insurgents of the pointlessness of their actions.”
Korr was making the most of the day by creating a media event. He had Azarti there who acted like radio broadcasters, describing the events to other Azarti who forwarded the news to the rest of the planet through that network of repeaters I described earlier.
It didn’t take Korr long to notice my absence.
“Welcome, Lola! But where is Sunrise? Did he not come with you? Is he not feeling well?” I couldn’t tell whether he was suspicious or merely solicitous.
“Oh, no, Korr. He’s fine. He’s just not used to getting up this early. He told me to go on ahead so I wouldn’t be late. He should be here any minute.”
“Very good. I hope you enjoy the proceedings.” He continued to schmooze with the other guests.
After several minutes, he finished making his way around the room. Showtime. I sensed the broadcasters “going live” with their news feeds. They couldn’t punch out through the nullification field, so they broadcast to nearby ‘repeaters’ within the field who in turn forwarded the broadcast to others just outside the field.
“My friends,” Korr declared, “it is time to demonstrate to those who would oppose the will of the good citizens of Lasharr, the futility of doing so. Today, we end the lives of twenty-eight traitors who killed innocent citizens and attempted to overthrow the government.”
Twenty-eight. That made sense. Not counting the members of the four decoy squads, who set off the explosives and then fired several volleys of shots to tie up the security forces before scattering, thirty-one of us were captured. There were twenty-three from the Rismal attack team and eight from the Palashi team. Sparing the traitor in our midst, whoever it was, plus Shari and me, left only twenty-eigh
t to be executed.
Shari had informed me when she arrived that the execution chamber was separated from the viewing area by a transparent wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling, rip-proof membrane. The execution chamber was completely isolated from the viewing area, with no access tubes connecting them. The prisoners entered through the right side. The execution chamber was divided into two rooms: a large one on the right to hold the condemned prisoners, one at a time, and a smaller one on the left where the executions actually took place. The rooms were similarly separated by a transparent membrane. The large holding room itself was subdivided into one long walkway along the front and eight small, transparent cells, side-by side, holding up to four prisoners apiece, in the rear. The prisoners were crowded in those cells, which faced the viewing area, but they wouldn’t be there for long. Each condemned prisoner in turn would be taken from his cell and kept in the walkway, where he could watch the execution of the prisoner before him and know that his turn was soon to come.
Ushering the first prisoner into the walkway was my cue to act.
There was the possibility that my sledgehammer would have no effect, in which case I could high-tail it to the viewing area, as if I had merely arrived late. But I had no idea what I could do at that point to save Karsh. We hadn’t been able to come up with any contingency plans that we thought had any chance of succeeding. My sledgehammer had to work. If it did nothing but alert the guards to the fact that I was trying to stage a jailbreak, Shari and I were dead meat.
I concentrated on the first of the guards outside the nullifiers’ chamber. I focused on his mind to try to make contact. As soon as I sensed a tendril of recognition, I hit him with everything I had. There was a risk I might kill him, which wasn’t my intention, but I couldn’t risk a love-tap that wouldn’t do the job.
I felt his mind go blank; I was pretty sure he was out cold. I focused on his partner and repeated the hefty swat I gave the other’s mind. He too went under.
Sunrise Destiny Page 26
