Niruo came over to her cage and leaned one arm against it, standing there slouched while he leered inside at her. His yellow eyes held nothing but cruelty. “You speaking to me?” he said.
Ampris met his gaze steadily. She had nothing to prove. She knew that even with her crippled leg she could break him in half if she had to.
“You speaking to me?” he repeated more loudly.
“Yes,” Ampris replied. “I am speaking to you.” From the corner of her eye she saw Lua creep forward in her dirty cage, then retreat. Pity swelled inside her. “Feed this poor creature. She’s hungry.”
“Hey!” Niruo said angrily, straightening. “You don’t run this place. You’re in there, locked up. I’m out here, free. You got me?”
She said nothing, only went on staring him down.
He lifted his muzzle, twitching in a brief, involuntary muscle spasm. When it ended, his gaze dropped away from hers. “Nothing for you,” he muttered, turning away.
Ampris limped forward until she was only inches from the front of her cage. “Does Ehssk run this lab?”
He ignored her, banging the empty bowls on top of his cart and lifting it to wheel it away.
“Isn’t Ehssk in charge?” Ampris persisted, speaking to his back.
Beside her, Lua crept forward again, making a pathetic mewing sound, then retreated.
“He’s a very famous, very important scientist,” Ampris said while Niruo turned his cart around to leave. “And I’m his priority project. Did he order you to withhold my meal?”
Niruo stopped his cart so suddenly, some of the empty bowls on top fell off with a clatter. The Kelth swore, bending down to scoop them up.
“Shall I report you for withholding my food without authority?” Ampris asked again, her voice harder.
He whirled around, glaring at her. “You ain’t reporting me to nobody! You can’t—”
“Can’t I?” she asked, not backing down. She knew how to handle bullies like him. “Why not?”
He snarled at her, but he had no answer to that. He grabbed one of the bowls that had fallen to the dirty floor, flipped open the lid of a food bin, ladled a sloppy portion into the bowl, and came over to her cage.
Without warning, he rapped the wire forcefully right by her face, but Ampris did not flinch. She stared at him implacably, her eyes intent and dangerous now.
The cockiness faded in Niruo’s yellow eyes. Looking sullen, he opened a narrow opening at the bottom of the cage and stuck her bowl inside, slamming it on the floor.
“Now give Lua her portion,” Ampris commanded.
But Niruo backed away and shot her a rude gesture of defiance. “You want her fed, you give her yours,” he said and pushed his cart away.
When he was gone, Ampris bent and picked up her bowl. She sniffed the contents. Yes, synthetic meat globes that weren’t fresh. The heavily spiced sauce coating them was designed to mask how old they were.
Revolted, she turned around and saw Lua’s mad eyes peering at her. At once the Myal broke eye contact and retreated.
Ampris sighed and put her bowl on the floor next to the wire partition that separated their cages. She backed silently to the far corner of her cage and made no move while Lua finally crept forward and slid her dirty hand through the wire.
Greedily, she scooped out the food, sauce dripping through her fingers, and shoved it in her mouth. In seconds, the bowl was empty, then Lua scuttled back to her corner and began to rock herself from side to side.
Ampris noticed one of the imprisoned Kelths watching her from the cage on the other side of Lua’s. He met Ampris’s gaze and shook his head.
“Don’t waste your food like that,” he told her. “Lua’s a goner. Take care of yourself. That’s the rule around here.”
“Why not help each other?” Ampris countered, her voice ringing out clearly over the noise made by the animals across from them.
A few of the prisoners laughed mirthlessly.
“How long you want to stay here?” the Kelth asked her. Like Lua, he was missing patches of his fur. One side of his narrow face had been shaved recently, his skin showing pink and covered with scabs. “Better to die quick. It’s the only way out.”
Ampris backed her ears. She didn’t want to hear such talk. “I don’t believe that,” she said.
The Kelth yipped. “We heard of you. Ampris of the Freedom Network. That be you?”
“Yes,” she said with quiet pride. “That’s me.”
“You ain’t free,” he said, disillusionment strong in his voice. “You in here. You condemned.”
She didn’t flinch from him any more than she had from Niruo. “Then I have nothing to lose,” she replied.
Silence fell over the rows of cages. Even the animals stopped their noise, as though instinctively they understood.
But the Kelth was shaking his head. “Wrong, Ampris,” he said sadly. “You got a lot to lose. Wait and see.”
CHAPTER•SIXTEEN
At dawn, Ampris learned what her fellow inmate had meant. Viis lab techs in smocks came to her cage and used a stun-stick on her. Lying helplessly on the straw floor, paralyzed and fighting nausea, Ampris could not defend herself as they moved decontamination wands over her, then shaved patches of her fur prior to drawing blood and tissue samples which were labeled on site and placed in a metal box. They left her on the floor, locking her cage and walking away in an earnest discussion in Viis about a procedure she did not understand. Numb and unable to move lor nearly an hour until the stun effect wore off, Ampris raged inside at her helplessness.
That afternoon, the same procedure was repeated. The rest of the week, Ampris was scanned, examined, and humiliated by the impersonal procedures performed on her. Ashamed and bitter, she withdrew into herself until Niruo came along with their daily ration of food, laughing and leering at all of them.
Then Ampris forced herself to stand up and face him as she had done before. She refused to let him see any weakness in her.
The second week, Niruo unlocked her cage and motioned her out. Suspicious, Ampris refused to budge.
“Come on. Come on,” he said with irritation, rolling his eyes. “You’re assigned to cleaning detail this week. You get busy.”
Walking away, he left the door to her cage open. Ampris hesitated, then stepped out to follow him to a storage bin, where he handed her cleaning supplies and put her to work.
Recalling her short life as a household slave in Malraaket, after Israi discarded her as a pet and sold her to a middle-class Viis family, Ampris set about expertly scrubbing floors and hosing down cages with disinfectant. Her crippled, aching leg made her slow, but her hard, well-developed muscles allowed her to handle the equipment with ease. She was twice as efficient as Niruo.
He glared at her, but he said nothing as he escorted her back to her cage at the end of the duty shift. That night, when the food rations had been eaten and the overhead lights dimmed, the Kelth caged on the other side of Lua called out to her.
“Hey, Ampris! Ampris.”
She hurt all over and her leg was paining her from the day’s exertions, but she lifted her head. “Yes, Paket?”
He was looking at her with a new expression, no longer as dubious or as suspicious as before. In fact, she almost thought she saw respect in his eyes. “You scrub this place good.”
She wanted to laugh in astonishment. Was that all it took to win the friendship of her fellow inmates? Didn’t they think she knew about hard work? Maybe not, if they only knew that she’d been famous in the arena.
But she didn’t laugh. Instead, she ducked her head, accepting the compliment for what it was. “Thanks, Paket. I haven’t scrubbed floors in a long time.”
“You remember how,” he said in admiration. “Is good to be clean.”
“Yes,” she agreed wholeheartedly. “It certainly is.”
She spent the rest of the week on cleaning detail, along with four other inmates. Ampris learned that all fifteen of the prisoners worked on weekly
rotations, cleaning cages and labs, disposing of biohazardous waste, hauling in deliveries of supplies and storing them, plus doing any other chores the Viis scientists wanted to assign. Ampris welcomed the work, being willing to do almost anything to get out of her windowless cage with its stink of desperation. Besides, when she worked on cleaning detail, she was exempt from the experimentation, which left her tearful and shaking with shame.
The facility actually consisted of several labs. Ampris learned that Vess Vaas was the pride of the small Viis scientific community, with full backing of the imperial government. It contained a rookery of Zrheli engineers assigned to work on the theoretical puzzle of the failed jump gate. Ampris learned that these engineers came up with procedures, which were then relayed to the engineers working on implementation attempts at Shrazhak Ohr. The facility also had an animal behavior lab that supposedly was researching better, more lasting ways to train abiru. In reality, it was a place where the most barbaric atrocities were conducted. The main lab was the medical section headed by Ehssk, whose obsession remained the genetic recombinant DNA experiments that were so well-publicized across the home world, especially since they were authorized by the Kaa.
Ampris looked for ways of escape, but the place was well-secured with both Toth enforcers and security force shields. Even her outdoor run was secured, with wire top and sides, plus pavement that kept her from digging out. She never knew when she would be allowed outside for the welcome treat of fresh air and sunlight, but Ampris always seized those opportunities to exercise as much as her sore body would allow. Still, the chances to work out were limited. That, combined with the poor-quality food, began to tear down her conditioning. Her fur grew dull. Sometimes it would fall out, especially after she’d been given certain drugs. Afflicted with nightmares, she slept poorly.
There came a day when she, Lua, and a Kelth female so young she was hardly more than a half-grown lit were each stunned and lifted onto floating stretchers. Paket raged and slammed himself against his cage door, shouting curses at Niruo, who was helping the Viis techs take them away.
Ampris tried to look around, tried to see where she was being taken, but her neck was paralyzed and she could not move her head. Lua was making a muffled grunting sound of terror, and Shevin, the young Kelth, rolled her eyes so that the whites showed.
They were shoved into a tiny chamber and lifted onto medical tables. Arrays of equipment surrounded them, and the air was icy cold. For one panicky moment Ampris wondered if they were about to be dissected. She screamed, but all that came out was a muffled grunt.
Although they were still stunned, Niruo bound them tightly to the tables with restraint cables. He laughed softly to himself, his eyes gleaming.
“Lua knows, don’t she?” he crooned to the grunting Myal. Her eyes rolled crazily, wild with terror. “Lua’s been here before.”
Ampris burned to shut him up, but she couldn’t move and couldn’t speak. Niruo leaned over Shevin, who was panting with fear, her young eyes wide. He licked her muzzle, whispering something to her that made her moan.
Then he came to Ampris, yanking the restraints extra tight. “You’re going to love this, fanciness,” he said, laughing again.
She glared at him, longing to tear out his throat. He knew it and exulted in her helplessness.
One of the techs came back in and tapped his shoulder. “You’re done here. Get out.”
Niruo’s eyes grew sullen. He slouched away, and Ampris had no time to think further about him as the techs set to work on her.
Later, weeping with raw humiliation, she was wheeled on her table into another small room. There, she and the others were kept, bound and unable to move, for three days. The stun wore off, but their restraints were unbearably tight. They were given water through tubes inserted into their throats, but no food.
Lua moaned and jabbered incessantly until Ampris thought she would go mad herself. Shevin just wept softly.
“Don’t cry, little one,” Ampris said to her, wishing she could herself crawl into a small, dark place and never emerge again. “Don’t cry. We will survive this. You don’t think so right now, but we will.”
Shevin sobbed. “There’s no hope for us. Why do you lie?”
“I’m saying only what I believe,” Ampris told her. She ached, but she kept talking, to reassure herself as much as the young one. “I will not be defeated.”
“Crazy as Lua, you are,” Shevin said wildly. “Look at her. We’ll be like her soon.”
“No,” Ampris said.
“But—”
“No!” Ampris lifted her head as much as the band encircling it would allow. “You listen to me, Shevin. You must find strength inside yourself and hang on. There is hope.”
“Ampris the preacher,” Shevin said with scorn, then began to cry again. “Wish I believed you. Why they be so cruel?”
“It will be their downfall,” Ampris said.
“Can’t live on hope!” Shevin cried. “Only got now, and how much worse can now be?”
Ampris sighed, understanding the youngster’s logic all loo well. She fell silent and let Shevin go on weeping.
At the end of the three days, the techs examined them again, making notations and running tests.
Listening to them discuss the situation in Viis, Ampris understood that she was now pregnant, as was young Shevin. Lua’s procedure had been unsuccessful.
“Do we attempt it again?” one of the techs asked.
The other one checked back through his notes. “Eight term pregnancies with Lua, seven miscarriages. The last two procedures have been unsuccessful. She’s not worth it.”
The first tech made a notation. “Termination notice for Lua. We’ll have to requisition a replacement. Ehssk won’t be pleased.”
As though she sensed they were discussing her, Lua began to howl. The second tech struck her across the mouth, and she fell silent. “Then let him authorize another attempt. As low as our supplies are, I’m not going to risk a reprimand for waste.”
Ampris turned her head away and stopped listening. In her heart she grieved for poor Lua. What had become of her babies? Small wonder the Myal was insane, if she’d been put through this so many times. Ampris turned her senses inward, questing to see if she did indeed carry life. She could not as yet tell, but she worried just the same. She was strong. She was a survivor. That, she had proven to herself. But if she bore cubs, what then might become of them all?
Ampris and Shevin were returned to their cages after that, while Lua vanished. They were fed special nutrients, their food brought by a Viis tech who shoved it at them with disdain, then recorded how much they ate of it and how quickly.
Ampris was taken off the cleaning detail and instead allowed outside daily for fresh air and exercise. While she stretched and did her calisthenics, she studied the mountain range curving behind the installation and the featureless arid plains. On a clear day she could see a smudgy haze on the horizon that was Lazmairehl. Sometimes black columns of smoke rose upward from the city. Ampris wondered if part of it was on fire.
Throughout the research facility, newscasts were allowed to run via the communication speakers. So although Ampris had no access to vids, she could hear the news of the empire and homeworld. The reports were grim ones. Economic ruin continued. Colony worlds responsible for growing most of Viisymel’s food had suffered poor harvests this year. Taxation increased again, while abiru riots broke out in Vir’s ghetto, forcing patrollers to enter that sector to quell them. Countless abiru workers had been killed. New force shields were being installed around the perimeter of the ghetto, and the Viis districts of the city were declared safe. Other cities on Viisymel reported difficulties with bands of Rejects, who were marauding and looting with increasing boldness.
At night, when the lights were dim and the facility lay quiet, Ampris and the other prisoners talked. Ampris was planning a breakout. As her body swelled and changed in the advancement of her pregnancy, she grew increasingly desperate to get away.
Lua had not been replaced, leaving fourteen inmates. Ampris was considered one of them now, especially since she’d become pregnant. Paket, who had once worked in a rock quarry, hewing out massive stones for shipment to the former Kaa’s palace restoration project, told them that a free abiru settlement was located over the mountains behind the lab.
“That’s not far,” Ampris said excitedly.
“But winter is coming on,” Paket warned her. “It snows here, very deep. There are storms.”
Shevin paced her cage restlessly. “My lits will be born soon, sooner than Ampris will have her cubs. We can beat the storms.”
“What did the Myal delivery workers tell you today when they came?” Ampris asked another Kelth male, named Matiril.
He rubbed his muzzle. “Not much. He said the deliveries from Lazmairehl are changing schedule.”
Everyone groaned.
“These Viis,” Paket said in exasperation. “No sense of organization. No efficiency. No sooner do they make a schedule than they change it. What’s wrong now?”
“What ain’t wrong?” Matiril replied with a scornful yip. “Everything be a mess. The delivery workers said there be riots going in Lazmairehl.”
“I saw the smoke when I was outside yesterday,” Ampris said. “What kind of riots? Abiru or Viis?”
“Rejects, mostly,” Matiril reported. “They be causing lots of trouble. Seems the Viis ain’t giving them free grub no more. They don’t like that, them.”
“Good,” Ampris said. “It’s time the Viis dealt with the problem. Rejecting their own kind because they’re not pretty enough. It’s unnatural.”
“I would never reject my own lits,” Shevin said, rubbing her bulging sides protectively.
Ampris felt life stirring inside her as her cubs turned in her womb. She smiled to herself, feeling a surge of love for them. This, after all, completed the circle of life, from birth to birth.
“Ampris? You listening?” Paket asked sharply.
She looked up, pulling her attention back to the conversation. “What?”
The Crimson Claw Page 29
