Vestiges of Time

by Richard C. Meredith

  “And it may be something.”

  “Let’s hope not,” he said, and I remembered EnDera’s words: “Really, Harkos, we don’t have too many illusions down here. We know we’re under sentences of immediate execution on the spot, or prolonged torture in some of the lords’ dungeons, if we’re ever caught. We just hope we can put off being caught for a few more months.”

  “Cheer up, boy,” KaphNo said as he refilled his coffee cup and reached across the table for another roll. “Your memory-recording sessions are just about over, aren’t they?”

  “Another two or three days. Then we’ll start editing them.”

  “GrelLo and her people are going to have to start pushing their end of it. ThefeRa and SkorTho are anxious to start giving the replicates some preliminary tapes.”

  “It’s a little early for that, isn’t it?”

  “Not for the most basic kinds of stuff, mainly muscular control, dexterity, that sort of thing. The boys are

  at ML-14Y, you know.” There was in his voice a genuine affection for my replicates. “We could use some of the tapes we already have on this sort of thing, but we’d prefer to use yours from the start. It could save a lot of retraining later.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “And how are the other things going?”

  “Well enough. I think I pretty well know my. job now, and who the bad guys are.”

  KaphNo smiled. “And who. the good guys are too?” “They’re the ones I wonder about sometimes.” “Anyone in particular?”

  “Yes. The lord DessaTyso’s playmate, the lady OrDjina.”

  KaphNo gave me a serious look and nodded. “I know exactly what you mean. If it had been up to me, she would never have come down, here in the first place.”

  “Do you think she could be a danger to us?” KaphNo tilted his head to one side, pursed his lips. “I don’t know,” he said seriously. “I can’t say that I entirely trust her, but she’s never given me any reason to think that she might be, well, a danger to us. I mean, I’ve no reason to think she’s a spy or a government agent or anything of that sort.”

  I could have said that maybe I did, but I didn’t say that. If I were to tell him that much, then I’d have to tell him a lot of other things I didn’t want him to know, like who and what I really was and why I was there.

  “I guess I’m just worrying too much,” I said finally. “In a place and a situation like this one, we all worry too much, Harkos. And it’s bad for the digestion.” Then he sighed and forced a smile onto his face. “But it won’t be much longer now. Two months or so more for the replicates to complete their maturation, and another two months or so to train them. In four months,

  five at the most, you’ll be ready, your ‘army’ will be ready, we all will be ready. Then we’ll show some people what a revolution is all about.” The thought of coming violence, though it might not reach quite to the ends he desired, seemed to animate the old man, to quicken the blood in his tired veins and bring a fresh light to his deep-set eyes.

  “I’m getting sort of anxious myself,” I said.

  KaphNo started to say something more, but was interrupted by the chiming of the kitchen communicator. Since he was closer to it, he reached up and punched the holotank to life, which quickly displayed the image of a young man whose name I didn’t know, one of the security guards who, in AkweNema’s absence, answered to KaphNo.

  “Yes, what is it?” KaphNo asked.

  “Master KaphNo, sire,” the young guard began in an uncertain voice, “please excuse me for calling you at this hour, but, sire, I thought I’d better report it to you.”

  “Report what?” KaphNo asked, an edge of annoyance to his voice; he wasn’t any too fond of his responsibility for security matters. “Spit it out, boy.”

  “The lady OrDjina, sire,” the guard continued with the same hesitancy in his voice. “She is not in her quarters. Her servant says she has not been there since sometime yesterday.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yes, sire. We are now in the process of searching the Underground—at the captain’s orders, sire—but she does not appear to be anywhere about.”

  “Damn!” KaphNo muttered. “Well, continue the search, and inform your captain that I’ll meet him in his office at once.”

  “Yes, sire. Very good, sire.”

  KaphNo turned off the communicator with an angry gesture, a frown wrinkling his face.

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “Damned if I know, Harkos,” KaphNo said, suddenly looking very old again. “But, on top of everything else, I don’t like the sound of it at all.”

  “Well, I...” I began, but was interrupted when the communicator buzzed again.

  With another savage gesture KaphNo flipped the device back into operation. The image of GrelLo, the psychologist, developed in the tank this time.

  “What is it, GrelLo?” KaphNo snapped.

  “Is the general there?” she asked.

  “I’m here.”

  “Oh, General,” her voice said from the speaker, “have you forgotten? My technician is standing by for your recordings this morning.”

  “Oh, damn,” I muttered. “I forgot the time.” I glanced at KaphNo.

  “Go on to the session,” he replied. “Our security people can handle the other matter.” He turned back to the holotank. “He’ll be right there, GrelLo.”

  He switched off the device and turned to me: “Go on and get to the studio, Harkos. Those recordings are important too.”

  “Okay, but keep me posted, will you?”

  “Yes, I’ll certainly do that. As soon as I know what’s going on.”

  KaphNo left the suite while I was dressing to go to the mnemonic-recording session. I never saw him again. I didn’t know it then, of course, but I had already seen most of the members of the BrathelLanza for the last time.

  Fifteen minutes later I was sitting in a large, comfortable chair with padded back and seat and supports for arms, legs, and head, while GrelLo’s technician, a slender young man named MaLarba, was affixing electrodes to my scalp.

  “Comfortable, General?” he asked. “You should be feeling the effects of the drugs soon.”

  Even as he spoke I could feel my body relaxing, seeming to begin to drift away from me, while at the same time my mind seemed to become sharper, clearer, more finely tuned, and the sensory data that came to me seemed more intense and more detailed, though soon I would lose consciousness of most of my senses, except for sight and hearing. I didn’t particularly enjoy taking drugs that totally incapacitated me, that made me as limp and helpless as a newborn kitten, and then, on top of that, having myself strapped into a chair. I felt so vulnerable then. But that was one of the necessities of mnemonic recording, so I was told, and I went along with it. Two or three more sessions of it were all I would have to endure. I could stand that, couldn’t I?

  “That’s the last of them,” MaLarba said as he stepped away from the back of my head and came into my line of vision. “Now, if you’ll allow me to strap you in.” Not that there was much I could have done to stop him; I was now hardly aware of having arms and legs.

  The technician passed the straps across my torso, arms, chest, hips, and legs, then tightened them down. I’d been told that the straps were purely for my own protection. I supposed it was so.

  “All in place now, General. Let me know when you’re ready to start.”

  My signal for that was a rapid batting of my eyelids; about the only things I had left that I could control volitionally were my eyelids and my eyes themselves.

  Now I felt as if I were floating freely, a disembodied personality, only remotely connected to the outside world by eyes and ears.

  I batted my eyelids.

  “Very good, General,” MaLarba said. He keyed the memory recorder; its buzzing indicated that the tapes were turning slowly above and behind me. “Now,

  yesterday, at the close of our session, General, we were . .


  The passage of time while drugged was a very difficult thing to determine. I would drift off into memories and follow them through torturous paths and only after some time would I break out of my reverie long enough even to look out through my eyes. If I wished, there was a large chronometer on the far wall that I could see if I moved my eyes to the limit of their leftward motion. This time I didn’t do that. Not yet.

  I did open my eyes, however, and slipped back into a state of consciousness sufficient to comprehend what my eyes were seeing, my ears hearing.

  Now MaLarba wasn’t alone in the small recording room. A young female technician whose name I didn’t know was standing facing him, twisting her hands together, a worried, even frightened expression on her face.

  “I’m scared, really scared, MaLarba,” she was saying.

  “Maybe it’s nothing. I’ll go with you and we’ll have a look.”

  “It might be better if we stayed here,” the girl said.

  “Now, GweZa, you’re being silly. It can’t be anything that bad. We’ll go see.”

  The girl finally nodded agreement, but reluctantly.

  MaLarba turned to glance at me, saw that my eyes were open, and stepped closer to speak to me. “General, there seems to be some kind of disturbance up front. I don’t know what it is, but I’d better have a look. You’ll be okay. We’ll be right back.”

  I batted my eyelids in acknowledgment.

  “Be right back, General,” he said again, and went from the room with the girl.

  With a mild but growing anxiety, I found that I couldn’t go back inside and pick up my train of thought.

  MaLarba would have to help me do that. When he came back . . .

  A sudden fear struck me.

  If he came back.

  KaphNo’s technicians hadn’t come back, not the first two or the one he’d sent after them. And EnDera hadn’t come back. And OrDjina was no longer in the Underground.

  But, I told myself quickly, MaLarba isn’t going to the surface, isn’t leaving the Underground. He’s just going a few yards up the tunnels.

  It didn’t help a bit. Something was wrong, I felt certain. And maybe getting a lot worse.

  I turned my eyes as far to the left as 'they would go. The chronometer read 11:24:06. The digits that counted the seconds turned exceedingly slowly. At 11:24:57 I heard sounds, faint and remote, and at first I couldn’t determine what was making them, chat- terings that came and went like . . .

  The sounds were louder, coming closer, and now I knew exactly what they were: automatic slug throwers, rifles and pistols both, chattering as conical slugs of metal erupted from their barrels. And I knew why EnDera and the three technicians hadn’t come back from the surface. Why AkweNema had never returned KaphNo’s call. They’d been arrested, maybe drugged, probably tortured, but definitely arrested. The day that EnDera and the others had dreaded, had hoped would never come, now had come.

  The government finally was acting. The BrathelLanza was dying.

  But what of OrDjina? How did her absence figure into this? . . . unless she had known, had perhaps even assisted the government. But I didn’t think so. Then what? No answers. No more time to ask the questions.

  Running feet outside the door. Hoarse calls and cries. A gagged scream. The sound of something heavy

  striking the floor. The terribly loud sounds of automatic weapons coming still closer.

  More feet in the hallway outside the room, stumbling. A thud that rattled the wall beside the door, then a scratching on the door itself. The door opening slowly as if pushed by a small, curious but timid child. Someone entering, someone whom at first I didn’t recognize; his face was a bloody wreck, part of his cheek blown away, white bone and shattered teeth exposed. Two ragged holes in the starched, white blouse of a technician, holes surrounded by a red wetness that spread even as he staggered toward me, then turned back, stumbled to the door, shut it, latched it, locked it. Then again toward me.

  A distorted voice that bubbled with blood: “Police. General. Police. Come. To. Kill. Us. Kill. Us. All. . .”

  What was left of MaLarba staggered forward another step or two, tried to get something else out, but the blood was too thick in his throat and he could not speak. He almost fell, then caught himself and grabbed the arm of my chair, wiping blood across it and across my hand. He bent, tried to reach for the buckles of the straps that held me in the chair, and touched one of them but was unable to loosen it.

  Try, dammit, try! I yelled silently within my head.

  He tried, yes, dammit, he tried to get me loose, but it was too late, he was already too nearly dead.

  His knees gave way under him and he dropped to the floor, turning and rolling over as he did so that finally he lay halfway crumpled on his back. He turned his ruined face toward me, trying to say something with his eyes, but couldn’t. He gagged on the blood, coughed, died. I hoped the Dark Lords beyond the Mountains of the West would receive him kindly.

  I sat in the chair, unable to make the slightest move, filled with horror and fear. My friends, my allies, were out there dying, and their warrior, their battle leader, was helpless and was likely to die very soon himself.

  Shadowy Man, I screamed inside my head, goddamn you, Shadowy Man, what have you done to me now? There was no answer. I had expected none.

  Outside the room, automatic weapons chattered still, though more randomly; hoarse calls still filled the air, orders, commands, a scream of pain, a cry for help, more explosive chattering.

  My eyes went leftward. The digits of the chronometer said it was 11:29:44. Only five minutes?

  More feet, more orders, more chattering of weapons, which had now almost come to a stop.

  It was 11:32:07. Two pairs of feet outside the doorway. One stopping. Then the other, stopping, returning.

  “What’s this?” a voice asked,

  “Probably just a storeroom or something. Let’s go. We’re just about finished.”

  “Sure about that?”

  The thud of a booted foot kicking the door.

  Now they’d find me. I was dead. Damn you, Shadowy Man!

  “I said leave it,” an authoritative voice said. “We got our orders. We got all the live ones and now we go back to the surface. Then we seal the place off and turn it over to the inspectors.”

  “It won’t be very nice for them when they get around to it, if they’re as slow as they usually are.” “That ain’t our worry. Let them wait a couple of weeks if they want to. That’s their tough luck if this places stinks like a slaughterhouse when they get here. Come on. Let’s go. We’d better give NaTyso a hand with those prisoners.”

  “Yeah. Will do.” A pause. “But, you know, it beats me why we couldn’t have used gas down here. Would have been a whole lot easier and not nearly so messy.” “Hell, man, you know as well as I do that there’s two ways to do anything: the right way and the official way. Let’s go.”

  Feet moving away now, away from the doorway.

  Soon other feet, shuffling leadenly across the floor outside the door. A woman sobbing. A man’s voice saying: “Don’t take it so hard, lady. You didn’t get shot, did you? And neither did the girl.” Woman sobbing louder. “And they might not even execute you. Life in a public brothel’s not all that bad, so they tell me.”

  “What’s—what’s that?” asks a voice that might be that of a child, but isn’t; it is the voice of the replicate of AkweNema’s daughter.

  “Don’t you worry none, baby,” the man’s voice says. “It ain’t no public whorehouse for you. Captain says he’s gonna take you home for himself.”

  Girl and woman sobbing together.

  Feet shuffling off into the distance.

  Now 11:40:35. There is no sound in the Underground, save for the shush-sh.ush-sh.ush of air circulating through the vents somewhere above me, the buzzing of the recorder as it still operates, the hiss of tape across the recording heads.

  Now I almost wished they had shot me. If I couldn’t get out of the
straps when the drugs wore off—and I was very much afraid that I couldn’t; the straps were well made and MaLarba had done a good job fastening them—if I couldn’t get out, then I might well die of thirst before the inspectors came to investigate the place, if the policemen I’d heard knew what- they were talking about, and I was afraid they might. I might die of thirst, but I stood a pretty good chance of going out of my mind first.

  I looked up as high as I could toward the ceiling, up toward the surface world so far away, and again I said to myself, Damn you, Shadowy Man, damn you to the deepest hell. . . .

  Opening Corridors

  I looked again at the chronometer—12:04:56—then down at the bloody, quiet, lifeless thing on the floor beside me, its sightless eyes turned toward the lighting strip that ran across the ceiling, as if during their final moments of vision they had sought the comfort of that glow. Forty minutes before it had been a human being, a technician, a young man named MaLarba; maybe his girl friend, GweZa, was dead too. Maybe KaphNo and ThefeRa and SkorTho and GrelLo and all the others were dead as well. And EnDera and AkweNema and perhaps even the lord DessaTyso were prisoners of the police and the state, if they weren’t dead.

  Once again I found myself alone, my friends dead around me, but there was a difference this time. I might be joining them soon. A few days at the most. I did not think my chances of getting out of that chair to be very good at all, and it would be some time yet before the drugs wore off enough for me even to make a probably futile attempt. So . . .

  I wouldn’t say that I became unhinged then, but for a while my grasp on reality slackened, a reality I could contact now only with my eyes and ears; and my eyes could see little, a narrow cone of vision; my ears could hear even less. For a moment I stood on the brink of something I couldn’t grasp, couldn’t understand, and then with an angry, silent scream, a curse thrown toward all the gods of all the Earths and toward the Shadowy Man, a curse that was mingled with a plea for help from those same malevolent forces, I plunged

  downward, inward, toward blackness, darkness, insanity, fear, terror . . . and fell all the way through and outward again, rushing upward, expanding into vast and empty corridors, chambers, halls. . . .