Captives of the Flame

by Samuel R. Delany

  CHAPTER VII

  The news service of Toromon in the city of Toron was a public addresssystem that flooded the downtown area, and a special printed sheet thatwas circulated among the upper families of the city. On the mainland itwas a fairly accurate brigade of men and women who transported newsorally from settlement to settlement. All announced simultaneously thatmorning:

  CROWN PRINCE KIDNAPED KING DECLARES WAR!

  In the military ministry, directives were issued in duplicate andredelivered in triplicate. At eight-forty, the 27B Communications Sectorbecame hopelessly snarled. This resulted in the shipment of a boatloadof prefabricated barracks foundations to a port on the mainlandsixty-two miles from the intended destination.

  Let, Jon, and Arkor were just mounting the private yacht of the Duchessof Petra which was waiting for them at the end of the harbor. Later, asthe island of Toron slipped across the water, Let mentioned to Jon,leaning against the railing, that there was an awful lot of commotion onthe docks.

  "It's always like that," Jon told him, remembering the time he'd gonewith his father in the morning to the pier. "They're inspecting cargoes.But it does look awfully busy."

  Which was a euphemism. One group of military directives which had beenquite speedily and accurately delivered were the offers of contracts,primarily for food, and secondarily for equipment. Two of thedistributors of imported fish who had absolutely no chance of receivingthe contracts sent in a bid accompanied by a letter which explained(with completely fraudulent statistics) how much cheaper it would be touse imported fish rather than those from the aquariums. Then theycommandeered a group of ruffians who broke into the house of oldKoshar's personal secretary, who was still sleeping after the previousnight's party which he had helped out with. (So far he has appeared inthis story only as a hand seen around the edge of a storage cabinetdoor, a broad hand, with wiry black hair, on which there was a cheap,wide, brass ring in which was set an irregular shape of blue glass.)

  They tied him to a chair, punched him in the stomach, and in the head,and in the mouth until there was blood running down his trimmed, blackbeard; and he had given the information they wanted--information thatenabled them to sink three of the Koshar cargo fleet that was justcoming into dock.

  The Duchess' private yacht made contact with a tetron-tramp returning tothe mainland and Let, Jon, and Arkor changed ships. Coming from theyacht in bare feet and rags gave them an incongruous appearance. But onthe tramp, among those passengers who were returning for their families,they quickly became lost.

  On Toron, the pilot of the shuttle boat that took workers from the cityto the aquariums found a clumsily put-together, but neverthelessunmistakable, bomb hidden in the lavatory. It was dismantled. There wasno accident. But an authority, Vice-Supervisor Nitum of Koshar SyntheticFood Concerns (whose name you do not need to remember, as he was killedthree days later in a street brawl) clenched his jaw (unshaven; he hadbeen called to the office a half an hour early over the sunken cargoboats), nodded his head, and issued a few non-official directiveshimself. Twenty minutes later, Koshar Synthetic Food Concerns wasofficially given the government contract to supply the armies of Toromonwith food. Because the two rival bidders, the import merchants, hadceased to exist about twelve minutes previously, having suddenly beendenied warehouse space, and their complete storage dumped into thestreets to rot (nearly seven tons of frozen fish) because therefrigeration lockers, and the refrigeration buildings, and therefrigeration trucks had all been rented from Rahsok Refrigeration, andnobody had ever thought of spelling Rahsok backwards.

  In the military ministry, Captain Clemen, along with Major Tomar, wascalled away from his present job of completing the evacuation of the topfour floors of an adjacent office building to accommodate the new corpsof engineers, mathematicians, and physicists that the army had justenlisted. Apparently riots had started in the streets around the oldRahsok Refrigeration Houses. The warehouses were just a few blocks awayfrom the official boundary of the Devil's Pot.

  They got there ten minutes after the report came in. "What the hell isgoing on?" Clemen demanded, from the head of the City Dispersal Squad.Behind the line of uniformed men, masses of people were pushing andcalling out. "And what's that stench?" added Clemen. He was a tiny man,exactly a quarter of an inch over the minimum for militaryacceptance--4' 10".

  "Fish, sir," the Dispersal Chief told him. "There's tons of it all overthe street. The people are trying to take it away."

  "Well, let them have it," Clemen said. "It'll clear the streets of themess and maybe do some good."

  "You don't understand, sir," the head of Dispersal explained. "It's beenpoisoned. Just before it was dumped, it was soaked with buckets ofbarbitide. Half a ton of the stuff's already been carried away."

  Clemen turned. "Tomar," he said. "You get back to headquarters and seepersonally that a city-wide announcement goes out telling about thepoisoned fish. Call General Medical, find out the antidote, and get theinformation all over the city. See to it personally, too."

  Tomar got back to headquarters, got General Medical, got the antidote,which was expensive, complicated, and long, and drafted hisannouncement.

  WARNING! Any citizen who has taken fish from the street in the area of Rahsok Refrigeration is in immediate danger of death. The fish has been treated with the fatal poison barbitide. No fish other than that directly traceable to the Synthetic Markets should be eaten. WARN YOUR NEIGHBORS! If fish has been eaten, go directly to the General Medical building (address followed). Symptoms of barbitide poisoning: intense cramps about two hours after ingestion, followed by nausea, fever, and swollen lymph nodes. Death results in twenty minutes after onset of cramps under normal conditions. Foods with high calcium contents prolong spasms to a maximum hour and a half (foods such as milk, ground egg shell). General Medical has been alerted. There you will receive injections of Calcium Silicate and Atropayic Acid which can counteract the effects of the poison up until the last five or ten minutes.

  Tomar personally sent the directive through Communications Center 27B,marked urgent and emergency. Ten minutes later he received a visiphonecall from the Communications Engineer saying that 27B had beenhopelessly snarled all morning. In fact so had 26B, 25B. In furtherfact, said the engineer, the only available sectors open were 34A and42A, none of which, incidentally, had access to complete city lines.

  Tomar made a triplicate copy of the warning and sent it out,nonetheless, through Sectors 40A, 41A, and 42A. A half an hour later thesecretary to the Communications Engineer called and said, "Major Tomar,I'm sorry, I just got back from my break and I didn't see your messageuntil just now. Because of the tie-ups, we've received instructions onlyto let authorized persons have access to the available sectors."

  "Well, who the hell is authorized," Tomar bellowed. "If you don't putthat through and quick, half the city may be dead by this evening."

  The secretary paused a minute. Then he said, "I'm sorry, sir, but ...well, look. I'll give it directly to the Communications Engineer when hegets back."

  "When is he getting back?" Tomar demanded.

  "I ... I don't know."

  "Who is authorized?"

  "Only generals, sir, and only those directly concerned with the wareffort."

  "I see," Tomar said, and hung up.

  He had just dispatched seven copies of the announcement with anexplanatory note to seven of the fourteen generals in the ministry whenthe Communications Engineer called again. "Major, what's all this abouta bushel of fish?"

  "Look, there are seven tons of the stuff all over the streets."

  "And poisoned?"

  "Exactly. Will you please see that this message gets out over everyavailable piece of city-wide communication as fast as possible? This isreally life and death."

  "We're just allowed to work on getting war messages through. But I guessthis takes priority. Oh, that explains some of the messages we've beengetting. I believe there's even one for yo
u."

  "Well?" asked Tomar after a pause.

  "I'm not allowed to deliver it, sir."

  "Why not?"

  "You're not authorized, sir."

  "Look, damn it, get it right now and read it to me."

  "Well ... er ... it's right here sir. It's from the chief of the CityDispersal Squad."

  The message was, in brief, that twenty-three men, among them CaptainClemen, had been trampled to death by an estimated two and a halfthousand hungry residents of the Devil's Pot, most of them immigrantsfrom the mainland.

  A ton and a half of fish was finally removed from the streets anddisposed of. But five and a half tons had made its way through the city.The Communications Engineer also added that while they'd been talking, amemorandum had come through that Sectors 34A to 42A were now out ofcommission, but that the major should try 27B again, because it mighthave cleared up.

  * * * * *

  The second shift of workers that day was arriving at the aquariums. Inthe great pontooned building, vast rows of transparent plastic tubes,three feet in diameter, webbed back and forth among the tetron pumps.Vibrator nets cut the tubes into twenty-foot compartments. Catwalksstrung the six-story structure, all flooded with deep red light thatcame from the phosphor-rods that stuck up from the pumps. Light towardthe blue end of the spectrum disturbed the fish, who had to be visibleat all times, to be moved, or to be checked for any sickness ordeformity. In their transparent tubes, the fish floated in a state nearsuspended animation, vibrated gently, were kept at a constant 82 deg., werefed, were fattened, were sorted according to age, size, and species;then slaughtered. The second shift of workers moved into the aquarium,relieving the first shift.

  They had been on about two hours when a sweating hulk of a man who wasan assistant feeder reported to the infirmary, complaining of generalgrogginess. Heat prostration was an occasional complaint in theaquarium.

  The doctor told him to lie down for a little while. Five minutes laterhe went into violent cramps. Perhaps the proper attention would havebeen paid to him had not a few minutes later a woman fallen from acatwalk at the top of the aquarium and broken one of the plasticarteries and her skull, six stories below.

  In the red light the workers gathered around her broken body that lay atthe end of a jagged plastic tube. In the spread water, dozens of fish,fat and ruddy-skinned, flapped their gills weakly.

  The woman's co-workers said she had complained of not feeling well, whensuddenly she went into convulsions while crossing one of the catwalks.By the time the doctor got back to the infirmary, the assistant feederhad developed a raging fever, and the nurse reported him violentlynauseated. Then he died.

  In the next two hours, out of the five thousand two hundred and eightypeople who worked at the aquariums, three hundred and eighty-seven weretaken with cramps and died in the next two hours, the only exceptionbeing an oddball physical culture enthusiast who always drank two quartsof milk for lunch; he lasted long enough to be gotten onto the shuttleand back to General Medical on Toron, where he died six minutes afteradmittance, one hour and seventeen minutes after the onset of thecramps. That was the first case that General Medical actually received.It was not until the sixteenth case that the final diagnosis ofbarbitide poisoning was arrived at. Then someone remembered the querythat had come in by phone from the military ministry that morning aboutthe antidote.

  "Somehow," said Chief Toxologist Oona, "the stuff has gotten into somefood or other. It may be all over the city." Then he sat down at hisdesk and drafted a warning to the citizens of Toron containing adescription of the effects of barbitide poisoning, antidote, andinstructions to come to the General Medical building, along with acomment on high calcium foods. "Send this to the Military Ministry andget it out over every available source of public communications, andquick," he told his secretary.

  When the Assistant Communications Engineer (the first having gone offduty at three o'clock) received the message, he didn't even bother tosee who it was from, but balled it up in disgust and flung it into awastepaper basket and mumbled something about unauthorized messages. Hadthe janitor bothered to count that evening, he would have discoveredthat there were now thirty-six copies of Major Tomar's directive invarious wastebaskets around the ministry.

  Only a fraction of the barbitide victims made it to General Medical, butthe doctors were busy. There was just one extraordinary incident, andamong the screams of cramped patients, it was not given much thought.Two men near the beginning of the rush of patients, gained access to thespecial receiving room. They managed to get a look at all the women whoarrived. One of the patients who was wheeled by them was a particularlystriking girl of about fifteen with snow white hair and a strong, lithebody, now knotted with cramps. Sweat beaded her forehead, her eyelids,and through her open collar you could see she wore a leather necklace ofshells.

  "That's her," one of the men said. The other nodded, then went to thedoctor who was administering the injections, and whispered to him.

  "Of course not," the doctor said indignantly in a clear voice. "Patientsneed at least forty-eight hours rest and careful observation afterinjection of the antidotes. Their resistance is extremely low andcomplications ..."

  The man said something else to the doctor and showed him a set ofcredentials. The doctor stopped, looked scared, then left the patient hewas examining and went to the bed of the new girl. Quickly he gave hertwo injections. Then he said to the men, "I want you to know that Iobject to this completely and I will--"

  "All right, Doctor," the first man said. Then the second hoisted Alterfrom the cot and they carried her out of the hospital.

  * * * * *

  The Queen Mother had her separate throne room. She sat in it now,looking at photographs. In bright colors, two showed the chamber of theCrown Prince. In one picture the Prince was seated on his bed in hispajama pants with his heel against the side board; standing by thewindow was a white-haired girl with a leather necklace strung with tiny,bright shells. The next showed the Prince still sitting on the bed, thistime with his hand on the newel dolphin. The girl was just turningtoward the open window.

  The third picture, which from the masking, seemed to have been takenthrough a keyhole, showed what seemed to be an immense enlargement of ahuman pupil; mistily discernible through the iris were the dottings andtiny pathways of a retina pattern. On the broad arm of the QueenMother's throne was a folder marked: ALTER RONID.

  In the folder were a birth certificate, a clear photograph of the sameretina pattern, a contract in which a traveling circus availed itself ofthe service of a group of child acrobats for the season, a schooldiploma, copies of receipts covering a three-year period of gymnasticinstruction, a copy of a medical bill for the correction of a sprainedhip, and two change of address slips. Also there were several crossreference slips to the files of Alia Ronid (mother, deceased) and RaraRonid (maternal aunt, legal guardian).

  The Queen put the photographs on top of the folder and turned to theguards. There were thirty of them lined against the walls of the room.She lifted up the heavy, jeweled scepter and said, "Bring her in." Shetouched the two buns of white hair on the sides of her head, breatheddeeply, and straightened in the chair, as two doors opened at the otherend of the room.

  Two blocks had been set up in the middle of the room, about four feethigh and a foot apart.

  Alter stumbled once, but the guard caught her. They walked her betweenthe blocks, which came to just below her shoulders, spread her arms overthe surface and strapped them straight across the tops at the biceps andwrist.

  The Queen smiled. "That's only a precaution. We want to help you." Shecame down the steps of the throne, the heavy jeweled rod cradled in herarm. "Only we know something about you. We know that you know somethingwhich if you tell me, will make me feel a great deal better. I've beenvery upset, recently. Did you know that?"

  Alter blinked and tried to get her balance. The blocks were just underthe proper height b
y half an inch so that she could neither standcompletely nor could she sag.

  "We know you're tired, and after your ordeal with the barbitide--youdon't feel well, do you?" asked the Queen, coming closer.

  Alter shook her head.

  "Where did you take my son?" the Queen asked.

  Alter closed her eyes, then opened them wide and shook her head.

  "Believe me," said the Queen, "we have ample proof. Look." She held upthe photographs for Alter to see. "My son took these pictures of the twoof you together. They're very clear, don't you think?" She put thepictures back in the quilted pocket of her robe.

  "Aren't you going to tell me, now?"

  "I don't know anything," Alter said.

  "Come now. That room had as many cameras as a sturgeon has eggs. Thereare dozens of hidden switches. Somehow the alarms connected with themdidn't go off, but the cameras still worked."

  Alter shook her head again.

  "You don't have to be afraid," said the Queen. "We know you're tired andwe want to get you back to the hospital as soon as possible. Now. Whathappened to my son, the Prince?"

  Silence.

  "You're a very sweet girl. You're an acrobat too?"

  Alter swallowed, and then coughed.

  The Queen gave a puzzled smile this time. "Really, you don't have to beafraid to answer me. You are an acrobat, isn't that right?"

  Alter nodded.

  The Queen reached out and slowly lifted the triplet leather necklacewith its scattering of shells in her fingers. "This is a beautiful pieceof jewelry." She lifted it from Alter's neck. "An acrobat's body must belike a fine jewel, fine and strong. You must be very proud of it." Againshe paused and tilted her head. "I'm only trying to put you at ease,dear, make conversation." Smiling, she lifted the necklace completelyfrom around Alter's neck. "Oh, this is exquisite ..."

  Suddenly the necklace clattered to the ground, the shells making analmost miniature sound against the tiles.

  Alter's eyes followed the necklace to the floor.

  "Oh," the Queen said. "I'm terribly sorry. It would be a shame to breaksomething like this." With one hand the Queen drew back her robes untilher shoe was revealed. Then she moved her foot forward until her raisedtoe was over the necklace. "Will you tell me where my son is?"

  There was seven, eight, ten seconds of silence. "Very well," the Queensaid, and brought her foot down. The sound of crushed shells was coveredby Alter's scream. Because the Queen had brought down the scepter, too,the full arc of its swing, onto Alter's strapped forearm. Then shebrought it down again. The room was filled with the scream and the crackof the jeweled scepter against the surface of the block. Then the Queensmashed Alter's upturned elbow joint.

  When there was something like silence, the Queen said, "Now, where is myson?"

  Alter didn't say for a long while; when she did, they were ready tobelieve anything. So what she told them didn't do much good when theyhad time to check it. Later, unconscious, she was carried into theGeneral Medical building wrapped in a gray blanket.

  "Another fish poison case?" asked the clerk.

  The man nodded. The doctor, who had been there when Alter was removedfrom the hospital, had been working steadily for six hours. When heunwrapped the blanket, he recognized the girl. When he unwrapped itfurther, the breath hissed between his lips, and then hissed out again,slowly. "Get this girl to emergency surgery," he said to the nurse."Quickly!"

  * * * * *

  In the Devil's Pot, Tel had just gotten over a case of the runs whichhad kept him away from food all day. Feeling hungry, now, he wasforaging in the cold storage cabinet of the inn's kitchen. In thefreezing chest he found the remains of a baked fish, so he got a sharpknife from over the sink, and cut a piece. Then the door opened and thebarmaid came in. She was nearly seventy years old and wore a red scarfaround her stringy neck. Tel had cut a slice of onion and was putting iton top of the fish when the barmaid ran forward and knocked the dishfrom his hand.

  "Ouch," Tel said, and jumped, though nothing had hurt him.

  "Are you completely crazy?" the woman asked. "You want to be carried outof here like the rest of them?"

  Tel looked puzzled as Rara entered the kitchen. "Good grief," shedeclared. "Where is everybody? I'm starved. I started selling thathomebrew tonic of mine that I made up yesterday, and around noon,suddenly everybody was buying the stuff. They wanted something forcramps, and I guess my Super Aqueous Tonic is as good as anything else.I couldn't even get back to eat. Is there some sort of epidemic? Say,that looks good," and she went for the fish.

  The old barmaid snatched up the dish and carried it to the disposal can."It's poisoned, don't you understand?" She dumped it into the chute."It's got to be the fish that's causing it. Everybody who ate it hasbeen carried off to General Medical with cramps. Lots of them died, too.The woman who lives across the street and me, we figured it out. We bothbought it from the same woman this morning, and that's all it could be.

  "Well, I'm still hungry," Tel said.

  "Can we have some cheese and fruit?" asked Rara.

  "I guess that's safe," the woman said.

  "Who was carried out?" Tel wanted to know, looking back in the cabinet.

  "Oh, that's right," the barmaid said, "you've been upstairs sick allday." And then she told him.

  * * * * *

  At about the same time, an observer in a scouting plane noticed a boatbearing prefabricated barracks foundations some sixty miles away fromany spot that could possibly be receiving such a shipment. In fact, hehad sent a corrective order on a typographical error concerning ... yes,it must be, that same boat. He'd sent it that morning throughCommunication Sector 27B. They were near the shore, one of the few spotsaway from the fishing villages and the farm communes where the greatforest had crept down to the edge of the water itself. A tiny port,occasionally used as an embarkation for the families of emigrants goingto join people in the city, was the only point of civilization betweenthe rippling smoke-green sea on one side and the crinkling deep green ofthe forest tree tops on the other. The observer also noted that a smalltetron tramp was about to dock also. But that transport ship ... Hecalled the pilot and requested contact be made.

  The pilot was shaking his head, groggily.

  The co-pilot was leaning back in his seat, his mouth opened, his eyesclosed. "I don't feel too ..." The pilot started, and then reachedforward absently to crumple a sheet of tin foil he had left on theinstrument panel, in which, a few hours ago, had been a filet sandwichthat he and the co-pilot had shared between them.

  Suddenly the pilot fell forward out of his chair, knocking the controlstick way to the left. He clutched his stomach as the plane bankedsuddenly to the right. In the observation blister, the observer wasthrown from his chair and the microphone fell from his hand.

  The co-pilot woke up, belched, grabbed for the stick, which was not inits usual place, and so missed. Forty-one seconds later, the plane hadcrashed into a dock some thirty feet from the mooring tetron tramp.