Anarchaos

XXIX

There was no third meal in that cycle. Being without it made me hungry, and this hunger made it difficult for me to go to sleep, but there was nothing else to do and so eventually sleep did come to me.

For the first time in a long while I was not permitted to sleep until I woke up of my own volition. Rough hands shaking me drove me out of sleep, and it seemed as though I’d barely closed my eyes. I sat up, bleary-eyed and fuzzy-minded, and saw that it was Davus who had awakened me.

Davus, speaking swiftly and softly, said to me, “The General wants you. He wants to see you. You awake?”

“I haven’t been fed,” I said. “The food was never brought to me.”

“Don’t be an idiot. Listen to me. If you’re smart, you’ll listen to me. Keep a close mouth when you talk to the General, you hear me?”

“A close mouth?”

“Nobody mistreated you,” he said. “Mister Phail asked you some questions and you gave him the answers, and that’s all. And nobody hit you or threw you in the water or anything like that.”

“You threw me in the water,” I said.

“Not if you know what’s good for you,” he said, still speaking low and fast. “Not if you don’t want trouble later on. You just be careful and watch yourself.” He straightened. “Come on.”

I got up from the bed and followed him and he took me the same route back to the same room. We entered, and this time the room was full of people.

Back in the corner, near the safe, stood Phail, looking wary. In another corner, their arms folded over their chests and their faces carefully blank, stood Malik and Rose. Sitting at the desk was a big old man as gnarled and thick as an old tree. He had thick white hair, a heavy and strong-looking body, huge jagged hands resting on the desktop, and a weathered craggy face dominated by burning eyes of a pale pale blue. Standing behind him, one to either side, were the other two young officials who had been with Phail on the inspection tour of the mine.

The big old man at the desk said, “You’re Malone?” His voice was hoarse and scattered, as though he’d had a very strong deep voice and had overworked it.

I said, “Yes. Rolf Malone.”

He said, “Phail tells me you’re willing to cooperate.”

“Yes.”

He said, “How much?”

“What?”

“How much do you want? What’s your bargaining price? You want a percentage, I suppose.”

I said, “Could I have antizone?”

Everyone reacted to that. Phail blanched, and looked frightened. All the others seemed surprised. Only Malik and Rose maintained their impassivity.

The old man said, “What do you mean, you want antizone?”

“I want to blot everything out,” I said. “If I could have an injection of antizone, and then you could send me back to the mine.”

The old man said, “Where did you hear about antizone?”

I pointed at Phail. “He told me about it.”

Phail started shaking his head, but when the old man twisted around and glared at him he stopped. The old man said, “You threatened him.”

“I had to do something,” Phail said defensively. He motioned at me. “You see how he is. I had to try and reach him.”

“You’ve got him doped?”

“No, sir. I swear I haven’t.”

The old man studied me, squinting at me with those burning eyes, and said, “He isn’t normal. He behaves as though he’s doped.”

One of the other young officials, the one who had asked me if I was Malone back at the mine, said diffidently, “Excuse me. General?”

The General was the old man. He turned in the chair and said, “What is it?”

“Malone was at the mine four years, sir. I’m told that very often has a permanent effect on a man, makes him more… placid. Almost like a vegetable sometimes.”

The other young official said, “I’ve heard that too, sir. It’s almost like giving a man a lobotomy.”

The General turned back and studied me some more, and now I could see distaste in his expression and I felt ashamed of myself again. The good opinion of others meant much more to me now that I no longer deserved it than it ever had in the past.

The General said, “If that’s what he’s like, how do we know he’ll be any use to us?”

Phail said, eagerly, “All we have to do is try, General. It can’t cost us anything to try.”

The General turned to glower at him once more, saying, “You’ve mishandled this affair from the beginning, Phail. It isn’t over yet. Taking this man out from under my nose, hiding him down here, refusing to answer when I called—”

“Our radio was out,” Phail said quickly. “We didn’t realize it ourselves.”

“A frail lie,” the General said.

Phail said, “And we didn’t come down here to hide from you, sir, that’s the truth. Ice had found out about Malone, when the UC tracer went out. They were looking for him. I knew they’d look at Prudence, and at our installations to the east, because that’s where the site is, so I thought if I took him down here, we’d be—”

“All right,” said the General. “That’s enough.”

“Yes, sir.”

“At least this time,” the General said, grudging the point, “you weren’t trigger-happy.”

“I’ve learned from my mistakes, General,” Phail assured him. It was odd for me to be watching how his arrogance turned itself into servility when he talked to the old man.

“I’m not sure there’s time left for you to learn,” the General said, with a heavy kind of thoughtfulness. “Time will tell.” He turned back to look at me, distaste on his face again, and said, “As to you, you say you’ll help us if you can.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If afterwards we agree to give you an injection of antizone.”

“Yes, sir.”

He nodded briskly. “Agreed.”

I smiled. I was ashamed of the smile as I felt it spread across my face, but I couldn’t help it. I smiled.

The General made a face, and looked away from me. “Triss,” he said. “You take over. Work with him.”

Triss was the one who had called me Malone at the mine. He nodded and said, “Yes, sir.”

“Elman,” said the General, “you take charge of the ship. We’ll put in at Cannemuss.”

Elman, the third of the young officials, said, “Yes, sir.”

The General said, “Phail, you will go to your rooms and stay there, until I decided what to do about you.”

Phail bowed his head. “Yes, sir,” he said.

“Go now.”

“Yes, sir.”

On his way out, Phail gave me a look that no one else could have seen. In the look, he promised me death.