Denner's Wreck

Chapter Eighteen

“'…Are you a warrior?’ the stranger demanded.

"Proud of his strength and skill, Walren foolishly answered, ‘Yes, I am!'

"'Then face me in conbat!’ the stranger called. And he flung a weapon like a long, thin knife, longer than a man's arm, to the ground before the lad. He drew a similar knife from a sheath on his belt, and waited.

"Walren began to be afraid, now. He thought the stranger was a madman. He stooped and picked up the strange knife. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

"'It's a soared, of course,’ the stranger replied. And then he leapt forward, his knife stabbing out at Walren.

"Walren jumped aside and swung his own long knife, but the stranger knocked it away easily and slashed Walren across the breast with his blade.

"Astonished, Walren looked down at the blood seeping from his chest, just in time to see the stranger's blade plunge into his heart.

"Everything went black, and he knew that he was dead.

"But then, to his surprise, he awoke, lying on a pile of leaves in the forest, with the stranger standing over him.

"'That was pitiful,’ the stranger said. ‘How can you call yourself a warrior if you can't do any better than that?'

"Walren raised his head and looked at his chest, and saw that although his blouse was still cut open, and blood still stained the fabric, the wounds had closed up and left not even a scar.

"'Who are you?’ he asked the stranger.

"'I'm called Lord Carlov,’ the stranger replied with a bow…"

– from the tales of Atheron the Storyteller

“I can't believe this is happening,” Lady Sunlight moaned, stirring uncomfortably on the unyielding bench.

“It's happening,” Rawl told her calmly. “Accept it.” Inwardly, he marvelled that the woman could have lived for so long without learning that anything could happen. He did not understand why so many of the immortals led such limited lives. It was always by their own choice; were they so desperate for security as to give up all risk and experimentation, and turn completely inward?

Or were they just stupid and unimaginative? Endless life and unimaginable power did not make a fool any less a fool. Some people did not seem to learn from experience, most particularly when they did all they could to limit their experiences to the familiar.

He hated to think that his companions were all fools. On the other hand, he knew from his centuries of wandering among the people of Denner's Wreck that a large percentage of the human race was made up of fools, and there was no reason his little clique should be any different.

For that matter, wasn't he as big a fool as the rest? He was just as much a captive as the others. He mulled that over silently.

“Brenner, why didn't you see all these things waiting for us?” Lady Sunlight demanded, waving at the surrounding plastic.

“I don't know,” Brenner replied bitterly, staring down at his clasped hands. “Thaddeus must have hidden them pretty well. Maybe he sabotaged some of my defensive systems, broke in and fed them false reports that the exit was still clear. I spotted all the stuff he had waiting outside my other tunnels easily enough."

“He probably meant you to,” Sheila said from the other side of the little transport.

“In fact,” Rawl said, leaning back againt the yellow plastic wall, “the entire attack may have been a feint, a trick, a means of herding us out through that tunnel to where he could capture us alive and undamaged."

Brenner looked up. “Do you think so?"

Rawl shrugged. “Who knows? It could have been.” He did not think Thaddeus was inherently any less a fool than most of the others, but he knew that he could be very clever indeed in pursuing his foolish goals. Thaddeus was crazy, but he was not stupid.

“What does he want with us?” Lady Sunlight asked.

“How should I know?” Brenner answered angrily.

“Hostages,” Rawl muttered softly, so softly the others did not hear him.

Lady Sunlight started to reply to Brenner's outburst, blaming him further for his ignorance, but then she saw the expression on his face and thought better of it. She looked away, in the direction of the other transport, the one that held her pet and various devices. Silence fell, as all four contemplated their unhappy situation.

Thaddeus's machines had stripped them of all their equipment except what was actually built into them. Lady Sunlight had given up her pet, a feelie vine, three small creatures she had had tucked away, and six small floaters. Sheila had had only a single floater; her airskiff did not fit through the tunnel and had been left behind.

Rawl had resisted briefly, taking out three minor machines from Thaddeus's arsenal, and had had forty-two floaters immobilized by suppressor fields, and four creatures captured alive. Several other small creatures from Rawl's menagerie had escaped safely into the woods surrounding the exit from the tunnel, and three had died making the attempt, fried by Thaddeus's weapons. One, a modified ferret, had last been seen being pursued by an artificial predator Thaddeus had designed and grown himself, working mostly from feline genes.

Brenner had had nothing at all for Thaddeus to confiscate. All his external devices had been built into the High Castle, or had been left behind in his hurried departure.

Of course, they all still carried symbiotes and a variety of internal machinery. Thaddeus had not tried to do anything about that. In fact, the transport that they had been forced to board was not even shielded against most communications frequencies; Rawl discovered, after the brief spurt of conversation triggered by Lady Sunlight's outburst, that he was able to contact the mother ship and inquire after the other immortals.

None of the other captives had thought to try that, so far as he could see.

No one was reported dead, Rawl learned. That was some comfort, but Khalid, O, and Aulden were missing, all three last heard from in the vicinity of Fortress Holding. Geste and Imp were aboard the Skyland, of all places, and had been going from hold to hold recently, and were now apparently headed for the High Castle; Rawl suspected that this meant they were aware of what was happening and were coming to lend what aid they could.

He smiled wryly to himself. They were already too late. The High Castle was gone. Once Thaddeus had his captives and booty out, Mother said, he had nuked the place. Rawl hesitated for an instant, and then decided against telling Brenner and Sheila and Sunlight that. They were disheartened enough already.

Still, Geste and Imp and the Skyler would find nothing but radioactive rubble.

At least they were trying, though. What were all the others doing?

Nothing, apparently. They were just going about their business.

Rawl did not like that. If the Skyler and her party knew what was happening, they would surely have told everyone. Why weren't the others doing anything to stop Thaddeus?

He knew that he could not manage a proper holographic transmission with just his internal systems, but with Mother to relay Rawl thought he could get a message of some sort out, either audio or data feed. He tried to put a call through to Isabelle.

He was cut off, not by static, but by the sudden dead silence of an electromagnetic barrier effect.

“No, no, Rawl,” Thaddeus's voice said, startling the other captives. “I can't have you spreading wild rumors."

“Rawl?” Lady Sunlight said, puzzled. The other two looked at him, surprised but silent.

“Rumors?” Rawl asked.

“Certainly. Just rumors. What else could it be?” Thaddeus laughed unpleasantly.

Rawl wished, briefly, that Thaddeus had come out in person to oversee their capture. That would have given them a better shot at escape or at doing some serious damage, since Thaddeus's forces would have had to put some effort into defending their master.

Of course, Thaddeus would never have been that stupid.

A moment later the yellow plastic walls opened suddenly, shrinking down into themselves. The transport dissolved until nothing remained but the two simple benches, facing each other in the center of a moderately-large chamber.

The walls were drab gray; no music played, and the place smelled of oil and metal.

Sheila and Rawl quickly took in their new surroundings; Brenner looked around slowly but without real interest, and Lady Sunlight glanced back and forth wildly.

“Where are our things?” she demanded.

Thaddeus appeared suddenly, standing before them a centimeter or two off the floor. Rawl looked at the brown-garbed figure and realized it was not tall enough; he would have assumed it to be a transmitted image in any case, and Thaddeus gave that away by reducing his size to one more normal for a human being than his actual 2.9 meters.

“What things?” the image said, smiling.

“You know what things!” Lady Sunlight spat.

“You mean this?” The image held up Lady Sunlight's golden-furred pet, its neck clutched in one huge hand. The little animal was kicking and scratching desperately, unable to breathe. As it had been bred without claws, its struggles did no good at all.

“Let him go!” Lady Sunlight shrieked.

Thaddeus smiled and squeezed harder.

The animal gasped once and went limp. Thaddeus squeezed harder, then released the creature. It fell and lay still. Rawl noticed that Thaddeus had carefully dropped it inside the transmission area, so that his captives would be able to see for themselves that it was really dead.

“Vicious bastard,” Brenner muttered.

“Really, Thaddeus,” Sheila said, “is this necessary?"

“Maybe not,” the image replied, “but I'm enjoying it. I'm really enjoying seeing you smug little fools realize who is actually in charge here."

Rawl watched intently, suddenly aware that something was wrong here. Would the real Thaddeus have casually handled Sunlight's pet so directly? He had no way of knowing what the little animal was capable of, and for as long as Rawl had known him, Thaddeus had never taken an unnecessary risk.

This, then, was not the real Thaddeus, or perhaps it was not the real pet.

An android, perhaps? A clone?

It didn't really matter, though.

“Stinking son of a bitch,” Brenner said. “Where's the joy in strangling little animals?"

“Oh, there's joy enough,” Thaddeus replied. “There's a feeling of power to it, feeling that little bit of life squirming in your hand, and then feeling it break and die. The best part, though, is watching you people while I do it. You all thought you were as good as me-as good as me, hell, you thought you were better. You think I didn't know what you felt? You were all basking in that glow of power over me, knowing that you could turn me over to the rebels on Alpha Imperium at any time, knowing you could put an end to a life that's lasted longer than any of you. You all thought you were better than me because you'd never been defeated the way I was-but none of you ever tried. None of you could do any better. I'm the conqueror here, and now you have been defeated. Like it? Like the feeling? Do you?"

“No,” Sheila said. “We don't. We never gloated over your defeat, Thaddeus."

“No? Then why didn't you turn me in?"

No one answered.

“Why?” he screamed.

“I don't know,” Sheila shouted back.

“We felt sorry for you,” Lady Sunlight said before Rawl and Sheila could stop her.

“You pitied me? Well, pity yourselves, now, you sanctimonious little idiots!"

Something flashed in the chamber that held them, and Rawl felt his skin crawling and drying. His internal systems began reporting damage. They had been bombarded with a short burst of high-intensity radiations of various kinds-ultraviolet, narrow-band gamma rays, and others, all designed to kill off tailored microbes, but which incidentally damaged human tissue, several kinds of symbiote, and electromagnetic data storage.

He looked down at his hands; the skin was reddening already. He would have a ferocious sunburn in minutes, and his symbiotes were too badly hurt to repair it quickly. His skull-liner had lost large chunks of memory. Some of the independent intelligences that roamed in his body had died, he was sure.

So much for any attempts to fight their way out. They were at Thaddeus's mercy.

“Take off your clothes,” Thaddeus ordered.

“Why?” Lady Sunlight asked. “Why should we?” She was once again on the verge of tears.

“Because I'll kill you if you don't,” Thaddeus began. “I'll kill you slowly…” Then he stopped and reconsidered. “No,” he said. “No, I won't kill you. I don't want to make threats I won't keep, and I have no intention of killing you yet. No, if you don't take your clothes off, I'll take them off for you, and my machines won't be gentle about it."

Rawl was already peeling off his own garments, and the others reluctantly followed his example.

By the time they were all naked a gleaming silver machine had rolled into the room and stood before them. Rawl studied it in wry amusement. Thaddeus was not only one of the oldest people alive, but one of the most old-fashioned. Nobody else still used wheeled machines; they were too limited in what terrain they could travel on. Thaddeus did not entirely trust antigravity. It had been around for more than four thousand years, but to Thaddeus it was still too new to be used extensively.

“Hello,” he said to the machine, testing out its capabilities.

It did not reply. Thaddeus's image turned away from his intent inspection of Lady Sunlight and said, “It can't hear you. None of my mobile machines can. I programmed them all to block out your voices, to treat them as unprocessable background noise. You aren't going to get out of here with their help, any of you."

Rawl shrugged. “I didn't expect to,” he said truthfully. He had known that Thaddeus would have taken precautions against anything of the sort. He had not guessed what form the precautions would take, though; coding their voiceprints to be inaudible was, like many of Thaddeus's methods, unusually simple and clever, taking an indirect route to the desired result. Most people would have simply ordered the machines not to take orders from anyone else, but Thaddeus realized that there were ways around that sort of blanket command.

And there was an added psychological dimension, as well; these machines would not only not obey the captives, but would refuse to even acknowledge their existence except as objects. Thaddeus was doing his best to depersonalize his prisoners. He had stripped away their defenses, their machines, their creatures, their clothes, even the voices they used to give orders. Even their health, something they had all taken for granted for centuries, had been disrupted by the radiation burst; they would all be in mild pain for hours, maybe days, before their skin healed and their symbiotes regenerated.

Rawl almost admired the paranoid completeness of it all.

“Come along,” Thaddeus said. “The machine will lead you to your cell. The others are waiting."

“Others?” As usual, it was Lady Sunlight who rose to the bait.

“Aulden, Khalid, and O,” Rawl said, taking away a little of Thaddeus's own.

The image frowned. “How did… oh, I see. Of course. Yes, it's Aulden and Khalid and O. Now, come along. Your chains are waiting."

“Chains,” Brenner spat. “Thaddeus, you… you…” He could not find the words he needed. As a metal arm reached out toward him he stepped forward, following the machine.

The arms reached out for the others, and they all obeyed, allowing themselves to be herded toward an open door.

“I can't believe any of this,” Lady Sunlight said as she stumbled forward into the stone corridor beyond. “It can't be happening."

Rawl wished she were right, but he knew, as he walked to their cell, that it was all quite real.