The Omega Cage (6 page)

Lepto said, his voice soft and dangerous.

Maro moved. He knew about the mindwipe process. Sometimes it was ordered as part of a convicted man's sentence; sometimes the authorities of a particular prison took it upon themselves to order the procedure on their own. On full-termers it was their option.

Maro felt a stab of cold fear as he followed the guard through the hot afternoon.

If that was what was in store for him, he would try to meet it calmly, but he was afraid he would lose that resolve when it came down to it. He had an option: part of his training had included a method of triggering the
R
-complex, the reptilian hindbrain that controlled the autonomic functions in everyone, into shutdown. If worse came to worst, he could kill himself before his psyche was shattered.

Better to die whole than to live as a vegetable.

But better by far to live whole than either of the other options
, said a little voice inside his head.
Give them whatever they want
.

Inside the chamber, a big man sat in the chair. There seemed to be no restraints holding him in place, nor any electronic connections, but the strain on his body showed in the tension of his muscles. He was trying to move and could not, that was apparent.

"Stasis field," the warden said, smiling at Maro. "And the electronics are all induced. Listen." Stark waved one hand, and the sound of the prisoner in the chair reached Maro's ears, amplified for clarity.

"—fuck you, all of you, I spit on you—!"

The warden waved his hand again and the volume of the prisoner's curses fell sharply, becoming a tinny whine.

"You're looking at a man who refuses to get along with the universe," the warden said. "A killer, of course; that wouldn't set him apart in here, but he's one who took particular joy in it. Still, others in the Cage could claim that distinction as well."

Maro couldn't help himself. He asked, "Then why this?"

Stark grinned wolfishly. "He killed a guard. One of my men. The guard in question was gutter scum, hardly better than most of you inmates. But he was one of
mine
."

Maro turned back to watch the struggling man.
Of course
.

"Go," Stark said to the technician.

The woman adjusted several controls on her board. The cursing stopped as if cut off by a knife. "Mom?" the prisoner said.

"Early memories first," Stark murmured.

"Oh, baby, yeah, just like that!"

"And the ones with the greatest emotional attachment seem to clear fastest," the warden continued, as if discussing the weather.

In the chair, the man smiled beatifically.

"Probably a killing," Stark said. "An early one, when it was still fun for him."

Maro watched as emotions danced across the prisoner's face. He smiled, cried, laughed, gritted his teeth, gasped, and screamed. What was so horrible about it was that he did each thing so quickly, shifting from expression to expression as if each was meaningless. Maro would not have believed that such an emotional range at that speed was possible.

It took only five minutes. In the end, the man sat with as neutral a face as that of a life-sized doll.

"Let's call him, oh, how about… Dain?" the warden said.

Maro turned to stare at Stark.

"What his name was doesn't matter; he won't answer to it now. He doesn't remember it—or anything else. Oh, he'll be reeducated—we have some viral programs we can infect him with that will give him basic skills. He'll be able to feed himself and defecate in a toilet, and he'll have a basic command of language. Then our new Dain will be a useful member of our little society. He can spend the rest of his days working happily at some simple job such as peeling vegetables or pulling weeds, and never have a worry past that. Of course, he won't remember anything about who he was, but that's not all that important, is it?"

Maro did not trust himself to speak. He had a sudden urge to throttle the warden, to choke him until he gasped for breath and turned blue. He clenched his fists to control himself.
Easy, Dain
. He knew Stark had some reason for showing him this. He wouldn't let the man's sadistic little show get to him.

"Perhaps you're wondering why I arranged this little entertainment," Stark said.

"Quite simple, really. You need to know what happens to people who don't cooperate with us."

"So now I know," Maro said.

"Oh, yes. Now you know."

In the yard, Scanner was puzzled. "Nobody ever got pulled to watch a wipe before, far as I know. There's something strange going on here."

Maro nodded at Scanner's droud. "Can you find out what?"

"Maybe. If I'm careful." Scanner shrugged. "Not for a few days, though. Our shift works the garden tomorrow."

"I ran a tractor when I was a kid," Maro said.

Scanner laughed. "Tractor? That won't come in very handy. Everything here is done the hard way. I hope you've had experience with a rake or a hoe."

"You're joking. Even the most backward world—"

"—has machinery," Scanner finished. "But this is Omega, remember? We're not just backward—we're last."

"I guess so."

Scanner grinned. "Cheer up—at least you get to see outside. You'll find it interesting, I assure you."

With the dawn, Maro was awakened by a clanging gong. He was hastily herded into formation along with a hundred other prisoners, marched through the main ground gate and along a rutted dirt road for a half-klick to the west end of the Zonn wall. Ten guards, armed with laser-aimed automatic shotguns, rode along with them in three small, wheeled electric trucks.

As they marched, Maro asked Scanner, "There many of those vehicles around?"

"Maybe a dozen, but forget it. Nothing that moves on the ground would get more than a few klicks away. There are no roads except the ones right around the prison. Between the swamps and the deserts, a truck would be about as useful as a pseudopod."

Something screamed then, an inhuman howl of rage. Maro twisted just in time to see a four-legged beast the size of a big dog charging from a thick stand of brush directly at the line of prisoners. A dot of red light appeared on the thing's fur suddenly, and then the shotguns went off. One of the guards near Maro had jumped from the truck and now stood wide-legged, his weapon held at hip level, firing on full auto. The roar was continuous.

The dog-beast stopped as if it had run into a solid wall. Blood gouted from its fur and its snout and eyes vanished as if wiped away by a steel claw. Several shotgun blasts had connected, and in an instant the thing was nothing more than a mass of red fur and gore.

After the shotguns blasts, the silence seemed all the more deadly.

Maro looked questioningly at Scanner. "Bush dog," the latter said. "Nasty critters—not scared of anything. The jungle is full of them. Also full of snakes, T-birds, dragonbats, creepers, suck vines and shrats—that's what they call a little beast the size of a rabbit that looks like a cross between a shrew and a rat. Meaner than a wolverine. Then there's the insects, spiders and poison thorns. Something to think about, my friend. The guns and guards aren't to keep us from running when we're in the field; they're to protect us. On a good day we'll get maybe half a dozen bush dogs attacking, as well as some
T
-birds—
T
as in teeth—a dragonbat or two, and the shrats."

"You're serious," Maro said.

"Oh, yeah. The plants you don't have to worry about much—we're working in a cleared area—and the bugs are kept down by low-voltage zap fields. But the animals don't have enough sense to be afraid. I watched a pack of dogs come at us one at a time, once. Each one watched the one in front of it get blown away, and yet each one made his run."

"This doesn't sound promising."

Scanner grinned. "Now you see a little more clearly why there hasn't been a general exodus of prisoners seeking their fortunes in the hospitable Omegan landscape?"

Maro exhaled. "Yeah."

Juete massaged his naked back as Stark lay face down on his bed. She straddled his hips, leaning into the motions, the heels of her hands pressing hard against the knots in his muscles. She was very good at this; of course, Exotics were taught such things almost from birth. He felt the tension begin to ebb.

"I think I'm going to have trouble with the new inmate," Stark said into the pillow under his head. Even though he lay nude upon the sheet, the chill of the air conditioner barely kept him cool.

"Oh?" her voice was noncommittal. Polite interest, no more.

"He knows something that the Confed wants. Something about Black Sun.

They're sending one of the
Soldatutmarkt
ghouls to question him personally. A man named Karnaaj."

The rhythm of her hands faltered for a moment, then resumed.

"Something wrong?"

Juete changed into a percussive mode, pounding along the sides of his spine. "I—think I have heard the name." The hammering of her small fists felt wonderful.

"Karnaaj is not a nice man. Maro will find that out."

Abruptly he twisted, so that he now lay on his back.

Juete now straddled his crotch. She was as naked as he was. '"Come here," he commanded, pulling her down to his chest. He thrust and slid easily into her. She was ready. She was always ready.

To hell with Maro. To hell with Karnaaj. This was all that was important, to be with this woman, to be in her and moving this way. Juete moaned and began moving faster. Stark grinned fiercely at the ceiling. As grim and horrible as Omega was, this was
his
world. He would let no one interfere with the way he ran it—not even the Confed.

Chapter Seven

After two days of broiling in the tropical sunshine and fending off an amazing number of attacks by Omega's native flora and fauna, Maro's shift was relieved of garden chores. The next duty would be spent cleaning and painting inside the prison, an easier job by far. When the third day began, Maro found himself at work in the miniscule library, along with Scanner, restocking shelves.

"I pulled in a couple of favors for this duty," Scanner said in a low tone, watching the guard amble away from them. "Watch the portal."

Maro did as he was instructed. The hallway outside was empty. He said as much.

"Good. Let me know if that changes."

Scanner went to a shelf of old-style video cartridges. From one of the plastic units he removed a small object, which he held up for Maro to see. It took a moment for the smuggler to realize what it was: a droud plug of some kind.

The electronics master moved to the library's computer console, keyed in a sequence, then sat down in the chair before the blank screen. He then inserted the droud plug into his skull socket. The other end of the cable he jacked into one of the computer's ports. His face immediately cleared of expression; he looked, Maro thought, much as the mindwiped prisoner had looked after the procedure that had taken his identity.

Maro stared at his friend for a moment, then glanced back out into the hallway.

Still empty.

Thirty seconds passed.

"That's it," Scanner said.

Maro turned to see the smaller man disconnecting the droud plug. "Fast," Maro said.

Scanner smiled. "Slow. I just spent the equivalent of a long vacation browsing the prison computer's files on you. And I'm sorry to say that you are up to your armpits in excrement, friend."

Stark stood on the balcony outside his personal cube, watching a line of men dig a trench for new water piping. Next to him the portable cooler hummed, setting a convection current of cold air swirling around him, protection against the heat of the day.

Stark felt uneasy, though he could not have said exactly why. There was no reason for it. The prisoners were quiet enough; the assigned work was either on time or actually ahead of schedule; he had just been with Juete and was sated.

And yet something prodded him, a nagging itch at the edges of his perception.

He turned away irritably from the digging men and moved to the other end of the balcony. The cooler followed him, doglike, its tone changing as it sped up to chill the additional hot air.

Maybe it was the impending visit by Karnaaj. A few more days and the man would be here. Ostensibly, Karnaaj had no direct power over him; practically, a bad report from the man would weigh heavily upon Stark. A smooth-working prison had to greet the Confed man, and it seemed almost too good to be true that things were going so well currently. He worried that it might be the calm before the storm. He most assuredly did not wish for any disturbance while Karnaaj was within earshot.

He would have his guards pay special attention to the day-to-day operations, and his dips among the prisoners would be told to bring rumors of anything as soon as they heard them. If this were a prison on any civilized world he would have a bevy of electronics eavesdropping everywhere. Every grunt would register, be computer analyzed and extrapolated for meaning—if he had the equipment.

Might as well wish for a billion standards, tax free, while
you are at it
. Stark told himself sarcastically. He didn't have the gear or the budget for it. In many ways—most ways—his operation here was no better off than one of the many penitentiaries on Earth centuries ago. There was no help for that; he would simply have to make do.

Well, that wasn't strictly true. There were some items he had managed to secure either by favors or more devious means. If things ever got really bad he had the Juggernaut…

Stark turned back toward his cube. No point in worrying about worst-case scenarios; they weren't likely to happen. No, he just had to keep things running smoothly until Karnaaj sucked Maro dry and left. After that, things would be back to normal.

Or as normal as they got around here…

Supper done, Maro moved to the yard. Insects buzzed and fluttered, despite the small zap fields set up around the prison. The tropical night began to enshroud the yard, and fat moths came out to bounce from the big HT lamps that bathed the prison in hard-edged brightness.