Under the Eye of God (21 page)

“It appears to me that you have exhausted all of your legal options.”

“Not me, you fool! Ota! The bioform carries a second-class license!”

“You don't have to insult me. I understood you the first time. I tell you again, the Guild cannot act on your behalf in this matter. The local authorities take precedence in matters of criminality—”

“What criminality?”

The Vice Applicator-Adjutant shrugged and shook his head. “You would know that better than I. The arrest of your First Officer did not simply happen accidentally, did it?”

“Lady Zillabar seized the bioform because I would not give it to her as a gift. She used the law to steal what she couldn't obtain legally.”

The Vice-Applicator Adjutant coughed with embarrassment. “May I remind you, Captain Campbell, that we routinely record the operations of this office for later review. The Regency also maintains access to the recordings. It would not do for you to make statements that might appear . . . ah, seditious.”

Gito rumbled warningly. Robin put a hand on his rock-hard shoulder to hold him back. Captain Campbell ignored them both.

The Vice Applicator-Adjutant looked around nervously. He appeared to make up his mind about something, then switched on a device hidden under his rostrum. Annoying sounds, vaguely resembling music, began to fill the room. Campbell, Gito, and Robin exchanged curious glances.

The man now stepped down from his podium and approached them gingerly. He wore patent-leather slippers and knee-high leggings of shimmering white that showed off the delicate curves of his calves to best advantage. He chose his steps—and his words—as carefully as if he danced on knives. “If I could speak candidly,” he whispered, “I would advise you to forget this entire matter, return to your ship as fast as you can, and break orbit immediately.”

Captain Campbell raised one eyebrow, skeptically. “I assume that you have a reason for offering this advice?”

The man shook his head. He appeared to regret having made his initial statement. He started to turn back to his podium, but Captain Campbell grabbed his velvet sleeve and insisted, “Tell me!”

He sighed. He lowered his voice almost to inaudibility. “The Lady Zillabar has filed additional complaints against your ship and your crew for failing to provide the standard of service she contracted for. She has withheld payment of her fee. She has filed suit. And her arbitrators will probably rule in her favor tomorrow. Unless you've departed before then, she'll seize your vessel to guarantee the claim.”

Neena Linn-Campbell released the man's sleeve in shock. He quickly retreated back to the safety of his podium, before she could grab him again.

“And the Guild allowed this?” she demanded, not caring if the recording devices picked up her words or not.

The man waved his hands impatiently at her, trying to hush her, trying to get her to keep still, or at least lower her voice. It didn't work. “The Guild has no authority in this matter,” he insisted. His voice had taken on a tone of exasperation. “Besides, the matter only involves a bioform. Forget it. Buy another!”

Star-Captain Neena Linn-Campbell did not believe what she had heard.
Buy another?
“The bioform paid its Guild dues. And you continue to insist that you will not act on behalf of a dues-paying member?”

The Vice Applicator-Adjutant grew more annoyed and uncertain. “I can offer you the appropriate insurance forms. You can file a claim on the animal's loss. I can't offer you anything better than that.”

“I see,” said Captain Campbell. She turned away for a moment, muttering something to herself—either a curse or a spell or an incantation; certainly not a prayer, not in that tone of voice. Gito and Robin both backed away. Robin studied the plaster ornamentation of the ceiling, Gito examined the marbled tiles of the floor.

At last, Captain Campbell stopped. She had reached a decision. She took a breath. She quickly unpinned her Guild insignia from her black uniform and held it out to the Vice Applicator-Adjutant. “Here,” she said. “I have no further need of this.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“What value does this trinket have? Certainly, it displays no artistic merit.”

“Madam, you cannot possibly mean this!” The man's words tumbled out in a fluster of confusion.

“I can—and I do!”

“But—but you can't turn in your Guild credential.”

“Why not? As a credential, it certainly has no worth. The organization behind it lacks all willingness to enforce its authority—so it has none. If not here, then not anywhere. I refuse to pay dues to support a Guild that has no teeth. I'll turn my vessel into a freebooter before I'll wear a Guild insignia again.”

“I must warn you—” the Vice Applicator-Adjutant drew himself up to his full bureaucratic height, “—that whatever freedom you may claim a Freebooter, you will pay heavily for it. Wherever you go, the planetary authorities will suspect you of piracy and other renegade actions. You will not have the Guild to stand behind you and protect you.”

“I don't have the Guild standing behind me and protecting me now. Thank you, but I can no longer afford the dues of this organization. Come, Robin, Gito—let's get out of here and go someplace where we can breathe without having our nostrils filled with the stench of sanctimony and fraud.”

“You would do well to watch your tongue, Madam—” But Captain Campbell and her crew had already vanished out the door.

The Vice Applicator-Adjutant debated with himself for a moment. Eventually, greed won the debate and he opened a communication channel. “Get me the Regency Liaison Officer.”

Under the slave-bands, Sawyer and Finn retained just enough consciousness of their situation to appreciate its hellishness. The Eye of God glared down on the camp and turned everything gloriously bright. The trash sparkled like diamond filigree. The heaps of stinking refuse took on a gorgeous pink aura. The towering cliffs of Death Canyon glistened and shone in shades of brooding magenta and crimson wine. The sky gleamed.

The prisoners could not appreciate it. Their bodies moved mechanically, rhythmically, dreadfully. The pain crept up their arms and legs, rooted itself in their spines, and clawed its way up toward their eyes. First the sweat, then the tears, and finally the blood, poured down their arms and legs. They wailed and cried for mercy, but still their bodies hammered on.

Despite his continued dizziness, Finn still worked—he staggered, but he had no choice. As long as his body remained physically capable of working, it would work, regardless of his feelings or intentions. The world took on a hallucinatory atmosphere. Lights and colors sparkled and faded. Sounds jangled at him in a symphony of confusion. He existed in a wondrous daze. Things and people lost all relevance—everything floated in and out of his consciousness without meaning, while his hands and legs continued to move, continued to act and work, totally out of his control.

Even before the end of their first shift Sawyer had become despondent. He wondered how long they could survive. Finn would certainly die first. He, Sawyer, would get to experience the full range of Death Canyon's repertoire of despair: first rage, then futility, then madness, and finally death—

Occasionally, the Vampires who controlled them gave them breaks—more often when the controllers grew tired than when the prisoners did. The Phaestor aristocracy did not consider the control of prisoners a prestigious assignment, regarding it at best as a convenient out-of-the way hole in which to tuck those best kept away from polite company. They had placed too many of their youthful troublemakers and fools here.

The high-spirited young controllers considered the whole operation a game. They would laugh among themselves and make bets on how long this one or that one would last. Sometimes, when they grew truly bored, they would make the prisoners perform ghastly puppet shows, dancing and capering and gibbering like baboons. Other times, they forced the prisoners to perform obscene antics, either alone or with each other. The poor victims couldn't look at each other after sharing such a shame.

On their breaks, the prisoners never spoke of the controllers' actions, but the urge for revenge lived in the hearts of each of them, stared out through their eyes. Each of the creatures enslaved by the bands wished for only one thing, just a single opportunity to have revenge upon those who treated them with such unholy contempt.

During the first break, Justice Harry Mertz had spoken up clearly, “If this represents all the hospitality that Lady Zillabar offers her prisoners, then she doesn't deserve to have any.” But since then, he hadn't said anything at all. He seemed almost a broken man. Sawyer wondered if Justice Mertz would last even as long as Finn. Finn, at least, had the advantage of youth and physical endurance.

Elsewhere, the other prisoners also suffered. One old man had already collapsed and died. Another probably wouldn't last the rest of the night. Most pitiful, the lumbering Dragon, Kask, still struggled with the painful confusion of his slave-band. During the infrequent rest periods, he staggered around the compound, trying to pry the headband off, trying to resist the painful shocks that kept slamming him down to his knees, grunting in agony.

Even when the controllers had them working, Kask still resisted—his incredible physical strength refused to submit to the will of another mind. Several times, the controllers had tried to recalibrate his slave-band, but each time the results proved unsatisfactory. No Dragon had ever worn a slave-band before; no one knew how to calibrate the system for a super-augmented battlefield-grade nervous system.

Once, Kask thought he had seen Ibaka up on the cliffs, watching them. The little dog-child had ducked quickly down behind a rock, but Kask had seen enough to have certainty. He dropped what he carried and struggled again with his headband. The controllers shocked him into unconsciousness that time. His body flung itself back and forth upon the ground, writhing in the sewage until at last sheer exhaustion brought his frenzies to a labored halt.

Since that moment, Kask had worked to retain his awareness; no matter what orders his body had to obey, his eyes remained ceaselessly searching the surrounding hills of trash. If Ibaka appeared again, Kask would know it. He tried to husband his strength, but the effort of resisting the slave-band tired him even more than cooperating with it. And yet—Kask remained unbowed. Somehow, he managed to retain enough of his own will to resist.

Kask had a plan.

He had begun to leave his rations only half consumed. Although the hunger wracked his belly, he did it deliberately, day after day, meal after meal. He had studied the hills very carefully. He knew that packs of hungry children lived up there, waiting, sneaking down while the prisoners labored, to search around the firepit for unfinished rations. Kask had seen the children out of the corners of his eyes. He never saw them when he stood up straight and looked for them, but he had seen the quick flickers of motion as they ducked and hid. He knew.

He knew that the orphans who lived up in the hills of trash paid closer attention to his movements than the controllers did who took turns operating his slave-band. He knew that they would come down for the food he left behind. Sooner or later, Ibaka would come. And then, he would catch him. He hadn't worked out the details of that part yet, but he would.

Kask hadn't seen any of the ragged children watching him today. Nevertheless, he remained certain that his actions did not go unobserved. The scroungers had picked up every ration pack he'd put out for them. Now, he held his unfinished ration pack high over his head, deliberately taunting the unseen watchers in the hills. He turned around and around with it, then he made sure to place it carefully on the large flat rock he used as a place to sit. There it would not escape the notice of the hungry dog-child.

Somehow, he would catch Ibaka. He would return the pup to the Lady. The Lady would forgive him. Perhaps she would even honor him for his unswerving loyalty. In this way, he would erase the stain of dishonor from his name and from his family. Yes, he would catch Ibaka and that would make everything right again. Kask had a very simple vision; he could not imagine that the Lady's attention might have already moved on to larger and more pressing matters.

Kask had patience. If not today, then tomorrow. If not tomorrow, then the day after. He would wait. Eventually, he would catch Ibaka. Eventually, he would get out of here. He would reclaim his honor.

The slave-band began to tingle in warning. The meal break had ended. Kask's mind remained aware, but his body began to move of its own volition. It turned away and trudged heavily back to work. His tail dragged in the mud behind him.

It didn't take long for the bait of Kask's unfinished meal to catch the attention of his intended prey. Almost immediately, Slash and Ibaka came darting down the slope. They had gotten too hungry and too careless. Lured by Kask's fat ration, they hurried quickly toward the circle where the prisoners ate. They kept well into the shadows for as long as they could. Finally, at last, they dashed across the open ground.

Slash circled quickly around the firepit, inspecting the other discarded ration packs. Ibaka ran immediately to the one that Kask had laid on the rock. He knew that Kask had left it for him; he didn't care. He would grab it and run away and fool the Dragon again. He'd done it before—

Abruptly, across the compound, Kask smelled them.

Despite the slave-band, he straightened up to look around—half a klick away, his controller fell out of her chair from the feedback shock. The Dragon didn't even notice. He sniffed the air again, looking around. His nostrils flared. His powerful arms and legs began to flex, temporarily under his own control again. And then he focused—

Across the compound, Ibaka, the dog-boy, caught in the act of reaching for the half-consumed meal, stared back at him in a strange mix of curiosity, fear, and even pity.