Context (109 page)

At the rear, near the wall, a
queue had been picked out by the guards. They waited before a black opening
into the solid rockface. From inside—Tom sensed it, even at this distance—came
a strange hot sulphurous smell, like some titanic animated cadaver’s rotting
breath as it swallowed the hopeless human victims one by stumbling one.

‘Where—?’

But the man had already dropped
his arm to his side, and turned to shuffle away, exhausted beyond measure by
that last pitiful spurt of communication. It came to Tom that perhaps they
would be the poor devil’s final words before he died, and even the vengeance
anger smouldering inside seemed inadequate to answer the outrage perpetrated on
these people, in a world that was supposed to be civilized.

Tom looked on as another
near-dead woman moved into the dark opening, and then another, and then he too
could watch no longer, and turned away as though he had lost the will to care.

Night
was a time of quiet despair, when the fluorofungal colonies upon the cavern
ceiling grew quiescent, shrouded in shadow as they replenished their energies
from autotrophic bacteria within the solid rock.

Drones, the colour of an open
wound, still circled overhead, weapons trained on prisoners who were barely
strong enough to stand.

Tom shifted painfully on his
threadbare mat which did nothing to cushion the rough stone surface underneath.
Then there was a whisper of cloth, a slight grunt and a stink of hot breath as
a big man tried to lie down beside Tom, insinuating himself onto the mat—but Tom
stabbed lightly against the eyeballs, pivoted up onto one knee, and slammed the
edge of his hand down hard.

There was a snap, then a soft cry
of pain.

One hand clutching his now-broken
collarbone, the big man crawled away. In the darkness, wide eyes seemed to
glisten as the other prisoners watched his retreat.

Tom lay back down, and pretended
to drift straight into sleep. But he listened, all senses alert, in case
another attack should come. But there was none; nor could he hear any trouble
coming anyone else’s way: few of the inmates had sufficient energy to abuse
their fellows.

Somewhere, in the next camp
section, a child began to sob. Then a sweet woman’s voice, soothing, drifted
through the night air, and men opened their eyes, wondering whether they
dreamed this angel’s presence or had in fact passed beyond life’s end.

So fluid, so gentle—

There was a crack, the sizzle of
graser fire, and the black night fell silent.

Sometime
during the second day there was an inspection, with senior officers whose
cravats and epaulettes shone crimson, trailed by heavily armed guards whose
aggressive posture was for the sake of form. No-one expected the prisoners to
rise up in revolt; had they tried, all would have died in seconds.

Tom, standing among his ragged
fellow captives, weighed his chances of escape and found them to be zero.

‘Very efficient.’ One of the
officers congratulated a subordinate. ‘Minimal supply usage. Good work.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

They walked on, past the
standing, starving men who might as well have been inanimate rock for all the
attention the officers and guards paid them.

After they had left, an air
almost of anticlimax settled upon the prisoners. No-one had been killed; no-one
had been granted the only release possible from this ongoing hellish punishment
for crimes whose nature no-one could remember or imagine.

Third
day. Fourth ...

Lethargy weighed down upon him in
a blanketing fog. Had all his vaunted plans boiled down to this? Starved into
submission.

For his mind and body, without
sustenance, were inexorably shutting down. Soon he would be unable to form the
logotropic command sequence which activated his thanatotropic suicide implant;
and beyond that point he dared not go.

I’ll die when I decide.

It was the only option left open
to him.

Not before.

But either way it marked his
failure. Starving or the other thing: both marked the end of his quest for
Elva, his fulfilment of the Seer’s vision which was proving to be an illusion,
a tortured and torturing dream. He would never see her again, never touch her
skin, never kiss the soft warm lips of a woman who had died yet still survived.

Elva, my love.

Disappointment hurt more than
torture, more than wounds.

I’ve lost you now.

Fifth
day, and his eyes were closing of their own accord. He lay upon the broken
stone—on a bare rock, though he could not recall his mat being stolen—and tried
to conjure up the suicide code within the slow, restricted remnants of his
mind.

An end, at last
—

Boots, with polished toecaps,
were standing in front of him. He squinted up at the inspecting officers. From
somewhere, a woman’s voice clearly carried:

‘That one will do.’ With a note
of disgust: ‘Clean it up. Have it sent to my quarters.’

Hard prods against his back. The transmission
ends of grasers.

I’m sorry...

Lice-ridden and filthy, he wanted
to apologize for his own stink and lethargy. Were he a guard, he would not soil
a hand on such as himself.

‘Move, animal.’

Stumbling, he somehow forced
himself to move.

Gleaming
floor. The sound of flutes. Soft rose scents ...

Tom stood swaying, overcome by
the soft air’s cool embrace, waiting as he had been told.

A doorshimmer evaporated.

Then an officer walked into the
luxury-filled chamber, and stopped in front of him. He squinted, trying to
focus. His surroundings were a blur of platinum statues, a holo sculpture
floating before a russet tapestry, a face—

Floor shifting.

A
familiar
face ...

‘Tom. Oh, my Fate, what have they
done to you?’

Reaching out.

Elva.

Mouth opening, but no words came
out.

‘Tom...’

Her strong arms caught him as
darkness closed in.

~ * ~

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