Doomsday Warrior 18 - American Dream Machine (10 page)

“It had been intended for you to be released after the preliminary inspection, and to be permitted to walk around.”

Rock looked disdainfully at his plain, ten-by-twenty cubicle.

“Every inch of space is needed,” the officer said. “This area, however, is a little larger than strictly necessary.”

“Where are we spacing to? You can tell me that much at least!”

“Yes, certainly. We’re on our way to Esmerelda. The famous work-asteroid. Kimetta Langdon here made the choice herself.”

Rock started to say, “I never heard of—” and then realized that Kimetta was going toward the door and that the fat, shiny-skinned man was walking off behind her. He watched the door closing in back of the unlikely couple and shut his eyes briefly. Somewhere else a door was raised and lowered. Then silence. After a while he raised his voice to talk to the harsh-throated man who’d been in communication with him a while ago. “Where’s Esmerelda? What is it?”

The unseen man replied at once. “So you don’t know ’bout Esmerelda?”
Was the man chuckling?
“You’ve got a royal treat coming to you!”

“I haven’t heard of every rundown little hellhole planet in the galaxy,” Rock protested. He’d been too busy going to the best nightclubs, out with the most desirable women. He had filled himself with exotic food and drink and emptied his loins into any number of women he had liked very much at the time and knew he’d never see again. “I haven’t been
everyplace,”
he added lamely.

“Well, you’re never gonna forget Esmerelda, Mac, I tell you that much. It’s not a planet at all, not even a small, ugly old planet. It’s—
hell!”

Rock was harsh-voiced himself, now, looking at the wall to his right as if it was the man to whom he spoke. He must be behind a paper-thin partition, to be heard that clearly.

“An asteroid?”

“Right.”

“I’ve heard that humans can live on an asteroid, but how do they manage it? Where does the air come from?”

“Humans can breathe the same way that Esmereldans do. They
—hold on,
somebody’s coming! My name’s Sanders Bylor,” the voice whispered, “and we’ll try and look each other up,
if we can, later.”

The last four words chilled Rock. He was used to being on his own, to going where he wanted. He found himself more alarmed by the minute thinking of an undersized prison planet with a silly name. Why had Kimetta picked it out?
Who
was she?

There was a moment’s silence, and then Rock heard a gasp that finished with a sigh. After that, he heard a door close. His own door opened very soon afterwards.

It was Kimetta again. This time, she was by herself. A small, green thumb-tray floated at her side, moving when she raised a finger. He wasn’t sure whether the girl herself was floating on air or walking on the floor. Everything he’d heard in the last few minutes had disturbed him, and he wanted to get a little of his own moxie back. He started trying to disconcert the pretty young traitor who stood in front of him.

“You and the slimy officer,” he began, “are you lovers?”

She blinked rapidly, but answered the question. “Friends only. You are my love. Or were. Believe me, he’s nothing to me.”

Rock was mildly surprised at having drawn a not-unfriendly response, which was more than the officer would have handed him.

“Doesn’t he
want
to be your lover?”

“Dovine says so,” she replied. “But Zhabno Dovine is—asexual. I like him, somewhat. Perhaps because he adores me.”

“So you’re on a name basis with him! You like him, but not as a lover? You think he’s too cold, too distant? That’s right?” Rockson was torn by jealousy and confusion. But her little shrug was all the answer Rock needed. It made him feel better, to know that she was not screwing Dovine. Maybe Kimetta could be won over—why not? She had loved him just a few days ago. She could help him escape! If there was enough time on this trip, and there certainly ought to be, then he’d like to become very friendly again with the buxom young woman. No matter what might happen once the ship landed on Esmerelda, wherever that might be, at least he could give Kimetta and himself a good time along the way! Rock was starting to feel that she wouldn’t have any more objections than he did. She was smiling warmly at him. Just like the old days.

“It’s been decided to make your trip as easy as possible, your’s and the others’,” she said. “Instead of having to worry and be upset about your duties on Esmerelda, you’re to be put
under
for the balance of the day.”

“Under?” Rock didn’t understand. But it sounded
ominous.

Kim rapidly undid part of his one-piece, touching the base of his neck with cold thumb and forefinger, pinching the area under his chin.

“What are you doing?”

“Raising the skin, finding a vein,” she replied.

She suddenly seemed distracted and instead of reaching for what Rock could now see was the long-needled syringe on the floating tray, she touched a strange blue disk medallion she wore on a chain about her pale neck. “Here, I will put this on you. Wear it forever. Never take it off. It will protect you from the Zrano.” She took it off and clasped the medallion around Rock’s neck. “My gift to you—in honor of our love.”

She smiled mysteriously.

He made a mental note to ask Sanders Bylor what in hell a Zrano might be. All his life as a playboy he had considered himself experienced and able to adapt, but he was going to have a harder time than ever before from now on. He had to have INFORMATION!

“What is a Zrano?”

No answer. Just a wink.

“What is the medallion for?”

“It’s a love token,” she said, looking down at the medallion. “As long as you wear it, nothing much can happen to you.”

Her full lips twitched briefly in a sort of amusement; and Kimetta leaned over him, kissed him; and as he responded with his burning lips Rock felt the sting of a hypodermic needle in his throat!

Ten

F
ive hours later he woke up in what he soon realized was another chamber. Rock had awakened in a medium-sized, Earth-style room with a comfortable bed and a bureau with half a dozen buttons to open the slots intended for shoes and one-pieces. There was a new one-piece in one of the open slots, and since he found he wasn’t strapped down, he sat up on his cot, took off the stale clothes he was wearing, then washed himself in an adjoining bathroom. He shut the bathroom door before stripping off the smelly suit and putting on the new, blue one-piece. It was the right size. There was a mirror, too. And a comb. Rock was able to comb his long, white-streaked black hair and look at the uncertain cast of his pale features. The sight of that mirror startled him, because he had sometimes seen movies about desperate men, desperate
prisoners,
taking a mirror and breaking it and cutting their wrists with the slivers. He was turning from the mirror when he heard two taps on the door. They were polite, soft, which surprised him.

“Can I come in?” A young man’s voice—the wall-man?

“I don’t think I could stop you,” he replied. “There’s no lock.”

“Certainly you can, if you want to. Just ask me to come back later.” But the door opened a crack. In stared a young man in a red jumpsuit with an emblem of a comet on the lapels.

“Are you one of the guards?”

“I work here, yes,” the blond man said apologetically.

“Well, if this is a prison ship, I can’t stop you. Come on in. Maybe I’ll find out something.”

The door was opened all the way. The blond man was a fresh-faced youth, a Venusian whose shiny skin reminded Rockson of Corporal Dovine as he must have been in his youth. He felt a moment’s pang at not having seen Kimetta since she put him under, and then winked at the newcomer. “What’s the score?” Rock asked. “You have a hypo for me too?”

“Are you comfortable here?” the man asked, looking around. “Everything in order?”

“I don’t suppose it’s bad, for a prison-ship,” Rock admitted.

“You keep using that word. It makes me feel rotten, if you know what I mean.”

“I don’t see why it should. I’m being sent to Esmerelda. Isn’t that true?”

“Obviously,” the man smiled, but his eyes were sorrowful.

“What for? Is there a reason?”

“Of course! You are a criminal!”

“What is my sentence? How long?”

“You’ll find out very soon now. You’re bound to know before we land. I’ve got to go now.”

“Will you answer one more question? You don’t have to say yes or no. Maybe I can guess the answer by how you look when I ask—even if you don’t tell me. Fair enough?”

The young man turned to leave, unwilling to let Rock see his face give away any response—not everybody on this space craft was as grim and impassive as Dovine, it seemed. Rock realized he could see the man’s face in the mirror, and quickly asked: “Has my sentence got anything to do with somebody or something named Zrano?”

He had remembered Kimetta’s words about Zrano, and the medallion he wore—her gift—protecting him. But Rock was not absolutely sure that he remembered them
exactly.
The young guard’s face showed a furtive discomfort, as if Rock had mentioned something very unpleasant. And then the guard left, saying only, “You’ll see! Heaven help you, you’ll see!” His hands were at his sides, lips almost prim. “But don’t think of tomorrow. There is a treat in store today! If you come out to the hall in an hour, you’ll be on the way to a pleasant surprise!”

The compartment door closed in back of him. Rock figured he could have dived after the young man, made it into the corridor, could have held the man as a hostage.
But then what?

Rock looked in the desk slots for any audi-reads, but found none. Not even a Bible. He went back and stared at his face in the bathroom mirror, then shrugged and looked away. He was used to taking pleasure from others and giving it to them, but not used to plotting. Still, he would escape. Somehow, he would escape.

The outside door didn’t open until an hour had drifted past. When it did, there was no one there. He went through the door. He was alone in a long and antiseptically white corridor, facing five closed doors, two others on the same side of the corridor as his room. There wasn’t any indication of where to go, or what to do. Right or left? If a long, white corridor could be called confusing, he was certainly confused. His hand went to the circular blue medallion.

A door far down the hall to the right opened halfway. Rock headed in that direction. He half-imagined a pretty girl, maybe Kimetta herself, beckoning with another syringe. He’d not let her put him “under” this time! No way!

Just as he started in that direction, a burly and unshaven man came out of the closer of the other two doors, glanced at him, cocked his head alertly, and then took a step toward Rock.

“I never seen you in my life,” the man said, in a harsh voice, the same voice from the wall Rock didn’t think he’d ever forget. “You’re not from Venus Prison. Who are you?”

“You’ve spoken to me and I’ve listened to you,” Rock told him calmly. “Don’t you recognize my voice?”

“Oh. Oh, yeah. You’re in the next cube! Well, lots of luck, sonny.” The man squinted again. “You’re no older than ’bout forty, I’d guess. Did you have a nice life?”

Rock said, “More or less.” Funny, he wasn’t at all sure how old he was! Effect of the drug?

“Things like this, they hadn’t ought to happen to guys like me who never had a break, shoved from prison world to prison world. Unlucky, that’s me. I, who haven’t been around, haven’t seen much.”

Rock wasn’t going to comment about that. “What’s going to happen to us?” he asked instead.

The burly man seemed distracted. “As I said, my name’s Sanders Bylor.” He shoved forward a ham hock hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Rock’s my name. Niles Rockson.”

He took the huge hand. To his astonishment, something seemed to tickle his palm and he realized that the handshake was a ruse. Something had been put into his hand! Rockson drew his hand back and looked down at it. A gray audi-writing square! A message!

Sanders Bylor made an urgent gesture toward a flap of the new one-piece that Rock was wearing. He put the audi-writing square away, supposing that Sanders, as a longtime prisoner, was used to living with small intrigues. Everything he did that authority wouldn’t know about was a triumph perhaps; a small but solid triumph . . .

Rock looked down the corridor at the door that had opened. Nothing. No one had come out there.

He couldn’t help asking, “What were you arrested for?”

“Smuggling, if that makes any difference now. How I figured to get away with a smuggling job on Venus I’ll never know. The way it is, kid, is that you hear stories about other people who did things, and you suppose you can do ’em. So you smuggle slumph-crystals from the Alpha Centauri quadrant and you get caught and you get put in the cruncher. That’s all there is to it. After that—it’s up to them. Your life isn’t your own anymore. What are you in for?”

“I don’t know. I think for being a playboy. Didn’t know it was illegal!”

“Oh yeah! Retroactive laws are a bummer aren’t they,” the man said.

“What’s going to happen to us on Esmerelda?” Rock asked, coming back to the subject of greatest interest to both of them.

“Kid, I’m not exactly sure. If it was some ordinary prison planet we’d been taken to, I’d say it was a so-called medical experiment with us prisoners to be used as material. On Esmerelda, I doubt it. From what I’ve heard, they’re pretty much a no-nonsense group there. Into the work ethic. Period. And lots of rules. Anything that gets done around there, kid, there’s a rule. Know what I mean?”

Rock nodded, though he didn’t, and asked, “Do you think it’s got anything to do with somebody named Zrano? Our being brought to Esmerelda in the first place, I mean.”

Sanders Bylor’s reaction wasn’t measured, like the guard’s. The burly man pulled back as if Rock had developed some contagious disease. His eyes widened in horror and he drew up one large hand as if to fend off an attack.

“Oh my
God,
no,” he whispered. “They can’t do that to you! They can’t do that to me! Not just for being a smuggler! Heaven help us kid. I’ll pray for you and me, I swear!”