Infinite Day (43 page)

She had said irony is her defense mechanism.
Merral swallowed. “Thanks, Abilana. Now, Slabodal, we don't want to hurt you, but we will if we have to. Will you cooperate?”

“Yes. I have no wish to join the captain.”

As Ilyas ran his hands over the man, Merral saw that Betafor had come forward.

“Do you wish me to translate, Commander?”

“Yes. It will be quicker, and we don't have much time. It's important that everyone hears.”

Ilyas gestured that Slabodal was clean of weapons and stood back. Merral saw the rest of the soldiers were gathering around in a semicircle. He saw that Lloyd's face was pale and glum, and as he watched he saw the blue eyes flick almost guiltily to the corpse. Luke had come alongside Lloyd and was whispering in his ear. Merral lip-read the words
It had to be done
. Lloyd nodded in assent and the glumness seemed to slip away.

Merral turned to the Allenix unit. “Betafor, ask him this: if he is life-bonded to the captain, isn't he going to die?”

She translated and Merral was more or less able to follow the question.

“No,” Slabodal replied and Betafor translated. “I paid for my life-bonding to be surgically neutralized last year. A secret operation; it cost a lot, but I think it was a good investment. I had a suspicion the captain would die.” Slabodal turned to stare at the corpse. “But not quite like that. Not with bravery.”

Then he looked at Merral with a hard face, and his words were simple enough that Merral understood them even before Betafor had translated them. “For twenty years, he abused me in every way. I'm very glad he is dead. I hated him.”

Somehow Merral's gaze fell on the body on the floor and the appalling pool of crimson, and he looked away. “Slabodal, we have some urgent questions and we need answers. Honest ones.”

“Will you spare me?”

“Yes.”

“Promise on oath! To the powers!”

“We take no oaths and none to the powers. You must trust my word.”

Slabodal looked at the corpse again. “Very well. You have the guns. I will give
them
honest answers.”

Vero clumsily unrolled a long schematic diagram of the interior of the
Sacrifice
.

“Now, Slabodal,” Merral asked, gesturing at the sheet. “Where is the rest of the crew?”

“In Compartment 1-14.” Slabodal pointed to a space on the lower forward part of the diagram. “All of them. Haq—the captain—arranged a killer-dog death match for them.”

“A what?”
Is there a mistranslation here?

There was a sarcastic smirk. “Commander, what part of the phrase ‘killer-dog death match' do you not understand?”

“All of it.”

“Gene-engineered dogs kill each other.”

Merral shook his head and saw disgust on the faces of his friends. “They are watching
that
now? For how much longer?”

“Quite a bit. We've got a priest—Hewnface, one of the fleshcutters—who is speaking first. He won't finish for at least another five minutes. Likes his books. Then there is the fight. That could last for ten, twenty, or even thirty minutes. Depends on how quickly one of the dogs dies.”

“How many men are there?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“How many will have weapons?”

“Just two. Munt, a big bald guy; he will be in the ring dealing with the dogs. And Klime, the master-at-arms—a little man with—a single spike of black hair and a scar on his face. He will be armed too.”

Just two?
Merral felt a surge of hope returning.
Maybe God has not deserted us!

“And are there any Krallen?”

Slabodal responded with something that Merral felt meant “There are no Krallen activated on this ship; they are not a hazard for you.” He was slightly surprised therefore when Betafor gave the translation as “There are no Krallen
present
on this ship; they are not a hazard for you.” Merral decided that there must be an ambiguity in Saratan that he had missed.

He moved on with a question about whether a steersman or slitherwings were on board and was gratified to get the answer that there were neither.

Merral looked around. There was no time for debate. The captain's death—he tried again not to look at the body—had been unfortunate, but if Slabodal was being honest, they had a remarkable opportunity to seize the ship.

Merral beckoned for his armor. “I'll lead the way through the lower corridor; I want
total
silence. Guns at the ready in case it's a trap. No use of comms. At the ladder here—” he pointed at Vero's plan of the ship—“we split into two teams. Ilyas, take one of your men and climb up to the bridge. If, as we are told, there is no one there except the Allenix, enter and secure the bridge. Betafor, the sarudar, and Vero will follow immediately behind you. The ship's communications must be locked down; we can't afford to have any messages sent out. The moment that is secure, give me a brief okay on the suit headset.”

Every eye was watching him. “On that word, we will enter the cabin and encourage a surrender. Now everyone get your weapons. Have Slabodal here tied to a seat. He can wait for us.”

Hearing his name, Slabodal began to speak. “Don't kill me. You promised.”

As Merral took the armor he was offered, he spoke to the man. “Slabodal, what do you want?”

“I want freedom.”

“If you have spoken truthfully, you may have it.”

As Slabodal was tied to a seat and the soldiers began lining up with their weapons, Merral slipped into the rear of the pilot's cabin and hastily changed out of the dress uniform and into the armored leggings, jacket, and gloves. Then, placing the helmet on his head, he joined the others.

He picked up a rifle. “Let's go.”

The dully lit corridor that ran along the lower spine of the ship was almost silent. Other than the quiet footfalls of the soldiers, the only noises were the low-pitched hums and soft rumbles that Merral had decided were a feature of all spaceships. As he looked around, watching for any hint of peril, Merral sensed a shift in scale from the
Star
; the
Sacrifice
was, in every way, a bigger ship. The doors and corridors were larger, so much so that the twin lines of soldiers were able to move along them with room to spare. It registered with him that the gray girders and struts that he could see were built on a massive scale and that every so often there were structures encircling the corridors that appeared to be capable of sealing off sections.
This is a ship built to take damage.

Yet he saw more than just the military architecture
.
Every ten meters or so was a niche or alcove with some sort of image or statue inside. Most of the images were of bizarre and appalling figures with multiple heads or clawed or tentacled limbs. Merral felt they were not just cold, neutral statues; they were statements of devotion or fear to real beings. But was there more? He found it hard to avoid the feeling that the images seemed to watch them as they passed.
We are deep in enemy territory now
.

Merral saw Luke stare at one figure and give a stern shake of his head.
If we win here, they will all be in the vacuum in hours.

Soon the party had reached the ladder up to the bridge. Pausing only long enough to flick their faceplates down, Ilyas and Slee began climbing. Vero turned to Merral, waved a hand in a slow, theatrical gesture of farewell, tapped his visor down, and climbed after them. As Betafor and Azeras followed, Merral signaled the rest of the team on.

They moved forward through a long, empty chamber, which Merral decided would be suitable as a temporary hold for prisoners. Then, in the section beyond, he realized he could hear a ragged and excited noise.

A closed door loomed. Merral stopped before it, aware that the noise, now recognizable as the sound of yelling and the rhythmic stamping of feet, came from just beyond.

Suddenly he heard Vero's voice in his earpiece. “My friend, we have the bridge. One easily intimidated Allenix. Comms systems secured. Now, if you put your visor down, Betafor is going to patch through the imagery from Compartment 1-14.”

Merral slipped the visor down in front of his eyes and an image of a partially darkened room appeared. At the center, twin ceiling spotlights focused on the atrocious scene of two creatures, both covered in a bloody red sheen, thrashing and clawing at each other on a platform screened about by mesh. To one side, just outside the mesh, a large bald-headed man with a tattooed face was seated on a high stool, leaning over and prodding the creatures with a long trident.

In the darkness around the platform, Merral could make out a rough circle of seated men yelling and howling their excitement. On the far wall were two colored screens showing pulsing lines. Puzzled for a moment as to their significance, Merral soon decided that they were biometric readouts from the dogs showing at least heartbeat and blood pressure.
What a wicked marriage of technology and barbarity!

Merral reached for his belt and pulled off a spherical object.

“Vero,” he whispered, “can Betafor control the lighting in that room?”

A few moments later came the answer. “Y-yes.”

“Good. I'm going to use a neuro-stun grenade. Tell her to put the lighting up high after it explodes.”

Merral turned to face the soldiers, gestured to the grenade in his hand, and motioned for all visors to be down and for them to look away. Then he turned to the door, primed the grenade, and pressed the button to open the door. As the door slid open a few centimeters, he flung the grenade in and looked away.

Even seen indirectly and filtered by the suit's reactive visor, the flash of light that followed was enough to make him blink. An instant later, there was a long pulsing blast of tuned frequencies that, although muffled by the ear defenders, still made his head reel.

Flicking off the safety catch on his gun, Merral turned to the open door. As he did, the lighting came on to show a scene of utter chaos. On the floor, men were writhing and thrashing about with their hands over their eyes. On the platform, the two bloodied creatures were locked together, their blood-stained metal claws continuing to tear at each other.

As the others fanned out swiftly behind him, Merral stepped forward, arcing his gun barrel this way and that in search of threats. He was aware of sounds—the howls of the animals, still locked in their frenzied grappling, and the groans and yells of the men.

Merral touched the microphone button on his helmet.

“Hands on heads!” he shouted in Saratan. “Hands on heads! This is the Assembly. We do not wish to harm you. Hands on heads!
Now! Now! Now!
”

He caught the smell now—the warm, sour stink of sweat and feverish excitement. Slowly, stunned men lifted hands onto their heads. On the platform, the dogs continued to thrash and rip at each other. Just outside the pen, the bald-headed man was still on his stool but was slumped against the mesh.

Suddenly the figure stirred, shook himself, and rose upright. Somewhat unsteadily, he grabbed his trident and aimed it at Merral. He flexed his arm back as if to throw.

In an action of pure instinct, Merral swung his gun up, sighted briefly, and fired twice. Over the sights, he saw a look of pained shock cross the man's tattooed face. He screeched in pain and the trident was thrown. As it clattered harmlessly at Merral's feet, the man rose high on the stool and, clutching his chest, staggered and tumbled heavily against the mesh around the platform.

Horror-struck, Merral saw the rim of the mesh yield. With arms flailing in a desperate attempt to stop himself, the big man slid down inside the pen. He hadn't even hit the floor before the dogs broke off from each other and turned upon him.

There were screams, a choking sound, an abrupt silence; then, with new yowls, the dogs returned to tearing at each other.

I too have killed a man!

Feeling sickened, Merral snapped an order. “Kill those dogs!”

There was the loud snap of weapons fire and the dogs tottered and slumped down. The howling waned to a whimpering and then died away. On the wallscreen, the waveforms faltered and then flattened.

Merral gave another order and in groups of three his team began the much-rehearsed procedure of taking prisoners. While one soldier pointed a gun at a dazed man, another searched him and the third lashed his hands behind his back with a self-tightening strip.

Merral looked around and noticed that almost all the men now had their hands on their heads.
Munt is dead, but where is this Klime?

Without warning, another man stood up, his head crowned with a single birdlike tuft and his scarred face twisted with anger.

“Fight! They are just women!” he shouted scornfully in a Saratan so accented that Merral could barely understand it. “Come on! Kill them!”