Tanderon (4 page)

“Then he brought me here to Xanadu Orbital Station, and arranged for us to go down to the Pleasure Sphere. He was constantly talking to the other men there, telling them how young and innocent I was, and how attractive.”

I blushed here, then hurried on.

“He had almost come to some sort of an agreement with one of the men, when another of them grew angry and kidnapped me and beat me. That man was stopped by the Pleasure Sphere Management, and then they insisted that my uncle take me away. They said something about not wanting competitors, but I don’t understand what they meant.”

The doctor was becoming more and more grim, but he didn’t interrupt.

“When I woke up here on the Station,” I continued, “my uncle warned me not to say a word to anyone about what had happened. He’s … punished me before, so I was afraid to try to get any help. Then that man Ringer came, and I think my uncle works for him. They’re going to do something horrible to me, I just know it, but what can I do? I ran away from the hospital because I’m frightened, but they found me and brought me here. I insisted I was all right because I can’t face going back to that bed, to just lie there and wonder what’s to become of me! So you see, Doctor, there’s really nothing you can do.”

I looked away again, as if I had no more tears left to cry with.

“We’ll see what I can and can’t do,” the doctor growled as he straightened up, quietly furious. “We have excellent security people on this station, and I’m sure they’ll be very interested in hearing your story.”

“Oh, no,” I protested with shy despair. “You can’t tell the security people. My uncle still has those papers, and they’ll be forced to turn me over to him again. I can’t bear to think what he’d do to me then.”

That part of it wasn’t a lie. If I ever had to face Ringer and Val in front of security people, I’d be lucky to get out of it still alive.

“But I can’t just walk away and leave you here!” the doctor returned with seething frustration, running a hand over the top of his head. “There must be something that can be done!”

“If only I could get to Barancelle,” I sighed, letting my gaze turn far away. “Mother –

I – have relatives there. I’m sure they would protect me, especially if the security force held those two people here for a few days. But I have no way of buying a ticket … I have no money and I’m a minor, so I might as well forget about it.”

I put my face in my hands wearily, but I felt like holding my breath instead. Hook number two was dangling in front of him.

“Don’t you worry about the price of the ticket, young lady,” the man bit hard, patting my shoulder comfortingly. “You just leave everything to me. Barancelle sounds like just the place for you, and I’m going to see that you get there.”

I raised an unbelieving face to him, then let some hope show through.

“Do you really mean that, Doctor?” I asked, wide-eyed. At his smiling nod, I shook my head just a little. “I don’t know how I can ever thank you for this.”

“You needn’t even try,” he told me with a smile, patting my hand this time. “If every cure required of me was as easy to manage as this one, I’d be the most famous doctor in practice. Are you sure you have no leftover aches or pains?”

“None at all,” I assured him, discounting the tiredness I felt. Even if I hadn’t gotten back to tiptop, peak condition yet, I had no need to be fussed over in a hospital bed.

Doctors being doctors, he had to have a look at my wrists, but as bad as they’d been they’d also been the easy part, and were obviously well on the way to being healed. He replaced the old bandages with new ones, repacked his bag, then gazed at me thoughtfully.

“You know,” he mused, “it would be easier to get you on the liner if you came back to the hospital area with me now. What do you say? Are you willing to tell them you’re not feeling as well as you thought?”

The idea was an attractive one, but that was one thing I couldn’t do. I’d made such a stink about not going back, Ringer was sure to get suspicious if I suddenly changed my mind and meekly followed the doctor out. If I calmed Ringer’s curiosity and went back under protest, the doctor was sure to start wondering. I let my shoulders sag a bit, and put a pale smile on my face.

“I’d love to go with you,” I said wistfully, “but if I did they’d know something was wrong. I suppose it will just be too hard for you to get me to the liner from here. I thank you anyway. I know that you tried.”

“Don’t you start giving up so quickly, young lady,” he ordered gently, picking up his bag. “I’ll think of something to get you out of here. You just leave it all to me and don’t worry. You’ll be on Barancelle before you know it.”

I thanked him sincerely and reminded him to tell Val and Ringer I was fine, otherwise those two desperate characters might have me moved to other hospital facilities and I would be lost. He agreed, said a warm goodbye, and left. I heard him speak briefly to Val and Ringer, and then he left the suite.

I went back to my chair and sat, then hung my legs over the chair arm again.

According to the information I’d gathered from unsuspecting hospital personnel, the liner to Barancelle was due to dock in about four hours. If my luck held and the doctor was as competent as he seemed, I’d be on that liner when it left. One day’s run and I’d be on my way, and Ringer and Val, together with the entire Council, could fold their orders till they were all corners and – augment them. I settled more comfortably into the chair, looking forward to being really alone for a while. I needed to give my mind a chance to forget about everything that had so recently happened, but right now I had to spend some time thinking about what would soon be going on. And, hopefully, going on successfully…

No more than fifteen minutes could have gone by before the door to my room opened again, and Val and Ringer walked in. I’d been mentally listing possible approaches to key Barancelle personnel and locations, but the looks on my visitors’

faces jolted me out of the planning and into the present.

Ringer was coldly furious, and Val’s anger had nothing cold about it. I didn’t say a word and neither did they, but Val closed the door while Ringer walked to a low dresser near where I sat. Ringer then produced the sort of miniature receiver I usually use on the job, and activated the playback part of the wiring section. I listened to just enough of it to be sure he’d gotten the whole conversation I’d had with the doctor, then covered my eyes with one hand. I still had one hope, but it was a slim one. Ringer had been a good agent in his time, but if he was just a little slow I might get away with it yet.

“It’s the duty of every prisoner of war to escape,” I said with a shrug, looking up again. “What are you going to do, shoot me? I tried and missed. Better luck next time.”

Ringer turned off the playback and slowly shook his head. “I know you better than that, Diana,” he said. “If that doctor had gone with your story to the security force, all it would have taken to stop any trouble would have been to show my credentials as a representative of the Council. I know it and you know it, so I checked my room. My credentials are gone, Diana. Where did you put them?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ringer,” I scoffed, leaning back in my chair. “What would I do with your credentials? You must have just mislaid them. You know how careless you are.”

“Don’t be cute!” Ringer snapped, taking an angry step toward me. “You were heading for the shipyards on Barancelle. If you’d made it you would have stolen a ship and gone back to Dameron’s base. But you never would have had a chance if I had my credentials to cancel out your fairytales, so you must have taken them! I have to get to the security force before that doctor does, so give me those credentials!”

I’d glanced at Val during Ringer’s speech, but what I’d seen wasn’t very encouraging.

Val was big, broad-shouldered, wide-chested, and narrow in the hip – in other words, a fighting man in his prime – and he leaned against the closed door of my room with his arms folded across his chest. His face, that broad, masculine, ridiculously handsome face, was tight in the jaw, the blaze from his dark black eyes coloring the rest of his expression. He hadn’t yet had enough time to understand that what I was doing was for his good as well as mine, so all he felt was angry. I almost started to tell him not to feel betrayed when he found out about the rest of it, but that would have been stupid. Betrayed was how I wanted him to feel, even if something went really wrong and I had to watch him feeling that emotion.

“I don’t know anything about your credentials,” I said to Ringer, sticking to my story as I took my attention away from Val. “If you’re so desperate about it, call the Council and have them issue another set.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Ringer growled, slamming the wire recorder-receiver down on the shiny surface of the dresser. “I’d look great when they found out you’d stolen the original set from under my nose after I’d assured them you were safely in the hospital. No, Diana, you’re going to come up with the original set and you’re going to do it fast, or you’ll be sorrier than you’ve ever been in your entire life.”

Ringer wasn’t even trying to hide his rage, but that was no reason to back down. I took my legs off the chair arm and got slowly to my feet, then cocked my head to one side.

“Why don’t you try truth drugs?” I suggested in a drawl. “Since you don’t like my answers, you might find ones you like better that way. Or have you got your heart set on hot irons?”

“The only truth drugs that would work on you are too far away to help me,” Ringer returned, his right fist closed tight and held before him. “Hot irons is closer to what it’ll be if you don’t start talking. I don’t have much time, so I can’t afford to waste any. This is your last chance.”

I just stood there staring at him so he nodded slightly, understanding I’d said all I was going to, then he moved away from the dresser toward my left.

“Now, Valdon,” he said softly, and Val left the door and began to move off to the right. With a 9 rating in hand to hand combat I could have held my own with either one of them, but the two of them being what they were I didn’t stand much of a chance against the combination.

Doctrine says that if you’re facing two opponents, you attack quickly and viciously and put one out as fast as possible, then give the other your undivided attention. If they’d been a couple of ordinary strong-arm types I wouldn’t have had a problem; they both would have been unconscious in no time.

But with these two the question became: which one did I kill? If they’d been after my life I wouldn’t have hesitated, but they weren’t going to kill me. They just meant to see how close they could come, and unfortunately for me, that made all the difference. I went into standard attack-defense position, and got set to do what I could.

Ringer and Val approached me slowly and warily, both knowing better than to treat me as an easy mark. I hadn’t put shoes or boots on when I’d dressed, but that wasn’t the disadvantage it might seem. A successful attack or defense depends on the body’s movements, knees bent to assure proper balance, arms and hands held to check an opponent’s movement or begin one of your own, mind alert to every danger or opening. The carpeting was soft under my feet but didn’t promise very stable footing, and I wondered how long the adrenaline in my bloodstream would keep me going.

Ringer suddenly came in from my left, showing how fast he could move, his right leg flashing in a circle toward my ankles, trying to knock me off my feet. I jumped the leg and kicked out, catching him painfully on the thigh, and he grunted at the blow and staggered off balance, his body automatically shifting his weight to keep him from going down.

Ringer isn’t the sort of opponent you can give partial attention to, but I couldn’t afford to forget about Val. I swung out of the kick I’d given Ringer just in time to kick a second time at Val, who had moved up much too close and was reaching for me. Val was obviously expecting the kick, though. His hand grabbed for my foot, caught it and twisted, sending me down hard on my right shoulder.

The next move was to roll fast to keep from getting pinned or stomped, but slamming into the floor, even with the carpeting to cushion the impact, caused the memory of agony to flash through my body. The breath was driven from my lungs, leaving them to struggle with vacuum, and a deep, blurry gong boomed for an instant in my ears. The reactions were only split-second, not even lasting long enough to really be felt, but they lasted long enough to throw off my timing. I began to move as soon as it was possible, but it was also too late. Val and Ringer were both already on top of me, holding me down with their weight.

I struggled against being held, trying to fight my way free, but the adrenaline was gone and so was most of my strength. I panted and sweated from the few seconds of exertion, cursing the two weeks of inactivity that had so destroyed my endurance, but the men holding me weren’t even breathing hard. Val had his arms wrapped around my arms from behind, his hands clamped to my wrists, and he moved his head closer to put his lips next to my ear.

“You’d better tell him what he wants to hear,” he murmured in my ear. “You’ll be saving yourself more than you know.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I answered, determined to see my plan through. There were only a limited number of things Ringer could do to make me talk, and if I could hold out long enough that doctor might make an early call on the security people. Ringer knew as well as I did that the worse shape I was in when the security people saw me, the more likely they would be to ignore anything he had to say. The safety of his own neck depended on the safety of mine, and that was the best way to have it.

There were no more words out of either of them after that, just actions. I was forced to my feet between them, held close by their bodies to keep me from being able to move against them at all, and then my steps were directed by them toward the bed.

Val still held my arms and wrists and Ringer had me around the waist, and there was no question about whether or not I would go. Val was hurting my wrists through the bandages, but that was only a minor consideration. Ringer knew as many ways of causing pain without leaving marks as I did, and I began to wonder which of them he would use. I could stand the pain of most of them, but there were a few…