by Peter David
“That’s very considerate of you. I never thought of a race of beings who go around imposing their beliefs on others—or else—as being nothing but altruistic in their motivations.”
“Then you have learned differently this day, haven’t you.” As if Xyon had lost interest for him, the Overlord turned to Riella. “Now you, child, present a different situation. You have knowledge that we desire.”
“Do I.” She was trying to make her tone sound defiant. She wasn’t succeeding overmuch.
“Yes. Yes, you do.” He was slowly circling her, never taking his eyes from her. “You know of the Quiet Place. We would know of it, too. We have sought it for a very, very long time. We know that you know of it. We know of the dreams that have haunted you—”
“How?” she whispered.
He waved off the question as if it were immaterial. “That does not matter. What matters is that we know. And we will do whatever we have to in order to pull the information from you. We are prepared to subject you to all manner of deep mental probes, many of which will be—regrettably—quite painful. We will, if necessary, reduce you to a sobbing sack of protoplasm, unless you agree to cooperate with—”
“Star 7734,” she said immediately.
Xyon rolled his eyes. “That’s standing up to torture, all right.”
The Overlord frowned. “What do you mean, Star 7734?”
“Star 7734. That’s where the Quiet Place is. You wanted to know. I’ve told you. Can I go now?”
The Overlord glanced at the other Redeemers as if checking to make sure that they had heard what he had. “The Quiet Place,” he said slowly, “is one of the greatest secrets in the galaxy. She who knows of it possesses a sacred trust, passed on through generations since before anyone—even the first of the Overlords—can remember. You don’t seriously expect me to believe that without the slightest act of torture, you would—”
“Seven. Seven. Three. Four. Aren’t you listening? Are you stupid?” Riella said in obvious annoyance. “I don’t know anything about generations or the first of the Overlords. I don’t know anything about the greatest secret in the galaxy. All I know is that I have this place rattling about in my head, and no one’s told me it was supposed to be a big secret. Even if they did tell me, I’m just a girl being plagued by terrifying dreams. I didn’t sign on for torture and being turned into a sack of … what was it?”
“Protoplasm,” offered the Overlord politely.
“Yes, thank you. A sack of protoplasm. That is not, frankly, my idea of fun.”
“A sacred trust is not intended to be fun,” said the Overlord.
“I don’t care! I don’t care!” She pulled in frustration against the bonds holding her to the chair. “I don’t want this trust, sacred or otherwise! I never asked for this ‘great secret,’ this generational responsibility. The only thing I ever asked was for the dreams to stop. And they haven’t! I don’t owe anyone anything, and I certainly haven’t promised anyone that I would keep silent about the Quiet Place. I was only trying to get there in hopes that, once I did, it would be satisfied—whatever ‘it’ is—and leave me alone for the rest of my life.”
One of the lower orders of Redeemers was holding a padd in front of the Overlord and pointing. The Overlord was nodding slowly and then he looked at Riella. “Our star charts indicate that there is nothing at the designate 7734. A star, but that is all. No planets. Not even an asteroid. It’s just dead space.”
“Well, that’s what you’ve got between your ears, so you should feel right at home there!”
Xyon winced when she said that. He had a sneaking suspicion that the Overlord was not going to take very kindly to that assessment of his mental capacity.
The Overlord actually chuckled slightly. It was not a pleasant sound.
“You sought to distract us,” he said. “Make us waste time going to an empty system while the true location of the Quiet Place remains locked in your head.”
“No, I didn’t! I’m not that clever!”
“Obviously, since it apparently never occurred to you that we would check the location before going there.” He drew close to her, then, and Xyon felt a chill going through him. He remembered what the Overlord had done to him just with a word or words. He didn’t even want to consider what would happen to Riella if the Overlord turned his full attentions on her. “Where is the Quiet Place.”
“She’s telling the truth!” Xyon said, deciding there was no point in keeping silent. After all, if she—the keeper of this “sacred knowledge”—was more than willing to talk her head off about it, what purpose was there in Xyon’s reticence? “That’s where we were heading! That’s where she told me to go!”
“Then she was lying to you.”
“Or perhaps she was telling the truth, and you simply refuse to believe it, because you’re sanctimonious fools!”
The Overlord spoke another word. This time it felt like a hammer blow, and it slammed Xyon against the wall with such force that it actually lifted him off the ground. He gasped from the impact, a sheet of white exploding behind his eyes. It was everything he could do not to fall. He had never been so grateful for the existence of a wall in his life. As before, the actual word, or words, slid out of his mind before he could even recall the slightest hint of it. He was starting to wonder whether that was actually an act of self-defense; that to remember the words being used against him would somehow cause the top of his head to blow off.
“You do not fall,” the Overlord said. There was a hint of approval, even mild admiration, in his tone. “That is impressive. Most anyone else would. You would be a formidable servant of Xant if you were able to get past the fundamental anger that darkens your soul.”
“Perhaps the reason I’m … getting angry … is because you keep throwing me around with your magic words.”
“They are hardly magic. They tap into primal truths of the universe. Truths that we of the Redeemers instinctively grasp, and you, just as instinctively, reject. They are as consistent, as real, as reliable as the so-called ‘laws of physics.’ You would do well to remember that.”
And you would do well not to let me get my hands around your throat, Xyon thought, but rather wisely he didn’t say that.
“Now then, child,” the Overlord turned his attention back to Riella. “We are going to try again. I will ask you—”
“I already told you!” she interrupted him. “I can’t make up an answer. I wouldn’t even know what answer to make up! The first time I saw a star chart in my life was when Xyon showed me one. If I just began manufacturing answers, you’d see through that in no time. So what is the point in lying?”
“What indeed? Then you will tell me.”
“I can’t!”
The Overlord sighed. He seemed rather sad about the situation. “Yes. Yes, I rather thought you would say that.”
And that was when the first charges surged through the bindings that strapped Riella to the chair.
She arched her back, crying out, her eyes snapping wide, and it seemed as if the energy itself was going to be sufficient to propel her right out of the chair. Her head snapped left, then right, and her mouth was so wide open that she seemed in danger of dislocating her jaw.
“Stop it! She’s telling the truth!” Xyon shouted. He took a step towards the Overlord, knowing that the creature could stop him with but a word. As it turned out, though, the Overlord didn’t even have to open his mouth, for Redeemers converged on him from all sides and thrust him to the ground, piling atop him. They might not have been terribly tall, but their strength was far more formidable than Xyon would have believed. He struggled in their grasp, cursed their names and ancestry. And while all this was happening, Riella was continuing to scream.
As if he were responding to an afterthought, the Overlord touched a small control pad on the chair. The energy immediately ceased its corruscation around her, and Riella sagged forward. Her eyes remained wide open; she appeared to be staring with great fascination at something t
hat only she could see.
“Have you had a change of heart?” the Overlord inquired solicitiously.
She did not respond immediately, and Xyon took the opportunity to jump in. “How can she have a change of heart about something over which she has no control?! That place, that Star, 7734 … that’s it! That’s the place you want! All of this is unnecessary! You have no call to hurt her at all!”
“So you say. So she says. However,” the Overlord continued, “what you say and what she says is not terribly relevant. What matters is what I say.”
“And what do you say, Overlord?” asked one of the Redeemers.
The Overlord pondered that a moment, stroking his chin thoughtfully, and then he said exactly what Xyon expected him to say.
“Hit her again.”
More energy, more screaming, more protests that she was telling everything she knew, and still the Overlord would not be deterred. And so it continued, and when Riella passed out from the increasing strain (which was often) the Overlord would politely wait until she had recovered, at which point the torture would recommence.
“Don’t you have a word!” Xyon suddenly said at one point while Riella was out cold, being revived for the who-knew-which time.
The Overlord looked at him curiously. “A ‘word?’ ”
“Yes! If you’ve got some sort of word that can inflict pain, don’t you have something that can just … just force people to tell the truth? Without all of this barbaric torture?”
“We do, actually,” the Overlord said thoughtfully. “Would you like me to use it?”
“Of course! If it’ll end this, then definitely!”
“All right, if you’re certain.”
Something in the Overlord’s tone caught his attention. “Why? What reason would there be not to use it?”
Riella’s head was slowly being lifted up by one of the Redeemers, and she was staring bleary eyed at Xyon.
“Well,” said the Overlord, “inflicting pain, you see—as I do with you—believe it or not does not require much effort. But controlling someone’s mind, forcing truth from them, that can take something of a toll on the subject.”
“How much of a toll?” Xyon asked cautiously.
“It’s usually terminal, I’m afraid.”
“You mean it would kill her?”
“That’s correct.”
Xyon looked helplessly at Riella, having no idea what to do. She was looking at him, through eyes that barely focused on him. Her mouth moved ever so slightly. He saw the words her mouth was making out:
Kill me.
Xyon felt awful. It was as if this girl’s life were suddenly being thrust into his hands. Who was he to carry this sort of responsibility, to make this kind of decision. He hardly knew her, and what he did know of her, he wasn’t really that crazy about.
He had lost track of time. He had no idea how long they had been subjecting the girl to this kind of treatment, but it was quite clear from her reactions and deportment that she was not some tough warrior who was laughing off pain and challenging enemies to do their worst. She wanted the torment to end, and even if it meant that she would feel nothing, ever again, obviously she didn’t care anymore or didn’t consider that too high a price to pay.
Now it had come to this: the helpless Riella begging him to allow her to be subjected to a treatment that would very likely mean her demise.
He felt a mental maelstrom beginning to build within him, emotions tumbling over each other. It was a sensation that he rarely felt, that only the most primal situations brought out within him. He never felt it when his own life was on the line, possibly because he had such utter confidence that his life was not at stake—not until the appointed time. But seeing others suffer to the degree that she was, it was threatening to overwhelm him, and he recognized the sensations that were rampaging through him.
Suddenly he said, “Me! Ask me!”
The Overlord had been reaching for the switch to apply more voltage to Riella, but his hand froze over it. He turned and looked contemplatively at Xyon. For his part, Xyon was doing everything he could to contain the raging emotions within. “You? …” he asked thoughtfully.
“Yes! Me! I was her pilot! What she knows, I know! Try it on me!”
“Knowing that it will very likely—”
“Yes, yes! I know! But it means you’ll stop hurting her!” His long hair was falling in his face. He shoved it back and glared at the Overlord with such pure intensity of emotion that the Overlord actually took a step back. “Come on, then! Ask me what you want to know! If you think you can, that is! If you’re not all talk! If you’re really capable of—”
The Overlord spoke the word. It was not one word, actually it was several words.
Xyon felt as if his head, his brain, were being shredded. He could have sworn that the skin on his head actually peeled back, pink and throbbing, uncovering the skull beneath, and then the skull in turn cracked open and his mind just spilled out all over the floor.
He heard himself saying things, a torrent of words spilling out. It wasn’t just the information about the Quiet Place that tumbled out of him, it was other things, things with no relevance whatsoever. Within seconds he had informed the Overlord of his favorite color, and his parents’ names, and the last birthday present he’d gotten, and his favorite tune, and the things Lyla whispered to him at night that made the darkness seem less oppressive, and the sheer stinking fear that was wedded to his soul because what if he was wrong and he wasn’t supposed to die at that particular time, and it was just a reflex action to prevent him from worrying that every hazardous situation he was in might actually be the beginning of his end.
All that and more was at the Overlord’s feet in a matter of seconds, and then Xyon collapsed, as if there was simply nothing more in him remaining to keep him up. It was not the fall of someone who had just become unconscious. It was as if all the muscles and bones within him had simply disintegrated, and as a result, he had completely fallen apart.
* * *
The Overlord and the Redeemers stared at the insensate sack of meat that had once been Xyon. After a moment, the Overlord reached out with the toe of his boot and prodded him. It was hardly a final means of determining whether there was any life within him. It certainly wasn’t scientific or medically sound. But somehow it seemed the thing to do.
Xyon didn’t budge. His face was slack, his eyes open but looking at nothing.
“Is he dead, Overlord?” inquired one of the Redeemers.
“It would seem so,” said the Overlord after a moment. “Interesting. His dying words reflected those spoken by the girl. He truly believes that the Quiet Place is at Star 7734.”
“So she was telling the truth, then.”
Riella was staring fixatedly at the unmoving body of Xyon. Clearly she couldn’t quite grasp what she had just seen. The Overlord couldn’t blame her, really. The young man had just sacrificed himself for her. It gave him a certain measure of nobility that the Overlord would never have assumed that he possessed.
“He believes that she was telling it,” the Overlord said reasonably. “However, that does not mean she actually was. His belief does not make it so. The probe of the girl will continue.”
She choked when she heard this, as he suspected she would. She started trying to utter a word, a single word.
“‘Why’?” asked the Overlord. “Are you asking me ‘why’? Why did I allow him to sacrifice himself in this way, when I knew that it would not necessarily provide a final answer?” She managed a nod. “Because,” he told her in a matter-of-fact tone, “I was interested to see whether he would be willing to go through with it. And I was interested to see if he would survive it. Think of it as … scientific curiosity.”
“You … bastard,” she managed to get out.
“Your opinions do not matter particularly to me, but I appreciate the vehemence of your thoughts.”
He reached for the switch on the back of the chair, and Riella stiffened
in anticipation.
And that was when all hell broke loose.
X
FOR SOMEONE WHO HAD LIVED in terror of her dreams for so long, Riella could not recall a time when she so very much wanted to be dreaming.
Every so often, back on her home (former home) of Montos, she speculated about what it would have been like to have lived previous lives. She now felt as if she were living through one of those earlier existences now. That she was observing the current events from very far away, from another life many years in the future, safe and distant. That she was not Riella at all, but someone else who had no emotional connection to these happenings whatsoever. That was certainly the way she would have preferred it.
Because what she was seeing now was just too brutal.
There was Xyon, having laid down his life, lying on the ground. There was the Overlord and several of the Redeemers, staring down at him, at his body. It seemed so cruel, so … so disrespectful. They should have been looking anywhere else, rather than gawking at the corpse of someone so brave, so … so …
So stupid. How could he have been so stupid as to throw his life away? How could? …
All the questions tumbled in her brain, with no answers presenting themselves. And then it became clear that Xyon’s sacrifice was in vain, that she was going to undergo still more torture. Her attention was immediately, and understandably, pulled away from Xyon and to herself. Why not? His pain and suffering was over. Hers was just beginning.
That was when the alarms went off.