When All Seems Lost

by William C. Dietz

  But nothing came of the interview. Nothing Batkin could put a theoretical finger on anyway. Nor were the second, third, or fourth interviews any more productive than the first. Which was why Batkin was about to pull out and write the whole thing off to experience, when a fifth prisoner entered the room. Except rather than wait for an invitation to sit down as his predecessors had— this individual dropped into the guest chair as if reclaiming a piece of personal property. That alone was sufficient to stimulate Batkin’s curiosity and cause the cyborg to leave the proxy in place.

  “So you’re back,” Tragg said inflectionlessly.

  “Yeah,” the prisoner said. “And I’m risking my life to come here.”

  Tragg shrugged. “So tell me what you’ve got, and I’ll take care of you. . . . It’s as simple as that.”

  “No,” the other man insisted. “It isn’t as simple as that. Let’s say I spill my guts. . . . How can I be sure that you’ll uphold your end of the bargain?

  “Because I said I would,” the overseer answered coldly. “And there’s something else to consider as well. . . . You’re beginning to piss me off. And you’ve seen what can happen to someone who pisses me off. So quit screwing around, or I’ll whip the information out of you!”

  There was a pause, as if the prisoner was considering all of his options. Batkin wished he could see the expression on the man’s face, but he was afraid, to move, lest he reveal the spy-eye’s presence. “Okay,” the prisoner replied. “How ’bout this? You make the arrangements to put me aboard a Thraki supply ship, all expenses paid to Starfall, and I’ll tell you what you need to know just before I step aboard.”

  “Why should I?” Tragg countered. “I can figure it out on my own. . . . Or torture it out of you.”

  The POW laughed harshly. “If you could figure it out on your own, you would have by now. That’s why you interview prisoners every night—trying to figure out what if anything they’re hiding. But it hasn’t worked has it?

  “As for torture. . . . Well, that’s not very reliable is it? Because people will say anything to stop the pain. And I’m no exception. So why make things difficult? Schedule the flight, I’ll give you what you want, and you can take credit for it. That should be worth something. Something big.”

  “Okay,” the overseer agreed. “But remember this. . . . If what you tell me is false, the ship you leave on will be intercepted off Starfall, and you will be brought back to Jericho. And that, my friend, is when the real suffering will begin.”

  “You’ll be satisfied,” the prisoner promised confidently. “Very satisfied. Now, with your permission, I think it would be best if I left.”

  The chair made a scraping sound as the prisoner pushed it back and came to his feet. When he turned, the light illuminated the left side of his face, and Batkin was stunned by what he saw. Because the man who intended to betray not only President Marcott Nankool, but the entire Confederacy, was none other than Secretary for Foreign Affairs Roland Hooks! The same man with whom he had once shaken hands . . . A man who was posing as someone else, because had the mercenary been aware of the official’s true identity, the rest would have been obvious.

  That was important information, or would be, if the operative could pass it to the right people. That was when the Sheen robot sent a warning to the nearest guard tower, a Ramanthian guard swiveled a spotlight onto Tragg’s roof, and Batkin was bathed in white light. A machine gun stuttered, the cyborg felt a slug rip through his electromechanical body, and alarms began to bleat.

  PLANET ALGERON, THE CONFEDERACY OF SENTIENT BEINGS

  A thin sheen of perspiration covered Kay Wilmot’s naked back as she performed oral sex on Vice President Jakov while a Hobar Systems 7300 pleasure robot serviced the diplomat from behind. The androids were sold in a variety of configurations, but this particular unit was chrome-plated, sculpted to resemble a very athletic human male, and equipped with an extremely large, internally heated sex organ.

  The diplomat had experienced two powerful orgasms by then. A fact not lost on the vice president, who delighted in watching the machine dominate the same woman he was dominating, because sex and power were very nearly the same thing where the politician was concerned.

  The android placed both of its padded hands on Wilmot’s generously proportioned buttocks and began to squeeze them. Just the sight of that was sufficient to bring Jakov to climax. His eyelids fluttered as wave after wave of pleasure surged through his body, and he uttered a grunt of satisfaction.

  In spite of the physical pleasure she had experienced, Wilmot was quite conscious of other aspects of the situation, including the fact that the things her lover demanded of her had grown increasingly kinky since the beginning of their sexual relationship. And now, with the introduction of the 7300, she was beginning to worry about what might lie ahead. The robot, which could simulate an orgasm, timed its ejaculation to match the human’s and withdrew as the bio bod did. Then, consistent with a signal from Jakov, the android returned to the closet, where it would remain until summoned again. The human lovers lay in each other’s arms. “So,” Jakov said lazily, “who performed best? The robot or me?”

  “You did,” Wilmot lied.

  “I doubt it,” the vice president countered contentedly. “But it doesn’t matter so long as you had a good time.”

  “Which I did,” Wilmot assured him.

  “Good,” the vice president said agreeably. “And you deserve it. Especially after engineering the brilliant deal with ex-ambassador Orno. Who knows? Nankool could be dead by now.”

  The sex-sweat had begun to evaporate off the diplomat’s skin by then, and Wilmot shivered as she pulled a badly rumpled sheet up over her ample breasts. The photos taken on Jericho, and subsequently sent to Madame X, were entirely unambiguous. Nankool was alive. Or had been very recently. “Yes,” she said cautiously. “He could be dead by now. . . . But I think it’s too early to be sure. Especially since there has been no demand for payment from Orno.”

  “Which is why you want me to approve a rescue mission.”

  “Yes. Because later, after details of the prisoner massacre have been publicized, everyone will know you tried your best. And that will silence the Nankool loyalists.”

  “Who continue to plot against me,” the vice president said darkly.

  Wilmot frowned. If plots were afoot, why hadn’t he told her earlier? Because she had yet to earn his full trust, that’s why. “They’re plotting against you?” she inquired gently. “In what way?”

  “In this way,” Jakov answered, as he lifted a remote. “I’m building my own organization within General Booly’s staff one transfer at a time. . . . Eventually, after the massacre on Jericho, I’ll force the bastard into retirement. In the meantime, I’m learning all sorts of interesting things about what the general and his cronies have been up to. Watch this.”

  As Wilmot looked on, a holo blossomed over the foot of the bed and a legionnaire appeared. The soldier wore a hood to hide his face and his voice had been electronically altered to protect his identity. What light there was came from above. “Rather than wait for authorization from the vice president, officers acting on orders from a secret cabal of politicians, senior officials, and the Military Chief of Staff, are working to recruit and train a special ops team for the purpose of landing on Jericho,” the informant reported. “Where, if the mission is successful, they plan to rescue President Nankool.”

  “Which supports what I’ve been saying,” Wilmot put in, as the image exploded into a thousand motes of light. “Dozens of people including your informant know Nankool is alive. That will leak eventually. . . . Especially if the Nankool supporters become sufficiently frustrated. So let them send their mission, knowing it will most likely be intercepted by the Ramanthians or land only to discover that all the POWs have been killed. Including the president.”

  The suggestion made sense, a lot of sense, especially since there would be no need to reveal the extent to which the secret cabal had been com
promised. “You are not only beautiful, but brilliant,” Jakov said, as he pulled Wilmot close. “It shall be as you say.”

  Wilmot should have felt a sense of pleasure, because here was the power that she had sought for so long, even if her role was somewhat obscured. But for some reason the diplomat’s skin was cold—and Jakov’s embrace did nothing to warm it.

  PLANET JERICHO, THE RAMANTHIAN EMPIRE

  Oliver Batkin felt the bullet rip through his electromechanical body and knew he was injured as the beam of light washed across Tragg’s metal roof. But the cyborg was far from defenseless. As the guards learned when the sphere burped blue light, and the tower they were firing from took a direct hit. One of the structure’s four legs was severed, and even as their minds worked to assimilate that piece of information, a horrible creaking noise was heard. That was followed by a loud crack as a second support broke under the increased strain, and a chorus of Ramanthian screams, as the entire tower began to topple. It landed with a crash, broke into a dozen pieces, and sent splinters of dagger-sharp wood scything through the air. One of them took the sergeant of the guard’s head off and sent gouts of blood shooting upwards before his body collapsed.

  With no information to go on, the guards in the surviving towers quite naturally assumed that the prisoners were involved somehow, and aimed their searchlights at the electrified fence, where they expected to witness an escape attempt. Meanwhile, Batkin took advantage of the confusion to lift off, but hadn’t flown more than a hundred feet when his main repeller failed. Fortunately, the cyborg wasn’t very high at the time—and the mud cushioned his fall.

  But the same Sheen robot that had alerted the guards to the cyborg’s presence in the first place was closing in on Batkin. It fired as it came. Thankfully, the alien machine’s armor was no match for the spy’s energy cannon, and the robot flew apart as a blue bolt struck its chest. That was when two quick-thinking marines emerged from the surrounding darkness. “What the hell is it?” one of them wanted to know.

  “I’m a Confederacy cyborg!” Batkin announced desperately. “And I have important information for your superiors. Can you hide me?”

  “Holy shit,” the first marine said uncertainly. “Let’s find the sarge and ask him what to do.”

  “We ain’t got time for that,” the second jarhead replied pragmatically. “The bugs are going to be all over this area ten minutes from now! Let’s put him in the supply locker.”

  Batkin didn’t know what “the supply locker” was, but soon found out, as he was transported into a prefab barracks and placed on the floor. The rest of the grunts assigned to that particular building were outside trying to figure out what was going on, so the long, narrow room was empty.

  Lights swept across the outside walls, and alarms continued to bleat, as the marines pried up a section of flooring and set it off to one side. Thirty seconds later the cyborg was lowered into a rectangular hole that was already half-full of stolen tools and other supplies that the marines had been able to scrounge from the camp. A wooden lid was lowered into place after that, dirt was raked over the top, and the precut section of floorboards was lowered back into place.

  With no exterior light, and nothing to hear other than the occasional indecipherable thump, Batkin was left to wait in what might be his grave. Especially were something to happen to the marines. But rather than focus on things like that, the cyborg triggered a diagnostic program. The results served to confirm his worst fears. His propulsion system had been severely damaged—and the nearest repair facility was more than a thousand light-years away.

  Meanwhile, up on the surface, and outside the barracks, the entire camp was in an uproar as Commandant Mutuu, the War Mutuu, and Overseer Tragg all marched about shouting orders. There had been an escape attempt, or that’s what they assumed, so the POWs were ordered to stand in formation for a head count.

  Then, when it turned out that all of the prisoners were present, or accounted for, another head count was called for as Tragg and the surviving robots walked the perimeter and inspected the fence. But the second head count was consistent with the first, and there were no signs of an escape attempt.

  That led the Mutuus to conclude that some sort of externalforce had been at work—a theory corroborated by the use of an energy weapon. Hastily convened combat teams were dispatched to sweep the surrounding jungle for any sign of an incursion, and the entire camp was subjected to a thorough search, even as the commandant continued to heap abuse on the prisoners.

  The entire process lasted for more than eight hours, so that when the sun finally reemerged over the eastern horizon, all of the POWs were still on their feet. Those who were ill, or too exhausted to remain vertical without assistance, were held upright lest they attract the wrong sort of attention.

  Like those around her, Vanderveen was exhausted—so tired that she found herself drifting off to sleep at times. Short periods during which the diplomat was magically transported to other planets, and during one especially pleasant interlude on LaNor, found herself wrapped in Antonio Santana’s arms. But that brief moment of pleasure came to an end when President Nankool elbowed her ribs. “Christina!” the chief executive hissed. “Wake up!”

  The foreign service officer brought her head up, forced her eyes to open, and soon wished she hadn’t as the mass punishments began. Because in Commandant Mutuu’s eyes, the prisoners, those who had destroyed his guard tower, and the Confederacy of Sentient Beings were all part of the same evil organism.

  This philosophy was explained to the assembled multitude by no less a personage than Mutuu himself, as his sword-wielding mate made his way through the ranks of ragged prisoners and chose those who were about to die according to criteria known only to him.

  Vanderveen felt her stomach muscles tighten as the Ramanthian made his way down her row, ignored Nankool, and paused directly in front of her. Was this it? the diplomat wondered. And, all things considered, would death come as a welcome relief?

  Perhaps that was why the human drew herself up and looked the War Mutuu right in one of his space black eyes as the bug’s antennae turned this way and that. But, for reasons known only to the Ramanthian, it wasn’t Vanderveen’s day to die. Nor any other member of the LG, although Schell came close when the naval officer tried to intercede on behalf of his sailors and marines.

  Nine out of the ten individuals selected for punishment made their way to the front of the formation under their own power, accepted the shovels that were handed to them, and began to dig. Only one man, a sick sailor, tried to resist. He screamed, flailed about, and was summarily shot. Then, with the same calm demeanor demonstrated earlier, the War Mutuu selected another victim, who was led up front to join the rest.

  What made the moment especially poignant for Nankool was the fact that not one of those selected for execution attempted to obtain leniency by revealing the president’s identity. Tears streamed down the chief executive’s face, and at one point he made as if to go forward and join the men and women who were digging the communal grave, only to have Vanderveen and Calisco hold him back.

  It took the better part of an hour for the ten prisoners to dig a hole large enough to contain all of their bodies. Then, having been lined up with their backs to the mass grave, the POWs came to attention, and remained in that position, as the War Mutuu shuffled past and shot each one of them in the head. The bodies fell backwards, dead eyes staring up at an alien sky, as they landed side by side. Vanderveen forced herself to look, to burn the moment into her memory, so that she would never forget.

  Then it was over, the markerless grave was filled in, and the work day began. A seemingly endless stretch of time in which Vanderveen and her companions stumbled from one task to the next like slow-motion zombies. Finally, after what seemed like a day spent in hell, the POWs were released. All Vanderveen wanted to do was eat, fall facedown on her grubby pallet, and drop into a dreamless sleep.

  But even that small pleasure was denied her because just as the diplomat
joined the chow line, she was immediately called away. It seemed that the LG was about to hold what the word-walker called, “A special session,” which left the foreign service officer with no choice but to attend.

  As Vanderveen approached barracks nine, she saw that extra guards had been posted all around the structure. They didn’t look like guards, since the marines were seemingly occupied by a variety of routine chores, but all of them were ready to intervene should a Ramanthian guard or an airborne monitor enter the area. Then, while the guards did whatever was necessary to stall, the LG would have time to break off their meeting and hide anything that might be incriminating.

  But there were no signs of impending interference as the diplomat traded nods with the tough-looking noncom who sat cleaning his boots on the front steps and entered the building. Blankets had been hung over the windows, and the sun had started to set, so there wasn’t much light inside. What there was emanated from a single glow cone and served to frost the top of the large sphere that rested on the table at the center of the room. The construct was about four feet in diameter and nearly identical to the recon ball that Vanderveen had encountered during the final hours of the battle on LaNor.

  All of which caused the diplomat’s heart to leap since what she took to be a cyborg could be the first harbinger of help. Had one of the Confederacy’s battle groups dropped into orbit around Jericho? Yes! Vanderveen thought excitedly, and hurried to join the group gathered around the beat-up-looking sphere. Batkin was nearing the end of his narrative. “...At that point another prisoner entered, sat down, and began to talk. And it soon became obvious that he was ready to cut a deal with Tragg.”

  It wasn’t what Vanderveen had been hoping for, and she was about to ask a question when Hooks beat her to it. “This is ridiculous,” the official said contemptuously. “Why should we believe this nonsense? Assuming this individual is who he claims to be, then he’s massively incompetent! Ten, no eleven people are dead, due to his negligence.”