Outland

by Alan Dean Foster

  V

  O'Niel rushed through the corridors, down swaying access tubes. Workers and administrators got out of his way without having to be asked. They watched his retreating back and conversed in low tones until he was long gone. None of them had the slightest idea what was going on, but they all knew no security personnel ran like that without a damned good reason. And there was the riot gun held firmly in the Marshal's hands.

  At the end of the corridor mentioned in the call O'Niel found a pair of deputies waiting for him. He couldn't give them names, but that didn't matter right now.

  "He's in the West Wing, Marshal," the woman informed him. She looked worried, angry, and a little frightened. Not for herself—for someone else. If she were frightened for herself she didn't show it.

  O'Niel nodded a cursory thank you and entered the passageway beyond the check point. Behind him the two deputies kept the curious turned away.

  Further on he found Montone and another deputy, both carrying weapons similar to O'Niel's. They held them tightly and not with the easy grip favored during routine patrol.

  Montone nodded down the corridor. It was lined with closed doors. At the far end was the central Club. Faint music from it drifted up the corridor.

  "He's in a leisure compartment," the sergeant explained in a low, tight tone. "He's with a hooker. All we know is that the guy is roughing her up. She pushed the alarm."

  "Who answered?"

  The deputy replied. "When I responded to the alarm and tried the door, the man told me he had a knife. He said he'd kill her if I didn't leave immediately." Her expression never changed. "There's no video inside. Privacy circuit's engaged. But I didn't have to see it to know he has it. All you have to do is listen to his voice. So I backed off."

  O'Niel nodded approvingly. "Who is he? Were you able to find out?"

  She nodded again. "He was seen going in and the girl registered him on entrance, as per procedure, recorded his marker to her account, and had it verified for a plus balance. He's a crane operator. Been here almost eleven months, Personnel says."

  "Eleven . . . hell," Montone muttered.

  "Never caused any trouble," the deputy continued. "No record of any kind, no previous mention of anything like this. I checked for instability, perversion . . . the usual. He's clean. His shiftmates like him. At least, those I could contact said they did. Foreman said he's a good worker, gives a hundred percent when he's on the job. Name is Sagan. When I told them what was going on, none of 'em believed me."

  "How's the girl?"

  It was Montone's turn to comment. "She's still alive. You can hear her moaning over the com. Beyond that . . ." He shrugged meaningfully.

  They turned, walked down the corridor and halted before the specified door. Four more armed deputies awaited them there, milling around and whispering urgently. They shut up and made room for O'Niel and the sergeant.

  "Is he stoned?" O'Niel asked, examining the door.

  "Beats me." Montone's lips worked. "Some guys just like to slap hookers around. But this is more.

  O'Niel looked back at the deputy who'd first reacted to the alarm. "You sure he's got a knife?"

  "There's no port and the privacy circuit's locked in. These gals like their privacy and so do their tricks. There's no way to be sure he hasn't got one. I'd bet that he does."

  "Why? Because of the way he sounds?"

  "Not just that," she told him quietly. "Because of the way the girl sounds."

  O'Niel nodded once, as if that was proof enough. He turned and pounded forcefully on the door, speaking into the transceiver set in the metal.

  "Sagan!" he shouted. "This is Marshal O'Niel. Let the girl go and no one is going to hurt you. We just want to help you." There was no response from the other side. "Can you hear me, Sagan?"

  The room was small, painted in warm, cloying tones, and held two pieces of furniture: a video monitor and a bed. A film of a type not suitable for family viewing was unspooling on the monitor. Neither of the room's occupants was paying it any attention.

  Sagan lay on his back on the bed, naked from the waist up. Perspiration flowed off his body, soaking the sheets beneath him.

  There was much too much sweat, too much for a man who'd undergone hours of strenuous exercise, which Sagan had not. It beaded up on his lips and forehead, poured freely from under his arms. His eyes were wild and his expression demonic. He was smiling, a chilling grin as frozen as the outside of the mine.

  One arm was tight around the chest of a young, brunette girl, who generally looked older than she was. Fear had wiped the experience off her face now. She looked as young as she was. She was slim and quite naked. The sheets under her were in disarray.

  With his other hand Sagan held the knife which was long and thin and gleamed brightly in the room's subdued light. The point just puckered the skin of the girl's throat, barely indenting the pale flesh, forcing her head back at a painful, unnatural angle.

  She was bleeding, not from the throat but from a broken nose and split lower lip. Her jaw was turning purple and starting to swell from some terrible blow. Barely conscious, which was a blessing, she bubbled a steady whimper from her throat, from behind the knife.

  "Get away from me!" Sagan yelled at the door. "I'll kill her . . . I swear to God I will. I'll slit her throat. It won't take me very long, you know. I can do it real fast if you make me."

  "Why?" O'Niel's voice came coaxingly out of the speaker set in the door. "What has she done?"

  "She's evil." Sagan was breathing hard and fast, like a man who couldn't get his breath. Plenty of fresh air circulated through the room but his throat was constricted.

  "I want you to go away. Now! I will slice her little pink throat right this minute if you don't go away! I will slice it right through."

  He pushed a little harder on the knife handle. The point barely broke the skin. A tiny red dot appeared, grew into a globule and broke to trickle viscously down the side of the girl's neck.

  She was not so dazed that she couldn't scream in terror but she had sense enough left not to fight.

  "Hey!" O'Niel yelled quickly as the scream echoed out into the corridor. "Listen to me. Just listen. I can't go away, and you know that. Now, nobody's going to hurt you. I want you to understand that, Sagan. If you want to talk, we'll talk. I won't try to break in. Does that sound fair? I don't break in and you don't do anything crazy with the girl, okay?"

  Silence from inside. "Sagan, do you hear me?"

  A response came from the transceiver . . . of a sort, a series of bleating noises, part whine, part growl, very much more animal than human.

  O'Niel glanced to one side and motioned at one of the armed deputies. The man hurried over.

  "Get me a maintenance worker," O'Niel ordered. "One who's familiar with this section. And fast." He jerked a hand toward the door. "The guy's on the edge and going over, understand?"

  The wide-eyed deputy nodded vigorously and raced for the communications box located at the far end of the corridor.

  "Hey, Sagan. Sagan, it's me again, the Marshal." O'Niel forced himself to keep his voice even and seemingly unconcerned. No pleading, no false sympathy. Someone in Sagan's mental condition was more likely to react dangerously to that than to a direct threat.

  "Sagan . . . try to understand what I'm saying. Take a minute and think. You haven't gone too far yet. You follow me? All they can get you for so far is a little roughhousing. As long as you don't kill the girl, everything can work out.

  "Think about it, man. You've got less than a month left on your tour. You've got completion time bonus money coming. You're almost on your way home. Don't mess it up now."

  On the other side of the door, Sagan was giggling. Not at O'Niel, not at the girl, not at himself, but at something inside his head even he couldn't see clearly.

  "I'm going to cut this pretty little thing up. I'm going to use my nice shiny clean knife and I'm going to do it slowly. Soooo slooowwwly . . ."

  Choking sounds, tiny and we
ak, were audible beneath that softly chuckled pronouncement. O'Niel considered. Sagan sounded very determined.

  A maintenance woman came running up the corridor toward him, the deputy who'd called her pacing alongside. Her coveralls were full of tools and her equipment belt jiggled. She was gasping for breath as she halted next to O'Niel.

  He had no time to let her relax. "Show me which panel leads to the flow duct for this compartment."

  She nodded at him, took out a long tool, and moved to the left of the door. The tool moved four times and four bolts fell from a metal square set high in the corridor wall. The square was equidistant between the door to Sagan's cave and the one on its left.

  The worker slipped the tool back into her belt, grabbed the panel with both hands and jerked. It came away, revealing a narrow crawlway leading into darkness.

  "When I give the word I want you to close the hydraulic valve that operates the door lock," he told her. "That'll spring it."

  She set the panel down as she listened to him, then moved to stand ready next to a smaller square. She flipped it open. Lights and glowing readouts showed inside.

  While O'Niel mentioned hydraulics to the worker, Montone was already speaking to a pair of deputies. They followed him into the waiting, open ductway and began moving inward, making as little noise as possible.

  O'Niel waited until the last deputy had disappeared down the narrow passage, then walked back to the door. He made a cautionary gesture to the young maintenance engineer standing ready next to the open control panel. She nodded solemnly, her hand positioned over the appropriate switch.

  O'Niel made sure the riot gun was ready, leaned close to the door as he addressed the transceiver once more. "Sagan! Can you hear me?"

  At the sound of O'Niel's voice the man inside abruptly rose from the bed and began pacing the room, searching corners and walls. The girl watched him. She was breathing a little easier now that the knife had left her throat where blood still trickled lazily down her neck. She didn't try to run: there was no place to run to. She just sat there, watching him, her jaw throbbing agonizingly, and strove not to twitch.

  Sagan turned circles, silently screaming at the walls. He no longer looked human.

  "I hear you!" he shouted hysterically. "Of course I can hear you! Do you think I'm deaf?"

  "No, no, of course I don't think you're deaf," O'Niel told him soothingly. "I just wanted to make sure you were hearing me, is all.

  "I'm going to explain something to you now, Sagan. I'm going to explain it very carefully, and I'd be grateful if you'd pay attention."

  Sagan hunted for the voice, flailing and slashing at the air with his knife. The voice, was all around him and it threatened to drown out the other voice, the one inside his head that made such naughty suggestions and promised such delicious, nasty pleasures.

  The light Montone used was small, intentionally so, as he edged his way along the metal tunnel, bumping his head and skinning his hands, hardly daring to breathe lest the sound leak into the room they were paralleling. He could hear the panting of the two men crawling behind him.

  "I can't let you stay in there forever," O'Niel's voice was telling Sagan with maddening self-assurance. The words echoed around the room and the crane operator chopped at it with his blade. "You'll hurt yourself."

  A scratching noise reached O'Niel. He looked curiously at the transceiver, wondering for an instant if it had malfunctioned.

  Then he realized what it was: Sagan was using the knife on the speaker, trying to cut it off, trying to cut out the patient sound of the Marshal's voice. A moan came through the transceiver over the scraping. This time it was mans voice.

  "I'm going to release the hydraulic pressure on the door locks," he told Sagan slowly. "It will cause the door to swing open, in spite of anything you can do." He looked away from the pickup, at the tall deputy who was peering down the flow duct. The deputy had been marking the progress of Montone and the others. Now he flashed O'Niel a pre-arranged sign.

  The Marshal turned back to the pickup. "You can't keep the door closed, Sagan. The moment the hydraulics are cut off it will open inward. You can't stay in there. You might as well come out.

  "Be sensible, Sagan. You're still safe, still in the clear. Why don't you just walk out and make it easy on yourself?"

  Sagan's voice rose in response, came harshly through the speaker and rattled around the silent corridor. "The second that door opens, I'm going to kill her! I'm going to slice her. I hate her!"

  Montone hesitated, looked to his right. There were four small hinges set against the inner wall of the crawlway. According to the maintenance engineer they held the panel which opened into the sealed compartment.

  Holding the small flashlight in his mouth, he started feeling for the hinges. Gingerly, he tugged one inward—it slid open silently and efficiently. There was no warning snap. Quickly he started working on the second hinge. He could hear Sagan raving on the other side of the wall.

  O'Niel spoke while checking his chronometer. He couldn't wait for Montone much longer, not judging from the sound of the crane operator's voice.

  "I'm not going to argue with you, Sagan, and I'm not going to try and trick you. I am going to count down from ten to one. At one, the door will open slowly. I will not rush in. I'm not going to do anything that will alarm you, and I'm not going to shoot you.

  "I don't want anybody hurt, including you. It's my job to see that people don't get hurt, not the other way 'round. I don't think you really want to hurt anybody either, Sagan. Not really." He watched the seconds tick away on the chronometer.

  "Please trust me. Whatever the problem is, whatever's making you do this, we can work it out without anyone having to get hurt. I promise. It'll be better that way, both for you and for me."

  Montone felt the last hinge give way, leaving the panel balanced loosely in its slot. It was hard not to fight for air in that cramped passageway but he forced himself to breathe in slow, open-mouthed gasps. He was ready. A check showed the same was true of the two men who'd accompanied him. They were waiting for a cue from O'Niel.

  Sagan had finally stopped stumbling about the room. The knife dangled from his limp right hand and the wild fire in his eyes had turned to a faintly glazed look. O'Niel's calming words were beginning to have an effect

  "You're . . . you're going to kill me," Sagan murmured uncertainly toward the door. For the first time, he sounded confused instead of fanatically confident.

  "I'm not," O'Niel rushed to assure him. He allowed himself to feel some hope. "You have my word. You also have my word that if you kill the girl, I will kill you." He turned, lifted his hand as a signal to the maintenance engineer, then spoke once more into the pickup.

  "Now listen carefully, Sagan. I'm going to do what I told you a moment ago. I'm going to count slowly from ten to one. Just do as I say and everything will work out all right. Ten, nine . . ."

  Sagan stood swaying in the compartment, fighting to reason his way through the ugly nimbus of hate which had taken control of his thoughts. His expression had turned blank, his brain overloaded by too much contradictory information. Only moments earlier everything had seemed so straightforward, so simple. Now . . .

  O'Niel's voice reached him from somewhere far away. "Eight, seven . . ."

  In the crawlway Montone's right hand tightened on the hatch, preparatory to flinging it aside. He could hear O'Niel's voice from the speaker inside the compartment.

  "Six . . . five . . . four . . ." The maintenance engineer's finger caressed the cutoff switch.

  ". . . three . . . two . . ."

  Sagan turned a slow half circle, stood gazing dumbly at the doorway. There was a soft clang from behind him as the panel covering the flow duct access sprang in and upward on springs to slap against the wall. Montone dropped into the room as Sagan whirled to see what had caused the noise. O'Niel's voice still echoed in his ears.

  ". . . one . . ."

  Montone fired. The explosion of the riot gun wa
s stunning in the small compartment. The girl came fully out of her self-enforced paralysis with a scream that rose above the roar of the gun.

  At the same time the engineer thumbed the switch. There was a quick, almost inaudible rushing sound from inside the door as it slid inward.

  O'Niel stood there, staring through the open doorway, his own gun held loosely in both hands: he'd heard the explosion. Quickly he scanned the interior of the compartment, taking stock, summing up.

  The girl was okay. She lay on the bed, crying softly to herself and holding her arms tightly across her chest. He noted the blood dri bling down her neck onto her chest, and hoped that the wound wasn't serious.

  His attention shifted leftward to where Sagan lay on the floor, arms and legs spraddled and his head cocked at an angle much too acute. There was a gaping, smoking hole where his chest should have been. His eyes were locked open, staring vacantly toward the ceiling.

  Montone looked at the Marshal, his mouth working weakly. "He turned on me. I . . . I saw the knife . . ."

  O'Niel continued to stare silently, unable to believe the scene in the room. He shook his head and gazed in disbelief at Montone.

  The two deputies who'd accompanied the sergeant had dropped into the compartment and were busy administering first aid to the girl, while others clustered behind O'Niel, straining for a look inward. They gaped at the remains of the crane operator, at the girl, at Montone, and muttered to themselves.

  You don't move slowly on a place like lo and save others. The two paramedics fairly burst through the emergency entrance of the hospital, convoying the gurney between them. On it lay the unconscious, shocked body of the unlucky young prostitute. A tube ran from a bottle held by one of the paramedics into her arm. Deputies led the way with O'Niel two steps behind.

  Dr. Lazarus was waiting for them at the emergency entrance and was examining the girl, taking readings and making measurements, as they rushed her to intensive care.

  There was commotion without confusion. Everyone knew his job. They were spurred to still faster action by Lazarus' stream of orders. The duty nurse was trying to organize everything and not succeeding as well as she would have liked.