“Quite a few,” said Olga. “Quite a few. Henshaw did a great deal of research on the subject before he started to try to work out ways and means of doing it himself. His idea, of course, was that it would be a means of escape. He did not see eye to eye with the Committee who, to be frank, looked at it as the road to fresh worlds to conquer. We still look at it that way, of course.”
“You would,” said Wilkinson.
“Watch your tongue, boy. I’m being frank with you, and I do not expect insolence in return. I’m willing to buy your knowledge. If the body beautiful doesn’t appeal to you, then we can offer you high rank, with all its prerequisites, in our expanding trans-temporal empire. Or if you’re so struck on that little popsy you were knocking around with in the rebels’ camp, we can have her brought in, quite intact.”
“No,” said Wilkinson.
“Stubborn bastard, aren’t you?” She sat down again. “You must have seen your Dr. Henshaw’s apparatus, and your presence here is proof that it worked. Even a layman’s description would be of value to me. I have the theory; all that I have to do is to clothe the theory in glass and metal. For example, what metals were used? What alloys?”
And the mention of alloys reminded Wilkinson of the bracelet on his wrist, the Moebius Strip of metal mesh that, miraculously, had stayed in place through all his vicissitudes. He thought, it can’t be long now. He told himself I have to fight a delaying action. Once I’m dragged into their torture chamber I’m finished. As long as I stay out of it, there’s a chance.
He said slowly and carefully, “I’ll be frank with you, Olga. I don’t want to help you people, and if the Venus from which I came were any use to you, I wouldn’t. But it’s an arid ball of rock and dust and poisonous vapors, and not worth adding to anybody’s empire.”
“Then what were you doing there?”
“It’s used as a research station, for experiments that are too dangerous to carry out on Earth or any of the colonized planets and moons. And with the resources they have, it’d take ten armies twice as well equipped as yours to conquer it.” He shurugged. “But there are other Venuses. An infinitude of them. Some may be suitable for your purposes, some may be so well defended that you’ll bite off more than you can chew and throw your own stinking world open to invasion. So I’ve decided to tell you all I know. But …”
“But what?”
“My terms are cash, not credit.”
“What do you mean?”
“Need I spell it out to you?”
Olga laughed scornfully. “Talk sense. How can we make you Governor General of Venus XIV before I’ve made the apparatus that will get us there? And if it’s your popsy that you’re pining for, we can’t deliver her to you on a silver tray, garnished with parsley, in five seconds flat. Now I’ll be frank with you. I was told that I could have first go at you; after all, the information we’re after is for me. But if I don’t get anything worthwhile within a reasonable time limit, then you’re handed over to the professional extractors of information.”
“And if I do talk to you, I’m still handed over.”
“Of course not!” she snapped, too readily.
“Well,” he said, “before I sell the secrets I’d still like something on account. A deposit, as it were….”
“Indeed?” Again the fine eyebrows arched.
“Yes.”
“Such as?”
“You made the offer, Olga. You know.”
Surprisingly, she blushed, then laughed to hide her embarrassment. She got up, walked to the wall and pressed a button. The two policemen entered.
“Take the cuffs off him,” she ordered, “and release him to my custody, in my apartment.”
The man in the silver kilt leered at his superior but did as he was ordered. Then Wilkinson, a heavy hand on his shoulder and the muzzle of a pistol digging into his back, was marched out of the room and along a corridor, and through a door that Olga opened. She turned to the guards and said coldly, “You can wait outside.” When one of the men sniggered there was bloody murder in her eyes.
• • •
She came into the bathroom where, in the warm, scented water, he was soaking away the soreness from his skin and muscles. She had taken off her smock and was wearing a diaphanous robe that hid nothing. Beneath it her skin was richly brown, her nipples startlingly pink in contrast. She said, “I’m ready to make the down payment. But I have to be able to tell my superiors that I am receiving value for money without much further delay.”
He thought, if you were a little enthusiastic it would make things better. Or worse?
He stood up in the tub, stretched out his hand for the soft towel that she handed him. She stared at his wrist. “What is that? Don’t you take it off even when you’re having a bath? Don’t you dare to take it off?”
“Just a bangle,” he said.
“It’s more than just a bangle. It’s a Moebius Strip. And Henshaw’s apparatus, the one that he destroyed before the police arrested him, had parts like it. Give it to me!”
“No,” he said flatly.
“Yes,” she said sharply. “That’s all part of it. That’s part of the device that brought you here. I must have it.”
He said, conscious that he was speaking the truth and equally conscious that he would not be believed, “It played no part in bringing me here.”
“You’re lying.”
She turned away from him in a swirl of transparent drapery, darting into the bedroom. He followed her, and was in time to see her snatch something from an opened drawer of her dressing table. It was a gun, a miniature machine pistol, almost a toy but deadly enough. He was on her then, grappling for her right wrist. Her left hand clawed for his eyes and he jerked his head back barely in time. Straining body to body they fell to the bed, but still she retained her hold on the pistol, still she strove to bring the vicious little thing to bear. He had each of her wrists imprisoned in his hands, but her legs were free, and she brought a knee up with all the force of which she was capable. Wilkinson almost screamed with the pain but hung on, desperately. Somehow he managed to straddle her, to catch and to hold her thrashing limbs between his knees. His grip on her right wrist tightened, until it seemed that he could hear the creaking of fragile bones. Suddenly her hand relaxed, and the pistol fell with a tiny thud.
And Wilkinson relaxed too — and screamed as she bit him savagely on the face. He lifted his arms to push her away, then realized that both her hands were about his wrist and that she was wrenching at the bracelet. She had it, and she jumped away from him, running for the door. Wilkinson rolled off the bed, landing on his feet.
The door opened.
The policemen stood there with drawn pistols.
“Is the playing rough, Miss Kubischev?” asked one of them with mock sympathy.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said triumphantly, holding aloft the gleaming circlet of twisted metal. “I’ve got what I want.”
“That’s just as well,” said a familiar female voice. “I’m tried of waiting, and I’ve come to get what I want.”
She stood there in the corridor, a short drab robe hanging open to reveal her unlovely nudity, a veritable toad of a woman. She said, in an oily voice, “Of course, dear, I’m sorry to interrupt you — but, to judge by Wilkinson’s face, the love play was getting a little out of hand. Or are you a disciple of Mr. Masoch, Mr. Wilkinson? If you are, there’s a real treat in store for you.”
She turned to the four uniformed men who were standing behind her. “All right, boys. You know where to take him.”
But the guards made no move. They were staring at the thing in Olga’s hand, listening to the singing of it, a thin, high note like that produced by rubbing the rim of a fragile crystal goblet. It had begun to glow, dimly at first, then brighter and brighter, with a golden radiance that should have looked warm but was cold, cold, gelid beyond all imagining.
With a frightened cry Olga threw it from her.
It sailed towards the opposite w
all — then vanished, seeming to diminish, seeming to fall, twisting and turning, through unfathomable gulfs of Space and Time.
“Well,” remarked Moira Simmons matter-of-factly, “I guess that’s that. You’ll have some explaining to do, Wilkinson. And so will you, Kubischev. Take them both away.”
XXI
STRAPPED TO the table, held almost immobile by his bonds, Wilkinson waited helplessly for whatever was to happen next. With the disappearance of the metallic circlet, the Moebius Strip, he had lost all hope, apart from the hope that Vanessa had escaped from this world of tyranny and terror. But if she had, and if she had told the full story to Henshaw and his colleagues (as she must have done) what chance was there for Wilkinson’s rescue? It might be accomplished by a full regiment, with air support, but not by a handful of scientists, no matter how well armed.
He was able to turn his head, and he could see Moira Simmons, sitting at her slovenly ease by a low table upon which stood a tall bottle, bedewed with condensation, and a glass. The woman saw him looking at her and she giggled squeakily. “Don’t you wish that you could have a drink, Wilkinson? But you’re not getting one. This is all part of the softening up process. This is just rubbing it in that here you have no rights, no dignity — nothing at all, in fact, but the capacity of feeling pain.”
She scowled. “That stupid Kubischev bitch! What does she know about the proper technique for extracting information? The only way is to smack a human being down until he can’t be smacked down any further, and then to show him a little kindness so that he fawns on you like a whipped dog — and then to smack him down again.” She gulped noisily from the glass, then went on.
“I suppose you wonder what I’m doing here, Wilkinson. Well, it will do no harm if you know. It might do some good, as it will help to make you realize the sort of people that you, with your limited intelligence, are up against. We have known for a long time that an underground movement in the cities can be dangerous; but if we allow malcontents to escape, to camp out in the wilderness, they can be kept under observation, especially if every such encampment also houses at least one agent of the Committee. Too, even with the primitive equipment they have at their disposal, now and again they come up with something useful — such as, for example, the incendiary and armor piercing bullets that they made from the standard machine pistol ammunition as supplied to the police.” She giggled again. “I passed word of that to our military big-brains, but they didn’t believe me.
“Then, of course, I knew all about the peculiar apparitions that your darling Vanessa was always seeing. I did think at first that the girl was mentally unbalanced; but as I observed her I was obliged to admit that she was not. And I heard, of course, about Henshaw’s theories and experiments, and I knew of cases of people who have vanished, inexplicably, without trace, and other cases of strange people, telling fantastic stories to account for themselves, who have appeared from literally nowhere, and there seemed to be some connection. And then you turned up.”
“But,” said Wilkinson, “you were wanting to have me dealt with at once. It was only the Council vote that saved me.”
She snorted contemptuously. “The Council voted the way that I wanted them to. If they had voted my way, I could easily have found ways to defer the — er — questioning for a day or so, so that the police raid would pick you up intact. Not that you’re going to stay intact much longer.
“Yes, have a good look around. Those instruments on the end of long, flexible shafts are dentist’s drills. Don’t you know what they are? Well, I’ll tell you. Back in the good old days of the Twentieth Century people used to have trouble with their teeth. Believe it or not, they used to decay. So if you had a decaying tooth you went to a specialist who was called a dentist, and he’d either extract the tooth, or he’d drill out the carious material from the cavity and fill it with metal or porcelain. As a matter of fact it was various police forces who first realized that the dentist’s drill is quite an effective instrument for tongue loosening. The dentist, you see, was always careful not to drill right down to the nerve — but it’s only when you do drill down to the nerve that you get results….
“Those irons and the brazier — they’re for show only. As a matter of fact I use them only when I want to get quick results with the infliction of hardly any damage. They’re very effective with women, and with some men. Believe it or not, I had a policeman in here last week, and he started to sing while the irons were still heating up. Not that it did him much good. He had to be punished for taking bribes from an illegal gaming house owner.
“Yes, that’s a rack in that corner. It’s all right for punishment — its crippling effects are so permanent — but there are better means of persuasion. And the famous Iron Maiden, of course. But she, poor dear, is only a museum piece. But I’d like to use her one day, just for the hell of it. Dearie me, my drink’s getting warm.” She gulped again, noisily.
“Talking is thirsty work, isn’t it? But not as thirsty as you’ll find it,” she went on. “The main item on the agenda is to find out what you know. The technique of travel across the Time Spiral, of course, and as much as you can tell us about the technology of your own Universe. Your spaceships, for example. I believe that you have something far superior to rockets, so much so that it might be possible for us to launch an assault against Earth or Mars.
“Swing the table a little more, Ilse,” she said to somebody just outside Wilkinson’s field of vision. “What do you think of my skins, Wilkinson? That golden one was taken from the discarded mistress of Committeeman von Bulow. The trouble was that he insisted that she be executed — and painlessly, too! — before I removed it. And then his wife wouldn’t let him put it up on the wall of his study, so he gave it back to me. But it’s quite decorative, don’t you think?
“A little more, Ilse. Thank you, dear.
“And that, Wilkinson, is my own humble contribution to the art of interrogation. I call it The Frame. You’ll be spread-eagled in it, held immobile by what are, in effect, the guy wires. And, as the frame can be swiveled and tilted to any desired angle, every millimeter of your body will be at my disposal. As you see, this is the very latest model — complete with drip tray.
“In some ways it’s rather a pity that I have to be so thorough. I’d rather have liked to have added your own hide to my collection. There are a few other collectors on Venus, but I’d be the only one with the skin of a man from another Universe. But those stupid cops — to say nothing of the Kubischev trollop — marked you up rather badly, and I shall be marking you up some more.”
She poured the last of the bottle into her glass, and threw the liquor down her throat.
“And what if I talked now?” croaked Wilkinson. Since he would talk anyhow, what difference would it make? And if he talked of his own volition he could at least exercise a certain censorship.
“You can if you like. But I know your kind. You’ll tell me lies, and half-truths, and omit anything and everything of real importance. So let’s not waste any time. Ilse! Gretta!”
He would at least put up a fight, Wilkinson thought. He might even be able to reach the obscene female and get his hands around her fat throat. But he felt a sharp prick in his arm and turned around in time to see a sullen blonde giantess withdrawing a hypodermic needle.
“A mere temporary paralysis,” smirked Moira Simmons. “But not, repeat not, an anaesthetic.”
• • •
Wilkinson hung in the frame, feeling like a fly trapped in the web of some huge, malevolent spider. The cunningly devised system of wires supported his weight so that, as yet, he felt no real pain, only extreme discomfort. But the real pain would start soon enough, and he hoped that he would not disgrace himself — and knew that he would.
Moira Simmons padded around her contraption, her face intent, preoccupied, cleaning her fingernails with a surgeon’s scalpel. Her two women stood by, expressionless, awaiting her orders. Their muscular arms looked abnormally long. They could have been two h
airless female gorillas. Get on with it! Wilkinson wanted to say, but his mouth and throat were dry, and he could only croak wordlessly. Moira Simmons looked up at him enquiringly, then resumed her restless padding.
“Ilse! The subject wants to say something. Perhaps you had better moisten his mouth.”
One of the women nodded and fetched a glass of water. She was tall, and was able to hold it to his mouth without stretching. The fluid was warm and unpleasantly brackish, but Wilkinson swallowed it gratefully.
“Well, Wilkinson?”
“Nothing,” he replied sullenly.
“Changed your mind, have you? It doesn’t matter.”
She stood looking at him. There was something in her manner of the butcher — a butcher who enjoys his job. Fascinated, Wilkinson watched the tip of her tongue playing over her thick lips.
She spoke again. “He’s not too badly marked, Ilse. We shall just have to be careful not to mark him any more. In some ways it is a pity. Torture, for any purpose, is so much more effective when the victim can see what is being done to him, when he can think, I’ll never use that again. However,” she added briskly, “one can’t have one’s cake and eat it. Unfortunately.”
Ilse — until now Wilkinson had assumed that she was dumb — spoke. “The other skins are much better.”
“Yes, dear. I quite agree. But you cannot appreciate the viewpoint of the true collector. This hide will be the only one of its kind in this Universe. There will be others, no doubt, when we have learned how to jump from arm to spiral arm of Time, but until then …
“Gretta, you have a steady hand on the controls. Give him one dol.”
Gretta walked to a control console set against the wall. The machine, whatever it was, was already on; pilot lights were glowing in the panel. She depressed a switch, slowly turned a knob. And there was something flowing into Wilkinson’s body along the wires that imprisoned and supported him; possibly a current of electricity, probably something more subtle. All at once every contusion that had been inflicted upon him started to ache anew, every cut and abrasion to smart.
The Coils of Time Page 11