Star Hunters

by Clayton, Jo;

  His eyes went briefly venomous, then filmed over until they were blank and flat as green stone. “Judge for yourself.”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “Can you help it, halfling?”

  “I can damn well try.”

  “Will you, halfling?” He came to the bed and sat beside her. He touched the curve of her neck, then stroked his dry fingertips up and down the flesh until she was shivering with disgust and fear. His hands moved over her body, nothing tender at all in the harsh probing that meant only that he was master of her flesh, able to use it however he wanted. Then he pushed her backwards until she sprawled once again on the bed. “I have your associate in a cage, Hunter. I was going to take you down and show you my little zoo. I’ve changed my mind. I’ll wait till we’re ready to use the hares on him. Interesting to see how long it takes Dr. Songoa to break his conditioning.”

  She pushed the hair out of her face. “Too bored to do it yourself?”

  He laughed and walked away, disappearing through a sudden door in the far wall, leaving her lying on the bed more confused than ever. According to the reports she’d read, one of the effects of his disease was impotence. Whether that was true for a Vryhh, she didn’t know. His actions indicated otherwise, but that might be pride. Disgusted, she sat up. She pulled the dress over her head, tossed it down beside the bed and threw the jewelry after it. Then she stretched out on the bed, hands laced behind her head. Wait and see, she thought. She even found a measure of pity for the man who claimed kinship with her. Arrogant, with an extended life-span, accustomed to physical beauty, what was he now? She shivered and wrenched her mind from these profitless speculations and began probing once again at the limitations of the inhibitor.

  She reached Manoreh. He was raging wildly at something that absorbed his whole attention. His rage flooded her, tied her temporarily in knots. She struggled to push it away without having to withdraw from the link. Her interference distracted him. He broke from the blindrage and projected SURPRISE along the link, then a sudden burst of understanding.…

  There was a slow rising out of blackness into a throbbing pain that took over his head. For a moment Manoreh floated, lost, unable to remember who or what he was. Then the memory of the night camp came back. The skimmer. The stunbeam. He tried to sit up but he was bound to something. Straining against the ache that started at the base of his skull and climbed over his ears to his temples, he arched his neck and looked along his body.

  Broad straps passed over his chest and pelvic area. Two straps pinned each of his arms and others crossed each thigh, calf and ankle. He dropped his head back and felt the metal cap that curved over it pressing into his flesh.

  A watuk in a white coat swam into view, bent over him, pulled at the straps. Then he went away. Manoreh turned his head from side to side. He was in some kind of laboratory. He could see several of the white-coated workers bustling about as they had in the secret books the Director had made them read. The first man came back and began fussing with the thing on the Ranger’s head. “What’s happening?” Manoreh turned his head.

  The man clucked disapproval and forced it back, ignoring Manoreh’s words as a man would ignore the squeaks and growls of an experimental animal.

  Another face floated over him. A familiar face. Grinning with malice. Manoreh’s hands closed into fists that beat futilely at the padded surface of the table that held him. Testre Dallan. He stared up into the weakly triumphant face, intending to say nothing but the rage betrayed him. “Traitor,” he spat. “May your body rot until it matches the stink of your soul.”

  Dallen jerked back, sweating. He wheeled to face someone out of Manoreh’s range of vision. “Kill him, the freak, he’s dangerous.”

  “Don’t be a fool.” The dark rich voice startled Manoreh then he felt the touch that was all too familiar.

  “Haribu,” he breathed. He struggled to move his head around to see his enemy. But the neckband limited his movement too much. Once again the blindrage took him and he fought against his bonds until a questing touch startled him out of his mindless struggle. Another familiar touch. Aleyrys. The link between them was still in place. He was faintly surprised, then he understood. She was a prisoner too. She felt his pain, and sent a little power down the link and his pain was gone. He shut his lips over a shout of triumph.

  Dallan fidgeted about, moving in and out of Manoreh’s sight. Behind him Haribu and a watuk he called Dr. Songoa were talking.

  “You have your subject, Songoa. One of the empaths this world has produced. What are you going to try first?”

  Songoa sniffed. “First we try sheer power, building in measured increments to see if we can crush the Ranger’s resistance.” He peered at the dials on one of the instruments. “The readings on him are a bit surprising.” He walked past Dallan, totally ignoring the nervous watuk. Stopping beside Manoreh, he probed at the skullcap then poked at Manoreh’s ribs. His head jerked on a long thin neck, his small round eyes glittered with anticipation. “Several anomalies. Inflow of activity from some outside source, might be. Hard to say.” His small, pouty mouth stretched into a mirthless grin. “You can’t fool us, Ranger. We’ll find out all your little secrets.”

  “What if he doesn’t break?” The speaker moved into view, a narrow red-headed man. Haribu, Manoreh thought.

  “That seems unlikely. However it’s all information, whatever happens. Useful.” He sniffed again. “We have other experiments set up. Almost hope he holds. Get more information that way.” He walked away. Manoreh turned his head, following the wizened little watuk’s move to the instrument bank. With a sticklike finger, Songoa tapped a sensor. “We begin.” He fussed over his panel, dark eyes darting from one readout to another with the bright alertness of a bird.

  Manoreh jerked his head straight, forgetting about Haribu and Dallan as pressure clamped down around his head as if a thousand wires were being twisted tighter and tighter. His body arched under the straps as he fought back, pushing outward, trying to drive the sensation away. He set himself to resist. Resist! It grew. Breathing was hard. The air was dead. He was being squeezed. Squeezed down to nothing. Nothing.

  Through the link, like a distant memory too fuzzy to identify, he felt Aleytys tremble and fumble for coherent thought. She suffered with him and she felt him failing under the pressure and he felt a touch of shame for her to see him so weak. And felt her acceptance and affection. He could feel her soft fingers touching him. He was failing. The pressure was too much. She reached through the link to help him. The trickle of power down the link surprised and nearly betrayed him, but he recovered in time and took the energizing pseudo-liquid and used it to drive his defenses. He laughed as the pressure retreated. The doctor began muttering worriedly. Back and back he drove it. The doctor twittered. Back and back. Hastily Songoa tapped fleshless fingers over the sensor plate. Manoreh expelled a puff of air as the pressure relaxed and let his straining body rest. Then he lay smiling quietly.

  “What happened?” Haribu sounded impatient. He brushed past Songoa and glanced over the dials.

  “Remarkable. Really remarkable. I had no idea.”

  “What?” Haribu rested his hand on Songoa’s shoulder. “What are you babbling about?”

  The doctor sniffed, annoyed. He pushed at the hand and refused to answer until it was removed. “Really remarkable. He resisted the force that’s breaking Kiwanji down. During that last minute I channeled all power into him, everything, you understand, and if I hadn’t reversed, the back pressure would have blown.…” He patted the instrument panel, tutting worriedly.

  Dallan sidled around Manoreh and stared at the panel. “What now?” he shrilled. “I thought you said you could break him.”

  Songoa shot him a contemptuous look. Ignoring both men, he turned to the panel and began reprogramming.

  Manoreh edged his head around. For some reason Haribu reminded him of Aleytys. The hair, maybe. And something elusive about the face. Seeing things, he thought. He sent a
glow of appreciation along the link to Aleytys and felt her pleased response. Together they were beating Haribu. Kell, that’s what Songoa called him.

  Small itches began moving over Manoreh’s head. He flashed a warning to Aleytys and settled in to resist this new attack. The itches started at the forehead and ran in successive waves to his neck. It was mildly irritating but nothing like that aching pressure of the first attack. He wondered what was supposed to be happening and moved his body restlessly against the straps to relieve the itch of restlessness. Dallan heard the rustle of his movement and bustled over, satisfaction oily in his little round face.

  After several minutes of the successive itch waves, his body was vibrating with involuntary movement. Abruptly the mild twinge turned to sharp pricks traveling in waves like the ear lier itches. He heard the slip-slip of small feet moving over the tiles, then there was a whispering in his ear.…

  He was stretched out on ocher sand. Sand rippled out around him, empty, monotonous, to the circle of the horizon. Overhead the sky was blank, a deep dark blue, neither stars nor sun interrupting the satin sheen of the dome. He tried to move. He couldn’t. His arms were pulled straight from his shoulders, his wrists tied to stakes with wide soft bands that felt like leather. He tugged experimentally at his right wrist. The strap clung to his wrist. He twisted and turned, wrenched at the stake but it was solid as a rooted Watertree. His ankles were tied to stakes. He tried pulling with the stronger muscles of his legs. The pliant straps cut into his flesh and the stakes were set too solidly into the sand.

  He looked down along his nude body. Between his feet he could see a lightening of the blue. An arc of orange bulged up past the flat curve of sand. Quickly the whole circle of the sun seemed to leap into the sky and he watched it climb rapidly toward zenith. He frowned. Too fast. It was climbing too fast. Getting hotter. Hotter. His flesh sucked in the heat. His eyes began to burn as the sun shone more and more directly into them. He closed his eyelids but the light burned through them, taking on a greenish tinge from the color of his skin. He felt sweat gathering on his skin. The drops grew, then began to run down into the crevices of his flesh. He burned. He burned. A dry tongue licked over already cracking lips. Too fast. Wrongness. He was drying out too fast. The inside of his mouth was leathery. Hard to swallow. Tongue felt rough, thick, a plug in his mouth. Hard to breathe. Thirsty. Meme Kalamah! Thirsty. The sun vibrated directly over him. Burning. Burning. It stopped moving. Stopped. Hot. So hot. Sweat sizzled on his burning skin. Water.…

  The sky blinked. A great negation like the tolling of a monster bell cracked apart the scene. Then the sun was back. His lips moved. No. He croaked. The bell note came again and it was like the patter of rain on his frying skin. No. He joined his negation to the hidden bell and the sky shivered. No sun. The heat was broken and uneven. The light faltered. No sun. No. No desert. No. No thirst. No. No. No.

  The heat and light vanished. The sky altered to white plasticrete ceiling. The gritty sand under his body smoothed to the heavy black cover on the laboratory table. Through the link that came back to his awareness when the desert vanished, he felt Aleytys’s burst of relief and knew the great bell that helped him shatter the illusion was her negation flooding to him along the link. He felt a calm triumph. We’ll beat them, he thought. Star Hunter, together we’ll beat these fools. Then he was startled at himself, accepting a woman as partner. He began to realize how imperceptibly she’d been changing his ideas during their association. He touched her along the link, projecting ACCEPTANCE and felt her startled and appreciative response. He turned his head and watched the silent three at the panel. He laughed aloud, a lazy, teasing laugh that brought Haribu swinging around, his cold face showing a sudden irritation. Dallan backed away, nervous and shivering with fear.

  There was an acrid stench floating about the room and a bluish haze drifting past Manoreh’s face. Songoa fluttered about his console like a distressed mother hen, too fussed to bother about sounds from his experimental subject. Kell watched Manoreh for another minute then turned his back on him, “Can you go on?” His rich soft voice had grown harsh. Songoa sniffed resentfully. His thin lips were closed so tightly his mouth nearly disappeared as he glared at Haribu-Kell.

  Manoreh watched, feeling apprehensive as he waited for the new attack.

  Whispering down the link came Aleytys’s soothing, cooling touch. It helped him endure the new series of itches passing over his head. When the itching turned to sharp nips, the soft susurration started in his ears again. He strained to make out the words. A clue … any clue.…

  Kitosime bent over him, laughter in her dark eyes. He sat up, reached for her, and she danced away, her firm breasts bouncing under the roll knot of her dresscloth, her slim body elegant. She came close again, her hands teasing on him but when he tried to hold her, she slid away easily. She danced before him, avoiding his lunges. His blood heated. His hands glided over the silken skin. He couldn’t hold her. She slid away from him with the same silent teasing laughter. He caught her and bore her down. Her face misted and changed. Blue coiling hair writhed out like red snakes. Aleytys. Her blue-green eyes were wide and mocking. She lay quietly beneath him and he felt a chill invading his body. “You’ll be impotent with me, crawler in the mud.” Her voice was low and mocking. Impotent. Nothing. He was limp and dead. Nothing. He rolled over, turning his back on her to hide his shame.

  A silver-green hand rubbed his arm. Long silver-green legs slid under his head. Kitosime held him on her lap, slim arms comforting him, touching him, gentle and tender, mother and lover. He was alive again, wanting her, wanting, breathing hard, erect, ready, a man again. He pulled her down against his face, took her nipple in his mouth.

  He heard the chill, mocking laughter of the star woman. “Baby,” she whispered. “Little boy.” She pulled her breast free and slapped at him. “Rude baby. You a man? Hah!” His head cracked against the floor as she jerked her legs from under him and danced away.

  In his agony he lay on the floor helpless, watching her flow back and forth, alternately gentle and cruel, Kitosime flowing into Aleytys, flowing, sensual, fire and passion, compassion, ambition, gentleness, driving need to win, silver-green arms, golden body, green flowing over gold over green, tight blue fleece springing into long silken strands of hair, whirling light upon the air as she danced, hard and soft, gold and green, red and indigo, one woman burning like fire into another cool and elegant, constantly altering, narrow elegance blooming into the taut but lush flesh of the Star Hunter. Constantly altering, mesmeric, enchanting, commanding. He curled in on himself. Shrinking. Shrinking. Smaller. Weaker. Retreating. Sinking to nothing. Die. I want to die. No more. Can’t endure. No. No more. I … I … I … will … die … shrinking … shriveled … retreating … to the embryo … to nothing … I WILL … WILL … NOT … BE …

  No! The negation thundered into his dimming senses. No, the bell tolled again. No. No. The great bell would not let him rest. Dark water flooded his shrinking, withered form, water cool and filled with life. No! The bell tolled and the water, flowed faster over him. He straightened his body. The blended forms of Kitosime and Aleytys slid apart. Both came toward him. He shivered and drew back. No! the bell tolled. There was a pressure against his back. No more retreating. Kitosime touched him, her long slender fingers silver-green on green, warm, loving, supporting, mother and lover. Aleytys touched him. He stiffened. Her green-blue eyes were sad and soft. Her fingers ran along his arm, warm, gold, soft. The bell sang in his ears, drowning the ugly whispers, whispers he could not understand but whose evil intent was frustrated by the mellow tones of the bell. His body unfolded … unfolded … was hard and ready … a woman clinging to each arm … he pulled Aleytys against him … she flowed into him … gold flesh merging with green, the black water glowing, burning, expanding, driving outward … outward like a fireball expanding at the speed of light … destroying … burning … exploding.…

  His mind returned to the lab. He was straining against the s
traps, the wave front of power still expanding. It seemed so slow, took years to move out, a glowing gold circle, it touched the console, seethed against it, brushed the metal with dandelion softness. Dallan, Songoa and Kell fell back, tumbling, blowing about, light as dandelion fluff. The console cracked apart, silent blue fire crawled, slow, slow, blue-white smoke crept out. Pieces of the machines sailed slow, slow, curving up, over, dropping light, skipping, skimming beside the splayed-out figures of Dallan, Songoa and Kell. And the anonymous white-coated attendants. And from somewhere outside came a great ear-numbing shriek of tormented metal and the hoarse scream of a man in torment that ceased with a dreadful suddenness.

  Then everything moved faster; the pieces of the console slammed against the floor, flying debris slashing at the grunting, flailing forms of the men. The noise battered at him. Battered. His eyes rolled back. Blackness. Quiet. Nothing.…

  Chapter XIV

  Grey leaned against the bars, rubbed lightly the muscles of his arm though the itching was just below the shoulder muscles on his right side. The implant had made itself felt a little earlier. He closed his fingers into fists, then deliberately loosened them. I want you loose to pry me out, she’d said. He began prowling about the cage, muscles aching from his need to stay calm, in control. Control! He dropped beside the low door and stroked the cool metal. So easy, out of here in seconds. And then? He laughed suddenly, drawing a startled look from silent Faiseh sitting in the corner of the cage. Grey waved away the unspoken question and sat down, leaning against the bars. In the trap now, he thought. He closed his eyes and sought her. Twenty meters northwest, thirty meters up. Located in one of the cavities he’d plotted out before. Haribu’s nest. He fidgeted, wondering if the time were now. Wondering if she wanted or needed his help. He looked up at an exclamation from Faiseh.

  A figure was being carried on a stretcher from the gray-floored corridor. His bearers carted him into the lab. Grey raised his eyebrows. Faiseh nodded. “Manoreh,” he said. He frowned. “Now?”