V 07 - The Alien Swordmaster

by Somtow Sucharitkul (UC) (epub)

  There were steep, walled steps carved into the hillside. Above them, the castle was silhouetted in the setting sun.

  “Never show any fear or hesitation,” Sugihara said. “The Visitors delight in finding fault; they will jump on the slightest error. But they hate to admit they’re wrong, and if we can bluff them, we’re in. Now, are your throat synthesizers in place?”

  “Yes!” said Matt, testing it out. The voice that issued forth from the device startled him at first; it was terrifying, tinged with metal.

  “Right. Let’s go,” Tomoko said.

  They left the car and began to walk up the steps.

  At length they reached an imposing archway of wood. Guards stood on either side; they were humans, converted.

  When they saw the four of them they immediately bowed; one of them made to lead them up the last few steps into the castle gates. Sugihara and the guard exchanged words; Matt saw a strange expression on Tomoko’s face. He dropped behind and asked her what they had been saying.

  Tomoko said: “The guard said, ‘Welcome; I presume you’re here for the meeting? Let me show you to your quarters.’”

  “They were expecting us?” Matt said.

  “I don’t know anything more,” Tomoko said. “They seem quite certain that we’re supposed to be here. In fact, we’re supposed to appear at a banquet in our honor ... in a couple of hours!”

  “Oh, no,” CB said. “I bet I know who the main course is.”

  Chapter 21

  “Very well,” Lady Murasaki said to her guardsmen, “I suppose I’d better inspect the prisoners before dinner. ”

  They escorted her down the corridors of the castle. It always thrilled her to see her personal guard, with their samurai uniforms made of cloth blazoned with the Visitor insignia, each holding aloft a banner. Though this was a dreadful world in most things, it certainly had a great deal of barbaric pomp and splendor She intended to keep the spectacle after she came to power. That much she knew for certain. She was certain, too, that after tonight’s banquet she would hold all the strings of power in her own hands.

  Unless Fieh Chan had somehow not only survived, but had also gotten wind of this whole situation. That was the only fly in the ointment. But Murasaki, as she strode proudly down the hallways with their floors of polished wood, slippery against her scaly, shoeless feet, was supremely confident that her moment of triumph was at hand.

  “I shall visit the conversion chambers first,” she announced.

  “Yes, my lady,” said a guardsman. One was a saurian, the other a converted human. They slid open the shoji panels into a large chamber in which, in a cubicle surrounded by complex apparatus that radiated an eerie blue glow, a man hung in chains. He was naked, and electrodes were attached all over his body.

  “Ah,” she said coldly, “Mr. Casilli.”

  Rod Casilli looked up. “So you’re back, you reptile,” he said. “You think you’re going to turn me into one of those mindless morons, I suppose! Well, it’ll never work. I’ll resist you—resist you—resist you!”

  “But why bother, my fine friend from America?” she said in a grotesque parody of a coquettish, cajoling tone. “All your colleagues have already capitulated. Your friend Lex Nakashima has already joined my army. He is already involved in the training of thousands of cadres. The sooner you give in, the sooner you’ll be able to get back to that nice estate in New Mexico. We’ll even give you that electrified fence you wanted so much. It’s not so bad, being one of us, is it? At least you’ll be on the winning side.”

  “Any master of martial arts will tell you that winning is not the issue!” Rod groaned.

  “Very well. As you insist,” she said. To the guardsman: “Initiate phase two of the conversion.”

  Jagged bolts of blue lightning streaked across the cubicle! Rod Casilli twitched and jerked about as though jolted by electric charges. His eyes began to bulge from their sockets. Sweat poured down his cheeks, his neck, his well-muscled torso. Animal screams tore from his throat.

  “Enjoying yourself, Mr. Casilli?” said Lady Murasaki, licking her lizard lips with her forked tongue. “The machines are very patient, I assure you. And so am I. Infinitely patient. Mr. Ogawa, the minister of culture, didn’t crack for several weeks; but what a loyal subject he is today! Why, today he reported to me that he was regretfully forced to eliminate a friend of yours. Jones, I believe the name was—Matt Jones.”

  “Matt—you bastards! You killed Matt? But I just talked to him before you captured me, before you brought me out here. He called to warn me. It’s terrible that I didn’t believe him. To think that I laughed off that telegram about the alien swordmaster. ”

  “Alien swordmaster?” Murasaki was temporarily star-tied out of her complacency, for she had been unable to solve the riddle of the message she had received that afternoon at the service station. “What do you know of an alien swordmaster? Speak! Or I’ll be forced to continue the torture!”

  “I don’t know anything!” Rod Casilli screamed, as Murasaki reached out with her flexible tongue, prodded the dials of the conversion device to turn them up higher.

  “By the time I’m through with you,” she grated, “your brains will be so addled you really won’t know anything! Except what / choose to implant there.”

  To her satisfaction, she noted the pain index and read the brainwave indicators of the apparatus. A feisty one, this! But it was always so much more gratifying when they broke. Like training an intractable beast. “Come, come,” she said seductively. “See with our eyes. You need not suffer so. You can be happy, happy ... let me melt away your resistance ... it is making you unhappy. . . .” “You killed Matt Jones!” Rod shrieked.

  “Yes,” Murasaki said, allowing a tone of hypocritical regret to enter her voice. She hoped Jones really was dead, that Ogawa’s report had not been its usual mishmash of hogwash and bungling. The man had been so intelligent once, but there was no doubt the conversion process took away some of these creatures’ reasoning abilities; they became like children; you couldn’t rely on them to do any job that required thinking.

  “Continue the process,” she instructed the guards, “until he cracks.”

  “Lady Murasaki, I don’t think the poor thing can take much more. ...”

  “I don’t care! Reduce his brains to jelly if you must! What does one of these martial arts masters matter? We have so many of them in our power already.”

  “Of course, my lady,” said the guard, bending down to operate the machinery while Murasaki turned away, intent on continuing her inspection of her pet project.

  “Where will you go next?” the other guardsman—the human—asked.

  “Oh, the dungeons, I think,” she said. “I’ll have a little chat with Nakashima and Yasutake and Kippax.”

  “I’m afraid, my lady, that Kippax has died. The—ah— conversion process proved too much for him.”

  “But the others?”

  “Dealt with as you commanded.”

  “Good. I’ll go down and see them, and . . . then I’ll inspect the training grounds themselves; we’ll want a nice display of power; won’t we? To impress the delegates from Hong Kong, Seoul, and the other places. After all, we must show our future vassals who’s going to be boss. Afterwards I shall go down to the kitchens and discuss the banquet menu with the cook. I’ll want nothing but the best for our seven delegations.”

  “Seven, lono'21 heard from the gate guardsmen that there are eight, Lady Murasaki. Another delegation, comprising four members, turned up just before dusk.”

  “Oh? I wonder who they are?” Lady Murasaki said. A tiny sliver of dread pierced her thoughts, but she made herself ignore it.

  No, she thought, nothing must cloud my hour of triumph—nothing!

  “No,” Sugihara said, “I don’t think we are going to be the main course after all. We seem to have arrived at a very dramatic juncture in the Visitors’ constant political power struggles. I think that Lady Murasaki intends to try something tonight
, something really big.”

  “She wants to dispossess Fieh Chan himself?” Tomoko said.

  “Perhaps so,” Sugihara said.

  They had been shown into a chamber of astonishing elegance. Four futon beds had been neatly arranged on the tatami floor. A balcony looked out on to an inner courtyard of the castle, which was at present empty. A low table held a tea service and a silver platter of neatly arranged appetizers. The food was red and bloody, and Tomoko didn’t want to imagine what it might be.

  “Well,” Matt said, “what’s the plan? Obviously CB and I can’t go to dinner. They’ll be talking Japanese—or maybe this lizard talk—and I don’t think I’ll be able to fake it. Besides, I think I should snoop around some. I want to look for Rod and Lex and anyone else they might be holding here . . . and find out why!”

  “You’re right,” Sugihara said. “Let’s see . . . we have about two hours to cook up a plan.”

  At that moment they heard noises coming from the courtyard. Lights flashed. “Let’s go look,” Tomoko said.

  They went to the balcony.

  Floodlights were being set up. Tomoko saw a saurian wearing an elaborate kimono, and she recognized that it was Lady Murasaki.

  Presently a long line of youths began to file into the courtyard. All wore orange headbands on which were blazoned the Visitor symbol and all wore training suits in the same ominous colors. Lady Murasaki regarded them, unmoving; her eyes seemed to glitter. They arranged themselves in lines. They bowed to her with militaristic precision, their simultaneous footfalls resonating hollowly on the smooth flagstones of the courtyard.

  Lady Murasaki nodded.

  At that moment a man entered the courtyard. He was gray-haired; he walked like a zombie; the life seemed to have gone out of his eyes. He wore the same uniform as the youths. As Tomoko looked at each of them, she saw that they all had the same lifeless eyes. There were boys as well as girls; some were as young as CB, some seemed to be in their teens or early twenties.

  The Lady Murasaki nodded again.

  This time they all gave a great cry, sharp and fierce. It echoed around the courtyard and faded. Then they sang an anthem. She couldn’t make out all the words, but they were in praise of the Visitors . . . and of Lady Murasaki in particular

  She was sickened, but she watched on, terrified and fascinated.

  “It’s like a whole army of zombies,” she whispered, awed. “An army of people who have lost their souls.”

  A man came up and gave a few shouted, harsh commands.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Matt said suddenly. “That’s . . . that’s Kunio Yasutake!”

  “The grand master of takodoV’ Sugihara said. “You’re sure it’s him?”

  “Of course I’m sure. He told me on the phone that

  Ogawa had done him the honor of inviting him to Japan for a special demonstration of his rare art. I guess he didn’t know he’d be training a bunch of killer zombies!”

  “He’s been converted,” CB said grimly. “Like I remem-bei; that’s how Sean Donovan looked.”

  “What are we going to do?” Tomoko said.

  Below, in the courtyard, the youths commenced to practice. They moved smoothly, menacingly, all together, in a slow ballet of violence, aping Yasutake exactly.

  Lady Murasaki called for them to stop. They did so immediately and stood to attention, their eyes fixed on her She progressed up and down the lines. Always her eyes glittered. Was it lust? thought Tomoko, remembering Fieh Chan. Or was it hunger? She couldn’t tell. Presently she stopped and pointed to one of the youths—a boy no older than CB.

  Trembling, the youth stepped forward.

  Lady Murasaki clapped her hands again.

  Yasutake’s voice sounded in the vast courtyard. “Today I will demonstrate another type of killing move. Watch, observe, obey.”

  “We watch! Observe! Obey!” the army chorused.

  For the first time, Tomoko saw, fear seemed to enter the boy’s face. “I obey,” he said. His voice was almost inaudible.

  Then, setting his face into a mask of concentration, he readied himself, froze into the formal stance of takodo. For a long moment nothing happened. Then the boy seemed to explode in a whirl of energy. He rushed toward Yasutake, a war cry shrilling from his childish throat.

  Yasutake stood, his arms half outstretched, wrists and elbows curved inward. His arms seemed to have no bones at all, to imitate exactly the arms of the octopus, from which his particular martial art took its name. When the boy leapt up to attack him, Yasutake, without seeming to exert himself at all, made a waving motion with his arms, drew the boy in. It all happened almost instantly. All you heard was a small cracking sound. For a moment Tomoko did not realize that the child’s neck had been snapped.

  “Demonstration ovei;” Yasutake cried. “Now—you will all practice the following moves—”

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Tomoko said.

  “This is not the way,” Sugihara said, shaking his head sadly. “These arts are sacred. They were not meant for the mindless slaughter of innocents! Self-defense is one thing, but systematic killing just for demonstrative purposes ...”

  “I see Murasaki’s plan,” Matt said. “This is her contingency for when the laser guns run out of power She plans to rule, with or without the Mother Ships! By training an army without a soul—an army that won’t hesitate to immolate itself at her whim-—an army of total converts.” “We gotta stop them,” CB said. “I don’t know how, but we gotta.”

  “Well,” Matt said, “since CB and I don’t speak the language, I guess our job will be to sneak around and see if we can dig up our friends.”

  “And Tomoko and I will go to the banquet and try to see exactly what is involved in this newest power game. Ah,” Sugihara said as someone tapped lightly on the shoji, “someone has come to summon us.”

  A servant came in and bowed.

  Tomoko said, “What do you want?” trying to sound authoritative, utilizing her synthesizing voicebox.

  The servant said, “Lady Murasaki has asked me to ascertain exactly which delegation you belong to. And how many will actually be attending the celebratory banquet.” Tomoko felt a mild sense of panic. Had the disguise slipped for a moment? She ran her hand over her face, feeling, through her reptilian gloves, the hand-etched scales and mottlings that Setsuko’s grandmother had so painstakingly created on the dermoplast mask.

  She didn’t say anything. Sugihara came to the rescue. “You will tell the Lady Murasaki,” he said, “that we are extra members of the Seoul delegation who have decided to appear at the last minute. Moreover, you will stop questioning us—or I will see to it that you end up on the banqueting table yourself! However to satisfy your catering arrangements, I should inform you that only two of us will be coming to the dinner. Those two”—he pointed to Matt and CB—“are clearly of inferior rank.” He spoke as though the servant were a fool for not realizing these facts immediately.

  The attendant, cowed, bowed abjectly and said, “Of course, master I am so sorry. It is hard at times for us miserable creatures to tell you masters apart—”

  “We all look alike, eh?” Sugihara said in a tone of barely concealed menace.

  “I didn’t mean—master, if I offend—

  The servant backed out of the room, bowing all the way.

  “Now that we’re alone again,” Sugihara said, “let me explain something of the geography of the castle to you, Matt. The dungeons are located . . . over there.” He pointed past the courtyard to a tiny entranceway.

  “How do you know so much about the castle?” Matt asked.

  “I told you. I was imprisoned here once. The conversion chambers are in the vicinity of the dungeons. You’ll just have to explore. Now the banqueting hall ...” Sugihara described the complex path of stairways and corridors they would have to follow to reach it. “The banquet hall has a number of secret passageways. One, behind the dais from which the shogun used to hold court, leads directly to the rooftop on whi
ch the skyfighters are usually parked. Behind one of the movable walls there is a computer complex which operates the entire castle; most of the electricity in this district has been diverted to run it and its subsidiary functions. Now you will attempt to find and release the grand masters—those who haven’t been converted—and enlist them in our cause. Meanwhile, we’ll go to the banquet. We’ll learn all we can about what’s going on. I get the impression that most of the lizard honchos—those that are still knocking around this part of the world, who haven’t fled in the Mother Ships—will be at the banquet. They’ll be busy dividing Earth into three parts, if I know them, anticipating what’ll happen when the Mother Ships return. You and your friends, Matt, will interrupt the meeting, and then . . . well, that’s where my plan sort of peters out. I suppose we shall improvise from there.”

  “Improvise?” Matt said.

  “In the absence of any more information, that’s all we can do. Maybe we can sabotage their computer or something.”

  “I’ll do some serious hacking,” said CB.

  “Precisely,” Sugihara said.

  “I’m afraid,” Tomoko said. “I don’t want to confront Fieh Chan once more. He confused me so much.”

  “We all have something within us that we don’t want to face,” Sugihara said. “May you have the courage to face it and conquer it.”

  “May we all,” Matt said fervently.

  The sounds of combat came once more from outside. Matt went to look; he saw that Kunio Yasutake was demonstrating his skills to another group now. Lady Murasaki had left.

  “He was a good man,” Matt said. “Now he’s as good as dead. I’m never going to be like that. I’m going to die fighting. Like Anne did. When I look at the man down there . . . I see his body but I don’t see him, I only see a shell, a husk. They want the whole world to be like that, don’t they?”

  “Have you heard of preta-na-maT' Sugihara asked.

  “No.”

  “It means ‘peace’ in their language. They were not always like this, Matt. Believe me. They have a terrible sickness in their souls. But . . . but there is good in them.”