“If you are, I am quite fortunate that you have fallen into my hands. We Vazileks have been searching for you. Some time ago a high-level dispatch was distributed throughout our intelligence services—and to base commanders, like myself—concerning the possibility of an Earther’s presence amongst the vermin. All of our assets were to use every method available in an attempt to gather information regarding this person’s whereabouts. But it all came to naught. Usually their media is kind enough to tell us everything we need to know, but in this case the only knowledge to be found there was rumor, and nothing but rumor. Even our spies could find nothing concrete. At length it was generally assumed that you did not in fact exist, and that if you did, you were safely ensconced in one of the Akadeans’ most secure installations and out of our reach. Nevertheless I, Mada Elorak, seem to have found you. Through the luck of the draw, there is now the definite possibility that I have in my possession the only remnant of the Akadeans’ ill-fated attempt to gain knowledge of the ston. The fools! Who would have thought they would leave you, their last best chance to turn the tide in their favor, unguarded on a defenseless world. And yet they apparently did just that.
“This could be a boon to me both personally and professionally, as I will be seen as the one, among the many previously to have had the opportunity, to see you for what you are and to claim credit for preventing you from developing into what you might have become. After all, it would be very much against the interests of the Dominion to let events unfold in a way which would have enabled the Akadeans to become more proficient stonliatae, and it may very well have been within your power to accomplish that very feat. But no longer.
“In the future you will serve me, and you will serve me in a way that will demonstrate that I, and I alone, saw a threat to the Dominion and neutralized it. You will tell everyone that I order you to tell how the Akadeans kidnapped you for the secrets of the ston that you possess and could have imparted to them. You will also relate the story of how I put a stop to this transfer of knowledge, a story which I will formulate for your recitation. I suspect that in return for my exceptional service to the Dominion, my superiors will promote me out of this swine-filled penal colony and into a position more suited to my tastes. With any luck at all I could be off this hinterland ball in six months. And I will take you with me.
“But do not think that I barter for your services. You are still nothing but a slave. You will do this for me, or I will simply kill you. It would be easier for me if you were to live, but your death would change nothing. If you were dead and the threat you represent had ceased to exist, I would, despite my only readily available evidence being your rotting carcass, still receive the accolades due me for my devotion to the Dominion. I would be immediately promoted and my tour of duty in this purgatory would certainly be shortened. It would perhaps be more convincing for others to hear of the nefarious schemes the Akadean scum had in mind for you coming from your own mouth, but I can tell my own tales well enough. So cross me at your peril, Earthman.
“Yet despite the benefits of having you in my possession, I am troubled by aspects of your tale. I do not wish to make wild claims which will be proven untrue over the course of time and in the end only serve to lessen my standing in the Dominion hierarchy rather than amplifying it. The first thing of concern is your appearance. I was told to be on the lookout for someone who looked very much like one of the vermin I keep here, someone perhaps slightly taller or shorter than average but with a epidermal pigment very close to their ugly brown skin. But you are at least a foot taller than they are, and nearly as pale as a Vazilek. How do you explain this?”
O’Keefe shrugged, then proceeded. “Your worship, the people of my world are a diverse lot. Although the vast majority there are shorter in stature and of a darker shade than I am, there are still those who are taller and lighter complexioned. Our people range anywhere from less than four feet in height to more than eight, and the color of our skins has an equally wide variation. There is no real standard for what an Earther should look like.”
“So my perusal of the few records of your world has led me to believe,” Elorak snapped. “From which continent were you taken?”
“From the North American continent, your worship.”
Elorak looked at him as if vexed, the fingers of her right hand caressing the blaster at the side of her boot. Her voice came softly back to O’Keefe, its tone low and dangerous. “The names your world employs tell me nothing, Earthman. Describe it!”
O’Keefe swallowed hard, knowing he had nearly made a fatal mistake. “It is,” he began, trying to think of how aptly to describe it, “in the opposite hemisphere from the ice bound continent, your worship. Not the largest one, but the one connected by an isthmus to the smaller continent between it and the one that is ice bound.”
“Yes,” Elorak hissed, relaxing slightly. “That is possible. My research indicated that a person of your description would most likely be found either there or on the continent directly to the east. Perhaps you are who you claim to be. Perhaps you are an Earther, instead of the mere mutant I had taken you for. But still, if you are an Earther, and if you are of the stonliatae, then it stands to reason that you should have been an unruly captive. And according to your file, you were, for a time. But then suddenly you seem to have acclimated to the asperity of Ashawzut in what can only be described as a remarkable transformation. You are up to something, Earthman. Tell me what, and tell me now.” Her hand still lingered near the side of her boot, close by the blaster.
“I wished to attract your attention, your worship,” O’Keefe replied, in a way that said his answer should have been obvious. “I have no desire to spend the rest of my days breaking rocks and shoveling rubble. I may have no choice but to live in your society as a slave, but even a slave can aspire to a better life. I was hoping, just as you are, to elevate my position.”
“To what?”
“I was thinking along the lines of mercenary, your worship. I’ve never heard of a fighting force that couldn’t use a few good recruits. In exchange for better food, better quarters, and a better life, I would fight for your cause, in addition to, of course, being your humble servant and doing everything in my power to further your advancement. You must have conquered beings in the past that now fight at your side. I wish to become one of them.”
Elorak chuckled cynically, her hand moving away from her weapon to hang limply at her side. “You amuse me, Earthman,” she said when she finally spoke. “You mean to go directly to stonliata from rock-breaking slave. And I should like to wake on the morrow as empress of the Dominion. But I am afraid both of us have a long way to go before realizing our ambitions.
“However, you are correct in your assessment of our need. Despite our mastery of the ston and its technologies, duty still takes a heavy toll on our numbers. And our seed is far from prolific. There are projects under way to correct this deficiency, but for the time being recruitment of lesser races to fill the ranks of our forces is an unfortunate necessity. And since you are not a timorous Akadean, but rather hail from a noble if underdeveloped people, you may someday be granted the honor of waging in the service of the Dominion.
“But you must first work your way up through the ranks, proving yourself at every level, like any other slave. And I sense that you may have it in you to do that. Because you have provided me an entertaining diversion, something I thirst for night and day in this backwater nightmare, I have come to appreciate your mettle, Earthman. Thus I will repay you for the amusement you have provided by promoting you. You may now choose any duty in Ashawzut that you wish. If you perform your chosen duty well enough, you may very well eventually attain the life for which you strive, after I have wrung every possible advantage out of discovering you and keeping you as my servant, of course. So where in Ashawzut do you wish to prove yourself, Earthman? Tell me this.”
A stab of fear shot through O’Keefe. The woman had already told him that she knew he was up to something, how could she
be so stupid as to now offer him exactly what he wanted? It must be a trap, he thought. As quickly as the notion flashed through his brain he rejected it, expelling with it as much of his fear as possible. She is arrogant in her overconfidence, he told himself, as his situation crystallized more clearly in his consciousness. In her mind ten thousand slaves exactly like me could do her no harm.
“You are, as always, correct, your worship,” he finally answered, carefully choosing each word. “I do come from a less advanced society. I wish to correct that deficiency. I wish to learn. I saw on my arrival the great ship that brought me here and the massive machines that facilitated its unloading. I wish to work there, in the hangar, where I might become more comfortable with some small part of your technology. That is where I wish to prove myself.”
Elorak again chortled sourly. “Very well,” she said. “Guards will be here in the morning to escort you to your new assignment. You will be put in a work detail, unloading stores. But you are mistaken about my machines. They do only that which is beyond the strength of my slaves. On the dock you will need more brawn than brains. Unloading the ships is nearly as strenuous as any mine detail. And I don’t expect you’ll learn anything about our technology moving crates about. You should have opted for the laundry or the kitchen. But that is of no consequence now. At least you will eat better. And you will have your chance to prove yourself. I will be watching.
“And there is another thing you may wish to think about, Earthman. You will not only be proving yourself, you may very well be the example by which the entirety of your people will someday be judged. At present we have no time—what with the whole of the defenseless Akadean domain lying at our feet, begging us to take it—but someday we will be done with them, and then we will turn our eyes to new challenges, perhaps to your Earth. Whether we attempt to enlist your people as stonliatae, or whether we simply reduce your home to a cinder, could quite possibly be determined by your actions, and your actions alone. So serve me well, Earthman.”
Without another word she turned and walked to one of her guards that was still standing by, climbed up onto the rear of its hull, and roared away, her assault robot seemingly straining to keep pace behind her. O’Keefe gazed after them until a snarl and the snap of canine jaws next to his cheek expedited a quick two-step through the doorway of the barracks.
The next morning he rose quickly, jumping up from his bunk immediately when the fluorescents began, one after the other, to flicker to life. He said a few words to Steenini and Lindy as he threw on his clothing, and then quickly proceeded out into the corridor to await his escorts. To his surprise they were already there, two of them, side by side and nearly blocking the passageway, facing away from the barracks door, with both their diesels shut down. O’Keefe could not remember hearing their treads grinding across the stone when they had approached. They must have been there waiting for some time, arriving while he had still been lost in deep sleep.
For a moment they were heedless of his presence, their scaly heads turned toward one another while they sibilantly conversed. It was the first time O’Keefe had heard the beasts use any vocalization besides short, growling sentences. He stood behind them, straining to hear their exchange. But seconds later the one on the right turned to stare at him with its reptilian eyes, the vertical, biconvex pupils within its yellow irises contracting slightly as the light pouring from the barracks entry shone into them.
“Human, we wait for you,” it hissed, its forked tongue sliding in and out of its lipless mouth as it spoke, thick saliva clinging viscously to it like syrup. “You ride,” it said, gesturing to the rear deck of its hull. “Kark will follow.” It twisted its long, sinuous neck, pushing its head rearward until its jaws were farther back down the corridor than the rear of its treads, all the while lowering its head until its eyes were level with O’Keefe’s. Then it spoke again, its flicking tongue now within inches of the Earther’s face. “You stay still,” it said, reverting to the deep, grating tone of voice the guards generally used when speaking to humans, “or Kark use spear.” Beside it, the second guard brandished a harpoon in the air for emphasis.
O’Keefe nodded and climbed aboard, mildly surprised to learn that the guards were intellectually advanced enough to grasp the concept of differentiating individuals with the use of exclusive monikers. He had always assumed their recognition skills were based on scents or pheromones. Despite the unsettling reality that they were capable of speech, until now he had not believed for an instant that the guards actually knew each other. Not that it mattered, as it was exceedingly clear that they formed no social relationships and had no allegiance to others of their own kind. From what Steenini had told him, they did not even mate. They had been designed and then grown by the Vazileks to meet a set of desired specifications. O’Keefe was certain that they would kill each other as readily as they killed humans if Elorak were to demand it of them.
As soon as he was settled atop the hull of the one guard, Kark, still holding the spear menacingly; bent its long neck down toward him and spoke. “You watch, you learn. You find own way tomorrow.”
“And be without your company? Oh, the horror,” O’Keefe retorted mordantly. The lizard stared at him for several moments, not quite bright enough to catch the sarcasm, but still sensing something amiss. At length Kark seemed to decide that it had in fact not been insulted and looked away. It turned instead to its compatriot and said, “Go!”
Immediately both the guards’ engines came noisily to life, belched exhaust, and they were off, the metallic scraping of the tracks as they rolled around on the sprockets, the roar of the diesels, and the din of metal on stone mercifully precluding any further exchanges.
O’Keefe needn’t have been warned to pay attention. He possessed a mental map of the areas around the barracks and the mines, and he knew how to get from the mines to the arena and to two different showers, but that was all. On his first day in the colony the horrors of the passage to Ashawzut, the shock of their arrival, and the brutal initiation arranged by Elorak had rendered him too boggled to even think of trying to remember the route taken upon leaving the auditorium. Thus he had no idea where the hangar area was in relation to the barracks. This was the only time since that first day that he had traversed any of the corridors that led toward the docks.
So he meticulously counted each intersection they crossed and committed to memory every turn they made. The routine had become as normal to him as breathing; he was determined to broaden his knowledge of the colony complex at every opportunity. As they proceeded he incorporated each leg of the journey into a song, which he sang almost silently over and over again, hoping to use the melody later as a mnemonic trigger.
As he mumbled the tune to himself, he also looked over the guard on which he rode, this being the first time he had been close enough to one, without being under extraordinary duress, to make a careful inspection. He rapped his knuckles against the armor beneath him and it, despite appearing to be simple steel, seemed well thick enough to defend against anything the prisoners might muster. There was a seam which looked to outline an entry to the engine compartment, but O’Keefe could see no readily apparent way to open it. In addition the door was located beneath the weapons rack on which he sat and to which he clung with both hands. The rack itself was well stocked with six harpoon-like spears. All around the top of the hull sprouted lockers and compartments of various sizes, which O’Keefe knew to house handcuffs and whips, at the very least.
He looked to the rear at Kark, the beast following closely behind. On the sloping front armor of its hull, he could see the scabbarded dagger attached just beneath where the lizard’s neck joined the vehicle. At close range it appeared to be more like a Roman short sword than a knife, but O’Keefe knew it to be extremely sharp edged. He had seen one like it in the arena, where it had cut through thick, tough ropes as if they were mere kitchen string. Directly beneath the scabbard was a winch wound tight with cable, while thick sturdy tracks churned to either side. O
’Keefe could discern no obvious weak points in the beasts’ defenses.
At length the two lizards turned into the tunnel leading to the hangar, distinctive among all the other corridors in Ashawzut for the fence that separated it down the middle. O’Keefe searched the other side of the wall as they passed, trying to see the fissure where he had hidden his pistol. He thought he glimpsed it, but their pace was so rapid and the tunnel so dim that he could not be certain.
When they rolled out into the colossal cavern that was the docking hangar, one cigar shaped, leviathan freighter lay there on its side, supported by a dozen mighty, round-footed struts that protruded from its understructure. Robotic cranes were already hoisting cargo containers out of the top of its opened hull and placing them about the wide expanse of floor that surrounded the big ship. Prisoners shuffled away from some of the containers, bent beneath heavy loads, all of them under the watchful eyes of the ever-present reptiles. Straining cables and hard pressed electric motors sent mechanical sounds echoing through the cavern, where they mingled with the occasional crack of a whip and the guttural voices of the guards. The smell of ozone and machine oil filled the air, mingling with the stifling dust and drifting plumes of diesel exhaust.
The guard upon which O’Keefe rode came to a halt. Kark rolled up behind. “Off now,” Kark said, waving its harpoon to one side. O’Keefe dismounted. “There,” it said, pointing rightward with its spear. “Your group. Go join.” With that the two guards roared away, heading off toward the exit tunnel. O’Keefe looked in the direction that Kark had pointed. He saw a large group of men making their way toward the freighter, surrounded by two guards and several dogs. He debated heading back to the tunnel immediately to look for his gun as he seemed to have been left unsupervised, but after a quick perusal of the place he noticed one of the loathsome canines loping directly toward him, apparently with the intention of making sure he went where he was supposed to go. “Damn,” he whispered, and turning away from the dog, he set off at a fast trot toward his new mates. As he joined them, he looked back to see that the dog had turned back and was trotting off in the other direction, apparently satisfied that the newcomer to the docks was under control.
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