by Peter David
She bobbed her head. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” She turned on her heel and bolted from Si Cwan's quarters... leaving Calhoun shaking his head and chuckling slightly to himself.
II.
XYON HAD NEVER ACTUALLY ATTENDED an execution before. Unsurprisingly, he didn't want to start now. The reason it was unsurprising was that it was his own execution in question.
For all of its space-going facilities, Barspens was still a relatively barbaric world when it came to its customs and amusements. Holovids, television, even printed matter had never really caught on as a means of entertainment. Public executions, on the other hand, were still a very popular pastime, a prediliction that Xyon would have been more than happy to observe from a distance. Being the star player was definitely not what he had had in mind when he had accepted the commission that had led him to this damnable backwater planet.
For what seemed the umpteenth time, Xyon prowled the entirety of his cell. The young man moved with a calm and easy stride that belied the stress of the situation he found himself in. His movements were smooth, like wind on glass, and even though he was taking his time (for indeed, what need was there to rush?) any observer would have been able to tell that there was speed and strength contained in his limber body. He was clothed in deep red and purple, and his long hair hung loosely in his face. Normally he tied it back, but he wasn't feeling particularly in the mood to care about such niceties. In contrast to the lightness of his hair, his eyebrows were quite dark, as were his eyes that roiled with the intensity of a raging sea. His thin lips were pursed in thought, and his slightly elongated jaw gave him the look of a bird of prey in flight. He had no weapons, for they had all been taken from him. He did, however, have a self-sustaining determination, a confidence that he would triumph over his enemies and whatever obstacles that happened to be thrown in his way. This usually managed to see him through whatever dire situations he was in.
That confidence had not wavered, despite his current predicament. Still, he would have felt just a touch better if, during the thirty-eighth inspection of his cell, he had managed to find some means of egress that had escaped his notice the previous thirty-seven times. Unfortunately, such was not forthcoming.
A brisk knock came from the door. He knew from experience that it was not only intended as a means of informing him that someone was there, but also as a warning to back away lest something rather unfortunate and painful occur. Informed by experience from previous encounters, he wisely backed away to the far side of the cell.
The door opened outward (the hinges positioned on the exterior of the door so that he couldn't get at them) and, as he expected, the shock prods were the first things to enter the cell. The three-foot-long prods were held firmly and wielded expertly by the guards in the corridor. Xyon heard a voice boom, “It is time, out-worlder. Time for your trial and execution.”
“You're making a serious mistake, Foutz,” Xyon said warningly.
“Not as serious as the mistake you made in coming here. Now you may walk of your own accord or you may be jolted into submission. It is entirely up to you.”
“Oh, is it. Hmm. Let's consider it a moment. Excrutiating pain that will leave me numb and unable to walk or lack of same. That's quite a choice you've left me.”
Foutz was visible in the corridor just outside the door. He was of average height, although he did make the customary Barspens squishing noise when he moved slightly from side to side, as Barspens tended to do. That was to be expected when dealing with a race that glided across the ground on appendages that could best be described as tentacles. He carried himself quite well, though, with as much dignity as a perpetually squishing individual can have. His clear eyelids clacked over his eyes, which continued to glower at Xyon as he said, “If you desired an abundance of choices, then perhaps you should never have come to our world and attempted to rob us in the first place. Before you did that, you had a universe of options. Now you have precious few. Value the ones you do have.”
“Very wise words, Foutz. I'll recall them fondly when I'm busy breaking your neck.”
Foutz didn't smile, which was natural since he had more of a flap than a mouth. He gestured to the guards and they stepped back, allowing Xyon room to step out of the cell into the corridor. Xyon's body tensed a moment as he automatically scanned the situation and tried to determine whether the opportunity to make a break was presenting itself. Unfortunately, nothing seemed forthcoming. The guards were too cautious and too experienced, and they were quite determined not to rob the Barspens people of their afternoon of fun by doing something as careless as allowing the main participant to get away. So Xyon relaxed, conserving his strength in hopes that he might have a subsequent opportunity to use it.
It was quite early in the morning. Why are these things always at the crack of dawn? Xyon couldn't help but wonder. Being executed was bad enough. But having to lose one's life while still rubbing the sleep out of one's eyes was positively barbaric.
He blinked against the sunlight, and almost went deaf at the roar that went up when he stepped out into the day. Squinting from the glare, he saw people lined up on either side of the narrow street. There were the Barspens, packed in four-deep, waving flags and shouting imprecations and having a grand old time. There was, mercifully, a stiff breeze coming in from the north, blowing in Xyon's face and causing his hair to blow about in what he hoped was a vaguely heroic-looking manner. At least he knew he was the hero. All of these imbeciles were under the impression that he was the villain of the piece.
He waved at the people in a friendly fashion as if unaware that the blood they were all howling for was his. His hands were not bound; it was a measure of the confidence the Barspens had that he was not going to be able to escape. He seemed quite cool and composed. One would have thought he was strolling to a pleasant outing on the beach instead of to his own rather grisly end.
One of the shock prods nudged him from the back. It was at the very lowest setting, not even enough to shock him really. Just a mild buzz to get his attention. They wanted him to start walking. Xyon obliged them and began to saunter down the street, deliberately adopting a spring-kneed gait that caused him to bounce along in a fashion that gave him a resemblance to a hand puppet. His arms swung back and forth in an almost jaunty manner, vaguely in sync with the odd up-and-down motion of his legs.
“Thief! Bastard! Despoiler! Wretch!” These and more, they shouted at him. He wished he could write it all down and examine it under more pleasant conditions. It's rare that one person manages to garner that much negative feedback. It could almost be considered something of an accomplishment.
It was a long walk, but naturally Xyon was in no hurry to complete it. He ignored the shaking of fists, the vituperation bordering on hysteria. He did not, however, ignore the good-sized rock that came winging his way. He spotted it just out of the corner of his right eye, aided and abetted by the fact that a light scan of the crowd had detected the assailant just before he let fly. What happened next was so fast that a number of people didn't even see it. While the rock was bare inches away from his head, Xyon snagged it and, without slowing or hesitating, flung the rock back towards its point of origin. It struck the thrower squarely in the forehead. He had been in the middle of bellowing some insult, but before he could complete it the missile that he had hurled had been returned to him courtesy of Xyon's catapultlike right arm. The heckler in the crowd wavered in place for a moment, then his eyes rolled up into the top of his head and he keeled over.
Several more brave souls picked up rocks, preparing to throw them, and Xyon's head swiveled in their direction, fixing them with such a fearsome glare that they lowered their missiles and settled for contemptuous howls that couldn't be turned back against them. Xyon barely glanced at them from that point on.
They drew closer to the place where Xyon's combined trial and execution was to take place. He hated to admit it, but he found it a bit refreshing to be in a society that made so little pretense of offering
up anything resembling a fair or impartial judgment procedure. He had heard that the Cardassians had similar lack of interest in fairness, but he had endeavored to steer clear of them in the past. He wondered bleakly if he'd have opportunities to steer clear of them in the future.
There was a large platform, and Foutz—who had gone on ahead—was just mounting and making an inspection of the various instruments of death that awaited him. Even from where he was, Xyon's sharp eyes could see an impressive array of sharp instruments. There were stains of assorted colors upon them, indicating that members of various races had met similar, nasty demises. Xyon was quite certain that he wasn't going to be going the way of the others; however, the manner in which he was going to avoid sharing the fate of those who had preceded him wasn't immediately presenting itself.
Nevertheless, he knew he wasn't going to die this day because this wasn't how it was supposed to happen.
There was a short ramp that led to the top of the platform. The roaring of the crowd was almost deafening, which was quite painful for Xyon's sensitive hearing. He gazed balefully at the chanting throng of Barspens around him and amused himself to a degree by imagining what it would be like to open fire on them with a single high-powered pulse rifle. Since none seemed to be forthcoming, he trudged up the ramp after the guards prodded him meaningfully once more. As he approached the top of the platform, there was a joyous roar as Xyon's torture and death became imminent.
As before, Foutz made no attempt to smile since such niceties were not within his abilities. Instead, he raised a hand and that gesture alone was enough to still the crowd. He waited until there was dead silence, and then he bellowed, “Outworlder! You stand accused of stealing from the people of Barspens! Of robbing us of sacred treasures! Of defiling our beliefs! For one of our race, the punishment would be banishment! For an outworlder, banishment would be only a return to the place from which you came, so the punishment can only be death! How do you plead?”
Xyon did not answer immediately. He stood straight and tall and proud and looked contemptuously toward the crowd as if it were he who held their lives in his hands, instead of the other way around.
“Well?” Foutz prompted.
“Why should I bother?” he asked. “You are a joke, Foutz, You and all your little friends here, gathered around in hopes of watching me scream and cry and beg for mercy, so that you can derive some sort of demented entertainment. Your sacred objects?” He raised his voice so that all could hear him. “Your sacred objects were pilfered by your own government!”
“Blasphemy,” Foutz said promptly.
“If the truth is blasphemy, then yes, it's blasphemy,” Xyon shot back. The guards with their prods were ringing him, and he had no hope of moving fast enough before they could stun him into immobility. But if he stood there, just stood there with his hands calmly folded in front of him, there was nothing they could or would do. So that was how he remained, his fingers delicately interlaced. “The truth is, people of Barspens, that your leaders love their little quests. Their crusades. So they go off to other worlds and take from those worlds the so-called artifacts that they then claim are sacred to Barspens.” There were shouts of denial and angry catcalls, but Xyon spoke over them, drawing enough air into his lungs so that he was able to shout and make himself heard over the protests. “If you truly want to know why I'm here, ask the people of Ysonte. Yes, that's right, Ysonte, a small world that most of you have probably never even heard of. They do not have much. They have little advancement, not much in the way of weaponry. But they have elaborately carved gems and statues that were produced by Ysontian artisans over a period of centuries. Gems and statues that your leaders helped themselves to when they swarmed over Ysonte and snapped up whatever it was that caught their eye.”
“Liar! Deceiver! Agent of the evil one!” All the predictable epithets were hurled at him, but he could also see looks of vague uncertainty on the faces of some of them. Not very many, just a few. But it was enough to give him even a scrap of hope that the situation was not completely hopeless.
“The Ysontians have done nothing to you!” Xyon continued. He took a step forward, but did so in a manner that was very much an imploring one and could not possibly be construed as an attack. Foutz, who was standing some feet away on the platform, was looking from Xyon to the crowd and back again with growing concern. “They have done nothing but commit the hideous sin of trying to live their lives in peace. But your leaders saw to it that that wasn't possible. They stole the most precious and valued artifacts of Ysonte. And it's not as if the Ysontians were using them to profiteer in some ways. No, my good people of Barspens, we are talking about simple works of art that brought joy and pride to the hearts of Ysontians everywhere.”
“All of this is claim without foundation and irrelevant in any event,” Foutz interjected.
But Xyon was having none of it. He whirled towards Foutz, and he must have done so in a manner that seemed a bit too aggressive for the guards. For the moment he turned, a shock rod touched the area just behind his knee, and Xyon felt his left leg go out. He hit his knee on the platform with such force that it probably would have hurt like hell, except that his leg was numb from the shock. He did not, however, let out any yell of pain. He'd be damned if he gave the bastards the satisfaction of hearing it. Instead, he swallowed deeply and continued, as if his prone condition was simply a choice he'd made for the purpose of relaxing, “So your leaders brought them here and passed them off as long-lost artifacts, making themselves heroes in your eyes. They couldn't care less about the unhappiness and anger they left behind. But they didn't know that the Ysontians would hire me.”
“Hire you!” Foutz said triumphantly as if he had just uncovered some deep secret. “You see, my friends! He was hired by some alien race to steal from us that which is rightfully ours! He would say anything—”
“No one buys my integrity,” shot back Xyon. His leg wavering, he nevertheless brought himself up to a standing position once more. He saw the guards out of the corner of his eye, watching him, waiting for any move that could remotely be considered threatening. He made sure not to budge an inch. “No one purchases my soul. I speak only the truth. It's an annoying habit of mine, as annoying a habit as pompous blowhards such as you, Foutz, have of distorting the truth to suit their fancy.”
“You stole our precious artifacts from our very churches!”
“I took back, from the places you had them on display, that which you had stolen—”
“The Unblinking Eye of Mynos, the Jeweled Sceptre of Tybirus, all those and more, you ruthlessly—”
“Oh, stop it!” Xyon said in obvious annoyance, making no attempt to hide his impatience. “You stole those items because they looked vaguely like things you had described in your texts, and you attached names to them that they had no business bearing. You're glorified thieves and scoundrels, caught up in your own sanctimoniousness and self-righteousness. You—”
“Enough!” Foutz spread his arms wide and called out, “You have heard him admit his crime! What say you, my friends?”
“Death!” came the shout, and again, “Death!”
“Now there's a shock,” Xyon muttered.
Rough hands seized him and dragged him forward. In the center of the platform were two large, sturdy columns, with heavy leather thongs that were attached to him. The guards bound Xyon's hands making it impossible for him to pull away. Xyon, however, did not appear particularly perturbed. He spoke in a low voice, “You're sealing your own fate, Foutz.”
Foutz did not hear him at first, and leaned in more closely. “What?”
“I said you're sealing your own fate.”
“Really.” If Foutz had been capable of smiling, certainly that would have been the time for him to do so. “And how do you reckon that?”
“Because this is not how I am to die. Not at your hands. I have a destiny to fulfill, and anyone who gets in the way of that destiny tends to meet rather horrible ends.”
�
�Is that a fact?”
“Yes. It is. And to be blunt, I think I'm being more than fair in letting you know about it. After all, I could just keep my peace and allow you to meet some hideous end all by yourself. Instead, I'm being generous enough to make you aware of the foolishness of your actions.”
The leather thongs pulled tightly on his arms. His shoulders ached, and the sun was remarkably hot considering how early in the morning it was. Considering the circumstances he was facing at that particular moment, it was all that Xyon could do to keep his normal self-possessed manner about him. He was rolling in confidence still; but it was not the easiest thing for him to maintain.
Foutz leaned in closely to him. The Barspens' breath was not especially pleasant. “You,” he said, “are going to die very painfully.”
“Possibly. But not today.”
“No. Today. And do you know what else?”
“I expect you'll tell me.”
“There have been others who have been in a similar position as you.”
“Yes, that much I was able to surmise,” Xyon said, glancing once more at the multicolored bloodstains that decorated the assorted cutting implements.
“In their cases, I have generously offered them a merciful death. Because I acceded to their pleadings and beggings and admissions of wrongdoing. That is simply the generous sort of individual I've always been.”
“You're my new role model for compassion,” Xyon told him.
As if Xyon hadn't spoken, Foutz continued, “You, however, are unrepentant. You do not care about the wrong you have done or the noble individuals whose honor you have besmirched. Therefore, no matter how much you beg or plead, I will do nothing to make your passing easier.”
“What a startling coincidence. I was just about to say the same about you.”
“The only hope you have—”