by Darrell Bain
"Motherfucker,” Marty said. “That bastard sat in a chair and watched while his thugs beat on me. It's the only time I ever saw him smile. How in hell did a work of art like that ever get to be a general?"
"His twin brother is head of the Senate Armed Services Committee."
"No wonder.” Marty suddenly peered intensely at me. “You know, what you told me about the Tersha bug just sank in. You look younger than me now, you bastard."
"Fat lot of good it's going to do me,” I said.
"Yeah. I guess there's no way out of this, huh?"
"Not that I know of brother. The only good thing I've heard so far is that Jim Shell survived our fight. I thought he had been killed there. Though come to think of it, he would probably be better off if he had been."
"Don't give up hope. I thought I was a dead man that time when I ejected and my parachute malfunctioned."
That was a war story worth repeating, but then Marty always had been shot through with shithouse luck. Maybe some of it would rub off on me and Jim. And keep him alive, too. I was glad I was keeping it secret that Tera was probably going to have to kill us, not only to protect the world but to spare my brother the knowledge of our impending deaths. While I was waiting to be taken away, I wondered how long Tera would put off the inevitable. A few days? A week? Two weeks? She had never said, but it couldn't be long. The more delay, the more chance of the Tersha mutating.
The time passed with desultory conversation between us, mostly just family talk, remembering old times and such. I think it was because neither of us expected to live. I know I didn't and I suspected Marty didn't either, despite his attitude. Then I found myself telling Marty about Mona and how much I loved her and missed her and how glad I was that at least she had gotten away. That led to him describing his latest girl friend who had moved out to his place. He owned some acreage outside of Dallas and was busily turning it into a menagerie, with horses, Great Pyrennes dogs, cats, goats, birds and no telling what else. Like me, he had never been satisfied with a woman and also like me, had been married and divorced twice.
"Too bad I can't introduce you to Tera,” I said. “You'd really go for her, except that Jim got there first."
"Shucks, maybe she'll come down with a space armada and rescue us and fall in love with your handsome younger brother."
"You'd better comb the blood out of your hair and get those teeth fixed first or she'd run the other way."
"Uh oh,” Marty said.
I had already heard the footsteps. They were coming for me.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
I don't see much point in giving a blow by blow description of what happened next, so far as the torture goes. Questioning a bound prisoner with rubber hose and brass knuckles is much the same technique all over the world and has been for a long, long time. I was tied to a chair and slapped around a good deal before I was asked anything; I guess to show me how the rest of the session would go.
There were two men and a woman, none of them wearing insignia, who worked me over. The woman was overweight and had thin lips that never parted, either to smile or say a thing. The men could have been twins or brothers. Both were short and muscular and wore sneers as their normal expressions. The three didn't do any talking; that was left to General Melofton. He sat straddled across a straight backed chair with his chin propped on his hands and questioned me in a monotone that never changed.
I repeated everything I had told my brother and filled in details I had overlooked while talking to him. Melofton started with the Cincan who had been taken to the emergency room and made me begin to go over everything I had done since, interspersed by short interludes with the hose and the brass knuckles when I gave what he considered unsatisfactory answers. I don't really know what they were after at that stage of the questioning. Maybe they thought I knew of some other aliens or other normal humans who had been infected and lived. They never told me and I didn't ask; I just tried to get through the beatings without giving away the one piece of information I was determined to keep to myself.
The Tersha helped me get through the worst of it. It blocked out pain past a certain level. I have no idea of the physiology behind the process; when the pain got really bad my mind would slip into a numbed state where I knew what was happening but didn't much care. It made me feel all the worse for knowing that Marty had had no such protection; he had to suffer through it and bear the pain afterward too, because he had no Tersha in his body to initiate repairs and start the healing process almost immediately. Three hours after they got started Melofton finally called it to a halt. He got up and strolled out without comment. I was taken back to the same cell and thrown inside like I was a piece of refuse.
Marty helped me to my feet and led me over to the sink. I managed to lift my arms up to my face to splash water in it by bending over. One of the sneers had varied the beating routine by twisting my arms up behind my back until I felt muscles tear.
When I told Marty about that part of it, he said I must be special; he hadn't warranted the arm twisting part.
"Be glad,” I said, wincing as I tried to work more movement back into my shoulders.
"Yeah, I guess I am. They never took that long with me, either."
Later, well into the afternoon, a guard brought around a meal for us and a change of clothes for me, the standard orange jumpsuit popular in so many prisons, just like Marty was wearing. They didn't offer a bath, which is what I really wanted. I cleaned up as well as I could at the sink then discarded my bloody clothes and donned the jumpsuit before trying to eat.
"I've had only one bath since they brought me here,” Marty said while trying to open his injured lips wide enough to take a bite of his hamburger. That, by the way, is what we were fed the whole time. Hamburgers and water twice a day and not very good hamburgers at that. I got sick of them.
* * * *
I had three days of physical mistreatment; beatings I should say, and that brought me up through the fight for the lander. I didn't mind so much telling about that part because I enjoyed remembering that I had managed to kill a few of the general's bullies and that Herb and the others had taken care of even more of them. I even had the gumption to laugh at the way Mona and Strongarm had gotten away from them, though it cost me a tooth. The next day they started with the drugs. That went on for two days, but the general wasn't present during those sessions. I guess without the pain he didn't find them interesting. He must have either listened to the recordings or a synopsis of them though, because the next day he came to see me in the cell again.
I was just telling Marty that he was looking much better when I heard that monotonic voice I had grown to hate with a passion ordinarily reserved for rapists and suicide bombers. It came from beyond the bars, just like it had the first time I heard it and just in time to break in on our conversation like a rude guest interrupting someone about to say grace.
"Too bad his looks are improving. I doubt that he will look nearly that good later on today."
General Melofton had walked up silently to our cell.
"Fuck you and the horse you rode in on,” Marty said. “Anyone who would torture a helpless man sucks green donkey dicks."
For the first time I think words got to him. I do believe our general harbored bestiality impulses from the red color that crept up from his neck and brightened his face. He started to speak back to Marty then changed his mind. Instead, he turned to his usual attendants, the two captains, and said, “See that they're both ready two hours from now. We'll see what they have to say then."
"I wonder what the son of a bitch has planned for us now?” Marty said after they were gone.
"It doesn't matter. I've already told them everything I know,” I said. Which wasn't true, of course, but I hoped whoever was listening would pass my words on to the general. Maybe it would make things go a little easier, though I had no great hopes that it would.
As it turned out, General Meloftin had a new trick up his sleeve. Or rather a new one for us.
Hurting someone they love instead of the person being questioned was old back when the Romans were building their roads across Europe and probably goes all the way back to when our ancestors were still living in caves.
Both of us were strapped into chairs, then we waited another half hour before Melofton made his appearance, accompanied by the captain and the two squatty little sneers. It was me he spoke to first. “Mister Brandon, I believe that you've been holding back on something. A bit of information you think is crucial, perhaps?"
"I've told you everything I know,” I said.
"Oh yes, so you say. But under drugs you're not quite so reticent. The psychologists who listened to the tapes think you were not quite truthful on a couple of occasions, especially when we asked about the purpose of those Cincans, the aliens."
"Why haven't you asked them, then?” I said.
"Oh we have. I think that their little organisms help them to resist a bit more than yours do. But then they've been infected all their lives and you've just acquired yours. Well, we'll see. You may begin, gentlemen."
I had to sit and stare with helpless horror while the two sneers used instruments and techniques on Martin that made him scream, then cry in great desperate sobs from the pain. When I tried to turn away or close my eyes, they threatened to blind him if I didn't watch. Marty begged me not to let them do that to him and I didn't, but I got so sick that I threw up all over my jump suit. Hitting at loved ones goes to the very heart of the territorial instinct in humans, the one that demands that you protect your family. It is even more of a trial when children or spouses are threatened, but my brother was the only family I had left and I loved him. If muscular strength could have broken my bonds I would have come out of the chair and tackled the general bare handed, but all I accomplished by straining was to pull so hard that the straps cut into the flesh of my arms and legs until they bled.
I don't know how long it went on. I was sick to the bottom of my soul and crying as hard as Marty was by the time it was over. They carried him back to the cell on a gurney while I had to be helped along, even though I hadn't been hurt, except inside where it didn't show. I have never felt such anguish, such helplessness in a situation I could change only by risking the lives of six billion people.
Once they had placed Marty on his bunk and gone off to whatever dungeon they lived in, I bent over him and placed my mouth close to his ear. “I do know something Marty, but I can't tell. All the people on the planet might die if I do.” I hoped my words couldn't be picked up by the recorders in the room. I had spotted a couple but there were probably more.
Marty tried to say something but I couldn't understand him. I leaned in real close. “S'okay,” he mumbled. “I'm faking part of it. I infected myself with your blood the day before they started on you with drugs."
Be goddamned. And I had been so beaten and doped that I hadn't noticed. Apparently like Strongarm, his reaction to the initial foray of the Tersha into his body had been milder than mine. I stood back up, feeling only marginally better. His new Tersha might help him stand the torture better, but he had just given the alien organism one more human that it might mutate from. Anyway, I expected this place to be wiped out any day now. I couldn't predict when because the one thing I had never thought to ask Tera was how long it would take the lander to get back to the mother ship. As soon as it did, I expected her to come calling, and that would be the end of us.
I washed Marty's face then went over to the sink and cleaned up the jump suit as best I could. I sure wasn't expecting the bastards to bring me a new one.
* * * *
The next day was a repetition of the one before, except it went on longer and achieved a savagery that outdid anything either of us had gone through before. I doubt that Marty would have survived had it not been for him carrying the Tersha in his body now. They would notice soon enough when his wounds started healing abnormally, if they didn't kill him first. It was so bad that I screamed and screamed at them to stop, then screamed some more when they started in again after they saw I had nothing new to tell them. My throat was raw and Marty was unconscious by the time we were returned to our cell. This time there was someone else laying there and an old mattress had been thrown in for the odd man out to sleep on.
Jim looked worse than me and not much better than Marty. When he saw me he gave a feeble grin from where he was stretched out and managed to raise one thumb in a futile gesture of triumph. “I thought you were dead,” he said.
"I thought you were, too. And I will be if this keeps on,” I said. I was already wondering what I could find in the cell to kill myself with rather than watch Marty be tortured any more-and wondering if I had the guts to do it if I did find something. I didn't know if I could stand another day like today, much less whether Marty could.
"Hang tough,” Jim said. “We can't tell what we don't know."
So he was playing the same game, trying to buy time and keep all the Tersha carriers in one area until Tera returned. Which reminded me to ask.
"Have you seen any of the Cincans?"
Jim moved his head back and forth on the bunk. “No. Our resident psychopath told me they were still here though, for what that's worth. Sorry Mike, I don't feel like talking any more right now. They worked me over pretty good."
Our hamburgers came a little later. I broke them into small bits and fed them piecemeal to Marty and Jim and helped them each drink from the paper cups they furnished us. After that I lay down on my bunk and sank into despair. I couldn't think of a single thing to do other than what I was doing. I kept repeating to myself that come what may, I couldn't give out that one bit of information. There was simply too much at stake. I think that mantra helped keep me sane.
* * * *
Marty and Jim were feeling better by the next morning, courtesy of their Tershas, though their faces looked like part of them had been used to make our hamburgers. That helped me to come out of my funk. I decided that I owed it to Marty and Jim both to try to stay alive as long as they were willing to keep going. Still, I felt my gore begin to rise as the time neared when they had come for us the last two days. Marty and Jim were both wearing expressions of helpless resignation, but neither of them was cowering away from the cell door either. I wished with all my might that I could prevent whatever they had planned for today. I figured it must be something special and different, what with Jim being moved into the cell. I even thought the special session was about to start when I heard a commotion begin way off in the distance.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
It must have been going on for a while but we simply didn't notice because of the thick cinder block walls of the building. At first we heard loud voices and crashing noises, then more voices and then the unmistakable sound of gunshots, not so far away now. We looked at each other with a mixture of hope and alarm, mostly alarm. I couldn't imagine how anyone, even Tera with the aid of the mother ship, could have formed a rescue party, not here. And anything else boded ill for us.
The bunks were bolted to the floor and hiding under them wouldn't help. All we could do was wait. Soon we heard running footsteps. General Melofton came hurrying down the hall between our cell and the empty ones across the way. Both his captains were with him.
They came to a halt in front of our cell, the captains bumping into the general in their hurry. Melofton pointed into our cell and said, “Kill them” in the same monotone he always used. When the captains pulled their automatic pistols from their holsters we all shrank away instinctively, as far back from the barred door as we could get, huddling into ourselves. Then they began shooting.
I felt a slug tear into my stomach and another almost yank my arm off as I fell. I rolled over and with what I thought was my last act on earth, lifted my head to watch them kill me. Damned if I would give them the satisfaction of dying with my back turned.
Amazingly, both captains suddenly crumpled to the floor as a torrent of automatic rifle fire tore through them. The general was hit, too, but not killed. He
was behind his toadies. He fell though, with a bullet in the thigh and another one that shattered his kneecap. I hoped it hurt like hell. I guess it did because he started screaming.
I didn't feel any pain from my wounds at once and was able to look to see if Marty and Jim were alive. They were, though wounded. Marty had been hit in the shoulder and Jim in the side. Bullets had gone through both of their arms as they instinctively tried to shield themselves. As I tried to grin at them, a squad of marines in battle dress gathered around the cell. The sergeant told most of them to keep going and clear the building then called loudly for a medic. Even as he was doing that, one of the corporals was fixing a wad of explosive to the lock, reaching inside to mold it so that fragments would blow out into the hall instead of in toward us. I reached painfully for the mattress and dragged it forward. Jim helped me raise it up in front of our prone bodies.
"Cover!” The corporal yelled and they ran back to a safe distance while the fuse burned.
The explosion was extremely loud. It shattered the lock and blew the door open. Seconds later a navy corpsman was inside giving us emergency first aid. He wore a phone over one ear. I could hear him calling for backup and stretcher bearers. And a few minutes after that a marine three star general strode into our cell, trailed by another corpsman. The general had such a commanding presence you could almost see firebolts shooting from his body. He kicked General Melofton in the face and told him to shut up as he passed his prone body. Whoever he was, he was on our side. My wounds were beginning to hurt but I grinned when I saw that.
"Friedman! Where's Sergeant Major Friedman?” He demanded, looking down at us while the medics worked.
My grin faded. “He's dead, sir. I'm sorry."
"Someone else is going to be sorrier,” he seethed.” He started to walk away and leave us with the medics.
"General!” I called, then coughed up spittle flecked with blood.