by Rose Estes
The tension was beginning to take its toll as his snowballs fell closer and closer to the ship. Then, just as he had feared, one of his projectiles fell short and clipped the edge of a laser beam. Instantly there was a sizzling crackle and a whole field came alive with high-intensity beams glowing blue and red, and the guards began racing this way and that.
Barat Krol fell back into the shadows and buried himself in a mound of snow, with only his goggles remaining uncovered, and watched as the guards suddenly assumed the state of alertness that they should have exhibited all along.
The driving snow had obliterated most of his footprints and he had dragged a cape behind him, sweeping away whatever evidence remained. They did not find his trail, but they did locate the blob of snow and ice that had triggered the alarm. To enter the area, it was necessary for them to shut down the laser beams and Barat Krol watched them carefully as they picked their way through the field, noting and memorizing where they placed their feet.
The snowball had fallen quite close to the base of the ship’s gantry and they lifted what remained and studied it with great interest. He was not close enough to hear all of what they said, but the wind carried bits and pieces of their conversation to him, enough for him to learn that it was not the first time that chunks of storm-driven snow had been blown onto the area, setting off the alarms. They tossed the snowball aside with disgust and carefully made their way back to the outer perimeter.
They stamped around for a bit, taking a final look around the area, and then, confident that security had not been breached, they hurried back to their hut.
Barat Krol lost no time either, throwing aside the snow that had shielded him and hurrying toward the ship, placing his feet in the guards’ exact footprints, thus eliminating any guesswork as to where the pressure points might be. He was a good deal heavier than his snowballs and, where they might not weigh enough to set the pressure points off, his greater bulk certainly would. He reached the gantry just as the guards entered the hut. Seconds later, a millisecond after he gained the first level of crossbars, the laser beams switched on.
The Scandis had placed all their faith in their guards and their sensory devices and had not taken more than the most simple precautions with the gantry itself. It was an easy matter for Barat Krol to avoid tripping those few alarms, quickly scaling the heights until he reached the entrance to the ship itself.
He had not hoped to gain entry to the vessel, thinking that it would be heavily guarded, or locked at the very least. But once he reached the catwalk that spanned the distance between the gantry and the ship, he slipped under a heavy fold of some transparent material and found himself making his way through a series of airlocks and then entering the hold of the ship itself.
Barat Krol was not a complete novice, having traveled from Rototara to Valhalla on a spacecraft, but it was not an experience one grew accustomed to easily. The interior of the great ship was bathed in a soft blue light that made everything appear strange and otherworldly. He could not even begin to guess at the purpose of most things, but he knew what it was that he was looking for.
He had worked for the Scandis on his own world and lived on Valhalla long enough to know that the most complex mechanisms often needed only the smallest of spaces, for their information was contained in almost infinitesimal chips. He intended no obvious acts of sabotage, no wide swath of destruction that would alert the enemy that their ranks had been breached. Instead he would search out places where he might snap a wire, loosen a bolt, scratch a computer chip, and otherwise harm the vast and mighty ship.
He worked long and hard throughout the night, weaseling his way into the heart of the vessel, wreaking havoc in minuscule ways that would not easily be detected and, if then, making it appear that the damage was accidental rather than intentional. He was careful to cover his tracks, to leave no evidence that he had been there, for he did not want them to grow alarmed enough to institute a widespread search that might uncover his malfeasance.
He finished the last bit of mischief, fraying several relay wires that were part of an immense trunk of colorful threads more than two feet in diameter that snaked beneath one of the floor panels. He was delighted with this fortuitous find, even though he had not the slightest idea what its purpose was, and after a moment’s thought he severed and pulled free a goodly number of the wires, burying the damage deep within the multitude. With any luck at all, it would prove to be something important, and with so many wires, it would be difficult to find the exact location of the breaks. Even if the breaks were found, they would mean hours and hours of tedious splicing and testing. The thought was enough to make him smile.
Wan glimmers of pale daylight were stretching tentative fingers over the jagged horizon when Barat Krol finished the last of his work. He could feel the exhaustion in his muscles and he stretched wide before he began the long, cautious crawl down the gantry. But it was a good tired, with the sense of satisfaction one got after a hard night’s work.
Carn struggled to hold on to his fading strength. He gasped with exhaustion as well as fear. Never had he felt less in charge of his own existence than when he was with the volva. She was unlike any other woman he had ever known. Always before, he had been in control of his relationships, deciding when and how often he would see a woman, and always it was he who initiated sexual encounters.
But with this woman, the volva—if she had a name, he did not know it—it was not like any relationship he had ever known. He was no neophyte, no rank beginner, he had made love before, but this was not love, nor anything that resembled it. It was lust and pure physical passion, and love was only noticed because of its absence.
This woman had him completely in her thrall. At silent moments, alone in his chambers, he asked himself time and again why he would allow anyone, much less a woman, to subject him to such degradation. But every time he attempted to break away, she bent him to her will again, and each time it was harder and harder to oppose her. He wondered if, as she had said, the blood of witches ran in her veins.
He gasped again and groaned, his entire body sheathed in sweat, his senses reeling on a tightrope of sensation that was neither pain nor ecstasy but a combination of both. The volva leaned over him and peered into his eyes, a question in her own, waiting for him to speak, to beg her to stop. He closed his eyes and turned aside, wanting the torment to stop, but unwilling to relinquish the rapture that accompanied it. He groaned again and knew without looking that she was smiling.
There was a sudden jolt of pain and his eyes fluttered open in shock, his heart hammering hard against his ribs. The volva was laying across his body, her flesh plastered to his with a layer of perspiration, her sharpened teeth fastened in the flesh at the side of his neck. The pain grew more intense as her teeth sliced through the thick, shiny scar tissue; he could feel the rivulets of blood coursing down his flesh, hear the drops as they fell onto the cushions. He cried out despite his resolve not to let her know that she had hurt him, and he heard her low chuckle of amusement.
Rage fought with pain and humiliation, the knowledge that he was little more than this woman’s plaything, a toy that might be easily discarded if it ceased to amuse… or if it were broken.
As the various emotions warred inside him, he felt a sensation almost akin to a tingle of electricity shoot through his body, lifting him higher and higher till he crested on a wave of sheer exultation so intense that he thought his heart would burst apart under the strain. His body arched time and again as the volva drew the strength from him, squeezing him between her powerful loins, touching, caressing him, her every touch leaving shivery, burning trails on his body.
He had reached a point that was almost unbearable. He hovered on the verge of unconsciousness and wondered if he might die, although if it had been his decision whether or not to stop, even he could not have said what he would do. He recognized at some distant point in his fevered brain that he had pushed his poor, damaged body to its very limits. A man was not like a machi
ne, but somehow he knew that if he continued, some part of him would burn out and he would never be the same again.
The volva pulled back, leaned away from him, and the cessation of sensation was as great a shock as the infliction. He was like an addict in the final throes of addiction, where reality, a return to normalcy, was unable to be borne. He reached for her and pulled her to him. She laughed aloud, a cry of victory, and thrust her body full upon his, driving him, forcing him, driving him up, up, up and over the edge… into the waiting darkness.
12
Fortran was confused. He had flung himself into action, unfurling his blue form from the tight roll he had assumed for the past 127 days and nights. Although he was not capable of feeling true physical sensations, just the mere act of unfolding was exhilarating! Fortran had, in a true manner of speaking, burst forth, opening himself up to life and all that it had to offer.
Impressive as that was, it was not the best part. No sooner had he unfurled himself than all around him there were mutterings and stirrings and emanations of energy. His brothers were coming to life as well. Fortran could scarcely believe that such a thing was happening, unless… A chilling thought came to him: Perhaps they were not joining him; as he had first thought, but, realizing that he was about to do something, sought to stop him! Perhaps they viewed him and his impetuous actions as a threat to their own progress. After all, one could not help but be contaminated, tainted, by the mere association with the rebel Fortran! One would always be remembered that way. “Oh, yes, the class of 7983. That means you were one of those rebels…” The shame would follow one for the rest of one’s life.
For a brief moment, Fortran was cowed by the specter of his peers’ contempt as well as the possible—no, be honest, the probable—loss of the lovely Mutar, but then his mythic backbone stiffened as he further contemplated the probability of all the years of boredom stretching before him, just lying here forgotten in the darkness of this distant planet.
In a mind-wrenching, stretching moment of courage and personal growth, Fortran dared to doubt, even reject the existence of the supreme deity known as Yantra. It was a terrifying as well as an exhilarating moment, heart- and breathstopping—that is, it would have been if he had had a heart or the need to breathe.
And at that very moment, as he began to blur into the transitional phase that took him and his kind from one place to another, he heard a voice echo inside him—many voices, really, that of the Grand Yerk as well as a number of the Triune of Yerkels. And there… there were his mother and father! And—was it really possible?—they were congratulating him and praising his courage and strength of vision! His mother was sobbing softly, although with pride and happiness. The Grand Yerk, however, was muttering to one of his associates.
Fortran, although he should have been paying attention to the speech the Most Eminent Bezir was beginning, replete with flowery terms, could not help but focus on what the Grand Yerk was saying: “Why is it the troublemakers who always realize it first? Fortran! Of all of them, why did it have to be Fortran?”
His associate replied, “Do you think there is some correlation between rebellion and intelligence? It is a most troubling thought. I am quite certain that we ourselves were never so difficult. Intelligent, certainly; but rebellious, never. Well, we might as well get on with it. Fortran was the first, but others will follow, it’s always the way. Fortran,” he said with a sigh. “If only it had been Vexlur.”
“The wedding, Majesty.” Skirnir was doing his best to keep the king’s attention focused on the matter at hand. A bad choice of words. Skirnir did his best to avoid looking at the king’s hand, that grossly deformed object that the king kept cradled in a lamb’s-wool sling on his chest. But it was difficult to avoid—the thing was like a magnet that drew his attention. It was hideous, shiny and swollen like a cartoon caricature of a hand. It was a mélange of colors, black and blue and yellowish green, with streaks of red lancing up the arm and now advancing well past the elbow.
The healers had done everything within their power, desperate to heal their leader, whom they depended on for continued life. If they failed to heal him, they would not live long enough to view the final moments of the dying sun.
None of their efforts had been effective. The hideous wound continued to suppurate and worsen rather than improve. In desperation, they had suggested—no, urged—that the king let them remove the arm. It would save his life and with the marvelous advances in cybernetic prosthetics… But the king had resolutely dismissed the possibility. What was infinitely worse, he no longer seemed to care. He seemed deadened by apathy and inertia and merely stared at them without speaking most of the time, no matter what they said.
Skirnir had asked the volva to join him, hoping that she could add her voice to his, to persuade the king to marry the girl, sooner rather than later. There might not be a later if the wound did not improve. They needed the wedding to reassure the people and they needed the sacrifice to whip them into doing their bidding, wiping out all of those who had been deemed as undesirable, those for whom there was no space on the shuttles.
They were attempting to create a gulf between the chosen and those who were not chosen by the gods. If they could convince the people that it was the will of the gods, so much the better, for killings justified by feelings of righteousness left the fewest scars on a populace. And, as it had been proved many times before, such killings actually drew the survivors together with a sense of attenuated pride, almost like a team spirit, a patriotism.
Such thinking was far more preferable to the only other alternative, that the Scandis participate in some vile, degenerate act that would mark them with shame for the rest of their days.
This phenomenon had been thoroughly researched in the years following the great earth war of 1939-1945 when the German nation had systematically eliminated a population of “undesirables,” millions and millions of them. The Germans had lost the war in the end and the condemnation of the world was focused on them for decades.
But for the Scandis the greatest lesson that had come out of the earth’s last great war was that people could be manipulated, could be persuaded to do anything, no matter how horrendous, if they could be convinced that they were in the right. More specifically, if they could believe that their actions were sanctioned by the gods and that—and this was most important—they would benefit from their sanctions, while other unfortunates would suffer a well-deserved fate. Under those conditions, there was no destructive and time-consuming drain of self-guilt and breast-thumping. The people were bound together by the sense of having accomplished something difficult but worthwhile, and if the job was done right, there would be no one left to argue otherwise.
The plan could not be implemented without the king’s cooperation. Only he could wed the girl, and due to the feelings of hatred and guilt that so many Scandis were feeling for the Duroni these days, what more logical a sacrifice?
There were those who argued that they should not have broken Federated laws and colonized an inhabited planet, but those voices would be among the first to vanish. If the king would only agree to wed! Skirnir began to lose patience; he could feel his carefully erected facade beginning to crack under the strain.
“Is the boat finished?” Otir Vaeng asked suddenly. It took Skirnir a moment to regroup his thinking. “The boat? Uh, yes, Majesty. It is all but finished and lies waiting for your direction,” Skirnir said smoothly, inwardly seething at the waste of man-hours. The very best of artisans had been necessary for the construction of the high-prowed, high-sterned vessel that the king had demanded be built at the edge of the great dead sea. Complete with mast and sail, round shields painted with the emblems of prominent Scandi families hung along the sides above the oarlocks and a great pile of kindling was stacked on the varnished deck. A total waste of time, but Skirnir knew that he dared not defy the king… yet.
The king seemed to settle deeper into his lethargy. Skirnir pressed on. “Majesty, the wedding?” The king opened h
is eyes, which were bloodshot, the corneas yellowed. He waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal. “Whenever,” he said with difficulty. “Whenever you think the time is right, but I have decided that I do not want the girl to be harmed. She is innocent of any wrongdoing and there has been too much death already. That is my decision.”
“Sir!” Skirnir drew his breath in sharply and glanced at the volva, whose eyes narrowed at the king’s words. “Everything depends upon the girl. Alive, she means nothing, but her death will unite the people!”
The king gestured again, an indication of his waning interest. “Yes, yes, but heed me, Skirnir. No harm is to come to the girl.”
“Majesty,” Skirnir said with bowed head and knee, hiding his rage from his king. He shot a sidelong look at the volva, who had said nothing at all during the entire audience. The volva met his eyes, a chilly glance that extinguished the fire that burned in his belly like a bucket of icy water. She met and held his gaze and although no word was spoken, no sign exchanged, he knew with sudden certainty that her goals were the same as his. Despite the king’s wishes, the girl was as good as dead.
“At the next full moon,” the king said suddenly. “That is in four days’ time. The ceremony will be held on board the ship.”
“But sir, I had thought that the burial mound would be a more appropriate site. Even if the girl is to be spared, we must slice the throat of a cock and throw it over the lintel to the gods. There are certain rites that must be followed!”
“The ship,” Otir Vaeng said wearily, shutting his eyes and resting his head against the back of his throne. There was a sense of finality in his words that Skirnir did not dare defy. “The ship, Majesty. Indeed, the ship.”