by Greg Curtis
Besides, in helping he could be seen to be cooperating and making some informal contacts among the Leinians, while at the same time confirm for himself that they were who they seemed to be; good people. Cyrea knew that, he couldn’t keep much from her, and she was probably disappointed by his natural suspicion though she didn’t say it, but she still encouraged him, no doubt knowing that he would find exactly what she told him he would find. But then anyone who would allow an agent from another country let alone another world, to simply wander freely around their ship, couldn’t be all that suspicious anyway.
They’d even let him see their security suite, or rather Cyrea had just taken him to see where she worked and he’d been introduced to most of their officers, the ayn and their juniors the re ayn. He’d actually had coffee with them in the suite, while watching their feeds, something that still shocked him. You couldn’t do that in any police station on Earth. Just how open were these people? Or as the paranoia kept whispering at him from time to time in his quiet moments, just how incredibly devious?
But then for a ship with thousands of people on board, some of whom were surely bound to get themselves in trouble if only on a statistical basis, how could they get by with only a brig; though they referred to it as a “remedial centre” - that had only six cells? On the other hand only one cell was occupied, and that by a young engineer who’d managed to get completely smashed on some alcoholic beverage his family had sent him, and then fallen down drunk in a dining area.
Public drunkenness on board a military vessel in a foreign territory would have been a serious disciplinary breach in the navy. Any seaman who engaged in such a thing would have been lucky not to have been court-martialled, but on the Lienian ship he was simply attended to by the doctors and was sleeping off his night of alcohol inspired foolishness after which his continuing alcohol consumption would be monitored while he remained on board. He would return to duty in his current position in a matter of hours. No punishment at all in truth, another thing that David couldn’t get his head around.
Strange people, strange ship, strangely tolerant, but still good.
David checked the door again, comparing the strange symbols on it with those on the piece of paper he’d been given. They were a perfect match. This was the place, and he was right on time. So where was Cyrea? Where were the people she wanted him to meet?
He walked a few steps into the room only to feel the hairs on the back of his neck start crawling with every pace. His danger sense was kicking in, and while he had no idea why, he’d learnt to trust it implicitly. This was bad.
He stopped dead in his tracks, hoping to see whatever it was that was causing him so much anxiety. But there was nothing. It was just a giant empty room. Steel walls, floor and ceiling, all painted with the Leinians' favoured soothing yellow. But just at that moment it was anything but soothing.
Then in the middle of the chamber he spied something. A sheet of paper lying on the floor. From the distance he could see little more than the rolled up edges, reflecting the bright white light from above.
Trap! The instant he saw it, he knew that was exactly what it was. Bait for a trap. A trap for him. Curiosity made him want to go there anyway. And logic told him that after all, it couldn’t be a trap. There was nothing around it. The room was empty, and these people didn’t do things like that. He wouldn’t have finally come on board if he’d even suspected they might. But logic was at odds with his danger sense, and he wasn’t about to let it win.
Instead he turned around, making for the door he’d just entered from. But there was no door. It wasn’t just shut he discovered with shock, it wasn’t there at all. There was just a seamless expanse of flat yellow wall. Regardless he knew that there had been a door there before, and unless the Leinians had somehow found a way to iron metal smooth like cloth, the door still had to be there.
He walked directly back the three or four steps to the wall and started hunting with his hands for the door knob at least. But he couldn’t touch it. He couldn’t even touch the wall. In some strange way his fingers seemed to be pushed back by something he couldn’t see, two or three inches from the wall. It was like pushing on solidified air, and the harder he pushed the harder it pushed back.
“Shit!” He understood that the trap had already been sprung while he’d been busy gaping like a child. Some sort of invisible force field had been put in place while he’d dawdled. But had it, he wondered, been placed all around the room? Could they, whoever they were, possibly have had the time and resources to do that? Or was it only near the door he’d entered from? Because he was sure there were other doors to the chamber.
Without a second thought he started walking the edge of the wall, holding his hand against the invisible energy barrier, looking for any place at which it vanished and his hands found the metal. At that point he knew he could start banging, and no matter how well soundproofed the wall was, direct metal contact from his pocket knife on the steel wall would surely carry.
But it was in vain. He circled the entire chamber not once but twice, and never did his hand touch anything other than solidified air. And all the while he was wondering who? Who would have done such a thing? He’d met the Leinians, not just the leaders but also many of the scientists and crew several times now, and they all seemed remarkably decent. They were a friendly people who wanted to please him, and were eager to show him exactly what they were doing. They had no secrets. No nefarious purposes that he could see. And if there was any proof needed that they truly trusted him, it was that they let him speak with their children. In fact it was the fact that they had brought their children with them at all that spoke to their peaceful ways most of all.
A space ship with children. It was like nothing out of any movie he’d ever seen. Who would bring children with them to an alien and potentially dangerous world? Certainly not him. Not NASA and not the military. But they had. They did. And it was fine with them when he chatted with them in the playground. Another oddity that was; a playground on a space ship complete with slides and swings, not to mention a grassy surface and plenty of bushes. And all in the midst of a giant steel ship! No one would ever believe him! And he’d asked them all the trick questions an agent hunting for the deception in their parents would. Embarrassing, both for him and Cyrea, who seemed to spend her time apologizing for him, but they’d still passed.
They had let him freely come and go as he wanted, had locked no rooms against him and indeed had even encouraged him to explore the ship. They answered all his questions and as far as he could tell they were completely honest. These people he had concluded were not only everything they said they were, but were also as close to a totally decent society as anything he could ever imagine.
Yet now some of them were setting him up. It made no sense, but it was also the only possible explanation. This was a Leinian ship and it was filled with Leinians. Who else could it be? And what evil did these strange innocents have in mind?
There was of course no possible answer, and given his situation there was only one way he could even begin to gain the answers he wanted. He had to pick up the piece of paper even though he knew it was a trap and that by now they knew that he knew it. But it was also the only possible way forward.
Cautiously, infinitely slowly, he headed for the bait, feeling every bit like a mouse sneaking up on the cheese. He took his time and scanned every single inch of the floor ahead of him, looking for any sign of the trap, but could see nothing. The metal floor underneath him like the ceiling above was perfectly smooth coloured steel. There was nothing that looked like a trip switch or a button. Nothing at all.
With every step he felt more and more certain that what he was doing was insane. He could almost feel the trap’s bars closing in on him. But there was still no alternative. Except to approach it and be careful. Be ready to leap away at the first hint of danger. But the room was just so infinitely peaceful. Nothing stirred. Nothing suggested a trigger. And he kept getting closer and closer.
> Until it was too late.
David’s first sign that anything was wrong was when the lights all around him darkened suddenly and he knew the trap had been sprung. Adrenaline flowed as David sprinted instantly back in the direction he’d come from, but when he reached the edge of the light he found his progress impeded. Something that he couldn’t feel prevented him going any further. It wasn’t like a solid thing but more of a pressure. But the harder he pushed into it the harder it pushed back. It was like pressing into an elastic wall of air. It was the same pressure that had surrounded the room’s walls.
He was caught.
Time he knew to try and think his way out. He had nothing else up his sleeve, but cunning. Slowly he surveyed the scene. But there still wasn’t much to see. He found himself all alone in a circle of light perhaps twenty yards across. The only visible thing within it that he could see was the floor, and that was perfectly smooth painted metal. There were no walls, and the ceiling was a glow of light. He knew the meeting chamber wasn’t that large, but with nothing visible beyond the circle of light, it could have been infinite.
Of course, it could have been some sort of electrical failure that had turned off the rest of the lights, but he didn’t believe it for a second. This was intentional, and somewhere at the back of his mind he even knew why. If he could remember. There was something vaguely familiar about the situation, something that made the hairs on his body stand up. He’d felt threatened before anything had happened and this was a hundred times worse. He didn’t like it. He liked it even less when he realized that the piece of paper which he had been heading for was no longer there. Apparently it was only an illusion, and it had disappeared once its purpose had been served. There’d never even been any bait.
Knowing it was probably hopeless he nonetheless walked around the perimeter, looking for any weakness, any way out, but found that the barrier was complete. A perfect circle, twenty yards in diameter, and reaching from the floor to the highest point he could jump to. He was trapped with no way out, and held by nothing he could see. But why? It still felt familiar, but he couldn’t for the life of him think why.
A scream cut the air, jarring him out of his contemplation. It was a woman’s scream and he knew it was Cyrea. All of his reason fled as he knew only one thing. He had to get to her.
“Cyrea.” He yelled back, and then charged the barrier once more while ice cold needles ran down his back as he tried to get to her. And when it didn’t give again he literally threw himself at it, again and again. But no matter how hard he hit it, it just kept throwing him back like a trampoline. He couldn’t break through.
Soon he was breathing heavily from his exertions, and fear was closing his mind. And that he knew was wrong. All his training and experience told him never, ever to give in to panic. But it was so hard. He’d never been so scared in all his life. He was trapped and panicking, not knowing what was wrong, not knowing why he was trapped or how to get out of his invisible prison, and terrified that Cyrea might be in mortal peril. And all the while Cyrea’s screams were continuing, driving him further into the insanity.
“Don’t bother monkey. She can’t help you now.” A man’s voice came through the air to him. A cynical, cold, calculating voice that sent shivers up and down his spine. He had never heard the voice before, but he knew it. He’d heard it a dozen times before in other places and times. The voice was pure malice. He shouted at it and at least had an answer.
“Ahh the monkey makes noises. The monkey talks, and expects us to listen. Yet he has nothing worth listening to. No talents, no scientific knowledge, no deep thoughts or artistic reflection. He is just a monkey, who has contaminated an ayn with his pitiful urges.” He was laughing as he derided him even as Cyrea’s cries continued, and David wanted nothing more than to rip him to pieces in his hands.
“You bastard! What are you doing to Cyrea?” No matter how insulting they might be, his words just ran right off him, as David felt the overpowering need to save her from whatever was being done. He knew he had to think, but the anger was growing in leaps and bounds. So was his fear. His fear of being trapped and unable to save her. His fear of what they were doing to her.
“What does it matter? She has been contaminated and now we are cleaning her. Removing from her flesh the remains of your pitiful form. Cleansing her mind of all you have said and done to her. In a while, a few days perhaps, you will not even be a memory to her, and we will have an ayn again. A useful citizen. You on the other hand, well you’ve been nothing but a nuisance from the beginning. I’m sure we’ll find something useful to do with you. Fertilizer perhaps.”
The arrogance and the loathing of the voice was getting to him, and with Cyrea still crying in the background he couldn’t truly think straight. Her cries were destroying his very soul. All he could really do was hate and panic.
“I’ll kill you! Do you hear me scum? I’ll rip your shitting head off when I get out of here! And then I’ll shove it up your miserable ass!” He was blustering, but trapped as he was it was all he could do.
“Ahh. The monkey has an idea after all. He wants to fight. Perhaps he could provide us with some amusement, for a while.” And suddenly other voices were there with the creature, agreeing, laughing. He hated them as he had never hated anyone in his entire life, and all the while he had to listen to Cyrea crying. Her sobs tore at him like a knife.
“He has delusions of being a warrior. When all he really is, is a washed out, relic of a never was. A pale imitation of a true warrior. But maybe a battle would be a good way to see him die, and rid him from our lives.”
“A fight, a fight, a fight …” The other voices chimed in, like a crowd of blood thirsty ghouls. And suddenly he knew where he’d seen this light show before. It was an arena, very like the one he’d been forced to fight in before. And the crowd of raving psycho’s were gambling on the outcomes. It was déjà vu.
“All right then monkey. What say we send in some synthetics and have a little fun? Would you enjoy that?” And he knew that the voice had expected this very outcome from the instant the trap had been sprung. Maybe even before. This was why he’d been lured here. To fight. To fight and to die. It wasn’t even the first time it had happened, except that this time he could see no way out, and it scared him.
“Let her go!”
“Ohh I couldn’t do that. Not until she’s fully recovered from your human disease. But I could stop it for a while, perhaps, while you die piece by piece. But the moment you die, she’s back to square one.” No sooner had he said it, then David heard the sound of footsteps, lots of footsteps, and he saw lots of yellow eyes staring back at him. Small, round, oddly lifeless eyes. They surrounded him, just outside the barrier and he knew they were to be his opponents.
“Let her go or I don’t fight.” He played the only card he had, knowing even then it wouldn’t be accepted. The bastard had all the cards against him. A scream more terrible then all the rest rent the air and he bellowed his rage in response. He was utterly helpless and he knew it.
“You’ll fight or you’ll hear her suffer. And the longer you fight, the longer she stays pain free. But don’t imagine you can ever win. No warrior is that strong. Ultimately, she’s ours, and you will die.” The voice was so calm, so controlled and so utterly repulsive that he would have killed him with his bare hands in a second. But he knew he would not get the chance.
A sound behind him was the first warning, and he spun in time to see an arm swinging at him. A clawed arm, attached to one of the mechanical monstrosities. It caught him in the shoulder, and flung him all the way across the arena, while he felt the needle sharp claws tearing unbelievably close to his carotid artery. He knew it was a miracle he’d survived.
“Ah well friends. Looks like a short match.” The bastard was laughing at him, and David knew Cyrea’s torture would be beginning again soon. This foul perversion enjoyed it. He scrambled to his feet, desperate, barely noticing the blood that was seeping down his neck. At least it wasn�
��t gushing. But it could be soon. He’d felt the creature’s strength, seen its claws and its speed. He was in a lot of trouble.