The World of Tiers, Volume 2

by Philip José Farmer

  The Khringdiz disappeared from the circle in his cage. Dingsteth had trouble getting Kumas to obey its orders. Kumas, lying on his blankets, turned his back to Dingsteth. Finally, Dingsteth said, “I have means to make you do as I wish. They involve much pain for you.”

  For a half-minute, Kumas was silent. Then, his face expressionless, his eyes dull, he rose. He shambled to the center of the circle and stood in it. Dingsteth pointed one end of the small instrument in its hand at the circle and pressed a button. Though the radio signal from it started the process, five seconds would pass before the gate was fully activated.

  Kumas must have been counting the seconds. Just before he would have vanished, he moved to one side and stuck his right leg beyond the circle.

  Then, he was gone. But the leg, spurting blood, remained in the cage. It toppled over immediately.

  “Killed himself!” Red Orc shouted. The other humans were silent with shock. Dingsteth may have been, but it did not show it. It said, “Why did he do that?”

  “It’s as I told you,” Kickaha said. “He was crazy, poor bastard.”

  Dingsteth said, “I do not understand the instability and twisted complexities and frequent malfunctionings of human beings.”

  “We don’t either,” Kickaha said.

  Dingsteth put off cleaning up the mess until after his “guests” had left his world. Or, perhaps, it was not going to bother with it. It gated the others to the cave in which their aircraft were stored but sent them to a different circle in the cave from the one originally intended. When Kickaha stepped out of his circle, he saw the Thoan’s body in a circle nearby. After a glance at it, he was busy getting ready. That did not take much time. When they were all mounted on the seats of their boats, Dingsteth opened a door to the cave by speaking a code word. A section of the wall slid into the recess, and they flew out into a tunnel. Dingsteth had given them directions for getting to the gate that Red Orc had used for entrance to this world. Red Orc rode behind his clones; Khruuz and Kickaha, behind him.

  Twenty minutes later, they were at the gate. Kickaha dismounted from his boat and brought out of his backpack a wrist-binding band. Before Red Orc could react, the clones and Khruuz had seized him. He might have gotten away from Ashatelon and Wemathol, but Khruuz was as strong as a bear. Obeying the orders Kickaha had whispered in the hangar-cave, the Khringdiz held the Thoan’s arms behind him, and the clones gripped Red Orc’s legs. Dingsteth, watching them via the world-brain, must have wondered what was going on. Kickaha quickly secured Red Orc’s wrists together at his back.

  Exultantly, Kickaha took the Horn from his pack and blew the seven notes. Immediately, a section of the wall shimmered. Red Orc, who had been silent throughout, was hurried by Khruuz into the gate. A minute later, all were in the palace that held Anana. They were busy for a little while defending themselves against the guards, who had attacked them when they saw that their master was a prisoner. That did not take long. A few beamer shots killed some, and the others scattered.

  Soon, however, the guards rallied and took up defensive positions. It looked as if the invaders would have to take the place by room-to-room fighting. But Kickaha called for the captain, who replied from behind a barricade of furniture in a hall. After Kickaha, Wemathol, and Ashatelon talked to the captain, they made an agreement. The captain then conferred with his lieutenants and some of the rank and file. The parley took over an hour, but the result was that the guards swore loyalty to Kickaha and the clones. They did not love Red Orc and did not care who paid them, especially since Kickaha had doubled their wages and reduced their working hours.

  Kickaha was delighted. “I’m sick of bloodshed. Necessary or unnecessary, it goes hard against my grain. Besides, some of us would’ve been killed if they’d put up a fierce resistance. One of us might’ve been me.”

  Wemathol and Ashatelon did not trust the soldiers. To prevent assassination or mutiny, they took some guards aside. These were promised large sums if they would spy on their fellows and report any likely troublemakers or actual plots. Then the clones, not telling Kickaha what they were doing, approached other guards to keep their eyes on Kickaha’s spies. He found out about this when some of the clones’ spies informed him of this. They expected a reward for the betrayal, and they got it.

  Kickaha then hired other soldiers and some servants to watch the clones. For all he knew, though, the clones had taken into their secret service the same people he employed. These would spy on him. Undoubtedly, Wemathol and Ashatelon also had their own agents to spy on each other.

  This made him laugh uproariously. If the process kept up, all of the guards and the servants would be double or triple or even quadruple agents.

  After making reasonably sure that the guards would give no immediate trouble, Kickaha visited Anana. She was in the garden and in a lounging chair by the swimming pool, which was large enough to be a small lake. The sun of Earth II, near its zenith, blazed down on her. On a small table by her was a tall glass containing ice cubes and a dark liquid. Though the noise from the dozen or so women attendants in the water was a happy one, she did not look contented. Nor did she smile or ask him to sit down when he reintroduced himself.

  “By now,” he said, “Wemathol has told you the truth. I sent him ahead of me to explain what’s really happened to you because I didn’t think you would listen to me at all. But I’m ready to tell you all over again what Red Orc did to you and to add any details Wemathol left out.”

  Her voice was dull, and she did not look directly at him. “I heard him through to the end, though it cost me much not to scream at him that he was a liar. I don’t wish to hear your lies. Now, will you go away and never come back?”

  He pulled up a chair and sat down.

  “No, I won’t. Wemathol told the truth, though, being Thoan, it may have hurt him to do so.”

  He longed to take her in his arms and kiss her.

  She looked at him. “I want to speak to Orc in person. Let him tell me the truth.”

  “For Elyttria’s sake!” he said, speaking more loudly and impatiently than he had intended. “Why bother with that when he’ll only lie!”

  “I’ll know if he’s telling the truth or not.”

  “That’s illogical! Irrational!”

  He tried to master his anger, born from frustration and despair.

  She said coldly, “I do not tolerate a leblabbiy speaking to me like that. Even when he has me in his power.”

  “I …”

  He closed his mouth. This was going to be very difficult and would require great self-control and delicacy.

  “I apologize,” he said. “I know the truth, so it’s hard for me to see you so deceived. Very well. You may speak to Red Orc face to face.”

  “You’ll be watching us, hearing us?”

  “I promise you that no one will be observing you two.”

  “But you’ll be recording us. Then you’ll run off the tape and still not be lying to me.”

  “No. I promise. However …”

  “What?”

  “You won’t believe me. But Red Orc might kill you unless you’re guarded.”

  She laughed scornfully. “He? Kill me?”

  “Believe me, I know him far better than you do. He could revenge himself on both of us by breaking your neck and depriving me altogether of you.”

  “I would never have loved you, leblabbiy. So how could he deprive you of me?”

  “This is taking us in a circle. I’ll give you what you want. You’ll be in a room with Red Orc, and neither human nor machine will be watching or listening to you two. But there’ll be a transparent partition between you and him. I won’t take any chances with him. That’s my decision, and it’s unchangeable.”

  Khruuz was not human. He could monitor Anana and Red Orc. In a literal sense, no human or machine would observe them. But I can’t do that, he thought. I’ve never lied to her.

  For the same reason, I’ll also not carry out a plan I had. Putting Wemathol or As
hatelon in their father’s place and having one of them pretend to be a repentant and now truthful Red Orc … that’s out, too. But the temptation is so powerful it hurts me deeply to reject it.

  Anana did not seem to be grateful even when he told her that she could take all the time she wanted for the meeting. That turned out to be two hours. When she came out of the room, she was weeping. But, as soon as she saw Kickaha, she managed to make her face expressionless. A Thoan did not show “weak” emotions before a leblabbiy. Instead of responding to his questions, she walked swiftly to her room.

  Red Orc had been held in the room in which he had talked to Anana. Kickaha went to it and sat down on the chair she had occupied. That it was still warm made him feel as if he had touched her.

  He looked through the transparent metal screen at the Thoan, who met his gaze unflinchingly.

  “You have won this round,” Kickaha said. “Big deal. You’re not going to get out of this alive. Not unless I decide you will. You do have a chance, but I won’t lie to you. I find it almost impossible to kill a man in cold blood or to order others to do what I’m not willing to do. Believe me, your clones want to torture you for a long time before killing you. They can’t understand why I won’t let them do it.”

  The Thoan was silent for a moment before replying. He said, “I don’t understand either. As for escaping from here, you ought not to be so sure. We are alike in many respects, Kickaha, more than you admit, I believe. But that’s nothing to waste time with. You’ve opened a door for me, if I understand your implications. That opening, however, won’t be freedom for me. You just will not kill me, but you will keep me prisoner or attempt to do so until I kill myself from frustration and boredom. Correct?”

  Kickaha nodded.

  “You stupid leblabbiy!” the Thoan screamed. His entire skin was suddenly a poisonous red, and his face was knotted with fury. He shook his fist at Kickaha, then he spat. Tiny bubbles quickly gathered at the corners of his mouth, broke, and were replaced by other bubbles. His eyeballs were shot with blood; the arteries on his forehead swelled as if they were cobras puffing up their hoods. And then he began banging his forehead against the screen.

  Kickaha had jumped with surprise when Red Orc screamed and had stepped back. But he now went up to the screen to observe the Thoan closely. Blood was running from his forehead and spreading over his face. Blood had smeared the screen. He truly looked red with a capital R. Though the Thoan had earned his title primarily because he had shed so many people’s blood, he was also known throughout the many universes for his rages. They did not happen often, because of his glacial self-control. But when they did erupt, they were fearsome to behold.

  This, Kickaha thought, was the granddaddy of all furies.

  If it was true that the child was the father of the man, ancient hurts were thrusting themselves up from his soul. Though the very long-lived Lords remembered only the most significant events of their remote past, Red Orc had never forgotten his earliest years, his hatred of his father, his deep love for his mother, and his grief when she had been killed. Nor the numerous frustrations and disappointments since then. His many victories had never canceled these.

  Watching the Thoan, who was now tearing at his face with his fingernails and still screaming, Kickaha wondered why the Thoan had not tried some system of mental healing. Or perhaps he had, but it had not been successful.

  Now Red Orc was rolling over the floor until he banged against a wall, then rolled back until stopped by the opposite wall. He was, however, no longer screaming. Blood from the scratches and gashes on his face, chest, stomach, and legs marked his passage on the floor.

  Suddenly, he stopped rotating. He lay on his back, his mouth gaping like a fish out of water. His legs and arms were extended to form a crude X, and he was staring at the ceiling.

  Kickaha waited until the Thoan’s massive chest was no longer rising and falling so quickly. Then he said, “Are you over your tantrum?”

  Though Red Orc did not reply, he did rise to his feet. His face was composed under the blood covering it. After a minute, during which he stared at Kickaha, he spoke calmly.

  “I know what you are going to propose. If I am to stay alive, I will have to tell Anana the truth about what I did to her.”

  Kickaha nodded.

  “I need some time to think about it,” the Thoan said.

  “Okay,” Kickaha said. “You have ten seconds.”

  For a moment, Kickaha thought that Red Orc was going to rocket off in another rage. He had pressed his lips together, and his eyes began looking crazy again. But then he breathed out deeply and smiled.

  “I was thinking about a week to make up my mind. Very well. No, I will not tell Anana the truth.”

  “I didn’t think you would,” Kickaha said. “However, I have another offer. If you accept it, you’ll escape lifelong imprisonment. But the offer depends upon an answer to my question. Did you store Anana’s memory? If you did, can you give it back to her?”

  19

  Red Orc sat still, his eyes focused on a point a few inches from Kickaha’s head. That he did not answer at once showed that he was going to be very careful about what he would say.

  Kickaha tried to think as the Thoan was thinking. Red Orc knew whether or not he could give Anana’s memory back to her. He was wondering if he should lie. If he was able to restore her memory, he would say that he could not do so. Though a no from him would confine him for life in a seemingly escapeproof cell, Kickaha had found a way to get out of Dingsteth’s cages. What the leblabbiy could do, he, Red Orc, could do.

  If he said yes, only he would operate the machine. Anana would be in his power, and he could kill her with a jolt of electricity or whatever else was available. He would not enjoy his revenge long. A few seconds later, he would die.

  Finally, he said, “No. I cannot restore her memory. Even if it could be filed, it would take a vast storage space, a capacity that only Zazel’s World would have. And I am not certain of that. Destroying is far easier than creating.”

  “You should know,” Kickaha said. “You have taken Anana’s memory from her. What’s been done to her can be done to you. How would you like to be stripped of your memory?”

  The Thoan shuddered slightly.

  “I’ll see to it that the memory-uncoiler takes you back to when you were only five,” Kickaha said. “You were, if my informants are to be believed, a loving person at that age. That way, I don’t have to kill you—I hope I don’t—and you’ll be given a second chance. You’ll not be confined to a cell, but you won’t be allowed to go out of this palace. Or wherever you’re kept. Not until I’m one hundred percent satisfied that you’ll stay on the right path, that you’re a real pussycat.

  “Maybe it’d be better to take you back to the age of three. Or even two. That’d make it easier for us to help you form a different persona or at least reshape you. Your destructive tendencies could be channeled into creative drives. Despite what you said, it’s sometimes easier to create than destroy.”

  “Thousands of years of knowledge and experience lost,” Red Orc murmured.

  Kickaha had expected that the Thoan would go into another rage. But the first one seemed to have exhausted him.

  “It happened to Anana.”

  The Thoan breathed deeply, looked at the ceiling, then into Kickaha’s eyes.

  “But you forget something. Only I know how to operate the memory-uncoiler.”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Kickaha said. “You’ll be injected with a hypnotic that’ll make you answer all questions.”

  “That won’t do anything to me,” the Thoan said. He smiled. “I have taught myself certain mental techniques that will automatically block out the effects of any hypnotics available to you.”

  “I won’t hesitate to cause you such pain you’ll be happy to tell me much more than I want to know about operating the uncoiler. I’ve seldom tortured a man before this, only when it was absolutely necessary to save lives. Do you doubt that?
”

  “You’re a man of your word,” Red Orc said sarcastically. “But whose life are you saving if you torture me?”

  Kickaha grinned. “Yours. However, I don’t have to torture you. I have another card up my sleeve. I won’t have to hurt you, physically, that is. Khruuz will be able to figure out how to operate the machine.”

  It was the Thoan’s turn to grin. “I anticipated long ago that someone with the Khringdiz’s knowledge might be available. The machine will not turn on until it has identified me as the operator. It must read my voice frequencies and pattern of intonation. It also requires my handprint, my eyeprints, my odorprint, and a small patch of my skin so that it may read my DNA. It also must receive a code phrase from me, though you will be able to get that out of me by torture. That will not be necessary. I’ll give you the code phrase, much good it will do you.”

  “And?” Kickaha said.

  “Ah! You have anticipated another barrier to operating the machine. You are right in doing that. Certain numerous components of the machine, after a certain delay, will explode unless I am the operator. That will disintegrate the machine and annihilate everything within three hundred feet of the blast and do extensive damage for another three hundred.”

  “That’s a lot of trouble,” Kickaha said. “What you did, you set up the self-destruction system to keep your clones from being able to use it, right?”

  “Of course, you idiot!”

  “This idiot will find a way to fool the machine,” Kickaha said. “You’re holding back one item of information about how the machine identifies you. It’s something that marks you as different from your duplicates. I can get that out of you if you hurt enough. I don’t like the idea, but, as I said, I’ll use torture. It’s a tool that almost always works.”

  “It would get you what you want. But that information would not aid you one bit. The machine would explode even if you used Ashatelon or Wemathol.”