by Shannah Jay
He threw back his head and laughed, dismissing her trick from his mind, not allowing himself to feel impressed by it. It was probably an illusion. 'You're no guest. You're my prisoner. But,' he smiled, a confident sneering smile, 'if you behave yourself and if your husband really cares about you enough to do his duty to the Confederation, you can be returned to your world eventually. You needn't be afraid.
You'll come to no harm here.'
She said nothing, staring at him stonily. He was lying. She could sense that clearly.
His voice was thick with gloating as he added, 'I'm sure my dear friend Davred cares greatly about you - enough to offer himself and Soo in exchange for you. Wouldn't you agree?'
She still said nothing. Robler wasn't really listening to what she was saying, anyway. He was too obsessed by his own lusts and fantasies.
He voiced some rapid orders that adjusted his spacious quarters to provide a kind of cell around the corner where Katia was sitting.
As transparent bars flickered downwards to form a barrier around her, she did nothing to resist. She
JAY The Price of Wisdom219
wasn’t sure how much she could do against the bars, so didn’t waste her strength on trying until she saw her path more clearly. And anyway, what kept her in also kept him out, which was a small comfort, at least. She would, she decided, wait. If Davred did join her on the satellite after the battle was over, they would be able to augment each other's powers and deal with Robler more easily. If the Kindred defeated the Serpent.
She dismissed any doubt and concentrated on her own predicament, not sure whether she had the strength to deal with this madman on her own. There was something strange about him, something she couldn’t quite understand.
When Robler opened the door of his quarters to go outside and deal with Berin, he found his whole crew standing there in a semi-circle, clearly waiting for him.
Lizan stepped forward. 'We believe that you're not functioning in a reasonable manner, Robler, so we hereby declare that we're taking over control of the satellite. We shall no longer accept your orders or recognise you as Exec. We also require that you release to our care the indigene whom you've illegally brought up to the satellite.'
He threw back his head and laughed, then casually brandished the hand weapon he’d concealed inside one of the leg pockets of his shipsuit. 'If you lay one finger upon me, Lizan, I'll shoot you with this. It'll hurt. I might even choose to kill you.'
He saw her gasp and jerk away from him and elaborated, enjoying her fear, 'Yes, it fires an old-fashioned projectile - so satisfying - it makes a hole in the flesh and does quite a lot of damage to the organs inside.'
They all stared at him in horror, unused to such direct threats. None of them had thought to look for anything to use as a weapon. And anyway, although there were some actual weapons on the satellite, Robler was the only person with legal access to them. The one he had in his hand now was supposed only to be used on planetary surfaces. It could cause a lot of damage to delicate equipment if fired here. As well as to delicate bodies.
Silently they backed away.
'Get out of my sight!' he snarled. 'And stay out of my sight. The next time I even see one of your faces turned towards me, I'll shoot its eyes out without hesitation.'
Inside the Exec's quarters, Katia heard enough to realise that Robler was facing rebellion from his crew. But when he stepped back inside again a short time later, he was smiling. 'Those fools won’t be able to help you. They're bred to softness and lack a real leader.' He went across to the com-panel to press his thumb against it and voice in some special emergency sequences. 'Well, they'll not be able to do much to help themselves from now on. I can run this satellite perfectly well from here. As they're about to find out.'
After a while, Katia grew so weary she decided to set wards along the perimeters of her small cell, whose tiny ablution chamber afforded her a very meagre privacy but no room to sleep. She didn’t want Robler attacking her while she was sleeping. When the flickering light behind the bars informed her that the wards were set, she lay down, only to jerk upright again as Robler's harsh voice rang out.
'What have you done now, you stupid whore?' he roared, trying to push his hand between his own force bars and finding some other invisible barrier preventing him.
'I've set wards to guard my sleep.' She stared across at him coolly.
'More of your hag's tricks!'
'No trick. As you can see. Simply a Gift and a skill.'
He made a few more attempts to poke objects through the flickering barrier and when he couldn't, he stood back and scowled at her. Then he began to calm down. What did it matter if she’d set up a second barrier? As long as his own barrier stayed secure, he had her where he wanted her. 'Sleep well, then. If your husband survives tomorrow's battle, I'll have him up here within a day or two.'
'He will survive.'
Robler turned his back on her. The woman was not proving as easy to manage as he’d expected, and he was beginning to lose his taste for her. The stirring in his loins had vanished completely and he had no intention of threatening what he couldn’t perform.
There was nothing wrong with him, he told himself. It was just because she wasn’t Soo. And also because she was a primitive. Men from advanced civilisations didn’t deal with animals like her.
***
The next day Robler set up the com-system to play a hologram of the battle in his chamber, setting it just outside Katia's prison so that she could watch it, too. He would enjoy seeing her despair as her people lost.
Katia could only stare helplessly through the bars and wait for the fighting to begin. As she watched dawn gilding the rocky walls of the pass in the miniature scene, Robler boasted in a low voice like that of someone consumed by fever, boasted of what he would do to Davred and Soo after the Serpent's triumph, of what he would do to Katia and to the softbellied crew of the satellite, too, if they dared threaten him again.
When the battle started, Robler began pacing up and down by the side of the holocube, watching everything that happened intently. 'What sort of a battle do you call this?' he snapped, impatient for the fighting and bloodletting to start.
'We’re using our own weapons this day,' Katia said softly, gazing with longing at the glory that was Herra. Even in the holocube image, it made your heart ache to see her. Oh, to be there helping!
For a while it seemed as if Robler was right and he cackled with laughter as he watched the confrontation, watched the Serpent rise. Then he scowled, for the primitives, with their senseless tactics of grinning and dancing and singing, didn’t crumble before Sen-Sether.
Katia needed all her self-control to watch what was happening without betraying her anguish, for she people she knew and loved were risking everything.
When Sen-Sether used pain and death to gather more strength to the Serpent's cause, Robler thumped one fist into the other. 'Ha! I knew those fools couldn’t hold out against real power.' He cheered aloud as Herra was killed and turned to smile triumphantly at Katia, who was weeping helplessly in her cell, making no attempt to hide her grief and pain.
But when Katia's face lit up with hope, Robler swung back to the image and his triumph turned to horror. 'No!' he roared, as Herra's spirit invaded Sen-Sether's body and destroyed the evil.
When the Kindred and their companions managed to win the day, silence sat like a leaden blanket over the chamber in the satellite and Robler's face was thunderous with rage and disappointment. How was it possible? How could something as powerful as the Serpent crumble before those hags?
Then the air around Katia seemed to hiss and sizzle as something crept into the chamber,
JAY The Price of Wisdom221
something that chilled the soul. It drew back from Katia, but found fertile ground in Robler, who stiffened and fell writhing to the ground as it invaded him, filled him, seized him.
Katia could only watch in horror as a darkness gathered around her captor, blanketing his bod
y. But although she released her wards, she couldn’t escape, because she could do nothing about the mechanical barriers he’d set around her. She’d used up so much of her life energy already she could sense her own weakness. Quickly she reset the wards, making them as strong as she could, hoping desperately that they’d protect her. For if they fell, she’d be helpless.
When Robler stood up a few minutes later, he turned a face contorted with more than fury upon Katia. The black shadow was there again covering his whole face now and rippling down his chest.
Only it was darker and more menacing somehow. He began to advance across the room, pulling his handgun from his pocket again.
'Well, here is one Sister who shall not survive,' he hissed, his voice strange and thick, his head swaying to and fro upon his shoulders.
Katia was quite sure death was advancing towards her. Her wards wouldn’t hold up against the handgun, any more than they’d have held up against a determined onslaught down on the planet.
Wards depended as much on the receptiveness of the people they were meant to deter as on their own integral strength. 'Brother, look down,' she murmured as she stood facing him with her head thrown back defiantly.
The com-panel in the far wall suddenly hissed and fizzled with static and a voice said, 'Calling the satellite. Confex rescue team here, Commander Geeling speaking. We've hyper-jumped into your planetary system and will be with you in a few hours.'
Robler paused as if struck dumb, his mouth working, his eyes still glazed. Strange gutteral sounds issued from his throat.
Another voice from somewhere else in the satellite broke into the system to call, 'We've received your message and shall await your arrival eagerly. There’s trouble on the satellite. Robler has been behaving irrationally for a while and now he’s abducted a primitive from the planet for his own sexual gratification. We’ve unhappily been forced into a state of open rebellion and we shall be relieved to hand over all powers to you. We shall then submit ourselves willingly to your judgment.'
With a roar of rage, Robler dropped the handgun, spun around and slammed his right hand down on the control panel. 'Exec here. I'm stuck in my quarters because the crew have run mad. They're telling you a farrago of lies.'
'He can't hide the primitive,' Lizan's voice called. 'He has her imprisoned in his quarters. She'll tell you what's been happening there.'
Katia realised that she could do something now and yelled as loudly as she could, 'Help me! I'm a prisoner of Robler.'
Her voice cut off abruptly as Robler turned off the major com-controls and diverted the call to the throat mike in his shipsuit.
'What's happening on the satellite, Robler?' Geeling demanded.
'What's happening is that the primitive is Hollunby's wife. She's gone mad from her experiences in the war that's raging down there and he sent her up here to save her. She and some other dissidents have been rebelling against the power of the Serpent, which is the main religion down there. And that fool Hollunby joined them, in defiance of all Confex regulations. I could not be more pleased that you've arrived, and will be happy to submit to your judgment. I've been trying to deal with a rebellious crew, get Davred and Soo back to the satellite, and look after this poor primitive woman, all at once.'
As Katia stared, Robler smiled across at her. The Serpent was dancing again on his forehead, his eyes seemed utterly dark and empty above those thick smiling lips.
'Do nothing further until we arrive, Robler!' Geeling commanded.
'Orders understood, sir. Looking forward to meeting you, sir.' Robler dialled a chair extrusion, sat down on it and continued to smile at Katia. He said nothing for the several hours it took for the rescue vessel to arrive, just sat there, smiling too confidently for a man facing judgment.
***
The clang of the rescue team's repair shuttle docking rang through the whole satellite. Lizan, Berin, Fran, Sim and Jarna were waiting for it in the hold, which seemed the safest place to be just then.
They all saluted as two armed figures in space gear stepped cautiously out of the transfer bubble.
'Happy to surrender to you, ma'am,' Lizan said, saluting the senior of the pair.
Tears were rolling down everyone's cheeks. For nearly two decades they’d been trapped in this satellite above this most anomalous of planets, trapped with an Exec who had grown stranger and stranger. They were wholly united in their desire to return home.
'Weapons?' demanded the lieutenant, moving forward, a stasis unit prominently in her hand.
'We have none, sir,' Lizan protested. 'Robler has them all in his quarters.'
'He moved them there a few years ago,' Jarna said. 'We've never had weapons - or wanted them.
And you're here in the nick of time. The hydroponic system's playing up and we'd have had to leave the satellite soon anyway.'
'Those systems are self-regulating. Try another excuse!'
'This one really has failed, ma'am. And the ship-systems could do nothing about it.'
'Couldn't your human engineers fix it, then?' the front figure barked. 'They're trained to improvise.'
Fran cleared her throat. 'They're down on the planet, ma'am. The last three people fled down there a few standard months ago, when Robler imprisoned Met and threatened Meera.'
'We thought we could manage to last it out here,' Lizan added, 'but Robler's gone from bad to worse lately. We've been frightened for our lives. And for the primitive's life. He used a transcap and netwaves to abduct her from the planet. She's Davred’s wife, the mother of his children, so she has a double right to Confederation protection. Robler brought her here against her will.'
The rear figure was speaking urgently into the blur of a silence zone. He nodded to someone at the other end of the com-link, turned round and said coldly, 'You are to submit yourselves to stasis hold until we've investigated the rest of the satellite.'
'Willingly.' Lizan spoke for everyone.
The lieutenant held out her hand-unit and immobilised them. The smiling expressions on their faces said the crew had not been lying about their willingness, she thought, as she studied them.
The two from the Confex rescue crew waited until a further transfer bubble had docked and they were joined by more space-suited figures. They all maintained their own internal atmospheres as they
JAY The Price of Wisdom223
made their way cautiously through the satellite towards the Exec's quarters. They weren’t taking any risks.
When they arrived in the corridor outside the command centre, the leading figure tried to open a com-channel to the Exec quarters. There was no answer. Failing that, they banged on the wall next to the door screen, sending a hollow booming sound echoing along the brightly lit corridor, with its tangle of supply pipes along one wall.
The rescue party waited. When there was no answer, the lieutenant banged on the wall again. After another wait, she said curtly, 'Slice it open. It's a standard design and there's nothing behind this wall that matters.'
Just as her colleague was about to wield a handtool, the force screen over the door vanished and Robler appeared. 'Thank heavens you're here! The primitive is ill. The crew used a stunner on her and she reacted badly to it. They must have set it too high.'
Inside the room Katia was lying on a couch-like extrusion in one corner, pale and unconscious.
The lieutenant gestured to Robler to move into the corridor, which he did, smiling slightly, while she went inside and studied Katia's unconscious body. 'We'd better get her to the medi-centre,' she said. 'Immobilise him.'
Robler opened his mouth to protest and froze in that position before he could say anything as one of the assault party aimed a stasis restraint unit at him. His expression was full of fury and spite.
'I'd bet my life he's guilty,' the lieutenant said casually as she watched the others summon up a floater, a device used on all satellites to transport material around. 'Just look at his face.'
Gently guiding the floater, they all walked out to
wards the medi-centre, leaving Robler motionless under stasis restraint near the entrance to his quarters.
In the medi-centre, Katia's body was transferred to a couch.
'Native from the planet below,' the lieutenant declared, and after a slight hesitation, removed her own helmet, though her companions still kept their own atmospheres intact, in case Robler had set traps for them. 'Please investigate her condition. I believe the natives have similar metabolisms to us.'
Within seconds the diagnosis-machine made its first report. 'Metabolism completely human. She's been given a sub-lethal dose of sleep-seron.'
They stared at one another in shock.
'How long ago?'
'Not long. A few minutes only.'
The lieutenant raised her eyebrows at her companions. 'This doesn’t coincide with Robler's statement about helping her. Fetch him here. Keep up the stasis-restraint.' She turned back to the diagnosis-machine. 'Can you help her?'
'Yes. She’s very different from other humans I've treated, though.'
'Tell me how?' They didn't want to harm the woman.
'Her body is helping itself already. And far more rapidly than one of our recovery drugs could. I am counteracting the effects to the sleep centres in the brain only, and I shall leave her to deal with her body herself.'
Even as the diagnosis-machine finished its commentary, Katia's eyes blinked open and she stared round. As she saw no sign of Robler, only a woman with her good intent showing clearly in her face and other figures in stiff clumsy garments who were making no threatening gestures, she sighed with relief and shut her eyes again, turning her attention inwards.
When she re-opened her eyes, her body was almost ready to move, but she was still unsure what these new people intended to do to her.
Before any of them could say anything, the metallic voice made its report. 'The patient has recovered now, more quickly than should be possible, according to my programming. She is in superb health, apart from severe anxiety, which she is controlling well. It is earnestly recommended that this person be studied most carefully. There have been no recorded cases of people in the Confederation in as perfect health as this.'