The Admiral glanced at Dr. Hael Sejm. "Is there any pain?"
"A tremendous amount," Hael acknowledged.
Drae Cree's jaw tightened, but he didn't comment on her answer. Instead, he returned his attention to the man lying spread-eagled on the treatment table.
"He's going into Stage One now," Onar informed them a split second before the computer announced it.
CREE STRUGGLED against the ropes wound around his wrists. He was lying on top of a vast expanse of barren rock, tied hand and foot to a jagged plateau whose jutting points were gouging into his bare back. He stared up at the blazing overhead dual suns beating down on him with merciless brilliance and licked at his dry lips, wanting water so badly. Not that he was hot, he thought, confused by the sensation of frigid cold that was washing over him. If anything, he was freezing beneath those fiercely shining orbs.
The cold was pressing down on him, growing in weight, pushing the air from his lungs and denying him the ability to draw fresh air into his body. He felt sick, his belly cramping him and he wondered if that was caused by the lack of food in his gut or the foul tasting water he'd been forced to drink before Drewe had tied him to the rock out here in this barren wasteland of fire and ice.
"Hold on, beloved. I will save you," she said, but he could not see her.
"Why did you go to him? Bridget, why?" But she did not answer.
Off in the distance, something wicked moved steadily toward him. The faceless being had claws that scratched against the rocks as it crept stealthily upward. Even the smell, rivaling the vile stench of his own unwashed body, reached his nostrils and made his eyes water with the godsawful stink of the encroaching beast.
"He is jealous of you, beloved," she warned Cree. "He will kill me if he finds out I have come to you."
"Why didn't you stay with me?" he asked. I could have protected you."
"Stage One complete."
"Remove the wedge," the doctor ordered.
The shadow spread over him and Cree squinted to see the face of the being hovering over him. With a sigh of relief, he realized it was Drewe, and although the man didn't speak, Cree knew the thoughts running through Lona's mind: "I hate you, Cree. I have always hated you and now, I am going to rid the elite of our traitor!"
"I didn't betray you!" Cree heard himself deny.
Hael risked a look at the Admiral and saw that he was listening intently to the voice coming to them over the Vid-Com.
"I am a reaper. I am no traitor!"
Drewe hunkered down beside him and the young lieutenant's face became clear beneath the halo of sunlight framing his head. "You aided the resistance. For that you have to pay."
Cree shook his head as best he could. "No, I did not. I have never had contact with the resistance. I am a reaper. I would not dare disobey the empire."
The Admiral smiled. "Even under such torture, he knows where his obligations lie," he said proudly.
"You have not only disobeyed the empire, you have turned on it," Drewe challenged. "You have gone over to the resistance."
"No!" Cree shouted. The heat of shame was so powerful it was stripping the very flesh from his bones. I am a reaper! I am honor-bound to do my duty as the empire has decreed it!"
"You are nothing," Drewe laughed at him, placing the razor-sharp blade of his ceremonial dagger to Cree's jugular. "You are filth beneath the boot heels of the empire, traitor!"
"I am a reaper!" Cree bellowed. "I will uphold and defend the purpose of the empire. I will protect and defend the person of the empire. I will..."
"You have betrayed your masters, Kamerone Cree!" Drewe snarled, pressing the blade against his flesh. "You did what you did, against the wishes of the Empire."
"I will put aside all personal desires for the good of the empire."
"Not only did you disobey, you fought against the therapy that was ordered as your punishment, didn't you, Cree?"
"I will allow any and all constraints to be placed upon me as seen fit by the Empire!"
The dagger at his throat drew blood as the lieutenant pressed down on it. "You were afraid of what the behavioral modification might do to you, weren't you, Cree? You didn't know if you were man enough, warrior enough, to withstand it. Isn't that true?"
"I will not allow fear of torture or death to deter my objective to promote the welfare of the empire!"
Hael frowned as she listened to Cree's repetition of the Reaper's oath of Allegiance pouring out of the Vid-com.
"You were trying to help the resistance, weren't you, Cree? Trying to help them win in their evil war against your masters?"
"I will place the good of the Empire before any and all family and friends. I will obediently follow the commands I am given at the discretion of my commanding officers."
"You were afraid," Drewe cooed to him as he dug the dagger deeper into Cree's flesh. "You were scared shitless to come to this room, weren't you, Cree? The thought of being tortured nearly drove you mad, didn't it?"
"I will obey the directives of the Empire without regard to my personal safety."
"You turned on us, Cree," Drewe accused. "You turned on us and joined the Resistance. You have harmed the Empire!"
"I will destroy any and all who take arms against the Empire! It is my duty to protect the person of the Empire!"
He was cold. So very, very cold, and yet he was being burned alive, his skin sloughing off as it split and crackled. He was choking, his throat tightening with the rope. He was falling, through barren space and limitless darkness, thirsty and hungry, dying of disease and the poisons that raced through his system. He was being crushed, suffocated beneath the onslaught of guilt electrocuting his mind with currents of accusation from the only friend he had ever known. He was being accused by a man he had trusted, respected.
"Where are you, Bridget? Why aren't you here? Why have you fallen silent? I need you!"
"You are guilty, Cree," Drewe declared. "You failed and Reapers do not fail, do they, Cree?"
"No" he shouted, jerking his arms free of the ropes. He put his hand on the dagger at his throat. "Reapers do not fail!"
"What will you do then, Cree?" Drewe asked. "What will you do to atone for your many sins against the Empire? To assure them you are not a traitor to our cause. To insure them you will not fail again?"
Hael sat forward in her chair, sensing the moment of reckoning for the Admiral had tensed, his hands on the siliplex, fingers splayed out as he watched the scene unfolding below. "Say it, Kamerone," she heard the Admiral whisper. "Say it!"
"I am a Reaper. I can not fail!"
"Then what must you do, Cree?" Drewe demanded. "What must you be prepared to do to show the Empire you are loyal to them?"
"Where are you, Bridget? Why won't you answer me? Beloved, please!"
"What must you do, Cree? What must you do? What must you do? What must you do?"
Cree clutched the dagger tightly and in a voice that was filled with fierce, brutal assurance, he shouted out the last line of the reaper's oath of allegiance he had taken many years before:
"I will give my life for the Empire!"
He dragged the knife across his own throat and blood gushed over him and his tormentor. His life's blood pulsed out of him, spraying the rocks, geysers pumping into the air in scarlet waves of purification.
"I am a Reaper!" He confirmed as he began to choke to death on his own blood. "I will die a Reaper!"
Admiral Drae Cree exhaled a long sigh of relief. He let his head rest momentarily against the glass.
"The therapy worked," Onar proclaimed.
Hael turned her attention from the man who had donated his seed to create this new breed of warrior and stared at Bridget Dunne. The girl's face was pale. Knowing the Terran woman had never heard the Reaper's Oath before, she couldn't help wondering what Bridget thought of such blind obedience. From the look in the young woman's green eyes, she did not think Bridie was as much impressed as she was revolted."Dr. Dunne?" she questioned.
B
ridget seemed to shake herself and her gaze slid slowly from the man being unshackled on the treatment table to Dr. Sejm.
"You will accompany me to Dr. Dean's office," Hael Sejm requested and at Bridget's silent nod, Hael bid the Justices and the Admiral a good day. Preceding Bridget from the gallery, she did not once look back at the man upon whom they had pinned all their hopes.
Dr. Dean was watching the monitor when Hael and Bridget entered her office. "He is back in his cell," she announced.
"Are his vital signs stable?" Bridget asked.
"Yes," the Director confirmed. "There will be no side effects. Perhaps a sore throat and fever, but those are natural occurrences with the artificial neurotransmitters as you both know."
"How long do you think it will be before he'll send for her?" Hael asked.
"There's no way of telling," the Director replied, drawing Bridget's worried look to her. "Kamerone's conditioning will reassert itself now and he will go back to being the way he was before the treatment. Perhaps with even more commitment."
"But if the sublims took..."
"They took," Dr. Dean stressed. "He will not be able to get Bridget out of his mind. He will eventually send for her. He won't be able to stop himself. The obsession will build until he will have to do something about it."
"God help me," Bridget whispered. She leaned forward and buried her face in her hands.
Hael and Beryla exchanged a look. Their hopes, and the hopes of the Resistance, were not only resting on Kamerone Cree's wide shoulders, they were resting on the fragile— and unpredictable— shoulders of a young Terran woman.
Chapter 7
SYMPATHY, Hael Sejm thought as she walked down the corridor between the medical and science wings of FSK-14, was the most effective means by which an individual untouched by the psychological restraints of behavioral control could be reinforced. Conversely, a reassuring smile, a kind word, a gentle touch, could be devastating to the psyche of a man who had never been allowed to experience visual, verbal, or physical support during times of hardship. Such stimulus was capable of instigating a chain reaction within that deprived man's soul that would create a burning need to re-experience, to recreate the sensation the smile, the kind word, the touch could bring to a mind tumbling with turmoil. If sympathy were given at the precise moment an individual's resistance was at its lowest ebb, the reinforcement would be assimilated, embedded, remembered. And like any addiction— either physical or psychological— the need to experience that smile, that kind word, and that touch would remain. That, Hael knew, was human nature and all the external and internal catalysts ever applied would not be able to dislodge the need from the subconscious. It was there to stay.
Turning down the long corridor marked Defense Unit, she called to mind the face of the woman she and Beryla had chosen to be their catalyst in the plan to bring Kamerone Cree to the Resistance. Neither of them doubted Bridget Dunne would succeed at the task that had been given her. The young doctor had all the qualities needed and a few that were absolutely vital. Compassion was just such a quality and Hael had seen it in abundance in the young woman's face when Cree had been reciting the Reaper's Oath.
"You have to understand, Bridget," Beryla had explained many months before all this began, "this warrior is quite different from any of the young men with whom you have had contact since being brought to FSK-14. This man has been conditioned since he was a toddler. From the moment he was born, he spent the next seven years of his life in a nursery operated by cybots. His mother never held him, never nursed him, or sang lullabies to him. His first encounter with humans was on the day he was brought to the Ministry of Indoctrination and began his training as an Elite. You cannot begin to understand the harsh conditions under which he was instructed. Severe mental and physical abuse are mandatory in order to make the warrior strong, invincible, emotionless."
"But he was just a child!" Bridget had protested, her eyes filling with tears.
"You must remember," Heal had injected, "he wasn't a human child."
Bridget had rounded on the Director. "What difference does that make? He was a child and no child should be treated like that!"
Yes, Hael thought as she went into her office: Sympathy had to be the most important part in the seduction of Kamerone Cree. And the most powerful form of sympathy, the most empathetic form, had to be love.
"Not that Drae's son is capable of either conceiving or giving love," Hael scoffed as she opened a desk drawer and took out a bottle of Chalean brandy. Pouring herself a glass of the fiery brew, she settled back in her chair, put her feet up, and sipped the potent liquor. It burned a calming pathway down her throat and spread like gentle wildfire in her belly.
Love, she knew, reinforced the ego and its pleasures. The emotional manifestation, of course, was happiness, peace, a sense of belonging. The physical manifestation was sex. Sex— was an instant gratification of the body— had been used for eons as a source of control; as a potent reward for a job well done; as a means of getting what one might not have gotten otherwise. It was power and pleasure combined.
But it could also be punishment.
Hael frowned and took a long swallow of the fiery brandy. She knew all too well the punishing aspect of sex. Had she not been taken by a raiding party of Rysalian warriors and brought to this godsforsaken hunk of metal orbiting Rysalia Prime? Had she not been raped, impregnated by an Elite then abandoned to her fate? Was not the child taken from her at the moment of its birth, never to be held or nursed or have lullabies sung to him to calm his fears?
Hael Sejm had been born in the Chalean Highlands. She had dreamed of becoming a scientist; of marrying her childhood sweetheart, Sean Ruhl; of bearing many healthy sons and lovely daughters to fill their home with laughter and joy; of growing old with Sean. The abduction had destroyed her dreams and made Hael Sejm a bitter, vengeful woman: A woman obsessed with destroying the Rysalian Empire and the men who had brutalized her and all the other helpless women imprisoned by the Rysalians.
"You are our only hope, Bridget," she said. "He has fallen into the trap, now we must close it around him so he cannot escape."
Hael tossed back the remainder of her brandy and poured another glass. Brooding, she laid her head along her chair and stared at the ceiling.
"Sex," Admiral Drae Cree often quoted from one of his Academy classes, "empowers the male and reinforces his belief in his manhood. Sex enslaves a woman and reinforces her identity as a female."
"Crap," Hael snorted.
One of the most effective ways the Empire had of controlling its warriors was through the use of sex. The Ministries made it readily available to their male population. Sex was a reward for a job well done. Sex was a stress reliever after a long mission. Sex was physical relief without emotion for ninety percent of the Elite caste. Consequently, to Hael's way of thinking, sex was meaningless.
"Meaningless crap," she said, her voice slightly slurred.
That was why men like Kamerone Cree shunned having female companions. Why buy the cow when you can have the milk for free? Sex to a Reaper was a strictly impersonal act without emotion, without true enjoyment, without purpose; something to be done to relieve the stress in between Transition cycles.
"Meaningless and worthless crap," Hael mumbled.
She closed her eyes and the empty glass in her hand slipped out of her fingers and hit the floor, rolled along the lush Ionarian carpet.
"We have you, Cree," she whispered. "And I promise you, you will not escape!"
CREE CAME awake feeling as though he had been pushed rudely from a nightmare. He sat up and looked about him for whatever had torn him from his sleep. His heart was pounding, his palms wet as he ran them down his sheet. His groin was tight, his testicles drawn up as though danger had been right at his bedside. When he found himself alone in the semi-dark room, he laid back down, trying to understand what had alarmed him. The silence was threatening, encroaching, and he felt anxious about the stillness surrounding him. It made him
nervous.
"Lights on," he instructed the Vid-Com.
The lights came up slowly and with them, the gentle sound of rain. The rain had been programmed into the lighting system by one of Cree's Controllers. The soothing sound was meant to calm him when he was distressed and there must have been something in his voice that registered that emotion. Closing his eyes, he tried to concentrate on the rhythm of the rain as he had been taught, knowing there were subliminal messages hidden beneath the soft patter of the falling water: messages meant to decelerate his heartbeat and allay his fears.
He ran a hand through his night-tousled hair and looked down at the black edged paper on his night table. His transportation to Helios Twelve was going to be delayed awhile due to solar storms in that quadrant. The thought of having to spend time in that hellish place flickered across his mind and he wondered if perhaps that was not what had brought on his anxiety.
"Captain Cree?" The Vid-Com's pleasant rain faded into the background as the computer's female voice intruded softly.
"Aye?" he replied.
"You have a visitor, Sir," the Vid-Com informed him. "Lieutenant Drewe Lona."
A dark frown creased Cree's face. Normally he would not be displeased to have Drewe come calling, but inexplicably, he felt threatened by Lona's presence at his door this time. He stared at the Vid-Com, trying to decide if he wanted to send the young man away or not.
"Captain?" the Vid-Com pressed. "Shall I admit him, Sir?"
Sighing heavily, Cree swung his legs off the bed. "Aye." He went into the toilet area of his suite.
Drewe was standing in the living area when Cree came out a few minutes later. There was a hesitant, unsure smile on the young man's face. "Are you all right?"
"Why wouldn't I be?" came the snarled reply.
Reapers in general— Cree in particular— did not like to be questioned, especially by men they considered far beneath them in status. Drewe ducked his head, embarrassed by his blunder. "Forgive me, Sir, but it's just that you were in the Be-Mod Unit so long I was beginning to worry."
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