What a waste, a stupid waste. The Zrhel hadn’t been worth it. Now the beautiful, incomparable Ampris was crippled, ruined, and all they had worked so hard for was being destroyed with her.
“Not on the team, master?” Elrabin said softly, hoping that Halehl would explain. Inside, he was frantic, trying to think of what he could do. If Halehl was only angry at Ampris for having disobeyed him, then perhaps the situation could be salvaged. “She going into service for the Blues, going to be part of the training staff? She could be—”
“Ampris will be sold,” Halehl said.
Elrabin’s jaws parted and his ears snapped forward. “Sold?” he yipped. He felt stupid, unable to comprehend it. “Sold?”
Halehl gestured furiously. “She is crippled for life. Her career is over. Now we must recoup what we can from this disaster.” Frustration burned through his voice, then he glanced up and glared at Elrabin. “Get to your duties. Your service to Ampris is over. Let her name be mentioned no more. Go now. I have calls to make.”
Elrabin scuttled out as fast as he could, while his brain whirled in dismay. Ampris to be sold? Ampris to be gone forever? He couldn’t believe it, couldn’t accept it.
He didn’t let the door close completely behind him, but instead paused there with his ear pressed to it, listening while Halehl swore long and low to himself. Then the linkup was activated. Halehl spoke rapidly in Viis, but Elrabin recognized one thing he said: Vess Vaas.
It was the name of the research laboratory on Viisymel. Horrified, Elrabin stumbled away from the door, letting it close. He tried to imagine Ampris caged like an animal, helpless while Viis scientists conducted atrocities on her, and couldn’t. His brain would not accept the idea.
“Elrabin!”
The shout came from behind him.
Elrabin halted with his shoulders hunched. He turned around and saw Halehl standing in the office doorway. Fear shot through Elrabin, but before he could speak, Halehl pushed the transmitter that controlled his restraint collar.
Energy jolted through Elrabin’s throat, making his body arch backward. He fell to the floor, convulsing helplessly as Halehl jolted him again and again.
When the punishment finally stopped, Elrabin lay there, sobbing soundlessly with tears of pain streaming from his eyes. His body hurt all over. He could not stop trembling.
Halehl placed his foot on Elrabin, holding him down. “There is not time before our departure to use the rod,” he said in a voice as cold as space. “But you’ve made your last mistake. One more transgression, and you will be a rug on my floor. Am I understood?”
Elrabin dragged in a shuddering breath, unable to speak.
Halehl kicked him. “Am I understood?”
“Yes, master,” Elrabin whispered, weeping. He despised himself for his weakness. He wished he could fight, could attack Halehl and tear him apart.
The trainer kicked him again. “I did not hear you.”
“Yes, master!”
“You are a defiant fool,” Halehl told him angrily. “Take care, Elrabin. I will not warn you again.”
He walked back into his office and let the door snap shut behind him. Elrabin slowly levered himself to his feet, wincing in pain, and limped away.
As he walked, he shook with hatred. He crossed the conference room, then stopped, too dazed to remember what he was supposed to do.
The door to Teinth’s quarters opened, and the big gladiator stuck out his head. “What’s the word?” he asked. “You find out anything about her?”
Elrabin’s shoulders hunched. He was still trembling from head to foot. He could not answer, could not even look at Teinth.
The big Aaroun growled at him, then reached out and snagged Elrabin by the arm. “Hey! He use the rod on you? Or he just cut out your tongue?”
Elrabin stood there, seething and shocked. His fists clenched at his sides, and he drew his lips back from his teeth. Lifting his head, he looked right into Teinth’s eyes.
“Halehl is selling Ampris to a lab,” he said, his voice low and ragged. “You love her, Teinth. If I unlock the weapons case and give you a glevritar, will you murder him now?”
Teinth’s eyes widened. He said nothing.
Elrabin waited, but then he realized Teinth’s very silence was a refusal.
“I’m serious,” Elrabin said, growling.
Teinth’s ears flattened, and great sadness entered his eyes. Saying nothing else, he retreated into his quarters.
Elrabin snorted to himself, baring his fangs, and stared around at the deserted conference room. He could knock on the doors of the other fighters, but the answer would be the same. Elrabin took a couple of steps toward the storage bins, trying to make himself follow Halehl’s orders. Forget her, he told himself savagely. She’s history. She’s gone. She had it good, and she ruined her own life.
He jerked open a bin, letting the contents spill at his feet. She would be replaced soon enough, and he would be assigned to serve the replacement. He’d do a good job. He’d adapt like he always did. He’d go on sneaking his bets in and hiding his slowly accumulating fortune. It wasn’t enough yet, for his purposes, but he was getting there. Sure, he could go on, the way he always had.
Elrabin’s vision suddenly blurred, and he pressed his hands to his eyes. He could hear himself keening silently. Again and again, images of Ampris flashed through his mind. Her grace and athleticism as she bounded and attacked in the arena. Her well-modulated voice stumbling over some archaic Kelth phrase as she strove to teach herself the language of his ancestors. The radiant flash of her smile. The sweep of her long lashes over the keen intelligence in her dark brown eyes. The innate kindness as she stopped what she was doing to speak a word of encouragement to Okal after he was punished for using his own remedies on her hurts.
Lowering his hands from his face, Elrabin tilted his head back and shuddered. She was the best friend he’d ever had, the only true friend he’d had. Always before, he’d linked up with folks that betrayed him, but not Ampris. Her heart was true. She didn’t lie. She didn’t betray. A promise was a bond to her. So what if she was crazy with idealism? She didn’t deserve to be thrown away like this, abandoned, with no one to help her.
It had been good here, too good. He got regular meals. He had easy work. But the good life was over.
Elrabin knew he couldn’t go on being a hypocrite, living with the Blues, wearing the restraint collar like a good little Kelth, eating decent food and enjoying luxuries while Ampris lived in a cage.
Something inside him snapped, the way it had when he was just a young lit and one day had walked out of his tenement house, never to see his mother and siblings again. Elrabin turned and left the conference room. He did not get out the gear bags. He did not tell the fighters to prepare themselves for departure. He went through a small hatch into the cramped storage area, shoving aside extra gear bags and weapons cases, to uncover the ventilation grille that he had loosened earlier.
Only then did he stop, feeling his momentary courage fail him. How did he think he was going to get away? How was he going to get rid of this restraint collar?
Then he shook away his cowardice and told himself to start thinking. He couldn’t just cut the collar off, for it was rigged to fatally electrocute the wearer if broken or tampered with. No, he would have to find someone who knew how to remove it safely. So what? It wasn’t the first time he’d found a way to evade detection. He’d manage somehow.
Once he lost the collar, the space station would be an easy place to hide himself in. People came and went constantly. He figured he could tag along as just another slave in someone’s retinue in order to stow away aboard a planet-bound shuttle.
Of course, once he ran away, he would be labeled a fugitive slave, with a price on his head for the bounty hunters. Halehl probably would not pay for his recovery, finding it simply cheaper to replace him. In that case, Elrabin would be marked for shooting on sight. He shuddered, but he pushed open the grille and climbed inside. He was tir
ed of being a coward, or maybe he was just becoming a fool. Either way, no matter what it took, or how long it took, somehow he would find a way to help Ampris.
The painkillers wore off during the flight from Shrazhak Ohr to Viisymel. Curled inside a cargo pod with cold food and stale water, Ampris gritted her teeth and tried to endure the throbbing agony in her left leg. The medics had patched up her other injuries, and they no longer troubled her. But her leg was a crippled, drawn thing, healing crooked.
Being jolted around in transit inside the windowless pod was agonizing. Ampris suffered, but she also forced herself to stretch and exercise the leg, gritting her teeth as she kept flexing it, trying to prevent it from healing stiff and useless.
No one had told her anything. Halehl had not come back to the infirmary, nor had Elrabin, nor the rest of her teammates. She understood she had been sold, although no one on the infirmary staff would answer her questions. Clamped into restraints, she had been loaded into the cargo pod and shipped.
Ampris suspected where she was going. Would the scientist Ehssk still pay a million credits for a crippled Aaroun? Her genes were not crippled, so perhaps she was still worth something.
She could not bear to think about going to the research laboratory, however. Each time it entered her mind, fear burned sour in her mouth and she wanted to howl.
So she sang to herself the old Aaroun prayer-songs she had learned. She recited the old legends. She talked to herself, and slept, and stretched her aching leg, trying not to be afraid.
When she made planetfall, she was shipped far into the barren plains of Viisymel, all the way out to a dusty provincial town called Lazmairehl, then onward a few more klicks to a cheaply constructed installation of rectangular, flat-roofed buildings at the base of a jagged mountain range. A road curved away into the distance, but no other evidence of civilization could be seen.
Ampris stood on the landing dock, her fur ruffled by the blowing wind, and stared at the desolate scenery. The air smelled of dust. She saw no vegetation growing and wondered if this was one of the blighted regions of Viisymel so ruined, poisoned, and exploited in past centuries that it was now considered uninhabitable.
The sign in Viis characters over the top of the largest building said Vess Vaas Research Laboratory.
Ampris backed her ears and shuddered in fear. It was true, then. She had reached the bottom. Try as she might, she could not imagine a worse fate than to be condemned to this place.
Toth handlers came with charged nooses attached to poles. Fitting the nooses around her neck, they shoved her forward, faster than her crippled leg could go. Ampris fell in the dust, and they bellowed curses at her, dragging her upright and nearly choking her in the process.
With her arms bound by restraint cables, she could not protect or defend herself. Choking and crying out, she limped forward, staggering in pain.
Viis lab technicians in white smocks stood just inside the double air locks to witness her arrival.
“Careful with her!” one of them said sharply to the Toths. “Take her to Section B, the cage at the end. No, don’t choke her, you fools!”
The tech jerked at one of the poles, berating the Toths until they stood with their massive heads lowered, flicking their long ears back and forth in puzzlement. One of them ran his thick tongue up into his broad nostrils and grunted.
“Go on,” the tech ordered in annoyance.
Ampris was too tired and frightened to even snarl. She limped down a bare corridor that stank of chemicals, urine, and fear.
Through another set of sealed doors, she found herself being led past row after row of cages. On one side they were small and stacked atop each other, containing numerous small animals, reptiles, rodents, and birds. These creatures screeched in panic at the sight of the Toths, and hurled themselves at the wire sides of their cages.
On the other side, the cages were quite large, the size of small security cells. They contained mostly Kelths, a pair of Samparese who paced in perpetual restlessness, a single Phivean, and a few Myals. Ampris seemed to be the only Aaroun, and she felt very alone.
Disheartened, she was suffering too much to give the Toths any trouble as they yanked the nooses off her and shoved her into a large cage in the corner. A small white sign was fastened to the door. The Viis letters said EHSSK PROJECT 1. It was located at the very end of the row, with a solid wall on one side and the wire fence of her cage on the other. The back wall had a heavy metal door. She tried it, but it was locked.
Her neighbor was a Myal female who had pulled out her entire mane and most of her fur. Crouched in one corner, the Myal held her tail in her hands and twisted it one way and then the other, over and over, endlessly. Now and then she mumbled something to herself, but her eyes were quite insane.
Ampris’s fear returned. Panting, she limped around her cage once, taking note of the suspended shelf that clearly served as both chair and bed. The floor had a drain set in its center and was covered with straw that rustled beneath her feet. Ampris backed her ears, sniffing a mixture of unpleasant odors, and knew the cages were not cleaned often enough.
Despair washed over her in a flood, and she lowered herself awkwardly to the shelf, massaging her aching leg with her hands. She was not sure she had the courage to cope with this place of horrors.
“Welcome to Vess Vaas, Ampris,” said a Viis voice.
Startled, Ampris looked up and saw a green-skinned Viis male standing by the door to her cage. His rill was standing behind his head in excitement. His green eyes gleamed at her. Flicking out his tongue, he rubbed his slender hands together.
Ampris wondered if she was expected to rise to her feet and bow to this individual. She hurt too much. She did not move.
The gleam in his eyes only brightened. “Aha, that defiant spirit, that fire in you remains. Excellent. Excellent. I have great hopes for you, Ampris. You are the epitome of your species. Strong, well-proportioned, intelligent, beautiful, ferocious, yet gentle. So many qualities. So many possibilities. Excellent.”
Ampris felt the fur around her neck bristling up. She did not know who this Viis was, but she did not like him. There was a smell of evil upon him. Despite his praise, she felt soiled by what he had said.
“Who are you?” she asked rudely.
Unlike most Viis of his rank, he seemed uninsulted by her bold question. “I am Ehssk, director of this facility.”
Ampris snarled and rose to her feet, backing awkwardly away from him.
He seemed not to care about her reaction. Instead he stared at her injured leg. “Are you in pain, Ampris? They did a hasty job on you, didn’t they? Pity. Still, it won’t interfere with my experiments. We’ll start tomorrow, drawing blood and tissue samples. Should those align with the preindications of my latest theories, then we’ll be able to begin on the actual experimentation without delay.”
Ampris did not want to ask, but she could not hold back the question. “What will you do to me?”
He rubbed his hands together briskly, almost laughing. “At last, at last,” he said jubilantly. “This time I am so close to the solution. Every instinct tells me so. And you, Ampris, are going to help me reach that solution. You will help my name land on the scrolls of history. Together, we will save my people from the Dancing Death.”
Ampris said nothing. Right then she wished the Dancing Death would come and smite him where he stood. She glared at him, envisioning how he would look, shaking from head to foot with ague, his skin turning a dreadful color, his eyes filming white as the plague destroyed his nervous system. Oh, yes, she would rejoice to see him die.
Ehssk puffed out his air sacs. “Well, you are a magnificent specimen. I realize you can’t follow what I’m talking about. You will probably never understand your contribution to science, but you should be honored at having been selected.”
Narrowing her eyes, Ampris bared her fangs and snarled at him. If he thought her nothing but a stupid animal without intelligence or education, she saw no reason to inform
him differently.
Making a satisfied sound in his throat, Ehssk smiled at her again and left as abruptly as he had come.
Ampris glared after him, and was still growling even when he was long gone. She paced back and forth, snarling and slamming her hand against the wire front of her cage, until her aching leg drove her back to the shelf to rest.
At the end of the room, a door slammed. Again the animals shrieked and hurled themselves around their cages. Ampris listened to the echoing approach of footsteps. The smell of food made her nostrils wrinkle. Synthetic meat globes . . . revulsion filled her.
Although the other abiru prisoners stood at the front of their cages, acting eager to receive their meal, Ampris remained seated. She could see a Kelth male wrapped in a dingy smock. He pushed a wheeled cart filled with large, covered tubs and stacks of metal bowls.
Ampris could not help but think of how only a few days ago she was being served an exquisite, nourishing dinner on pretty ware by her own personal servant. Then she dammed away those memories, knowing that if she did not it would be unbearable.
“Niruo!” wailed a voice from down the row. “You damned nolo! You shorted me again!”
The Kelth rolled his eyes back slyly but didn’t answer. He stopped his food cart in front of the insane Myal’s cage and rapped loudly on the wire. “Lua!” he said, his voice shrill and cruel. “Come and get your bowl.”
The Myal female ignored him, rocking herself from side to side and twisting her tail in her hands.
“Lua!” Niruo called cajolingly. “Come and get your bowl. If you don’t come, you’ll be hungry.”
With growing annoyance, Ampris watched him continue to tease the unresponsive Myal. “Hey,” she said at last. “Give her the food and get on with your work.”
“Ooh,” Niruo said, turning on her with his teeth bared. She noticed that several were missing, and the rest were yellow and rotting. He smelled like a dust addict, and she backed her ears in revulsion.
The Crimson Claw Page 28