by P. N. Elrod
“It must be the officer’s lounge,” she said.
“Decadence at last,” Farron sighed and made straight for a long wall of food dispensers. He punched hopefully at their buttons, but nothing happened. He punched again; the panels remained dark, the servers empty. Slamming a hand against the unit in frustration, he dropped into a chair, finally overcome with dejection and fatigue. Even his cough sounded disappointed and depressed.
Kella smothered her own black feelings.
She needed to catch her breath, look around, and think what to do next. Perhaps a trip back to the reactor section—the map would provide another way in. If others were around, they’d be there, but she was in no shape to deal with them. She needed water, food, and . . . a year’s rest in a revive unit.
She unfastened her now painful boots, easing them off. Despite the padding of the dead guard’s socks she had blisters. She spied a basic aid box clamped to a wall and limped over, pulling it down.
As she hoped, the supplies inside offered a temporary fix. She passed over the tech items, found antiseptic spray and made use of it. The stuff was cold, but numbed things nicely.
She looked at Farron and felt an unfamiliar twinge. What the hell was that? Oh. Sympathy. For him. He was in worse condition, his prison scuffs worn through and bloodied. He’d not complained about it, though.
She went to him, setting the aid box on his table. He looked at it with no comprehension.
“Off,” she said, pointing at the remains of his scuffs.
He obeyed, staring. She sprayed his damage.
Farron wiggled his toes, sighing. He had damned ugly feet, pale, with long, knobby toes, tufts of hair sprouting on the big ones. For some reason that amused her.
“Thank you,” he said.
She nodded back, experiencing another twinge. Connective emotions like sympathy and gratitude could get you killed. They were to be exploited in others, but one should never get caught in their trap.
Farron pawed through the box. “No protein packs, no water. You’d think they’d put those in.”
Given this venue, there was no need for either. Plenty of food and drink were available, when the power was on.
He tore open a cleansing pack and ran the wipe over his face and hands. “Some useful stuff here, though,” he added.
She walked away to end the exchange.
I was not being kind. I did that to keep him functioning.
She abruptly forgot Farron at the sight of a control node on the other side of the room. She padded to it, the floor warm under her bare feet. Had minimal heating been left on when they closed this place or did it mean others had activated things? If the latter, how long before they noticed two intruders? She’d have to keep moving.
But the prospect of obtaining food outweighed the risk.
The labels on the node were intact; she had only to enter a basic security crack to turn on the power for the dispensers and eat. She knew dozens of them—
Cold sweat ran down her flanks, and her hands shook as they hovered over the buttons. Her too-busy mind stalled.
What did they do to me?
She had to turn away or be sick.
Damn them. Damn them for this.
She quit the node, found a chair, and sat. Weariness replaced the panic. Sleep might help, but she didn’t dare. The aid box had stim patches. One of those would sort her out.
Farron stood over her with some kind of med device in hand. She’d been so far gone as to not notice. That was dangerous. She had to pay attention, dammit. He knelt in front of her, cupping one of her heels. She jerked, resisting the reflex to kick.
“Easy now, sorry for the cold hands. Just trying to help.”
She stared, forcing herself to hold still as he lifted her foot. He had an auto-healer and waved it close over her blisters.
“Feel anything?”
“No, rack up the power.”
He smiled and made a smaller adjustment. “That’s a beginner’s mistake, putting these things on full. Have to work your way up slow or cause even worse damage.”
The healer put out a barely audible hum, and he tried again. First it tickled, then burned.
“Ow.”
He yanked the device away. “Too much. Let’s try this level. . .how’s that?”
“Itchy.”
“Just right, then. Hang on. . .”
Her damage itched madly as the thing stimulated the nanos in her blood to focus on specific spots. Evidently enough were still left to respond.
He worked quietly, gently. It struck her that this was somehow a far more intimate contact than when she’d huddled against him during the eclipse. Of course, he’d been dozy from tranqs then.
“You’re a good woman, Kella,” he murmured.
“No, I’m not.” Too late, she hadn’t meant to say that aloud.
“Bother that. I know you’re doing your best. I’m grateful you saved me. Maybe I can pay you back somehow.”
“Count on it.”
“We should rest here a bit.”
“Sleep’s for the dead.”
He snorted, working on her other foot. “That’s what I like about you, always such cheery company.”
You can’t like me. I will use that against you. This time she refrained from vocalizing.
But why even think a warning? That was not normal for her.
He’d formed an attachment to the outward shell she projected. It’s what humans did automatically, a survival mechanism so groups could function and work together.
She balled both hands into fists.
Farron paused. “Did that hurt?”
“It’s fine. Keep going.”
She wanted him finished so she could put space between them. This level of physical proximity might encourage him to ask questions she couldn’t answer, and, by not answering, undermine the illusion of command she’d taken onto herself. If he once realized just how dependent she was upon him, that it wasn’t the other way around, then he might not be so cooperative. She needed his cooperation, his—she regarded the word with distaste—trust.
That’s a good one for you, Kella. Needing trust when you can’t give it. She had never before been troubled by that particular facet of human behavior. Its lack had helped her to survive this long, but until now she’d been supremely self-sufficient.
Was still self-sufficient. They may have jumbled some of her neurons, but the rest of her could get around it.
“Done,” he said. “Looks like new. How’s it feel?”
“Better.” She remembered to add: “Thank you.”
She got up before he could pass the auto-healer to her.
“There’s some useful stuff here,” he repeated as she walked away.
“Then use it.”
Glad to be clear of the contact, she resumed exploration, checking a corridor that led to a series of private quarters. It was definitely officer country. Though stripped of personal effects, basic furnishings remained. If they had to starve to death at least it would be in comfortable surroundings.
Kella located a washroom and found the water running, which was something to celebrate. She gulped greedily from the tap, then cautiously shifted the lever, hardly daring to hope. . .yes, it grew warm, then hot. She splashed her face and neck, ducking her head in and scrubbing her scalp, reveling in the luxury of abundance and time. In the name of water conservation, Riganth allowed each prisoner a fifteen second spray in the icy showers for daily cleaning. The doped population never complained about the wet-animal smell, but some of the more sensitive guards wore filter masks.
She stopped the water and regarded the gaunt and wary face looking out from the mirror. It was less of a shock than anticipated, since she’d roughly gauged her own appearance from Farron’s. Neither had had the benefit of grooming supplies. Prisoners were rotated every twenty days to have their heads shaved and beards (if any) removed. Her dark hair was shorter than she preferred, with a few premature gray strands at her temples and along her brow
; there were new lines and deep circles under her eyes and a harder set to her expression—nothing unexpected after what she’d been through.
Farron called to her, fairly bellowed.
She rushed back, thinking that they’d been found, but his tone was excited, happy.
He’d gotten a panel open on one of the food dispensers. His face was coated with transparent goo.
“Come on,” he urged. He dipped a hand into the guts of the machine. “There’s plenty.” He sucked the stuff down with gusto.
“Raw nutrient gel?”
“There’s no taste to it, but it’s food.”
She’d wash the mess off later. There was a primitive joy to dipping both hands into the stuff and eating all she wanted. It had a chemical bite, faint, not enough to put her off. Perhaps they could get a prep machine going. It would turn the taste-neutral gel into something palatable, injecting flavor, form, and texture, heating or chilling to order.
Farron abruptly turned away. Coughing. He took longer to recover, and did not resume feasting. She tried to make out his coloring, but the light was too low. No matter. He did not look well.
She paused. “We should go easy on this stuff. We could deplete the tanks in one go.”
“Not a bit of it, I checked. They’re full up or nearly so, there’s enough to last us for years.”
“Dismal prospect.”
“You’re right, what we need now is some friendly company. The next lady that comes in will have her golden opportunity with me, providing she’s pretty. On second thought, I don’t care what she looks like.”
“Let’s hope she feels the same about you.”
Yes, the suppression drugs were losing their influence if he was thinking that way again, unless it was force of habit. Farron loved his physical pleasures, she recalled. It amused Kella to know that he still regarded her as a work companion and nothing more. Not, she sensed, that either of them wanted more. Neither appealed to the other in that way and both were content with the arrangement.
He’d been a civilian tech on board at the wrong time when a System dreadnaught caught up with their ship and turned half the crew into freeze-dried corpses on the first attack. With the bridge fragged and internal communications gone, no organized defense had been possible. The survivors had been easily mopped up by a boarding party. Kella tried to escape; she’d modified all the shuttle pods with special coding for just such an emergency. If activated, any one of them would have enough shielding to sneak her safely past the dreadnaught’s sensors, but she never got a chance to run. She’d taken a knock on the head that had flattened her for hours, waking up in the infirmary with the other wounded long after the fuss was over.
There’d been initial questioning and her current cover had not been good enough. The ship’s computer picked up something on her ident chip and tagged her for special interrogation, which meant immediate transport to Riganth Prison. Farron, too, along with half a dozen others that the computer hadn’t liked.
And what had happened to them? Dead or drugged to the eyeballs and past caring, she thought. It didn’t matter now. Whatever information they’d possessed had been scraped from their heads long ago. The only relief she had about her own unwilling betrayal was that much of her data had been obsolete. Had the attack come a week later when she’d been scheduled by her cell for a new assignment. . .
Kella finished off another handful of gel and felt full. The stuff was concentrated in this form; it didn’t take much.
“Why didn’t you activate it?” Farron asked. Recovered from his bout, he settled in across from her for a second helping.
“Activate what?”
“You found the power node; what was so important to keep you from faking your way in and starting things up?” He seemed to take for granted she’d know how, but then anyone above drone level knew a few hacking tricks.
Aside from the fact that she no longer knew how and had panic attacks if she tried? “Nothing, I was too tired to think.”
“That must have been a first for you. I’d about given up. Good thing I took a direct route.”
“Yes, I’m delirious with joy.”
“How’d you get so damp?”
“The water’s running. It’s even hot.”
“Brilliant. I’ll have a drink and you can figure out how to get us some real food.”
“I’m bathing.”
“Right, s’wonderful thought, I’ll join you.”
She gave him a look.
He choked on his latest swallow. “Uh—I mean—just leave some for my turn.”
“Gladly.”
He eventually hobbled toward the washroom. Kella remained, and found herself glaring at the control node.
The System interrogators at Riganth had ended the more obvious and painful forms of questioning months ago. When she’d physically recovered, they switched to subtler experiments that robbed her of sleep and left blank patches in her memory. On the last occasion it had taken her a full morning of concentrated and miserable effort before she remembered how to pull on her clothes. At the time it seemed unimportant, but when the drug-induced chaos in her head cleared, the implications of the lapse frightened her as few other things could. For all that she was more or less intact, meaning that the System had a use for her, favoring that over a clean execution. It might have been better to have been killed instead of captured.
But whatever they’d planned had been cut short by the prison break. As she dodged through the confusion and fighting, searching for an exit leading to sky, she’d picked out the familiar face and form of Farron among the drug-dazed inmates. His usefulness balanced his liabilities; she grabbed his arm and led him unresisting through the melee and into the wastes.
Providing he was still willing to be led, it had been a good decision; she needed his hands and undamaged mind to manage the technical problems that certainly lay ahead.
But how to manipulate him into doing things without giving away her own deficiency?
Kella became aware of the massive unnerving emptiness around her. The place was utterly silent. The walls were too far away for comfort. She quit the lounge, following the sound of Farron’s cough. He’d claimed a room for himself and fallen asleep on a bare bed.
The smaller space made it easier to breathe. She explored a little more, found a washroom, and stripped.
The shower was hedonistic.
It was an illusion only, but she felt as though the abuses of the last few months were being scoured from her body by the almost painfully hot spray. She emerged, pink, puckered, and a little unsteady from the glorious heat.
No towel for drying, only an airflow mechanism activated by buttons that she had to ignore. Leaving wet footprints, she quit the room to look for something to wear. Her prison clothes were disgusting. No amount of cleaning would remove the stink of the place from them. She left the old coverings like a discarded skin.
She checked again on Farron, who was sprawled on his face now, oblivious to cares for an indefinite period. He coughed in his sleep, and his hands twitched from some deep dream. He’d be out for hours.
Naked, but not feeling vulnerable, she returned to the lounge and a line of dispensers along another wall. They appeared to be stocked with the usual packets of generic wearables and other supplies. The stuff was cheap, stored small, and was easy to recycle when it wore out or got too dirty for normal cleaning: a quartermaster’s dream.
The only thing between her and the satisfaction of new garb was a damned power switch.
Her mouth went dry. The labels blurred and vibrated, mocking her hesitation. She licked her lips, shut her eyes, and stabbed at it with an inner scream.
She opened her eyes, shaking. But . . . nothing terrible had happened. Gulping air, she slumped a little, enormously relieved. Maybe she’d be able to beat this, after all.
The control board lit, the info-screen came alive. It was like the one for the mess, but without security protocols. Food sources had to be protected from conta
mination, clothing did not.
Words appeared on the screen: Welcome, Citizen. Please stand on the scanner pad for sizing.
She did so without any symptoms surfacing. Evidently the conditioning was to suppress the ability to initiate action, not interfere with obedience to orders.
The machine scanned her in silence. The screen refreshed: Thank you, Citizen. Please make your choice!
Pictures of various items appeared. Anything she picked would fit.
But she could not raise her hand to tap the screen. She spoke her choice aloud, but nothing happened. Her voice wouldn’t be in the system or the option was not active.
What harm would befall her if she touched the screen?
Absolutely none.
But she hesitated, fearing. . .something. This was self-preservation fear, the sort that kept you from stepping off a cliff. Staying put, not moving was safe. Taking action would kill her.
Intellectually, she understood that she would not die, but not emotionally, which was ironic. She’d trained to be free of such impediments, learning to use emotions as camouflage, to manipulate others, but not be their victim. The System techs had somehow bypassed that, conditioned her with chemicals and possibly aversion therapy to render her helpless.
What was done could be undone. They’d not completed things. Cracks were there. She just had to act and not think about it.
Right. She fixed on a garment: generic tunic and pants, the kind worn by millions of others. Color didn’t matter, though here it would likely be military gray or black.
Walk it off.
She took a turn around the room, making herself remember something from her life that pre-dated Riganth. She’d been aboard a courier vessel, sharing a meal with others in a cramped mess room, pretending to get a joke. Farron was one of her shipmates. He always had a joke; people liked him on sight. Kella had studied him, trying to figure out how he achieved that without effort. It was a useful quality.
Passing the display screen, she blindly slapped at it.
Coming to no harm.
The wall unit whirred and out popped a packet. Tearing it open, she found it was not what she’d expected.
Sleepwear—only it was much too short for warmth, semi-transparent, and edged with ruffles. She gaped at it, baffled, then the first genuine laugh she’d had in years escaped to assault the air.