Android at Arms

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Android at Arms

Andre Norton

1

It was a sere wasteland, riven by stark gashes, as if some intolerant and sadistic god had lashed it with a flail of lightning. There was no vegetation, whether gray, green, purple, or blue, nothing but the broken rock that sometimes reflected the heat of sun blaze, sometimes lay grimly dark under a thick massing of clouds—which was true now.

The building clinging to the rock tenaciously was so squat that it might be crouched awaiting some annihilating blow. It was uglier than the wasteland, for it had been built, not wrought by pitiless wind and weather.

Not that the prisoner, huddled by the narrow window slit that gave him so small a view of the world, could see the building. That he was a prisoner in a prison he understood. Why he had come here—who he was—

Sometimes he dreamed, and in those dreams he thought he knew. But though he tried to hold on to even a scrap of such a dream, he never succeeded. Upon waking, all he carried into the next stultifying day was a discontent, a dim belief that there
was
a different life he had once known.

There was food for his body and clothing, and now and then that discontent set him to force his sluggish mind to work—not to uncover lost memories, but to look through the slit, to wonder a little at the bare and blasted landscape. Yet never in all the time he had so watched had he seen any movement of lift there.

Cloud shadows reached out, spread, dwindled—nothing else, save when the storms came in their wild fury and torrents of rain ran in the gullies cut by earlier floods and hail fell in great chunks to lie melting in the hollows.

One thing he could remember—why he did not know. He had a name—Andas Kastor. Was it really his name? He frowned now as his lips shaped that name, which was all he had.

There must be a different life out there somewhere, but what had he done to be exiled from it? How long had he been here? Once he had tried to count the days by scratching on the wall, but he had been sick and lost count. After that it had not mattered. There were the robots that brought food at intervals, that had tended him when he was sick—faceless things that he hated with what emotion had not been wrung out of him, but that were impervious to any attack or rebellion on his part. Twice he had tried that, only to have sleep gas flood his cell.

It was going to storm again. A faint flicker of interest stirred him. That was out of the normal pattern, and any thing that broke the pattern was to be treasured. They had had one of the bad storms only two days ago. The pools it had filled out there among the rocks had not yet entirely drained. To have a second so soon was most unusual.

The clouds were gathering so fast that it was as dark as night. The lights in the corners of his cell came on, though they usually did not in storm time.

He stayed by the window slit, though the aspect outside was threatening. Somehow the fear it caused sharpened his mind. There had been many storms. Wind, hail, pouring rain had done no harm to the building. Why should he feel apprehensive this time?

Night darkness and the howling of the wind—he could hear it even through these sound-deadening walls. He put his hands flat against the windowpane and felt a vibration of force. Solid and secure as the building was, the storm was striking at it with no ordinary power.

Now the lightning began, and the flashes were such that he was driven from his viewpoint, his hands over his eyes. He stumbled to his bed, crouched there, his head down on his upthrust knees, his hands over his ears. He was afraid as he could not remember having been before. This storm was such fury unleashed that he could only cower.

There was a great burst of light—then nothing.

Imperial Prince Andas sat up to stare about him dazedly. His head spun. He felt more than a little sick. But he steadied himself with one hand against the wall and looked about in desperate disbelief. He could
not
be seeing this! A dream—surely a dream!

Where was his own bed? There should have been four posts of Caldroden golden marble, each carven into a losketh with wings outstretched, and over his head the Imperial demi-crown of precious darmerian wood inter-set with the five gems. The walls—these gray walls? Where were the proper hangings of painted lamn skin, bronze-green, with here and there a tinge of faded red? There were no rugs—no—

Where
was
he?

Andas shut his eyes firmly to this nightmare and tried to think, to fight panic, which was a sour, foul taste in his mouth, a shaking throughout his body.

Anakue! This was Anakue's doing! But how—how had that half-crazed rebel—whom none took seriously—done this?

Andas kept his eyes closed. The how—that was something he could discover later. The now was more important. Grisly events from past history crowded into his mind, a montage of all the horror tapes one could imagine. Palace intrigues—he had heard of those—but only in the past. Such things did not happen nowadays—they could not! Why, no one with any sense listened to Anakue's ravings. His right to the throne was nonexistent, coming as he did from the illegitimate lines both long discounted.

Cautiously Andas opened his eyes again and forced himself to study what lay about him. This was not his bedroom, this gray box with its very simple furniture, lacking all the color and beauty he had always known. Now he looked down at himself, running his hands along his body to assure himself by touch that his eyes reported the truth.

No silken nightrobe—no, a coarse one-piece coverall such as laborers wore, gray as the walls. His hands—their natural brownness had a yellow tinge, as if they had not felt sun for a long time. He missed the rings he had always worn as his status insignia, just as his two wristbands were gone when he hurriedly pushed up his sleeves to make sure.

Now he began to explore his face, his head, by touch. His thick hair was not as long as it should be. It was clipped closer to his skull.

Shakily Andas got to his feet. Out—he had to get out, to discover where he was. But, this must be a prison—only, when he looked to the far wall, he saw a half-open door, though that part of the room was very dim, for the only light came from a slit of window.

Wary yet of the door, Andas went to the window and looked out on a scene that was a new and sharp shock. This was not Inyanga. Nor Benin, nor Darfor—he had visited both of those sister worlds in the Dinganian system. He braced himself by one hand on either side of the window and stared out at the forbidding wilderness of twisted and broken rock now running with streams of water. This was nowhere in the world he knew! Which meant—how could it be Anakue's doing?

Swaying, Andas edged along the wall, steadying himself with one hand. He had to find somebody, to learn—He had to
know!

But when he came to that half-open door, Andas hesitated. It was even darker beyond, and what might lie in wait? His hand went to a belt he no longer wore. He had not even that ceremonial long knife which was seldom drawn from its elaborate sheath. He had nothing but his two hands. But the need for knowing drove him on, to sidle around the door and stand in a dark corridor.

There were one or two faint beams of half-light, as if they issued from other rooms. He slipped on, keeping to the wall, heading toward the nearest of those.

This was like combat training at Pav. He was suddenly fiercely glad that he had argued his grandfather into letting him have that experience. Of course, he had been then only third in line for the seat of the Lion, and it did not matter that he wanted to see life beyond the Triple Towers.

He reached the doorway and froze. The faint scrape of sound was from within. The room was not empty. Andas flexed his hands. He had learned a lot in combat training, and now he felt, rising above his bewilderment and fear, that cold and deadly anger that was the heritage of his house. Someone had done this to him, and he was ready to make the first comer among the enemy account in return.

“Please—is there anyone—anyone at all?”

A woman. But this was not too strange. Many times in the past a throne had toppled from intrigue begun in the Flower Courts of the Women, though he knew none favoring Anakue.

“Anyone—” The voice was a low wail.

Andas read fear in it, and that brought him into action. He rounded another half-open door to confront the occupant of a cell exactly like his own. She stared at him, and her mouth worked. In another moment she would scream. He did not know how he guessed that, but it was true. He moved with trained speed to catch her, holding his hand over her mouth.

But she was no palace woman, nor even of the Dinganian system—he would take knife oath on that. Her skin was very light against his own, and it was covered with tiny pearly scales, which felt rough to his touch. Her hair was green, and she had odd lumpy growths on either side of her slender neck.

“Be quiet!” he whispered.

After her first instinctive recoil when he had caught her, she ceased to struggle. Now she nodded, and somehow he trusted her enough to take away his hand. It was plain as he looked about that cell that she, too, must have been a prisoner, though her race and home planet he could not guess.

“Who are you?” Her voice was steadier than it had been earlier when she had cried for help. It was as if by seeing him she had gained assurance.

“Andas of Inyanga, Imperial prince of the Dinganian Empire,” he told her, wondering if she would believe him. “And you?”

“Elys of Posedonia.” There was that in her tone which made that name as proud a title as the one he had voiced. “What is this place?”

Andas shook his head. “You may guess that as quickly as I. I awoke and found myself here. By rights I should be in the Triple Towers at Ictio.”

“And I in Islewaith. This—this is a prison, is it not? But—why—?”