Freedom's Challenge (33 page)

She stopped reading, her eyes filling with tears, terrified of what he would say next.

“We,” he had written. He had specified “we,” not just himself. But which we? Had the old pessimist Nitin been included in that plural noun?

Somehow Kris couldn't really believe in that plurality. Zainal
led
the others. He would lead them into whatever it was he had decided to do. But that didn't mean “he” would be safe.

You leave him alone, now, you hear, Murphy? Your damned Law doesn't operate in Catteni space, d'you hear me, Murphy?

And the final letter was the bold crossed “Z” that he liked using.

“Well, you were right, weren't you, Kris, m'girl,” she murmured aloud, her voice sounding scratchy in the quiet cabin. “He was planning something dire. And he really doesn't expect to survive.”

She folded the two pages with very careful motions and replaced the precious letter in the envelope, smoothing the ragged edges down, over and over, until they remained flat.

She opened the door and, although everyone was studiously looking elsewhere, she flagged Ray Scott and beckoned him into the room.

“Okay, I've had my Dear John letter.
What
are he and those other madmen planning to do?”

Ray exhaled and gave her a long look. “I don't know either,” he said slowly. “Unless I was sure of its success, he knew I'd try to talk him out of it. Therefore, he's taking unacceptable risks.” Ray sighed again. “They left before they
could be stopped.” Another pause as Ray looked down at his hands and dug something from under one fingernail before he made eye contact again. “I didn't think I'd ever say it of a Catteni, but I admire that man. I will always admire that man. And I hope to hell he gets away with whatever it is he went to do.”

“I'm glad you're rooting for him, too, Ray. More than you would have done when you first got here, but better late than never,” Kris said wryly. “Is there any of Mayock's brew on board this ship?”

Ray took one step to the wall units and pulled out a drawer. She heard the click of glassware as he extracted two glasses and a bottle of the somewhat ale-pale alcohol.

Solemnly he filled the glasses and handed her one.

“Down the hatch!” Ray said, lifting his in a toast.

“Murphy,” Kris said raising her glass, “stay the hell away from my man!”

They both knocked back the toast and turned as one to symbolically smash the glasses against the outer wall.

“WE HAVE THE PRISONER,” SAID THE EMASSI commander, dressed in security uniform. He jerked his head back at the limp figure, which had been dragged on the knees between two members of the rather strong detail. The slimed skin of the naked captive showed a crisscross of angrily red, raised welts from frequent lashings with a nerve whip, and his legs and arms were bloodied from other wounds.

“Prisoner?” asked the duty Drassi. “I have no knowledge of a prisoner summoned by any Mentat. The convocation is in session,” he added as if this was a sacred occasion.

“Mentat Ix has been searching for this man,” and the Emassi stepped back, lifting the drooping head to display a gaunt, half-starved face, “for months. The name, I believe, is Zainal.” A smug smile suggested that the name was enough to secure admittance.

“Zai
nal?”
The name was certainly familiar to the Drassi guard and produced an instant conference between him and the other door guard.

“I will inform the Junior Pe. It is just inside.”

The door was opened just wide enough to admit the guard. It remained slightly ajar in his haste to deliver his news.

The security Emassi tapped his foot impatiently, sighing. Then he stepped closer to the second guard, raising his right hand as if to muffle his words and the guard leaned closer. A slight breeze crossed his nostrils and he gave a reflexive sniff.

“How much longer is the security going to be…” the security Emassi began conversationally. Then he caught the suddenly convulsing body of the door guard as he fell to the ground. Instantly two of his detail slipped out of line; one dragged the guard off down the corridor while the second stood in his place at the door just as it was thrown open.

The grotesque body of the Junior Pe came out and went straight to the prisoner. It pulled up the head and stared into the grimed and bloodied face.

“Revive him. When he is conscious, tap on the door and bring him in immediately.” The Junior Pe's face shone with an awesome light and it washed its hands vigorously in anticipation of the delightful culmination of a long search. It reentered the room. As soon as the panel had closed, the limp prisoner got to his feet unaided, though his breath hissed from stretching muscles and flesh made extremely sensitive by the nerve whip. His dirt- and blood-grimed hands, restrained by Catteni manacles, were oddly cupped together.

“Long enough?” the Emassi asked softly.

“The rest have been deployed?” the prisoner asked as softly.

“Yes.”

“Then let us proceed,” and he stepped back and, as the two guards took hold of his elbows again, he nodded once.

The security Emassi tapped and the door swung outward smoothly, giving the detail a good view of the many Eosi within the long narrow chamber where Eosi faced Eosi. A quick glance showed that there were very few vacant seats. If he experienced relief at the numbers within the room, he gave no hint of the elation he felt. Indeed, his expression was studiously impassive.

“BRING HIM TO ME!” And the Mentat Ix, halfway down one side of the rectangular room, rose to his feet and pointed to the floor in front of it.

The security Emassi beckoned to those holding the prisoner to follow him forward while the rest of his squad stopped at intervals on both sides, trotting beyond the Ix to complete a security cordon, formally protecting the Eosi. The Emassi then stepped ahead and turned to gesture dramatically at his prisoner.

“As you have commanded, Mentat Ix, the chosen who chose not to serve is here. His physical records confirm that he is indeed the Zainal you have searched for.”

The Mentat Ix looked down at the figure in front of him, head bowed as if in submission. The Ix towered above the captive, and the triumph of this moment seemed to expand the huge Eosian head.

“Look at me, Zainal,” the Ix commanded, its voice rich with an anger that had grown moment by moment over the years since the subsumation of Lenvec.

“At you, Lenvec? Or at the Ix?” Zainal said calmly, as he looked up, not at all the submissive and cowed prisoner. “Do you envy me any longer, brother, that it was I who was chosen? For you have succeeded.”

Then he raised his hands in what appeared to be supplication. The Ix inhaled at such a reaction just as a puff of mist issued through Zainal's fingers, curling up to the Mentat's nostrils. He turned to the Mentat beside the Ix and repeated the puffing of mist.

“What is this?”

The restraints fell away from Zainal's hands. Then, with an energy surprising for one who was rib-gaunt and had been savagely beaten, the former prisoner began squeezing his bulb at the next Eosi who had jumped to its feet and opened its mouth to protest. The other soldiers of the detail, following Zainal's example, were vigorously making use of their bulbs and the startled Eosi, never expecting to be attacked in this sanctum on the security-protected space station, inhaled the deadly mist in their surprise. Indeed, the long room was soon filled with particles, shining in the brilliant illumination of the room, as they slowly sank to the floor.

The Ix was the first within the room to collapse, its body writhing and arching in agony as the dust it had inadvertently inhaled reached its lungs…reached and filled them with lethal allergens. Others were catching at their throats with despairing hands and reacting with the convulsions that the substance produced in Catteni bodies.

“What is happening?” cried a voice from one of the screens at the end of the room. Not all the Eosi were in the long room but the fourteen who had been unable to attend in person had been viewing the proceedings on a visual com link. “Ix! Pe! Co! Se! Answer, one of you.”

In the long chamber filled with Catteni bodies skewed in the rigors of death, Zainal strode forward and, hands on his bare hips, answered the impatient query.

“These Eosi are dying. We, Emassi Catteni, have executed them for the twenty-five hundred years of exploitation and enslavement, for the heinous crimes you, and they, have forced us to commit against helpless planets. You had better find a new sanctuary for we, the Catteni,” and he brought his fist to his chest, “will hunt down and destroy you as we have destroyed these. There will be nowhere safe for you in this galaxy. Leave it.”

He turned his back on the Eosi whose horrified expressions were probably the first honest reactions they had shown in centuries. He heard several gasps at what was an insult to their dignities.

“Are they all dead yet?” Zainal asked, padding down the line of the Eosi who looked more like collapsed bags of shuddering and putrid flesh to the one that had been his brother. The Eosi host that had subsumed Lenvec still retained some of its genuinely youthful, and recognizable, facial appearance. This was fast turning to a viscous mess and to the size of the original host before subsumation. There was so little of Lenvec left even after the short time the Eosi had inhabited it. But enough to have waged a stupid and futile war against the planet which sheltered Zainal.

“I think that does it,” the Emassi security officer said, tipping back a helmet to reveal Kamiton, a mightily relieved Kamiton. “I didn't think we'd bring it off. I really didn't.”

“I always knew it was the only feasible way of eliminating them all,” Nitin said, stepping around a slow-moving rivulet of varicolored fluids.

“We didn't” Tubelin remarked, pointing toward the screens, some already blank.

“Those fourteen will be scrambling to leave. They do not have enough power to regain command,” Zainal said. “Now, all we have to do is get out of this level. The sooner the better.”

He moved toward the door—staggered would be more accurate since his emaciation and the nerve whip welts were real, if the wounds were somewhat exaggerated by dramatic additions of blood and excrement. Leaning against the wall, he shook the bulb that had been secreted between his “force” bracelets.

“Who has the stuff?” He looked around, one shoulder resting against the wall.

“I do,” and Kasturi came forward, holding out the flask and the little tundish with which he carefully added the lethal dust to Zainal's innocuous-looking device.

“Better do it all round,” Kamiton said, “while we're where we can't be observed.”

Tubelin shook his head. “Even with nose plugs, the stench is awful. Will the doors keep it out long enough?”

“Call the other guard in,” Zainal suggested.

Nitin was nearest and, opening the door enough to see the real guard, beckoned him in. The smell wrinkled the man's nostrils but he was too well trained to show either revulsion or hesitation. He had time to take in the scene of the mass execution. In fact, he caught his breath in astonishment and terror. And that was sufficient to inhale enough of the free dust particles in the air of the long room to ensure his demise.

Quickly, the detail assembled outside again.

“You did it? I can smell you did it,” their bogus guard said, touching his nostrils to make sure his nose plugs were in place.

“Anyone passed by?” Zainal asked, and their colleague shook his head, looking relieved.

“Then let's get out of here,” Kamiton said, settling his helmet correctly on his brow. He looked about as the security detail formed up and nodded as Zainal resumed his inert posture between his “guards.” He had no trouble at all assuming an expression of intense and smugly self-congratulatory pride as he led his detail back the way they had come.

The dissidents were by no means in the clear yet. Anyone with some urgent message for a Mentat could arrive in that corridor. The absence of guards at the door would be the first thing noticed and then, undoubtedly, the presence of an incredible putrefying stench would seep into the corridor. Since this was a space station, there were devices all over that should detect unusual alterations in air circulation.