Starfist: Lazarus Rising (36 page)

"Captain, with all due respect, I don't think they're so tough. I've been told that during your war with the devils they stayed aloof and all they ever did anyway was arrest people and torture them. No wonder you hate them. I think when they run up against some really tough opposition, they'll fold like the bullies they are. And I am going to get that opposition, even if I have to assault their goddamned fortress by myself."

Dieter looked intensely at Bass, then said, "I'll get you to Interstellar City, Mr.

Bass. I'll have my operations officer arrange for a Hopper. But first," he turned to the entrance and called, "Lieutenant?"

Dieter's operations officer stepped into the CP. "Yessir?"

"Get Ben Loman in here right away. I want to talk to that sonofabitch."

"Those are some nasty bumps and scratches you have there," de Tomas observed as Gelli Alois led Comfort into his office.

"She was beaten up by her barracks chief at Castle Hurse, my leader," Gelli volunteered. "We did our best to clean her up." She bowed and left them alone.

"Please be seated, Miss Brattle. Do you wish me to punish the people or the person who beat you up?"

"No."

De Tomas nodded. "I admire you for that. Evidently, among your many sterling qualities, you are not a vengeful person."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that," Comfort replied as she sat down. But de Tomas's tone of voice was solicitous. She appreciated anyone being solicitous of her welfare after Castle Hurse.

De Tomas smiled. "I have decided it is you I want as my companion. Are you feeling well enough to visit with me for a while?"

"Thank you, but I do not want to be your companion. May I return to prison now?"

De Tomas laughed outright. "Not only no, Miss Brattle, but ‘
Hell
no!’"

"I am already married," she lied.

"I don't care. You will be mine, Miss Brattle, your soul first and then your body."

"Never!" Comfort shouted, half rising out of her chair, face flushed with anger.

"Yes, I assure you," de Tomas answered calmly.

"Never," she repeated, this time calmly but with determination. "You killed my people. I hate you. You are the Antichrist, I recognize you now."

"Tut tut. That's a little beyond my capabilities." He spread his arms. "Look, I am only flesh and blood. Lonely flesh and blood, at that. Being at the top of any pile is a lonely place. I breathe, I eat, I shit just like any other man."

"I will never,
never
give in to you," Comfort whispered. She was verging on tears of anger and frustration.

"Good! That's the spirit! That's just why I picked you. May I offer you some refreshments?"

"No."

De Tomas was so engaging, Comfort found her anger cooling, in spite of the fact that the man who sat opposite her was a cold-blooded murderer. But he was handsome, suave! His years as Dean of the Collegium, all the crimes he'd committed in his rise to ultimate power, had not marked him outwardly. She glanced around the room, at the books, the furniture, the maps and paintings, the rich carpets and drapes. It was the study of an educated, cultured gentleman, a man who loved and appreciated good things. And he was treating her now like—like her
uncle
, not a slobbering beast! She tried hard to steel herself by concentrating on Charles, her mother, her father, the people of New Salem, but all that tragedy seemed so long ago. She realized, deep inside, that in time de Tomas's overpowering will would break down her barriers. As morally strong as she knew she was, he was far more dangerous than anyone she'd ever met, even the vicious inmates and guards who ran Castle Hurse. They would only destroy a person's body. It was her soul de Tomas was after.

"I might like some wine now?" Comfort said in a small voice.

"And you shall have it, my dear." He poured her a glass and she sipped at it. Then de Tomas reached across the table between them. "Give me your hand, please?" She extended her right hand. He took it in his own. His hand was smooth and warm to the touch. Again Comfort was surprised. Was it the hand of a killer? "You have done some hard work with these hands, haven't you? Not just hard work in prison, but hard work at home. I can feel the calluses. Yes, you lived primitively in your village and your people were farmers and artisans. You are no society girl, Miss Brattle. You are like me. I once worked with my hands, when I was much younger."

He patted the back of her hand gently and let it go.

"Please, I am very tired. May I rest for a while?"

De Tomas smiled gently. "Yes, you have earned that. I'll have someone show you to your quarters immediately. I'll have you awakened for supper. Miss Brattle—may I call you Comfort? What a delightful name! Your accommodations are ready and you will find them more than adequate. You are my honored guest here at Wayvelsberg Castle. All I want is your complete loyalty. I shall have it! And then, my dear Comfort, you will stand beside me and share my glory."

Her room was luxurious. It even had its own bath. But the door to the hall was locked. Comfort lay on the bed but could not sleep. De Tomas's last words kept ringing through her brain. She wished she were in prison. She had never felt farther from God than she did in these sumptuous surroundings; Wayvelsberg Castle was Hell. She closed her eyes and prayed and prayed, and finally she slept.

The spot she had picked to give birth to her male child proved to be an excellent hiding place. The stream there flowed slowly and deep and the water was full of crustaceanlike creatures that were good to eat. There was plenty of foliage for concealment and the mud was deep and comfortable, reminding her of Home. She longed for Home and others of her kind, but she knew she would never see either again. She was on her own, and her only focus in life was the child. He was growing fast on the nourishing food; she had even taught him to swim in the calm, clear water that flowed outside their hiding place.

Best of all, the spot was far away from those Earthmen and the disturbances they caused. She would never understand those strange creatures. Her own people were warlike, yes, but with them the military virtues were an important aspect of their culture, which was also refined and ancient. Besides, it was ordained by the gods that civilization should rule over savagery, and the skinny, ugly Earthmen were little more than animals with deadly technology. The only thing the Earthmen seemed to want to do was destroy everything about them.

She missed the wonderful rituals that governed the lives of her people. Often, when her child slept and homesickness was upon her, she swam in the stream, sometimes following its current several kilometers, drowning her sorrow in the pleasure of exercise before turning back to her lair. When, after several months her child—whom she named Jedo, after his father, a great warrior—had grown sufficiently that he could forage for his own meals, she increased the distance of her explorations. She discovered that the stream emptied eventually into a river, and curious about its destination—river deltas were great places to live—she swam out into the water and allowed herself to drift along on the current. Going back upstream would require some effort, she realized, but she felt strong and confident that morning. Jedo could take care of himself while she was gone.

The sun was bright and warm and the water temperature comfortable. She closed her eyes and drifted along, and eventually she dozed in the pleasant weightlessness of the flowing current. She never sensed the increase in the strength of the current or heard the roar of the falls that spilled a hundred meters onto the rocks in the canyon below.

CHAPTER 26

Captain Sepp Dieter winced as the mild electric current coursed through a very sensitive part of his anatomy.

"Electricity is a very interesting and useful phenomenon of nature," the interrogator whispered. He was a pudgy, balding man of indeterminate age with ears that stuck out like handles from the sides of his head. His forehead glistened with perspiration—not from the heat, for the interrogation chamber was cold, but from excitement. He grinned a lot and spoke in a soft, intimate voice just above a whisper, as if he were talking to a child—or a lover—and he talked constantly, maintaining a rambling monologue, hardly missing a word even when his victims screamed in agony. When they did scream, he raised his voice slightly as if
insisting
that, even in their pain, they must pay attention.

"I don't know anything," Dieter said. He did not bother to protest his arrest or the torture; he knew it would do him no good, and he was determined not to give the monster the satisfaction of an easy confession. They had come for him not two hours after Bass and the others left for Haven. He now bitterly regretted that he didn't open fire on the SG men who arrested him. They had come in their own Hopper, a dozen of them led by a swaggering officer, barging into his command post, catching him totally by surprise. They arrested him immediately and, weapons at the ready, hustled him into the waiting aircraft. There was nothing his men could do but stand by and watch in startled amazement. The Special Group men had taken him straight to the cellars of Wayvelsberg for questioning.

Lieutenant Ben Loman, as the senior officer left in the reconnaissance company, would have taken command. That was a bitter cup for an old soldier like Sepp Dieter. He wasn't sure whether Loman had informed Battalion, but in any event his ordeal at Wayvelsberg would be over by the time army headquarters could learn of his arrest, too late to protest the action. Not that a protest would do him a bit of good.

"Oh, you know nothing, Captain?" The interrogator smiled. "On the contrary, my dear sir, you
do
know things, yes indeedy, you
do
!" The interrogator chuckled, rubbing his hands together, then flicked a toggle switch on his control panel. A stronger current caused Dieter to grunt. "That was a mere ten milliamps, my dear captain. Did you know that the average man can withstand up to sixteen M.A.'s?

Parenthetically, I might add, women can only tolerate about 10.5 M.A.'s, some more, some less; everybody's different, heh heh heh.
Vive
the difference, eh? Those dosages, sixteen and 10.5, respectively, are known as the ‘let go’ levels? Heh heh heh. You can still let go of a wire at those charges, but any higher, depending on gender..." He gave Dieter forty M.A.'s. Dieter gasped and spasmed against his bonds. The interrogator, smiling happily, let the current go for twenty agonizing seconds. When it stopped, Dieter sat gasping for breath, his body covered in cold perspiration.

"This is an old but a tried and true method, Captain, and a lot more fun for me than drugs. I have an interesting formula for the application of electroshock in interrogations. Would you like to hear it? I call it ‘forty-sixty-eighty.’ By the time we reach eighty milliamps you'll be telling me everything I want to know. At levels of over a hundred, by the way, the subject usually goes into ventricular fibrillation and, unfortunately, dies. I do sincerely hope we don't have to go that route today. Shall we continue?"

Ben Loman sat behind Captain Dieter's field desk in the company command post.

He put his feet up and placed his hands behind his head. He mused on how fickle fate could be. One moment a man is cast down, as he had been after the chewing out Dieter had given him, and the next—well, here he was now,
commanding,
and Dieter was... well, too bad. Now that he was in command, he'd make some changes around the company. First would be that sergeant, Raipur. Just wait until he came back—
if
he came back
—he'd be
Private
Raipur henceforth! Ah, the fickle finger of fate!

The senior stormleader in charge of Intelligence looked dispassionately at the wreck that had been Captain Sepp Dieter. "Will he live?"

The interrogator shrugged.

"What did he tell you?"

"A very interesting story, Senior Stormleader. Those people whose transport to General Lambsblood's headquarters he facilitated were refugees from New Salem, apparently, the last of the City of God sect, I should think. Survivors of our attack on the place. One of them, however, is an off-worlder, a man named Bass. Strange name, isn't it? I think it's a kind of fish. Well, anyway, this Bass is looking for the young woman who was captured during the raid on New Salem. I believe, sir, she is here right now, upstairs with our leader. I also believe that is all this man knows."

The senior stormleader arched an eyebrow. "Who else back there knows anything about this encounter?"

"Our informant. A Lieutenant Ben Loman."

"Bring him up here. Question him. See what he might be holding back. Everyone holds back
something
." He turned and left the room. Moments later he stood before Herten Gorman. "I have information, Deputy Leader, that I believe you should pass to our leader immediately." He related what the interrogator had learned from Dieter.

Gorman sat silently for a moment, then put his office suite into its security mode so he would not be interrupted. He got to his feet. "Come to the window with me, Senior Stormleader, I have something to tell you." He laid a hand on the senior stormleader's shoulder and guided him toward the window. It was opaque. With the security system engaged, it reflected their images like a mirror. "Who else knows of this, old friend?" Gorman asked.

"Just me, Deputy Leader, and the interrogator, of course. Perhaps our informant with the reconnaissance company in the field too, but I gave orders for his arrest. He should be here in a few hours. I came right up as soon as the interrogation was over."

"Good!" The senior stormleader never saw the dagger Gorman plunged into his neck just below his right ear. Blood spurted all over the window as the man instinctively lurched forward in an attempt to steady himself against the glass, meanwhile trying to stanch the blood with one hand, bracing himself on the windowpane with the other hand to keep his footing. With each contraction of his heart, arterial blood sprayed between his fingers. Bloody handprints smeared down the glass as he slid to the floor, gurgling away his life.