The Empty Warrior (57 page)

He moved forward and joined a large crowd of tightly congregated men. Apparently disinterested guard dogs lolled about near the walls, surrounding them. Most of them lay on their sides, panting—their massive heads lain to the cool stone floor. But they were far from unwatchful. Any attempt by an individual to separate himself from the group met with raised heads, bared teeth, and low growls that quickly convinced anyone who strayed to rejoin the other men. O’Keefe looked about for Steenini but could not find him in the small sea of restless humanity that percolated around him.

Ahead he could hear an electric, sibilating drone like that of a million mechanical insects. The sound rose and fell, never remaining constant, but never ceasing either. He made his way forward toward the noise until he could see. Dozens of chairs, situated in two long lines facing each other across the width of the chamber, held men from amongst the new arrivals. A gray clad inmate stood behind each chair and wordlessly ran buzzing clippers over the skulls of those sitting before them, shearing their heads as if they were sheep. As O’Keefe looked on, he experienced a sudden stab of recognition piercing into his brain, and it jolted him. In one of the chairs sat Willet Lindy, his long blond locks, matted and dirty now, falling away carelessly over his shoulders and down onto the growing piles of human hair that surrounded the chair in which he sat. He looked to be sedated or in a daze as he stared vacantly over the crowd and O’Keefe, giving no sign whatsoever of recognizance. When his locks were fully shorn, he rose woodenly, turned, and walked slowly down the line toward the next station. O’Keefe watched his naked back until he lost sight of the pilot in the crowd.

As he stood there, still watching the barbers at work, O’Keefe began to feel a curious range of emotions sweeping over him. It was a fact that he was still frightened, but the scene before him brought old memories bubbling to the surface of his awareness—memories of youth and the corps, memories of shared sacrifice and a bond of brotherhood beyond the experiences of most men. Those memories had aspects of hardship and pain to be sure, but they were nonetheless positive, exuberant, and even pleasing. They were memories that left him standing upright and confident, towering over the Akadeans, and almost smiling. He began to feel a glow beneath his sternum. It wasn’t exactly a warm fuzzy feeling, but it beat the hell out of the agony of paralyzing fear. O’Keefe was suddenly filled with a certainly that if anyone could survive Ashawzut, it would be him. He pushed his way through the crowd to the front, and stepped forward, ready to take his place in the next available chair. He suddenly wanted his head shorn, wanted to be rid of his boyish locks.

The barber unfortunate enough to be behind that next chair looked at O’Keefe with fear in his eyes as the Earther approached. He swallowed convulsively but said nothing. When O’Keefe stood in front of the man, before he turned to take a seat, he gave the barber a long, slow once over from head to toe. The Akadean was dressed in the same gray uniform—trousers, a tank top, and high-top work boots—as everyone else he had seen. He stood uneasily behind the chair, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, shuffling in place and unable to meet O’Keefe’s gaze.

“Hey, you! Barber!” the ex-Marine in him said a little too loudly. When the man still stared at the floor, O’Keefe reached out and grabbed his chin between a thumb and forefinger, lifting the Akadean’s face to his own. “How about just taking a lot off the top and sides, with no nicks,” he said, grinning evilly. “And stop being so wimpy. It pisses me off.”

He turned and sat heavily in the chair while the barber went to work. As his months long growth of hair cascaded down over his chest and shoulders to the floor, he noticed one of the mammoth dogs that had been lounging against the far wall raise its head to stare at him intently. He gave the animal a counterfeit smile before raising his middle finger toward the canine in a way that, despite its non-Akadean origin, clearly conveyed contempt. The animal continued to watch him for a moment, then got up and padded away.

“Goddamn dog,” O’Keefe muttered to himself.

The barber finished his work quickly, the last minute of his effort being spent on using his clippers to reduce to stubble the short beard O’Keefe had grown in transit. O’Keefe rose, turning slightly to give the Akadean a wicked glance out of the corner of his eye before striding further down the chamber to queue up at the end of a long, ragged line of naked and similarly shorn men.

As the line moved forward he eventually reached a long row of tables placed end to end where he was issued several changes of boxer shorts; then socks; then thick, durable pants; and finally tank top tee-shirts—all of them gray. At the last table in the row he was fitted with a pair of tough, gray, lace up boots that were tall enough to reach to well above his ankles. It took the prisoners in charge of the boot station several minutes to find a pair large enough to fit him, but they seemed overly desperate to do so and finally came up with two in his size.

At the last station he was tattooed. He was ordered to sit in a chair fitted with a neural inhibitor that rendered him immobile while a robotic arm quickly inked—or burnt, he couldn’t be sure which—a long diagram on his upper left arm and then repeated the procedure on his right. The tattoos looked akin to thin bar codes that were imprinted vertically down the sides of his biceps. When the inhibitor beam released him he was able to stand easily enough, but both his arms stung mightily and were difficult to move. Just carrying the light load of newly issued clothing was enough to send fire shooting into his shoulders. Lifting his small bundle of new possessions also left him cognizant of the gravity that pulled at him. It still felt a little stronger than Akadean standard, but his body was acclimating to it quickly. It was by now hardly noticeable compared to what it had first felt like in the cargo carrier.

Still unclad, he was herded along with the other men to the end of the long, subterranean orientation chamber where narrowly spaced, vertical steel bars stretched from floor to high ceiling and separated the cavern into two sections. A steel door that opened inward was built into the center of the bars, through which O’Keefe entered the detention area. He hastily dressed, then knotted the pant legs of a pair of his trousers together and stuffed the rest of his meager attire into them through the waistband. Pulling the drawstring taut, he tied it off and threw the makeshift duffle bag over his shoulder before again looking about for Steenini. Other men around him, still struggling with their own loads of clothing, began to bag their new belongings similarly. Soon many were carrying their clothing in the same fashion as O’Keefe.

It was not long before Steenini appeared. He came shuffling across the floor from the boot station toward the bars, bypassing the tattoo chairs as his arms were already imprinted. As snarling dogs urged him on, the gauntness of his abused physique was accentuated by his nakedness and unsteady gait. O’Keefe met him at the door, relieved him of his burden and parceled out socks, underwear, and clothing until the Akadean was fully dressed. O’Keefe made a bag of the man’s britches while Steenini laced his boots.

“Thanks, mate,” he said, as he rose from one knee and accepted his meager belongings from the Earther. “A man needs a few dependable mates in Ashawzut.”

“So it would seem,” O’Keefe replied. “What do you say we stick together? We could be cellmates, or whatever they call it in here.”

Steenini smiled crookedly but broadly. “I was hoping you’d feel that way. What better ally to have in here than a wild man like yourself. And I can show you the ropes, keep you out of trouble. And speaking of trouble, I saw that hand signal you gave to the dog. Whatever it was, it looked rather insulting. What’s it mean?”

“Well, I’m not quite sure,” said O’Keefe through a smirk, “but ah, ‘fuck you’ is as good a translation as any.”

Steenini laughed. “Then I like it,” he said. He raised a finger crookedly toward the bars, then with effort straightened it until he was shooting a credible bird. “I’ll have to remember this.”

“So what was that you were saying before about
her
and the front row?”

Steenini grimaced. “Elorak,” he spat disgustedly. “She runs Ashawzut. She’s the only Vazilek here, so she likes to make examples of some of the men from every group of newcomers. She wants to be sure that everyone understands that she holds the power of life and death here.” He paused, gesturing around the cavern with a sweeping motion of his arm. “Some of these men will be dead within the hour.”

“Jesus,” O’Keefe whispered through clenched teeth, thinking of Lindy. He pushed Steenini over to the right front of the holding cell and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Stay right here buddy, so I can find you again. I saw a man back there who saved my life once. I’ve got to find him. I’ll be back.”

Steenini nodded with unspoken understanding, and O’Keefe made his way through the crowd toward the back of the detention area. Starting from the right rear corner, he systematically searched from back to front and then front to back, moving a little farther toward the left wall with each transit, trying to get a good look at each prisoner’s face as he passed. Despite the Akadeans’ fearful willingness to move aside at the approach of an aberrant, it was still a daunting task. With no hair or jewelry, and dressed in the same clothing; the Akadeans all looked remarkably similar—just little brown men in gray. But as he closed on one, the man flinched slightly, and raised blue eyes that widened a bit at O’Keefe’s approach.

“Lindy!” he cried, grabbing the man by his shirt. “Are you all right? I thought I wasn’t going to find you. Come on, I’ve made a friend. He knows this place. He’s been in here before. We’ll be better off if we stick with him.” He started to pull Lindy toward Steenini, but the man twisted away. O’Keefe turned to find him glowering at the floor. “What’s the matter with you,” he demanded. “You got more friends in here than you can use?”

“They killed her,” Lindy groaned, without looking up. “They killed Cyanne. Dragged her out and blasted her into chunks of meat right in front of the building. All because her mother is a member of the High Council. They had a list; her name was on it, and they killed her, just like that. They didn’t think about it for an instant, and it didn’t bother them a bit.” He paused and looked up into O’Keefe’s eyes. “Why would they do that?” he asked forlornly. “By that time everyone had given up. No one was even running away, and certainly she was no threat to them.”

O’Keefe wrapped his arm protectively around Lindy and gently started to guide him toward where he had left Steenini. “I’m sorry, Willet,” he said softly, “they’re just evil bastards. That’s why we have to fight them.” O’Keefe found himself replaying his words in his mind, astonished at what he had just uttered. Until that moment, he had been amazed at the Akadean’s lack of a will to fight, but he had never considered the fight his own. Now the words
we have to fight them
had slipped from between as lips as casually and naturally as his fingers would have moved to button a shirt.

“But what can we do?” Lindy asked, his voice a whine and shaded with hopelessness.

“We’ll worry about that later. Right now the best we can do is survive. Come on.” As he directed Lindy through the crowd he spoke again, asking the question that suddenly would not leave his mind. “What about Kira and the captain?” he asked. “Did you hear anything?”

“No,” Lindy said, shaking his head. “I haven’t see anyone else from the ship; I only know what happened to Cyanne. We were all released from quarantine as soon as the attack began. Everyone split up. Kira went with Beccassit. Cyanne and I fled to hide with friends. I tried to contact
Vigilant
as soon as I found a working transmitter, but there was no reply. Either the ship got away or…,” his voice trailed off. It didn’t matter. O’Keefe needed no explanation of the alternatives.

They reached Steenini, and O’Keefe introduced the two. Something about Bartle and his broken frame seemed to shatter the psychological enervation that had engulfed Lindy. Maybe it was the sight of someone in an obviously more debilitated state than himself and still bearing up that did it, but O’Keefe couldn’t be sure. Whatever the cause, Lindy suddenly became more animated, standing close by with Steenini and speaking as enthusiastically with his fellow Akadean as any beaten and mournful man was capable of.

While they were exchanging stories, O’Keefe stood to the side and watched the activity outside the giant cell. It took quite some time, but at length the last of the prisoners were herded through the door. Several of the dogs squeezed through the entrance after them, pushing the crowd against O’Keefe and his two compatriots, pressing them more tightly against the right wall.

Abruptly an amplified voice erupted from unseen loudspeakers. “Welcome to Ashawzut, gentlemen,” the machine imitation of a male voice boomed. “Please proceed into the auditorium and stand inside the painted squares you will find there. And please do so quickly. If you tarry, you will be punished.”

In the midst of those words, giant doors, heretofore concealed as part of the wall of solid rock that formed the back of the detention cell, swung outward with a loud, groaning, orogenic creak that hung in the air of the chamber. The dogs, now snarling ferociously, forced the men out through the aperture and into another enormous, domed cavern. Like all the areas they had seen, the walls of the auditorium were rough hewn from gray rock while the floor was flat and unpolished, covered with a patina of dry and dusty dirt. Also as in all the other chambers, light was provided by fixtures hung from the ceiling high above. Across the floor was painted a mammoth rectangular pattern of white squares laid out in parallel lines. Each square contained a number. The pattern was arranged so that it faced a raised stage-like gallery that had been cut into the far wall of the dome and was accessed by a wide flight of stairs leading up from the floor to its center.