“I bet you think you’re smart,” was all I could come up with since, at that moment, I was feeling very defeated.
“I know I am. I have been organizing our field operations for many years—and they have only failed twice. You were to blame each time. Now that you have been captured your interference is at an end.” He signaled to two of his men, who picked me up. “Lock him away until we land. I do not wish to speak with him any longer.”
Low? Up until that moment I had never known what low was. Depressed, dispirited, out-thought, out-fought, it was enough to bring out the suicidal in anyone. Except me, of course. Where there is life there is hope. Eureka! I was even more depressed after this minor surge of rebellion because I knew this time there was just no hope at all.
These people were too efficient. They hung my wristcuffs over a hook high on the wall and cut away my clothes, boots, everything, in a calmly depressing way. Then they cleaned me out, efficiently, operating like a vacuum cleaner klyster. All of the obvious devices, picklocks, grenades, blades, saws, were stripped from me first. Then they went over me again slowly with fluoroscopes and metal detectors removing, painfully, those other devices that were better hidden. They even x-rayed my jaws and removed a few teeth that had never been discovered before. When they were done I was pounds lighter and as bereft of helpful gadgetry as a newborn babe. It was all quite humiliating. Particularly when they took everything away and just left me lying there, naked, on the cold deck.
Which, I discovered, was getting colder all the time. When moisture began to condense on it I found myself growing blue and chattering with the chill. I began to howl and thrash about. This warmed me up a bit and eventually led to one of the gray men poking his head in the door.
“I am freezing to death!” 1 clattered through trembling teeth at him. “You are deliberately chilling the air to torture me.”
“No,” he answered with utmost blandness. “That is not one of our tortures. This ship was warmed when the ports were open and is now returning to normal temperature. You are weak.”
“I am freezing to death, Maybe you chilly chaps from your icebox world can live at this temperature—but I can’t. So give me some clothes or kill me quickly now.”
I think I half meant it. There really did seem to be little left to live for at this point. He thought about it for a bit, then exited. But returned fairly soon with four helpers and a padded coverall. They took off the fetters and dressed me. I made no protests while this was happening because one of them held a fully charged pistol, the muzzle of which he put directly into my mouth. His finger was bent, the trigger half pulled. I knew he meant it. I did not move or twitch while I was being dressed and the heavy boots slipped over my feet. The gun stayed there until the locks on the cuffs clicked shut once more.
It took days to reach our destination. My captors were the worst conversationalists in the galaxy and refused to respond to even my wittiest and most insulting sallies. The food was completely unpalatable but, I am sure, nourishing. The only drink was water. A portapotty took care of my sanitary needs and I was getting bored out of my skull. My thoughts were constantly on escape and many and fearful were the plans I devised. All of them useless, of course. Singlehanded, without a weapon, I would never be able to take control of the ship even if I could break out of this room. Which I could not. I was sinking into a coma of boredom by the time we finally landed.
“Where are we?” I asked the guards who came to get me. “Come on you chatterboxes, speak up. Would you be shot if you at least told me the name of the planet? Do you think I will tell anyone else?”
They thought about this for quite awhile until one of them finally made up his mind. “Kekkonshiki,” he said.
“You’re excused—but don’t wipe your nose with the back of your hand. Ha-ha.” I had to laugh at my own sallies. No one else would.
But it was ironic. Here I was, bearer of the information that would put an end to the gray men menace forever. The name of their world—and its location. And I couldn’t pass it on. If I had any trace of psi ability I could have the troops rushing there in a minute. I did not. I had tried and been psi-tested often enough in the past. There was absolutely nothing that I could do.
At least the unaccustomed action gave me something new to think about, to take my mind off of the depression that had depressed me for days. At last it was time to think about escape again.
Nor was I mad to consider it at this time. We had landed and would be leaving the ship soon. They were taking me someplace where it was guaranteed not-very-good-things would happen to me. I did not yet know what they were and, as far as I was concerned, life would be far more peaceful if I never found out. We would leave this ship, and even for a very brief spell, we would be in transit. That would be the time to act. The mere fact that I did not have the slightest idea of what would be waiting outside was completely and totally beside the point. I had to do something.
Not that they made it very easy for me. I tried to act indifferent when they stripped off my chains and produced a metal collar and snapped it around my neck. Although my blood ran chill on the instant. I had worn that collar before. A thin cable ran from the collar to a small box that one of them held in his hand.
“No need to demonstrate,” I said in what was meant to be a light and bantering tone and certainly was not. “I’ve worn one of these before and your friend Kraj—you must remember Kraj?– demonstrated its working to me over quite a period of time.”
“I can do this,” my captor said, poising a finger over one of the many buttons on the box.
“It’s been done,” I shouted, pulling back. “Those very same words, I know, you never change your routines. You press the button and…”
Fire washed over me. I was blind, burning to death, my skin aflame, my eyes seared out. Every one of my pain nerves switched on to full by the neural currents generated by the box. I knew this but it did not help. The pain was real and it went on and on and on.
When it ended I found myself lying on the floor, curled up, drained of energy and almost helpless. Two of them lifted me to my feet and dragged me, legs flopping, down the corridor. My master with the box walked behind, giving me a little tug on the neck from time to time to remind me who was in charge. I did not argue with him. I could stumble along by myself after a bit, but they still kept their hands locked tight on my arms.
I liked that. I fought hard not to smile. They were so sure I could not escape.
“Getting cold out?” asked when we reached the airlock. No one bothered to answer me. But they were pulling on gloves and fur hats which certainly meant something. “How about some gloves for me?” I was still ignored.
When the lock door swung open I knew why the preparations. A swirl of snow was blown in on a wave of arctic air that chilled, then numbed. It certainly wasn’t summer outside. I was dragged forth into the blizzard.
Maybe not a blizzard, but some very heavy flurries. There was a blinding wave of flakes about us that was gone in a few moments. A thin sun shone down on the blindingly white landscape. Snow, nothing but snow in all directions. Wait, something dark ahead, a stone wall or building of some kind, obscured an instant later. We plodded on and I tried to ignore the numbness in my hands and face. Yet our destination was still a good two hundred meters away. My body and feet were warm enough, but my exposed skin was something else again.
We were roughly halfway from the ship to our waiting warm haven when another miniblizzard swept down upon us, a roaring snow squall. Just before it hit I slipped and fell, pulling one of my captors down with me as he slid on the icy surface. He made no complaints, though the sadist holding the torture box did give me a quick blast of pain as a warning to watch my step. All done in silence. Silence on my part too because I had managed to get a loop of cable from the box over my shoulder when I went down and then caught it in my mouth. And bit it in two.