Eleven

Hours had passed since their escape from the Rock, and McCade was feeling rather pleased with himself. Bridger had been stopped, Pegasus was his, and there was every reason to expect a bonus. He glanced at Sara, who was engaged in friendly conversation with Van Doren, and took another sip of his third drink. Yes, things were definitely looking up.

His thoughts were interrupted by the computer's soft chime. Laurie beat him to it and reached out to tap a few keys. The screen across from McCade came to life. Displayed on it was the likeness of a ship, along with the technical specifications pertaining to it. McCade didn't need the specs to know what it was. There's no mistaking an Il Ronnian ship of the line. A fraction of a second later, its incredibly powerful tractor beams leapt across thousands of miles of space to look on to Pegasus. The computer confirmed tractor beam lock-up as the Il Ronnian vessel began to reel them in like a fish on a line. McCade turned and was heading for the control room when Sara's voice stopped him.

"Sam, look!"

He spun around to see Sara pointing at Laurie. It seemed as though her face was slipping. Her beautiful features had become elastic somehow and seemed to flow and ripple in an impossible way. Suddenly she appeared to collapse and then dissolve into a pool of shivering protoplasm. The Treel! But it had died on Weller's World! Except it obviously hadn't . . . because here it was in the repulsive flesh!

"Give me the word and I'll blow her . . . I mean it . . . to mush, boss!" Van Doren growled, aiming his blaster at the Treel. Sara sat perfectly still, looking back and forth between the Treel and McCade in amazement.

"I don't think that'll be necessary, Amos," McCade replied calmly. "It appears our friend here already is mush."

"Jape as you will, rigid ones," the Treel replied, switching now to its own hoarse voice. "For seldom is true beauty understood by those unblessed by the great Yareel.

"However," the Treel added pragmatically, "notice who is in possession of this small but effective blaster." With that a pseudopod emerged from the alien's liquid presence, grasping a shiny new weapon only recently taken from the ship's small arms locker.

McCade gestured for Van Doren to lower his weapon. "Don't bother, Amos. I don't think your blaster's up to the job anyway. On Weller's World, I put enough needles in it to kill six humans."

"You speak the truth, primate," the Treel replied smugly. "Since my race is perfect, we are impossible to kill, however on Weller's World it suited my purpose to let it seem otherwise."

McCade didn't believe Treels were impossible to kill. He just hadn't figured out how to do it yet.

He lit a cigar and said, "So what's up?" He followed the question with a stream of blue smoke.

"I would have thought that obvious . . . even to you," the Treel replied. "We must deliver Mungo's head to the Il Ronn. In a few minutes they'll take us aboard, where they will extract what they wish to know from Mungo's brain. At that point my job will be over. Excuse me while I inform them of the situation here."

With that the Treel extruded another pseudopod which promptly transfigured itself into a perfect likeness of Laurie's hand—right down to her fingerprints, McCade imagined. Nimble fingers entered a series of numbers and letters, which were no doubt part of a prearranged code.

Watching the alien's confident movements, McCade silently cursed himself for the worst kind of fool. It had finally dawned on him that Laurie, the real Laurie, the one who had both saved and betrayed him, was dead—and had been since Weller's World.

Carefully he searched his emotions, trying to find either sorrow or satisfaction. Both seemed justified. But neither emerged to dominate the other. Yet the Treel was running up quite a butcher's bill. A bill that would have to be paid one day. First there had been Cadet Votava, then the crew of the tug, Laurie, and God knows how many others who had died supporting the Committee for Democratic Reform.

"So you killed her," McCade said flatly. His voice calm, even conversational. But his eyes were cold and bleak. Looking at them, Sara suddenly understood the part of his life she'd never seen. The professional killer stalking his prey.

"Yes, I'm afraid so," the Treel replied calmly. Now that the message had been sent, the alien seemed relaxed and almost gregarious. "No sooner had she rendered you unconscious with her traitorous dart than she turned on me. Injured though I was, my marvelous body was still able to momentarily assume the form of a Linthian Rath snake, with predictably fatal results. It seems, like most of you rigid ones, she was duplicitous in the extreme, appearing to work for the Imperial Government, but actually in the employ of the pirates." The alien's gelatinous body undulated for a moment as though to aid its thought process. "I will admit, however, that while assuming her form I learned that she was quite loyal to the Brotherhood's full Council. I doubt that Brother Mungo could have corrupted her as he did me."

"And then?" McCade asked.

The Treel sloshed back and forth a little in what might have been a shrug. "Events conspired to frustrate my noble plans. Laurie's henchmen soon arrived, evidently to help neutralize you, a task she had already carried out with admirable efficiency, and I was barely able to hide her body before assuming her identity. The situation forced me to reveal Bridger's location in the hotel. He was comatose and badly in need of medical attention. The rest should be obvious even to one of your limited mental acuity.

"In my role as Laurie, I had to accompany Bridger to the Rock and wait there for an opportunity to, ah, serve my employer. Fortunately Bridger's illness delayed their attempt to gain access to his mind. For a while it looked as though I would fail. Bridger grew increasingly less coherent and finally they brain pumped him. Fortunately you blundered in, presenting me with an opportunity to obtain the desired information and to escape as well."

McCade did his best to shrug nonchalantly. "So just for the record . . . what is the War World like?"

"Who knows, rigid one," the Treel replied conversationally. "Bridger never did tell me . . . that is, Votava . . . anything you couldn't surmise from the name alone. It is evidently a world having to do with war. More than that I couldn't say. And for that matter I don't think Bridger could either, for all of his raving. All he knew for sure was that it exists. And where. Soon the Il Ronn will retrieve that knowledge from Mungo's frozen brain tissue, and I shall be free of the entire matter. A freedom I shall relish, by the way."

With that the strange being seemed to withdraw into itself. Only the unwavering blaster suggested its continuing attention.

As they neared the Il Ronnian vessel, it grew in their screens to blot out nearby constellations with its complex tracery of hull, weapons platforms, power modules, and other less identifiable parts. A lighted rectangle appeared in the black metal hull as a hatch slid aside to admit them. Inside the enormous hanger bay, Pegasus came to rest next to a row of one-man interceptors. The human ship was only slightly larger than the alien fighters.

They were searched and then escorted, without ceremony, through a maze of passageways and corridors. Their guard consisted of a heavily armed squad of tall, thin Il Ronnian troopers. Their uniforms identified them as members of the Sand Sept, an elite fighting force roughly analogous to the Imperial Marines, and just as famous for their valor.

As they walked, McCade began to sweat. The temperature within the ship was uncomfortably high. It served to remind McCade that the Il Ronn had evolved on a desert planet. Which of course explained their preference for hot, dry worlds.

Finally they arrived on what was clearly the ship's command level. The ten or fifteen Il Ronn present didn't even glance up from their glowing control panels and monitors as the humans were led through and ushered into a side compartment.

As the prisoners entered, McCade experienced a brief moment of disorientation. As quickly as it came, it was gone, and he found himself standing on extremely fine white sand which shifted under his feet. The sand was tinged here and there with streaks of red, and it reached out to meet a violet sky. The sun beating down on his shoulders was incredibly hot. McCade looked at his two companions and shrugged. There was no one else in sight.

The Treel had been escorted off under separate guard shortly after they'd left the ship. Instinctively it had assumed the guise of an Il Ronn. McCade was amused at the obvious discomfort of the Il Ronnian troopers who had marched it off, with Mungo's cold-packed head tucked securely under one arm.

To their right, the air seemed to buzz and shimmer. A huge Il Ronn seemed to appear from nowhere, although McCade realized the alien was actually entering via the same hatch they had used. The sensurround was that realistic. Suddenly he realized he'd have a hard time finding his way out of the compartment without help. The alien paused for a moment as if inspecting them. Its eyes were lost in the black shadow cast by the prominent superorbital ridge above them. McCade was struck by the resemblance between the giant alien and ancient pictures he'd seen of a mythical being known as the "Devil."

He stood on long, spindly legs which ended in broad, cloven hoofs. McCade noticed these hoofs seemed to float on top of the fine white sand rather than sinking into it as his boots tended to do. The Il Ronn's leathery skin was hairless, and even had a reddish hue. It seemed to blend with the red streak in the sand behind it. Long, pointed ears lay flat against his head, and to complete the devillike image, the Il Ronn had a long tail ending in a triangular appendage. At the moment, this appendage hovered over the alien's head, providing shade from the blistering sun.

McCade knew he wasn't the first to notice the resemblance between Il Ronn physiognomy and the traditional Judeo-Christian image of evil personified. In fact some scholars thought that the aliens' devillike appearance might account in part for the almost instant enmity which sprang into existence shortly after the first recorded contact between human and Il Ronn. They suggested that after thousands of years of exposure to an evil image closely resembling the Il Ronn, humans could not view them objectively. This was a favorite argument among those opposing war with the Il Ronn.

Other scholars disagreed, suggesting that early depictions of the devil were not imaginary, but real, and were based on early visits to Earth by Il Ronnian explorers. This theory couldn't be simply laughed off, since there was ample evidence that the Il Ronn had developed a star drive thousands of years before Man. However, being a more deliberate and cautious race than Man, their empire expanded slowly, allowing humans to eventually catch up. Proponents of this last theory went on to point out the brutal tactics still employed by Il Ronn scouts when contacting less advanced indigenous races. They maintained that if the Il Ronn did establish and maintain a temporary colony on Earth, their dealings with humans might have earned them a well-deserved reputation for evil, which they eventually came to symbolize.

So in their view, the hostility between the two races was natural, and based as much on history as on current events. This particular argument was favored by those who felt all-out war with the Il Ronn was inevitable. As far as McCade knew, the Il Ronn themselves had never commented on either theory.

He noticed that unlike many traditional images of Satan, the Il Ronn in front of him had no horns. But he more than made up for this biological oversight when he opened a lipless mouth to reveal a wealth of deadly-looking teeth. His voice was surprisingly melodious.

"Greetings. I am called Reez. Commander Reez of Star Sept Four. I apologize for receiving you here in the comfort of my own environment. But that is the privilege of the victor, is it not?

"I'll assume your silence implies acquiescence," he continued after a moment. "I would like to thank you for delivering such important information into our hands . . . even if it was only through your incompetence. I assure you we will use it to speed the inevitable end of your pathetic empire."

McCade was really sweating now—small rivers of perspiration running off his body. Reez evidently understood the significance of that.

"I see you find the heat of our native environment uncomfortable. However I fear even greater discomfort may await you in the slave markets of Lakor. I'm told that conditions there are quite rigorous. Pleasant though, when compared to your subsequent existence on some mine world." He paused to study Sara in a calculating way.

"You, my dear, are another matter. I suspect they'll find other uses for you. Ugly by conventional human standards, it's true . . . but on Lakor there is a market for everything, even ugliness. I'm sure someone would find your disfigurement exciting. How wonderfully twisted, don't you agree?"

The scar across Sara's face was white against her flushed skin. Both McCade and Van Doren were already in motion when a hand flamer materialized in the Il Ronn's three-fingered hand. They jerked to a halt. Reez shook his head in pretended amazement.

"My what an emotional race! You have already served me well, although unintentionally, and as a reward I offer you the opportunity to continue in that service. Who knows? After the fall of your empire, we will need cooperative human administrators. Such a role could be yours. So the choice is between comfortable service to me . . . and the slave markets of Lakor. Which will it be?"

To his surprise McCade found himself giving the alien's proposal serious consideration. After all, it wasn't his fault Laurie had turned out to be a double agent and everything had gone to hell. But two things kept getting in the way. First, he felt sure that if he agreed to serve the Il Ronn, he'd be forced to act against the Empire. True, he had no reason to love the Empire, but he did care about his own kind. Second, he couldn't help remembering the Treel. Life as a servant to the Il Ronn didn't seem all that attractive. In fact it just amounted to a choice between one kind of slavery and another.

Reez stood waiting, contempt and arrogance surrounding him like a cloak. McCade tried to look into the alien's eyes, but found only darkness. Mixed feelings of revulsion and fear made his pulse pound, and he found it took all his strength to speak.

"I can't speak for my companions," McCade said, "but personally I'd prefer the slave market of Lakor to your company any day."

With that he spat into the sand between the alien's hoofs and thereby sealed his fate. His action was a wanton waste of water and to a people for whom water had religious significance, it was a deadly insult. It implied that the commander's father should have showered his sperm on the desert, rather than use it to fertilize his egg-mother.

For a long moment, Commander Reez stood perfectly still . . . and McCade was afraid he'd gone too far. He'd known that the same action by another Il Ronn would have provoked a death duel. But he'd allowed both his fear and courage to control him long enough to hit back the only way he could.

When Reez spoke, his voice was as cold as death. "So be it." He turned to Sara and Van Doren. As one they spat into the sand before him.

The Il Ronnian officer regained his composure with effort, but his voice was like the icy distance of space itself. "I will not grant you the swift death you obviously seek. Instead, you will die slowly, as befits your kind, working, as animals should, for the profit of their betters. A fate for which your entire race is woefully overdue."

The air buzzed and shimmered as the alien departed. Seconds later their guards appeared, and this time they were far from gentle. Commander Reez had evidently made his displeasure known.

They were shoved, kicked, and pushed back through the labyrinth of tubes and passageways before being literally thrown into some kind of detention cell. A superficial examination of the cell revealed that no effort had been spared to make it both primitive and uncomfortable. For an Il Ronn that is. The cell had been cooled to a temperature which felt just about right to McCade. Gone too was the intensely bright lighting favored by the aliens. The dimmer, warmer light was quite a relief to human eyes.

Nonetheless the cell was still far from comfortable. There was no furniture, no sign of sanitary facilities, and no source of the Il Ronnian's precious water.

Glancing around the bare, seamless walls, McCade searched for some signs of the sensors, which he knew to be there. He couldn't see them, but that wasn't surprising. Knowing that all conversation would be monitored, by unspoken agreement all three remained silent. If Van Doren was worried, there was no sign of it in his cheerful thumbs up. Sara managed a smile and a conspiratorial wink. McCade smiled back and closed his eyes. Suddenly he was very tired. He resisted the impulse only briefly before, realizing there was nothing he could do, he let himself drift off to sleep.

He awoke to find the other two already up. A quick inventory revealed that he was sore, hungry and scared. Then the acceleration began. They were smashed down against the metal floor with tremendous force. That lasted for a few seconds, which seemed like hours. Then without warning the acceleration and gravity disappeared. Shortly after that the cell began to tumble. Since there were no hand holds or ways to strap themselves down, they tumbled with it. They were all experienced at weightlessness and quickly adjusted to it. But not before collecting some bumps and bruises from the unpadded cell.

As he glided from one surface to another in response to the cell's tumbling movement, McCade tried to figure out what was happening. He couldn't believe the gigantic Il Ronnian warship was out of control and tumbling end-over-end through space. But if it wasn't, then they were no longer aboard. Suddenly the acceleration made sense. The cell wasn't part of the ship and never had been. It was probably a cargo module that had been modified to include breathable atmosphere. It was probably equipped with a microcomputer and some retro-tubes as well. Reez had simply swung by Lakor and unceremoniously blasted their module down toward the planet, having warned someone on the surface of some incoming merchandise.

It was quick, simple, and efficient. But it was also uncomfortable and dangerous, McCade thought as the module tumbled again, throwing him toward the opposite bulkhead. A fact which Commander Reez had no doubt considered. McCade executed a somersault and hit the bulkhead feet first, legs properly flexed, and then pushed off toward what had once been the deck.

Meanwhile Van Doren and Sara were likewise occupied. The marine demonstrated surprising grace and agility for a man his size. However his moves were nothing compared to Sara's. She had managed to transform the situation into an aerial ballet. In fact, she was apparently enjoying herself. Watching her, McCade remembered her as she'd been years before. Young, beautiful, and completely untouchable. Separated from him by an entire obstacle course of social and financial barriers. Junior officers weren't welcome in the quarters of mighty captains. Particularly those who couldn't even afford the null-G ballet lessons Sara had taken for granted. And now here they were. Trapped in a cargo module hurtling down toward some unseen world. A world on which they would all be just so much meat for sale.

Her movements were lithe and precise. Each flowed seamlessly into the next as though planned and rehearsed for months. Her face was lit with a beautiful smile which somehow made the terrible scar disappear. Watching her made him feel good. And that surprised and confused him. It scared him too . . . because it made him realize how much he would miss her if they were separated. Somehow, without his realizing it, she'd become both friend and ally without the years of association it usually took to produce either relationship.

His thoughts were interrupted by the realization that gravity had begun to return. As it did McCade felt himself gradually grow heavier and heavier. They had evidently entered Lakor's atmosphere. Unfortunately the module was still tumbling end-over-end. What had been almost a game was now deadly serious. With added weight it became much harder to avoid hitting the metal bulkheads. On top of that, McCade knew he was getting tired. He had begun to sweat. With each movement, the next grew harder to perform. He saw the other two were also having difficulty—Van Doren more than Sara.

The sensation of weight continued to increase. McCade's reactions slowed accordingly. He started to make mistakes. Each time he made a mistake he paid a price in pain. Finally both he and Van Doren lost control. They crashed into the surfaces and into each other, making it increasingly difficult for Sara to maneuver around them. Reez could not have administered a more efficient beating if he'd been there in person.

Sara fared slightly better. She watched with concern as the two men were inexorably beaten, knowing there was nothing she could do to help them. Only her training and perfect conditioning had saved her so far. But she too was beginning to tire.

McCade watched with a strange sort of dispassionate interest as the gray metal surface came up to meet him. Somehow he couldn't summon even the slightest response from his leaden arms and legs. He could do no more than note the impact as his body slammed into the bulkhead and his head bounced off hard metal. A tremendous wave of pain rolled through his body and threatened to pull him under. One more, he thought. One more should do it. Then I won't feel anything anymore. The prospect seemed wonderful.

Then the module stopped tumbling. It seemed as if Reez had known the precise moment at which they'd be unable to take anymore, and had programmed the module's tiny computer to fire the retros at just that moment. McCade knew that was impossible. Nevertheless, he cursed Reez in a dozen languages as the module slammed down through layer after layer of atmosphere, bucking and shaking as though it would come apart at any moment. Each time it shook, another wave or pain rolled through him until one finally carried him with it, down into a dark abyss.