Kenneth Bulmer: The Key to Irunium

The jewels vanished.

Cyrus said, “Aaah!”

“I,” the remote steely voice said with immense self-satisfaction, “have always said the stick will beat the carrot, every time.”

Dazed, sick, aching, Prestin shook his head. “It’s a convincing demonstration—but it isn’t always so!”

The shock hit him then, gratuitously, and he went rigid. When it went away, the hard young voice said, “That was for impertinence. I do not tolerate that from offal.”

More jewels were placed precisely on the yellow circle.

He did not understand how he had done it and could not see how he was to Porteur again without that diabolic electric—and more than electric—shock. He looked at the jewels. They glittered back at him icily. The young voice said, “Porteur, Robert Infamy!” And the shock screwed him into a knot of agony.

He Porteured the gems.

“Good. You may soon Porteur without my help. But always remember, Robert Infamy, when you Porteur in the future—it was I who helped you. Without me, your gift would always have lain fallow. You have much to thank me for, Prestin, a very great deal. I hope you are grateful.”

“I’ve no doubt,” said Prestin out of his agony of spirit, “I’ve no doubt at all I can find a way to repay you.”

They experimented with Prestin.

They took delight in their work. They increased the amounts they told him to Porteur, gradually building up bulk and weight, flogging him with the impetus machine’s electric—and more than electric—shocks, urging him to greater productivity.

When he passed out for the third time and had to be revived by water and shocks, they let him go. He was dragged off by the Honshi guards, flung down on a mattress in a small airless room and left to rot, his head a pudding-basin filled with burning slops. He slept as though drugged, which he was—drugged by the backlash of his exertions. He sprawled where they left him and scarcely stirred.

He had no idea how much time had passed when he awoke. Almost at once, though, as he sat up and put a hand to his head with a foul exclamation, he was aware of his hunger, thirst and pain. His head felt as though the top had been clumsily sawn off and sewn back on by an apprentice. It reminded him of that bar of steel encircling his head in the car park area as the helicopter had plummeted toward them. He must have worked hard to Porteur himself; he had noticed nothing when he sent Fritzy to this crazy place.

Then he heard the staccato of machine gun fire.

Voices shrilled beyond the door. People screamed and he heard the vicious “Hoshoo! Hoshoo!” that told him the Honshi guards were at play with the devil.

The door crashed open, bringing a blinding burst of light. He shielded his eyes, expecting to be killed at once. Dark shapes blundered in and excited voices said, “Come on! Come on!” They jabbered in Italian, French, German, Spanish, English and un-nameable tongues, all shouting out there beyond the door.

Prestin stood up, possessed by an excitement he could grasp, thinking of the wooden kitchen chair and the impetus machine, the nodal point’s yellow circle and the heap of evil jewels. He ran outside. In the haze of gunsmoke, men and women jostled and pushed, screaming and chanting, waving scraps of Etanshi armor, singing, carousing. He was shuffled and shoved and at once became merely another scrap of humanity flung about in the tides of uncontrolled movement. This was fiesta, Mardi Gras, Revolution, the breaking of bonds and the sundering of chains. He saw dismembered Honshi guards littering the runnels, dangling from overhead fluorescent lamps, strewn everywhere.

A swarm of people rushed out of a concrete side tunnel. Most of them were half-naked; all in rags, waving weapons, shrieking, laughing—some of them—with the violence of released emotions. Before them ran two Honshi guards, their swords gone, their tall conical helmets flapping the pubics around them. One Honshi fell. The crowd poured over him like lava.

Although the crowd had guns they did not shoot at the Honshi… They waited. He saw the other crowd ahead of him, staggered back, and halted to stare about, tilting his revolting head with those wide-spaced, unblinking frog-eyes. Then the crowd closed in.

From the heaving mass a spear suddenly thrust, spiking up. At its tip waved a scrap of hair, blood red, dripping.

The crowd screamed and cheered and hooted.

Much as the scene disgusted Prestin, he couldn’t really blame them. Treat men and woman like animals and you must expect them to react like animals, even though you may claim that it is no way for Homo sapiens to behave.

You sow violence, brother, and you reap violence.

Yeah, man.

Prestin grinned suddenly. He ran forward, holding out his hands.

“I might have known the revolution wouldn’t go off by chance just as I arrived!”

Todor Dalreay, his right arm bloodied to the elbow, the sword an extension of that arm of justice, swung around.

“Bob! So they found you! Yes, we have been busy. The revolution was all laid. All I did was talk them into springing it now.”

“Is it all—?”

The hunter’s face had grown thinner, more wolf-like, but the bristly beard lifted in a laugh. “No need to worry, Bob. It’s all under control. A large number of these people are from your dimension; most are from here though. The Dargan are more than lively in revolt. Taking our whole caravan into captivity was a mistake. The Contessa—”

“Yes?”

Dalreay looked searchingly into Prestin’s eyes. His own face held a remote, strong, judgement-day look. Then, “She escaped into another dimension. Oh, they caught and killed her alter ego—”

“Alter ego? You mean a beautiful young girl with dark hair and violet eyes?”

“I know you met her, Bob. And I believe you were not betrayed by her. Yes, that is the she-devil they killed. The girls who slaved for her were too frightened but it got done. There were those who counted it an honor.”

“I can imagine,” whispered Prestin. He thought of that girl who had taken such delight in bathing her body, who had tried to seduce him into working for the Montevarchi. She was dead. But the Contessa lived on. It would, perhaps, always be like that, surmised Prestin.

“One day, the Contessa will reap her own personal harvest.” Dalreay lifted his sword as the people ebbed and flowed about them. “But there is much to be done. This place must be fumigated of Honshi and Trug alike. Then we can see about our own future, and Dargai…”

“Listen, Todor!” Preston grabbed Dalreay’s arm as the Dargan made to stride off. “A girl—you know, Fritzy Upjohn—a girl they had working here—whatever that meant. Have you or your men seen her? It’s important , Todor!”

“A girl—?”

“Think of Darna, Todor. Yes, important—a girl!”

A rolling figure, a cough, and the glug-glug of an upended wine flagon heralded the arrival of Nodger. He hiccoughed and smiled around. His sword, too, shone with blood.

“I killed that snake Enrico,” he said flatly. “But his brother Cino escaped into the Big Green. So that’s him finished, too.”

“Bad cess to him,” growled Dalreay, fingering his beard. He waved his sword and shouted and men moved purposefully. “We ought to check for this girl of Bob’s—”

“That fool Cino.” Nodger wiped his mouth and drank deeply, the wine dribbing again down his chin. “He sought to bargain with us. Grabbed a girl and tried to use her to shield him. Of course, we didn’t listen. Enrico made a showing of it; but his footwork was so bad that even an old bones like me could make mincemeat out of him. But Cino, now—”

“Girl,” said Prestin. He knew. It had to be. Well, it would, wouldn’t it? That was the way Cino’s mind worked—if one could dignify his animal reactions by the name of mind. “Cino,” said Prestin dully, “has Fritzy. He must have. She’s the only girl he could bargain with. Really.”