Jack Chalker - Balshazzar's Serpent

Before he could give the command, the woman rose up, trained her pistol right on him, and fired. There was a brief beam that struck him dead on—and had absolutely no effect whatever. Battle suits were not robes.

She seemed absolutely baffled, and Cromwell said, “Now! Both of them!”

Delta fired two short autoguided bursts and both of the settlers dropped.

“Why in the world would they think those things would work on combat suits?” somebody asked, as two of them went over to check on and then restrain the pair.

“It’s damned dark out here, that’s why,” Cromwell reminded them. “That’s why we picked this location. They may have better natural night vision than we do, but I’ll bet you that they couldn’t even tell we weren’t buck naked at that distance with just their eyes. I’m impressed that she hit me at all. That’s damned good shooting.”

“We’ll have to pray that the Doctor has the quality of mercy in him when he interrogates them, too,” Delta commented, picking up the pistol and examining it.

“Oh? Why?”

“This is a fairly old model, but unless I’m really misreading this she had it on a force high enough to kill, not just knock you cold.”

“Huh! Well, search ’em thoroughly for weapons. Archangel, you’re sending a pickup team, I hope?”

“On the way,” said the controller for the team high in orbit above them.

“We’ve got something on screen!” Beta called to them. “Alpha, I think you will want to see this.”

They all did, but with one standing picket and two binding up the prisoners, only Cromwell and Beta were able to take a look at that point, along with, a fraction of a second later, Archangel.

The ferret had climbed up the wall and now was slowly positioning itself on the ceiling for the best shot.

The cave had expanded into a large chamber, originally natural but now enlarged and regularized, that was quite a different level of existence than topside. While not luxurious, it was perfectly modern, a series of cubes assembled together into a kind of apartment building or office complex, it was difficult to say which. There was lighting in there, and some people around, and in the center was a regular circular depression with three concentric levels that seemed like some ancient forum.

The people looked pretty much the same as they did topside, but perhaps cleaner and a bit less conditioned than everyday farmers. All carried sidearms similar to the ones used by the two who’d come upon the team, held in casual holsters worn outside of their loose fitting clothing. There seemed no sexual hierarchy; both men and women had the sidearms and also the arrogant expressions that they backed up.

“They didn’t do this in a few days or weeks,” Beta commented. “They’ve been here for a very long time. And they got a ton of the stuff out of that ship, didn’t they?”

Cromwell nodded. “And this is just one of them. I wonder how extensive this cave system is, and just how many complexes like this there might be? Those ships like the one we found were basically automated, but as raiders they often carried a hundred or more people, sometimes what passes for families among them. Give them a hundred, and perhaps fifty years, and you’ve got a fair-sized elite here.”

“Holy—! Just look at that!” Delta commented, coming over to look.

From one of the caverns emerged a small mag tractor pulling two flats loaded with crates of something or other.

“If they have that kind of mobility, why strong-arm the arsenal?” Beta wondered.

“Security. I bet few of them have full access to that lift. If they did, they’d have knocked each other off by now. At least we know how they’re getting trade goods they need in when they need them without obvious wagon trains. I doubt if they have too many of the tractors, though. That one looks like the kind they’d use to load and unload their ship. I suspect they have no more than four or five, tops; that would be enough for their needs but not for everybody else.”

“But why have everything set up down there? It must have been rough to build with just what they had, and it also has to be maintained. Most of the caves are natural, and there have to be some regions where they’re unstable,” Delta said.

“Indeed. Can’t hide the farms and farmers—everybody has to eat, and there’s precious little in the way of synthesizers here, I suspect. Not for an expanding population. No, these people aren’t hiding from us,” Cromwell told them. “They’re in hiding . From whom is the big question. Works nicely as a trap for suckers like us, and we may well not be the first, but that’s not worth this . We’d have come down if they’d had a nice civilization aboveboard. No, they’re hiding from somebody in particular. Somebody they think that, after all this time, might still show up any moment. Makes you wonder.”

“Well, they’re through hiding from us , anyway,” Beta commented. “I just wish we could see signs of our people down there. I don’t like the idea we got shot at full strength.”

“They’ll have them well away from here,” Cromwell assured them. “But within limits. I have this feeling that these people just don’t understand who and what they are dealing with when they attacked us.”

“Yeah, but this would sure be one time when it would be handy if we believed in praying in public. Easy to pick ’em up, and it would drive this crew nuts,” Beta commented.

Deep down, though, Cromwell knew that his team was very concerned, probably as concerned as he was. If the ferrets couldn’t find them, then some good people were bound to die on this miserable dirt ball.

In the darkness there was first a soft nothingness, then a tingling, growing pain that seemed to come from everywhere inside her, blossom, and then explode into a bodywide network of pointed needles or spikes stuck into her. She gave an exclamation of pure displeasure that seemed to die in her throat and then her eyes popped open.

The jabbing pains subsided after a moment, but her joints throbbed and there was a part of her head that felt like it was being struck by a dull but forceful mallet every few seconds. She was on her knees, she realized, and stark naked, a fact which greatly embarrassed and worried her. What had they done to her? What might they have done while she was unconscious?

She tried to move, to rub her painful joints, but she found that she could not. First, her wrists were bound behind her, held in some kind of restraint that also went around the ankles. She was unable to shift, get up, or unwind from the uncomfortable pose. There was no slack; the restraints were solid, not chains or flexible materials.

There was a chain, loosely around her neck. She tried to turn and see what it was connected to, but, that proving impossible, she looked around and saw many others in the same situation and pose. The chains appeared simply riveted into the wall of the cave, but the loops proved to be a choke chain. You move or twist, the chain gets tighter. You get back into the proscribed position, the chain loosened through a series of carefully managed loops along its length. The chain could also lock into place within its “lax” zone, wrapping as it did around a similar waist chain before going to the wall. This is what kept them from falling forward or over. Somebody who knew what they were doing did not want anybody trying any tricks whatsoever.

These stocks or whatever you call them weren’t put here for us , she thought, looking around carefully. This place was designed as a holding prison. Good old Greg’s not so nice down here, I bet. The thought did not make her feel any better.