Keith Laumer: Assignment in Nowhere

This journey ended in still another room, like the others no more than a wide place in the corridor. There was a stone bench, some crude-looking shelves big enough for coffins in one corner, the usual dim bulb, heaped garbage, and odds and ends of equipment of obscure function. There was a hole in the center of the chamber from which a gurgling sound came. Sanitary facilities, I judged, from the odor. This time I was strapped by one ankle and allowed to sit on the floor. A clay pot with some sort of mush in it was thrust at me. I got a whiff, gagged, pushed it away. I wasn’t that hungry—not yet.

An hour passed. I had the feeling I was waiting for something. My two proprietors—or two others, I wasn’t sure—sat across the room, hunkered down on their haunches, dipping up their dinner from their food pots, not talking. I could hardly smell the place now—my olfactory nerves were numb. Every so often a newcomer would shamble in, come over to gape at me, then move off.

Then a messenger arrived, barked something peremptory. My escorts got to their feet, licked their fingers carefully with thick, pink tongues as big as shoe soles, came over and unstrapped the ankle bracelet, and started me off again. We went down, this time—taking one branching byway after another, passing through a wide hall where at least fifty hulking louts sat at long benches, holding some sort of meeting, past an entry through which late evening light glowed, then down again, into a narrow passage that ended in a cul-de-sac.

Lefty—my more violent companion—yanked at my arm, thrust me toward a round, two-foot opening, like an oversized rat-hole, set eighteen inches above the floor. It was just about wide enough for a man to crawl into. I got the idea. For a moment, I hesitated; this looked like the end of the trail. Once inside, there’d be no further opportunities for escape—not that I had had any so far.

A blow on the side of the head slammed me against the wall. I went down, twisted on my back. The one who had hit me was standing over me, reaching for a new grip. I’d had about enough of this fellow. Without pausing to consider the consequences, I bent my knee, smashed a hard, ikedo-type kick to his groin. He doubled over, and my second kick caught him square in the mouth. I got a glimpse of pinkish blood welling—

The other man-ape grabbed me, thrust me at the burrow almost casually. I dived for it, scrambled into a damp chill and an odor as solid as well-aged cheese. A crawl of five feet brought me to a drop-off. I felt around over the edge, found the floor two feet below, swung my legs around and stood, facing the entrance with the slug gun in my hand. If Big Boy came in after me, he’d get a surprise.

But I saw the two of them silhouetted against the light from along the corridor. Lefty was leaning on his friend, making plaintive squeaking noises. Then they went off along the corridor together. Apparently whatever their instructions were, they didn’t include taking revenge on the new specimen—not yet.

The traditional first move when imprisoned in the dark was to pace off the dimensions of the cell, a gambit which presumably lends a mystic sense of mastery over one’s environment. Of course, I wasn’t actually imprisoned. I could crawl back out into the corridor—but since I would undoubtedly meet Lefty before I had gone far, the idea lacked appeal. That left me with the pacing off to do.

I started from the opening, took a step which I estimated at three feet, and slammed against a wall. No help there.

Back at my starting point, I took a more cautious step, then another—

There was a sound from the darkness ahead. I stood, one foot poised, not breathing, listening…

“Vansi pa’ me’ zen pa’,” a mellow tenor voice said from the darkness. “ Sta’ zi?”

I backed a step. The gun was still in my hand. The other fellow had the advantage; his eyes would be used to the dark, and I was outlined against the faint glow from the tunnel. At the thought, I dropped flat, felt the cold wetness of the rough floor come through my clothes.

“Bo’jou’, ami,” the voice said. “ E ’ vou Gallice?”

Whoever he was, he was presumably a fellow prisoner. And the language he had spoken didn’t sound much like the grunts and clicks of the ogres outside. Still, I had no impulse to rush over and get acquainted.

“Kansh’ tu dall’ Scansk…” The voice came again. And this time I almost got the meaning. The accent was horrible, but it sounded almost like Swedish…

“Maybe Anglic, you,” the voice said.

“Maybe,” I answered, hearing my voice come out as a croak. “Who’re you?”

“Ah, good! I took a blink from you so you come into.” The accent was vaguely Hungarian and the words didn’t make much sense. “Why catch they you? Where from commer you?”

I edged a few feet to the side to get farther from the light. The floor slanted up slightly. I thought of using my lighter, but that would only make me a better target if this new chum had any unfriendly ideas—and nothing I had encountered so far in giant-land led me to expect otherwise.

“Don’t be shy of you,” the voice urged. “I am friend.”

“I asked you who you are,” I said. My hackles were still on edge. I was tired and hungry and bruised, and talking to a strange voice in the dark wasn’t what I needed to soothe my nerves just now.

“Sir, I have honor of to make known myself: Field Agent Dzok, at the service.”

“Field agent of what?” My voice had a sharp edge.

“Perhaps better for further confidences to await closer acquaintance,” the field agent said. “Please, you will talk again, thus allowing me to place the dialect more closely.”

“The dialect is English,” I said. I eased back another foot, working my way up-slope. I didn’t know whether he could see me or not, but it was an old maxim to take the high ground…

“English? Ah, yes. I think we’ve triggered the correct mnemonic now. Not a very well-known sub-branch of Anglic, but then I fancy my linguistic indoctrination is one of the more complete for an Agent of Class Four. Am I doing better?”

The voice seemed closer, as well as more grammatical. “You’re doing fine,” I assured it—and rolled quickly away. Too late, I felt an edge under my back, yelled, went over, and slammed against hard stone three feet below the upper level. I felt my head bounce, heard a loud ringing, while bright lights flashed. Then there was a hand groping over my chest, under my head.

“Sorry, old fellow,” the voice said up close. “I should have warned you. Did the same thing myself my first day here…”

I sat up, groped quickly, found the slug gun, tucked it back into my cuff holster.

“I guess I was a little over-cautious,” I said. “I hardly expected to run into another human being in this damned place.” I worked my jaw, found it still operable, touched a scrape on my elbow.

“I see you’ve hurt your arm,” my cell-mate said. “Let me dab a bit of salve on that…” I heard him moving, heard the snap of some sort of fastener, fumbling noises. I got out my lighter, snapped it. It caught, blazed up blindingly. I held it up—and my jaw dropped.

Agent Dzok crouched a yard from me, his head turned away from the bright light, a small first aid kit in his hands—hands that were tufted with short, silky red-brown hair that ran up under the grimy cuffs of a tattered white uniform. I saw long thick-looking arms, scuffed soft leather boots encasing odd long-heeled feet, a small round head, dark-skinned, long nosed. Dzok turned his face toward me, blinking deepset yellowish eyes set close together above a wide mouth that opened in a smile to show square, yellow teeth.