Jo Clayton - Shadowkill

He began pulling up images of the rest of the prisoners, commenting on each. Some were to be milked of everything they owned and killed. Those with positions of power in their home spheres would be given blackmail poisons, tailored parasites or other addictions, according to the assessment of the Savants and Interrogators, and sent home to work for Omphalos. A few would be sold to their competitors-through convoluted cutouts to keep Omphalos clean. These were stacked in stasis pods; they’d been kept unconscious so they wouldn’t have any notion of who had collected them. “Except you, Seyirshi. If any of that lot came across you, say a year from now, I wouldn’t give odds how long you’d last.” He droned on until he reached the end of the images. “We should harvest several billions by the time we’ve finished with this. To say nothing of an exponential increase of influence in a number of sectors. A successful operation, wouldn’t you say, Seyirshi?”

“Most commendable.”

“Ah, yes. Now. One last thing. Certainly you would prefer to avoid the Probe. It’s so easy to slip and apply just that little extra pressure that does so much damage.” He tapped a sensor and retracted the wristcuffs that locked Ginny’s arms to the chair. “So much simpler and safer if you give us the location, entry codes, and totals in your various accounts, then authorize the transfer of these funds as we direct.”

Ginny Seyirshi turned to stare at him; then, without a word he began entering the data.

Dyslaera 1: Rohant

He lay on a hard cold cot in a room filled with white glare.

He was aware of everything, but felt nothing directly; no sensation, no emotion reached him through the fugue state the Dyslaera called nincs-othran which had wrapped around him the moment his body was seriously threatened.

“STOP THE DRIP. NOW.”

Boss Questionman, he thought, cracking his whip over his crew. If he could have felt anything, it would have been a musty smugness. Dyslaera weren’t so easy to tame as all that. We’ve done worse to each, other than you can dream of, worm. You can kill me, but you will not bend me.

Touching him, here there places he could see places he couldn’t see, sensors and probes, testing TESTING…

“READINGS THE SAME AS WITH THE OTHER DYSLAERORS, ADJUSTED FOR AGE AND PHYSICAL CONDITION. FUGUE STATE, SENSITIVITY TO INVASIVE TECHNIQUES ALMOST NONEXISTENT, NO PAIN RESPONSE, RESPONSE TO THE ADZTERPINE IS ANOMALOUS, EVEN IN TERMS OF THE REACTIONS OF THE OTHER DYSLAERORS…”

The voice went on, a dull monotone listing with little elaboration the tics and tots of his body… when it stopped it was several moments before he realized the silence. And when he did, the silence was filled again with the booming voice.

“HMM. EACH OF THEM SEEMS TO BE WIRED DIFFERENTLY. RIGHT. I WANT A SAMPLE SERIES FROM HIM AND THE OTHERS, YOU KNOW THE REGIMEN. ONE CAVEAT. THIS ONE HAS TO BE KEPT ALIVE AND INTACT. ORDER OF THE GRAND CHOM. WHO ALSO REQUIRES US TO CIRCUMVENT THAT FUGUE STATE BEFORE HE’S TOO OLD FOR ANANILES. I WANT THE SAMPLES ANALYZED AND THE REPORT ON MY SCREEN IN THREE DAYS.”

He lay on the hard cold cot while techs worked over him, faceless men in heavy silver bodysuits, their eyes obscured behind magnaviewers, their hands shielded by the translucent film of silvaskin.

Nothing bothered him. He didn’t care what they did, he just wanted them to get done with it and let him go back to planning his escape. nincs-othran protected him and at the same time narrowed his focus drastically; everything he did, every thought that flickered across his mind dealt with escape. He could wait with a terrible patience for the slightest of openings and explode into action the moment it showed. There was nothing yet. This lot were careless around him, they weren’t fighters, not any kind of combat types. If he could get at them, they were dead and he was gone, but their machines were sleepless and ubiquitous, not subject to lapses of attention. If the crack came, it would be in the interface between man and machine. It would come. He waited.

Fishing 1: Kikun And His Gods

Spirit Hound put his head down and snuffled at the traces, but it was no good, the white threads issuing from the only ship left in view were dissolving like smoke blown by the wind. He struggled to run faster.

The ship faded, vanished.

Spirit Hound whimpered and whined and dug at the nothingness he ran on and through. He cast about, ran this way, ran that.

Kikun!

Hound heard the name, turned his head. The fine white threads that ran behind him were raveling, on the point of breaking and dissipating, leaving him stranded.

Kikun!

The name pulsed along the threads. Their white brightened, thickened. They twitched at him, tried to pull him back.

The twitch was harder. Spirit Hound hesitated; he wanted to go forward, but there was no more forward to go into. He turned and ran back along the threads.

Kikun opened his eyes, stared blankly at the heart-shaped face hanging over him. Autumn Rose. He was weary, so weary it was almost too much effort to breathe.

“Kikun?” She lifted his hand, let it fall. “Goerta b’rite!”

She went away, came back with a cup of broth. Gathering him up, bracing him against her knee, she began feeding him the broth, sip by sip, slipping in an occasional bite of hipropaste.

When she was finished with that, she straightened his cramped arms and legs and tucked a pillow under his head, then she went off again, came back with a mug of hot tea and a drinking tube. She set the mug beside his head, helped him with the tube. “You feel like talking?”

He sucked at the tea, let the cleansing warmth trickle through him as he considered the question. “Why did you call me back?”

“Didn’t want you killing yourself.”

“Just as well. I’d lost them. What’s happening?”

“Right now, we’re drifting-pointed the same way your last turn took us.”

“Where are we?”

“The Callidara Pseudo-Cluster.”

“What’s that?”

“A very busy place. Nearly a thousand systems less than a light-year apart, two hundred of them inhabited, mostly colonized from other places, only ten of them have native pops. Kephalos tells me we have to go carefully. Sometimes the insplit round here is so busy its fabric shakes.”

Kikun sucked at the tea, frowning. “That doesn’t sound right. Omphalos wouldn’t want close and inquisitive neighbors.”

“Well, it’s where you brought us. Omphalos?”

“Tlee!” He flattened his hands on the floor, tried to push up but his arms had no strength in them. “Help me up.”

“No need to go rushing about. I have to purge the ship before we go near any of those worlds.”

“Purge?”

“Pull her flags. We stole her, remember? I don’t purge her, the first port we hit, zap, straight to jail.”

“Ah. How long will that take?”

“I don’t know. Depends on what system the PO used, previous owner, that is. Don’t worry, I will get it. Digby sees that his Ops know a lot of things most powers say they shouldn’t. You comfortable there, or would you rather go lie down in one of the staterooms?”

“I’ll stay here.”

“Right.” She got to her feet. “First I find me a nice little planet with no people on it. One with air I can breathe so I can get the outside clean, too. Then I suppose I’d better call in and see what Digby has to say. Nothing much is going to be happening for a while, so you might as well get some sleep.”