Cristopher Stasheff - Escape Velocity

“Industrial espionage, mostly.”

“INDUSTRIAL NUTHOUSE,” the nearer voice snorted. “HE’S ONE OF THOSE CRAZY BILLIONAIRES WHO DRESSES UP IN ARMOR AND TRIES TO PRETEND THE MIDDLE AGES’RE STILL GOING ON.”

“But we can’t let some civilian come in here and …”

“WHY NOT? MAYBE HE’S GOT JUST THE CAN OPENER WE NEED. TAKE OFF YOUR COAT AND GET TO WORK, MR. RICCI.”

“Well, thank you, gentlemen. Where’s the coatrack? Ah, there. Now, which way to the vict … ah, subject? Ah, there’s the door…”

Father Marco! Dar nearly yelped with joy at the thought of a familiar face. But he managed to hold it in; some wavering remnant of good sense remembered not to let the cat out of the bag.

The priest drifted into view. “Now, then, fellow! When did you stop being a telepath?”

“When did I … never!”

“Then you still are one!”

“No, of course not! I never …”

“When did you first become a telepath?”

“Never, I tell you! Never.”

“When did you begin to associate with telepaths?”

“Never! Never!”

“He’s being recalcitrant,” Father Marco sighed, “just as I feared. Well, get rid of these lights and noises—they aren’t doing any good.”

“BUT … BUT, MR. RICCI …”

“Turn them off, I say! They’re not getting any answers out of him—and they’re driving me crazy! Turn them off!”

“WELL … I HOPE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING.

The lights and sounds died. Dar could’ve wept with gratitude.

“Now, then! Let’s try the old-fashioned methods!” Father Marco clapped his hands, and two giants shuffled into the light. Each was a head taller than Dar, and musclebound. You could tell, because they were both stripped to the waist. On top of that, they were shaven bald. And they both wore black masks.

They unfastened the straps that held down Dar’s wrists, ankles, and chest, and yanked him to his feet. “But … what … where …” Dar sputtered. He had his answer in a second; they hustled him through the nearest doorway while Father Marco followed, calling, “Thumbscrews! The Boot! The Iron Maiden! The Rack!”

They burst into the torture chamber, the two men rushing him so quickly that his feet scarcely had time to touch the floor. Grim, vicious-looking instruments blurred past him, covered with cobwebs and rust. In the dim light, he could see that the stone blocks oozed drops of water. Then they burst through another door and twisted down an angling corridor.

“Wh … didn’t I miss my stop, there?”

“Nope,” the black mask to his right answered. “You ain’t even in your cab, yet.”

And sure enough, they burst through a final door, and there stood the pregnant-teardrop shape of a cab, glistening in the muted light that filtered down to the underground cavern.

“No one’ll notice y’ here,” the other muscleman growled. “They scarcely still know it exists.” He yanked open the door, and his mate booted Dar through it. “But,” the young man sputtered, “what … why …?”

“Because Horatio Bocello promised them berths on his spaceship, of course.” Father Marco slid in beside Dar. “They couldn’t resist an offer like that.”

“ ‘Course not,” the second man agreed, sliding into the front seat. “If anybody’d want to go back to the Middle Ages, it’d be the torturers.”

“You can say that quintuply,” his mate agreed, clapping a chauffeur’s cap onto his head. “These namby-pamby lights and noises and dripping water—faugh! I wanna hear those bones crunch!”

His buddy clicked the hatch closed and advised him, “You can stop acting now.”

“Good.” The first breathed a sigh of relief. “But I do hate this job. Me, I can’t even stand to set mousetraps! Just give me a chance to escape from this sick society!”

“I did,” Father Marco reminded him. “You jumped at it.”

The cab swooped out of the shadows of the cavern into evening sunlight, up into clouds gilded by sunset and industrial waste.

Dar looked around him, recognizing the plush upholstery and computerized bar. “This is no cab—it’s Bocello’s limousine!”

“I never woulda guessed it.” The righthand torturer yanked off his mask. “Pass me an akvavit, will ya?”

The “cab” dropped down and landed them on Bocello’s back lawn, right next to an elongated dome big enough to have been a small spaceship. As Dar stepped out, Lona slammed into him with a hug that would’ve given a grizzly lumbago. “Thank Heaven you’re safe! We were so worried !” Then she shoved back, holding him off at arm’s length, and he was amazed to see tears in her eyes. “You poor, brave, dear idiot! Next time you have to go fling yourself on a sacrificial altar, do it for something worthwhile, okay?”

He couldn’t spare the energy for an answer; he was too busy falling into her eyes. Apparently she had noticed his existence…

Then Whitey was slapping him on the back, and Sam was craning up to plant a kiss on his cheek. “I should’ve known the system’d swallow you up!”

He grinned back at her and squeezed her hand. “Yeah, but you didn’t let it chew me up and spit me out!”

“No.” Sam caught Horatio’s arm and beamed up at him. “No, we didn’t.”

“Well, give some praise to the real heroes of the rescue,” Horatio laughed, clapping Father Marco and one of the torturers on the shoulders. “I only provided the car, and the code for getting into the Gamelon! Hurry and change, boys—the last shuttle’s lifting off in ten minutes.”

The torturers grinned and trotted away.

“Nobly done, Father,” Whitey agreed. “I don’t know how you managed to bluff the real torturers.”

Father Marco shrugged. “Nothing to it, when the computer said I was genuine.”

“Yeah.” Dar frowned. “How did you manage that?”

“My versatile granddaughter,” Whitey sighed. “Every time I despair of her because she can’t make a sonnet, she does something like this.”

“Oh, it’s nothing that big,” Lona said, irritated. “I just made a little addition to an existing program, that’s all.”

“Just a ‘little addition’ that added Father Marco’s name to a list of top security clearances,” Whitey corrected.

Dar stared. “How’d she get past the security blocks?”

“Trade secret,” Lona said quickly, “though I don’t really see what all the fuss is about. I mean, computers may be fast, but they’re really not very bright, the dear little things.”

The two “torturers” came trotting back, dressed in plush overalls, and Horatio shooed them toward the dome. “Aboard the yacht, now, quickly—time’s wasting! If we don’t move promptly, the Executive Secretary will be the Executive Dictator, and we won’t be allowed to lift off from Terra! Hurry, hurry—the Brave New World awaits!”

He meant it literally—the Brave New World was the name the dozen plutocrats had given their newly purchased government-surplus FTL spaceship. (In memory of Shakespeare, not Huxley). They saw it lying in the middle of Serenitatis Plain as they came in for a landing: a quarter of a mile long and eight hundred feet wide, glistening like a promise of the future. They landed near it and dropped down into an underground concourse with beige, textured walls and a burgundy carpet. Horatio hurried them along till the hallway widened into a circular bay with a double door in the far wall. A line of people in sturdy coveralls, with packs on their backs, was filing through it, to drift quickly upwards in a negative-gravity field.

“Up there is the ship,” Horatio explained. “They should be almost done loading now. Are you sure you won’t join us?”