A For Anything

11

The Boss awoke out of a smothering dream of darkness. His heart was hammering; he came upright in the bed with a panicky motion that left him trembling and dizzy.

But the lights all around him were burning as before; nothing was wrong, no one was in the room. The alarm had not sounded. The wide carpet was empty on every side; he could see the domed ceiling, no one was clinging there.

He leaned back against the cushions, closing his eyes for a moment. A horrible dream. Horrible. Even now, his heart was still thudding and leaping in his chest; he could still see the gray corridor, and his son Oliver stooping to unfasten the round metal hatch cover in the stone floor. He was paralyzed, unable to call out, until the cover moved, and he saw an edge of darkness underneath. Then the shadows swooped in, and he turned, shouting for help: and then he woke up.

It was not possible to trust anybody. Perhaps if he had someone he could trust in these rooms at night, watching over him, he wouldn't have these nightmares so often ... very likely indigestion caused them, however. He massaged his slack stomach, groaning, until he forced up a loud belch, and felt a little better. He blinked. His heartbeat was slowing down, the dream was fading. But he was awake now; it was six o'clock. There was no use in trying to get to sleep again.

What could have been under that hatch cover to frighten him so?

It reminded him of the pit under the Tower; there was a cover on that, to keep the stench in ... He sniffed, brooding, hunched in the bed like a great gray lizard, with his hooded eyes gone milky and dull.

After a moment he roused himself and thumbed over the communicator switch at the bedside.

"Boss?"

"No alarm," he growled. "Get a party ready in the Tower -- about ten."

While he waited, he opened the safe and made himself a snack from the private, Gismo and protes inside. It took about ten minutes; then the communicator buzzed softly. "Yes?"

"Ready in the Tower, Boss. Ten -- all bucks. We can get you some females if you prefer."

"Doesn't matter." The Boss tore the last mouthful of meat off his chicken drumstick, and threw the bone into the disposal box. Wiping his greasy hands on his gown, he waddled over to the TV chair and sat down. His heartbeat was thudding faster again, with a sullen, angry tension. He scowled, pulling the lapboard to him.

His fingers stiffened as he touched the controls. The resentment, the buried anger that was always with him, that had no object and no outlet of its own, boiled up and he let it come. He pressed the selector for "Tower."

The screen opposite flared into life. The Boss punched the second button in a row of six.

The screen nickered. The telltale read, "Shaft One."

He was looking up a smooth, dark bore to a circle of light, at an apparent distance of ten or twelve feet; he could see the underside of the little gangway, and the brace that supported it. Above, the yellow-painted ceiling glittered in the floodlights.

He punched the next button. The top of the shaft leaped back, diminished to a tiny button; this second camera was a hundred feet down. Hooded lamps at intervals of about ten feet made flares and then rings of light up the length of the shaft, as if it were the inside of a great annular worm.

His lips pulled back over his teeth; he heard himself grunt, an unwilling sound.

He punched the fourth button; Now the view was almost the same, but the top of the shaft was invisible; the rings of light seemed to melt together as they converged. This camera was four hundred feet down.

He punched the fifth button. The shaft looked the same; this was at the nine-hundred-foot level.

Keypunched the sixth button. His breath was beginning to come short and heavy, rasping in his throat. The screen showed a light grid of iron, half-inch criss-crossing five inches apart. Above the grid, he saw the same diminishing perspective. This was the lowest point, sixteen hundred feet down; under this, there was nothing but the pit.

He punched the first button: the telltale read, "Platform." The camera was located at eye level across the shaft opening from the gangway. On the far side, across the railing, a small crowd was gathered. There were the ten slaves in white shirts, and half a dozen guards. They were all waiting in silence, heads down, as if the glare hurt their eyes.

The Boss's throat was dry. He touched the audio key and said, "Get the first one out."

All the heads jumped, turning toward the loudspeaker. The guard corporal pointed to one of the slaves, and two guards hustled him out, white-faced and slack in the knees. He was a thin man with a ragged mustache. They forced him out to the end of the gangway, with vacancy under his feet, and held him there. The Boss could see his Adam's apple work convulsively as he tried to swallow.

The Boss poised his heavy fingers over the buttons. His jaw and throat were tense, brow knotted. "Get ready," he said. In the screen, the doomed man's mouth opened, his body went rigid all over.

"Go," said the Boss.