Anthonology

ON THE USES OF TORTURE

After "Bridge" you may be wondering what could be more provocative. The answer is the following story, "Torture." But this one is not sweet and sexy. I like to try my talent in new ways, and this time I set out to write the most brutal fiction the market could sustain. It turned out that I was again ahead of my time. Ejler Jakobsson bought "Torture," but suggested revision. No, not to censor it; to make it more effective. He was really doing his job; you don't often see that. I agreed with his points, and made the suggested revision, and the story did indeed stand improved. It was scheduled for publication in the same issue of WOT as "Bridge"; because magazines don't like to run two stories in an issue by the same author, this one was to appear under my alternate pen name, Tony Pedro. That is, a form of Anthony and a form of Piers. Piers is part of a huge family of names that includes Peter (English language), Pedro (Spanish), Pierre (French), Pietro (Italian), Peder (Danish), Pieter (Dutch), Petron (Greek) and perhaps others I wot not; it means "rock." Yes, it is the rock on which the Christian Church was built.

But when the issue was published, "Torture" was absent. The editor had, it seemed, lost his nerve. Three years later, fellow novelist Sterling Lanier asked me if I would contribute a story to a private magazine, Armadillo, so I showed them "Torture" and they bought it from Galaxy publications. But that issue of Dillo was never published either. Finally, after ten years or so, John Silbersack took it for The Berkley Showcase: Volume 3—and this time it actually did make it into print. It seemed the genre had finally loosened up enough for the hard stuff. My main frustration about the matter is the fact that Harlan Ellison wrote a story about the same time I wrote "Torture," but his was much milder. Thus his "A Boy and His Dog" was able to make it into print, and I believe it won an award and was made into a motion picture. People thought that was the most brutal fiction the genre had to offer; they never got to see mine. Once again I missed the cut and remained unfamous. Today I have made my name instead as a writer of funny fantasy; I can't even break in to the horror market despite having some truly horrible works in mind, because I have no credits in horror. But I can write it, and one day I will.

Gentle reader, be warned again: this story is brutal.

My fingers caress the dial. The boots stir uneasily. "You don't know me," I tell them. "But you do know this box—and that is sufficient. I expect you to work well and keep your opinions to yourselves. That is all."

They watch me, expressionless. There are twenty of them, all nonwhite humans. Some are half-caste Negroes, some Latins, a few Mongoloid, the rest mixed. The refuse of the Space Service—busted back to boot status and sentenced to hard labor here at Stockade Planetoid. Scrubbing out tankers, packing barges—that sort of thing, where human labor is cheaper than the shipping charges on heavy machinery. This barracks is listed as "inclement," and I am expected to whip it into line.

"Roll call," I announce. I depress a button on the box and set the dial to twenty-five. One of the boots stiffens, his breath sucking inward noisily. He is dark brown with frizzy hair and broad nostrils. I let him twitch a moment while I study him. Then, I turn and dial to zero and he subsides.

"You don't need to do that," a Latin objects. "We're wearing our numbers."

So they are. This loudmouth is #6. I depress stud number six and turn the dial to forty. He goes rigid with a cry of agony. Slowly I advance the setting to fifty, noting how his muscles strain and the sweat pops out all over his body. He is trying to scream again, but can't catch his breath. Then I drop it down to ten, so that he is only nominally in pain. "Remember what I said about opinions?" I asked him gently.

He nods, the moisture shaking off his cropped skull. I turn to zero, and he breathes again.

After I have verified that the discipline box is properly attuned to each member of my crew, I return to #6. "Since you evidently like to talk, suppose you tell me why you're here."

He hesitates. I know why: there is a kind of Geneva Convention about this prison, and technically the boots don't have to say anything to anybody about their pasts. Which is why I am inquiring. I raise my hand to the box.

"Tell him!" #20 exclaims. I give him a token nudge at five tenths, just a reminder about talking out of turn even though he has done exactly what I want. My finger hovers over stud #6.

"We're all here for the same reason, sergeant," the Latin says. "Mutiny. We were supposed to gas a continent on Severance to clear it of native life so that it could be mined efficiently, and we balked."

"Severance," I murmur. "Richest lode of iridium discovered in the last decade, no intelligent or otherwise useful fauna. Why did you interfere?"

"Because it was genocide. All the animals unique to that world, all the plants—Man had no right to wipe them out. Not for the sake of a mining strike, not for any reason. To brutally gas an entire—"

"It was hardly your prerogative to impose your ludicrous sentimentality on your mission."

"We—we're not exactly from Earth's privileged class," he says. My hand drops toward the dial, and he continues quickly. "I mean we feel some empathy for those who have no power of decision. Those creatures on Severance—they had a right to live, to breed, to prosper, to die in their own fashion, just as we do. They were no threat to us, only an inconvenience. We could have mined without hurting—"

"Enough. I don't care to be contaminated by your pusillanimous ravings. You betrayed your species and your world, you despicable alien-lovers. You ought to be gassed yourselves, and if I were the court-martial officer I'd see to it myself. But at least I can make you traitors earn your keep. Your rations will be reduced by a third for your first week with me, your duty hours extended commensurately. Any complaints you may entertain will be duly processed through the box." I depress the entire bank of buttons and give them all a half-second jolt of sixty, just so they understand.

The book says the box can't kill, though it can make you wish you were dead. The book understates the case. The box stimulates the nerve endings of the skin and muscle to simulate a burn, and one hundred is the maximum the human nervous system is capable of sustaining. No torture can deliver more actual pain than that. But the real beauty of it is that no harm is done, physically, so there is no limit to the duration of the punishment. The do-gooders back on Earth are chronically campaigning against this device but the Service lobby has kept the lid on. Good thing, too; we need the box!

A minute has passed, and I see that they are pretty well recovered. "Fall out for duty," I say. They know who is master now.

I bear down on them for the next couple of weeks. You have to when you're dealing with niggers and spies and chinks. They never had real discipline before, and they do get balky and self-righteous and sloppy. Mine have become acclimatized to pain; I have to give them fifty to make them jump.

My outfit is posting the best record in the compound, but I knew there's some resistance still lurking there. I have to bring it to the surface at my convenience, not theirs. So I volunteer them for inside scrub-down on a radioactive barge. That's the worst assignment there is because, even with continuous decontamination, each hour of such duty is estimated to take a week off your life expectancy, and you're damn sick while you're exposed, too. This hulk is big; it will take them a good two weeks to G.I. it all.

I give them the word at lights-out, so they can dream about it. Maybe a hundred hours cumulative inside that scow....

Come morning by compound time, my barracks misses reveille. The company officer smirks, thinking I've lost a point. He knows I mean to have his job, in time.

I march to the barracks and slam open the lock. They are there, lying in their bunks. "On your feet!" I holler loud enough so the whole wing can hear even without the loudspeakers. I touch them with fifty.

They twitch and groan, but don't get up.

Just as I thought. This is the tactic that retired my predecessor. They figure anyone will break if they go on a lie-down strike, refusing to work no matter how much they get boxed. And if they miss more than half a day there will be an investigation and bad publicity.

They propose to bargain with the god of the box.

They are fools, of course. I do not call them again, I do not warn them. I merely turn the dial to one hundred, depress all twenty buttons, and lock them in with the intercom disconnected. I amble down the corridor to the N.C.O.'s mess and enjoy a leisurely breakfast—coffee, eggs, bacon, one griddlecake with maple syrup, a section of fresh cantaloupe, orange juice. I'll say this for the stockade: it has excellent hydroponic facilities and a fine stable. I could not eat better on Earth.

Gloria, the civilian waitress, serves me with a smile. I chat with her and pat her shapely behind. She doesn't know my line of work, only that I'm one of the staff. Nice girl; I really enjoy seeing her.

Sated, I amble back to the barracks. The Post Commander has granted my platoon the morning off in gratitude for the men's courage in volunteering for radioactive duty. I have neglected to tell them this.

One hour has passed—the maximum any prisoner may be boxed at one hundred without specific dispensation. I drop the dial to zero and unlock. It takes a moment to clarify the situation.

Numbers 2 and 15 are in coma. Numbers 4, 9, 10, and 19 are delirious. The rest are severely shaken but will be fit to work in a few hours. I notify sick bay to fetch the two, lock the four in, and conduct the rest to boot mess for a late repast. They fall into formation without protest.

I anticipate no further trouble with them.

It has taken too much time, of course, but now I am a commissioned officer. I am in charge of a dozen barracks, and there is very little disturbance in my wing. The boots fear me and do not attempt to stand on their "rights."

But I am aware that with this slow progress I will never achieve the full success I crave unless I can jump several ranks. So it behooves me to volunteer for a high-risk, high-reward mission.

Gloria, my fiancee, tries to talk me out of it. She is afraid I will fail or get killed. She doesn't understand that life itself is a failure if no chances are ever taken. I must take a risk commensurate with my aspiration.

At the top of the Special Assignment roster is a planet called Waterloo; the human discoverer's half-punning rendition of the unpronounceable native designation. Waterloo is where the Earth-sphere economic advance is stalled. I know it's gauche to speak of trails through space, as though a three-dimensional volume sparsely pocked with glowing gasballs called stars and bits of debris called planets can be seriously equated with an extinct Earthside wilderness, but that's what it really amounts to. It is feasible for man to expand his sphere in this direction—the sphere isn't sphere-shaped, naturally—using Waterloo as a kind of trading post and transfer point. It is not feasible to bypass this particular planet. That is all, I am told, that I need to know. So I think of it as a station on a trail, and the Loos of Waterloo have set up a barricade that has to come down so the posse can get through. The assignment: bring down that barricade.

It would be easier to understand the situation if the Loos were violent, asocial monsters. But they are humanoid, at least in outline, and civilized too, though without space technology. There is evidence that they had it once, but gave it up, oddly. They are rather polite and gentle with never a harsh word, and they have hardly begun to exploit their system's natural resources. They have a lot to benefit from Earth contact and seem willing enough. All that is necessary is for an envoy to connect with their leader or governing council and arrange for an Earth/Waterloo treaty that establishes an industrial enclave and permits free passage of commercial vessels. Ours, of course.

The kicker is that six envoys have tried it in turn. Five never came back. The sixth escaped to display the marks of his reception. He had been brutally tortured.

So there is the riddle of Waterloo. A pleasant, peaceful culture that tortures visitors. Force is out of the question, whatever the provocation. Earth could not possibly transport and land enough troops to pacify the entire planet since the men could not forage from the land. Diplomacy has to do the job if it is to be done at all. And it must be done, lest other spacefaring species assume control of the region and threaten Man's security.

Gloria pleads and cries and threatens and cajoles, but I volunteer. I am confident that I, as a superior individual, will succeed once more where my incompetent predecessors have failed.

I am landing now at the only suitable place on the planet. This is where a super-hard lava flow exists that can withstand the blast of chemical rockets. The ancient Loo spaceports are in shambles, quite useless today, so this natural formation has to substitute.

According to envoy #6 (intriguing coincidence of nomenclature, that! My Latin loudmouth finally finagled a reprieve)—the Loos never kill an animate creature if they can help it. Their atrocities are calculated to induce maximum pain with minimum loss of body faculty. But their science in this respect remains crude. They do not have the discipline box.

The first two envoys (#6 claims) died because the Loos were not sufficiently conversant with human anatomy and function to preserve them through the scheduled rigors. The next three committed suicide. The sixth made his break instead. He was a specially trained agent who was able to pull off his phenomenal escape without the use of one hand. Now he has quit the Service.

I have no such spy training. And I mean to see my mission through to the end, for marriage and considerable acclaim and fortune await me. So I will neither run nor commit suicide. The Loos will have to kill me outright—or negotiate.

Here are the Loos, coming across the plain of lava in an animal cart. They are actually rather small, only four and a half feet tall and proportionately slender. Hardly the type one would expect to find in the torture business. The gravity of this world is less than Earth-norm, but the difference isn't enough to account for such diminished stature, if that's the way it works. I don't really know or care much about exobiology. I do know their internal systems are different; they look like human mock-ups, but there are myriad distinctions. The Loos are probably the right size for what they are, though that isn't much.

"Welcome to Waterloo," their spokesman says, using their own word for the planet but speaking English otherwise. They have evidently learned something about us and made an effort to accommodate. That should help. Maybe the earlier difficulties were the result of some linguistic confusion.

Maybe cheese is made from green moons, too. By what innocent misapprehension would they torture six envoys?

"I have come to make a treaty," I inform the Loo. "Between your world and mine. Mutually beneficial. You understand?"

"Yes, Envoy," he replies. I know he is male because he has a penis. Primitives don't wear much.

He conducts me to his castle, making small talk. If he is trying to impress me with his verbal facility, he is succeeding. I doubt I could handle the Loo gabble that well, should I be moved to try. His name is something like Kule, he is to be my host for the duration, and he seems friendly enough. Innocuous, in fact. Naturally he is hiding something.

The air is balmy. I am able to breathe comfortably and to drink the local water, but that's as far as it goes.

Inside, Kule introduces me to his mate, Vibe. She is a thick individual with four teats down the front and a jelly-pudendum, and she speaks limited English. Her litter of four stands behind her: vaguely akin to bald-headed human brats.

"Do they speak my language too?" I inquire.

"To some extent," Kule admits. "All those who expect to deal with aliens must study the tongues. But beyond this domicile there are few you could converse with."

We share a royal dinner. I cannot touch the Waterloo food, of course. Its chemistry differs right down to the cellular structure. A distinct and alien life-pattern. Assimilation of any of it would havoc my innards. The air and water are essentially inorganic, so I can use them, but the food—a biological antimatter, I suppose. But they have imported some Earth staples at fabulous expense (or stolen them from the prior envoys) and prepared them for me. A fattening for the Kill?

"You come politically, as did the other Earthmen?" the Loo inquires as we dine. "To deal as between sovereign planets?"

"Yes," I agree. He already knows this. Perhaps he is letting his family in on the secret now.

"You have courage."

I suppose that is a way of looking at it. I find it hard to be afraid of inferiors. "I understand that you torture envoys."

"Certainly. We regret that your predecessors... desisted prematurely. But we are now sufficiently familiar with human anatomy so that we are virtually assured you will not perish on the rack." He took another mouthful of pudding, looking pleased.

I mouth my own dessert. "Unless I commit suicide."

Vibe turns green around all four nipples and the litter titters. I see immediately that I have committed a faux pas.

"Your species is prone to jest?" Kule asks uncertainly.

"Very prone." The bad moment passes. Should I regret that I have caused this nice, homey, bloodthirsty family embarrassment? Yet if torture is one of their amenities....

The meal is finished. "Shall I conduct you to the business office now," Kule asks, "or would you prefer to rest a little first?"

"Business before pleasure," I reply. I doubt he has either intent or authority to sign a treaty between two worlds, however. Perhaps I am to meet someone more important.

Kule obligingly guides me to a lower chamber of the castle. It is large and set up like a theater. Tiers of benches rise above an ample stage. I do not need the sight of several Loos suspended on boards to acquaint me with the fact that this is indeed a torture chamber.

It occurs to me to inquire why they feel the need to inflict pain on natives and aliens alike, but I realize that sadism requires no objective justification. Perhaps Kule expects me to break and run for my ship; this is his way of scaring me away from my mission.

No doubt he has never dealt with a superior man. I shall neither be bluffed nor commit a faux pas again.

Kule introduces me to my personal torturer, a legless one-eyed Loo. He cannot move; he is mounted to a pedestal before a vacant rack. I see that each client has a similarly incapacitated attendant. None of that modern mass-production indifference here!

"This is Beve, our specialist in human anatomy," Kule says with pride. "You can be assured that he is fully accredited. Under his direction you will suffer the most exquisite agony your system is capable of. He handled the three successful cases."

"Successful?"

"Those who took the grail." Kule gestures to a handsome goblet affixed to one edge of the vertical board. I perceive that it is filled with an amber fluid. A suicide cup?

It would not work for me, because of the differing metabolism, and would not have worked for the prior envoys. He is lying. No—it would work, but not quite in the manner intended. Not the poison, but the alien chemistry would do the human drinker in. Academic distinction.

"Who handled the unsuccessful cases?" I inquire politely.

"We do not speak the names of failures," Kule reproves me gently. "Incompetent practitioners are incarcerated along with their mistakes in the oubliette. If extenuating circumstances exist, they are granted a sip from the grail first." His demeanor is grave; he does not enjoy the subject. I understand. No one likes to admit proximity to incompetence.

But it is an intriguing point, this concern about accidental death on the rack. If the client is driven to suicide, it is the tormenter's bonus, I gather. If the client dies adamant, he guarantees his torturer's demise. Very nice. But what of those who survive bloody but unbowed?

"You understand," Kule says, hesitating delicately, "suppressors or tranquilizers of any type are—"

"—are frowned upon," I finish for him. "Lest they diminish the pain." And I was sure they would know if I used any such, so I have no intention of cheating.

"I can stay only for the initiation." Kule says. "But you will be attended throughout by licensed witnesses. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask Beve. He can hear you, and he comprehends. If he nods toward pain, the answer is affirmative." He retreats to one of the seats in the gallery and sets himself up expectantly.

Kule's actions and comments smack of verisimilitude: a rehearsed sequence to convince me that I am really to be tortured. Nevertheless, it is impressive.

Beve smiles, revealing his toothless and tongueless cavity, and I comprehend a trifle more. He had been tortured himself! He knows well the meaning of pain. His head is an earless globe; only poke holes penetrate the skull. Probably all his infirmities stem from similar coercion.

Beve gestures toward the rack invitingly. I play it straight: I strip down and manage to mount myself for the operation. I fit my arms and legs into the loops provided. The supports are oddly comfortable, being padded and pliable, and they brace my body in such a way that I should be able to remain suspended for a long time without bruise or loss of circulation. Though the chamber is well lighted, no direct beam affronts my eyes, and the ambient temperature is pleasant for my exposed skin. There is even a headband that takes weight off my neck without impairing freedom of motion. The rack seems to be no more than a convenient display table. Were it not for the intermittent groans associated with the adjacent projects, I could almost convince myself that this is merely a fancy sauna.

"Shall I call it quits when I'm tired?" I inquire facetiously, thinking Beve won't understand. But he nods his head to one side. Does that signify "yes" or "no"?

Foolish notion! What kind of torture would it be if the client could turn it off at will?

What kind? The usual kind! Torture is generally for an ulterior purpose: to obtain the subject's acquiescence to the will of the torturer. It ceases when the desired information is divulged, or the desired confession obtained, or the desired attitude embraced. Cooperation terminates it. I have applied the pain-box therapy in such manner many times.

On the other hand, torture as punishment desists only at the discretion of the torturer. This I employed when my barracks at the stockade defied me by a liedown strike. If I am to be subjected to that kind, no easy death by suicide should be permitted.

All of which leaves the status of Waterloo duress in question. No single explanation seems wholly reasonable. There is no information I would not freely provide, and I have no relevant confessions to make. My attitude, I should think, is good: I want only to negotiate a mutually beneficial treaty. I am not a criminal in need of punishment by any standard I know of, and I have not been treated as one here, so far. I merely happen to be an envoy scheduled for torture.

I can't claim discrimination. The other clients are natives, and the torturers themselves have been tortured.

In short, I am baffled. Well, when on Waterloo....

To one side is a cabinet, Beve opens it and sets up certain instruments. My view is unhampered. I can see every detail as can Kule and the witnesses in the audience. I see the light glint off the fine steel of a set of scalpels.

Could this be a kind of gladiatorial display? One measures his courage against that of other contestants, for the sadistic delight of the spectators? No—there are too few watchers, and they are as serious as jurymen. They merely wait.

Beve now reaches up to take my left hand, disengaging the arm from its supports at elbow and wrist. He sets it in a kind of elevated shelf projecting from his console and ties it firmly in place. I am reminded of the time I had to donate blood to the Service bank, back when I was a boot myself. There are even channels for each of my fingers, with straps to hold them in place. This entire unit must have been designed to human specification, from the oversized rack to the customized attachments: a telling compliment.

Beve lifts a small knife.

I have held my mind away from this reality, as though it were a bluff or something not connected to me personally. Now I can avoid it no longer: I am about to be cut.

My hand is palm-up, my fingers splayed. The knife descends on my smallest digit. I expect some delay, some offer to refrain if only I will accede to some particular demand or depart the planet promptly. But there is none. The blade stabs into my fleshy fingertip and slices shallowly down the length of the member, skipping only the portions covered by the straps.

The scalpel is sharp, and for a moment I am not aware of genuine pain. I watch the skin peel back from the wound like red opening lips. I see the rich blood well up, and I notice the little drain channels in the support shelf for such fluid. This is a sophisticated device, though primitive.

I am, I realize, in a kind of shock. I cannot believe that I am really thus casually to be tortured, though I am watching it happen.

Beve lifts a syringe and squirts a colorless jet down the gash. Suddenly there is agony: it is alcohol, or their equivalent!

"Beve!" I cry, alarmed. "If that's organic, and it enters my system—"

He looks up at me and nods to his left, my right. Since it is my left hand that is hurting, he nods away from pain: no. He must have considered this matter and made sure I wouldn't die ludicrously. Maybe that was what happened to the first of the failures. Trust the torturer to know his business, particularly when the oubliette is gaping.

The working area is clean now. Something in that fiery liquid has stanched the bleeding. Beve is ready for the next stage. He slices across the finger at right angles to the prior cut and squirts away the new blood while I stiffen. It is as though I am holding my finger in the field of a limited-radius discipline box! Beve completes the incisions under the straps, working skillfully. He takes up a set of tongs and fastens them to—

He is tearing off the skin!

I never suspected the pain would be like this. Up to the elbow I feel it, this rending of my flesh as the dermis parts from the substructure of my finger. It is peeling back like the skin of an orange, in sections. I do not look any more. I cry out; I cannot help it. It is as though my finger is a foot in diameter and every cell is screaming with the awful hurt of that flaying.

I try to clench my fist convulsively, but the bonds are tight. I try to jerk it away, but cannot budge it. My whole body tenses, but everywhere it is restrained. I can free myself by carefully extricating my limbs, but I cannot do it by involuntary reaction.

My right hand brushes against something cold. It is the grail, the chalice of death. At any time I chose to exercise physical control, I can disengage that hand, reach out, and take that cup. It has to be a conscious decision, for a careless motion would spill it. I have to decide to die.

Or I can disengage myself completely and bolt for the space ship, as the last envoy did. Strange that Kule never mentioned him. He must have been a sad commentary on the courage of the human species. No doubt that kind of thing is simply Not Done on Waterloo.

Not by me, anyway. I came here to unriddle this planet and arrange a treaty. I am no masochist, I do not enjoy pain—but pain will not deter me from my mission. I will not capitulate. I will show them I can withstand their worst, though I lose my entire finger.

It is a long time before it is over, subjectively. I know it is only minutes objectively. My digit has become anesthetized. I feel only a dullness there, not unpleasant. As my eyes unscrew and clear, I look down.

Only bone and gristle remain. My finger is a skeleton. He has cut away all the flesh, leaving the gaunt joints, he has somehow tied off the conduits at the base, so no more body fluids leak out. No wonder the hurt has abated!

Kule sits impassively in the audience section, watching. He thinks I will break now!

"There are four others," I tell the torturer. He nods toward pain, agreeing without humor, and suddenly my remark seems very unfunny.

Beve cleans the knives meticulously and puts them away. Evidently the cutting is over—but I am not relieved. I look at the warm bone that was my finger and I know that this is no game. I am in the care of a professional.

He brings out a device rather like a vice. It has a handle and some kind of gear chain. He mounts it on my next larger finger and cranks it tight.

I am in a way acclimatized to the cutting, but this is different. The two ribbed planes of the vice compress my flesh against the bone and do not stop. Beve puts his muscle into the chore. I am crushed in agony. I scream again, as I have to; this torment shatters my restraint.

But I refuse to plead for mercy or to touch the cup.

It is worse than the flaying, but somehow it passes. My throat is sore from exertion, and I am shaking. I imagine that a slow land tank has driven over my hand, one cleat landing squarely on that finger. I watch as he unscrews the machine.

My finger is three inches in diameter, but the thickness of cardboard. Flesh and bone have been sundered under the pressure, burst apart, and metamorphosed into red/white opacity. The pain is diminished: the thing does not belong to me any more.

Kule still watches as do the witnesses. For them very little time has passed, and this is routine. In the reprieve while the press is being cleaned and stored, I look about and see that one of my companion torturees has lost consciousness. His demon is doing something to bring him to. Does too long a period of insensibility disqualify a client? for what?

Beve does not hesitate. He brings out another mechanism replete with little pulleys. I am reminded of a toy train, the wheels turning, the pistons plunging back and forth as it chugs along. But this is no toy.

This time I am able to control myself enough to watch the procedure throughout. It is a pulling gear he applies. It stretches my longest finger until the joints dislocate, until the muscles thin and part, the skin becomes transparent, the tendons snap. It is done. Only the tattered stump remains.

I feel anguish, of course, but it is as much for the irreparable damage done to my hand as for the immediate sensation. Yes, I am becoming adapted to withstanding the pain of whatever kind. I smile at Beve, at Kule. Their worst has not broken me.

The torturer slides a narrow pan under my index finger. He pours oil into it, bathing the member. He sets fire to the oil.

I scream while my flesh roasts, my bravery forgotten. The stench of it clogs my nostrils, brings my last meal up out of my stomach and throat and mouth... to be caught neatly in the bucket Beve holds up. Inferno! But I cannot relent.

At last the fire dies. It had been fiendishly persistent. A charred twig lies in the pan. Sensation is gone.

What remains for the thumb?

Beve sets a wire framework about it, the mesh fine but not at all tight. He brings a box near and places a sliding aperture next to an opening in the cage. He draws up the miniature gate.

Something like a scorpion emerges. Others follow.

Their stings are savage, but that is only part of it. The venom seems to tenderize the flesh for their mandibles without numbing it. I feel every bite.

Surely the alien injection will find its way back into my system and kill me! But the torturer must have anticipated this too. Perhaps the second "failure" happened this way. Now they use a breed whose poison is localized, affecting only the immediate area?

After the insectoids have gorged, they stumble and fall, twitching. They are Waterloo creatures, unable to assimilate my offworld protein. Serves them right. But I know I will never use that thumb again. The portions remaining are bloated and discolored, and the diminution of sensation that signifies loss of the member is setting in.

Kule stands. "You have experienced the initiation," he says. "This token treatment only suggests what is to follow. You have made a worthy beginning, unlike your predecessors. I wish you every success." And he turns and departs.

My right hand touches the grail. Token? Token?

I thought I had won, and it is only the beginning. But it is not in me to surrender, though I hardly comprehend the rationale. "Proceed!" I cry, I am sick inside, for I know they will proceed. What am I proving?

Beve brings out the knives and selects one. I divine the pattern: first cutting, then crushing, then pulling, burning, and animal attack. Five distinct tortures. My left hand has stood as the demonstration model. Now these techniques will be applied in earnest.

The knife approaches my face. I dare not flinch, for that would be unseemly weakness. I have outlasted the other envoys, as I knew I would, but not the Loo subjects who are usually racked in this chamber. I must suffer what the schedule dictates, knowing that I will not die unless I choose to. I must beat them at their own game, whatever it is.

The blade hovers over my left eye... and my right fingers strain at the cup. Then the knife descends and the point touches my left nostril.

In the haze of pain and horror admixed with a kind of relief, my mind turns inward. There is nowhere else for it to go. I remember when a kike bashed in my nose when I was ten, and how I nearly killed him for that, though he was larger than I. No inferior ever made me yield. Neither will this Loo bastard. Wipe my proboscis off my face, Beve—it will not faze me! I am better than you! I defy you! I—

But then I was fighting. Now—this stripping of the flesh, of cartilage, spouting of blood, nerves cut, while I endure—

Abruptly I am starkly objective. It has stopped again, and I know that half my nose is gone, both skin and fundament. There was surely no satisfaction in the going.

How long can this continue? I remain superior, but my body is being shorn away!

Beve has already brought out the vice. I must have been distracted for a moment and did not notice. He moves the machine toward my groin.

Oh no! I fight the bonds, I grasp the cold grail, I shiver all over as I sweat. But I cannot succumb now, I am committed, I have already invested too much.

The vice closes on my left testicle and locks in place despite the obscuring folds of skin. Another truth comes clear: only my left side is being treated. I am being left with my duplicate organs. I will not be crippled completely. This encourages me tremendously, if only Beve knew!

He screws up the tool. My scrotum explodes in pain. I see the flattened remains of my crushed finger, and I know—

There is no word for what I am feeling. I am hurting terribly, oh yes—but it is more than that. There is something else....

I see legs. Female legs. Very firm, fleshy thighs. I see the skirts ride up along them. I see flimsy panties come down, drawn aside by an invisible hand. I see those smooth columns part, cranking open the nether cleavage. I am precipitated at the dark gaping crevice. I thrust—and all sensation channels into my turgid conduit and fills that aperture. The quintessence of malehood is rammed into the connecting tubes, converted into potency; every turn of the handle drives another bolus through. It is a hydraulic ram, a mighty pump liquefying what had hitherto been solid. It is not pleasure so much as unmitigated urgency. All—of it—must go!

The image fades. The wine press is gone; the grape expended. My erection is collapsing in blood, and I know that despite the dream my gonad is not a super-ejaculate, but merely squashed meat.

Beve is bringing out the pulling gear. I do not look down at my torso.

This time it is my ear he attacks. I remember Gloria, my bride-to-be, with sudden overwhelming fervor: her clear lovely features, her straight delicate nose, her pierced ears stretched down by pendant earrings... no!

Will you love me when I am ugly with mutilation, oh my darling? Will you follow me to the torture planet, as you threatened? Will you still want to hold me?

Yes, there... thereis... thereisloveinpain... the purest. Love and pain must be allied. Gloria, if ever I see you again, I will never let you go. I love you. More than possible. I ache with love, I bleed with emotion, I hurt with desire, I—

The image fogs. I try to refocus it, cannot. Instead there comes the pair of fleshy thighs, now brimming with blood-red ejaculate. I recoil. Sully not the vision of Gloria with that animal passion! Make it elevated, rarefied, that pure longing man feels for angel. Up, up! I trace up past the line of the hip, seeking to cast off the revolting filth of that prior congress. Up, to the stomach, the bosom—and the four loose teats.

I know now that I have committed adultery, miscegenation, bestiality in my torment-sponsored orgasm.

My ear is gone. I see it, an elongated and tattered mass of flesh, ripped from my head. I begin to grasp the rationale of my perfidy: my ruined face could only appall Gloria. My fingerless hand could never caress her beauty. I am half-castrate. The romance is off. I know it, though she does not. There will be no feasible return to Earth for me after this. It is not a momentary challenge that I can surmount and leave behind. I will emerge changed, less than I have been. I must be satisfied with native females, if my very semen does not crucify them. This much do I give for my mission.

But I shall prevail.

Beve is heating a needle. I had thought that the oil was next, but that is only one form of fire. I know where the heat will be applied, and again my remaining fingers clutch at the grail. Yet I do not desist.

Glowing red, the spike approaches my face. I see it point-on with my left eye until it touches the pupil.

The fluids of my eyeball burst out and dribble down my cheek. Smoke and steam rise from the carnage. I smell and see clouded nausea with my right-side perceptions. Pain? The term has become meaningless. Now I do not see Gloria or the Loo sex object or even Beve. There is only the scorching dazzle of color.

Only? No, no, no—there is more, so much much more, as that searing sword probes my optic apparatus. I see—I see—I see the scintillating Divinity! Nova-like, the Godhead strikes my belief. Surely this is the ultimate revelation. I bathe in the ecstasy of the sight of my Lord, the Vision Supreme... yes, pain is the route to the glimpse of the Eternal, and I have seen the glory, the, I see, I see.

Shattered. The agony has abated, depriving me of my soul-vision. Desolation. I, I feel, loss, gone.

Beve puts away the spent needle, turns off his flame. What can he do, more than he has done? I am invulnerable. I have withstood his mutilation, I have seen the glory. Glory, Gloria... in excelsis....

Beve brings out a slender tube. He pokes it into the hole in my face where the left nostril once stood. I feel it shoving back, abrasive but laughable as a torture, beyond the sinus cavity, down to my throat. I gag, but it continues, a snail crawling into my belly.

No, not my stomach. Beve twists, expertly, and the tube finds the trachea and slithers toward the left lung. I cough involuntarily, but nothing stops its progress until the torturer is satisfied. Yet this is a strange, gentle procedure, after the brutality of the preceding acts.

Beve lets go the hose, now lodged in my body almost its entire length. He brings out a box, opens it. I see movement: writhing things There is a funnel on the end of the catheter. Beve lifts out a worm with his tweezers, and I see that the creature's front end is a disk like that of a lamprey. A myriad-toothed grinder and sucker. He places it in the funnel and angles the tube so that the creature will slide down to the bottom. He brings out the next.

I cannot even scream as the worms consume my lung.

I see the Vision again—but this time I know it for what it is, just as I knew the pudendum the second time. The God of Fire is the nether god, I am in hell. Hell is infested by worms. The worms and maggots and vermin are the true devils here. I tour the place, entitled by my misery. I see a man, a Loo—perhaps it is Kule—I see him being subjected to the torture of the boats, an ancient Persian specialty. He is pinned face-up between two small boats that exactly fit each other, only his head and hands and feet are outside and tied there. They are feeding him the richest foods, pricking his eyes when he balks, pouring milk and honey in his mouth and over his face until he nearly chokes on it. The sun is bearing down and he cannot avoid it, though his features blister cruelly. Swarms of flies settle, completely covering his head with their noisome bodies, attracted by the honey. But the odor emanating from the interior of his prison is not sweet, for he has been many days confined and the constant enforced feasting must lead to the baser processes of nature, in quantity. And as I pass I am granted a view through a noxious peephole into the boats, and I see in the streaming shadow his naked body bathed in its own excrement and the flies breeding in that dung and urine and their massed maggots feeding on his living guts. With his extremities pinned, he can do nothing to protect himself until he expires at last and gives his carcass entirely over to the vermin.

I am minded to study the more advanced tortures of hell, but the pain that is my admission token diminishes again and I am returned to Waterloo.

Kule is there, alas no victim of flies. "Congratulations," he says. "You have now completed the first day of duress. You may step down for the night, for Beve must rest. Tomorrow, if you choose, you may undertake the second stage, but this is not necessary for a technically honorable acquittal."

I try to talk and feel the husks of the worms rattling in the cavity that was my tender lung. After a while I succeed, raspingly: "Will you make the treaty now?"

"No."

"Then I will resume tomorrow." And I faint.

I am hardly aware of time. It seems I have always been on this rack, yet I know it is only the second day. Or the third. My arm is gone, my kidney, the hair of half my head together with the skin to which it adhered, the flesh of my left side from shoulder to crotch, muscle by muscle. The stench of incineration surrounds me, dried blood and broken segments of bone decorate the floor. The Loos on the racks to either side have taken the grail and are gone in shame, but I, Christlike, persevere. The grail is the one cup I will not touch in this incarnation. Many witnesses watch me now.

Kule has now explained to me some of the history of the Loos. They did have space travel, and they colonized and made a stellar empire—but they were gentle folk, and when they were met by barbarians and tortured and driven off, they became convinced that they were not ready for space. So they retrenched and instituted a system that would bring out leaders more resistive to such hurts. Once that system was entrenched...

Kule is before me again, a worried worshiper. "Step down, Envoy," he pleads.

"Will you prepare the treaty?"

"I cannot. No one can."

"Then I will not step down."

"Envoy, we can not proceed further without depriving you of essential faculties. You must retain two legs for perambulation, one hand for—"

"They are of no use to me without that treaty."

Defeated, he goes. And so Beve is beginning on my legs and right side. I am driving the Loos into a quandary.

Is it the fourth day? The fifth? How should one measure eternities? My legs are gone, my right arm, my remaining ear and nostril. I am blind. No teeth remain in my jaws. The waste products of my body drip down from a gash like that of a woman. But I can hear, for they dare not touch my inner ear lest they damage the brain and bring death.

They: I mean the interminable Beves and Kules my isolated brain conjures. I am not wholly sane at the moment. I can digest the nutrient Earth-export liquid they trickle down my blistered throat, however. I believe it is a confection of milk and honey, but I cannot taste it and my lung rattles horribly when I laugh. I can speak in a certain manner, though my tongue hangs stretched on a hook beside me: one grunt through the scorched larynx means "yes," two "no."

"Will you step down, Envoy?" I recognize Kule's despairing voice.

I make three coughs, needing more information.

"We cannot continue without killing you."

I do not answer. It is their problem.

"Step down temporarily, then, while I explain your status."

To this much I accede. I am lifted down. I feel the comfort of warm water. I am floating, no hard surfaces attacking my vulnerability except for the strap that supports my head. I listen.

"You have surmounted the four stages of duress," he says. Four? It could as easily have been four hundred. Nothing can benefit me now but the fulfillment of my mission.

"Very few applicants achieve this level," Kule continues. "Perhaps only two or three in each category, each year. Since your category is political, you are now qualified to join the governing council of Waterloo—the only alien ever to achieve this distinction. You have proved yourself by your steadfastness, and you have divested yourself of material considerations that might have biased a lesser individual. Thus you now have the potential for true objectivity, and can be a fitting ruler. Are you willing to assume this position?

At last it is falling into place! The torture gantlet is a ladder to prominence, not with respect to competitors but to the society itself. The more the subject can take, the greater his reward. And Kule is correct: of course I can no longer be bribed by any of the physical pleasures. I have no nose for perfume, no taste buds for food, no eyes for beauty, no phallus for sex. Money? What could it buy for me?

I am indeed objective.

"You can, however, continue the process into death. This is the one respectable form of self-termination, and it carries no onus for the torturer. This will earn you an honored place in our ancestral hierarchy, though you come from afar. Children will recite your name and deed, men will pray to your memory for courage, women will squirt their milk on your monument—"

I grunt twice. I am not intrigued by this type of deification. It sounds messy.

"On the other hand, as a member of the council you will have considerable authority. All your needs will be attended to by un-statused cowards such as myself who will also translate your directives for implementation, and—"

I grunt, suddenly interested.

"Oh yes," Kule says deferentially. "Approval of a treaty with Earth would be your prerogative, so long as the terms do not conflict with the interests of other members."

Victory! No wonder Kule was unable to make the treaty. He lacked the authority. He has never undertaken the appropriate torture. Just as the torturers must earn their positions by being hoist by their own petard, so must all other officers in this society. Cowards and weaklings can't.

I grunt once, accepting the offer. I have earned it.

But Kule does not desist. "One other matter now in your province, Councilman. There is another visitor from Earth—"

Another envoy! I am displeased. The Service should have had more faith in me.

"A female of your species," Kule explains. "She says you are to be wedded—"

Gloria! She has followed me! She must love me very much indeed.

"Shall I conduct her to your presence?"

I think about it. I realize that Gloria's action is foolish. I have no tolerance for foolishness. I am, for the first time in my life, truly objective, and I see things exactly as they are. I have no need of a companion, particularly not a willful one. Power is sufficient for me. I grunt twice.

"She refuses to leave without seeing you," Kule says. I am not certain whether this is an immediate reply or a resumption of dialogue at a later time. Time is a difficult and unimportant factor now. "We do not approve of force in such situations. She must be dissuaded voluntarily if you do not wish to meet her. Would you prefer to have us offer her the token treatment?"

Token torture! An excellent suggestion.

"And if she still does not agree to leave?"

I grunt again. Let her experience the enlightenment of total amputation in that case. Should she somehow hold out until she achieves my exalted state, she may be passingly worthy company. Meanwhile, I can't be bothered.

In fact, in my supreme objectivity I wonder whether any of the untempered individuals of Earth are worthy of consideration. Why should I authorize a treaty they haven't earned merely because their haphazardly selected government desires it? I am a Councilman of Waterloo, having at least proved my superiority absolutely. It is beneath me to deal with them. Better to make sure that no treaty is consummated.

It occurs to me that Earth could have been the planet where the Loos were repulsed by savages centuries ago. Full circle, poetic justice.

I turn my attention to more important concerns. We Loos are not really expert at torture, I realize. Our program is unimaginative. When the subject knows exactly what to expect, in what order, he can prepare himself for it. The familiar is not sufficiently frightening, it does not undermine the will to resist. There are psychological aspects that could and should be utilized. I must work them out and make appropriate recommendations. And exposure: cold, thirst, hunger, sleeplessness, strong lights (prior to blinding), abrasive and continuous sound. Feed the client quantities of liquor, then tie off his privates. Rub his own excrement into his wounds. And the exotic techniques must be properly exploited, such as the Chinese Water Torture, or the Persian Boats....

Gloria! I shall arrange to have the boat torture demonstrated on her since it doesn't matter if she dies. How convenient! I'll convey to her that it is a test of her love for me and see how long she holds out.

Oh, there is so much to do! I have to educate this planet, now that I have the position and objectivity to do so.

I have heard it said that power tends to corrupt. I wonder whether, conversely, misery tends to ennoble?

Yes—yes it does! I can offer no finer example of that truth than myself.