Carnifex

33/10/462 AC, Hildegard von Mises, Sea of Sind

The conex inside the ship rang with the helpless shrieks. It practically reverberated with them. The conex, soundproofed, also kept in the stench of voided bowels and bladders, and the iron-coppery stink of blood.

You wouldn't think one man could scream that much, especially with the tongue

protector installed, mused Achmed al Mahamda, the chief of interrogations. Mahamda, quite unperturbed, casually munched a Terra Novan olive, the fruit of an odd palm with green trunk and gray fronds. The olive, itself, was gray and about plum sized. Its taste was similar to, but slightly more astringent than an Old Earth olive. Mahamda loved them, as did many of his people.

He put the olive down and wrinkled his nose as the victim, Fadeel al Nizal, lost sphincter control. The assistant applying electricity to Fadeel's genitalia looked over at Mahamda. Should we clean him up before we continue? This is pretty vile.

Genial seeming, a little fat, and—appearances notwithstanding—utterly ruthless,

Mahamda had been an interrogator for the secret police, or Mukhabbarat, of the old regime in Sumer. When that one had been tossed out the year before by a coalition led by the Federated States of Columbia, Mahamda had gone into hiding. Eventually, one of Sada's people had found him and offered him a job—with a raise, no less, and protection from the Coalition forces searching for him—working for some of the infidels. He'd had to give his family as hostages but, since he'd only gone back to work to ensure they were fed, this seemed not unreasonable.

Mahamda shook his head at the assistant's unvoiced question. His look said, If you want to work in this line, you're going to have to learn to accept foul smells.

Shrugging you're the boss, the assistant turned a dial to increase the juice. Impossible as it might have seemed, Fadeel's screaming actually increased. His eyes seemed ready to burst from his head as his teeth ground against the rubber bit installed in his mouth to keep him from biting off his own tongue.

It's a shame what we have to do to squeeze out the last little bit of useful intelligence and propaganda, thought Mahamda But this is that kind of war. Let those who began it take the blame. And it's not like this sniveling wretch deserves any better.

Once stocky, and even with a bit of midriff fat, Fadeel was already beginning to waste away under the torture. Though near enough in appearance to the captive that they could have been cousins, Mahamda felt no pity. Fadeel was one of those who had begun and advanced the kind of terrorist war being waged in Mahamda's homeland of Sumer. His list of atrocities was long, the coating of blood on his hands deep, the stain indelible. Mahamda felt nothing but loathing for the Bomber of Ninewa, the Butcher of Pumbadeta.

While Mahamda sat in a comfortable swivel chair bolted to the floor of the ship-borne conex, Nizal was strapped firmly to a dental chair, with an electrode stuffed up his anus through a hole in the chair and his penis firmly affixed into something that still looked much like the droplight socket from which it had originated. Nizal's body quaked with the electric jolts surging through it, wrists and ankles straining at the thick leather straps that held him in place. Helpless tears coursed down his face while an inarticulate "gahhhhhh" poured from his mouth.

Mahamda raised a palm, signaling his assistant to stop for the nonce.

"I warned you, Fadeel," Mahamda said, not unkindly. "Any failure to cooperate, any at all, will bring punishment." The interrogator tsk-tsked. "Why do you continue to doubt me? It isn't like we haven't broken you in every other particular. It isn't as if you haven't spilled cells and safe houses, armories and bank accounts. Do I have to bring your parents in, Fadeel? You know how you hate it when we bring your parents in."

In answer al Nizal only sobbed the more heartbrokenly.

Again Mahamda tsk-tsked. "Get his mother," he ordered the assistant.

That got more than sobs and tears from al Nizal. "Gnoo! P'ease . . . Gnoo," he managed to get out around the rubber bit.

Since Fadeel hadn't offered more full cooperation, Mahamda said nothing to stop the assistant who then left, returning in a few minutes with a stoop-shoulder woman. He pushed her to a wall and began chaining her upright. She, too, sobbed.

"That won't do any good, madam," Mahamda said to the woman. "You raised the boy to be a terrorist. You are responsible. It's only right that you help him see the error of his ways."

Finished with restraining the woman, the assistant went to a table from which he retrieved a blow torch and friction igniter. She began to scream and plead with her son as soon as the blowtorch was lit. In a cage on the table, a brace of antaniae, or moonbats, the septic mouthed, carnivorous, winged lizards of Terra Nova, likewise hissed in fear as the torch was lit. It was sometimes used to drive them toward the faces of victims.

"It's up to you, Fadeel," Mahamda said. There was no answer.

"Start with the toes," the interrogator ordered.

"Bwait!" al Nizal begged, between sobs. "'eave 'er . . . go; don' . . . 'urt her. I make . . . your fi'm." The assistant with the blowtorch knelt to bare the woman's feet but stopped, looking at Mahamda.

"I don't know," said Mahamda, doubtfully. Even so, he took a moment to ungag the terrorist. "We did give you a chance to speak the words we wanted spoken to the camera. You refused. Why should we not punish you for that?"

Al Nizal looked at his electricity scorched penis and answered, "I think you've"—he sniffed—"punished me enough. I'll make your film."

Mahamda rocked his head from side to side, as if weighing the time that might be wasted against the advantage of more willing cooperation. He pointed towards the antaniae. "It will be really hard on your mother if you fail us again, Fadeel. The moonbats are hungry."

The terrorist's voice was full of an inexpressible hopelessness. "I won't. Just please don't hurt her."

* * *

The ship rocked more or less continuously. Nonetheless, there was one room on the ship, a conex, actually, that did not rock. This was set up on gimbals and so kept its perpendicularity. This was the camera room.

Inside the room, on a comfortable looking chair under a picture of Adnan Sada, Fadeel al Nizal sat, still chained, and answered questions from an interviewer. Mahamda did not play the part of the interviewer; it just wasn't his thing. Besides, he didn't want Coalition authorities to have any clue as to his whereabouts.

Beside the picture of Sada was a calendar, with the month opened up to show a date not too long after al Nizal's capture in Pumbadeta. The coffee table between him and the interviewer held a newpaper, the headlines of which screamed of the fall of Pumbadeta, an event which had taken place months prior. For all anyone who might watch it could tell, the interview was taking place in the recent past, a few days before the announcement of al Nizal's execution and cremation. It was only for purposes of this interview that Mahamda had kept the dentist away from al Nizal's front teeth.

"What can you tell the audience about the suicide bombers you recruited?" asked the interviewer.

Fadeel had been well rehearsed. He answered, from the script he'd been given, "The first thing you have to understand is that most of those foolish boys are not suicide bombers. We load them down with explosives, yes, or set them to driving automobiles full of explosives. But we never tell them they're going to be blown up. Instead, they go somewhere as couriers. And when they're in a good place we set them off by radio or cell phone."

"But they make films beforehand, announcing their martyrdom," insisted the interviewer.

Nizal, still on script, laughed. "Oh, the films. When we have them make those we tell them it's just in case they're killed in action, so that the cause will still benefit. I think not one in a hundred, not one in a thousand, would actually blow themselves up if told to."

"So all they are to you are tools, mere drivers and couriers?"

"That's about it," Fadeel agreed. "That, and fools, ignorant boys who have no clue what they're getting into."

"Those boys get a lot of press, though," cued the interviewer.

"Oh, the press," said al Nizal. "Let me tell you about the press."

"Do you mean our press or the Tauran and FSC press?"

"There's really not much difference between them," al Nizal answered. "All of them shunt us money. All of them spread our propaganda. Any of them will help us bait an ambush, or will be happy to point out coalition soldiers to our riflemen. We wouldn't have a chance in this war without the press—"

"But your people have killed members of the press. Hamad al Thani, for example, was blown up not long ago. Aren't you afraid they'll eventually retaliate?"

Fadeel snorted, as required, and answered, "They wouldn't dare."