Escape Velocity

12

WHY DID YOU ESCAPE FROM WOLMAR?”

The voice blasted through into Dar’s nice, warm nest of unconsciousness. An idiot monotone was singing in his right ear, and a cricket with absolutely no sense of rhythm was chirping into his left.

“HOW DID YOU LEAVE THE PLANET WOLMAR?”

“I hopped into a courier ship,” Dar answered truthfully. He levered his eyelids open, squinting against the light.

Five of them, actually—red, blue, green, yellow, and orange—hitting him with stroboscopic flashes that didn’t quite have a rhythmic pattern—but it was a different nonrhythmic pattern than the cricket’s. Dar stared, dazzled.

“WHAT IS YOUR NAME?”

It was ridiculous, but he couldn’t think of it. All he could think of was that he wanted someone to turn the lights off. “I don’t know!”

“EXCELLENT,” the unseen owner of the voice purred. “WHICH OF YOUR TRAVELING COMPANIONS WAS THE TELEPATH?”

“The what?”

“DO NOT SEEK TO MISLEAD US! WE KNOW THAT AT LEAST ONE MEMBER OF YOUR GROUP WAS A TELEPATH. AND DO NOT TRY TO READ OUR MINDS; THE SENSORY DISTRACTIONS YOU ARE EXPERIENCING WILL PREVENT YOU FROM BEING ABLE TO CONCENTRATE SUFFICIENTLY FOR TELEPATHY!”

“We hope,” someone near the voice muttered.

“I can’t read anybody’s mind!”

“SEE?” the voice boomed to someone else. “THE LIGHTS AND NOISES DO WORK!”

“I never could read anybody’s mind! I’m not a telepath!”

The voice was quiet for a moment; then it boomed, “WHEN WERE YOU LAST A TELEPATH?”

“Never! Never, so help me!”

“He could be lying,” the voice muttered.

“Not with that sensory assault you’ve laid onto him,” the other voice answered. “Poor fellow can’t even close his eyes now. I don’t think he could concentrate enough to think up a lie.”

“That was the other purpose of this system,” the first voice admitted. Then it boomed out again: “OUR AGENTS FOLLOWED YOU ALL THE WAY FROM WOLMAR TO TERRA, OF COURSE. HOW DID YOU FORCE TOD TAMBOURIN TO AID YOU?”

“I didn’t! I didn’t force him at all!” Then, suddenly realizing they might accuse Whitey, Dar added, “I conned him!”

“He is only a poet,” the other voice murmured. “Probably true. Besides, you’d better get back to the main question before he goes catatonic on you.”

That sent a chill trickling down Dar’s spine.

“Right,” the voice muttered; then, “WHO IN YOUR GROUP WAS THE TELEPATH?”

“There wasn’t any! There aren’t any! There never have been any!”

“WE KNOW BETTER,” the voice said scornfully. “WHO WAS IT?”

The flashing lights bit into his brain; the thousand-hertz tone bored straight through from ear to ear, while the random clicks tripped up every thought that tried to flow. “I can’t think!” Dar yelled. “I can’t think who it could possibly be! For the life of me!”

“IT MAY BE JUST THAT. DO YOU REALLY EXPECT US TO BELIEVE …?” The voice broke off in midsentence. “WHO’S THAT? GET HIM OUT OF HERE!”

“My credentials, gentlemen.” It was a fulsome voice, growing louder as it came closer. “If you doubt them, you may verify me through the computer.”

“Why?” snorted the other voice. “They’re computer-fed, anyway … Chief Torturer?”

“To Mr. Horatio Bocello, yes.”

“He’s just a billionaire, not a politician! Why would he need a torturer?”

“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?”