Shadowplay

WATCHER 1

The immense screen that stretched across the entire front of the Bridge was lit from end to end, divided into dozens of cells, most of them still empty.

One by one, slowly, two or three an hour, the cells were filling with scenes from the world below them as Ajeri Kilavez and Pukanuk Pousli spoke with onpianet agents and deployed Ginbiryol Seyirshi's pathe-EYEs.

At the edge of nighe a raiding party was attacking the bighouse of an estate, mostly pellet weapons, though some cutterbeams were visible, along with a number of sliced-and-diced bodies.

In the hot morning sunshine of a market square of a small farm village not far from the ocean, three men were tied to whipping posts while a fourth man with his sleeves rolled up to show his massive forearms was laying into the back of one of the prisoners with a two-meter long stockwhip; he'd already drawn blood and was concentrating on the precision of this crisscross cuts. The POV lingered on his face, then moved to the face of the man being whipped, then to the faces of the men waiting their turn for punishment, lingering lovingly on them, tracking every nuance of expression. The villagers watched silently, sullenly. The local VIPs sat in shaded comfort in a permanent bleacher affair, the older males stem, the younger ones wagering on how long each victim would last or anything else that struck their fancy.