Stepsons of Terra

7.

Coldness clung to him. He lay perfectly still, feeling the sharp cold all about him. His hands were pinned to his sides. His legs were likewise pinioned. And all about him was the cold, chilling his skin, numbing his brain, freezing his body.

He made no attempt to move and scarcely any even to think. He was content to lie back here in the darkness and wait. He believed he was on the ship heading homeward to Corwin.

He was wrong. The sound of voices far above him penetrated his consciousness, and he stirred uncertainly, knowing there could be no voices aboard the ship. It was a one-man ship. There was no room for anyone else.

The voices continued—rumbling low murmurs that tickled his auditory nerves without resolving themselves into sequences of intelligible words. Ewing moved about restlessly. Where could he be? Who could be making these blurred, fuzzy sounds?

He strained toward consciousness now; he fought to open his eyes. A cloud of haze obscured his vision. He sat up, feeling stiff muscles protest as he pushed his way up. His eyes opened, closed again immediately as a glare of light exploded in them, and gradually opened again. His head cleared. He adjusted to the light.

His mouth tasted sour; his tongue seemed to be covered with thick fuzz. His eyes stung. His head hurt, and there was a leaden emptiness in his stomach.

“We’ve been waiting more than two days for you to wake up, Ewing,” said a familiar voice. “That stuff Byra gave you must have really been potent.”

He broke through the fog that hazed his mind and looked around. He was in a large room with triangular, opaqued windows. Around him, where he lay on some sort of makeshift cot, were four figures: Rollun Firnik, Byra Clork, and two swarthy Sirians whom he did not know.

“Where am I?” he demanded.

Firnik said, “You’re in the lowest level of the Consulate building. We brought you here early Sixday morning. This is Oneday. You’ve been asleep.”

“Drugged is a better word,” Ewing said bleakly. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the cot. Immediately, one of the unknown Sirians stepped forward, put one hand on his chest, grabbed his ankles in his other hand, and heaved him back on the cot. Erwing started to rise again; this time he drew a stinging backhand slap that split his lower lip and sent a dribble of blood down his chin.

Ewing rubbed the moist spot tenderly. Then he came halfway to a sitting position. “What right do you have to keep me here? I’m a citizen of Corwin. I have my rights.”

Firnik chuckled. “Corwin’s fifty light-years away. Right now you’re on Earth. The only rights you have are the ones I say you have.”

Angrily, Ewing attempted to spring to his feet. “I demand that you release me! I—”

“Hit him,” Firnik said tonelessly.

Again the barrel-bodied Sirian moved forward silently and slapped him—in the same place. Ewing felt the cut on his lip widen, and this time one of his lower teeth abraded the delicate inner surface of his lip as well. He did not make any further attempts to rise.

“Now, then,” Firnik said in a conversational voice. “If you’re quite sure you’ll refrain from causing any more trouble, we can begin. You know Miss Clork, I think.”

Ewing nodded.

“And these gentlemen here”—Firnik indicated the two silent Sirians—“are Sergeant Drayl and Lieutenant Thirsk of the City of Valloin Police. I want you to realize that there’ll be no need for you to try to call the police, since we have two of their finest men with us today.”

“Police? Aren’t they from Sirius IV?”

“Naturally.” Firnik’s eyes narrowed. “Sirians make the best policemen. More than half of the local police are natives of my planet.”

Ewing considered that silently. The hotels, the police—what else? The Sirians would not need a bloody coup to establish their power officially; they had already taken control of Earth by default, with the full consent, if not approval, of the Terrestrials. When the time came, all the Sirians needed to do was to give Governor-General Mellis formal notice that he was relieved of his duties, and Earth would pass officially into Sirian possession.

The Corwinite let his gaze roam uneasily around the room. Unfamiliar-looking machines stood in the comers of the room. The latest in torture devices, he thought. He looked at Firnik.

“What do you want with me?”

The Sirian folded his thick arms and said, “Information. You’ve been very stubborn, Ewing.”

“I’ve been telling the truth. What do you want me to do—make something up to please you?”

“You’re aware that the government of Sirius IV is soon to extend a protectorate to Earth,” Firnik said. “You fail to realize that this step is being done for the mother world’s own good, to protect it in its declining days against possible depredations from hostile worlds in this system. I’m not talking about hypothetical invaders from other galaxies.”

“Hypothetical? But—”

“Quiet. Let me finish. You, representing Corwin and possibly some of the other distant colonies, have come to Earth to verify the rumor that such a protectorate is about to be created. The worlds you represent have arrived at the totally false conclusion that there is something malevolent about our attitude toward Earth—that we have so-called imperialistic ‘designs’ on Earth. You fail to understand the altruistic motives behind our decision to relieve the Terrestrials of the tiresome burden of governing themselves. And so your planet has sent you here as a sort of spy, to determine in actuality what the relationship between Sirius IV and Earth is, and to make the necessary arrangements with the Terrestrials to defend Earth against us. To this end you’ve already conferred with Governor-General Mellis, and you have an appointment to visit one Myreck, a dangerous radical and potential revolutionary. Why do you insist on denying this?”

“Because you’re talking idiotic gibberish! I’m no spy! I’m—”

The side of Sergeant Drayl’s stiffened hand descended on Ewing at the point where his neck joined his shoulder. He gagged but retained control over himself. His clavicle began to throb.

“You’ve told both Miss Clork and myself,” Firnik said, “that your purpose in coming to Earth was to seek Terrestrial aid against an alleged invasion of non-human beings from beyond the borders of this galaxy. It’s such a transparently false story that it makes you and your planet look utterly pitiful.”

“It happens to be true,” Ewing said doggedly.

Firnik snorted. “True? There is no such invasion!”

“I’ve seen the photos of Bamholt—”

The barrage of punches that resulted nearly collapsed him. He compelled himself to cling to consciousness, but he was dizzy with pain. A red haze swirled around his head, it seemed.

“You pose a grave threat to joint Sirian-Terrestrial security,” Firnik said sonorously. “We must have the truth from you, so we can guide our actions accordingly,”

You’ve had the truth, Ewing said silently. He did not speak it aloud; that would only be inviting a blow.

“We have means of interrogation,” Firnik went on. “Most of them, unfortunately, involve serious demolition of the personality. We are not anxious to damage you; you would be more useful to us with your mind intact.”

Ewing stared blankly at him—and at Byra, standing wordlessly at his side.

“What do you want me to tell you?” he asked.

“Details of the Corwinite plans. Full information on the essence of your interview with Governor-General Mellis. Information on possible belligerent intentions on the part of other colony worlds.”

“I’ve told you all I can tell you,” Ewing said wearily. “Anything else will be lies.”

Firnik shrugged. “We have time. The present mode of interrogation will continue until either some response is forthcoming or we see that your defenses are too strong. After that”—he indicated the hooded machines in the comers of the room—“other means will be necessary.”

Ewing smiled faintly despite the pain and the growing stiffness of his lips. He thought for a flickering moment of his wife Laira, his son Blade, and all the others on Corwin, waiting hopefully for him to return with good news. And instead of a triumphant return bearing tidings of aid, he faced torture, maiming, possible death at the hands of Sirians who refused to believe the truth.

Well, they would find out the truth soon enough, he thought blackly. After the normal means of interrogation were shown to be useless, when they had put into use the mind-pick and the brain-burner and the other cheerful devices waiting in the shadowy corners for him. They would turn his mind inside out and reveal its inmost depths, and then they would find he had been telling the truth.

Perhaps then they would begin to worry about the Klodni. Ewing did not care. Corwin was lost to the aliens whether he returned or not, and possibly it was better to die now than to live to see his planet’s doom.

He looked up at the Sirian’s cold, heavy features with something like pity. “Go ahead,” he said gently. “Start interrogating. You’re in for a surprise.”