cables that came out of the walls. He saw only backs.
Some of the rigid figures in the relief painting had cables thrust down their throats, and the tubes attached to the other ends of these were brightly lit. Others still were being intubated, their heads thrown back, their guts distended as black-painted soldiers just like these men pushed the cabling down their throats. Others waited, their faces turned away.
“Look, I need that coverall now, please, gentlemen.”
Behind him, he heard a loud thunk. He turned toward the sound, which proved to be the door closing.
The young captain had come in after all. Ready to explode in her face, he turned around—and just plain stopped dead.
Her eyes regarded him with a doll-like emptiness that did not look alive. Immediately, he remembered his dream of two nights ago—that face, geisha-like, staring at him.
It was her.
She smiled a little. “Hello again.”
He threw himself past her. She didn’t try to stop him. On the contrary, she stepped aside with the grace of a matador.
He sought some way of opening the door, sweeping his hands across its smoothness. There was no handle, there was no lock. She watched, completely impassive.
He stopped. His heart was hammering so hard that he thought he might simply drop dead from the shock. He tried to talk, but his mouth was too dry. He hesitated to think who these people must be—but he did think it, they were the enemy, that was why the blackness of the uniforms was so bizarre, as if they were literally dressed in night.
A powerful realization came to him, of the sort that will come to a dying man. It told him that it was sin that generated that blackness, that they were not in uniforms at all, but were as naked as he was.
“Your soul isn’t going to be killed,” she said from behind him. Her voice was—well, it was musical. And yet, there was something else in it, something that he could only think of as rage, and maybe deeper rage than he had ever heard before.
Or no. He had heard that rough, bitter tone before. “Samson is one of you.”
“Indeed.”
She put her hand on his shoulder. “Come on,” she said. “You can make this easy or you can make it hard.”
She was wary. She knew that he was dangerous. “I don’t want you to imagine you have any chance to get out of this,” she said.
And then she shuddered for all the world like a dog shaking its hide.
The uniform fell away, and he saw that it wasn’t actually a uniform at all, but something thin and now dry. It looked like skin shed by a snake.
Her real skin shimmered, and her face changed. She blinked her eyes, and the sockets were round, blinked them again and they were long. Now a nictitating membrane came across the eyeballs, and when it retracted he found himself face-to-face with the most beautiful and awful thing he had ever seen.
The face was that of a snake or a lizard, but flattened and extended so that it covered the front of a human-sized head. It was softly angled, sleek, with a snake’s fixed lips. There was a smile, though, sparkling in the golden eyes, which were an incredible contrast to the human eyes she’d been exhibiting a few moments ago. These eyes were sparkling with life and humor and, he could see it so clearly-glee.
There was an earthly equivalent to these creatures. They were chameleons. But these—they were far, far more evolved than any earthly shape-shifter. And he suspected, also, now, why Samson carried his syringe. He wasn’t an addict. To live on the surface, they must need some kind of support. Allergies, diseases—he’d probably never know what endangered them there.
“Now, I want you to try to stay calm, Al. The less you fight, the less this will hurt. You need to understand that we have no mercy, Al. We have no mercy.” The eyes twinkled. “So it’s up to you. This can be a terrible agony for you, or it can go smoothly. Up to you, Al, up to you.”
The others were working with their equipment. Al watched the nearest one turn toward him. He was as black as night, his skin had the polish of a jewel. It shimmered as he moved, sleek muscles rippling within. He drew a black tube out of the wall and approached Al. As he moved forward, the tube made a faint hissing sound. The end, which appeared to be made of copper, glowed with a curious green light.
“We’ve already tested you on this,” ‘Jennifer’ said. “We know it’s going to work.”
A huge emotion filled him. This wasn’t just death, it was worse, it was the absolute end of his being. Soul murder.
He hadn’t practiced his martial arts in years, but he called his old skills up from the very depths of his being, moved to a back stance and tried a side kick.
The creature caught his foot and slammed him to the floor.
He took the hit, tried to shake it off, failed. The female made a string of sounds. And then, unmistakably, they all laughed. It was quiet, easy laughter, the laughter of men running a slaughter line, joking about something else as they slit the throats of the pigs.
The one who had taken him down turned away and continued his work, which involved screwing a copper fitting onto one of the strange glass tubes.
Al got to his feet. He was feeling a dull, hopeless sort of determination. His own greed had brought him here. He’d taken the assignment from Samson despite the fact that he knew damn well that something was very wrong. He had done this out of eagerness for promotion, and that even though the entire system was hopelessly broken and none of it made a bit of difference.
They had seen his ambition, and used it against him to lure him very neatly into this trap.
He had been more than willing to come down here and kill another human being’s soul, so why was he now being so careful of his own?
But he was. He had a touch of eternity in him, he could feel it clearly, and he did not want it to die, he did not want it so much that this time he really lashed out at the female, who had come close to him. His blow connected, and her head bounced to one side as he gave her the hardest knuckle slap he could manage. Then he waded in, fists pounding. But each time he struck a blow, less seemed to happen. It was like fighting wet cotton, and she watched him impassively as he slowly became unable to move at all. Just like the victims in the relief, he was soon standing frozen, arms at his sides.
One of the males now strolled over to him.
The female pointed at a particular painting and spoke a few words. The painting showed a prisoner having his eyes gouged out.
One of his captors went to it, looked at it for some moments, then opened a black case like a thick pocketknife. There was a pop, followed by hissing. The thing became like a tiny star in his hand, fiercely bright.
He approached Al. His eyes were emptier than hers, narrow and yellow-green, not gold. As Al watched, the nictitating membranes slid quickly over the pupils, then disappeared back into the orbits.
The star was brought close to his face. It was hot, and he tried to turn away but could not move a millimeter. Now it began to burn around his lips. Then there was a sizzling sound and he tried to cry out, but instead found himself gagging on his own blood.
When the light was withdrawn, blood poured down, spattering on the floor, washing his feet and the fleshy remains of his lips in thick, red sheets.
His mind blanked. He knew that he was being slaughtered. Was aware of it but distantly. Shock does that, even to a soldier.
An instant later, what appeared to be a red serpent’s tongue darted out of the object, striking his left eye, causing a bright red flash in his brain. He heard muscles pop and felt torment in his neck as his body literally tore itself to pieces in its effort to move against the invisible restraints that bound it. He did not understand that he had been placed on an electrically charged plate that neutralized his nervous system, stopping all communication between brain and body. He also did not understand that all this equipment was not only old but simple—simpler by far than most man-made circuitry. He did not understand that these creatures were not advanced beyond man in most science, but only in one science, the science of the soul, which made these exhausted, half-starved and poverty-stricken beings appear like dark gods to him, as the Spaniards—sick, starving, and far from home—had once
