Carl says: You're either a raw recruit who was conveniently placed in the same unit as Carl when suspicion fell on him. A raw recruit, I might add, who was capable of taking down Pramer and Skyril. Or, more likely, you are a Polity agent.'
'He's almost certainly an agent,' said Carl, stepping up beside Samara. 'He was always a bit too good, a bit too efficient and a bit too fucking moral. Much as I hate to admit it, I think they knew about me right from the start. I don't see ECS using a plain grunt for an operation like this—too much chance of it going wrong and they wouldn't want that with CTDs involved.'
Samara glanced up at him. 'So he's probably like you, Carl—a damned sight older than he looks.'
'Well let's find out,' said Carl nastily.
Cormac reached up to the monofilament around his neck and toyed with the join. It was a friction grip which, if he pulled hard enough, would slide down the line; unfortunately pulling hard on a piece of monofilament wrapped around your bare neck could lead to some nasty side effects.
'Supposing that I am an agent,' he said. 'Do you honestly think you could get anything useful out of me?'
Carl gazed steadily at him. 'Possibly not, but we'll certainly have fun trying.' He focused on Cormac's fingers at the monofilament join. 'Best we get that off his neck, Samara.' Perhaps in any other circumstances him saying that might have been reassuring, but Cormac knew precisely why Carl now wanted the filament removed—it was far too much of an easy way out. Samara stood up and moved round to the foamstone pillar. He considered going for her, but even as he considered it, Carl was abruptly standing over him pointing a thin-gun down at his legs. Samara unhitched the monofilament from the post, inserting its end into a neat little winding device that quickly took up the slack. A tap against another control on the device released the friction slide at his neck and the filament came loose.
'Remove it,' she instructed him.
Maybe a tough ECS agent would have used the filament on his own throat to prevent any vital knowledge he possessed falling into enemy hands, or maybe such a one would now use the filament as a weapon to bring down at least a few of his captors before he was killed. He was no agent and neither anxious to die nor to be tortured, and so he tried to delay the inevitable.
'I don't know if it's occurred to you yet,' he said, leaving the filament precisely where it was, 'but maybe Carl is your ECS agent. He's here now in your base…'
'Remove the monofilament,' Samara insisted.
'How did he get in contact with you, by the way?'
'Remove the monofilament or Carl will burn off your kneecaps.'
Since he rather expected something like this was the intention, he considered delaying further. Carl fired his gun, the ionized pulse punching into the plasticrete by Cormac's feet and spraying him with hot fragments. Cormac reconsidered. Maybe they would soften him up first with a beating, which he could survive, or with drugs… He removed the filament from about his neck.
'Stand up.'
Every move in slow motion, he obeyed. Samara wound in the monofilament then tossed the winder to Skyril, who caught it and moved in behind Cormac.
'Hands behind your back.'
Ah, he was beginning to see now. They didn't want him truncating the questioning by cutting his own throat, but it didn't matter if he sliced up his wrists or even cut off his hands, because they could still keep him alive. Maybe now was the time—
Carl's foot went like a swinging beam into his stomach, driving him back against the pillar. It seemed the man could read his intentions before they turned to actions. Skyril then grabbed his T-shirt and shoved him forwards, catching hold of his arms and pulling them back. Cormac went down on his knees, unable to do otherwise. Skyril looped monofilament about his wrists. He started to slump forwards, but the filament began to tighten as Skyril attached the other end to the post, so with a huge effort of will he forced himself upright again. Skyril now pulled his ankles together, looping a plastic tie about them—Cormac recognised the clicking sound as it closed. Then the man stood and stepped past him, bringing his flack gun sharply back and smashing it into Cormac's mouth. He nearly went over again, but fought to maintain position, then shuffled back up to give himself at least a little slack. He spat out fragments of tooth, felt his lip swelling and blood running down his chin.
'That one I owed you,' said Skyril. He then glanced at Carl. 'Want some?'
Carl shook his head. 'In good time.'
Skyril shrugged, holstering his flack gun, then turned back to Cormac, delivering a hard kick to his guts. Skyril then reached inside a poacher's pocket in his coat and took out a length of reinforcing rod, worn shiny by handling, and stepped in close. Three hits in rapid succession—one felt as if it had snapped Cormac's collar bone, the next slammed hard across his stomach and the next across an elbow as the previous one bowed him over. Cormac went down on his side, fighting for breath. Skyril delivered a few more kicks for good measure, then stepped back.
After a moment Cormac managed, 'Aren't… you supposed… to question?'
Carl now stepped up close and squatted down. 'As you well know, Cormac, this is the softening-up process. You must be brought to the point where the pain and the damage to your body is too much. We'll use psychotropics on you then, and extract every last shred of information from your head.'
At that moment one of the troops came over to speak to Samara. 'We've got one ready now.' Cormac recognised him as one of those who had been at the work-benches where the CTDs had been delivered.
'But we should wait two hours longer before detonation,' the man continued. 'We've intelligence that another whole battalion is moving into Dramewood within that time.'
'Carl,' said Samara.
Carl grimaced in annoyance and stood. 'I take it you want me to do this?'
'It's more important than him.' She gestured at Cormac then turned back to the trooper. 'Carl will go with you to position it,' she continued. 'Rindle and his squad can take the old ATV, and tell the others to get ready to move out.'
'You won't be able to pull all your people out of Dramewood,' said Carl.
'No, but that's a small price to pay to take out two ECS battalions,' she replied.
They were going to use one of the CTDs here, on this world.
'It'll tidy up things here, too,' Samara added, glancing at Cormac.
Carl shook his head. 'No, I have to veto that.' He gazed steadily at her. 'He stays alive until we find out one way or another if he's an agent—that's essential, that's important to more operations than your one here on this world.'
Samara was annoyed about that, but nodded acceptance. Cormac wondered about the hierarchy here. Samara seemed to be in charge yet Carl seemed to have some power but was being careful not to step on too many toes, like some envoy from another Separatist group.
To salve her injured pride he added, 'By all means keep working on him, but don't kill him. If he is an agent he's probably high-ranking, and using the right techniques we could extract information from him for months.'
Carl grinned at Cormac. 'Have a nice day,' then he moved off with the trooper. Cormac watched him join a group of five other troopers, one of them hoisting a heavy rucksack onto his back—a rucksack certainly containing an active CTD. They began climbing into one of the ATVs while the trooper who had originally come over now spoke to some others, who quickly began packing away equipment and heading towards the door.
'Should we burn off his face or his testicles?' Skyril wondered.
'Carl says we've got to keep him alive,' said Samara.
'He's an offworlder,' said Skyril.
Grimacing, she replied, 'Best we do what he says, but there's a big difference between alive and undamaged.' She waved a hand at him, and smirking he moved off.
'Now,' she said to Cormac, 'let me bring to the forefront of your mind the kind of stuff I'm going to want to know, so you'll have it ready when this all becomes too much.'
Skyril was collecting an ancient oxythane bottle with a tube wound around the top to a cutting torch. Behind him the ATV with Carl and the CTD aboard set off towards a roller door at the end of the warehouse, which opened ahead of it. The last of those carrying loads to the older ATV outside departed, and Cormac heard it start up and pull away. That left one ATV and, including Skyril and Samara, seven Separatists.
