Mirror Dance

They could not be as mentally stunted as their stolidity suggested, or they would be useless in an emergency. But if their narrow minds were intact, it followed that they must be controlled through their emotions. Men whom Ryoval let stand behind him with activated weapons must be programmed to the max, probably from birth. Ryoval must be father, mother, family and all to them. Ryoval must be their god.

But now their god was dead.

What would they do? Was I am free even an intelligible concept to them? Without its focal object, how fast would their programming start to break down? Not fast enough. An ugly light, compounded of rage and fear, was growing in their eyes.

“I didn’t do it,” Miles pointed out with quick prudence. “I was with you.”

“Stay here,” growled the senior man. “I’ll reconnoiter.” He loped off through the Baron’s apartment, to return in a few minutes with a laconic, “His flyer’s gone. Lift tube defenses buggered all to hell, too.”

They hesitated. Ah, the downside of perfect obedience: crippled initiative.

“Hadn’t you better check around the facility?” Miles suggested. “There might be survivors. Witnesses. Maybe … maybe the assassin is still hiding somewhere.” Where is Mark?

“What do we do with him?” asked the junior man, with a jerk of his head at Miles.

The senior man scowled in indecision. “Take him along. Or lock him up. Or kill him.”

“You don’t know what the Baron wanted me for,” Miles interrupted instantly. “Better take me along till you find out.”

“He wanted you for the other one,” said the senior man, with an indifferent glance down at him. Little, naked, half-healed, with his hands bound behind him, the guards clearly did not perceive him as a threat. Too right. Hell.

After a brief muttered conference, the junior man pushed him along, and they began as rapid and methodical a tour of the facility as Miles would have wished to make himself. They found two of their red-and-black uniformed comrades, dead. A mysterious pool of blood snaked across a corridor from wall to wall. They found another body, fully dressed as a senior tech, in a shower, the back of his head crushed with some blunt object. On descending levels they found more signs of struggle, of looting, and of by-no-means-random destruction, comconsoles and equipment smashed.

Had it been a slave revolt? Some power struggle among factions? Revenge? All three simultaneously? Was the murder of Ryoval its cause, or its goal? Had there been a mass evacuation, or a mass killing? At every corner, Miles braced himself for a scene of carnage.

The lowest level had a laboratory with half a dozen glass-walled cells lining one end. From the smell, some experiment had been left cooking far too long. He glanced into the cells, and swallowed.

They had been human, once, those lumps of flesh, scar tissue, and growths. They were now … culture- dishes of some kind. Four had been female, two male. Some departing tech, as an act of mercy, had neatly cut each one’s throat. He eyed them desperately, his face pressed to the glass. Surely they were all too large to have been Mark. Surely such effects could not have been achieved in a mere five days. Surely. He did not want to enter the cells for a closer examination.

At least it explained why more of Ryoval’s slaves did not try to resist. There was an air of awful economy about it. Don’t like your work in the bordello, girl? Sick of the boredom and brutality of being a guard, man? How would you like to go into scientific research? The last stop for any would-be Spartacus among Ryoval’s human possessions. Bel was right. We should have nuked this place the last time we were here.

The guards gave the cells a brief glance, and pressed on. Miles hung back, seized by inspiration. It was worth a try… .

“Shit!” Miles hissed, and jumped.

The guards spun around.

“That … that man in there. He moved. I think I’m going to vomit.”

“Can’t have.” The senior guard stared through the transparent wall at a body which lay with its back to them.

“He couldn’t possibly have witnessed anything from in there, could he?” said Miles. “For God’s sake, don’t open the door.”

“Shut up.” The senior guard chewed his lip, stared at the control virtual, and after an irresolute moment, coded open the door and trod cautiously within.

“Gah!” said Miles.

“What?” snapped the junior guard.

“He moved again. He, he, sort of spasmed.”

The junior man drew his stunner and followed his comrade inside, covering him. The senior man extended his hand, faltered, and on second thought pulled his shock stick from his belt and prodded it warily toward the body.

Miles smacked the door control with a duck of his forehead. The glass seal slid shut, barely in time. The guards smashed into the door and up it like rabid dogs. It barely transmitted the vibration. Their mouths were open, howling curses and threats at him, but no sound passed. The transparent walls must be space-grade material; it stopped stunner fire, too.

The senior man pulled out a plasma arc and began burning. The wall started to glow slightly. Not good. Miles studied the control panel … there. He pushed at menu blocks with his tongue till it brought up oxygen, and re-set it down as far as it would go. Would the guards pass out before the wall gave way to the plasma arc?

Yes. Good environmental system, that. Ryoval’s dogs crumpled against the glass, clawed hands relaxing in unconsciousness. The plasma arc fell from nerveless fingers, and shut off.

Miles left them sealed in their victim’s tomb.

It was a lab. There had to be cutters, and tools of all sorts … right. It took several minutes of contortions, working behind his back, during which he nearly passed out, but his shackles gave way at last. He whimpered with relief as his hands came free.

Weapons? All weapons per se had been taken, apparently, by the departing inhabitants, and without a biotainer suit he was disinclined to re-open the glass cell and retrieve the guards’ gear. But a laser-scalpel from the lab made him feel less vulnerable.

He wanted his clothing. Shivering from the cold, he trotted back through the eerie corridors to the security entrance, and donned his knits again. He turned back into the facility, and began to seriously search. He tried every comconsole he came to that wasn’t smashed. All were internally dedicated, no way to tap an outside channel.

Where is Mark? It occurred to him suddenly that if there could be anything worse than being held prisoner in some cell here, waiting for his tormentors to come again, it would be to be locked in a cell here waiting for tormentors who never came again. In what was perhaps the most frantic half-hour he’d ever experienced in his life, he opened or broke open every door in the facility. Behind every one he expected to find a sodden little body, its throat mercifully cut … He was wheezing and fearing another convulsion when, with great relief, he found the cell—closet—near Ryoval’s quarters. Empty. It stank of recent occupation, though. And the bloodstains and other stains on the walls and floor turned his stomach cold and sick. But wherever Mark was, and in whatever condition, he was not here. He had to get out of here too.

He caught his breath, and found a plastic basket, and went shopping in the labs for useful electronic equipment. Cutters and wires, circuit-diagnostics, readers and relays, whatever he could find. When he thought he had enough, he returned to the Baron’s study, and proceeded to dissect the damaged comconsole. He finally managed to jump the palm-lock, only to have a little bright square patch come up on-view and demand, Insert code-key. He cursed, and stretched his aching back, and sat again. This was going to be tedious.

It took another pass through the facility for equipment before he was able to jump the code-key block. And the comconsole would never be the same. But at last, finally, he punched through to the planetary communications net. There was another short glitch while he figured out how to charge the call to House Ryoval’s account; all fees