Into the cell, holding a short staff glowing cool blue, stepped the stooped, grizzled figure of Amahain-Frolk, security minister
for the
Gerontocracy of Sorpen. The old man smiled at him and nodded approvingly, then turned to the corridor and, with a
thin, discolored hand,
beckoned somebody standing outside the cell to step onto the short walkway and enter. He guessed it
would be the Culture agent Balveda,
and it was. She came lightly onto the metal boarding, looked round slowly, and fastened
her gaze on him. He smiled and tried to nod in
greeting, his ears rubbing on his naked arms.
“Balveda! I thought I might see you again. Come to see the host of the party." He forced a grin. Officially it was his banquet;
he was the
host. Another of the Gerontocracy’s little jokes. He hoped his voice had shown no signs of fear.
Perosteck Balveda, agent of the Culture, a full head taller than the old man by her side and still strikingly handsome even
in the pallid glow
of the blue torch, shook her thin, finely made head slowly. Her short, black hair lay like a shadow on
her skull.
“No," she said, “I didn’t want to see you, or say goodbye."
“You put me here, Balveda," he said quietly.
“Yes, and there you belong," Amahain-Frolk said, stepping as far forward on the platform as he could without overbalancing
and having to
step onto the damp floor. “I wanted you tortured first, but Miss Balveda here"—the minister’s high, scratchy
voice echoed in the cell as he turned
his head back to the woman—“pleaded for you, though God knows why. But that’s where
you belong all right; murderer." He shook the staff at
the almost naked man hanging on the dirty wall of the cell.
Balveda looked at her feet, just visible under the hem of the long, plain gray gown she wore. A circular pendant on a chain
around her neck
glinted in the light from the corridor outside. Amahain-Frolk had stepped back beside her, holding the shining
staff up and squinting at the
captive.
“You know, even now I could almost swear that was Egratin hanging there. I can…" He shook his gaunt, bony head. “… I can hardly
believe it
isn’t, not until he opens his mouth, anyway. My God, these Changers are dangerous frightening things!" He turned
to Balveda. She smoothed
her hair at the nape of her neck and looked down at the old man.
“They are also an ancient and proud people, Minister, and there are very few of them left. May I ask you one more time. Please.
Let him
live. He might be—"
The Gerontocrat waved a thin and twisted hand at her, his face distorting in a grimace. “No! You would do well, Miss Balveda,
not to keep
asking for this… this assassin, this murderous, treacherous…
spy,
to be spared. Do you think we take the cowardly murder and impersonation
of one of our outworld ministers lightly. What damage
this…
thing
could have caused! Why, when we arrested it two of our guards died just
from being
scratched!
Another is blind for life after this monster spat in his eye! However," Amahain-Frolk sneered at the man chained to the
wall,
“we took those teeth out. And his hands are tied so that he can’t even scratch himself." He turned to Balveda again. “You
say they are few.
I say good; there will soon be one less." The old man narrowed his eyes as he looked at the woman. “We are
grateful to you and your people for
exposing this fraud and murderer, but do not think that gives you the right to tell us
what to do. There are some in the Gerontocracy who want
nothing to do with
any
outside influence, and their voices grow in volume by the day as the war comes closer. You would do well not to
antagonize
those of us who do support your cause."
Balveda pursed her lips and looked down at her feet again, clasping her slender hands behind her back. Amahain-Frolk had turned
back to
the man hanging on the wall, wagging the staff in his direction as he spoke. “You will soon be dead, impostor, and
with you die your masters’
plans for the domination of our peaceful system! The same fate awaits them if they try to invade
us. We and the Culture are—"
He shook his head as best he could and roared back, “Frolk, you’re an idiot!" The old man shrank away as though hit. The Changer
went
on, “Can’t you see you’re going to be taken over anyway. Probably by the Idirans, but if not by them then by the Culture.
You don’t control your
own destinies anymore; the war’s stopped all that. Soon this whole sector will be part of the front,
unless you
make
it part of the Idiran sphere. I
was only sent in to tell you what you should have known anyway—not to cheat you into something
you’d regret later. For God’s sake, man, the
Idirans won’t
eat
you—"
“Ha! They look as though they could! Monsters with three feet; invaders, killers, infidels… You want us to link with them.
With three-strides-
tall-monsters. To be ground under their
hooves.
To have to worship their false gods."
“At least they have a God, Frolk. The Culture doesn’t." The ache in his arms was coming back as he concentrated on talking.
He shifted as
best he could and looked down at the minister. “They at least think the same way you do. The Culture doesn’t."
“Oh no, my friend, oh no." Amahain-Frolk held one hand up flat to him and shook his head. “You won’t sow seeds of discord
like that."
“My God, you stupid old man," he laughed. “You want to know who the real representative of the Culture is on this planet.
It’s not her," he
nodded at the woman, “it’s that powered flesh-slicer she has following her everywhere, her knife missile.
She might make the decisions, it might
do what she tells it, but it’s the real emissary. That’s what the Culture’s about:
machines. You think because Balveda’s got two legs and soft skin
you should be on her side, but it’s the Idirans who are on
the side of life in this war—"
“Well, you will shortly be on the other side of
that.
" The Gerontocrat snorted and glanced at Balveda, who was looking from under lowered
brows at the man chained to the wall.
“Let us go, Miss Balveda," Amahain-Frolk said as he turned and took the woman’s arm to guide her from
the cell. “This…
thing’s
presence smells more than the cell."
Balveda looked up at him then, ignoring the dwarfed minister as he tried to pull her to the door. She gazed right at the prisoner
with her
clear, black-irised eyes and held her hands out from her sides. “I’m sorry," she said to him.
“Believe it or not, that’s rather how I feel," he replied, nodding. “Just promise me you’ll eat and drink very little tonight,
Balveda. I’d like to
think there was one person up there on my side, and it might as well be my worst enemy." He had meant
it to be defiant and funny, but it
sounded only bitter; he looked away from the woman’s face.
“I promise," Balveda said. She let herself be led to the door, and the blue light waned in the dank cell. She stopped right
at the door. By
sticking his head painfully far out he could just see her. The knife missile was there, too, he noticed, just
inside the room; probably there all the
time, but he hadn’t noticed its sleek, sharp little body hovering there in the darkness.
He looked into Balveda’s dark eyes as the knife missile
moved.
For a second he thought Balveda had instructed the tiny machine to kill him now—quietly and quickly while she blocked Amahain-Frolk’s
view—and his heart thudded. But the small device simply floated past Balveda’s face and out into the corridor. Balveda raised
one hand in a
gesture of farewell.
“Bora Horza Gobuchul," she said, “goodbye." She turned quickly, stepped from the platform and out of the cell. The walkway
was hoisted
out and the door slammed, scraping rubber flanges over the grimy floor and hissing once as the internal seals
made it watertight. He hung
there, looking down at an invisible floor for a moment before going back into the trance that
would Change his wrists, thin them down so that he
could escape. But something about the solemn, final way Balveda had spoken
his name had crushed him inside, and he knew then, if not
before, that there was no escape.
…
by drowning them in the tears
…
His lungs were bursting! His mouth quivered, his throat was gagging, the filth was in his ears but he could hear a great roaring,
see lights
though it was black dark. His stomach muscles started to go in and out, and he had to clamp his jaw to stop his
mouth opening for air that