The Cyber Chronicles Book II: Death Zone (17 page)

Sabre flinched
as a lance of fiery pain shot through him. The meeder had wasted no
time in settling down to its meal.

"So, what have
you to tell me?" Rai asked.

"Go to
hell."

"The pain will
only get worse, my friend. You see, the meeder digests its food
before it consumes it, by injecting a particularly virulent
acid."

"I've told you
the truth."

Rai shook his
head in mild reproof. "Your stubbornness is foolish. I can end your
suffering as soon as you tell me everything."

Sabre sensed a
tugging deep in his mind as the control unit urged action, but
suppressed it, ignoring the scrolling readouts that demanded his
attention. "I've told you everything."

Rai sighed and
turned to the monk with a shrug. "It seems our friend enjoys
pain."

The monk's
round eyes darted to the tiny monster that chewed Sabre's flesh,
his fat cheeks dimpling. "Perhaps we should employ another?"

Rai gazed at
Sabre, lips pursed. "No, I think one's enough. Two would kill him
too quickly."

Sabre forced
himself to lie still, disregarding the cyber's urging to control
the animal. Since the meeder would not be able to chew its way into
his guts, it was not necessary to reveal the cyber's ability, which
was something he might need soon. The creature's legs scratched his
skin as it burrowed into his flesh, sending shafts of agony through
him. For an ordinary man it would have been unbearable, but it did
not compare to the torture of the surgeons' lasers.

Rai turned to
the monk again. "We should leave him to think on his decision for a
while, Brother. Let's return later, when he's feeling more
talkative."

Sabre knew
that the prospect of being left at the mercy of this tiny monster
was supposed to panic him into talking, but it was just what he
wanted. Rai gazed at him, disappointed, then walked to the door
with the monk, the guards preceding them. At the door, he glanced
back.

"Enjoy
yourself. I hope I remember to return in time."

Rai followed
the monk and the guards out, closing the door. The brow band flared
electric blue, and Sabre raised his head to aim it at the meeder.
The deep, almost inaudible drone filled the room, and within
seconds the beast ceased to feed, then withdrew from the wound
before curling into a ball and rolling off. As it hit the floor, he
sagged back, the cyber band dulling. A residual burning sensation
filled the wound, fading slowly. Sabre strained at the steel cuffs,
but, unlike the chains in Olgara, they were made from good quality
steel, and without any leverage, he could not break them.

Rai returned
within twenty minutes, and his brows rose when he found Sabre
relaxed on the table. He inspected the wound, then his eyes flicked
to Sabre's face.

"What happened
to it?"

"I think it
found me unpalatable."

Rai scowled.
"It didn't appear to find you unpalatable earlier."

"Perhaps it
took a while to make up its mind."

The warrior's
eyes narrowed. "You did something to it."

"How could
I?"

Rai searched
the floor and found the meeder, which he set on the wound again.
The animal remained curled up, and Rai returned it to its
bottle.

"So, we'll
have to use more conventional methods on you, it seems."

"You're
wasting your time."

Rai smiled.
"Maybe I am. You do appear to be impervious to pain, and clearly
you have experience with torture. Perhaps it's not you I should be
torturing. I fancy the girl will be more susceptible."

"No. This is
stupid and pointless. If you intend to kill me, what difference
does it make what the brow band can do? Once I'm dead it can do
nothing."

"Indeed, but I
don't want anything to go wrong at the sacrificial ceremony; the
priests would take it as a very bad omen. I don't want portents of
doom bandied about simply because you have some unusual ability I'm
unaware of."

"Do you really
think I stand a chance against those monsters?" Sabre asked.

"You survived
the Death Zone, and there are lots in there. According to Norak,
you shouldn't have been able to get through, and he should
know."

"Maybe there
aren't so many anymore."

Rai shook his
head. "There are more coming out all the time. Before, we used to
see one only rarely, now we see them regularly. Don't tell me there
are less in the Zone, when more are coming out of it."

Sabre frowned
at the soot-blackened ceiling. Rai was no fool. These people knew
something about the old technology that had once existed on this
world, and he was rightly suspicious of the control unit. If he
tortured Tassin, Sabre would be forced to tell him something,
although he could try lying. Rai seemed shrewd, however, and Sabre
was no expert in the art of deception, having never attempted it
before. If it did not work, Tassin's suffering would provoke a
reaction from the cyber. What kind he was not sure, but it might
disable him again in an attempt to take over.

Cybers were
programmed to sacrifice themselves to save their owners and people
with command privilege, when all else failed. Even though it knew
it could not take over, it could still inflict a great deal of pain
in a bid to force Sabre to tell the truth and save Tassin. A threat
to the cyber's charge would turn it against Sabre, and he did not
relish the prospect of another mental battle. He needed to get free
in order to save the Queen, but, with the drugs Rai employed, that
would not be easy. He had hoped that at some point he would be put
into a cell from which he could escape, but that seemed unlikely
now.

Rai smiled,
turning away. "I'll fetch the girl, then I'll find out what I want
to know, I suspect."

Sabre watched
him leave, helpless rage coursing through him. The thought of a
fiendish meeder torturing Tassin made his skin crawl and his gut
clench. He did not think he would be able to keep silent if he was
forced to listen to her screams and pleas, even if the control unit
did not torture him too. He strained at the cuffs again, making the
metal creak and the bands dig into his wrists, but they held.

Relaxing, he
considered his situation. Rai would only be convinced that he was
harmless when he was dead, even though, as far as Rai knew, he
could have killed him with the dart, had it been poisoned instead
of drugged. Initially Rai had wanted to question him, but had
probably intended to sacrifice him all along, and for that he
needed Sabre alive. Now he had discovered that Sabre might have
other weapons at his disposal, and could not risk him escaping.

It seemed that
for the Oroka, sacrifice was the only acceptable method of
execution, and entailed being flung into the pit with the monsters.
The meeder had only been for torture, Rai had never intended that
it should kill him. That led him to believe that the Oroka deemed
it necessary for the sacrificial victim to be perceived to have a
chance of survival. Their overdeveloped machismo demanded that a
man be respected, even if he was a criminal or an enemy, so he had
to be given the illusion of having a chance to fight free. If they
flung Sabre into the canyon, he would escape. Rai clearly did not
intend that to happen, which made him suspect that if a man was
able to survive, the Oroka would be forced to let him live, perhaps
even free him.

Tassin, he
thought bitterly, would tell Rai all he needed to know, if he asked
her, but Rai considered women too stupid to know anything. Sabre
knew he could not see her tortured and remain silent, and the cyber
would not allow it, in any case. Once Rai knew what he could do, he
would undoubtedly devise a suitable method of sacrifice from which
there was no hope of escape. He had to find a way to avoid telling
them anything, yet still spare Tassin from torture.

Sabre turned
his attention inwards to the cyber's scrolling readouts and
concentrated on communicating with the tiny supercomputer. The
crystalline AI weighed five grams, and was located at the centre of
the brow band, one of the smallest components in it.

Tassin looked
around as the door of her prison opened, clutching the chain that
hung from the collar. Rai scowled at the tatty dress she still
wore.

"Too stupid to
know what's good for you, aren't you?"

Rai strode
over to her and ripped the chain from her hands, pulling her to her
feet. She kicked him in the shin, and he slapped her hard enough to
make her stagger. Gasping, she blinked away tears as he led her
from the room, the collar cutting into her neck. She stumbled
behind him through the house, and his sons watched them pass with
wary eyes. Outside, she trotted to keep up, held onto the chain and
wondered where he was taking her. They passed other men going about
their business, and she suspected that the women were all chained
up in the houses.

Soldiers
saluted Rai as he entered the pillared palace in the centre of the
city, and he tugged her through the entrance hall. Brown-robed
monks wandered about, their faces blank, and she wondered if this
was a palace or a temple, or both. Rai did not slow his pace as he
left the main hall and led her down a side passage to a metal-bound
door. Thrusting it open, he pulled her into a torture chamber.
Sabre lay on a metal table, his ankles and wrists clamped to
it.

"Sabre!" She
started towards him, but the chain brought her up short. Sabre
stared at the roof with blank eyes, and her heart sank.

Rai chuckled.
"How sweet."

A cold pang of
dread shot through her. "Sabre, what's wrong?"

He closed his
eyes, and Rai chortled again. "It seems your mighty warrior doesn't
like being helpless, especially in front of the woman he was
supposed to be protecting, and now cannot."

He tugged on
the chain, making her look at him. "You see, he hasn't told me all
that I want to know, and I don't think he will, no matter what I do
to him. But if I torture you, that'll be different. Not so,
prisoner?"

Rai towed her
over to a wall hung with chains and shackled her wrists to it at
shoulder height. Tassin's gut clenched with dread, and she cast
Sabre a pleading glance.

Rai grinned.
"Be persuasive, my lovely. If you can make him talk now, you'll
spare yourself a great deal of pain."

Sabre's
inaction annoyed her, but she refused to give Rai the satisfaction
of making her beg. She could withstand a little pain, and Sabre
would not allow her to suffer. He seemed oblivious to her fate,
however, and she wondered if there was something wrong with him. As
Rai knelt to clamp shackles on her ankles, she tried to kick him,
and he jumped up and slapped her.

"Don't anger
me, woman, or it'll go worse for you."

Tassin looked
at Sabre again, blinking away fresh tears. The cyber band was full
of flashing red lights. She wondered if the two were locked in
another titanic struggle for supremacy, perhaps sparked by her
prospective torture, but he was too peaceful. Rai fitted the irons
onto her ankles and left the room.

"Sabre!"
Tassin whispered. "He's gone! What are you doing? How are we going
to get out of this?"

Sabre ignored
her, and Tassin frowned and rattled her chains. He hardly seemed to
be breathing, and she had to watch him closely to detect any
movement at all.

Rai returned
with a brown-robed priest whose round, piggy eyes flitted over
Tassin, his tongue flicking out to lick thick lips. She shuddered
and looked away. Rai came over to stand before her, thrusting his
face close to hers.

"You'd better
start screaming, my dear. Your protector seems to have fallen
asleep from sheer boredom. Perhaps he cares nothing for you after
all?"

Tassin's eyes
widened as Rai drew a knife from his belt, and she glanced up at
his hard face in disbelief. With a flick of his wrist, he sliced
through her dress and into her skin. A line of blood appeared on
her belly, and she hissed. He smiled, then went over to the priest
and accepted a bottle from him. Tassin glanced at the motionless
cyber again.

He followed
her look. "I'm sure your screams will awaken him."

Rai opened the
bottle and shook a grey creature into his palm. She shrank back as
he held it towards her, tugged at the chains and tried to squirm
away from his outstretched hand. He gripped her waist and pressed
the creature to the bloody cut. She gasped as sharp claws gripped
her skin, swallowing bile at the sight of the beast clinging to her
belly.

The animal
searched for raw flesh, found the cut and started to feed. A lance
of unbelievable agony shot through Tassin, and she yelled and
struggled, striving to reach the loathsome creature and pluck it
from her skin. The manacles cut into her wrists, foiling her
attempts to reach the beast, and she writhed, trying to shake it
off. It hung on, burrowing into her. Hysteria rose in a tide of
mindless terror, and her shrieks echoed around the chamber.

Sabre remained
unmoving, and Rai looked puzzled. He went over and shook him, then
beckoned to the monk, who hurried over to examine the prisoner.
Tears of pain blurred Tassin's vision, and her screams drowned out
the men's words until Rai turned and plucked the creature from her
skin, stuffing it back into its bottle.

"Shut up!" he
snarled, striding back to Sabre.

Tassin sagged,
sobbing, as the fiery agony faded to a fierce burning. Blinking the
tears from her eyes, she looked at Sabre. The cyber band was black,
and his skin looked unnaturally pale. The monk hunted for a pulse
in Sabre's neck, his face creased with worry and disbelief. When he
looked up at Rai, his round eyes were white-ringed.

"He's
dead."

A stab of pain
impaled Tassin's chest, and she hung her head as fresh tears stung
her eyes.