Venus Rising (24 page)

They found Gaidar in the fourth cell on the
left, an airless hole lit only by a smoking oil lamp, and without
the furniture, the running water or the sanitary facilities
required for all Jurisdiction prisoners. The stench in the corridor
outside the cell was sickening.

“The guards say all Cetans smell like this,”
Suria said, wrestling with the ancient lock and key.

“That’s not true. Gaidar is fairly clean.
Suria, I am appalled by the lax security. There is no sign at all
of an observation system, either at the guard’s post or here in
this hall. Why isn’t Gaidar being monitored the way prisoners
usually are?”

“I told you, they are lazy.”

“Either that, or they want him to
escape.”

“Why would they want that?” Suria had just
succeeded in turning the key in the lock, but she made no move to
open the door.

“Think, Suria, as I have learned to do,
thanks to Tarik. If Gaidar escapes, where can he go? On this world,
where he is considered a deadly enemy, to whom can he flee? There
is only one place: Almaric’s house, where Tarik and I are
lodged.”

“You think I am tricking you, that I’m
involved in the plot to destroy Almaric and his family? Narisa, I
swear to you, I would do nothing to help Leader Tyre, not after the
things he has made me do for him. He is the most disgusting
creature. I risked my life to go to Almaric’s house and warn you
what Tyre is planning, and I’m risking it again to help with this
escape. I admit I like taking risks and I enjoy danger, but I’m not
completely mad. I can easily imagine what Tyre will do to me if I
am discovered with you and Gaidar.”

“I believe you, Suria. That doesn’t mean Tyre
isn’t hoping Gaidar will try to escape, either on his own or with
Tarik’s help, and perhaps Almaric’s.”

“We can’t just leave him here,” Suria argued.
`’If Gaidar doesn’t escape, Tyre certainly has some particularly
nasty end planned for him tonight. I know what I heard Tyre
say.”

“Then let us release him,” Narisa agreed,
“but be on guard and warn him what may happen so he can be
prepared.”

The door swung open without the creaking of
rusty hinges Narisa had half expected and then clicked shut behind
them as Suria pulled on it. Gaidar crouched in one corner of the
cell. His hair and beard were matted and dirty.

The single oil lamp gave enough light for
Narisa to see him, the bowl of rotting food on the floor beside
him, and the pile of excrement in the opposite corner. She gagged
and thought she would be sick, until Gaidar looked up at her and
she saw hope leap into his golden eyes.

“Narisa?” His voice was rough, as though his
throat hurt.

“Hush, don’t say a word, just listen.” She
went to her knees on the filthy floor in front of him. “This is
Suria, a friend of mine. We are going to try to smuggle you out of
here. The first thing we have to do is cut your hair and
beard.”

“Cut it? No, never.”

“Gaidar, it’s for a disguise. A Cetan is
supposed to be bearded.” Narisa pulled open the bundle she had been
carrying and brought out the scissors. “Hold still, now, I have to
work quickly.”

“Don’t cut it!” He whipped out his hand and
caught her wrist. “Leave me alone.”

“Wouldn’t you like to be free, Gaidar?” Suria
asked, her throaty voice pitched to its most enthralling tones. She
had picked up the oil lamp from the floor and was holding it so her
beautiful face was illuminated. Narisa, glancing over her shoulder,
saw Suria smile and heard Gaidar’s indrawn breath. “Let Narisa do
what she wants with your hair. It will grow back soon. With or
without it, you are still a man. A strong man, one who should live
to fight and love for many more years. Leader Tyre plans to kill
you this night. Let us help you before it’s too late.”

As the hypnotic voice went on and on, Gaidar
loosened his restraining hold on Narisa’s wrist.

“Cut it, then,” he said hoarsely. “Be quick
about it, before I change my mind.”

“Have they given you no water?” Suria
inquired, still in that seductive tone of voice. “Is that why your
voice is rough?”

“No water, no wine, only one bowl of salty
food, deliberately given to make me thirsty. I see you’ve brought
another bowl. I would not eat the first, I will not eat that one,
either.” Gaidar’s golden eyes were fixed on Suria’s face. He made
no further objection when Narisa began to cut his hair just below
his ears.

“There will be food and drink for you once
you are safe,” Suria continued.

“Safe?” Gaidar managed a coarse laugh. “Does
that mean you are taking me off-planet?”

“Trust us, Gaidar,” Narisa whispered. “There
may be eavesdropping devices in here that we cannot see, so don’t
ask us questions. Please, just do as we tell you.”

“I have no one else to trust. Not my beard,
too?”

“All the men in the Capital are clean
shaven,” Narisa pointed out. “I wish I could shave you, but a close
trim will have to do for now.”

Once Narisa had finished with him, Gaidar
stood up and stripped off his ragged and dirt-encrusted Cetan
clothes.

“Keep your boots,” Narisa advised, handing
him the servant’s trousers Kalina had provided. “Lots of people
wear cast-off Service boots. Yours won’t be noticeable.” She was
not at all affected by the sight of a naked Cetan. His tall figure
with bulky muscles at arms and shoulders did not stir her in the
way that Tank’s sleeker body could. She gave him the shirt, which
he began to pull over his head.

Suria was still holding the oil lamp,
watching the gleam of its light on Gaidar’s shoulders and torso.
Gaidar pulled the shirt down, leaving it outside the trousers, and
reached for the coat Narisa held out to him.

“Pull up the hood to hide your face,” she
cautioned. “And Gaidar, be warned, we may be stopped. I cannot
promise this escape will succeed.”

“I understand. Have you a weapon for me?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll use my hands.” Gaidar flexed his
large, strong fingers.

“There is a guard just down the hall,” Narisa
said.

“I’ll start with him.” He looked at Suria and
grinned. “Put down that lamp, woman, and let us be on our way. I’ll
gladly strip again and let you stare at me as long as you want once
we are out of here.”

“I wasn’t staring.” Suria set the lamp on the
floor. “I’ll go first and distract the guard.”

“It won’t be difficult for you.” Gaidar
chuckled, and Narisa looked at him in surprise.

Suria opened the cell door and went into the
hall, the other two following her. The guard had finished eating
and was standing beside the table, stretching, his back to them.
When Suria would have approached him, Gaidar shouldered her out of
the way and crept up behind the man. Narisa did not know exactly
what Gaidar did. The guard’s hands were still stretched well over
his head when the Cetan wrapped his own arms around the man’s
middle and pressed hard. Within a second, without a sound, the
guard hung limply from Gaidar’s arms.

“Is he dead?” Suria asked softly as the guard
was lowered to the floor.

“Unconscious, and he will stay that way for
several hours,” Gaidar replied. “He won’t give any alarm. Where do
we go now, Narisa?”

“To the steps. Follow Suria.” They approached
the bottom of the steep staircase that led to the kitchen. “Stoop a
little, Gaidar. Try to look more like a servant and less like a
proud warrior.”

Gaidar went into a crouch and began walking
with a limp, a performance that under other circumstances would
have made Narisa laugh aloud. Just now she was too busy listening
and looking for danger, and too frightened to be amused.

It was the curve at the bottom of the stairs
that saved them. They could hear footsteps coming downward and a
man’s low voice, but because of the curve, they could neither see
nor be seen.

Without a word, all three of them turned and
fled back across the square room, past the unconscious guard,
toward Gaidar’s cell.

As Narisa hurried down the corridor she heard
a noise behind her. Glancing backward, she saw Gaidar had picked up
the unconscious guard and was carrying him. He stopped at his own
cell long enough to dump the guard into it and shut the door. He
turned the key in the lock and pulled it out.

“Looking for him should delay them a little
before they discover I’ve gone,” he said in a hoarse whisper.
“What’s at the end of this hall?”

“I have no idea.” Narisa began to run, Gaidar
close behind her.

Suria had not paused with them. She was far
down the hall, racing toward an unlighted area that offered at
least a little shelter. The other two went in the same direction,
trying to move as quietly as possible.

“This way.” Suria beckoned from a cross
corridor. “They won’t be able to see us around this corner.”

They entered a smaller hall with no doors and
a downward sloping floor. Dampness dripped from the walls, the air
was dank and chill and the only light was the dim glow from the
corridor they had just left. Gaidar reached around Narisa to
capture Suria’s shoulder in one large paw and stop her forward
motion.

“Where are you taking us?” he rumbled.

“I honestly don’t know. That stairway is
supposed to be the only way out. We would have had a chance if we
could have gotten up it and into the kitchen.”

“So you are taking us deeper into this pit of
a prison?”

“What else can we do, Gaidar? Perhaps if we
wait here a while, whoever was coming down the stairs will go away
and we can escape as planned.”

“Or perhaps they’ll come back for us here,”
Gaidar said.

There was a shout from the direction of the
stairway, then another.

“It seems we have no choice.” Gaidar looked
grim. “That sounds like the beginning of a search to me. We have
nowhere to go now except along this hall. It must end somewhere,
and there should be a door, otherwise why have a hall here at all?
You go first, Suria. I’ll watch our rear. I’ll be watching you,
too.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

Gaidar’s answer was a mirthless grin, barely
discernable in the gloom.

“Start walking, woman. We’ll argue about
trust later.”

The hall seemed to go on for miles, slanting
ever lower and growing darker and damper and more vile-smelling as
they went. By the time they reached the end, they would have been
in complete darkness were it not for a small blue light glimmering
above an ancient wooden door.

“It’s locked,” Suria reported, trying the
handle.

“It’s also half-rotted.” Gaidar listened a
moment. “I can still hear them up there. They will be coming down
this hall any minute. Let me see if I can lift this door off its
hinges.” He reached for the rickety middle hinge at one side of the
door.

“Let me help.” Narisa knelt, working at the
pin in the lowest hinge. It would not come out, but the hinge
itself came free from the door frame, as did the hinge Gaidar was
assaulting with greater strength, and slowly the lower half of the
door began to bend out of the frame while the third, uppermost
hinge held fast.

“Squeeze through, Suria,” Narisa grunted,
“and push from the other side.”

As Suria wriggled her way around the edge of
the door, the noises behind them grew louder. Narisa felt the door
begin to move further from Suria’s weight against it.

“Go through, Narisa,” Gaidar ordered.

“No, you go first, Gaidar. You are bigger. It
will take someone on each side of the door to hold it open enough
for you. I can pull it shut again as I go through. Hurry!”

Gaidar did not argue. He forced his bulk into
the narrow space between door and frame, puffing and groaning and
trying to smother a few unpleasant words when the middle hinge
scraped the back of his head. The last Narisa saw of him was his
arm reaching around the door to drag her after him.

She ducked below the hinge and let him pull
her through. The voices coming down the hall were much closer, and
Narisa silently blessed the darkness that would make it difficult
for their pursuers to notice the activity at the hall’s end.

Gaidar was doing his best to reset the door
from the inside so the tampering would be unnoticed. He needed no
help, so Narisa looked around. Her heart sank. They were on a muddy
stone ledge that ran around a huge underground cavern illuminated
by lurid red lightglobes. In the center of the cavern was a lake.
No, not a lake, more like a gigantic pit. It was thick, heavy and
bubbling, and she knew by the smell what it was before Gaidar
spoke.

“We are in the sewer,” he said. “Our good
luck. There will be a way out of here. All we have to do is find
it.”

“We won’t have time.” Suria was listening at
the door. “They are going to open this to see if we are in here,
and if the hinges don’t hold, they will know where we are.”

“Then there is only one place for us to go so
they don’t find us.” Gaidar was at the edge of the stone ledge,
reaching down toward the ooze with one hand to search along the
stone. “There is space between sewage and the ledge, enough for our
heads so we can breathe. We go under the edge and stay hidden there
until they leave. Our footprints won’t be noticed. This ledge is
well trodden. Garbage must be dumped here every day.”

“Go into that slime?” Suria looked as if she
was going to be sick. “I can’t do that.”

“If you won’t go,” Gaidar told her, “I’ll
kill you and throw you in so they won’t find your body. I don’t
plan to be retaken by Leader Tyre’s men. I’d rather die.”

“I said that about the Cetans once.” Narisa
sat down on the ledge next to Gaidar. She was every bit as
reluctant as Suria. Just the thought of that disgusting mess in the
pit touching her skin made her feel ill, but she would not let
Gaidar see her revulsion. From the sounds on the other side of the
door she knew there wasn’t much time. “Will you hold my hands,
Gaidar, and let me down slowly so my face doesn’t go under?”