The Wizard and the War Machine, page 21
That reminded her that the lock was open. She subvocalized a command, and the door slid shut.
That taken care of, she took a deep breath of the damp air and studied the square again.
She glimpsed faces peering from windows, but whenever she looked directly at one, it would vanish behind curtains or corners. A few brave souls were just visible, watching her from a safe distance up one of the side streets. They looked like her best prospects for the planned interrogations.
She stepped forward and jumped down from the wing. The spacesuit made her clumsy, and she stumbled awkwardly as she landed. Cursing her clumsiness, she straightened up and glared at the villagers on the side street.
They had not fled. She counted five of them, all watching her intently, albeit somewhat doubtfully.
"You there!" she called in polyglot, though she knew they probably either could not understand it or would pretend not to understand it. "Wait right where you are!"
The five of them glanced at each other but said nothing.
Flame stared at them for a moment, a rocket rifle in her hand—not Slant's but one from her own arsenal—waiting for one of the villagers to make a suspicious move.
They did nothing suspicious. They simply stood, uneasily motionless.
"Where is Slant?" she demanded silently.
"Cyborg unit designated 'Slant' is currently on planetary surface approximately eight point four kilometers north by northwest of present location of cyborg unit designated 'Flame,' and approaching along an irregular course at a variable speed averaging approximately point nine meters per second."
"He has never been in this place?"
"Information unavailable."
"Have you ever tracked him here?"
"Negative."
"And you've been tracking him since we got to this planet?"
"Affirmative, when possible. Tracking was not possible when communication was occulted by planet."
"Good." She lowered the rifle. "I'm going to go question those people."
The computer paused perhaps half a second before replying. "Action marginally acceptable."
Flame hesitated. "Why only marginally?" she asked.
"Evidence exists to indicate that cyborg unit designated 'Flame' possesses emotional commitment to demonstrating hostility of local inhabitants regardless of fact or consequences. This commitment is counter to programming. Cyborg unit designated 'Flame' acting without presence of cyborg unit designated 'Slant' may be able to influence response of local inhabitants to increase probability of demonstrating hostility without allowing CCC-IRU 247 to detect this influence. Such action would be counter to programming. However, this interrogation site is not necessarily decisive in determination of planetary loyalty; therefore, interrogation remains marginally acceptable."
"Not necessarily decisive?"
"Affirmative. Results of interrogation may prove inconclusive. Cyborg unit designated 'Slant' may be able to refute demonstrations of hostility."
"You think so?"
"Information insufficient."
Flame snorted. "If we get a clear statement that these people are rebels, will that satisfy you?"
"Information insufficient. Exact situation may modify final determination. Also, three sites required for decision in the event cyborg units continue to disagree."
"But we might be able to settle at least one of the three before Slant even gets here?"
"Affirmative."
Kilometers away, Turner overheard this entire exchange. Once again, he guessed, Flame had forgotten that the computer required a specific order to keep telecommunications private. Either that or she simply did not care whether she was overheard.
Or, just possibly, the computer, in its damaged and confused state, was intentionally misleading her.
He could not guess why the computer might want to mislead Flame, but he did not want to rule out the possibility. He remembered how Flame had seemed to threaten the computer once or twice; the two halves of IRU 247 did not seem to get along well.
Turner debated for long minutes whether or not to say anything but resolved to keep silent. If Parrah had been successful, Flame should, he thought, be forced to admit that Dest was friendly. He did not want to risk interfering in that. That would save them all the trouble of finding two more sites.
If more sites were needed, he was unsure how he could contact Parrah to send her on ahead. That might be a problem.
However, if Parrah had done what she was told, the people of this town should state unequivocally that they were loyal to Old Earth, and if that happened, he could not see how Flame could fail to yield.
Of course, in the nine years of their marriage Parrah had hardly ever done what she was told. Ordinarily he admired her independence, but he hoped that this time she had obeyed him.
If the interrogation went badly, he could still intervene over the communications circuit.
The five villagers were still standing, apprehensively awaiting Flame's next move. She forced a smile, ostentatiously slung the rifle on her shoulder, and marched toward them.
She expected them to turn and flee, whereupon she would be able to argue to the computer that that was hardly the act of friendly civilians, but to her surprise all five stood their ground. She stopped two or three meters away and studied them.
She faced three men and two women. Two of the men were young, and the other man and both women were well into middle age. All five were obviously frightened. The older man was visibly trembling, and one of the women looked faint. One of the young men was trying to look nonchalant and failing miserably.
Still, they had stood their ground, which impressed her. She knew from everything she had seen on Dest that the culture was fairly primitive. Thatched roofs and wooden tools could mean little else. For five near-savages, the sight of her ship landing, glowing red-hot and boiling away the snow, must have been awesome and utterly alien. Her own appearance in the metallic-gray spacesuit could hardly be familiar. She guessed that she would seem more an apparition than a woman.
Yet there the five stood, right in front of her, growing visibly more nervous as the silence continued. They deserved, she decided, at least a chance to prove their disloyalty. She would talk to them, as the computer wanted, before she shot them.
She hesitated, unsure which language to try first, and then said, "Zdrastvuytye!"
The heavy consonants and strong Y-glide of the Russian greeting sounded nothing like the rattling, nasal language the villagers had been taught, the language they had expected the demon to use. One of the women moaned and leaned heavily on her younger male companion. "San and Hligosh!" the other young man muttered in his native language. "I couldn't understand that at all!"
Flame, of course, could not understand what he said, either. Her hand slid up toward the strap of the rocket rifle.
The older man, his plump face now creased with worry, said hesitantly in bad polyglot, "I do not understand."
Thunderstruck, Flame stared at him, and her hand halted a centimeter from the rifle strap.
"What did you say?" she said at last in polyglot.
The older man looked to either side but found no help. His four companions were determinedly silent. "Ah … I said that I do not … I mean, did not understand what you said," he managed. "The first thing, I mean." He stared at her pleadingly.
"You speak polyglot!" Flame said accusingly.
"Ah … a little, yes?"
She glared at him. "Where did you learn it?" she demanded.
Puzzled, the townsman said, "Here?"
"Here? In this village?"
Uncertainty was plain on his face; the word "village" was not in his limited vocabulary. "What?" he asked.
"You learned polyglot here?" She waved at the surrounding buildings.
"Yes," he said, nodding vigorously. "This is my place. This is Killalah. I am called Tagyi, and—"
Flame was not interested in introductions. She cut him short, demanding, "Who taught you? Was it Slant?"
"Who?" Tagyi's confusion was obviously genuine.
Flame was not yet ready to give up her conviction that only trickery by the traitorous cyborg could be responsible for the unexpected discovery of people who spoke polyglot. "Computer," she demanded. "What name does Slant use here?"
"Information unavailable," the computer replied immediately.
Flame snarled, then turned her attention back to the townsman. "A man?" she asked. "A tall man with brown hair, he taught you?"
"Oh, no," Tagyi replied. "No man. A woman."
"What woman?"
"A government … government person," he answered, unable to come up with a word meaning "agent" or "representative" or "wizard."
"What government sent this woman? What government did she say sent her?"
"Praunce," Tagyi replied immediately and confidently.
"Do you recognize the name?" she silently asked the computer.
"Affirmative."
"Is it a rebel planet?" she asked hopefully.
"Negative. 'Praunce' is the name used by inhabitants of city where cyborg unit designated 'Slant' was located upon ship's arrival within communication range to describe both that city and the political entity of which the city is a part."
"So Slant does have something to do with it, then!"
"Information insufficient."
"This person from Praunce—why did she teach you polyglot?" she demanded, focusing again on the townsman.
"So … so we could talk to … I mean, so we could talk in the language of Old Earth. Praunce is a loyal … uh … Praunce is loyal to Old Earth. I do not know the word for 'teibuitarro,' " he said apologetically, using a Prauncer word describing a conquered or colonized area that paid taxes to a central government in exchange for protection but otherwise more or less governed itself.
Flame had no idea what the word meant, and therefore she ignored it. Fuming, she stepped forward and grabbed the man by the front of his fur-lined blue wool coat. The other four villagers stepped back in surprise and fear; Tagyi's mouth dropped open in terror. The woman-headed demon with the peculiar yellow hair and the strange gleaming garment had moved much faster than any human could move, and the grip on his clothing was as strong as granite.
"What did you say?" Flame demanded. "Did you say Praunce is loyal to Old Earth?"
"Ah … ah … yes," he said, nodding, certain that he was about to be eaten alive by the demon but determined to do as he had been told rather than risk making things worse.
"Damn it!" Flame said as she flung the man to the street. "Damn it to hell! How did that bastard do it?"
"Rephrase question," the computer said.
Tagyi landed hard on a patch of ice, and his head snapped back against the base of a wall, dazing him. His head would ache for a day or two, and he would wear bruises for a week, but none of his bones were broken. Flame ignored him and the computer both and grabbed the woman who had slumped, as if about to faint, earlier. "You!" she demanded. "Tell me about Old Earth!"
The woman moaned again and passed out. Flame flung her aside brutally. She was not as lucky as Tagyi. Her right arm was broken just above the elbow when she slammed into a stone wall. Her other injuries were minor. Her head, fortunately, did not hit hard.
Again, the cyborg paid no attention. She grabbed one of the young men and shouted into his face, "Tell me about Old Earth!"
"Our fathers and mothers came from there, long ago!" the man babbled, terror-stricken. Parrah had not taught him a word for "distant ancestors," forcing him to improvise. "We are still loyal!"
"When did you hear from Old Earth?"
"Never! But we are still loyal, I swear!"
Flame was enraged beyond words and now, for the moment, even beyond violence. She released the man disgustedly and turned back toward her ship.
"Evidence now indicates—" the computer began.
"Shut up!" Flame ordered. The computer obeyed instantly.
She stood for a moment, staring back down the street to where her ship loomed above the empty market stalls. The heat-glow had completely died away, and its metal skin gleamed a dull silver above, its belly black with shadow.
She was furious, frustrated beyond the ability of words to express. She knew that all of humanity was her enemy, and there before her stood her weapon against that enemy. Aboard that ship were thirty-four nuclear warheads.
But she could not use any of them. The computer would not let her. She could kill the computer easily enough with the termite, but it might well blow her head off before it died completely, and even if she survived, she did not know how to launch the missiles without the computer's help.
Slant had beaten her. If he had somehow made this one town lie, he could make them all lie. He had beaten her.
Or had he? A thought struck her. She turned again and stared at the five she had spoken to. Two of them still lay crumpled on the ground, and the other three were standing there, staring at her, not daring to flee.
This group had been obvious. They had stood here in the street and waited for her. They were most probably plants, shills, people Slant or one of his unknown accomplices had selected and trained.
Whatever trick Slant had used, he might not have prepared anyone else. He might have sent these five to meet her because they were all he had ready. He probably thought that after speaking with them, Flame would give up in despair or at least move on to another village.
He was wrong, she swore to herself. She would not give up that easily!
"Computer," she said, "I want you to make sure that Slant can't overhear anything. I'm going to find somebody around here who will tell me the truth!"
Chapter Twenty-Three
TURNER SLID CAUTIOUSLY DOWN THE FINAL SNOWBANK onto the shoveled-out street and looked around warily, studying the town.
The street was empty and silent. Long shadows stretched across it and up the buildings on the opposite side. Dest's primary was well down in the western sky, almost at the horizon, and the darkness of night seemed to already be gathering in the pools of shadow. No lights showed in any of the windows. No one was in sight in the street or in any of the windows. He could hear nothing but a distant bird whistling a complaint about the cold.
"Computer," he asked. "Where is everybody?"
"Information insufficient."
"Where is Flame?"
"Cyborg unit designated 'Flame' is in a private residence approximately eighty meters southeast of present location of cyborg unit designated "Slant." '
Before Turner could ask anything more a wordless scream reached his ears. He judged that it originated roughly eighty meters to the southeast of where he stood, around a corner on a cross street. Something about the voice sounded familiar, but he could not place it. It was not Parrah's, he was sure, and that was a small relief. After an instant's hesitation, he ran toward it.
Flame glowered down at her latest victim, who cowered in the corner, cringing in terror before this blood-spattered superhuman apparition. As with most of the others she had questioned, Flame had been unable to get this scrawny teenaged girl to admit to any understanding of either Russian or polyglot or to speak in anything but that maddening babble the locals used. The cyborg's final wordless shriek, which had sent the girl into her moaning crouch, had been the result of pure frustration.
She had questioned dozens of townspeople. She could not recall the exact count. Somewhere between half and two-thirds had been, like this girl, unable to communicate at all.
All the others had insisted, no matter what Flame might do, that they and all of Praunce remained loyal to Old Earth. A few had died under her questioning, and more, perhaps a majority, had been injured in varying degrees. None of the blood that liberally adorned her face and spacesuit was her own.
She had tried everything she could think of to get a confession of what she knew to be the truth, that the whole town was lying, that they were rebels, that Slant had told them what to say.
She had tried surprise, bursting in through doors without warning and snatching up whomever she found inside. She had tried brutality, beating men and women to the verge of unconsciousness and sometimes beyond the verge. She had tried threats, smashing obviously prized possessions, abusing loved ones, displaying what her weaponry could do, once even demolishing an entire house with her bare hands to demonstrate her abilities. She had tried bribery, offering people gold, weapons, power.
None of it had worked. Everyone in the village who spoke so much as a word of polyglot attested to Dest's undying loyalty to Old Earth.
She was amazed that she had so far resisted the temptation to flatten the entire town. She was proud of her self-restraint.
This terrified girl would tell her nothing more, she decided. She turned and marched back out into the street.
"Flame!" someone called.
She spun, rocket rifle ready in her hands, and saw a man in a heavy sheepskin coat rounding the corner, running toward her. Her finger automatically closed on the trigger.
Turner saw the rifle swinging toward him and reacted without thinking. He dropped flat to the ground, raised a telekinetic shield, and screamed silently, "Computer! Stop her!"
Half a dozen missiles whistled over him. An instant later the wall of a tack shop behind him erupted into an inferno with an ear-shattering six-part roar. Dust and debris scattered across his legs.
Realizing whom she faced, Flame had released the trigger as quickly as she could, and immediately shouted aloud, "It was a mistake, computer! I didn't recognize him at first, I just saw someone attacking!"
The explosions and collapse of the damaged tack shop into its own basement drowned out her voice, but the computer did not rely on sound. It calmly replied. "Acknowledged."
She relaxed and lowered the rifle.
A moment later, when the debris had settled and silence had descended once more, Turner got slowly and carefully to his feet, ignoring the particles of glass and plaster that spilled from his back. He saw the smeared blood that darkened Flame's spacesuit and did not allow himself to relax.
"I heard a scream," he said. "What happened? What's been going on here?"
That taken care of, she took a deep breath of the damp air and studied the square again.
She glimpsed faces peering from windows, but whenever she looked directly at one, it would vanish behind curtains or corners. A few brave souls were just visible, watching her from a safe distance up one of the side streets. They looked like her best prospects for the planned interrogations.
She stepped forward and jumped down from the wing. The spacesuit made her clumsy, and she stumbled awkwardly as she landed. Cursing her clumsiness, she straightened up and glared at the villagers on the side street.
They had not fled. She counted five of them, all watching her intently, albeit somewhat doubtfully.
"You there!" she called in polyglot, though she knew they probably either could not understand it or would pretend not to understand it. "Wait right where you are!"
The five of them glanced at each other but said nothing.
Flame stared at them for a moment, a rocket rifle in her hand—not Slant's but one from her own arsenal—waiting for one of the villagers to make a suspicious move.
They did nothing suspicious. They simply stood, uneasily motionless.
"Where is Slant?" she demanded silently.
"Cyborg unit designated 'Slant' is currently on planetary surface approximately eight point four kilometers north by northwest of present location of cyborg unit designated 'Flame,' and approaching along an irregular course at a variable speed averaging approximately point nine meters per second."
"He has never been in this place?"
"Information unavailable."
"Have you ever tracked him here?"
"Negative."
"And you've been tracking him since we got to this planet?"
"Affirmative, when possible. Tracking was not possible when communication was occulted by planet."
"Good." She lowered the rifle. "I'm going to go question those people."
The computer paused perhaps half a second before replying. "Action marginally acceptable."
Flame hesitated. "Why only marginally?" she asked.
"Evidence exists to indicate that cyborg unit designated 'Flame' possesses emotional commitment to demonstrating hostility of local inhabitants regardless of fact or consequences. This commitment is counter to programming. Cyborg unit designated 'Flame' acting without presence of cyborg unit designated 'Slant' may be able to influence response of local inhabitants to increase probability of demonstrating hostility without allowing CCC-IRU 247 to detect this influence. Such action would be counter to programming. However, this interrogation site is not necessarily decisive in determination of planetary loyalty; therefore, interrogation remains marginally acceptable."
"Not necessarily decisive?"
"Affirmative. Results of interrogation may prove inconclusive. Cyborg unit designated 'Slant' may be able to refute demonstrations of hostility."
"You think so?"
"Information insufficient."
Flame snorted. "If we get a clear statement that these people are rebels, will that satisfy you?"
"Information insufficient. Exact situation may modify final determination. Also, three sites required for decision in the event cyborg units continue to disagree."
"But we might be able to settle at least one of the three before Slant even gets here?"
"Affirmative."
Kilometers away, Turner overheard this entire exchange. Once again, he guessed, Flame had forgotten that the computer required a specific order to keep telecommunications private. Either that or she simply did not care whether she was overheard.
Or, just possibly, the computer, in its damaged and confused state, was intentionally misleading her.
He could not guess why the computer might want to mislead Flame, but he did not want to rule out the possibility. He remembered how Flame had seemed to threaten the computer once or twice; the two halves of IRU 247 did not seem to get along well.
Turner debated for long minutes whether or not to say anything but resolved to keep silent. If Parrah had been successful, Flame should, he thought, be forced to admit that Dest was friendly. He did not want to risk interfering in that. That would save them all the trouble of finding two more sites.
If more sites were needed, he was unsure how he could contact Parrah to send her on ahead. That might be a problem.
However, if Parrah had done what she was told, the people of this town should state unequivocally that they were loyal to Old Earth, and if that happened, he could not see how Flame could fail to yield.
Of course, in the nine years of their marriage Parrah had hardly ever done what she was told. Ordinarily he admired her independence, but he hoped that this time she had obeyed him.
If the interrogation went badly, he could still intervene over the communications circuit.
The five villagers were still standing, apprehensively awaiting Flame's next move. She forced a smile, ostentatiously slung the rifle on her shoulder, and marched toward them.
She expected them to turn and flee, whereupon she would be able to argue to the computer that that was hardly the act of friendly civilians, but to her surprise all five stood their ground. She stopped two or three meters away and studied them.
She faced three men and two women. Two of the men were young, and the other man and both women were well into middle age. All five were obviously frightened. The older man was visibly trembling, and one of the women looked faint. One of the young men was trying to look nonchalant and failing miserably.
Still, they had stood their ground, which impressed her. She knew from everything she had seen on Dest that the culture was fairly primitive. Thatched roofs and wooden tools could mean little else. For five near-savages, the sight of her ship landing, glowing red-hot and boiling away the snow, must have been awesome and utterly alien. Her own appearance in the metallic-gray spacesuit could hardly be familiar. She guessed that she would seem more an apparition than a woman.
Yet there the five stood, right in front of her, growing visibly more nervous as the silence continued. They deserved, she decided, at least a chance to prove their disloyalty. She would talk to them, as the computer wanted, before she shot them.
She hesitated, unsure which language to try first, and then said, "Zdrastvuytye!"
The heavy consonants and strong Y-glide of the Russian greeting sounded nothing like the rattling, nasal language the villagers had been taught, the language they had expected the demon to use. One of the women moaned and leaned heavily on her younger male companion. "San and Hligosh!" the other young man muttered in his native language. "I couldn't understand that at all!"
Flame, of course, could not understand what he said, either. Her hand slid up toward the strap of the rocket rifle.
The older man, his plump face now creased with worry, said hesitantly in bad polyglot, "I do not understand."
Thunderstruck, Flame stared at him, and her hand halted a centimeter from the rifle strap.
"What did you say?" she said at last in polyglot.
The older man looked to either side but found no help. His four companions were determinedly silent. "Ah … I said that I do not … I mean, did not understand what you said," he managed. "The first thing, I mean." He stared at her pleadingly.
"You speak polyglot!" Flame said accusingly.
"Ah … a little, yes?"
She glared at him. "Where did you learn it?" she demanded.
Puzzled, the townsman said, "Here?"
"Here? In this village?"
Uncertainty was plain on his face; the word "village" was not in his limited vocabulary. "What?" he asked.
"You learned polyglot here?" She waved at the surrounding buildings.
"Yes," he said, nodding vigorously. "This is my place. This is Killalah. I am called Tagyi, and—"
Flame was not interested in introductions. She cut him short, demanding, "Who taught you? Was it Slant?"
"Who?" Tagyi's confusion was obviously genuine.
Flame was not yet ready to give up her conviction that only trickery by the traitorous cyborg could be responsible for the unexpected discovery of people who spoke polyglot. "Computer," she demanded. "What name does Slant use here?"
"Information unavailable," the computer replied immediately.
Flame snarled, then turned her attention back to the townsman. "A man?" she asked. "A tall man with brown hair, he taught you?"
"Oh, no," Tagyi replied. "No man. A woman."
"What woman?"
"A government … government person," he answered, unable to come up with a word meaning "agent" or "representative" or "wizard."
"What government sent this woman? What government did she say sent her?"
"Praunce," Tagyi replied immediately and confidently.
"Do you recognize the name?" she silently asked the computer.
"Affirmative."
"Is it a rebel planet?" she asked hopefully.
"Negative. 'Praunce' is the name used by inhabitants of city where cyborg unit designated 'Slant' was located upon ship's arrival within communication range to describe both that city and the political entity of which the city is a part."
"So Slant does have something to do with it, then!"
"Information insufficient."
"This person from Praunce—why did she teach you polyglot?" she demanded, focusing again on the townsman.
"So … so we could talk to … I mean, so we could talk in the language of Old Earth. Praunce is a loyal … uh … Praunce is loyal to Old Earth. I do not know the word for 'teibuitarro,' " he said apologetically, using a Prauncer word describing a conquered or colonized area that paid taxes to a central government in exchange for protection but otherwise more or less governed itself.
Flame had no idea what the word meant, and therefore she ignored it. Fuming, she stepped forward and grabbed the man by the front of his fur-lined blue wool coat. The other four villagers stepped back in surprise and fear; Tagyi's mouth dropped open in terror. The woman-headed demon with the peculiar yellow hair and the strange gleaming garment had moved much faster than any human could move, and the grip on his clothing was as strong as granite.
"What did you say?" Flame demanded. "Did you say Praunce is loyal to Old Earth?"
"Ah … ah … yes," he said, nodding, certain that he was about to be eaten alive by the demon but determined to do as he had been told rather than risk making things worse.
"Damn it!" Flame said as she flung the man to the street. "Damn it to hell! How did that bastard do it?"
"Rephrase question," the computer said.
Tagyi landed hard on a patch of ice, and his head snapped back against the base of a wall, dazing him. His head would ache for a day or two, and he would wear bruises for a week, but none of his bones were broken. Flame ignored him and the computer both and grabbed the woman who had slumped, as if about to faint, earlier. "You!" she demanded. "Tell me about Old Earth!"
The woman moaned again and passed out. Flame flung her aside brutally. She was not as lucky as Tagyi. Her right arm was broken just above the elbow when she slammed into a stone wall. Her other injuries were minor. Her head, fortunately, did not hit hard.
Again, the cyborg paid no attention. She grabbed one of the young men and shouted into his face, "Tell me about Old Earth!"
"Our fathers and mothers came from there, long ago!" the man babbled, terror-stricken. Parrah had not taught him a word for "distant ancestors," forcing him to improvise. "We are still loyal!"
"When did you hear from Old Earth?"
"Never! But we are still loyal, I swear!"
Flame was enraged beyond words and now, for the moment, even beyond violence. She released the man disgustedly and turned back toward her ship.
"Evidence now indicates—" the computer began.
"Shut up!" Flame ordered. The computer obeyed instantly.
She stood for a moment, staring back down the street to where her ship loomed above the empty market stalls. The heat-glow had completely died away, and its metal skin gleamed a dull silver above, its belly black with shadow.
She was furious, frustrated beyond the ability of words to express. She knew that all of humanity was her enemy, and there before her stood her weapon against that enemy. Aboard that ship were thirty-four nuclear warheads.
But she could not use any of them. The computer would not let her. She could kill the computer easily enough with the termite, but it might well blow her head off before it died completely, and even if she survived, she did not know how to launch the missiles without the computer's help.
Slant had beaten her. If he had somehow made this one town lie, he could make them all lie. He had beaten her.
Or had he? A thought struck her. She turned again and stared at the five she had spoken to. Two of them still lay crumpled on the ground, and the other three were standing there, staring at her, not daring to flee.
This group had been obvious. They had stood here in the street and waited for her. They were most probably plants, shills, people Slant or one of his unknown accomplices had selected and trained.
Whatever trick Slant had used, he might not have prepared anyone else. He might have sent these five to meet her because they were all he had ready. He probably thought that after speaking with them, Flame would give up in despair or at least move on to another village.
He was wrong, she swore to herself. She would not give up that easily!
"Computer," she said, "I want you to make sure that Slant can't overhear anything. I'm going to find somebody around here who will tell me the truth!"
Chapter Twenty-Three
TURNER SLID CAUTIOUSLY DOWN THE FINAL SNOWBANK onto the shoveled-out street and looked around warily, studying the town.
The street was empty and silent. Long shadows stretched across it and up the buildings on the opposite side. Dest's primary was well down in the western sky, almost at the horizon, and the darkness of night seemed to already be gathering in the pools of shadow. No lights showed in any of the windows. No one was in sight in the street or in any of the windows. He could hear nothing but a distant bird whistling a complaint about the cold.
"Computer," he asked. "Where is everybody?"
"Information insufficient."
"Where is Flame?"
"Cyborg unit designated 'Flame' is in a private residence approximately eighty meters southeast of present location of cyborg unit designated "Slant." '
Before Turner could ask anything more a wordless scream reached his ears. He judged that it originated roughly eighty meters to the southeast of where he stood, around a corner on a cross street. Something about the voice sounded familiar, but he could not place it. It was not Parrah's, he was sure, and that was a small relief. After an instant's hesitation, he ran toward it.
Flame glowered down at her latest victim, who cowered in the corner, cringing in terror before this blood-spattered superhuman apparition. As with most of the others she had questioned, Flame had been unable to get this scrawny teenaged girl to admit to any understanding of either Russian or polyglot or to speak in anything but that maddening babble the locals used. The cyborg's final wordless shriek, which had sent the girl into her moaning crouch, had been the result of pure frustration.
She had questioned dozens of townspeople. She could not recall the exact count. Somewhere between half and two-thirds had been, like this girl, unable to communicate at all.
All the others had insisted, no matter what Flame might do, that they and all of Praunce remained loyal to Old Earth. A few had died under her questioning, and more, perhaps a majority, had been injured in varying degrees. None of the blood that liberally adorned her face and spacesuit was her own.
She had tried everything she could think of to get a confession of what she knew to be the truth, that the whole town was lying, that they were rebels, that Slant had told them what to say.
She had tried surprise, bursting in through doors without warning and snatching up whomever she found inside. She had tried brutality, beating men and women to the verge of unconsciousness and sometimes beyond the verge. She had tried threats, smashing obviously prized possessions, abusing loved ones, displaying what her weaponry could do, once even demolishing an entire house with her bare hands to demonstrate her abilities. She had tried bribery, offering people gold, weapons, power.
None of it had worked. Everyone in the village who spoke so much as a word of polyglot attested to Dest's undying loyalty to Old Earth.
She was amazed that she had so far resisted the temptation to flatten the entire town. She was proud of her self-restraint.
This terrified girl would tell her nothing more, she decided. She turned and marched back out into the street.
"Flame!" someone called.
She spun, rocket rifle ready in her hands, and saw a man in a heavy sheepskin coat rounding the corner, running toward her. Her finger automatically closed on the trigger.
Turner saw the rifle swinging toward him and reacted without thinking. He dropped flat to the ground, raised a telekinetic shield, and screamed silently, "Computer! Stop her!"
Half a dozen missiles whistled over him. An instant later the wall of a tack shop behind him erupted into an inferno with an ear-shattering six-part roar. Dust and debris scattered across his legs.
Realizing whom she faced, Flame had released the trigger as quickly as she could, and immediately shouted aloud, "It was a mistake, computer! I didn't recognize him at first, I just saw someone attacking!"
The explosions and collapse of the damaged tack shop into its own basement drowned out her voice, but the computer did not rely on sound. It calmly replied. "Acknowledged."
She relaxed and lowered the rifle.
A moment later, when the debris had settled and silence had descended once more, Turner got slowly and carefully to his feet, ignoring the particles of glass and plaster that spilled from his back. He saw the smeared blood that darkened Flame's spacesuit and did not allow himself to relax.
"I heard a scream," he said. "What happened? What's been going on here?"
