“Where is she?” Bott demanded, pulling the gold card out of his pocket.
“You know the rules, lummox. I can tell you only where the Dragonshelf is.”
Bott glanced around the little yellow room again for impending hazards, and then demanded, “Can you tell me if I went through the same door she did, anyhow?”
“That’s privileged information. Maybe a big bad pirate like you can steal it somewhere.”
The pirate rapped the card against “Bunny Bunk and the Purple Pillow,” even though he knew this wouldn’t hurt the slave ship. “So you can’t tell us a thing and at the same time you’re telling His Imperial Worship every move we make.”
“He can watch for himself on the monitors,” the ship replied. “We don’t chat. All he’s said to me personally so far is that I’d look better with racing stripes.”
“You might, at that. Now tell me I have bad taste and see what His Imperial Worship does to you.”
The tone in the computer’s voice was one Bott knew well. “Pirates. Gantlets. All this cumbersome inelegance. The gantlet you are running is one of my most inelegant functions.”
“Is it?” Bott inquired. “How about the slave pens?”
“Slave hold, pirate: slave holds. And well-crafted holds. But even you, a numb-thumned apprentice pilot with piratic tendencies, must see that this zoo of bogey beasts is irrelevant. I could do the same job much more efficiently without them.”
“There are more of those things?” Bott asked. “How many?”
“One could contrive so many more delicate dangers.” The computer was just about sighing over this. “Now, if you had walked into one of the rooms with broadcast walls…why, then I could show everybody what I can do on my own.”
Bott didn’t believe he cared to watch the Drover show off in that way. “What do those rooms look like?” He looked around again.
“Most will be big square chambers with very light yellow, almost translucent walls.”
“Um,” said Bott. “Um, this is a big square room with yellow walls.” He wasn’t sure about ‘translucent’.
“Why, so it is.”
Then the walls were yellow no longer. The room went black for one heartbeat. Then colors and sounds filled it to the farthest corner. To Bott’s right was Strey Ectet, once his first mate, being compressed in a questioning device by Imperial Police. To his left was a swirling remfmonster from “Hand on Mouth”, one of his home planet’s most famous horror movies.
Before him was a man strapped to a standing rectangle, flames consuming his clothes. Bott didn’t turn around. Above the screams, the crackle of flames, the splintering of bones, and the jibber of the monster, a calm voice was explaining, “I am afraid your test results are not everything that could be desired.”
There had been a door at the far end of the chamber, straight ahead; he was sure he remembered that. He started forward, eyes closed. Then it occurred to him that the Drover was limited to audio or visual torments. Best to be alert.
The pictures had changed into outsized close-ups. Stery’s head was giving in to the pressure: fporty foot screens made every symptom of the bursting discernible. Ahead of him, the victim’s face was obscured by smoke, but he could see the smoking, curling skin and oozing fat. The burning eyes and turning teeth of the monster loomed on the left; that movie had always left him quivering. This must be why the Drover had such exhaustive information about comics and shows: the Drover could more easily torment victims with full access to the popular culture of their home worlds.
The volume rose. Stery’s voice was round, liquid monosyllables, but still recognizable as that of the voice that always said, “Gio get ‘em, Captain!” The remfmonster rattled and roared.
Bott had no idea when he started running. He did know he was screaming “Turn it off!”, even though he couldn’t hear himself. Surely he was close enough now to the far wall to be seeing that door, but the flames around the man on that wall were bright enough to be blinding. He reached out to feel for a handle, jerked back as he felt heat, and cursed himself for being so gullible.
“You have,” a deep, calm voice informed him, “Perhaps the worst scores in the history of this examination center.”
The door handle was nowhere. The pictures started to twist around each other, brighter and brighter, as Stery’s twisting mouth threatened to swallow the monster that was biting at the burning man. He jammed the gold card and Nubry’s book into his satchel, taking out another random grenade as he threw his back against the unforgiving wall.
And then he was out.
“Ho ho ho ho ho!”
He had apparently thrown himself against the door, which had dropped him into a cold, blue spherical room that echoed to a bass voice. “Ho ho ho ho!”
Bott sat up, shivering. Had it really been that hot in the room with broadcast walls, or was it just projected flames?
“Ho ho ho ho ho!”
“Quiet!” Bott shouted. “I have to think!”
Two doors showed uphill from where he had landed. The red one on the left seemed to be ajar. He stumbled forward.
Frowning, he paused to look down at what had made him stumble. Four plates and three cupssat on the cold, blue floor. He sat down next to them.
“Ho ho ho ho ho!”
One plate was clean. The others held remnants of mashed lumpucks. The cups were wet inside.
Bott rose, holding the clean plate. Nothing had followed him out of the broadcast chaber; these must be connected with somebody ahead of him. Might the librarian be there? She might have declined a meal, having eaten recently, but in that case, whose were the other dishes? After another look at the other plates, he tucked the clean one into his pack, and strode toward the two doors.
“Ho ho ho ho ho!”
The door on the left had been braced open with the fourth cup. It might be Nubry, exploring a little ahead, and leaving signs for him to follow. What might she have seen on those tormenting screens?
“Ho ho ho ho!”
“Wish we’d’a let that whistleding door shut. I can still hear laughin’ boy.”
“Yez c’d go back anytimes ya like. Getting’ tired a’ yer bellyachin’.”
“Ah’d’s lief go back to the cells, anyhoo. Getcher lumpucks at reg’lar hours, at least.”
“If the two of you could leave off arguing for three seconds, we may find a way across this brighteye bridge.”
Bott tucked the plate a little farther down, and looked over the grenade he had taken from the satchel. Then, moving up, he eased the left door open just a little.
A dazzling black and gold forest stretched out before him, a cold sharp breeze dismissing the last of the heat and sweat from his face. He took two steps in among the feathery gold leaves and then, whipping around, caught the door before it could latch. Whoever was ahead of him had had the right idea; he adjusted the cup in the doorway and let the door rest against this.
“Hear ‘at! What was it?”
The forest was quiet, except for the voices. As a professional, Bott was annoyed that he had allowed door and cup to make that little clonk. As Bott, he shivered with glee at the thought of having mystified someone. It would be no trouble to hide among these trees if they came looking. He glanced upward. Unless the trees were hungry.
“Let’s work on the main problem. If the bridge won’t play along, we’ll need to double back.”
“Mus’ be sumpm good ahead. Gotta be a reason ‘at door’s so hard ta get ta.”
The solid black dirt was hard and solid underfoot, with no broken branches or plumy leaves to crackle as he moved. Bott slid quickly forward to find the object under discussion. A black arch stretched over a swift golden stream. On this side stood three women, all on tiptoe, considering the arch. As he watched, one of them set an experimental toe on the arch. Gold flame shot from openings all along its stretch.
They were Klamathans, and the worst assortment possible. A fold woman, her robe and turban covered with question marks, stood with hands on hips as she frowned over the arch. A much larger blue woman in a long tan coat stood with one hand on the rail. The woman who had attempted the crossing was a massive green Klamathan in blue overalls.
Bott had served on crews with Klamathans, whose home planet was one of the most recent, and troublesome, of the Free Imperial State’s acquisitions. They could be jolly companions, but if you had a varied group of them, it was best to mingle the sexes as well. He wondered how three women had made it this far without killing each other.
The blue women stepped over and dealt the green one a resounding slap on one bare arm. “Gwan! Yez gots sa much flesh it ain’t gonna matter dips if some melts offa yez.”
The green woman nodded, with a slight smile at this rough encouragement, but withdrew from the attempt. “Thanks. Druther make a canoe outa me crotch hairs an’ see if it floats down ‘ere.”
The gold minced forward, still on tiptoe. “Of course you’ll try it. Think of the common cause.”
The green nodded. “Course! Musta lost me head! I’ll go.” And she started down the bank of the river. Bott slipped a little closer.
“Looks rough,” she called up to her companions. “But coon’t we cut down a tree mebbe and try boatin’?”
“Gross green grunter yez sits on’d sink it,” the blue told her. “Mebbe we t’rows yez in and floats over like ‘at.”
Bott didn’t believe he wanted to be seen by this group. Being enlisted into their cause might be the biggest danger of the maze. He turned to go.
A second little clonk drew everyone’s attention. “We must see what’s making that….” The gold began to say. Her mouth dropped open. “Lala!”
“Fripplepletz!” the blue woman cried.
The green, slapping her hands together, shouted “Flallop!”
Bott peered through the woods to find what had inspired their responses. “Sprockets!” he whispered.
Blogsy Babbles 