“Me? You already know more than anyone else,” Yama remarked.
“But I don’t know everything, and I want to know all about you,” Farrow blatantly told him. “For instance, how is it you Warriors are all so different? I mean, you all attended the same Family school. You all had the same teachers. Yet each of you is as different from the other as night from day.”
“It’s no great mystery,” Yama said, his left arm propped on the ground, relaxed. “No two people are alike. We’re as unique and individual as snowflakes. Different tastes, different likes and dislikes, different interests and talents. Some people have a talent for the soil and they become Tillers.
Others are tuned to psychic circuits and become Empaths. A few, like Joshua, attain harmony with the cosmos and become spiritual sages, dispensing truth to troubled souls. Then there are the Warriors. Our talent lies in the skillful manipulation of violence. Not much of a talent, when you compare it in the others. But it serves to safeguard our Home and our Family.” He paused, staring at the west wall. “Even similar talents can be diverse in their expression. Take the Warriors as an example. We might be termed masters of death, but each of us has perfected the mastery of a different technique in the execution of our duties, all consistent with our talents and personal preferences. Hickok is a revolver specialist. Rikki is unbeatable with a katana. Blade has his Bowies. Teucer his bow. True, we were all raised in the same environment and instructed by the same Elders, but the environment and the instructions affected us differently because we are individuals. Each of us has formed our own philosophy of life. We live according to our highest concepts of truth, beauty, and goodness. We answer to the Spirit and ourselves and no one else.” He stopped, bemused. “Why is it, whenever I’m near you, I can’t seem to stop talking?”
“Don’t stop on my account,” Farrow said.
“I’ve never had this happen,” Yama commented.
“I don’t mind if you don’t,” Farrow stated, grinning.
Yama stared into her eyes. “I’ll be honest with you, Alicia. I’ve come to care for you a great deal. I don’t want you to leave. Not just yet anyway. I’d like to get to know you better.”
Alicia turned her face away.
“I’m sorry,” Yama said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You don’t understand,” Farrow said huskily, refusing to let him see the torment twisting her features.
“Explain it to me,” Yama said.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?” Yama pressed her.
“Please. Leave it alone,” Farrow pleaded. She heard his clothes rustle as he rose.
“Whatever you want,” Yama declared. “But I’m always ready to listen when you decide you can trust me.” His footsteps receded to the southwest.
Farrow glanced over her right shoulder, her eyes misty.
Curse her stupidity!
Now she’d done it! Gone and driven him off! Maybe antagonized him!
There was no other choice! She must tell him about the Minister and the demolition crew! But how would he react? Despise her for being a part of the dastardly plot? Could she risk it?
Lieutenant Alicia Farrow drew her knees up to her chest and encircled her legs with her arms. She buried her face in the stiff fabric of her fatigue pants and silently weeped, torn to the core of her being.
To give the signal, and lose her new friends and probably Yama too, or to continue wavering and face execution?
To do her duty, or as her heart dictated?
That was the question.
But what the hell was the answer?
Chapter Nine
He became conscious of a dull ache in the back of his head, a palpable pounding at the base of his skull. There was a bitter taste in his mouth, lingering on his tongue and lips. For a minute, he was disoriented, striving to recall where he was and what had happened.
Suddenly, he remembered in a rush.
Blade’s eyes snapped open and he tried to stand, mistakenly assuming he was still on the elevator floor.
But he was wrong.
The giant Warrior had been stripped naked. He was securely locked in steel manacles, one on each wrist and around each ankle, and was suspended several inches above a white, tiled floor, his limbs spreadeagled, on a smooth blue wall.
What the…!????
Blade found himself a prisoner in a rectangular room. Accept for a brown easy chair eight feet away, the chamber was barren of furniture.
The ceiling radiated a pale, pinkish light. From somewhere off in the distance came a muted rumbling.
Where was he?
Someone groaned to his left.
Blade turned his head in the direction of the sound and found Hickok four feet away, likewise manacled to the wall.
The gunman’s eyelids fluttered, then slowly opened. “Oh! My achin’ noggin! Did you get a description of the buffalo that hit me?”
“Afraid not,” Blade replied, chuckling.
Hickok glanced downward. “What the blazes is this?” he exploded. “I’m in my birthday suit!”
“Join the club,” Blade said.
Hickok’s face became a vivid scarlet. He looked up, glaring around the room. “Some bozo is gonna pay for this!”
“We really walked into this one,” Blade commented regretfully.
“Don’t blame yourself, pard,” Hickok stated. “These sleazy turkeys set us up real good. There was nothing else you could have done.”
“I don’t know—” Blade began, then paused as a door on the far side of the chamber opened.
In walked four people, three men and a woman.
Blade recognized only one of them, the bastard Wargo. He was bringing up the rear of the little group, possibly indicating an inferior social status.
The leader was a scarecrow of a man with a peculiar magnetic quality about him. He wore light blue pants and a blue shirt, both trimmed in gold fabric, the shirt along the end of the sleeves and the pants along the hem at the bottom. Fastened to the lapels of his shirt were gold insignia: a large T enclosed in a ring of gold and slashed through the center by a lightning bolt. His hair and eyes were a striking black, his hair cropped close to his head and slicked with an oily substance. A regal, leonine expression lent a lofty aspect to his appearance, but his eyes dominated his countenance. With their large, unfathomable pupils, veritable pools of black, they gazed at their surroundings with an imperious, haughty air.
Their owner crossed to the easy chair and sat down. He gazed at the two Warriors and smiled. “They don’t seem so formidable without their apparel,” he remarked in a gravely voice.
The three others laughed.
Hickok bristled. “Let me down from here, you cow chip, and I’ll show you how formidable we are!”
The man in the easy chair locked a baleful stare on the gunman.
Captain Wargo walked around the chair and up to Hickok. Without any warning, he slugged the gun-fighter in the abdomen.
Hickok gasped and tried to double over.
“You will address the Minister with respect,” Captain Wargo instructed the gunman.
Hickok, resisting an impulse to gag, looked at the Tcchnic captain. “Go slurp horse piss, you son of a bitch!”
Wargo drew back his right fist.
“That’s enough!” the Minister ordered.
Captain Wargo stiffened, wheeled, bowed to the Minister, and took up a position behind the easy chair.
Blade studied the other two. The man wore a brown outfit similar to the Minister’s blue one, but without the gold trim and the insignia. He was shorter, about five feet in height, and slightly hefty. His hair was gray, his eyes blue, his cheeks full and ruddy. He stood to the right of the easy chair.
On the left side was the woman, and a lovely woman she was. Dressed in a dainty yellow blouse and a short, short green skirt, she obviously intended to accent her ample physique. Her eyes were an alert green, her hip-length hair white with a black streak down the middle.