They went through a rotate-lock. The Voehn ship was dark inside, faintly red-lit. It was in hard vacuum, like the Sepulcraft. The wrapping round the little gascraft ballooned taut.
Fassin, Y’sul and the truetwin were taken through another lock and into a pressurised, slightly heated circular chamber. The wrappings around them collapsed again. They were settled into something like dent-seats and clamped there with thickly shining restraints. They were half-unwrapped from their transparent covers, sufficient for them to be able to hear and see and speak. The warriors tested their bonds and then left.
Fassin looked around as best he could. Y’sul and the travel-captain appeared still to be unconscious, Y’sul’s ruff-mantles waving limply in the free fall and Quercer Janath, still in the shiny coveralls, floating seemingly lifeless in the dent-seat. The chamber was plain, just a flattened ovoid, filled with a gas-giant atmosphere entirely breathable by a Dweller but that didn’t smell quite right. Light came dimly from every surface. A hint of gravity built up, producing about a quarter standard.
A door appeared and irised open, closing behind a trio of Voehn: two of the mirror-armoured commandos and another wearing just a torso-uniform decorated with various insignia and a holstered side arm. He stood and looked at the three prisoners, the great grey snout-face and fist-sized multiple-lidded eyes turning fractionally as he directed his attention from one to another. He arched his long body and flexed his back spines, raising all ten with what looked like a sensual motion. Blizzardskin on the Voehn’s spines scintillated like a minutely shattered mirror.
Fassin, trying hard not to lose consciousness again, thought dreamily of the screen series he’d watched as a child — Attack Squad Voehn. Had that been its name? — and struggled to recall what the uniforms and insignia might indicate, remembering only slowly. The Voehn in the uniform was a Prime Commander. A multi-talent. Top guy here, certainly. Significantly over-ranked for a ship this size, unless it was on a special mission. (Oh-oh.)
One of the mirror-armour soldiers waved a hand-held instrument at them, watching a display. He barely glanced at the results from Fassin and Y’sul, then did a double take when the device was aimed at Quercer Janath. He altered a few controls, swept the machine over the truetwin’s still lifeless-looking body again and said something to the Voehn commander, who moved over, looked at the display and made a small swaying motion with his head. He clicked the machine off and came over to the prisoners, saying something as though to one of his decorations.
The restraints holding the gascraft and the two Dweller bodies slid back into the floor. The Voehn commander took off a glove and ran one leathery-looking hand over the surface of the little gascraft, then Y’sul’s carapace, then felt the shiny membrane covering Quercer Janath. He looked for and found a catch and opened the coverall up so that it hung down over the transparent material the prisoners had all been trussed in. The commander looked very closely at Quercer Janath’s signal skin, and seemed to sniff it.
He looked at Fassin. “You’re awake already.” His voice was quiet, with a deep, gurgling quality. “Reply.”
“I’m awake,” Fassin acknowledged. He tried moving his left manipulator. More error\damage messages. He moved his right manipulator and shifted fractionally in the dent-seat. Aside from the partial constriction of the transparent material covering the gascraft’s rear, he was actually fairly free to move; even the prisoner-wrap felt like it would shuck off without too much difficulty.
The Voehn reached for something in his uniform pocket and waved it at Y’sul, who jerked once and then shook for a few moments, fringe mantles stiffening and limbs quivering. “Warrgh,” he said.
The commander went to point the device at Quercer Janath, who said quite cheerfully, “Already awake actually, thanks all the same.”
The Voehn looked through slitted eyes at the truetwin for a moment, then pocketed the device again and moved back to take in the view of all three prisoners. The two mirror-armoured guards stood on either side of where the door had appeared.
The commander sat back a fraction, resting on his rear legs and tail, crossing his forearms.
“To the point. I am Commander Inialcah of the Summed Fleet Special Forces Division Ultra-Ship Protreptic. You are, in every sense, mine. We know what you have been looking for. We have been waiting for somebody to come here. We are combing your ship for data, hidden or otherwise, but we don’t expect to find anything germane. We have authority covering all eventualities. That means we can do anything we want with or to you. That latitude will not need to be exploited if you cooperate fully and answer any questions honestly and completely. Now. You are the Dwellers known as Y’sul and Quercer Janath, and the human Fassin Taak, correct?”
Y’sul grunted.
“Hi,” the travelcaptain replied.
“Correct,” Fassin said. He could see Y’sul moving, working his body as though to get rid of the prison-wrap. Oh, no, don’t do this, he thought. He was about to say it when -
“Who the fuck do you fucking think you are, you piratical pipsqueak?” Y’sul bellowed. The Dweller wriggled free from the transparent material and floated above the dent-seat.
The two guards by the doorway didn’t even start to move.
The commander, arms still crossed, watched as the Dweller roted up to him, towering over him. “How fucking dare you start attacking a ship and taking people hostage! Do you know who I am?”
“Go back to your seat,” the commander said, voice level. “That’s probably quite good ad—” the truetwin began.
“Go back to your fucking own planet!’ Y’sul roared, and stretched out a hub-limb to push the Voehn.
The Voehn commander seemed to disappear in a blur of movement, as though all along he’d been a hologram and was now dissolving into individual pixels, rearranging into a grey cloud shot through with rainbow shards. Y’sul shuddered once and was sent sailing serenely back, colliding with the wall behind the dent-seat and the discarded prison-wrap. He hung there, then revolved backwards and fell slowly to the floor, spinning gradually downward along his rim like a coin on a table.
The Voehn commander was sitting where and how he had been, unruffled. “That was not cooperating fully,” he said, voice soft.
“Urgh,” Y’sul said thickly. His carapace held two dents, one on each discus rim. There was another large, broken-looking bruise on his inner hub. That was serious damage for a Dweller, the equivalent of a broken limb or two and perhaps a compressed skull fracture for a human. Fassin hadn’t even seen quite how the Voehn commander had hit Y’sul. He’d have gone back for a replay but the little gascraft’s systems seemed to have been zapped and they weren’t providing any recording ability. Oh fuck, he thought. We’re all going to die and the only one they can torture properly is me. He saw himself peeled, prised out of the gascraft like a snail from its shell.
Y’sul drew himself very slowly upright again, shaking slightly. He was mumbling something unintelligible.
Quercer Janath turned very slowly, looked at the Dweller and then turned back to the commander. “With your permission, sir?”
“What?” the Voehn asked. “Like to aid our fellow.”
“Go ahead.”
The travelcaptain let the prison-wrap fall to the floor, then moved over to Y’sul and guided the injured Dweller back to his dent-seat. Y’sul continued to talk; nonsense somewhere beneath the level of clear comprehension.