About two hours later, stablehands dressed in gray began toting in large baskets of gnarled tubers and fat roots resembling mangelwurzels. They dumped these into troughs for the animals. While the chalicotheres were feeding, the men mucked out the pen with big twig brooms and wooden shovels, dumped the manure into wheeled carts, and trundled it off toward the corridor leading to the castle’s postern gate. Two of the hands stayed behind with a portable pump apparatus, which they immersed in the central fountain. While one man pumped a stirrup, the other unreeled a stiff canvas hose with which he washed the floor of the corral, the excess water draining off into gutters. When the pavement was clean, he turned the spray onto the feeding animals. They uttered whickers and squeals of delight.
The old paleontologist nodded with satisfaction. Water lovers. Root eaters. So chalicotheres were denizens of the damp semitropical forest or muddy river bottomlands. And they did use their claws to dig for roots. A minor mystery of paleobiology was solved, for him, at least. But were the prisoners actually going to have to ride such archaic steeds? The beasts wouldn’t be as fast as horses, but they looked as though they had a lot of endurance. And their gait. Claude winced. If one of those creatures cantered with him aboard, his old knees and hip joints were going to shatter like antique Christmas-tree ornaments.
A sound in the shadowed cloister caught his attention. Soldiers were leading two new prisoners to the back door of the compound, which opened into the dormitory. Claude saw a waving green plume and a glimpse of black and white. Felice and Amerie!
He hurried inside and was standing there as the two women were led into the prison. One guard put down their packs, which he had carried, and said in a friendly fashion, “Won’t be long to wait now. Better get something to eat from the leftovers on the table over there.”
The knight errant came running over to them with a tragic expression. “Is Aslan on his way? Have you seen him, good Sister? Perhaps this warrior-maid is of his entourage! Aslan must come or we be doomed!”
“Oh, piss off,” muttered Felice.
Claude took the knight by one mailed elbow and led him to a bunk near the other door. “Stay here and watch for Aslan.” The man nodded solemnly and sat down. Somewhere in the dimness, another prisoner was weeping. The Alpinist was playing “Greensleeves” on his recorder.
When Claude returned to his friends, he found Felice rooting in her pack and cursing. “All missing! The arbalest, my skinning knives, the ropes, just about every damn thing I might have used to get us out of here!”
“You might as well forget it,” Claude told her. “If you resort to violence, they’ll collar you. That fellow playing the flute told me about a prisoner who went bonkers and attacked a mess attendant. Soldiers clubbed him down and put one of those gray metal neck-rings on him. When he stopped screaming and recovered his senses, he was as mild as milk. Couldn’t get the collar off, either.”
Felice swore more eloquently. “Are they planning to collar us all, then?”
Claude glanced around, but nobody was paying the slightest attention to them. “Evidently not. As nearly as I can judge, the gray collars are a crude type of psycho regulator, probably linked to the golden ones worn by the Lady Epone and other exotics. Not all of the castle personnel wear collars. Soldiers and guardians do, and straw bosses like the worthy Tully. But the stablehands don’t have collars, and neither do the mess attendants.”
“Not in sensitive positions?” suggested the nun.
“Or maybe the hardware is in short supply,” Claude said.
Felice frowned. “That could be. It would need a sophisticated technology to manufacture things like that. And so far, this outfit looks damn Mickey Mouse. Did you see how that mind calibrator kept fritzing out? And no running water in those reception rooms.”
“They didn’t bother to take any of my pharmaceuticals,” said Amerie. “The collars must protect the guards from any drugging we might be tempted to try. Handy gadgets. No slave overseer should be without some.”
“They may not need to collar people to keep them down,” Claude said, grim. He gestured at the dormitory’s listless inmates. “Just look at this crew! A few lively ones tried to escape and they were fed to the bear-dogs. I think that most folks falling into a nightmare like this are so traumatized that they just float for a while and hope things won’t get worse. The guards are cheerful and spin yarns about the good life waiting for us. The food’s not bad. Wouldn’t you just take it easy and see what develops, instead of fighting it?”
“No,” said Felice.
Amerie added, “The women’s expectations aren’t quite so rosy, Claude.” She told him tersely of their interview with Epone, and of the origins and reproductive predicament of the exotic race. “So while you may be able to live peacefully building log cabins, Claude, Felice and I are going to be turned into brood-mares.”
“Damn them!” whispered the old man. “Damn them!” He stared at his big hands, still strong, but blotched with liver spots and corded with blue veins. “I wouldn’t be worth a fart in a teacup in any real dustup. What we really need is Stein.”
“They took him,” Amerie said, and explained how Tully told her that the Viking had been “treated” to prevent further trouble. They all knew what that had to mean.
“Are any of the others here?” Felice asked.
“Just Richard,” said the old man. “But he’s been asleep ever since I was put in here this morning. I couldn’t wake him, either. Maybe you ought to take a look at him, Amerie.”
The nun took her pack and followed Claude to Richard’s bunk. It was surrounded by empty beds for a reason that was easily apparent. The sleeping man had soiled himself. His arms were folded tightly over his breast and his knees were drawn up nearly to his chin.
Amerie lifted one eyelid, then took his pulse. “Jesus, he’s close to catatonic. What could they have done to him?”
She searched in her pack and came up with a minidoser, which she pressed to Richard’s temple. As the bulblet collapsed and the powerful drug entered the unconscious man’s bloodstream, he gave a faint moan.
“There’s a chance this might bring him around if he’s not too far gone,” the nun said. “Meanwhile, will you guys help me clean him up?”
“Right,”, said Felice, starting to shuck her armor. “His pack’s here. He ought to have other clothes.”
“I’ll get water,” Claude said. He headed for the washroom, where there was a stone tank supplied by a conduit from the fountain. He filled a wooden bucket and brought soap and quantities of rough towels. As he sloshed back between the bunks, one of the Gypsies eyed him.
“You help your friend, old man. But maybe he’s better off the way he is. Useless to them!”
A woman with a hairless head clutched at him. She wore wrinkled yellow robes and her Oriental face was ravaged by scars, an unusual sight. Perhaps they were part of her religious devotion. “We wanted to be free,” she croaked. “But these monsters from another galaxy will enslave us. And the worst of it is, they look human.”
Claude pulled away from her. Trying to ignore other cries and whispers, he made his way to Richard’s bed.
“I gave him another shot,” Amerie said grimly. “It’ll bring him around or kill him. Damn, if only we could give him a sugar drip.”