Corean regarded Marmo with impatience. “We must take precautions, of course; I’m not so foolish as to show up at Roderigo, hat in hand, trusting in the hetmen’s good faith. As to the price, they must know that the Lords want him. And they’re a cautious folk, by all accounts — which may be why they want to sell him away from SeaStack, where the Lords can’t try to steal him. But none of that matters. I’d climb down the throat of Hell to get Ruiz Aw.”
“Reassuring, to hear that,” Marmo said dryly. The old cyborg turned away, his chassis catching a dull gleam from the overhead light. “And what is your plan? I must tell you, Corean, I’m not so brave as your esteemed self. The Roderigans frighten me; you will have to have a very good scheme before I will agree to go with you.”
Corean felt an astonishment as vast as the joy she had felt on hearing of Ruiz Aw’s capture. In all the years he had served her, Marmo had never spoken so to her.
Chapter 5
Ruiz Aw came to himself more slowly than was usual.
He opened his eyes to a dim bloody light. The warm air smelled of disinfectant. The only sound he heard was a low murmur of voices, so soft and so numerous that the sound seemed a natural phenomenon, bereft of content, like surf or the rush of wind through a forest.
He raised his head and looked about. The others lay beside him in a neat row, on a riser of some soft gray plastic. They all still slept and, like him, were naked. Behind them a wall of monocrete rose up to a low ceiling.
The room was vast, its farthest reaches invisible through the mist that rose from the thousands who filled it. Everywhere were clumps of naked humans of all races, genders, ages. Only a few moved about; the others either sat in watchful silence or huddled together, whispering.
Ruiz sat up slowly, muscles protesting. He wondered how long the Roderigans had kept them under; he felt worse than he might have expected after an hour or two of unconsciousness. Perhaps Gejas had ordered him injected with debilitating drugs, just in case he proved more dangerous than he pretended to be. He massaged his limbs, trying to work the stiffness out and restore some circulation, and gradually he began to feel a little better.
By the time Gunderd began to stir, Ruiz felt well enough to stand up and stretch.
“Oh,” groaned Gunderd. “Was this necessary?”
“So our keeper said,” replied Ruiz in a timorously hopeful voice, keeping within his chosen role as a helpless comfort boy.
“Give it a rest.” Gunderd grunted. “They don’t monitor these cattle pens, except under extremely unusual circumstances. Unless the universe has gone crazy, we’re of no great significance to the Roderigans. Control your grandiosity and help me to sit up.”
Ruiz reached down a hand. “How can you be so sure?”
“The Roderigans were among those races I studied at the university — before I came to my true calling as a paid hand on the worst rust-bucket to sail Sook’s seas. Anyway, my professors generally agreed that the hetmen are no longer human — in any important sense — so we were required to take a section on Roderigo. ‘Transitional Alienation-A Study in Self-Willed Evolution’—I think that was the course title.”
Ruiz felt a small twinge of hope. Once again a trace of luck had clung to him, in the midst of a terrible situation. Surely Gunderd’s knowledge would prove helpful. “What else do you know?”
As if reading Ruiz’s mind, Gunderd looked at him in bleary disapproval. “If anything useful occurs to me, I’ll certainly tell you — if you promise to control your overly decisive nature. We won’t live long if you can’t.”
“I’ll do my best,” said Ruiz.
Nisa was the next to waken. She sat up abruptly and stifled a gasp, face pinched with pain. Then she apparently noticed that Ruiz and Gunderd were naked, and she shrank away.
“Don’t worry,” said Gunderd. “Even if I weren’t a man who prefers the love of men, you’d be safe from any unwanted attentions. Or wanted attentions, for that matter,” he said, shooting a wry glance at Ruiz. “Our keepers take a dim view of unauthorized entertainment, so they infuse the atmosphere with drugs which inhibit desire.”
“I see,” she said, but her face was still stiff with wariness.
Ruiz looked at her, and though she was as beautiful as before, he took only an abstract pleasure in her beauty. He felt no desire for her, but he found he could feel a bitter anger for those who had stolen from him that precious heat.
Something of his reaction must have shown in his face, because Gunderd tapped him on the arm and said, “Control, Ruiz Aw. Above all, control. The Roderigans leave us very little to control; we must do the best we can with what’s left.”
Ruiz took a deep breath and nodded.
The others slowly woke, groaning and coughing, except for Einduix, who remained as still as a small orange statue. After a while, Ruiz began to wonder if perhaps the cook had succumbed to the disabling chemicals they’d been dosed with. He went over and knelt beside the little man.
If Einduix breathed, it was very slowly indeed. Ruiz reached out and touched the cook’s neck. After a moment he detected a slow faint pulse.
As he drew back, he thought he saw the cook’s right eye open, just a slit, barely noticeable — but behind that slit was the watchful darkness of a pupil, not the blank white of unconsciousness. Before he could be sure it had happened, the eye shut again… but Ruiz felt an odd certainty that the cook had winked at him.
“Does the poisoner live?” asked Gunderd.
“I think so,” said Ruiz. “Well, what now?”
Gunderd laughed sourly. “We wait; what else?”
Molnekh stood up and stretched his cadaverous frame. “When do they feed us?” he asked, in his usual cheerful manner.
Ruiz shrugged. “Gunderd is the expert; ask him.”
Molnekh looked to Gunderd, eyebrows raised.
Gunderd frowned. “I’m no expert. I’ve spent thirty years forgetting what I once learned — and I’ve done a fair job of it. However, to answer your question, I seem to remember the Roderigans use an on-demand feed system. Somewhere nearby you’ll find a hopper full of pellets. Search it out.”
Molnekh seemed undisturbed by Gunderd’s unfriendly tone. “Thank you. I will,” he said, and wandered away, his eyes darting from side to side hungrily.
Gunderd followed him with hooded eyes. “Of all your vipers, that one I like the least, Ruiz Aw. He looks too much like Death’s homely brother.”
Dolmaero sat up finally, face white and beaded with sweat. “Appearances deceive, sometimes,” he said in a weak voice. “Of the conjurors I’ve known, Molnekh has the best heart — at least he doesn’t treat common folk like bugs.”
“Perhaps. You know him better than I,” said Gunderd. “But he makes me uneasy, and it’s not just his handsome face.”
“You’re not so handsome yourself,” said Nisa tartly.
Gunderd laughed, this time with genuine amusement. “True. However, it may be that I’m more handsome than I was.” He opened his mouth, displayed gleaming white teeth. “They took my tooth skins; now I look a less authentic buccaneer, eh? And if any of you were carrying implanted weaponry, or subdural cerebral enhancers, or anything else you didn’t grow yourself — you haven’t got the gear anymore. Apparently none of us depends on mech organs, since here we are.”
“What’s he talking about?” asked Dolmaero, rubbing his head as if it ached.
“Some pangalacs carry devices within their bodies — weapons, or communicators. And those who can’t afford autocloned replacement organs for, say, a damaged heart, must make do with mechanisms.”