“Yes.”
“The Gencha take a man’s self, you said. They steal his soul and leave nothing but the urge to please his master.”
“Yes.”
Dolmaero shuddered. “Tell me. Would a man know if he had lost his soul?”
Ruiz shrugged and did not answer.
“Not necessarily,” said Gunderd in a pedantic tone. “Only if his master commanded him to recognize the fact. If his master told him to conceal it, no one could tell, not even the Roderigans… perhaps not even another Gencha practitioner.”
Dolmaero went to his cot and sat heavily. He stared at the floor, apparently empty of questions, for once.
Even Molnekh seemed sobered. He said nothing. After a while he went to the food hopper and got a handful of pellets, which he ate without his customary relish.
“I wonder what our hosts think of your revelations,” said Gunderd, glancing about the room.
Gejas watched the specimens. He touched his slate and linked to The Yellowleaf’s data retrieval locus. “Master,” he said. “We’ve confirmed the connection.”
He watched her beautiful, terrible face. “Yes, as you suspected, Corean is involved. Your plan is vindicated, Master. It only remains to set it in motion.”
She looked at him with eyes full of dreadful promises, and he was very afraid. “Oh yes, Master,” he said. “Ruiz Aw will play his part, however it goes at the virtual. If he returns with the data we need, well and good. If not, we’ll use him to hook the slaver.”
Gejas walked in, his gait as springy as ever, his face full of alien cheer. “Everyone up!” he called. “Time to go on a journey.”
Ruiz got carefully to his feet, still sore from the neurostim, from the straining of his muscles in their attempt to escape the pain. Hatred flooded into him, but it was an odd hatred. He couldn’t imagine any way to ease the emotion, to satisfy his need for retribution. His earlier fantasies now seemed pale and colorless in the light of the tongue’s actual presence.
Crucifixion seemed far too gentle a punishment, for Gejas.
He could barely see the tongue’s grinning face. Other faces — pleading, hopeless, numb — seemed to float in his vision.
“Come, come,” said Gejas. “No time to waste. Let’s go, all!”
Ruiz felt a shudder of rage pass through him. He tried to speak, but his throat seemed full of some burning substance, and he made a foolish croak. Gejas turned to him, crooking his eyebrow up in an inquisitive gesture. “What?”
Ruiz cleared his throat, tried again. “Where do we go?”
Gejas frowned. “Why haven’t you learned the unwisdom of questions? And where is the respect you should show me?”
“Fuck you, Master,” said Ruiz carefully. “If you didn’t need me very badly, I’d be dead. So you must be content with what respect you deserve. Answer my questions, or do without my cooperation.”
Gejas’s face twisted into a predatory mask, but only for an instant. “Ah. Well, yes, we need you. So! We go to Dorn to consult the virtual.”
“All of us?”
“If you wish. The Yellowleaf is merciful, and permits you to enjoy the comfort and company of your friends while you prepare for your mission.” Gejas looked at Einduix, comatose on his cot. “Though why burden yourself with the little turnip? We’ll send him to the composter. No profit in slaughtering such an odd specimen… the cannibals are surprisingly conservative in their tastes.”
“No,” said Ruiz. The cook was nothing to him, though he had enjoyed the little man’s music. But he wanted to frustrate Gejas in every possible way. “We’ll take him. And what payment will you offer me for this job?”
“We’ve already discussed this,” said Gejas in a soft deadly voice. “Your life. That’s all you may expect to gain.”
Ruiz laughed, a sour hollow sound. “Insignificant — you’ve made me worthless to myself. You must offer something I value more.”
Gejas snapped his fingers at the guards. “Bring out the woman.”
They brought her forth, twisting and struggling, her face full of fear.
The rage and hatred in Ruiz Aw congealed into something much colder and stronger, an emotion he could put no name to. A great distance opened between himself and his feelings; the situation took on an unreal, abstract quality. Without effort, he adopted an expression of sneering condescension.
Gejas gave him a curious glance, as if the tongue’s expertise in reading faces had suddenly deserted him. He frowned and looked at Nisa. “This is the woman you would have died for. I believe I can buy your cooperation with her pain, if necessary.”
Ruiz laughed, a metallic sound.
Nisa looked up at him, and he was strangely pleased to see that she regarded him almost without recognition. “Then you are wrong. What are these creatures to me? Phantasms, no more. Their lives are nothing notable, a blink of tedium between unbeing and the grave. At best they’re symbols of my power over you. I insist on their preservation… but only because I take my only remaining delight in annoying you and your hag.”
Gejas’s face darkened, and Ruiz smiled a smile that hurt his face. He turned to Nisa and struck her across the mouth, so that she sagged and a trickle of blood ran down her chin. Her eyes grew enormous and bewildered.
He felt a sickness that never reached his face. It wasn’t just Nisa’s confusion and hurt — it was the blood. But he thrust the sickness away. “See?” he shouted, his voice trembling on the edge of a happy mania. “Mine to hurt. Not yours.”
He whirled and seized Gejas by the silky material of his shirt. “Do you see?” he screamed into the astonished tongue’s face. “Fuck with me and I’ll sit down and die right here. Do you doubt I can do it?”
Gejas picked ineffectually at Ruiz’s hands. “Be calm, Ruiz. No, I don’t doubt you. We peeled you well enough to see that you have all the skills a famous slayer requires.”
Ruiz pushed his face into Gejas’s until their eyes were no more than a few centimeters apart. In the Roderigan’s gaze Ruiz saw ferocity and uncertainty, contempt and fright. Good enough, for now, he thought, bending down. He jerked Gejas close and lunged.
Cartilage crunched, as his head flattened the tongue’s nose.
He stepped back with a high-spirited giggle and folded his arms. Gejas stumbled back; his eyes went wide and then ignited. He snapped his arm straight and a sonic knife dropped into his fist. With flickering speed, he drove it toward Ruiz’s throat.
Ruiz waited for the blade, still as stone.
A low bone-trembling tone sounded, and Gejas dropped as if dead, the blade grazing down the front of Ruiz’s chest. Ruiz felt a cold stinging pain and looked down to see if his innards were still in his belly. The knife had barely broken the skin.
“Ooh,” said Ruiz. “Synaptic decoupler. The Yellowleaf seems to be keeping an eye on you, shithead — and a finger on your button. Nice for me.”
The two guards finally reacted. They started into movement that seemed painfully slow, pulling out neural whips and starting toward Ruiz.
“No,” croaked Gejas from his sprawl on the floor. “The Yellowleaf permits this activity.” He started to rise, as carefully as if he were made of glass.
Ruiz skipped forward and kicked Gejas in the ribs, so that he rolled across the room and thumped into the far wall.
“What fun,” Ruiz said brightly. He took a small detached pleasure in the tongue’s humiliation, but again the blood sickened him, even though it was his enemy’s blood. What was wrong with him?
“Stuns only,” said Gejas, wheezing and clutching his ribs.
The guards pointed their stun rods at Ruiz.
He faded away to a single point of triumphant futility. And then to nothing.