Nomik knelt beside her and gathered her slender form into his arms, rocking her tenderly and whispering her name over and over as he stroked her matted black hair.
Bleh, Belazir thought. That is enough of that; Karak was bad enough. It is time I interviewed Sperin, anyway.
And the houseplants were hungry. It was time to cultivate a new crop, in any case. What the spores did to living flesh was very amusing.
Bros Sperin wavered. When he closed his eyes it felt as though his body was moving in a circle around the anchor of his feet. He tried not to close his eyes for too long; that meant he kept falling asleep and then over. The crisp white sheets of the bunk mocked him with taunting cruelty. Soft music was playing through the com system, soft soothing music-
He screamed as his knees struck the flooring and current arched through them. Still screaming he touched his hands to the floor to push himself up, then nearly staggered into the wall. Blisters burst on his kneecaps and palms, drooling liquid.
He was very thirsty. He'd promised himself that if he counted to a thousand one more time he could go to the sink and get some water. But he seemed to be stuck on eight hundred sixty-seven. For the life of him he couldn't remember what came next. Or before, for that matter. Eight hundred sixty-seven kept intruding itself into his efforts, offering itself every time he sought the next number.
The bottoms of his feet were numb, but his ankles ached and his calves burned. Inside as well as out.
The thought struck him as funny and he began to laugh. Wonderful, some distant, still sane part of him thought, I'm getting hysterical. That should move things along nicely.
That same part of him was waiting for Belazir to make an appearance. It unnerved him that the Kolnari hadn't come to gloat. It signaled unexpected new depths of self-discipline in the volatile pirate.
"Wake up, scumvermin," a gentle voice urged.
Painfully, Bros opened his eyes. Slowly, they focused on the face before him, and the wide yellow eyes blazing into his. He gasped and staggered back, almost losing his balance on his numbed and clumsy feet. Bros pinwheeled his arms and regained his balance barely in time to prevent himself from crashing into the wall.
Then he stood there panting, head down, heart beating rapidly, glaring at Belazir from under his brows.
Belazir chuckled delightedly and crossed his arms over his chest. He was pleased that he'd taken the time to dress for this interview in a long, open-necked robe of watered green silk accented by fretted silver jewelry glittering with fire-opals. It nicely emphasized the difference in their status. A refinement Sperin was definitely intelligent enough to recognize, on some level, semiconscious as he was.
"Are your accommodations to your liking?" he asked politely.
"I was more comfortable on the Wyal." Bros straightened slowly and found himself equal to Belazir's imposing height. Which pleased him a great deal more than it did the Kolnari, he was sure. "You look older than I'd expected," he said conversationally.
A tiny seed of fury burst into existence in Belazir's heart. His mortality gazed back at him from his mirror with every new wrinkle and hair gone from silver-golden to white. Leaving him ever more aware of the hot breath of ambitious underlings on his neck, well-honed blades clutched in their sweaty young hands.
To be so casually insulted by a man he was torturing was intolerable. Lightning flickered at the edges of his vision. If they were truly in the same room he would teach the scumvermin how little his age mattered.
But wait! Profound surprise flickered across his mind. Could Sperin be attempting to provoke me? To manipulate me? He raised one white-blond brow. Clever, foolish spy. How interesting that he was so eager to die. It promised useful information as well as excellent entertainment.
"Do you think," he asked casually, "that it is wise to make me hate you, Bros Sperin?"
"I don't particularly care how you feel about me," Bros said.
Belazir smiled serenely.
"Ah, but you will," he said with utter confidence. "And in a very short time, too."
He decided to begin with the drug that caused pain. As yet he'd had no one to experiment on and Sperin should make a fine test case.
Three Kolnari entered the cell, one of them smaller and pudgier than the other two and tremblingly subservient; a half-caste castrato slave, the usual type assigned the low-status occupation of medicine. He bowed to Belazir's image over the small satchel he carried.
The two guards took hold of Bros, one on either arm and he slumped between them, making them stagger as he let them take his full weight. It felt almost good, not having to hold himself up anymore.
"The drug that causes pain," Belazir said to the cowering medical technician. He turned to Bros. "An invention from the Phelobites, some of Central Worlds most clever allies. It ignites the nervous system, I am told, causing exquisite suffering."
Bros looked up at him, tired, but contemptuous.
"You make it sound almost sexy, Belazir. Is this how you people have fun when you get old?"
Again the creature taunted him, and he didn't care to have the issue of his age mentioned before his crew. Rage snapped through him like a power whip and was quickly suppressed. He coiled it in, to be used later. Rage always had a use if turned to the right purpose.
"We are a disciplined people," Belazir observed with a calm smile. "We seldom allow ourselves to have 'fun.' However," the smile became wolfish, "I anticipate that you will provide us with some occasion for merriment in the near future." He gestured for the medtech to administer the dose of pain-inducer and watched Sperin's eyes as it was done.
Bros looked back at him as calmly as though they sat across a table in The Anvil.
The dose went in with no more sensation than the touch of the injector to his skin. But inside, almost instantly, a vile sensation-like worms writhing beneath his skin-began to spread through his body.
Belazir watched eagerly as Sperin stood upright, taking his weight on his own feet and his face wrinkled into a mask of profound… distaste.
"Eeyaaahh, that's disgusting!" Bros said, shaking his hands and rotating his shoulders. All the while praising Seg!T'sel within his heart. What would this have been like without the antidote? he wondered.
Belazir showed no sign of his shock or disappointment beyond a tightening of his jaw. It wasn't working. Perhaps the drug was unstable and had begun to lose its power.
"Try the drug for fear," he ordered harshly.
The med-tech licked his lips and his dark flesh turned pale gray with terror.
"Great Lord," he said in a voice that shook, "there is a possibility that combining the two drugs could poison the prisoner."
"Do it," Belazir snapped. Or I will have you gutted where you stand, he thought viciously, but did not say. It would show too much of what he was feeling.
"Yes, Great Lord."
The second injection acted as quickly as the first, complicating the unpleasant sensation below Bros's skin with a sense of anxiety. His heart speeded up and sweat broke out on his brow. He found himself panting slightly and licked dry lips with a dry tongue. It was very unpleasant.
Almost as much of a strain as the effort not to laugh. The combined effect was about as bad as going three days without a bath or shave; and it was making him less sleepy, too.
Seg, you are a genius. Whatever they're paying you at Clenst it's not enough. If the little Sondee had been before him, Bros would have kissed him passionately.