Helva felt every crevice of her mind quivering with the effects of sense deprivation. How long could she keep her mind channeled away from. . .
Two households, both alike in dignity. . .
I attempt from Love's fever to fly. . .
Fly, I cannot see. Fly?
The qualify of mercy is not strained. . .
It droppeth as the gentle rain from. . .
No, not heaven. Portia will do me no good. The Bard has played me false when I have been his sturdy advocate on other shores.
In Injia's sunny clime where I used to spend my time. . . Time I have too much of or not enough. Could it be that I am suspended midway between time and madness?"
There once was a bishop from Chichester
Who made all the saints in their niches stir. . . I had a niche once, only I was moved out, not by a bishop, but a Xixon.
I should sit on a Xixon or fix on a Xixon or nix on a Xixon or. . .
I cannot move. I cannot see. I cannot hear. . .
Howlonghowlonghowlonghowlong? HOW LONG?
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one country to dissolve the. . . I'm dissolving.
There is nothing I can think of in all space and time that does not bring me right back to. . .
SOUND
A scraping metallic sound. But a SOUND upon her aural circuits. Like a hot iron in her brain, a fiery brand of sanity after the dense, thick, solid, infinite inquiet soundlessness. She screamed, but having no connections except the aural, screamed soundlessly.
Something was thundering: "I have reconnected your sound system!"
Helva toned the volume rapidly down to an acceptable level. The voice was harsh, whining, nasal, unpleasant, but the sense divinely welcome.
"You have been disconnected from your ship function."
The words made no immediate sense. She was listening to the glory of sound and the sensation of noise was unbelievable agony. It took a moment for those syllables to reform themselves into comprehensible tones.
"You have been connected to a limited audio-visual circuit to permit you to retain your sanity. Any abuse of this courtesy will result in further. . ." a nasty laugh accompanied the threat, "if not permanent, deprivation."
Unexpectedly sight returned, an evil benison, because of the object in her lens. She could not suppress the scream.
"This is your idea of cooperation?" demanded the strident voice and a huge cavern, spiked with great ivory tusks, opened directly in front of her, pink and red and slimy white.
She adjusted vision hastily, putting the face into normal proportions. It was not a pleasant face even at proper size. It belonged to the man, no longer disguised as old, who had styled himself the Antiolathan Xixon.
"Cooperation?" Helva asked, confused.
"Yes, your cooperation or nothing," and the Xixon moved his hand to one side of her limited vision, wrapping his fingers around input leads.
"No. I'll go mad," Helva cried, alarmed, frightened.
"Mad?" and her tormentor laughed obscenely.
"You've plenty of company. But you shan't go mad. . . not yet. I have a use for you."
A finger dominated her lens like a suspended projectile.
"No, no, fool, not like that!" her captor shrieked and dashed off to one side of her screen.
Desperately assembling her wits, Helva tuned up her hearing, sharpened her sight focus. She was facing a small audio-visual amplification panel into which her leads and those of. . . yes. . . she could count 12 other. . . input lines were plugged. She had only one line of vision, straight ahead. Directly in front of her, before the panel, were two shells, trailing fine wires like fairy hair from their blunt tops. Within those shells existed two of her peers. There should be two more. Beside me? She had a peripheral glimpse of more wires. Yes, beside me.
Carefully, she drew against the power in the amplifier. A very limited capacity. To her left, whence the Xixon thing had gone, was the beginning of a complex interstellar communications unit from the look of it and the few dial readings she could see.
Xixon returned, smiling a mocking, smug smile at her.
"So you are the ship who sings. The Helva obscenity. May I present your fellow obscenities. Of course, Foro's company is limited to groans and howls. We kept him in the dark too long," and the Xixon howled with pure spite. "Delia's not much better, true, but she will speak if spoken to. Tagi and Merl had learned not to talk unless I address them. So shall you. For I have always wanted my own zoo of obscenities and I have them all in you. And you, my latest guest, will cheer my leisure hours with your incomparable voice. Will you not?"
Helva said nothing. She was instantly plunged into utter dark, utter soundlessness.
"He is mad himself. He is doing this to terrify me. I refuse to be terrified by a madman. I will wait. I will be calm. He has a use for me so he will not wait too long before giving me sight and sound again or he will defeat his purpose. I will wait. I will be calm. I will soon have sight and sound again. I will wait. I will be calm but soon, oh soon. . .
"There now, my pretty awful, you've had time to reconsider my generosity."
Helva had indeed. She limited her capitulation to a monosyllable. The blessedness of sight and sound could not quite erase the endless hours of deprivation, yet she knew, from the chronometer on the panel board, that he had shut her off for a scant few minutes. It was frightening to be dependent on this vile beast.
She refined her vision, scanning his eyes closely. There was a faint but unmistakable tinge of blue to his skin tone that tagged him as either a native of Rho Puppis' three habitable worlds or a Tucanite addict. The latter seemed the more likely. Well, she had been carrying Tucanite and she knew the RD had, also.
"Feel like singing now?" His laugh was demoniac.
"Sir?" said a tentative and servile voice to her left.
The Xixon turned, frowning at the interruption.
"Well?"
"The cargo of the 834 contained no Menkalite."
"None!" Her captor whirled back to Helva, his eyes blazing. "Where did you squander it?"
"At Tania Australis," she replied, purposefully keeping her voice low.
"Speak up," he screamed at her.
"I'm using all the power you've allowed me. That amplifier doesn't produce much."
"It's not supposed to," the Xixon said irritably, his eyes restlessly darting around the room. Suddenly there was his finger obscuring all other objects from her vision. "Tell me, which ship is to deliver Menkalite next?"
"I don't know."
"Speak up."
"I feel that I am shouting already."
"You're not. You're whispering."
"Is this better?"
"Well, I can hear you. Now, tell me, which ship is next to deliver Menkalite?"
"I don't know."
"Will you 'don't know' in darkness?" His laugh echoed hollowly in her skull as he plunged her back into nothingness.
She forced herself to count slowly, second speed, so that she had some reference to time.
He did not keep her out very long. She wanted to scream simply to fill her mind with sound, yet she managed to keep her voice very low.
"Isn't it any better?" he demanded, scowling suspiciously. "Took that Foro obscenity off completely."
Helva steeled herself against the compassion she felt. She comforted herself with the knowledge that Foro had already been mindless.
"For speech, it is sufficient," she said, raising her volume just slightly. She could not use that ploy again for it would cost Meri or Tagi or Delia what fragile grip they had on sanity.
"Hmmph. Well, now, see that it does," He disappeared.
Helva heightened her listening volume. She could hear at least 10 different movement patterns beyond her extremely limited vision. From the reverberations of sound, they were in some large but low-ceilinged natural rock cavern. Now, if the main communications panel, part of which was visible to her, was a standard planetary model, if there were not too many chambers beyond this one to diffuse the sound, and if all the madman's personnel were nearby, she might just be able to do something. He wanted her to sing, did he? She waited and she kept calm.