Beneath his pity for her was desire. Even now it made him want to turn and look at her—to feast his eyes on her helpless nakedness. He shuddered, loathing himself. It was hideous; more so for being so unexpected, so incontestable.
When he turned back his eyes avoided the woman. But Debrenceni had seen. He was watching Chen pensively, the mask pulled down from his face. His eyes met Chen's squarely, unflinchingly.
"They say a job like this dehumanizes the people who do it, Tong Chou. But you'll leam otherwise here. I can see it in you now, as I've seen it in others who've come here. Piece by piece it comes back to us. What we realty are. Not the ideal but the reality. The full, human reality of what we are. Animals that think, that's all. Animals that think."
Chen looked away, hurt—inexplicably hurt. As if even Debrenceni's understanding were suddenly too much to bear. And, for the second time since his arrival, he found himself stumbling out into the corridor, away from something that, even as he fled it, he knew he could not escape.
up ABOVE, the day had turned to night. It was warm and damp and a full moon bathed the open space between the complex and the huts with a rich, silvery light. In the distance the dark shadow of Kilimanjaro dominated the skyline, an intense black against the velvet blue.
Debrenceni stood there, taking deep breaths of the warm, invigorating air. The moonlight seemed to shroud him in silver and for the briefest moment he seemed insubstantial, like a projection cast against a pure black backdrop. Chen started to put out his hand, then drew it back, feeling foolish.
Debrenceni's voice floated across to him. "You should have stayed. You would have found it interesting. It's not an operation I've done that often and this one went very well. You see, I was wiring her."
Chen frowned. Many of the senior officers in Security were wired—adapted for linking up to a comset—or, like Tolonen, had special slots surgically implanted behind their ears so that tapes could be direct'inputted. But this had been different.
Debrenceni saw the doubt in Chen's face and laughed. "Oh, it's nothing so crude as the usual stuff. No, this is the next evolutionary step. A pretty obvious one, but one that—for equally obvious reasons—we've not taken before now. This kind of wiring needs no input connections. It uses a pulsed signal. That means the connection can be made at a distance. All you need is the correct access code."
"But that sounds . . ." Chen stopped. He had been about to say that it sounded like an excellent idea, but some of its ramifications had struck him. The existence of a direct-input connection gave the subject a choice. They could plug in or not. Without that there was no choice. He—or she—became merely another machine, the control of which was effectively placed in the hands of someone else.
He shivered. So that was what they were doing here. That was why they were working on sentenced prisoners and not on volunteers. He looked back at Debrenceni, aghast.
"Good," Debrenceni said, yet he seemed genuinely pained by Chen's realization.
Chen looked down, suddenly tired of the charade, wishing he could tell Debrenceni who he really was and why he was there; angry that he should be made a party to this vileness. For a moment his anger extended even to Karr for sending him in here, knowing nothing; for making him have to feel his way out of this labyrinth of half-guessed truths. Then, with a tiny shudder, he shut it out.
Debrenceni turned, facing Chen fully. Moonlight silvered his skull, reduced his face to a mask of dark and light. "An idea has two faces. One acceptable, the other not. Here we experiment not only on perfecting the wiring technique but on making the idea of it acceptable."
"And once you've perfected things?" Chen asked, a tightness forming at the pit of his stomach.
Debrenceni stared back at him a moment, then turned away, his moonlit outline stark against the distant mountain's shape. But he was silent. And Chen, watching him, felt suddenly alone and fearful and very, very small.
CHEN WATCHED them being led in between the guards; three men and two women, loosely shackled to each other with lengths of fine chain, their clothes unwashed, their heads unshaven.
She was there, of course, hanging back between the first two males, her head turned from him, her eyes downcast.
Drake took the clipboard from the guard and flicked through the flimsy sheets, barely glancing at them. Then with a satisfied nod, he came across, handing the board to Chen.
"The names are false. As for the rest, there's probably nothing we can use.
Security still thinks it's possible to extract factual material from situations of duress, but we know better. Hurt a man and he'll confess to anything. Why, he'd perjure his mother if it would take away the pain. But it doesn't really matter. We're not really interested in who they were or what they did. That's all in the past."
Chen grunted, then looked up from the clipboard, seeing how the prisoners were watching him, as if by handing him the board, Drake had established him as the man in charge. He handed the clipboard back and took a step closer to the prisoners. At once the guards moved forward, raising their guns, as if to intercede, but their presence did little to reassure him. It wasn't that he was afraid—he had been in far more dangerous situations, many a time—yet he had never had to face such violent hatred, such open hostility. He could feel it emanating from the five. Could see it burning in their eyes. And yet they had never met him before this moment.
"Which one first?" Drake asked, coming alongside.
Chen hesitated. "The girl," he said finally, "the one who calls herself Chi Li."
His voice was strong, resonant. The very sound of it gave him a sudden confidence. He saw at once how his outward calm, the very tone of his voice, impressed them. There was fear and respect behind their hatred now. He turned away, as if he had finished with them.
He heard the guards unshackle the girl and pull her away. There were murmurs of protest and the sounds of a brief struggle, but when Chen turned back she was standing away from the others, at the far end of the cell.
"Good," he said. "I'll see the others later."
The others were led out, a single guard remaining inside the cell, his back to the door.
He studied the girl. Without her chains she seemed less defiant. More vulnerable. As if sensing his thoughts she straightened up, facing him squarely.
"Try anything and I'll break both your legs," he said, seeing how her eyes moved to assess how things stood. "No one can help you now but yourself. Cooperate and things will be fine. Fight us and we'll destroy you."
The words were glib—the words Drake had taught him to say in this situation— but they sounded strangely sinister now that things were real. Rehearsing them, he had thought them stagey, melodramatic, like something out of an old Han opera; but now, alone with the prisoner, they had a potency that chilled him as he said them. He saw the effect they had on her. Saw the hesitation as she tensed, then relaxed. He wanted to smile, but didn't. Karr was right. She was an attractive woman, even with that damage to her face. Her very toughness had a beauty to it.
"What do you want to do?" Drake asked.
Chen took a step closer. "We'll just talk for now."
The girl was watching him uncertainly. She had been beaten badly. There were bruises on her arms and face, unhealed cuts on the left side of her neck. Chen felt a sudden anger. All of this had been done since she'd been released to SimFic. Moreover, there was a tightness about her mouth that suggested she had been raped. He shivered, then spoke the words that had come into his head. "Have they told you that you're dead?"