Behind him Drake drew in a breath. The line was impromptu. Was not scripted for this first interview.
The girl looked down, smiling, but when she looked up again Chen was still watching her, his face unchanged.
"Did you think this was just another Security cell?" he asked, harsher now, angry, his anger directed suddenly at her—at the childlike vulnerability beneath her outward strength; at the simple fact that she was there, forcing him to do this to her.
The girl shrugged, saying nothing, but Chen could see the sweat beading her brow. He took a step closer; close enough for her to hit out at him, if she dared.
"We do things here. Strange things. We take you apart and put you back together again. But different."
She was staring at him now, curiosity getting the better of her. His voice was calm, matter-of-fact, as if what he was saying to her was quite ordinary; but the words were horrible in their implication and the very normality of his voice seemed cruel.
"Stop it," she said softly. "Just do what you're going to do."
Her eyes pleaded with him, like the hurt eyes of a child; the same expression Ch'iang Hsin sometimes had when he teased her. That similarity—between this stranger and his youngest child—made him pull back; made him realize that his honesty was hurting her. Yet he was here to hurt. That was his job here. Whether he played the role or not, the hurt itself was real.
He turned from her, a small shiver passing down his spine.
Drake was watching him strangely, his eyes half-lidded. What are you up to? he seemed to be saying.
Chen met his eyes. "She'll do."
Drake frowned. "But you've not seen the others..."
Chen smiled. "She'tt do." He was still smiling when she kicked him in the kidneys.
she WAS beaten and stripped and thrown into a cell. For five days she languished there, in total darkness. Morning and night a guard would come and check on her, passing her meal through the hatch and taking the old tray away. Otherwise she was left alone. There was no bed, no sink, no pot to crap into, only a metal grille set into one corner of the floor. She used it, reluctantly at first, then with a growing indifference. What did it matter, after all? There were worse things in life than having to crap into a hole.
For the first few days she didn't mind. After a lifetime spent in close proximity to people it was something of a relief to be left alone, almost a luxury. But from the third day on it was hard.
On the sixth day they took her from the cell, out into a brightness that made her screw her eyes tight, tiny spears of pain lancing her head. Outside, they hosed her down and disinfected her, then threw her into another cell, shackling her to the floor at wrist and ankle.
She lay there for a time, letting her eyes grow accustomed to the light. After the fetid darkness of the tiny cell she had the sense of space about her, yet when finally she looked up, it was to find herself eye to eye with a naked man. He was crouched on all fours before her, his eyes lit with a feral glint, his penis jutting stiffly from between his legs. She drew back sharply, the sudden movement checked by her chains. And then she saw them.
She looked about her, appalled. There were forty, maybe fifty naked people in the cell with her, men and women both. All were shackled to the floor at wrist and ankle. Some met her eyes, but it was without curiosity, almost without recognition. Others simply lay there, listless. As she watched, one of them raised herself on her haunches and let loose a bright stream of urine, then lay still again, like an animal at rest.
She shuddered. So this was it. This was her fate, her final humiliation, to become like these poor souls. She turned back, looking at her neighbor. He was leaning toward her, grunting, his face brutal with need, straining against his chains, trying to get at her. One hand was clutched about his penis, jerking it back and forth urgently.
"Stop it," she said softly. "Please . . ." But it was as if he was beyond the reach of words. She watched him, horrified; watched his face grow pained, his movements growing more frantic, and then with a great moan of pain, he came, his semen spurting across the space between them.
She dropped her eyes, her face burning, her heart pounding in her chest. For a moment—for the briefest moment—she had felt herself respond; had felt something in her begin to surface, as if to answer that fierce, animal need in his face.
She lay there, letting her pulse slow, her thoughts grow still, then lifted her head, almost afraid to look at him again. He lay quietly now, no more than two ch'i from her, his shoulders rising and falling gently with each breath. She watched him, feeling an immense pity, wondering who he was and what crime he had been sent here for.
For a time he lay still, soft snores revealing he was sleeping, then with a tiny whimper, he turned slightly, moving onto his side. As he did she saw the brand on his upper arm; saw it and caught her breath, her soul shriveling up inside her. It was a fish. A stylized fish.
chen STOOD in the doorway to the Mess, looking into the deeply shadowed room. There was the low buzz of conversation, the smell of mild euphorics. Sitting at the bar, alone, a tall glass at his elbow, was Debrenceni. Seeing Chen, he lifted his hand and waved him across.
"How are the kidneys?"
Chen laughed. "Sore, but no serious damage. She connected badly."
"I know. I saw it." Debrenceni was serious a moment longer, then he smiled. "You did well, despite that. It looked as if you'd been doing the job for years."
Chen dropped his head. He had been in the sick bay for the last six days, the first two in acute pain.
"What do you want to drink?"
Chen looked up. "I'd best not."
"No. Maybe not." Debrenceni raised his glass, saluting Chen. "You were right about the girl, though."
"I know." He hesitated, then. "Have you wired her yet?"
"No. Not yet." Debrenceni sat back a little on his stool, studying him. "You know, you were lucky she didn't kill you. If the Security forces hadn't worked her over before we'd got her, she probably would have."
Chen nodded, conscious of the irony. "What happened to her?"
"Nothing. I thought we'd wait until you got back on duty."
It was not what Chen had expected. "You want me to carry on? Even after what happened?"
"No. Because of what happened." Debrenceni laid his hand lightly on Chen's shoulder. "We see things through here, Tong Chou. To the bitter, ineluctable end." "Ineluctable?"
"Ineluctable," repeated Debrenceni solemnly. "That from which one cannot escape by struggling."
"Ah . . ." In his mind Chen could see the girl and picture the slow working out of her fate. Ineluctable. Like the gravity of a black hole, or the long, slow process of entropy. Things his son, Jyan, had told him of. He gave a tiny, bitter laugh.
Debrenceni smiled tightly, removing his hand from Chen's shoulder. "You understand, then?"
Chen looked back at him. "Do I have a choice?"
"No. No one here has a choice."
"Then I understand."
"Good. Then we'll start in the morning. At six sharp. I want you to bring her from the cells. I'll be in the theater. Understand?"
IT WAS LATE when Chen returned to his room. He felt frayed and irritable. More than that, he felt ashamed and—for the first time since he'd come to Kibwezi—guilty of some awfulness that would outweigh a lifetime's atonement. He sat heavily on his bed and let his head fall into his hands. Today had been the day. Before now he had been able to distance himself from what had been happening. Even that last time, facing her in the cell, it had not really touched him. It had been something abstract; something happening to someone else—Tong Chou, perhaps—who inhabited his skin. But now he knew. It was himself. No one else had led her there and strapped her down, awaiting surgery. It was no stranger who had looked down at her while they cut her open and put things in her head.