“Camera set?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, pretty, here’s your big chance in show business.”
LUH wanted to faint, to run, to scream. But she couldn’t move. She couldn’t make a sound.
The three robots circled around her. They each had chrome nightsticks in the belts of their uniforms. She felt, rather than saw, the cameramen grinning.
One of the robots grabbed her arms from behind her. She whimpered as another ripped her blouse open. They pulled the blouse off her shoulders, then tore off her pants and slippers. She stood there, naked, cowering, wanting to be dead.
“It’s all right, pretty. Don’t be afraid,” one of the cameramen said.
She turned toward the voice, and a robot slapped her in the face. Hard. She tasted blood. Her eyes stung and watered.
Then the beating began.
Control was reviewing data, coldly watching the results of the day’s work: economic indices, accident reports, arrests, awards, new production highs, consumption curves, graphs, charts, tables of numbers and cryptic symbols raced across his viewscreen wall faster than most eyes could follow.
He nodded as the data sped by.
The amber light on his desk communicator began flashing. He touched the BUSY indicator, but the light persisted.
Something important. Not red-alert, but someone had an urgent desire to speak to him.
It had better be truly urgent, he told himself as he interrupted the data flow.
A Mercicontrol doctor’s face appeared on the screen, much larger than life, frowning with professional concern.
“Sir, I’m terribly sorry to interrupt you…”
“Don’t waste my time,” Control snapped testily. “What is it? Speak.”
“I just received a laboratory report on a condemned felon, sir. Apparently the report was misfiled and it didn’t get to this station until…”
Huffing with impatience, Control said, “What is it?”
“The prisoner 3417, prefix LUN… no, sorry, it’s LUH. She was sentenced to be destroyed… sexact, drug evasion, natural-born…”
“Yes?”
“Well, sir, the laboratory report indicates that… well… she’s, um, pregnant, sir.” The doctor pronounced the repugnant word softly.
Control leaned back in his sculptured chair. “You’re certain of this?”
“Yes sir. No doubt about it. The fetus is at a very early stage, of course… but it’s definite.”
“Very well,” said Control. “Place the report in the proper file.”
“Yes sir. I… uh, I thought you’d want to know firsthand, sir.”
“Quite right.” Control cut the connection and the doctor’s face vanished from the viewscreen.
For a long moment Control sat staring at the wall, at the face of the First Control. Then he reached for the communicator switch again.
LUH lay in a pool of her own blood. She couldn’t see out of one eye, her lips felt numb, her whole mouth raw. The pain in her body had reached the point where it slid into numbness. She felt them kicking her, but the shock was gone. Agony had reached its maximum, her nerves couldn’t carry any greater intensity of pain.
“That’s enough,” a voice said. A sharp voice, accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed instantly.
“Clean her up and deliver her back to Mercicontrol,” the voice said.
LUH looked up too late to see who had spoken. The viewscreen on the wall was fading into darkness.
“Cut the camera,” one of the men said.
“Whew… these damned lights are hot.”
She felt one of them hauling her up and depositing her onto the chair again. She was dizzy, everything was blurring out of focus.
A man’s face swam into view, very close to her. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” He laughed.
“Clean her up, is it?”
“Plenty of time for that later. Mercicontrol won’t be in any hurry to get her.”
“Give her a whiff of this.”
Something pungent exploded in her face. She snapped her head back. They pressed a cold compress against her face.
“Not too bad… you still look kind of pretty.”
“Here…” A pair of pills were pushed past her swollen lips. “Swallow.”
She had to try several times before she could get them down. Almost instantly, though, the pain seemed to fade slightly. The room, the men, slid into reasonably sharp focus. Against one wall the robots stood deactivated, smeared with her blood.
“See, she’s coming around.”
“Ready to watch yourself on the viewscreen? Look!”
The screen brightened, and she saw herself—with THX. Sitting next to him on the contour seat in the holoroom. And then in bed with him.
“Look at that,” one of the men said.
“Really going at it.”
She tried to turn her face away, but they held her head. “Watch it! You enjoyed doing it then, why don’t you want to watch it?”
“No…” Her own voice sounded strange, strangled.
She tried to get out of the chair, but all she could do was slide to her knees. One of them pulled her head up, and she saw a man standing in front of her, naked, swollen, bestial.
“Try this one,” he said.
Control worked his communicator again and saw the room with LUH and her three jailors. She was slumped against the metal chair, gagging.
One of the jailors pulled her up and draped her across the arms of the chair.
Control shuddered. Why are the jailors worse than the criminals? If we didn’t need them… He sensed his pulse quickening as he watched. Well… as long as we can preserve the fetus, what difference how she’s destroyed? And he rocked back and forth, awash with pleasure, watching them.
Chapter 13
THX opened his eyes and saw that PTO was standing beside his bed.
“You’re frightened, aren’t you?” the old man asked quietly. “Just as frightened as the boy the policeman brought in.”
THX said nothing.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, PTO smiled warmly and continued, “You’re frightened that at any moment you’ll be taken away, to be consumed, to have your organs used for other people’s bodies. I know, I’ve felt the same way. I couldn’t eat. I still have trouble sometimes… sometimes it’s difficult to keep one’s balance. Even at my age.”
He looked up, scanned the little group of them, then said, “But how is this place different from anywhere else? We all die sooner or later. None of us knows when it will come, or how. At least, here our death serves the masses. Your heart will help someone to live. Your eyes can give sight to a blind man.”
LUH’s eyes in someone else’s head. Her hands, her voice… our baby… What are they doing to her? To them?
“I know how you feel,” PTO was saying gently. “Why, when I first came here—oh, ages ago—I was intent on escaping. But… escape to where? That’s the problem. You see—there is no other place.”
THX looked up at him. There is no other place! The enormity of it began to sink into his consciousness. There is no other place. Everyplace in the vast city is a prison. Everyplace.
“No place at all,” PTO continued. “The city is more or less like this, isn’t it? And where else can you go? The superstructure, up above? It’s radioactive from all the power units that’ve been there for so long. No one there except monsters. Yes, actual monsters… mutations, horrible creatures, all twisted and insane from the radiations.”
The old man made a helpless gesture. “And beyond that is the outside. Poisonous. Air too foul to breathe, sulfurous rains, germs and filth. The water is undrinkable and the whole place smells of corruption. Do you know the legend about the outside?”