Loralynn Kennakris 3: Asylum (42 page)

Choke it down, asshole. Have I ruined your whole day?

But then the doubts began to well up bitterly in her stomach.
He’s just nibbling—hasn’t swallowed it yet
.
Maybe he’s just giving me more rope?

“How is the trap sprung? The Maxor dislike violence in their space. If we follow your jump to their side, they will certainly intercede. This would make things . . . unpredictable. They have as little use for you as us, I think.”

Kris shook her head, a spasmodic twitch. “Can’t jump back. Once Seventh comes through, they’ll blow the jump fields to Regulus. Drop a quantum black hole down the well—goes inflationary and bungs up things for weeks . . .”

“That requires a great deal of energy.”

“
Ardennes
is a big baby.”

Heydrich studied her minutely. His wine glass started to list again.

Come on, make up your fuck’n mind, dammit! I’m just about played out
. . .

He held his silence for a full minute, then spoke, his voice dry and uninflected, “How do you know all this?”

“Huron told me. Wanted me to know . . . know I wasn’t jus’ . . . bait. Was a good bet we weren’t comin’ back. We were . . .”

“How romantic,” Heydrich inferred cynically—or probably knew. She caught his look.
Yeah, you knew
. “How did he know?”

“You
fuck’n
kidding? He knows all sorta shit.” Kris swallowed in a vain attempt to settle the sick churning in her stomach. “His old man was Speaker, y’know.” Surely a Halith lord could understand privilege and nepotism. “He’s got hooks into everybody—had . . .”

“What was his source?” Heydrich’s eyes started to spark.

Kris shuddered, the line between acting and actuality beginning to blur dangerously. “Dunno. I mean—like . . . what’s the point? You’re the guys who trusted the crazy-as-fuck Maxor. Probably cuz he . . .” Her thoughts were beginning to unravel. Frantically she grabbed at the strands. “He knows lotsa guys on the intel side—he’s been staff too. Like I said, hooks into fuck’n everybody . . .”

With the utmost deliberation, he put down the glass, rose and left the room.

Kris could hear him talking low and rapidly on the comms in an adjacent compartment. The words were fast and guttural; she couldn’t make them out. Either she’d hooked him or she’d broken it off badly. She couldn’t tell which. The churning in her stomach was uniting with the trembling in her limbs to shake her mind to pieces. She gave way to a shuddering fit, almost a convulsion. It left her weak and exhausted. Yellow sparks clouded her vision. If she didn’t get something to eat or drink soon . . .

Heydrich seemed to stay in the other room forever. She heard the click of keys, periodically interrupted by his voice, and then long intervals of silence. As an exercise in control, she tried to measure the silent intervals by counting, but lost it after a few minutes to a violent convulsion. When it passed, her mouth tasted bloody. Heydrich was having a long conversation, in lower and calmer tones. Was that good or bad? She couldn’t tell. She couldn’t tell anything . . . Another fit wracked her. As she spasmed, Heydrich walked back into the room. He paused to watch, avidly.

“Please,” she croaked, not acting at all. “Please.”

He raised an inquiring eyebrow.

“Water.” It came out a gasp. “Please . . .”

“Ah!” He pantomimed surprise. “But of course.” He brought the glass, sat on the edge of the bed, and fed her a careful, measured sip. It helped—some.

“Th—thank you.” She squeezed her eyes shut against the horror of those words. He thinks he’s winning.
And he is—I meant that.
When she opened them again, he still sat there, a picture of solicitous concern. A subtly distorted picture.

“I am curious,” he commented conversationally, “how did Commander Huron come to be involved? Surely they needn’t have risked him on such a mission.”

“They didn’t. He volunteered—no, he . . . insisted.” She shook her head to clear her suddenly blurred vision, angry to be crying real tears in front of him. Huron’s tears. “They ordered him to stand down but he wouldn’t. Huron didn’t take orders he didn’t like—”

“How did you come to be selected for this mission?” Heydrich interrupted. In an inspired bit of sadism, he kept the glass near her lips. She could smell the water and salvation became a curse.

“I told you—my DSRO and I don’t get along. Goes way back. He groped me when I was a Cadet and he was an Academy instructor.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “So you reported him and his career suffered—”

“No, I kneed him in the nuts. I gotta bad temper. We made this deal, see—I wouldn’t report him, he wouldn’t report me. But he’s been after my ass ever since. Fucker set me up . . .”

“Indeed.” Heydrich stroked a finger down his scar absently. Kris recognized the gesture.
He’s thinking of something
. “And this involved your recent psychiatric evaluation? You had some difficulty with a Dr. Quillan, I think.”

Kris lay her head back. “Yeah, I objected to his line of questioning.”

He put the water glass down. “I take it this line of questioning involved your time as Captain Trench’s slave?”

“Uh huh. Quillan thinks I’m either psychotically hostile or a Halith plant.” That was rewarded with a small ironic smile. “Can’t make up his mind which. We never got along.”

“Reasons?” Heydrich asked quietly.

Kris let the breath slide out of her body. “Trench. He saw the pix of Trench. After I . . . killed ‘im. Quillan’s a Nedaeman—y’know, neo-pacifist, vegetarian, hyper-tolerant . . . of other Nedaemans. He couldn’t understand why I’d do . . . that. He couldn’t understand a lotta shit. Anyway, I got myself classed as a psych problem. So they gave me a choice of this mission or getting’ my brain raped.”

“Very interesting,” Heydrich commented dryly. “Your people have the most fascinating vices. So I take it you were prepared to resist interrogation?”

Well, and why not? If Heydrich thought so, she’d play along. “Yeah, it’s routine. They figured if I got caught, you’d chem me and then let it alone—you know, small fry. Nobody thought you’d bother with . . . with . . . me.”

“You must be excruciatingly hungry.” Heydrich yanked her rambling to a halt. She fought with an acknowledgement for a few seconds, then gave it up. If he was feeding her, she must have won this round. She didn’t have the strength to fight any longer anyway.

“Yes.” Very small, very tired, very defeated.

Heydrich got up, began investigating the contents of another domed silver service. “Bless thermal platters. As fresh as the moment it was made. Allow me.” Bringing the food to the edge of the bed, he sat down and fed her, bite by bite, in an obscene parody of tenderness.

Dining, if it could be called that, took a long time, and she was traitorously grateful for the diminishing hungry ache and abating tremors. She hated herself for that, almost more than she hated him; that was part of the game, she knew, but pale reason had pretty tenuous hold just now.

Heydrich kept up a light, easy patter throughout. This was probably a mistake on his part; it kept reminding her who the enemy really was—especially when he praised the wine. Huron had loved wine; his family was in the business and he was rich enough to indulge his tastes in any fashion he desired. The memory carved a hollow ache a little deeper.

After that she tried to ignore what he was saying. Eating gave her an excuse for not keeping up her end of the conversation and she let her mind wander. She had no idea how much time her little ploy might buy her. Meanwhile, she’d live to learn to play Heydrich’s filthy game; eight years as Trench’s slave had given her quite an education in games. She figured he’d get bored with her eventually, ship her off somewhere, and then she’d have a chance. She might even get a chance sooner if Huron had managed to send a message before he fried . . .

Stop dreaming
, she admonished herself as Heydrich fed her a scallop.
Nobody at Seventh has the faintest goddamned idea what’s happened.
A depressingly accurate assessment: as far as anyone knew, she’d suffered jump damage flying an overloaded fighter through enemy space. Huron had gone back to find her and neither had come back. Close paragraph, end chapter. PrenTalien wasn’t going to invade Halith space to look for pieces.

Halfway through dessert, the line in the other compartment chimed. Heydrich politely fed her a final bite, then rose to answer it. A very brief discussion ensued. Then Kris heard him key-up a different line and speak quietly into it. The tone made the hair on her arms lift; it sounded like an invitation. When he stepped back into the room he seemed much more animated. He walked to the mahogany desk, removed a chip from the recorder, slipped it in a drawer and inserted a new one.

“You must excuse me for a while,” he announced cheerily. “However, I don’t wish you to languish in my absence, so I’ve arranged a visit with an old friend. I think you will have much to talk about.”

Kris’s stomach lurched heavily. Friend? What kind of fucked-up joke was this? Did he have another prisoner? Did he intend to arrange one of those performances that Trench had so enjoyed?

“ . . . didn’t know you were acquainted. He did not mention it until later, and I can guess why you did not.”

Kris’s heart began to palpitate. This didn’t sound good at all—

The entry pad chimed, and Heydrich pressed the entry button. As the door slid open, he declared, “Excellent timing, Sergeant. Please come in.”

Soho Manes stood in the entrance holding what looked like a portable med-kit. Icicles of dread slashed at her guts. She’d thought she could play his game—

But it seems I’ve got a lot to learn . . .

Manes stepped into the room. Kris dropped her head back, stared into the corpse-white visage reflected in the mirror.

Oh, I wish I were—I wish I were—I wish I were . . .

“Ah, Sergeant,” Heydrich sounded appallingly happy. “I must go to CIC for several hours to oversee a . . . situation. This woman”—Heydrich hooked a thumb in her direction—“knows rather more than I would like her to. Please rectify that.”

Manes grunted. “Beggin’ the admiral’s pardon, sir, but we already been through that. All yesterday. I told ya she’s a stone bitch. Jus’
whathefuck
you want me to do now, sir?”

Heydrich smiled. “I wish you to use your
imagination
, Sergeant.” Hideous accent on that word. Kris stared fixedly into the mirror, as if it might swallow and save her. “Consider it recreation. And, by all means, take your time.”

“Yessir!” Obscene happiness beaming through his voice now.

“Very good, Sergeant. Inform me if anything . . . interesting transpires.” She heard the squeak of his boots as he began to leave, the scuff as he paused and turned. “I should like there to be something left, Sergeant. Something . . .
worthwhile
. Do you understand?”

“Uh, yessir.”

Kris heard the swish of the door opening, the clap and the gust of air as it slammed shut.

IHS Ilya Turabian
orbiting Asylum Station

For a long, frozen heartbeat, she remained motionless, staring at the other girl, the one in the mirror, the one Manes couldn’t touch, and wishing desperately to change places.

I’m still you
, the mirror girl said.
It would still hurt
.

I guess you’re right
, she answered herself.

Manes came and stuck his ugly face in between them. He looked her up and down admiringly, then stared intently at her face.

“Ya don’t ‘member me, do ya?” His voice slurred more than usual, and she noticed his pupils—pin-hole tiny.

You jacked up for this
, she realized.
Fuck’n wonderful . . .

“Do ya?”

Wait—that voice, mumbling slaver gab; those eyes.
Wait
. . .

“Give ya a hint. Nobody called me
Manes
then.”

Oh . . .
Mentally, she added some thick, curly brown hair, a ragged black beard growing almost to the eyes, and removed about twenty pounds . . .

Mangle
. Trench’s half-max surgeon’s mate.
Oh
shit
—

“Yep, that’s me.” He was smiling now. She hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud. “Sure glad you ‘membered, Kris.” His face disappeared and she heard him clattering and rustling around in the med-kit. The noise wrapped her spine in icy tendrils.

Say something, dammit!
Her tongue was welded to the roof of her fear-dry mouth.
Oh, I see you brought some toys
. . .
Not that, dumbass!
When Trench was in a bad mood, you always had something to say
. . .

Fuck! Trench! A low, not-quite-controlled moan escaped her throat. What did Manes/Mangle know about Trench? He hadn’t been on the ship then. Were they were tight at all? Trench was about the only one he ever talked to. They’d take off sometimes—maybe a week or more. Just business?

Manes/Mangle was making satisfied noises as he laid out the contents of the kit out on the serpentine wine table.

Say something
. . .

“What happened to you, Mangle—or d’ya prefer Manes?”

“Mice-nuts either way,” he mumbled. “Manes is good.” His instruments clicked and clinked against the polished tabletop.

“Your real name?”

“Sorta.” A Maxor hold-name? Maybe. Being sorta Maxor, that would fit.

“Missed you there at the end.”

“Yeah, missed that too. Can’t say I’m sorry—‘cept about Trench.”

Oh shit
. . .

“What did’ja hear about Trench?”

“Only that’cha offed him.” More rattling in the kit. “Up close and personal-like. Weren’t he good to ya?”

Kris let her eyes close. Before they closed, she saw Manes approaching with an old-fashioned scalpel.

Remember what the old man said—leave something worthwhile
. . .

“He was alright . . . some of the time.” She felt Manes draw the scalpel around the ankle of the boots, just above and below the cuffs. Then he split the leather down both sides and pulled them off in pieces. Next, he began dissecting the skintights, first slitting them up insides of her calves. As he worked, the cold-searing edge of the scalpel just barely kissed her skin.

“Jus’ somma the time?” he asked. The scalpel ran up the inside of her thigh towards her crotch.

Oh
Jesus!
No!

She twitched her legs together, rattling the chains, and the scalpel bit. Warm blood seeped down the inside of her thigh.

“Don’t move! I din’t say move!”

She stopped moving. The scalpel’s edge continued up to the juncture of her thighs, between them, and on down the inside of the other. She breathed again. “Yeah. Jus’ somma the time.”

Manes began to peel away the silk and leather, cutting it off in odd-shaped patches. Each shape was definable by the caress of chill air on hypersensitive skin.

“He liked ya, y’know.” The scalpel made an odd
hiss-slip
sound as it stripped her. “Wouldn’t even share—that was rank. Piss us off. Trench always shared.”

“Oh?”
Hiss-slip
. Another chill-air kiss.

“Yeah. Where ya think we got the ‘tween-decks whores? Trench’s hand-me-downs, most of ‘em. But he didn’t share
you
. Piss us off. Strich got real bent—wanted ya bad. Trench says,
Get fucked
.” Manes laughed. “You ‘member Strich?”

“Yeah, I remember.” The line-boss—the guy with a spiker. Wasn’t too bad with it though . . .

“Yeah, he get pissed real bad. Trench decked him.” Manes laughed again. “Ya fucked-up that boat somethin’ awful, lady. Ya musta been one she-hell of a captain’s bitch. Trench kept ya what? Seven years?”

“Eight.” The last of her clothing surrendered to the knife, except the gloves. Kris hadn’t thought she’d miss it, but she did. “Were ya friends?”

Manes’ laugh became a thoroughly unpleasant cackle. “Trench ‘n me? Naw. He was a jag mothafucker. Bitched my ass off the boat.”

“How come?”

“Aww, Trench brings me this kid, see. Got his guts hangin’ round his ankles—keeps trippin’ on ‘em.” Manes’ fingers slid over her, testing the tension in her muscles. Her skin fluttered, revolted. “At Dogshit Run, ‘member?”

Kris remembered. The actual name was something else, and anyway, Manes was lying.

You sliced that kid up in the mess. He was raggin' on ya and you cut him open just like
—

“Trench tells me fix it. Well, shit—this a boat. I can’t remake the kid’s belly on a boat. So I freeze ‘im. Gonna take it downside and fix it. Well, it don’t read. We get a kidsicle.” More laughing. “Trench don’t think it’s funny. He tells me I’m jacked when I work—chucks my ass out on Cathcar.”

No—you ran. Ya fuck’n up and ran
.

“Close book.” He jabbed low and inside of her hip points. Pain screamed electric along her nerves, compressing time. She jerked.

“That hurt?”

“Yeah.” It came out a gasp.

“Good.”

She heard him walk away, rattle around in his instruments.
Keep talking
. “Is that where you met the Admiral?”

“Yeah.” Rattle and clink. “I like ‘im. He lets me alone mostly. I get work, too.”

Sounds great
. She felt him approaching.

“Open your eyes.”

No
—

“Open your eyes.”

She ignored him; letting go, reaching down. Reaching for her bastion in hell . . .

It didn’t work. Whatever they’d done to her glued her tightly to the inside of her skin.

I can’t get AWAY and this is Playtime!

A hooking jab, low and vicious, in her groin. Her eyes snap open. He’s holding a nastily curled steel pick to her face. Her blood adorns the tip, glossy crimson.

“Do like I say.”

“Okay.” Raw, naked terror jumps in the back of her throat.

Oh god! This is all he wants—

He slides the steel instrument over her skin; over her breasts, around her nipples.

Please, please, want something else—anything else—Please
. . .

As if he’s heard, he says, “Tell me ‘bout Trench.”

“What ‘bout him?” A strangled whisper. His other hand joins in the explorations. Hot calloused fingertips and cold brittle steel ride over her skin.

“‘Bout how you iced him. How ya
killed
him . . .”

“I—I don’ remember.”
I don’t
want
to remember
. Her breath is sandpaper in a dry throat. His fingers find a point in her armpit near the side of her breast; stab down. Pain flares blue-white. Her body arches off the bed.

“‘Member.”

I CAN’T
. . .
Please don’t make me
. . .
please—

The hard-calloused fingers dance over her, finding the points and hitting them like piano keys. Up under the jaw.
Jab
. Under the ribs.
Jab
. Along the neck.
Jab
. Pain burns a symphony of colors across her brain. Each time he tells her: ‘
Member
.

The pain drags the memories up, exhumes them from the burial grounds of her mind. Something in her fractures, crumples, cracks. She’s falling now—falling back, falling
in
. . .

Harlot’s Ruse, under attack.
The alert beacon raises an undulating wail, adding to the cacophony of the proximity sirens. There’s a crumping noise, and three loud bangs tattoo the side of the ship. She hears the weird little
kzing
of the ship’s batteries returning fire
.

More banging on the hull, then a loud crump—louder than the others. The emergency reds come on. She dives for a lift ladder, swarms up using the rungs—you never can tell when the gravity might give out in a fight. More noisy crumping—armor plate slagging off, she realizes—and a sudden veer the inertial dampers don’t quite handle. She swings around to the other side, knees hooked around the rails, and keeps moving. Less noise from the ship’s guns; just the forward batteries firing now. The shudder of a missile launch.

She boosts herself out of the ladder well on to the afterdeck. Trench is in the passageway just outside the cabin they share. He has a sidearm in one hand and is trying to get into his space armor with the other. He isn’t on the bridge! He’s been sleeping! Her joy turns savage. She never expected so much. She sprints at him.

He hasn’t seen her yet. Another sudden, uncompensated veer staggers them. He turns, reeling—sees her, waves the gun at her. The boarding alert drowns out part of what he’s shouting: “ . . . below! Goddammit! Get the fuck outta here!” Her eyes widen. He thinks she’s
afraid
. She laughs but it comes out a scream. He continues to wave at her. “Evac, goddammit! Evac!”

There’s a huge clang. The ship shudders and rolls violently. They’ve been docked. Trench goes down, clumsy in his half-on armor, tumbling across the deck and hitting the rim of a sealed hatchway. The breath leaves him in a grunt. She skids into a bulkhead feet first, kicks hard and launches herself across two meters of intervening deck plate.

He still doesn’t understand when she slams into him. Her unexpected, vicious chop sends the gun flying. Now he’s struggling, but she gets her arms under his and back around to his neck. She forces his head back. Partly trapped by his armor and still gasping, he paws at her feebly. Her teeth find his throat. They sink in, chewing and tearing, stripping back the flesh from the hard ridges of cartilage, worrying from side to side, ripping out chunks of tough meat and stringy tendon, seeking—finding a pulsing, elastic blue vein—clamping it, gnawing it while it squirms like a live thing—finally severing it—blood exploding in her mouth, fountaining and gushing, spraying her face, running into her ears, choking her
. . .

. . . she gags on the vicious, clotted memory—seeing it, smelling it, tasting it all over again; gags again and almost loses it. Manes is sitting at the edge of the bed, his eyes fever-bright—twin mirrors reflecting hell. Abruptly, he leans over and kisses her. His lips are wet with saliva; his tongue is a pallid eel. His breath is sweet and fetid with the drugs he’s taken. She chokes, recoiling. He jerks away, his open hand cracks across her face. The simple, unadorned brutality shocks her.

The horrid, everlasting, ever-present moment ended.

“Bad,” he snarled, his voice thick with agitated frenzy. “You’re a captain’s bitch. See any captains here?”

“N-no.” Wrong answer. He hit her again. Blood trickled down her jaw from a split lip.

“Me.
I’m
Captain now. Trench dissed me ‘cuzza you. Shit-kid din’t have nothing t’do with it. Trench pissed me out cuz he was worried ‘bout me an you.”

What the fuck?
She hadn’t said ten words to Mangle/Manes when he was on board.
Ya think that matters?
You’re in his jag-whacked world now
—

“But ya got ‘im—and I got you. Captain’s kiss, now . . .”

His mouth approached. Kris dragged up the lessons learned over eight years in every back alley of hell, and gave him what he wanted.

“Fuckin-A,” he muttered as he got up. “No wonder that jag sumbitch kept ya so long.” He began unfastening his pants. “Let’s see what else you can do . . .”

Kris tensed involuntarily, but she made her voice soft. “Captain’s fuck, Manes?”

Manes looked at her, pupils dilating. He blinked, the rush and the drugs staggering him. “Yeah.” The word drooled out the side of his mouth. “Yeah.”

“Better without the hands tied,” she murmured. “Trench never tied
both
my hands . . . Y’know what I can do with just one hand . . . Captain?”

Manes sat heavily on the edge of the bed, his pants around his knees.

“Naw.” His pupils were huge.

He must be nearly blind, as jacked up as he is
.

“Naw. Ya tell me.”

She told him, in all the lurid, obscenely glistening detail she could imagine, everything Trench had ever said, had ever done; everything she could think of. She spared nothing, weaving the words tighter and tighter, like a noose around his neck.

He stood it for almost five minutes, then began to move on top of her, too impatient to take the pants off over his uniform boots. Kris released an inward, despairing cry.

Shit! I pushed him too far! He won’t care now—

But as his twisted little body covered hers, she whispered in his ear, “Wait, wait. Don’t waste it, Captain. One hand—let’s try just
one
hand.”

Sucking his breath savagely through his mouth, he reached up and fumbled the buckle on the right wrist cuff open. She pulled her arm free, murmuring, “Oh, thank you, Captain. Thank you so much—” and sunk two stiff fingers into his eyes. He rolled off her thrashing, hit the floor with a heavy thud. Frantically, she undid the left wrist cuff, then reached for the ankles. She got the right one undone as Manes groped his way upright, swearing and shaking his head, his feet still tangled in his pants. Instinct and adrenaline brought her right foot up and out. It slammed into the underside of Manes’ jaw. Blood sprayed from his bitten tongue as he dropped, the tension exiting his limbs like air from a burst balloon.

Quickly, Kris undid the last buckle and rolled off the bed.