RAINBOW RUN (20 page)

But Ozerta was skilled in dealing with the vericator session. She neither confirmed nor denied, giving nothing away. She was being defiant even though she must be without hope. Prevance asked a few more questions without any significant results. Yondoka tapped him on the shoulder to indicate she would take over the interrogation. Prevance stepped back. Incate glared at Yondoka.

Yondoka said, "Ozerta, I understand your reluctance to answer questions. We know that you, Boget, Flantel, and Wanklurm conspired to bring in Cainenol. Boget is dead. Flantel will soon be under arrest. We are formulating plans to arrest Wanklurm as soon as that can be done with a minimum of violence. We don't need your testimony to convict anyone. What we do want is information that will help us transform this culture into one that is based on truth and responsible freedom. We would like your help. Do you have any questions that you'd like the answer to?"

Ozerta looked at Yondoka and asked, "What's going to happen to me?"

"You won't be allowed to continue living as Ozerta," Yondoka said. "You'll be subjected to memory removal. Your appearance will be altered to conceal your previous identity and you'll start life over."

"So I'm to be brainwiped, reassembled and made to live on this planet again."

"Yes."

"I want the suicide option. I want your guarantee that if I answer all your questions, you will allow me to use the suicide chamber in the Medical Complex."

I hadn't known there was a suicide chamber. There were a lot of things I didn't know.

"The suicide option is yours if you want it. Will you tell me why that is your choice?"

"I don't want another life as a prisoner."

"You won't be a prisoner," he said. "You'll be as free as the rest of us."

Ozerta said, in a louder than normal voice, "You people don't know you are prisoners. All of you. This is a prison planet. We are all imprisoned here because we are the genetic undesirables from the twenty-two Universalist planets."

I looked at the monitor and saw that she believed what she was saying. I felt as if someone had thrown cold water in my face. We had all been judged undesirable on a genetic basis.

Yondoka appearedshocked. Nordel looked pensive.

Arvon kept his face impassive but his posture became rigid.

Prevance and Incate exchanged looks with each other. I wasn't sure what those looks meant but I was certain that they were displeased about what was being revealed.

"Genetically undesirable in what way?" Nordel asked.

Ozerta took a deep breath and said, "All of us sent here have a genetic combination that makes us potentially capable of possession—taking over the mind and body of another human being for a short time and imposing our will. I was given the whole history by Wanklurm when I became a rainbow. The Universalists used to kill us in the early days; until they discovered that the same genetic combination included a potential for forecasting the future. To utilize these predictive abilities, the Universalist Council set up this planet as a self-sustaining prison with a culture that discouraged any change and offered the cruel illusion of upward mobility."

The believability line on the monitor never wavered. What Ozerta was saying fit with what Nordel had revealed previously, that the Game was nothing more than an elaborate forecasting system.

Arvon looked at her in disbelief. "If we have this possession ability, why aren't there any manifestations of it here on this planet?"

Ozerta replied, "The machines that harness the tidal energy emit a frequency that blocks possession here and keeps the possession signals from leaving the planet. The Simulike machines were intended to guide the possession energy into dreamlike sequences in order to keep the population content. Some time ago it was discovered that a design flaw allowed some people to overcome the frequency blockers.

“When Boget learned that he would be getting new Simulike machines, he thought it would be a perfect opportunity to import Cainenol, a drug he thought would be interesting for experimental use. Boget thought he could bring Cainenol in first with the machines and then later with the blancs sent to the House of Rebirth. That's when he, Flantel, Wanklurm, and I decided we would get our revenge on the Universalists.

“Boget loved the intrigue. Flantel wanted Cainenol to create love slaves. Wanklurm wanted to become ruler of the planet and threatened to dismantle the Delphiunits unless the Universalist Council met his demands. I merely wanted to live the rest of my life as a queen; my compensation for the hard work I performed to become a rainbow—only to find that the eternal life I'd been promised was a fraudulent deception."

Yondoka responded in a kindly voice, "Ozerta, it must have been terribly disturbing for you to realize that the House of Rebirth was merely a receiving station for the unwanted people from the Universalist worlds."

She nodded with tears welling in her eyes. "I turned the day-to-day operations over to my associates. I could no longer stand to see the blancs arrive in their pods—fully grown but brainwiped and sterilized like the rest of us so we can't reproduce."

A perplexed Yondoka asked, "What do you mean by fully grown, sterilized and can’t reproduce?"

Ozerta asked, "You don't know how human beings are created?"

"Reincarnation is what I always believed, until I just heard we were blancs from other worlds. Now I don't know. Tell me."

"Human beings are created through sexual intercourse. When a man's ejaculate enters a woman's vagina, there is a substance in the ejaculate that can combine with eggs that are sometimes present in the woman's body. This combination, when it exists, forms a tiny human within the woman's body. This is called reproduction. After three seasons, the tiny human emerges from the vagina. Over a long period of time the tiny human becomes larger and larger. When the process halts, the human is considered fully grown, like all of us.

“Sterilization is the medical process that ends the capacity of humans to produce the substances that can create a tiny human."

The monitor said she was telling the truth but I found it difficult to comprehend. I had experienced sexual relations with Lyonella and with Ozerta. It seemed inconceivable to me that such an act could have such far-reaching consequences. I wasn't the only one having trouble digesting this information.

Yondoka and Nordel had reached out to hold hands; both seemed to be in a state of confusion.

Arvon's head was angled toward his left sandal. His facial expression was troubled, as if lost in thought.

Prevance and Incate glanced at each other as both of them endeavored to reveal nothing by their facial expressions. I was certain that this was not new information for them. After the initial shock of Ozerta's information wore off, I said, "Incate and Prevance. You already knew this, didn't you?"

Incate blustered.

Prevance said, "We were not authorized to tell you. We were instructed to avoid revealing anything that might disrupt this culture."

"Are you two sterilized genetic undesirables  also?" I asked.

They both nodded.

"How does the Universalist Council prevent possession actions on your part?"

Prevance answered, "We have implants that block the signals."

“Enough,” Nordel ordered. "We'll discuss this later and decide if the two of you should be subjected to separate vericator sessions. Does anyone need more information from Ozerta?"

No one did. I think we all had gotten more information than we had been ready to absorb.

Nordel asked Ozerta, "How soon do you want to utilize the suicide chamber?"

"As soon as I can be disconnected from this machine and given a chance to clean up and get a fresh tunic."

Incate said, "I'll accompany her to the Medical Complex."

Yondoka, ignoring Incate, asked, "Who would you like to escort you, Ozerta?"

"Just Tannet, whom you know as Rathe."

I nodded acceptance and said, "I'll wait in the lounge until you're ready."

By the time I'd finished a cup of cokafa, Yondoka entered the lounge with Ozerta. Ozerta and I went to the Medical Complex, followed at a discrete distance by Arvon, who was to make sure that Ozerta didn't try to escape. I wasn't sure that Arvon was needed because Ozerta's manner indicated that the only thing she wanted to escape was this life.

In the Medical Complex, she held both my hands, looked into my eyes, and said, "I’m sorry it didn't work out, but what you and I had together are the best memories I have of this life."

"I only wish I shared your memories," I said sadly, knowing I was about to lose the only person who truly knew who I had once been.

She stepped into the chamber and was gone. Along with my past….

When I returned from the Medical Complex to the overseers’ urbode, there was a visitor waiting for me, a slender, brown-haired woman with brown skin and a gray wristlock who introduced herself as Quenlu and told me she would take me to Kahalyton who wanted to see me. I left with her.

There were very few people traveling on the slideway. I commented on this and Quenlusaid, "Kahalyton has advised all the Counter Colors to make no trips unless they are essential because they might be mistaken for Crusaders. Wanklurm's white caps are killing suspected Crusaders on sight. They're using those guns that shoot a lightning bolt. Once you're hit, it's permanent cardiac arrest."

"Are we in danger?"

"Probably not,” she answered. “Your white wristlock identifies you as not being a Crusader—they're all grays. If we were both grays the guards would probably stop us as suspects and kill us."

We changed slidestrips. At the slideway interchange there was a pair of VIS patrolling. A group of four elite guards entered the interchange. Both groups avoided making eye contact with each other. The white caps got on behind us. My guide leaned close to me and said, "Time to put on the show. Kiss me and pull up my tunic enough to show my rump. Put your hand on it. Make certain that the white caps see your white wristlock against my brown bottom. They'll think you're a Listener or a Cleric with a sexually interested client."

I'm sure the kiss and fondling convinced the elite guards that we were a couple headed to a private spot for sexual intimacy. I found myself almost convinced after the second kiss aroused me. The guards saw my condition as we moved to a slower strip and they passed by us.

When they were out of sight, my guide gently removed my hand from her body, restored her tunic to achieve coverage, and said, "You played your role well. I'm glad that you support our cause."

I cleared my throat and said, "It takes two for that kind of performance." I wondered if the scene had been necessary to avoid contact with the guards. Then I decided that it didn't matter—it gave me another pleasant memory to store away. We were near the autofactory sector where, according to what I'd learned in the overseers' urbode, solar power ran the machines that utilized local supplies to produce tunics, sandals, food cubes, and the other staples that made this planet self-supporting.

Quenlu asked, "Do you know we're being followed by two rainbows?"

"No. What do they look like?"

"Both big. Both male. One is blond. The other has darker hair."

"I know who they are. I can't figure out how they managed to follow us. They haven't been right on our heels."

"They're probably using a spike mike."

"Spike mike?"

"A small transmitter that they imbed in your tunic. It's keyed to a small tracker. It gives them location and approximate distance. Wanklurm uses them."

"I don't want to lead them to Kahalyton. Let's find the spike mike and disable it."

She turned and smiled. "I think I know something that will work better than that. It will keep them busy while we have our meeting with Kahalyton."

"Lead on, Quenlu. I'll follow."

We took the exit slidestrip and made our way to a large factory building. The portal plate had been breached. We went inside. The building was some kind of recycling center. There were huge bins of various kinds of objects, mostly unidentifiable. Quenlu examined my tunic and found the spike mike imbedded in the back just above the waist. She removed it, showed it to me, and dropped it into a container that was part of a robotic device.

Quenlu explained, "This machine is a locator. It looks for a recycling bin with similar devices so it can deposit this one. Since there is little likelihood of there being other spike mikes here, the search will be long and difficult to track because these buildings are made for robots, not humans. Our followers will be occupied for a while. At least long enough for us to meet with Kahalyton."

Quenlu led us past the recycling complex and eventually onto another slideway. When we got off, we were still in the autofactory zone. Kahalyton was in the fifth building, resting on a cot.

He got up when we came in, greeted us both by name, and asked, "How was your journey? Any difficulties?"

Quenlu answered, "Nothing serious. We were trailed by two rainbows but by now they should be busy tracking their spike mike through the recycling complex."

"Do you know who they are, Rathe?" Kahalyton asked.

"They're the off-world investigators I told you about. They think I'm up to something devious."

Quenlu said, "Aren't we all."

"Quenlu organized the storytellers program along with several other projects." Kahalyton's voice indicated that he thought highly of her. "But come along, Rathe. There's someone else I want you to meet." He motioned for us to follow him toward the rear of the building.

When we arrived at an occupied work station, Kahalyton said, "Rathe, I'd like to introduce you to Shangro."

Shangro was working with tools on a bench. He had a bald head, a weathered face and a friendly smile.

We exchanged greetings and then Kahalyton said, "Shangro, tell Rathe what you know of Errox."

Shangro put down his tools and said, "The man who calls himself Errox did not always have that name. I met him in a distant sector long ago. I saw him several times and was told his name was Vargan—"