Star Soldier (7 page)

Marten breathed heavily through his nose. For the moment, he subsisted on rage.

Stick, however, thoughtfully rubbed his chin. He eyed Marten and then he judged the major and her two killers.

“You want the truth?” asked Stick.

Major Orlov bared her teeth. “At this moment we attempt to solve deep-seated issues. I admit to a personal interest—I wish to show the sluggards who run Reform how to… how to correct an incorrigible.” She glanced at Marten, before she continued with Stick.

“I tell you frankly, the tank awaits both of you if we fail. But you must never think of the tank as punishment. Indeed not! The tank is merely one of society’s many tools of reform. Unless each of you is reformed, we have failed in our assigned task. I hate failure. It mocks the State, which is the engine that gives the greatest good to the most people. So yes, truth must now step forth so that the proper correctives can be applied to each of you.”

Marten vaguely understood that hoarding food was punishable by death. Not that he planned on turning Stick over to them. To cooperate was the first step toward giving in.

Stick seemed to think about his answer as he gauged the major. “We don’t get along.”

Major Orlov leaned forward. “Indeed. Why did you choose that moment to publicly reveal your dislike?”

Stick hung his head as if defeated. “He spoke profanities.”

Major Orlov sat straighter, her interests obviously engaged. “Marten Kluge spoke to you, verbally?”

Stick nodded miserably. He was a good actor.

Major Orlov scowled and snapped her thick fingers. One of her red-suited killers stepped forward.

“Give me your agonizer.”

The man placed a small disc with a dial into her huge hand. She twisted the setting onto high as the two thugs swung behind Stick and held him fast.

“Mannerisms annoy me. They indicate frivolity.”

She placed the agonizer to his neck. Stick arched his back and winced horribly, but he made no noise other than a croak. Finally, she removed the agonizer and handed it back to the thug.

She addressed Marten. “What did you say to him?”

Marten glowered at the wall.

“My patience is not unlimited, Mr. Kluge.” After a moment, Major Orlov pursed her lips. She asked Stick, “What did he say to you?”

“It don’t matter.”

Her tone turned glacial. “I will determine that.”

“He called me a dirty gook.”

“Ah… a racial epithet?”

“Yeah.”

She swung back to Marten. “That is a serious crime, Mr. Kluge. You shall spend ten days in the tank unless you admit to your racial bigotry and make a formal apology to everyone in squad eleven.”

The glassy look left Marten’s eyes. He grew aware of the conversation, playing it back in his mind, as it were. He glanced at Stick, who wouldn’t meet his gaze. A small, tight smile played on Marten’s lips.

“And what do you find so amusing?” asked the major.

Marten fixed his gaze upon her.

“Here, Mr. Kluge, insolence is a costly attitude to sustain.”

Major Orlov could hurt him, hurt him very much. Despite that, Marten let his contempt for her freeze onto his face.

She flushed. She leaned forward and deliberately slapped him across the face. Marten checked his impulse to leap upon her. Instead, he laughed.

She bolted upright, seemed on the verge of falling upon him and then whispered, “Into the tank with him this very instant.”

8.

Nine-foot tall glass cylinders lined the sides of a sterile auditorium. In the middle stood what seemed to be an emergency medical operating theater, complete with green-clad doctors and nurses. Several interns strolled around a working cylinder.

As he was marched past them, Marten saw green-colored water pouring into the cylinder from the top, splashing upon a naked woman inside. The water swirled up to her thighs. Drenched and wretched she worked the lever of a hand-pump built into the cylinder. At every stroke, water exited via a tube and drained out through the auditorium floor.

Marten’s scrotum tightened and he stumbled.

From behind, Major Orlov steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. He felt her breath on his neck.

“Ten days in there, Mr. Kluge. Either that or speak to me now.”

Marten calculated the fall of the water. It wasn’t gushing, but it was constant. He felt dizzy, lightheaded. He considered the medical unit. They wouldn’t let him die, it seemed. So he steeled himself for the worst and kept repeating in his mind how he’d never give in.

“Foolish,” said Major Orlov, perhaps noting the set of his jaw. “There are constant miscalculations. Often the trainee dies of heart failure. Sometimes the pumping malfunctions and more water pours into the tank than was required. Before anyone can draw the trainee to safety, he or she drowns.”

A small, balding doctor with a clipboard stepped up. He kept blinking his eyes rapidly. He said hello and explained the pump to them, the water temperature—icy—and that at times “elements” were added to the tank to increase the discomfort and thereby help prod the recalcitrant to speedier reform.

“Any questions then?” asked the doctor when he had finished.

Marten stared rigidly ahead.

“He refuses to communicate,” Major Orlov explained.

“Indeed? Interesting.”

“Incorrect, Doctor. It is social maladjustment.”

“True, true.” The doctor, with his right cheek twitching, indicated that Marten should enter the tank. Two beefy interns rolled a platform beside the cylinder. They ripped off Marten’s tunic, attached a harness, lifted him with a winch and released him into the nine-foot tube.

An intense feeling of shame filled Marten. Distorted through the glass he saw Major Orlov and the doctor inspecting him, Orlov pointing at his privates. Marten turned his back on them and studied his surroundings. The glass was cold and the floor was wet and slimy under his bare feet. Above, the interns slotted a stopper over the top.

“Are you ready, Mr. Kluge,” the doctor asked over an intercom.

Marten refused to acknowledge him.

“Hmm, I see. Well, in your case, Mr. Kluge, the simple expedient of verbal communication will end your stay. Otherwise—” the doctor glanced at his clipboard. “Ten days?” he asked Major Orlov. “Is that warranted?”

“You exceed your authority, Doctor.”

“No one has survived ten days in the tank. It’s physically impossible.”

Marten glanced over his shoulder at them.

Major Orlov smiled as her eyes lingered on his buttocks. “Yes, that gained your attention. You are a madman, Mr. Kluge. This time you will have to talk.”

“I must protest,” said the doctor, his cheek twitching.

Major Orlov raised her eyebrows.

After a moment, the doctor backed away, his tic worsening. He turned and strode to his place at the medical center.

Major Orlov regarded Marten once more. “Ten days, Mr. Kluge. My estimation is that you’ll break in three.” She waited a moment longer, glanced at the muscles of his back, then turned and made a gesture to someone.

Water gurgled overhead. Marten glanced up as green-colored water splashed him in the face. He groaned. His facial bones ached as if someone had slammed a board against his face. The water swirled at his feet, crept up his ankles and lapped at his calves faster than he’d expected. He grasped the lever. It was a little higher than waist level. The pump resisted movement. He strained, and he found the angle awkward. Then water sluiced out of the tube at the bottom. He worked faster. More water drained away. He pumped as fast as he could. It was hard, and soon he was gasping. By then, the water was no longer icy.

The intercom came on and Orlov’s voice was insidious. “How long do you think you can keep that up, Mr. Kluge?”

Startled, Marten saw that the major still watched him.

“I must admit that you have an excellent physique. Perhaps there are other ways for you to exit the tube.”

Marten ignored her. The idea of sexually wrestling with the major, a brutal woman lacking all femininity, nauseated him.

So he pumped, and time soon lost all meaning. His muscles ached and after each stroke, he yearned to quit. The hours grew second by agonizing second. Sweat poured. His shoulders, arms and torso felt as if they were afire. His eyes burned from lack of sleep. His stomach growled and gurgled by the minute—he was ravenous. When he wanted water, he tilted his head and drank. When he needed to relieve himself, he did so. A hundred different times he almost turned and shouted that okay, yes, he’d talk. Each time something hard and unyielding inside him refused. From time to time, an intern or doctor passed by, stopped, watched a moment or two, sometimes nodded, sometimes shook their head, often marking a slate and finally strolling on. Twice the major returned. She spoke to him over the intercom. He ignored her until she went away. Minute after minute he levered the handle up and down in stupefying monotony. After twenty-eight hours, sharp pains knifed into his back. He groaned, came close to collapsing, but then he gritted his teeth and pumped on.

Finally, he stopped and let the water cascade upon him. It rose to his thighs, his stomach, up to his chest.

“I suggest you pump quickly, Mr. Kluge,” the doctor said over the intercom. “The water acts as a drag and will make pumping later many times more difficult.”

The work stoppage felt so glorious that Marten almost let the water reach his neck. He didn’t really believe they’d let him drown. Then a sudden and elemental wish to live bid him grasp the pump and move it! Pain exploded in his back and shoulders. His forearms knotted and the lever slipped out of his grasp. A desperate cry tore from the depths of his being. He concentrated on grasping the handle and pumped with a will. Water touched his chin. He pumped as air wheezed down his throat. He pumped as the horrible pain in his forearms receded. He pumped as ever so slowly the water inched down to his chest, his stomach and finally to his mid-thighs. Then he could no longer keep up the ferocious pace. He leveled off and tried to think. It was impossible. Life was one long agonized blur of pain and pumping.

Later, through the distortion of his glass and that of the cylinder beside him, he saw a woman drowning. Her hair floated freely as she banged her fists against the stopper. Marten released his pump and banged on his glass. A nearby intern faced him. Marten pointed at the woman. The intern followed the finger, and his mouth opened in shock. The intern shouted. Marten couldn’t hear the words. Men rushed the platform to the tank.

As Marten pumped, he watched them take her out, carry her to the medical center and work on her. After a short time, the doctor shook his head and covered her face with a blanket. Terror filled Marten. The woman had drowned, died, ceased living! They hadn’t paid enough attention. He became depressed and paranoid. He might die in here. Perhaps he
should
talk. The very idea stole his strength. He felt his pains more than before. His will grew weak.

“What’s the use?” he whispered.

He turned his head to call, but then a burst of pride made him clamp his mouth shut. He pumped the lever. His hands were like lumps and his arm muscles quivered. Air burned down his nostrils. The endless rhythm was agony, and the agony stole pieces of his pride minute after minute. The woman had died. He would die soon. Up and down, up and down. The sheer exhaustion was too much. He couldn’t do this anymore. It was time to give up.

At that precise moment, Major Orlov marched into the room and halted at his cylinder. Perhaps she saw his despair. She grinned, and her eyes roved over his nakedness. Marten closed his eyes, refusing to look at her. But… yes, if that’s what it took. A great and mighty weariness stole over him. He opened his mouth and croaked, “You win.”

In the silence, the water rose around him. Marten opened his eyes. Major Orlov had left. He wildly looked around. She wasn’t in the room.

Marten pumped, and through the fog of exhaustion, he considered what that meant. Slowly, a new form of pride renewed his will and gave him more energy. He checked the wall clock. Thirty hours he’d been here. Could he go ten days?

“Pump,” he whispered.

He did.

At thirty-one hours, a final numbing fog came over Marten.
Just a little longer
, he told himself.

Then a thud, a shiver, shook the room and shook the cylinder. Marten blinked, wondering what had happened. The doctors, nurses and interns looked alarmed and pointed at the ceiling. Marten glanced up. He didn’t understand what caused their concern. Miraculously, the water falling onto his head slowed. It slowed and became a trickle. The trickle stopped. Marten didn’t understand. He didn’t need too. He simply collapsed and fell asleep.

He woke to the sound of interns removing the stopper. Groggily he looked up. They lowered hooks. He grabbed hold and they lifted him.

Major Orlov brooded at the bottom of the platform. Red-uniformed PHC thugs stood beside her.

“This is highly unusual,” the doctor told her.

Major Orlov glared at him. The doctor fidgeted with his clipboard

An intern draped a tunic over Marten. The thugs each grabbed an arm and marched him out of the auditorium and down a hall. Marten could barely walk. The muscles in his back, shoulders and arms had frozen. The thugs deposited him in the interrogation room with the bench. This time, however, Stick wasn’t there. The two held him up. Otherwise, he’d simply have fallen over.

“Your time runs short, Mr. Kluge.”

Marten wasn’t sure, but Major Orlov sounded desperate. A spark of something bade him keep his mouth shut.

“Give me your agonizer.”

Incredibly, the thug seemed reluctant. But at this point, Marten couldn’t be sure about anything.

Major Orlov twisted the setting and touched the agonizer to his chest. Marten bellowed and fell backward.

“I have decided to accelerate the process,” said the major.

The two thugs picked Marten off the floor and set him back on the bench. Smiles twitched across their lips.

Major Orlov lowered the agonizer for another touch. Marten squirmed as they held him tight.