The Empty Warrior (58 page)

Around the perimeter of the circular chamber were more of the lizard machines, their engines all idling at a low rumble, the sound ricocheting off the hard walls in a way that made the noise much more ominous than it should have been. The effect was a thundering cacophony that seemed to come from everywhere at once. O’Keefe saw several men glance nervously up at the lights, as if behind their glow were hidden even more unseen dangers.

The air was thick with diesel fumes, so thick the hanging pall was clearly visible even against the gray backdrop of the chamber walls. The floating toxins were enough to cause irritated eyes to water and dry throats to burn. The haze induced convulsive fits of coughing that wracked the men’s lungs but could scarcely be heard over the din the running engines produced.

O’Keefe, with Steenini and Lindy, held back, letting other prisoners be herded toward the front to occupy the squares of the line closest to the stage. Once the dogs had pushed enough men forward to fill the first few rows, the three advanced and picked out a trio of squares as near to the center of the pattern as possible.

Behind them, one man couldn’t take any more. Screaming, he fell to his knees, raving about what could and could not be done to him. A lizard guard broke ranks from the surrounding cordon, drove forward, scattering the prisoners before it, and speared the man as he rose and tried to flee into the crowd. It dragged the shrieking prisoner across the floor until it had backed into its original spot, then winched in the spear until the dying man was held almost upright before the lizard’s steel hull. The man’s cries gradually lost their intensity as a bit of blood gurgled up from his throat, staining his chin red a moment before he died. The reptiles took no note of it. They let the man’s impaled and bloody corpse hang limply on the lance as a warning to the others. It was not ignored. The remaining prisoners queued up in the painted squares quickly and without comment, filling each row completely before starting to line up in the next.

“What now?” O’Keefe asked Steenini, nearly yelling to be heard over the noise.

“Now we meet Elorak,” Steenini yelled back, nodding toward the stage. “And here the bitch comes.”

From a hidden entry off to the left of the gallery a human female strode out, followed by a robot that looked like a larger version of a warder, only much more menacing. It hovered just above and behind her like an unwedded succubus. And suddenly, at the woman’s first steps out onto the stage, the engines of the lizard guards all shut down as if they were all on the same circuit of a single kill switch. The auditorium fell silent save for the coughing of the prisoners.

The woman on stage was reed thin and pale as a phantasm, dressed only in a pair of thigh-high black leather boots and clinging ebony gloves that stretched nearly to her armpits. Her long black hair was pushed through a metallic band at the top of her head, the straggly ends falling limply to the middle of her back. But the tangled strands never touched her skin; they hung in the air as if pushed away from her body by static electricity. Around her neck was a thick black collar fronted with a large silver medallion. But despite her torso and head being bare, O’Keefe could distinguish little of her facial features and could not bring her body into focus at all. Her pubic hair was merely a black blur while he could not detect her breasts at all beyond the cloudy brown spots where her nipples should have been. It was as if she walked in a deep haze of shimmering heat.

“What in blazes is that?” O’Keefe breathed.

“Body shield,” whispered Steenini from beside him. “See the collar? The emblem is the generator. The power pack hangs down her back; it is beneath her hair. The field is held in place by containment rings at the top of her boots, the top of her gloves, and the one in her hair, so her head and trunk are completely protected. The gloves and boots cover armored limbs; there is no flesh beneath. She’s a quadruple amputee, apparently wounded and then rebuilt in typical Vazilek fashion—best fit for fighting and not much else.

“Looking at her strictly from that point of view, she is really quite impressive. If you were well armed enough, you could maybe take off an appendage of two before she killed you, but she would merely retreat to her quarters afterward to be repaired. You could also perhaps cook her inside the shield or maybe overload the generator, but you would need thirty men with blasters to do it. And since there are no blasters in Ashawzut except for the one she carries, she is for all practical purposes invulnerable. And that is not to mention her assault robot; it follows her everywhere.”

“What’s with the nudity?”

“Shielding adheres to the contours of the body, emanating outward from the skin. Conventional clothing would either slide off or balloon up in tatters around her. She could wear something thick, elastic, and skin tight, but it would hold in the heat, and body shielding is near unbearably hot. A few minutes at a time would be all she could bear wearing something like that. Besides, I think she rather likes showing off. You’ll find she is no shrinking violet.”

On the stage behind Elorak, about fifty prisoners, all obviously veteran inhabitants of Ashawzut, filed out of the same opening from which she had entered. They made their way across the stage and down the stairs to the floor where they formed a line facing the new arrivals. The woman stood glowering down at all of them from the left center of the stage, feet spread wide and hands clasped behind her back. She remained there, motionless, for nearly a minute, trying, O’Keefe thought, to make a grandiose impression.

At last the woman spoke, her voice somehow artificially amplified so that it boomed out over the men. “Welcome to Ashawzut,” she said, her voice ringing with contempt. “My name is Mada Elorak, and I am your new goddess. You are now my slaves. You will worship me as the provider and keeper of your lives. You will fear me as the likely instrument of your deaths, while I shall do with you whatever strikes my fancy at any given moment.

“Your choices here are simple. Do as you are told and live, or disobey and die. If you work and obey for long enough and with enough fervor, you may be allowed to leave this place, to seek healthier climes where you may better serve the glory of our eternal Dominion. If you do not, you will live within these stone walls until death overtakes your putrid bodies or until I burn the vile and worthless vitality from your veins. And even then your bones will bleach under the blazing sun of this rock. The only escape from Ashawzut is through my largesse.

“There are many rules to be followed here in Ashawzut, but one rule is paramount above all others. And that is that you will obey me as you would a deity. You will obey me without question or hesitation. You will obey me unflinchingly, reflexively, and instinctively. You will obey me no matter what the cost to yourselves or to others. Failure to do so merits punishment, and punishment means pain and most likely death. What follows will be your first lesson in obedience; pay careful attention.”

In unison, three of the veteran inmates turned one hundred eighty degrees and marched away from the line of their compatriots to the stairs, ascending them shoulder to shoulder until they reached the stage, where they turned as one to face Elorak.

“Whenever I come within ten feet of you, you will prostrate yourself on the ground with your forehead touching stone, like so.” She sauntered over to the three men, and as she neared they all fell to their knees and touched their heads to the ground with their arms outstretched before them.

She maundered slowly closer to them and then looked out over the crowd before speaking again. “This is the very least that will be expected of you,” she said. “These three men have caught my eye with their diligence. They have expressed a desire to join the ranks of my favorites, but I expect more than meaningless cringing from those closest to me. Therefore they shall be tested.” She turned to the men crouching before her and roughly kicked the head of the one closest to the edge of the stage. “Lick my boot,” she commanded, shoving the pointed toe of her footwear between the man’s face and the floor. At once he began to lap at the leather like a cat cleaning itself. She allowed him to continue for almost thirty seconds before pulling her foot away.

“Oh, this just won’t do,” she said sarcastically, malevolently, as she sidled to her left to stand before the middle man of the three. “Now the top of my boot is clean, but its sole is still dirty.” She propped the boot up on its stiletto heel in front of the second man’s head. “You!” she screeched. “Clean the sole of my boot.” Immediately, the second man crawled forward and pressed his chin as far under the bottom of her boot as possible and proceeded to swab the dirt from its sole with his tongue. Elorak looked on, and although her expressions were muddied by the gauzy overlay of her shielding, O’Keefe would have sworn that she was grinning with delight. This time the spectacle was drawn out for almost a full minute.

She moved to the last man, stepping on his hand with the boot that had just been licked clean. “This is intolerable,” she said, dropping to her haunches. “Now that my boot is clean, the floor is too dirty to walk on.” Grabbing the last man my by an ear, she jerked his head up and gazed into his face, sneering. Sweat broke out across the prisoner’s forehead, whether from fear or his proximity to Elorak’s shielding O’Keefe could not say. She spoke slowly to the man, threats oozing from every syllable. “So get your worthless, stinking tongue on this floor and clean me a spot to place my boot!” As she spoke the last word she violently pushed the man’s head to the ground, where he dutifully began to lick the dirt from the floor. She stood, her foot still atop the man’s hand, and waited.

Anger, revulsion, and dread rose up in O’Keefe; anger at Mada Elorak, revulsion at the scene before him, and dread that someday he might find himself in the same position as the man who now so eagerly cleansed the floor with his tongue.
That would mean the end of my life
, he thought,
because there is no way I would lick the floor for that woman
. He leaned over to Steenini and whispered just loud enough for him to hear. “That bitch needs to
die
.”

Steenini looked up at him out of the corner of his eye and grinned ruefully. “Wait,” he said. “She is far from finished. By the time she’s done here you’ll want to run a spit down the length of her spine and slowly roast her alive.”

On stage, Elorak had apparently decided that she had grandstanded enough for one session and scornfully dismissed the three prisoners, ordering them back to their places in line. As they descended the stairs, she once again addressed the assembly.

“The demeanor these slaves have just shown in my almighty presence is the kind of obeisance that will be demanded of you at all times, from this moment forward, until the day of your death. There are no other alternatives open to you. The demonstration you have just witnessed should be enough to teach you the necessary skills to survive here or in any other part of the Dominion, but it has been my experience that you Akadeans are, intellectually speaking, dullards. You are quite simply dim-witted and slow. You don’t seem to heed instruction as carefully as you should unless that instruction is repeated time and time again. Therefore you too will be tested.”

She proceeded to the staircase and descended it regally, her backbone straight and her posture perfect as she made her way slowly to the floor. The assault robot followed as if in tow. When she reached the base of the stairs, her line of toadies began to drop to the floor. Their example was followed by the new arrivals, including O’Keefe, Steenini, and Lindy, as Elorak moved closer to the front ranks, stepping lightly over her kowtowing favorites as she walked. Suddenly she stopped, glowering at the shorn pate of a prostrate neophyte in the front row. “You there,” she screamed vehemently. “Square number forty-two. You were pitifully slow. Did I not make it clear to you that you are to grovel at my approach? That means instantly, not at your leisure!”

O’Keefe could barely hear the man’s voice as he whimpered an apology. But it was to no avail. It only served to inflame Elorak all the more. She stomped over to the man and screeched at him in fury.

“Who gave you permission to speak? You will be silent!” She then kicked Forty-two several times as hard as she was able. O’Keefe could hear him moaning in pain. When she was finished, she stalked away toward the stairs, pausing only long enough at their base to scream “Bring him!”

Just the shrieking madness that was her voice was enough to paint the woman indelibly onto O’Keefe’s mind in wide, bright swathes the color of insanity. His forehead throbbed against the stone floor as his heart raced in fear, less for himself than for Forty-two. He had no idea what was about to happen, but Steenini’s warnings had made it clear that it was not going to be pleasant, and that Forty-two was soon to depart from this life.

As Elorak mounted the stairs the same three men that had earlier been abused by her jumped to their feet and rushed toward the new prisoners. They pulled Forty-two to his feet and half carried him across the floor, up the stairs, and on to the stage. All four of them knelt and touched their heads to stone as soon as Elorak turned to face them. As they cowered before her, she bade the rest of her audience back to their feet. Clearly she wanted everyone in attendance to see what she planned to perpetrate on the poor wretch that had been unlucky enough to occupy square number forty-two.

“Stand up, Forty-two,” she commanded.

The man clambered to his feet. He stood snuffling and swallowing as he stared at the boots on his feet. “Not fast enough, Forty-two,” Elorak hissed. “On your knees, head to the ground, now!” Again the woman seemed to be on the brink of losing control.