Mag Force - Hung Out Part 12

Petronella stared, startled, excited, and gratified.

First the phone call. Now this.

Hurriedly she brought up the message.

Complete the daily quiz and win a free, all-expense-paid trip to Adonia, vacation paradise!

"How very interesting," said Petronella. A lamp tipped over, then righted itself due to the strong spring attached to its base. She ignored it, scrolled down to the first question.

Name the twenty-fourth letter of the English alphabet in use during the twentieth century.

Petronella had flunked ancient history. She brought up her encyclopedia, entered the requisite information, and there was the answer.

X. The same as in their current alphabet. She supplied the letter, and a yellow circle with eyes and an insipid smile appeared on the screen.

Congratulations! You have answered the first question correctly. Move on to Question 2.

Well, at least she'd learned something today. She went to the next question.

Definition: Of persons: Doing no evil; free from moral wrong, sin, or guilt (in general); pure, unpolluted. What is the word?

Petronella pondered a moment, then typed in Innocent.

Again, the grinning yellow circle.

You have correctly answered two questions: X, Innocent. Proceed to question three.

The first letter of the Roman alphabet.

Even Petronella knew that one. She typed in A. Her screen lit with starbursts and, appropriately, Roman candles.

Question Four: A word that describes Benedict Arnold. Soldier in North America, Earth, late eighteenth century.

Petronella typed in GNN news reporter, but no fireworks erupted. The yellow circle appeared again, but this time the mouth was frowning. It looked gravely disappointed in her.

Wrong. Try again.

Petronella again had to retreat to the encyclopedia, where she located Arnold. She typed in American, but the unhappy yellow circle informed her she had once more chosen incorrectly. Studying the information, she at last tried Traitor.

She made the yellow circle very happy.

The next two questions were back to the alphabet.

Fourth letter in the alphabet, it originated in an Egyptian hieroglyph that represented a hand.

That turned out to be D.

The next question was rather puzzling.

What is the first initial of your name?

Petronella entered R, and apparently that was correct At least the yellow circle thought so.

And finally, the last question.

If you are not dead, you are?

Alive, typed Petronella.

Fireworks burst on her screen in dazzling colors. Rockets whizzed past. Bombsh.e.l.ls exploded.

You're a winner! appeared, followed by a summary of the winning answers: X, Innocent A, Traitor D, R, Alive Petronella sucked in a breath.

"Well, well, well," she murmured. "Imagine that."

And there on the screen was an E-ticket for a first-cla.s.s seat on the next s.p.a.ce transport leaving for Adonia.

Petronella typed a single word to a special code known only to her and Andrew Robison: Success.

Then she put in a call.

"McCarthy? Petronella here. I'm not feeling very good. I'm going to take a few days' leave...."

CHAPTER 12.

... I have heard the key.

Turn in the door once and turn once only We think of the key, each in his prison Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison.

Thomas Stearns Eliot, The Waste Land "I said I didn't want any visitors."

The guard grunted. "In case you hadn't noticed, X447/990, this is a prison cell, this is a force field, this device"a" he exhibited a stun-sticka""is my little persuader. Not one of us gives a d.a.m.n what you want. You got a visitor. On your feet." The guard grinned maliciously. "Or should I say, foot? Hurry it up."

Xris leveraged himself up from the metal cot form on which he'd been lying. He moved slowly, not out of defiancea"defiance doesn't quite come off when you have only half a bodya"but because it was impossible for him to move fast.

"I said hurry." The guard waved the stun-stick close to Xris's shoulder.

"You want me to hurry, give me back my leg and turn my juice on." Xris reached out his good hand, fumbled for the metal crutch leaning against the wall.

The crutch slipped out of Xris's grasp and fell to the steel floor with a clang, landing just out of Xris's reach. The guard wasn't a total b.a.s.t.a.r.d, apparently. He shoved the crutch with his foot, sent it scooting toward Xris.

"Thanks," Xris said as he leaned over to pick up the crutch.

A jolt of electricity tingled painfully from his shoulder down his good arm, causing the hand reaching for the crutch to jerk spasmodically.

"What the h.e.l.l was that for?" Xris demanded, rubbing his shoulder.

"Just in case you had any ideas about using that crutch for a club," the guard responded.

"I didn't until now," Xris muttered. "Much obliged."

The guard didn't respond. He waved the stun-stick. "Move it, X447."

Xris slid his cybernetic arm through the rings of the crutch, grasped the handle, and, after a few misses and with no help at all from the guard, managed to struggle to an upright position. He lurched forward awkwardly, lost his balance, and came cras.h.i.+ng up against the wall. He hadn't yet become accustomed to the crutch.

He'd be d.a.m.ned if he was ever going to become accustomed to it.

At last Xris managed to hobble out of his cell. The guard followed him. When he didn't think Xris was moving fast enough, he sent another jolt sizzling into Xris's right b.u.t.t cheek. His good leg went frighteningly numb for a split second. He teetered, fought to retain his balance, determined not to give the guard the satisfaction of seeing him fall, not if it took every ounce of strength left in his body. He held on.

"Cut the sympathy act," said the guard, growing bored with his game. "And get moving."

Xris limped along the tubelike corridor of the holding center, blinking in the bright blue-white fluorescent light that beat down from the ceiling and shone up through the floor grates. The same blue-white sterile light lit the prison cells that lined the corridor. Darkness was a privilege, one that the prisoners were denied. They learned to sleep with the light on or they didn't sleep.

The other prisoners awaiting transportation looked out their cells as Xris stumped past. Most of the other prisoners were too preoccupied with their own miseries to pay any attention to his, but as he was walking slowly and painfully past one of the last cells in the block, the prisoner stood up, moved over to stand close to the force field that kept them inside.

"Hey, cyborg," said the prisoner in a loud voice that carried clearly up and down the corridor. "I hear you were a cop."

This news had every man in the cellblock on his feet, peering out his cell, trying to see.

Xris ignored them, shuffled ahead.

"Hey! Maybe you still are a cop, huh?" the prisoner called out. "Maybe you're a f.u.c.kin' spy!"

"You know what happens to f.u.c.kin' spies, cyborg?" another prisoner shouted. "They get their f.u.c.kin' necks broke!"

"Yeah, you better be real careful, cyborg. You might trip and have a nasty fall someday. A real nasty fall."

Xris reached the end of the cellblock. He was now out of sight of the other prisoners, and their threats died off to mutterings and harsh laughter.

"Good thing you're s.h.i.+pping out of here tomorrow," observed the guard.

"It won't matter," Xris said. "The news will get to Sandusky's Rock."

"Yeah, you're right." The guard was laconic. "I wouldn't want to be in your shoes. Make that shoe." He grinned, gestured with the stun-stick. "In here."

Xris entered another tube, this one vertical, and so small that he could barely squeeze his broad shoulders into it. The door slid shut. A light came on. He was being scanneda"inside and outa"for weapons.

The scan complete, the door slid open on the opposite side of the tube. Two guards were waiting for him. They took hold of him, helped him step out. These guards were armed with beam rifles, not stun-sticks. They entered another tubelike corridor. Xris expected to be taken into the visitors' tanks, so called because they were designed like fish tanks, with the prisoner and his visitor peering at one another through steelgla.s.s, talking via commlinks.

The guards marched Xris right past the tanks, however.

"What gives?" Xris asked. "Where are we going? I thought someone said I had a visitor."

The guards didn't answer. No snappy foot jokes from these guys. They were all business. They exited the cell-blocks, moved down a quiet, more soothingly lit corridor, and entered the administrative wing of the facility. Judging by the curious glances and a few startled looks from the employees, it was not customary for prisoners to be in this part of the complex.

Xris pa.s.sed a window, glanced out to see a gra.s.sy lawn, sun s.h.i.+ning, trees. A picnic table was set up on the lawn. Several employees were basking in the sun, taking their coffee break. He tried to steer close to the window, which was open a crack, hoping for ... what? Not escape. The very idea was ludicrous. The window was likely made of steelgla.s.s. It would take a missile to smash through it. What was he after?

Nothing much. Just a whiff of fresh air. A need to smell something besides sweaty bodies, urine, and disinfectant.

The alert guard spotted the move, was having none of it He stepped between Xris and the window, shoved Xris back brutally and impersonally, using the b.u.t.t end of the beam rifle.

"Wrong way," he said.

The guards marched Xris to a room that was probably not normally used for meeting visitors, but had obviously been chosen with great care. There were no windows, no vents, and only one door. All the furniture had been removed, except for two metal chairs.

Escorting Xris into the room, the guards pushed him down into one of the chairs. They took his crutch from him, placed a restrainer on his good leg, another on his good hand, then left. The restrainers short-circuited all nerve impulses in his foot and his hand. Xris tried wiggling his fingers, but they refused to obey. Helpless, he sat alone in the room and waited.

The wait wasn't long. The door opened. A man entered, accompanied by a guard. The man looked at Xris. Xris looked at the man. Neither said anything. The man glanced around the room, nodded once in satisfaction.

"This will do."

The guard nodded, left the room. The door shut behind him. There was a slight thump as he and the other guard took up positions outside the door.

The man walked over to the other chair, moved it around so that it faced Xris. But instead of seating himself, the man reached into the pocket of his expensive suit and took out a small device, which he placed on the floor at his feet. Xris recognized the devicea"a sonic scrambler. Within a two-meter circle around the device, sound traveled normally. Outside of that, the device would distort sound waves. Someone might hear their conversation, but no one would understand it.

The two regarded each other in silence, then Xris said, "h.e.l.lo, Amadi."

"h.e.l.lo, Xris," Amadi returned with a tired smile. He blinked his eyes against the light. "It was a long flight."

"My heart bleeds," Xris said. "The blood's fake, but it's the thought that counts."

"Always the smart-a.s.s. How are you? Anything you need?"

"A twist. You haven't got one on you, by any chance?"

"Sorry, smoking's not allowed. Smoking's not allowed on Sandusky's Rock, either, I hear. But then, smoking's a bad habit. It could shorten your life."

"So could a lot of things. Disrupters, for one. My fellow inmates, for another. Have you come all this way to talk about my bad habits, boss?"

"I've come to talk about murder," Amadi replied. "The murder of Dalin Rowan. Mind if I sit down?"

"You can fly around the room backward for all I care," Xris said, adding, "You know I didn't murder Rowan. You know that n.o.body murdered Rowana"although the Hung have tried. Twice. So why have me arrested? If you think you'll make me turn over Rowan, forget it. I'll do twenty years on Sandusky's Rock before I tell you where to find him."

"Don't you mean her?" Amadi asked, with a quirk of his eyebrow.

Xris didn't answer.

"Twenty years," Amadi mused. Leaning back, he asked conversationally, "Do you know anything about our penal colony there?"

Xris shrugged, noncommittal.

"Let me tell you. It's an asteroid. They don't mine ore on Sandusky's Rock. They mine ice. Which means it's cold on that asteroid, Xris. I hear that you never get used to the cold. You always feel it.