but he could not place himself in the position of that girl. He felt as if he
were looking at things from the viewpoint of an outside observer.
He had little time to dwell on this right away, for the guards were sticking
solidly to their schedule. Chu Li and Deng Ho were placed in handcuffs and short
leg irons and marched rudely through corridors, checkpoints, and safeguards to
the main entrance, where a squad of black-clad regular security police awaited
them.
They’re all yours, Lieutenant, the chief guard said, sounding not the least
bit sorry. We’ve put them through the mill and taught them some manners. Good
riddance.
The lieutenant just nodded, and both men pressed their thumbs on the receiving
board to signify the transfer.
All right, you two, the new captor said to the boys. No trouble, now. I don’t
know what they did to you in there, and I don’t care. Legally, you are no longer
citizens of the Community or even human beings. You are cattle, the property of
the System Administrative Council, and they can and will do with you as they
wish, as can I as their deputy. Not a word out of you, now; follow me.
They were led out to a landing bay where a skimmer awaited them. They got in and
were surprised to find two girls already seated there, both in the same prison
garb they themselves wore. Neither girl turned to look at them but just sat
quiet and sullen. Chu Li thought he saw some sort of scar or welt on the face of
the one closest to him, but then he was chained in his seat and could look only
forward.
The large passenger skimmer lifted quickly into the air, took its assigned exit
trajectory, and smoothly cleared the dome, then rose to cruising altitude. As
the skimmer gained speed, the boys were pushed back into their seats.
They wanted to talk to the girls, who were seated in front of them, but a few
nasty whacks from a guard’s leather stick produced silence. Chu Li had nothing
to do but settle back and think.
Why did he have this strange girl’s memories? What had they done to him in there
and why? He tried to relax and sort out what he could of this alien information.
The Lord Buddha protect him! She’d been the daughter of the chief administrator!
The very bastard who had ordered the massacre of his people! And she had been
there!
He compared his own memories to hers. Darkness, sudden cold, people screaming
and running, shots all over, illuminating the dark. One shot catches his sister
and burns her upper half to melted goo. All the time she had been up there, in
the officer’s skimmer, enjoying every moment and wanting to get down and get
into the battle herself, to shoot some of his people. It had been nothing but a
game to her, an amusing entertainment.
The more he examined her memories and attitudes, the more he hated her. People
were mere objects to her, toys for her amusement or fools to play off each other
for her gain. Rich, pampered, spoiled, and arrogant, she was a. most unpleasant
person, the very kind he had always been taught ruled the world. Such beauty and
such genius. Such evil.
How he would like to get hold of her, rip off her fine clothes, dress her in
rags, exchange her jasmine perfume for sweat and dung, make her the lowest
peasant slave, show her what it felt like to be brutalized. She and her whole
cursed family. It was they who should have been on this ship going to some deep
hell, not the ones who were here.
But what were her memories doing in his mind? Some kind of mistake? She had been
at Center herself, it seemed, and not as a visitor or voyeur but to be remade
into a good noble’s wife and breeder. It was too kind a fate for her, but it was
at least a step toward justice. She had been an expert at computers; she had
examined his people’s discoveries. Had her old memories and knowledge gotten
mixed in with his in that computer by some mistake? It was possible. It was also
possible that she had managed this herself, to save her knowledge even as they
were stripping clean her soul. If so, it was justice that the daughter of his
people’s murderer should inadvertently pass on that knowledge to one of her
victims.
He now had that knowledge, including the actual way to steal a spaceship, and he
hoped he could use it. It would be the ultimate revenge on her if she was
mentally . made over into a prim little wife while he, whose people had made
these discoveries and had been destroyed while she watched and thrilled at the
spectacle, was somehow able to use that to escape.
It was all too evil to him and too disturbing. His grandfather long ago had
taught him an ancient mental discipline, one which gave control of thoughts and
memories and could even fool the big computers for periods of time. His people
had survived with it and escaped detection for a generation, and he now applied
it to another aim. It was a form of self-hypnosis, but it was more than that; it
was a mystical thing that worked by will and concentration and the Ten
Exercises. He wanted her out. He wanted all traces of her banished from his
conscious mind, save only the computer knowledge and skill and the secrets she
knew. She would give up her knowledge, skills, and discoveries, but then he
would have the pleasure at least of killing her in his mind.
But for the first time in his memory, the mental discipline did not really work.
It distanced the girl’s memories a bit more, but she was still there.
The skimmer flew over vast, rocky desert and eerie tablelands, then began to
slow and descend. Atop one desolate plateau there was a huge blocky complex, and
to one side, rising up like a temple spire, was a spaceship. It could be seen
clearly against the morning sky; the pilot pointed it out through the broad
front windscreen of the skimmer. Chu Li brought himself out of the Ten Exercises
to see what the excitement was about and got somewhat excited himself.
Space! They are exiling us to space!
They settled down so slowly and so close to the spaceship that it went by the
front windows in dramatic fashion. Finally the door opened,-and the security
lieutenant unbuckled himself and got out, carrying the security identifier
from.Center. After greeting the other security officials, he immediately
inserted the module into the space center systems slot. This way, the four young
people would be identified by security records and systems as outbound
prisoners. It was also another link in the computer-engineered masquerade: Now
the spaceport records would show Chu Li as he now appeared, with the current
Chu Li’s fingerprints and eyeprints. The spaceport was tied directly into Master
System; therefore, the Center security computer had encoded a correction program
showing initial data errors and reversing the prints of Song Ching and Chu Li.
Her body was now totally identified and registered as Chu Li, 15, male, born in
Paoting, Hopeh Province, apprehended in illegal activity, Chamdo Province, and
declared Property of the State; remanded to Melchior Research and Detention
facility until death. As the real Chu Li no longer existed, not even in trace,
Song Ching was about to vanish impossibly and forever—and heads would roll for
it.
When the prisoners were ordered out, the boys got their first clear look at the
girls, both of whom looked downcast and old beyond their years. There were scars
on their faces. Ugly ones.
They were marched inside and down a busy corridor, past many eyes staring at
them from offices, to an elevator, then taken to an upper-level detention area.
It had clearly not been designed as such; there were barred gates at either end
of a short corridor monitored by cameras as well as by human guards, but the
four cells were little more than barren, unfinished offices in which had been
placed some army mattresses that looked as if they’d seen work and a small
commode not attached to plumbing but containing a pitcher of water and some
plastic glasses. They were told that if they needed to eliminate they were to
yell for a guard and that one would be along to take them one at a time to the
lone toilet on the floor.
To Chu Li’s surprise, he was pushed into a cell with one of the girls. This is
not proper! he protested.
The guard grinned. My orders were to split that pair up. They have a real way
with locks and stuff. Go ahead and have some fun if you’re old enough to know
what I mean. We don’t care.