She had a small clipboard in her hand and glanced at it, then up at them.
You three have been consigned to the Melchior Penal Colony, she told them
unnecessarily. These walls and tunnels are incredibly thick and solid; the only
way out is the way you came in. From this point back, there is no place at which
you are not under constant monitoring and observation. Ahead of this point is a
large chamber divided into two sections. The red block of flats off to your
right as you enter is Maximum Security. The dwellings there are comfortable and
self-contained but soundproof and allow only one inmate to a dwelling. Those
inside must stay there. Inside, there is not a single point, not a square
millimeter, that is not constantly under both visual and audio observation by
humans and computers. Nothing, not even human waste, goes out without inspection
and analysis, and nothing comes in except through totally computer-controlled
access ports. You will be able to see inside every one, for the open walls are
forcefields, all individual, but so firm that not even sound can pass through,
and visual is one-way only. Anyone can see in, but you see a blank wall. You do
not want to be in Maximum Security.
They accepted that at face value.
The rest of the area is more communal. In a sense, it is a small town, although
with rigid rules. We monitor the whole but not every specific thing. Rest
assured, though, that we could pick you out of a crowd and eliminate you even in
the most hidden corners, should we choose to do so. The dwellings there are
larger and shared. Because we always know where you are when we want you, we
have no limitations. You will be assigned a communal unit. If one or more of you
moves elsewhere, it is not our problem. Everything used there is designed to
degrade and is disposable. Clothing is not permitted. It is difficult to conceal
a weapon or anything else if all are naked. You will draw everything that you
need from the automated stores in the center area, as well as getting fed there.
You may draw three meals a day that are coded to you, no more. These cannot be
saved up. Eat when you like within this limitation. Cold water is always
available from the central fountain. Questions so far?
There were none.
All right, then, she continued. We run on a twenty-five-hour schedule, which
we have found more conducive to routine in this enclosed place. Everyone sleeps
the same eight hours, marked by a bell sounding and then the lights going dim.
You will be in a dwelling within ten minutes of that bell and before the lights
go down permanently. Anyone out after that or making excessive noise after that
will be severely punished. Anyone ill or injured should report or be reported to
the medical kiosk. Someone will come and tend to you. Those are the only major
rules. You will learn the rest down there from your fellow inmates. When we want
you, we will come and get you. Violence, resistance to our authority, or
anything we determine as troublemaking will get you into Maximum Security and
move you up to the head of the list for laboratory experimentation. Many inmates
are already veterans of experimentation. Look at them and remember the price.
Now, there is just one more process, and you will enter. This will be your home
from now until you die, so adjust to it and accept it. Go through that door now,
one at a time. You may wait for your companions on the other side.
There was a small chamber, dimly lit by a greenish glow, beyond the door. A
technician’s voice said, Step onto the little platform there and lean your
whole face and body into the fabric stretched in front of it. Remain that way
until I tell you differently.
It was like a spidery thin but incredibly dense mesh. Hawks pressed into it as
directed and felt a similar substance close behind him. A sudden very bright
light flared all around him, and he closed his eyes, the afterimage remaining.
He felt a sudden, intense, burning pain across his back and on his face as well.
He almost cried out but controlled himself. He would show no weakness.
It was over quickly. The mesh fell away, and the technician ordered him to go
forward and out the security door. Still a bit stunned and feeling some residual
pain on his back and face, he looked around and saw his first glimpse of the
true heart of the Middle Dark.
In the Hyiakutt religion there were many spirits and many levels of magic and
mysticism. There was but one god, all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-powerful, the
Creator, the Father Spirit in whose image humanity had been created. Below the
Creator were two levels of spirits set to do His will and protect His domain:
the spirits of nature, and then the least of spirits, those of His most complex
creation, humanity.
There was, of course, an opposite force, which the Creator allowed because He
had created man as an experiment, perhaps as a game, to amuse and interest Him
but also to be more complex companions. The human spirit was the least, yet it
could rise higher than the fixed spirits if it worshiped the Creator, respected
His creations, understood that the Creator made and alone owned all things, and
showed himself worthy in courage and honor to rise above the middle spirits.
Without evil, without pain and temptation, humans would be as the middle
spirits; defeating those things could make them worthy of the Creator’s company.
For this reason the Dark had been formed and allowed to reign where it could.
Humans were born into the Outer Darkness, subject to the forces of evil as well
as good. By making their spirits shine with deeds, they could dispel it.
Against this were the spirits of the Middle Dark, those that corrupted both
human spirits and nature, and below it the Inner Dark, the place from which all
evil came and where One lived whose Hyiakutt name translated out roughly to
Corruption. It was a formidable enemy, for it had to be, in order to test
humans. Without a worthy foe, the struggle, too, was worthless.
Hawks felt he was in the domain of the Middle Dark, although he had little
religious faith or feeling. Now he knew it was real, for here it was. If such
diverse and disconnected cultures as those of the Hyiakutt and Dante could feel
the same contest and see the same visions through their individual cultural
filters, then it did exist. Now he understood the odd, subconscious bond he’d
always felt between that ancient foreign poet and himself. Culture masked
truth—but there could be only one truth.
When Cloud Dancer emerged, he saw on her what they had done to him. Her pretty
face and coppery skin had been marked on the cheeks with a bright silvery
design, a line that began pencil-thin under the eyes and broadened out into a
solid curve that bent back in on itself and ended as tiny little tendrils or
even flowers. The design seemed to drink in light; he was certain it would
retain some and glow in the dark, perhaps for a very long time. When she touched
his face, and he hers, their fingers felt only skin, yet the design seemed
inset, permanent, almost like a nameplate set into a piece of furniture or
machinery. It was actually rather pretty and not at all disfiguring in the usual
sense, but both had the feeling that the thing would not wear off. Silent
Woman’s identical markings were the most natural looking, although the shiny
silver clashed with her muted reds, greens, blues, and oranges.
Hawks understood what it was for. One might impersonate someone in authority,
perhaps steal clothing or the proper uniform; one might try all sorts of tricks,
but one would never hide his or her face routinely without drawing attention. In
the darkness of some of the tunnels, you would even glow in the dark, making a
perfect target. He wouldn’t be at all surprised, he thought, if the tattoo
contained some synthetic mineral that could be automatically tracked by sensors,
probably specific and unique to each individual. That was how they could pick
out and shoot a troublemaker even in a crowd. On their backs, between their
shoulder blades, was a bar of the same silvery material, going almost from
shoulder to shoulder and about five centimeters thick. Within it, in black, was
embedded a long string of characters in a language even Hawks did not know, but
it was clearly a prison file number and identifier. It looked somehow
superfluous on the back of Silent Woman.
These are the demon brands so that we shall be known everywhere, Cloud Dancer
noted. Even should we leave here, we would carry their mark for all to see.
He nodded. That’s about it. He turned and looked over the interior of the
prison complex. It is a grayer underworld than I had imagined.
Cloud Dancer nodded grimly. It is the worst of things. A place where all beauty
and nature had been banished, all joy and all hope. A place without colors.
The entire semicircle could be viewed from the entrance. Walls, floor, and
ceiling were all gray. The natural rock was gray, and all else had been painted
or manufactured to match it so that it all blended into a plain nothingness. The
cells, or dwellings, or whatever they might be called, were along three sides
from floor to ceiling, rising up at least four stories in a stepped design.
They, too, were gray, although dull lights shone from each doorway. The only
color was the flat and dull red of one block set off from the others to their
right. The cells there had no doorways, just three-sided frames looking to the
interiors, which were brightly lit, the very walls glowing with illumination.
Each was a single room with cot, toilet, sink, and nothing else except, in most
of them, a lone occupant either sitting silently or pacing.
Below the dwellings, the area continued to be stepped; the lower levels were
broad and somewhat rough-hewn and were basically featureless. The concentric
rings formed an eerie rock amphitheater without seats or ornamentation. In the
center was a broad oval in which a number of cube-like buildings sat, all
equally dull and gray.
There were people about; a rather large number, it seemed, some in the area of
the central cubes but most just along the broad steps or wandering aimlessly
about. The lighting was indirect, its source the rocky ceiling of the chamber,
and though little could be made out of individual humans from where the
newcomers stood, little reflective glints off backs and faces told them that
everyone here had the mark.
A man approached them. It was impossible to guess his age, but he was thin and
light of build. He was so fair of skin that the two women, who had never seen
humans from northern Europe, at first thought he was a walking dead man. He had
incredibly thick light blond hair flowing down almost to his waist but no facial
hair as Hawks might have expected from one of this man’s race. His complexion
was fairer than a baby’s, although in a number of places he had some ugly
bruises that showed up particularly well on his light skin. His cheeks bore the
same silver design as theirs; the bar on his back was masked by his hair.
Hello, the stranger said in a gentle low tenor. My name is Hendrik van Dam,
although most here just call me Blondy, particularly the Englishers and the
others who speak it. He had a mild but pleasant north European accent. I was
told to meet you and get you settled. He paused for a moment. English is all
right, is it not? I was told—
No, English is fine, Hawks responded. It is the only common tongue we have. I
am called Jonquathar, which means Runs With the Night Hawks. Mostly I am just
called Hawks, although in some circles where English is required, I am also
called Jon Nighthawk. These are my wives, Chaudipatu, or Cloud Dancer in
English, and the painted one we call Masituchi, or Silent Woman, since she has
no tongue to tell us how she was truly called.
You are of the Americas, I believe, van Dam noted. We get very few of your
people here, although some are sent. He sighed. I would bid you welcome, only
that seems a bit out of place.
Hawks nodded understandingly. That is very true.
I have a number for your assigned quarters, although we should go down to the
shops first. You should eat something and relax a bit, then draw your bedding
and supplies there before going up. I am afraid that seniority reigns here, so
you are up top and off to the side. They are all really the same inside, so
otherwise it does not matter. When you have nothing, the most trivial things
become important, as you will see.
Cloud Dancer looked over to her left as they descended a rough rock staircase
and gasped. That couple over there—are they making love right there?
Oh, yes, van Dam replied casually. You will see a lot of it, some of it quite
passionate and some extremely nontraditional—some would say aberrant or
abnormal.
But—everyone is just ignoring them!
We are given nothing here. We can possess nothing. There is no reading matter,
nothing to use for art or to record, not even things for sport. You spend much
time talking here, but eventually you get talked out. It looks big, but the
community is actually quite small, although there’s some small turnover. There
is some intimidation by the rougher sorts, but it is relatively mild here since
they have no way of enforcing their will except through violence, and violence
in here is strictly and severely punished. So you do what you can. You quickly