You should question them ruthlessly. We of the Tlar race are a stubborn people. We don’t break easily.”
In the main levels of the citadel, Asan expected the soldiers to take him outside immediately. Instead they carried him through the reception hall. He got only glimpses of more humans standing armed about the room, weapons trained upon the huddled knots of silent Tlar’n. The matriarchal dais was empty. Many of the fires in the braziers had gone out. The room was cold.
Asan began to feel sick again. He shivered, struggling to hold back a moan. The increased discomfort meant the stun was beginning to wear off. He could even move a couple of his fingers although he felt so bad he didn’t much care.
Worse, however, was the gasp he heard as he was carried by.
“That is Asan,” they murmured. “Yes, I tell you. Asan. The Bban hordes defeated him, and now these little creatures.”
“Quiet!” ordered the guards. Although they spoke in Standard, they were understood plainly enough. The murmuring stopped.
Shame ran through Asan. He told himself sharply not to be stupid. None of what had happened was his fault. If these people were backward enough to sit around on a mineral treasure trove without any sort of orbital defense against invasion, they deserved what they got.
Only, he was the legendary Asan, the man of myth, the hero of their past history. At least externally he was that man. And so they were dumping all of the responsibility on him. Demos help him, he even blamed himself.
If these idiots had just listened to me, he thought. If they hadn’t been so proud and set in their damned antiquated ways. If they could have looked past their noses and stopped a futile civil war…
The humans would have still come. United or not, the people couldn’t fight the GSI.
At least, not yet.
“Where is Blaise Omari? Where is Ryhi Saunders? Where is the SIS Forerunner? You will answer.”
There were several kinds of pain: the low-level ache that wouldn’t go away, the throbbing that eased off as long as the body was relaxed and didn’t move, and the shattering kind that jolted every other conscious perception from existence.
“You will answer.”
The shattering pain came and went, leaving him gasping. Clammy sweat broke across him.
“You will answer.”
He was in no danger of obeying. It was only an interrogation machine talking, and its frequency set was not capable of breaking through his defenses. He held himself braced in the vil-thread straps and counted the four-second interval between the command, the pause in the case of an answer, and the jolt of punishment that always followed noncompliance.
There were several ways of enduring pain. It must be caught. It must be channeled away from nerve endings. It must be denied.
He’d quickly figured out that cushioning the jolts in his rings didn’t work. The more he cushioned, the harder the jolts became until his brain felt on fire and his whole body was battered from convulsions.
They’d nearly stopped the interrogation that time. They thought they’d killed him. But as soon as his heartbeat started again and his breath came back, the machine was switched back on.
It was easier to endure it if he didn’t try to relax, if he just lay there stiff and let the pain break him apart. Then the questions would resume, and he would manage to breathe again and blink the sweat out of his eyes and almost recover before the command tone came again:
“You will answer.”
He screamed that time, and the vil-thread straps dug deep into his flesh as his whole body convulsed. Then he came crashing down against the board, his breath rasping in a throat that felt raw and bloody. He coughed, tried to lift his head, and decided that a pretense of cooperation might be wise. It would not gain him a release, but at least he would be tortured in a different way for a while.
“Where is Blaise Omari? Where is—”
“Dead,” he said, gasping out the word. “He’s
In the main levels of the citadel, Asan expected the soldiers to take him outside immediately. Instead they carried him through the reception hall. He got only glimpses of more humans standing armed about the room, weapons trained upon the huddled knots of silent Tlar’n. The matriarchal dais was empty. Many of the fires in the braziers had gone out. The room was cold.
Asan began to feel sick again. He shivered, struggling to hold back a moan. The increased discomfort meant the stun was beginning to wear off. He could even move a couple of his fingers although he felt so bad he didn’t much care.
Worse, however, was the gasp he heard as he was carried by.
“That is Asan,” they murmured. “Yes, I tell you. Asan. The Bban hordes defeated him, and now these little creatures.”
“Quiet!” ordered the guards. Although they spoke in Standard, they were understood plainly enough. The murmuring stopped.
Shame ran through Asan. He told himself sharply not to be stupid. None of what had happened was his fault. If these people were backward enough to sit around on a mineral treasure trove without any sort of orbital defense against invasion, they deserved what they got.
Only, he was the legendary Asan, the man of myth, the hero of their past history. At least externally he was that man. And so they were dumping all of the responsibility on him. Demos help him, he even blamed himself.
If these idiots had just listened to me, he thought. If they hadn’t been so proud and set in their damned antiquated ways. If they could have looked past their noses and stopped a futile civil war…
The humans would have still come. United or not, the people couldn’t fight the GSI.
At least, not yet.
“Where is Blaise Omari? Where is Ryhi Saunders? Where is the SIS Forerunner? You will answer.”
There were several kinds of pain: the low-level ache that wouldn’t go away, the throbbing that eased off as long as the body was relaxed and didn’t move, and the shattering kind that jolted every other conscious perception from existence.
“You will answer.”
The shattering pain came and went, leaving him gasping. Clammy sweat broke across him.
“You will answer.”
He was in no danger of obeying. It was only an interrogation machine talking, and its frequency set was not capable of breaking through his defenses. He held himself braced in the vil-thread straps and counted the four-second interval between the command, the pause in the case of an answer, and the jolt of punishment that always followed noncompliance.
There were several ways of enduring pain. It must be caught. It must be channeled away from nerve endings. It must be denied.
He’d quickly figured out that cushioning the jolts in his rings didn’t work. The more he cushioned, the harder the jolts became until his brain felt on fire and his whole body was battered from convulsions.
They’d nearly stopped the interrogation that time. They thought they’d killed him. But as soon as his heartbeat started again and his breath came back, the machine was switched back on.
It was easier to endure it if he didn’t try to relax, if he just lay there stiff and let the pain break him apart. Then the questions would resume, and he would manage to breathe again and blink the sweat out of his eyes and almost recover before the command tone came again:
“You will answer.”
He screamed that time, and the vil-thread straps dug deep into his flesh as his whole body convulsed. Then he came crashing down against the board, his breath rasping in a throat that felt raw and bloody. He coughed, tried to lift his head, and decided that a pretense of cooperation might be wise. It would not gain him a release, but at least he would be tortured in a different way for a while.
“Where is Blaise Omari? Where is—”
“Dead,” he said, gasping out the word. “He’s
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