Lord of the Flies-HOMEPAGE

My Home Town-HOMEPAGE

CHAPTERS

____________

The Christa Affair

Chapter Forty

The boy was an orphan. He had no memory of his parents, -- nor any knowledge of what world they'd come from -- those had been brushed aside by the memories of growing up in the violent world of the streets of deep-east Extasy. An eternal childhood of constant hunger and misery, hiding among the rubble of collapsing buildings when pursued by the police or rival street-gangs, stealing the things necessary to survival. Somewhere along the way, someone (he didn't remember who) had hung the name Thadeous Christopher on him, which had been quickly shortened to Tad.

The arbitrary age of twelve, he had assigned himself. In truth, he didn't know his age, even approximately. Standing before them now, free of the dirty rags he'd worn on the streets of Extasy, he looked taller and more mature than at their first brief meeting in the \Decaying Orbit\. Dressed as he was in a stretch-net sleeveless shirt and tight pseudosilk pants, he was obviously male. His ragged oily hair was tucked out of sight beneath a jaunty cap.

"She thinks I'm uncivilized," he said sarcastically as he strode across the room toward where they sat. "I think she's spoiled... And she talks too much!"

Marty stood. She took the last step across the short distance to meet him, reaching up to kiss his lips. He caught her left wrist in his right hand and held her away. "I'm sorry, Tad," she said, maintaining her hold on his neck with her right arm.

The boy didn't reply. For long moments they stood nose to nose, unmoving, locked in a silent struggle of wills. An unspoken understanding passed between them, and Tad released her arm; she kissed him softly. "Go change, Marty," he said, almost sorrowfully. "I'll have to show them, or they'll never allow it."

As Marty left the room, Tad sank tiredly into the chair she had previously occupied. "I don't wanna have to kill you too, Captain."

"Why do you wish to kill him?" asked Jashi, ignoring the display of hostility they had just witnessed, and the antimatter weapon that Tad was pointing at no one in particular.

"Will you permit it?"

"Perhaps... After I'm finished with him." Jashi changed the subject, wishing to regaining some measure of control over the situation. "Where are we, Tad?" he asked.

"Directly beneath the \Decaying Orbit\, Captain." They could see that the irony wasn't lost on him; all that running in circles had brought them back to where their flight from Pig-Mug and his cohorts had begun. "Don't worry, no one else knows about this place but us, and none of you could come back here if you wanted to, nor could you find your way back to the surface." His voice took on a hard edge. "You're safe here, from everybody but me. I will tell you a story; when I'm finished, we'll see..."

*********

They were in one of an unknown number of habitations, a labyrinth of interconnecting tunnels about fifty feet beneath the sight of the original city of Extasy -- what was now the crumbling slums of the deep east side. There was no record of the existence of the caves; Tad had found them quite by accident only a few months earlier, and had explored only a short distance in each direction from their present location. The power was on in several other adjacent dwellings, but beyond that, the halls and rooms were all dark for as far as he had been in any direction.

Sometime in the not-to-distant past -- Tad wasn't sure how long -- he had gone to work for DeCarlo. On the streets of Extasy, time has a peculiar lack of meaning -- the year is one long hot rainy season -- and it might have been one year, or it might have been two. "I ran errands for him... among other things," Tad said. "Whatever he said, I did. It was enough money for food; I didn't have to steal any more."

All of it, Jashi. He doesn't even know I'm there. The only reason he wanted to stop stealing was because of the punishment. He got caught several times.

"Many times, my duties took me to the plush residence he occupies behind the \Decaying Orbit\," Tad continued. "It's hidden in the jungle growth so well you'd never know it was there, but it is. And it's beautiful -- almost as beautiful as this..." Tad swept his arm at the room around them. "When he was finished with me, if I had pleased him, I was rewarded with the presence of a young female for the night."

Marty was new to Casa-DeCarlo. She and her parents had been aboard a passenger liner bound for Terra -- their home-world -- when it was challenged by a Raidership. Her mother was ill, and died of a heart attack as they were being boarded; her father was killed by the pirates in the usual fashion while his daughter was forced to watch.

Tad took a fancy to her the first time he saw her, and she'd been among the ones from which he was allowed to choose that night. She'd been a real wildcat -- she hadn't yet had the taming benefit of DeCarlo's personal attention -- protesting loudly that she was a virgin and intended to stay that way. It was nearly dawn when he went to sleep, and he didn't remember silencing the wake-up call from the bedside console -- the call that would have given him just enough time to shower and make it to DeCarlo's bedroom as the Squire was finishing breakfast.

*********

Tad broke off his narrative, and turned toward the doorway thru which Marty had departed. "Come here, Marty!" His voice was icy, commanding. Obediently, the girl entered. "Show them!"

She was robed in a bright-yellow shroud of what looked like pseudosilk -- a rather poor synthetic imitation of Elviran fabric -- wrapped about her body several times, and gathered into place by her arms. "Tad, please?" she said pitifully. "Not all of it!?" Again a silent understanding -- Marty shrugged her narrow shoulders and the garment fell to the floor.

She stood naked before them, turning slowly at Tad's unspoken command. From her shoulders to her knees, her slender body was covered with long thin scars that crossed in places, leaving particularly puffy tissue where they overlapped. "This was my punishment!" Tad said, a bit unsteadily.

Jashi, it gets worse! Karli warned as the girl's slow rotation brought her backside into view. Her back and shoulders were more of the same. In spite of Karli's foreknowledge from her probing of the boy's thoughts, she gasped with him at the sight of Marty's buttocks. Besides the now-familiar pattern of thin scars extending to her knees, high on her right cheek, the crest of Casa-DeCarlo stood out in bold relief, burned deeply into the flesh with a hot iron.

... !! ...

I vote for slow death, Jashi, and I get to help!

"DeCarlo did the front side -- twenty-five strokes with a hot alloy wire with her arms tied over her head... He made me do the back -- said he'd do it himself and then brand her if I didn't -- then the bastard branded her anyway!" Tad was almost crying.

The intensity of the boy's emotion became overwhelming, and Karli was forced to withdraw for a moment. "If I'd refused, he'd just have used the machine on me," Tad sobbed. With great effort he composed himself, and walked to where Marty stood, facing them once again -- a picture of quiet dignity in spite of her humiliation. He picked up her cloak from the floor and tenderly wrapped it around her. "I'm sorry, Marty... I \had\ to! You can go if you want to, but I wish you'd stay."

She stayed, standing silently by his side, holding his hand. "Two days later I found her walking along a side street near here, in a stupor. She didn't know if she'd escaped or if he'd thrown her out -- we \still\ don't know -- but I wasn't taking any chances. She was a mass of infected sores and had a raging fever, so I took a short-cut to my old digs."

Goddamn, Jashi! It's a miracle she's alive. He told it just like it happened. The machine he referred to is the neural-impulse injector. DeCarlo used it as a persuader.

We'll take turns, Karli!

"That's how I found this place," Tad concluded. "We cut thru the building next to the \Orbit\ and fell thru the floor into a stairwell. The hole was too steep to climb out of, so we had to go down; it came out just a little way up the hall and the lights were on at this end. The door to this place was standing open. I don't know what it is, but the mechanical doctor in the back room saved Marty's life, even if it couldn't heal the scars. Now, Captain, do I get to kill him or not?"

Check it, Karli. Maybe it'll help Suu till we can get her back to the \Klondike\. Ask Marty to show you.

"But you still work for him!?" said Jashi, when Karli and Marty had departed. "Weren't you afraid to go back?"

"I had to, Captain! How else would I ever get a chance to kill him? Anyway, it turned out nobody saw me with her, and DeCarlo never mentioned her being missing... But he never summoned me to the house again. When he wants me, he uses one of the rooms at the \Orbit\. They're all monitored -- I'd have to kill him quickly, there. But now..."

... !!! ... It's L'sa'rian, Jashi! Karli's surprise threatened to overwhelm him. Looks a lot older than the one we used in the city, but there's no mistaking who built it.

"Tad, this thing is a lot bigger than just DeCarlo. I'll try to explain it to you as best I can, but you'll have to trust me for a bit, and I'll have to have your help. I promise he'll get what he's got coming, and if that turns out to be slow death, you'll be allowed to participate."

The boy hesitated. "I want to kill him \now\, Captain. He might escape." His voice was filled with bitterness. "Under the Code of Conduct I have the \right\!"

Karli and Marty returned to the room. "Roi, take Suu and go with Marty... She'll show you where," Karli ordered. She crossed to where Tad stood, looking stubborn. He stiffened as she reached for him, but let her hold him by the shoulders; in a moment he relaxed.

Karli didn't say a word -- just stood looking into his eyes. Jashi could feel her manipulating the boy's emotions telepathically; at last he smiled and nodded agreement. "Okay, Lady Abram... I'll cooperate," Tad said softly. "But if you double-cross me, I'll kill you both." Karli had no doubt that he meant it.

Roi returned to the room. "Damn, Jashi, it's L'sa'rian! How?..."

"Did you get it working?" Jashi cut off the question.

"Yes. She's stabilized, but she can't feel or move her legs..." He hesitated a moment. "Lito reports the \Klondike\ coming up on point Alpha." If they were going to transport up on this pass, they had less than thirty minutes until the chance would be gone.

"Okay," Jashi replied. "Find a place in the back to set up the transporters... Better conceal them as best you can. Set up one and try a transfer. I don't know if the signal can punch thru from this far underground." If it couldn't, they'd have to venture out, leave their place of safety and try to reach the surface; it was something Jashi hoped to avoid. He wondered if the synchronization signal would be picked up by Licti's monitors... Probably not, since the entire city and the spaceport were still blacked out. "Now, I want to meet this person you're hiding from the police."

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