“But why have everything set up down there? It must have been rough to build with just what they had, and it also has to be maintained. Most of the caves are natural, and there have to be some regions where they’re unstable,” Delta said.
“Indeed. Can’t hide the farms and farmers—everybody has to eat, and there’s precious little in the way of synthesizers here, I suspect. Not for an expanding population. No, these people aren’t hiding from us,” Cromwell told them. “They’re in hiding. From whom is the big question. Works nicely as a trap for suckers like us, and we may well not be the first, but that’s not worth this. We’d have come down if they’d had a nice civilization aboveboard. No, they’re hiding from somebody in particular. Somebody they think that, after all this time, might still show up any moment. Makes you wonder.”
“Well, they’re through hiding from us, anyway,” Beta commented. “I just wish we could see signs of our people down there. I don’t like the idea we got shot at full strength.”
“They’ll have them well away from here,” Cromwell assured them. “But within limits. I have this feeling that these people just don’t understand who and what they are dealing with when they attacked us.”
“Yeah, but this would sure be one time when it would be handy if we believed in praying in public. Easy to pick ’em up, and it would drive this crew nuts,” Beta commented.
Deep down, though, Cromwell knew that his team was very concerned, probably as concerned as he was. If the ferrets couldn’t find them, then some good people were bound to die on this miserable dirt ball.
In the darkness there was first a soft nothingness, then a tingling, growing pain that seemed to come from everywhere inside her, blossom, and then explode into a bodywide network of pointed needles or spikes stuck into her. She gave an exclamation of pure displeasure that seemed to die in her throat and then her eyes popped open.
The jabbing pains subsided after a moment, but her joints throbbed and there was a part of her head that felt like it was being struck by a dull but forceful mallet every few seconds. She was on her knees, she realized, and stark naked, a fact which greatly embarrassed and worried her. What had they done to her? What might they have done while she was unconscious?
She tried to move, to rub her painful joints, but she found that she could not. First, her wrists were bound behind her, held in some kind of restraint that also went around the ankles. She was unable to shift, get up, or unwind from the uncomfortable pose. There was no slack; the restraints were solid, not chains or flexible materials.
There was a chain, loosely around her neck. She tried to turn and see what it was connected to, but, that proving impossible, she looked around and saw many others in the same situation and pose. The chains appeared simply riveted into the wall of the cave, but the loops proved to be a choke chain. You move or twist, the chain gets tighter. You get back into the proscribed position, the chain loosened through a series of carefully managed loops along its length. The chain could also lock into place within its “lax” zone, wrapping as it did around a similar waist chain before going to the wall. This is what kept them from falling forward or over. Somebody who knew what they were doing did not want anybody trying any tricks whatsoever.
These stocks or whatever you call them weren’t put here for us, she thought, looking around carefully. This place was designed as a holding prison. Good old Greg’s not so nice down here, I bet. The thought did not make her feel any better.
There were perhaps a dozen others in the room—it was difficult to tell with her limited movement—and all had familiar faces. They were also all females; she wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or an ominous one.
Some were still unconscious; others were awake, but that was about all that could be said. They were all gagged; that was why even her cry of pain had been muffled. Still, the communications system for the Arm was implanted in each of them; she listened for any sign of being hunted or any news of what was going on, but there was nothing, just a slight hissing if you concentrated. Shielded, too. They seemed to have thought of everything.
Within half an hour the miserable pain hadn’t subsided, but just about all the others were at least awake and already through her own process of discovery.
Everything seemed to drag into eternal boredom; there was nothing you could do, nothing you could say, and nothing left to see. There were no frames of reference, nothing. Eventually, most discovered that if you had to relieve yourself you just had to relieve yourself; it grew foul and smelly in no time.
Finally, somebody entered. He was a younger man, dressed like a crindin handler, wearing gray cotton clothing and heavy boots that looked like they’d been taken off one of the male members of the Arm and probably were. He hit the stench and turned up his nose. “Ew! Yuk!” he muttered, then left, returning with a long hose of the sort used to wash the big animals. He turned and shouted down the cavern, “German! Pump!”
The hose was inactive for a few moments, then it gushed water, which he used to wash off each of the women in turn, breaking now and then to use a homemade push broom to get the mess into the center of the room where there was an actual drainhole or some kind, masked until he pulled it up by a slate rock fitted cover.
“Okay!” he yelled at his unseen companion. “It’s bearable!”
He looked around at them and had a leering sort of grin on his face. “Pretty. Different from most of the girls we got ’round here. Maybe I’ll take me one of you if this don’t go good.”
Just try it with me, Eve thought grimly, daggers shooting from her eyes. She, or any of the others, for that matter. Let me get one arm free and you’ll never want a woman again, she thought with absolute confidence in her ability to do the job.
The herder type left, though, taking his equipment with him, and shortly another came in, this time a tall, middle-aged man with a neatly trimmed beard.
“All right, ladies, listen up!” he said in a tone of absolute command. “You are currently in no position to haggle. I think we’ve made that clear. In fact, we’ve tried very hard not to underestimate you. There wasn’t any plan to go this far, or even disrobe you, but after we searched and found the incredible amount of stuff you were hiding, including the guns and power packs, we just had to assume that you were fully trained in combat and control. Disappointing for people who say they’re from God, but after listening to your boss’s messages I can understand it. Now you understand this. We’re desperate. We can’t get off this hole and we sure as hell don’t want to die on it munching grass. We knew we couldn’t make much of a deal after you explored the crash site, so here we are. Be very convinced that we will do exactly what we say and what we feel we have to do. I suspect that we may have to do some unpleasant things to some of you, maybe even kill a few, to demonstrate our resolve. If we loosen up your restraints and you violate any of the rules, and I mean any, you’re number one on the list. Holy people like to talk about martyrs who are tortured and killed for their faith. You may get that chance. We will need a few examples before the others to establish the limits of your faith. Who’s first? Any volunteers?”
He was playing with them, of course, but he seemed very different than the chief of a raider band might be imagined. Cultured, calm, knowledgeable, and apparently born without a soul, and all the scarier for it. This was not a man who would ever enjoy ravishing a captive. This was a man who would enjoy watching it, maybe even recording it and replaying it over and over at parties.