When he awakened it was to find himself tied hand and foot to a rough wooden cross. Looking left and right he saw that his comrades were likewise tied. He struggled weakly with the bindings and to no better result than to chafe his wrists and ankles.
Looking down across his chest, Sevilla saw someone take a sledge hammer from another. This one walked forward, accompanied by a man holding four silvery-gray, six-inch long spikes and a like number of wooden squares in his hands. The sergeant's struggles with his bindings grew frantic.
Both of the approaching men spat down on Sevilla's face before kneeling next to him. He felt a wooden square against the heel of his left hand. The square grew heavier as a fist holding a spike came to rest upon it. Frantically, he looked away as the hammer rose and fell and . . .
Oh . . . God . . . Blood ran from the sergeant's mouth where he bit halfway through his tongue. A few more agonizing blows finished driving the spike through wood and hand, affixing that arm firmly to the cross member of the crucifix.
Sevilla wished he could faint, but there was no such mercy. He was still conscious as his right arm was likewise pinioned. Mustn't scream . . . mustn't cry out . . . don't give them the satisfaction. Oh, God, help me . . .
He didn't scream, either, until the third spike was driven through his right heel. That's when the crowd began to laugh.
* * *
Bashir was sickened. Thank Allah they didn't make me drive the spikes. This? This, was what I was serving?
Guiltily, Bashir spared a glance at the five men hanging on the crosses. Their arms were raised above forty-five degrees when they hung limp. Obviously this impaired their breathing, for they forced themselves to put weight on their tortured heels every few minutes and gasped in air desperately when they did so.
They'd been up there for hours now, with no sign of an approaching, merciful death. Children clustered around the bases of the crosses, poking the men with sticks and throwing rocks, dirt and shit at them. Women stood a little further off. They threw nothing, just stared and pointed and sometimes laughed when the crucified men wept, as they sometimes did.
"How long?" Bashir asked one of his comrades, pointing to the crosses with his chin.
"Two days," was the answer. "Minimum two days. I've seen them—one of them, anyway—last as long as five."
"We do this often?"
"No . . . not often," answered the other, digging in his ear, casually, for grit. "It's been months, actually. The last one was an infiltrator from the government in Peshtwa. He was young and strong like those. That was the one that lasted five days."
9/8/469 AC, UEPF Spirit of Peace
In four days Wallenstein had come no nearer a solution to her problems than she had been when she'd found the High Admiral's computer left on. She'd played the scenarios out in her mind many times. One more time couldn't hurt, she thought.
Option one: I inform those people down below that Robinson is delivering nukes to the Salafis. Result: whether they get the bombs or not the Federated States of Columbia probably launches an attack on this fleet which we could not survive.
She sighed, deeply, attracting the attention of her bridge crew. A casual glare put their attention back on their duties.
Option two: Arrest Robinson before he can deliver them and hold him on charges of delivering weapons technology to the Terra Novans. This is a clear violation of regulations and the Governing Council would uphold me.
Right. Sure they would, with Arbeit screaming "treason." Two chances of that, after humiliating two Class Ones: slim and none. Besides, the crew knows the game as well as I do. I couldn't count on their support. Worse, he really might be acting on sealed ordered. I'd be arrested. Sent home, and find myself as guest of honor at one of the Duke of International Solidarity's gladiatorial combats, like as not.
No one paid any attention when she sighed once again.
Option three: Sabotage his shuttle. Forget it. I don't have a clue about making a bomb with what's aboard ship. The most I can do is not see if it hasn't been properly maintained. And, if he notices—and he's been very touchy about the entire subject since that fire that nearly killed him—the bastard will space me so fast . . .
And . . . that seems to be it. Stop him here; stop him en route; or stop him below. And none of those choices work. Fuck.
11/8/469 AC, The Base, Kashmir Tribal Trust Territories
He was alone now, the pain almost entirely gone. With the pain had gone his strength, of course. Sergeant Sevilla was barely able to stand to change the angle of his arms to allow himself to breath.
The signifer had passed first, two days prior. Sevilla didn't know why. Perhaps it was the injuries he'd taken when captured. He forgave the boy his idiocies. What good could holding on to anger and hate do now?
The other three had all gone silent yesterday; their bodies hanging dark, cold and unmoving. Even the children seemed to have lost interest in them. There was little diversion, after all, in tormenting a corpse.
And I'm near enough to a corpse, Sevilla thought hazily. Not much fun left in me for them, either. Almost, he laughed at the thought.
He wondered sometimes if he wasn't already dead and had just gone to Hell. He saw things, things he knew weren't there. His mother came to him in those visions, weeping for her boy. He whispered to the vision, "Don't cry, Mama, it will all be over soon and I can join you." The visions didn't last. The feel of the rough wood on his back, the evening cold biting his exposed skin, the soreness where the nails had penetrated his flesh, spilling his blood and splitting his bone . . . all these told him he was still alive.
Unfortunately.
Tomorrow, I'll die, Sevilla thought, with utter certainty. Under the circumstances, he looked forward to it.
UEPF Spirit of Peace
Wallenstein and a collection of her officers stood at the broad, thick plexiglas window of the shuttle deck as Robinson and Arbeit boarded the Admiral's gig. The lower classes of the deck crew were on their faces in full proskynesis before the Marchioness of Amnesty. Robinson turned once, to wave jovially, then entered the hatch which closed behind them. The lowers arose and evacuated the deck.
The ship began to hum as air was pumped out of the bay. Wallenstein watched the pressure drop on the gauge intently, even as the balloon expanded. She hoped that the shuttle's seals would fail and the crew suffocate along with the High Admiral. No such luck . . . unfortunately.
At her nod, the officer in charge pushed a button. This caused a hydraulic whine to begin as the bay doors began to open. They stopped with a kachunking sound.
"Son of a bitch," the OIC cursed. "You two," he pointed at two prole crewmen, "Get on the manual crank."
With straining and grunting effort, the proles forced the bay doors open by main force. The shuttle pilot applied the smallest amount of power to vertical lift, just enough to raise the Admiral's gig a half meter off of the deck. Soundlessly, as far as the watchers could tell, it rotated until it was facing directly outboard. Gracefully, and still soundlessly, the shuttle moved forward until it was far enough past the ship for it to start main engines safely to descend to Atlantis Base.