He, Staffa kar Therma, whom Sassa and Rega quailed to please, stood impotent. The shock of it drained him of fur-
ther resistance and left him as psychologically numb as his body had been
under the discharge of the stun rods. His voice caught in his throat like a lump as he looked down at his trembling hands. A white-hot ache lashed through his bruised brain.
"Listen, madman," the tall bailiff told him. "The stasis collar is plugged into the broadcast net controlled by the Warden's officer. That's the shiny thing you see sticking out of their heads. You understand?"
Staffa nodded, blinking, trying to get his mind to function.
"Good. Because if anything happens to him — like if he dies — the sending unit jams and your collar activates. If that happens, you die with him. Understand how it works? You take very good care of your officer; his life is yours. You make him mad, and he can kill you with a thought, or punish you until you behave."
Staffa nodded again. How many men, women, and children had he sold into slavery? Rotted Gods, he knew how the system worked.
The smaller bailiff told him in a casual voice, "This is a taste of it."
Staffa's vision swam as he crumpled to the floor; his spinal cord had shorted. Haze shimmered behind his eyes and he felt nothing beyond taste, hearing, sight, and the cold hard stone against his cheek. His head might have been severed from his body: His lungs went slack; his heart stopped; the blood slowed in his veins and brain. Pressure dropped in the carotid arteries. Insane terror scrambled his thoughts.
In an instant, his body tingled into a pins-and-needles existence. Feeling, blessed sensation, returned to his flesh;
his lungs began to heave and he could swallow. No, no pain at all, just the fear and the helplessness of imminent death and total incapacity. He closed his eyes and felt a strange burning and blurring of his vision as tears welled hotly.
How long had it been since he'd cried? Like a still holo, the image grew: A nightmare scene as he unstrapped from the seat and walked forward. He could hear helium hissing from ruptured lines. Burning insulation made a pungent stink in his nose. The cabin door had ruptured and buckled on impact so he looked in to see the twisted bodies of his
parents where they lay in the wreckage. Mother had landed on her side, ripped open and spilled by a jagged sheet of metal. His father had smeared on the tactite screen, body pulped into an inhuman shape.
Had he cried since that day?
"Get up, slave," the bailiff called. "Get up… or we'll let you have it again. You're under the same as a death sentence. We're under no compulsion to keep you alive. Get up. "
Staffa rolled over and nodded miserably. "Wait. just a second. Let me… catch my breath." He took three gulps of air and fought his way to his feet, body wailing in protest. Ashamed, he wiped his eyes, blinking the tears away, wondering where sanity had gone in the universe.
"That way." The tall bailiff pointed, a stasis control in his hand. Staffa started down the ramp, strength beginning to return. This time only one bailiff followed.
"Threw my own words in my face," Staffa mumbled numbly, remembering the Magistrate's parting comment. He recalled that day, the sunlight bright and yellow as it spilled into the courtyard. The priest looked up at him from where he'd been thrown, whining, at Staffa's feet. He'd said those very words then, eyes flaying the quivering priest. He'd wanted to break the Magistrate's neck-but the judge had repeated it nowhere near as haughtily as he had when he'd faced that priest.
What has happened to me?
He traced nervous fingers over the collar around his neck. The alloy felt smooth, featureless. The circuits and power packs were built into the metal. The collars had been around since before his birth, but those had been cruder, necessitating that the slave be plugged into a charger every so often lest the power packs run down. To overcome that, he had suggested to his engineers that they build a unit that charged from the very body it commanded. True to their instructions, they'd built a system which took a slow trickle of body heat and converted it for the power packs.
Band now my own innovation enslaves me.
An aircar waited outside a rear security door.
"Enjoy yourself… Staffa," the bailiff told him with a wry grin and left.
"Come on!" the officer at the aircar grumbled. "Get in.
We don't have all day. " The warden who sat in the aircar looked like an
oversized gnome. His bald head had been tanned by the sun and he wore a khaki uniform. "I'm Morlai, sort of in charge of you and the team you'll be working with. I share the duty with Anglo. I'm the nice guy. We're due in the desert and we've got a mess at the temple to fix first. "
Staffa climbed in, noting the smooth plastic insert behind Morlai's ear. A silver wire rose to a small antenna that lay flush with the officer's scalp.
He barely saw the city they passed through. His mind continued to stagger as it struggled to find a centering point. What sort of world was this? What sort of empire had he done so much to build? There had to be justice for a man of his…. Take it to the Emperor!
He rubbed his eyes and stared dully at his fingers. Incomprehensible! They were dirt encrusted! He looked down at his body for the first time, seeing the smears and grime that caked his flesh. Familiar scars crisscrossed his muscular flesh, some disappearing into the stained towel they'd given him. It smelled of urine and stale sweat. His feet hurt where the tender skin had chafed, unused to treading on the gravel and sand.
How could this happen to the Lord Commander? What had possessed Broddus to rob him in the first place? Why had the man…. Gold, of course. So much could be bought with gold. Like empires, some maleficent part of his mind added. He closed his eyes and bit his lip, refusing to believe.
Why wouldn't the Magistrate check my claims? Why didn't he believe me? He forced his reeling mind to think. A naked man covered with scars is found in a back alley with two dead men next to him. And this is the Lord Commander, the hated Star Butcher? rve been damned by my own beard! But it isn't right!
Staffa chuckled to hide the sinking in his chest. He never let holo images of his features out for security reasons. What lengths would those he'd destroyed go to. to…. Oh, Rotted Gods! A creeping cold iced his thoughts as he stared dully at the tendons that popped from the backs of his hands.
Putrid Gods! What if someone did recognize him? What
a pompous fool he had been! He'd stood there, before that Magistrate and claimed, CLAIMED to the whole Empire that he was Staffa! A man entire planets had paid to have murdered, stood buck-naked before a public audience and offered himself like a sheep!
Staffa, you've got to start thinking again. You're not yourself. The effects of the Praetor's conditioning are affecting your judgment. But understanding that intellectually and coping with it were two different matters.
His throat went dry and his heart hammered. Praise the Blessed Gods they'd thought him crazy! He shifted uncomfortably on the hard bench. How long would that last? How long until someone mentioned the fact that the Lord Commander had gone on vacation to parts unknown? Etaru sporting its renowned whore priestesses-was a logical place for any man to go. What price would his head bring? If one of those observers in the court even suspected, how much could that information alone be sold for?
Memories of the bald man on the shuttle plagued him. What lengths would even that disturbed and pained individual go to in order to destroy the man who'd taken his planet and killed and savaged his family?
"My legacy is fear," Staffa whispered dully. I must escape! I've got to get loose-get away!
How? How did he break the collar so much of his own time had gone into forging? His fingers traced the metal, warm now, feeding off his flesh like some malevolent parasite.