Old Man said nothing. "I don't think so," answered Hal, "any more than I think they've let Cee know they've got him. Liu's probably planning to spring the news on both of them when the time's right to got the most shock value from doing it."
That may have been the commander's plan, but in any case he seemed in no hurry to carry it out. Procyon descended in tile west and the stars came out. The forest below became one dark. mysterious mass, with the exception of two small spots. One was where a blaze of artificial light lit up the clearing in tile distance where the trucks were still parked. The other, closer. was more directly below the watchers, where Artur stood, still tied to the tree, and with Liu still out of sight in his shelter. From one of the other domes trays with covered dishes were carried into the tent that was Liu's, and it was perhaps three-quarters of an hour afterward that he finally made an appearance.
The Urk hurried up to him and was told something. The tall, thin underofficer in the tailored uniform went off to the shelter that held Cee, and re-emerged a few minutes later, followed by two soldiers with the little girl held between them, her hands tied behind her.
She was making no effort to walk under her own power. Her knees were bent and the two soldiers were forced to carry her to the other tree that had been left uncut, where she was roped into the same upright position Artur had been tied into. After a few moments, she unbent her knees and took the weight of her body on her feet.
Her face had that blank look of a child's which could indicate anything from an extreme of terror to complete incomprehension. Her eyes followed the Urk as he went to speak to Liu.
Liu and the Urk came toward her. Behind the two men, in the center of the clearing, a large open fire was being built. It was not an unreasonable thing to do. At night, because of the altitude, even here at the base of the mountains proper, the nights were cool, for all that they were almost on the equator of the planet. But it did not get so cold that a fire so large had any real utility. Cee, herself, was obviously used to the nighttime temperatures, which she faced unclothed.
She was still unclothed now, more so, in fact, because her vine-pod girdle had been taken from her. But, as Hal had noticed on first seeing her when he had been with Amanda, her nakedness was such a natural and unconscious state that, if anything, she made those around her in clothes look unnatural. Her expression remained blank as the two men came up to her, and Liu spoke to her. It was intensely frustrating to Hal not to be able to catch enough of the officer's lip movements to guess at least a word or so from him, or from one of the soldiers.
In any case, she did not answer. Only, now, she stared directly at Liu, instead of the Urk, with that completely unfathomable, completely observant, open-eyed stare of which only the young are capable.
Liu's lips moved again. The expression of his face grew stern. There was no movement of lips or change of appearance in the girl before him. He glanced at the Urk, beside him, and the Urk said something. "I think," said Old Man unexpectedly, "he asked for confirmation of the fact that she actually knows how to speak, and understands Basic."
Hal looked suddenly at the brown eyes in the ageless face behind the white beard. "You read lips?" he asked, almost sharply.
Old Man shook his head. "No," he answered, "I only guess. But I think it's a good guess. And I think this Urk is reminding him she was six years or older when her parents died."
Liu turned away and went back past the fire to Artur. His face was now so averted in the picture shown on the screen before Hal that it was obviously useless even to try to read lips. "I'd say your guess may have been pretty close to the mark," he told Old Man. "What do you think he's saying to Artur right now?"'
Old Man shook his head a little slowly. "It's guessing, only," he said. "I could be very wrong, but obviously this officer's deliberately waited until dark to let the two see each other. Plainly, the fire is to make the scene look even more threatening. He gives the impression of a man who hopes to make use of psychological as well as physical pressures. Watching someone else tortured to produce answers is one of the favorite ways of getting information since mankind started to use such methods. The idea, of course, is to weaken the will of someone who doesn't want to talk. Here he's got two prisoners. He can question either one with all kinds of painful means, with a double chance of getting answers - either from the one he questions or from the one watching and expecting the same thing. Either might break. Obviously, though, he expects to be able to judge the effect of his questioning better on a grown man, than on someone like Cee." "He'll be threatening Artur with torture now, if Artur doesn't tell him how to find the other people who're around here? That's what you're saying, isn't it?" demanded Hal. "I would guess," said Old Man simply.
Liu continued to talk to Artur several minutes longer, but Artur's face, unlike Cee's, showed anger and defiance. Liu pointed at Cee several times and Artur shook his head. Most possibly, Hal thought, the big man would be denying any knowledge of the little girl, although it remained impossible for Hal to read the movements of his lips. Eventually, Liu turned away from him and went back across the lighted clearing into his shelter, while the Urk, with two of the soldiers, got busy with the physical questioning of Artur.
Calas began to swear in a low, monotonous tone, and his voice went on and on, as if he were talking to himself.
Mercifully, the angle of vision both from the ledge and from higher up on the mountain with Missy and Hadnah was such that the bodies of the three men were in the way of any camera view of exactly what they were doing to Artur. However, the soldiers and their noncommissioned officer were careful not to block the view Cee could have had of what was going on.
But their efforts were wasted. After watching them for a moment until Artur's mouth opened in what was obviously an involuntary scream of pain, she took her attention off them. Her eyes, in that expressionless face of hers, turned instead to focus on the round, white shape of the tent into which Liu had vanished. They kept their gaze immovable upon the tent.
Old Man drew in an audible breath. "He's made a mistake," Old Man said. "He? You mean Liu?" asked Hal. "Yes," said Old Man. "Artur denied knowing her and Cee told him nothing. The officer has no way of knowing she loves him, or he, her." "She loves Artur?" Hal asked. "Amid told me she wouldn't let him get close to her, after that one time he tried to reach out and touch her!" "True enough," said Old Man, "but all the time she must have remembered who he was and either loved him from before or come to love him when he tried to make contact again with her. She was just too frightened to come close to him. Look at her face now."
Hal reached forward to turn the screen's controls up to give a close-up picture of Cee's face. They saw it only slightly averted, staring at Liu's shelter off screen, but Calas's swearing broke off abruptly. "Holy Mother!" said Calas.
Hal also was absorbing the shock of what he was seeing. It was strange, since in no easily visible way had Cee's blank expression changed. Only, the steadiness of her gaze seemed to have acquired a power of its own. "God help that Liu if she ever gets her hands on him, and him tied up, or helpless!" breathed Calas.