Denner_s Wreck

“I can't believe this is happening,” Lady Sunlight moaned, stirring uncomfortably on the unyielding bench.

“It's happening,” Rawl told her calmly. “Accept it.” Inwardly, he marvelled that the woman could have lived for so long without learning that anything could happen. He did not understand why so many of the immortals led such limited lives. It was always by their own choice; were they so desperate for security as to give up all risk and experimentation, and turn completely inward?

Or were they just stupid and unimaginative? Endless life and unimaginable power did not make a fool any less a fool. Some people did not seem to learn from experience, most particularly when they did all they could to limit their experiences to the familiar.

He hated to think that his companions were all fools. On the other hand, he knew from his centuries of wandering among the people of De

For that matter, wasn't he as big a fool as the rest? He was just as much a captive as the others. He mulled that over silently.

“Bre

“I don't know,” Bre

“He probably meant you to,” Sheila said from the other side of the little transport.

“In fact,” Rawl said, leaning back againt the yellow plastic wall, “the entire attack may have been a feint, a trick, a means of herding us out through that tu

Bre

Rawl shrugged. “Who knows? It could have been.” He did not think Thaddeus was inherently any less a fool than most of the others, but he knew that he could be very clever indeed in pursuing his foolish goals. Thaddeus was crazy, but he was not stupid.

“What does he want with us?” Lady Sunlight asked.

“How should I know?” Bre

“Hostages,” Rawl muttered softly, so softly the others did not hear him.

Lady Sunlight started to reply to Bre

Thaddeus's machines had stripped them of all their equipment except what was actually built into them. Lady Sunlight had given up her pet, a feelie vine, three small creatures she had had tucked away, and six small floaters. Sheila had had only a single floater; her airskiff did not fit through the tu

Rawl had resisted briefly, taking out three minor machines from Thaddeus's arsenal, and had had forty-two floaters immobilized by suppressor fields, and four creatures captured alive. Several other small creatures from Rawl's menagerie had escaped safely into the woods surrounding the exit from the tu

Bre

Of course, they all still carried symbiotes and a variety of internal machinery. Thaddeus had not tried to do anything about that. In fact, the transport that they had been forced to board was not even shielded against most communications frequencies; Rawl discovered, after the brief spurt of conversation triggered by Lady Sunlight's outburst, that he was able to contact the mother ship and inquire after the other immortals.

None of the other captives had thought to try that, so far as he could see.

No one was reported dead, Rawl learned. That was some comfort, but Khalid, O, and Aulden were missing, all three last heard from in the vicinity of Fortress Holding. Geste and Imp were aboard the Skyland, of all places, and had been going from hold to hold recently, and were now apparently headed for the High Castle; Rawl suspected that this meant they were aware of what was happening and were coming to lend what aid they could.

He smiled wryly to himself. They were already too late. The High Castle was gone. Once Thaddeus had his captives and booty out, Mother said, he had nuked the place. Rawl hesitated for an instant, and then decided against telling Bre

Still, Geste and Imp and the Skyler would find nothing but radioactive rubble.

At least they were trying, though. What were all the others doing?

Nothing, apparently. They were just going about their business.

Rawl did not like that. If the Skyler and her party knew what was happening, they would surely have told everyone. Why weren't the others doing anything to stop Thaddeus?

He knew that he could not manage a proper holographic transmission with just his internal systems, but with Mother to relay Rawl thought he could get a message of some sort out, either audio or data feed. He tried to put a call through to Isabelle.

He was cut off, not by static, but by the sudden dead silence of an electromagnetic barrier effect.

“No, no, Rawl,” Thaddeus's voice said, startling the other captives. “I can't have you spreading wild rumors."

“Rawl?” Lady Sunlight said, puzzled. The other two looked at him, surprised but silent.

“Rumors?” Rawl asked.

“Certainly. Just rumors. What else could it be?” Thaddeus laughed unpleasantly.

Rawl wished, briefly, that Thaddeus had come out in person to oversee their capture. That would have given them a better shot at escape or at doing some serious damage, since Thaddeus's forces would have had to put some effort into defending their master.

Of course, Thaddeus would never have been that stupid.

A moment later the yellow plastic walls opened suddenly, shrinking down into themselves. The transport dissolved until nothing remained but the two simple benches, facing each other in the center of a moderately-large chamber.

The walls were drab gray; no music played, and the place smelled of oil and metal.

Sheila and Rawl quickly took in their new surroundings; Bre

“Where are our things?” she demanded.

Thaddeus appeared suddenly, standing before them a centimeter or two off the floor. Rawl looked at the brown-garbed figure and realized it was not tall enough; he would have assumed it to be a transmitted image in any case, and Thaddeus gave that away by reducing his size to one more normal for a human being than his actual 2.9 meters.

“What things?” the image said, smiling.

“You know what things!” Lady Sunlight spat.

“You mean this?” The image held up Lady Sunlight's golden-furred pet, its neck clutched in one huge hand. The little animal was kicking and scratching desperately, unable to breathe. As it had been bred without claws, its struggles did no good at all.

“Let him go!” Lady Sunlight shrieked.

Thaddeus smiled and squeezed harder.

The animal gasped once and went limp. Thaddeus squeezed harder, then released the creature. It fell and lay still. Rawl noticed that Thaddeus had carefully dropped it inside the transmission area, so that his captives would be able to see for themselves that it was really dead.