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Read Ebook: Forever We Die! by Marlowe Stephen Rognan Lloyd Illustrator
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Ebook has 661 lines and 24175 words, and 14 pages
Rhodes faced the agonies of alien torture because he knew the secret which held an entire world in bondage. It was a secret proclaiming--
Forever We Die!
The guard spat in Phil Rhodes' food bowl, closed the grate, and trudged away down the stone-walled corridor.
Darkness returned to the narrow, coffin-shaped cell. Rhodes reached for the bowl of gruel. It was tepid, not hot. The cell was very cold. In the square of light admitted briefly when the grate had been opened, Rhodes had seen the big, unkempt guard's breath, a puff of smoke on the cold air. He had also seen the guard hack spittle into the bowl of gruel.
It was no whim on the guard's part. Rhodes grinned wryly, and realized he was doing so, and encouraged his facial muscles in the act. Nothing around here was a whim. Absolutely nothing. It was all part of a plan, and the purpose of the plan was to break Rhodes.
Given: one Earthman.
Problem: to degrade him by subtle psychological torture.
Purpose: a big, fat question mark which, by itself, was almost enough to drive Rhodes crazy.
He ate the gruel. He held his breath and got it down somehow, got it down because he had to.
Rhodes began to shiver. It was growing suddenly cold. Naturally, that was no accident. The cell was very small and so shaped that Rhodes could neither recline fully nor stand up without jack-knifing his spine. Obviously, he couldn't engage in much physical activity to keep warm. The Kedaki knew this: it was part of the maddening plan.
Rhodes shook with cold, felt the skin of his face going numb, heard his teeth chattering. The abrupt cold now was his entire universe. He made an effort of will--you're warm, he told himself, you're warm. His lips took on that peculiar numb puckering sensation which meant, he knew, that they were blue with cold. He felt a welcome lethargy, then, as if the terrible cold were a bed of repose, the most comfortable, most wonderful bed he'd ever had. He wanted to sink back in it, surrender to it.
If he did, if he surrendered to the blood-freezing cold, he would die.
No, he told himself. That was wrong. They wanted him to think he would die. But it was out of the question. If they'd wanted to kill him, there were easier ways. What they wanted was a state of mind. They wanted terror, a simple animal fear of death.
You're not going to die, Rhodes told himself. They need you--for something. They're very good at making you think so, but you're not going to die.
A sudden blast of hot air belched into the freezing cell.
It was Turkish-bath hot, and it dissipated the cold at once. It was stifling. Rhodes, who was sitting awkwardly because the cell was constructed for minimum comfort, opened his mouth and gulped in the hot, wet air. His lungs needed more oxygen; his head was giddy with the need; his pulses throbbed.
He sank into a troubled sleep, shoulders propped against rough stone. He slept for half an hour while the unseen vents in the cell poured heat on him.
There was a grating sound, and footsteps. Something hard prodded Rhodes' back. He opened his eyes. The heavy boot struck again, thudding against his kidney. He rolled away from it.
"Crawl out of there," the guard said in Kedaki.
Rhodes, who was a student of the Kedaki civilization, understood the language perfectly. But even if he had not, the tone of voice was unmistakable. Rhodes crawled toward the grating on his hands and knees. The roof of the cell was so low, he could barely crawl. It was more a slithering motion. Part of the treatment, Rhodes told himself, able to bear it better because he understood. Part of the process of degradation. Turn a man into an animal, and he'll do whatever you wish.
"More questions?" Rhodes asked in Kedaki when he stood up outside the cell, stretching the cramped muscles of his back, shoulders and legs.
"What do you think?" the guard replied, and prodded him forward down the brightly lit corridor.
The room was very clean. It was spotless, possibly antiseptically clean. That, too, was part of the plan. For Rhodes' cell was filthy. Rhodes' clothing was stiff with his own foul sweat. Rhodes' skin itched with encrusted dirt.
"Sit down," the Kedaki said politely.
Rhodes sighed. This was the polite one. He had two interrogators, one cruel, brutal, harsh, the other as polite and suave as the rustle of silk. To keep Rhodes guessing....
He sat down across a metal desk from the interrogator. The man was, Rhodes judged, in his thirties. He had the faintly purple skin of the Kedaki--not really purple, but as purple as the skin of an American Indian is red. He was slightly built, smooth-skinned, almost beardless. His eyes were very friendly but somehow very deadly.
"You have been here three months," he said conversationally.
"Three months! Yesterday, they told me...."
"Yesterday? Indeed? And how do you know it was yesterday?"
"Well, I thought...."
"You see, you have no way of knowing."
"But three months! You haven't even told me why I'm a prisoner. If I could just make a call," Rhodes said, his voice rising to an almost hysterical whine although he attempted to keep it level. "Just one call to the Earth Consul...."
"Mr. Rhodes," the interrogator said softly. "You are a student, merely a student. I do not say this deprecatingly, but merely to point out that you are not a servant of your government and as such shouldn't undergo torture because you consider it the, ah, patriotic thing to do. How old are you, Rhodes?"
"I'm twenty-one," Rhodes said.
"A very young man, but stubborn."
"Listen!" Rhodes cried, his voice rising out of control again. "I don't even know what you want to know! Every day you change your questions! And every day you change how you react to my answers. I don't know what you want! I think you're crazy, all of you!"
"Do you really think so?"
"No," Rhodes admitted in a subdued voice.
"I will tell you something, Rhodes. We Kedaki are experts at psychological torture. You know that, don't you, as a student of our culture? Yes?--good. Eventually, we get what we want. Since no Kedaki fears death because he knows he will be reincarnated--"
"No Kedaki doubts this fact. Other creatures are not reincarnated, but the Kedaki are. As a consequence, the Kedaki are fearless. The fear of death does not exist for us and therefore, the fear of pain and violence is also minimized. The Kedaki, as you know, make wonderful soldiers. I tell you all this only to prove that we are the galaxy's most adept practitioners of psychological torture, as a necessity. I tell you all this only to save you further trouble."
"But I still don't know what you want."
"Nor will you, ever. Even when we are finished with you. I'll tell you, Rhodes. We want the answer to one question. We are asking you hundreds. When we break you completely, when you answer every question the way we want it to be answered, you will answer the one important question. Are you ready?"
"No," said Rhodes.
"What do you mean, no?"
"Because I can never tell in advance whether you want the truth or lies. Because either way I give myself a hard time. Look: just ask me the one question. Maybe I won't mind answering it."
"You'll mind. Besides, when we're all finished here, we don't want you to know. What kind of work do you do, Rhodes?"
"You know what kind. I already told you, fifty times."
"What kind of work do you do, Rhodes?"
"I'm a student of extra-terrestrial anthropology at Deneb University, doing field work here on Kedak...."
"Good."
"Reincarnation," Rhodes said. "At least, a planet-wide belief in reincarnation. It's unique in the galaxy, as far as we know, and it sets the pattern for Kedaki civilization."
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