The Domination, page 70
“Don’t let me stop the celebratin’,” the Draka said. “You deserved it, Solange.” She was leaning back against the angle where the head table met its neighbors, one hand under the other arm and the free fingers holding the cigarette. “I really may look into that trainin’, that voice deserves to live.”
“It was all for you, Mistress,” Solange crooned softly when they were at arm’s length. “I was doing it all for you, couldn’t you see it? I could feel your eyes on me warm like hands.” Her own eyes were wide, the pupils swollen until the violet color was a rim around pools of black, her voice slurred and husky. “Everything I am and do is yours, Mistress. Everything.”
Very true, Tanya thought happily. But still nice to have it so enthusiastically volunteered. The serf’s swaying made her platinum sheath quiver in the night like a candle flame of moonlight. You are a treasure Solange, an absolute treasure. She smiled, shivering slightly at the expression in the other’s eyes, abasement and exaltation. So much beauty, so much intelligence and talent and skill, and you are mine.
“Oh, Mistress, you give me so much, make me so happy,” the serf said. “How can I thank—oh!” She giggled again. “Don’t move, Mistress, stay right there, I know just the thing.” She skittered off, returned in an instant with a cushion from one of the chairs, dropped it at Tanya’s feet.
“A cushion?” Tanya said. Solange was playfully crazy even when sober, but wild on wine and kif . . .
“Mais non, the cushion is for me, Mistress, these flags are hard.” Her open mouth was moist as she leaned forward to press a quick kiss on her owner’s lips, and she smiled slyly as she dropped to her knees on the padded cloth. “I am for you, Tanya.”
The Draka looked around for a moment to make sure they were truly private; it was dark . . . Hell with it, she decided. Why not? The cigarette made a minor meteor as she flicked it away over the railing and leaned back, resting her weight on her palms. There goes my little half-hour chat with Tante Sannie about the trials of childbirth; oh well, tomorrow. She let her head loll upward; that brought the dim light of the tower’s highest room to view.
Damnation, she thought with a frown, as Solange lifted the fabric of her skirt and tucked the front hem neatly into her belt. We are visible from the radio room. Not that that would bother her normally; serfs did not count much when it came to privacy, but Jules Lebrun was up there tonight, and making him watch this would be the sort of pointless cruelty she despised.
Tanya looked down; Solange was rolling down her left stocking with elaborate slowness, planting light kisses on the leg as it was exposed. The soft moist sensation was unbearable, and the singer was humming as she worked. On the other hand, he can always look out the other window at the pavilions.
“God, I thought I’d never get away,” Kustaa muttered as he pushed in from the tubelike spiral stairwell; the efforts of the other partygoers to make the cripple feel wanted had been as entangling as glue-covered bungee cords. The radio-room door was a blank steel sheet like the armory one story below, but not locked in the normal course of things. He halted outside the panel; there was a murmur of voices from within. According to plan, then.
The American halted, drew his automatic and took in a deep breath. A glance at his watch: 2330, right after the plantation’s scheduled call-in, no alarm until the next was missed in four hours. The stairwell was redolent of old stone, with a faint underlying tang of ozone from the electronic equipment within; cables in metal conduits ran up the walls beside him, new metal and brackets drilled and bolted to the ancient tufa ashlars. This was the turning point, the step that could not be taken back. He shook his head; that was cowardice speaking, as stupidly as it always did, the desire to buy safety for a few more hours or days at the expense of real escape after a brief risk. He firmed his lips and pushed open the door.
A square room, the size of his bedroom. Brightly lit, naked overhead fluorescent tubes. Small square windows facing east and north. Metal tables bolted to the walls, and banks of equipment: telephone switchboard, shortwave set, teletype. Five people: Ernst and Jules sitting stony-faced over a chessboard, Sister Marya, Chantal—what in God’s name is she doing here—a nameless ordinary-looking serf with his back to the door, sitting in a swivel chair and speaking to the nun.
“I know the visitor’s boy is authorized up here to play chess with Jules, Sister, but you and the other lady will have to—”
“Don’t look around,” Kustaa said in French, in the flat emotionless voice that intimidated so much better than screaming. His hand had locked in the serf’s hair, drawing his head to one side until the muscles creaked. The agent reached around to waggle the muzzle of the automatic in front of his eyes, just in case, then put it in his ear.
“One sound and you’re all dead,” he said for the watch-stander’s benefit. “Down on the floor, hands behind your heads, move. Not you,” he added, checking a scrambling movement to exit the chair with the hard cold metal grinding into an ear.
“Don’t kill me,” the man blubbered, but enough in control not to shout. “Please, Master, I’ll—”
“This is the Resistance,” Kustaa said.
The man started violently.”Oh, God, no. Please go away, you’ll get us all killed. They’ll impale us all, our families, please—”
“Shut up.” You never knew what twisted paths courage might take, even in a rabbit like this. “I’m going to let go of your hair. Keep your head pointed the same way or I’ll blow your brains all over the wall.”
Trembling silence, while Kustaa unclenched his left hand from the man’s scalp and used it to pull the hypodermic from his pocket. The serf started once when the American plunged it home, then slumped.
“Out for hours,” he said, as Marya rose and scrambled across to lay the man straight and peel back an eyelid for a check. The agent tossed her a roll of adhesive tape, and she began to bind the unconscious form, hands and ankles, strips across mouth and eyes. Kustaa dropped the hypo by his side. It was Domination-standard with his own fingerprints on it. All that should spare the bystander from anything too gruesome; serfs were expected to surrender meekly to force. If not . . .
Toughski shitski, as they say in the Polish Marines, Kustaa thought, gleeful under the hammering pulse of action. His movements were crisp and controlled as he sat before the shortwave set.
“What the hell is she doing here, Sister?” he asked as he turned the dials, calling up the settings before the eye of memory. His head jerked towards Chantal, as he set the pistol by his right hand and propped the battle shotgun by the chair.
“She is with us,” the nun said, rising and coming to lean beside him. Swiftly and very quietly, in German: “She is the communist from my cell, she saw us together and guessed what you are. Be careful, we must get her to the cave. The master has been forcing her and she is pregnant and it has driven her . . . wild. She thinks you can take her out and will not listen to reason.”
“English or French!” Chantal hissed. “Don’t think I’m stupid. If I suspect you, I will scream.”
The settings were as correct as he could make them and this was a big military-issue set, powerful enough to punch messages across continents. He took up the microphone, giving the young Frenchwoman a single hard glance. Par for the course. Always something to fuck up at the last minute, he thought. There was a certain detached pity in his glance. The girl looked close to the edge, but . . . Mission first, buddies second, your own ass third and bystanders a distant fourth, he quoted to himself, the unofficial rule-of-engagement the Marine assault battalions had operated by.
“Break, four-seven, four-seven,” he began, repeating it half a dozen times. You had to believe they were listening, that no electromagnetic freak was damping it out so that they got static and a ham operator in Patagonia was picking it up loud and clear.
“This is loganberry”—Donovan’s perverse sense of humor again—“loganberry, with a friend, repeat, with a friend and a Christmas package. A package as big as two loganberries.” The extraction aircraft wasn’t very fast but at least they’d factored in a wide margin on lift. “Coordinates follow.” He read them off. “A grassy path bordered by light, repeat, a grassy path bordered by light.” Let whoever they’d sent wonder how he’d gotten a marked runway for them. “Over.”
He lifted his thumb from the send button and waited, suddenly conscious of sweat soaking his cotton jacket beneath the arms, crawling greasily out from around the rim of his hair; a hand squeezing up under his lungs. One broadcast might not catch some monitor’s attention, but . . .
Hiss. Crackle. Wavering hints of words, spillover, this was close to a commercial frequency, an unused bit of bandwidth in a crowded neighborhood. Then: “The caa is in the paaak.”
Kustaa grunted in sheer relief, suppressed euphoria; this was no time for it. He pulled out the yellow-edged Pan-Domination map for the region, confirmed his earlier estimate. “ETA, not long, it’s a good little aircraft,” he said. “Hit that light.”
He looked up, saw that the northern window that overlooked the terrace was shuttered, the one the Resistance people could see through the periscope. “What the fuck—sorry, Sister.”
“I have heard soldiers before, Frederick,” she said, rising to open it and giving Jules Lebrun’s shoulder a silent squeeze on the way. “This is a battle.”
The lights flickered three times, three times again. “Now, let’s go—” he began, rising.
And there was a scream from the door, long and loud. Kustaa whipped around so quickly that the swivel chair nearly dumped him on the floor, time slowing like treacle as he clawed up the pistol and staggered into some imitation of a crouch. The singer, the one from the banquet, standing in the doorway in some sort of pajama outfit, eyes wide and drawing breath to scream again. Chantal directly in his line of fire. His own legs driving, throwing him to one side, left hand slapping out for a breakfall, too late too late—
“Get the fuck out of the way!” he yelled, trying to get off one shot, but the girl was collapsing backwards; Chantal was standing with her mouth an O of surprise.
The face vanished as the girl threw herself back; there had been only the single scream, but he could hear the sound of tumbling and running footsteps going down that narrow stone corkscrew. God, a single woman’s scream is nothing here, if she just goes to ground we can still make it—
“Quickly,” Marya said. “Quickly, she will go straight to the mistress, quickly.”
“Three lights!” Henri said, and slapped up the handles of the periscope. Ybarra and Jean sprang to their feet and snatched up their sacks. “You two, down to the cars; I’ll get the lights. Allons, mes enfants!”
There was a smile on Henri’s face as he led the charge out the opened door of the shelter, up the short length of tunnel, and hurdled the green steel box they had placed on the lip where excavation met pavement. It would be quicker to load that way, and besides, being in the same room with it made even Henri nervous.
* * *
Moaning, Solange tumbled out of the stairwell into a main corridor; it was dimly lit, and for a moment she nearly screamed again, in panic at not knowing where she was. Blood was trickling salt-musky from her nose, and one eye was almost swollen shut where her fall had driven her face against the stone. She moaned again, seeing the horror of the room, the man bound, the gun coming up toward her, its black pit turning toward her, and her father sitting there, looking at her, doing nothing while the gun came up to kill her, kill her . . .
She shook her head, whimpered at the pain but almost welcomed it as her thoughts cleared. Tanya, she must get to Tanya at once, get out of this nightmare, get to safety. Hugging her bruised arm to her side, she limped down the corridor, tears of pain running down through the sheeted blood on her face, not conscious of speaking aloud.
“My God, Poppa, how could you, how could you betray me again, Poppa, Tanya help me, everything was so nice, Poppa, why did you spoil it—”
Figures, looking at her, jumping aside. House servants, common ones, asking questions. She ignored them, they could not help her, nobody but Tanya could help her. The door, the dear familiar bedroom, her pallet and nook, nobody there. It isn’t fair, it isn’t fair, where is she, she must be here, she said she had to get to bed, the hunt tomorrow—For a full minute Solange could only stand and stare, willing the empty bed full, seeing Tanya rising with concern and comfort, making the whole nightmare go away.
The Master. She must be with the Master. Panting through her mouth, Solange turned and plunged back into the corridor. She must be.
“Keep up, damn you!” Ybarra hissed. That damned Jean, falls on his ass without a pavement under his feet, she thought. There was ample moonlight for running here, with nice clear tracks between the vine trellises. Easy compared with darkness in the hills above the Ebro, waiting to ambush the Fascist supply convoys. Her hand gripped the knife hilt more tightly. It had been amazing how soft, how cooperative, how eager to please the toughest Fascist prisoner had become, when she showed him what she could do with the knife.
Jean got to his feet, brushing at the machine pistol across his chest, clearing the sandy dirt from the action; he was still panting from the run down the long slope. Ybarra jerked him down into a crouch.
“The car park is just beyond those trees,” she said. It was actually a pasture, pressed into service for the celebration. “We’ll go down to the end of the vineyard, low and quick. Through together to the first vehicle, they’re parked in rows. You cover me, three cars behind, and I’ll plant the little bomblets.” A thumb-sized piece of plastique and a chemical detonator for each, not precision timers but reliable and good enough for this work. She sniffed the air; nothing but the rich damp earth smell of this place, so different from the hard dry odors of her native Asturias, the bleak arid hills and the mining towns. A moment’s fierce nostalgia seized her, fueled her rage again. Asturias was no more, all the blood spilled in the uprisings against the mine owners and the victorious war against the Fascist generals, wasted.
No sounds, except for night birds and those accursed rasping crickets. No lights, except from the manor and the tents on its immediate grounds.
“Forward, Jean,” she said.
“Why not you?” he replied. There was an unpleasant note in his voice, and her eyes narrowed. Perhaps his nerve had broken; that happened sometimes, men just ran out of whatever it was that kept them going. As well to remind him that there was no retirement from the Resistance.
“Because I have an uneasy feeling you might drop too far behind, maricon,” she said, letting the honed edge of the knife show for a second; it was not blackened, like the rest of the metal. She could see his Adam’s apple bob up and down. “And if this behind you makes you uneasy, Jean, comrade, remember I’ve never yet cut a man’s throat unless I intended to.”
Kill her now? Jean thought, fingering the trigger of the machine pistol. No, she’s too close. He shuddered, remembering again the sound the overseer had made. This one had eyes like a master, hard and flat and you were nothing, not even a cockroach . . . no, among the cars would be better.
Tanya sighed, and squeezed her husband’s hand. How nice just to lie here and talk over the day, she thought drowsily. Just the two of us, no distractions—
The door to Edward von Shrakenberg’s bedroom burst open, and Solange stumbled through. Tanya shot bolt upright—the serf’s face was a mask of blood and bruise all down the left side, one eye a slit in the blue-shining swelling, and she was clutching at an arm whose fingers were limp. A low moaning trickled from her lips, turning to a sob of relief as she wavered toward the bed.
“Shit,” Edward said with quiet anger and rolled out of bed and onto his feet, reaching for clothes and gunbelt. A flick turned the lights from dim to bright, and the serf looked even more ghastly then; Tanya was by her side immediately, an arm supporting, guiding her to a chair.
“Who did this?” she said, with low deadliness. Somebody’s going to die for this, ran through her with cold conviction. Her fingers probed gently but irresistibly. No broken bones, the arm was just badly bruised; painful, but it looked worse than it was. Solange’s arms shot up with an anaconda grip around the Draka’s shoulders, and she began to cry hysterically.
“Who did this?” Tanya asked more firmly, nostrils flaring at the scent of blood and fear-sweat, overpowering the familiar cologne and musk of Edward’s room. Solange gave a muffled cry, raised her head, jerked back a little in involuntary terror at the expression on the face of the Draka who held her.
“I’m not angry at you, sweetlin’. Now, tell me.” Firm but not loud . . . Wotan’s spear, if it’s that swine Vashon, I’ll call him out and gut-shoot the serf-born bastard. Solange was far too well trained to have offered any provocation that would remotely justify this; even if somebody had the gall to ignore courtesy and take her, she would have submitted and complained later. This was wanton brutality for its own sake. “I don’t let anybody treat my own like this, Solange. Was it Vashon?”
“No!” The serf shook her head, winced, continued. “It was that Kenston, the mute.”
Tanya felt her face go slack with surprise. Kenston, she thought incredulously. You could tell a serf abuser, they showed it by a thousand mannerisms, Kenston she would have pegged as the type to spoil with sentimentality.
“He . . . he tried to kill me, Mistress. I went up to say good night to Poppa, to tell him how beautiful it was when I sang, and . . . and Raoul, they had him tied up, Chantal and . . . and Master Kenston, I screamed and . . . and Master Kenston tried to take his gun and, and shoot me and, and—”
“Chantal?” Edward bellowed, halting in the middle of stamping his foot into a boot.
