Coinciding with Gunter Ganzer’s and Erik Hauser’s arrival, these laboratories were the last to fall silent, their experiments, lights, and emissions shutting down one by one. All other work had slowed and ceased soon after the Tannoy had issued the Three’s orders, when the complex’s trustees, gangers, and other persons of privilege—especially those who yesterday had gone down to the village on special licence—had commenced arriving and merging into small groups in an area close to the gun. And as more of them had arrived, swelling the groups into one body, so its members had spread themselves out around a stone dais surmounted by a huge steel cross on a disc-shaped base of some nonreflective, jet-black material some four inches thick.
This was the last place in all Schloss Zonigen, or in the rest of the entire planet, where any of these people would wish to be. Their gaunt expressions reflected that fact; their faces—even those of the completely innocent, which as yet everyone here was—were pale, bloodless, terrified.
The ceiling workers on their high scaffolding looked down on the scene; skilled men at their benches looked across at it; the scientists and their assistants gradually came forward from their laboratories, finding positions of higher elevation where such existed; labourers put down their various burdens, slapped dust and dirt from their denim coveralls, turned inward toward the dais and crucifix on its black disc base. And the scene was set.
No one wanted to watch what was about to happen, but each and every one of them knew he must. Indeed, that was why it was happening: as an example, a warning, a reminder of the price to be paid for breaking Schloss Zonigen’s rules—and especially the first rule. Which was also the reason why no one wanted to be caught not watching. For who could say? There might even be a penalty for that!
And yet not everyone was here; a dozen of the privileged, the group that Gunter Ganzer had seen descending in the cable car just an hour or so ago, had gone down to the ski lodge and by now would have proceeded into one of the local villages and perhaps even farther afield . . . but never too far afield. Then there were the guards, Schloss Zonigen’s armed militia or “security personnel,” who were on a par socially with the trustees; which was to say generally loathed by everyone else. But as for their absence—it spoke for itself.
From the moment Herr Roberto Stein, physicist, had entered Schloss Zonigen and talked about his warning letter, guards had been dispatched into every tunnel and cavern in the vicinity of the reception area, the only possible escape route out onto the false plateau and any imagined freedom. By now all of the vehicles on the esplanade would have been immobilized; there would be cold-eyed, parka-clad watchers with binoculars, walkie-talkies, and rifles with telescopic sights in the high turrets and other vantage points; and anyone seen on foot, or by any other means, attempting flight from Schloss Zonigen by descending its precipitous access road would be shot dead and his body recovered and disposed of before any outsider could see it.
That was the current scenario, whose anomalies anyone new to the Schloss must surely find as puzzling as they were alarming. A young foreman of electricians who stood close to Gunter Ganzer in the crowd was just such a recent recruit, and he had questions that required answers. The problem was, who could he trust to answer them in a place where it was probably questionable even to ask them? Nearby, a quiet man favouring a twisted left foot seemed a mild sort, not one to complain too vocally; and with his mind made up the young electrician moved closer . . .
Unhappy with Erik Hauser’s proximity, Ganzer had gradually edged away from him into the circle of workers around the dais. Hauser had taken up with other trustees and stood whispering to them, no doubt describing the events he’d witnessed down in the cryogenic ice tunnel; while Ganzer stood with a group of people he considered more acceptable, as if it mattered in this place: gangers and the like whose intelligence and—sometimes—human decency stood them head and shoulders above Hauser and his ilk. But despite that these foremen were intelligent, it didn’t make them any less vulnerable to terror; on the contrary, their fertile imaginations only increased it.
Knowing what was happening here, however—its cause, and the fact that he was in no way guilty—Ganzer felt much easier in his mind than he might otherwise feel; but still, on sensing someone standing closer than necessary, and feeling a tentative nudge in the ribs, he gave a start and softly said, “Eh? What?”
“Excuse me,” said the young man, who might be twenty-eight years old, fresh-faced and red-haired, “but you look like someone who knows a thing or two. Can we talk?”
Ganzer looked all around. Others were whispering together, conversing in low tones, bunching up if only for human companionship. And so he nodded. “But quietly. What is it you want?”
“Ah! I know you now,” said the other, drawing back a pace. “The Herr Direktor. I’m sorry if I—”
Ganzer took his elbow and cut him short. “Direktor in name only,” he quietly answered. “And who are you?”
“Hans Niewohner,” said the other, a little too loudly for Ganzer’s liking. “Of the firm Niewohner Electrics—well, as it used to be. But I’ve been here for almost a month now.”
“Hush!” Ganzer cautioned him again. “You must keep it down or we can’t talk. And I’ll ask you again, what is it you want?”
“I just want to understand!” Niewohner answered, his eyes earnest and anxious. “I’ve heard some talk and pretty much know what has happened, but why would a traitor—hell no, a bloody hero if you ask me!—why would he want to come back here after committing his alleged ‘crime’? Also, why do those three things assume he’s still here and hasn’t already run away to somewhere where he’ll be safe?”
Gunter Ganzer knew the answers to both questions. But now he cautioned the young man for a third time, saying, “Hush! If you can’t keep your voice down we can’t talk! And let’s move a little farther away from that lot, shall we?” He indicated the now fairly large group of surly-looking trustees.
They moved deeper into the ranks of the gangers, but kept slightly apart even from them. There, speaking almost under his breath, Ganzer answered Niewohner’s second question first. “You ask why the Three assume the culprit is still here? They assume nothing but know he’s here! As to how they know: that’s the answer to your first question. Also, you ask why hasn’t the alleged ‘criminal’ run off somewhere safe. Huh! My answer: because there is no such place. But tell me . . . you say you’ve been here for a month now? Haven’t you been introduced to a Khiff, one of their familiars?”
“A Khiff? I’ve heard such mentioned in whispers, whatever it’s supposed to mean, but no one wants to enlarge upon it. Did you say something about a familiar? What, like a witch’s familiar?”
“Exactly,” said Ganzer. “They each have one. In fact, for a long time I’ve half believed that they are witches—or one of them at least—while the other two are wizards. Who knows?” He shrugged.
“And the Khiff? Their familiars . . . what do they do?”
“So then, you’re sure you haven’t yet been introduced?”
“No, not that I know of.”
“Oh,” said Ganzer with an assertive nod of his head, “you would know right enough! These are the stuff of nightmares! As for what they do: they get inside your head—and they can do that literally, if it’s warranted—and they find out all about you; they get to know your weaknesses, which we every one of us have, and they know how to prey on them. After that, no matter where you are or what you’re doing, they can sniff you out and locate you for their masters. Today, I myself was called back here from my house in the village. She spoke to me, her voice in my head, amplified through her Khiff.”
The other shook his head, looked dazed. “It sounds fantastic. I’m not sure I can believe it.”
“You’re a ganger, a foreman,” Ganzer told him. “If you’re a family man they will have leverage . . . your wife, children?”
“I have none, no one.” Niewohner shook his head again.
“Ah!” said Ganze
r. “That’s why you haven’t been introduced to a Khiff. They can’t let you leave the Schloss and so have no need to take your mind pattern. As for a majority of the people here—trustees, foremen, scientists, guards, and all the more important workers—they have all been ‘recorded’ by the Khiff. Some seventy-two of them, from what I can make out.”
“But . . . a creature with such mental capacity?”
“Three creatures,” Ganzer answered. “Haven’t you been listening to me? They each have a Khiff.”
Niewohner took Ganzer’s elbow. “There are so many things I want to know!”
Ganzer found that he liked the younger man. Here was someone he could at least talk to; a rarity in Schloss Zonigen. And so: “Yes, I fully understand your curiosity, but for now we had best be quiet. I can seek you out, later perhaps.”
“Good! But until then, one more question, please?”
“Quickly then.”
“What is this thing we’re building? Is it a weapon of some sort?”
“Perhaps it is,” Ganzer replied. “Like anything else here, that seems entirely possible. But I really don’t know for sure. No one does.”
“But—” Niewohner began again, and came to an abrupt halt as Tannoy speakers in the walls sounded a gonging note of warning. And:
“Hush!” Ganzer whispered, gooseflesh creeping on his arms. “Be quiet now. They’re coming!”
And moments later the Three began to arrive . . .
17
The Three arrived. Like a trio of stage magicians they came—if the dais could be thought of as a stage; which, constructed of solid blocks of stone, it could not. There were no trapdoors here, no cabinet marked with moons, stars, and comets, no smoke and mirrors. Only the solid stone dais with its great cross set in a disc of some nameless substance as black as space. And the cross, more properly a crucifix, was by no means a holy symbol; sinister, it dangled chains and manacles. As for the manner of the Three’s coming, however: that did seem mystical, magical.
The air above the dais shimmered like a mirage, like the air over a blacktop road in the middle of summer: a horizontal blurring effect that heralded the arrival first of the female, Frau Lessing, more properly Mordri One. She blurred into being on one side of the dais like a hologram made solid; and just a moment later, on the other side, came Simon Salcombe, or Mordri Two. Finally, a heartbeat later, and Guyler Schweitzer was there, Mordri Three, materializing out of the thin air between the other two.
For one long minute the Three stood absolutely motionless, tall, straight, as thin as reeds, staring out over the heads of their audience; then the female thing stepped forward. Dressed in a white kaftanlike shift in common with her companions, she reminded Gunter Ganzer of nothing so much as one of the candles in a three-pronged candelabra . . . a thought that, knowing how easily she could reach him, he immediately put out of his head! And as Ganzer shrank down into himself—in the total silence commanded by the sheer presence of the Three, with the cavern’s acoustics serving to amplify her voice four or five times over—Mordri One spoke out:
“It has come to our attention,” she said, “that we harbour a traitor in our midst; a man who, given the shelter of Schloss Zonigen, has conceived and committed an act of betrayal against our first rule, against the security of the Schloss, against we Three. He is on his way here even now, in the custody of two of our guards. He heard the orders and, as we anticipated, made to flee . . . only to be arrested in the act of throwing himself down from a high place. That would have meant a merciful death; alas that we can’t allow such. Ah!” She pointed a long arm, hand, and finger at one of the access shafts. “And here he is.”
Then, speaking to the guards who hauled and buffeted their prisoner into the central area, where those about the dais made way for them, “Bring him up here,” she said.
The guards climbed the dais steps, manacled the man to the cross, then quickly backed off, got down, fell in with the rest of the observers. Guyler Schweitzer, or Mordri Three, now stepped forward in his central position in front of the cross. “You see before you a traitor. Now we question him, and we will have the truth.”
The Three turned inward to face the man on the cross, and as one they took a flowing pace toward him. It was Mordri Two, Simon Salcombe, who spoke this time, his voice shrill, rasping like a blunt file, grating on the nerves of all who heard him; for indeed his message wasn’t only for the prisoner. “You will not lie to us; you are not able to lie. But should you attempt to do so, there will be pain. There will in any event be pain, which any attempt at lying can only exacerbate.”
Like the jaws of a vise the Three leaned forward, stepped up onto the black disc, lifted spindly arms and hands to grasp their victim’s jacket, and effortlessly tore it to shreds. The garment now hung down in strips from the belt at his waist. He was quite small, something less than Ganzer’s height at around sixty-six or -seven inches. He was lean; his belly hollow, his ribs prominent, thrust out by his weight where he dangled with his wrists manacled over his head, his naked toes barely touching the disc. His pale face was a mask of despair: his cheeks were sucked in, his eyes hollow, his mouth half open, moaning.
He had been beaten; bruises showed on his arms, his thin ribs, his sides; a trickle of blood smeared his cheek from the corner of his mouth to his chin. His left eye was beginning to bulge; it was bruised and closing.
Until now the man had merely moaned, albeit in a trembly, terrified manner . . . that was about to change.
Without warning Mordris Two and Three reached out again to take hold of his arms; while Mordri One, Ganzer’s “She,” placed a long-fingered hand flat on his belly close up under his ribs. They didn’t so much grasp as simply touch him. And Ganzer found himself panting shallowly, muttering, “The touch! The touch!”
“Eh? Touch?” Niewohner whispered.
“Oh, you have been touched, too,” Ganzer told him, between each snatched breath of air. “Not like this, no, but they’ve at least tasted you. They’ve tasted everyone. So now watch, learn, and for God’s sake be quiet!”
Simon Salcombe, Mordri Two, was again speaking to the prisoner:
“You were a trustee—you have a son here, who guaranteed your discretion—and yet you would have betrayed us, betrayed him, betrayed yourself! Which in the end you have done anyway.”
“No! No!” the man cried out, his voice shrill and echoing, almost a scream. “I did nothing! It wasn’t me!”
“A lie!” Mordri Two screamed back at him, bending a little to bring his face closer to his victim’s face. “Look!” And with his free hand he produced a scrap of paper, sniffed at it, held it up for the man on the cross to see. “Your treachery, in your words. I can smell you on this paper, and I can read it in your mind! Now admit it, that you have lied.”
The man saw that denial was useless. “I . . . I was drunk!” he sobbed. “It was the schnapps, too much schnapps. But I knew my duty and when I woke up sober I came back here. My poor boy is here. I didn’t run—I couldn’t run—for his sake. And I swear I’ll never make that mistake again. It wasn’t me, not me. It was the schnapps!”
“No, you didn’t run,” Salcombe snarled. “Because to do so would have given you away. You hoped this letter would never be produced. But it has been produced, and you are its author! Ah, but when you heard the alert, the instructions we issued—our orders to gather here—then you ran! And you would have killed yourself to rob us of our revenge. Also, it’s possible that you thought your death would somehow lift the burden from your son. But the children of you people, your wives, relatives: they are our surety. Therefore your son will be made to pay—and in the same measure as you yourself! So then, now the pain—but only the least of the pain!”
“Then do your worst, you bloody thing!” The prisoner tried to lift a leg, kick at Salcombe, but only managed to swing with his chains. “If I pay then I pay; at least I tried to save some other, him and his family. And anyway what is death after four years in the hell you’ve made
of this place?”
“Ahhhhh!” howled the Mordris in unison.
The Three leaned inward more yet; their hands on the prisoner’s body appeared to blur with rapid vibrations. Then, as he commenced to jerk and writhe, crying out in some nameless agony, so the neon lights over the workbenches, and other lighting in the walls and domed rock ceiling, began to sputter. The speakers of the Tannoy system were also affected; they squealed and made other raucous sounds, interspersed with a crackling and buzzing synchronous with the wild flickering and strobing of the lights.
It lasted for several long moments. Then:
On the cross, the victim no longer cried out; writhing and jerking as before, he now seemed struck dumb, making only humming noises with his nose, which gushed blood. But in fact these sounds were his screams; his mouth was sealed over . . . his lips had grown together in a patch of pink flesh!
“And now tell them.” Mordri Two’s high-pitched shriek—of joy? Of pleasure? Of purest evil—rose over the clamour of the electrical sputterings and the outcry from the Tannoy speakers. “Tell these men—these ex-colleagues who knew you, who worked with you—how it hurts and how you’ll gladly welcome the death which will shortly follow. Explain to them if you will what you would say to your son; how you would attempt to acquit yourself if you could be there when we send him also to his death, which we surely will. Why don’t you cry out for forgiveness? Not that you’ll receive it.”
Then Salcombe paused in his ranting; leaning closer yet to the agonized figure on the cross, he angled his long head in an attitude of listening and screeched, “What? What are you trying to say? You may not oblige me, for your flesh is no longer your own and your lips are sealed? A pity you haven’t kept them that way! Oh, ha-ha-haaa! But of course your flesh isn’t your own . . . for it’s ours, to do with as we will!”