Captives of the Flame Part 18

By the time the doctor got back to the infirmary, the a.s.sistant feeder had developed a raging fever, and the nurse reported him violently nauseated. Then he died.

In the next two hours, out of the five thousand two hundred and eighty people who worked at the aquariums, three hundred and eighty-seven were taken with cramps and died in the next two hours, the only exception being an oddball physical culture enthusiast who always drank two quarts of milk for lunch; he lasted long enough to be gotten onto the shuttle and back to General Medical on Toron, where he died six minutes after admittance, one hour and seventeen minutes after the onset of the cramps. That was the first case that General Medical actually received.

It was not until the sixteenth case that the final diagnosis of barbitide poisoning was arrived at. Then someone remembered the query that had come in by phone from the military ministry that morning about the antidote.

"Somehow," said Chief Toxologist Oona, "the stuff has gotten into some food or other. It may be all over the city." Then he sat down at his desk and drafted a warning to the citizens of Toron containing a description of the effects of barbitide poisoning, antidote, and instructions to come to the General Medical building, along with a comment on high calcium foods. "Send this to the Military Ministry and get it out over every available source of public communications, and quick," he told his secretary.

When the a.s.sistant Communications Engineer (the first having gone off duty at three o'clock) received the message, he didn't even bother to see who it was from, but balled it up in disgust and flung it into a wastepaper basket and mumbled something about unauthorized messages. Had the janitor bothered to count that evening, he would have discovered that there were now thirty-six copies of Major Tomar's directive in various wastebaskets around the ministry.

Only a fraction of the barbitide victims made it to General Medical, but the doctors were busy. There was just one extraordinary incident, and among the screams of cramped patients, it was not given much thought.

Two men near the beginning of the rush of patients, gained access to the special receiving room. They managed to get a look at all the women who arrived. One of the patients who was wheeled by them was a particularly striking girl of about fifteen with snow white hair and a strong, lithe body, now knotted with cramps. Sweat beaded her forehead, her eyelids, and through her open collar you could see she wore a leather necklace of sh.e.l.ls.

"That's her," one of the men said. The other nodded, then went to the doctor who was administering the injections, and whispered to him.

"Of course not," the doctor said indignantly in a clear voice. "Patients need at least forty-eight hours rest and careful observation after injection of the antidotes. Their resistance is extremely low and complications ..."

The man said something else to the doctor and showed him a set of credentials. The doctor stopped, looked scared, then left the patient he was examining and went to the bed of the new girl. Quickly he gave her two injections. Then he said to the men, "I want you to know that I object to this completely and I will--"

"All right, Doctor," the first man said. Then the second hoisted Alter from the cot and they carried her out of the hospital.

The Queen Mother had her separate throne room. She sat in it now, looking at photographs. In bright colors, two showed the chamber of the Crown Prince. In one picture the Prince was seated on his bed in his pajama pants with his heel against the side board; standing by the window was a white-haired girl with a leather necklace strung with tiny, bright sh.e.l.ls. The next showed the Prince still sitting on the bed, this time with his hand on the newel dolphin. The girl was just turning toward the open window.

The third picture, which from the masking, seemed to have been taken through a keyhole, showed what seemed to be an immense enlargement of a human pupil; mistily discernible through the iris were the dottings and tiny pathways of a retina pattern. On the broad arm of the Queen Mother's throne was a folder marked: ALTER RONID.

In the folder were a birth certificate, a clear photograph of the same retina pattern, a contract in which a traveling circus availed itself of the service of a group of child acrobats for the season, a school diploma, copies of receipts covering a three-year period of gymnastic instruction, a copy of a medical bill for the correction of a sprained hip, and two change of address slips. Also there were several cross reference slips to the files of Alia Ronid (mother, deceased) and Rara Ronid (maternal aunt, legal guardian).

The Queen put the photographs on top of the folder and turned to the guards. There were thirty of them lined against the walls of the room.

She lifted up the heavy, jeweled scepter and said, "Bring her in." She touched the two buns of white hair on the sides of her head, breathed deeply, and straightened in the chair, as two doors opened at the other end of the room.

Two blocks had been set up in the middle of the room, about four feet high and a foot apart.

Alter stumbled once, but the guard caught her. They walked her between the blocks, which came to just below her shoulders, spread her arms over the surface and strapped them straight across the tops at the biceps and wrist.

The Queen smiled. "That's only a precaution. We want to help you." She came down the steps of the throne, the heavy jeweled rod cradled in her arm. "Only we know something about you. We know that you know something which if you tell me, will make me feel a great deal better. I've been very upset, recently. Did you know that?"

Alter blinked and tried to get her balance. The blocks were just under the proper height by half an inch so that she could neither stand completely nor could she sag.

"We know you're tired, and after your ordeal with the barbitide--you don't feel well, do you?" asked the Queen, coming closer.

Alter shook her head.

"Where did you take my son?" the Queen asked.

Alter closed her eyes, then opened them wide and shook her head.

"Believe me," said the Queen, "we have ample proof. Look." She held up the photographs for Alter to see. "My son took these pictures of the two of you together. They're very clear, don't you think?" She put the pictures back in the quilted pocket of her robe.

"Aren't you going to tell me, now?"

"I don't know anything," Alter said.

"Come now. That room had as many cameras as a sturgeon has eggs. There are dozens of hidden switches. Somehow the alarms connected with them didn't go off, but the cameras still worked."

Alter shook her head again.

"You don't have to be afraid," said the Queen. "We know you're tired and we want to get you back to the hospital as soon as possible. Now. What happened to my son, the Prince?"

Silence.

"You're a very sweet girl. You're an acrobat too?"

Alter swallowed, and then coughed.

The Queen gave a puzzled smile this time. "Really, you don't have to be afraid to answer me. You are an acrobat, isn't that right?"

Alter nodded.

The Queen reached out and slowly lifted the triplet leather necklace with its scattering of sh.e.l.ls in her fingers. "This is a beautiful piece of jewelry." She lifted it from Alter's neck. "An acrobat's body must be like a fine jewel, fine and strong. You must be very proud of it." Again she paused and tilted her head. "I'm only trying to put you at ease, dear, make conversation." Smiling, she lifted the necklace completely from around Alter's neck. "Oh, this is exquisite ..."

Suddenly the necklace clattered to the ground, the sh.e.l.ls making an almost miniature sound against the tiles.

Alter's eyes followed the necklace to the floor.

"Oh," the Queen said. "I'm terribly sorry. It would be a shame to break something like this." With one hand the Queen drew back her robes until her shoe was revealed. Then she moved her foot forward until her raised toe was over the necklace. "Will you tell me where my son is?"

There was seven, eight, ten seconds of silence. "Very well," the Queen said, and brought her foot down. The sound of crushed sh.e.l.ls was covered by Alter's scream. Because the Queen had brought down the scepter, too, the full arc of its swing, onto Alter's strapped forearm. Then she brought it down again. The room was filled with the scream and the crack of the jeweled scepter against the surface of the block. Then the Queen smashed Alter's upturned elbow joint.

When there was something like silence, the Queen said, "Now, where is my son?"

Alter didn't say for a long while; when she did, they were ready to believe anything. So what she told them didn't do much good when they had time to check it. Later, unconscious, she was carried into the General Medical building wrapped in a gray blanket.

"Another fish poison case?" asked the clerk.

The man nodded. The doctor, who had been there when Alter was removed from the hospital, had been working steadily for six hours. When he unwrapped the blanket, he recognized the girl. When he unwrapped it further, the breath hissed between his lips, and then hissed out again, slowly. "Get this girl to emergency surgery," he said to the nurse.

"Quickly!"

In the Devil's Pot, Tel had just gotten over a case of the runs which had kept him away from food all day. Feeling hungry, now, he was foraging in the cold storage cabinet of the inn's kitchen. In the freezing chest he found the remains of a baked fish, so he got a sharp knife from over the sink, and cut a piece. Then the door opened and the barmaid came in. She was nearly seventy years old and wore a red scarf around her stringy neck. Tel had cut a slice of onion and was putting it on top of the fish when the barmaid ran forward and knocked the dish from his hand.

"Ouch," Tel said, and jumped, though nothing had hurt him.

"Are you completely crazy?" the woman asked. "You want to be carried out of here like the rest of them?"

Tel looked puzzled as Rara entered the kitchen. "Good grief," she declared. "Where is everybody? I'm starved. I started selling that homebrew tonic of mine that I made up yesterday, and around noon, suddenly everybody was buying the stuff. They wanted something for cramps, and I guess my Super Aqueous Tonic is as good as anything else.

I couldn't even get back to eat. Is there some sort of epidemic? Say, that looks good," and she went for the fish.

The old barmaid s.n.a.t.c.hed up the dish and carried it to the disposal can.