Damage Control - ARC (11 page)

“I'm concerned,” said Jade, even though
'terrified' would have been a more accurate word, “that they may
think I have some kind of secret. But I'm not in the military. I
don't know anything, except what I see on TV.”

“I think you should not worry,” Koll
reassured her. “Zuke's pod failed because...” She consulted her
Personal Device for the correct word. “...fabrication error. He
fixed the pod because he is very smart. He used resources he had.
He had you. He used you. This not makes you look like a spy, see?
If really you don't know why you is here, probably is an error and
you go home soon.”

“Thanks,” said Jade, relieved.

“Thanks for what?”

“I feel much better now.”

“I say what I think only.”

“Well, thanks for saying what you think,
then.”

They walked the rest of the way in silence,
and when they got to the painted shape that was Jade's door, Koll
grabbed her Personal Device and said, “I will report that you is
here now.” She held it to her face like a Human with a cellphone,
and had a conversation in Chuzekk. Jade thought she looked
surprised.

She put the Device back on her hip and looked
at Jade intently. A sly, sneering smile spread over her face. “You
did lie, Jade Massilon,” she stated, her voice a mix of amusement
and triumph.

“About what?” Jade asked, confused.

“Chegg Jaigg did order you captured.”

“Who's that?”

“Chegg Jaigg is our keev. He is commander.
Very big. He is very expert interrogator.”

“The CO of this ship ordered me
captured?”

“C-O” Koll said to her Personal Device. The
translation was long, and she shut it off. Then she looked back at
Jade and demanded, “What is CO?”

“Commanding Officer. The highest-ranking
officer, basically.”

“Yes,” Koll answered simply, then repeated,
“You did lie.”

Jade’s heart was pounding. “Lied about what?”
she asked.

“You did say you don't know why you is
here.”

“I don’t.”

Koll’s smile freshened. Her face said, 'You
don’t fool me.'

Jade switched tactics. “So what happens now?”
she asked.

Koll just looked at her. The other soldier
shifted his feet and kept his eyes on Jade’s door.

“What will happen?” Jade corrected. “The kid
gave the order for me to be captured; you think I’m—“

“Keev,” Koll interrupted.

“Keev, sorry. The keev gave the order to
capture me, you think I’m lying. What happens next?”

“Next, you sleep,” the soldier answered, “and
tomorrow you go to keev for he interrogate you.”

Jade couldn’t help feeling that she had just
been handed a horrific sentence without being allowed a trial,
without even being allowed to know what the charges were. She
thought of a dozen things she wanted to say, but all that came out
of her mouth, in a faint squeaky voice, was “The keev…is going to
be my interrogator?”

“Yes.” Koll wore a broad, sneering, cold grin
that spoke of victory. Jade looked at the other soldier, and he
wore it, too.

“Why?” said Jade. It was almost a
whisper.

“Because you is big spy.”

T
wo cheejes escorted
Jade through a maze of hilly passageways and down a high, broad
hallway. Facing them at the end of it was an imposing pair of metal
doors, each about ten feet high and five wide, inlaid with stones
and a single horizontal line of tiles bearing Chuzekk characters.
Above them was a thick, intricately carved mantel, and above that,
nearly as wide as the doorway, a symbol on the wall that seemed to
be made of gold: a giant gilded claw pierced a giant gilded
eye.

One of the cheejes pushed the right-hand door
open. The other walked through the open doorway, still holding Jade
by the arm, and stopped as soon as they were past the end of the
door.

Standing about fifteen feet in front of them
was a male Chuzekk that Jade took to be the keev, since his rank
insignia was one she hadn't seen before. He walked slowly toward
her, looking at her intently with piercing green eyes. He smiled a
sneering, almost hungry smile, and didn't stop walking until he was
only about a foot in front of her. He nodded to the cheej, who let
go of Jade's arm.

Jade had to tilt her head back and look up to
see his face. She almost didn't dare move, but she didn't dare not
to. She forced herself to reach for his right upper arm as she had
been taught and say, “Keev.” To her surprise, her voice worked this
time, though it did sound shaky.

He grasped her arm and said, “Jade.” Then he
released his grip and said something to the cheej in Chuzekk. The
cheej turned and left, closing the door behind her. Jade was left
alone with the keev, who continued to stand and look at her
intently.

Afraid of appearing defiant, Jade lowered her
gaze, but he lifted her chin with his leathery left hand until she
was looking at his face again.

His skin was browner and less gray than the
average Chuzekk's Jade had seen so far, and his face was wider.
From straight on, his head ridges looked like points—almost like a
crown. A hairless unibrow that vaguely resembled crocodile skin
extended to both sides of his head. The same crocodile effect
occurred across his flared nostrils, and in two lines that extended
from his cheeks to his throat and jutted out half an inch or so
from his chin.

Finally, he stepped back and slowly walked in
a circle around her, still staring at her in that piercing, almost
hungry way.

“I am Keev...Chegg...Jaigg,” he said when he
had completed his circle, speaking slowly and enunciating the names
with extreme clarity. “Keev is my rank. It means that I support
more than twenty-two thousand people. Chegg is my personal name.
Jaigg is my family name.”

There was a desk in the room, much like the
desk in Jade's own room, and the keev walked around it and stood on
the other side. “You will kneel in this station,” he said.

Jade complied. There were half a dozen
stations at that desk, and the keev had indicated the second one
from the left-hand end. Jade was now facing a large blank white
wall to the left of the door. To the right of the desk, and nearest
the door, was a counter holding a coffeemaker, half a dozen mugs
and some other things.

The keev stood to her right and placed a
small round object on her cheek. It must have had an adhesive
backing, because it stuck there. Then he took out his Personal
Device, opened it and typed. He set it on the desk and tapped it
one more time with his claw, and a projection appeared on the wall
in front of her: an outline of a body with colored lines and
symbols. There was a series of lines to the left of the
body-outline as well, vaguely resembling a bar graph.

“You did not sleep last night,” he observed,
“nor eat today.” He walked to the coffee counter. “Do you want
coffee?” he asked her.

Last night, she had made up her mind not to
answer any questions in this office, no matter how trivial. She
stared straight ahead and said nothing.

He poured two cups of coffee. “Sugar?” he
asked.

Again she said nothing. Data in the
projection flickered and changed.

“More sugar?” he asked, seeming not to notice
her silence.

She looked at him and saw that he wasn't even
looking at her. He seemed to be looking at the data on the wall. He
turned and put sugar in one of the mugs. “More sugar?” he asked
again, looking at the wall. Some of the bars in the graph seemed to
move in response, and he put in another spoonful. “More sugar?” He
put the sugar down. “Cream?” he said. The bars responded again and
he poured cream into her mug. “More cream?” Apparently the wall
said no, because he put the cream away.

He came back to the desk with both mugs of
coffee and set hers in front of her. There was nothing alien about
these solid-color ceramic mugs. The Chuzekks must have gotten them
from Earth. She picked up the maroon mug and sipped, and couldn't
help noticing that the coffee tasted just like she had prepared it
herself. The keev's own coffee was black, and his mug a sort of
dusty blue. She wondered if any of this information was
significant, and tried to observe and put to memory as many details
as possible. But she should focus on the room, too, not just the
coffee and the mugs.

“Chuzekks discovered coffee just recently,
when we came to Earth,” the keev observed. “But already many like
it. I also like it.”

He typed on his Personal Device and the
body-outline and bar graph moved to the left, leaving a large area
of blank wall between them and the door. Then a picture seemed to
slide out from under the body-outline until it occupied the
majority of the blank space. It was a face-shot of a man, and it
looked like the kind of photo you'd find on an ID. It stayed there
for a second or two, then seemed to slide off to the right and
disappear. Another picture slid in from the left, stayed for a
moment, then disappeared to the right. The process kept repeating,
until Jade began to wonder if the keev was trying to hypnotize her.
Then she saw something that made her jump: staring back at her from
the wall was the face of her neighbor, Bill.

This time the photo didn't slide off to the
right. It minimized into the lower left corner of the photo area
before disappearing. The next photo was of Bill's wife, and it,
too, disappeared into the corner and not to the right side.

Very uncomfortable with this development,
Jade stood up.

Silently, the keev stopped the flow of
pictures with one clawstroke, put a big hand on her back and firmly
pushed her into the station, so that her weight shifted onto her
knees and forearms. Then he placed his hands on the desk, one on
either side of her, leaned close and spoke quietly into her right
ear, emphasizing the first two words with a chilling severity,
“Do...not...remove your knees from this station without my
permission.” Then he stood to his full height and Jade straightened
her back, kneeling solidly in the station. The keev started the
pictures again, knelt in the station beside her and sipped his
coffee.

She saw a lot of faces that she recognized
and a lot that she didn't. Most of the ones she recognized
minimized into the corner; most of the ones she didn't slid off to
the right side. Clearly, the Personal Device, or some other
computer, was sorting the pictures based on Jade's autonomic
responses. But sorting for what purpose? Was she unwillingly
betraying her friends and neighbors? She put her head down on the
counter so she wouldn't see the pictures.

Still without speaking, the keev put down his
mug, stood behind her and picked her head up with both his
hands.

She closed her eyes, but he opened them with
his fingers and held them open. His claws didn't scratch her, but
she could feel them against her eyelids, her cheeks and the back of
her head, and they felt sharp.

After a few seconds, he let go and returned
to his station. Her eyes burned and she blinked hard, but she
didn't dare leave them closed.

The pictures continued sorting themselves.
Clearly, refusing to answer questions was useless, since somehow
the computer could read her responses whether she spoke them or
not. Refusing to look at the projection was useless, since she was
forced to see it whether she looked or not. There no longer seemed
to be anything to lose by talking.

“Keev,” she said, “is it okay if I say
something?”

“Yes.” He stopped the pictures.

“There must be some mistake. I'm not in the
military. I don't know any military secrets.”

“What is the mistake?” he asked her.

“Well, here I am, I've been captured, I'm
about to be interrogated, but I don't have any information that I
could possibly imagine would be useful to you.”

“Then we will find that out.”

The coldness of his response started her
heart pounding.

“A sudden increase in fear, I believe,” he
observed like a scientist analyzing a test. “Why?”

Jade paused to compose her reply. Stating the
obvious without sounding disrespectful was always a challenge. “I
think fear is normal for any Human waiting to be tortured.”

He scoffed. “We do not torture,” he spat.
“It's ineffective.”

He started the pictures again, and she
watched them sort themselves.

“Keev,” she said a few minutes later, “Is it
okay if I ask questions?”

He stopped the pictures. “You should say
'Chegg,' not 'Keev.’ Chegg is my name, keev is my rank. You should
not address us by rank, as you will dilute the significance of the
statement of submission if you use our ranks also to ask for
attention.”

Jade didn't understand, and he seemed to
realize that.

“When we met today,” he said with the patient
tone of a teacher, “you called me 'Keev.' Why?”

“I was told that when someone outranks you,
you should say their rank and not their name,” Jade answered,
hoping she wasn't getting Leed and Vyke in trouble.

“You were told correctly. Do you know why you
should say the rank and not the name?”

“They said it's a promise to obey.”

“Yes, it's a statement of submission, a
recognition of my authority over you. You should not use it simply
to address me. If you want my attention, you should use my name.
Yes, you may ask questions.”

“Chegg, then. Why was I captured?”

He put his left hand on her back. It wasn't a
sexual touch, but it did seem inappropriately familiar. With his
right hand he typed something into his Personal Device, and the
image of a US military document showed on the wall.

“Can you please not touch me?” she asked.

“Request denied,” he answered, then once more
leaned very close to her ear—her left ear this time—and ordered,
“Do...not...ask again.”

He remained standing, touching her back. “Do
you recognize this document?”