Lewis & Glark | Time Traders | Book One | Chapter 2
Absorbed in the scene before him, Lewis wasn’t prepared for the sudden and complete darkness which blotted out not only the action but the light in the room as well. Pitch black.
“What the — ?” His startled voice rang loudly in his ears, since all sound had been wiped out with the light. The faint swish of the ventilating system, of which he had not been actively aware until it had disappeared, was also missing. A trace of the same panic he had known in the cockpit of the ship here tingled along his nerves. But this time he could meet the unknown with action.
Lewis slowly moved through the dark around the cell, his hands outstretched before him to avoid crashing into the walls or furniture. He felt the door to the bathroom and the dresser along one wall. The metal door into the cell along the next wall, which was still locked and windowless. He felt the wall behind the bed, stepping over it, until he was back to the wall where the winter scene had appeared then disappeared.
He knew that the scene had been some kind of advanced holographic technology. Still, Lewis half expected for the scene to reappear and to fall through onto the dead, skinned corpse of the wolf-spider. “Stupid,” he said to himself as he ran his hands along the flat wall.
His palm suddenly passed over emptiness. There was now an opening in the wall! For a moment he hesitated, upset by a nagging little fear of what he might through the opening.
All the frustrations of the time he been wherever “here” was built up in him a raging desire to do something — anything — just so long as it was what he wanted to do and not at another’s orders.
Nevertheless, Lewis continued to move slowly, for the black space through the opening was as deep and dark a pit as the room he left. To squeeze along one wall, using an outstretched arm as a guide, was the best course of action, he decided.
A few feet farther on, his hand slipped from the surface and he half tumbled into another open door. But he quickly found the surface of another wall, and he clung to it thankfully. Another door … Lewis paused, trying to catch some faint sound, the slightest hint that he was not alone in this blindman’s maze. But without even air currents to stir it, the blackness itself took on a thick solidity which encased him, thick and oppressive.
The wall ended. Lewis kept his left hand on it, flailed out with his right, and felt his nails scrape across another surface. The space separating the two surfaces was wider than any doorway. Was it a hallway?
He was about to make a wider arm sweep when he heard a sound. He was not alone.
Lewis went back to the wall, flattening himself against it, trying to control the volume of his own breathing in order to catch the slightest whisper of the noise. He discovered that lack of sight can confuse the ear. He could not identify those clicks, the wisp of fluttering sound that might be air displaced by the opening of another door.
Finally, he detected something moving at floor level. Someone or something must be crawling, not walking, toward him. Lewis pushed back around the corner. It never occurred to him to challenge the crawler. There was an element of danger in this strange encounter in the dark; he wasn’t about to get into a fight with something, someone he couldn’t size-up first.
The sound of the crawling wasn’t steady. There were long pauses, and Lewis became convinced that each rest was punctuated by heavy breathing as if the crawler was finding progress a great and exhausting effort.
He fought the picture that persisted in his imagination — that of a wolf-spider snuffling along the blacked-out hall. Caution suggested a quick retreat, but Lewis’s urge to rebellion held him where he was, crouching, straining to see what crept toward him.
A blinding flare of light, and Lewis’ hands covered his dazzled eyes. At floor level, he heard a despairing, choked exclamation. The same steady light that normally filled hall and room was bright again. Lewis found himself standing at the juncture of two corridors. For a moment, he was absurdly pleased that he had deduced that he was in a hallway. And the crawler — ?
A Bulkon — at least the figure was a large two-legged, two-armed body reasonably Bulkon in outline — was lying several yards away. But the body was so wrapped in bandages and the head so totally muffled, that it lacked all identity. It was a surreal sight.
One of the Bulkon’s gloved hands moved slightly, raising the body from the floor so it could squirm forward a foot or so. Before Lewis could move, another Bulkon came running into the corridor from the far end. It was the Major, who stopped and went down on his knees beside the mummified Bulkon on the floor.
“Harth! Harth!” shouted the Major. That voice, which carried the snap of command whenever it was addressed to Lewis, was now warm and empathetic.
“Harth!” The major’s hands were on the bandaged body, lifting it, easing the head and shoulders back against his arm. “It’s all right, Harth. You’re back, safe on the base.” He spoke slowly, soothingly, with the steadiness one would use to comfort a frightened child.
Those large gloved hands which had beat feebly into the air fell onto the bandage-wreathed chest. “Back — safe — ” The voice from behind the face mask was a rusty croak.
“Back, safe,” the Major assured him.
“Dark — dark all around again — ” protested the croak.
“Just a power failure, Harth. Everything is all right now. We’ll get you into bed.”
The gloved hand pawed again until it touched the Major’s arm, then grasped it tightly.
“Safe — ?”
“Affirmative!” the Major reassured Harth, then looked up at Lewis as if he knew he had been there the whole time.
“Freeman, get to the infirmary,” the Major said, pointing. “Call for Doctor Feralon!”
“Yes, sir,” Lewis replied. The “sir” came so automatically that Lewis had already reached what looked like an infirmary before he realized he had said it.
Again, or still — nobody bothered to explain what the hell was going on to Lewis Freeman. The bandaged Harth was claimed by the Doctor and two attendants and carried away, the Major walking beside the stretcher, still holding one of the gloved hands in his.
Lewis hesitated, sure he was not supposed to follow, but not ready either to explore farther or return to his own room. The sight of Harth, whoever the Bulkon might be, had radically changed Lewis’s conception of the project he had too speedily volunteered to join.
That what they did here was important, Lewis had never doubted. That it was dangerous, he had early suspected. But his awareness had been an abstract concept of danger, not connected with such concrete evidence as the massive Harth crawling through the dark, bandaged, frightened.
From the first, Lewis had harbored vague plans for escape; now he knew he must get out of this place, or he might end up in the same position as Harth.
“Freeman?”
Having heard no warning sound from behind, Lewis whirled, ready to use his fists, his only weapons. But he didn’t face the Major, or any of the other Bulkons he had interacted with previously who seemingly held positions of authority. This Bulkon’s pale skin was startling against the neutral shade of the walls. His blond hair and brows were only a few shades darker; but the general sameness of color was relieved by the vivid blue of his eyes.
Expressionless, the stranger stood quietly, his arms hanging loosely by his sides, studying Lewis, as if this young, skinny human was some problem he had been assigned to solve. When he spoke, his voice was a monotone lacking any modulation of feeling.
“I am Glark,” he introduced himself matter-of-factly.
Lewis’s quick temper flared from this Bulkon’s obvious indifference. “All right — so you’re Glark!” He strove to make a challenge of it. “And what is that supposed to mean?”
But Glark didn’t take the bait. He shrugged. “For the time being we have been partnered — ”
“Partnered for what?” demanded Lewis, controlling his temper.
“We work in pairs here,” he answered briefly and consulted a high-tech device on his wrist which was the size of Lewis’ neck. “Chow time soon.”
“I’m gonna eat in my cell, thanks,” Lewis responded defiantly.
“You’ll eat in the chow block from now on,” Glark stated. He had already turned away, and Lewis couldn’t stand the Bulkon’s presumption that he would just follow orders from some stranger. While Lewis refused to ask questions of the Major, he wondered if Glark was a “volunteer” and let his guard down.
“What the hell is this place, anyway?” he asked.
Glark glanced back over his shoulder. “Operation Retrograde.”
Lewis swallowed his anger. “Okay, but what do they do here? Shit, I just saw some Bulkon mummy creeping along this hallway, not knowing where he was. What happened to him? What kind of work they do here? What am I going to have to do?!”
Glark grinned. “Harth got under your skin, huh? Well, we have our percentage of failures. They are as few as is Bulkonly possible, and they give us every advantage that can be given to us — ”
“Failures at what?” Lewis demanded.
“Operation Retrograde,” Glark replied in a manner that made it seem like Lewis should know what that is.
Down the hallway, a buzzer gave a muted whirr.
“Chow time, and I’m hungry, even if you’re not.” Glark walked away as if Lewis had ceased to exist.
But Lewis Freeman did exist, and to him that was an important fact. As he trailed along behind Glark, he determined that he was going to continue to exist, in one piece and unharmed, Operation Retrograde or no Operation Retrograde. And he was going to pry a few enlightening answers out of somebody very soon.
To his surprise, he found Glark waiting for him at the door of a room from which came the sound of voices and a subdued clatter of trays and tableware.
“Not many in tonight,” Glark commented in a take-it-or-leave-it tone. “It’s been a busy week.”
Except of the light wall, the room was dim and small with a half dozen tables and a serving station off to one side. A couple of the tables were occupied, the rest were empty. Lewis counted four humans and six Bulkons, either already eating or coming back from the serving station with well-filled trays of food and drink. All of them were dressed in plain jumpsuits and durable slippers like himself — the outfit seemed to be a sort of casual uniform — and six of them were familiar in physical appearance. The other four differed so radically that Lewis could barely conceal his amazement.
Since their associates accepted them without comment, Lewis silently stole glances at them as he waited behind Glark for a tray. All four were clearly aliens, the likes of which Lewis had never seen before. One pair were small, lean men with teal-colored skin and long fingers. Lewis had caught a word or two of their conversation, and they spoke his own language with the facility natives. Also, each had an intricate blue tattoo mark on their foreheads and others of similar design on the backs of their wide, agile hands.
The second duo were equally fantastic. They were large beings, not as wide as the Bulkons, but taller. The color of their flaxen hair was normal, but they wore it in elaborate braids long enough to swing across their powerful shoulders, a fashion unlike any Lewis had ever seen.
“Glark!” One of the braided giants swung halfway around from the table to halt Glark as he came down the aisle with his tray. “When did you get back? And where is Harth?”
One of the smaller aliens laid down the spoon with which he had been vigorously stirring his coffee and asked with real concern, “Another loss?”
Glark shook his head. “Just reassignment. Maarn is holding down the Kali Outpost and doing well.” He grinned and his face came to life with an expression of impish humor Lewis would not have believed possible. “He’ll end up with a million or two if he doesn’t watch out. He takes to trade as if he were born shaking his own Ma’s hand.”
One alien laughed and then glanced at Lewis. “Your new partner, Glark?”
Some of the animation disappeared from Glark’s broad face; he was noncommittal again. “Temporary assignment. This is Freeman.” The introduction was flat enough to daunt Lewis. “Hodaki, Feng,” he indicated the two small aliens with a nod as he put down his tray. “Ansen, Wyke,” he motioned toward the larger blonds.
“Glark!” A human man arose at one of the other tables and came to stand beside theirs. Thin, with a dark, narrow face and restless eyes, he was much younger than the others. Lewis guessed the young man might be the same age as him. He might answer questions if there was something in it for him, Lewis decided, and filed the thought away.
“Joven,” Glark responded in an uninterested tone. Lewis’ estimation of the younger man went up a fraction when the tone appeared to have no effect upon him.
“What is the status with Harth?” Joven asked.
Feng looked as if he were about to speak, and Wyke frowned. Glark made a deliberate process of chewing and swallowing before he replied. “Fine.” His tone reduced whatever had happened to Harth to a matter-of-fact proceeding far removed from Joven’s implied melodrama.
“He’s smashed up. Out of it.” Joven’s unusual accent, slight in the beginning, was thickening. “Tortured…”
Glark regarded him levelly. “You aren’t on Harth’s run, are you?”
Still Joven refused to be dismissed. “You know I am not. You know the run I am in training for. But that is not saying something bad cannot happen as well on my run, or yours, or yours!” He pointed a stabbing finger at Feng and the other aliens.
“You can fall out of bed and break your neck, too, if that’s your fate,” observed Ansen. “Go cry on Laird’s shoulder if it hurts you that much. You were told the risks at your intake. You know why you were picked …”
Lewis caught a faint glance aimed at him by Glark. He was still totally in the dark, but he wouldn’t try to pry any information from this crowd. Maybe part of their training was keeping this whole operation on the down-low, to avoid freaking out the noobs. He would wait and see, until he could get Joven aside and pump him for some info. Meanwhile he ate stoically and tried to cover up his interest in the conversation.
“Then you are going to keep on saying ‘Yes, sir,’ ‘No, sir,’ to every order you’re given?” asked Joven.
Hodaki slammed his tattooed hand on the table. “Why this foolishness, Joven? You well know how and why we are picked for runs. Harth had the deck stacked against him through no fault of the operation. That has happened before; it will happen again — ”
“Which is what I have been saying,” Joven pressed. “Do you wish it to happen to you? Some games those tribesmen on your run play with their prisoners, huh?”
“Shut up!” Ansen got to his feet. Since he loomed at least six inches above Joven and probably could have broken him in two over one massive knee, his order was one to be considered. “If you have any complaints, go make them to Laird. And, little man” — he poked a massive forefinger into Joven’s chest — “wait until you make that first run of yours before you sound off so loudly. No one is sent out without every ounce of preparation he can take. But we can’t count on luck, and Harth was unlucky. That’s that. We got him back, and that was lucky for him. He’d be the first to tell you so.”
“I’m for a game — anyone?” Wyke said standing, attempting to diffuse the conflict.
Glark nodded, along with Hodaki and Ansen.
Feng smiled at Lewis. “These three always try to beat each other, but so far all the contests are draws. But we hope … yes, we have hope …”
The night looked like it would afford Lewis no chance to speak to Joven privately. Instead, he was drawn into the group of men who, having finished their meal, entered a small arena with some spectator seats at one side and a space for contestants in the middle.
Lewis took a seat, and what followed absorbed him as completely as the earlier scene of the spider-wolf killing. This too was a fight, but not a physical struggle. All three contenders were not only unlike in body, but as Lewis speedily came to understand, they were also unlike in their mental approach to any problem.
The players each sat down cross-legged at the three points of a large triangle painted on the floor. Then Glark looked from the tall blond alien to the small tattooed alien. “Territory?” he barked.
“Inland plains!” the two aliens said in chorus, and each man, looking at his opponent, began to laugh.
“Trying to be smart tonight, mates? All right, plains it is,” Glark himself chuckled.
Glark brought his hand down on the floor before him, and to Lewis’s astonishment the area around the players darkened and the floor became a stretch of miniature countryside. Grassy plains rippled under the wind of a fair day. To Lewis, this was the same holographic tech wizardry that had changed to wall of his cell to a snowy mountain landscape, and was no less amazing.
“Red!”
“Blue!”
“Green!”
The words emerged from the dusk surrounding the players in a robotic tone. And each designated color came into being as clusters of small colored lights hovering near each player.
“Red — caravan!” Lewis recognized Ansen’s boom.
“Blue — raiders!” Hodaki’s choice was only an instant behind.
“Green — unknown factor,” Glark barked.
“Is the unknown factor a natural phenomenon?” Ansen asked.
“No — tribe on the march,” Glark answered.
“Ah!” Hodaki sighed.
“Three, two, one — begin,” the robotic voice said, followed by an ominous metal clanking sound.
And the game began. Lewis had heard of chess, of war games played with miniature armies or ships, of games on screens or tablets which demand from the players a quick wit and a trained memory. This game, however, was all those combined, and more. The moving colored points of light transformed into the raiders, the merchants’ caravan, the tribe on the march — small beings that looked like real people moving about the plains with wagons, weapons and animals. Lewis was again amazed that a simulation could look so real.
Lewis assumed that the strategies and movement of the small, simulated beings in front of the players were being manipulated by mind control. Glark, Hodaki and Ansen sat still, staring at the scene in front of them, all completely silent.
There was ingenious deployment of groups, duos, single beings…direct confrontations and covert sabotage missions, battles small and large, countless advances and retreats, a small victory here, to be followed by a bigger defeat there.
The game might have gone on for hours. The men seated around Lewis muttered, taking sides and arguing heatedly in voices low enough not to distract the players. Lewis was thrilled when the red traders avoided a very cleverly laid ambush, and indignant when the tribe was forced to withdraw or the red caravan lost valuable assets. It was the most fascinating game he had ever seen, and he realized that the three men thinking all those moves were all masters of strategy. Their respective skills checkmated each other so equally that an outright win was unimaginable any time soon.
Ansen laughed, and the red line of the caravan gathered in a tight cluster. “Camped at a stream,” he announced. “Defenses strong with plenty of sentries out scouting weaknesses.” Red sparks showed briefly around his militia. “And they’ll have as good night’s sleep as I will soon have. We could keep this up for days, and nobody would crack.”
“No” — Hodaki contradicted him — “someday one of you will make a little mistake and then — ”
“Unlikely,” declared Ansen. “Calling a truce.”
“Granted,” Glark and Hodaki said at the same time.
The lights of the arena went on and the plains vanished into a dark, tiled floor. “Any time you want a return engagement, just let me know,” said Glark, getting up.
Ansen grinned. “See you in a month or so, Glark. We time trade tomorrow. Take care of yourselves, you two. I don’t want to have to break in another set of players when I come back.”
Lewis, finding it difficult to shake off the illusion which had held him entranced, felt a slight touch on his shoulder and glanced up. Joven stood behind him, apparently intent upon Ansen and Hodaki as they argued over some point of the game.
“See you tonight.” The young man’s lips hardly moved, a trick Lewis knew from his own past.
Yes, he would see Joven tonight, whatever and wherever that meant. He was going to finally learn what it was this odd group was up to, and what the future had in store for him.
© 2024 Zen Brazen — All rights reserved
Based on Andre Norton’s Time Traders (public domain)
