The Death of Sleep

As she flattened herself against the bulkhead, she noticed the imperceptible blink that told her the main power supply had been deactivated and the shuttle was now on auxiliaries. Was it too much to hope that one of the leaders had managed to get a message out?

"If you do not open that lock instantly, we will blast," said the hard unemotional voice of Paskutti, blaster in hand.

He was fully kitted out with many items that had so recently gone missing from the stores. Of course, Lunzie told herself; she realised too late that most of that purloined equipment had offensive capability.

"Don't!" Varian's voice sounded sufficiently fearful to keep Paskutti from pulling the release but Lunzie knew the girl was no coward. It did no good for either of them to be fried alive in the compartment.

The hatch opened and massive Paskutti reached through it. He seized Varian by the front of her shipsuit and hauled her out, flinging her against the ceramic side of the shuttle with such force that it broke her arm. Grinning sadistically, Tardma treated Kai the same way.

Lunzie caught Kai and kept him upright, forcing her mind into a Discipline state to calm herself. This was far worse than she could have imagined. How could she have been so naive as to think the heavyworlders would just go quietly?

Then Terilla, Cleiti and Gaber were unceremoniously herded into the shuttle, the cartographer babbling something about how this was not the way matters should proceed and how dared they treat him with such disrespect.

"Tanegli? Do you have them?" Paskutti asked into his wrist com-unit.

Whom would the heavyworlder botanist have? Lunzie answered her own question - the other lightweights not yet accounted for.

"None of the sleds have power packs," said Divisti, scowling in the lock. "And that boy is missing."

"How did he elude you?" Paskutti frowned in annoyance.

"Confusion. I thought he'd cling to the others." Divisti shrugged.

Good for you, Bonnard, Lunzie thought, seeking far more encouragement from that minor triumph than it really deserved.

"Start dismantling the lab, Divisti, Tardma."

Trizein came out of his confusion. "Now wait a minute. You can't go in there. I've got experiments and analyses going on. Divisti, don't touch that fractional equipment. Have you taken leave of your senses?"

"You'll take leave of yours." With a cool smile of pleasure, Tardma struck Trizein in the face with a blow that lifted the slight man off his feet and sent him rolling down the hard deck to lie motionless at Lunzie's feet.

"Too hard, Tardma," said Paskutti. "I'd thought to take him. He'd be more useful than any of the other lightweights."

Tardma shrugged. "Why bother with him anyway? Tanegli knows as much as he does." She went toward the lab with an insolent swing other hips.

Lunzie heard the scraping of feet on the rocks outside and Portegin with a bloody head half carried a groggy Dimenon across the threshold. Bakkun shoved a weeping Aulia and a blank-faced Margit inside. Triv was stretched on the floor when Berru tossed him there, grinning ferociously at his gasps of pain. Inaudible to the heavyworlders, Lunzie could hear Triv begin the measured breathing which led to the trance state of Discipline. At least four of them were preparing for whatever opportunities arose.

"All right, Bakkun," Paskutti ordered, "you and Berru go after our allies. We want to make this look right. That com-unit was still warm when I got here. They must have got a message through to the Theks."

Methodically the heavyworlders continued to strip the shuttle. Then Tanegli returned. "The storehouse has been cleared and what's useful in the domes."

"No protests. Leader Kai, Leader Varian?" sneered Paskutti.

"Protests wouldn't do us any good, would they?" Varian's level controlled voice annoyed Paskutti. He shot a look at the obviously broken arm and frowned.

"No, no protests. Leader Varian. We've had enough of you lightweights ordering us about, tolerating us because we're useful. Where would we have fit in your plantation? As beasts of burden? Muscles to be ordered here, there, and everywhere, and subdued by pap?" He made a cutting gesture with one huge hand.

Then, before anyone guessed his intention, he grabbed Terilla by the hair, letting her dangle at the end of his hand. When Cleiti jumped up at her friend's terrified shriek and began to pummel his thick muscular thigh, he raised his fist and landed a casual blow on the top of her head. She sank unconscious to the deck.

Gaber erupted and dashed at Paskutti who merely put a hand out to hold the cartographer off while he dangled the shrieking child.

"Tell me. Leader Varian, Leader Kai, to whom did you send that message? And what did you say?"

"We sent a message to the Theks. Mutiny. Heavyworlders." Kai watched as Terilla was swung, her screams diminishing to mere gasps. "That's all."

"Release the child," Gaber shouted. "You'll kill her. You know what you need to know. You promised there'd be no violence."

Paskutti viciously swatted Gaber into silence. His neck smashed into pulp, Gaber hit the deck with a terrible thud and gasped out his dying breaths as Terilla was dropped in a heap on top of Cleiti.