Zero-Point Read online
Page 9
Focus – and he created a neck band that looked like those the drones were wearing. His rings were going to be a problem, so he focused again and created a small pocket on the inside of the band. He slid his ring and Erin’s into the pocket; and after a moment of thought, tucked the little red pebble in beside them. Then he put the band around his neck. Focus – and it was sealed. Not a bad imitation of a slave band, he thought. He smoothed his hand around the band, and felt his medallion, hung as always around his neck. The medallion will be a problem, and I won’t be able to keep it hidden in my clothes. He clenched his jaw. This will hurt. I hope the ring works the same in the band as it does on my finger.
Again, the drones did not look up as Alec entered the campsite, so he motioned to the head drone. “The mother has made me head drone. You will follow my directions.”
“Yes, Master, of course, Master. What do you need me to do?”
“First bring me a sharp knife. Then change clothes with me.”
If the drone was puzzled, he did not show it. “Yes, Master.”
“I want to know what a good drone does. I want you to tell me everything that I need to know to be a good drone.”
The drone was very obedient and tried very hard to instruct Alec. I get it. ‘Do everything the mother says.’ That doesn’t sound too hard. What was going to be difficult was meeting the level of perfection that the mothers expected for adequate performance. After a while, he had heard as much from the drone as his head was going to retain.
He looked at the former head drone and focused. The band popped off the drone’s neck and fell to the ground. Alec focused again, and the band was gone – disintegrated into dust. “Now the mother has a very important task for you.” The drone was so accustomed to obeying that Alec was sure that he would continue to do so.
“Yes, Master?”
“Here is her ring. You will put it on, and take that sword, and go into the woods. Follow a half-day behind us. Anyone you meet will be an enemy of the mother. You will attack them with the sword. Now go.”
“Yes, Master. I will make the mother happy.”
I sealed his death warrant, but I know no other way to explain what happened here. The drone, now dressed in Alec’s clothes, obligingly slipped the ring on his finer, awkwardly picked up the unfamiliar sword, and stumbled off into the woods. How many deaths will I have to cause in order to save Erin’s life? Alec watched until the drone disappeared.
Now for the hard part. Alec sat down, raised his drone tunic, gritted his teeth, looked down at his belly and took hold of the soft flesh around his middle. The faint scar from his childhood appendectomy rolled through his fingers. Holding the edge of his tunic in his mouth to keep it out of the way, he took the knife that the drone had given him and cut through his skin next to the old scar. The pain was intense, and he had to stop. This is worse than I thought it would be. He bit down on the fold of his tunic as hard as he could, thought of Erin, and made an incision about the length of his palm. He took his medallion, now free of its chain, wiped it clean on the edge of his tunic, and slid it into the incision, pushing it sideways under his skin. That hurt as much as the initial cut. Now he focused. It was difficult through the pain, but he pulled dark energy from the surrounding energy field and into his own body. The pain went down. He focused more dark energy through his body, and he could feel the cut heal. After a while, he looked at his stomach. The gash had closed. There was a noticeable scar where he had cut himself, and a slight bulge from the medallion, but it looked like it was part of his old scar.
He stood, and walked back over the knoll to the mother, wincing with the first few steps, then controlling his expression. “Tell me. Would you think that I was a drone?”
She laughed. “Hah! Of course not! You are dressed like a drone, but no mother would ever mistake you for a drone.”
“Why?”
“A mother can tell in an instant that you are not thinking like a drone.”
“Then show me how I should think.”
The mother did not want to coach him, but the pain from the band was too intense to ignore.
“I do not know how a drone thinks,” she said. “See what you can do.”
First, he tried clearing his mind.
“That does not work,” she said scornfully.
Then Alec tried a different tack. Please the mother, he thought to himself. Please the mother. Please the mother. Please the mother.
“That is closer. Much like a drone. If a mother did not check closely, you could be mistaken for a drone.”
“Will a mother check me closely?”
“Why would we waste our time monitoring you animals? It is not seemly. Mothers only check drones in two circumstances. Drones are checked after they return through the obscuring field. The illusions there occasionally cause drones to lose their domestication. Besides that, the only other reason we would check a drone is if it is found wandering around the city at night. The city has a perpetual problem with drones that have lost their task and wander aimlessly until they starve.”
“You know that I cannot leave you alive.”
“I expect you to respect your betters and free me,” the woman snarled.
“You would not have left me alive,” Alec countered.
“What else would I have done with excess vermin?”
“I see that I have no choice,” Alec said. “Now go to sleep and do not wake up. Stop breathing.”
Alec stood and watched. The mother resisted the order for a brief while and then gave in to the inevitable and slumped down. Her breathing slowed and then stopped. Alec focused and the only thing remaining of her was the band. This can’t be right, but it is the only way for me to free Erin. They started it – but does that make my response right?
Alec walked back over the knoll to the mother’s camp and started to act like the head drone. Everything needed to be perfectly prepared for the mothers’ afternoon meal.
✽✽✽
The two mothers arrived in the camp with no warning. Fortunately, Alec had been practicing his mantra before they arrived. Please the mother. Please the mother.
“Where is she?” one mother asked brusquely.
Alec stepped up and stood quietly waiting with his head slightly bowed. I hope this is close enough to correct. Please the mother. Please the mother.
A slight upturn in the mother’s eyebrow was Alec’s invitation to speak. “Mother left earlier to trap someone on the trail. She has not been back to camp.” Must tell the truth. Elves are like Erin and can sense untruths.
The two mothers sat down, and Alec nodded to the cook to serve them.
“We found her dead clutchmen,” one mother said to the other. “Do you think that warrior we killed near the camp could have killed her as well as the clutchmen?”
“If she was alive, we would sense her,” the other mother answered. “He didn’t seem to be a fierce fighter, but it could be. Maybe he did. He was wearing a ring.”
“Then why didn’t he kill the drones also?” the first mother mused. She nodded to Alec to approach. “Did a warrior come into camp?”
“Mother, I do not know that he was a warrior, but a man with a sword came into camp from beyond that knoll. He asked questions. A man with a sword left camp in that direction.” He nodded his head in the direction that the head drone had taken. The mothers detected no lies in what the ‘drone’ said, and did not question him any further.
The head drone of one of the mothers approached Alec. “Your mother is dead. I am now the lead, and you will work for me.”
“Yes, Master. Of course,” replied Alec.
“I do not need another head drone. You can work with the baggage drones. I will have your mother’s cook work with my cook. Her personal drone can also work with you on the baggage.”
✽✽✽
Alec was trying very hard to mask his impatience. Impatient drones would be sensed and found suspicious. However, the slow pace of the mothers was irritating. Using the mother
s as cover to cross into Elf Land seemed like a good idea, but they were following a half-day or more behind the cull captives, with the mothers mopping up stragglers and would-be rescuers as part of the rear guard, and sometimes merely spending time resting or seeking pleasure with their clutchmen.
Maybe I should just leave this charade and hurry ahead to find Erin, he thought. But that probably won’t work. He calculated that Erin’s group would be at least a day ahead of him, perhaps more, and if he left this group, without a trogus he would never catch up with them. Also, if I encountered any more mop-up squads, I probably wouldn’t get past them. The number of successful ambushes that the two mothers and their clutchmen had conducted convinced him that he would be detected trying to enter the elf lands alone. Staying with the mothers was the most promising plan, and should get him across the obscuring field, but the slow pace was not moving him towards Erin as quickly as he desired.
As their group merged with others, still trailing far behind the main body of the cull, Alec mingled with more and more drones. He was surprised at the sophisticated subculture that the drones had. Very few drones ever interacted with a mother directly. Most were in subservient roles and provided the basics needed for elf life. However, the drones had a highly-developed support and training structure to help each other. Any drone who did not perform adequately and displeased a mother was viewed as a failure of all drones; it was to everyone’s advantage to share their knowledge.
Alec noted the fluid but strong hierarchy that existed among the drones. Typically, the higher-level drones were even more demanding of quality performance from the lower drones than the mothers were. In this structure, having been re-assigned by the head drone, Alec found a niche for himself as a driver of one of the small baggage carts. Few of the drones knew how to handle animals or steer carts, so this was an easy role for him to fill. One advantage of this task was it allowed him to ride, while most of the drones walked. The only drones allowed to ride were the mother’s pleasure drones – not as a reward for their service, but rather to prevent hard calluses from forming on their bodies. Calluses might adversely impact a mother’s pleasure.
8 – With the Drones
The terrain had turned mountainous. Mornings in the mountains were clear and crisp with frost every night. The vegetation was turning colors and showing preparations for winter. For the past two days Alec had to carefully guide the cart up slopes and along ridges, occasionally encountering lines of chained, naked people. He looked carefully to see if any of the women were Erin, but none of them were. Finally, they arrived at a major staging camp in a high meadow. We must be in the elf lands. This camp must be at the edge of the obscuring field.
As their cart skirted the edge of the circle of wagons, Alec could see the great mass of captives held within. His cart was directed past a row of processing stations, where the wild orbs were cleaned and shorn. Past the processing stations the captives were herded towards small pens. Many were struggling to walk. Most of the males appeared to have been castrated with a tight metal band – Just like we do to the yearling bulls in Theland. The ones that were not castrated all looked similar. The mothers have a preferred look for their future pleasure drones, Alec thought wryly. I hope I meet their standard. He scanned as many strings of captives as he could for any sign of Erin but did not see her or any of the Theland riders. He noted that bald, naked captive orbs looked very different than clothed people with hair.
Mothers did not wait at the staging camp. The two mothers were ready for the comforts of home and directed their carts to the front of the line for the trip through the obscuring field. Alec watched as the mothers were escorted: a clutchmen put on a metal bracelet and then gently took hold of one of the mother’s arms and slowly walked with her on a pounded earth path across the zone. From Alec’s vantage outside the field the trip appeared to be uneventful; the obscuring field was only a few els across, he knew, but due to the illusions generated and the need to walk very slowly, it would seem much further.
Alec and the other drones with him were less fortunate. They had to wait for their turn near the harnessing pens. During the wait, the other drones were more than willing to provide information. Teaching and transferring knowledge from one drone to the next was one of the principal methods the drones used to provide continuity. Kind of like an apprentice program for wizards, but much more fluid. The drones told him that the obscuring field was one of the main barriers that separated the elves’ lands from the remainder of the world, protecting the elves from outside influences. The barrier also kept the weather a constant pleasant temperature on the other side.
Finally, Alec and his group of drones were next for the transit through the zone. The baggage and supplies were removed from the wagons that were used in the field and placed on other smaller carts that were being pulled by drunglets.
A clutchman took hold of the harness of the drunglet and walked it and the cart through the field to the other side. All of the drones waited obediently for a transfer cart to arrive. Then they removed their clothes and started to climb into the transfer cart. Alec followed suit and removed his clothes also. He looked around for a place to put his clothes. One of the drones motioned to a container, and said, “Your field clothes will stay here. They are only used when we are out of the city. We will receive appropriate city clothes when we arrive.”
One of the drones strapped the others into the cart. The last drone was strapped in by a clutchman. A clutchman on the front took hold of the drunglet and started the transit through the zone. Alec’s mind fought every step of the way; his mind deceived him into believing he was being escorted through a kaleidoscope of dizzying angles and flashing lights. With each step of the drunglet, Alec could not determine the real ground from the illusionary ground and the trip through the obscuring field was a harrowing experience. After an agonizingly long time, they were on the other side of the field. The clutchmen released one of the drones and the drone fell to the ground. Then the drone got up very unsteadily and released the other drones to fall to the ground. Most continued to retch quietly. The clutchmen took the drunglet and started the trip back through the zone. Alec lay sprawled on the ground for a minute or two until his head quit spinning and he was able to focus his eyes. The other drones were sprawled around him. A few were starting to get up and clean themselves off as best they could.
Alec looked around at his surroundings, trying to recollect his memories of the first time he was in the elf lands. Mustn’t appear too inquisitive. Please the mother. Please the mother. He realized that they must be only a half-day or so from the capital city, New Haven. He was amazed at the tranquil peacefulness of the abutting agricultural area. Even though it was fall in the Elf Mountains with morning frost on the ground, within the elves’ realm the world was in perpetual harmony of late spring, perfect for growing crops. The warmth and the sunlight felt good and helped stabilize his mind.
The new carts already had drones to drive them, and had gone on. Alec saw several drones were lining up and he joined them. The fact that they were naked did not seem to bother any of them. The lead drone unrolled a strap and the other drones all took hold of the strap. When most of the drones were on the line, the lead drone started forward. Probably safer to walk in this line, since I don’t know the rules or even where to start looking for Erin. Once I find her, I will have to figure out how to get through these fields.
The strap line of twenty or so drones walked in an orderly manner down the broad path between the well-tended fields towards the city. My recollection is there are many els of fields between the obscuring field and the elf city, Alec thought. Alec’s group walked at a comfortable pace; every so often they passed side paths that broke the fields into pleasant rectangular areas. Smaller than the corn fields back on Earth, but probably a good size for the hand labor that is used here. Although their path was wide enough for two wagons to pass each other comfortably, most of the side paths appeared to be barely wide enough for one wagon.
“You’ve been a city drone too long. Clothing is for the mothers’ benefit, not ours. In the residences and clutch houses we wear clothing because the mothers find it attractive. Here, there is no need. There is no one to see those drones so it doesn’t matter whether they are pleasing to the eye. And, if they had clothes, someone would have to waste time making them, mending them, and cleaning them. Time spent that way would not make our mother’s life better!”
“You are right, it has been a long time since I was out here,” Alec answered truthfully. “I do not know the way of the field drones. What is the protocol for their care? Do they come to the city?”
“They stay in the fields year-round. There is no need for them to go anywhere else, unless they are bringing crops to the city. They are fed twice a day: once before dawn and once after dark. They receive the field nourishment, the same as we fed the captives on the cull – it is sufficient to keep them strong, and we do not waste our better foods on them.”
“Where do they go at night?”
The drone pointed to a low structure at the edge of a field. It was roughly made, with a raised floor and a slightly sloping roof. “That would be the sleeping-shed for the drones in this sector.” It seemed to Alec that there was just enough room to crawl through the open side into the structure. “The field drones sleep there every night. Their head drone is charged with making a nightly count of the drones to maintain inventory: a few die in the fields every day, and unless the head drone spots ravens feeding on the body, sometimes it might be days before they are found. The good drones are fed purple mushrooms at night to keep them docile.” He shrugged. “It tends to destroy their brains, but the field drones don’t need brains anyways.”