Through the mind's gloaming haze, he saw them approach.
It's obvious, we saw you snooping about the canteen, talking to one of the staff. You're trying to leave—you can't tell us you don't want to leave, he said.
Michael Thane. He had very pale skin, which only made the purple splotches stand out more. Where the skin folded at the joints of his elbow Betelgeuse observed rough and sallow patches, like sod or mold had rooted itself therein. Voke stood to the side with a complicated expression, his hands clasped behind his back like a butler or a priest giving a homily. An oily, tangled shock of hair quivered above eyes darting and furtive.
Betelgeuse took pains to articulate that he was not interested. The plan was stupid from beginning to end. They would do the Instructor in then leave and run around like headless chickens. Somehow they'd stumble across an LSV or two just waiting to be seized by a bunch of adolescents; by then they'd have the keys and the skills and the piloting expertise to fly the machines out from under the noses of the Stewards of the Library at the Edge, which counted among their ranks a legion or more Primary and Bronze grades.
Quite a tall order.
We're coming to you because we know you're like us, we can see it, someone who has his head in the right place, Michael wheedled, looking at Voke to back him up.
Indeed, like us, Voke parroted.
Who else is with you, Betelgeuse asked. They didn't even try to address any of Betelgeuse' points. It would be an exercise in futility; more than that, it would be dangerous. They were right, of course—he wanted nothing more than to leave. But there was somebody important to him he wanted to take home, somebody who had already been committed to the advancement of the Democracy; he was trapped, for now.
We have ten or more. Good fighters. We have Petrovich and the Darkskin and Douglas McKay. Once we start, everyone will follow, you know. They won't stand for this sort of treatment much longer. This place is a powder keg; you'll know what I mean if you know where to look.
In the arena there were two sluggish forms playing around in the mud, lumbering, heavy-footed, ponderable. They were swinging around sticks in a pantomime of the old stories, where there might have been feudal warlords struggling for territory or samurai fighting for succession or knights in armor saving damsels in distress. These were the human stories he had grown up with, and all of it featured fights to grab the attention of children. Now that he was older, he was still watching the same fights, the same pretense to glory and the 'general good'.
It won't work, Betelgeuse said. It's just a story you made up.
It isn't. I've talked with the others, Michael insisted. Everybody's tired, everybody hates him. Everybody wants to go home. Don't you want to go home, like the other grades? Why should we be treated worse than them?
I know why you're asking me. It's because Rolf's too crazy to talk to, and Gombrovich's too smart to get dragged into this, Betelgeuse asserted. I don't think you appreciate the circumstances we find ourselves in.
Michael wasn't very happy at this. There was much gritting and gnashing of teeth, as he ran through every expression that might plausibly repudiate Betelgeuse' pronouncement.
Yes, it is not wise to do this, someone whispered from behind, and Betelgeuse turned his head to see Edith. She had crept closer, as if summoned by their activity.
Michael was staring at Betelgeuse and Voke was staring at Edith and Betelgeuse was staring at the thespians playing to the script of the Instructor, just one step removed from puppets.
And then Betelgeuse ran his gaze over the other one hundred and eight people in the room. Their expressions were even more ragged than he imagined, with eyes that bored hatefully into the person of their master. Time dilated, as uncertainties and hypotheticals coalesced into the present inevitability. His intuition flared its warning.
One of them was prowling forward, a man, his cheeks tensed, his jaw a sleek cliff of muscle streaked and dripping with blood. The blood was seeping through his lips and his eyes were wide and unseeing, mad with anger, brimming with a monstrous intent.
Don't do it. It's the lack of sleep, Betelgeuse whispered. It's stupidity.
Guo Xun had no plan and no desire to act according to one when he brought the bo down upon the arc of Zephyr's parietal bone.
The puppets stopped and turned, suddenly bereft of strings.
Zephyr, the back of his head dented and bleeding, had whipped around with impressive speed and managed to grasp the offending weapon. His expression, so still over the previous days, seemed to have cracked down the middle.
But Michael had seen the opportunity and hollered something. What it was, Betelgeuse could not say. A gaggle of ragged cadets ambled into action, their weapons held before them. Michael had told the truth after all, when he said they had ten or more.
There was Petrovich and Aminata, Zachariah Greenberg and Lawrence Gomez-Evans. There was walleyed Douglas, his orbs oscillating wildly. There was Frederica Jaine and Liam King and more besides, all of whom pounced on the Instructor, possessed by a sort of frenzy.
Rolf stood on the sidelines, watching with interest. Gombrovich had slunk away to the edge of the room, where Norma was, crossing his arms to cup at his pectorals and grinning silently. Those that were not involved had begun to make their way thereto.
Betelgeuse' mind, though dulled, intuited that this was a very bad situation and that he might not want to remain in close proximity. Through the brainfog he sensed that Edith remained beside him. He stared, however, rapt. It was like something he'd seen before, in a dream or a nightmare, and who could say he was not dreaming right now?
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Guo Xun had fallen to the floor, choking and grabbing on to his throat; Petrovich managed a good hit with his baton, and the Instructor's head spilled a curtain of blood down his face. A Logan H. Dulles had attached himself to Zephyr's leg, stabbing into it with the splintered edge of his weapon, the wound streaming liquid that mingled with the clotting streaks upon the cold concrete. Frederica, who had swung her bo but missed and knocked someone's teeth out, redoubled her efforts and aimed for the nape.
The next moment, Logan found two of Zephyr's fingers within his cheek, the digits having punched through the outside of his face up to the knuckle; Guo Xun had regained his feet and, still sputtering froth from purple lips, set upon Zephyr with his bo, managing to get it over Zephyr's head and under his neck, choking him from the rear. Frederica had swerved around to the front and swung her weapon down onto Zephyr's face, breaking his nose in.
Half gasping for air and half howling, Zephyr bucked and kicked like an animal; Guo Xun held on resolutely, an experienced bullrider intent on outlasting his bull.
Seeing that Zephyr was flagging, some of the other cadets joined the fray. They were baying for blood now, and they were going to tear him apart.
The sound of lurching metal assailed Betelgeuse' ears, as the portals at the far end opened all at one.
A riot troop armored in black plate, streaming into the space and brandishing stun batons crackling with electricity. Helmeted in navy thermoplastic and anonymized by opaque visors, they advanced with inhuman speed, moving almost as fast as Zephyr himself.
Betelgeuse cursed, finally jolted out of his stupor, realizing that he, and Edith crouched a quarter-step behind his calf, stood mere paces away from the carnage.
He didn't have time to wonder what the hell she was doing. Grasping Edith by her arm, Betelgeuse wrenched her up and around and planted a foot into her glute, sending her stumbling violently away and onto the ground.
Betelgeuse didn't even see them arrive. They were before him and then he felt his body go numb as it juddered uncontrollably, then limp as he fell to the floor. He saw the boot come up above his face before it introduced him to the sweet embrace of darkness.
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Through the mind's gloaming haze, he saw them approach.
Frigid water was thrown into his face to purge the stupor from his mind; and suddenly he became aware of the shackles which bound him to the immovable steel chair.
The room was uncomfortably bright. More unrelenting white light than he could handle. He groaned and then jerked as more freezing water was thrown onto him, soaking his cadet-suit through.
Before him was a wizened man with a bulbous head and sharp features, seated across a table fashioned of gray steel. Flat upon the table lay a tome, brown as brick under the white glare, an Incunabulum of Ash grade. His Incunabulum.
The man's cheeks were gaunt and the skin around his lips bunched and folded like gills; a desiccated man, made brittle and sinewy by age. The top of his head was bald and shiny; long, wispy strands of dirty gray completed the tonsure. Behind him stood a silent sentinel suited from head to toe in heavy-duty combat armor, his features obscured by a polarized visor.
They caught you for mutiny, the wizened man said. His voice was raspy and indistinct.
Mutiny and the attempted murder of a non-commissioned officer of the Tellus Armed Forces, he clarified. It is a serious charge.
Betelgeuse coughed.
There are no mitigating factors, the man declared.
Check the cameras, Betelgeuse managed. I didn't participate. I didn't do anything. I merely watched.
There are no cameras, he returned. The victim confirmed you had participated.
Nonsense, all nonsense, Betelgeuse spat.
Do you have anything further to say in your defense, he asked.
I didn't participate, I did nothing, Betelgeuse insisted.
On the evidence available, I have to make a decision between yours and the victim's conflicting statements. I find it probable that you are lying and the victim is telling the truth, he said.
Ask the others, the others that were there. They saw everything. They can testify to my innocence, Betelgeuse said.
The proceedings of this military tribunal are secret and in the circumstances the demands of justice do not outweigh the demands of confidentiality. It will not be possible to arrange for an interview with your peers, Mr. Sakar, nor will it be possible to admit any of their statements by way of affidavit, the man returned.
Betelgeuse stared daggers at the wizened man, knowing that the decision had already been made. The whole thing had been pointless.
I ask you again, Mr. Sakar, do you have anything further to say in your defense, the man inquired.
Betelgeuse did not answer.
Then, it is my responsibility to inform you that, for the crime of mutiny and and the attempted murder of a non-commissioned officer of the Tellus Armed Forces, abbreviated T-A-F, I sentence you to branding and ten years' service in the 67th Penal Legion stationed on carbon exoplanet 541-B, designation Desert, the man pronounced. Pursuant to the TAF Handbook I will mete out the corporal punishment summarily.
The visored guard beside bent down and produced from within an adjacent cabinet a ceramic bucket the color of brick. It was filled with hot coals that steamed flakes of ash which danced chaotically under the hanging OLED. A long handle insulated with what looked like black thermoplastic stuck out the top and leaned upon the coal-streaked rim.
The wizened man grasped the haft and revealed the red-hot branding iron fastened to the business end. It was shaped as an 'X', the letter 'M' grooved into a boss protruding in the middle where the strokes crossed.
Be glad you have not been tried for treason, the man intoned, his expression gray and colorless.
Betelgeuse gritted his teeth.
The next moment, the brand was forced onto his forehead, and his skin exploded with searing pain.
The sound of sizzling and frying flesh skipped against his eardrums, the smell vaguely reminding him of the annual roast pig they enjoyed back in Edom-Zeta.
He bit into his lip until it bled; against the onslaught of lacerating pain, he willed himself silent.
His eyes stared deep and red into nothing in particular.