Lord of Janissaries Read Online Free Page B

reminded Rick of the materials wet suits are made of, stretched for twenty meters or so into the cave. Beyond that the tunnel walls were made of rock, but shiny, as if it had been varnished. Rick felt it; the stuff was very hard, and he thought it had been sprayed on—probably to keep the air from leaking out through the rock walls.
    When they had unloaded the ship, the entryway door closed, and they had no choice but to go down the tunnel. It went inward and down. They had no difficulty with equipment; everything weighed only a sixth of what it would on Earth, and one man could carry ten mortar bombs without great effort.
    The tunnel was lighted, not with glowing walls as the ship had been, but with ordinary fluorescent lights. Rick examined one of the fixtures; it was stamped “Westinghouse.” Common house wire ran from light to light.
    As they went deeper into the cave, doors closed behind them. They seemed to be made from the same wet-suit material as the passage from the ship to the cave, and they appeared from the walls in a circle that closed together so tightly that it was difficult to see they weren’t solid.
    They reached the bottom of the ramp. Rick estimated that they had come nearly a kilometer. At the ramp’s end was a big cavern, as large as a basketball gymnasium, and furniture. Rick saw tables, chairs, bookcases with books and magazines. Beds and army cots were clustered at one end of the area. A table held a coffee urn and bags of styrofoam cups, and a can of Yuban coffee stood next to the urn. On another table he saw loaves of bread of various American brands; jars of Jiffy peanut butter; cans of Campbell’s soup. Paper plates and cheap plastic forks. Canned milk. Bricks of cheese; Vienna sausage; tins of sardines. There were no signs of fresh foods, meats or vegetables, but Rick was certain they wouldn’t starve.
    At the far end of the cavern was a TV set. It looked strange. Rick saw no maker’s marks, unless some curious squiggles on a plate at the bottom meant something. It had no controls at all. A man’s face looked out at them, and from the way his eyes and head moved, Rick thought the man was watching him.
    Man. Rick stood staring at the TV. The face on the screen was human. He was certain of it.
    “You are in charge?” The figure on the screen spoke without warning. The phrase wasn’t precisely a question, but it did not sound positive either. The voice held a slight accent, but Rick was certain he had never heard anything like it before.
    “As much as anyone is,” Rick said.
    “Then you are Captain Galloway. I must have information. First, is it true that you voluntarily boarded the ship that brought you here? There was no coercion from the Shalnuksis ?”
    “Shalnuksis?”
    “The beings who brought you here. Were you forced to board their ship?”
    “Not by them. There were some Cubans who didn’t leave us many choices—”
    “That is my second question.” The man’s expression did not change at all. Rick got closer to the set and examined the image carefully.
    He saw a man who appeared to be in his forties. He wore a rust-colored upper garment that resembled a tunic, no buttons, a V-neck lined with blue and studded with decorations: a stylized comet and sunburst. The man’s hair was short, and his complexion was darker than Rick’s; about the same hue as an American Indian, but not quite so dark.
    “Is it true that you would now be dead if the Shalnuksi ship had not taken you aboard?” the man asked.
    “It’s likely,” Rick answered.
    “One of your men was injured by the Shalnuksis . They have said they were merely defending themselves and did the least damage possible to the man. Is this true?”
    “Yes—”
    “Thank you. We regret that we do not have better accommodations. You are welcome to whatever you find there. You may eat now. We will have more to talk of later.”
    “Hey—damn it, what’s going on?” Rick demanded. He was talking to a blank screen.
    *