Mosaic - Jeri Taylor [77]
The door opened once more and two guards entered. Gul Camet nodded toward her and the guards approached her, took her by both arms, and jerked her roughly to her feet, hurrying her toward the door so quickly she was trotting to keep from stumbling.
Down the long corridor they ran, Kathryn struggling to keep her footing, but inevitably losing it and falling to her knees, at which point one of the guards kicked her savagely in the thigh, a sharp, painful blow that made her cry out involuntarily. She scrambled to her feet as quickly as she could and they resumed their headlong race, out of the corridor and into the stone courtyard she had exited a short time ago. The guards now flung her to the ground; she got to her hands and knees and tried to rise, when one of them ripped off the bandage the physician had just put on her head wound and then drove his fist viciously into the injury. It spurted blood which ran into her eye, blinding her on one side. Then she felt herself shoved toward the opening into the box, the pen, the cage, she had so recently exited.
When the door was slammed behind her, the dark and the quiet were a welcome haven from the guards' cruelty. But she knew that sanctuary would be fleeting.
She lay curled on the ground, freezing, knowing the cold earth was draining more of her body heat from her than was wise, but too tired to do otherwise. She had spent several hours on her hands and knees, then sitting, trying to let as little of her body come in contact with the ground as possible.
But the effort was too great, and she was exhausted. She had to get some sleep. Her head had finally stopped bleeding after she kept her palm on the wound for half an hour, and had crusted over once more. But it ached with a dull, throbbing pain. She tried to isolate the pain in her mind, wrap it up, toss it out, and she succeeded in reducing its impact. She felt a drowsiness come on her; if she could sleep for a while she could recoup some of her strength, and then she could concentrate on how to get out of this predicamept.
Tlien the screaming started.
She bolte rl upright. cracking her head on the ceiling as she did so. Someone very close by was screaming horribly. She realizeij he must be in the stone courtyard just outside. The sound was ghastly, a throat-rending shriek of unendurable agony, and Kathryn instinctively shrank back against the far wall of the little cubicle, as though moving half a meter would get her away from the horrible sound.
She put her fingers in her ears and began to sing: the first tune that came, unbidden, to her lips was a lullaby her mother had sung to her when she was small. "Kathryn klein, ging allein, in die weite welt hinein... but and stock stelat ihr gut, ist ganz wohlgemut... aber mutter weinet sehr, sie hat keine Kathryn mehr... Kathryn klein, ging allein, in die weite welt hinein... his
The words, she remembered, were about a little girl who put on a hat and took a walking stick and set off into the wide world alone. Her mother was sad that she was going, but knew that her daughter had to make her own way.
Kathryn sang it loudly, then even more loudly, and was finally yelling it, over and over, trying to create a balm that would shut out the horrendous sounds of a man undergoing torture.
It was quite a while before it occurred to her that the screams she was listening to were those of Admiral Paris.
By that time she was somewhat numbed to the horror of what she was hearing. She had been able to disconnect her mind from the reality of the situation and objectify it; the shrieks took on a surreal quality that made listening to them a curious, hallucinatory experience that was, if not wholly tolerable, a bit less horrendous.
were they trying to get information from him? Surely the admiral would realize that withholding it was empty heroism. No, Gul Camet had made it clear what he was after: the domination and destruction of the spirit. And Janeway had no doubt that he would achieve it-first