Foreigner

His brain started functioning, then. He knew he wasn’t going to get his hands on the computer. Had to make them axe the system themselves. Had to remember the axe codes. Make them wantthe answer, make them believe it was all-important to them.

“Access code!” red-and-blue yelled into his face.

Oh, God, he didn’t like this part of theplan.

“Fuck off,” he said.

Theydidn’t know him. Set himself right on their level with that answer, he did—he had barely time to think that before red-and-blue hit him across the face.

Blind and deaf for a moment. Not feeling much. Except they still had hold of him, and voices were shouting, and red-and-blue was giving orders about hanging him up. He didn’t entirely follow it, until somebody grabbed his coat by the collar and ripped it and the shirt off him. Somebody else grabbed his hands in front of him and tied them with a stiff leather belt.

He figured it wasn’t good, then. It might be time he should start talking, only they might not believe him. He stood there while they got a piece of electrical cable and flung it over the pipes that ran across the ceiling, using it for a rope. They ran the end through his joined arms and jerked them abruptly over his head.

The shoulder shot fire. He screamed. Couldn’t get his breath.

A belt caught him in the ribs. Once, twice, three times, with all the force of an atevi arm. He couldn’t get his feet under him, couldn’t get a breath, couldn’t organize a thought.

“Access code,” red-and-blue said.

He couldn’t talk. Couldn’t get the wind. There was pain, and his mind went white-out.

“You’ll kill him!” someone screamed. Lungs wouldn’t work. He was going out.

An arm caught him around the ribs. Hauled him up, took his weight off the arms.

“Access,” the voice said. He fought to get a breath.

“Give it to him again,” someone said, and his mind whited out with panic. He was still gasping for air when they let him swing, and somebody was shouting, screaming that he couldn’t breathe.

Arm caught him again. Wood scraped, chair hit the floor. Something else did. Squeezed him hard around the chest and eased up. He got a breath.

Who gave you the gun, nand’ paidhi?

Say it was Tabini.

“Access,” the relentless voice said.

He fought for air against the arm crushing his chest. The shoulder was a dull, bone-deep pain. He didn’t remember what they wanted. “No,” he said, universal answer. No to everything.

They shoved him off and hit him while he swung free, two and three times. He convulsed, tore the shoulder, couldn’t stop it, couldn’t breathe.

“Access,” someone said, and someone held him so air could get to his lungs, while the shoulder grated and sent pain through his ribs and through his gut.

The gun, he thought. Shouldn’t have had it.

“Access,” the man said. And hit him in the face. A hand came under his chin, then, and an atevi face wavered in his swimming vision. “Give me the access code.”

“Access,” he repeated stupidly. Couldn’t think where he was. Couldn’t think if this was the one he was going to answer or the one he wasn’t.

Second blow across the face.

“The code, paidhi!”

“Code…” Please, God, the code. He was going to be sick with the pain. He couldn’t think how to explain to a fool. “At the prompt…”

“The prompt’s up,” the voice said. “Now what?”

“Type…” He remembered the real access. Kept seeing white when he shut his eyes, and if he drifted off into that blizzard they’d go on hitting him. “Code…” The code for meddlers. For thieves. “Input date.”

“Which?”

“Today’s.” Fool. He heard the rattle of the keyboard. Red-and-blue was still with him, someone else holding his head up, by a fist in his hair.

“It says ‘Time,’” someone said.

“Don’t. Don’t give it. Type numeric keys… 1024.”

“What’s that?”

“That’s the code, dammit!”

Red-and-blue looked away. “Do it.”

Keys rattled.

“What have you got?” red-and-blue asked.

‘The prompt’s back again.“

“Is that it?” red-and-blue asked.

“You’re in,” he said, and just breathed, listening to the keys, the operator, skillful typist, at least, querying the computer.

Which was going to lie, now. The overlay was engaged. It would lie about its memory, its file names, its configuration… it’d tell anyone who asked that things existed, tell you their file sizes and then bring up various machine code and gibberish, that said, to a computer expert, that the files did exist, protected under separate passcodes.

The level of their questions said it would get him out of Wigairiin. Red-and-blue was out of his depth.

“What’s this garbage?” red-and-blue demanded, and Bren caught a breath, eyes shut, and asked, in crazed delight:

“Strange symbols?”

“Yes.”

“You’re into addressing. What did you doto it?”

They hit him again.

“I asked the damned file names!”

“Human language.”

Long silence, then. He didn’t like the silence. Red-and-blue was a fool. A fool might do something else foolish, like beat him to death trying to learn computer programming. He hung there, fighting for his breaths, trying to get his feet under him, while red-and-blue thought about his options.