The Garments of Caean

‘They wouldn’t be the first technologically-minded barbarians in history,’ Estru said mildly.

‘No, of course not. And yet their hostility could be due to their … peculiar condition. Perhaps they carry a repressed group memory that originally they were human beings – a memory containing trauma, guilt and self-mutilation. The appearance of a ship from outside their system might stimulate this memory – unconsciously, of course – and it would express itself in unreasoning hostility.’

‘Maybe. It’s highly speculative.’

The cyborg had finally been subdued and disarmed. It was strapped to a board, its limbs immobilized. Now that their spell of emergency was over, the inboard crew were able to stand back and take a good look at what they had caught, and they found time to be appalled.

Amara got through to the medical section. ‘How is our Russian?’

‘The operation has been completed,’ the senior doctor told her. ‘As you’re always in a hurry, Amara, we gave him a combination of drugs designed to erase from his memory any recent event sufficiently charged to cause catatonia. In a sense we’ve replaced the catatonic effect with an amnesiac one. Not the most responsible way of dealing with psychic disorders, but …’ He trailed off. ‘We also gave him an arousal drug, and according to his brain reading he’s coming round. He should be functioning normally.’

‘Let me understand this. He won’t remember what we did to him?’

‘The memory isn’t expunged completely, but it’s not on complete recall. He might even be able to remember it vaguely, as if remembering a dream, but he won’t be sure it really happened. It will be robbed of significance. I thought you would prefer it that way,’ the doctor added drily, ‘because later we could reintroduce the incident to him slowly under controlled conditions.’

‘Ah! Excellent! Then we can discuss the business with him!’ she chuckled. ‘Congratulations, Doctor. Indirect methods of enquiry never were to my liking!’

She tapped her finger-tips on the table, thinking something over. ‘Put him back in the vacuum chamber, will you?’

‘He’s there already, for the sake of continuity. It’s the last thing he will remember clearly.’

‘Good, good,’ she murmured slowly. ‘I’ll get in touch later.’

As soon as the doctor went off-line the lock crew came in. ‘What shall we do with it now?’ the team leader asked, not hiding his distaste.

‘Put him in the vacuum chamber with our first specimen, and then stand by. And take those restraints off. I want him to have freedom of movement.’

‘Is that wise?’ said Estru in a low, worried voice. ‘It does seem precipitous, Amara. Our patient is only just recovering! Shouldn’t we give him more time?’

‘I reject the term “patient”,’ Amara replied icily. ‘What’s the matter with you, Estru? The Russian is going to be perfectly all right, you just heard medical section say so. Finding himself in the company of the cyborg will probably reassure him.’

‘We have no idea what relations are between the suit-people and the cyborgs,’ Estru pointed out guardedly.

‘But they belong to the same culture!’

Estru coughed politely. ‘That is an unwarranted assumption, if I may be permitted to say so. They speak different languages. And you were the one to observe that the Russian’s outbursts against us suggest he already has enemies.’

Amara waved her hand imperiously, annoyed at her assistant’s misgivings. ‘Such possibilities are not lost on me, I assure you. This is a scientific test. I want to see what Types One and Two have to say to each other.’

Minutes later the cyborg prisoner had been taken to the vacuum chamber. In the vestibule the lock crew freed it from the restraining board, protecting themselves with difficulty from its flailing attacks, and pushed it through the chamber lock.

In free fall it floated into the metal vault. Up to now the giant spacesuit, its surface barely scarred by the welds that had fastened it up, had been motionless on the opposite side. On the entry of the cyborg, however, its huge arms stirred.

The two space-adapted men confronted one another.

The suit advanced.

The cyborg’s gaze darted quickly here and there, as if seeking a way out. It drifted against a wall, and expertly jack-knifed its legs against it, leaping across the chamber and out of the path of the suit.

Unlike the cyborg, the suit had its own built-in propulsion. Its drive unit, which was capable of accelerating it to speeds in the order of hundreds of thousands of miles per hour given a sufficiently long period, needed only minimal activation for manoeuvres in this tiny enclosure. The suit flicked round in pursuit of the cyborg and zipped across the chamber, able to pre-empt any further evasive manoeuvre by its greater ease of motion.

Not a single word had passed between the two, although both species (as Estru thought it would be fair to call them) communicated by radio. Nevertheless the attitude of violence and implacable hatred which each displayed towards the other was unmistakable.