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  He leaned his head against the glass. He could see a ribbon of gray/white far below, perhaps a river. He watched the twin suns climb higher: dawn, morning. There were no clouds. The sky turned from purple to pink to pale lavender to milky blue. As light spread, the colors of the vista ranged beyond spectacular, the Grand Canyon multiplied beyond imagination. He walked to each side of the room to note the different vistas. When the suns were a quarter of the way up in the sky, Mike finally stopped gawking.

  The floor beneath him was completely solid, of the same material he was used to in the space ship. The air was cool but not cold. He was in the same clothes he’d been in. He touched, tapped, and thumped the glass. He couldn’t see any point of egress. He judged the room to be about thirty feet by thirty feet. He walked to the center of the room and sat down.

  He’d lost a little weight. His jeans hung loosely on his hips. After months of continuous wear, they were getting tatty. He’d alternated days with his flannel shirt, long sleeve T-shirt, hooded sweatshirt, and his regular T-shirt. While the ersatz shower he had taken every day kept things clean, he still felt better for the change. The elbows were almost out of the flannel shirt. He’d refused their offers of tunics in a variety of colors.

  Mike wanted an Earth shower, shave, and a change of clothes. He was hungry. He didn’t know if he was happy to be off the ship or not. He wanted people around to talk to. He wanted to pick up a phone and call someone. He took out his communicator. He tapped in numerous combinations, but nothing gave him a hint about where he was. He activated the defense mechanism. He thought about having a try at blowing his prison to smithereens or more practically at opening a portal in his prison. He focused his mind the way he’d been practicing and began to tap on the front of the communicator. The familiar blue glow appeared and surrounded him. Mike continued tapping and soon the room was filled with the blue light and the glass surrounding his prison began to shimmer.

  He felt the floor around him shift. In seconds he was standing on a foot-square platform which was at the apex of a pyramid with steps leading up to his quarters from all four sides. It was as if the floor around him had melted away. He could see that below the glass outer shell were solid walls of granite carved out of the mountainside.

  A voice said, “You would be able to breathe the atmosphere, but there isn’t much oxygen this high up, like at the top of Mt. Everest on Earth.”

  Mike kept increasing the power he was putting out. “Can I destroy this whole mountain?” he asked.

  A dim figure appeared far down the stairs in the direction from which the suns had risen. The new person stood outside the glow of the blue. The figure was encased in a yellow aura. The blue flowed around it and expanded, but the yellow did not diminish.

  “You could probably destroy several hundred square miles of this planet, yourself included.” Mike didn’t recognize the voice. The alien was still too distant for Mike to see a face.

  The figure climbed no higher on the stairs. Mike didn’t know if this was because he couldn’t or wouldn’t. He increased the power he was summoning. He remembered the spectacular explosion when Joe summoned the lightning of an Earth storm to help destroy an alien ship. He might not be able to tap into the electrical charges of the universe, but he could cause a spectacular ending. Destroying a whole mountain was no mean feat.

  “Please stop,” the voice said.

  Mike relented and lowered the glow to a foot in each direction around himself. He observed the man who was now ascending the steps. When he was halfway up to Mike’s level, he stopped, and said, “My name is Kenton. You will be permitted to see Joe.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Kenton wore a beige tunic. He spoke English but with a slight accent. He had a deep pleasing voice.

  “Is he all right?” Mike asked.

  “As far as I know.”

  Mike breathed hard for several minutes. The thought of losing Joe pierced his heart. Kenton walked up the stairs and as he did so the floor rose behind him. He stood on the other side of the room.

  Mike walked to the wall of glass and gazed out. “Can I take a shower? I also need to use the washroom, and I’d like to do all of that with some degree of privacy.”

  Kenton tapped on the front of his communicator. In moments on the side of the room the suns had risen, a portion of the floor three feet by three feet, began to rise.

  “That is so disconcerting,” Mike said.

  “Very effective for prison control.”

  “How do I enter?” Mike asked.

  “You don’t.”

  Mike almost smiled. “I’ve never pissed on a mountaintop before.”

  “If you’ll stand near the structure, it will envelop you.”

  “Will it hurt me?”

  “Even if it did, what are you going to do about it? At some point you’re going to have to trust one or some of us. I could make the walls of this prison disappear. The winds outside are fierce. You would be blown off. You would land somewhere far below. You would be dead long before you could make use of your communicator and frankly, I don’t believe that thing, no matter how smart Vov was or what modifications you’ve made in it, could save you from a ten thousand foot drop.”

  “Is that how high we are?”

  “We’re actually over forty thousand feet above what you would call sea level, but the nearest ground is around ten thousand feet below. Our planet is delved far beneath the surface. We build as little above ground as we can. I think the equivalent for you would be, if on Earth they had hollowed out the insides of the Rocky Mountains in the west of your country.”

  Mike touched the wall in front of him. “Okay,” he muttered. The floor around him seemed to move and flow. In moments he had privacy. It resembled the washroom on the ship.

  Mike emerged from the enclosure. As quickly as it had appeared, it was gone. He stared out the window at the distant vista. “What’s your planet like?”

  Kenton said, “We’re on the very distant outskirts of the inhabited portions of my world. The rock here is less well suited to dwelling. Things tend to collapse. It’s perfect for a prison. No one minds when prisoners are inconvenienced.”

  Mike interrupted. “What about the physics of the whole thing? On Earth there are always cave-ins happening in coal mines.”

  “Perhaps you mean the design and engineering of our mining. We aren’t digging for ore. We’re creating a civilization. We don’t live in nasty, damp holes. These are dwellings for the inhabitants of our planet. The structural integrity of that much rock over this many thousands of years is unquestioned.”

  Mike asked, “Your civilization is that old?”

  “You don’t get intergalactic space travel in a day.”

  Both of them fell silent until finally, Mike asked, “Where am I?”

  “This is the most secure prison on the planet Hrrrm. You are in the most secure cell.”

  “What happened to the person who was here before?”

  “It is not always occupied. There are exile and prison planets where criminals can be sent to do hard labor.”

  “What happened on the ship?”

  “You had a running battle with the Sky Pirates of Msssk for about a day. In fact it was a little touch and go. They almost succeeded. You defeated their ground troops on your ship, which seemed miraculous at the time. No one anticipated how much power you had. A ship of the line had to flee from pirates! That was something. You had to be rescued by a battle fleet from one of the outer sectors. In the end the pirates suffered heavy losses, but they got away. There were no prisoners left to interrogate. A strike against the pirates is planned. They should not have been able to give you even that much trouble.”

  “‘A little touch and go?’ ‘Trouble?’ What would you call a lot? People died. I killed people!”

  “And that’s bad, why?”

  “Are you people nuts?”

  Kenton gazed at him and waited for Mike to calm down. “Sane
enough to have you as a prisoner.”

  Mike felt defeated. His rage dissipated.

  Kenton said, “You could shut that thing off and save some energy.”

  “Maybe I’ll just leave the power at this level for a while.”

  “You could. It takes psychic energy to do what you’re doing. The mind gets tired. I’d like to talk. You’re going to be taken places. There will be legal proceedings. You can summon power every time if you wish. How much good is it going to do you? You’ll feel less frustrated for a little while, but you won’t be less of a prisoner. It won’t get you sent back to Earth.”

  “What would?”

  “Nothing.”

  “How’d I get from the ship to here?”

  Kenton pointed at the plinth. “You were asleep on that. Basically, we had to take it and part of the floor of the ship.”

  “Why didn’t I wake up?”

  “Your last meals had a mild sedative.”

  “How come my energy shield didn’t automatically go off?”

  “We’re not sure. I suppose the food could be poisoned, and you would have been killed. I don’t know. Perhaps your communicator isn’t geared to look for sedatives, drugs, or poison. Whether you are awake, asleep, or drugged, certainly no living person has been able to touch you. They tried to poke you with a stick. The man who did so will be out of the hospital eventually. Maybe your implant is designed for detecting physical attacks. A mile wide asteroid could fall on you, and it would kill you.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I am your procedural specialist, which implies both police, law, and psychological training. The Earth equivalent would be a combination lawyer and guard plus a bit of therapist thrown in. I have studied your background. They offered me a great deal of money to come to the prison. I am not normally employed by the government. I teach the Philosophy and Psychology of Languages at Qurdz Educational Training Center. You would call it a ‘university.’ It is the largest and most prestigious institution in my solar system. One of my specialties, among many, is the study of the language and customs of less developed cultures such as Earth’s.”

  “I’m not sure how I feel about being called ‘less-developed.’”

  “It is not meant as an insult. My statement has no judgmental or moral content. In general it means what you would call our computers run faster. Our medical treatments are more effective. Our food production is more efficient. Our energy problems are solved.”

  “What’s going to happen to me?”

  “You and Joe will be dealt with according to our laws and customs. I have been sent here to learn as much about you as possible. I find you fascinating.”

  “I am not in the mood for cheap Mr. Spock imitations.”

  “Who?”

  “Skip it. Am I physically in danger?”

  “People from less developed worlds such as yours are never executed. You will not be tortured. We’re not sure we can anyway. Whatever you and Joe have implanted in your head is going to take our scientists some time to undo.”

  “Maybe I don’t want it to be undone.”

  “Perhaps you don’t have as many choices as you might like.”

  “Is Joe going to be executed?”

  “The penalties for what he has done are quite severe.”

  “He saved my world.”

  “He made love to you.”

  “The universe is filled with homophobic pigs?”

  “His revelation of himself to you as well as your relationship are not countenanced. The first is an immense problem. The second exacerbates it immeasurably. Worst of all is the very existence of that implant in your head. Your awareness, combined with our science - that is very bad.”

  “Because?”

  “Communicators are manually operated. The implants are automatic devices. We have communicators that can enhance protection. Vov created a communicator and implant that work in unison. Acting together they have immense power. With all that, you might still have a chance of a getting out of this unscathed if it weren’t for the fact that you fell in love.”

  “Homophobic pigs,” Mike reiterated.

  “I’m one of the few people they found who was willing to attempt to overcome their disgust by the entire concept of all three violations.”

  “Homophobia is a universal emotion?”

  “Whether here or on Earth many people fear those who are different. Same-sex relationships pose varying degrees of problems.”

  “What’s most important to me right now is Joe. After he’s put on trial, what happens?”

  “He is most likely to be found guilty. If nothing else, the implant in your head will be what convicts him. He has violated the letter and spirit of space exploration protocols. What he has done is blatantly illegal. The misuse of implants and the tampering with beings not in our star system of planets is absolutely forbidden, but worst of all, in the eyes of many, he should not have fallen in love with you, and he most certainly should not have touched you physically, ever.”

  “You know he did that?”

  “Would you like to deny it?”

  “Would it save him?”

  “They’ll be able to see it in his memory.”

  “But he’s got a shield device like mine.”

  “But we can use advanced techniques against him that we cannot use against you. As yet, no one can beat your aura, and your alien status protects you in odd ways. The laws concerning that are strict as well. A tampered-with alien such as yourself has what you would call even more rights. You are an object of sympathy and pity, which does not give you a high status, just one that leaves you in a legal limbo, where evil things don’t happen, but good things aren’t on the agenda either.”

  “What evil things?”

  “Operations to remove the implants, attempts at mind control.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “If you guys couldn’t use mind control, how was I captured?”

  “Ah, now, that’s the best question you’ve asked so far. No one is quite sure what that is all about. Lerg told you about the oxygen deprivation device?”

  Mike nodded.

  “Essentially they created a vacuum around you and sucked out all the air until you became unconscious. We knew we couldn’t let you get away. As I said, we don’t know how you were able to resist. We know that Vov, the one Joe destroyed, was working on all kinds of illegal devices. Obviously you and Joe were as well. Your resistance, my friend, is going to cause no end of consternation.”

  “You mean the government is not all-powerful?”

  “You’ll have to ask that of a government official.” Kenton shook his head, “Somehow you guys connected the communicator to your implant in ways we can’t unconnect or even understand. We couldn’t get at it. It is too powerful. I suppose I shouldn’t have told you that, but you’ll figure it out soon enough. The thing in your head can call to other implants or read other implants or in some way connect to them, neutralize them, thwart them, certainly defeat any frontal attack. It allows your implant to sense someone who means you harm. Any attempt by anyone to touch you or anyone who came into contact with your flesh or even your clothes was instantly zapped. They had to rig up a carrying device involving physical materials around you.”

  “Lerg told me about digging up the ground under me. How exactly do my defenses work?”

  “You’d have to ask a scientist that.” Kenton pointed a finger at Mike. “The key is that there are those on my planet who would pay vast sums for such a combination of technology as you have. There are those on my planet who would kill for such a thing.”

  “I’m not sure I feel good knowing I’m so prized.”

  “No alien has ever had an implant in their head. The anti-tampering social construct is very strict.”

  “Except when the Sky Pirates of Msssk wanted me dead.”

  “Or a prisoner. People want you. Other than your protection, the reason you’re not dead
is nobody’s sure they can get the knowledge or the implant’s data if you’re dead. What you’ve got and how it was made, will be a cause for study without parallel in the last millennium.”

  Mike felt helpless and walked to the window through which he’d seen the suns rise. After a few moments he asked, “Is Joe in this prison?”

  “No.”

  “Why isn’t he in the most secure spot?”