Politician (3 page)

Then I suffered a new revelation: It was supposed to be easy! This was an open code, intended for the guards to decipher; therefore its message was spurious.

Yet what was the point? The captors had complete control, anyway; what did it matter whether they were fooled by a pseudosecret message?

I rolled it over in my mind. I was a creature of reason; I believed in cause and effect and in purpose in everything, however devious. If I assumed the prior prisoner had a mind like mine, then he certainly had had reason to plant that message. What would my reason be if I were to do such a thing?

Well, confusion. That is, I would try to fool the captors into believing I had capitulated, when in fact I had not. That way they might go easy on me. That was certainly a worthwhile effort.

Still, it wasn't enough. What other reason might there be?

A diversion. Like sleight of hand, an action of one type that diverted attention from a more important action elsewhere.

What else could there be, here in the dark, in accumulated excrement?

I mulled it over. Then, cautiously, I slid my hands along the floor beneath me, under the slop.

Sure enough—there were scratches. A hidden message!

But these were neither letters nor numbers. They seemed to be a pattern of boxes, like the border of embroidery, some complete, some partial, some with dots or circles inside, some empty. What did it mean?

It meant a more sophisticated code, obviously. One that would not yield readily to simple analysis. One the captors could not decipher, assuming they became aware of it at all. A double baffle: concealment where they would be least likely to look, and an almost impossible code to crack!

Who would devise such a thing? Offhand I had just one prospect: myself.

If I had been confined here and had known or suspected that I was to be subjected to memory-wash, this was what I would do. Leave a secret message to myself, to provide necessary information to confound my captors.

Well, had it been me? Quite possibly. As I explained, I know the smell of my own refuse; some practical calculation based on the estimated quantity of material suggested that I had spent about a week here before the mem-wash, and my memory would have been with me then. I had known or suspected what was coming, so it was only natural that I prepare for this post-wash period. My life and welfare probably depended on it.

It had to be me; I had used a quote drawn from Dante's Commedia that related most aptly to my situation: the soul's entry to hell. It even included my name: Hope. I was literally the Hope who had been abandoned. No one but me would have thought to use that particular reference.

This conclusion was exhilarating. Now I had, as it were, a companion in the cell whom I could trust absolutely: my former self. One who might not have known the future, but certainly knew the past, and would share it with me. Now I could tackle the problem of my captivity with confidence.

Why had my captors waited a week to mem-wash me? Not for psychological reasons, as the mem-wash would wipe out any attitude I developed. Probably the sub had taken time to work its way free of the planetary environment without risking discovery, so they had waited to give me the treatment until they were certain things were secure. If they got caught early they could be charged only with abduction. So they had locked me into this secret hole and allowed my filth to accumulate so that it would have the appropriate psychological effect after the mem-wash. There was no problem about illness deriving from the filth, as there were no applicable agents of disease here. Certainly they were putting pressure on me by keeping me in a degrading situation except when they actively tortured me. The average person would soon break down under such treatment and do anything the captors wanted, just to get free of it.

Unfortunately for them I was not an average person. I had prepared for my humiliation and incarceration, giving my mind something compelling to occupy it. And, surely, some advice on how to deal with this situation.

Well and good. Now all I had to do was crack my own code. Doubtless I had learned its elements somewhere during the period of my life now washed out of memory. Or had I? Surely I would have anticipated that forgetting, so would have made it a point to draw from my early memories, giving myself a chance while keeping it difficult for any other person.

I felt again for the scratches—and realized that I might be under observation now, or at least monitored by recording. The cell was quite dark to me, but might not be so to my captors. That meant I should be careful how I approached the message below, so as not to give away its presence. Indeed, why had I hidden it so carefully, unless concealment were necessary? The “open” message on the wall suggested that I should at least seem to abandon hope. I had to seem to be sleeping or mulling fatalistically on my fate.

I reached up and retraced the message on the wall. I shook my head in obvious frustration. “But I don't even know what they want!” I muttered. “I have no hope, but they pay no attention!” It was easy to say; the isolation and degradation and torture sessions were intended to make me feel that way, and to an extent they did. The pattern was beginning to make sense.

I settled back with obvious resignation, one hand supporting my body partially upright. It was almost impossible to get comfortable here, physically, which was part of the point. Break a man down physically and you're on the way to breaking him down emotionally. The linkages are stronger than many people choose to realize. But I had experienced privation before; this really wasn't that bad.

My fingers slowly traced the scratches. I found where they began—I hoped. The first six were as follows:

That was two

, a

, a

, and two

's, one with an X in it. Probably orientation and the addition of an X made them different symbols, so only two were really the same: the first and sixth. What did they mean?

Now I remembered. My little sister Spirit and I had had a code game we had learned from a friend when we were children on Callisto. The letters of the alphabet were charted in grids, and segments of those grids became the representations of those letters. I think such games have been around for centuries. One grid had nine combinations, so that it translated into nine letters, in this manner:

The second grid had dots in the figures, for the next nine letters, and a third grid, with X's in the figures, finished out the alphabet. A fairly easy translation had produced a marvelously hierographic rendition, fascinating us. We had had quite a fling with it, in English and in Spanish, when I was twelve and she was nine. Somehow it was usually Spirit I was closest to, rather than my older sister Faith. Spirit always joined me in childish pastimes while Faith found them—and us—beneath her. I had evidently drawn on that old code for this occasion.

For a moment I paused, savoring the strengthening memory of Spirit. What an engaging child she had been! Not beautiful like her older sister but spunky, always full of fight and humor, always there in my support. Some boys have contempt for their little sisters; not me. Spirit had always been my complementary aspect, a girl who was a better friend than any boy had been. Where was she now? My memory did not say, but surely she was looking out for me as she always had.

If I had used that code, translation would be easy. I pictured the grids in my mind; the pattern of them made visualization feasible.

would be the second grid, fourth section, or the thirteenth letter of the alphabet: M.

was in the first grid, the fourth square: D. And so on, spelling the word MDGYBM.

I considered that, disappointed. Obviously that wasn't it. Yet I was sure I was on the right track.

Well, perhaps a direct translation was too simple; the captors could intercept it too readily. What else was there?

An indirect translation, of course. One that required an additional key, that no other person had.

Something I carried in my head. A key phrase or sentence—that was the way my mind worked.

Somewhere along the way I had learned about binary codes—systems in which two elements were required to encrypt and decrypt messages. One part might contain the letters of the words, and the other part the mechanism for putting those letters and words in proper order. That's an oversimplification, but it suffices for now. If you have a mere jumble or a simple listing of thirty As, five Bs, eight Cs, ten Ds, one hundred and four Es, and so on, you are hard-put to interpret the message. But if all you know is the order, not the letters—one letter from the fifth group followed by one from the sixth and so on—and the sample is brief, you can't decipher it, either. I knew that the first and sixth letters of this hieroglyphic message were the same, but which letter might that be? It could be almost anything. I needed both parts of the code, and all I had was one. I had MDGYBM—how did it translate?

Where was the other part? It had to be accessible to me or the exercise was pointless. I pondered awhile and concluded that it had to be in my head. Some key that only I would know, that would survive a memory-wash. The hieroglyphic code was an example: a person who lacked my childhood experience with that code would not be able to make sense of those symbols. Even so, I had made only partial sense of them. The letters could be filled into that pattern in any order, and my sample wasn't large enough to analyze for any recurring pattern, not even if I translated all the characters on the floor.

Recurring pattern? There might not be any! Now another aspect of coding came back to me: the variable displacement. The first and sixth symbols might not stand for the same letter! There could be a translation key that said the first symbol stood for the tenth letter of the alphabet, and the second stood for the fifteenth. Yes, this was the way I would have done it. I could not remember when or where or from whom I had learned of this type of coding, but I remembered the fact of it. I definitely needed the key to that translation.

I pondered some more and was interrupted for another outside session. I was cleaned and conducted to the torture chamber, but this time they did not use the box. Instead a new man was there to ask questions. I knew that if my answers did not satisfy him they would use the pain-box again; that was a powerful inducement for me to provide acceptable answers.

“What is your name?” the man asked. He was moderately heavyset, with musculature remaining in the upper arms; he might have been an athlete in youth but was so no longer. There were old scars on his arms, neck, and face, including one that nicked his left ear; he had fought with blades and had a close call. Maybe he had been a pirate. I did not know his name and did not intend to inquire; I simply thought of him as Scar, for private convenience, and let it go at that.

“Hope Hubris,” I answered promptly enough.

“How do you know?”

“The guard called me Hubris, and then I remembered.”

Scar nodded. “What else do you remember?”

I shrugged. “My childhood on Callisto. We fled in a bootleg bubble, but my parents died—” I broke off, the memory hurting again.

“What do you remember after your arrival at Jupiter?”

I concentrated, but it wouldn't come. "I... don't think we ever got to Jupiter. They—they turned us away.

Everyone died—"

“Where did you go then?”

Again I concentrated. “I... think to... to Leda. The Naval station. They—they let me stay because I was literate in English. Not all Hispanics are. Then...” I shook my head; it wouldn't come.

“You are not cooperating,” Scar said. He nodded to the other man in the chamber, who picked up the pain-box.

“I don't remember!” I cried. “It—I need more time! I didn't remember even this much before!”

“Where did you work?” Scar demanded.

Yet again I concentrated. As in a fog, I perceived something. “I—the farm-bubbles—migrant labor!” I exclaimed. “The only work I could get at that age. I was... fifteen.”

“And after that?”

“It's blank. I just don't know—”

The pain came on, deep in my abdomen, making me nauseous. It was as if my gut were rupturing. My hands became damp with cold sweat, and I started to shiver, though I was sweating.

“How do you feel?” Scar inquired as the agony abated.

“ Intoxicado! ” I gasped.

“You're not drunk,” he snapped. “Don't try to play games with me, Hubris!”

“I—I spoke in Spanish, my mother tongue,” I explained quickly. “It means nauseous. From the pain.”

“Oh.” Scar half-smiled. “That figures. We gave you a stone.”

A stone. The effect of a gallstone or kidney stone. Such blockages could generate a certain nausea in addition to the pain at the site, whether the obstruction was real or phantom, as in this case. “But why?” I asked plaintively. “When you know I can't answer your questions?”

“Do you not remember joining the Jupiter Navy?” he asked.

“The Navy!” Suddenly I did remember—and, indeed, I had realized before that I must have been in it.

“Yes, there was trouble among the immigrant workers, and I was drafted....” I shook my head. “Basic training, I think. But it's misty.”

“Try to clarify it,” he suggested.

When I hesitated, the pain came on again, worse than before. This time I did retch, regurgitating on my body.

The pain eased. “Do you remember now?” Scar asked.

“I wish I could,” I gasped.

He nodded, satisfied. He walked to a counter and picked up a cup of fluid. He brought it to me. “Drink this. It will make you feel better.”

I didn't even question its nature. If they wanted to poison me they could do so anytime they chose. I took the cup with a shaking hand and brought it to my mouth and drank. It was some kind of beverage, pleasant enough, with a tangy aftertaste.

Then I was conducted back to my filthy cell and locked in. I was alone again, my new vomit only adding to the stench.

I returned to my reflections. Evidently my captors had merely been verifying the effect of the mem-wash.

I had not been prevaricating; my direct memory beyond the migrant-labor period was hopelessly fogged.