Free The Ethical Engineer by Harry Harrison Page B

though the chances were
better that they were unconscious since there was no reason for their
captors to kill them after going to such lengths to get them in the
first place. Jason believed this, but the terrified slaves did not
have the solace of his philosophy so struggled on, thinking that they
were fighting for their lives. When Jason's turn came he did not
submit meekly, in spite of his beliefs, and managed to bite some
fingers and kick one man in the stomach before they sat on him, held
his nose and poured a measure of the burning liquid down his throat.
It hurt and he was dizzy, and he tried to will himself to throw up,
but this was the last thing that he remembered.

VII
*
    "Drink some more of this," the voice said, and cold water splashed on
Jason's face and some of it trickled down his throat making him cough.
Something hard was pressing into his back and his wrists hurt. Memory
seeped back slowly, the fight, the capture and the potion that had
been forced upon him. When he opened his eyes he saw a flickering
yellow lamp overhead, hung from a chain. He blinked at it and tried to
gather enough energy to sit up. A familiar face swam in front of the
light and Jason squinted his eyes at it and groaned.
    "Is that you Mikah—or are you just part of a nightmare?"
    "There is no escape from justice, Jason. It is I, and I have some
grave questions to put to you."
    Jason groaned again. "You're real all right. Even in a nightmare I
wouldn't dare dream up any lines like that. But before the questions,
how about telling me a thing or two about the local setup, you should
know something since you have been a slave of the D'zertanoj longer
than I have." Jason realized that the pain in his wrists came from
heavy iron shackles. A chain passed through them and was stapled to a
thick wooden bar on which his head had been resting. "Why the
chains—and what is the local hospitality like?"
    Mikah resisted the invitation to impart any vital information and
returned irresistibly to his own topic.
    "When I saw you last you were a slave of Ch'aka, and tonight you were
brought in with the other slaves of Ch'aka and chained to the bar
while you were unconscious. There was an empty place next to mine and
I told them I would tend you if they placed you there, and they did.
Now there is something I must know. Before they stripped you I saw
that you were wearing the armor and helmet of Ch'aka. Where is the
man—what happened to him?"
    "Me Ch'aka," Jason rasped, and burst out coughing from the dryness in his
throat. He took a long drink of water from the bowl. "You sound very
vindictive, Mikah you old fraud. Where is all the turn-the-other-cheek
stuff now? Don't tell me you could possibly hate the man just because he
hit you on the head, fractured your skull and sold you down the river as a
slave reject? In case you have been brooding over this injustice you can
now be cheered because the evil Ch'aka is no more. He is buried in the
trackless wastes and after all the applicants were sifted out I got the
job."
    "You killed him?"
    "In a word—yes. And don't think that it was easy since he had all the
advantages and I possessed only my native ingenuity, which luckily
proved to be enough. It was touch and go for a while because when I
tried to assassinate him in his sleep—"
    "You
what
?" Mikah Samon hissed.
    "Got to him at night. You don't think anyone in his right mind would
tackle a monster like that face-to-face do you? Though it ended up
that way, since he had some neat gadgets for keeping track of people
in the dark. Briefly, we fought, I won, I became Ch'aka, though my
reign was neither long nor noble. I followed you as far as the desert
where I was neatly trapped by a shrewd old bird name of Edipon who
demoted me back to the ranks and took away all my slaves as well. Now
that's my story. So tell me yours, where we are, what goes on here?"
    "Assassin! Slave holder!" Mikah reared back, as far as he could under
the restraint of the chain, and