The voice sighed. “Captain, this conversation can be as pleasant or as painful as you wish.”
“I thought you said there would be no torture,” I said.
“No, but I’m told your chair is particularly uncomfortable. After a few hours, most prisoners beg to be let free.”
I squirmed. Already, the backs of my legs tingled. “Where I’m from, that’s called torture.”
“Where you’re from, people are weak. Your nation is weak, your government is weak, and your armed forces are weak.”
“We’re strong enough to resist being conquered by you this long,” I said, smiling.
“Give us time. You are near the breaking point. Even should we lose every battle in the coming year, your armed forces will never approach our home star system. If you lose even one of the coming fights, our armies will land on your homeworld.”
I grunted. I knew the interrogator’s analysis was correct. “Don’t be so sure. There may not even be a war in a week.”
“We’ll see,” the demon replied, his voice calm and cold. “In the meantime, I must ask why the Emperor chose you as her Consort.”
“You’ve already broken our codes. Read my record.”
“Your record does not tell us what sort of plot you’ve arranged with the Emperor. Oh, don’t worry, we don’t judge you for scheming. It’s impressive, actually, that you two could secretly manipulate your governments for twelve years. We don’t even want to stop you, necessarily, but we must look out for the good of the Empire, which we cannot do if we don’t know what you and the Emperor are planning.”
Defiantly, I tossed my hair. These bastards couldn’t realize the Emperor and I simply loved each other? They imagined a multinational, duodecennial scheme more likely than two people falling in love? Well, I did not see fit to disillusion them.
“Let me save you some time. I’m not like the other prisoners you’ve captured. They thought we might win this war. I know better. When this conference fails, the Empire will defeat the Allied armies, and in one of those battles, I will die. You cannot intimidate me – I’m a dead man. If you torture me, my demon-grown heart will give out before I give you one word of truth. Or you’ll kill me outright, but as I’ve said, I’m already dead. The only question is how long my death will take.”
“We could inflict permanent brain damage upon you,” the demon prince said.
“Another way of dying, in parts instead of in whole,” I said dismissively. “Eight months of doomed existence is not worth betraying my country. So do your worst. You won’t get anything of use out of me.”
The silhouette leaned forwards. “I think you’re lying. Maybe you felt so fatalistically when you came to the Crystal Palace, but now you have something to live for. You have the Emperor to protect and your nation to save. Don’t you want to help them?”
I gave the shadow my most patronizing sneer. “We are warriors, you and I. Lies are not our forte.”
“I’m not lying to you,” the demon prince said.
“If I believed you, then I’d be lying to myself,” I replied.
The shadowy figure stayed still, trying to peer into my soul, but eventually, he spoke. “We won’t get anything from him this way.”
“We could torture him,” somebody behind me said in the demon tongue.
The silhouette shook his horned head. “We don’t have time to put him right and wipe his mind. Probably nothing in there anyways.”
“I told you he was just a sex toy,” a new voice, a feminine voice, growled. “Think he’s any good?”
“Don’t even try it,” the main voice said. “We have to keep the Emperor happy.”
“What do we do with him, then?” another voice said in the demon tongue.
“Bag him, gas him, dump him outside the party. They’ll think he drank himself silly. He’s done it before.” The interrogator stood and switched to his flawless Commonwealth Basic. “Sleep well, Captain. I’ll see you shortly.”
The bag went over my head, and I felt the sleep gas enter my lungs, but before I passed out, I smiled to myself. The voice was different, an accent he had put on, but I was fairly certain I recognized the silhouette of those horns. In the morning, I would make certain.
THE BLACK BAG STRIKES AGAIN
I CAME TOlying on my back on the sand. The sound of breaking surf and the scent of saltwater and palm fronds revealed that my abductors had dumped me on the beach. I reached up to yank the bag from my head, but by the time I’d untangled myself and gotten to my feet, my captors were long gone. I glared into the shadows beneath the palm trees, looking for a foe to accuse, but they were well and truly hidden.
My captors had released me near the waterfront revel, a dozen yards outside the curtain of light. Briefly, I wondered how intruders could have gotten so close to the Emperor, but the answer was obvious – my kidnappers were invited attendants at the conference. No one could set foot on this moon without the Emperor’s security service knowing who they were, which meant this was a faction within the Imperial nobility.
