The Rebel of Rhada by Robert Cham Gilman Page B

feeling of increasing horror.
    “A Rhadan star king, no less.” The lips that showed through the opening in the sable mask were red and shining. The teeth were long and white, like flat slabs of porcelain. “What will they send me next, I wonder?”
    He signaled to his helpers. They crowded around Kier like demons. He could sense their eagerness for the questioning to begin.
    “Now, my pretties,” the Questioner said. “We cannot begin this minute. We have to know what questions to ask, don’t we? But we can prepare, yes. By all the cybs and little demons, we can do that.”
    His movements were graceful for so large a man. He walked around the chamber lightly, examining his devices. The hands on Kier’s flesh felt cold and dry, like the hands of corpses.
    The room had a concrete floor and white tiled walls. The railed tunnel extended through one side of the chamber, and heavy wooden doors had been built where the roadbed entered and left the open area. That part of the room had been planked over to the level of the floor, and the remainder of the chamber contained a devilish assortment of god-metal and wooden machines intended to stretch, break, and twist the human body.
    “What shall it be?” the Questioner murmured happily. “Not the rack. No, not the rack for a star king. Too common, a death without style.” He turned toward a dark brazier containing rods and pincers. “The fire? How would the fire suit you, King?”
    Kier regarded him coldly and hoped that the dread in his heart did not show. A stinking way for a warman to die; under torture in a hole in the earth half the sky away from his own lands.
    “The Queen,” the Questioner said. “Yes, I think so. For a star king--the Queen.”
    Kier followed him with his eyes as he walked to a statue of god-metal formed in the likeness of a woman with extended arms. The metal face was serene, the standing pose voluptuous.
    The red lips smiled, and the eyes behind the mask glittered. “Look at our beautiful lady, King. See how she waits to embrace you.” He giggled grotesquely. “I hear that the royal Rhad are great lovers of women. What could be more fitting than a tryst with the Queen of the question room?”
    Kier studied the metal woman and saw that the arms were hinged at the shoulders. From the back of the statue projected a screw device, like the twist handle of a great wine press. A shudder of horror passed through him.
    The Questioner signaled his helpers, and they pulled Kier across the room until he stood facing the metal woman. They raised his bound wrists and forced them over the head of the statue so that he hung helplessly against the cold body.
    “Now gently, gently,” the Questioner said. “Let her embrace him.”
    An executioner began to turn the screw, and Kier felt the unyielding touch of the arms closing about him. It took all of his will not to struggle, not to give his torturers the satisfaction of seeing a Rhadan warman flinch from what must come.
    The arms closed more tightly about him, crushing him against the metal breasts, driving the breath from him. A cold sweat broke out on his face, and tiny lancets of pain shot through his chest. The Questioner was studying his face with the interest of an expert, gauging his pain. He signaled a quarter turn on the screw and smiled in satisfaction as the metal arms sent a streak of agony through Kier.
    “Ah, there. We’ll leave him so for a time.” The heavy black figure shook with enjoyment. “Let him become accustomed to his Queen. Too much love is a bad thing, even for a mighty Rhad.”
    There was a hollow roaring in Kier’s head. His compressed lungs struggled to breathe. A darkness flickered before his eyes, and he wondered how long his superbly conditioned body would betray him by staying alive and in such pain.
    He imagined he could hear the sound of clashing weapons beyond the wooden door to the question room, but he was certain he must be mistaken. Perhaps it was only the iron