"Better enjoy it," said one of the guards, a half-breed morgon, referring to the crowded holding tank. Because, after that, they said we'd be alone a long, long time. No one knew exactly what that meant, although we had ideas. An attempt to be funny? Did the guard mean totally alone after death? I suppose that's possible, if you're aware you're alone.

Of course, he didn't mean life imprisonment. Life sentences had been replaced centuries ago after exploration and commerce began with all the civilized planets of our star system. It seems laws could not keep pace in the outer settlements, the Wilds as they were called. No code of civilized behavior could control the expansion of settlements, especially those near lucrative ore sites. Settlers drove each other off, some destroying encampments outright, and when laws did not follow, no one viewed the act of taking a life as murder but as something commonplace, if not natural. A way of life, or death, for billions spreading outward, staking their claims. Then came the crackdown. The UAP (United Alliance of Planets) realized that the new settlements, ruled by lawlessness, essentially a vast society of barbarians, would soon pose a threat to the civilized "provinces". Their growing wealth would soon enable them to purchase the technology of their mother planets.

THE UAP dispatched armies of territorial marshals to enforce some semblance of law and order if not moral consciousness and respect for life. First, the UAP implemented life sentences and established penal colonies, but this soon proved inadequate. So, finally, the death penalty followed, with a barren moon selected where all offenders would be "processed". No small task when you consider our star system contains thirty-nine inhabited planets and moons, with a "barbarian" population on twenty-seven of those in excess of 300 billion.

It hasn't exactly proved a deterrent. After all, generations of accepted behavior and customs can't be wiped away overnight, especially when, as I said, death is a way of life. So, how could a death penalty make much of a difference? What the establishment of SDR (Systematic Death Reduction) has produced however, is a very healthy industry, employing millions: roundups, transport, operation of the Facility on Quag, the outermost moon of Targon. And, then of course, there's the all the administrative overhead. What they do at the Facility to offenders is not exactly clear and has been a subject of much speculation. By that I mean, there all kind of rumors: do they bash in your head, starve you, disintegrate you, torture you, inject painless drugs? Because of the large numbers processed, the starvation and torture theories are doubtful. Since we've been in the holding tank for several days, we've had a lot of time to speculate. The most horrible scenario, something thought up by a real psychopath, or planted among the condemned: they don't kill you, but maintain your bodily functions in some kind of sealed container with your only awareness being consciousness, a kind of torture, induced madness. It's so outrageous that no one believes it. The guards file back and forth on the catwalks, watching, fingering their pulse guns as if we might scale the twenty-foot walls. Occasionally, women, all with short hair, dressed in orange jumpsuits join them. The women carry recorders and observe us, too, and punch in notations. I thought one in particular kept her eye on me, but then I dismissed it as my imagination. Still, I'm not so bad looking when you consider these other "morgs" in here with me. I only have a little scar above my left eye, pretty good when you consider life in the dunes. Two of the morgs got lippy with me and thought I'd back down, but I head-butted one and kicked the other in his tuner. As I was about to really dice up the first one, the guards tingled us with the pulsers and we all got quiet in a hurry. That's when I looked up and saw her staring right at me--no mistake about it.

The whole system's been a little bottle-necked lately, which is why we've been here so long. Someone said they've topped a hundred a day. What slows the process down, I later heard, is that each offender is taken individually by an EPC (Execution Preparation Counselor), where they review your crime, read the sentence and explain what will happen to you. Then someone put two and two together and we found out that the women were these counselors. The whole idea seems like a lot of fuss over nothing, but then I wonder what these EPCs would do for a living if not for the Facility. All because someone gets in your way.

The stupid bastard saw my boundary markers, comes riding right up, bouncing on the dunes, so I walked up and said he was in my stake. I was holding a spiker. He looked at me and looked at the markers like he wanted to think it over, like he might have backed off, but I threw the spiker and hit him; he reached for his, but I took it and ripped him right down the middle. He was on my stake. What was I supposed to do? Turns out a hovercraft patrol was out scanning the sector and they got me on long-range visual. Spent weeks in a temporary detention center before being shipped to Quag. If I had it to do all over, I'd spike the bastard again.

Like I said, it's hot and crowded here, but the guards are smiling and telling us to enjoy the party. Someone yelled back for them to get a real job. Not long after, they passed out tokens which meant, in my case that I had my meeting with my EPC tomorrow. "Number's up," said the guard. "Up yours," I said. SDR needs to improve on their efficiency if you ask me.

Two guards hustled me into this room and shoved me into a chair and when I looked up there she was, looking at me with no expression, a recorder next to her folded hands. I noticed that she kept glancing up at some cameras. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," I said too loudly for no rational reason. "Do it, just do it." I sounded to myself like I was pleading a bit. I didn't want to sound like I was losing it.

"Aren't you just a little curious, Mr., Mr.--"

"Quantid," I mumbled. "Let's just get it over with. I don't care much whether the method is compassionate or not, as long as it's quick." The woman had picked up her recorder, but set it down and folded her hands again. She wore an orange jumpsuit with an SDR insignia. "What's your name, honey?"

"Darra. Counselor Darra."

This counselor had cropped sandy hair; she appeared basically sexless, but after staring back for a few moments, I became aware of a funny sensation, something I had not felt in a long time, something that started at the pit of my stomach as she began to drone. Bastards. Did they put something in that last meal?

"Your journey has three distinct phases." Was it finally sinking in? Usually in the territories, death comes suddenly without time to think. "You will be sealed in a pod-like compartment which moves down miles of conveyor to your final--

"Resting place?" She didn't grin. "And where is that?"

"You might say," she answered without looking up, "that depends on you."

I found myself breathing shallow, feeling a bit light- headed. But I was prepared for this; I refused to admit it was panic. Had the lighting in this gray room changed? I also thought I heard some kind of music, but was it inside my head? I couldn't tell. Something that reminded me of my parents, of Altarhan. Old lyrics coming back to me.

"You will simply be alone with yourself. No stimuli. That is, no sound, light, or feeling. You will have the sensation of floating."

"How long will I be in there?" My voice sounded high- pitched to my own ears, but the counselor didn't seem to notice.

"How long depends on your own perception, or inner consciousness. Obviously the pods all travel at the same speed."

"No stimuli?"

"You will feel nothing."

"Suppose I get bored and I want to whack off to pass the time?"

"I don't think you'll feel like it. There are inhibitors."

"Well, then," I smirked leaning forward, "how about a quickie right here, you and me. Looks like it wouldn't hurt you one bit and you wouldn't deny the condemned a last request?" I had decided when I entered the room I was going to say something like this, just for the antagonism, but now, inside, I really wanted to, knowing she'd show me the door and the guards would hustle me off to this pod.

Instead, an amazing thing happened: she stood up, pushing the chair away from her desk and unbuttoning her uniform all in one motion. She grasped my chin with one hand and kissed me, probing with her tongue as soon as my lips parted. She kept her other hand busy and then she helped me off with my clothes and guided my head toward her breasts and we slumped to the floor, which felt soft, pliable.

The music blared inside my head, something my parents used to play in our dune tenthouse, sweeping notes, conjuring up the sight of the moons and planets rising in the night sky over Altarhan, strolling under glistening starlight. The words flickered as a dim recollection:

"The shrill wind across patterned sands."

I seem to recall my parents holding hands. When Quantar, my father, saw me looking in their direction, he pushed her hand away and glared at me. "If anyone tries to take away what's yours, kill them like you would a sand viper." He waved his hand all about, as if to suggest the dunes, sand rocks and caves, worm holes, and the cliffs and buttes were mine. The wind picked up sharply and carried the tune all the way down the path. I looked back and mother was staring at the ground. Quantar had pulled his spiker, an old single-edged model, and looked around for a target, but only the desert gusts made their presence known. He faced the vastness, the loneliness and hummed a tune. Ride the desert music....

When it was over, she pried herself from me and got up off the floor. I sat there, numb and naked. "It wasn't easy for you was it?"

"Well, under the circumstances--"

"I think, Mr. Quantid, this concludes the interview."

"Can I get dressed?"

She smiled for the first time, first time mind you, since I entered the room. "Sure, go ahead." I was going to be in this pod forever with the same clothes?

That feeling came back now, twice as hard. What was the rest of the tune? It was faint now. I got up and my legs were wobbly. Quantid, get a hold of yourself. Dozens of near misses in the dunes and it was all I could do here not to shake.

The counselor went to a door at the back of the room. "Just pass through here and you'll be shown what to do." I was losing it. I looked at her and wanted to kiss and hug her. She could tell from my eyes. "No," she said coldly. "Now let's go."

Trapped in this dark pod with life support and only consciousness. I'd go mad. Maybe that was the point?

"I'll go mad!" I shouted. I saw a room bigger than a sandstone canyon, nearly all filled with conveyors with these pods slowly moving along, all in the same direction. "Come on," I said, almost whining, "we can both get out of this. We'll go to Altarhan, live off the ores--" A guard, sensing my reluctance, approached.

"Here," said Darra, "this will relax you." She injected me with a small hypo.

"Go with me," I pleaded. "Take me," I slurred, my feet unsteady.

"All right," she whispered, smiling at the guard. I wasn't so drugged I couldn't feel the shock, or was she playing around? The guard pushed some buttons on a wall panel and the nearest conveyor slowed to a halt and then a shiny black seamless door opened, for me....

The guard started over. "This one too much trouble?" he said to Darra.

"No, but I want to ask you something." He came over and she reached between his legs, "Long shift?"

"Yeah, long shift, but you can make a longer one later."

"Deal," she said, squeezing with one hand and then--I didn't believe my eyes as I blinked sluggishly--she grabbed his pulser, rammed it where her hand had been and pressed the button. The guard instantly turned into an outline of red light and dust, his remains suspended in the air for a few moments, before the dust settled. I wanted to see the surprise on his face, but the pulsers work too fast.

"Come on let's go." As Darra hustled me into a service elevator, I could move my limbs as she guided them, but I hardly felt a thing. I tried to talk, to ask her why she agreed to this, but I couldn't get the words out. Darra could tell what I wanted to know.

"Not now. Wait till we're out of here."

As we stumbled out of the elevator, I expected to be greeted by a score of guards with pulsers. They'd drag me back up to those pods and who knows what they'd do to Darra. Most of the rumors are based on truth anyway. There's no due process here. Some stupid morgon of a squad commander who doesn't qualify as a low-grade bi-ped could order her death on the spot. But Darra must have planned this out well because she got us into the way station and into a bruised and pitted maintenance shuttle, a two- seater, and no one saw us.

When we hit escape velocity, she eased back on the controls and took a deep breath. "They won't miss this old junk. Stowed extra fuel for the jump from Quag to Altarhan."

"Won't we be missed?" I garbled. "I was scheduled for execution and you're a staffer, an EPC."

"If someone reported it, they'd be in trouble for allowing it. You'll be recorded as having been killed in the tank and I'll be wiped from the data banks."

"It's that simple?" She nodded. "Why me?"

"Had to get out; I needed a new life with a real man, a life with some hope at least. I waited for the right chance and the right man, someone at least who wasn't sub-species. I got tired of the fourteen hour shifts, the morgons crapping all over themselves just before they were placed in the pods. Sex with the guards. I did it for almost a year. You rotate out or disappear like this or completely lose your sanity."

"You remind me of a woman I loved many years ago."

"I'm the best deal you're going to get."

"Who's complaining?" A frown must have passed over my face.

"So what's wrong?" Darra asked.

"How do you know Altarhan?"

"I know enough. You can show me the rest."

"Yeah," I said, fatigued now almost past the point of caring.

"Ride the desert music," she said, "the shrill wind across patterned sands which echoes distant songs of Altarhan's formless past."

"I know those words. My mother used to recite parts of it. My father liked to listen.

"The woman I loved, she...," I felt like I had drifted off to sleep for a few seconds. Darra? Darra, where'd you go? Darra was her name. We made love in a sandstone oasis, beneath the red stone arch. Darra? Darra! Had it been yesterday? Or years passed? Yesterday and tomorrow coalescing into a seamless forever.

Everything was dark, pitch black. I couldn't move. Couldn't feel my hands or feet, only this slight pause in forward motion. Was I dreaming? Had I dreamed?

I felt myself, supine, moving forward again with a lurch, methodically slow and certain like the damn pods on the conveyor back on Quag.

Back on Altarhan, he was closing in on my stake. I knew I'd spike the bastard again if I had to. And again.

-30-