RU WOKE UP TO THE SOUND of sirens blaring. At first he thought the klaxons and blinking lights were coming from inside his head, souvenirs of the blaster shot that had knocked him out. He didn’t know where he was, but there were bars and he was shackled to a wall, ropes threaded through a bar a half a meter above his head.
He felt like he’d been pulled behind a freight truck through the high desert of Bynko III and his mind was filled with tufted cotton. If the blaster the damn Polans had used on him had been set any higher, he might not have woken up with a mind of any use to anyone. He rotated his neck, trying to shake his thoughts into some sort of order.
The siren and the lights really weren’t helping. Why wouldn’t they shut up?
No, he thought, trying to think through the fuzz. Why
