by J D Huffman
Even so, she thought about “insurrections” more and more all the time, coinciding with her growing anger and resentment. Though it had no bars, this place was a cage, and cages were for animals—not people. No. They’re not even for animals, she reminded herself, remembering the zoo. As she grasped the handle of her crystal cutter, delicately grinding away the weak points of the outgrowth in order to break it off and place it in one of the collection carts, she thought endlessly about fighting back. How do you fight people you almost never see? That was, perhaps, the most important question. She knew there would be deception involved. Subterfuge was certain. And everyone would have to be part of it and agree to help—even Janus, she was loathe to acknowledge.
She harvested the crystals all day, like usual, and when the bell sounded signaling the end of the shift, she did her best to make it quickly to the tool case, her body aching and fighting her the whole way, also like usual. When she was younger she found it much easier to endure being hunched over in awkward positions, trying to get at that last piece of a subvein so the slavemasters would designate it as exhausted and let her move on to a new subvein, where the sheer quantity of crystals let her work without requiring such finesse. She’d finished one such subvein today, and felt an odd sense of accomplishment which she quickly pushed down. There’s nothing to be proud of here.
She waited in line to put her tools away, shuffling forward a few steps at a time until it was her turn, then handed them up so the automated graspers would take them and pull them back into the array. Then, it was off to the showers, which she often did consider the highlight of the day. She stripped out of her clothes, hung them on one of the crude hooks near the entrance, stepping carefully along the rough, rocky floor toward one of the common spigots that blasted out hot water in a multifaceted spray. All the sweat and crystal dust and dirt sloughed from her skin. She closed her eyes, letting that sense of cleanliness take over, forbidding any other thoughts for the duration of the shower. She must have lost track of how long she spent, as a buzzer sounded to indicate it was time to move on—past time, in fact, and Fred’s constant admonitions echoed in the back of her mind that she didn’t want to test their patience. She retrieved her clothes and put them back on, sighing as the stink of her own sweat returned. Showers came daily but laundry was weekly, with a couple of hours set aside for everyone to wash their clothes in sinks, with strong detergents that came down to them in brittle, pungent blocks. New batches of clothes came down to replace worn-out garments whenever a cargo train arrived from elsewhere. That happened only every several months.
So, it was through the dimmed bank of lights and back to the sleeping quarters in her dirty clothes, which she tried to hold loosely from her skin so as not to be completely immersed in her own body odor, a pungent mix of sweat and the unsubtle scent of the crystals, which always came to wrinkle her nose with its sour concoction. Like most nights, as she climbed into her alcove she considered simply sleeping nude instead of her soiled clothes, but then she had to face the dual annoyances of the rough surface upon which she slept as well as unwelcome comments from the men—usually Tau and Janus. Serim and Demeter kept whatever they thought to themselves, and Sasha wasn’t sure Fred cared anything about the appearance of human bodies at all. Fortunately, she supposed, Tau and Janus feared her enough to limit themselves only to comments.
Then there was Angel, who physically manifested the opposite of intimidating. Rumor had it she “belonged” to Serim, which Sasha guessed kept her safe from the others, but it was the sort of thing she didn’t inquire about. Given that she’d never seen any direct evidence of it, if it was true then the two of them had done an impeccable job of hiding it, and with good reason: though the Totality used the tidy but blunt measure of subdermal implants to thwart reproductive processes, they were certainly not above tormenting slaves on the basis of their affections. The less the Totality knew of slaves’ relationships, the better for the slaves, Sasha figured.
As she shifted about in the narrow space of her alcove attempting to find a comfortable spot—as if one ever existed—her mind roiled with all these thoughts of the Totality, of enslavement, of the endless grinding agony of this existence. The Totality need not beat them or abuse them or even directly threaten them. The implied threats were more than sufficient. That they subsisted in what was essentially a sealed cave made clear what few options they had. The Totality had a number of ways to quickly—or not-so-quickly—kill them, all of which Sasha had imagined based on what she knew of the facility. They could start a crystal fire, cut off the tunnels at a nearby point, and let it burn itself out, suffocating us along with it. They could flood the mine and drown us. They could cut off our air. They could stop sending down food, or simply poison it. They could never clean the latrines and let the waste pile up until we all suffocate on methane if we don’t all die of some disease first. They could infect our clothes with almost any virus or bacteria or parasite they have access to, send it down with a new batch of clothes and then watch us suffer and die. Would they enjoy that? Do they enjoy watching us suffer? They must, otherwise they wouldn’t do this. How could they? How could they watch us and let it continue unless they find it gratifying?
And while she knew they looked human, she always suspected there was more to it. She remembered the one who’d made those buildings shake when she was a child, burying her people’s soldiers. Her memory of the Totality who lit up her face with only the palm of his hand still burned bright. They looked like men but they had to be something more. What that “more” was, she hoped to someday discover.
She could not sleep with her mind awash in such imaginings, a fact which Fred eventually noticed, and she finally noticed him when she heard him breathing next to her alcove. “Fred?” she whispered.
“Sasha. Having difficulty sleeping?”
“Quick with the obvious, as always,” she noted flatly.
“You’ve been more and more restless lately,” he observed. “Is something on your mind?”
Lying on her side, she aimed her eyes where she imagined his were, though she could barely make out his face. “Is there ever not something on my mind?”
“Point taken. The question is, what shall we do about it?”
“Nothing,” she hissed. “There’s nothing to do. This is our life.” She didn’t believe that, but what else could she say?
“You know better than that,” he scolded in as hushed a tone as scolding could be accomplished. “I’ve taught you your chronicle. We’ve been over every page of it, many times. There is more to life than this.”
It was true. Still, she hadn’t opened the chronicle in a long time. The memories had gone from a source of hope to a source of pain. She’d told him that, too. “Those are just dreams now. Long gone dreams.”
“Dreams live forever,” he said, and she could almost see him smiling in the near total darkness.
“Dreams only live until the dreamers die,” she corrected. “And I don’t plan on dying anytime soon.”
“Then when do you plan on living?” he countered sharply.
She sighed, exasperated. “Fred, I can’t sleep. That’s not an invitation for you to play your philosophical games with me. If you have a point to make, spit it out.”
She detected his smile growing wider all of a sudden. “Let us say I made a friend recently, and that this friend stands a very good chance of making your secret dreams a reality.”
Sasha was less than amused by Fred inflicting yet another mystery on her, yet she couldn’t help but be intrigued. “Fine, I’ll hear you out,” she promised. “It’s not like I’m doing much sleeping tonight.”
Chapter 3
Trust Me
Against her better judgment, Sasha followed Fred. It wasn’t a question of trust—he’d demonstrated from the first day they met that she could trust him. There was just something about his demeanor that always made her worry he might get ev
eryone else killed pursuing his own agenda. Though she didn’t expect him to intentionally kill anyone, the thought always lurked in the back of her mind that he might let her die through simple inattention. It was just the way his thoughts seemed to drift, how he would go on philosophical tangents and seem oblivious to events swirling around him. Other times, he came off as sharply observant. It was merely a question of which mode he was in at the moment.
He led her out of the living area and deep into the mine, down a few slanted tunnels and then a twisting network she wasn’t sure she’d been to before. The only light came from the luminescence of the crystals. She wondered how it was she’d never come down here before and tried to memorize the route exactly in case something happened to Fred, but the many turns quickly confused her. At points, the tunnels became almost too narrow to move through. Fred struggled comically at squeezing his lanky form into such tight spaces, but navigated them with less difficulty than Sasha despite her smaller frame. He’s done this before and I haven’t, she reminded herself.
The warm, humid interior of the mine gradually changed—the air grew drier and colder and began to feel thinner, which told her they were approaching someplace she’d truly never been. The air within the mines was always consistent in terms of warmth and stickiness, and to feel it shift toward something else was both exhilarating and terrifying. She wanted to ask how much farther but she didn’t know if her voice would echo, if it would give them away, or if any Totality were near enough by to hear.
Finally, the tunnel opened into a chamber with some breathing room. It appeared to be a junction of some sort, with multiple other tunnels branching away from it. She heard the rushing of air, sometimes a whisper and then suddenly a half-shriek, vacillating unpredictably between the two. Is that wind from the surface? Are we truly that close? All she knew of the surface was what she’d been told by Fred and a couple of other slaves who managed to see it at one time or another. Topside was barren, covered with ice and snow, not capable of human survival without extreme preparations. In a way, it provided its own security system for the Totality. Any slaves who escaped would freeze to death on the hopeless surface. The warmth of the mines, then, was a blessing. They want us to think that. It’s a lie, like everything else.
Fred knelt and picked up a pebble, rapping it in quick succession against one of the tunnels to the left. An unfamiliar man soon stepped out of the shadows, a small weapon leveled at them, his serious face signaling a willingness to use it. He wore a gray uniform, dissimilar to Totality ones she remembered from childhood—the design was clearly distinct, with a bunched up black mask covering his hair. Did they just change how the uniforms look? Is he one of them? Why would Fred bring me to the Totality? Unless… She turned to run, sensing a trap.
“Stop!” the man yelled. Fred caught her in one of his lengthy arms, pulling her back into the irregular-shaped room.
“Sasha,” he said soothingly, “This man is not our enemy. He has come to help us.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” she growled, then fixed her eyes on the stranger. “If you’re here to help, why are you pointing a gun at us?”
“I need to know I can trust you people,” he said derisively.
“And how should we trust you?” she turned it around. “Fred says you’re here to ‘help.’ We don’t need help. We’re slaves. There’s no help for us except to die in here.”
Fred shook his head and sighed. “You need not put on such a performance for this man,” he promised. “He is not a Totality spy.”
“How do you know that? Did he tell you he isn’t?” She made certain to shoot the man a disdainful look at the end of her question.
“Look, I don’t have time for this shit,” the man spat, taking a few steps closer.
Sasha backed away defensively. “Don’t you come near me.” Then, to Fred: “You, either! This is what it’s all been about, isn’t it? Nurturing my anger, trying to get me to say something so you can take me away, so I can ‘disappear’ like others have. You sick creatures just want to toy with us and have your fun. You want me to beg for my life? Is that it? You want me to throw myself on your mercy, so you can smile gleefully while you put a bolt in my back just like you did to my father?”
The stranger gave Fred a confused stare, followed by a shrug. Fred cleared his throat. “Sasha, for the last time, this man is not a spy, and neither am I. If the Totality intended to entrap and torment you in some way, they would not resort to such elaborate deception. They would take you away and torture you quite brazenly. You’ve known me for how many years now?”
“You know I don’t know how much time has passed down here,” she grumbled, folding her arms.
“Nevertheless, it has been many years, and I have never led you astray, have I?”
“No. But you’ve also never told me anything of substance about yourself.”
He nodded in acknowledgment. “That is true. I have my reasons for that, but I promise you none of those reasons involve betraying you—or any of our friends. When I say I am one of you, I am offering you the complete truth. Whatever my secrets, my status is not among them. I am just as much a slave as you or Angel or Tau.”
“Now that that’s out of the way,” the stranger interrupted, “Can we talk about why I’m here and what we’re going to do?”
Fred’s expression told Sasha the troll was unhappy with the man’s impatience, but he accepted it for the moment. “Sasha, this man is William Pearson. He is not from Actis, as you have most likely gathered. His uniform is of the Order, but he claims no affiliation with that government. Instead, he is a lone actor, come to help us in exchange for helping him.”
There’s always a price to pay, Sasha thought. Nobody helps anyone for free. “And what do you want in exchange, Mr… Pearson, is it?”
Slowly, the man lowered his weapon, visibly more at ease. “Right. I don’t want much, actually. The Totality abducted a colony full of people I am responsible for. I want to find them. I need help. Breaking up some Totality operations and gaining some allies seems like a good place to start. I’m going to guess you wouldn’t have a problem with that.”
Sasha smirked. “You’re saying we’ll take the fight to the Totality?”
He let her have a solid smile. “That’s the idea. From what Fred’s told me about you, we’ll be able to put you to good use.”
The way he put that didn’t sit well with Sasha at all. “Excuse me? No one ‘puts me to good use.’ I’m not going to trade one slavemaster for another. If I help you, it’s because I want to, and because you trust me to fulfill my end of the bargain, just as I will trust you to fulfill yours. Beyond that, we owe each other nothing.”
William cocked his head submissively. “That’s fine by me. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. So, you two know this place better than I do. What’s our first move?”
Sasha traded disbelieving glances with both of them. “What, the two of you didn’t come up with something already?!” She sighed. “I’ll defer to Fred’s expertise on Totality operations—he’s been around here longer than anyone, I think. But if it’s up to me, I think we should focus on the cargo trains that come by periodically. That’s when the Totality offload supplies and take on the crystals we mine down here.”
William looked interested but skeptical. “You’re suggesting we hijack a cargo train? What is that, exactly?”
“A small fleet of transport ships,” Fred confirmed. “I believe you only have the one, William?”
“Yeah. Nothing but a little ferry ship. It’s not going to carry a ton of slaves away from here, if that’s what you’re asking. How many people can these cargo trains move around?”
Sasha looked to Fred, whose eyes gazing off into the distance indicated he was performing some quick mental calculations. “Several thousand, assuming we keep the provisions and other supplies aboard. Virtually the entire slave population of Actis, if the
other mining operations are approximately the same size as this one.”
“Thousands of people,” William repeated. “That sounds like a fighting force to me.”
“Don’t get too hopeful,” Sasha frowned. “We’re talking about slaves, here. People not trained to fight. Some are going to be sick, malnourished. At least a few will be crippled. It’s not an army.”
“It’s a start,” William said hopefully.
Sasha turned to Fred. “The Totality outposts on this planet all communicate with each other, don’t they? Some kind of wireless signals?”
“Indeed. Each outpost signals every other outpost on a regular interval so it would become clear very quickly if any of them were disrupted. They would know immediately that something had gone wrong and would send a support craft to investigate.”
Turning to William, she said, “You mentioned you have a ship? I assume it can do wireless.”
He shrugged. “I’m going to guess it can, yes. I’d have to check.”
Sasha exhaled with considerable annoyance. “You don’t know anything about your own ship?”
William grimaced and retorted undiplomatically. “It didn’t really become ‘my ship’ until very recently, so no, I don’t know much about it, thank you. I didn’t say I wouldn’t try to find out.”
“Fred, have you seen this ship?”
The troll shook his head in the negative.
She cocked her head toward William. “Go with him. Go to his ship. You’ll be okay in the cold, right?”
“Trollkin are born to the cold,” he declared, almost proudly.
“Then go with him and see if you can figure out how to rig up that signal. Don’t start it just yet. Let’s make sure it can even be done. I don’t want all this to start before we’re ready. I’ll wait here for you.”