As the Issicrojans came to their feet and spoke with one another, Santiago also stood and said to them, “Wait for me here. There is someone you must speak to.”
He was gone for no more than a second before Clyde mumbled, “I need to find out more about this,” and he too moved off into the crowd.
Gregory was the last to rise; he was the last, in fact, to open his eyes which he did with a slow and deep breath. His expression exuded a calm serenity Alistair recognized but which recent events had extinguished.
“That was… satisfying,” he said, his voice barely audible over the echoing of conversation.
“That was a goddamn waste of time,” Ryan complained. “Do they do this every night?”
A slight puckering at the corners of his mouth was Gregory’s response. “I can hardly imagine a better way to smooth over a hard day’s labor. I very much enjoyed it.”
Many of the congregation lingered to chat with one another, some of them even conducted business, but just as many left and so the crowd thinned out. Some of the women who had spent the worship in the balconies above now descended to the open area below. Every last one scantily clad, they gathered in groups and waited on the outskirts of the crowd. Occasionally, a man approached to address one. A few words exchanged and then they left through a side tunnel.
“It’s a goddamn whore house!” exclaimed Ryan, and a few men nearby cast disapproving gazes on him.
“It’s to be expected,” Gregory said with a note of sadness.
“Well, hell, we’ve got money. I wonder how much they cost.”
“We’re not spending our money on prostitutes,” Gregory firmly said. With an inquisitive glance to Alistair he added, “I think I’m right in saying we have greater needs?”
“Speak for yourself.”
“We’ll talk about expenses later,” Alistair impassively replied.
Santiago returned with a few other men. One was Taribo, who greeted Alistair with a nod and grin that threatened to break into a full-toothed smile.
“I have decided to sponsor you, Alistair,” he said in his slow, musical accent.
“You must present your petition to a Scribe,” Santiago said. “If you wish to stay.”
“Tonight?”
“These men will take you. I will be gone before you are done.”
He stepped forward and held out his hand which Alistair shook. They looked each other a moment in the eye and nodded but then looked away.
“Good luck with your journey,” Alistair softly said.
“On the south coast,” Santiago almost whispered. “But… you should not come. It’s a fool’s hope.” He stepped back and nodded once more. “Someone was sent to collect your belongings from the inn. Until we meet again.” Santiago finished with a low dip of his head and then left.
Taribo now stepped forward and held out his hand. They gripped at the forearms.
“You will now join us,” the warrior proclaimed.
As they followed Taribo and the small contingent of other warriors with him, Clyde Oliver Jones came running to catch up, arriving out of breath.
“You can’t imagine what I discovered,” he wheezed as they entered a side tunnel and passed through the light of a torch. “You can’t imagine.”
“What?” asked Wellesley.
“You can’t imagine. What are we up to now?”
“We’re making a petition to join the city,” Gregory replied.
“Ah. Very good.”
A winding tunnel led them deeper into the rock and by the time they switched tunnels a couple times they were lost. The dimly lit corridors were artificial, carved from the stone as the majority of the chambers they passed. For having been purposefully carved, it was a decidedly uneven affair, smooth but irregular, with turns and bumps and divots that did not make apparent sense. Finally turning onto a long and straight corridor sloping upwards, they traversed its length and found themselves in another great cavern fully as large as the worship center but with less open space. Like the worship cavern, this one was checkered with stairs and tunnels along its walls, but there were small huts, booths, statues and even a fountain on the lower floor. As the worshippers returned from the service they began to occupy these and activity returned to what Taribo informed them was the Palace. A small cliff separated the front lower level from an upper level one could access by means of walkways that looped around the walls of the cavern and sloped up to the higher floor. Taribo led them to one of these and they made their way to the upper floor, twenty yards above the lower.
The upper floor was empty and had several tunnels in the far wall. The group took one of these and pressed even deeper. The tunnel split on two occasions, other times it crossed other tunnels and once it deposited them in a large hall whereupon they continued with a different corridor. Finally, after a full quarter hour of maneuvering through the tunnel-city of Issicroy, they came to the end of a tunnel and passed through a doorless portal and into a chamber with no other exit. To the left were some shelves with rolled papyrus. Directly in front of them were a tall chair and a desk, tall enough that when a man sat in it, he could stair down at those on the other side of the desk. A small set of steps at the side of the chair’s base wound around to the back, giving access to the cushioned seat. On either side of the desk, two three legged stands held burning torches and two guards were just taking up positions there, one under each torch.
A man in flowing robes, well into his sixth decade, emerged from the shadows around the shelves clutching a papyrus scroll while Taribo stopped in front of the desk. From the right a man emerged at a jog and prostrated himself on elbows and knees by the side of the chair. He seemed to be of half Caucasian and half Oriental ancestry, and his body, naked from head to toe, was a well muscled athlete’s body. He sported myriad scars as well as many superficial fresh wounds which appeared to have come from a whip. For a moment the man looked Alistair in the eye, a defiant fury in his gaze, but then stoically stared straight ahead as the man in robes, rather than use the steps built into the chair, stepped on his back to raise himself into the seat. The human stool remained prostrate while, with a soft swish of fabric, the Scribe arranged his robes and sat down, reaching for a plume left in his inkwell.
“Bring the supplicants forward,” intoned the Scribe, the light of the torches flickering on his dark brown skin and his sharp features. Alistair guessed he was of Hindu origin.
With a gesture Taribo indicated they should move forward, and so Clyde, Ryan, Gregory and Alistair took two steps. For the first time the Scribe looked at them, his eyelids drooping slightly in an expression of bored pretension. He pointed to Clyde.
“What is your name?” he asked in perfect English, his plume perched over the papyrus.
The Australian stepped forward again, his hands clasped behind his back in what he hoped was a confident but respectful pose. “Clyde Oliver Jones.”
“You are from Australia,” the Scribe announced.
“Yes, sir.”
The soft scratch of the plume tip on parchment mixed with the gentle flutter of the torches’ flames.
“How long have you been on Srillium?”
“Not yet a week, sir.”
Another pause followed, then, “And your profession?”
“I’ve done a bit of everything. I’ve served on fishing boats, I worked on a mining ship in the asteroid belt… I was even a magician.”
Nothing of this elicited an expression from the Scribe. When he recorded Clyde’s answer, though, he did tilt his head just enough to direct his gaze at the interrogatee.
“Why do you find yourself on Srillium, Clyde Oliver Jones?”
Clyde shifted his stance. “Well… it wasn’t anything I had any control over. You see, I was as much a victim as anyone else—”
“For what charge were you found guilty?”
“It was fraud at the end. It was part of a whole pyramid scheme. I was as much taken by it as the people I sold it to. If I had known—”
> “Step forward,” commanded the Scribe, pointing at Ryan but not looking at him.
Clyde, blushing and gritting his teeth, took a step back as Ryan took one forward.
“What is your name?”
“Ryan Wellesley 7aa.”
The Scribe halted his scribbling.
“What is the meaning of 7aa?”
“That’s my suffix code. The government gives everyone a suffix code. When it hands out work assignments or living assignments or draft assignments – whatever – it groups people of the same suffix code together. It’s for organizational stuff.”
“What planet do you hail from?”
“Aldra.”
Still engaged with recording the previous answer, the Scribe once again paused before finishing his entry. “I have never heard of Aldra.”
“Apparently only Aldrans have.”
“Where is Aldra to be found?”
The question flummoxed Ryan. “I don’t… well, it’s here in the galaxy… I don’t really know—”
At this point Alistair stepped forward.
“If I may, sir? The Aldran system is located 434 light years away from Earth along the eleven. It’s 12 degrees and 33 minutes above plane.”
“An outlier?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A new system?”
“No, sir. The Founders went well outside the colonial line of the time.”
“Where along the eleven?”
“327 degrees, almost exactly.”
“Twenty seven degrees on the eleven,” the Scribe said and with deliberate strokes recorded the information, for the first time registering an expression, that of mild curiosity.
Alistair stepped back in line.
After a moment, the Scribe continued, “And how long have you been here?”
“I was on the transport with Clyde,” Ryan replied. “All four of us arrived—”
“What was your profession on Aldra?”
“Mining.”
“And why were you sent to Srillium?”
“I was uh…” Ryan took another breath. “It was rebellion.” Ryan stared at his feet, blushing in embarrassment. “I only did it because I was hungry. The government wasn’t getting any food shipments in… a bunch of other things had gone wrong. It wasn’t like I—”
“Step forward,” intoned the Scribe, pointing at Gregory.
The interrogation proceeded in the same fashion as before. To the final question Gregory replied, “I was healing the wounded. I took care of anyone who needed it, soldiers and rebels alike. The rebels drove the government out of the city and I had an entire clinic of injured men from both sides. When the government retook the city they arrested me for conspiring with the enemy. I suppose that was the charge; it was never formally read to me.”
Finally, Alistair stepped forward.
“What is your name?”
“Alistair Ashley.”
“And you are also from Aldra?”
“I am.”
“What is your suffix code?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Why were you not given a suffix code?”
“I was given one, but I disavowed it.”
“It’s 3nn,” said Gregory with an exasperated look at Alistair.
“How long have you been on Srillium?”
“A few days, like the others.”
“To what did you dedicate yourself on Aldra?”
“My father owned a restaurant,” he said, and his voice caught on the word ‘father’. After a moment’s pause he gathered himself and went on. “On Aldra that’s like saying he owned an entertainment park. I then spent four cycles… four years in the marines, most of them on Kaldis. I was accepted into the Special Forces and…” Alistair grabbed his shirt and pulled aside the part covering his left pectoral. “I completed the Proving.”
The naked stool’s head, tilted towards the ground, snapped up.
“You wore a War Suit.”
“I did.”
If it were possible for the Scribe’s face to register something like respect and veneration, it did so now with a faint pursing of the lips and a nearly imperceptible nod of the head.
“And for what reason were you brought to Srillium?”
“I fought to overthrow a government.”
“On Kaldis?”
“No, on Aldra.”
“You fought to overthrow your government.”
“No. I never consented to the government. I would never enter into any relationship without a way to annul the contract.”
To the same degree that admiration touched the Scribe’s features before, disapproval now registered.
“A government does not require consent.”
“That is why I sought to overthrow it.”
“You fought with Gregory and Ryan?”
“No, Gregory did not fight. I fought with Ryan.”
“Ryan fought to feed himself. Were you hungry too?”
“No. My father was wealthy and moderately well connected. I never wanted for food.”
For a few moments more the Scribe jotted notes on the parchment while the rest waited. Abruptly he dipped his plume one last time in the inkwell, but this time did not withdraw it, and announced, “Your petitions will be duly considered.” He descended from the examiner’s chair, planting his foot once more on the back of the naked slave, and left the chamber.
“That will be all,” said Taribo, his voice oddly soft and somber.
***
The naked slave, whom Taribo addressed as Mordecai, was sent to collect their possessions. Taribo himself led them from the Hall of Records, setting a fast pace the others had difficulty maintaining. As the muscled legs of their escort ate up yardage, Alistair got the odd notion that Taribo was not leading them so much as running from them. Almost as if challenged, he kept his own legs pumping and stayed shoulder to shoulder with the other warrior, his movements rough and strong where Taribo’s were smooth and graceful.
“From time to time we get political dissidents here,” Taribo said after a time. It was some moments before he said anything more so that Alistair thought there was nothing else forthcoming. “There are almost no rebels. They usually are executed. Not worth paying to ship a man to a prison planet when he has committed a capital crime.”
“I committed no crime.”
Taribo stopped and faced Alistair. “You were not rebelling?” It struck Alistair that Taribo seemed hopeful.
“I was rebelling. I said I committed no crime.”
With an expression of disgust, Taribo was off again. Clyde and Gregory were breathing heavily by the time he stopped at a curtain drawn across an opening in the wall of the tunnel they were in. He ripped the curtain open and indicated with a curt nod that they were to enter. When Alistair passed him the black warrior would not meet his gaze and, when they were inside, he drew the curtain closed.
As the whispers of Taribo’s retreating footsteps sounded outside, Alistair inspected the chamber. Carved out of the rock, it was twelve feet wide and twice that in length, sporting a few wrapped straw bundles on which to recline. The far end was open to the canyon and a cool breeze wafted inside in desultory waves. The sky was now dark and the canyon painted pink from Srillium’s light, some of which trickled into their chamber. In the distance, as he stood at the edge and the breeze stroked him, he could hear the soft and continuous rush of the river’s waterfall, though the cascade was still unseen.
“It’s a nice enough view, I suppose,” said Ryan, coming up behind Alistair and gazing out at the land about Issicroy. “I could get used to it.”
Gregory was sitting on one of the straw cushions, Clyde was recumbent on his and when Alistair did not respond Ryan retreated from the edge of the cave and went to recline on one of his own. The robust Aldran rebel stood for a few moments more looking out at the scenery before he came to lie down on his own bundle of hay.
“It’s not your fault I’m here,” Gregory softly said as he stared at the f
loor between his feet.
Alistair let the waterfall’s faint sound fill the intervening moments before answering. “What makes you say that?”
“I made my own choices. What I said was said in anger. It’s not your fault.”
Alistair managed a slow nod and then, crossing his feet and weaving his fingers together behind his head, he lay on his cushion. Outside the hall a pair of pedestrians padded softly past, their passage causing the curtain to flutter.
“My parents are dead.” Alistair made the simple pronouncement with a stoic voice and countenance.
Gregory looked stunned. “How… how do you know? How did it happen?”
“They shot them,” he said, the sound coming through clenched teeth and cracking the stoicism enough to hint at a boiling cauldron underneath. When he spoke again it was more controlled. “They tortured them and shot them and gloated over the bodies.”
Ryan was sitting upright now. “I’m sorry to hear that, Alistair.”
“Alistair, I’m so sorry,” Gregory said, whispering lest his voice fail him. There were tears in his eyes. “When did they…?”
“They showed me the bodies right before they meant to execute me. My brother saved us. We were all set to be executed. He doesn’t know. I don’t know how long we’ve been gone but he and my sister are probably still wondering what happened to our parents. It feels like it was just earlier this week.”
Clyde reached across cushions and patted Alistair’s shoulder. “Bad luck, mate,” he said, the extent of his ability to console having been reached with something more fit for the death of a pet hamster.
Another group of footsteps delicately announced themselves outside the chamber, and the curtain was presently drawn aside. Three warriors stood outside with Mordecai, still naked and now burdened with their belongings. The warriors said nothing and betrayed no emotion. Without a word the part Caucasian, part Oriental slave entered with the apparent intention of depositing their things.
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