by Linda McNabb
“Well, since this is a democratic Level, why don’t we have a vote?” Charat had stepped forward from where he had been patiently listening to the arguing.
“Those in favour of following Kala and her father...” He paused and only a sprinkling of hands went up. “And those who think it is a trap!”
The last was said with force and a stamp of his foot which drew a cheer and an overwhelming vote against the plan.
“That settles it. Nobody goes. There’s no real proof that the children have even been taken away. Just the ravings of one scared little boy left alone too long in the dark. The others have probably just moved on further into the sector and continued their game there,” Charat smiled comfortingly at the families of the missing children. “Come morning, they’ll be back, tired and hungry but no worse for their night out.”
Johan couldn’t believe his ears. They weren’t even going to look for the children! He scanned the crowd and saw only a couple of sympathetic faces and they belonged to the parents of the missing children.
The crowd started to drift away in small groups and Kala, Damon and Johan edged slowly back out the main door.
“He can’t stop me from going to look for them,” Johan said almost shaking with anger. He had disliked Charat before but now he hated him. Katee was all the family he had left and he was going to try anything to find her.
“Let’s go,” he started off in the direction of the door to the market and the others followed.
It was fully dark now and there was no need to try to slip along in the shadows. Johan, Kala, and Damon arrived at the market breathless for having run most of the way. Johan scanned the area but with no moon out tonight it was impossible to see if there was anyone there.
A flickering light of a torch being switched on and off caught his attention and he guided them all towards it.
“Roma,” Johan whispered and he felt a little tension dissipate when Roma replied.
“Yes, I’ve been waiting for ages. What took you so long?”
“We had a bit of a problem back at Clover Downs,” Johan said trying to keep the disgust out of his voice. “Charat didn’t want to go and rescue them.”
“What!” Roma flicked his torch back on and his face showed his total surprise. “And everybody listened to him?”
“Except us, yes.” Johan replied shortly. “Where are we heading?”
Roma took the hint that he didn’t want to discuss it anymore and pointed the torch down one of the alleyways.
“Down this way, there’s a whole lot of old warehouses down near the Dock. I’m sure that they will be there.” Roma didn’t wait for them to ask questions and led the way with the single small beam of light.
“What makes you so sure that they will be there?” Damon queried and Roma stopped suddenly.
“Who’s he?” Roma shone the torch directly in Damon’s face.
“This is Damon. He’s on our side,” Kala assured her father and laid her hand on her father’s arm to lower the light from Damon’s eyes.
“So what makes you so sure they will be here?” Damon repeated his question.
“This,” Roma brought the photo out of his coat pocket.
He had folded it to fit his pocket but the main subject of the photo was still very clear. Johan gasped as he realised what it meant.
“How long have you known about this?” he couldn’t keep the accusing tone from his voice. If Roma had told them all about it before the children may never have been taken in the first place.
“Only since this afternoon when I enlarged the photo,” Roma’s quiet response convinced Johan that he was telling the truth. “Come, we must hurry.”
They continued on down the dark alleys and as they neared the end of an alley Roma switched off his torch, plunging them all into darkness.
“This is where we were a couple of days ago,” Johan whispered to Kala. It was where he had bumped into the guard. Why hadn’t he come back to take a look at the warehouses as he had planned on doing? He too, might have avoided this happening.
“Wait,” Roma whispered as they paused at the entrance to the warehouse district. “It’s too quiet.”
“Yes, something’s not right,” Johan agreed, he had expected to come across a sentry guard by now but there was nobody around. Perhaps the children weren’t being held here after all.
“Look,” Damon pointed to one of the rooftops that was barely discernible against the night sky. A figure could be seen as he stood up and stretched before disappearing back into the blackness of the roof. “And another over there.”
Johan scanned the rooflines and saw that there were at least five more that he could see. A scuffling noise up ahead made him pull them all back into the alley.
“They’re expecting us,” Johan whispered. “How did they know we were coming?”
It had only been an hour since they had discovered the children had been taken. Someone had to have told the State that they were coming. But who knew? Johan ran through the list in his head, discounting each person and was finally left with just Charat as a suspect. He didn’t voice his conclusion, he would deal with Charat later.
“I have an idea,” Damon pulled out his portocom and switched it on. “It’s got a scramble mode so that it can’t be tracked to its location and they can’t see your face.”
“And the State approved it?” Johan was surprised that the State would allow something that limited their powers to track the caller’s position.
“Well... no. I added the scrambler myself,” Damon admitted and pressed the activator button.
“Guards! Guards! We’re being attacked down at the Recreation Centre. There’s dozens of them...” His voice dropped an octave and he pinched his nose to change his voice. At the end he let his voice trail off and then disconnected the call. “That should do the trick.”
“Quick, hide,” Johan whispered hoarsely as the sound of running feet could be heard.
Everyone hurried back down the alley and hid in old disused doorways just as the guards came down their alley. Johan and Kala were in the same doorway, he held his breath and held her close as twenty pairs of heavy black boots thundered past. He didn’t feel like letting her go once the guards had gone but forced himself to. Now was not the time.
“Let’s see who’s left,” Johan said as they crept back down the alley.
After a quick look around Johan could only see one guard. A quick rap on the back of the guard's head with the Roma’s torch and there was nothing stopping them entering the warehouses.
“We’ll start from this end,” Roma pointed, with his torch, to the building that his photo showed the prisoners being led from.
The entered the building and within seconds it was clear that it was empty. They were about to move onto the next one when Roma spotted a pink ribbon on the floor.
“It’s Alissa’,” Kala confirmed and Johan felt his hope slip a little. They had been here but where were they now? A search of the next building brought no luck and it took almost ten minutes to search the rest of the buildings.
“What now?” Kala said quietly. “The guards will be back soon.”
“There’s only one place left,” Roma turned towards the Dock where the huge ship was moored.
Johan could hear the waves lapping against its huge bulk as he tried to guess where the gangway would be. Roma shone his torch on the hull and the name 'Southern Lady' was written in large letters along it. They saw a small pinpoint of light down the left side and moved towards it.
It was a small porthole next to a set of moveable steps that led onto the deck of the ship. The light from the porthole was dim and as they climbed the steps Johan peered in, trying to see inside. He couldn’t be sure but he thought he saw someone lying down on a bunk.
Johan brought his attention back to the deck of the ship as they reached the top of the steps and he looked for guards. Several guards were pacing up and down the deck and Johan put his arm up to stop the others. He waited until both the
guards had their backs to them and then he signalled to the others to move quickly. They crept across the deck and stopped behind a large pile of crates.
The guards both passed within two feet of them on their next walk of the deck and the only thing that prevented them being seen was the moonless night. Again Johan waited until the guards were at the other end of the ship before he led them all over to the well-lit part of the ship that should lead down to the lower levels.
They all crept quietly under a window of a room, where several more guards were having a very loud game of cards, and into the stairwell. They descended a flight of steps to a lower level and began searching. The lights were on in the corridor so they moved quietly and slowly, ready to run at the first sign of a guard. A soft moaning sound echoed down the corridor and Johan instantly knew they had found the children.
“Down this way,” he whispered.
The noise was echoing so much that it was hard to tell exactly where it was coming from. Johan stopped at each door and pressed an ear to it to see if the noise was coming from there. They were almost at the end of the corridor when they found the right door.
“Is it locked?” Kala asked as she looked nervously up and down the corridor.
“Yes, I'll have to go and look for a key. Wait in here. I'll be back as soon as I can.” Johan pushed open one of the doors further back down the corridor that was unlocked.
Quickly, he went back up to the deck and peered in the window where the guards were. They were roaring drunk and having a great card game. Johan spotted a ring of keys hanging up on a hook near the door. They had to be the ones. He crept around to the door and leaned around with his hand. He almost dropped the keys and they jingled together but the guards didn't notice.
Johan went back to the corridor on the lower level and the others came out of hiding. He put the key in the lock and turned it. He tried several keys before he found the right one then he quietly pushed the door open. It was definitely the right room. Narrow, hard looking bunks lined the walls and a small body lay on some of them. One child was moaning in his sleep and Johan shook him first, in case he brought the attention of a guard down there.
“Katee,” Johan moved down the row of bunks and roused his startled sister..
“Johan, I thought I’d never see you again,” Katee cried and Johan held a finger to his lips.
“We need to be quiet,” he said softly as he hugged his sister. He looked around the room as the others woke the rest of the children up. “Let’s go.”
Silently, they filed out the room and followed Johan up to the deck. Twice they had to stop and hide from the guards, but eventually Johan managed to get them across the deck and down the steps. They skirted around the warehouse buildings and soon they were safely back in Sector Four.
They stopped for a minute under one of the few street lights in the sector to check if everyone was okay. They all looked as if they had been crying but no worse off. Reco was the only exception as he had a bruised cheek which was quickly blackening one eye.
“What happened?” Damon queried as he gently touched his nephew’s cheek.
“I got in the way of a guard’s fist,” Reco explained vaguely.
“He stopped them from hitting Jil. They were moving us from that dark old building where they put us and Jil sat in the corner and cried. When she wouldn’t get up one of the guards went to hit her and Reco punched him,” Alissa supplied the real version while smiling gratefully at Reco.
“It was nothing,” Reco looked embarrassed.
“It’s far too late to be getting you home now,” Damon said looking proudly at his nephew and then at Kala, Roma and Alissa. “The shuttles finished running an hour ago and I don’t think it would be a good idea to walk home tonight.”
“Come and stay at Clover Downs for the night,” Johan offered. “It’s not much, but it’s better than sleeping in the streets.”
Damon agreed that it would be best and they headed for Clover Downs. Several of the smaller children had to be carried by the time they arrived and they had to bang on the heavy metal doors to be let in.
“Johan!” the man that opened the doors looked surprised to see that Johan had been locked out and then stunned to see he had all the missing children with him. He scuttled off to tell the families of the missing children that they had been found while Johan closed the big doors again and barred them.
Several parents ran over and claimed their children, thanking Johan profusely.
“See, I told you they would turn up,” Gil met them halfway across The Square. “You should have left them out all night. It would have taught them not to do it again.”
Gil looked smug as he spoke. Johan could feel his anger rising and he made no attempt to control it.
“They were on the Prison Ship. Come tomorrow and they would have been gone!” Johan held Katee close as she started to tremble and he tamed his anger only for her benefit. “Your decision not to look for them would have lost them for good.”
Gil didn’t reply immediately. He looked hard at Johan and then at Katee, Alissa and finally Reco. He studied the bruised face of Reco for a full minute and then looked back at Johan.
“Why would they put children on a prison ship?” Gil looked confused and a little less smug.
“How were we supposed to have known?” Charat interrupted as he arrived. “And for that matter, how did you know where to look for them?”
Charat didn’t wait for an answer and he carried on his attack on Johan.
“Maybe you’re part of the plot to take them in the first place. Then you go and rescue them and it makes you look like the hero. All this just to try to show me up.”
“Charat has only ever had the best interests of Clover Downs in mind and you are so intent on undermining him that you would go to these lengths to do it,” Gil added, looking confident again.
It was Johan’s turn to stare in surprise. Gil had been his friend and right-hand man for a long time but suddenly he was treating Johan like a traitor.
“Exactly,” Charat pushed his thumbs into his pockets as he stared at Johan. “I think it would be best if you cleared out your things tomorrow and left.”
“And go where?” Kala stepped in as Johan frantically tried to force words out of his shocked mind.
“With you. You’re not welcome here anymore either,” Gil didn’t let his leader have a chance to answer but Charat nodded in agreement. “This place is far better off without any of you.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Kala leaned her head on the overstuffed back of the shuttle’s seat and closed her eyes. She was so tired that she could feel the rumble of the shuttle lulling her off to sleep. She snapped her head up and forced her eyes open. She had no time for sleep just now. Across from her sat Damon, with Reco asleep on one shoulder and Alissa asleep on the other. There were no other people in their carriage. Level one and two’s weren’t usually up and about at this hour of the morning.
The evening hadn’t improved last night after Charat had told them all to leave. Johan had, understandably, insisted on leaving right there and then. He had taken several personal items from his apartment and then they were unceremoniously shown to the doors.
With each of the men carrying a tired child they had taken refuge in one of the alleyways in Level Nine. The children wouldn’t go near the warehouses and it wasn’t safe to go into Sector one yet. Explaining their reasons for wandering the streets would have been difficult so they slept under the stars. Slept? Well dozed was more accurate. Several times in the night Kala thought she had heard a Hoverpod nearby, but she wasn’t sure.
Thankfully the clothes that they had left hidden in the alleyway the day before were still there, all except one of Reco’s shoes, or they would have still been dressed in the rags they had taken from the washing line. As soon as it had begun to get light they had woken the children and slipped through into Sector One.
Johan and Katee left the shuttle at the last stop, along with her father wh
o was going to check on Petari, but Alissa had refused to leave Damon and Reco. She saw them both as her saviours so Kala had agreed to let her come with them. They were taking Reco home and they would have to do some fast talking to explain his black eye.
Kala let her eyes shut. Just for a second, she told herself, and the next thing she knew was that Damon was shaking her awake.
“We’re here,” he said as he propelled her and two sleepy children off the shuttle.
Kala felt all traces of tiredness fall away as they reached the steps of Reco’s house. She would need her wits to get through this. Damon pressed his thumb to the sensor and they let themselves in. As Kala had expected, there was nobody up yet in the main household.
Jarin, however, came through from his quarters to see who was up and he eyed them critically, seeming to know instantly that something was going on.
“I’ll inform the mistress that you are here,” he said with a smug look on his face when he saw Reco’s black eye. He disappeared up the stairs with a skip in his step. Obviously they had made his day.
“Now remember, Reco, let us do all the talking...” Damon was saying, as only seconds later Fona came bounding down the stairs with Jarin close behind. She was still trying to put on her dressing gown and she almost tripped as she reached them.
“Darling, Jarin said you’ve been beaten up,” she held Reco's face in her hands as she examined it, turning it left and right to get the light on it better. “What have you done to him?”
Fona, now convinced that her son was not in mortal danger focused her anger on the two adults who’s care he had been in. Kala took one look at her face and wanted to run out the door. Alissa slipped quietly behind her sister and hung tightly to the back of Kala’s dress. Jarin had disappeared down the hallway but Kala doubted he had gone far.
“Now Fona...” Damon began.
“Don’t you ‘Now Fona’ me. I want to know what you’ve been doing to my baby,” Fona thundered and Kala was amazed how Damon didn’t flinch or even change his pleasant expression.