Mikk ignored him as he held it up to the light.
“You can’t do this.” The man’s voice was frightened. He tried to twist out of the straps that held him. “I want to go back to the prison. You said I could.”
“Well, I was wrong.” He injected the sedative into his arm.
The man’s hollering and thrashing slowly faded as the sedative took hold. When his eyes stared back, unseeing, Mikk picked up the telephone receiver and called for the beds and the attendants. While he waited he undid the straps on all the men.
When the beds arrived, Mikk had the attendants lift the men onto them and strap them in, this time so they wouldn’t accidentally fall off. Mikk led the way from the test room to his cryonics laboratory.
They wheeled the beds into a large room where there were five long, oval chambers. Various hoses and wires ran from the glass lids to machines. Mikk opened the first lid, taking care to position the wires so the electrodes on the ends didn’t touch. The attendants stripped off the man’s clothes and placed the body in the chamber. Mikk went to the other four chambers and lifted their lids. Those attendants placed their men into them.
Mikk checked the first man’s vital signs, which were still good. He hooked up a pulse instrument to a wrist and neck. He took a red wire from the lid and taped the electrode to the man’s forehead just above his nose. He taped a yellow one just behind an ear. The purple one went over his heart, the black one on his testicles, the orange one behind a knee and the brown one just above an anklebone. He picked up a long, thin thermometer and inserted it through the stomach into the inner body.
Mikk turned on the tracing machine and checked that the thermometer and each electrode sent back a signal. When he was satisfied, he closed the glass lid and fastened it securely. He went to all the chambers and performed the procedure. He went back to the first one. Beside the tracing machine was an instrument panel with dials, switches, and gauges. Mikk twisted two dials watching to make sure their pressure readouts were the same. He turned to see two gasses swirl together inside the chamber.
He eyed the gauges. The chamber temperature had to drop gradually, giving the body time to adjust to the cooler conditions. He studied the readouts on the tracing machine. So far the temperature of the whole body was falling at the same rate. Mikk looked through the glass lid. The body was shivering.
By noon the temperatures on all the chambers hovered just above the freezing mark. One by one, Mikk shut off the gasses. It was time for the final examination.
On all of the subjects, the pulse instrument showed very weak, very slow movement. The glucose helped maintain a state of life until the actual freezing. The tracing machines displayed the body temperature as uniform and the thermometers indicated that their inner temperature had dropped. Everything was proceeding normally.
At this point Mikk could switch the machines to automatic but he liked to control the process. He turned the dials again and the gasses stirred. He increased the pressure, mindful that the temperature couldn’t drop too fast. The objective was to steadily take the whole body down to just under the freezing point. The gasses slowly created a layer of frost on the lid blocking Mikk’s view. When the gauge registered five degrees below freezing on each one, Mikk slacked off the pressure. He now would minutely adjust the dials until the temperatures remained constant.
Chapter Two
Governor Lind sat at her desk looking from the metal notes in her hand to the ones on the table. She’d just held the opening ceremony and now she had to oversee the surveying of a village that was suppose have dormitories for the prisoners, a store, warehouses for the supplies, at least one park, and eventually temporary houses for the craftspeople, the police officers, and the scientists and other observers. How was she supposed to supervise the construction of a government house, a court, and a police station with a jail? And she was to appoint people to work in all three. There are many former upstanding citizens among the prisoners who could be appointed as assistants to the governor, as lawyers, and as administrators, was the way her instructions were worded.
Then she had to pick prisoners who would receive sections of land for farming when none of them had ever farmed. And once the land was divided, she had to decide who got grain seed, who got vegetable seeds, who got the fruit trees and plants, and who took in the animals; or did each farmer get some of each? And there were to be roads constructed to the farms for the carts that were to be made.
And she had to work with Judge Jym on colony laws and the discipline to be meted out since there was no Fringe or orbital prisons to send the criminals to. And the list went on and on. She’d been told that if the colony was self-sufficient in three years, she could return home.
Three years! She wasn’t going to stay here three years! She wasn’t even going to stay one year. She knew nothing about building a new community or about turning thousands of prisoners into hard-working, model citizens.
Unable to contain her anger any longer, she threw the metal notes across the room and swept the ones from the table onto the floor. How could the other Leaders do this to her? Someone with more authority and experience should have been sent to the colony as governor. She had been chosen because she was the lowest of the Leaders, not because they thought she could do the job.
Governor Lind needed to relax. She had to get out of this room and away from the scrolls and files. She rummaged in her drawer and found one of her packets of tobacco. She had brought some tobacco with her thinking she would ration her smoking and maybe try to quit. But with nothing to do during the flight it had been hard. She liked to tell herself that if she’d had something to occupy her time she might have been able to stick with her plan.
As it was, she’d heard about a police officer, named Curt, who was selling tobacco to anyone who had the money to buy it. The only problem was that he charged cash. She had brought some money with her because she’d been told they would be allowed to get off at the refuelling planets and she thought she’d buy some souvenirs. With running out of her tobacco and needing to pay cash for more on the flight, she was glad that they hadn’t been able to leave the ships during the stops.
With easy access, her habit had increased and she tried to keep a full stock in her room at all times. And from now on that would be no problem. When she’d appointed him police chief, she made it clear to Curt that in return for the promotion, she expected a steady supply of tobacco for the time she was on the planet.
Governor Lind also wanted company, so she tucked two more packets and her pipe in her pocket and headed out the door. She went down the hall to Beti’s room and gave her little signal knock. When the door was unlocked she slipped in.
The two had met in the pleasure room during the flight and had compared notes as to why they were on the ship. Governor Lind envied Beti’s position of being able to leave after a year; Beti envied Governor Lind’s status on the new planet.
The room was already filled with hazy smoke, as it was whenever she visited. Beti was just as addicted to tobacco as she was.
“Sit down,” Beti said, returning to her chair. “Light up your pipe.”
Governor Lind sat in the other chair and tamped her tobacco into her pipe. She lit it and inhaled deeply blowing the smoke towards the ceiling.
“I brought extra,” Governor Lind said.
“I just got a fresh supply,” Beti said.
“How much did you buy from Curt?” she asked.
“My usual fifty packets.”
“That’s all?” Governor Lind joked.
Beti stuck out her tongue. “Are you going to relax your rule that we can’t get off the ships until it’s time for us to do our work? I really want to do some exploring.”
“I do too, but I don’t trust the prisoners. They still resent being sent here and I don’t want them taking that resentment out of those who are here voluntarily and will be leaving when the settlement is established.”
“But there are the police to keep them in line.”
“I don’t know how much I trust them—Police Chief Curt being a good example.”
Beti grinned. “I, for one, am glad that he has a criminal streak in him.”
* * *
Georg stepped out of the tent with the other men. He immediately looked up at the sun, still surprised that the glare was nowhere near that of their home sun. It gave off warmth, not a searing heat.
“Stay in line,” a police officer yelled.
Georg looked at the vegetation beside the path they were following. It was different from the grass on their planet but he could understand why they had named it that. It grew on all the ground that was not covered by trees.
As he walked, he marvelled at the sight around him. Those before him had tramped a path through the grass so he moved off the path to feel it beneath his feet. As they entered the trees he reached out and touched one. Its bark was rough and what were probably its leaves were green. He pulled a leaf off and looked at it turning it over in his hand. Georg glanced around and saw that some of the other prisoners had done the same as he.
“Hurry up!” one of the police officers hollered. “You have work to do.”
The male prisoners had been divided up into building crews. Each group was taken out and given a quick lesson on how to operate the primitive tools that had been brought. This was Georg’s crew’s first time. Over the past week he’d listened to the stories of others who had been put to work since they’d arrived. None of them were happy with being forced to do the labour.
Soon they arrived at a spot where trees had been felled and all that remained were their trunks. They stopped in front of a man holding a tool. The officers had them stand in a semi-circle to watch him.
“My name is Tyl and I am in charge of teaching you how to use the tools and equipment that we brought with us,” he said. He held the tool up so they could see it. “This is an axe. You will be using one of these to chop down trees.”
Georg felt a pang of regret at that. These were real trees and their first act here was to cut them down.
“First you decide where you want the tree to fall,” Tyl said. “Look up at the top to see which way it is leaning and if possible try to cut it so it falls in that direction.” He checked the top then pointed. “This tree will land there.”
He held the axe up high. “You hold the handle in two hands and lift it up over your shoulder, then you swing it down and jam the blade into the side of the tree that is facing the direction you want it to fall.”
Tyl brought the blade down with a force that bit into the tree trunk. He then dislodged the blade, leaving a slash, and repeated the motion a few more times, not always hitting the tree where he wanted.
“When you’ve got some slashes from above you make a few below them.” He swung the blade from knee height up to slice the tree just under the first cuts. After a couple of these a chunk of the tree fell to the ground.
“You keep working on this notch until it is halfway through the tree,” he continued. “Then you go around to the other side and start cutting through the section that is holding it together. When the tree starts to move, you give it a push, then stand back and let it fall over.”
Another man came over. “I need two of you to saw some logs.” He pointed to Georg and the man beside him. “Come with me.”
They passed some prisoners digging a pit and reached a completed one with scaffold over it.
“Watch while this is explained so you will know what to do,” the man said.
One of the prisoners stood in the pit while another one stood on a log lying on the scaffold. Each had one end of a long saw by the handle. The instructor explained how one had to push the saw as the other pulled it through the length of the log then they had to reverse direction.
“With each motion the saw cuts further into the log until you reach the other end. Toss the slab onto the ground and begin again.”
They started the push/pull motion with difficulty. They couldn’t coordinate their moves and occasionally the saw buckled. As their movements got more fluid, sawdust rained down on the man in the pit. He immediately began to grumble about how it got in his eyes and itched.
“You can wash it off in the river when you’re finished,” the man in charge said.
“Why do I have to stand down here?” he continued to complain. “Why can’t he do it?”
“You will be taking turns. Now get back to work.”
They watched a while longer then walked to the pit beside it. “Who wants to take the bottom first?”
Georg shrugged. “I’ll go.” It didn’t matter who went first, they both would eventually be covered with dust.
* * *
The wood-burning stoves had been set up in front of the kitchens located between the long rows of prisoner tents. It didn’t take long for the cooks to realize that there weren’t enough stoves to cook food for the thousands of prisoners and the police officers. Someone devised the idea of digging shallow holes. Stones from the river would be heated in fires then placed in the holes with the food. They would be covered with dirt until the food was cooked.
In the beginning none of the prisoners who had volunteered or been assigned as cooks knew how to keep the fires in the stoves at an even heat, so for the first couple of weeks there were many complaints by both the prisoners and police about the meals being undercooked or burned. However, after a few weeks, the cooks learned the procedure of putting the wood in and letting it burn to a bed of coals, only adding additional wood to keep it at the same temperature.
They’d also found out that the drier the wood, the better it burned. Other prisoners were put on wood detail. They had the task of cutting dead trees into suitable size for the stoves and then stacking the wood nearby. They also began scouring the forest for fallen logs. Anything left over from cutting the newly chopped down the trees for the buildings was gathered and set aside to dry.
The only light source was the sun during the day and the cooking fires at night. No fires were allowed in the tents for fear of burning them down.
* * *
The spaceships had a square section on their undersides for landing. This contained the doorway to the outside for the travelers to unload. On the transports, instead of a door, the whole back laid down to allow the unloading of troops or equipment. When the pasture had been selected for the cows and the water troughs constructed to water the animals, the back of the Bodilyn was opened. The prisoners, who had been chosen and advised how to herd the cattle to the meadows, lined up outside waiting for the first animal. But nothing happened. The cows, who had gotten used to being confined, just stared out at the prisoners. From behind, the farmers prodded them until they stepped onto the grass.
The prisoners immediately began waving their arms to get the cows moving towards the pasture. This, however, startled the cows and they took off in all directions. The prisoners ran after them, trying to round them up. Sometimes, an animal would head directly at them and they would flee from it screaming at the top of their lungs. And they didn’t know how to bring a cow back from where it had darted into the bush. Soon the police joined in and after much yelling and arm-waving and running, the cows were settled in the pasture with their prisoner guards.
Rather than build a fence to keep them in, the farmers had advised that it would be better to post prisoners to watch them. That way they were free to move to another area when the grass had been eaten.
The sheep and pigs were next but they were smaller and easier to herd to their separate pens and pasture. The chickens, ducks, and geese were carried out in their metal crates and let go in their enclosures.
Chapter Three
Beti hadn’t realized it would be so hard to operate the tools and equipment she, Tyl, and Mikk had designed. They’d read up on how they were to be used but they’d never tried them out. So when they’d first landed, she and Tyl had had to learn how the axes and saws worked before they could teach anyone else.
Once the prisoners were move
d into the tents, the governor wanted them to prepare some soil to see how the seeds would grow. They decided Tyl would stay with the tree and slab cutting and she would teach the would-be farmers how to use the antiquated farm equipment.
To begin, though, she gathered together the four real farmers, who had been sent from home, to explain the working of the plow to them.
“According to what we found, the plow is pulled by animals. As it moves, the share cuts the soil and curls it over into a furrow.”
“And then what?” Bran asked.
“Then the cows pull the harrows over the furrow to break it up.”
“It sounds like it should work,” Phyl said.
“Let’s carry one to a field and try it,” Beti said.
When they got to the field they stared at the waist-high grass.
“We can’t work that,” Dev pointed out.
“I know,” Beti said. “We’ll have to cut it down.”
“With what?” Sal asked.
“With a scythe. We have some back on the ship. They were sent to harvest the grain.”
It took them the rest of the day to learn the technique of swinging the scythe, and to cut and pile the grass. Early the next morning Beti and Sal went to the pasture and led two cows to the field. They harnessed them to the plow then Beti went behind and picked up the handles.
But the cows didn’t like the harnesses around their necks and across their backs. They kept trying to shake them off. When urged to pull the plow they took a few steps but as soon as the share dug into the ground making the pulling harder, they stopped. From then on they just stood in place ignoring the coaxing, then the pushing, and finally the slaps on their hindquarters.
To get the fields plowed Beti knew she had to use prisoners. She went to one of the men’s tent and asked for volunteers.
“What for?”
“We need someone to pull a plow,” she explained.
Betrayed (Cry of the Guilty – Silence of the Innocent Book 2) Page 2