Betrayed (Cry of the Guilty – Silence of the Innocent Book 2)

by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

  Gwin sunk her head into his shoulder. At one time she, too, wished it would happen. But life here had changed her.

  The next morning Gwin helped with the last of the packing.

  “Now that your spaceship has arrived, will you be going back to your planet?” Mela asked shyly.

  Gwin heart warmed. She had always felt affection for her friends. She worried about them when they were gone, she cried with them when one of them died, and she laughed with them when they told her about a funny incident. But they had rarely demonstrated any feelings toward the newcomers.

  “I don’t know.”

  She hugged everyone goodbye and watched as they crossed the valley. When they’d climbed over the hill, Gwin headed for the fields. She wanted to see Mikk again, wanted to spend as much time with him before he went back to his planet.

  “Back to his planet,” she said out loud. Suddenly she knew for certain she was staying here. Being in prison on her own planet was not the way she wanted to spend the rest of her life. She felt sadness at the loss of her life with Mikk.

  Gwin hid in the trees beside the fields. She could see Mikk waiting for her but she wanted to make sure there was no one else around. When she was satisfied she stepped out into the open. Mikk smiled when he saw her. She ran to his waiting arms.

  “Do you have anything to do today?” Gwin asked.

  Mikk shook his head. “I used the excuse of checking out the tools and soil on this planet as a way of getting here. But my real mission was to find out what had happened to you. Now that I’ve found you alive I want to spend my time with you.”

  “What about Governor Lind? Will she notice you are gone?”

  “Governor Lind is busy listening to the scrolls that Sari recorded.”

  “Come to the cave with me.” Gwin pulled on his arm.

  Mikk went willingly. This time it was his turn to talk. He told her about his attempt to find out what had happened to her. He told her about her mother and Britt and how their lives had changed since her departure. Her mother had joined the Association for the Ethical Treatment of Prisoners and spent much of her time protesting in front of the Leader’s meetings. She would yell at them, telling them not to send any more prisoners to their death. Britt was still working for the police but was looking for another job.

  “How did your experiment work?” Gwin asked.

  Mikk explained how it had been a partial success with the thawing of the body working but that the mind didn’t live. He said he was now working on the separation program.

  “The ship is leaving tomorrow,” Mikk said just as they reached the cave.

  “Tomorrow?” Gwin asked, her heart dropping. “Why so soon?”

  “There is nothing more for them to see. They have Sari to tell them what happened. She explained that the prisoners planted the crops and vegetables, and that she picked them and lived on them until she could plant more the next year. Neither she nor I have told them about you or Jawn and Georg or the inhabitants. They’ve looked at the buildings and were impressed with how well they had been constructed. The guards are digging a mass grave to put the skeletons in today. When that is done there is nothing more for them to do here.”

  Gwin and Mikk spent the day and night in the cave demonstrating their love for each other. It was a bittersweet time for Gwin knowing that this was probably the last time she would see him. The next morning Mikk rose from Gwin’s bed of animal skins. He dressed then knelt down beside her.

  “You’d better get up if you’re coming with me.”

  She put her hand on his face and kissed him. “I can’t,” she said softly.

  “Why not?” he demanded.

  “On your planet….”

  “My planet?”

  “Yes, this is my home now. I’m not a murderer here. If I go back I’d only be sent to prison to finish my sentence and I’d probably die there. At least here I have my freedom.”

  “But I’ve come all this way to find you. I can’t just leave you here.”

  “Yes, you can. I’ve lived this long. I will continue to do so.”

  “But this is no life.”

  “Yes, it is,” Gwin said thinking of the flowers, the birds, the pets she’d made out of the animals. There was no way she could tell him about them and have him understand. He would have to live here with her in order for him to see her life the way she did. “And it is the life I’m going to live. I am happy here.”

  “What do you want me to say to your mother?” he asked bitterly. “How do you expect me to tell her and Britt that you didn’t want to come back?”

  Just as it was hard to think of not marrying Mikk it was just as hard to think of not seeing her mother or her best friend again. “Don’t tell them anything. I think it’s better that they believe I am dead.”

  Mikk looked down at her then sighed. “I suspected this would be your answer after listening to you talk yesterday. You are proud of what you and the others have done and so you should be.” He leaned over and kissed her.

  Gwin wrapped her arms around his neck. “I still love you,” she said. “Will you be returning?”

  “If there is another ship coming, I’ll be on it.” He hesitated. “There is one thing I would like to discuss with you before I leave, though.”

  “What is it?” Gwin asked.

  “Are there other people like these cave dwellers on the planet?”

  “I haven’t met any,” Gwin replied. “But when the people return they tell me stories about a large gathering that they attend while they are gone.”

  “Great.” Mikk rubbed his hands together. He then told her about the separation research and how they could take a mind from its body and send it to another planet. But, so far, that mind could not take over the mind of the body it tried to inhabit. He further explained that Pau in the Separation Room had stated that they needed an unformed mind as a receptor.

  “That’s what you said about the baby.”

  “Yes,” Mikk said.

  Gwin saw an animation on his face that she hadn’t seen since he’d first begun his study on freezing. He put his hands on her shoulders. “I’ve thought about it since I met the cave people. We need a place for our prisoners. What if we remove their minds and send them here to be placed in a baby’s body? Then we can freeze the prisoner’s body and keep it in storage until his or her prison sentence is up.”

  “You want to place the mind of a murderer into a baby?” Gwin asked, horrified.

  “It’s a perfect solution to our problem.”

  “But what about these people?”

  “I can’t see that it will make any difference to them. The baby’s head is small compared to the adult’s and you said the baby doesn’t talk until a year old. That means its brain is small and develops slowly. As it grows the learning of this life should wipe out any of the memories of a past life that are have been put in the mind.”

  “But these are quiet, peaceful people. You can’t disrupt their lives just to make life easier on your planet.”

  “This won’t disrupt their lives. They won’t even know it’s happening.”

  “Oh, Mikk,” Gwin pleaded. “You don’t know them. You don’t know how nice they are. You can’t do this to them.”

  “It’s not my decision,” Mikk said, getting up. “I’ll put it in front of the Leaders and let them decide.”

  Gwin stared at Mikk. She’d always thought his research meant more to him than even her but she hadn’t thought it came ahead of any morality, any thought about consequences to others.

  “I’ll see you when I come again to find out if the experiment works,” Mikk said. He left the cave.

  Gwin didn’t feel any of the comfort she gotten from his promise to return to her a few moments earlier. She looked over at where Sari had slept for the past year and a half. They hadn’t even said goodbye to each other. Everything had happened so fast. One minute they were working in the field and the next Sari was talking to the governor. She wondered if Sari would te
ll the Leaders about her and Jawn and Georg and how the inhabitants on this planet had saved them. Then she saw the scrolls with the recordings of their life since the Federer had left lying under one of Sari’s skins and knew she wouldn’t.

  If only she hadn’t trusted Mikk so much that she had introduced him to the people who had saved them. Sari had done her part to protect Georg and Jawn and the inhabitants of the planet; Gwin was the one who had betrayed them.

  Chapter Nineteen

  As soon as possible after arriving at home, Mikk went to the Separation Room. He explained to Pau his theory of sending the prisoner’s mind to a newborn’s brain on the colony planet. Together they discussed how it might be done, then Mikk scheduled an appointment for them at the next Assembly.

  “This is Pau and my name is Mikk,” Mikk began when it was his turn to speak. “We have been conducting different studies on the mind and body. Mine was to freeze the body so it could be sent to a distant planet and thawed. Then it could explore the planet and send us back information on its atmosphere, soil conditions, inhabitants, weather, and much more. Pau’s research was on separating the mind from the body and sending it to that distant planet to enter a body there. Through that body, the mind would learn the information we needed and would relate it to us when it returned to its own body. Both of these experiments have been successes to a point. I could freeze the body then thaw it and it would be normal. The mind, however, would die. Pau could separate the mind from the body but it would lose its fight to take over a body on the planet it was sent to.”

  Mikk paused for effect. “By using both methods we believe we have found a way to handle the prisoner situation.”

  “Go on,” Leader Two said.

  “We can take the prisoner’s mind out of his body and send it to the colony planet where it will enter the body of a newborn baby. Electrical waves extract the mind and radio waves are used to send it into space. We then freeze the bodies and store them. A radio telescope keeps track of the waves and collects them when it is time to bring them back. On the host planet the mind will abandon the body through death from disease, accident, or old age, and return to its own body which we will have thawed.”

  “If the prisoner’s mind couldn’t take over a mind before, how do you expect it to do it now?”

  “When I was there I met some of the inhabitants. I watched a birth and saw the baby. It did nothing except lay in its animal hide. It can’t walk or talk and will have to be carried for its first year. It also takes a year for it to learn the language of its parents. At birth the baby has an unformed mind. It is totally open. It has no fears, no anger, no thoughts, and no idea of how to fight a takeover.”

  “We have no mention of these inhabitants in yours or Governor Lind’s report,” Leader Eight said.

  “Governor Lind didn’t know about them and I wanted to make sure the process would be feasible before I said anything.”

  “What about the prisoner’s memory of his life here?” Leader Five asked. “How will that be dealt with?”

  “The baby’s mind is undeveloped and will not know what to do with the knowledge that has come to it. As the child grows, he is taught about their way of life, which is very primitive. There is nothing in their lives except eating and sleeping. They live only by hunting and gathering their food. They are on a level with our ancestors who lived thousands of years ago. I doubt that a memory put into a baby will last, especially once the baby starts learning their way of life. And if there is something remembered later when the child is older or an adult, maybe it will help the inhabitants improve their lives.”

  “What about when he or she returns?”

  “Since I’ve come back, Pau and I have been sending minds out into space and bringing them back again. They remember up until they are separated and their next memory is of flashing through the darkness. They tell us they know they are home again when they see the white light of our sun. So we believe that when the mind returns it will remember its former life here. We’re not sure about a memory of its time spent there.”

  “How do you propose to conduct this experiment?” Leader Nine asked.

  “I will go back to the planet while Pau separates a mind here and sends it to the area where I am. I will watch another birth and see if I can discern if the mind has entered the baby.”

  “How will you know?”

  “I am hoping that there will be a difference in the birth that will be a signal. If not, our backup plan is that we will set the radio telescope to bring the waves back in one of our years. At the end of that time I will go to the place and see if the body dies.”

  “Is there a difference in time span?”

  “There are about three of their years to our one.”

  “How do you know?”

  Mikk hesitated. He felt a need to protect Gwin and her new life. He hadn’t mentioned her to anyone, not even her mother or Britt. He knew that her mother would want her back and would spread the word of her survival.

  “I was able to communicate on a primitive level with them through hand signals. They have four seasons. It was in the summer that the colony was started and that is why it failed. It wasn’t prepared when the cold and snow when winter came.”

  “Couldn’t we set up another colony that lands in the spring so that they have time to plant?” Leader Three asked.

  “I don’t think it will work,” Leader One, formally Governor Lind of the colony, said. “The prisoners are not used to the work that it will take to make the colony a success. Most refused to do anything and many stole from the warehouses. They still have the criminal mentality where they want something for free.”

  “Plus, there is the expense of sending them to the planet and keeping them supplied in food,” Mikk said. “With this solution, the bodies will be frozen and kept in that state until the mind returns. It will be cheaper than feeding the prisoners and paying police officers to look after them.”

  The Leaders held a quick conference then agreed to the experiment.

  * * *

  For two years Gwin said goodbye to Georg, Jawn and the inhabitants in the spring, welcomed them back in the fall, and lived with them for the winter. Gar and Bane died so they could travel faster. They were able to leave after the fields and gardens were seeded and return early to help with the harvesting. Gwin tended the crops during the summer.

  They learned that beating the shafts on the ground or a rock separated the grain from the straw easier and faster than pulling it off by hand. When they left each year they took baskets of grain with them for their own use and to trade with other groups. They also took vegetable seeds, and tobacco leaves.

  “They like smoking and it’s been introduced into the greeting ceremony,” Jawn said. “And because there wasn’t enough pipes to go around, they made their own out of wood.”

  For those two years Gwin hoped that Mikk’s idea hadn’t worked and that he wouldn’t return. But in the winter of the third year a spaceship landed again beside the Treachen. Gwin was informed of its arrival by one of the children who had seen it in the sky. Her heart sank. She knew she didn’t have to go to it. Mikk would come to the cave. Hopefully, he would be alone.

  It was just after their midday meal when he walked along the path and he was alone. He was dressed in layers of clothing against the cold. They embraced but the passion was gone. Gwin’s love had died in the past two years. She surmised that Mikk’s had, also.

  “We are trying out our experiment,” Mikk said without Gwin asking. “I’m here to see if it works.”

  “How will you know?”

  Mikk shrugged. “I’ll be looking for a difference in the birth, something that has never happened before. And since I’ve only seen one birth, I’d like your help.”

  “You want me to help you destroy this group of people, my friends?”

  Mikk sighed in exasperation. “This won’t destroy them. All that will happen is that the mind of the baby will be taken over by the mind of the prisoner.”


  “That’s all?” Gwin asked with sarcasm. “And what happens as the child grows? Will it become like the prisoner, a murderer or a thief?”

  “What have they worth stealing?”

  “It may not look like much to you but what they have means their survival to them.”

  “Is there a woman who is about to give birth?”

  Gwin didn’t want to answer that question, didn’t want to say that there were two. It didn’t matter, though. She hadn’t explained Mikk’s plan to either Georg or Jawn or to the inhabitants. How could she? She barely understood it herself and there was no way that the cave people would. When they saw that her friend had returned, they invited him into the cave.

  Mela was in labour. She had two previous children so her labour didn’t last long. It had begun just before their noon meal and now she was in the squatting position. The baby’s head appeared then its body. When it was fully out and in the hands of one of the women, it immediately began to cry. This startled everyone. They looked at the newborn boy then at each other. Never before had a baby cried at birth.

  They gestured and talked. Was there something wrong with him? Was he deformed? Had the woman helper hurt him? She shook her head and was believed. After all, she’d helped with many births and each one of them had been normal. The little boy finally quit crying. Bru lifted the naked baby and held it up so everyone could see that he looked like the rest of them. There were no missing limbs, no enlarged or shrunken head, certainly no reason for the cry. He laid his son down, wrapped him in a hide and handed him to Mela. She took him and hugged him to her chest.

  Gwin watched Mikk. She had known that the experiment was a success when the baby cried and she now saw it confirmed on Mikk’s face. He was staring in awe. Although he didn’t say anything, she knew he was jubilant. The prisoner’s mind was now in this little body. She left the cave and he followed her.

  “What made him cry?” Gwin asked when they were outside.

  “The moment the mind is separated from the body, the prisoner emits a scream. It must carry over to when it enters the body here, which is right at the time of birth.”