by Pirx Danford
The effort to restrain myself failed miserably and I returned with a heavy laden plate and a bottle with yet unknown content to the maintenance room.
The bottle contained a fruity drink, probably a juice thinned out with water and the bread tasted malty and metallic, but the different cheese were excellent.
No sausage was left, but there still was a large piece of ham that was as hard as it was salty.
I checked Marples recordings and ordered her to store all the mentioned names as reference.
So this so called resistance was still active and its members still knew something about the ship.
Also my escape went down extremely well, as no other living person was able to congratulate me I mentally patted my own back, while I relished on a piece of hard cheese.
Should my excursion to the outside be a success, given I made it so far, then I would need to find out much more about the situation on the ship.
With renewed courage I stored the ham, a bit of bread and two selected pieces of cheese in my backpack, holstered the two pistols and was on my way.
The carriage, respectively elevator, was some 80 meters up again, so I had to climb back up and after a short while I found a hatch leading to the rails.
My fears about the condition the carriage would be in rendered themselves to be unfounded, the device consisted of a mishmash of spares, admittedly put in place by trained personnel.
There even was a mini sled, a rail maintenance device, which quickly could drive the complete distance and check for danger spots.
After the mini sled returned I knew the rails were in working condition.
Sadly even the mini sled caused much more noise than I was happy with, so I decided not to take any risks.
Diligently I checked the emergency stop mechanism of the carriage, then drove down 500 meters and activated the emergency stop. From the emergency ladder at the side of the tracks, I set the carriage to continue its way down.
Either there were no guards down below or there were some and with a bit of luck I just had distracted them.
Quickly I searched for a way into the tower and only a few meters I found one.
Probably some 100 meters separated me from solid ground.
I had Marple show me a map to the next passage towards the outer decks.
Unluckily I would need to travel nearly a kilometer towards the bow, the next passage in direction of the stern was even half of the ships width away, meaning nearly two and a half kilometer.
Carefully I kept my eyes on my surroundings and Marples sensors, while finishing my descent.
At the exit area I wondered about the extreme cleanliness, the sensors did not detect any people inside of the tower, so I carefully opened the door.
Instantly alarm sirens start to bleat and I cuss, a quick scan of the area shows a forests edge in about 300 meters distance and I start to leg it.
“Naive, moronic, careless” I berate myself, in my ignorance I was so sure about no one being able to use the ships devices.
I made a good 200 meters and hoped that I had been undetected, when Marple displayed hectic activity behind me. With relief I noticed that only 3 people rushed toward the towers entrance.
Sadly a loud hailing let me know that I had been seen, there was no spare breath for more swearing and only when I reached the forests edge I allowed myself to lower my speed.
This was a mistake, Marples display did not show any chase, but an arrow out of nowhere suddenly quivering in a tree right beside me, urged me to hurry up.
That trend of missing was fine by me and I hoped it would become persistent and not turn out to be a fad.
Nonetheless I would need to be even more cautious in the future.
As I was not planning on a prolonged stay on this deck anyhow, this whole small self contained world, I quickly made my way towards the passage.
Moving through the woods was slow and for a while I forgot that I was on the ship and that unknown pursuers were trying to catch me.
The leafy forest spread the artificial light in a comfortable diffuse manner, the ground was solid and smelled so earthen, that any thoughts of a completely artificially designed landscape seemed silly.
As the way through the forest did not lead directly towards the passage I had to make a detour.
My hope was that I had been mistaken for someone of the permanent active staff, a native in other words and that no one would predict my way.
On the other side of the forest still half a kilometer separated me from my destination, not to be trapped again I used my hauling rope to ascend to the top of a tree and scrutinize the landscape.
On my right was a small settlement, the simple wooden houses gave it a look like a backdrop straight from a western. With great displeasure I noticed many armed man leaving the settlement towards the tower. The sirens obviously had been audible the whole distance.
However they took the direct way, this offered me the chance to circle the settlement in a large arch, a plan I instantly put into action.
After I put enough distance between me and the closing in soldiers while keeping at the forests edge I moved closer to the settlement, now and then when I felt I might be too visible I crouched and had Marple perform infrared scans of the area.
Everything went well until about the height of the settlement.
It looked like a former soldiers camp, which had evolved to a farmers village, the remains of a rampart were visible as fragments and farming equipment was visible at some houses sides.
One wisecrack actually had painted “Saloon” on one of the houses, so the old westerns had apparently not been completely forgotten.
I wondered if any of the entertainment electronics aboard was still functional.
Marples voice draws me away from my wandering thoughts.
“Helen, I detect a large crowd of humans moving towards our position.” “Coming from the village? Have I been seen Marple?” “Negative, they move towards the village, its probably a coincidence, but you have to find a hiding spot fast.”
Well with this my luck seemed to end, there was no place to hide between here and the village.
My sight fell on a small barn, much too close to the other houses, but I had no other option.
Carefully I approached the village, until the backside of the barn stood between me and the other houses, then I approached the wooden wall of the barn.
High above was a small window, after I made sure that the approaching people still were sufficiently far away, I used my hauling rope to draw myself up to the window.
I heard a frightened breathing and saw a the face of a boy frozen on the spot looking at me with large scared eyes.
Reassuringly I put my forefinger on my mouth and hoped he would not scream while I moved through the window.
“Sch sch” I noised and was relieved that he kept quiet.
For the moment I was considering my options, should I draw my guns he would surely scream, but maybe I could keep it short enough to draw any attention, he breached these thoughts with the childishly naive question “Who are you?”
So he wasn’t afraid, this was a good thing.
“Hello, I am Helen and who are you?”
“I am Mark, but I am only telling you because you ain’t one of his soldiers!”
“Oh you mean the Benefactor? You are a very smart boy Mark!”
He beams at my compliment and then looks at me curiously.
“You have weird glasses, I never saw something like these. Are you with the resistance?”
I smiled “I am not allowed to tell, you do understand that do you?”
“Sure… oh the soldiers are here, we have to be quiet now.”
Why he was hiding up here I did not know, but it was obvious that he wanted to kept hidden as much as I was. It tremendously relieved me not to have to stun a child.
The nearing soldiers wore the same uniform as the soldiers camping around the waking area.
So this were the Benefact
ors soldiers.
However the armed man moving to the tower did not wear any kind of uniform. Maybe this had been all happenstance, or an event the alarm sirens triggered?
I whisper “Mark. Tell me, what do the soldiers do here in your village?”
“They take everything they want, they call it tax, my father called it theft.”
Some things would never change.
“And why are you hiding?” “My ma doesn’t want them to take me, I am too old. She told them I died at an accident. It is very funny to have a grave and being alive!”
This boy was pretty brave and the offhand way he told all this had me grinning.
“Earlier a lot of armed people left the village, do you know why?”
“This is something I mustn’t tell and should not even know.” He looked at me apologetically and I decided to probe no further.
The steady marching steps outside slowly had increased to a constant droning, this was a troop of at least a fifty soldiers, which seemed pretty excessive to me.
Quietly we exchanged a look and lurked closer to the small hatchway.
These soldiers looked much more orderly and a huge deal more grim than the soldiers I met at the waking area, probably the service around the exit area was given to the troops cannon fodder seeing how dangerous it was.
Disciplined the soldiers marched into the village while keeping a rectangular formation.
A crowd of villagers already had assembled at the towns center and a good amount of boxes had been piled up, so that was the reason for the many soldiers and not because they expected fighting.
I semi-expected to witness horses or mules, but probably there were none aboard of the ship at all. No one did expect this huge relapse into primitive times.
The troop leader stepped forward and snapped some short orders, to which the soldiers expanded their formation, revealing a somewhat corpulent man in their midst. “Marple enlarge” I murmured and was able to see that this guy was not a soldier, he was wearing a weird mixture of a toga and chaps .
He was visibly puffing and was busy trying to get into a dignified pose.
“Who are you talking with?” suddenly Mark asked and I realized that my order to Marple had been too loud. “Well okay I will tell you. My glasses are very smart and can do many different things for me. I just took a closer look at that bloke in the soldiers middle. Do you know him?”
“Sure, that is our official prefect, he calls the shots around here.”
“Aha, right, now I’ll listen what he is telling your people. Could you do me the favor and stay very quiet while I do that?”
Mark nods and I state very distinctly addressed at Marple “Glasses please enhance the sound level at my line of vision.”
With a piqued tone of voice Marple replies “Why so formal? Very well you should be able to hear more clearly.”
In the meantime the prefect caught his breath and was taking account of the boxes with a satisfied look.
“This is looking good. I had my doubts if y’all could meet the requirements. List and be snappy!” With explicit impatience he waved a villager close, which hesitantly came closer and handed over what had to be an inventory list.
The prefect grabbed the list and went through the records, while mustering the stacks.
“For the protocol” he suddenly barked with notable anger. “You have yet again a backlog of chickens. Next time at least a 20 chickens have to be delivered to avoid a harsh penalty.” He took out a second list and compared it with the inventory, now and then he muttered something and crossed out records from his list.
“Well done, you managed to compensate your backlog of carrots, more chickens next time and there won’t be any trouble.”
He went to a wooden chair with an impressively high back, sat down with a content breath, clapped his hands and announced “Time to dispense justice. What disputes and crimes do you have for me this month?”
“Here” a loud and very deep male voice rumbled from behind the crowd, while another man softly stated “Damn it, just let it go will you.” “No we sort this out here and now!” The prefect signs the guards to bring forth the two men.
A lean fellow with a yeanling trailing behind on a rope steps forward.
The loud voice belongs to a true giant of a man, he drones “So it is like this sir. I say this yeanling is duly mine. It was my ram who sired it and I never agreed to that!”
The prefect scrutinizes the two guys and then addresses the yeanlings handler “And why is it then that you claim the yeanling for you?”
To this the rather slimly built man replies “This silly monkey business, how is it my fault if he cannot properly corral his ram? My doe gave birth to the yeanling, so its naturally mine by rights!”
Flaring up the giant blusters “Babble as you like Gerd, it was you who opened the fence, this was all done intentionally.”
The prefect unbelievingly does a face-palm.
“Such silliness, because you two wasted my time with this I’ll gladly solve your problem very easily. The yeanling is added as tribute reducing the backlog of chickens to 16. Oh I see someone has been brought along in fetters, what is he being accused of?”
The crowd of villagers barely outnumbered the troop of soldiers by two, so it really was a very manageable amount of people. Everyone wore plain attire, there was no prosperity to speak of, but also nobody seemed to go hungry.
An unshaven and bleary-eyed man was dragged roughly before the prefect by some villagers.
With obvious strain an elderly man, which seemingly carried the villagers respect, pushed himself forward and exclaimed “This is Herbert Bahrenberg, he has slain his neighbor in a quarrel out of rage. This has been eight days ago, since then we kept him jailed.”
The prefect looks the offender over and then asks “What do you have to say to these accusations? Has it maybe been self-defense?”
With a contrite voice Herbert replies to this “I would really like to say it was so, but even if I lied, we both were so loud that probably the whole village could testify as to what happened. It was some stupid shit we were fighting about… well and suddenly my knife was in my hand. Damn booze.”
The prefect nodded heavily “Manslaughter is a grave matter. You had served your duty and you earned the right to live your life as a free man. Obviously you cannot do much good with your freedom. Your sentence are another 20 years of service for the Benefactor.”
This hit the slayer hard, limp and with a broken expression he is lead away.
Searching the prefect looked at crowd “Was that everything already?” I saw some people nod and apparently there was no one left who wanted to bring another matter forth.
This form of judicature seemed barbaric, all social accomplishments seemingly had gone lost, this was a completely arbitrary system.
The prefect was talking with some soldiers and I said to Mark “Well this seemed to go very well.” To which he nodded with an earnestness only a child could show.
A sudden turmoil broke lose as the soldiers unexpectedly encircled the ground.
“What is going on there?” I mumbled with a sense of foreboding as the prefect planted himself before the crowd with a nasty look on his face, which could provide haunting nightmares. “Folks consider carefully if there ain’t something you should tell me about. Well I doesn’t matter as you already decided to lie straight in my face.” He pointed at a woman in the crowd and two soldiers shoved their way to her and dragged her before the prefect. “Mother” yelled Mark terrified beside me. The soldiers shoved the woman to her knees in the dirt. “Jana Gerber, since half a year your son is supposed to report for duty. With the help of the whole village you faked his death. Are you aware” and turned to the whole crowd “Are you all aware that every single one of you could be sentenced to death by the Benefactor for this lie?”
With ashen face I loudly say “This is ugly” and inwardly cursed myself when I spot Marks scared face. Feeling very sorry I explain to him
that it was found out that he was still alive.
With half a ear I hear the prefect “… only chance and only because I put in a good word. Either you hand over Mark or at the very least Jana sill be sentenced to death.”
The villagers were frozen on the spot by fear.
Unnerved the prefect shouted “Mark Gerber, show yourself and come with us, then we’ll spare your mother.” Jana kneels slumped over and sobbing on the ground. Marks face shows fear and confusion and he asks me “What did he say? I heard my name, I think.”
Should I tell the truth, or persuade him to stay safely hidden with me?
I could not bring myself to bear the blame for his mothers death, so I explained the situation to him. “Will you go?” I asked and even though his eyes were filled with tears he nodded boldly.
Through a sudden inspiration I reach into my backpack and find a small tracking device. It was just a small cylinder, but pretty robust and could be shot from pistols if necessary.
I told Mark “Listen you have to hurry, but please promise you won’t tell anyone of me. Look I have this present for you. If you keep this close to you, I will be able to find you. I have to complete a very important mission, but if I can I will search for you. It might be some weeks, but I promise I will not forget you.” Mark swallows heavily and then says as maturely as a child never should be “I will become a rebel, like you and my father. If no one stops the Benefactor the ship is lost.”
This was heavily digestible stuff, but there was no time for more talking.
With great haste Mark climbed down a ladder and vanished through the barn door.
I saw the courageous young boy run toward the crowd and wondered about the blurred image.
When I was just about to ask Marple about the image quality I realized my eyes were filled with tears.
This was such a cruel world I arrived in. A world that engendered the bad as well as the good sides of us humans, but also a world that dangerously fragile was soaring through the depths of space.
It hurt me deeply, but the chance to disappear was too good to be missed.