Returning to the male compartment, he sat down on the bunk and stared at where Barry had fallen. He’d been afraid of Barry; he hated to admit it, but it was true. And now ... Barry was no longer invincible. And yet ... he was the only person Darrin really knew. Maybe the experience of being knocked down so easily would be good for Barry. Fitz had told him that some people improved after a beating ...
He said that about you, his thoughts reminded him. And you might well have killed him.
It was a long time before Darrin managed to drift off to sleep.
Chapter Fourteen
Unsurprisingly, the bureaucrats – constantly looking for new ways to obtain funds – fell victim to educational fads that ranged from the idealistic to the absurd. These invariably sounded good, but rarely worked in practice – and even when they did, they were not kept around long enough to do any good.
- Professor Leo Caesius. Education and the Decline and Fall of the Galactic Empire.
Gary rubbed at his wrists, pathetically. The ship’s doctor had given him something for the pain, but very little else – and certainly no sympathy. Rumours seemed to have already spread through the entire ship, rumours that bore little relationship to reality. Apparently, he’d hidden himself in the washroom deliberately, hoping to surprise the girls.
He shook his head wearily, silently cursing whoever had picked Barry as a contest winner – and Darrin too, for that matter. Gary would have bet his merger fortune that neither of them had actually entered the competition, or that they'd only handed in blank sheets of paper. But someone had designated them the winners ... Gary sighed, looking down at his wrists. He might have been able to use the resources onboard the ship to make himself successful and leave the CityBlock behind forever, but with those two around it was hopeless. They’d ruin everything he tried to do.
The doctor had told him to wait in the small compartment, then pulled the curtain around him to provide some privacy. Gary sat on the bed and waited, wondering what would happen; if Yates genuinely believed that Gary was responsible for the whole affair ... the thought made him sick. Every other teacher had always chosen to side against Gary, either because they’d believed the united front the other children presented or because it was easier to deal with Gary than the others. Why should Yates be any different?
Outside, he heard someone talking. He closed his eyes and tried to listen.
“Minor damage to the jaw,” the doctor was saying. “He should recover within a day or so with proper treatment.”
“Good,” Yates said. He didn't sound happy. “Make sure you call me when he awakens so I can lay down the law.”
Gary blinked in surprise, opening his eyes. Lay down the law to who? There was no damage to Gary’s jaw, not as far as he knew. He rubbed it experimentally and found nothing, apart from a few hints of stubble. His failure to grow proper sideburns had been yet another source of mockery from Barry and Moe, both of whom claimed to have been shaving when they first came to school. Gary was sure that was nonsense, but their words still stung.
He looked up sharply as Yates pulled back the curtain, then stepped into the compartment and sat down on the bed. Their escort looked ... annoyed, but unlike all the other teachers Gary had known, he didn't seem to be the target. Yates studied him for a long moment, then reached for Gary’s left wrist and took it in a surprisingly gentle grip. Gary winced slightly as the man's fingers prodded at the marks, then let go of him.
“So tell me,” Yates said. “What actually happened?”
Gary shook his head, mutely. It wouldn't make any difference, he knew from bitter experience, if he told Yates the truth. He’d told teachers and tutors back when Barry and Moe had started to pick on him, but they’d done nothing. Barry had even harassed him right in front of teachers and they’d merely ignored the whole affair. What possible good would it do, he asked himself, to tell the truth? Ashamed of his own weakness, feeling a deep sensation of absolute hopelessness, he started to wonder if he shouldn't just kill himself and end it all. He knew that other victims had been killed by their tormentors over the years ...
“Let me tell you, then,” Yates said. His tone was soft, patient. “Barry and Darrin tied you to the railing, exposed you and left you there. Right?”
Gary stared at him. Had the two boasted, knowing that Yates couldn't touch them? Or had something else happened?
“I need to show you something,” Yates said, abruptly. He stood. “Come with me.”
He pushed the curtain aside and walked outside. Gary hesitated, then followed him as he walked towards another set of curtains. Yates glanced from left to right – looking for the doctor, Gary guessed – and then pulled back the curtains. Inside, Barry was lying on the bed, a nasty bruise covering his lower jaw. He was asleep. No, Gary realised with a sudden thrill of excitement; he'd been knocked out.
“I came very close to breaking his jaw,” Yates said. There was no hint of regret in his tone, merely a droll amusement. “For all of his immense bulk, Barry has little actual skill. I know people your size who could have taken him apart without breaking a sweat.”
Gary stared at Barry, then looked at Yates, concerned. No teacher was ever allowed to raise a hand to his pupils, no matter how badly they behaved. It was a cause for immediate dismissal, if not for criminal charges. The one teacher he’d known who had struck out at a pupil had been sent to jail, according to rumour. But maybe he’d simply been turned into an indent instead. The hell of it, Gary realised suddenly, was that indenture might seem preferable to teaching in a CityBlock school.
But if Yates had hit Barry ...
Gary shuddered, inwardly. Yates was doomed. There was no doubt about it. Barry would file a complaint and the authorities would come down against Yates like the hammer of God. He would lose his job, at the very least; he might even lose his freedom. No, he would lose his freedom. Natural law was on the side of jerks like Barry, not those who might hit them and actually beat them. And if they looked like losing, the laws would simply be changed to allow them to win. Gary had seen it happen before; no doubt it would happen again.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it. Yates was scary, but he’d never been pointlessly cruel; he’d certainly never acted like Barry. “I ...”
Yates caught his arm and swung him around so that Gary was facing the older man. “Why?”
“Because you’ll lose your job,” Gary said. He fought down the urge to cry. It just wasn't right! It just wasn't fair! “I didn't mean to be a problem ...”
Yates laughed. “And why do you think I’ll lose my job?”
“You hit him,” Gary said. Something was wrong. Yates wasn't trying desperately to cover the whole affair up – or make nice with Barry, in the hopes it would stop him filing a complaint. He’d seen both forms of reaction in school. Instead, he seemed almost amused at Gary’s concern. “He won’t let it go ...”
“He can whistle, if he wishes to complain,” Yates said, tiring of his game. He pulled the curtains shut, then led Gary towards the hatch leading out of sickbay. “This is a starship under corporate discipline, not one of the schools on Earth. Given how lightly he and his friend got off, my superiors are more likely to ask me why I didn't break bones than insist on immediate punishment.”
Gary blinked in shock, trying to wrap his head around a totally new concept. Had Barry ... actually been punished for his crimes? It had never happened before, even when they’d all been children. Barry had always been feted and rewarded by the teachers, allowed to kiss and caress and girls ... he’d been the first to go all the way, if rumour was to be believed. But then, if rumour was true, Barry would be so busy fucking the girls that he would have no time to make Gary’s life a misery.
“And he is going to spend the rest of the trip scrubbing floors and cleaning out pipes,” Yates continued, as they stepped out into the corridor. “And the salary he would have earned from doing that will go to replace the damaged underwear.”
Gary hesitated, then took the
plunge. “And what will you do when he refuses to work?”
“I will make him work,” Yates said, simply.
“Oh,” Gary said. It sounded unbelievable. And yet, when he looked up at Yates, he saw a solid confidence that outshone Barry’s constant aggression. Somehow, he found himself hoping that Yates would have to force Barry to work. “What do I do now?”
“Well, I have explained to the girls that it wasn't your fault that you were trapped and exposed,” Yates said, shortly. “They understand. So does Janet. But you really do need to work on your exercises.”
They turned and passed through a hatch into the exercise compartment. Gary eyed the devices warily, remembering how he’d ached after a few brief minutes riding the simplest machine. Yates tapped a switch on a console, then frowned. Gary shivered at the expression, realising what it meant. Yates was not impressed by his exercises.
“It does hurt, at first,” Yates said, before Gary could say a word. “That’s a sign its working, that long-disused muscles are being forced to work. But you have to keep pushing it forward.”
Gary sighed. “I froze,” he confessed. “I didn't even try to fight when ...”
Yates nodded. “I thought as much,” he said. His voice had gone absolutely toneless. “You need to build up confidence as well as muscles. But the former generally does come with the latter.”
He nodded to one of the machines. “You’ll do a solid hour on that machine, every day,” he added. “I’ll ask for one of the crew to work with you, when I’m not available. And, when you’re not exercising, you can work on your studies. That too will give you options you would never have had on Earth.”
***
Kailee looked down at the piece of cloth in her hands. Panties from Lourdes had been all the rage six months ago; she’d saved her merger allowance to buy them, even though she had no intention of wearing them for anyone else. They were really nothing more than frilly lace, but they’d looked nice on her body. Now, they were ruined. The thought of a boy touching them – and she knew what some boys were reputed to do with clothes they’d stolen from the changing rooms – was disgusting. Even if they hadn't been ruined, she would have had to throw them out.
The other girls sat in silence, each one cataloguing what they’d lost to Barry and Darrin. At least twelve pairs of underwear had been stolen or ruined, including a bra that had been turned into a makeshift pair of restraints. Kailee still didn't know who’d left the hatch open, assuming the boys hadn't managed to hack into the system, but she did know that it had cost them their sense of security. But then, it had been rare for her to feel safe outside the apartment.
And that was an illusion, she thought. Their safety had depended on gangs, gangs crammed with volatile and often stupid young men. There were rumours, passed from apartment block to apartment block, that the gangs often lost control. When they did, apartments were looted, girls were raped and property was stolen ... and nothing was ever done about it. There was no one the inhabitants could complain to if the gangs just decided to forget their protection rackets and attack. We were always vulnerable.
She couldn't help wondering if their lives were always going to be unsafe, no matter what Janet said about training to rely only on themselves. Was that all she had to look forward to in her life, if her ambitions were never realised? The oldest person she knew was seventy years old. Assuming she lived so long, would she be able to endure ... she stumbled over the calculation, unsure of the answer. Would she be able to endure seventy years of fear? Aunt Lillian had turned gray early, according to her mother; her parents had just zoned out completely, drowning themselves in the endless tide of entertainment on the datanet. But were they reacting to living in constant fear?
“We shun those boys,” Honey said, breaking the silence. Kailee put down the panties and looked at her. “We don't talk to them, we don’t do anything for them, we certainly don't sleep with them. Are we all agreed?”
Kailee wondered, cynically, just how long that would last. It had been tried at her school, with several of the girls organising a sexual boycott of the worst boys. But it hadn't worked; someone had always broken ranks, seeking protection in exchange for sexual favours. And yet ... there were only six girls in the compartment. Surely they could all stick together ...
“We can try,” she said, when Honey looked at her. None of the girls had started to blame her just for sharing a school with Barry and Darrin – and Gary, for that matter – but she knew that it was only a matter of time. “We can try, definitely.”
She looked up as Janet entered the compartment. “Put your damaged and otherwise useless items in this basket,” Janet ordered, without preamble. “And make sure you have a nametag on them. They’re going to pay to replace them.”
Kailee snorted in disbelief. No one at school was ever forced to replace anything, no matter how expensive. Clothes weren't the only items that were stolen regularly; smart children rapidly learnt never to bring anything they couldn't replace easily to school. The only ones who openly carried expensive goods were the ones strong enough to defend themselves ... and even they would never leave their items unattended. No one had any real faith in the lockers to keep out thieves.
“Aye, right,” Samantha said. “And how will they be forced to pay?”
“They are going to be doing mandatory work,” Janet said, simply. “The salary they would normally earn from doing the work will be redirected to you.”
She put the basket down on the deck and glanced from girl to girl, her eyes lingering on Kailee’s face a moment longer than strictly necessary. “You have to learn from this,” she warned, coldly. “What happened today could have been a great deal worse.”
Kailee nodded. She knew that Janet was right.
***
It was three days before Barry was discharged from sickbay, three days during which Darrin was ignored by Gary and harassed by the other three boys. Apparently, a couple of the girls had offered sexual favours in exchange for the boys picking on Darrin. Darrin had no idea if that was actually true, but he had taken to hiding himself and trying to ignore the rest of them as much as possible. By the time Barry was released, Darrin was almost relieved.
The feeling slowly slid away as Yates led them through the corridors and down into a long passageway. There were faint marks on the deck, some clearly footprints; others looked to have been left behind by trolleys. Barry eyed the deck unpleasantly, then met Darrin’s eyes and winked at him. Clearly, being in sickbay for a few days hadn't had any real effect on him.
“You will be scrubbing the decks for the next few weeks,” Yates informed them. He opened a compartment, revealing brushes, buckets and small bottles of funny-smelling liquid. “Each day, after your basic lessons, you will come here and scrub until I can actually see my own face reflected back at me. When this section is done, you will move onto the next section and next. You will continue to do this until you have earned enough money to pay for the clothes you damaged.”
“I refuse,” Barry said, at once. “You can't make me do anything.”
Yates smiled at him, unpleasantly. “Do you want to test that, really?”
Darrin winced, unable to tear his eyes away from them. Did Barry know what had happened to him? Yates had moved so quickly that Darrin hadn't quite realised what had happened until it was far too late. Did Barry think that he'd been in his compartment one moment and sickbay the next, without anything in-between? Or was the experience of actually been knocked out by someone so far outside his comprehension that he’d decided it simply hadn't happened at all?
Barry glared at him, then backed down. “And what,” he demanded sullenly, “will you do while we’re here?”
“I have better things to do than watch you, of course,” Yates said. He gave them a brilliant smile. “Oh, lest I forget to mention it, you will be supervised by the starship’s internal datanet at all times. You might think that you can slack off, or even sneak away for an hour or so, but you will be caught and you w
ill be punished. You’d really be quite surprised, I think, to know how much authority I have over you.”
Darrin nodded. He’d looked it up, ever since it had become clear that no one seemed interested in punishing Yates for punching Barry and knocking him out. Yates had vast authority – and the starship’s commander had a great deal more. If worst came to worst, he could declare them both to be mutineers and put them out the airlock. And, given the crew’s attitude to him after the whole underwear affair, it was clear that none of them would defy their commander over him.
Sighing, he picked up the brushes, filled one of the buckets with water and carried it over to the deck.
“Good luck,” Yates said, nastily. “Oh, one other thing ...”
The two boys looked up at him, expectantly.
“If you clean well, you may be offered a chance to train as something more useful,” Yates said. “But you really have to develop self-discipline first. And that is one thing that has never been taught at your school.”
Chapter Fifteen
Not all of these fads had much (if anything) to do with education. One fad embraced by the Empire, certainly on Earth, was to teach the children their rights by law, as opposed to their responsibilities. Another was to encourage them to look towards the government as the true provider of everything, from food to jobs after they graduated.
- Professor Leo Caesius. Education and the Decline and Fall of the Galactic Empire.
“Welcome to the bridge,” Captain Yang said. “I understand that you did very well on your exams?”
Gary nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He wasn't quite sure what to make of Captain Yang. On one hand, the Captain was no larger than Gary’s sister, with a body that appeared physically immature. On the other hand, he clearly commanded the respect of his officers and crew, despite his size. There was a clear assumption of authority in his voice that Gary both admired and distrusted. He wasn't sure why.
The Empire's Corps: Book 07 - Reality Check Page 13