His companion snorted, rudely. “There was an ... incident with a shipment of blue-videos and an illegal copying machine,” he said. “The Civil Guard arrested me, walked me past a judge and exiled me out here. I broke free two weeks later, then fled into the countryside.”
“Not too bad,” Dave said. “That's almost correct.”
“Shut up,” Doug said. He walked over to Gary and helped him to his feet. “You’ll need to keep up with us. If you don't, we'll hurt you. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” Gary said, coolly.
Kailee almost smiled, then winced in pain as Doug pulled her up too. “Follow Dave,” he ordered. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Doug turned and walked into the undergrowth, heading through the forest. Kailee tried to move slowly at first, but a series of slaps from Doug forced her to speed up. For someone who was clearly older than herself, Doug moved through the forest with a surprising nimbleness and Kailee had to move fast to keep up with him. Gary seemed to be biding his time; Kailee silently hoped that he wouldn’t do anything stupid. The newcomers, whoever they were, didn't have any reason to harm them. But what would they do, she asked herself, when they discovered that there was no ransom? Somehow, she couldn’t see any of the colonials paying for her safe return. And Yates, the only one who might have paid something for them, was dead.
She listened, saying nothing, as Dave peppered Gary with questions about Earth. For someone who hadn't seen it in years, he seemed very curious. Gary tried to answer the questions as best as he could, but his attempts to ask questions in return were met with either smiles or frowns – and no real answers. Kailee remembered the prisoners they’d seen on Earth, the men and women who had been sentenced to exile, and shuddered. If Doug hadn't adapted well to Meridian, he had to be as cracked as his older friend.
“Stumbling into our territory was not wise,” Doug said, breaking into their thoughts. “Didn't you know anything?”
Kailee shook her head. No one had mentioned that there might be ... runaway indents in the countryside, although she was sure that she had heard someone refer to bandits. But Austin hadn't seemed worried, even though they’d had to walk through the countryside to reach the Jordan. Had he thought that there was no danger or had he simply decided that there was no point in worrying about it? Either was possible.
“They gave us a full lecture on what we could and couldn't do,” Dave added. “Weren't you paying close attention?”
“Not enough,” Kailee admitted.
The two men seemed to find this hilarious and snickered together for several minutes. Kailee wanted to shout at them, but she didn't quite dare. Instead, she forced herself to keep walking, noting how the foliage had grown thicker and thicker. The pathways the two men took seemed well-hidden, although Kailee had never seen a forest before crashing on Meridian. It was quite possible that someone could search for a hundred years and never find their bodies, if the two men decided to kill them. She tested her bonds carefully, only to discover that they were quite firm. Escape wasn't a possibility.
They stepped through a line of trees and into a village. Kailee was almost charmed by how carefully the wooden houses were blurred into the trees and hidden under a canopy, but none of the other inhabitants looked pleased to see her. She couldn't help noticing that most of them were men, with only a handful of women. The women didn't even look at her, merely keeping their heads down as they shuffled through the village. A handful of kids followed them, wearing nothing more than torn shirts, if they wore anything at all. They chased a handful of chickens through the village, laughing merrily. They too took no notice of the newcomers.
“A word of advice,” Doug said, as they stopped outside one of the houses. “Behave yourselves and you will be treated well. Don’t behave yourselves and ... well, we can start by breaking both of your legs, just to make sure you can't run.”
He opened the door and shoved them both inside. Kailee glared at the door as it slammed closed, then looked around. The building was dark, illuminated only by light pouring in through slits in the walls. There was nothing inside, apart from a bench and a muddy floor. They hadn't even bothered to untie their hands ...
“Shit,” Gary said, loudly. Too loudly. “What are we going to do now?”
Kailee almost laughed. He was asking her? She had never thought of herself as a leader – and she wouldn't have been allowed to lead on Earth. She sobered, trying to think clearly despite the growing ache in her wrists. They were prisoners, prisoners of people who wanted to trade them for ransom ... and who knew what they would do when they discovered that there was no ransom?
“I don’t know,” she confessed.
The door rattled before she could say anything else. She looked up, alarmed, as a tired-looking woman clattered into the room. There was a sense of beaten helplessness in her eyes, something that reminded Kailee all too clearly of some of the older women she'd known on Earth. The woman had been broken completely.
“They should have untied you,” the woman said, as she started to work on Kailee’s bonds. “I need to examine you.”
Gary leaned forward. “Are you a doctor?”
“I used to be,” the woman said. There was no emotion in her voice at all. “Now, I belong here.”
Kailee shuddered as the woman started to examine her, gently poking and prodding at Kailee’s body. Her touch wasn’t anything like as bad as Barry’s, but Kailee still shivered as the hands moved lower. The woman looked up at her, sympathy in her eyes; Kailee realised, grimly, that she’d seen worse.
“If they don’t manage to ransom you, they’ll put you to wife,” the woman said. “There are more men than women here, in the camp. I hope you're worth a lot of money.”
Kailee – absurdly – found herself giggling. They’d all found a place they could fit in on Meridian , apart from Barry. Now, they’d found Barry’s place ... and he was dead.
The woman looked at her as if she’d gone insane. “This is no laughing matter,” she said. “There's no proper medical care here, not even for pregnant girls. If you are married off, you may not even survive your first pregnancy.”
She shook her head. “I’ll bring you food,” the doctor said. “And then you can wait.”
Kailee looked down at her, then over at Gary. He seemed equally scared, but resolute.
She gritted her teeth. Whatever happened, she vowed, they were going to get out of the village and escape.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The colonies – even some of the Core Worlds, or Corporate Worlds – might have been able to cope with the crisis. Corporations funded schools that produced more intellectual children, while conditions on the colonies ensured that children learned to take care of themselves from a very early age. Indeed, as the Empire entered its last century, almost all of the skilled labour workforce was made up of people from the colonies.
- Professor Leo Caesius. Education and the Decline and Fall of the Galactic Empire.
It had taken Darrin and Austin nearly an hour to pick their way out of the gorge, after splitting the useful remains of Samantha’s pack between them and then burying her body as best as they could. Darrin had been surprised that Austin had taken the time to dig a proper grave, but Austin had pointed out that allowing the wild animals to get a taste for human flesh might have unpleasant consequences down the line. Besides, Darrin suspected that Austin felt more than a little guilty about Samantha’s death. He’d been in charge when she died.
“So,” he said, when they reached the top. There was nothing to suggest where the others might be waiting, if they had survived the night. “Where do we go from here?”
Austin looked around, his face grim. Darrin understood. The way they picked might not be the right one – and if they went too far from the others, they might never find them. He strained his ears, hoping to hear something – anything – but all he heard was the sound of insects buzzing through the trees. There was nothing to lead them towards the others.
“We head upwards,” Austin said. He nodded towards the higher ground, where they might be able to look out over the trees. “I told them to head upwards, so we might run into them – or see something like a fire. Gary had the lighter.”
Darrin nodded, although he wasn't too hopeful. Gary and Abdul would be alone with Barry, unless one counted Kailee. Gary couldn't fight and Abdul ... he had no idea how well the other boy could fight. It was far too likely that Barry had already killed both of them – or at least beaten the other two boys into submission. He followed Austin as he walked up the slope, taking care where he put his feet. The ground was still muddy after the rainstorm.
“Most of the tracks will have been washed away,” Austin commented. “In the Scouts, we used to try to track each other through the countryside. It was never very easy, but it was almost impossible after a big rainstorm. Even when they were leaving marks for us to follow the marks could easily be destroyed.”
“It sounds like you had fun,” Darrin said. He felt another flash of envy. Why – he asked himself once again – hadn't they had anything like that on Earth? “What do you do with all the training?”
Austin smiled. “Some of us go into the Bush Rangers,” he said. “A handful try to join the military, although recruitment has been low for the last few years. Others go out to break ground ...”
Darrin blinked at him. “Break ground?”
“You can't just set up a patch of ground and call it a farm,” Austin explained. “Preparing a homestead and turning it into a proper farm is a complicated process. The Breakers help homesteaders from Earth get it right first time, or create new homesteads for the smarter or richer settlers. It can take years to start growing crops properly.”
“Oh,” Darrin said. He had already decided that he wasn't going to try farming. Fishing, perhaps, if brute labour wasn't option. “How do the homesteaders cope?”
“Depends on what agreement they signed with the settlement consortium,” Austin said. “Those who pay their own way are assigned broken ground, which can be turned into a farm within one or two years. Those who sign themselves over to the consortium have to start with a raw patch of land, then break it themselves. They tend to take five years to start growing crops and ten before they can pay off their debts.
Darrin considered it, briefly. Debts on Earth were largely ignored, passed on to future generations or simply written off. On Meridian, he suspected, debts were altogether more serious. What would happen if someone couldn't or wouldn't pay their debts?
“It depends,” Austin said. “Generally, it takes five years for someone to prove themselves a farmer – or not. If they failed through no fault of their own, they might be given an extension – at the discretion of the consortium representative. But if they failed because they didn't work hard enough, or properly, the debt would have to be repaid. At worst, they would be indentured and their labour contracted out.”
He paused as they reached higher ground. “Look,” he said. “That's a fire.”
Darrin followed his gaze. A plume of white smoke was rising up into the air, some distance away. Austin fiddled with his compass, then led Darrin back down into the forest, heading towards the fire. It had to belong to Barry and the others, Darrin told himself firmly. There was no way that there was someone else wandering through the forest.
It took nearly forty minutes to reach the clearing – there were times when Darrin was sure that they had lost the smoke – and when they did, they stopped in disbelief. Abdul and Barry were lying dead on the ground, while the fire had been left to smoulder. There was no sign of either Gary or Kailee. Darrin looked down at Abdul and winced. It looked as though he had been beaten to death by someone’s bare fists.
“Barry has been shot,” Austin observed. Darrin turned, just in time to see Austin use a stick to lever Barry’s body over. A nasty wound could be seen clearly on his chest. “A pistol, judging from the wound. It probably wasn't the actual cause of death.”
Darrin looked at the bloody mess that had once been Barry’s head, then up at Austin. “No shit, Sherlock.”
Austin snorted. “The wound doesn't look to be fatal,” he added. “There are bullets that inflict enough trauma to kill, even if the wound itself isn't fatal. But this doesn't look to be one of them. It was the blows to the head that killed him.”
“So,” Darrin said. “Who killed him?”
“Elementary, my dear Darrin,” Austin said. “Gary or Kailee. Probably Gary.”
Darrin lifted his eyebrows. “You don't think Kailee could have killed him?”
“None of you owned a gun, as far as I know, and I doubt you could have bought one,” Austin said. “That means that the gun was probably recovered from Mr. Yates after he died. Gary was the only one who went to the plane alone, hence Gary had the weapon.”
His face twisted into a scowl. “I should have checked,” he said, grimly. “Yates would definitely have carried a weapon.”
Darrin shook his head. It had never occurred to him that Yates would be armed. He’d been strong and skilled enough to knock Barry out with a single punch. Why would he need a gun? But there were more dangerous people than Barry out there ...
“All right; Gary killed the bastard,” Darrin said. He’d mourned Samantha and he would mourn Abdul in due course, but he knew he would never mourn Barry. Even his mother, if she ever found out what had happened to her child, wouldn't mourn him. Moe would probably regret the death of his playmate, then find someone else to share in the tormenting of younger and weaker students. “So where did he go?”
Austin stepped back, then started to pace the campsite. “Footprints,” he said, pointing down towards the ground. “Two sets; one larger than any of ours. The other was barefooted. I think it was a man, probably older than either of us.”
Darrin stared at him. “Someone else was here?”
“Yes,” Austin said. He continued to pace the campsite. “Two people sat here, long enough to leave heavy imprints in the mud. They slept here, then walked to the fire. But in what order did these events occur? The marks aren't clear enough to be sure.”
“No,” Darrin agreed, impatiently. “Someone took them, right? So who?”
“Good question,” Austin agreed. “Bandits, runaway indents ... maybe even an independent farmer who genuinely came here to help.”
He shook his head. “Every year, a small number of criminals or indents decide that they’d be better off in the jungle than working on farms,” he offered. “They’re a persistent problem along the forward edge of the settlement line, sometimes stealing supplies or enticing others to run away with them. I don't know how they will treat Gary and Kailee, but I doubt it will be kind.”
Darrin swallowed. Girls were kidnapped all the time on Earth, unless they lived in a residency block where the gangs were bribed to keep the residents safe. Once kidnapped, they were taken down to the lower levels and ... well, no one knew precisely what happened to them, but Gary could guess. Sold to brothels, if they were lucky; rumour had it that they were even fed to escaped monsters from the Arena. What would the bandits do with them?
He looked over at Austin. “Are they alive?”
Austin was peering down at the ground. “They went into the forest here,” he said, softly. “They were definitely walking on their own feet, so they probably weren't badly injured or otherwise mistreated. But there just isn't proof enough to say for sure.”
“We have to go after them,” Darrin said. “Can we track them all the way back to their hideout?”
“I think so,” Austin said. He looked up at the sky, then back down at the muddy ground. “As long as it doesn't rain, we should be able to follow them.”
***
Austin felt more perturbed than he wanted to admit as he led the way through the forest, following the tracks left by Gary, Kailee and the unknowns. They were nearing the Jordan, but there were still some distance from the edge of settled land – close enough for someone to raid the nearest settlements, too f
ar for militia sweeps to locate and destroy bandit camps in the jungle. If they’d been closer, he might well have considered heading directly to the settlements ...
He looked down at the tracks, marvelling inwardly at how blind Darrin was when it came to moving in the forest. The unknowns might as well have left a map pointing along their route; there were broken twigs and bushes as well as footprints, all there for the trained eye to see and understand. It had been harder following the aggressors in Scout hunting games. The only problem was that Gary and Kailee didn't seem to have dropped something that could be used to point in their direction.
It was odd. Dropping something was the simplest trick, one taught to all Scouts. Had it not occurred to them – or had they thought that they were safe? It was possible, Austin supposed, that they’d had a stroke of luck and run into a survey team, but it didn't seem very likely. There was no reason for a survey team to come this far from the settlement zone before they’d scouted out territory closer to established settlements.
He paused as the path seemed to shift, brushing along the edge of a number of thorny bushes. Someone could get caught in them, he guessed, wondering if they had been deliberately planted. The Scout Fort in Hundred Acre Wood, near his home, had been carefully hidden in the undergrowth. They’d been told that the adults didn't know where it was, although Austin was old enough to know that was nonsense. Most of the adults had been scouts themselves; they'd known about the fort, probably even helped build it. But this was different.
“We have to go around,” he muttered. He still couldn't hear anything human, but his senses were warning him that something wasn't right. “And hope that this barrier doesn't block us completely.”
The footprints seemed to walk along the bushes until they reached a gap, one that led through the bushes and into ... what? Austin hesitated, remembering what he'd learnt when they'd practiced with paintballs and played at being soldiers. The entire pathway seemed designed to lead them into a trap. They’d have to come at the enemy from one specific direction.
The Empire's Corps: Book 07 - Reality Check Page 31