Exhausted, despite so little activity, she fell into a troubled sleep where she ran from figures she could never see but only hear as they approached from behind.
She woke and the clammy pad beneath her oozed with sweat. The nausea increased, overwhelming her. When she sat up, the motion made her scramble for the bucket in the corner, but the dry retching did nothing to ease her stomach. The aches of earlier reached down her arms and legs, knotted her hands and feet into cramped balls.
“Help me! Hello, is anyone there? What do you want?” She wailed until her voice gave out, but no one answered.
She dragged her body around the cell perimeter again, but to no purpose. She found no overlooked crack in the wall, nothing.
The opening must be above her. A window, a door set high into the wall. Long minutes went by. She stumbled around the cell once more, hands stretched above her. Still nothing. If an exit in the wall or ceiling existed, she could not reach it.
When she reached the fourth corner she collapsed, too hurt and tired to try to reach the sleeping mat.
She huddled in the mountains. Night had fallen and the darkness and the cold wrapped about her and she froze to death.
Eleanor awoke with great gasps. She remained in her cell, but the cold from her dream lingered. Sweat soaked through her beautiful blue gown and the fabric clung to her like the remnants of her dream.
She struggled out of the ruined dress. She half-crawled, half-rolled back to the thin pad in the middle of her cell. Not even a thin blanket lay atop it, but the mattress was drier than her gown. She wriggled under it onto the bare floor and shook as she waited to get warm.
Warmth never arrived. Her dreams consisted of darkness and pain and cold. Nothing changed when she opened her eyes.
The thirst overwhelmed her. Hands, clumsy from the cold, knocked the pitcher over. I would cry, she thought, but there’s nothing left, nothing left of me at all. The curved body of the pitcher had retained some water after the spill and poisoned or not, she drank the remnants. She could feel the liquid spread through her tissues.
She found her now dry dress and wrapped the ruined fabric around her like a mockery of an elegant shawl. The cold eased somewhat and with her hands and feet still bent and cramped, Eleanor waited, either for sleep or death. She wasn’t sure any more.
A man’s voice called her. “El. Come on El. Wake up. Time to leave.”
She blinked. The fever had returned, accompanied by the shooting pains down her arms and legs. The water must have been drugged after all. But who had entered the cell with her?
“Get a move on, El. We’ve got to go. Wake up, that’s my girl.”
“Doug? What are you doing here? How did you find me?”
“Getting you out, taking you home. ” His voice brought tears unbidden to her eyes. Home. “You’ll marry me, we’ll live with my parents and run the store.”
“Doug, you know I don’t want to run the store with you. You know that.”
For a moment she could see him in the darkness.
“You’re going to die here anyway. Come on. Get up and come home with me. It’ll be over. The store is right out that door.”
“I can’t get up, it hurts too much.”
“You’re going to leave your father alone? You know you have to come back to him, listen to your aunt, live with me. Stop running.”
Eleanor shook her head until the shocks of pain drowned out her own denials.
Not real, not happening, not here. She rocked back and forth, arms wrapped around her shins.
Days could have passed. A woman’s voice cut across her cries.
“For goodness sakes, girl. Why are you lying about? We’ve got lots of work to do. You’d better get up and get a move on.”
“Jenna, Doug says I have to go back to the town. I can’t do that and go back to the camp.”
“It’s your life, isn’t it? Do what you want.”
“Maybe Doug is right. I have to take care of my father.”
“Nonsense. Why should you? Look after yourself. Get up and let’s get back now.”
“Jenna, I can’t. I can’t get up, help me.”
Jenna didn’t answer. Though the shrieking in her skull told her this couldn’t be real, couldn’t be happening, Eleanor felt abandoned. She didn’t care, the voices kept her from being alone.
“Help you? Who’s going to help us when they kill me, kill the children, kill us all?”
Eleanor couldn’t place the new soft voice at first. “What are you talking about? No one’s going to kill you or any children.”
“Yes, they will. You played with my children. You slept in my daughter’s bed. And yet you’ll let my children die, killed by those monsters.”
She couldn’t see Laura in the gloom of the cell, but could make out the shapes of little Jeremiah and Ruth, sprawled in the corner like broken dolls. Flies crawled over their unblinking eyes.
“No.” she moaned. “No, Laura, they’re not dead. No one’s going to kill your children.”
“Oh yes, they’ll die.” Laura’s voice came from behind her and she spun to face it. “You’ll give up, go home and this is what’s going to happen.”
Eleanor hid her face in her hands, but couldn’t escape the vision of the murdered children.
A whisper broke through her sobs. “You are weak. You are unimportant. There is no need for you.”
She opened her eyes to the pitch black of her cell.
“Who now?”
“Shivuk, the heir of Kalal. Come to watch you die.”
Eleanor barked, not quite a laugh, but the best she could manage. “Shivuk? Oh, I see.” She tried to gather her thoughts. Dream or not, it didn’t matter anymore. “I’ll die, but you’ll lose the wager. You said your father did not fear me. Then why am I here? You said he did not fear my kind. Then why hide me? You said he did not fear the coalition. Then why not kill me outright and leave my body for them to find?” She heard his robes shift, but still could not see him. “He is afraid. Or he would not do this. And you know it.”
“My father fears nothing. He is our war leader, our bravest, most honorable fighter.”
“This is brave of him, terribly brave. I’m sure he has told everyone about his little prisoner, so they know how fierce he is.”
Silence. “Shivuk? Are you there?”
He had been real. At least, she thought he had been. She hurt too much to be certain of anything.
“Shivuk?” As the minutes stretched out in silence, Eleanor rolled onto her side and wept.
“All right, girl. I know it’s been hard, but you have to keep trying.”
She no longer wondered how the voices got there. She could be stark crazy, it didn’t matter anymore.
“You’re tough, strong. You survived the river, you’ll survive this.”
The voice washed over her. She lay and listened to it, unable to respond.
“Get up and get something to eat. Poison or not, it’s not killed you yet. No food or water at all will do the job for them before too long. Up you go. Listen to your doctor.”
“Frank? You can’t be here. I know you can’t.”
“Doesn’t matter, does it?”
She heard his laugh, warm and dry.
“Now, go get your breakfast.”
The pitcher had been refilled and she drank it dry. She ate the hunk of coarse bread next to it on the plate.
Even if it made her sick, it would keep her alive. Probably.
“Now, you’ve had other visitors, right? And someone brought food. So there has to be a way to get in and out. Check again.”
She retraced her earlier steps. One circuit of the room. Two. A third. No matter how she searched, high or low, Eleanor could not find a hint of a way out.
Her arms shook with cold and exhaustion as she made her way back to her mat.
“Make fists. Open and close your hands. Get the blood flowing through them.”
She tried to open and close her fingers to warm them, but cramps put an end to her exercise.
“Keep at it.”
Desperate to talk, she blurted out the words. “Frank? You know you’re dead, right? I’m so sorry.”
“Why? You didn’t kill me. Wasn’t you that shoved me off that ledge.”
“But, if it hadn’t been for me, you wouldn’t have been there, that Guard wouldn’t have pushed you.”
“Not your fault. A long time ago and the way things are going, looks like all our kind might be dying pretty soon anyway.”
How long had it been? Days? Weeks? Not knowing how long she had been held captive troubled her as much as the captivity itself.
“Frank? Do you know how long I’ve been here?”
A different voice answered. “It has been nearly a turn of the moons since your walk in the garden.”
“Who are you? Where’s Frank?”
“This is not right. There is no honor here.”
Eleanor’s bewilderment grew. “What do you mean?”
But the new voice did not speak and soon Frank lulled her to sleep with stories of his adventures in the mining camps, back when he was still alive.
Frank did not appear in her dreams, instead the Guard found her. He chased her through the forest, through the rocks and mountains. She could not escape. No matter how fast she ran he followed. Doug, her father, Jenna, even horrible Aunt Susan appeared and gave her hiding spaces, but the Guard always found her and the bodies of her protectors littered his trail.
Exhausted, she found herself at the edge of a cliff. A river wound through a gorge far below. The Guard climbed the hill towards her, never tiring. A ledge jutted out below her, a narrow trail led down the cliff face. I can climb down, from there I can keep running.
But she stopped. No more.
She walked down the hill, retraced her route, toward the advancing guardsman. She stood in a clearing and confronted him. He did not look as he had in the mountains outside the mining camp, sick and fatigued. Here he stood well rested, strong.
He stopped in front of her.
“I’m not running.” Her voice shook, but she stood still.
He strode across the clearing and struck her across the face, forced her to her knees.
Eleanor rose, though her legs trembled and her cheek throbbed. “I’m not running. The chase is over.”
He slapped her again.
“No. You can’t make me run.”
And again.
“No!”
He picked her up and shook her.
“No! I won’t!”
Her neck would snap with the next shake.
“No!”
She shoved away from him, staggered back, fell through the mirror of stone again. This time she wasn’t cut by the cold of the gateway, but from darkness into light. The clicking of running feet approached as she faded back into the dark.
Her scream woke her.
Faint light through tinted curtains fell across her bed. Her room. She was back in her own room in Bunyir’s hall.
Feet clicked outside her door and Bunyir and Mikka rushed in.
She stared at them. “Are you real? Is it over?”
Bunyir took a single step towards her bed and stopped when she flinched away from him.
“Yes, child. It is over. You are home and the nightmare is over.”
Eleanor curled on her side and sobbed. They stood beside her and made small flickers of distress, but did not touch her.
Chapter Seventeen
As they came down the gangway, Moore counted them off into groups of fifty and led Adam’s section away from the ship.
He caught glimpses of thin trees topped by riots of yellow tufted flowers against a crimson sky streaked with clouds. A short walk from the landing site, they entered camp. As the recruits marched through the rows of tents and temporary looking buildings, Adam spotted the other groups from Travbon as they were led away.
“Because someone always asks, we’re going to get a few things out of the way.” Moore paused. “Welcome to Base. No, you’ve never heard of it, no one you know has been here, unless they were in the Navy and then they wouldn’t tell you. No, we’re not on one of the colonies. No, we’re not going on sightseeing tours. No, we won’t be learning about the history or geology of the planet. Look around you, dogs. The people standing with you now are your family, your team, your unit, until you’re reassigned.” Adam glanced about, reassured that Rebecca stood in the same troop. Then he saw Doug.
“Your unit will be expected to train together, to eat together.” The man continued, with the air of someone who has recited a speech so many times he doesn’t hear all the words. “Since yours is the most recent ship to arrive, you can assume that anyone you don’t know is either an officer or further ahead in training than you. Either way, they’re your superiors, so keep out of the way. Get in, set up by your bunks and be ready.”
Adam stooped under the low door as the row of soldiers entered the tent.
Wider than deep, ten rows of five beds each stretched before them left to right, with a large empty space in the middle of the tent. A ground cloth of coarse yellow material served as the floor. Adam and Rebecca headed towards a back corner and placed their belongings under the foot of two beds next to each other.
As they straightened, Adam whispered, “Where do you think we are? We can’t be any further out in the System than Travbon, it’s too warm.”
Rebecca shrugged. “Probably a moon of Claro or one of the other colonies. Sunward is the only option.”
“Wherever we are took too long to get here. Claro, even at far orbit, should have taken two, maybe three days. I’ve never been, but met lots of people who have.”
Rebecca frowned. “I can’t be sure, but I figured it closer to three weeks.” She observed the other recruits standing straight by their beds.
Adam shook his head. “Do you think they were dodging attacks, or sneaking around so we’d get here safely, or undetected?”
Rebecca shook her head. “They needed time with us confined to the transport ship to turn us into this.” She tilted her head towards the rest of the tent.
Adam considered the difference in the behavior of the recruits, from resentful and boisterous draftees to new soldiers who followed orders without questions. His stomach clinched.
Rebecca twitched her shoulders. “It makes sense. It’s efficient. Do I like knowing they’re deliberately breaking, reshaping us? No. But if the attacks are getting worse, if we’re about to start a new war, they don’t have a lot of time. So I can at least understand why.”
The flap of the tent rustled.
She looked away. “Game time, Adam.”
Moore paced the aisles between the beds. Soldiers stiffened as he approached, relaxed imperceptibly as he passed by.
He lingered in spots as he cast his eyes over the room. The glasses reflected red in the light and Adam wondered if Moore recorded or accessed information. It didn’t matter.
Moore took up a position in the middle of the aisle running down the tent and continued. “I’m sure you thought our little time shipboard was your training. You couldn’t be more wrong.” Moore paced. “Now training will begin. You will learn, you will follow orders and if the exercises make no sense, you will still do them. Let me be clear. There is no dropping out. You can’t go back home. Your only option is to do exactly what I, or any other instructor, tell you. Do it to the best of your abilities and if your best isn’t good enough, do it again until it is. Am I clear?”
“Yes, Sir, DS Moore!” resounded
through the tent.
Three weeks later, Adam dragged himself out of the bed to start another day. The constant physical training he understood. Breaking the unit into rotating teams and then reforming those teams, he understood.
But some things made no sense. The first day DS Moore passed out boxes of a 2D children’s puzzle and told the recruits to solve it. They had barely begun when the order came to put the pieces back in the box and file out for drills. Two hard hours of running and climbing later, they were given the same boxes. No one finished; several got only a few pieces together. Rebecca spread her pieces out and stared at them, made no attempt to join them, instead rotated the flat shapes on the surface of the box lid.
The exercise repeated, in different variations, sporadically. Children’s puzzles might be replaced with a box of weapons parts or random geometric forms. The boxes were never passed out two days in a row and never enough time given for anyone to solve the problem.
Other exercises were equally confounding. Hours spent playing video games; Adam supposed the games could be training them to pilot ships. When he told Rebecca his suspicions one night as they lay exhausted in their beds, she shook her head. No matter how he coaxed her, she refused to speak further. He rolled away from her in frustration and went to sleep.
Most disturbing were the disappearances. Every few days the unit would wake to find one or two members gone. Beds neatly made, all personal items removed. The first time it happened, Adam considered asking Moore about the location of their missing unit member. Moore’s enmity had already earned Adam extra laps of the field, additional rounds of struggling with new weapons, extra tasks to perform almost daily. One more question couldn’t bring too much more disgrace, could it?
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