In Dark Service

by Stephen Hunt

  ‘Tell me,’ she commanded, ‘how you survived your escape attempt?’

  Carter swallowed salty blood; about the only thing he’d had to drink since he returned. ‘There was no escape.’ He coughed. ‘We were checking the sensor line; sent out against our pilot’s better judgement. When the main eruption caught us, I holed up in a cave that was covered by a rockslide. I dug myself out and saw one of your patrol ships blast my transporter out of the air and down into the side of the stratovolcano. The patrol ship landed nearby. Then a second eruption destroyed the crashed transporter and probably burned the patrol craft out too. It was hard to see in all the smoke, and me running for my life. I’ve been sheltering in caves and trying to attract the attention of a transporter in the sky since then.’

  ‘You are a liar,’ growled the princess. ‘You were trying to flee across the dead zone.’

  As Carter looked up, he noticed the woman’s daughter stood in her retinue. Come to learn the business of disciplining truculent slaves. Her face looked as hard and serious as her mother’s. She was learning her lessons well. ‘If I had been, my bones would be scattered out there. I was found on the slopes, waiting for rescue.’

  ‘Someone in the dead zone must have assisted you,’ said the princess. ‘Given you the water and food you needed to travel back to the volcano when you realised escape was impossible.’

  ‘Walking out only leads to your grave. I’m many things,’ said Carter, ‘but not a fool.’

  ‘You take me for one,’ said the princess, her eyes narrowing below her golden helmet.

  No, thought Carter, I take you for someone who knows all about our scheme from the lips of a traitor here. And you don’t want to discover your best snitch in a bunk with their throat cut if you admit it in front of us.

  ‘You were missing for many days,’ spat the princess. ‘How did you survive with no water?’

  ‘I figure I must have been in a coma. I don’t remember too much apart from wandering around the slopes, then waking up close to the spot I found the crew down from the station.’ That much, at least, is true. It was more than odd. Carter’s stint in the underworld below the volcano seemed to have ended up with him missing days, as though the passage of time occurred at different speeds below and above the world’s surface. But how could that be, unless he and Tybar had been unconscious in that cave for longer than either of them had realised?

  ‘Everybody here knows the penalty for breaking their caste and going on the run. An escaped slave is a dead slave.’

  It was quite a quandary, to be sure. Carter showing up here not only contradicted the half-truth the patrol ship had made up about the escaping miners, but seemed to cast doubt on everything the slaves had been told about the low chances of surviving the endless barren plains. If Carter started raving about underworld burial temples and a dead Vandian officer, he’d be written off as a madman driven insane by vapours from the ground. Nothing good would come from that. So he had told no one about his strange adventure inside the volcano.

  ‘If you’re going to torture me, Your Highness, then don’t keep your boy on the clock. I reckon that imperial torturers don’t come cheap?’

  ‘That will be a pleasure for all involved, I assure you.’

  Duncan stepped out from the line of workers. ‘What Carter Carnehan claims is true, Your Highness. We found him on the slopes of the volcano, nearly dead and stumbling around with half his wits taken from him.’

  ‘Which means you have absolutely no way of knowing if the slave spent his last few days desperately hiking across the dead zone before turning back, or sheltering inside a volcanic cave.’

  ‘I know he helped rescue your daughter when your enemies tried to kidnap her. And he saved you from assassination, too.’

  She imperiously raised a gloved hand towards Duncan. ‘When we first met, you narrowly escaped being ejected into the sky by the skels for trying to murder this slave. Would it not suit you to see him die today? Why do you speak up on behalf of this brazenly defiant wretch now?’

  ‘Because he used to be a friend. And because it’s the right thing to do.’

  ‘It has been a long while since anyone presumed to tell me what was right,’ snarled Helrena. She pointed at Duncan and commanded the soldiers behind her. ‘Remove this insolent dog.’

  Troops seized Duncan and dragged him out of the hangar, struggling and swearing until one of the soldiers clubbed him to silence in the gut with a heavy rifle butt. Willow cried and tried to break the line to reach her brother while the other miners wisely held her back. But it was too late: the princess had spotted the disturbance.

  ‘Another woman? Emperor’s blood, I thought that slave’s fancy-piece had been given to Baron Machus? Is this my mining station, or his harem?’

  Carter stared grimly up from the floor. ‘She’s his sister; nothing to do with this. Leave her out of it.’

  ‘Then I trust she’s inherited her ancestors’ stock of wisdom in lieu of her brother.’ Princess Helrena turned to her daughter. ‘Cassandra, you have seen as much as I have of this matter. What should my judgement be here?’

  Carter watched the young royal screw up her face in thought. ‘Judgements should not be arbitrary, Mother, or people will come to doubt our decrees. Arguments derived from mere probabilities are always suspect.’

  ‘You have been listening to your tutor Doctor Horvak, a little too well, I think. Judgements should also never be perceived as weak, for that way you encourage lowers to read such traits in yourself and encourage them to rebellion.’

  ‘Mother, this slave saved our lives.’

  ‘In that he merely did his duty.’

  Cassandra nodded slowly, earnestly, as if coming to a verdict. ‘The slave’s innocence or guilt cannot be determined, but at the very least he failed to prevent his work detail fleeing the sky mines. The law says he should be punished for his negligence.’

  ‘Quite right,’ said Helrena. She raised her voice so all the slaves in the hangar could hear. ‘If I execute this disrespectful dog, his death would carry all the sins of the failed escape attempt. As it is, if he is to live, that burden must be shared. Half rations and rest periods for all workers from this man’s barracks, and every barracks where any escaped slave was billeted!’ Groans sounded from the slaves as they realised how hard their lives were about to become. She continued. ‘All of you have an obligation to dissuade and report escaping workers before they abscond. For those that fail in their duty, this is as comfortable a sanction as shall ever befall you! If I were not so badly short-handed for the two mines that now require working, I would order a decimation and see one tenth of those from the guilty barracks walk the sky.’ She knelt down beside Carter. ‘As for you, my truculent little barbarian worker, sixty lashes for watching your comrades try to fly to freedom. And after you have taken your stripes, I would not wish to be in your sandals. Hungry slaves are never happy ones, and they blame quite freely, as you will discover.’

  Carter stared at her defiantly. ‘You call this justice?’

  ‘Discipline and order,’ said Helrena. ‘As vital in keeping the sky mines functional as water, food and salt. Stand silently, you barbarian dogs! Here’s an entertainment that will make your fast a little easier to endure, at least for today.’

  Carter watched a wooden post being set up at the far end of the chamber, slaves made to do the hard work of hammering it into place, the hangar set as a stage for his punishment. The scar on his face smarted like a hot cable as he realised it was about to be joined by a few cousins across his spine. Still forcing Carter to kneel, soldiers tore off the remains of his silver survival suit, exposing his back, already burnt and raw.

  ‘So,’ said Helrena, ‘you’ve visited the slopes of the volcano recently. That much was true.’

  ‘I was trying for a tan. I’ve been getting pasty in your tunnels.’

  ‘In the coming weeks, you will need to stay out of the sun. In the sky mines this is called a slave’s massage’


  Guards dragged Carter towards the frame. Lady Cassandra came up, whispering quickly and quietly in his ear. ‘You will live, though.’ The young royal said it as though she was betraying some confidence or secret.

  ‘Reckon I will.’ Carter trusted the turncoat who had betrayed his escape was watching this, enjoying the rewards of selling him out. Settling in for the coming show. They’d pay for their ticket just as soon as Carter was done here. His captors shoved him towards the punishment frame, joking with each other while the structure was finished off. They didn’t even bother to keep their guns pointed at Carter as they waited. He was so weak he could hardly stand, let alone fight the guardsmen off. Willow had managed to join the detail setting up the structure, gazing knowingly at him with her sad eyes. She didn’t say I told you so, but then she didn’t have to. Carter’s escape attempt had ended exactly where she had predicted any breakout would.

  ‘Unhappy about Duncan getting dragged into this. Tell him that, when you next see him.’

  Willow slipped him a little handle covered in a wet rag. ‘Bite on the wood. Owen says you’ll lose your tongue if you don’t.’

  ‘Would that be so bad?’

  ‘You wouldn’t be able to say sorry, Carter. And you’ll need to do a lot of that in the coming weeks.’

  ‘Get behind the crowd. You don’t need to watch this.’

  ‘I probably do. Maybe that witch of a princess is right – it’ll make our empty stomachs ride a little easier.’ She walked away, leaving Carter feeling even more miserable than before. He almost wished she’d fallen into her usual cantankerous banter with him. At least that was a game he knew how to play.

  Kerge was one of the last slaves to come over, screwing the final few components of the frame in place. ‘Manling,’ he whispered, ‘I carry news for you.’

  ‘If it’s about the poor chances of success of escaping the sky mines, I think I’ve already figured the odds.’

  ‘No!’ the gask bent down, using the cover of the frame to talk. ‘I inspected the wreckage of your transporter after it was brought back. There was a device concealed inside it not found on any other craft here. A miniature signalling mechanism like a radio, broadcasting your position.’

  Carter groaned. No wonder they had been discovered so easily. Their escape never stood a chance. Even if Carter had reached a stake small and worthless enough to escape notice, the Vandian patrol ship would have followed them straight into the air and used the rock for target practice.

  ‘You were betrayed from the start,’ whispered Kerge.

  ‘Keep that between us,’ muttered Carter. ‘I don’t want the son-of-a-bitch who sold us out getting wind that I know we were set up.’

  ‘Revenge is a poor servant,’ said Kerge as he slipped away with his tools.

  Guardsmen strapped Carter tightly against the frame, laughing and mocking the Weylander about how fine his massage was going to be. They wouldn’t have sounded so amused if they knew he’d put a spray of bullets into their comrades down on the volcano’s slopes, then happily bashed in a few more Vandian skulls before flinging a blade into their captain’s throat. He heard the crack of a whip unfurled behind him, testing the air. Yells and taunts rose from the slaves too, now, an angry, expectant buzz growing louder.

  Revenge is all I have left. He bit down hard on the rag-wrapped handle as one of the guards began yelling the count.

  One – slash – two – slash – three…

  Duncan had expected to receive a piece of what Carter Carnehan must be enduring right now. But after clubbing Duncan to silence, the guards quickly dragged him to the station’s surface. A large Vandian ship was moored to the rock, anchored between the station and the closer of the two stakes. Hatches lay open along the vessel’s side, multiple gangways exposed with conveyor belts running from sorting lines to the ship. All the belts were stilled at the moment, the bulk of the workforce assembled inside the hangar for their hard education in the price of freedom. Engines at the vessel’s stern sat cold and silent, adding to the eerie quiet as she hovered on antigravity stones. Vandian soldiers stood posted at each steel gantry bridging the ship. Duncan hung in the guards’ thick muscled arms as they halted by the sentries, exchanging greetings. One of the soldiers muttered into a small microphone extended from his golden helmet. Whatever permissions they needed to proceed were granted, and the two brutes continued across the gantry, into the vessel, hauling Duncan along after them.

  Inside, he was forced, stumbling, through metal corridors, passing Vandian sailors and the occasional house slave, all of whom studiously ignored the prisoner while giving way to the two guards. They dragged Duncan through a smaller version of the giant warship that had carried the Weylanders into their harsh new existence. Rather than being racked like meat in an automated slave pen, Duncan found himself rudely tossed into an empty cabin. Not often used as a brig, presumably, since it contained a single porthole. He turned to demand an answer from the guards, but they slammed the steel door in his face, a complicated-locking mechanism in the door clanging shut and sealing him in inside. The porthole wasn’t large enough for him to squeeze through even if he had tried. His new quarters contained bunks, three berths apiece, but no sheets or personal possessions. Only bare mattresses. There was a tiny locker, which, when opened, he found was empty of everything except dust. Spare quarters for a spare slave. Why the hell have they brought me here? Were they going to make him toil, loading the station’s bounty of ores, before tossing him into the sky? Carter Carnehan, he thought, have you got me killed at last? Duncan pressed his face against the porthole. Only a view of the station’s roof. Little indication of Willow and the others going back to work. He waited and waited, but there was no answer to his concerns until the walls shuddered, the vessel cut loose from its moorings and drifting away from the station. They angled up, and Duncan felt the powerful push of the engines driving the craft higher and higher. His cabin grew warmer, sunlight outside raw and intense, pouring through the porthole. His ears began to hurt until they popped, his view through the thick circle of glass an endless bank of clouds, below. No sign of the dead zone, no sign of the stratovolcano. They were heading somewhere with a purpose. Had Duncan been forgotten? Were the crew going to turn up at some Vandian factory city with a hold full of ores, only for their skipper to remember that they had a cabin holding a slave they had forgotten to execute? A blind could be lowered over the porthole, but Duncan left it unclipped. Better a view of the endless sky than four metal walls and an empty cabin. The ship kept on flying, levelling out and powering forward, their passage uninterrupted save for a series of strange bangs, as though the craft broke the very sky by whipping through the heavens. Why had they taken him from the sky mines? How long would Willow survive on the station without his help? Brooding reflections jabbed at him like a knife. It grew dark, and in the end Duncan grew weary of watching the empty sky, only the surf of clouds and his concerns for company. He lay down on the bunk and despite his best intentions, he fell asleep, worry and exhaustion drawn around him as a thick blanket.

  Duncan woke. Daylight streamed through the porthole. His ears had just popped again, and the craft felt as though it was descending. Gazing through the small circle of glass he noticed that they were crossing a body of water – either a small sea or a lake larger than anything he had ever encountered. Metal bridges crossed the waves like a wheel’s spokes, vast cantilevered spans strung with a webbing of suspended cables that bore multiple purple-painted roadways. He was heading towards a distant landmass – a continent-sized island necklaced by lesser islets; the bridges’ destination. The craft began to turn, riding in on roaring thrusters as gravity grew stronger. They manoeuvred over an islet below, its flattened plain criss-crossed by landing strips, hangars and a concrete fortress. An insect cloud of aircraft – tiny by comparison – alighted and took off around the metal behemoth settling amongst them. Metal feet extended from the ship’s hull to absorb the impact of landing, leaving the craft squatting like a va
st metal grasshopper. Duncan’s cabin provided a good vantage point to watch a queue of vehicles drawing up below the vessel. Workers walked alongside the vehicles, each man a quarter of the height of the wheels, steel stairs needed to climb up to the cabs. Chutes extended out of the ship’s holds and showered ores down into the trucks’ bodies, a rumbling shower rapidly filling each container-back. The Vandians obviously hadn’t carried Duncan here to break his back unloading cargo.

  Duncan heard the cabin door unlock. Turning around, he found himself facing Helrena’s daughter, the Lady Cassandra dwarfed by a Vandian soldier standing behind her.

  ‘Out,’ ordered the guardsman. ‘Time to go.’ The soldier stood a head taller than Duncan, his scalp shaved and shining in the glow of the passageway, a face broken by tributaries of scars. He wore the same silver armour as the other Vandian soldiers, but on his substantial frame the plate seemed a lot more deadly and a lot less ornamental.

  ‘We’re a long way from the sky mines,’ said Duncan.

  The little noble girl nodded soberly, as if Duncan had surpassed her expectations by working this out for himself. ‘We have landed outside the empire’s capital, Vandis. I don’t suppose a barbarian such as yourself will have heard of it?’

  ‘There were a few lessons hard-taught back in the station,’ said Duncan. ‘But your empire’s geography wasn’t among them.’

  The brute of a soldier shot him an evil look. Same kind an overseer gave a sky miner when he caught a slave gabbing on the job.

  ‘A horse best understands how to trot,’ said Cassandra. That sounded like a quote to Duncan, even though its source was unfamiliar. He had a feeling he was going to be in for a lot of that. ‘Follow,’ she added, as though commanding a dog.

  Duncan exited the cabin and did as he was told.

  ‘You are to be my house slave,’ said Cassandra, as though Duncan’s change of position should have been obvious and communicated to him on the whisper of the wind. ‘You are to be one of the servants given responsibility for looking after my person.’