Return to Oz (The Falken Chronicles Book 3)

by Piers Platt

  “And then … you washed up here, alone, half-dead, draped across a ramshackle raft, about a week later. You never told us what happened. My assumption was that you capsized and Weaver drowned, but perhaps now you’ll finally tell us about it, since you seem to want to dredge up the past.”

  Falken sat up straighter. “So you don’t know he’s dead.”

  “I know we haven’t seen Weaver since then,” Saltari said. “What else could have happened to him?”

  Falken rubbed at his forehead, thinking. Peshai checked on Weaver’s status when we first talked, back in his office. He would have known then if Weaver was dead. And he wouldn’t have taken the risk of sending me back in here for no reason. So that means … Weaver’s alive. He’s not here, but he’s alive. He must be! He’s just … somewhere else in Oz.

  Falken stood up, and began pacing between the door and the work tables, staring at the floor intently.

  “I can hear the gears grinding in his head,” Saltari told Ngobe. “Falken, what’s going on?”

  Falken looked up, and his eye fell on Ngobe’s star-map. “Ngobe, did you finish your calculations for the moons’ orbits?”

  “Yes, years ago,” Ngobe said. “Why?”

  “The alignment – when did it happen?” Falken asked.

  The old professor’s eyes lit up. “Did I tell you about the alignment? I wasn’t sure that I estimated the fourth moon’s velocity quite right.”

  “Yeah, you told me. Did they already align?” Falken asked.

  “Well, yes,” Ngobe said. “They align every forty-eight years. But none of us were here when they last aligned. They’ll align again in ten months. It should be quite the astronomical event.”

  So that’s a major difference between this simulation and my own, Falken thought. Which makes sense – everything is normal outside, the tide clearly hasn’t come up and flooded the colony. But if the alignment happens in ten months, that must be synchronized with the end of Weaver’s ten year window to earn his parole. When the moons align, the tide comes up, all the simulated characters die … and Weaver gets pulled out, and sent to the permanent facility.

  He looked up to see the two old men staring at him quizzically. “I have to find Weaver,” Falken told them. “You’re sure he’s not in the colony?”

  “I’m certain,” Saltari said.

  Falken turned to the nearest workshop table, and sorted through papers until he found what he was looking for – a rough map of the main island of Oz, depicting the colony and surrounding fields, and each of the landing zones.

  He’s not at the colony. So where is he? Could he still be out at sea? Or on the little island? At the edge of the map, Falken traced the outline of the small island he and Weaver had sailed to. No. Without food supplies, he couldn’t have stayed on the island long. Ditto being still out at sea – he’d have starved, or more likely, the simulation would have found a way to force him back here, to the main island. A storm or something, perhaps. It needs him here, so he can interact with people, and confess to his crime. So where the hell is he? There’s no other place he could be!

  Falken’s eye fell on the lower half of the map, and a square outlined in red near the coast.

  … oh, shit. The facility.

  Falken sighed. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the keycard, then handed it to Ngobe.

  “I need you to hold onto this for me, Ngobe,” Falken said.

  “What is it?” Ngobe asked, inspecting the card.

  “It’s the master key for the Khonsu,” Falken said.

  “The what?” Ngobe asked.

  “You’re talking in riddles again,” Saltari chided him.

  “Don’t tell anyone about that,” Falken said, turning and heading for the door.

  “Why?” Ngobe asked. “Why are you giving it to me?”

  “Because I have to go to find Weaver,” Falken told him. “And I don’t want it falling into the wrong hands.” Then he pushed open the door, and stepped out into the cool evening air.

  Chapter 13

  Captain Peshai scrolled through the dashboard on his computer screen, eyes flicking from data point to data point. His office was quiet except for the gentle background hum of the UNCS Sydney’s life support systems. He sipped coffee from his mug, and then set it back down on his desk. The mug bore an image from an old film: a young girl stood smiling on a yellow brick road, arms linked with a lion, a tin man, and a scarecrow. Peshai’s eyes came to rest on a number in red on the screen. He frowned.

  He pressed a button on the screen, and heard a dial tone over the room’s speakers.

  “Maintenance,” a voice replied.

  “Tengku? It’s the captain.”

  “Morning, sir,” Tengku replied. “What can I do for you?”

  “You can send me your division’s performance reports,” Peshai said.

  “Ah … damn it. Sorry, sir. I had them on my desk last week,” Tengku said.

  “I need them on my desk,” Peshai said. “Yesterday. Otherwise I’ll have no choice but to toss your ass back in Oz.”

  Tengku laughed. “Yes, sir. I’ll have them to you this afternoon.”

  “Good,” Peshai grunted. He tapped on another key, and the phone cut off. Next he closed the dashboard, and switched to a monitoring program. Peshai pulled up the search function, and typed in the name: Falken.

  On the screen, two different views appeared: one showed Falken lying in a dark room on the UNCS Sydney, his face covered with a mask, tubes extending from his arm to a piece of medical equipment. The other half of the screen showed an over-the-shoulder perspective of Falken’s avatar on Oz. Falken was in the midst of greeting Saltari and Ngobe, at the colony. Peshai watched as they conversed for a moment, the transcript of the dialogue appearing on the bottom of the screen.

  They’re confused. They don’t know who he’s talking about.

  Peshai typed on his keypad, and a map of Oz appeared on screen. He entered Weaver into a search app, and a blinking icon appeared superimposed over the facility.

  Damn it. Falken went to the wrong place. I should have located his friend before I sent him in, saved him the trouble. He shook his head. Sloppy. You’ve slowed him down a bit.

  He closed the application. Peshai felt his stomach rumble, and he checked his wristpad.

  Okay … lunch it is.

  The ship’s mess hall was three floors down, in the very heart of the spacecraft. The room was plain, the furniture utilitarian – heavy-duty plastic chairs stood at worn metal tables, on a well-polished linoleum floor. But the mess hall buzzed with pleasant conversation, and the walls were decorated with still images taken from inside Oz. Each showed one of the staff members in the midst of an act that had earned them their parole.

  One of my better ideas, Peshai thought. And one of the first things I did when I took the job. It’s been a while since I’ve tried something new like that. Except for Falken’s little experiment, I suppose. But the jury’s still out on that.

  Peshai joined a line of several orderlies waiting for their turn at the buffet. The man in front of him glanced back at him.

  “Warden,” he said, nodding. “If you’re in a hurry, sir, you can go ahead of me.”

  “No, no,” Peshai said, waving him away. “I can wait, Chikere. Go ahead.”

  “You’re sure?” Chikere asked.

  “Yes,” Peshai insisted. “Go on, eat!”

  Chikere turned and continued through the line. When Peshai had filled his tray, he stopped and looked around the room, and then spotted a burly man several tables over, one massive fist holding a sandwich while he read from a datapad in the other hand. He wore a set of work coveralls with grease stains on them, and where his sleeves were rolled up, Peshai could see prison tattoos covering his skin. Peshai headed to his table.

  “Can I join you?” Peshai asked.

  The man eyed him warily. “Table’s for those of us who actually work for a livin’.”

  Peshai smiled, and sat down. “Eve
rybody else around here calls me, ‘sir’ or ‘captain,’ ” he pointed out. “Hell, even ‘warden’ is considered generally acceptable.”

  “Er’body else didn’t know you on Oz. Er’body else didn’t see you get your ass kicked on the disk too many times to count.”

  Peshai took a bite of his salad, shuddering. “I hated that disk,” he said, as he chewed. “How’s the reactor, Chief?”

  The man put the datapad down, and frowned. “Hangin’ on by a goddamn thread, not that anyone cares.”

  “That new coolant device didn’t help?”

  “Nossir,” the chief replied. “Did ‘bout as much good as that duct tape I used to seal the pressure release valve las’ week.”

  Peshai set his fork down. “Masoud, what’s your no shit assessment?”

  “No shit?” the engineer turned serious, and when he spoke, Masoud’s drawling accent had disappeared. “I don’t know how much longer I can limp it along. We need to replace it. Soon.”

  “How soon?” Peshai asked. “They said they were working on rearranging the dry dock schedule for us, but the only bays that could take us were in the middle of long term overhaul jobs.”

  “Tell them to get one of those ships out. They can move them back in later.”

  “Okay,” Peshai agreed. “I’ll make some calls after lunch. I’ll get us shifted to emergency status.”

  “It might well be an emergency soon,” Masoud agreed.

  “I’m on it,” Peshai promised. He took another bite of salad. “I’m a little disappointed. I kind of figured you’d be able to rebuild it yourself.”

  The engineer shook a finger at Peshai. “I could, if you would let me power the ship down for a week or so. I rebuilt the reactor on the goddamn Khonsu, back in the day, with way less equipment than I have now. Ngobe and I spent four years down in that ship piecing it together, part by part.”

  Peshai stabbed a bite of salad, smiling as he listened to the familiar tale.

  “I swear, when we lifted off,” Masoud said, his eyes staring into the distance. “Still one of the proudest moments of my life, virtual or not.”

  “I’d be proud, too,” Peshai said, taking a sip of water.

  The chief engineer looked at him curiously. “You know, you’ve never told me what your challenge was. The rest of us all have our pictures up on the wall. But not you.”

  “You want me to put a picture up?” Peshai asked. He shrugged. “I can put my picture up.”

  “Well, you can start by telling me what you had to do,” Masoud said.

  “I left Archos’ crew after a year or so,” Peshai said.

  “I remember,” Masoud said. “I stayed behind for a while longer. Don’t think we saw each other after that.”

  “Right,” Peshai said. “I went to the colony, and did the farming thing for a bit. About six months in, I caught Mayor Luo stealing corn gruel from the kitchens at night.”

  “That sneaky bastard!” Masoud said. “Luo was a damn saint in my version of the sim.”

  “It gets worse,” Peshai said. “I confronted him about it. He offered to share the food with me, if I would keep his secret.”

  “No ….”

  “Mm-hm,” Peshai said. “I told him I didn’t want his damn corn, and if I caught him again, I would rat him out.”

  Masoud frowned. “That was your big ethical dilemma moment? Seems a little weak.”

  “No,” Peshai shook his head. “That was just the set-up for my showdown with Mayor Luo. In the morning, Luo called for a town hall meeting. Then he pretended that he was the one who had caught someone else in the act. He told everyone it was Saltari.”

  “The old doctor? Come on,” Masoud said. “Who’s gonna believe that?”

  “Everyone did, at first,” Peshai said. “They were getting ready to expel Saltari from the colony. I could tell that he was just devastated. He wasn’t even arguing anymore, he was just standing there crying quietly. So I stood up and told them what had really happened. Luo was pissed.”

  “I imagine he would be.”

  “Yeah. Luo argued with me, and tried to convince the colony that Saltari must have been stealing food for both of us.”

  “They expelled you, too?”

  “Nope,” Peshai said. “I told everyone I could prove it – that neither Saltari nor I had stolen any corn, but that Luo had.”

  Masoud crossed his arms over his chest. “How were you gonna prove that? It’s just your word against his.”

  Peshai smiled, a twinkle in his eye. “They hadn’t served corn for days in the mess hall. So I dug three holes in the ground, and we all went outside and took a crap, right there in front of everybody.”

  Masoud guffawed. “You took a crap in front of the whole colony?”

  “Yup,” Peshai agreed. “Still think I should put my picture up on the wall?”

  Masoud laughed again. “So what happened?”

  “Saltari and I produced our … evidence … which was corn-free, of course. But Luo suddenly got constipation, and started changing his story. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he saw somebody else … it was dark, and he couldn’t be sure.”

  “Uh huh,” Masoud said. “I’m sure that went over well. Did you expel him?”

  “We impeached him,” Peshai said. “But the general consensus was to let him stay, that some hard labor in the fields would teach him a good lesson in humility.”

  “Who was the mayor after that?” Masoud asked.

  “Me,” Peshai said. “I didn’t try to run, but they elected me all the same. I guess my little Sherlock Holmes routine with the corn impressed everyone.”

  “You were the mayor of Oz?”

  “Yup,” Peshai said. “For almost three years.”

  “And then they asked you to be warden here,” Masoud said, nodding slowly. “They were training both of us, weren’t they?”

  “I suppose so,” Peshai said. “They certainly threw a hell of a lot of curveballs at me while I was mayor. Between a riot in the colony, Archos and his boys stealing nearly all our food, and that flood, they kept me hopping.”

  Masoud shuddered. “The flood. Don’t remind me.” Then he frowned. “Wait, if your big ethical moment was calling out Luo in front of the colony, why were you in there for another three years after that?”

  “My big moment didn’t come until later,” Peshai said. “Luo killed my best friend, and I had the chance to kill him, too. It happened during the flood. I had already made it to safety in one of the trees, and I watched as Luo pushed my best friend into the path of those eel things, so he could get away. Then Luo ran to the base of my tree, but he couldn’t quite reach the first branch.”

  “You helped him,” Masoud said.

  “Yes, I did,” Peshai said. “I was cursing that selfish bastard the whole time, but I did help him up. And then the tree came toppling down anyway a few moments later, and I woke up back here.”

  Masoud was quiet for a moment, watching as Peshai ate another bite of salad. “Does it ever feel weird to you, knowing that some of the biggest moments of our lives were fabricated?” the engineer asked. “That we were manipulated into becoming different people?”

  Peshai frowned. “Does it feel weird? Yes. But I don’t feel like we were manipulated. I think we were just given the opportunity to prove we’re better than we were before. I think Oz gives each of us a lot of those moments, those chances to prove ourselves … and we miss a lot of them because we’re not ready.” He set his fork down, and pushed his tray away. “I think it’s just one big metaphor for real life, in other words.”

  “Ha,” the engineer said. “I suppose it is, when you look at it like that.”

  Peshai nodded. “The guy who graduated yesterday had a similar storyline to mine, I think. Luo was his chief antagonist in Oz, at least.”

  “Where’s he headed?”

  “He’s going to be a corrections officer out in the colonies, at a minimum security prison,” Peshai said, smiling proudly.

  “From pri
soner to guard, in a few short days,” Masoud mused. “You like welcoming them back, huh?”

  “Best part of the job,” Peshai agreed. “Well, there are a lot of good parts, but that is undoubtedly the best.”

  “It’s not a bad life we have here, is it?”

  “No,” Peshai said. “It’s not. But … I’ve been here a long time. Lately I’ve been thinking it’s time for something new. To stretch my legs a little.”

  “You’re thinking of resigning?” Masoud asked, with a look of concern.

  “Thinking about it,” Peshai said. “I would miss it, no question – getting to help men like us every day, help them come back to the real world and start a new life. But we’ve been on this ship for close to thirty years now, counting our time in Oz. I think it might be time for me to give someone else a chance, and see a bit more of the galaxy for myself.”

  “Thirty years,” Masoud whistled. “When you tally it up … it is a long time. I suppose we’ve earned a break.”

  “I like to think so,” Peshai agreed. He stood up, and lifted his tray off the table. “I’ll let you know what the dry dock folks say, Chief. Keep that reactor limping along for me?”

  The chief nodded. “Will do, sir.”

  Chapter 14

  In the shadow of the facility, Falken crouched at the ocean’s edge and scooped a handful of cool water to his lips. The reflection of one of New Australia’s moons glinted on the smooth surface of the sea, illuminating the massive rings of the space elevator wreckage scattered across the shallows. To his right, the broken outer wall of the facility lay in a jumble of rocks and cracked cement pieces.

  Let’s hope Weaver’s version of Oz has the same back entrance into the facility. It’s got the same fake space elevator, at least.

  Falken stood, glanced furtively around, and then began clambering up the rocks, moving as quietly as he could. At the top of the pile, he stepped through a hole in the wall, and found himself in an abandoned office. Falken paused for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the dark, trying to remember how the rooms of the facility were arranged. After a moment, he navigated around the desk, stepping over a piece of broken chair on the floor. He twisted the door handle gently, and then pulled it open, holding his breath as he checked the corridor beyond. He froze.