by Jake Elwood
“Morning, O'Reilly.”
“It's a lovely day to not get much work done.”
Tom chuckled. “That it is.”
“Some of the boys are trying to catch some of those little rodents you see in the trees. They're hoping to get a breeding pair. They think they can set up a little rat ranch and we can all start eating fresh meat every night.”
A month earlier the thought of eating something so rat-like would have repelled Tom. Now, his mouth filled with saliva at the thought of eating meat, any kind of meat. He said, “Sounds like a long shot.”
“Yeah. But can you imagine if it worked?”
They stood for a moment in a companionable silence, lost in gastronomic fantasies.
“Hey, look,” O'Reilly said after a bit. “It's the morning train.”
Far below them, a line of men plodded along the road, bent almost double under huge backpacks. When the road was in good repair, ground vehicles carried all the cargo that needed to be moved. When the road was washed out, human labor took over.
“Poor SOBs,” Tom said. “I guess we lucked out.”
O'Reilly nodded. They watched for a time in silence as the line of suffering men picked their way along the muddy road. The burdened prisoners wore the pale uniforms of Strad prisoners, and Tom winced in sympathy. Four weeks of this has been bad enough. They've been here for half a year. How do they endure?
“You know, some of them escaped,” O'Reilly said.
Tom stiffened. “When?” Would there be another mass murder when they returned to the camp?
“Three, four months ago,” O'Reilly said, and Tom relaxed. “They got away with it, too.”
“You mean, there were no reprisals?”
“Well, there were,” O'Reilly admitted. “It wasn't the official policy, not back then. Amar brought in that refinement after the escape. No, what I mean is, they made it off Gamor. They got away clean.”
Tom stared at him. “Impossible!”
O'Reilly shrugged. “I only know what I've been told.”
“How?” Tom tried to smother a rising excitement, knowing it would only lead to disappointment. “Where did they go?”
“I think they went there,” O'Reilly said, and pointed into the distance. The terrain around Camp One was a fractured mess, a jumble of low mountains and rifts, the roughness of the geology somewhat hidden by the smooth blanket of jungle that covered everything. Beyond O'Reilly's pointing finger, though, a steep-walled mesa jutted above the encroaching jungle. Light vegetation covered the flat oval top, while the sheer sides of the mesa showed a mix of stone and brush.
“The story is, they made arrangements in advance. A couple officers got released in a prisoner exchange. They knew where Camp One was being built. They knew about the mesa. They arranged for a stealth ship to sneak in and grab them off the mesa top.”
Tom stared into the distance, imagining it. It wouldn’t be too difficult to give the guards the slip. A group of men could hike to that distant mesa in a day or two. In his mind's eye he saw a ship descending, plucking a ragged group of prisoners from the mesa top and racing away before the guards could close in.
He shook his head. “I don't know. If something like that really happened, how come I've never heard of it? How come you never heard about it until, when? When did you hear this story?”
“Last night,” O'Reilly admitted. “The Strads don't like to talk about it. They're afraid it'll give us ideas. And if we get ideas, they get killed in retaliation.”
Tom stood in silence for a moment, staring at the distant mesa. “But that means they know where we are. The Navy knows where the prison is. The Strads must have told our people.” He looked at O'Reilly. “That means they know we're here. Okay, not us specifically, but people. UW personnel.” He scowled. “So why are we still here?”
O'Reilly shrugged. “They can't get to us? Or they don't know if we got sent to the same place as a bunch of Strads several months ago. Who knows?” He looked out at the mesa. “But maybe they're planning a rescue. Maybe it'll come soon. Any day now.”
The two men exchanged wistful looks, then went back to staring across the jungle.
Maybe they wouldn't even launch a rescue mission if they knew for sure we were here. It was a depressing thought, and he pushed it away. They would come if they knew. If they could be sure. They'd have to come. They'd just have to.
He tilted his head back, looking at the sky. Maybe a stealth ship was up there right now, spying on the surface of Gamor and counting the tiny dots that were prisoners plodding across the landscape. Most of the men would be hidden by jungle, but that wouldn't matter. The camp itself had no tree cover. The huts would be enough to tell the navy where the prisoners were and how numerous they were.
They'll come. He clung to the idea because he had to believe it. They'll come. They'll do it cautiously, but they'll do it. They'll get us all out of here.
Soon, before malnutrition kills us.
A dozen men came out of the trees below and trudged up the slope, bundles of long wooden stakes slung over their shoulders. O'Reilly sighed. “Looks like I have to get back to work.” He turned. “Jones! Sorry to disturb your nap, but duty calls.”
Jones, stretched out on the netting, groaned.
“Come on, look lively.” O'Reilly walked over to the other man and reached down. “Here. Give me your hand.”
Tom turned to the men on the slope below, trying to guess how many stakes were in each bundle. He was doing multiplication in his head and missing his bracer when O'Reilly said, “Captain!”
Something in his voice made Tom turn and hurry over without even correcting him on rank. Jones still lay on his back. O'Reilly knelt beside him, a hand on the man's face. “He's burning up. Even by the standards of this place.”
Tom knelt on the other side. Jones looked terrible, his eyes sunken, his skin pale despite the heat. He blinked up at Tom and said, “Sorry, Lieutenant. I'm not feeling so good.”
“How long have you been sick?”
Jones squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, grimacing. “I was a little off last night. I felt okay this morning, but by the time we got here …”
Tom leaned closer, peering into Jones's eyes. They were bloodshot, and he recoiled. “It looks like Red Fever.”
O'Reilly said, “Oh, shit,” and pulled his hands back.
“Wash your hands as best you can.” Tom stood. “Just lie still. O'Reilly here will get you some water.”
Jones nodded miserably.
“You'll be fine,” Tom said. “It's serious, but it's not all that bad. You get to lie around in the medical hut for a few days, and then we'll have you back to work.”
“Sure, Lieutenant.”
Tom turned away, his stomach roiling. Red Fever was serious. A healthy person with access to medication would recover almost overnight. Without medication, bed rest and basic care would give a recovery rate a bit above fifty percent.
For prisoners weakened by starvation? Eighteen men had fallen sick in the weeks since Tom's arrival, and twenty more among the Strads before that. Five men remained in the hospital hut, their fates still in the balance. Two men had recovered completely.
All the others were dead.
He scanned the men plodding up the hill, looking for signs of weakness, of sickness. To a man they were weary and gaunt, but they were able to climb the steep slope with a substantial burden on their backs. He decided they had to be healthy enough. Maybe Jones would be an isolated case. Maybe it wouldn't be a widespread outbreak. He shook his head, trying to ignore the lump growing in the pit of his stomach. If the disease spread, there would be nothing for him to do but watch his men die.
If he'd caught the fever from Jones he would never leave Gabor.
Chapter 12
Novograd was green and lovely, the air scented with lilacs, but Alice was beginning to hate the place.
It was twilight, normally her favorite part of the day. It had been twilight for hours. The planet rotated qu
ite slowly. The suns were low in the sky at breakfast, and a slice of Alpha would still be peeking over the horizon when she went to bed. Night would last for three full sleep cycles. For the moment, though, the setting suns were painting the sky yellow and orange and gold and bathing the colony in beauty.
While a creeping ugliness spoiled the colony from within.
She stood on a balcony on the Administrative Building, in the heart of Smithburg, the largest town in the colony. The Admin Building, a graceful brick structure with arched colonnades and wrought iron fixtures, was easily the most beautiful building on the planet. It was a monument to everything the colonists had achieved in the face of terrible odds, and normally it filled Alice with patriotic pride.
Now, it made her sick to her stomach.
Footsteps scraped on concrete behind her and a voice spoke. “Alice. There you are.”
She didn't turn her head. Chatar Pal, vice-president of the colony, was a man she'd admired for most of her life. Wise, strong, and incorruptible, he'd been a lodestone for her. She'd thought of him when she joined the crew of the Free Bird and fought to liberate the colonies from the UW.
Now, like Novograd itself, he'd been tarnished by the arrival of the Dawn Alliance.
“It's just a statue,” he said. “It doesn't change who we are.”
“A giant statue,” she said, whirling to face him. “Standing in the lobby of the Administrative Building.” She grimaced. “Even on its worst day the United Worlds never humiliated us like that.”
Pal was backlit by the light coming through the doorway behind him. It obscured his face and made his hair into a snowy corona around his head. She couldn't see his expression, but she could hear the pain in his voice as he said, “A statue is just a lump of metal. It only has the meaning we choose to invest in it. I look at it as a temporary blight. It's there to remind us that the colonies have to stop bickering among themselves. One day we'll unite and send the Dawn Alliance packing, and we'll drag that statue outside and cut it up for scrap.”
She stared at him, frustrated. “And in the meantime, what will we do? What will the council do about my request?”
He spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “You've had the official response. We're an ally of the Dawn Alliance now. We can't help you contact the United Worlds. They're the enemy.”
A thousand arguments bubbled up inside her, but none of them mattered. The decision was made. She glared at him, frustrated, then turned and stared sightlessly across the rooftops of Smithburg.
Lal appeared in her peripheral vision, standing beside her, his hands next to hers on the railing. She didn't look at him.
“You remember what I said at the end of the council meeting,” he said.
“About the tanker?” He'd encouraged her to take a berth on a massive tanker heading coreward. It would take her out of the Green Zone entirely. “I won't do it.”
“It's good advice,” he said. “You've attracted attention. People are talking about what you said today. And the Dawn Alliance is on Novograd.”
She shivered in spite of herself, remembering her interview with Monkhbat above Gamor. Sharing these secrets with anyone is treason. It will be punished by death. She'd told the entire colony council about the prison, then implored them to help her get word to the UW Navy. Am I in danger?
Well, the crew of the Kestrel was certainly in danger. She folded her arms across her chest. “I'm not running.”
A moment of silence passed. Then Pal, his voice strangely flat, said, “Come here a moment.”
He moved away, and she stared after him, wanting to refuse. She felt such a crushing sense of disappointment, disillusionment. But there was still something compelling in his personality, a strength that made it impossible for her to refuse him.
She followed.
He led her up a narrow staircase at the end of the balcony. The rooftop of the Administrative Building held a maze of planters filled with flowers, with a tiny gazebo in the center. She followed him to the gazebo. He sat down, gestured to the bench across from him, and she reluctantly sat.
“This should be private,” he said. “Someone with a snooper scope could listen in on us on the balcony.”
Alice stared at him.
“You need to spread the word that you're getting on that tanker,” he said. “I know the purser. He'll play along. Tomorrow you'll disappear, and if anyone is keeping tabs on you, they'll be quite sure you're heading coreward on the Duke of York.”
Alice opened her mouth, discovered she had no idea what to say, and closed it again.
“What you'll really do,” he said, “is meet me outside your pension at five o'clock tomorrow morning.” The colony used an Earth-standard 24-hour clock and pretty much ignored the rising and setting of the local suns. “Bring your two friends, if you can persuade them to come. You'll need them.”
She said, “Need them for what?”
He grinned, his teeth gleaming white in the shadows. “For crew, of course.” He pointed south. “My cousin has a farm about ten kilometers that way. And on his farm he's hiding a ship called the Evening Breeze. She was one of the last ships to escape Neorome before the DA blockade. She brought twenty refugees here. They're scattered throughout the colony now, keeping quiet about where they're from.
“The owners made it out on a different transport. The crew don't want anything to do with the ship. They've got quiet lives as farmers now, and they don't want to take any more chances. We didn't know what to do with the ship, so we stuck it in Sandeep's orchard and covered it in camouflage netting. He'd love to get it out of there, though.”
Alice stared at him. “You're giving me a ship?”
“No one will put it to a better use than you will,” he said. He reached out and patted her hand. “No one else has the courage to move it. So take it, and do what you need to do.”
Chapter 13
The medical hut stank of vomit and desperation.
The smell arrested Tom in the doorway. He stood there a moment, fighting the impulse to back out, looking for an excuse to leave.
The patients in the nearest beds were already looking at him, though, so he carefully hid the revulsion he felt, steeled himself, and stepped inside.
A couple of orderlies moved among the beds, prisoners with cloth masks tied over their mouths and noses. The nearest orderly caught Tom's eye, then nodded toward a box of masks. They were hand-made, squares of white cloth with a string at each corner. Tom took one, spent a minute getting the strings tied, and turned to look around.
The medical hut was laid out like the other huts, but with most of the bunks removed. All the second- and third-tier bunks were gone, and a quarter of the bottom-tier bunks, leaving an area of open floor just inside the door. He looked at the double row of bunks that remained. There were about a dozen patients, tended by Vinduly, another doctor, and two orderlies.
He found O'Reilly in the third bunk on the left-hand side. He looked terrible, his face shrunken, his eyes bright red. The pallor of his skin made the tangle of bloodshot capillaries in his eyes all the more vivid. He gave Tom a ghastly smile and whispered, “Hey, Captain.”
“Lieutenant,” said Tom, and used his foot to drag a little stool out from under the bed. He sat down.
“You'll get another ship. You'll be a captain again.”
“Maybe.” Tom started to reach out his hand, then pulled it back. “How are you feeling?” It was a patently stupid question, but he didn't know what else to say.
“Been better,” O'Reilly admitted. “I'm enjoying the bed rest, though.”
“Well, silver linings and all that.” Tom squirmed on the little stool. “Is there anything …”
O'Reilly shook his head. “There's nothing you can do, Captain. And you know it.”
They sat in silence for a while.
“I'll never forget my early days on the Kestrel,” Tom said. “I was such a screwup.” He smiled, and O'Reilly chuckled, for a moment looking almost like his old self. “B
oudreau really had it in for me. You made it bearable, though. You saved me from the worst of it.”
“It wasn't easy,” O'Reilly said, and laughed. “I always figured you had potential, but Lordy, you weren't too impressive on your first few days.” He started to chuckle, coughed instead, and lapsed into a pained silence.
“You went way beyond the call of duty after the nuke.” Tom smiled, remembering. “You really stepped up to the plate.”
“Quit sounding like you're practicing my eulogy,” O'Reilly said crossly. “I'm not bloody dead yet.”
“I was just softening you up before I got to the bad part,” Tom said. “I actually have quite a list of complaints.”
“You know what you can do with your complaints,” O'Reilly groused. He lowered his voice when he said it, though. He would never undermine his officer.
“You've been indispensable to me,” Tom said. “That's why I need you to pull yourself together and get out of here. I need you up and around.”
“I'm working on it,” O'Reilly muttered. He looked pleased by the compliment, though.
They made awkward small talk for several minutes. It broke Tom's heart to see his friend, the man he'd relied on through so much misadventure, lying helpless and frail on a bunk. When O'Reilly's eyelids started to droop Tom stood with a sense of relief that shamed him. “I better let you rest.”
“Thanks for coming to see me, Captain.” O'Reilly was asleep before Tom could reply.
Tom nudged the stool back under the bed and turned. He started down the line of beds, looking at each pinched face in turn. He came back up the other side, then plodded back to the door, weary and dispirited. Jones was nowhere among the patients, and that could only mean one thing. He'd looked dreadful the last time Tom visited. He certainly hadn't recovered.
If he wasn't here, he was dead.
Tom dropped his mask in a basket and trudged outside. Even the overheated, humid air of the camp was a relief after the stench of the medical hut. He started walking, moving aimlessly among the huts, trying to convince himself that he was enjoying a nice stroll in the fresh air.