Faster Than Light: Babel Among the Stars

by Malcolm Pierce

  *

  Seth sat in his cell and stared at the wall. His arms hurt from being bound behind his back for several hours. He was starting to wonder if he’d made a terrible mistake. From what he knew about the Republic legal system, if they decided to charge him with disrupting the public assembly, he wouldn’t see freedom for at least a year. He’d be stuck in a cell just like this one. Absalom and the Bureau of Criminal Affairs would be sure of that. By the end of his sentence, every starship in the galaxy would be destroyed. It would all be over and there would be nothing to be saved.

  Hours ago, when he was standing at the assembly and listening to Chairman Stephens, he thought that the best thing he could do was cause a scene. No one around him was outraged. No one was protesting. They were all going to take the Fall sitting down. They refused to put up a fight. He thought that if he showed everyone that they could resist, then maybe they would follow suit. If he questioned the chairman, maybe they would question him too.

  That was a foolish hope. Most likely, no one even heard him once he was on stage. All everyone saw was a crazy young man get stun-prodded. By now, the Republic had probably picked through his therapists’ records for choice quotes, fed them to the media, and made him out to be an unstable loner.

  Now there was nothing he could do to stop the Fall. It was inevitable and it was going to all happen while he was stuck in a jail cell.

  His mind raced with all the other things he could have done. He should have started small, convinced others to follow him. He should have made someone else charge the stage. It was a good opening gambit, but it was a poor move on its own. Once the patsy was in jail, Seth could have built him up to be a martyr for the cause.

  The Republic imprisoned people who opposed their ideology all the time. Unfortunately, the Republic’s ideology was incredibly popular on Earth. The Fall wasn’t popular. An imprisoned dissenter could be a catalyst for a true opposition movement...but only in the right hands. Seth knew that he could help build a narrative like that. But that meant he had to get out of jail.

  Seth struck his head against the bulkhead in frustration. He hated that he had to depend on other people. It was entirely possible that there were others like him on Earth—people who saw his brief moment of rebellion and wanted to follow in his footsteps. But no matter how smart they were, no matter how dedicated, Seth couldn’t trust them to continue his fight. He had to do it himself. Now, because of his foolish hastiness, that would be impossible.

  The door on the far end of the room slid open. Seth sat up, expecting to see Commissar Absalom. Instead, it was just one of the guards. He wore a red jumpsuit that was fading near the collar and the sleeves. Seth knew that this meant he’d been here for a long time. Most jail employees were young. Their uniforms were bright and freshly pressed. Jail guard was a low-level post in the Bureau of Criminal Affairs and most people were promoted out of it within months. Not this guard. He was probably starting to think he’d spend his entire career here.

  Seth smiled. This meant one of two things. Either he wasn’t very good at his job or he wasn’t very good at following orders. Either way, it gave him hope.

  “Finally dinner time?” Seth asked. He saw the guard was carrying a tray covered in foil. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been in jail but it made sense they would eventually have to feed him.

  The guard looked down at Seth and gave him a half-hearted grin. “Breakfast,” he replied. “It’s morning.”

  Seth marveled at this. The time passed far quicker than he expected. “No wonder I’m starved,” he said. The guard set the tray on the ground and pushed it towards the energy field surrounding the door to Seth’s cell. “You know you’re the first one to come and see me? Other than the commissar, of course.”

  Almost immediately, the guard straightened up. He smoothed out the front of his uniform and looked left and right. “There... There is a commissar here?” he asked.

  This was even better than Seth hoped. The guard knew nothing about the circumstances surrounding his incarceration.

  “That’s right,” Seth said. “His name is Phaer Absalom. I’m surprised you haven’t seen him around. He’s hard to miss.”

  The guard started to sweat. Seth could tell that he was thinking. Maybe he had seen Absalom, just never took notice of the rank on his uniform. After all, Absalom was young for his post and it was easy to be distracted by his leg. “Well, I’ve got your breakfast. Maybe I should go--”

  “You wouldn’t want to make any mistakes,” Seth interrupted him. “Not now, not when there’s a commissar snooping around.”

  “Mistakes?” A brief look of panic flashed across the guard’s eyes. “Mistakes like what? Did I do something wrong?”

  Seth shrugged. He carefully moved across the ground, towards the plate. Then he wiggled his wrists, still tied behind his back. “How am I supposed to eat like this?” Seth asked.

  “I... I don’t know,” the guard replied. “That’s a good question. We don’t usually restrain our prisoners here and... Oh... Maybe I should go ask someone if I’m supposed to untie you.”

  With a grin, Seth craned his neck to make eye contact with the guard. “You’re clearly supposed to untie me. Otherwise, I’m not going to be able to eat. And then I’ll pass out and everyone will wonder why I wasn’t given any food.”

  “But to untie you, I’ll have to deactivate the energy field. Then you might be able to escape.”

  “Where would I escape to? This is a jail. I don’t think I would make it far.” Seth laughed. He pushed himself a few inches closer to the energy field. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  The guard considered whether or not he should answer. He must have decided there was no harm in it. “Arthur Weller,” he said.

  Seth nodded. “And how long have you worked here, Arthur?”

  “Five years.” It was just like Seth suspected. That was a long time for someone to remain a prison guard. Most people within the Bureau were street investigators or military police five years into their career.

  “You’ve never seen a prisoner tied up before? That’s a surprise.”

  “It’s not how we do things here. We usually don’t need to.”

  “Where is ‘here’?”

  Again, Arthur spent a few seconds wondering if he should respond to Seth’s inquiry. Again, however, he chose to trust his prisoner. “Central Americas Correctional Facility Six,” Arthur said. “East wing.”

  Seth took a deep breath. This was interesting. He already figured he was in the American Zone. The public assembly where he was arrested was only a few miles from the RSIR campus. RSIR was located on the coast of the Washington Region. That made sense. But Correctional Facility Six was considerably further south in the American Zone, well within the Columbian Region. There were at least fourteen other large jails between RSIR and Correctional Facility Six.

  “Why did they bring me here?” Seth asked aloud.

  “It said on the tablet outside that you disrupted a public assembly,” Arthur replied. He was trying to be helpful but he just sounded foolish.

  Everything started to come together in his head. That was why it was time for breakfast. They had to transport him across the continent. But why? Why couldn’t they just take him to one of the many adjacent jails? Why would they take him all the way here?

  “It did work,” Seth said aloud. A wide smile started to spread across his face. “I made it on camera. They heard me. And now... Someone thinks that I need to be hidden.”

  Arthur was puzzled. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s almost fifteen hours later,” Seth replied. “By now, there are vid clips of me being hit with a stun-prod circulating the planet. Most people probably think I deserved it. Maybe I did. But there are enough people who think I didn’t.”

  “I’m so confused,” Arthur said.

  Seth
took a deep breath. “Don’t worry. This is good for you. I was going to try and escape. I’m still not sure how I was going to do that yet, but I would have figured something out. It would have made you look really bad no matter what. But good news, Arthur! I don’t have to do that.”

  “You were going to escape?” Arthur asked. “So that’s why you wanted me to untie you.”

  “No!” Seth exclaimed. He gritted his teeth together. Now that he’d figured everything out, trying to talk with Arthur was just infuriating. “I wanted you to untie me so I could eat breakfast. I was going to figure out how to escape after that.”

  “What?”

  That was it. Seth was done. He didn’t even want to deal with the guard long enough to get himself untied anymore. “Just bring me the commissar. Tell him that I’m ready to deal.”

  “Deal?”

  “He’ll understand.”