by B. V. Larson
“We might simply have to fight a decisive battle some other day, with fewer advantages.”
“Yes, but with more data on this weird flagship. Right now we’re in uncharted waters.”
“Will we ever have the numbers and preparation we do now? We are forcing them to fight to protect a valuable resource, which limits their options. And they know as little about Indomitable as we do about Victory.”
“All right, keep talking. Tell me everything you’ve figured out.”
Two hours of briefing later, Admiral Engels was feeling far more optimistic—about this battle, anyway. “Call my commanders for a holo-conference,” she said. “Make sure War Male Dexon is invited first.”
Chapter 22
Straker on Terra Nova
The water chilled Straker as he plunged into it and bobbed to the surface. In the last few moments before the wall, he breathed rapidly and deeply, oxygenating his bloodstream, trying not to think about Gorben’s final words to him. Roslyn carrying his child? Impossible. He hadn’t made love with Roslyn, had he? Though there was that one night, after the assassination attempt, where he couldn’t remember much of anything.
Can’t worry about that now, he thought. Survival came first. He should be good for at least two minutes underwater. He’d been practicing holding his breath for longer and longer periods ever since Gorben had told him of the river exit.
He went under the wall’s edge. Immediately he reached up to brush his fingertips along the top of the tunnel, searching for an air bubble, but there was no gap. He turned on the hand-light as the sun’s glow faded behind him.
Abruptly, he felt the river turn downward and speed up further as it narrowed. If he’d had breath he’d have sworn a blue streak. Instead of passing quickly under the wall, the tunnel was turning into a pipe and plunging deep into the ground.
The faster he got through it, the more likely he would reach an exit, or at least an air pocket, so he turned head-downward and swam, yet conserved his strength. His lungs ached as the seconds ticked by. He began to despair when he suddenly found himself sailing through the air. He plunged into a pool and was driven downward by the falling water until he bumped a hard bottom. Kicking off concrete, he surfaced and took great lungs-full of air.
Straker found himself inside a dark reservoir perhaps a hundred meters long, thirty wide and ten deep. At one end, the river water poured in from a two-meter pipe in the ceiling—the way he’d entered—and fell through the air before joining the pool. At the other, it flowed outward and down another tunnel.
His light showed handholds in the concrete, and he swam quickly for them, before the current could send him farther. He’d been lucky enough to reach breathable air this time; he might not be so fortunate again.
Once on the lip above the reservoir, he found a pressure door. Fortunately, it was unlocked, and opened when he spun the dogging wheel. Beyond it lay a dark corridor.
Putting aside all thoughts of Roslyn, he paused and shone his light left and right. Damp, cold air seemed to flow slowly from the right, so he turned that direction and walked, wet and chilled to the bone.
Soon he heard voices using the High Tongue, the click language. They spoke too rapidly and oddly for Straker to catch more than a simple word or two—work and food and water was all he recognized.
Straker turned off his light, loosened his fighting knife in its sheath and walked slowly forward. He saw no light, so he kept his fingertips on the left wall.
A smell like wet animal got stronger as he advanced, yet still no light appeared. The voices became louder until they seemed no more than ten meters away, though the concrete walls made sound echo strangely. Accompanying the clicking language was a cacophony of intermittent but regular scraping noises and clinking sounds, as of scrap metal being tumbled in a barrel.
Inching closer, he felt as if he could reach out and touch whoever was speaking, yet still he saw no light. No, wait! His eyes finally adjusted to the darkness and he was able to perceive a faint greenish glow from beyond a sharp left-hand corner.
When he peeked around the corner, he saw a long chamber with steep straight terraces like steps climbing the left and right walls. Parts of the room glowed with phosphorescent moss or lichen on the surfaces. He could see some of it close to him, where a trickle of water flowed on the floor and into a drain.
The speakers, what looked like two men in fur coats, stood at the near end of the long room. Each carried something long and flexible in one hand. They watched idly as at least twenty other men scraped the lichen off the concrete with small tools, putting it into bags they wore in front of them.
Now that Straker realized what they were doing, it became clear to him that the dark patches were areas that had already been scraped. The workers were harvesting a garden, then.
No, not workers only. Prisoners, or slaves. Straker realized the true situation when one of the laborers climbed down from one level step to the next, dragging a chain with him. The chain linked his ankles to each other, as well as to the next man on his left and right, giving him about a meter of play.
One worker, who to Straker moved as if elderly, slipped on the slimy surface and fell two levels, dragging three others off their feet and sending tools and bags flying. A great wail went up from the other workers, and they scrambled to help their comrades up and gather their meager belongings—scrapers, bags and the spilled lichen.
In an instant, the casual conversation of the two guards vanished as they roared with anger. They used the flexible rods in their hands to unmercifully beat the man who’d fallen, as well as anyone near him. Every time one of the rods struck metal, such as the chains, sparks flashed.
Clearly, the rods were like stun-goads, except they didn’t knock the hapless slave out. They inflicted pain. Pain-wands. The old man screamed and cried and gibbered with agony as the guards thrashed him. The others shrank away, terrified to try to help.
Straker’s blood boiled as he remembered Mutuality thugs masquerading as prison guards. He sprang forward and clubbed the nearest abuser down with the pommel of his knife, and then the other, knocking them unconscious. He then seized a pain-wand.
Unfortunately, he grasped it too high on its length, and a spasm of hurt shot through his hand, making him drop it. He then picked it up gingerly, by its grip, and searched for a way to turn it off.
He stepped back when one of the prisoners picked up the other pain-wand and stood over the fallen guards as if to protect them. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked the man.
The prisoner made no reply, but only twitched his pain-wand slowly in front of him as if trying to warn Straker off.
“You don’t want me to hurt these guys? Screw that.” Straker’s eyes narrowed. “Can you understand me? Can anyone?”
Nobody answered.
He tried his limited High Tongue. “Back. Away. Go.” He emphasized his words with a gesture of the pain-wand.
The man became agitated, slashing inexpertly in Straker’s direction, not really trying to strike him.
“Boy, they got you guys brainwashed,” he muttered in Earthan. “Sorry about this.” Straker struck the other’s pain-wand aside with his own, and then slapped the man’s wrist with its active end. The man dropped the wand with a howl and backed up. Straker retrieved the second wand.
“Okay, now that that’s settled…” He switched to High Tongue. “Go. Back. Away!” The prisoners seemed to understand, and all retreated with a rattle of chains.
Straker searched the guards. As he’d thought, they wore long, thick fur coats over trousers and shirts. Underneath, they looked Earth-human. Over the coat they wore harnesses with various useful gear attached, such as knives, scrapers, gloves and pouches of what looked like square coins of pure copper or silver. He took one coat that fit him and drew it on, and then the harness with all its kit. Now, he looked like a guard.
When he approached the shrinking prisoners more closely, he found, to his shock and surprise,
that they weren’t wearing coats after all. Rather, they were covered in thick, oily fur similar to what he now wore. Only their faces and hands were naked, like apes. They must be another variation of the humanoid Opters, like the brightly colored Calaria or the crimson Bortoks.
One, bolder than the rest, took a tool from the other guard’s harness and unlocked his own ankle shackle. But when he tried to do it for the others, they cried out with fear and slapped at him, forcing him to desist in disgust.
“Guess your friends don’t want to be free,” Straker said. “They’re brainwashed.”
The man stared at him and spoke the clicking tongue. Straker caught only the word woman. Maybe he was saying they were acting like frightened women. Clearly, they’d never met Roslyn or Carla.
Straker debated leaving the cowed prisoners in chains, but decided against it. Instead, he gestured for the one brave man to unlock his fellows, and stood menacingly with his pain-wands to ensure it got done. Soon, all were unchained. Some began eating the lichen, while others continued scraping and gathering. None of them ran off or appeared to want to escape.
The single brave one shrugged, apparently a universal human gesture, and stuffed some of the lichen in his mouth. Straker tried it and found it tasteless. He ate some anyway and put more in his own bag, in case he needed it later.
Straker said his own name several times, patting his chest. The other man nodded and patted his own. “You Straker. I Melgar.”
“Melgar.” That’s how it sounded to Straker as he repeated it. He handed a pain-wand to Melgar, carefully, by the grip.
Melgar gave the pommel a twist, and then, after donning the fallen guard’s coat, boots and harness, slung the device by its wrist strap.
Straker did the same, happy to know how to turn the thing off. “We go. Away. Hide,” he said.
“Yes. Come. Follow.” Melgar motioned Straker to accompany him, leading him through concrete ways dimly lit by a combination of the lichen and barely brighter glow-strips on the ceiling. They passed several chambers where work parties gathered lichen or other plants. Some chambers had soil and sprouted mushrooms or fungus. In others, the plants looked conventional, but were not green.
Always the two men sneaked past bored, cruel guards overseeing downtrodden workers. Some work parties consisted of women, with females in charge. Beatings seemed common. It appeared the standard humans were always the guards, and the furred humans were all prisoners. No, strike that. They were most likely slaves, if their status was based on their species, rather than being, say, convicted criminals.
Straker lost track of the tunnels and rooms they saw. Melgar led him past dozens, and he had the impression there were hundreds more, a vast anthill of underground food production. They made sure not to approach too closely to others, and in the dimness they both looked like guards in uniform.
At one point they gazed down from a gallery upon a vast hall where thousands of chained workers processed the plants. The harvesters dumped their loads into bins and the contents were sorted, dirt and rocks were discarded, and the resultant improved product was washed, cut and packaged into reusable woven bags. The bags were then brought to a separate area to be sold for the square coinage.
The people who bought the produce appeared to be of a different sort than either the furred ones or the standard humans. These were distinctly insectoid, but bipedal, with large compound eyes and feathery antennae. To Straker, they gave the impression of upright ants with only four limbs—two arms, two legs. Maybe they were early versions of Opter-men, before they were genetically engineered into their many current varieties.
Among them Straker noticed a human figure. At first he thought it was Myrmidon again, but it wasn’t. Yet, the man seemed similar in his demeanor, his movements, as he circulated among the customers. Another agent?
The man glanced up at Straker, and then their eyes locked for a long moment before he turned and left the buying floor, pushing his way past the insectoids. It seemed he was uncomfortable to be observed. Could he be one of Myrmidon’s spies? Or just another agent-in-training?
Straker and Melgar moved on.
Another large hall appeared to be a slave hospital—at least at first. Straker saw crude beds with the furred people lying on them, ankles chained to their beds. Some simply lay sleeping, but some sat up and tried to get the attention of attendants. One vigorous one, after wolfing down food in a bowl, complained loudly enough that he was led away.
“Work. More work,” Melgar said. “Alive. Work worker.”
“Worker…” Straker wracked his brains for a word. “Worker strong. Work again?”
“Yes. Want work again.”
So, in this hospital, the slaves asked to be sent back to work. That made him wonder what the alternative was.
It wasn’t long before he found out. Two doctors entered and began examining the patients in turn with stethoscopes and other instruments, taking pulses, looking at teeth with all the clinical care of veterinarians. The healthiest they ordered marched out on their feet. The sickest, especially those who seemed unresponsive, they pointed out to a troop of orderlies. The orderlies took these out on stretchers while the rest of the “patients” watched dully.
Melgar pulled on Straker’s arm and led him via the gallery tunnel to the next room. The orderlies rolled the dead or dying slaves roughly onto tilted stone slabs and quickly hurried away. Other workers in aprons and cloth masks then positioned the bodies head-down on the slabs and, without hesitation, cut their throats. Blood gushed down runnels into buckets. One poor live soul jerked and struggled until the butcher grabbed a mallet and struck him on the forehead.
Straker felt queasy and outraged. He’d seen plenty of death on the battlefield, but this… this was treating people like meat animals. Even the Mutuality prison was more humane than this.
Once the corpses were drained of blood, the butchers used cleavers to hack off the heads of the dead. Straker didn’t think he could be more horrified, until he saw what came next.
The butchers used sharp knives to expertly skin and dress the corpses. They treated the human-fur pelts with care, removing them in contiguous pieces and passing them to helpers who carried them out of the room, presumably for further processing.
The carcasses were then hung and carved up into various cuts of meat.
A wave of nausea swept Straker’s guts and he barely kept himself from retching. He turned to Melgar and saw the man’s face was filled with grief and rage, his fingers white as he gripped the stone rail. Slowly, Straker reached across to grasp his new partner’s shoulder in firm, comradely sympathy.
Melgar turned to Straker and returned the gesture, hand to shoulder. “You see, Straker. Bad. Enemy. Bad!” He used other words, but they were unfamiliar.
“I got it, friend,” he said in Earthan. “To them, you’re nothing but animals.” He switched to the click-tongue. “Melgar friend. I see, bad.”
Then, when Straker thought things couldn’t get worse, the plush sensation under his hand penetrated his consciousness. He looked, then touched, Melgar’s furred neck above his collar. Then he jerked his hand off his friend’s pelt and ran it along the coat he wore.
They matched.
Solemnly, Melgar nodded. “You see.”
“Unknowable Creator! What the fuck?” Straker began frantically unbuckling the harness and unfastening the smooth ivory buttons of the coat. “Gods and demons, I’m wearing human skin!”
“No, no, Straker, no,” Melgar hissed, trying to get Straker to stop. “Yes, no, Straker, friend, stop. I know. I know. Bad. You must stop. Hide, run, not know. I forgive. I forgive.” He accompanied these simple words with gestures designed to show Straker that Melgar didn’t hold it against him, the fact he was wearing human fur.
Straker stopped trying to strip off the garment, but now he felt as if he were contaminated. He took deep breaths and told himself to get a grip. The poor guy whose skin he wore wouldn’t be helped by freaking out. He’d just have to
deal with it.
He made himself think about returning to Carla, about his responsibilities to his friends and the Breakers, and about his time in the prison camp. He’d survived getting shit poured onto him, flies laying eggs in his wounds, daily torture. By comparison, this was a piece of cake.
But he resolved once more never to be taken. Instead, he crammed all his emotions into a mental box, locked it and threw away the key. Cold outside, that was the way to be. Do what needed to be done now, and only allow himself to feel later.
“Okay, Melgar. I’m good. What now?”
Despite those words being spoken in Earthan—or the Low Tongue, as the Calarians called it—Melgar seemed to understand. “We go. Look. My woman.” He led Straker onward.
After more purposeful skulking, Straker was considering trying to insist Melgar show him a way to the surface when they reached another gallery above a factory floor where the slaves processed various liquids—boiling them, mashing substances and mixing them in, sending them through pipes to cool and drip, filling small barrels or kegs. Many guards watched the process, more than with the food, as if these fluids were more valuable. In fact, there were two guards on overwatch at the other end of the gallery with Straker and Melgar, but for now they paid the two men no attention.
Of course, they must think we’re their comrades, thought Straker. He noticed Melgar turned his fur-framed face away.
As with the foods, at the end of the room was a sales and tasting area, where buyers sipped from tiny flutes they provided themselves. This time, though, the customers were short and chubby with bald, round heads and flat stubby noses. They sported fine clothing in a modern style—trousers, shirts, tailored jackets—and wore platform shoes to make themselves taller. They bore wristwatches and tapped at what looked like handtabs. Some of them also wore human fur. Straker mentally labeled them pig-people.
A thrill shot through Straker. The pig-people were obviously from the surface. They must be either controllers or from a diz with higher technology. That made them—and whatever route they took to come shopping for their handcrafted beverages—his ticket out of here.
