Condemned (Death Planet Book 1)

by Grant, Edward M.

  The sun was barely above the horizon, which just reminded him of how much he needed to sleep. Despite the months of suspension in the pod, his body didn’t feel rested, and they’d been walking all night. If only he could go back to it, and take a nice nap in that comfortable seat...

  “The sun looks funny,” he said.

  “Look hard, and it’s two stars. They’re so close together you can’t see them easily, but you notice when the bright one goes behind the other. Better be wrapped up warm for a few days, when that happens.”

  “How much further?”

  “Few klicks, once we’re over the bridge. Maybe two hours if we walk fast, three or four if you keep stopping for breaks.”

  The bridge was just a row of thick, hacked-up logs, strapped together with leather cords. More logs stood vertically in the water to support them, covered with weeds at water level. The river rushed past below them, heading for the sea, and breaking into white plumes as it crashed into rocks in the riverbed. Daniel had always meant to find time to learn to swim, but never had. If he fell in, his time on Hades could be over.

  “Is this safe?”

  “Relax. They drive carts and haulers over this thing all day long. It’s not going to fall apart under our weight.”

  The bridge creaked when Guy stepped onto it, as the straps took the strain of his extra weight. But it continued standing as he took a few steps toward the far side. Daniel gently put one foot on the log. It was wet and muddy, and his boot slid as he put his weight on it.

  And there were no hand rails.

  What about Health and Safety? Who built this thing?

  “Can’t I stay on this side?”

  “If you’d rather the slavers get you.”

  Better dead than a slave. If he kept telling himself that, he might really believe it. He held out his arms for balance as he put his other foot on the logs, then took slow, careful steps as he tried to ignore the creaking from the straps and wood. Just take it one step at a time, and don’t look down into the water. You’ll be over before you know it.

  He glanced at Guy. He was almost at the far side, strolling along with his hands on the waistband of his pants, whistling. It couldn’t be that hard, if he could walk across like that.

  Then again, he had boots that fit his feet, and feet which weren’t bruised and blistered. Daniel took another step, then another, pausing between them. At this rate, he should be across by sunset. If he was lucky.

  Something thumped against the supports as it passed under the bridge. Daniel glanced over the edge. A body floated face down in the river, the skin turning grey where the remains of its flesh hadn’t been torn apart. Man or woman? Impossible to tell, when so much had been eaten down to the bone.

  “Hey,” Guy yelled. “Hurry up and get over here.”

  He pointed down-river. A boat approached, long and low, with half a dozen oars on each side and a pile of crates between them. Men sat on each side, the chains on their wrists rattling as they pulled hard on the oars. Another stood over them with a whip. He cracked the whip one side or the other, making the men row faster to turn the boat and avoid the rocks.

  Guy ran ahead along the riverbank, waving his arms at the boat. “Can you give us a ride to Kingston?” he yelled.

  Two leather-clad men crouched in the bow, and aimed crossbows in Guy’s direction. Another raised his bow toward Daniel, who smiled and waved, then hurried across the bridge as fast as he could. Falling into the river would probably hurt less than an arrow in his guts.

  A fourth man, wearing a metal breastplate and helmet, stood between the others. “And why would I do that?”

  “I’ve got shinies.”

  “So have I. How do I know you’re not just trying to get us to stop so you and your pirate friends can rob us?”

  Guy nodded toward Daniel. “Does he look like a pirate?”

  Daniel yelled as his boot slipped again, and pain shot through his thigh as his knee smacked down on the wood. He grabbed it, open-mouthed and gasping. That didn't help much.

  “Not a very good one,” the man shouted. “But they have to start somewhere.” He muttered to the man with the whip, and pointed toward the shore. The whip cracked on the shoulders of the men on the left of the boat, and it turned slowly toward the riverbank, a short distance from where Guy stood.

  “Hey, boy,” the armoured man yelled. “Save us all a lot of time, and just jump.”

  Kill himself? Why would he do that?

  Oh. The boat was turning until it would pass beneath him as they rowed it under the bridge. He looked back and checked again, guessing where it would emerge on the far side, then stumbled across the logs until he was balanced on the last of them, three or four metres above the racing water.

  A drone buzzed in for a closeup of his face as he stared down, then tilted until it could see what he was looking at. If he screwed this up, he'd probably be dead, and they'd have a great recording of his demise for the commissars back home. They’d be laughing for days.

  The bowmen aimed at him as they went under the bridge. Seconds later, the prow of the boat appeared below his feet. No point waiting. The longer he delayed, the more chance he had of landing in the water behind the boat. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and jumped. His stomach rose into his chest as he fell, then he grunted as his feet smacked into the boat. He tumbled to the deck, smashing down onto his still aching knee. He lay there for a moment, until the pain subsided, then opened his eyes. He was still alive, and the drone was still flying around him, recording.

  He grabbed the side of the boat, pulled himself up, and leaned against it, rubbing his knee. Guy was watching from the shore. Daniel gave him a thumbs up.

  Guy stared at him with wide eyes. When an arm reached around Daniel's chest, and pressed the cold steel of a dagger blade against his neck, he understood why.

  CHAPTER 14

  He sat on the cold, stone floor of his cell, in the faint circle of light around the stinky little candle. They’d called him the Brain for so long that he couldn’t even remember what his name used to be, back before he arrived on this rotten planet. The chains manacled to his ankles and wrists rattled as he moved his foot to relieve the ache in his hip. His beard scraped against his belly button as he raised the candle to try to read the scratches on the wall. He scratched his bald head. The equation should be correct, but the math just didn't work, no matter how many times he checked it. What had gone wrong?

  If he was younger, or back home where a pill once a year could stop ageing altogether, he'd still be able to read it. But thirty years on Hades had rotted his eyes as much as the rest of his body. Spectacles. He should make some. Metal and glass, with a few curves to magnify the world. They wouldn't be hard. He reached a long fingernail out to the wall, and scratched a note to himself.

  “What do you think, Simon?”

  He turned back, and held the candle high. Simon watched from the far side of the cell. His legs twitched, and he twisted his body from side to side as he studied the equations. He tapped the tip of his legs on the floor, then turned and scuttled back to the thick, white web that filled that corner of the cell.

  “Yeah, you're right. It’s shit.”

  The Brain tossed aside the sharp stone he had been using to scratch the wall, and slumped down in his corner. Simon chewed on a piece of meat the Brain had tossed into the web from his supper the night before. He didn’t even know what kind of spider Simon was, but he’d always been a smart one. Probably a cross between a tarantula from Earth and some of the weird, fat, spider-like creatures back home. Maybe some electronics for good measure. People like genetic meddling back home. Not so much on Hades.

  But, smart as Simon was, who knew how he got into a pod? By the time it landed, the body inside was cocooned in Simon’s web, and the skin stretched over the bones like a mummy, after he had dissolved its insides and sucked them out to eat. The Brain found Simon hiding in a corner under the seat, body bloated from his meal, and his furry legs sha
king after the shock of entering the atmosphere and crashing to the ground.

  He seemed to take a liking to the Brain on sight, and liked him even more when he gave Simon fresh meat to eat. He had accompanied the Brain everywhere, ever since. His one and only friend among the scum of the world.

  Speaking of scum, keys rattled in the lock of the cell door. A Guard’s helmeted face appeared briefly as he pulled the door open, then the smell of steam and burning wood filled the air. The Brain coughed as he wafted the smoke away, and blinked as the light of a lantern shone into his eyes.

  The King crouched by the door, and stared in.

  “Have you done it yet?”

  Didn’t he realize what he was asking for? The Brain might be his name, but he couldn’t create miracles. A photographic memory was no substitute for high technology.

  “You must understand, so far we have only the most basic of technology. The iron we’ve made can only handle light loads. To support the weight of such a thing...”

  “I take it that’s a no?”

  “And your power plant is a proof of concept, a truly basic mechanism that’s already pushing the limits of the materials we can build here. Fuelling the kind of machines you demand would need coal, hydrocarbons, or nuclear power.”

  “So, build me some.”

  He’d known people like that back home. They expected to have anything they wanted, whenever they wanted, with no conception of the millennia their ancestors had invested in their progress from pointy sticks to warp drive. To try to recreate that in a few decades was... madness.

  “There are probably coal and oil equivalents here, as we found at home. But we need to locate them, build the mines, extract them...”

  “We have slaves.”

  “And we need hardened steel, smokeless powder, electrical generators, copper wire, automatic guns...”

  “I want it by the end of the year, before the invaders come from Over The Sea.”

  Simon’s eight dark eyes stared at the King from his web, glowing with light reflected from the lantern. The King turned toward him, and Simon scuttled away.

  “If not,” the King said, “we might have to clean out your cell. Get rid of the cobwebs, if you see what I mean.”

  Simon’s web shook at the King’s words. He wouldn’t. No, he would. He’d killed men for far less.

  Lots of them.

  If they left him alone in the cell, in the dark, without even Simon for company, with no-one to talk to except the guard who brought him food—if they were even feeling talkative that day—he'd go mad. Within a week, he'd be slumped on the floor, talking to himself, and smearing shit over the walls.

  Just like his brother.

  “I'll do my best.”

  “What do you need?”

  “To see the sun again.”

  He could hardly remember the last time he'd been outside the dungeon. He'd started out counting days after the King threw him in there, but, when the cell was perpetually dark, the only way he had to count days was his daily meal delivery. And, after a while, he became convinced that they were delivering more than one some days, just to make him think he'd been in there for longer.

  At that point, he gave up.

  The King laughed. “I mean, what do you need to get the job done? You can come out of this hole to supervise the men when they start construction. And you can join me on board, when we conquer the world.”

  That would be nice. To see the sights, meet new people in other cities, in other lands. Then crush them beneath their thick, metal treads.

  “Can Simon come?”

  The King huffed. “Build me my machines, and you can bring that damn creature. Fail...”

  He didn't need to say any more.

  CHAPTER 15

  “Any funny business,” the armoured man said, “and your little boyfriend gets it.” He pulled Daniel to his feet, then pressed harder with the blade, until blood flowed from a shallow cut.

  Guy raised his hands to shoulder level. “Nothing funny. I just want a lift. We’ve been walking all night, I’d trade a few shinies to take the weight off my feet.”

  “Come to the shore. If I see any friends in the bushes there, this one dies first. Then you.”

  Daniel’s heart pounded as the blood slowly dripped down his neck. Could he escape somehow? He could try hitting the guy, but the metal breastplate pressing against his back didn't offer much hope of achieving anything other than pissing him off. What if Guy planned to steal the boat? Could this be the job he wanted Daniel for? Just to entice them to land, so he could get on board? Would he even care that Daniel died?

  “Please, comrade,” he said. “I didn’t do nothing.”

  “Then you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  Drones flew down from the sky and buzzed around them, like vermin who'd scented blood. Think about nice things. Like Newtonmas in the barracks. Watching Erica play hockey. Not his comrades sitting at home watching this asshole cut his throat, and gargling to death as his blood spurted out into the water. How could anyone want to watch something like that?

  “Come on, Moses,” Guy yelled. “Don't be an asshole.”

  “Last time I met you, you were hanging out with those Meat Packer shitheads, and that disgusting, smelly dog creature that ran them.”

  “I split over a year ago. Sparky took a dislike to me after I helped Red take over the gang.”

  “You and your little plots...”

  “Little plots kept me alive this long. I’m not about to change a winning formula.”

  “You tried to sell me as a farm slave.”

  “And, from the look of the boat, you must have been doing well since I let you go instead.”

  “Since I paid you to let me go. You didn't do it out of the kindness of your heart.”

  “I still let you go, didn't I?”

  Moses nodded toward the slave-master, who whipped the rowers until they turned to the shore. They raised their oars as the boat approached, and the man with the longbow jumped over the side, onto the shore. He grabbed the rope at the bow of the boat, and manoeuvred it until they were stable at the shore, only wobbling slightly in the waves. Then he nocked an arrow, raised his longbow, and scanned the bushes.

  Guy strode toward them. He held a leather pouch in his hand, and shook it. Metal clanked on metal inside.

  “Thanks.”

  Moses nodded toward a seat near the stern. “Get aboard fast, before I change my mind.”

  Guy stepped over the side of the boat, barely glancing at the rowers as he did so. The crossbowmen covered him with their bows, staying out of his reach.

  “And you can leave the rifle with my men.”

  Guy slid it from his shoulder, and held it out to them. “Careful. It’s loaded.”

  The bowman tossed the line into the boat, climbed on board, and pushed it away from the shore. The oarsmen pushed out their oars, and began to move in time, rowing the boat back to the middle of the river.

  “What about me?” Daniel said.

  Moses pulled the dagger away, and stepped back. Daniel slumped down in the bow, and rubbed his neck. A faint sheen of blood came away on his hands.

  “You'll heal fast enough,” Moses said, then crept back along the boat between the oarsmen as it rolled from side to side in the waves. He squeezed past the crates, and sat at the stern, across from Guy.

  “How much for the trip?” Guy said, as he reached into the pouch, and pulled out a handful of shinies.

  Moses leaned back, with his arms along the side of the boat. “Ah, keep your money.” He pointed toward Guy's backpack. “Do I recognize that filthy, disgusting pile of fur on your back?”

  “You might.”

  “Then I'll take it in payment. It'll make a nice cloak to keep me warm in the winter.”

  Guy pulled off his backpack, and untied the fur from the top. He tossed it across the boat to Moses, who stroked the thick fur, then rubbed his face in it.

  “Ah, this brings back such memories.
I shall treasure it.”

  “Is he a capitalist?” Daniel said.

  Moses laughed. “Now there’s a word I haven’t heard in a long time. I’m a trader, boy. I carry cargo from where it’s cheap to where it’s valuable. If that makes me a capitalist, so be it.”

  So he was. The first capitalist Daniel had met in his life. He looked like a monster, and behaved like one. Daniel leaned against the side of the boat, as far from Moses as he could.

  The whip cracked again, drawing blood from the shoulders of an oarsman. His beard and hair were long and scraggly, his skin was dark, and well tanned from the sun, except for the red circles around his ankles and wrists where the manacles had rubbed his skin raw. His arms and legs were muscular from the rowing, but the rest of his body lean and thin. And he stank of sweat, and worse.

  “Are they really slaves?” Daniel said.

  “Of course they’re slaves,” Guy said. “Do you think anyone wants to be whipped all day?”

  “Let them go. Whatever they’ve done, they don’t deserve to be treated like this.”

  Moses laughed. “Why would I do that?”

  Daniel slapped his hand on the shoulder of the nearest oarsman. Muscle twisted beneath his grip as the man rowed.

  “This is a man, not a motor.”

  “He’s a pile of muscles, and a big, fat cock.”

  “Why not just build a motor?”

  “Motors are expensive. Men are cheap. And more fun.”

  Expensive? Oh. Back home, a factory could make a motor in a few minutes. Here, someone would have to make it all themselves. No wonder they preferred to use animals, and men they treated little better than animals.

  “Besides,” Moses said. “He's safer with us. What would he do out there on his own, with no-one to protect him?”

  “Then why do you keep them chained?”

  “It's better for everyone that way. What if someone tried to steal them? Anything could happen if they weren’t chained.”

  What bullshit. “Prove he's happy here.”

  Moses' eyes narrowed. Guy rolled his, but said nothing.