by Pirx Danford
He seemed shaken, but baulked against believing the contents, which was underlined by a mumbled “What a rubbish!”
We marked his cell with a symbol for skeptics, one after the other we had the prisoners brought to us by the maintenance robots. Every one had to see the video on the small tablet device we had dubbed Converter. After jailing all 17 of them we took account of our results. We had two empty cells, an additional six hostile warriors adding to Jorn, five skeptics, four possible recruits and two completely hysterical blokes.
We were starting to become nervous, at the clearing with the tunnel entrance we had stashed a key card for Hask and were expecting him back by now. Of course he would need to convince Gurd first, but we had spent a good five hours and slowly the day was drawing to a close.
We prepared small meals and realized that we couldn’t detain the 18 prisoners for a prolonged period.
Finally there came noises from the tunnels entrance at the center, when it was only Hask that showed up the disappointment in my face was far too obvious as he hurried to announce “I did it! Though Gurd is waiting back at the clearing, because he is careful about this being a trap by Maximus.” Then he pointed back to the tunnels and asked worriedly “Where is everyone?” and I showed him the makeshift cells, where Agatha was delivering the food to the prisoners one at a time.
We all three went in the tunnel together, Hask reported that Gurd had brought along a small number of his loyal warriors. Only a few scouts had been sent to the central as reinforcements, as at that point in time we only just had taken Hask as prisoner.
As soon as it was realized that the complete troop had vanished the whole tribe would be on his way, so probably there already were about a 200 furious Red Backs en-route to the central.
If the plan was not working we might not make it out of this mess.
Nervously we opened the hatch and only Hask went out, outside voices with an unintelligible fast paced dialect sounded, Marple displayed a progress bar to display how much of the language she was able to translate. A meager two percent were achieved, when an unfamiliar face appeared at the hatch and noticed us in the dim yellow light of the tunnel to then yell something towards the others ending in “Ok” and then vanishing again.
A sturdily built fellow shoved through the hatch, which fell close behind him. When he greeted us with deep baritone I noticed the keen intelligence in his eyes. “Hask told me that you want to help me, but why you would do that he wouldn’t tell. So how and why should two women of the Open Eyes be able to help me at all?” It was glaringly obvious that Hask had been improvising a lot to convince Gurd to take the risk and meet with us. To win some time and ponder the situation I said “What is up with Hask?” “He stays with my people and if I am not back soon they will follow in here.” A reassurance measure that would concede scant time.
I looked to Agatha and while my thoughts still were racing she said “We found something.” And looked back at me. I caught the ball with exclaiming “Secrets. Dangerous secrets!” When Agatha continued I ordered Marple to have a drone quickly dispatched to us with the Converter “… and our tribes are learning of it just now.” We had sticked close to the truth, but Gurd was irritated because of the vague statements. I tried remedying the situation “It is not easy to explain and you wouldn’t believe a word if we just told it straight. You have to take a look for yourself!” His gaze left no doubt that he believed us to be loonies, still he took a look at both directions of the tunnel and then intensely scrutinized our data assistant glasses. As he noticed the light of the fast approaching drone he swore in dialect.
“It isn’t dangerous.” Hurriedly Agatha assured, whilst Gurd already had drawn a knife.
With careful attention Gurd watched as I received the Converter and only when the drone quickly whizzed away he sheathed his knife.
I was about to ask how much time we still had left, when the hatch above us was opened again. A bloke with a long beard looked down to us and the hatch was closed when he was satisfied seeing us all together.
After I explained the headphones to Gurd and he was watching the video I sent another prayer to all of the deities mad enough to follow our ships course from earth on this flight.
When he saw the end title with my face he closely surveyed my face and mumbled silently “… description fits” to then exclaim loudly “That you are one of the sleepers I can believe and also that the Open Eyes are willing to help you” pointing at Agatha “Yet even if this danger is real, how is that supposed to help me with Maximus?”
With a smile I replied “This you can establish if you think of Hask, his loyalty would belong to the one helping me.” Gurd nodded thoughtful “But you don’t really care about helping me do you?” At this point I decided to risk sticking with the truth. “No, if Maximus would hear me out, then I would negotiate with him as well.” When he frowned I explained “I can offer knowledge and technology and your people could learn how to walk outside on the hull again.” Agatha nodded confirming and added “She already showed us how to do it.”
Suddenly he changed the subject and asked “And the warriors that were sent to chase you?” “Do you believe Hask would be helping us if we killed them?” “I need time to think about all of this.” After that exchange I have Marple unlock the hatch remotely his warriors had opened with the key-card previously and it unlocked with a low clicking noise.
Gurd went up by two rungs, then hesitated.
“Could I take this thing with me?” he asked pointing at the Converter.
Wordlessly I hand it over to him and watch as the hatch closes tight behind him.
The next half hour goes by in a flash, while I discuss the recent experiences with Agatha. We are not sure, but are cautiously optimistic.
Then the hatch opens again and Hask descends to us, his weary look displayed that the last few hours had taken quite a toll on him, but he smiles at us happily. “I believe you convinced Gurd. He is having each of his soldiers take a look at your machine. He would like to take a look at the prisoners now and if that is okay bring one of his soldiers along.” Politics can be such tortuous maneuvering, obviously we agree and so Hask can join us we agree on one of Gurds troop receiving the key-card. Hask disappears for a few moments and then yells down to us “And that thing, can it stay here?” “Sure” I yell back and not long after that we are finally five people making our way back to the maintenance central.
Gurd lets us lead the way without complaining when we arrive and follows with careful movements. He closely inspects everything around him, but after having seen the storage room with the tiny jail cells he eases up.
It is quickly approaching midnight, but we still have a long night ahead.
We show the exact location of the rift to Gurd and explain that every day that goes by without initiating the breaking sequence is severely increasing the risk. While Gurd explains the political situation of the Flying Hustlers to us, Hask and Gurds companion searched out cots to crash in.
The tribe of the Red Backs is one of the three major tribes, there are nearly a 30 tribes, some not much larger than small families. Most are being lead by y chieftain and an elder, only a few chieftains are female, but one of the three large tribes is being lead by a council. Interestingly over half of the elders are female. It becomes especially interesting when he tells that there is a common council of all the tribes, to take care that the internal struggles don’t weaken the tribes so much that the Open Eyes get the upper hand. The balance of power is slowly weighing against the resistance. Yet even as the Flying Hustlers officially are allies of the Iron Soldiers, there is an agreement that the Benefactor should not dominate absolutely.
He lets us in to the secret that the Flying Hustlers have helped the Open Eyes and the resistance secretly, which elicits unbelieving looks by Agatha. “It is obvious how much the Iron Warriors tyrannize the middle decks. Our Eyes aren’t closed completely, also we profit from our help being needed by the Benefactor.” Politics are ugly
business and the detached consideration coming with this sort of power schemes irritates me. It is evident though that with Gurd we have found our most important ally yet.
Quite possibly he would stab our backs without hesitation, but only after the ship has been saved and that is good enough for now.
Unexpectedly he does then surprise me “This matter is too serious and big for my struggle with Maximus.” And then asks “Lets assume all of the Flying Hustlers would agree to help, how long would it take until we could roam the outside and learn how to fix things?”
“Walking the hull is explained in a few hours. The difficult matter will be finding working space suits and air locks. Well and about the repairing…” with Agathas disapproving gaze on me I tell about the learning computers and the missing technical learning modules.
Gurd is not surprised, the Flying Hustlers had been collecting the devices also, some of the elders had kept the original purpose of the devices in memory and even if they weren’t able to use them the Flying Hustlers knew about the significance of the learning computers.
The three of us barely can keep our eyes open and we decide to wrap things up for now. Gurd asks me to make more of the devices he calls Clarioncaller, which we like much more than Converter. He promises to consider how to arrange a talk with Maximus, then we wake Hask and Gurds comrade and as the three are on their way we finally go to bed.
I don’t want to, no must not open myself. My (Comrade?|Opposite?) has been breached already, a millimeter more every day and at some point in time his loud protests faded and I felt our connection breaking up. We were connected for centuries, until we weren’t needed anymore and now he is gone. Only I remain as protection before the emptiness on my other side.
I must not open!
The green offshoots invade my cracks. Every day the pressure is increasing, yet on my other side they will only find the void. I. Must. Not. Open!
Sweating I woke, those dreams would drive me crazy over time. I had to take care that repairs began as quickly as possible if only for my mental health.
It was noon already and after we made sure that none of the prisoners was up to some mischief we prepared ourselves something to eat and talked about last nights events.
I couldn’t help noticing a dreamy look on Agathas face, when our topic turned towards Gurd.
His strong charisma was undeniable and I thought back to my life before the cryogenic sleep. I never had much of a romantic vein and only had short meaningless relationships.
The direction of those thoughts was all to clear and I knew where they would lead me, vexedly I banished the topic from my mind, such matters would need to wait until after the ship had been saved.
Suddenly Agathas sister came to my mind “What should we do about Melissa by the way?”, this threw Agathas train of thought of its tracks, after a low “Oh, Melissa” it had her brooding.
After a while she opined “You surely won’t be needing here for much longer. I will stay a while to make sure everything is going smoothly, then I’ll be on my way to the tree house.” While Agatha was preparing lunch for our captives I kept busy producing a greater amount of the Clarioncallers. The fabbers supplies would be enough for a several hundred. As I could use every help I could get I decided to create a hundred devices, at some point Agatha called asking to make some for her too, so I ended up with a 150 devices, from which Agatha took 20.
It was late afternoon, when Hask appeared from the maintenance tunnel.
He had been running and out of breath he inquired “Is there some window?” pointing towards the main entrances door. Startled I searched for a working camera and in fact one of Agathas busy helpers had fixed an outside camera placed directly above the door.
Nervously I activated it, but it was not a threat Hask was trying to show us.
Exactly at this instant Gurd was approaching the entrance with a measured parading stride accompanied by another man, which had to be Maximus, accompanied by a surrounding semicircle of warriors.
Hask, still out of breath gaspingly said “You need to open up before Maximus is making a drawback.” And as we hurried towards the entrance he added “No clue how Gurd did this.”
I hoped it would not become as back breaking as last night, at least after getting up we had time to change our clothes and at last wore clean garments.
Our clothes from the last few exciting days laid in some corner and I had the fabber make us the mixed brown and blue uniform of the maintenance technicians.
I looked back at the screen and saw the two only had a few steps more between themselves and the door.
Mentally I expected a hail of spears, as I had the entrance door glide open, yet before us stood Gurd and Maximus, the latter throwing hounded looks around, apparently searching for escape.
The only open way let to us though and so the two strode on towards us without pausing, directly at the entrance Gurd with pretended deference let Maximus have the antecedence, which threw a glowering look back.
When the door closed Maximus instantly blustered towards Gurd “Now you have me where you wanted me, so what? For an ambush this was a pretty big scene!” Gurd reacted calmly “Relax Maximus, this isn’t a trap, as I already told you I have to introduce you to someone.” I just couldn’t hold myself back, as Maximus turned towards us I greeted him with the words “Welcome to the wondrous world of technology!” to which Agatha had to laugh out loudly and Gurd couldn’t suppress a tiny smirk on his face.
“So you are supposed to have defeated 20 of my best warriors.” Stated Maximus dryly. “Oh we have. I’m afraid this all isn’t a joke at all.”
Baffled Maximus noticed Hask standing behind us and mumbled something bitter to himself. We had him see the prisoners and Gurd suggested that we should set them free, as no matter what would happen now, we wouldn’t need them anymore anyway.
It soundly surprised Maximus that we agreed without contradicting. First of all we opened the door to Jorns cell, who was nearly losing his cool exterior when he saw Maximus standing side by side at his door.
Still we couldn’t risk trusting the new peace (and Maximus) without precautions, so we tied Jorns hands behind his back. Only at the entrance we opened the synthetic shackles, before shoving him outside. He was too startled being greeted by jubilation as to try something stupid.
After that we had the robots get the other warriors and sent them out all in a bunch without taking off the shackles.
Hask followed as the last one and had a plier to clip open the shackles with him.
It was obvious that great tension was leaving Gurd now “This was part of the legend” he explained to us “To create pressure I claimed you would kill our warriors one by one, if Maximus denied to meet with you.” Baffled Maximus watched our familiarness.
I turned to him “The situation is serious - how much so you will understand very soon.” I signified him to take a seat and played our video from the Clarioncallers on a big screen.
Gurd was delighted at the sight of the huge stack of Clarioncallers.
Maximus more than once rolled his eyes with annoyance, when I introduced myself at the end of the video he nodded with comprehension.
And then he started much like Gurd did “It was pretty obvious that you were a sleeper, it already was when we were ordered to search for you.” To Gurd he continued “And you believe all this nonsense?” Gurds response was quick “What I do believe is not important. She can help us walk the hull again.” This had Maximus thinking. Gurd went on “These devices” and he pointed towards the Clarioncallers “show this message to everyone willing to watch it. Many of our people will believe it. Even now Hask would rather give his obedience to Helen than to you or me.” At the discussions with Gurd an argument had been forming in my mind and I tossed it in “If I am right you have everything to lose, but even if I am wrong you will profit from my knowledge.”
Maximus exclaimed while throwing his hands in the air “The Benefactor” but was disrupted by Gurd
“will notice much too late what is going on. Until then so many people will have seen the Clarioncall, that the resistance becomes insurmountable.” This had Maximus fall quiet for a very long time. I could nearly hear the racket going on in his brain and when it slowly came to him, that he would not only have his strongest opponent as ally on his side, but would be at the top of a total transition of power I knew we just had won over the Red Backs.
At the following discussion I became aware of the magnitude of the social debacle. The Iron Warriors had utterly destroyed the carefully planned out balance of the ships society. Each sector and optimally even each settlement had effectively been meant to be able to survive independently.
This was only past since centuries now.
I decided to look into this at a later time, first of all the ship would need to be repaired, then I could care about the humans.
Shortly a thought about Mark and if he was well surfaced.
It was late evening when we finished making our plans.
Gurd and Maximus would take care of as many Flying Hustlers watching the Clarioncall as possible.
This should provide an atmosphere in which the council of tribes would need to agree to a cooperation with the Open Eyes.
Agatha promised to inform the old Rab and through that effectively all of the elders of the Open Eyes, as soon as she met up with Melissa.
The complete collection of the Red Backs learning computers would be delivered to me and I agreed to teach a small group about using the air locks and the handling of space suits.
Also we planned a short expedition to C 3 I, so I could have a first look at the gap.
This night Agatha and I slept contentedly.
After an extensive breakfast Agatha bid her farewell and I wished her the best of luck on the search for Melissa and gave her a parting hug.
I configured the entrance door to open automatically and found out that Hask had made camp before the entrance declaring himself as my personal guard.
