She straightened, remembering long-ago days when pain and whippings had been commonplace. Across the field, other slaves were being whipped back to work. Ampris knew it was time to get out of here, but the guard was still glaring at her. She got busy.
The stelf plants were bushy, with coarse, jagged gray-green leaves that rustled dryly in the hot, steady wind. Each plant produced several thick stalks, and on the tip of each stalk grew a single, globular head. When dried and processed, stelf produced the flour that made Quixlix, the staple food of the empire. Quixlix could be flavored to taste like anything, even meat. It was fed to the abiru population and consumed by the middle-class Viis population as well. Colony worlds grew the more exotic hybrid strains preferred by the Viis aristocracy, but the semibarren, depleted soil on Viisymel itself would grow only the original varieties, which were weak and susceptible to blight.
Scorn filled Ampris as she thought about how the Viis had practically ruined and poisoned their own planet during the past century. They were users, depleters. They had no concept of conservation. They used a resource until it was gone, then they went out and conquered another world and took all that it had. They wasted so much and created lack where there could have been plenty.
Another whipcrack sounded, making Ampris flinch. Annoyed at herself, she steeled her nerves. If the overseer wanted speed, she would show him speed.
Humming softly to herself. Ampris gripped a grain head and swung her slicer expertly and cleanly. It had been a long time since she’d done blade work. Remembering her days in the arena, when she’d been gladiator champion and famous across the empire, Ampris imagined herself back in training, honing and perfecting her swings and thrusts. She’d been a master of the glaudoon, the glevritar, and the parvalleh. All the ancient weapons of war.
But today, she was just a thief, wielding a slicer in need of sharpening. She cut the heads efficiently, dropping them into her basket as she went, and harvested a row of stelf twice as fast as any of the other workers.
By the time she reached the end of the row, her basket was heavy and heaped high. She wiped her face beneath her hat brim and started toward the bins, but a Toth blocked her way.
He thrust an empty basket at her. “Leave that. Cut.”
Ampris took the basket hesitantly. If she could get to the sorting bins, she had a good chance to slip away. With the guard right on her, however, she had little choice but to turn and start cutting another row.
When she finished, another guard intercepted her with an empty basket. “Cut,” she was told.
Panting and tired now, Ampris continued to work. But inside she felt a growing sense of desperation. The workers were still being harried constantly. Anyone who flagged was beaten.
The overseer’s skimmer hovered here and there at various points around the field. The sorting bins had been disassembled and loaded. As soon as they were filled, the big transports lumbered away. Ampris could not understand this sudden urgency. She knew that if the blighted heads weren’t separated from the good ones, the whole harvest would be contaminated. What was going on?
Never mind, said a voice inside her head. Get out of here as soon as you can.
She panted, dry for water, but she carried no water skin because none of the slaves were allowed them. Anyone who paused for any reason was whipped, and Ampris went on cutting despite the burning ache of fatigue now spreading through her arms and shoulders. Her crippled leg was tiring too. Soon it would begin to hurt.
Two rows over, a female Kelth emitted a soft moan and dropped in her tracks.
Concerned, Ampris put down her basket and hurried to help.
The Kelth lay on the hard-baked ground, not moving. Ampris knelt beside her and lifted her head, feeling for a pulse in the fur at her throat. She found it, far too fast and thready. The Kelth’s nose was hot and dry . Her eyes were rolled back in their sockets, and her tongue hung slackly out one side of her mouth.
Unable to rouse her, Ampris took off her hat and fanned the Kelth with it. The heat was still increasing. Ampris felt like she was being roasted inside an oven. She could see heat waves shimmering atop the stelf. and even the steadily blowing wind was hot, bringing no relief at all.
A shadow loomed over Ampris. She squinted up at the guard and said quickly, “This female is ill. She needs water or she will die.”
Without a word the guard unclipped the water bottle at his waist and poured its contents over the Kelth’s face and head. She moaned, half-rousing, and feebly tried to lick some of the moisture.
“To drink,” Ampris said angrily. “Give her some of it to drink.”
The Toth replaced the bottle on his belt. “Go to work.”
Ampris rose to her feet and glared at him. “Dead slaves can’t cut anything. Give her water and some rest in the shade, and she’ll be able to resume work in a short while.”
The guard pointed at the row she’d left. “Go to work.”
“Not until you give her water to drink,” Ampris said.
The guard swung his inactivated stun-stick at her. He aimed the blow at her head, but Ampris saw it coming and spun out from under it. The stick whistled past her, glancing off her shoulder instead of cracking her skull.
Growling, Ampris gathered herself to spring.
“You there!” shouted a voice from overhead. “Guard Eight, clear that corpse from the field. Aaroun in the hat, come here.”
Both Ampris and the Toth looked up at the scanner floating over her head. Its mechanical voice blared again, “You in the hat, come here.”
Ampris tilted up her head to stare at the scanner, while her breath tangled in her throat and her heart thudded so hard she felt dizzy. She backed her ears, panting fast.
“You,” the voice blared at her again. “Come here. Guard Eight, follow orders.”
The Toth grunted something rude and slung the unconscious Kelth over his shoulder. Straightening with his burden, he gave Ampris a shove and pointed at the overseer’s skimmer, which was bobbing on park at the edge of the field.
“You go,” the guard said gruffly.
The scanner floated down the row toward the overseer. The last thing she wanted to do was follow the scanner, but again she had little choice. She was almost in the middle of the field, in the wrong position to try to make a break.
Ampris walked slowly, trying to conceal her limp. She wanted to exhibit no distinguishing characteristics. Elrabin was always telling her to blend in. to bring no attention to herself. It was important that she be just another anonymous Aaroun worker.
Her hands were shaking as she cleaned off her slicer. Inside, she was berating herself, realizing she had worked too fast, too efficiently. She shouldn’t have tried to help the Kelth. She shouldn’t have defied the guard.
The overseer had only to run a scan over her to learn she lacked a registration implant. Maybe that wouldn’t matter, especially if the Viis owner of this farm wasn’t particular about where and how he acquired his slaves. Sometimes slaves had their registrations removed if they were stolen property or sold illegally through the black market.
The Gorlican was the fattest one of his kind she’d ever seen. Bulges spread out past the edge of his orange and black-spotted torso shell. His scaled arms were thick and puffy. Behind his mask, his yellow eyes stared at her with cold interest.
Ampris’s heart sank. She stopped next to his skimmer and stood there with her head lowered, not in humility but to conceal her features beneath her hat brim. This overseer was likely to know the faces of the slaves in his care.
Her mind raced in all directions. Should she run? Should she attack him and use him to hold the guards at bay? Should she stay calm and try to bluff her way through this? At her side, her right hand clutched the slicer so hard her whole arm trembled.
“Off with hat,” the Gorlican said. His accent was thick; his tone was harsh.
Despair sank through Ampris. She hesitated, dreading the confrontation that would come as soon as the overseer realized she
did not belong here.
A guard came up on her right side, stun-stick in hand. Ampris considered the odds. If she caught him unawares, she could probably bring him down, but she would have to make sure she stunned or killed him. With her bad leg, she couldn’t outrun him.
“Off with hat!” the Gorlican said to her more sharply.
The guard knocked it off her head.
Ampris backed her ears and slowly straightened herself to her full height. She looked the Gorlican right in the eyes.
His gaze swept over her, and his eyes widened. “Not ours. I knew it.”
Ampris let no expression appear on her face. Inside, however, she was still calculating how to get out of this. The Gorlican was smart and clearly good at his job. He would be hard to fool.
“No ownership ring,” he said.
“I lost it.” She kept her tone flat and defiant.
“Shut up!” the guard said. His fist crashed against her temple, making her stagger sideways. “No speak till ordered.”
“Not one of ours,” the Gorlican repeated. “What you doing here?”
“I’m on loan,” Ampris replied.
Again the guard hit her. This time it hurt, and she snarled at him.
“We don’t share slaves,” the Gorlican said. His voice was low and intent. “You a runner.”
Over the years, Ampris had learned a lot from Elrabin. “I belong here,” she said. “I belong to this farm.”
“Not ours,” the Gorlican insisted. “I know every slave.”
“Been here three years,” Ampris said, knowing the lie was outrageous. She couldn’t hope to succeed, but she had nothing to lose. Maybe her story would distract the Gorlican just long enough for her to break away. Maybe she could hope for a cloud to fall from the sky and rescue her, too.
“You running from where?” he asked. “Zafelil Farms? Tuluath?”
“Right here,” Ampris said. “I’ve been here three years.” She twisted around and pointed at one of the slaves. “That’s my mate, over there. The big one, with stripes.”
She didn’t see the Gorlican give a signal, but the guard hit her again. She took the blow across the side of her head and staggered to one knee. Her head rang, and for a moment the world spun around her. There was no pain yet, only a cold clamminess and a sense of being unable to find reality.
Somehow she managed to hang on to consciousness. Blinking hard, she pushed herself upright again and stood there, swaying while little black spots danced in her vision.
“Now, answer with truth,” the Gorlican said. “From where?”
She met his eyes with all the disillusion life had taught her. “Why do you care? You won’t return me.”
The Gorlican’s yellow eyes narrowed for a moment, then from behind his mask came a peculiar, snuffling sound.
Ampris realized he was laughing. Her spirits rose slightly. Maybe Elrabin’s lessons on how to bluff were going to work after all.
“Best worker I find all year,” the Gorlican agreed, still snuffling. “Best worker on farm. Master will be pleased to have you. Not care where you running from, even if you dropped from sky.” He laughed again, then gestured at the guard. “Put restraint on her, then back to field.”
Desperately, Ampris tried one last gambit. “If you put me in restraints, I can’t work. You’re in a hurry here, aren’t you? Got a little problem perhaps? Time of the essence? I’ll work hard and fast as long as I’m free, but—”
The guard’s stun-stick buzzed as it was activated. Ampris saw no response in the Gorlican’s eyes, no relenting.
She spun around, wielding her slicer like a glaudoon, and caught the guard across the wrist as he swung.
He bellowed with pain and dropped his stun-stick, staggering back from her and clutching his bleeding wrist.
The Gorlican shouted with alarm and started calling for help over his hand-link.
Ampris paid him no attention and instead tackled the guard. Before he could lumber to his feet, she knocked him down again and kicked him viciously in the head. With a Toth, the only hope of winning a fight was to play dirty. She kicked him again, making him bellow, then rolled away from him and reached for the stun-stick lying in the dirt.
Just before she could grab it. he caught her by her ankle and pulled her back.
Roaring with frustration, she turned on the Toth, but his fist struck her like a hammer between the eyes.
The world went black, as though she’d been sucked into a hole.
Her next cognizant sensation was one of motion. She could feel her body moving, could hear the dry rustle of stelf, could smell the hot, kicked-up dust of the ground. Her eyes would not open, but after a moment she realized she was being dragged by her legs, her cheek raking the hard ground as she went.
She opened her eyes and found herself being dragged by the Toth guard, downwind of his stinking, unwashed body. She’d been stripped of her slicer and belt, and she was being dragged facedown along the edge of the field opposite the foothills. In the distance she could hear an odd, muffled sound, deep and steady. It made no sense to her right then, and she dismissed it. What was more important was getting free of the Toth before he put her in restraints.
Her hand raked over a clod of dirt, hard as stone. She was past it before she could grab it. In desperation she grabbed another, but it crumbled in her fingers. She grabbed another, then found a stone as big as her fist and clutched it instead.
Twisting around as best she could, she readied her aim to throw the stone at the back of the Toth’s matted head.
But that deep, muffled sound came suddenly loud and close, filling the air. The Toth stopped dead in his tracks and stared, open-mouthed, at the sky. Ampris looked too, and saw a blinding flash of silver off the hull of a sleek shuttle. Six of them came flying over the field, booming exhaust, then they circled and landed right in the middle of the crop. Their jets blew some plants up by the roots, sending them tumbling away. Their landing tripods flattened whatever was still standing upright. The slaves scattered desperately to get out of their way.
The overseer’s skimmer zipped past Ampris and her captor, the Gorlican shaking his fist and screaming something that could not be heard over the shuttle engines.
Ampris seized the opportunity she’d been given. She threw the stone and caught the Toth on his temple. He toppled over without a sound, and Ampris scrambled upright, panting in triumph.
She looked around to get her bearings, and saw the black insignia painted on the side of the shuttles. For a moment she didn’t know whether to be puzzled or alarmed. What were patrollers doing here?
Shuttle hatches popped open with hisses of escaping air. A loudspeaker blared a message in abiru: “All workers will leave the fields immediately.”
“No, no!” the overseer protested, flying his skimmer in and out among the parked shuttles. “No blight here. No inspection needed.”
The patrollers waved him over. As soon as he stopped, a patroller yanked him out of his skimmer and forced him to kneel on the ground with his thick hands clamped on top of his head. The patroller stood over him with a drawn weapon.
Ampris grinned slightly to herself.
More patrollers in their distinctive black uniforms and helmets spread out through the stelf. sweeping it with handheld scanners.
She understood then why the overseer had been trying to get as much harvest cut as possible. He must have been warned that the patrollers were coming for an inspection. Ampris snorted to herself. Of course the plants were infected. Anyone with eyes could see the telltale whitish fuzz on the leaves or the spots on the round grain heads themselves. But she supposed the scanners would make the verdict official.
Meanwhile, what the patrollers did wasn’t her business. Despite the ache in her leg, Ampris quickened her pace and hurried to join the disorganized stream of slaves exiting the field. In the general confusion, no one seemed to have missed the guard she took down. The other guards were approaching rapidly. For a moment, Ampris thought they we
re coming for her, then she realized that they were simply moving to intercept and round up the slaves, who were trying to scatter in all directions. Ampris kept walking purposefully, angling in the direction of the hills while she resisted the panicky urge to run.
She had to get out of here fast, while the patrollers were distracting the guards, but if she ran someone would chase her.
At least Elrabin had had the good sense to duck out of sight and get away the moment the overseer had shut down his job.
If only she’d listened to him and quit while she had the chance.
Growling, she shoved self-recriminations away. She’d had good reasons for staying. Now she would just have to get out of this situation.
She veered even farther away from the others, but one of the Toth guards bellowed at her to turn back.
Ampris backed her ears and kept going. She’d nearly reached the edge of the field now. Beyond the shed housing the well pump there were perhaps twenty meters of cleared ground to be crossed before she could reach the gnarled scrub and thicket that covered the hillside. Above her, the hills themselves rose in rough, ascending layers, looking wrinkled, bald, and brown, with green thickets filling the canyons.
So close, yet the refuge offered by the hills might as well have been leagues away.
She glanced at the other slaves, noticing that they were bunching together as they reached the edge of the field. The Toth guards herded them, yelling at them to close ranks.
Ampris knew that if she let herself be rounded up with the others, any chance she had to get away would be gone forever. Snarling, she made up her mind to run for it, even if they shot her down.
Behind her, there came a loud belch of sound, followed by a roar. Startled, Ampris glanced back and saw one of the shuttles shooting flames across the field.
The dry stelf caught fire and began to burn, sending clouds of black smoke into the sky. Now Ampris understood why the sky had been hazy with smoke all day. The patrollers were apparently burning one field after another.
“This field is condemned,” came the announcement over the speakers. “All grain harvested from it is now confiscated and will be destroyed.”
The Crystal Eye Page 2
