by Jaleta Clegg
She was pushed aside, into an eddy behind one of the rock piles. She scrambled up, pulling herself on top of the rounded boulders.
More groups were shoved inside. The cavern was crowded, prisoners finding barely enough space to sit. Those first in were pushed to the back. Jasyn searched in the dim light for a flash of green. The guards shouted at the entrance. Daylight faded as a thick door slid closed, grinding through sand. It slammed shut, booming against the rock walls. The sound echoed in a sudden quiet.
“It’s bad,” the very old woman from her group said. Her voice rang out in the cavern. “Last time they put us here we waited days. Until they caught them and punished them. There was no food.” Her voice trailed off into mumbling.
Voices rose in a panicked wave of sound.
“Clark!” Jasyn shouted over it. No one answered. She hadn’t really expected it. Though it was dim, she hadn’t seen any sign of him. No one wore green quite like hers. She sat on the rock, above the sea of people. “Clark,” she said, quietly, hopelessly.
“Quiet!” Taffer shouted, his voice finally carrying over the noise.
People settled, voices fading. They looked expectantly at him.
“It’s a chance,” he said. “Did anyone get my messages?”
“Bits of bark with red writing?” A man stood up in the back of the cavern. “They came floating through several days ago. We saw them take them and burn them.”
“When?” Taffer asked.
“Before the last rain,” the man said.
“No, what time of day did they come?” Taffer asked.
“Morning, right after they came for us.”
“Ah,” Taffer said, smiling. “Then we need to float them out as soon as they shut us in. You should get them before sunrise.”
“And do what with them?” The man put his hands on hips. “What good will it do for you to send us messages? We can’t send anything back.”
“You’re wrong,” Taffer said. “Do you have anyone with you who knows pulse code?”
“I do,” a thin woman said, standing next to the man.
“Becka!” Roz shouted.
“Roz?” The woman who answered Roz’s call rushed forward.
Roz caught her and hugged her. It started a general rush to find old shipmates and friends. Jasyn sat miserably on her rock. Clark wasn’t there. She didn’t know where he was.
“Jasyn,” Taffer said, appearing at her feet where she’d pulled them up onto the rock. “We’re holding a meeting. Ship captains, those in command, those who want to plan, are all invited.”
Others gathered to the side of her rock. Men and women, young and old, most wearing Patrol uniforms, some wearing various shipping company outfits. A very few wore suits like hers, independents.
“We need to work out a way to communicate,” Taffer said. “Sticks on sticks, pulse code.”
“Won’t carry far,” someone objected.
“How far does it need to carry? How far apart are the compounds they keep us in?” Taffer asked.
No one knew.
“So, first plan is to map out the area.” He knelt down and smoothed out a section of the sand. “They keep us here, in a compound. The stream travels this way.” He traced a curved line in the sand. “We work in a cooking compound here.” He stabbed his finger into the sand.
“I’ve seen you,” a heavyset man in a black uniform said. His voice was gravelly, as if it didn’t get much use. He added a whole network of lines to the map. “Trails,” he said. He continued the winding line of the stream. He added a whole series of holes, naming each as he stabbed it into the sand. They marked various work places, fields, and compounds.
The others crowded close, each adding their own information to the rapidly expanding map. Jasyn watched them, her eyes dull and uncaring. Clark wasn’t here. How did she know he wasn’t dead? She didn’t and she couldn’t find any more hope.
“What do we do with this?” a woman asked. Her silver uniform was ripped, her feet bare. She had brown hair liberally streaked with gray. “So we know where we are in this valley. It won’t get us out.”
“How do we take out the force shield?” another woman asked.
“We got some scans done before they got us,” an older man said. He wore the pale blue of Exploration, faded now to almost white. “There’s a tractor beam holding the ships down, besides the one that pulled us down. And some kind of interference with all signals.”
“What about the collars?” Jasyn asked. “How do we get out of here when they can kill us with those wands?”
Taffer frowned.
“They can knock all of us out before we can even reach them,” another man in the black of the Enforcers spoke up.
“We had someone try to cut his off,” a different man said. He wore dark blue, a merchant captain with gold bars on his collar. “Blew his whole head off.”
“So we need to find a way to short them out,” Taffer said. “We’ve got a com unit in our compound. Ruttie is working on a way to make it broadcast the right frequency.”
“Why don’t you just steal a wand and use that?” Jasyn asked sarcastically.
An insane, optimistic grin spread over Taffer's face, like a kind of manic disease. “Why don’t we?”
“They don’t ever let go of them,” one of the others said.
“Our guards are more lax,” someone else said, a thin woman dressed in red and black. “I’ve seen them leave their wands on a rock and take a nap. But the others watch. Maybe if we started a diversion, someone could steal one.”
“Do you have an engineer who can examine it?” Taffer asked.
The woman shook her head. “Nothing to take it apart with either, except rocks. But we’re upstream from you. We can tie it to a stick and float it to you.”
“We’ll be watching for it,” Taffer said.
Jasyn couldn’t believe they had taken her seriously. Steal a wand? Someone would die for it. She was certain of that. But they were all dead anyway so what did it matter?
“I think the generators are here,” the grizzled Enforcer said. He punched his thumb at a spot on the opposite canyon wall, far from any camps or work areas. “And they live here,” he said, stabbing another spot. “I’ve heard children there.”
“Has anyone ever seen a woman or child of theirs?” The woman in silver asked.
“Once,” one older man admitted. “Three women and five children. And twelve of the men keeping them close. That was years ago, when I first got here.”
They leaned over the map, making more plans until no more suggestions were made. It wasn’t much of a plan. The woman who had said she could steal a wand was from a group that stripped leaves from a fibrous plant growing next to the streams. The stems were fed into a machine that extruded white cloth. The cloth was fed into another machine that produced the white tunics. Her group was not as closely guarded, though they still wore the collars. They also moved more, following the stream and harvesting the plants one area at a time.
Jasyn sat on her rock, above the map, and wished the plan was better. Steal a wand, float it past three camps to hers, have Ruttie find out how it worked and a way to block it from working. And find a way to knock out the multiple force shields and tractor beams that trapped them here. And hope their ships still flew. As a plan it left a lot of holes to be filled. And a lot of unanswered questions. The only question Jasyn cared about was the one that made her heart ache. Where was Clark?
Chapter 14
Clark bent over mud, stabbing it with his short stick and jamming plants in as if each were one of the golden men. Or possibly Jerrus. The Enforcer was impossible. He forbade them to talk, even in whispers at night. He dictated who did what in the compound, denying Clark water one night and blocking him from using the stream. Clark still had bruises from trying to get past the larger man. Jerrus was big and mean and knew how to fight. Clark was lucky to get away without any broken bones.
The late nights whispering together with the few who were
willing to chance Jerrus’ anger hadn’t come up with any plans. They had nothing to work with. The cliff was unclimbable, and even if by some miracle they did make it to the top of the canyon, they still had the force shield and the tractor beams to deal with.
They’d told their stories, huddling close and whispering so Jerrus wouldn’t hear. The trap was the same. A distress beacon and sometimes a broken voice message intercepted by their ships. They made the decision to investigate. And ended up here, ships landing hard and pinned to the ground above the canyon. The golden men had used wands and black boxes to draw them from their ships and subdue them.
The golden men were their own puzzle. They used very sophisticated technology and yet seemed to be primitive themselves. They also didn’t seem too bright. But they were big and fast. If he couldn’t beat Jerrus, there was no chance of beating one of the guards. Even if he could get the wand away first.
The morning dragged past, as slow as the rest, a timeless blur of mud and holes and thin green shoots. The sun overhead was hot, the wet heat collected in the field in a thick haze. Clark wiped sweat from his face. His back ached. His boots squelched through the mud.
He heard the distant shouting and first thought it was some kind of bird he hadn’t seen yet. The guards around their field snapped to attention, staring to the south. Clark straightened and rubbed his back. The guards moved to the far side of the field, intent on the distant clamor.
“Now,” Clark shouted, taking the opportunity the guards’s inattention gave him. He dropped the bundle of plants, intending to run to the far side of the field and away into the trees.
Jerrus stood in front of him. “It is not permitted.” His mud streaked black uniform blocked Clark’s view.
“Move, Jerrus,” Clark said.
Jerrus swung. His huge fist barely missed Clark’s ear. Clark ducked to one side. Jerrus followed through, twisting to meet him again. The others in the field dropped tools and ran across the wet mud.
Six guards, ones with tool belts and wands stepped out of the far trees. The prisoners slowed, sliding to a stop in the mud.
Jerrus swung at Clark again. Clark kicked him in the shins. Jerrus didn’t even seem to feel it. Clark backed away as Jerrus came after him.
“You will return,” a golden man ordered. He gestured with his wand at a path.
Their regular guards had come back. The moment to run was gone, if it had ever existed. The prisoners picked their way across the trampled field to the path, herded by the proximity of the wands. Clark turned away from Jerrus.
Jerrus hit him, knocking him face first into the mud. Clark gasped for breath. He heard a strangled grunt behind him. Jerrus crashed into the mud beside him. The Enforcer’s face twisted into a grimace, his eyes rolled up into his head, his breath gurgling in his throat. A guard bent over Jerrus and touched him again with his wand. Jerrus twitched and quit breathing. The guard left him lying in the mud. Clark scrambled to his feet when the guard turned to him.
“You will go with the others,” the guard said. There was no inflection in his voice, no intelligence in the blue eyes.
Clark went, walking quickly across the mud to catch up with the others. The guard was right behind him.
They moved onto the trail. The distant shouts grew in volume. Their guards waved wands, they moved faster, breaking into a tired run. The path twisted around a tall rock sticking up through the valley floor. Clark was sure he’d never seen it before. They weren’t going back to their compound.
The path crossed a sluggish stream, knee deep water as warm as the air. Their guards herded them through. The path continued on the far side, winding towards the towering cliff that made up the wall of the canyon.
The shouts were louder. Their guards stopped them against another rock, watching with agitation as more men ran through the woods. They held their wands nervously as they watched the others crash past.
Someone had escaped. Whoever it was, they were giving the golden men a challenge in recapturing them. He silently cheered the runner on.
The shouts died away in the distance. Their guards rounded them up and started them moving again. The path wove around another thick clump of trees and opened in a flat of thin grass. The black mouth of a cave loomed ahead. Their guards pushed them towards it, picking up the pace.
They ran into darkness, and found more people huddled in the cave. Their guards shouted outside and the mouth of the cave slid shut with a loud rumble that echoed in the darkness. There wasn’t any light in the cave. Clark stumbled to a stop, tripping over someone who moaned in the dark. He stood still, afraid of stepping on someone else.
What could he do with the opportunity that had been handed to them? He’d missed his escape, maybe he could do something here. The cave had to hold at least fifty people, if not more. He caught glimpses before the door was shut.
“Who’s here?” he called out. “Captain Esslen?”
“Over here,” Joli answered to his left. “What do you want me to do, Clark?”
“Find the rest of our group.”
“Who are you?” a new voice asked, a deep bass that rumbled in the confined space.
“The name’s Clark. Who are you? What group are you from?”
“Commander Fineas Blaggend,” the bass voice answered. “They use us to haul plants to the cooking pots. What group are you?”
“We plant the stuff,” Clark answered.
“Dameon Pritchett,” someone else said out of the dark. “Assistant navigator on the Korisan Mui. I’m with another planting group.”
“Major Barret, pilot for the Deep Water,” someone else said.
“Captain Esslen?” a woman asked from back farther in the cave. “It’s me, Sherris.”
“Sherris? Are you all right?” Joli sounded both concerned and relieved. “Anyone else here crew from the Tommy?”
Half a dozen other voices answered from the dark.
“Altair crew, report,” Commander Blaggend’s voice rumbled through the cave. More voices answered, stating names and positions.
Others followed, naming ships one after the other.
“I think I’ve found something,” someone said over the growing talk. A loud click echoed in the cave, followed by a buzz. A dim yellow light filtered down from cracked fixtures high overhead.
Judging from the number of ship names, there had to be several hundred prisoners on the planet, at least.
“Now we’re getting somewhere.” Clark deliberately didn’t think about the voice he really wanted to hear. Jasyn wasn’t there, or she would have said something by now.
He pushed aside a disappointment so strong it hurt and went to work organizing those in the cave.
Chapter 15
I picked my way down the twisting path. Night had come again. The three bundles I carried were awkward to handle. I stopped often to rest tired fingers. One night at a time, I told myself. It was all too overwhelming if I let myself start listing all the things I still needed to do.
It took me a lot longer to climb down carrying the bundles. I didn’t have any way to track time, other than the shimmer of purple light overhead. I had to be down and hidden before it started fading at sunrise.
Rocks crunched under my boots, along with grit and brittle spiny plants. The night air grew warmer, richer, and more humid the farther down I went. I stopped three turns above the valley and tried to pick a good spot to hide the bundles. I spotted a good sized clump of bushes not far from the path, right where it joined the one that ran along the edge of the valley. I could leave the bundles there and find a spot for myself. I wanted a vantage point that let me see at least two of the paths clearly without being seen. I gathered the bundles in aching hands and walked the rest of the way down.
The dark clump turned out to be a thick bushy growth, tough leaves and tiny flowers and no spines. The branches on it swept up then back down, leaving a narrow space relatively open but screened almost completely by the hanging branches.
I had the one
knife I’d found, a small folding one, tucked into one of my many pockets, along with one of the stunners and several charge packs. I added a small hand scanner and as many of the ration bars as I could fit in my pockets. I still had my maps and papers, my lockpicks, and the sheet of encrypted mem paper. I hesitated over leaving it, then decided it really wouldn’t matter. It didn’t weigh much. I rolled it back up and tucked it in one of the outer pockets on my leg. I kept the smaller med kit, but left the larger one with the bundles. I took two pairs of socks just because I could.
I tied the bundles together and pushed them into the bushes. pulling the branches across to hide the bundles. The night was passing. I had to find somewhere to hide.
I followed the path along the canyon until it crossed a second one. I took that one, turning under the shadow of the trees. The dirt underfoot almost glowed, I had no trouble following the faint path. The soil here was light colored, and grew lighter as I moved deeper towards the center of the canyon.
I came out on a stream bank. The trees had been cut away from it. Neat rows of a tall grassy plant grew in the open space. I’d found a sign that someone was down here. Whether the plants were food or something else didn’t matter. They had been planted.
A narrow path wound around the edge of the field, following the stream. I went upstream. The path was obviously well used, and often. The bushes next to it were broken back, the plants on the side trompled.
I followed the path to an intersection of three such paths. I wriggled my way into a thick clump of bushes. As I’d hoped and half expected, the center of the clump was fairly open as long as I stayed on my belly.
I lay under the bushes and watched nothing happen for a while. I wiggled back out and followed one of the paths until I could see the sky. The purple haze hung thick and heavy overhead. I walked the paths for a while.
I found more of the fields and numerous small streams meandering across the valley. Where did all the water go? Why lots of small streams? From what I knew of planets, streams tended to join together into bigger streams and rivers and usually ended up in an ocean somewhere. I was far from an expert on the subject, though. This planet didn’t have any oceans, and the only place that showed water or life was the canyon and the thin area around the lip of it.
