Long-term plans for the penal colony included an air-filled dome over the entire complex. When that happened, vents like this would be needed. But right now, it was just sitting there, useless; Titan’s atmospheric pressure was greater than Earth.
It was my guess that the fan hadn’t yet been wired up. What we had was a square box with two circular openings—one on top, one opening into the room below—and the only thing stopping me from using it as a makeshift airlock was the large motor and fan-blades inside.
The openings were simple irises, somewhat rusted and four centimetres thick, edged with a contact-sealing polymer gel.
I knelt down next to it, sprayed the plates’ hinges with an all-purpose lubricant, then pulled a large, flat-bladed screwdriver from the belt and started prising open the top iris. My biggest worry was how much time it was going to take me to disconnect and unbolt the fan-blades and the motor: the longer I took, the greater the risk of someone inside hearing me.
I was able to force the blade of the screwdriver between two of the plates, but the iris didn’t seem to want to open no matter how much I forced it. It had probably never been opened. I had a mental image of some engineers installing the vent: one of them suggests testing it out, and the other asks, “What for? They’re never gonna need it. It’s just here because, y’know, regulations.”
I grabbed the screwdriver handle with both hands, braced my feet against the side of the vent, and pulled with every last iota of energy.
Something cracked, sending me tumbling back onto the roof.
For a second, I was sure that the screwdriver’s blade had snapped, but when I got to my feet and checked, the iris was open. Even better: someone had been cutting corners. The motor and fan-blades weren’t there. They’d never been installed. I mentally thanked the long-gone engineers for being even lazier than I’d imagined.
Now freed, the iris mechanism was opening and closing smoothly and silently. The plates were linked: push one plate and the whole iris opened. The polymer gel sealant was still intact, and it seemed to me that it was holding.
At the bottom of the box was another iris of the same size, this one cleaner and less rusted—a good sign. The inner walls of the box had fittings to hold the fan’s motor in place: I tied my rope to the two that looked strongest.
I climbed in, keeping my feet in opposite corners outside the circumference of the iris. Now for the tricky part. I crouched down and closed the upper iris above me, then, flashlight awkwardly clenched under my jaw—it’s not like I could hold it in my mouth—I started work on the lower iris.
It took a lot less effort than its counterpart. There was a sort of hiss as it popped open—the atmosphere in the vent and the block equalising—and suddenly I was looking straight down into the heart of D-Block.
It made sense that the block’s architects would put the emergency vent directly above the centre of the building for maximum efficiency. Unfortunately, the centre of the building was the wide atrium connecting the block’s corridors.
The floor was a good eighteen metres below me. No guarantee I could survive that drop even in Titan’s lower gravity. Which was why I’d brought the rope.
At this stage I figured I probably should have tied the rope around my waist before I opened the inner iris, but in my defence I was exhausted. And hungry.
The block was pretty dark inside, but, far below, I could just about see the inmates. For a second, I thought they were all dead, but then one of them turned over onto her other side, and a male inmate got up, stretching and yawning, and wandered into a cell. I heard the faint but unmistakeable sound of a urine stream splashing into water.
By crouching down a little more, I could see the gantries surrounding the atrium. They were sealed from the atrium by strong wire mesh; I could have used the tools on my belt to snip my way through, but that would take far too long.
My only option was to go straight down.
And then I saw her. Pastor Elvene Mandt Carbonara. The lolling inmates dissipated as she walked slowly and steadily across the atrium, at the head of a substantial wedge of followers, maybe thirty in total. Carbonara was speaking—preaching, I guessed—but I couldn’t make out her words. Behind the throng, four more of her followers clustered tightly around one of the guards. I didn’t need to see his face to know that it was Copus. His hands were bound. Two of the followers were holding shivs against his throat, another was carrying his weapons, and the fourth was walking backwards behind them, glaring warily around.
It made sense. The guards’ guns have handprint-sensors, like a Judge’s Lawgiver, and it’s very tricky to get past them. So instead of killing the guards and taking worthless guns, you keep the guards alive and force them to use their guns as and when you need them.
I tied the rope around my chest, twice, and did my best in the cramped confines of the vent to check that it was securely fastened. If any of the knots slipped, I was dead. A fall of eighteen metres in one-seventh of Earth’s gravity probably wouldn’t kill me, but Carbonara’s followers would certainly finish the job.
I waited until Carbonara’s entourage had passed, then with a tight grip on the rope I took a deep breath and lowered myself over the edge. I had to keep the majority of the rope coiled loosely on my chest, because I hadn’t measured it first: it was easily long enough to reach the ground, but I didn’t know how much longer it was than that: when you’re entering hostile territory stealthily descending a rope is fine unless the rope reaches the ground long before you do and gives you away.
I descended hand over hand, a few centimetres at a time, each second expecting a shout of alarm from below.
Halfway down I happened to glance to one of the gantries and saw a blanket-wrapped middle-aged female prisoner wordlessly staring back at me. She gave me a slight smile and a shrug, then wandered into one of the open cells.
I was two metres above the floor when a whispered voice from the side said, “Dredd?”
I spun about to see Dustin “The Wind” Enigenburg staring up at me. He was lying on his side on the floor outside one of the cells, with a thin blanket draped over him and half of his face covered with a thick bandage.
He propped himself up on one elbow and looked around: no one else seemed to have noticed me. Then he pushed himself to his feet, scooped up his blanket and entered the cell, gesturing for me to follow him.
I dropped the rest of the way and darted over to him, all too aware that I’d left a rope dangling from the ceiling.
Inside the dark cell, Dustin dropped onto the bed, wrapped himself up in his blanket again and whispered, “The hell are you doin’ here, dude?” His breath misted as he spoke, and he was clearly shivering.
“What do you think I’m doing here?” I asked. “Got to sort out this mess. Why is everyone sleeping out on the floor?”
“The Pastor’s people have control of the supplies. We’re gettin’ fed in the morning. Quarter of a ration block each, she said. But only her most loyal followers will get it.” He shrugged. “The Almighty Grud can be petty, I guess. He apparently doesn’t approve of pillows or mattresses because they promote comfort, and the only true comfort is in the arms of Grud. All false comforts are to be shunned.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve been taken in by all that stomm?”
“Hunger feeds belief, Rico.” Dustin looked at me with his uncovered good eye. “What option do we have? There ain’t enough food for all the people, and we can’t increase the amount of food, so...”
I finished the sentence for him. “So we decrease the number of people.”
“Right.”
“Not my way of doing things. We need to take back control. How many people does she have?”
“Pretty much everyone. She’s got the food, and Copus’s and Aldrich’s guns. And she’s got Grud on her side. She predicted the power would go down. How do you explain that?”
“She guessed it would go down. That’s not the same thing, and it’s definitely not an indication that she’s g
ot a direct line to the Almighty. The power’s down because I shut it down.”
“Jovus... Why would you do that?”
“Because I’m hoping that even the most fervent fanatic will realise that they’d rather live than freeze to death. They have the food, but I control the power, the heat and the light.” I nodded towards the door. “I need to know where all of her people are stationed. How many at each point, who they are if you know, and any weapons they’re carrying. Be casual, got that? You’re just stretching your legs. So check them out but don’t look like you’re checking them out. Yawn a couple of times. Shuffle. Smile sleepily if anyone looks your way. Do a circuit and come back to me.”
Dustin took all this in, then said, “No.”
I gave him a good glare, but I must be losing my touch.
“No way, Rico. I’m sticking with what I have. Carbonara’s crazy, but she’s winning. Winners live, losers die. It’s that simple.”
“Was it that simple when I carried you out of the gardens while the whole damn place exploded around us?”
He shrugged under his blanket. “I didn’t know that was you. Thanks for that. I owe you, but I’ll pay you back some other way. Dude, you can’t beat the odds this time. There are too many of them.”
“They’re going to freeze to death. I’m not.”
Dustin pulled his blanket tighter around him. “They’ve got guns.”
“I was a Judge. Top of my—”
“Top of your year in the Academy of Law. We know. Everyone knows. We were Judges too, most of us. Open your drokkin’ eyes, Rico. They’ve won already. All you’ve got to do is join them, and then you’re on the winning side too.”
Chapter Thirteen
IT WAS TEMPTING, I can’t deny that. I could approach Carbonara and say, hey, include me in your group and I’ll get the power restored.
But I couldn’t do that. Carbonara ruled by force and by withholding vital resources. Fighting against that sort of regime was the reason I was on Titan in the first place.
It wasn’t like they could outwait me. I could go without food for days, if I had to. But in an hour, maybe less, the last of the residual heat would be gone and any inmate who wasn’t a mod would freeze, and then all the food was mine for the taking.
I looked down at Dustin Enigenburg huddled in his blanket. I didn’t want him to die. I didn’t want any of them to die. But the truth was there just wasn’t enough food for everyone, so some of us were going to die no matter what decision I made.
Which meant that the only logical course of action was that I had to choose who lived and who died. After all, I had the power. Over everyone. Not just the other inmates.
I held all the cards.
I told Dustin, “Stay put. And forget that stomm about sleeping on the floor. Keep as warm as you can, because it’s going to get a lot colder before this is done.”
I stepped out of the cell and into the atrium. It was quiet, with only the occasional rasping breath or soft cough to let me know that the bundles scattered across the floor contained human beings. But not for much longer, the way things were going.
I strode towards the centre of the atrium, aware that the generator room was probably still very warm, and if I died in the next few minutes, there was a strong chance that Genoa might not order the power to be reactivated in time to save everyone else. Would that make me the killer, or her?
A voice from my right: “Who the drokkin’ hell...?”
I turned to see Fawn Svendsen staring at me. He was standing in front of the closed doors to the block’s small gymnasium, wearing an environment suit without the helmet and carrying a sharpened metal pole fashioned from a table leg.
Svendsen backed away a little as I started towards him. “Dredd, is that you?” His breath was clouding so heavily in the air that I almost couldn’t see his face through it. “How did you get in? We got every door and window...” He stopped, looking past me. His head tilted backwards as his gaze followed the rope up to the vent in the ceiling. “Drokk me sideways!”
I pulled the metal pole from his feeble grip—he was unable to hold it in his right hand, thanks to his earlier encounter with Genoa—then flipped it around and held the sharpened end up to his throat.
“Do it,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. “Do it. Power’s gone and even if it does come back, we’re gonna starve long before the ships get here. Do it, Rico.”
I didn’t. But I did crack him on the side of the head with the edge of the pole. He crumpled to the floor and a trickle of steam rose from the blood that briefly seeped from the wound before it began to freeze.
I had to move fast.
Carbonara and her entourage had to be in the gymnasium: it was the only room with enough space for all of them. And clearly Svendsen had been assigned to guard the doors.
I dragged Svendsen aside, then thumped on the door with my fist and called, “We need help out here! They’re tryna get in!”
I stepped back into the shadow and the doors burst open, disgorging two dozen of Carbonara’s acolytes in a mass, a freezing and frenzied swarm. They seemed to all be armed with shivs, or that old favourite of the inmates of crumbling prisons, the half-brick in a pillowcase.
I quickly stepped inside, closed the doors after me, and jammed Fawn Svendsen’s table leg between the door handles, effectively locking it.
On the other side of the small gymnasium, Pastor Carbonara stood in the middle of a cluster of her most loyal followers, with the hostages Copus and Aldrich trussed up on the floor nearby. Aldrich was clearly unconscious, but Copus was watching everything. Behind them, the entire back wall, about a fifth of the room, was taken up with crates of food and emergency rations.
Carbonara stared at me in surprise through the visor of her environment suit. “What...? Rico Dredd?”
“It’s over,” I said.
One of her followers was carrying a guard’s gun, and he made a move towards Copus.
“Don’t,” I warned. “It’s over. I control the power. Kill me and in a few minutes most of your people will start losing digits to frostbite. But that won’t matter, because half an hour after that, they’ll be frozen solid.” To Carbonara, I said, “Concede or die. You have no other options.”
Behind me, someone started banging on the doors, but I figured my makeshift bar would hold long enough.
Carbonara said, “Join me, Neophyte Dredd. Brother Rico. We will unite our houses under Grud’s gracious and forgiving eye and our partnership will... Our partner-ship will be the only vessel capable of sailing the rough seas of the coming months. Buoyed aloft by Grud’s will and compassion, He will be the wind that blows the sails and lends us the strength we need to reach the calm harbour of—”
“You really are just making this stomm up as you go along, aren’t you?”
The banging on the door hadn’t stopped, and I had to step further into the room for Carbonara and her people to hear me. “Take down the barricades and release your hostages. I won’t tell you again.”
“No.”
“I can wait. Can you?”
“With Grud’s help, we can wait an eternity.”
I looked around at her followers. “You’re the only one wearing an environment suit, Pastor. My guess is that your friends here are already losing the sensation in their hands. Finding it hard to hold onto their weapons. Certainly, they lack the strength to fight me one-to-one. All at once they might have a chance, but they’d want to get started right now. Every second they delay is another percentage point off their likelihood of success.”
No one moved any closer to me. I knew then that I’d already won. The banging on the doors was starting to weaken.
“Let’s say they’ve got a fifty per cent chance of taking me down. Forty-nine. Forty-eight. And they have to do it without killing me because I’m the only one who can get the heat turned back on. Forty-four. Forty-three—”
The man closest to Copus tossed his shiv to the ground and stepped away.
; That broke the seal: the rest of them did the same, leaving Pastor Carbonara on her own in the centre of the room.
She was muttering something under her breath, and I had to step closer to hear.
“Please don’t take this away from me.”
I turned to one of her former followers, a man I knew only as Waterman. “Open the doors. Get all your people to work on breaking down the barricades. The sooner they do that, the sooner we can have the heat restored.”
As Waterman moved towards the doors, I grabbed one of the shivs from the floor and started to cut through Copus’s bonds. He was still glaring at the Pastor. I’d known him a long time, watched him deal with a lot of different situations, but I’d never seen that look in his eyes before.
Behind us, Waterman had opened the doors, and I turned to see Carbonara’s half-frozen acolytes staring back in at me. The fight had gone out of them. Waterman simply said, “It’s over,” and the crowd dissipated. They no longer cared about the crates of food they’d worked so hard to acquire and protect. Now, their brains were filled with cold and little else.
“The barricades,” I reminded Waterman.
“Yeah. Yeah, sure thing, Dredd.”
As I started work on the ropes around Aldrich’s wrists, Copus stretched slowly, then painfully pushed himself to his feet. “You did good.” His voice was weak, but steady. “You’ve got to get the power back on, Dredd.”
“I know. I—”
“Now. Leave him—I’ll look after him, and protect the supplies.” He leaned down and snatched up his gun. “Just go.”
I nodded and headed for the door. I knew what was coming next. I guess even Pastor Carbonara did, too.
Before I’d even left the room, the gunshot echoed throughout the prison.
THE DOORWAY BETWEEN D-Block and C-Block had been barricaded by two guards’ desks, five prisoners’ bunks and Grud knew how many large pieces of gym equipment. Dustin and Waterman were among the inmates staring up at it.
Waterman told me, “We can’t... It’s sealed. Everything’s just jammed in too tight, and now it’s iced over.”
Rico Dredd: The Titan Years Page 31
