by Piers Platt
Falken swallowed. “Weaver, they’re alive.”
The bookkeeper smiled sadly. “Yeah. I’m not going to stop believing that they are.”
“No,” Falken said. “I know they are.”
Weaver searched Falken’s face, frowning. “What … what do you mean?”
“Come with me.”
He led Weaver back down to the bridge. They passed Ngobe, still working on the escape pod. The scientist raised an eyebrow at Falken, but said nothing. Falken sat Weaver down in the captain’s chair and showed him the newsnet article. Weaver’s eyes went wide, and then he read it in silence.
“They’re okay,” he breathed. He reached out a hand, trembling, and gripped the console, steadying himself. “They’re okay.” He smiled up at Falken, tears welling in his eyes.
“They think you’re dead,” Falken said. “The Justice Department lied to them.”
Falken saw Weaver sigh, relief washing over his body. “Yes. And that will be hard on them. But they’ve already been through hell, and made it out. They’re still alive.”
“You could be a free man right now, if it wasn’t for this place,” Falken said. “You’re not angry?”
Weaver shook his head. “Right now? No. If that pod is working, whoever goes back to Earth can tell them I’m alive, too. Then they’ll have to let us out of here.”
They heard a sound, and turned to find Ngobe standing in the hatch behind them, wiping his hands on his coveralls. He saw them staring at him. “What?” he asked.
“Well? Will it fly?” Falken asked.
Chapter 26
As they hurried across the square, Weaver eyed the blue-balls in the colony’s cage. They were leaping between the upper branches of the trees, shrieking at each other. “Are they normally like that?” he asked Falken, pointing.
“No,” Falken said, frowning. “They’re all worked up over something, been fighting and screaming like that for the last couple days.”
“Weird,” Weaver observed.
“Mm. Salty thinks it may be because the females still haven’t given birth yet.”
“They’re mad at the females?” Weaver asked.
“Maybe. Or whatever’s making them delay the births is also making them flip out now. We don’t really know.”
A few steps ahead of them, three inmates reached the Great Hall and disappeared inside. Falken pulled open the wooden double doors a moment later, and held it for Weaver.
Inside, the Great Hall was packed with inmates – some sitting in chairs or leaning against tables, others sitting on the floor. Even the cooks had emerged from the kitchen, standing behind the counter to watch. Falken and Weaver took up a spot along the back wall of the room, facing the front, where Mayor Luo and Ngobe stood waiting. Falken caught sight of Saltari, seated at a table near the front.
“Foremen?” the mayor called out. “Are all your people here?”
“Carpentry is here,” a squat, balding man called out.
“Supply’s good,” another man across the room said.
“I left two behind at the forge,” a third man told Luo. “I can’t leave the furnaces completely unattended.”
“I know,” Luo said. He waited while the other team foremen reported their status, and then nodded. “Everyone’s here that can be, then. Good. We have something rather important to discuss.”
“Is it food?” a man called out. “‘Cause I’m hungry as hell.”
A grumble of agreement spread across the room.
“Let us eat!” someone shouted.
Luo held up a hand for silence. “No. I know the rationing is hard. But if we don’t do it, we’ll run out of food well before the harvest is ready.”
“Then let us harvest early! The corn’s already coming up,” another interjected.
“If we do that, we just kick the can down the line for a month or two. And then we’re in the same place – actually, we’re worse off. We still run out of food, but we don’t have any growing. We just have to deal with it. I know it sucks. But it sucks for us all.”
“Not the cooks,” someone commented.
“The cooks are being monitored by other inmates, as your foremen should have told you. The monitors have assured me that the cooks are not eating any more than their fair share. They’re not eating any more than you or I are.” Luo sighed. “Two more months. That’s all I ask.”
The blacksmiths’ foreman raised his hand.
“Yes?” Luo asked.
“Have we thought about getting our food back from that thieving bastard Archos?”
“No,” Luo said, emphatically.
“Would you consider a full vote on it?” the blacksmith asked.
“No,” Luo replied. “I’ve tried to reason with him and failed. The only way to get that food back is to fight him for it. So if you want to call for a vote on it, it will have to be after you’ve elected a new mayor to replace me. I want no part of a war with Archos’ men.”
The gathered inmates contemplated that for a moment. Then the construction foreman spoke up. “I’m no fan of the rationing, but I’ve been around long enough to see what happens when we don’t abide by the colony’s rules. A whole lot of blood gets spilled and we’re right back to where we started. I’m with you, Mayor. I say we ride it out. We’ll just have to hope we have the strength to harvest when the time comes.”
“Thank you,” Luo said. He looked over to the blacksmith foreman, but the man stayed silent. “If anyone has other suggestions for how to deal with the food situation, I’m all ears, as always,” Luo said. He waited a beat, but the hall remained silent. “If not, I have something else to share with you. Ngobe?”
The astrophysicist nodded and stepped forward. “Thank you, Mayor. Some of you know that Falken and Weaver,” he indicated them with a finger, “recently built a boat to try to locate additional land masses outside of the two islands that we know of. In that, they were not successful. But … they did find a small, one-man spacecraft, which is in working condition. It has the capability to launch one survivor from this planet, up into orbit, and back to Earth.”
The room exploded with noise. Luo raised both hands for silence.
“Where is it?”
“Who gets to go?”
Luo shook his head. “Settle down! Hold your questions, please.”
When the buzz had quieted down, Ngobe continued: “Mayor Luo has asked us to keep the location a secret, for reasons which should be obvious to a group of self-centered criminals like yourselves.”
Several of the inmates laughed.
“Here is the plan: we will choose a representative from the colony to ride that craft back to Earth. Their task is to alert the general public to the existence of New Australia, and lobby to have the rest of us freed from this planet.”
“How are they supposed to do that?” a man asked.
“Well,” Ngobe said. “They’d have to raise awareness of our situation here. If it were me, I would try to contact a newsnet service, and tell them about the realities of life on New Australia, and the inhumane conditions we face.”
“Okay, but why would anyone on Earth care about us?”
“Because this is illegal,” Saltari said from across the room, speaking up for the first time. “The government stipulates that all offenders have the right to prove they can reform. But we don’t have that right. We’re – none of us – ever getting out on parole. Nor are these living conditions healthy by any means, as we’re all well aware. New Oz is inhumane and illegal – there’s no disputing it. And there are people back on Earth who believe strongly that laws should be followed, even when it comes to the treatment of humanity’s worst members. If we can point out the injustice of our situation, we catch the politicians in an impossible situation. Either they publicly endorse an illegal program, or they have to bring us back. Or at least send us somewhere where starvation is not a daily concern.”
“Or they could just kill the messenger,” someone suggested. “What? It’s what most of
us would do. You really think the politicians would act differently?”
“That is a possibility,” Saltari admitted. “I’m not suggesting that it will be an easy task, for whomever we send. Nor will it be a safe one.”
“There’s a strong possibility that our messenger will not make it at all,” Ngobe agreed. “I’ve checked the vehicle, and it appears safe and operational, but … it’s old. Very old. There’s a distinct chance any passenger would die well before they reached Earth.” He looked over to Mayor Luo. “With all that in mind, we are now faced with the difficult decision of who to send. That is why Mayor Luo has called us all here today.”
Mayor Luo nodded back at the scientist. “Thank you, Ngobe. First, let me just say this: I know you’re probably eager to see this spaceship. So am I. But do not try to find it. This only works if we remain calm, and collected, and all agree to a fair process for selecting who gets to go home. If we start fighting over it like animals, it could easily escalate to the point where we destroy our one hope of all getting out of here. So if you’re caught looking for it, or stirring up trouble against whoever is selected to go, you will be immediately expelled from the colony. And the rest of us will ensure you never see that ship. Fair?”
Around the room, inmates nodded slowly in agreement.
“It’s only got room for one?” a man asked.
“Only one,” Ngobe said.
“So how do we choose?” another man asked.
Luo turned to face him. “I see two options. One: we nominate people, and discuss their merits. Not why they deserve to go back, but why we think they would be the best choice to achieve our goal of getting widespread attention. If we send the right man, the chances of that happening are vastly improved. But there’s a decent chance that even our best man would fail, and would be the only one to escape from New Oz. Assuming they survive the trip, that man may be the only one of us that gets out of here. So … no self-nominations.” Luo smiled. “Option two is much more simple: random lottery.”
“I say lottery!” a man at the back called. “Ain’t none of you bastards gonna nominate me.”
There was laughter, followed by a few more calls for the lottery.
“I don’t think that’s the smart option,” Luo said, speaking up to be heard over the voices. “I think we need to send someone we know people will listen to. Someone who won’t just make a break for it, but who’s willing to turn themselves back in, and stand up and fight for the rest of us.”
“Sounds like you’re angling for a nomination yourself, Luo,” one man observed.
“Actually, I was thinking Saltari,” Luo said. “Or Ngobe. Both of them have been here for years – they know New Australia well, and can speak convincingly about it. Both of them would be eligible for parole in a normal prison system, so we can trust that they’d take a chance by turning themselves in, in order to help the rest of us. And they’re our most well-educated members. If anyone would do well on camera, pleading our case … I think it would be one of them.”
“He’s got a point,” Falken heard the man beside him grumble.
“Fuck that. I vote lottery,” the next man whispered back. “We all deserve a shot.”
“What about Weaver?” Falken asked, raising his voice over a growing murmur of discussion. The inmates turned to face him, falling silent. “Without him, we never would have found the ship. And he’s the only innocent man here. He’s got a wife and two kids back home. If anyone deserves to go, it’s him.”
“I got six kids and two ex-wives,” an inmate called out. “I can throw a bigger pity party than Weaver’s weak ass can.”
“But the press will eat it up,” Falken argued. “Think about it: an innocent man sent to prison, a miracle escape – reunited with his family. That’s guaranteed to get air time.”
“That’s assuming his family is still alive,” someone pointed out. “And he told me they were missing, presumed dead.”
Falken opened his mouth to reply, but caught Ngobe’s eye. The physicist shook his head slightly by way of warning, and Falken fell silent. The less we tell them about the Khonsu, the better, Falken remembered the older man saying. Someone’s bound to try to find it themselves. Don’t give them any clues. That includes where it is, the condition it’s in, the status of the crew, the communications receiver … everything except the fact that there’s a launch vehicle that can take us back to Earth.
“Mr. Weaver’s case is a special one, but remember, I said we should consider people based on their merit as a spokesman for all of us,” Luo reminded Falken.
Falken shook his head in anger, but stepped back. Weaver smiled sadly at him. “Thanks for trying,” he said.
“You should be the one to go,” Falken said, frowning.
In the end, the group debated the issue for two full hours. When Luo finally called for a procedural vote, the overwhelming majority voted for a random lottery. Luo hid his disapproval and pulled up a chair at one of the tables, and as the colony inmates went around the room and called out their names one by one, he wrote each name on a strip of paper, then tore it off and dropped it into a large iron pot borrowed from the kitchen. When all of the names were in the pot, he reached in with one hand to stir it.
“I’m going to draw the name now,” he said. “We’re all agreed: the man whose name is called goes. No further debates, no swaps, no deals.”
There was a murmur of assent, as inmates nodded their heads impatiently.
“Salty, come on up here,” Luo called.
Saltari rose and walked forward.
“I need you to watch me pick the name, to make sure I’m not cheating in any way. Then read it aloud, and pass it around so everyone can see it.”
“Understood,” Saltari agreed.
Luo took a deep breath. Then he reached into the pot again and drew out a single strip of paper. “Fairly chosen?” he asked. Saltari nodded. Luo glanced at the paper, then handed it to Saltari. The old doctor unfolded it, and then looked up.
“Sirio Falken,” he said.
All eyes fell on Falken. He glanced at Weaver, who was doing his best to smile through his disappointment.
“You lucky fucker,” an inmate nearby muttered.
“Bullshit,” another man said, spitting on the floor. “It’s no coincidence that Saltari’s helper got picked.”
Chapter 27
Falken, Weaver, and Saltari watched as Ngobe set the Khonsu’s master manual binder on the ground next to the ship’s hatch. He leafed through to the page that held the ship’s blueprints. On the paper, he measured the distance from the hatch to the launch tube that held the escape pod.
“Falken: rope,” he said.
Falken handed him a spool of rope, taken from the colony’s stores. Ngobe paid it out in increments, counting silently. Then, satisfied he had the right length, he cut it with his knife. Ngobe leaned down into the hatch and knotted one end of the rope to the top rung of the ladder. The astrophysicist straightened up, and the three others followed him as he strode across the top of the hill, holding onto the rope as he went. When the rope went taut, he stopped. Using the heel of his shoe, he dug an ‘X’ in the dirt, and then dug another ‘X’ several feet to his right, and another several feet to his left.
“The X in the middle is my best guess,” he told them. “We’ll start digging there.”
Saltari peered up at the trees around them. “There’s a good amount of foliage in this area,” he commented. “We’ll need to do some tree cutting no matter where the launch tube ends up being.”
Falken looked out at the ocean, where New Australia’s sun was dipping toward the horizon. “Ten minutes until sundown,” he said. He leaned on the shovel he was carrying. “Then we can start.”
*
Once night had fallen, they set to work. They dug in shifts, for ten hours – first at the middle X, then an exploratory hole on the left, before finally finding the seam of the launch tube near the extreme edge of the right-most mark. The dirt was dry,
but the ship was buried deeper underground here than at the hatch or the antenna, and they had to dig down nearly four feet to reach the hull. In his weakened, hungry state, Falken found himself tiring quickly. He stopped for breaks more and more often as the night wore on, and they soon finished the water bottles they had brought with them from the colony.
While Saltari went to go refill the water bottles from the ocean, Ngobe had them remove the last few inches of dirt by hand, being careful not to damage the hull of the ship or trigger the explosive charges beneath. At last, Weaver knelt on the tiles of the heat shield, brushing away the sandy earth with the sleeve of his coveralls, and then Falken helped him climb out of the hole. They stood sweating and silent, staring at the clean circle in the tiles, which shone dully in the moonlight.
“No time to admire our handiwork,” Ngobe said, panting between sips of water. “We need to start in on those tree branches if we want to have any hope of finishing before dawn.”
“I’m not sure it matters,” Saltari observed, looking at the large mounds of dirt piled around the top of the hill. “Daylight or no, anyone that wanders by stands a good chance of spotting us up here.”
“Still – no sense tempting fate,” Ngobe said.
Falken unrolled a canvas sack, revealing hand saws of varying sizes. He handed one each to Saltari and Weaver, while Ngobe clambered down into the hole and stood in the center of the launch tube, turning slowly in a circle and looking up.
“That little tree there – and the branches of those two big trees,” he said, pointing to each in turn. “They’re all in the launch path.”
“Weaver and I will climb up to get the big branches,” Falken said. “It’ll be faster than trying to cut the whole tree down.”
Saltari helped Ngobe out of the hole. “You and I will work on cutting down the little tree. It’s a good thing there’s none of that hardened bark up here,” he told the physicist. “We could spend all night sawing at the white bark on those trees at the base of the hill, and have nothing to show for it but a dull saw.”
