by Jaleta Clegg
Kuran watched Tilyn as he hurriedly left the office. Tilyn was too honorable, too idealistic himself. It made him perfect for infiltrating the resistance, but it also made him a weak point in the investigation. Tilyn would have to be taken care of once his usefulness ended. Kuran almost regretted having to do it.
He went back to the paperwork on his desk, reading and marking and scribbling notes in the margins. It was close to midday when he was interrupted again.
"Come," he called absently as he underlined a bothersome clause.
The door opened and closed. The man who entered knew better than to interrupt him. He stood quietly while Kuran finished writing a note to himself.
The man was young, and handsome. He had honey blond hair cut long. His eyes were clear blue, innocent and inviting trust. He was on the tall side, his build more slender than bulky. Despite appearances, he was one of Kuran's most ruthless and devoted agents. Kuran trusted him implicitly.
"Jhon," Kuran greeted him with a faint smile. "I have a task for you."
Jhon bowed his head. He was not one to speak unless he had a reason.
"The Patrol sent a spy a week ago."
"I have heard about her," Jhon said after a long pause. "My understanding was that she is now a citizen of Tivor, hard at work growing food for the good of the people."
"That's one way to put it."
"I also understood that she was no longer a threat, if she ever was one." Jhon made it a question with a lifted eyebrow.
Kuran shook his head. "There's something about her that doesn't fit. She makes stupid mistakes and yet she is almost too clever about the rest. She knows little about the resistance movement. The truth is, I'm not sure why she is here."
"And you want me to find out." Jhon's smile was cynical.
"She may be nothing, but she may also be a very real threat." He stared down at the papers on his desk. "Time is running out. I need to know exactly why she's here." He waved at a chair. "Sit, and I'll tell you what I know about her."
Jhon sat in the other chair in the office. He waited, his expression one of polite, bland interest. Kuran wasn't fooled. He knew Jhon too well.
"There is little in the files on her," Kuran said. He unlocked a drawer and removed a handful of papers from the false bottom inside. He placed the papers in front of Jhon. The top one was the news photo Tilyn had found.
Jhon picked up the photo and frowned as he studied it. "This is the woman?" He flipped the paper on the stack dismissively.
"That's what I thought, at first," Kuran said. "Tilyn discovered that quite by accident. Her prints pull up this file in the Imperial database." He pulled out a different paper.
Jhon pursed his lips as he studied the photo of a dark-skinned woman. "Someone is trying to keep her hidden."
"One reason I can't dismiss her as no threat. We only traced her because of a few lucky accidents. Someone took the time to bury her deep. Someone with a lot of resources."
Jhon shuffled through the papers, reading each page quickly. He finished with the Imperial files then glanced up at Kuran, his face expressionless. He tapped the news photo. "They make a big point of her not being Patrol."
"To the extent that she could be nothing else."
"An undercover agent."
"One who made amateur mistakes, just enough to keep us on her tail."
"Just enough to make you dismiss her as no threat. Have you considered she is a diversion? That the real threat lies somewhere else?"
"I have others investigating that possibility. I want you to focus on her."
"It will be a pleasure," Jhon said.
"There is more."
Jhon raised one eyebrow.
"This woman," Kuran tapped the photo again, "was born here, on Tivor. Her mother was Lirondalla Muberretton. That connection cannot be ignored."
Jhon studied the photo again. "That may be the real threat she poses."
"The resistance has already tried to use her."
"The raid yesterday."
"I had an investigator pick her up and try to win her sympathy. He cannot be trusted, though. So I had them both arrested." Kuran leaned back in his chair. "She knows little of the resistance. They kept her locked up because they don't trust her, either."
"So I keep her out of the rebellion's hands," Jhon said. "And find out why the Patrol sent her here. Anything else?"
"Torture won't work, she's too good. You'll have to use more subtle means."
Jhon smiled, transforming his face. He looked so sincere, so honest and open, that Kuran had to chuckle over the deception. Jhon was good. "She's a bit plain, but that may work in my favor."
"Don't kill her until you're certain you have all of her information," Kuran warned.
"But of course. Where is she now?"
"On her way to a work farm."
Jhon made a face. "You owe me extra for this."
"I'll see you're pardoned for any crimes you may have committed."
"One day, Kuran, you'll try to blackmail the wrong person."
"The train leaves at dawn. We'll arrange something so it looks authentic."
Jhon glanced down at the photo one more time.
"You may go. Don't make yourself too hard to find." He went back to his papers, dismissing Jhon.
He was not unaware of Jhon's resentment at being handled. He knew well that a weapon could very easily be turned on its wielder. Jhon was a weapon, a dangerous one. He was also a very useful one.
Chapter 10
The train jerked to a stop, waking me from yet another nightmare. I sat slowly, wondering where I was. The air was so cold my breath came out in a cloud. At least the cold suppressed some of the smell in the train compartment.
I heard doors clanging open. Someone shouted. People shuffled past my compartment. The sounds died away. The train lurched into movement again.
I huddled into my misery. The air grew colder as the day dragged on. I was hungry, despite the nauseating smell in the compartment. I was cold, shivering constantly. I was too miserable to try to sleep. I picked at the dried blood on my arms. I still twitched occasionally from the drugs.
The light in the compartment, let in by two very small, very grimy windows, faded into night before the train stopped again.
It was my door that clanged open this time. I blinked against the yellowish light that flooded in. There were guards outside, muffled in thick coats and furred caps.
"Out," one of them barked. He backed up the order by prodding me with a long staff.
I tried to get up. My legs wouldn't cooperate. He poked me again. This time the staff let out a jolt of electricity. I hissed in pain and managed to drag myself to my feet. I stumbled off the train, prodded by the guard with the staff.
I was herded through a gate and into a fenced compound. The guard shoved me into line with others from the train, a ragged group that looked lost and beaten. The gate to the compound slammed shut behind us.
I stood and shivered and wondered what was going to happen next. The compound was small with another gate on the far side. Guards patrolled the tops of the walls. Lights blazed down into the compound. A handful of snowflakes drifted through the night, a brief sparkle of white.
A door opened in a guard tower overhead. A man stepped out, bundled so heavily in fur coats that he looked enormously fat. He leaned on the railing surrounding the top of the tower, inspecting us. I tucked my hands into my armpits and tried to stop shivering. The others from the train looked just as cold. There were maybe two dozen of us. The others in the compound, the ones who had already been there when I got off the train, just stood in a defeated group, staring at the ground.
"Citizens of Tivor," the man on the tower spoke. "Welcome to your new home. Work farm twenty seven is a glorious home. We work for the glory of the people of Tivor. You have been selected for this great work, a vital work without which our glorious planet could not survive."
I tuned him out. He droned on and on about the glorious service we were to perform. Basically,
we were growing the food for the city. And if we were obedient and worked hard, we'd get to eat some of it ourselves. I was a slave, again. I didn't have the will to try to fight this time. I gave in to despair.
The man finally shut up. We were herded through the second gate. The compound held long wooden buildings, dormitories with bunks crowded three deep with barely room to walk between the beds. The guards assigned us to one of the four buildings randomly. I was shoved inside one.
"Line up," the guard behind me barked.
The prisoners shuffled into a dutiful line, three at the foot of each bed. I was shoved into place with two others. The guard marched along the aisle between the sets of beds. He made it to the far end and marched back. The prisoners kept their heads down, standing quiet and beaten. The guard stopped halfway down the row, beside one of the new people. The man stared defiantly at the guard. The guard slammed his fist into the man's gut. He doubled over, dropping to the floor. The guard proceeded to kick him into unconsciousness. He finished and continued his slow pacing along the line of prisoners. He stopped in front of me.
I dropped my gaze to the floor, staring at his polished boots.
"There is no escape," the guard said. "We are a thousand miles from Milaga. There is nothing for a hundred miles but wilderness. Those prisoners who attempt to escape will be severely punished. The best you can hope for here," he paused, watching me until I glanced up at him, "is to die quickly or find a way to keep your guards happy."
He marched out of the building, followed by the other guards.
I hadn't missed his hint. I preferred death.
The lights overhead flickered and went out. There was a scramble over bunks. The man next to me shoved me.
"Top bunk, unless you want to share mine," he said.
I ignored him and crawled up onto the top bunk. I was only a foot and a half from the roof overhead. It wasn't insulated. Cold breathed down on me. I wrapped the single thin blanket on the bed around me and was miserable until I managed to finally sleep.
They prodded us out of bed well before dawn the next morning. It was so cold my nose threatened to freeze shut with each breath. And that was inside the buildings. We washed in water that had chunks of ice floating in it. They fed us a thin gruel that was barely warm.
They herded us out of the compound through another gate. We were in a wide area of frozen mud. Fields stretched out for acre after acre, brown frosted with white. Snow drifted down intermittently.
I spent the day grubbing frozen chunks of soil dug up by those assigned to create new ditches. I was supposed to pick up each chunk of rock or clump of frozen weeds and throw it into a trailer that crawled along beside us. It was backbreaking work. I was frozen, so cold I no longer shivered. I had problems with dizziness as the day progressed, both from lack of food and from the beating I'd had before I was dumped on the train. The guards weren't sympathetic in the least. When I did finally collapse, they zapped me with their staffs until I got up and started picking up clods of earth again.
We were herded back to the compound at sunset. The clouds had thickened enough that little light painted the sky. It just got darker.
We got a thin soup for dinner. Then they locked us into our buildings. I did what I could to wash off the mud in the icy water. And then wondered why I even bothered.
The next day I spent tromping paths through the snow that fell during the night. They made us mark trails around all of the fields. I walked for miles through knee deep snow. My legs ached. I couldn't feel my toes anymore. I wanted to just give up and die, but there was a spark of anger left. I was mad at Lowell for getting me into this, for letting Tayvis die on Trythia. I wasn't going to die until I got my revenge on him. I held onto that anger with every scrap of stubbornness I could find inside myself. I didn't want to die out here, to rest in an unmarked grave on the planet I'd fought so hard to break free from.
There were others who did die. Some went down in the snow and refused to move. Two were beaten to death by guards. Some got sick and disappeared when they were too far gone to be of any use. More prisoners were brought in, another group of ten arrived three days after me. There were still plenty of available beds.
They worked us from dawn until dark, with barely enough food to keep us alive. The cold was constant. The offer to share a bunk was made not for lecherous reasons, but out of necessity. It was the only way to stay warm as the nights grew colder. The dormitories weren't heated, or even insulated. Some prisoners froze to death in their own beds. I swallowed what was left of my pride and started sharing the middle bunk with the man who'd offered the first night. The woman on the very bottom joined us. It was crowded on the narrow bunk, but at least we were mostly warm.
I'd been there three days before I first heard the rumors and whispered stories. The mountains were only twenty miles away, giant fists of rock thrust up into the sky. We farmed the relatively flat plain between that range and the lower ones to the west. West was back towards Milaga. East, into the mountains, was freedom. The other prisoners whispered stories of those who had escaped, who lived in villages in the mountains. They kept the old traditional ways of the first settlers, hundreds of years in the past. They didn't have to live by the whims of the government because the government knew nothing of them.
And beyond that, on the wild broken land farther east, were more people, those who had escaped the tyranny of the government. They had their own laws, their own customs. Those who could break free and find them could earn a place among them.
I listened to the stories with the others, huddled in blankets in the dark. I didn't want to escape farther into the wilderness of Tivor. I wanted offworld. There was only one port on Tivor, the one in Milaga. If I did escape, I would have to find my way back. And find a way to slip into the port. It was hopeless.
As the snow deepened and winter tightened its grip, the stories became plans. One man, Jhon, who arrived shortly after I had, suggested that we do more than whisper stories. He was the one who started us thinking about escape.
He began to follow me. I don't know how he managed it, but he was assigned as my work partner. We spent hours together, scraping frozen mud from ditches, or tramping snow into trails for the automated carts to drive along.
After the first week, the snow stopped. The sun was cold, giving off little heat. The wind blew almost constantly, whipping the snow into deep drifts.
We paused, after finishing the ditch we'd been assigned. The guards were across the field. We had a moment before they gave us more orders. I wrapped my arms around myself. Jhon nudged me.
"Look at the mountains," he whispered.
"Why? There is nothing there."
"There are people there. Those who want to be free. We could join them."
"You're going to get us into trouble, talking that way."
"You really want to stay here the rest of your life? Tell me, Dace, what would you give to leave this place?"
I stared at him, startled that he knew my name. Everyone else in the camp called me Zeresthina, when they bothered to use a name.
"You don't belong here. I talked with the others, with Rian. They told me about you."
The guard reached us. Jhon shut up while he gave us a new ditch to dig. The guard walked away. I bent to the task of scraping weeds from the sides with a blunt stick.
"We're going to make a break for it, in ten days," Jhon said. "I've got it all figured. The guards forgot to lock the doors last night. The fence isn't much of a challenge. We could be out of the camp within five minutes."
"And go where?"
"To the mountains. We could find help there. Others who feel as we do."
"And how do we feel?" He must have missed the bite in my words. He smiled brightly. I almost trusted him, with his clear blue eyes and open face.
"You want out of here as badly as I do. We can make contact once we reach the mountains. You could get your friends in the resistance to help us."
"I don't have friends in the res
istance," I said.
"And I eat steak every night." He put his hand on my arm. "This is wrong, keeping us here like slaves. We could do so much more for Tivor. Like your mother did."
"She died, without changing anything." I rocked back on my heels, a clump of dried grass in one hand and my stick in the other. "How do you know about her?"
"Rian told me."
We worked in silence for a while.
"Think about it," he said. "There's a group of us planning to escape. We want you to join us."
"It won't solve anything. It will just get people killed."
"We're dying anyway, just more slowly. You can make a difference. Just take us to the rebellion's leaders. We will join."
"If you talked with Rian, then you know I have no idea how to contact them. They don't trust me." I got up and moved away from Jhon. His intense gaze unnerved me.
"You know who they are," he persisted, following me. "Just tell me where they are, then. Tell me how to contact them."
"I don't know."
I jammed my stick into the side of the ditch. It struck a rock and slipped, gouging a long furrow in my hand. I swore at the pain.
"Let me see." Jhon took my hand, holding it in his while he gently prodded the long scrape. It bled sluggishly. It was shallow.
"I'll survive," I said, tugging to free my hand. He held it tighter, stroking it. I stared at his hand, holding mine, remembering other hands holding mine. It had been so long ago, and it would never happen again. I blinked back tears.
"Come with us," Jhon said.
His voice snapped me back to the present. I pulled my hand free, he let it go. I immediately missed the warmth of his touch. The guards were watching us. I turned back to the ditch, Jhon at my side.
We gouged weeds from the ditch in silence for a while.
"Why do you believe I know the rebellion leaders?" I asked.
"Because that's why you're here, isn't it? To free Tivor from tyranny and oppression. Like your mother."
I shook my head. I was here to make it necessary for the Patrol to take control of the planet. I was failing miserably.
Jhon caught my hand in his as I jabbed a clump of grass. He squeezed my fingers.
