“Does S’task know of this treachery?” Karatek demanded.
“Does it matter?” came the reply. “We will keep him busy until he falls ill again. He may not even notice. So, pay attention to what I say now. We are about to transmit your final instructions for the next six months. You will see that we are modifying the quotas in view of repairs to the field and the need to establish your infrastructure downworld. We would not wish to be unreasonable.”
Another blast from Shuttle One knocked out their principal communications facility. Avarak’s face disappeared. Karatek took a deep breath, wishing it had been he who had blotted it from existence.
“When you have assembled the ore, crystals, and processed metals specified in our orders to you, you will signal us. Our shuttles will come and pick it up in return for supplies of food, structural materials, and medical supplies. If you fall short of quotas, the amounts of supplies we will off-load will be proportionately reduced. If there is a catastrophic failure of a reactor or some natural calamity damages the habitat, you will signal us. Otherwise, you will keep silent, and you will follow the instructions I have now sent you.”
“We barely have power enough to send out those signals,” Serevan muttered.
Avarak and his associates had planned well. With communications so sharply restricted, this colony had no chance of appealing to S’task or more reasonable members of the exile living on their brother world.
In addition to betraying Karatek and his family, Avarak had made victims out of some exiles and accomplices out of others. In the years to come of this second exile from what should have been his home, Karatek would remember. Memory had always been his duty. And, until reparations were made, he would not forgive.
The ice overhead shuddered, a sharp quake, followed by after-shocks. Overhead raged the storm, the first of the many they must survive until they took back what was theirs.
Static hissed, disrupting communications again. Then, as reception improved, Avarak’s face came back into focus, and Karatek heard his voice, assured, arrogant, and enjoying himself far too much.
“You will expand the current habitat. You will harden the landing field to receive ore transports, and you will keep yourselves fit so you can work.
“You will work, or you will die.”
TO BE CONCLUDED IN
VULCAN’S SOUL, BOOK III
EPIPHANY
Vulcan's Soul Book II Page 29
