There was a little bit of light coming through the gap between the wall and the ceiling plate uner the southern eaves. Corrag's bunk was aligned so she stared out at the light on sleepless days. Betty couldn't sleep either.
"She said that to you it's because she admires what you did, Corrag," she whispered.
"I don't think so. Basically she threatened to kill me. It was a very clear message."
"No. You don't understand. She doesn't need to threaten you. The fact that your life is in her hands, that's understood. She singled you out for those words because she fears you and that's because she admires you. You threaten her armor. If you can get under her skin it would do us all a favor. This is a war that can be won only by emotional subterfuge, Corrag. You are our hammer. Right now you have tremendous power. More than we have for a long time."
"I don't see how we can win."
"I've been here a long time, Corrag. Trust me. Sometimes there's no difference between us prisoners and the enforcers. They're just as hard up as we are. Even worse because their prisons are maintained with their own collaboration. It's a form of self-mutilation. That’s why they are so full of hate. The Repho knows what they're doing. They’re doing a job on all of us."
She loved Betty for her words. They soothed her in a way that went beyond comfort. There was strength in them that could form sinew and add bulk. Corrag felt herself stretching in the bunk with two things, reflections of each other -- the new life, the baby growing in her and the idea of herself as a force, willing a way of being into the world. She did not know which she cared for the most.
But the enforcers had the final say.
Two days later was the end of the work month. The camp reported its production totals and adjusted its goals every month. That night, before their shift went on Muslkick entered the bunk room and announced a walk through inspection. Five minutes later, they barely had had time to finish dressing and tighten the laces on their boots when Juarez-Knoblock walked to the middle of the hangar, between the two sections of the bunkhouse and cleared his throat. He clicked the microphone attached to his collar and began to speak, but not before the feedback sent an earsplitting shriek through the hangar. Languidly turning it down with a tap at his throat, Juarez-Knoblock proceeded to announce a rise of the quota to twenty-five logs per night as a minimum for the basic ration. He said it was an emergency measure in order to meet the entire Nenkaja's needs, as the wood supplies had run low and the electricity generating pool had increased due to expanding prison populations in all the area camps. The women prisoners groaned and looked at each other. If it seemed unlikely that they would be able to meet the new quota, he wanted to remind them that it was their patriotic duty to meet their responsibilities unquestioningly as part of their rehabilitation in the Repho. Every individual would strive to be a self-sufficient worker and the weak links would find appropriate retraining opportunities in due time. Betty stifled a laugh. As Juarez-Knoblock spoke, Muslkick stood at his side, glaring at anyone who dared to meet her eyes. She had daggers for eyes. Corrag felt her heart sink. Not so much for herself but for Betty and the other older prisoners who did not stand a chance of coming close to the new workload.
That first night with the new quota, Corrag had it relatively easy. She worked in the New Jersey quadrant with clean piles of logs, and her partner in the quadrant was Marina. They worked together, one hauling and the other sawing and between the two of them came very close to quota in just ten hours. Corrag was exhausted. Before dawn, Muslkick was at the center pile where Corrag and Marina were stacking. She announced the tally, which was Corrag's fourteenth log. Corrag knew that was at least half ration; she could survive on that.
"North Country wicked? You're not even close," said Muslkick.
Corrag found herself afraid to respond. She dutifully went back to the New Jersey sector, but then asked Marina to cover for her.
"If they come by say I went back to the hangar."
"Be careful, Corrag. Don't be caught. We need you."
"I won't."
Corrag put her chainsaw down behind the log pile. She trusted Marina to watch over it and make sure nobody would steal it. She walked away through the trees, slipping silently, crouched beneath the branches, being careful to stop when a floodlight came swinging by the yard. The first woman she saw was Candia, working alone on a fairly depleted pile. She looked tired but not defeated. Candia was about thirty, a former programmer for Anabot, a Sandelsky rival in the Midland states.
"Hey, Candia."
"Corrag. What are you doing?"
"We're helping each other out tonight. If you get close to quotas, check someone else out who might need help. What goes around comes around."
"I like that. But be careful. Not everyone is down with helping out."
Corrag kept going through the trees, looking for Betty or someone else who needed help. Grace was in her fifties, a financial writer who had made the mistake of levelling charges of insider trading against some futures company. She could barely keep the chainsaw up at the log. It was getting stuck. Corrag stepped forward. Grace sat down in the snow.
"Let me see that."
"Sure. I can't move any more."
"I know."
Corrag started up the chainsaw, let it run, checked the charge level. She cut a couple of sections of the log and pulled the rest away from the snow. Grace addressed her.
"Why are you doing this?"
"Payback. We help each other, we can get through this."
"Someone's going to snitch on you. You're a very foolish young woman."
"This is how we turn it around. Stick together."
"Okay. You might be wrong. But go ahead. I won't tell."
"Where's Betty?"
"She's over in Arizona."
"Where's that?"
"Directly opposite us."
Corrag cut a couple more logs for her. She was at six. Two more would get her enough bread to sustain her. Not much, but enough to keep her alive. When she saw the enforcers had retreated back to the charging shed she set off across the yard on the run.
Betty looked like she was in trouble. She had about five sections of a single log cut, but she was sitting against the back of a tree. Her pile was half submerged in ice. Corrag knew she had to do something to keep her alive.
"Betty, where's your chainsaw."
"Back there." She raised her gloved hand in the dark to point. Corrag flashed her headlamp on, and saw the chainsaw. She retrieved it and started it. She got it to work and cut a few logs. Betty would have to wheel the barrow over to claim them.
"Are you okay?"
"Am now. You are an angel, Corrag."
"You saved my life a couple of nights ago."
Betty stood on wobbly legs and hauled the barrow over to the center of the yard. Floodlights showed Corrag the transaction in the distance. When she got back, Corrag instantly started up the chainsaw and continued to work. There was about an hour left in the shift. Corrag cut five more logs in that time.
"Corrag, you're as strong as a man."
"Not really."
"Who is the father of your child?"
"A man named Kevin."
"He must need you. They always need us more than we need them.
"True. But he's dead."
"I'm sorry. You'll find another. The best of them are capable of teaching us something about the higher virtues. Like my friend Frank. Did I ever tell you about Frank?"
"No."
"Frank Ash. A three-time Nenkaja survivor. Last I heard he was in the jungle. We can learn from them. Corrag. They can inspire us. The way you inspire me."
"Come on, Betty. It's the least that I can do. You've taught me that it's possible to grow in a desert."
When they got back to the bunk room, Corrag felt a twinge in her belly. It felt like she had strained several abdominal wall muscles. She knew she needed to sleep it off. But first she would eat. There was a feeling of elation in the air. But also, in retrospect, she thought lat
er, something like dread in the air also. Nobody had made the quota, but everyone had at least made some level of the ration. She pulled off her boots and looked in the bag beneath the bed. Some of her bread there had gone missing. It must have been the enforcers, because the day shift was out and nobody else had been around.
That was the first sign that not all was right. Then she heard the news. It spread instantly. Candia had been caught out of her section and been dragged off to the Bunkhouse. Muslkick walked between the bunks. This was her time to shine. The hatred in Corrag sapped her of any feeling, as if her heart had been vacuumed out of her chest.
"You all know what a violation of the Code means here in the Nenkaja. She was caught helping others. Out of her section. There is no higher law in the Nenkaja. Survival of the fittest. That's the bottom line here and always will be."
Corrag slumped to her bunk. She was too tired. Sleep was the only solution, even in the face of this horrible news. But she couldn't sleep, knowing that Candia's undoing, the crime that had taken her out of her section to seek out others in need of help, had been her idea. About noon, while everyone slept, Corrag sat up and pulled back on her boots and put back on her coat. Half delirious with desperation and exhaustion, she made her way to the door of the bunk hall, unguarded, and fumbled with the latch. From behind, she heard footsteps. It was Betty, in her long Nenkajah coat, dishevelled, barefoot, coming at her with head down like a charging bull. Corrag put her hands out reflexively as Betty tackled her. They both landed on the ground with a thump.
"Help me, girls," cried Betty.
"What are you doing?" cried Corrag.
Betty reached over where she lay half crazed and clamped her hand on Corrag's mouth to silence her.
"You're putting the entire shift at risk, Corrag."
Women prisoners surrounded them, blocking the thin light from the eaves.
Corrag struggled free. "I just want to go see Candia. I can't leave her out there," she said. "It's my fault. We can't just leave her."
"No, Corrag. There's nothing we can do. You don't understand. If they think it's gone beyond a certain point they'll kill us all. They'll put us all to death. Is that what you want?" asked Betty.
"They won't do that. They’d have to close down the camp. It's free labor for them," said one girl standing at the edge of the crowd.
"They’ve done it before," said another woman.
"We can't let her go," said Betty determinedly.
Corrag struggled to her feet. "Look, this is just wrong. We can't just let Candia die. What will that do to us? Let me go out there and try to get her loose from the chains. I'll set her free, and she'll have a fighting chance to get out of here."
"To where, Corrag? There are no settlements for 500 miles," said someone in the darkness.
"She'll have a chance," insisted Corrag. "That’s better than dying in chains while we sleep. I can live with that. I won't settle for less." She drew her file out of her coat pocket and held it up to the small bit of light from the eaves. Already the day was dying.
"Okay, Corrag. Say you do get out there and help Candia get free. You won't get back inside."
"That's fine. I'll miss you guys,” she said.
The prisoners that had been standing in a blockade came closer, surrounding Corrag. Many were crying quietly. Someone gathered two blankets and an extra coat and someone else rolled a pair of boots up in them and tied it all with with twine that had held a mattress together. Someone else found a box of matches and a tin cup. Elise, the toughest of them all, handed over her prized possession, a knife she'd fabricated from a spoon. There was a collective intake of breath at this unexpected bit of generosity. Life in the Nenkaja could never be the same.
Corrag's hands trembled as she untied the roll, put it all together, tied it again and then put the blanket roll on her back, hanging the loop of twine against the collar of her coat. With her hood up she focused only on what lay ahead. It was time to say goodbye to prison life and the attachments to people she had made. She counted these as the closest bonds in her life. She would get free or die trying.
"Bye, Betty. Keep these girls going for me."
Some of the girls looked envious. She was breaking out with the slimmest chance to actually make it to freedom.
"Hope we never see you again. Good luck, Corrag."
Marina stepped forward through the crowd.
"Look, Corrag. Take this."
Corrag looked at the carving of a fish with a man's head in its mouth.
"What is it?"
"It's a Jonah talisman. If you stay along the shore it will be milder at night. And you won't freeze if you light fires with fallen branches and lichen. Boil water with berries you'll find under the ice on the rocks near the shore. When you get to Red Bay, show them this. They'll know who made it and they will take care of you."
"Thanks, Marina."
Corrag didn't have any more words to express her gratitude. There was no better love than what she felt at that moment for her fellow prisoners. Like the wind in her sails, it would keep her going through the passage ahead. Reason alone would not lead her. Faith was not blind; it was spurred by the providential power of this love.
"Go on then. Be free for us," said Betty, reading her thoughts.
She stepped out the door. The floodlights were on in the yard and the enforcers were in the charging shed. Maybe they would see her, but most likely they were sitting in the folding chairs sipping a hot drink with vodka in it. That was their main pastime, drinking Nenkaja vodka laced tea and trying to stay warm. Corrag felt their presence like a blast of diseased air. She avoided the yard and walked behind the bunkhouse to get to the rocky slopes. She made her way along the ridge of the slope. She could see that beyond the hangar was the ice-clogged strand, and beyond that lay the flat vast ocean lit up by the stars and moon shining a silverish green, eerie spell over everything. There was a stillness that masked the ceaseless motion of the universe. Underneath the dull buzzing of chainsaws she thought she heard something else, an anguished moaning, keening sound. She headed in a circuitous route for the shore and the locus of that pained expression.
The rock was black, like an obelisk. Candia was silent, just a lump swallowed up in the even greater blackness of the rock. Corrag hoped she was still alive and ran the last quarter mile through the trees with a sudden bout of anxiety, dodging the branches that whipped her in the face.
She climbed the rock on all fours and fell down, roughly shaking the body there beneath her hands.
"Candia. Can you hear me?"
She repeated the question and rubbed up and down her spine and head, trying to revive her.
"Candia. Please listen."
Candia stirred, as if awakening, and rolled her head over.
"Where am I?"
Corrag unrolled the blanket.
"Sit up and I'll wrap you."
"Can't move my arms."
"Okay."
Corrag did the best she could getting the blanket around Candia's body with the chains on her wrists and ankles pinning her to the ground. She talked all the while, telling Candia about the resolution she'd made to get her free and how the entire prisoner population was counting on them making it.
"It's Christmas," said Candia.
"Not exactly. But we got to get this for them, Candia."
Corrag examined the chains and the plates against the rock, covering up the bolts that screwed down into it. She used the file on a chain link, but found it difficult to hold the chain steady enough to get a cut started in the metal. Then she worked around one of the plates, seeing if she could shift the stone. Some of it came away. She wasn't sure if it was dirt, but kept poking to get some more.
"This might work," said Corrag.
She couldn't feel her fingers. It would take too long to get the bolt out of the rock this way, and there were three others to go. There had to be a better solution. The link of the chain nearest the bolt stayed in place against the rock. She tried filing on
it and found she could get the file in a groove. It might take an hour or so to cut, but that was the best chance. Corrag stopped.
"You hungry?"
"I'm so hungry, Corrag."
Corrag gave Candia some bread, placing it in her mouth and waiting patiently for her to chew. She moved her jaw with difficulty.
"I think I can do this, but you need to stay with me, Candia. Do you think you can?"
"I think I can, Corrag. I'll try."
"Okay, then. I'll try, too. Absolutely."
Corrag got on her knees and placed all her weight against the file. The pain in her side had returned, but she ignored it. The burring of the file was everything. Every ounce of her being was concentrated in her fingers and hands, feeling the way to deepen the groove in the metal. The cold was her ally, making the iron brittle against the sharpened edges of the file. Her fingers and ears together found the perfect angle, feeling and listening for the greatest advantage against the metal of the chain. Eventually she got close and stopped. She sucked the file to clean it and stuck the opposite end of the file into the link and stretched with her wrist and budged it apart enough to slip away from the plate in the rock.
"That's your left arm free."
"Almost."
Candia sat up and used her free arm to wrap the blanket tighter around herself. The distant buzz of the chainsaws in the cutting yard had ceased momentarily while stacks were made and accounts settled.
"Do you think they'll come looking for you?"
"Pretty soon they will. They'll notice I'm gone. We have a few hours."
Corrag took a deep breath. Her arms trembled with fatigue as she set them to work again under the weight of her upper body, leaning against the next link in the chains that bound Candia. She knew it was fear more than physical depletion that pained her and fought as hard with her own mind as she did with the file. When the second link snapped, she sighed with pleasure.
The Victor's Heritage (The Jonah Trilogy Book 2) Page 22
