Planet of Pain

by B. A. Bradbury

  The corridor ended at another set of double doors, but before they reached them they also went into a room on the left. There were prisoners in here too, perhaps a score of them, with slightly more men than women. There wasn’t a single item of furniture in the place, so the people sat on the floor with their backs to the wall, or lay propped on their elbows. The appearance of their shift supervisor with a pair of new recruits drew sullen, even angry looks from some, though Jo couldn’t imagine what threat or problem the two of them posed. Malka seemed oblivious to this apparent hostility, and when the supervisor told Benedikt to take care of her, and he nodded and reached for her finally, she threw her arms about his waist and hugged him tight, moaning in delight.

  The supervisor then turned to an unhappy-looking young woman sitting nearby. ‘Ruth,’ he said, jerking his thumb at Jo, ‘you’ve got this one. Show her around and explain the routine.’

  A flash of resentment replaced the glum expression, and then the young woman sighed and rose to her feet. ‘Come on,’ she muttered. She went out of the room and turned left, walking quickly, and Jo had to run to catch up. ‘Dayrooms on the left,’ she said, waving her arm in that direction, ‘five of ‘em, one to a gang. We’re gang four. Dorms on the right, showers and latrines at the far end.’

  Sure enough, beyond the second set of double doors was a shower/toilet block with a long row of spray nozzles along the far wall and rows of latrines at the ends, left and right. Disturbingly, nothing was partitioned off. There wasn’t a cubicle or modesty screen anywhere in sight, so whether it was taking a shower or sitting on the toilet, you did it in public.

  ‘Like I said, showers and latrines, okay?’

  ‘Did the supervisor call you Ruth?’ Jo asked, and the young woman glanced at her warily, and nodded. Jo gave her a friendly smile. ‘Hi, my name’s Jo… Lieutenant Jo O’Donnell. I’m a pilot, off a scout ship, actually. Are you a spacer too, or did they capture you on a base?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘No reason. Just being friendly, I suppose.’

  ‘I don’t need a friend,’ Ruth said. ‘You don’t either, not in this place.’

  ‘I don’t? Why not?’

  ‘People die here. Badly. Better if it’s strangers dying than friends.’

  Jo understood and even had some sympathy with the philosophy. Cutting yourself off emotionally from others was a form of self-protection. There was a downside, though: you had no one to lean on when things got tough.

  ‘You can use the latrines anytime,’ Ruth said.

  ‘That’s good.’ Jo glanced in again, looking at the showers longingly, and she was suddenly acutely aware how gritty her scalp felt, and how hot and sticky she was inside her coveralls in all the heat.

  ‘Showers don’t work all the time,’ Ruth said, obviously reading her mind, ‘only when we come off-shift.’ Jo sighed and nodded. ‘But you’re in luck,’ the young woman added. ‘We just came off… see?’

  She held out her arms, which were covered in dust, every part of her was covered in dust, in fact – face; hair; the tattered dress she wore, with a piece of string for a belt. All the others had looked the same, so Jo just assumed it was the normal state around here.

  ‘They’ll sound a bell soon, and we’ll line up in the corridor here,’ Ruth went on. ‘Whatever you do, don’t drink the water. It’s recycled and it isn’t safe. You only drink the water that the orderlies bring round, like the food. We don’t have cooking facilities here: it’s all prepared in limb two.’

  ‘Limb two?’

  Ruth sighed as if she’d been given an imbecile to tutor. She squatted down and traced lines in the dust on the floor with her finger. ‘This is the hub,’ she said, drawing a hexagon. ‘You’ve just come from there. It’s where Boss and the beasties hang out.’

  ‘Beasties?’ Jo said. ‘Oh, you mean the guards.’

  ‘Guards, right. Here’s limb one… that’s the tunnel leading to the big storeroom and the dock where the shuttles land. It’s the only entrance to the complex, so you had to come in that way.’

  ‘We did.’

  ‘Right. Here’s limb two.’ She drew a line to represent the next tunnel clockwise around the hub. ‘Limb two is support… kitchens, medical and suchlike. Limb three is where green shift live, and limb four is where we are right now. We’re blue shift, in case you didn’t know.’

  ‘Blue shift, gang four,’ Jo said, to show she’d been paying attention.

  ‘That’s it. Limb five is white shift. The last one, limb six, gives access to the lower levels. That’s engineering, mostly; and the mine, of course.’

  ‘The mine’s where we work?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ll tell you all about it when we go on-shift. Right now you’ve got plenty to think about without that. So, where was I? Oh yeah, food and water. You remember what I said about that?’

  ‘Only eat and drink what the orderlies bring?’

  ‘That’s right. And there’s something else you should know about the showers. Water’s under strict ration here, even the recycled stuff. There’s no natural water on Paradise, so it all has to be shipped in. You get thirty seconds in the showers, then it cuts off. You’ve got to get as clean as you can in that time. You wearing anything under those coveralls?’

  ‘Er… pants,’ Jo said, a little taken aback by the question. ‘No bra.’

  Ruth nodded. ‘Some of the women here seem to want to keep their pants. I don’t bother; it’s just something else to get dirty. The ones who do generally use them as a washcloth. It means their pants get a rinse through at the same time. There’s no chance to wash your clothes properly, of course, which is why we’re all wearing filthy rags.’ She tugged at the ruined dress, her lip curling derisively.

  ‘Another thing about the showers,’ she went on. ‘There’s usually a few beasties in there with us, making mischief. They might try to distract you, so you miss your turn.’

  ‘Distract me how?’

  Ruth shrugged. ‘Sometimes they grab your tits. You’re not exactly lacking in that department, I notice, so there’s a good chance they’ll try that. Or they might go lower down. It’s not easy getting washed when some bastard’s got his finger inside you, believe me.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Jo said, bemused. ‘Why would they want to make you miss your shower? It sounds so pointless.’

  ‘I guess it is,’ Ruth said. ‘It’s just a bit of fun to them, I suppose. They do it all the time so you’d better be ready, is all I’m saying.’

  Jo shook her head in dismay. As if this place wasn’t bad enough, the guards wanted to play juvenile pranks into the bargain. She wondered what the officers were doing while all this was going on. Sergeant Vaughan would never have allowed such tomfoolery.

  ‘Okay,’ Ruth said, ‘that’s about it. There’s nothing else to see apart from the mine and the dorm, and as I said, you’ll see the mine tomorrow when our shift starts. We aren’t allowed in the dorms for another eight hours, so you’ll have to wait a while to see in there. Not that there’s much to see, mind, just a row of bunks. There’s a spare one under mine; you can have that if you like.’

  ‘Thanks. Why aren’t we allowed in now?’

  ‘It’s just the way things work around here. Eight hours in the mine, eight hours in the dayrooms, during which we get a shower and the main meal, then eight hours sleep. They bring breakfast just before we go on-shift, and the whole thing starts over again. It never varies—’

  A bell sounded and there was a mass stirring of bodies. People began to drift out of the dayrooms and line up, calmly and in an orderly fashion, in the corridor outside the shower block. Jo and Ruth joined the queue, and everyone started to take off their clothes.

  ‘You’ve remembered about the pants?’ Ruth said as she stripped off her dress.

  Jo nodded. She felt rather self-conscious as she undressed, thoug
h no one else seemed overly concerned at being naked. Ruth folded her dress and set it down on the floor next to the wall. All the others were doing the same, so Jo followed suit, laying down her coveralls but retaining her pants to use as a washcloth.

  As they were waiting to go in guards started arriving in twos and threes. They walked slowly down the line, commenting openly on the woman lined up along the wall, discussing their physical merits and shortcomings in jocular tones. It was obvious they were enjoying themselves hugely, unlike the objects of their scrutiny, most of whom looked embarrassed or apprehensive or both.

  One of the guards had positioned himself at the head of the queue, though he appeared to be on official business as he refrained from baiting the prisoners. ‘First batch,’ he called out, and those at the front quickly filed in and everyone else shuffled up. The guard counted those who passed, allowing twenty in at a time, and Jo, directly behind Ruth, just made it before he dropped his arm to halt the line. Twenty prisoners, twenty showerheads, and still no sign of water.

  ‘Hang on,’ Ruth muttered. ‘It always takes a few seconds…’ Her voice tailed off as two guards came in, one tall and gangly, one short and thin. Their glances passed quickly over Jo and Ruth as they scanned the row of prisoners, apparently looking for someone in particular.

  ‘There she is!’ the short one gleefully exclaimed. ‘Hiya, Jugs!’

  They went forward, with Ruth watching them out of the corner of her eye. ‘Two’s not so bad,’ she muttered, ‘though the little runt’s a nasty swine. Keep your eye on him.’

  The two men were homing in on a plump woman with pendulous breasts, and they reached her just as the water started to flow.

  Jo stepped under the showerhead and let it run over her head. The water was tepid and it wasn’t soapy, and it was a pretty feeble jet, but still it felt wonderful as it trickled over her body. She rinsed her hair, then scrubbed herself with her makeshift washcloth, acutely aware that she had just thirty seconds in which to complete the task. Despite the ridiculous time pressure she still managed to spare a glance at the two guards and their hapless victim. The short one shoved his stick through the plump woman’s legs, his companion grabbed the other end, and they both lifted. The woman, who was trying desperately to wash herself, found herself standing astride the thing with her heels off the floor.

  ‘One-two-three hup!’ the short man cried. They raised the stick higher still and the plump woman warbled in alarm, flailing her arms for balance as her feet lifted off the floor. Then the water stopped and Ruth grabbed Jo’s arm and dragged her out, past the next batch already hurrying in.

  ‘This way,’ Ruth said, and they followed the others the whole length of the corridor, then into the tunnel beyond to the cooling ducts Jo had seen before. Everyone stood in front of these, and Jo felt the heat sucked from her flesh as the water evaporated. It was wonderful. She felt cool for the first time since arriving here.

  The plump woman had made it here, Jo noticed, though her two tormentors were still in close attendance, badgering her mercilessly. The tall one grabbed her arms and pulled them behind her back, leaving his skinny companion free to manhandle her breasts, and he wasted no time, mauling and squeezing. She wailed pitifully, but he simply leered at her distress and mocked her tearful pleas for mercy.

  ‘Come on,’ Ruth whispered, ‘let’s get our clothes.’

  But there was no such opportunity for the plump woman as the two men led her away, naked and sobbing.

  ‘What will they do with her?’ Jo asked, knowing the answer already.

  ‘That one?’ Ruth said as they retrieved their things. ‘Take her back to their billet in the hub and fuck her stupid. It’s a shitty deal having big tits in this place. The beasties never give you a minute’s peace.’

  That was a far from happy thought for Bel, with her physical attributes, would draw guards like bees to a honeypot. They wouldn’t be able to keep their hands off her.

  Jo could imagine her in the showers, surrounded by men grabbing her. Bel was one of the smartest, most capable people she knew, but Jo couldn’t see how she could possibly elude them. She would be no more able to defend herself in that situation than the plump woman.

  With a bitter sigh she dressed, her head spinning with thoughts of Bel, tormented beyond endurance by a horde of leering men.

  They made their way back to the dayroom, which was empty, and while they were waiting for the others to return from the showers Ruth explained about the work gangs. The official gang size was twenty, she said, though it varied due to losses and new arrivals. Right now, Ruth said, gang four numbered nineteen men and women, including the two latest recruits. She admitted she didn’t know all their names, and as for the other gangs, she claimed to know three or four at most.

  The others began to drift back, and Malka and Ben, arm in arm, were among the last, still seemingly oblivious to the goings-on in the rest of the world.

  The food arrived soon after. Huge cans of it were wheeled in on trolleys by orderlies, prisoners who worked in the kitchens, Ruth explained, and ladled into bowls. They were given a spoon to eat with, and a thick slice of… was it supposed to be bread, Jo wondered? She took a bite, and learned it was more like a hard biscuit, tasteless and dry. Fortunately other orderlies were handing out beakers of tepid water. Strictly one beaker per prisoner, Ruth told her, although Jo saw a woman not ten feet away hold up her beaker for a refill.

  ‘She’s fucking him,’ Ruth said casually, when Jo pointed out this apparent contradiction. ‘You can always get more food or water if you’re willing to spread your legs. That’s Vicki. She’s fucking half the orderlies in limb two. Me, I’d rather starve.’

  The woman must have heard her name spoken, for she looked across at them suspiciously. Jo turned back to her ‘meal’, and dipped her spoon into the bowl of grey gruel. Like the biscuit-bread it tasted of nothing much at all, but she was too hungry to care. After the meal the orderlies retrieved bowls, beakers and spoons, and carted everything away. Vicki, she noticed, went with them, presumably to pay her ‘dues’, and the rest of gang four settled back to rest.

  The eight-hour period passed incredibly slowly, and Jo struggled to keep boredom at bay. The others seemed content enough, talking quietly with their neighbour, or stretching their legs occasionally in the corridor outside. Jo did more of that than most. She deliberately rationed her conversation with Ruth, not wanting to aggravate the young woman with constant prattle, but towards the end of the period she sensed a growing unease among the females in the gang, and wondered at the cause.

  ‘It’s called a pole ride,’ Ruth said, out of the blue.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘You know… the thing the runt and his pal did to that woman in the showers. It was just a game they were playing today, but it’s sometimes used as an official punishment. There’s this horizontal stick, and you have to straddle it with your toes just touching the floor. It might not sound much, but after three hours you’re in agony, believe me.’

  ‘They’ve done that to you?’ Ruth nodded. ‘Why?’ Jo asked. ‘What did you do to make them punish you?’

  ‘Nothing, really. You don’t have to do anything; if they feel like punishing you they’ll always find some excuse. In my case it was dirty clothes. The rules say you’ve got to keep yourself clean at all times.’

  ‘But that’s not fair,’ Jo protested. ‘How can you if they won’t give you any water to wash them in?’ Ruth just shrugged. ‘Do they punish people often?’ Jo asked.

  ‘It varies. Sometimes blue shift will go a couple of weeks without a single punishment, then you might get a dozen in one day. There’s no logic to it. It’s different with low-weight reprimands. At least you can see the reasoning behind that.’

  ‘What are low-weight reprimands?’

  ‘It’s to do with the mine. I’ll explain it all tomorrow. We need to settle down and be quiet now; the
packs will be coming around soon.’

  ‘Packs?’ Jo echoed, thinking of wild animals and wondering what new horror was about to be sprung on her.

  ‘Beasties,’ Ruth explained. ‘Guards, to you. They come hunting just before the dorms open. They’re after a woman for the night. Even the Harpies only take women.’

  ‘Who are the Harpies?’

  ‘An all female pack; three of them. You’ll meet them soon enough. They’re always on the lookout for pretty ones like you.’

  On that ominous note she stretched out of the floor, and Jo lay down next to her, making herself as comfortable as she could. She thought of taking off her coveralls and wadding them for a pillow, but suspected they might be missing in the morning if she did. In such a place decent clothes were probably more precious than gold.

  The first pack came by just minutes later. Jo heard their footsteps in the corridor; heard them enter the other dayrooms one by one. Their voices, a faint mumble at first, grew louder and more distinct the closer they got. Then they were right outside, coming in – five men who looked this way and that as they moved among the resting prisoners. A breathless stillness fell upon the women, each of whom knew she was a potential victim. Their fear was contagious and Jo found herself trembling. She saw Ruth try her best to become invisible as the men approached, holding herself utterly still, her face an empty mask. Jo mimicked her as best she could, though she had never felt less inconspicuous in her life. For one thing, she thought the men must surely hear her heart hammering against her ribs.

  They came right up to her. A terrible sense of purpose seemed to emanate from them, pressing down on her like a physical weight. She kept her head lowered, barely able to breathe.