Escape from Oz (The Falken Chronicles Book 1)

by Piers Platt

  Falken frowned. “No. It’s not.”

  “Hm?” Weaver asked.

  “The main island isn’t flat,” Falken repeated.

  Chapter 19

  The sensor node threatened to sink their small boat, but after some experimentation in the shallows, and a hurried redistribution of their supplies, Falken and Weaver managed to get it safely stowed aboard.

  “We’re sailing with the wind this time,” Weaver told Falken, as they set off. “We’ll make much better time on the return.”

  “No need to tack?” Falken asked.

  “Right.” Weaver smiled. “You’re getting the lingo down and everything.”

  “Aye, aye,” Falken replied, with a mock salute.

  Weaver fussed with the sail for a minute, until he was happy with how it was set. “Okay,” he said. “We should make landfall sometime this evening. We’ll have to camp at the worksite overnight. Game plan after that?”

  “Well, we can just start searching Lookout Hill for the command station on our own …,” Falken said.

  “… or?” Weaver asked.

  “… or we can stash the device, go find Salty and Ngobe, bring them up to speed, and get some real scientists involved here,” Falken finished.

  Weaver gave the device a worried look. “You want to leave this thing alone on the main island? With no one watching it?”

  “You want to drag it all the way to the colony, and let everyone there get a real good look at it?” Falken asked.

  “Damn it,” Weaver said. He gazed out over the water, at the distant island. “Well, what are we going to do, then?”

  * * *

  Falken jogged down a cart track that wound between the colony’s corn fields. Oz’s sun was just rising above the trees, its rusty orange glow brightening to white-yellow. He arrived at the infirmary a moment later and climbed up the steps, knocking brusquely before opening the door.

  Ngobe turned away from one of the desks inside. “Falken?” he asked, surprised. “Back so soon?”

  “We found something, Ngobe,” Falken said, keeping his voice low.

  “What is it? Where is Weaver?”

  “Tell you in a minute. Where’s Salty?”

  “With the mayor, I believe,” Ngobe said. “Luo sent for him a few minutes ago, and asked Salty to join him at the Great Hall.”

  “Well, let’s go find him,” Falken said. “Come on.”

  The two prisoners hurried across the fields to the Great Hall, but as they rounded the corner of the building, Falken saw three trucks parked in the dirt outside the entrance, guarded by a group of surly, fight-scarred inmates, two of whom wore stun-gloves. Falken recognized several of them from his time inside the facility. Both trucks were overflowing with fresh produce and butchered blue-balls – Falken had never seen the facility’s supply trucks so full. The doors to the Great Hall burst open, spilling out Mayor Luo, Saltari, and Archos himself.

  “It’s too much,” Luo protested. “We can’t survive on what you’re leaving us.”

  “He’s right,” Saltari said. “We’ll have men dying of starvation if you take all of it.”

  Archos snorted. “Then harvest some more.”

  “We can’t,” Saltari argued. “None of the fields are ready yet – we’d risk killing the entire crop.”

  “So wait until they’re ready,” Archos told him, striding toward the trucks. “Tighten your belts. I don’t care.”

  “We won’t last through the next season,” Saltari told Luo.

  The mayor shook his head. “Archos. Please. If we die, your men do, too. We need each other, you have to realize that.”

  Archos spun on his heel, and struck Luo on the jaw with a vicious hook, knocking him to the ground. “Don’t you ever presume to tell me what I need,” the warden seethed. “I don’t need anything. You need me. You need my patience, and generosity … and right now I’m running out of both.”

  The mayor rubbed at his jaw, and a thin stream of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

  “If you can’t survive, then you best find a way to thin your herd, Mayor,” Archos continued. “In fact, that could kill two birds with one stone, eh? Kill some of your own, and you’d have all the meat you need.” The warden crossed his arms. “I’ve let you colonists have it easy for too long. Getting fat and strong over here, feasting on your harvests. It’s past time you learned to live a little more lean.”

  “For the last time, we have no wish to attack you,” Saltari said. “It would gain us nothing. We just wish to be left alone.”

  “You wish to be left alone?” Archos laughed. “Well, wish in one hand and shit in the other, and see which one fills up first.” He punched Saltari in the gut, doubling him over, and then turned to face his crew, grinning. “Far too much backtalk from the farm boys on this trip, huh?”

  They laughed dutifully, and as Archos turned back to face Saltari and Luo, he noticed Ngobe and Falken for the first time. “Bird-man.” His eyes narrowed. “Long time no see.”

  “Archos.” Falken nodded.

  “I figured you’d gone to live with the rest of the sheep here at the colony,” Archos said, sauntering over. “Are you bored yet? Care to join us back at the facility, live the easy life again?”

  “No, thanks,” Falken replied.

  “No?” Archos stepped up to Falken, putting his face close to Falken’s own. “Perhaps I should throw you back in the pit for a few more matches, then. As punishment for running away like the pussy you are.”

  Falken felt heat flush his cheeks. “I’m all set here,” he said, with effort. He nodded at the trucks. “Your crew can’t eat all that food. Why don’t you leave a little.”

  “Why don’t you make me?” Archos asked, raising an eyebrow. “Come on. Show your new friends what a big man you are, what a great fighter. Kill me now, and solve all of their problems for them.”

  Falken’s pulse raced. He balled his hands into fists. Then he took a deep breath. “No. I’m not going to fight you.”

  “I didn’t think so,” Archos said, smiling with satisfaction. “See that, boys? Bird-man’s gone soft.” He spat in Falken’s face and turned away. Falken felt Ngobe place a hand on his arm.

  The astrophysicist shook his head, eyes wide. “Don’t,” he warned Falken, with a whisper.

  Falken gritted his teeth. “I’m good,” he said. He wiped his sleeve across his face, cleaning off the spit.

  Archos kicked a spray of dirt at Luo, who still sat on the ground. Then he walked over to the trucks.

  “You want me to leave you some food?” he asked. As the colonists watched, he tugged an ear of corn loose, and then tossed it over to them. It landed at Luo’s feet. “There you go. Bon appetit.”

  He climbed into the passenger’s seat of one of the trucks, and his followers loaded up as well, clambering aboard the heavily-laden vehicles. They started up, and a moment later, drove back into the forest, trailing a cloud of dust that settled onto the leaves of the young corn stalks on either side of the road.

  Falken walked over to Saltari, who was holding his stomach, grimacing in pain.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m okay,” Saltari grunted, as Ngobe helped Luo up off the ground. “Mayor?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Luo said. “Might need you to pull a loose tooth for me later, though.”

  Saltari insisted on checking the tooth immediately, so they crossed back over to the infirmary, and the old doctor spent several minutes peering into the mayor’s mouth, before finally deciding against removing the tooth.

  “It might heal,” Saltari said. “I don’t know. Try not to chew on that side for a while.”

  “I’m not going to be chewing much of anything for a while,” Luo said, tonguing the tooth and wincing. “None of us are.”

  Saltari pulled up a stool, and the four of them sat in silence for a moment.

  “How bad is the food situation?” Ngobe asked.

  Saltari and Luo shared a look. “Bad,” Luo said.
“This is Archos’ second resupply run this month. We have the hidden cache that he doesn’t know about. But … it can’t make up for all he’s taken. Nowhere close.”

  “Harvest is still at least three months away,” Saltari said. “We can pull some fields early, before they’re fully ripe, but … that will hurt us in the long run. And the blue-ball herd is decimated. He made us butcher most of the fertile females.”

  “We can catch more,” Falken suggested.

  “We’ll have to,” Saltari said. “We’ll need hunting parties out every day.”

  “You’ll have them,” Luo promised. “And we’ll go to half rations, starting tonight.”

  Saltari nodded, then frowned, as if noticing Falken for the first time. “Falken, what are you doing back here?”

  “We found something,” Falken said.

  “Another island?” Luo asked.

  “Well, we made it to the little island, and we found Bearnes,” Falken said. “And his boat. According to his journal, he spent most of a year sailing out from the little island, looking for land.”

  “And …?” Saltari asked.

  “He didn’t find any,” Falken said. “He gave up, and hung himself. But we found something else. A sensor node.”

  Ngobe’s jaw dropped open. “On the other island? Is it functional?”

  “Yeah,” Falken said. “It works. We brought it back here.”

  “What’s a ‘sensor node’? What can it do?” the mayor asked.

  Ngobe pursed his lips. “Well, now that I think of it, it can’t do much that would be useful to us. Practically speaking, it’s meant to assess whether a planet is habitable, and we already know that New Oz is. But if it runs off of solar power, we could hack it to generate a small amount of electricity for the colony. Not much, but … enough to run a small water pump, or a few lights at night.”

  Saltari sighed. “It’s not going to help feed us.”

  “No,” Ngobe agreed.

  “It might,” Falken said. “Weaver and I tried to get its communications uplink working.”

  “You were hoping to send out a distress call to Earth? Not likely,” Ngobe said, shaking his head. “It wouldn’t be capable of reaching that far. The best we could do is send a message within this system. To the drop-ship when it arrives with the next batch of inmates, for instance.”

  “But what would we say?” Saltari asked. “They already know we’re here. They’ve never dropped food before.”

  “True,” Ngobe said. “And my suspicion is that those ships are autonomous vessels, anyway. No one to respond to us, and no food on board to give us.”

  “Yeah, it can’t talk to Earth,” Falken agreed. “It’s supposed to work by linking to a command station, which has more power for longer range communications.”

  “Right,” Ngobe agreed. “A space station in orbit, or something,”

  “But it’s trying to connect to something here. On the main island,” Falken said.

  “What?” Ngobe frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense. Where is the sensor node now?”

  “Lookout Hill, with Weaver,” Falken said.

  Mayor Luo rubbed his chin. “I think the three of you better get to the bottom of this whole thing. But, and I want to be crystal clear about this: I don’t want anything said to the other men in the colony, for the time being. We’ve got a major crisis on our hands with the food shortage. That’s going to set everyone on edge as it is. The last thing I need is hysteria over some device that may end up being a complete dead end.”

  “Okay,” Falken agreed. He looked to the two scientists. “You guys ready to go now?”

  “Might as well,” Saltari said. “No sense delaying.”

  Ngobe nodded, standing up.

  “Good,” Falken said. “I want to get back to Weaver ASAP.”

  “Worried about him?” Ngobe asked.

  “With Archos and his crew driving around, looking for trouble?” Falken asked. “Absolutely.”

  Chapter 20

  As the three men drew closer to Lookout Hill, Falken picked up his pace, leaving Saltari and Ngobe a few yards behind him. He hurried around the hill, his heart racing.

  Please be there. Don’t let Archos have found you.

  The boat revealed itself a moment later. It was empty, the sail hanging lifelessly as it sat on the sand.

  Oh … fuck.

  Falken heard a whistle, and looked up.

  “Hey,” Weaver called, scrambling down the side of Lookout Hill. “What took you so long?”

  Falken sighed with relief. “Ah … Archos was at the colony when I got there. He took a ton of food – we’re going to be on short rations for a while.”

  Weaver frowned, and then waved as Saltari and Ngobe came into view. “Hey, guys.”

  “Mr. Weaver,” Saltari said. “Welcome back from your journey.”

  “Where is it?” Ngobe asked.

  Weaver led them to the boat, where they found the sensor node hidden under the spare sail. Falken and Weaver pulled it out and set it up, opening the solar array and booting up the computer.

  “Did you drop it?” Ngobe asked, fingering the device’s dented case.

  “No,” Falken said.

  “It was like that when we found it,” Weaver said. He laughed. “My kids used to say that to me all the time.” Weaver’s smile slipped, and Falken saw a flicker of sadness pass over the smaller man’s face.

  Ngobe didn’t notice. “I wonder what could have done that. Maybe some curious blue-balls knocked it around a bit. Ah, well. As long as it’s working.”

  Weaver pointed to the screen. “Up and running.” He opened the communications application, and ran the connection procedure.

  “‘Error thirty-two,’ ” Ngobe read.

  “Means the signal’s too weak to connect,” Falken told him. He switched to the operations manual, and showed the astrophysicist the relevant passage.

  “Could that just be a catch-all error for any time the signal is lost?” Saltari asked.

  “Scroll up,” Ngobe said, by way of reply. He read some more. “No. There’s another error code for ‘no signal’ – that suggests that there is, in fact, some connection being made. A weak one.”

  “With what?” Saltari asked, looking behind them at Lookout Hill. “There’s nothing here.”

  “Hm,” Ngobe said, thinking. “I think a little triangulation is in order.” He picked a dead branch off of the ground and strode back to the machine, sighting along the directional antenna. Then, dragging the branch along the ground, he drew a line in the sandy earth along the antenna’s azimuth for several feet, stopping when the line reached the foot of the hill.

  “Now, let’s move it,” he said, pointing at the sensor node with his stick.

  Falken and Weaver hefted the node by its handles. “Where?” Falken asked.

  “Over there a ways,” Ngobe said.

  They carried the node dutifully around the side of the hill, following the curve of the hill for several hundred yards until the boat was out of sight.

  “This will do,” Ngobe said. When the machine was settled back on its tripod, he initiated the connection process again. The antenna swiveled dutifully, and then set in place. Ngobe traced a second line in the sand, but again, the line ended at the bottom of the hill. He frowned. “We’re very close,” he said. “The lines are almost perpendicular to each other, I would guess. Falken, take Salty back to the first line, and follow it, slowly. Weaver and I will continue along this line. Where we meet … that’s the command station.”

  Falken and Saltari returned to the boat and found the line Ngobe had drawn in the sand. They followed it, climbing slowly up the steep side of the hill, checking behind them occasionally to ensure they were walking in a straight line. Then they reached the top of the hill.

  “It’s been a while … since I’ve been up here,” Saltari panted.

  To their left, through the sparse trees atop the hill, Falken saw Weaver and Ngobe in the distance, walking along th
e spine of the plateau toward them.

  “The trees up here don’t have the same weird trunks,” Falken noted, eyeing one as he walked past it. The trunk was greenish-brown for its entire length, lacking the polished white armor common to the trees at the base of the hill.

  Saltari nodded. “Another anomaly about this hill that I’ve never had the chance to figure out.”

  Ngobe and Weaver drew close.

  “Wait there,” Ngobe called to them.

  When the four of them met up, Ngobe marked an X in the ground where their paths intersected, and then drew a wide circle around the mark. “Here,” he said. “The command station should be right here.”

  Saltari frowned. “Well, then, where is it?”

  “Maybe we should move the node and take another measurement,” Weaver suggested.

  Falken glanced along the length of the hill. “No,” he said. “It’s under us.”

  He drew his work knife from a belt-sheath and knelt inside Ngobe’s circle. The earth was soft and crumbly – his knife sunk in deep, and he discarded it after a few stabs, digging instead with both hands. Weaver joined him, and then Ngobe and Saltari, and for several minutes they scooped dirt in silence, until Falken felt something hard beneath his fingernails.

  “Wait,” he said. He pushed more earth away, and a gray metallic object began to take shape. It was several feet long, triangular and curved, like the dorsal fin of a giant shark.

  “What on earth is that?” Saltari asked.

  “I don’t know,” Falken said.

  “Keep digging,” Ngobe urged them. “Dig out the base.”

  “There’s something else under here,” Weaver observed, after a moment. He brushed dirt to the side, and a piece of flat metal appeared. Falken helped him clear more of the earth out of the hole, but the flat metal just continued on. It was segmented into regular sections.

  Falken sat back on his haunches. “Those look like tiles,” he said.

  “They are,” Ngobe said, his voice hushed. “They’re thermal tiles. Like you find on the hull of a ship.”