Where the Ships Die (11 page)

But something, the memory of his parents perhaps, or the knowledge that they never gave up, no matter what the odds, lifted him back up. Slowly, bit by bit, the sobs died away. Still, even as the teenager blinked the tears away and regained control of his breathing, he knew the empty feeling was there to stay.

A voice boomed across the gravel pit. "On your feet, scum. You have ten miles to walk before nightfall... so get those shackles on ... and keep the line straight."

Dorn suspected that minute advantages could be realized depending on where one was located along the chain's length, but didn't know what they were, or how to harvest them. He remembered the chafing problem, removed the scarf from his arm, and tied it around his left ankle. The shackle was a tight fit, but there was no pain when the guard snapped it closed.

The prisoners were forced to wait for the better part of an hour as Judge Tal put her thumbprint on a four-inch stack of hardcopies, reviewed a transcript of the proceedings, and thumbed that as well. Then a man in a dirty gray turban appeared, transferred the correct number of credits to the Labor Exchange's account, and shouted orders to his guards.

Dorn felt hopeful when a rather plump doctor appeared and, accompanied by two assistants, walked the length of the line. He examined feet, listened through a stethoscope, and dispensed medications. Dorn realized the doctor was little more than a glorified maintenance technician, hired to minimize the wear and tear on recently purchased assets.

Still, Dorn welcomed the disinfectant that was sprayed on his many cuts and scratches, the antibiotics that were pumped into his arm, and the vitamins they insisted he swallow. Of even more value, to him at least, were the sturdy sandals issued to those who didn't have shoes. They were ugly as sin, but far better than bare feet. They would help during the march ahead.

The march, once it began, was almost pleasant at first. Dorn was rested and, thanks to the resiliency of youth, felt pretty good. At first the line went more slowly than he would have liked, but it picked up speed as it moved out onto the road, and a good steady rhythm was established. People, children mostly, swarmed out of the surrounding slums to witness the spectacle. Like the guards, most of the onlookers were only a residency permit and a few credits away from joining the procession themselves, and reveled in their brief moment of social superiority.

But there were others, kinder souls perhaps, who offered scraps of bread to some of the more pitiful prisoners, or bent their heads in prayer.

Dorn felt humiliated at first, and hated them with all his heart, until the first of many ground cars roared by and peppered the prisoners with debris. He tried to remember the outings he'd been on, and whether he'd seen a long line of prisoners marching beside the road, but nothing came to mind. Was that because he hadn't seen them? Or because such lowly creatures had no reality for well-fed schoolboys on their way to picnics? Dorn hoped for the first but feared the second.

They entered an area where the old road had been torn up and a new one was being laid. Hundreds of bare backs glistened in the sun as picks rose into the air, fell in a wave, and hit one after another. Though the workers were not linked at the ankles, it occurred to Dorn that they were slaves nonetheless. Economic slaves who had taken what they could get. Why else would they do such work? And if they suffered, what could he look forward to?

An hour passed, then two. The drag chain rattled as they walked. The slums grew thicker and crowded in on both sides as their balconies, makeshift arches, and badly eroded walls threatened to cave in on the street. Then, as twilight fell and the sun set behind them, the city dwindled away to be replaced by fields, lonely farmhouses, and the occasional dome-shaped temple. Candles flickered and prayer drums thumped.

The air quality improved as well, causing Dorn to take deep draughts of the stuff, reveling in the way it filled his lungs. The others seemed invigorated too, and the pace increased for a while, but fell off again. Unlike Dorn, who had been in top physical condition to begin with, the others suffered from a wide variety of maladies.

Physical problems cropped up with increasing regularity, and the line was forced to stop when a middle-aged man suffered a heart attack, and when a woman entered premature labor. Both individuals were unshackled, loaded into one of two hover trucks, and given treatment. The man died, as did the baby, but the woman pulled through. Dorn was glad for the break, realized what that meant, and felt lousy for it. It seemed as though there was no limit to his self-centeredness. The march continued.

Night fell, and every third person was provided with a battery-powered light and a headband to hold it in place. It seemed thoughtful at first, until Dorn realized the amount of damage a hover truck could do to the prisoners, and the money that would cost.

Still, no matter how cruel and calculating their new owner-employer might be, the prisoners had their own ways of helping out. Children, who were left unshackled for the most part, and were expected to keep pace with their parents, or whatever adult was willing to take an interest in them, were exhausted by now. They trudged with heads down, gradually fell behind, and ran to catch up again. Parents pleaded with them, guards hit them with whips, but it made no difference. The same thing happened over and over. Until something amazing happened.

One by one the children were absorbed into the line where they were hoisted onto backs or thrown over shoulders. Babies, carried by relatives up until that point, were passed up and down the column. Dorn wasn't exactly pleased when a five-year-old was loaded onto his back, but he knew it was the right thing to do and forced himself to cooperate.

The child switched mounts eventually, to be replaced by a six-month-old infant, who reminded him of the baby the girl had held in her arms. He carried the child for half an hour before a woman took over.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the prisoners arrived at the point where two roads crossed each other, and they were ordered toward the south. A guard must have said something up toward the front, because the news rippled down the line like wind through a row of corn and raised everyone's spirits. "The camp is on an island and we're almost there!"

Having spent the last few years in an institution, Dorn was skeptical of rumors, and was slightly surprised when this one proved correct. The smell of sea salt provided the first hint. It reminded him of Mechnos, a place so closely connected with his parents that the thought of it brought tears to his eyes.

He fought them back as the road ended and a wooden causeway began. It thundered with the impact of four hundred feet. The water, if any, was invisible beyond the light cast by their headlamps. Seabirds, disturbed by the noise, squawked and flapped away. The timbers beneath Dorn's sandals sloped upward with the curvature of the bridge, then downward again. Lights appeared, and the line veered left and passed between evenly spaced tree trunks.

A graveyard, the markers made from tree limbs, piles of stones, and other debris, lay on the right, silent testimony to columns long gone.

It was three or four minutes before Dorn arrived at the turning point. He felt sand under his feet and fought the tendency to slide as he followed the others down an incline and into a bowl-shaped depression. It had clearly been used before and had the look of a regular stop.

A large fire had been built toward the center of the space, and guards had been posted along the perimeter. They appeared whenever the fire found an especially flammable piece of wood, then vanished when it was consumed. Dorn's stomach rumbled as he smelled the cereal-based mush, and he eyed a line of wooden water barrels.

Release came quickly, along with orders to stay in the immediate area and eat dinner. Dorn hurried to comply. He visited the water barrels first, followed by the chow line and a second trip to the water barrels.

Then, tired, but unwilling to accept sleep, the teenager set about the serious business of running away. The logic seemed irrefutable.

First, Dorn expected that his physical condition would deteriorate rather than improve.

Second, the school, and whatever help he would find there, was only twenty or so miles to the rear, but would be at least twice that distance away by nightfall the next day.

Third, it was safe to assume that the Sharma Metal Works, for that's where rumor said they were headed, would feature all sorts of fancy security measures designed to counter the sort of thing he had in mind.

Yes, no matter how one chose to look at it, conditions favored an immediate rather than a delayed escape attempt. The problem was, how?

Dorn yawned, spotted an open spot near the very edge of the security perimeter, and ambled that way. Once in place, with other prisoners to either side, he scooped a trough in the sand and lay on his side. He yawned for a second time, fought against the fatigue that threatened to pull him down, and forced himself to look around.

The fire had burned down by now, the area around it practically deserted because some off-duty guards had chased the prisoners away and claimed the fireside for themselves. Dorn turned away from their dark silhouettes, allowed his eyes to adjust to the dark, and quartered the campground. Hundreds of variously shaped mounds marked where his fellow prisoners had chosen to spend the night. Most were asleep by now, snoring, muttering, and in a few cases twitching, as if trapped within the most demanding of dreams. There were sobs, snatches of conversation, and the soft sound of the prayer drum that he'd heard before.

But nothing the youth heard or saw suggested a means of escape. The guards seemed alert, and, try as he might, no clever stratagem came to mind. Dorn had almost given up, and was drifting off to sleep, when luck made an unexpected appearance. Someone said, "Give me that!"

Someone else said, "Screw you!" and a fight broke out on the far side of the holding area. Every guard in that particular area, plus those seated around the campfire, headed for the scuffle. The rest, a motley assortment of drifters, stevedores, and beached spacers, stared toward the action, hollered advice, and wished something exciting would happen on their side of the camp. So they missed the shadowy figure that slipped between them, lost its footing in the dark, and tumbled head over heels onto the beach below.

Dorn scrambled to his feet, listened for the sounds of pursuit, but heard nothing more than the ruckus already underway. He ran down into the water. It was relatively warm and splashed his legs. He couldn't do anything about the footprints already made, but his trail would disappear in the surf, and leave his pursuers to wonder which way he'd gone. North? South? Out to sea? There would be no way to tell.

The water rushed past his calves, ran up the beach, and left a wavy line. The camp was located on an island, or so he'd been told, so it made very little difference which way he went, not in the long run anyway. Still, the road home led in a northwesterly direction, and that was the first place they'd look. With that in mind, Dorn turned to the right and headed south.

The waves broke against his left leg as he paralleled the beach. He watched for signs of pursuit and was prepared to drop when it appeared. The water would hide him and, with any luck at all, allow him to escape. The sand shifted under his sandals, found its way beneath the leather straps, and abraded his skin. That could become a problem if he let it go, since his feet would carry him home.

Still there was no pursuit, and Dorn started to relax a bit. He wasn't clear yet, not by a long shot, but he had five or six hours before the sun rose and the prisoners shackled themselves to the chain. That's when he'd be missed and the search would begin.

A wave broke against Dorn's waist, and he realized he had angled away from the beach. The teenager turned toward what he thought was the southwest and considered his options. He could make for the road, pass behind the camp, and sneak over the causeway. That was the most efficient approach, but the most obvious as well.

The other option was to find a place where he could cross the beach without leaving footprints, secure a hiding place, and wait for the searchers to depart. Time was money, or so Dorn assumed, which would limit the duration of the search. Once everyone left he'd emerge from his hidey-hole, double-time up the road, cross the bridge, and make his way to the academy where Tull would put everything right. Or so he hoped.

Satisfied that he'd selected the best of all possible plans, Dora waded into the shallows and felt sand turn to rock. He tripped, nearly fell, and caught himself. The surf broke white where it surged along a two-foot-high ledge and ran up the beach. Dorn felt for a way up, found a series of stairlike ledges, and mounted what had been a lava flow.

He followed the outcropping shoreward, across the beach, and into the thick, junglelike undergrowth. The teenager pushed branches out of the way and forced a passage. Darkness consumed the stars, and Dorn felt his way forward. Leaves crackled under his sandals, animals scurried through the brush, and a seabird launched itself into the air.

Finally, when Dorn judged himself to be a hundred feet away from the beach, and almost certainly invisible, he sized a clearing with his hands, sat down, and listened for signs of pursuit. There were none. The teenager lay down, curled into the fetal position, and entered a dreamless sleep. That's where he was when the sun rose, branches snapped, and the whip fell across his back.

8

When God wills that an event will occur, he sets the causes that will lead to it.

Babikir Badri
 

Sudanese scholar

Circa 1900

The Planet Mechnos

The impact sent a jolt through Natalie's body. She grabbed for the wrought iron rail, missed, and grabbed again. The steel felt cool under her hands. It took every bit of her strength to pull herself up. A voice ordered her to stop. She ignored the impulse to look back over her shoulder, swung her legs over the rail, and stood on the balcony. The sliding glass door was locked. She swore, shook the handle, and tried again. Should she break the glass, and risk a cut? Or try another balcony? The second choice seemed best.