Where the Ships Die (13 page)

"Greetings, Citizen Voss. Humans call me Rollo, and this is Torx. Please allow us to express our condolences regarding the deaths of your progenitors. The ceasing to be of one's birth beings is cause for grief in almost all of the Confederacy's many cultures."

Natalie raised an eyebrow, wondered if this was some sort of con, but allowed the message to continue.

The shot widened slightly and Natalie realized that the sentient named Rollo stood shoulder-deep in muddy water. He smiled, or seemed to, since a row of wicked-looking teeth appeared. "We work for the Department of Commerce and dispatched this communication to more than fifty different locations in hopes that a copy will find you.

"It is our belief that you have knowledge, or may come into knowledge, having a direct bearing on matters now under our investigation. Due to the fact that this investigation is of the utmost importance to the Confederacy and its citizens, we must request that you make your way to the planet known as The Place of Wandering Waters for immediate consultations. This request has the force of a legal summons, and there are penalties should you fail to comply. We apologize for the inconvenience and will provide remuneration for any and all reasonable expenses incurred while in transit. To check the authenticity of this communication, send a copy to the nearest branch of the Commerce Department. We wish you a safe journey."

Natalie bit her lip in consternation, read the message a second time, and sent a copy to the Commerce Department. The words "Official communication confirmed and registered," appeared on her screen a fraction of a second later. Suddenly Natalie realized what she'd done. By checking to make sure that the message was legitimate, she had unintentionally acknowledged receipt of it.

Damn! Damn! Damn! The last thing she needed was a governmental wild-goose chase. She hadn't done anything to merit the Commerce Department's attention, so the issue, whatever it was, had something to do with her parents and Voss Lines.

The spacer snapped orders at the computer, waited for one of the Voss Lines attorneys to appear, and sent a copy of the summons. It appeared alongside a shot of her face.

The attorney, a matronly type, listened to Natalie's story and nodded. "Interesting ... I don't know what they want, but you'd better go. We have your power of attorney and will handle things here."

Natalie told her about the incident with Orr's lawyers, how the goons had barged into her room, and how she had managed to escape. The attorney listened, frowned, and raised a pencil-thin eyebrow. "Let me see if I understand... You grabbed Mr. Johnson by the ears and threw him at Mr. Shank?"

Natalie felt defensive and wasn't sure why. "Yes, but. . .”
 

"And they hadn't touched you?"
 

"No, but I..."

"No wonder they've been trying to reach me," the attorney interrupted crossly. "They'll file a personal injury suit, ask for a ridiculous amount of damages, and use the action to force negotiations."

Natalie was outraged. "You can't be serious! They invaded my room!"

"No," the older woman replied, "you let them in."
 

"But they attacked me!"

"No, not unless you misrepresented the facts earlier. The way I heard it, two women and a man entered the room, you threw Mr. Johnson at them, and attacked with a potentially lethal weapon. That's how they will tell the story. Skillfully presented, a jury will find in their favor. Unless they receive what they
really
want.

"All of which brings us to the following. Voss Lines Incorporated, which is to say you, owes something on the order of thirty-six million credits, give or take a few mil. The Gap is worth more than that, of course, a whole
lot
more, but only if we know exactly where it is. And, making a bad situation worse is the fact that we can't even rent the damned thing out. I suggest you find those coordinates."

Natalie wanted to snap back, wanted to say something like, "What the hell do you think I've been doing?" but knew the words would bounce off the attorney's surgically tightened skin. "So what are you telling me? That I have to respond to this summons?
Before
I look for the coordinates?"

"That's what I'm telling you," the lawyer said confidently. "A Confederate summons takes precedence over civil lawsuits. Or would you rather hang around and play legal patty cake with Johnson, Shank, and Wong?"

Natalie thought about that and knew the answer was no. "So what do I do now?"

The attorney was obviously impatient for the conversation to be over. "Find yourself a ride, honey ... and take your swimsuit. I don't know where The Place of Wandering Waters is, but I'll bet it's damp."

9

While sentience takes many forms, love has but one.

Holmar Zylo-Nom

Dromo mystic

Standard year 1945

The Planet New Hope

Dorn rolled right, rolled left, and felt the whip bite his flesh. The guard had years of experience and landed the blows so they crisscrossed each other. The punishment lasted two or three minutes and the pain was nearly intolerable. Then, as suddenly as it had started, the beating was over. Hands grabbed Dorn's arms, pulled the teenager to his feet, and shoved him toward the beach. Branches slapped the boy's face and tore at what remained of his clothes. The guards, a man and a woman, were rather cheerful, as if the whole procedure was routine.

Dorn, who had assumed his escape was nothing short of remarkable, was taken aback. He looked from the man to the woman as they propelled him out of the jungle and onto the sand. Her head had been shaved and painted with intricate designs. "How did you find me?"

The woman chuckled and glanced at the man. "Shall we tell him?"

"Sure," the man chuckled. "Why not? The more that knows, the less runnin' we'll have to do."

"Good point," the woman said sagely. "We found you with this." The guard held a black box in her hand. It featured buttons and a small screen.

Dorn frowned. "You found me with that? What is it?"

"Nothing fancy," the man replied easily. "The mush you've been eatin' contains a small amount of radioactive material. The box tracks the emissions, plots them on a grid, and shows us where to look. The rest is easy."

"Pretty neat, huh?" the woman said brightly.

"Yeah," Dorn agreed sourly. "My compliments to the chef." The guards laughed as if genuinely amused.

Breakfast was over by the time the threesome made their way back to the encampment, and, in spite of the fact that Dorn
knew
the food contained potentially harmful chemicals, he would have given practically anything for a bowl of mush.

It wasn't to be, since the other prisoners had eaten and were ready to leave. They watched the teenager arrive with a mixture of sympathy and satisfaction.

As before, the first part of the day was relatively easy, and would have been enjoyable had the circumstances been different. The air was cool, birds chattered, and the road was flat.

The major problem was the trucks. They were invariably huge, had protective mesh over their intake ports, and highly individualized paint jobs that ran to red, orange, and blue. They carried steel reinforcing rods, sheet metal, and in one case, huge ingots of aluminum. Because the trucks and their cargoes were so valuable, the haulers mounted weapons blisters, each of which could fire a thousand rounds a minute, leaving all but the wealthiest hijackers to focus on lesser prey.

However, what amounted to little more than a bouncy ride for the truckers was a source of constant misery for the prisoners. They were peppered with gravel each time a truck passed, forced into the ditch when drivers hugged the edge of the road, and forced to eat dust long after a vehicle had passed.

The midmorning rest break was little more than a pause next to the road while people squatted over the ditch and children brought them water. Medics treated blisters for a while, quit the moment the whistle blew, and returned to their air-conditioned van.

As the sun rose in the sky and the air grew warmer, the prisoners crossed a long series of wooden bridges. Dorn realized they were following a chain of islands out into the southern ocean. Blue sky arched overhead, the chain rattled monotonously, and the jungle came and went as if unsure of its purchase. Water glittered through the green, teased Dorn with its cool promise, and vanished as the land pushed it away.

The sun eventually reached its zenith and hung like a fireball in the sky. Dorn began to sweat, children complained, and the line slowed. Whips cracked and the guards shouted. "Come on, people, pick up the pace, the next rest stop is only two miles away."

It might have been a lie, but the promise was sufficient to quicken the pace, and no more than an hour had passed before the foot-weary travelers were herded off the road and into a clearing. The camp was similar to the one they had occupied the night before and showed signs of constant use.

Once freed, most of the prisoners, Dorn included, headed for the water barrels. He drank as much of the brackish liquid as he could hold, used a double handful to wash his face, and joined one of the steadily growing chow lines.

The mush smelled wonderful, and much as the teenager wanted to go without, his body wouldn't allow it. The gruel, chemicals and all, disappeared quickly and left him hungry when it was gone. Others felt the same way, and scuffles broke out here and there. The whips cracked and order was restored.

Dorn had returned his bowl, and was headed for some shade, when a hand touched his arm. He turned to find the girl from the water line standing before him. She cupped a bowl of mush and held it up. "Here, it will protect your strength."

Dorn shook his head. "No, I had mine. You must have yours as well. If not for yourself, then for your brother."

The girl had brown eyes. They were large and brimmed with tears. Her voice was quiet and matter of fact. "My brother died last night. They buried him with the others outside the camp. Here ... eat... I had kitchen duty. This was left over."

Dorn accepted the food. He noticed her fingers were long and slender. They felt cool where they touched his skin. "I'm sorry."

The girl shrugged. "So am I. But it was inevitable. If not last night, then tonight, or tomorrow. He was too young to work, medicine costs money, so the medics refused to treat him. Quick, you must eat, or the break will end."

So Dorn ate, asked the girl questions between gobs of mush, and heard her story. Her name was Myra, and she, along with her brother, had been orphaned when the barge her parents had built capsized in the floods.

Myra, still holding her baby brother, had survived more by luck than skill and fought her way free of the current. She rested within a gently swirling eddy, placed the infant on a piece of driftwood, and paddled for shore. Dorn, who remembered his own experience in the river, was impressed by her bravery and presence of mind.

Once ashore Myra had searched for her parents, wandering the riverbank for two days before locating the wreckage of their boat, and her father's body. In spite of the fact that the rain-soaked soil was relatively soft, it took all of Myra's strength and the better part of a day to dig a shallow grave and drag the corpse out of the water.

Dorn imagined how frightened she must have been, and how determined, as the girl buried her father and did what she could for the baby boy. There was still no sign of her mother, she said, so it seemed safe to assume that she was dead.

Unable to salvage more than a few odds and ends from the wreckage, Myra made her way to the nearest road and followed it toward the city. Once there, she hoped to locate her mother's sister in hopes that her mother would be there, or, failing that, her aunt would take them in.

Such was not to be, however, since the bounty hunters caught them well short of the city and, when Myra was unable to prove her solvency, took both children into custody. From there it was a short, uncomfortable journey to the holding pens where she had first encountered Dorn.

Dorn, who like most of the boys from the academy had scant opportunity to meet girls, was drawn to her unaffected beauty, but more than that to the tranquility in her eyes, and the dignity of her actions. There were all sorts of things he wanted to say, but inexperience left him tongue-tied, and a guard preempted his words. "Hit the road, slimeballs. The last one in shackles gets a taste of the whip."

Pandemonium broke out. Dorn yelled, "I'll see you at dinner!" and caught her nod.

People ran back and forth. Men swore at each other, mothers called their children, and whips cracked as the guards herded the prisoners toward the road. For reasons not entirely clear, they had been ordered to maintain their positions in line. Dora watched for the man in front of him, slipped into the slot behind, and wrapped the scarf around his ankle. Now that he knew Myra, the scrap of cloth had taken on more value and he didn't want to lose it. The shackle, which was oiled each night, closed with a click. Two or three minutes passed before the line jerked into motion. Dorn spent them peering ahead trying to spot Myra. He thought he succeeded but couldn't be sure.

The afternoon was long and hot with little more than occasional water breaks and glimpses of ocean to break the dusty monotony. That, plus the news about his parents, should have left Dorn tired and depressed. Why did he feel so energized, then? So excited? Verging on happy? He decided it was because of Myra. Which he felt didn't say much for his character, or his qualities as a son.

Here he was, a virtual slave, marching toward god only knew what kind of man-made hell, his parents recently dead, and he was all aflutter over a girl he barely knew. It was stupid, uncaring, and morally reprehensible. Unfortunately, however, Dorn discovered that knowing his thoughts were wrong, and changing them, were two different things. The sorry fact was that no amount of self-admonition was sufficient to change the way he felt. Dinner, and the opportunity to see Myra again, had become his central goal in life. Nothing else mattered.

Dorn plodded on, thinking of little except Myra. The day wore on, and it was mid-afternoon, halfway between lunch and dinner, when a long black hover limo overtook the prisoners and started to pass. Empty trucks passed all the time, blowing their air horns and spraying the prisoners with gravel. But this was different. Partly because it was a car, and a rather expensive one at that, and partly because it eased by, as if the passengers cared about the prisoners, or wanted to look at them.