Fugitive From Asteron (5 page)

“Honey, the place where the flowers
grow is out there somewhere.”

Her voice was strong now. The giant
blue pools that were her eyes looked across the skyline, and what I saw pouring
from them was hope.

“Go and find it. Find the place
with the flowers for both of us!”

Then the Arm of Justice pulled the
bolt from the trapdoor and Reevah’s legs fell through it. Her slim body sagged,
while her hair rose defiantly in the wind like a banner of sunshine against the
dark sky.

Chapter 5

I was grateful that the lashes across my back had resumed
quickly, because the sting of them forced my eyes shut. I did not recant, so I
was beaten until I lost consciousness. When I awoke in my cell, I knew by the
fury pounding in my head that I had not yet undergone any calming treatment.
Feran had torn from my life the things that mattered to me—first flying, then
Reevah—but I was
not
going to let him take my will. I would die with it,
and in the place of
my
choosing.

As I lay in the darkness, the
events of the prior afternoon scorched my memory. I wanted to squeeze Feran’s
throat and watch him turn blue as I wrung the life out of him. But to attack
Feran directly was to risk torture by the only device of advanced technology
made on Asteron, an electronic gun that was Feran’s exclusive weapon. Its
agonizing rays could be adjusted to inflict any level of pain without quite
killing the victim, unless Feran gave the ultimate signal. He called this
perverted device Coquet. The only genuine softness I had ever seen him display
was when he stroked Coquet at his side. For Feran, Coquet was a living
presence—an animal, a female, perhaps even a master.

I remembered how he had conveyed
threats to me from the device while I worked: “Coquet is displeased with you. . . . Coquet
will want to know about your blunder. . . . Coquet grows
impatient with your slowness.”

The thought of being tortured by
Feran and Coquet made me rule out a direct attack on him. I would have to die
knowing that Feran lived. I would die without
my
theater of justice!

All of these factors had flashed
before me while the Arm was lashing my back. With my body strung between the
posts and my arms throbbing each time my legs gave way, I knew I would rather
face my end than face the calming probe, and I decided right then how I would
do it.

Feran forbade willful dying, which
he interpreted as a person’s lack of appreciation for all the things our leader
provided. Many ungrateful citizens, however, did take their own lives. Some
jumped off buildings, some plunged in front of moving vehicles, and some just dived
into the lake and floated back head-down. But I wanted none of that. I resolved
to die in one place only: in Feran’s spacecraft.

I hoped to resist the guards’ guns
long enough to see what
I
chose for my final scene. I wanted to see the
alien Alexander execute his home run and to know that somewhere in the universe
human creatures were laughing and, remarkably, unafraid.

Lying in my cell, I was reviewing
my plan when—finally—I heard the thump of the guard’s steps down the corridor.
I closed my eyes and feigned unconsciousness. As he walked toward me, the air
thickened with the odor of a substance forbidden to citizens but somehow
obtainable by guards: whiskey. He stopped at my cell, and the heavy stench from
his beverage descended on me. I felt the beam of his flashlight moving over my
face. I heard his wheezing. Then he walked on.

When he left my corridor, I sat up
and reached into a crack in the floor, where I located a small piece of metal
that I had kept hidden in this room. It was once a paper clip, but I had
carefully molded it into something useful to me. With this tool I unlocked the
collar around my neck. I could work quickly, because this task was not new to
me.

On previous occasions I had taken
great care to arrange the room’s only furnishings, a torn shawl for a blanket
and a clump of straw for bedding, so that it looked as if my body were sleeping
under the fabric with the chain at the neck. That way I could slip out for a
while undetected, and then return before daybreak. This time I performed the
task indifferently. I would not be coming back.

I forced my stiff, aching arms
through the sleeves of my worker’s shirt, which had been thrown on the floor
next to me. Then I made a shaky attempt to stand, but everything in the room
swirled around like water down a funnel, unsettling my stomach. I collapsed
against the wall and grabbed the bars of the window until the sickening nausea
passed and I could finally steady my legs.

When everything stopped swirling,
my eyes met those staring at me from Feran’s poster. In unrepeatable words, I
said my farewell.

I planned to follow the escape
route that had worked for me previously. Because the window in the room for
attitude adjustment was barred, I would leave through another one.

With my small metal tool, I
manipulated the door lock. It was a temporary one, which I easily picked. I
knew of this lapse in security because I had damaged the other lock some time
ago. No parts had yet arrived for making the repairs. Even security, with its
priority over all else, now waited while scarce resources were summoned to ward
off the famine and, of course, to keep Feran’s favorite place—the space center—running.

The lights were off in the hallway,
which meant it was still the blackout period. This aided me as I made my way
out.

Cool air hit my face as I jumped
out a window at the end of the corridor. I felt a brief satisfaction in knowing
it was the last time I would have to pass the billboards lining the streets,
which I could read in the moonlight:
L
et us eat two meals a day. Fill
your bucket before the water pump shuts at night. Our coats make excellent
blankets. If Feran decides, we do.

Beginning my half-mile walk to the space
center, I saw up ahead the imposing glow it made in the night sky. It looked
like a mythical kingdom from books long forbidden called fairy tales, which the
elders still related. The lights from the space center were the only break in
the darkness caused by the scarcity of power that turned our city into a
graveyard every night. The power station, a marvel of advanced foreign
technology, had been run by the aliens when they conducted their mining
operations. With the mines near depletion and the aliens leaving, the resources
to run the power were also vanishing. I walked on, reminding myself that the
many questions these facts provoked would never be answered, and it was no
longer necessary for me to wonder about them.

Feran’s spacecraft, scheduled to
take off at dawn, would be on the airfield. My goal was to reach the ship
before I was killed. Once inside, I was sure the guards would seize me, but I
hoped not until after I had started the auxiliary computer and played the video
of Alexander.

I had gone a few blocks when a
small vehicle came to a stop alongside me. Expecting this, I forced a calm turn
of my head to face a guard getting out of his car and walking toward me. He
looked annoyed at my intrusion on his routine. With a small flashlight he read
the identification card clipped to my shirt.

“What are you doing out at this
hour?”

With factories and plants affected
by the power shutoffs, there was a shortage of manufactured parts for the
communication and transportation systems. So supervisors resorted to sending
workers out on foot to deliver messages or perform other errands at all hours.
I gave the guard an excuse about being on such an errand.

He eyed me suspiciously. Then he
pulled an electronic device from his pocket and scanned my card to learn more
about me. But the device did not pull up any data; its screen remained blank.
The official scanned my badge again. Then again. He swore at the object in his
hand and almost flung it on the ground. Then he returned to his vehicle and
sped off. Like so much on Asteron, his device had stopped sensing anything.

I continued walking until the
dilapidated old buildings of my city were behind me and the modern space center
loomed ahead. It felt as if I were on a plank between two opposite worlds: an
archaic land of torture and a shining new land of interplanetary travel. The
first world was Asteronian-made, but the other was built with foreign
technology and money from the mining operations. What was the force driving
these two worlds? What would happen if they collided? I wondered, but I
reminded myself that it was no longer of any concern to me.

As I approached the space center I
saw the dense pattern of dots and shadows formed by the lights, people, and
vehicles beyond its fence. Although my identification card had not been
programmed for entry that night, I was determined to get in. The combined power
of sentries, gates, badges, barbed wire, motion detectors, search lights,
alarms, face scans, and other security measures was said to make the space
center impenetrable. My task was to cut through all of it.

My plan was simple. It involved one
of the vehicles called frogs that serviced the spacecraft. The frogs moved
along the ground. Then when they reached an impediment, they leaped into the
air to continue aloft. The size of a truck but with an oblong shape, these
vehicles transported supplies, equipment, and personnel in a car behind the
driver’s cab. Security prohibited the frogs from leaving the confines of the space
center. However, one did.

A security commander himself broke
the rules, I had one day discovered. He used a frog as his personal car, and he
left the space complex with it several times a day. Because his frog bore the
red stripes of a commander’s vehicle, it could leap into or out of the complex
at will. Who would challenge his movements? His subordinates at the gates? No,
only those eager to appear at the Theater of Justice, because on Asteron, people
never questioned their superiors. The commander, I had learned, left the space
center to visit a tree, a dead one, a leafless mass of rotting black bark in a
nearby empty field. One night I had investigated and found that the hollow
trunk of the tree was not empty at all but filled with bottles of Asteron’s
favorite contraband: whiskey. My plan was to hide near the commander’s
beverage, await a visit by his frog, then climb inside the car in the rear for
the ride back into the complex.

I walked to the dead tree just off
the road and picked my hiding spot in the shrubs. Soon the squatty, six-wheeled
frog came clanging down from the sky.

The commander, a short, rotund,
neckless man, shaped remarkably similar to the frog he piloted, exited the
driver’s cab along with a fellow officer.

“I’ve never worked such long shifts
or saw so many spacecraft readied at one time,” said the commander, reaching
into the bark for a bottle, then taking a long draft.

“Nor I,” said the other, joining
him.

“I wonder what Feran is up to.”

“Something that brings food, I
hope.”

“Or that takes away bodies to feed.
Thousands of troops are leaving in two days.”

“Maybe they will die in battle.”

“We can hope.”

While the two commanders sat on the
grass in front of the frog, I waited for them to imbibe enough to dull their
senses. Then I quietly slipped through the back door and into the car. From
among a few implements strapped down in the car, I grabbed a wrench to use as a
weapon. Then I stayed clear of the windows and waited. Finally, the stench of
alcohol floated over me from an open window, marking the commanders’ return to
the driver’s cab in the front.

All I had to do now was protect
myself from injury as the commander made the frog rise from the ground, then
hit it again with a thump, rise again, and then swerve dangerously. We finally
descended from this brief but treacherous journey, my head banging on the floor
of the car during the commander’s wobbly landing. The two officers dismounted
from the cab and walked away. A glance out the window showed that I was inside
the gate, past security, and near Feran’s ship. I had to act quickly before the
commander made another visit to the tree.

I slid out the back door with the
wrench hidden up my shirt sleeve. I saw the engineering wonder that was Feran’s
spacecraft. Its smooth, black body shined in the moonlight. Its nose curved
down and tapered to a point. Its sleek wings drew back in sharp lines that
fanned out into sweeping curves. Its tail rose up and arched back. The vessel look
like a bird of prey poised to face a strong head wind.

Keeping my head low and the hidden
wrench close to my body, I walked toward Feran’s craft. In preparation for his
arrival, the ship’s door was ajar and a stairway with a platform was positioned
outside of it. Just as I was about to jump up the steps, an officer patrolling
Feran’s ship blocked me. I knew him.

“Arial!”

I stopped.

“What are you doing here? You have
no orders to work tonight.”

“I respectfully suggest, captain,
that I do have such orders.”

The guard’s face reddened, because
we were not allowed to contradict a superior. “We will see about that!” He
reached for his pocket device to check the schedule.

I startled him with a move
unthinkable by anyone planning to live past the hour. I slid the wrench out of
my sleeve, and with one decisive swing I pounded his skull. His eyes closed and
his body fell to the ground. In two leaps I ascended the six steps to the door
of the spacecraft. Within a moment, I was inside!

To the back of the metal entryway
were the living quarters and cargo bay. To the front, beyond an open sliding
door, was the moonlit sparkle of instruments that formed the flight deck. I
would go to the deck and watch the alien perform the home run, then wait for
the guards to shoot me. That was the plan.

But once inside the shining
electronic world that had always held me spellbound, a different vision
suddenly pulled my thoughts from the craft, and from the planet itself,
carrying me into the vast, mysterious sky. A composed figure on a scaffold
looked at me with hope. A soft voice whispered about a place with flowers. A
sweet presence I could not resist dissolved my bitter despair.

Suddenly I realized what I had
subconsciously wanted to do all along—what I had dreamed of doing every time I
had ever been in this spaceship. I would
not
sit and wait to die. I
would start the engines and blast my way out!