Origins (12 page)

The back half of the room was filled with a densely packed group of scrawny, malnourished men, women and children who were all chained together.  There were at least a hundred of them.  Hastelloy instantly felt the blood drain from his face as the diners stood up from the table.

The tallest man in the group stepped forward towards Valnor.  This Sigma was nearly seven feet tall and not a single muscle in his upper body lacked in development.  The most unsettling features were the numerous scars all over his face and torso; testaments to the quantity of combat he had participated in and lived through.

As this monster of a man approached Valnor he extended his right hand in an apparent gesture of greeting.  After an unsure glance towards his captain, the ensign cautiously mimicked the gesture by extending his own.  In a flash, the stranger grabbed Valnor’s hand, yanked him forward and delivered a crushing blow to the face with his elbow.  Valnor collapsed to the floor and was out cold.

Taking the sudden attack as their cue for action, the rest of the adversaries rushed them.  Tonwen lowered his shoulder and leveled one attacker to the ground before he took a club to the back of the head and fell in a heap to the dirt floor.

Tomal didn’t fair much better.  He squared off in a boxing stance against two attackers from the front but a third jumped him from behind.  They wrestled Tomal to the ground and held him there while others bound his hands with rope.

Hastelloy delivered a roundhouse kick to his first assailant, sending the attacker twirling to the ground
in an unconscious heap.  He didn’t have time to reposition his feet to deliver another kick before three men grabbed him.  Hastelloy was taken face first to the ground and bound with rope.  He looked up to see if Gallono managed to get out the door – he didn’t.

Gallono let out a demonic war cry and proceeded to put on a clinic in the effectiveness of martial arts against untrained opponents.  He thrust his hand straight into the throat of one man, crushing his windpipe.  The next attacker threw a punch at Gallono’s head.  He sidestepped the blow and stamped down on the side of the man’s knee joint, breaking it and leaving the leg in a cruel and unnatural position.

A third attacker jumped onto Gallono’s back with his arms trying to wrap around his neck.  Gallono grabbed on to the assailant’s left arm, pulled with everything he had while taking a step backwards to scoop the man’s weight off the ground.  The result was the attacker rolling over Gallono’s left shoulder to the ground and having his throat torn out.

A fourth attacker bull rushed Gallono head on.  He wrapped his arms around the man and allowed himself to be knocked over backwards.  As he fell, Gallono curled into a ball so when he hit the ground the momentum flipped the attacker over his head.  Rather than letting go to send the assailant flying into the wall behind, Gallono held on and was pulled on top of the man as he lay on the ground.  Gallono grabbed hold of the back of the man’s
head and chin.  He snapped it to the right in a sudden motion that broke the attacker’s neck.

Before Gallono could rise to his feet again, two attackers got a hold of him.  While wrestling to try and get the other two off balance enough so he could shake their hold, a club hit Gallono on the
side of the head and put him on the ground.  He made an effort to get up one more time, but a second blow from the club rendered him motionless.

The last thought Hastelloy had before meeting darkness himself was why these men were only trying to capture but not kill them.

Chapter 16:  Forced Labor

“
They were slave
traders weren’t they?”  Dr. Holmes asked his patient.

“Yes they were.  The real question you should be asking though, is why they were slave traders.”  Hastelloy stated calmly. 

Jeffrey sat in his chair, silently pondering Hastelloy’s question.  There was an obvious answer, but even in the short time he’d spent talking with this patient, Dr. Holmes knew there had to be more to it.  Unable to think of anything else, he went with his first instinct.

“The answer appears rather self evident,” Jeffrey finally said.  “They were in business to make money and there’s a lot of money in the slave trade.”

“That’s a logical conclusion if you use modern society and economics as your basis,” the patient responded.  “Remember though, this is ancient Egypt we are talking about, and things were very different back then.  There was no organized society to speak of.  

“The concept of slavery requires a class structure within a society,” Hastelloy instructed.  “That way one person can feel entitled to have ownership of another.  Humans back then lived in small family units, so the only social structure was to obey the elders.  Everyone in the family unit worked day and night of their own free will because their family’s very survival depended on it.”

Hastelloy’s argument still didn’t make much sense to Jeffrey.  “Okay, so a person back then would buy a slave so they wouldn’t have to work from dusk until dawn anymore, who would?  I think anyone would pay to have someone else do the hard work for them if they had the opportunity.”

Without missing a beat, Hastelloy fired back with an unexpected question.  “Which is more valuable to you if you’ve been walking in the desert for a couple of days, the Hope Diamond or a canteen full of water?”

His first instinct was to go for the diamond.  My God, didn’t Hastelloy know the thing was over 45 carats and worth a couple hundred million dollars? Then the concept started to sink in.  What good would a priceless diamond do him if he died of thirst out in the desert?  “I’d take the water since the diamond isn’t worth anything to me if I die before I can sell it.”

“That’s precisely why slaves wouldn’t be valued by anyone back then,” Hastelloy insisted.  “Let’s say a family did have a slave.  If the family group had a few bad hunts and food ran scarce, what would happen?  That slave would be another mouth to feed; a liability rather than an asset to the family group. 

“If food completely ran out, the slave would be turned away or maybe even killed and put on the spit to provide a few meals for the family.  It was actually quite common back then for deformed babies, badly injured individuals, or the elderly to be left in the desert so the rest of the community wouldn’t get overburdened.  Things were that desperate back then.”

Hastelloy shifted forward in his seat, as he seemed to do when he wanted to emphasize a key point.  “You have absolutely no idea how spoiled this American society is when it comes to the abundance of food it enjoys.  The country produces so much food it can afford to convert it to a petroleum substitute, ethanol, to power automobiles.  Not only can you afford to feed yourselves, you can literally feed your machinery as well.”

Jeffrey couldn’t contain a laugh.  The picture of him hand feeding his car a couple bushels of wheat every morning to make it go would not leave his mind.  The laughter soon morphed into a self-appraising sigh.  The irony was so evident; half the world starved while the industrialized nations incinerated excess food in their fuel tanks.  The realization actually made him a bit embarrassed.

“Back in ancient time’s one person’s labor yielded just enough food to keep one person alive,” Hastelloy continued.  “Everybody worked gathering food because it was required for survival.  Having a slave would only mean the gathering quota was that much higher in order to keep everyone in the community alive for another day.  The bottom line is food was scarce back then and meant everything to people; food was king.”

Jeffrey understood fully what Hastelloy was talking about now, but he was making counter arguments to his own story.  Why would slave traders have existed back then to capture his crew?  It was a risk, but he decided to seize upon the opportunity to point out a flaw in Hastelloy’s story to begin the process of making him realize it couldn’t be real. 

“You’ve convinced me; slaves had no value in ancient Egypt.  Why then, may I ask, was this large group of slave traders there to capture you and your crew?”

The twinkle that formed in Hastelloy’s eye was unmistakable, and Jeffrey had to admit it made him a little nervous.  He’d seen that exact look on his neighbor’s face the other night while playing a friendly game of Texas Hold’em poker.  The bet was to Jeffrey, and it required him to go all in or let his opponent take the pot.  He really liked his odds with a high three of a kind so he called the bet.  Then he got the look as his neighbor flipped his card to reveal the winning hand with a full house.  Knowing the look, Jeffrey sat back to see if Hastelloy was able to play the winning hand in this particular gamble.

“It’s simple.  There was a new king in town.  He had big plans, but needed a lot of people to complete them.  Fortunately for this king, he had massive quantities of spare food to help achieve his goals.  This was very unfortunate for just about everyone else in the region however.” The sparkle
in Hastelloy’s eyes faded to a cold blank stare as he continued with his story.             

******
****

Hastelloy thought he felt a poke in his left side, or was he dreaming?  Where in the universe could he be?  A few seconds later he definitely felt a stiff jab to his rib cage.  He forced open his eyes, but couldn’t make anything out.  Either his eyes weren’t working or the room was too dark.  He tried sitting up to improve his view, but where the mind was willing his body was not.  Try as he may, he couldn’t move a muscle.

Without anything to look at Hastelloy let his sense of hearing take over.  For a few moments all he heard was a dull and disorientating throb from inside his head.  Then a muffled sound came from far off in the distance.  He concentrated on the noise to make it come into focus.  It was a whimper, no it was a scream.  It was getting closer, growing louder.  He heard a dull thump followed by a blood-curdling shriek of pain.  Now the sound was crystal clear and only a few feet away.  Then the realization came, it was Gallono screaming!  A sudden rush of adrenaline came with the revelation and allowed Hastelloy to move his head and neck ever so slightly.

“Captain, you are finally awake,” Tonwen whispered.  “Let us get you sitting up so you can see what kind of trouble we are in.”

Valnor pulled on the Captain’s left arm while Tonwen steadied him into a seated position.  The pain in his head was almost too much to bear, until he saw what was happening to Gallono.  The commander was strung up in the middle of the room by ropes tied to each wrist.  His captors were taking turns punching, kicking, and whipping the life out of him.

“I guess they didn’t take kindly to us defending ourselves.  Especially the man who killed three of them and maimed another,” Hastelloy said with resignation in his voice.  There was nothing he or his crew could do for Gallono at the moment.  With any luck, the slave traders would kill him soon so his life force could return to the Nexus and he would come out of the regeneration chamber again.

“Actually he’s killed five of their men.”  Tomal whispered from behind.  There was a certain reverence in his voice as he continued.  “Their leader, named Anum, stabbed the one whose knee got crushed in the brawl; right through the heart.  Apparently caring for the wounded isn’t worth the effort for these men. 

“Gallono also managed to kill the first man trying to torture him.  He got his legs around the attackers head, and before anyone could help, he broke the bastard’s neck,” Tomal said.  “He’s good.  I have to give him that.”

“A little too good,” Hastelloy sneered. “Now they need to make an example of him in case anyone else thinks about resisting.  How long has this been going on?”

“Off and on for a few hours now,” Tonwen responded.  “I think for the last hour they have just been passing time waiting for the storm to blow over.  The wind is subsiding, and I can finally see sunlight again from under the door.  Hopefully they will stop having their fun soon and get this group of slaves moving toward the
ir final destination.”

As if their Sigma captors heard Tonwen’s request, Anum walked over and cut the ropes, allowing Gallono’s limp body to collapse onto the floor.  Then he spoke a few words to his men, and two of them immediately dragged Gallono’s body out of the building.  The rest grabbed their various weapons and proceeded to herd the captives out the door.

Each of the captors tied a row of ten slaves behind their equestrian animals.  The beasts were very odd looking.  They had long hair, to go along with a long curved neck attached to a body with two humps on top.  From what Hastelloy could discern of the language, the pack animals were called
camels
.

Fortunately the
crew, except for Gallono, were all chained behind the same captor.  Gallono was draped, unconscious, across an otherwise empty camel.  The animal probably belonged to one of the men Gallono killed in the fighting.

With their captives secured, the slave traders embarked on a long forced march.  The pace was quick and unforgiving.  If a captive lost their footing and fell, or simply passed out from exhaustion, their body was ruthlessly dragged behind the camel until they got back to their feet.

Shortly before sunset, Anum ordered the group to halt and make camp for the night.  They built four campfires and corralled their captives into a tightly packed circle in-between the fires.  Among all of the commotion, Hastelloy took the opportunity to stick his hand down his pants and dig out the navigation unit.  He stole a quick glance, and instantly returned the unit to its hiding place.

“These slave traders are marching us in the right general direction to reach the Alpha.  From here it’s about another days walk to reach the crash site,” Hastelloy informed the rest of the crew.  “Since we’re so close to our destination, I’m content
for us to remain captives with these men and see how this plays out.  I’d much rather be free on our own, but the cover of being captives does have its advantages.”

“And some disadvantages, just ask Gallono over there,” Valnor said as he gestured towards the unconscious form.  “I haven’t seen movement out of him all day.  I am concerned he might be critically injured or dead.”

“Whatever condition he is in, he will be much better off riding on that, how do they say it ‘chumaal’, than marching on foot like the rest of us.” Tonwen stated.

“It’s pronounced ‘
camel
’ actually, and I think Gallono will be okay,” Tomal said nonchalantly.  “I have to say, I am very impressed with these Sigma species bodies.  They’re strong, have great balance, flexibility, and are very durable.  If you put a group of Novi on a twenty mile forced march like we just experienced, you’d have lost half of them.  Plus, look at the three of you.  Each was knocked unconscious no less that five hours ago and you’re suffering no ill effects.  I still can’t find it in myself to forgive you, Captain, but these forms do have their advantages.”

“The forms are adequate, but I could do without all the hair,” Hastelloy said as he leaned back on his forearms.  He looked at Tomal with great interest.  “You’re catching onto this Sigma species language pretty fast.  Is linguistics a hidden talent of yours?”

“Yes sir it is,” Tomal responded with pride.  “I can speak and read all six Novan languages, plus a few of the Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Epsilon species.  Languages are very formulaic, and logical, just like mathematics, physics and other engineering disciplines.  I guess that’s why I’m so good at both.  They rely on the same basic skills.”

“I’m genuinely impressed,” Hastelloy said with sincerity.  “I forced myself to learn the language of the Alpha because I find it useful to understand the ways of my opponent.  I have to admit, it came about as easy to me as a woman giving birth to a child.  Consider it your full time mission from now on to decipher this Sigma species language of theirs.  Understanding what they’re saying will be critical.”

“Yes Captain,” Tomal responded as he looked past Valnor and reached down to pull at his pants and adjust their fit.  “Look behind Valnor there.  Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?”

The others turned to see what drew Tomal’s attention.  A male and female captive had disrobed each other and appeared to be mating.  Rather than hearing screams of pain and discomfort that usually accompanied an event where two Novi mated, there were sounds of pleasure instead.

“Now is an odd time to try and procreate.” Valnor said in a low voice.  “The resulting child will be a slave as well.”

“It would appear this species mating rituals are not just for procreation.  It looks like they genuinely derive pleasure from the act,” Tonwen said very analytically.

“Hmmm, they really do look like they’re enjoying themselves.  Did I mention how much I like these Sigma species forms?”  Tomal said with admiration as he continued staring at the couple.  “I do believe I owe it to the scientific community to give that a try.”

“You can’t be serious,” Valnor spat.  “I find this species repugnant in every way.”