The Master of Muscigny (The First Admiral Series Book 5) (9 page)

The Leper Colony, St Lazare, Jerusalem, March 27
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It was just before daybreak that young Daniel, known as Daniel the Keeper, made his morning journey down the rock face into the colony.

The night before, Daniel, dressed in his usual collection of rags, had scoured the markets of Jerusalem for the cheapest foodstuffs he could find to make the meagre monies given to him by the Hospitals, the holy orders and the people he had managed to beg a few coins from stretch that little bit further. And, having spent every last coin, he stored the food in his lean-to shelter to be distributed to the people of the colony the following morning. Twice per day he would make his journey to distribute the food to the people who were forbidden by law to leave this place of misery and death. Twice per day, he scaled down the rocks carrying food; and, more often than not, returning with the remains of some poor soul who had finally succumbed to the most horrible of diseases, for some form of decent burial.

No one had ever asked Daniel to carry out this most thankless of tasks. He simply did it because someone had to care for the people who could not take care of themselves. He expected no praise, took no stipend and ate as sparely as he could from what he had gathered the night before.

Now, as he scrabbled down the rocks, he could see the dark shrouded shapes of the people in the colony gathering for what meagre morsels Daniel could provide. Warily, he slipped and scrabbled his way downwards, the huge basket strapped around his waist and across his forehead for stability. Glancing upwards, Daniel was relieved to notice that Lothar and his brigands had not managed to drag themselves out of bed yet. The bane of Daniel’s life, Lothar had a habit of appearing just as the young man was about to descend into the colony laden down with food. When he did appear, Lothar made sure to relieve the young man of the choicest morsels before discarding the rest over the rocks just for the sheer fun of it.

This morning, Lothar had not appeared, and the lepers would be able to eat something that had not been strewn through the dirt and the dust first. But, this particular morning, the pre-dawn tranquility was rudely shattered by the shrill whine of Thrust Engines from a pale-blue Universal Alliance Troop Transporter and five black Landing Trooper Med-Evac Shuttles. Not being familiar with Troop Transporters and Med-Evac Shuttles, or flying ships at all for that matter, Daniel pressed himself close to the rocks his eyes wide with terror as the larger blue flying object, lit up by powerful navigation lights, landed in a huge cloud of whirling dust close to where he had climbed down the ledge. The smaller black objects were landing down in the colony itself, where shadows dressed in black with silver faces scurried out of the objects and began running in every direction.

“You there!?” a commanding voice sounded from above him on the ledge. “What are you doing here?”

At first, Daniel tried to hide himself amongst the rocks, but the basket gave him away.

“I said you there, what are you doing here?” the voice demanded again.

Slowly, the terrified Daniel stood up, feeling the weight of the basket trying to pull him over.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Daniel, Your Lordship,” he said nervously wondering if he could possibly try to run away from this nightmare.

“What do you think you’re doing here?”

“I feed the lepers every day, Your Lordship.”

“Come up here!”

With his knees shaking, and his heart hammering in his chest, Daniel slowly began to re-trace his steps.

“Come on, we haven’t got all day.”

Struggling with the weight of the basket, Daniel clambered unsteadily up through the rocks until he reached the ledge where strong, powerful black-clad arms reached down and pulled him up with astonishing ease. Standing in front of the pale-blue clad creature, Daniel felt very scared and very vulnerable, especially with the black-clad creatures with the blank, shining silver faces around him.

“You feed them with this?” Senior Integration Officer Gummell, the pale-blue clad creature, asked delving into the basket Daniel had struggled back to the ledge with.

“Yes, Your Lordship, it’s all I can afford with the coins they give me…”

“Who gives you the coins?”

“Well, the holy brothers and sisters give me some, but the rest I beg...”

“You beg for coins to feed these people?”

“I do what I can to help them, Your Lordship.”

“Take that thing off,” Gummell ordered Daniel to remove the basket. “Technician,” he summoned one of the nearby Medical Technicians over, “scan him.”

Unstrapping the heavy basket, Daniel watched as a small olive-skinned woman, holding a small cylindrical object, passed her hand over his head and down his back.

“Clean, sir, no bacteria. He’s got the usual round of parasites, and he is anaemic and malnourished,” the Technician reported.

With a nod, Gummell dismissed the Technician to her other duties.

“How many?” Gummell asked the Landing Trooper Officer who commanded the Security Detail, and was scanning the colony.

“Fifty-one life signs, sir,” the silver-visored Officer reported, “with two dead.”

“Perimeter secure?” Gummell asked as Daniel carefully let the heavy basket drop to the ground.

“Yes, sir,” the visored Landing Trooper Officer confirmed.

“Right, send them in,” Gummell ordered and turned to Daniel. “Come with me,” he beckoned and started to walk towards the big pale-blue object that seemed to fill the entire world.

Slowly, the five Landing Ramps of the Troop Transport began to lower with a shrill mechanical whirr. Terrified of this new development, Daniel hung back as Gummell strode forward confidently.

“Come on, they don’t bite,” Gummell called back to the reluctant Daniel, who edged forward a few more steps.

As the Landing Ramp finally opened fully, Gummell leaned into the craft.

“Large Qar’gah, if you please!” he ordered as a strange object, full of blue clad people, with a sharp, pointed nose sped out of the gap and hurtled down the slope.

The first sharp nosed object, an Alliance Personnel Carrier, was followed by two more in short order. Watching with terror and amazement, Daniel saw the Personnel Carriers speed down the slope and then disappear into the early morning darkness and shadows of the colony.

“Here, eat,” Gummell ordered, handing Daniel a large bowl of something hot with a long thin object sticking out of it.

Warily, Daniel stared at the hot, steaming bowl.

“It’s not poisoned,” Gummell sighed, and took a small taste from the spatula. “Here, try,” he scooped up more Qar’gah and offered it to the ragged young man.

Nervously, Daniel tasted the hot, sweet porridge-like substance. And, discovering that he liked the taste, he took the bowl and spatula and began to scoop it into his mouth greedily. After several mouthfuls, Daniel realised that he should be saving it for the people down in the colony. With a guilty look, Daniel slowly slid the spatula into the bowl and began to set it down on the ground.

“Don’t worry, we’ve got more than enough of that for everyone, go on eat it all. Get me some bread, please.”

A few moments later, a full circular loaf of bread was passed out to Gummell from within the Transport.

“There you go.” Gummell passed the loaf over to Daniel. “Stick in until you stick out, as our First Admiral says.”

With great gusto, a very hungry Daniel discarded the spatula and began to tear lumps from the warm bread and dipped them into the Qar’gah before shovelling them into his mouth. The sweet taste and the warmth of the Qar’gah seemed to flow into every corner of his half-starved body as he devoured the dipped bread.

With his cheeks bulging from the dipped bread, Daniel saw the first rays of the sun lighting up the floor of the colony. Stepping forward to join the pale-blue clad creature, Daniel watched the beginning of the rescue mission. The sharp-nosed Personnel Carriers formed a rough circle on the colony floor with the black Med-Evac Shuttles congregating in the centre of the circle. People in pale-blue uniforms were already tending to some of the dark-clad, ragged lepers, who were eating from bowls like the one Daniel held in his hands.

Other lepers, on seeing the arrival of the Shuttles and Personnel Carriers had fled into the rocks and were being coaxed from their hiding places with bread and promises. Anxious figures, clutching their pathetic rags around them, were nervously edging towards the kindly voices and offers of food. Meanwhile, Landing Trooper Squads were scouring every square centimetre of the cave network upon which the colony existed. The Troopers worked their way methodically through every tunnel, passageway, gallery and fissure in the rocks where a person could hide. And slowly, the weak, frightened and half-starved creatures who lived in the darkness, were found and rescued.

Those too weak or ill to walk were wrapped in whatever filthy rags they were covered in and bodily carried by the short, squat and muscular Troopers. Many protested feebly at being lifted from what would have been their death beds, but the Troopers were under strict orders to bring everyone that they could find. Even the dead were to be brought up to the surface. First Admiral Caudwell had ordered the entire colony cleaned out and the dead given decent burial. The weak protests were ruthlessly waved aside with promises of food and medical help.

Back on the surface, Daniel saw one of the black Med-Evac Shuttles lift off with the quiet hum of its anti-gravity generator before the deeper roar of the single Thrust Engine cut in and drove the vessel off towards the north at very high speed.

“Where do they go, Your Lordship?” Daniel mumbled to Gummell, his mouth full of bread and Qar’gah.

“They’re going to the hospital on our estate, we send the really serious cases away first.”

“I should like to see this hospital, Your Lordship?” Daniel asked distantly. “It must be a very good place.”

Down in the colony, more lepers, having been prised from their hiding places in the rocks, were shuffling nervously towards the Medical Technicians. The Medical Technicians would trot out to meet the newcomers and immediately scan them before delivering the medication that would kill the leprosy bacteria and arrest the progress of their disease. The people able to shuffle under their own power were then escorted by Integration Technicians to the Personnel Carriers where food was being distributed. There, they could find somewhere to sit and eat whilst the Technicians began to take details of who they were.

Over towards the caves, Daniel saw black-clad Landing Troopers carrying bundles of what looked like rags towards the Medical Technicians. He saw the olive-skinned woman who had ‘scanned’ him stopping some of the bundle-carrying Troopers with the silver faces and lights shining from the top of their heads. She would open the ‘bundles’ in their arms and scan them. Then, she would direct the Troopers to the Personnel Carriers where other Medical Technicians waited.

With one, however, she scanned the person being carried, but directed the Landing Trooper to an isolated spot behind one of the Personnel Carriers. An Integration Officer spread out a large light-blue cover on the ground for the Trooper to gently lay the person down on one side of the material. When the body had been laid flat, the Officer covered it completely with the other side of the cover.

Daniel, stopping in mid-chew, realised that one of the lepers had been found dead, and felt a wave of sadness and regret sweep over him.

“You can’t save them all, lad,” Gummell said, noticing Daniel’s sadness, “you can only do the best you can.”

Setting his near-empty bowl and the remains of his bread on the ground, Daniel discovered that he had lost his appetite. Down in the colony, more Landing Troopers were emerging from the caves carrying their pitiful scraps of humanity towards the waiting Medical Technicians.

“Where do they get buried?” Gummell asked Daniel. “Do they get buried here or elsewhere?”

“I carry them to the holy brothers with the black robes,” Daniel replied.

“We’ll take them with us, they may have family amongst the living.”

“Medical Officer reports that we’ve got them all,” the Landing Trooper Officer close to Gummell reported.

“Right, start bringing them up.”

In the colony, the Integration Technicians began to load the shuffling lepers into the Personnel Carriers. Over a dozen people, plus their escorts, would be loaded into each Personnel Carrier before being brought up the rocky slope to the Troop Transport.

“Trouble, sir,” the Landing Trooper Officer announced, “checkpoint five.”

“What kind of trouble?” Gummell asked nervously.

First Admiral Caudwell had instructed that this was to be as secret an operation as possible. He had made it clear to Gummell that they did not need any attention from the local authorities, especially the military.

“Sounds like the local bully boys out for their jollies,” the Landing Trooper Officer replied, “they pulled weapons on the Troopers at the checkpoint and had to be pacified,” he added.

“Anybody injured?”

“Seven of the locals got a bit roughed up, our boys are all fine.”

“Better bring them here then.”