Where the Ships Die (16 page)

Much to Dorn's surprise, and perhaps theirs as well, the prisoners obeyed. Rushing forward, still hobbled by a section of chain, they grabbed the last of the would-be victims and held on. The dust was so thick that Dorn couldn't see. He wrapped his arms around someone's waist and hoped for the best as the vortex swung past. Then, just when it seemed the nightmare would never end, the sixth repellor came to life. The pilot seized the opportunity, took control of the ship, and veered toward the sea.

The trip back toward the water was as destructive as the initial one had been, but took less time and killed fewer people. Dorn's attention was elsewhere. The body he held turned out to be Myra's, and she threw her arms around his neck. The kiss seemed natural and confirmed they were alive. Her lips were unbelievably soft, and Dorn had never experienced anything quite so good.

They were still in each other's arms when the guards crawled out of whatever holes they had disappeared into, blew their whistles, and herded the survivors toward a one-story building. Once there, and safely out of the way, the prisoners were placed under light guard and ordered to wait while the owner's medical staff did what they could for the wounded. The dead were carried to a makeshift crematorium, and work parties were recruited to clear the debris.

It was an uncomfortable afternoon, but the fact that Dorn and Myra were shackled right next to each other helped. There was plenty of time to talk, to touch the brands on each other's foreheads, and relive the last few days. There was time to wonder what would happen next, too... and the answer arrived all too soon.

The man in the dirty gray turban, the same one who had paid for the prisoners in Oro, appeared just before sunset. He scanned the prisoners, murmured something to one of the guards, and watched as his orders were implemented. The prisoners were ordered to stand and face outward. The teenagers did as they were told and waited to learn what fate held in store for them.

The man in the turban started at the far end of the line and moved their way. He spoke with some prisoners, but not to others. Selections were made, shackles were released, and what seemed like an oddball collection of men, women, and children were herded to one side. Some of the youngsters were removed from their parents and began to cry. A mother objected but a slap rendered her silent. Dorn started forward but the chain held him back. There was no rhyme or reason to the way the man made his decisions, none Dorn could discern anyway, and the process left him mystified.

Then, just as turban-man made his final selection and turned to leave, he spotted Myra. He looked, looked again, and ordered a guard to unlock her leg iron. The guard, an older man with badly yellowed teeth, did as he was told. Myra looked frightened, and Dorn grabbed the man's arm. "Please! What's going on? Where will you take her?"

"To the house," the guard said simply. "Now let go of my arm."

Dorn remembered the beautiful white mansion that sat on the tip of the peninsula. It didn't take a genius to figure out whom the house belonged to or that it would take a large staff to run the place. "How will they treat her? What will she do?" Dorn insisted, still maintaining contact.

"She'll receive better treatment than you will," the guard replied as he removed the shackle from Myra's ankle. "Four kitchen servants were killed when the ship drifted over the vegetable gardens. Your friend will replace one of them. Now back off."

Dorn did as instructed. He wanted to say something special to Myra, something she would remember, but there was no time. She was there one moment and gone the next as the prisoners were led away. She looked back, though, and her wave made him feel a bit better. At the same time, the expression on her face made him want to cry. Somehow, in a manner he couldn't explain, Myra had become an important part of his life. So much so that he would find her again no matter how difficult that might be or what the cost. Then she was gone, absorbed by the slums and the quickly gathering darkness.

What happened next was both disconcerting and unexpected. A guard, filthy from clearing rubble, worked her way down the line, released their leg shackles, and ordered a boy to collect the chain. Then, grabbing the end, she dragged it away.

Minutes passed and no one moved. They simply sat, squatted or stood there, backs to the building, awaiting their orders. Dorn realized that he, like those around him, was afraid to do anything. However, knowing it and acting on it were two different things. The prisoners watched as a constant stream of ragged-looking men, women, and children passed by. Many of them wore bandages, or leaned on each other for support. None wore chains.

Finally, after five minutes had elapsed, Dorn examined his surroundings, assured himself that no one was watching, and walked away. He waited for the inevitable whistles, for the shouts of outrage, but nothing happened. Thus emboldened, he walked faster and faster, until the building was left behind and the crowd closed around him. Dorn knew then that he was free, if anyone in a forced labor camp can be described as "free." Mr. Halworthy had always insisted that everything was relative.

It was dark now—but the serpentine footpaths were lit with smoky torches augmented with widely spaced halogen lights. Dorn spent his first half hour of comparative freedom wandering the muddy streets, absorbing the atmosphere, marveling at what his eyes saw, his nose smelled, and his ears heard.

The squalor he'd seen in the city was nothing compared to this. Yes, the open sewers were the same, but the people of Oro lived in houses, no matter how humble they might be. There were no such amenities here. Everything was made from scrap. Scraps of wood, plastic, and fiberboard, but never of metal, for metal had value, and belonged to the owners.

As Dorn followed the winding streets, and sought to avoid the deepest cesspools, he noticed subtleties that would have escaped him before. First, he noted the fact that the high ground was the most desirable since it was farthest from the sewers and subject to ocean breezes. That being the case, even the slightest rise was surmounted by the local equivalent of a mansion, the most elegant of which had been fashioned from standard twelve-by-six-foot plastic cargo modules.

Then, falling away to either side of the minimansions, and steadily decreasing in quality, came the makeshift huts, lean-tos, dugouts, and tents. Finally, along the very edge of the road, a line of pitiful figures crouched under scraps of plastic, and in one case, a much abused Voss Lines flag, just like the ones that had flown from his parents' ships as they taxied into Fortuna's main harbor. It flapped dismally as if aware of its fate.

Dorn swallowed the lump that formed in his throat, wondered which of the family ships had expired on the mud flats, and continued on his way. As he wandered through the slums, he was struck by both the poverty and the energy with which the residents pushed it back. Everywhere he went voices offered clothing, haircuts, spices, alcohol, cookware, and sexual favors so exotic he'd never heard of them before, and wasn't sure he wanted to.

The food stands
were
tempting, however. He watched a little girl remove a strip of mystery meat from a tiny brazier, dip it into a pot of reddish-brown sauce, and offer it to a man covered with tattoos. He accepted the strip, handed the child a three-inch piece of insulation-stripped copper wire, and wandered away. Dorn felt his stomach growl, swallowed a mouthful of saliva, and drifted on.

Finally, as if unconsciously drawn to the center of the devastation, Dorn came to an area of almost unimaginable destruction. Smoke and dust, still visible in the light provided by the company-supplied floods, billowed up toward the sky. A rescue effort was underway as fifteen or twenty volunteers struggled to remove a pile of rubble. Their objective wasn't clear until Dorn heard a man shout, "I can hear them! We're getting closer!" and saw the others work with renewed energy. Suddenly, a siren sounded, and the would-be rescuers dropped their makeshift tools and hurried away. Dorn assumed they were headed for the buildings he'd seen earlier.

As the crowd departed, an alien emerged from the wreckage and waved his arms above his head. Dorn recognized the XT as a member of the Traa race and didn't need a degree in xenopsychology to tell that he, she, or it was upset. "Wait! Come back! We're so close! What if it was you? Come back, damn it!"

But the words were to no avail as the siren continued to wail and the humans hurried away. Dorn had drifted closer by then, and the alien saw him. He pointed a finger in the human's direction and sounded angry. "You! Yes, you! Why linger? Go with the others. Earn your meaningless pay."

Dorn was confused. He shrugged. "I don't know where they're going or why. I'll help if you show me what to do."

The alien was closer now, and Dorn was struck by the humanlike fervor in his eyes, and the energy that crackled all around him. His bar code was old and faded. "A newbie, huh? Well, so much the better. Come on, newbie, you and I will dig, and later we shall eat. It's the same deal the company would give you, except that our work will save lives, and theirs will cheapen it. Come then, grab that axe, and get to work."

The axe head had been fashioned from a chunk of hull metal and mated with a hardwood handle. It was a tool so ancient, so common, that one could be had for two or three credits on most planets, and less if you bought them in bulk. But not on New Hope, where a meal cost a short length of copper wire, and guards were dispatched to recover a twenty-foot length of chain.

What if Dorn took the axe and ran? His legs were longer than the Traa's ... and he felt sure he'd win the resulting race. But the alien had trusted him, and people were trapped in the wreckage, so Dorn pushed the idea away.

The Traa, who had a short snout, horizontal nostrils, and a sort of doglike aspect, led Dora to a tangle of wooden beams, adjusted one of the homemade torches to maximize the somewhat dubious light, and called to the people trapped below. The reply was faint but encouraging. Dorn paused to analyze the situation, chose which beams to attack first, and went to work. The wood was dry, and chips flew with each blow. A beam cracked and fell in two. The human chopped while the alien hauled the pieces away.

It took two full hours of hard, unrelenting labor to reach the accident victims, all of whom turned out to be members of a single family. There was a man, his head coated with dust; a woman, an arm hanging limply at her side; and a child, crying from thirst and shaking with fear. They were dazed and suffered from cuts, scratches, and abrasions. According to the man, they had run from the ship, taken shelter in an abandoned dugout, and been buried as the spacecraft passed overhead.

Dorn was struck by the skill and gentleness with which the Traa placed a splint on the woman's arm, closed the worst of their cuts, and calmed the child. It was then, and only then, that the XT led the family to the main gate, spoke with a surprisingly respectful guard, and was assured that the family would be cared for. A few minutes later, after they'd left the guard station, the alien looked back. His words sounded strange. "Please forgive me, oh abiding force, for my actions made no great difference and have prolonged their suffering."

Dorn frowned. " 'Made no real difference'? How can you say that? They'd be dead if weren't for you."

"Yes," the Traa agreed sadly. "They will live through today ... but what of tomorrow? And the day after that? True, each individual must do what he or she can to alleviate suffering, but what of the results? The medical treatment they receive will add a year to each of their contracts. And what of the evil upon which the entire system rests? That continues, and the responsibility is ours."

"How can that be?" Dorn asked in genuine amazement. "The guards have weapons and we don't. The responsibility is theirs."

"Ah, if only it were that simple," the alien responded. "All lives are part of a mutual weave, and the lack of resources, in this case weapons, does nothing to lessen our responsibility. But enough of that. Come, I promised a meal, and a meal you shall have."

It was a relatively short walk to the alien's home. Dorn was struck by the reverential manner in which passersby greeted his companion. He commented on the phenomena and received the same sort of response that Mr. Halworthy might have offered. "Yes," the Traa replied, "I give respect and others return it. And what, may I ask, is so mysterious about that?"

Dorn had no ready answer, but was reminded of his parents' world where respect stemmed from power, of the academy where the strongest boy ruled, and wondered how the alien's philosophy would work in such situations.

A winding path carried them past a variety of makeshift dwellings, up a hillside, and stopped in front of a well-maintained cargo module. The words "Hass Lines" could still be read on the front, and a piece of plastic covered the door. The alien swept it aside, lit a makeshift lamp, and offered the traditional welcome. "Be at peace here, for steel sleeps within leather, and all are septmen."

Dorn, who hadn't been welcomed anywhere in a very long time, thanked the Traa and stepped inside. Though relatively small, the interior was tidy, with shelving made from fiber-board, stools improvised from cable reels, planks on a pair of sawhorses, and a bedroll that lay across one end of the room. It was luxurious by local standards, and the human said so. "This is nice. Aren't you worried that someone will steal your possessions while you're away?"

The Traa, who was fussing with a tiny firebox made of hand-fired bricks, waved the question away. "My possessions come and go. Some steal while others give. Material objects are like clouds in an otherwise sunny day. The less one sees of them, the better."

Dorn wasn't so sure about that and drew on knowledge received during Miss Murphy's less than popular Contemporary Civilization class. "Some humans would agree with you ... but not very many. And what of your own race? It was my impression that the Traa are reasonably materialistic."

The alien turned and looked at Dorn as if seeing him for the first time. "What you say is true. At least two-thirds of my race is as avaricious as yours. Sad, isn't it? Now, if you would be so kind as to feed small pieces of wood into the fire ... I'll work on dinner."