|
Page 8.
 Vikri nodded. "Faith…we must believe in something, or the soul dies, and the body rots away. In those days, the rumor had it that just one lifeboat got free, and that they made it down to the surface. Before the militia and merks could intercept it, the lifeboat crashed on a beach near the equator. This would be near the forests on Manaul 5J. That's the huge jungle continent near the equator. You could lose a thousand ships, and a milllion prisoners, in there without a trace."
Amela sipped her cafir, grateful for the warmth, but barely tasting its woody and stimulating sweetness. Her tired brain crackled with the electrifying story Vikri told. "You think the boat can be made to fly if anyone can find it?"
Vikri sighed. "Eh, who knows? If the boat even exists. It's been hidden for many years. The story means the Kaarrk were unable to find the boat and its crew of Runners, which proves that people can lose themselves down under. The best scenario is we find the boat, it still works, and we escape from Manaul."
"Or die trying."
"No. There will be astrogation libraries embedded in cyber mines on board. A wealth of detailed navigation charts in four or five dimensions. They'll come to life if we can just find the boat and figure out how to make it work. We could maneuver back out into the starways, using the backward logs and charts of their coming. We'd stand a chance of being picked up by a humanian corsair, let's say, who would ransom us off to the highest bidder. They'd know where their better deal lies, so they'd ransom us to the nearest Dominion frontier fortress."
"It's a long shot."
"What have you got to lose, my young sweet?"
Amela thought for a few seconds. The answer came in a flash of sheer truth. If she did not try to escape right now, she'd grow old here. Worse yet, Solan and Nally would grow old, never seeing her again. Solan might take a new wife…and Nally would carry the wound of his lost mother for the rest of his days. The thought of Solan missing her was compelling enough. Better yet, she thought of herself sleeping with her husband in their warm bed at Gateway Lane, their limbs luxuriously tangled in the night. Above all, as a mother, the sense of her son's suffering changed everything. He must miss her terribly, as she missed him. Of the two mortal wounds in her soul, the larger one that hurt more was that of losing her son like this, her very motherness. Now that there seemed even a remote chance, she was wired for a run. "I can't wait to go," she told Vikri. "There is really nothing to lose, and everything to gain."
"I have a plan. I can make it happen. Are you in?" Vikri said, as gray shapes trudged past them in the oily, dirty corridor with its junglewood floors, its stained walls, its hanging hooks and sacks like a row of dead women.
"Or die trying."
Vikri's smile brightened, then dimmed back in to enigma ash as she cautioned: "Keep your eyes open for betrayers. They exist, and would be your death if they knew." Vikri rose. She rose and embraced Amela, who was surprised at the old woman's strength. Vikri pressed her mouth close to Amela's ear and whispered: "We are being watched. Be careful. By knowing, we can defeat them at their own game."
Vikri released her grip. While Amela could only pinch her mouth closed in shock, Vikri smoothed down her tunic over a wispy frame. Despite her frail looks, her forearms were brown and wizened, and not thin because of her years, but wiry from constant hard work. "Tomorrow." With that, Vikri joined the constant passing of hooded and veiled figures, and disappeared amid the smoky light of the teeming barracks.
Elated, yet troubled, Amela went the other way, and collapsed into a deep and dreamless sleep of exhaustion on her cot amid the forty-some beds and women of her open-bay barracks. Who was watching? Major Rulla Texel? But why?
TOP
|
MAIN
Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
|
