Escape from Altera Ch. 03

"Yes. We can protect you, Richman."

"In return for..."

"Nothing much," said Antonio. "Your obedience. And a small food tax."

"A small food tax," I said. So that's how it worked. The strong stayed strong by forcing the weak to give up part of their food rations.

I eyed the gangsters with their knives. It was time to be diplomatic. "May I think about it?"

"Of course," said Antonio. "Think about it all you like. Until breakfast tomorrow."

He and his gang melted away.

What was I to do? I couldn't even ask anyone's advice because no one else spoke League English (or would admit to doing so). The minute I lay down on my plank bed I tried to consider my options. Could I complain to the camp guards? I wasn't so naïve to think that would do any good.

I started to consider other options, but despite the hardness of the plank in my back, and the lack of a pillow, I was exhausted. Before I knew it, I heard the shouts of the guards, telling us to get up.

"What?" I said, unaware of what had happened. Suddenly, I realized I had fallen asleep. It seemed like only a few minutes had passed.

We were being lined up for breakfast. What was I going to do?

I was going to resist, that's what, I groggily decided. I could barely survive working in the mines on the limited rations we were fed; if my rations were cut even further, I would surely die.

I stood in line eyeing my companions warily as the cook slopped something into my bowl. I looked at it closely. Kem gruel. I started to move to a table to sit and eat, when four burly men surrounded me.

"Gebarlnopla," one of them said.

"Good morning to you too," I said warily.

Without saying a further word, two grabbed my arms and the other two grabbed my bowl. I struggled wildly as they scooped some of the contents out of my bowl, paused, and then scooped a second helping.

"For resisting," one of them said in heavily accented English. He nodded, and the guard dumped me and the bowl on the ground. Fortunately, I caught it before it spilled over.

I got up and dusted myself off. My morning portion had been reduced by half. I sighed and moved to take a seat. But no sooner had I sat down then two other burly prisoners surrounded me.

"What?" I said, looking up.

"Tax," said one of them.

I pointed to my bowl. "I just paid the tax!"

"That for Antonio group," said the one, in broken English. "We with Baroshikov group."

I got up, intending to fight for my remaining ration, when one of them tripped me, sat on me, while the other went for my bowl. When they allowed me to get up again, my bowl was empty. I could hear howls of laughter in the background.

I felt hungry and worn out. How would I possibly survive now?

As I was wearily marched to the mines, I tried to think what the Battle Admiral would do. After a moment of muddled thinking, I realized that Battle Admiral Norman North would never have permitted himself to be captured in the first place. And besides, this was not a matter of military strategy; this was a matter of survival.

Survival. Instinctively, the name of Clifford Croft came to my mind. He was a senior operative with the Column, the League's elite undercover security service. We had crossed paths once or twice, and I had seen Croft survive difficult situations before. What would Croft do in a situation like this? My tired mind drew a blank.

The lack of sleep and food took its toll on me in the mines. Twice my flagging attentions almost caused me to drop the heavy laser drill on my foot. A mine cart traveling behind me sideswiped me, sending me to the ground. A guard rushed up, brandishing an electrowhip. He yelled something. I struggled to move.

He struck out with the electrowhip, and a painful current lashed through my body. I yelped and instinctively sprang up.

"Glablurblurinosh!" the guard yelled.

"All right, all right, I'll nosh, I'll nosh," I said, painfully raising the laser drill.

At the end of the twelve hour work shift, I stumbled back to camp. Feebly I wondered how I was going to protect my dinner ration. If I didn't eat tonight, there was no way I was going to survive the next day.

Sure enough, when I trudged out of the mines that night and received my kem ration, I immediately felt a hard object in my back.

"We do this easy, or sharp?" a voice hissed.

To weary to resist, I handed over my bowl.

My assailant emptied some of my kem in another bowl.

"Good boy," he said in accented English, handing me back the bowl. Barely half the original contents remained. I could swallow it all in a few good gulps. I tried to eat it slowly, but then thought about the other gangs. I swallowed it all in seconds. It was barely enough to whet my appetite. I felt light headed. I didn't know if I was going to keel over from hunger or exhaustion.

All I know is that I have no memory of returning to the barracks or even collapsing on my shelf. I didn't even feel the hardness of the rough wood underneath me.

The thing that did wake me up was a persistent tugging at my feet. At first, I thought that I was dreaming, but as I opened my eyes I saw people crowding around me, and one of them was tugging at one of my fleet issued boots!

I tried to get up to resist, but two of the bandits held me down while the third pulled off one and then another boot, not particularly caring what he did to my feet in the process. When they let go, I heard laughter as they raced out of the barracks.

I sat up weakly. Now what did I do? If I went outside without my boots, I would surely get frostbite. I looked around in the dim light generated by a wood burning stove on the other side of the barracks. Someone, perhaps my assailants, had been kind enough to drop some rags on my bed.

"Rags? What am I supposed to with rags?"

"You rap them around your feet, Richman," said a voice.

I was startled; I hadn't been aware that anyone else in the barracks knew League English.

I sat up and grabbed the rags, least they be stolen too. I tried wrapping them around my feet, over my fleet issued footclothes, but they kept unwrapping.

"No, not like that," said a heavily accented voice in the gloom. A man dropped down from an upper bunk and wrapped one of them for me, tying the ends. He waited, looking at me. "You do other."

I tried my best to imitate him. It wasn't as neat, but it didn't become unraveled.

"Thanks," I said, looking up. "What's your-" but when I looked up, he was gone.

My feet were freezing the next day. I tried to petition the guards to get a fresh pair of shoes, but only got a blaster rifle butt for my troubles. After my half breakfast and half-dinner, I collapsed on the wooden shelf again. I couldn't feel sensations in my toes. Were they frostbitten? I found I was too tired to care.

In the middle of the night, I felt someone tugging at my jacket. Not my prison jacket, but my fleet jacket underneath.

That was the last straw. I fought to get up, even knocking over one of my attackers.

"Stop this!" I yelled. "What are you all, some kind of Bugsy Spagetti characters?"

The bandits, who had been trying to hold me down, stopped as if electrified.

"Bugsy Spagetti?" one of them said, in heavily accented English.

I must have looked almost as surprised as they were. "You're all a bunch of thieves!"

"You know Bugsy Spagetti?" one of the bandits said.

"Know him?" I said, my mind foggy.

"Know Bugsy Spagetti story?" said another.

"Story?" I said groggily. "Well, I've read a few of his holonovels."

"Do it!" said the first bandit.

"Do what?" I said.

"Tell Bugsy story."

"What?" I said.

"Tell Bugsy story. If one we not heard, you can keep coat."

Oh.

I really wasn't a big Bugsy Spagetti fan, and it had been at least a decade since I had read one of his books. He was a hack writer who had written several hundred holographic novels about the lives of a particular group of gangsters. His books were all formulaic, relying on a well established recipe of blasters, sex, violence, and betrayal, and it was rumored that he had a staff of ghostwriters constantly grinding out new ones. I had read one or two of his books out of curiosity, but really didn't remember much of the details.

I tried my best to remember the one I did. "Vincenzio's Betrayal," I said, looking for a reaction.

I was greeted by cautious smiles. Evidently, they didn't know this one.

I started telling the story. When I didn't remember part of the story, I used my imagination as a substitute. The gang started to get bored when I got into plot details, so I would frequently digress into shootouts and sex scenes to keep them interested. After three "chapters", one of the bandits stopped me.

"Enough," said the bandit. "Must get sleep. You continue tomorrow."

One of the bandits moved to take my coat, but the head bandit said something rapidly in Slurian, and the bandit recoiled.

I dropped off to sleep the minute my head touched the platform shelf.

Evidently entertainment was a valuable commodity here. Well, that made a certain amount of sense. There were no holovids here, no performances or even news from the outside world, as far as I could see. Anything that could bring a distraction from the misery of the camp would be valued, just as clothes and food were.

This continued for four more days. The story kept the wolves at bay. Indeed a rumor started that I myself was the author, Bugsy Spagetti, and I did nothing to dispel the notion. More and more of the barracks would listen in every night. I noticed one particular thin bearded man watching me keenly; he had a different, more sophisticated look that stood out from the crowd, but we never talked.

As for me, I was just glad to keep my fleet jacket, but my feet were still freezing, and the cumulative lack of sleep and food was doing me in.

Finally, I resolved to do something about it. At dinner one night, I quickly swallowed all my food in two gulps before the jackels could steal half of it. Two of them were on me immediately, but I pushed them away.

One of them glared at me, as if to attack, while a third stepped forward. It was Antonio. He looked at me, and at his men, taking in the situation immediately. He muttered something in Slurian to one of his men. Then he looked to me.

"Better sleep light tonight, Richman," he said.

I panicked after dinner, seeking out the bandits who were listening to my nightly stories. They wouldn't help me. All my stories would buy was immunity from their own predations.

I sought out one of the guards, tried to explain my problem. He either didn't understand or didn't want to, giving me a shove towards the barracks.

I felt the eyes staring at me as I walked. They all knew.

"Can anyone help me?" I said. There was silence. "I've been entertaining you every night. Surely that's worth something."

Again there was silence. Everyone looked away. In the distance I could see the thin bearded fellow watching me curiously, but he said nothing.

No one would help. I settled down in my shelf for the night. My hand tightly gripped an object in my fleet jacket. My eyes were wide awake, and watching.

Several minutes passed in silence. My eyes adjusted to the dim light from the distant primitive wood burning stove. My eyes were on the entrance to the barracks.

Several more minutes passed. And then a few more minutes after that. Maybe Antonio had been making an empty threat.

Then the barracks door swung open. Two, three, four men entered. They scanned left and right, until they saw me. They headed my way.

As the first one got close to my bunk, he reached down to grab me and pull me out of there. At the same time I pulled the hand from my pocket and thrust out. The thug, used to compliant victims, wasn't expecting that. I stabbed him in the shoulder with a sharp rock, the only weapon I could find on short notice. He howled and drew back.

The other thugs drew short but wicked looking homemade knives, made out of bent and twisted blackened metal. I gulped. There was no way I could dodge three of them.

The thugs closed in...

"Stop!" said a clear voice in accented League English.

The thugs turned to see the thin bearded man. They stopped moving. Why were they afraid of him?

The man turned to me. "Your name and origin?" he said in the same accented English.

"Bugsy Spagetti, from the League," I said. Perhaps this was a big Bugsy fan.

The bearded man stared at me. "You are not Bugsy." It was a statement.

I grimaced. He knew. "But I can tell his stories!"

"I am not interested in his stories."

The jackels turned to me, a pure look of delight on their faces.

"But you are from the League?"

"Yes," I said, not sure where this was going.

"Have you seen many worlds?"

"Many," I said. "I was a pilot."

The man stared at me for a long moment. So did the thugs, as if they were waiting. Then the man turned to Antonio and spoke a single word. "Nyet."

That prompted a long string of invective from Antonio. His thugs turned to face the thin bearded man.

The thin man gave a thin whistle. A giant stepped forward. A huge man clad in fur skins. He looked down on the thugs like they were toys.

Even though Antonio's men outnumbered this giant, they were plainly cowed. The bearded man spoke a few words to Antonio, who nodded. Antonio motioned for his thugs to leave. In a moment, they were nothing but a memory.

"I have just saved your life, Richman," said the bearded man. "Now you must repay me."

I opened my mouth to ask what he meant by that, but the bearded man had already turned away. The giant gently grabbed me by the shoulders and propelled me after the bearded man. He took me to a large bunk with luxurious furs draped over it. He motioned me to sit on the edge of it. The giant simply sat on the floor, making him a few feet less taller than me.

"I am Kerensky. Your name?"

"Idaho Took."

"Idaaho Tuch," said Kerensky. "An interesting name."

There was a pause.

"What is it you want?" I said, eyeing the nearby giant uneasily.

"Information," said Kerensky.

"I have no military information," I said guardedly. Suddenly it occurred to me that these might be spies, put here by Slurian military intelligence.

Kerensky gave a laugh. "I have little interest in that. I want to learn about your worlds. Your cultures, your societies, your economies. Even as 'liberated citizens' we get very little unfiltered information about your culture, and in here we get even less. What world were you born on?"

"Greenfields," I said.

"Then tell me about it."

I spent the next hour describing life on Greenfields, even though it had been decades since I had been there for any length of time. Kerensky listened attentively, peppering me with questions, taking in every word. When I started to falter, my head bobbing, he looked me over. "You are very weak."

"I have been on half rations since I got here," I said.

"You will not survive long in the mines," said Kerensky. He looked me over with an appraising eye. "If you are to survive long enough to tell me what I want to know, we will have to get you to hospital."

"There's a hospital?"

"Do not get hopes up," said Kerensky. "Prisoner hospital is simply shelves, like these, with few medical supplies, no trained doctor. But prisoners get full rations, no work. Perhaps we get you in."

A third man appeared out of the darkness, and said something sharply to Kerensky. Kerensky said something sharply back to him. The new man looked disparagingly at me.

At this point I decided that I would have to learn Slurian. I simply was at a tremendous disadvantage. I was smart enough to know, however, that this new guy didn't care much for me.

"Is very difficult to get into hospital," said the new man. "Only 10 prisoners can be in hospital at any given time. Will have to trade many favors to get you in."

Kerensky said something sharply to the new man. The discussion seemed to be over. Kerensky gestured with his head, and the giant escorted me back to my bunk.

As I lay down the giant looked at me, and said, "Tuch?"

"Took," I said.

The giant pointed to himself. "Sasha."

Sasha? This giant had a girl's name?

The oddness of the situation didn't prevent me from falling asleep immediately.