The Lost Colony, DM Arnold [ebook reader for laptop TXT] 📗

mission, we'd have five hundred settlers on board. Five hundred passengers who need to be fed. Five hundred of them going up and down from the barracks to the mess hall might tie up that one lift -- and interfere with the running of the ship.”

“So, that makes you think there might be a passageway between the mess hall and the deck below?”

He shook his head. “No, I don't think so. I know so...”

He led her in the opposite direction, toward the galley, and pressed the actuator. Yet another scanpad lit up. “I'm going to take my chances with this one,” he said. “They wouldn't begrudge us a midnight snack, would they?”

He pressed his wrist against the scanpad. It chirped and the door slid open. “Quietly,” he whispered. “The captain's cabin is directly overhead.” Nyk swung his lamp around the galley, illuminating stasis cabinet after stasis cabinet and banks of warmers. “They need lots of meals on a seeding mission,” he whispered. “The pantry is on the other side, under the first officer's cabin.” Nyk approached a doorway in the galley's forward bulkhead. “The mess hall is behind here.”

He pressed the actuator to open the door and a scanpad illuminated. “We're not having any luck,” he muttered.

“The story of our lives,” Andra remarked.

“There must be another way in there...” He swung his lamp and stopped the beam on an arch over the serving counter. “That's where the galley mates pass out the meals,” he whispered.

A chirp came from the galley door. Andra grabbed and squeezed his shoulder. Nyk doused his lamp and the two of them froze, their backs against the bulkhead and behind some stasis cabinets.

The ambient lighting came on. Footsteps entered the galley. Nyk heard someone open a cabinet, rummage around inside and close it. The footsteps crossed to the warmers. The warmer door opened, closed and the keypad beeped. The door opened again; then the footsteps grew distant. The ambient lighting switched off and the galley door slid shut.

Nyk switched on his lamp and probed around the archway. A tambour grille closed the passage off from the mess hall. He shone his lamp through the grille and scanned the empty mess hall. Long tables were folded into their stowed positions against the inside of the hull.

“If I can figure out how to open this,” he said, “I think we'll be in business...” Nyk focused his lamp on a latch. He pressed his palm against it and it released; then he worked his fingers under the grate.

“Careful,” Andra whispered.

Nyk lifted the grate. He hopped onto the serving counter and swung his feet to the deck. Andra clambered over the barrier and stood beside him. Then, Nyk leaned over the counter, pulled on the grate and began rolling it down. “I'm going to leave it unlatched,” he said, “in case we need to exit the way we came in.”

He lowered the grate until it was a finger's breadth above its closed position. “There ... let's hope no one comes in and notices.”

As soon as he drew away his hand the grille slammed to the counter. “Did it latch?” Andra asked.

Nyk tested it. “I'm afraid so -- and the latch is designed so it can't be reached from this side.”

“Wonderful... Well -- let's hope your theory about below decks is right. Otherwise we'll have some explaining to do when the cook shows up for his watch.”

“Right...” Nyk swung his lamp around and stopped it on a broad, spiral staircase leading below decks. Andra followed him down. They approached another bulkhead with a closed door. Nyk reached for the actuator.

“This one probably is locked, too,” Andra said.

“Perhaps -- if so, it's from the other side. The object would be to keep passengers OUT of the mess hall between meal calls.” He pressed the actuator and the door slid open.

Andra grabbed his hand as they walked down the corridor past one barracks door after another. “Twenty barracks,” he whispered, “ten on a side. Each accommodates twenty-five settlers.” His lamp probed the corridor.

The passageway widened into an antechamber immediately forward of the shuttlebay. The pressure door was wide open. Nyk led Andra into the bay and began scanning it with his lamp. “Empty!” she said.

His lamp paused on the transport shuttle, parked in its stall. He flashed it onto thruster packs and the personal thruster-cycle Zane had used. Nyk trained the lamp on the deck. “Look -- calling cards from the Varadan shuttles. Their corrosive thruster fuel has eaten holes in the coating on the deck.” He pointed with the beam and counted. “... five, six... If you count the spots on the deck, you can see there were at least six separate shuttle flights.”

“Proof positive they were here. What were they doing?”

“We're on a fool's errand,” he said. “Whatever it is, it's well hidden. We might as well go back to our cabin.”

“Do we need to go back up to the mess hall?” she asked.

“Let's try the lift.” He pressed the call button. “Like the mess hall, the object is to keep us off this deck. I'll bet they assume anyone who makes it here, belongs here.”

“Nyk!” she whispered. “Did you hear that?

“Hear what?”

“It sounded like a moan.” The liftcar arrived and the door slid open. “There it is again.”

“I heard it that time.” He stepped into the car, pressed the control for deck two and stepped back into the corridor.

They approached the first barracks door. Nyk touched an actuator and the door slid open. He swung his lamp around and gasped.

The two dozen cots in the cabin were occupied by semi-conscious, green-skinned men.

“My goodness!” Andra whispered.

He looked in the barracks across the corridor and found more novonids.

“So much for Ogan's absolute assurances.”

“What about ours? You had it from the Secretary's office we would never do anything like this.”

“Tomyka Wells!” Nyk hissed. “She must be behind this.”

“You were right about a side deal,” Andra replied.

“Kronta told me the Gammans have been frantic to figure out how to deal with all the new grain coming from the Altian-Lexalese detente. I wouldn't put it past her to give novonids a try. It certainly would drive down their production costs.”

“This sort of thing runs counter to everything the HL charter stands for. The Gammans will never get away with abducting people and enslaving them as fieldhands.”

“Yes, but only if you sign up to the notion that the novonids are people. I'm sure the Gammans will repeat the Varadan official line. There is nothing in the HL charter prohibiting the transplantation of alien flora or fauna onto a colony planet. If there were, then the work I do on Earth would be illegal.”

Andra pressed the actuator on barracks number three. Nyk heard more moaning. He swung his lamp and its beam illuminated a familiar face. “Laida!”

“Nykkyo?” She struggled to lift herself on her elbows. “How ... how could you?”

“I didn't do this, Laida,” he replied. “Neither of us did.”

“We're appalled by it,” Andra added.

A tear rolled out of the corner of her eye. “Did you pick me? Am I your ... payment for obtaining Floran's cooperation?” She panted. “You might own my body ... but you'll never own my spirit!”

“Of course not, Laida. I had nothing to do with this. Believe me.”

“Why should I ... believe you?” she gasped. “Why should I ... believe ... any of you?”

Andra knelt by her. “Please, Laida,” she said in thickly-accented Varadan. “You must. Nykkyo wrote a most scathing account of how novonids are treated by Varadan society. We abhor the practice.”

“Really?” Laida lowered herself onto the cot and panted. “Is that ... a fact?”

“Yes, really,” Nyk replied. He knelt and embraced her. “Please trust us. Andra and I want to help you.”

“Why should I ... trust you?”

“You don't have much of a choice. Your alternative is to face whatever fate awaits you at our final destination.”

Laida bit her lower lip. “I suppose ... you're right.”

“Please, Laida,” Nyk continued, “your only hope is for us to trust each other and for you to convince the others.”

She nodded. “Yes... I trust you.”

“Are you all right?” Andra asked.

Laida shook her head. “Sunstarved,” she gasped. “... torpor setting in ... can't stand ... very weak. Where are we?”

“We're in the exo scout. And, the exo scout is very far from both Floran and Varada... Andra, you stay with her.”

“Where are you going?”

“Back to the galley.”

Nyk entered the barracks. Andra was kneeling, holding Laida's head in her lap and caressing her cheeks. “Help her sit,” Nyk said. “Laida -- drink this -- drink it down like medicine.”

“What is it?”

“Glucose syrup in water.”

Laida emptied the glass. “It burns in my stomach.”

“I imagine it does, but it should help the sun-hunger.”

“Mmm,” she moaned and folded her arms across her abdomen. “It hurts.”

“I feel the same way when I've had too much of something sweet,” Nyk said. “It'll pass as you absorb the sugar.”

Laida leaned over and retched. “I want to vomit.”

“Try to keep it down.” He held her and caressed her arms. “It won't do you any good if you throw it up.”

“Ohhh... I am feeling stronger ... the nausea is starting to pass...”

“What happened to you?” Andra asked.

“They came for me -- right after I cleaned your room...”

“After our visit to Ramina? Oh, Laida -- I'm so sorry to have gotten you into this.”

“You didn't, Nykkyo -- it wasn't anything you did. I'm responsible.”

“How?”

“I'm associated with a woman in the BSS who advocates greater freedom for novonids. She uses me as an example. I'll go with her to BSS meetings, lectures and the like -- give readings...”

“YOU can read?” Nyk started laughing.

“Do you, too, find the notion absurd?”

“Not at all, Laida. I know you're capable of far more than the Varadans care to admit. Ramina told us you're exceptionally bright. I doubt even she appreciates how bright you are -- how bright all of your kind are.”

“Ramina doesn't know about this... I learned from the BSS that the Florans were negotiating to bring some novonids to your world.”

“Not to MY world,” he replied. “Did you by any chance hear anyone discuss a place called Gamma-5?”

“Now that you mention it,” she mused. “Yes, I did hear that.”

“I knew it! This had nothing to do with the talks I was involved with, Laida. Believe me. It must've been going on the side.”

“I do believe you. I don't know how this BSS official learned, but the agreement was for one hundred novonid men and ten women -- the usual ratio. I learned this days before you arrived on Varada.”

“How did you contrive to be assigned as our house-keeper?”

“That was just luck. At first I thought you were part of the plot. It's the real reason I was cool to you that day. Then I learned you were meeting with Prefect Ogan and I figured you were all right.”

“Ogan is on the level?”

“Ogan is a fool -- an idiot; but an honest one.”

“He has gone on the record,” Nyk noted, “denying any intent to trade you for Floran technology.”

“I know he has. Ogan couldn't swindle someone if his life depended on it.”

“So someone on Gamma contracted with unknown Varadans to receive one hundred field workers.”

“And, ten fertile females. But -- they were double-crossed.”

“How so?” Nyk asked.

“Most of the novonids are feral -- rounded up from the woods and fields around the pomma farms and sunstarved into submission. They're very wild -- some lack language skills. They'd be of no use in the fields -- dangerous even.”

“And the rest?”

“Street thugs and trouble-makers from the Green Zone... I think I'm feeling well enough to stand... ”

“And, what was the quid-pro-quo?”

“The what?”

“What did Varada receive in exchange?”

“Why -- that comm relay station -- state of the art communications.” Nyk put his hand over his mouth and laughed. “What's funny?”

“Varada was cheated, too. That relay station is an old clunker. It'll be out of commission within a year.”

Laida began laughing. “We swindled each other!”

“Yes -- this is a great way to launch an interplanetary friendship, isn't it?”

“I still think Varada got the better deal,” Laida replied. “You see, with the termination act, they can't just put down troublesome novonids, unless they're proven a menace; and then only after a hearing. These aren't menaces, just ... more independent.”

“Like yourself?”

“Yes -- but impatient, and not willing to work within the system. And with ferals going under the termination act umbrella...”

“Since they can't kill them, why not just quietly ship them offworld?” Nyk mused. “No bodies to dispose of -- an easy way to be rid of problem novonids. How did you...”

“It was Alvo.”

“Alvo? Alvo was brokering the deal?”

“He was in on it, to procure some of us. He must've overheard me talking with my BSS contact. He probably feared I'd tell you and you'd tell Ogan.”

“I wish you had,” Nyk replied.

“I was afraid to -- until