RJ fingered one of four sets of manacles affixed to the walls of the hold. "Now what do you suppose these are for? I can't think of any 'livestock' that has hands."
Poley shrugged his shoulders. "Nor can I. Perhaps it is used as punishment for unruly soldiers."
"Every ship has a brig for that," RJ said moving away from them. "Of course they might have changed policy. Those are a lot cheaper than a cell, and a lot more irritating."
RJ took a pocketknife and scraped the crevices in the hold's floor. She handed what she found to Poley who quickly examined the findings.
"No animal waste," Poley informed her.
"Don't tell me what there isn't, Tin pants," RJ said in an exasperated tone. "Tell me what there is."
"A few cotton and wool fibers. Dirt, I'm assuming from both planets, human skin fragments, DNA, and what I have to assume are the skin fragments of a Beta 4 humanoid. More of the later in fact than the former."
"Now
. . .
I wonder why that is?" RJ asked rubbing her chin.
"Maybe it fell off the crates that were loaded in here from the planet, and maybe
. . .
"
"Maybe we have no idea. I don't like it, Poley. I don't like it at all."
"Avonlea, Avonlea! You're off course. Repeat you're off course." The moon base operator was screaming at him over the communications port.
Levits decided to have a little fun. He linked in. "Yeah, well, how's this? I'm stealing your freaking ship, so I don't give a shit!"
RJ skidded to a stop beside him. "Change course for Beta 4."
"What?" Levits screamed at her.
"Change course; we're going to Beta 4," RJ said.
"For shits sake, RJ, I just told moon base
. . .
"
"What the hell did you say?" the moon base operator asked.
Levits cleared his throat. "Ah, we ah. . . Just a little ship humor, sir." He shrugged silently in answer to the look that Topaz gave him. "I'm making that course correction now. Thanks I sure wouldn't want to get lost out here in hyperspace."
"You OK, Thomas?" The operator asked.
"Yeah, just a little constipation. Happens every time I spend any time in a space station. Over." Levits cut the transmission and turned to face RJ.
"You want to tell me what the hell's going on?" he asked.
RJ smiled at him and bent down to kiss his check. "Now if I knew that we wouldn't have to go to Beta 4, would we?" She straightened, turned on her heel and started out of the room.
"Damn it, RJ, would you give me a straight answer? What happened to your big
win the Argys over
plan, and why in hell's name are we going to a hole like Beta 4?"
She was gone and obviously wasn't going to answer him.
Levits turned to Topaz. "OK then, answer this one for me. Why does she keep kissing me when I'm screaming at her?" Levits asked.
Topaz and David both laughed.
"She does it because you find it unsettling," Topaz said.
"I think she does it because she likes him," Poley tossed out and then left obviously to go look for his sister.
They all laughed now. "Better take your vitamins, Levits," David teased. "Think you're up for it?"
"I'd certainly find
that
unsettling," Levits laughed.
Taheed looked out the huge window at the bright red and gold striped sunset and smiled. "Exquisite!" he exclaimed, waving his handless arms around in circles. "Don't you think so, son?"
"Oh, yeah, great," Taleed said with no enthusiasm. He sat staring not at the sunset, but at a spot on the floor.
"Can't you enjoy anything?" Taheed turned an annoyed face to his son. "Must you continue to walk around the palace with your chin dragging on the ground? Haven't you punished me enough?"
"I have a right to disagree with your policies, Father, and I very heartily disagree with this latest trend."
"Oh, yes, how terrible! The kingdom grows richer each day
. . .
"
"It's the
way
we grow richer that bothers me. Father, you are selling our people into slavery. I do not trust the motives of this Reliance. I do not think they are dealing with us in good faith," Taleed said. "For generations the priests warned us against trade with the Reliance. Slowly, reluctantly they agreed to trade lizard skins, beads, other handmade items to the Reliance for farm implements, utensils, and light bulbs. Now, however, they push us to trade our people for this gold metal. How does this serve the people? How does it serve us? We are taught that The Ancestor wanted nothing to do with the Reliance. There had to be a reason for it, and a reason for the priests to be reluctant to trade with them."
"And there is a reason for us to trade with them now," Taheed said in an exasperated voice.
"Father
. . .
They are taking all our best warriors. What's to stop them from waiting till most of our good fighters are gone and descending on us in droves? Conquering and enslaving us all as they have done to countless other worlds," Taleed said.
"Son
. . .
Someday you will be King. You must learn to make the tough decisions. I think you are losing sight of the big picture. We have an over-population problem. A problem so big that not even constant war can keep the numbers of the peasants down. The Reliance has gold metal. They have fabrics that we need and also metal and electrical utensils that will help our people. Perhaps the priests will have no need to order wars if there are less of us to feed. Surely it is much more profitable to our people to make war on some other planet. The outcome is ultimately the same – a lower population."
"Surely some form of birth control is preferable to enslavement or war!" Taleed argued. "There are several ways to keep from reproducing. If we know when a woman is fertile, we also know when she is not. A man could remove his member before
. . .
"
"Blasphemy!" Taheed screamed holding his stumps over his ears. "We are here because we were chosen by the gods to be gods. The priests know what is good and what is true. They speak the will of the gods. Birth control is an abomination
. . .
"
"Do you even listen to yourself, Father? Birth control is an abomination, but making our people fight wars to keep from starving and selling them to the Reliance to die at alien hands, fighting a battle which isn't ours
. . .
these things are blessed in the eyes of the gods?"
"How dare you question me? I am a god!" his father screamed back.
"You are no more a god than the things that belch smoke in the mountain. There are no gods. There is no magic. These beliefs have stuck us in a rut and kept us from progressing to a position which would allow us to fight the Reliance on their own terms if they decided to try to take us over," he said with passion. "The priests decided it was all right to deal with the Reliance after generations of saying they were evil. They made this decision for one reason and for one reason only – they were afraid not to. Now they trade our people for gold metal, not because of what the gods have told them, but because they like gold metal! They have forgotten the reasons why we did not trade with the Reliance; they have forgotten the reason that The Ancestor hated them. The truth
. . .
The truth that you all hide is that there are no gods. Just the greed of priests and kings playing on the superstitious nature of a people they have purposefully kept ignorant of technology."
The King still held the ends of his stumps over his ears. "Blasphemy! I will not hear it from one whom the gods themselves have chosen to rule
. . .
"
"
Chosen
, Father? Don't you mean
maimed
? Don't talk to me of being chosen, or tell me how blessed I am to have servants who do everything from feeding me to wiping the dung from my bottom. I grow tired of hearing the lies."
"Enough!" the King screamed finally taking his stumps from his ears. "Why must you grieve me so? Why do you hate your life? You have everything a man could need. Everything a man could ask for
. . .
"
"I don't have hands!" Taleed screamed then turned on his heel and headed for the door. The mute, illiterate servant standing there opened the door for him, and when he went through closed it behind him. Taleed stomped all the way down the hall to his room. At his door another mute,
illiterate servant opened the door, followed him in, and closed it behind them. The mute stood at the door, silently awaiting his next order – either spoken or implied.
Taleed was in a rage; he kicked a chair across the room then jumped around on one foot. Finally he flopped onto his bed.
"Everything I want! Everything I want!" Taleed screamed at the ceiling his nostrils flaring. He held up his handless arms and glared at them. Then he turned to talk to the servant. "Chosen! Chosen! What a royal joke! Some sick priest comes on the day of the birth of the King's children. If the sacramental knife feels heavy, then
Chop!
they cut off the child's hands to show that he is chosen and therefore never has to work. I was chosen to be handless just as you my friend were chosen to be mute. Some sick priest saw a different sparkle in our eyes than he had in the siblings that were born before us, and so whack! They deform you and ruin you for anything but what they wanted you to do. Which, in essence, is to help them make the people into puppets."
"They cut out your tongue before you had a chance to know if you could sing, and they cut off my hands before I knew what it was like to pick fruit from a bush, hold a friend's hand or throw a rock. They say the procedure causes little pain, but what do they know of my pain? The pain I feel when I see lovers holding each other, gladiators in mock warfare, or even the simple act of a child throwing a ball. All of these things were stolen from me as your ability to speak was stolen from you."
The man nodded his head and made hand signals that only the two of them could read. Haldeed had been with him as long as Taleed could remember; he was his personal servant and his best friend. Haldeed was his hands, and he was Haldeed's voice. They'd had this talk many times before because both were unhappy with their lots in life. Haldeed said what he often did. That someday Taleed would be King, and when he was in charge he could change all the rules.
"But my father is not an old man, and he is in good health. I may be old and gray before I come to power, and then what life is left to either of us? No! We must leave here and go out on our own. Start anew someplace far from the palace where no one knows us," Taleed said. "We must have an adventure.
Haldeed took a deep breath and tried to talk sense to his old friend. He reminded him that they had run away six times before and had been caught every single time in no more than a few hours. It hardly seemed worth the effort to him. He reminded Taleed how hard it was to hide a handless man and a mute.
"Ah, but last time we did hide longer than ever before, and I think we grow wiser with age. Let us at least try again. If nothing else it will give us a break from palace boredom."
Once again Haldeed found himself digging through his wardrobe and dressing himself and the Prince in the simple sleeveless tunics made of rough linen that were worn by the peasants.
"Oh, and I need a pair of gloves," Taleed said.
Haldeed shot him a strange look and then laughed making the one sound he could make that sounded close to normal.
"I'm not kidding," Taleed said. "I've got an idea."
Haldeed found a pair of old gloves and held them out to Taleed with a questioning look on his face.
"Stuff them full of cotton or something. We'll glue them to the ends of my stumps, and then it will look like I have hands," Taleed said.
Haldeed nodded his head in excitement. They would probably only be caught again, but at the very least they might have a few hours of adventure. While looking for some cotton and glue he found some old wire. He rushed back to Taleed in excitement. He put a piece of wire into one to the fingers of the glove and bent it. He looked at Taleed's face to see what he thought, and Taleed smiled.
"Great idea, Haldeed. We can pose my hands – make them look more real. We can even change them every once in awhile."
It took a while for Haldeed to construct the 'hands,' but when he had glued them onto the Prince's arms they looked real enough.
Taleed was silent for a moment as he looked down his arms at the fake hands. He found himself filled with emotion. "I
. . .
I look like a whole person."
Haldeed made hand signals.
"Yes, we just might make it this time. Come on. Let's go."
RJ walked through the ship with Poley at her side. "I should have known looking at the size of the hold that this was no cargo ship," RJ said thoughtfully as they looked into yet another long narrow bunk hall.