The Softwire: Betrayal on Orbis 2 (18 page)

“Let me show you something,” he said. “Come this way.”

I followed Tang between buildings carved from the thick, reddish rock and glanced above me. Glass spanned the crevices between the rocks, creating a crystal dome. The pale green water from the cooling tank flowed on the other side of the glass, covering us in a turquoise blanket.

Tang entered a slender building made of plain stone and metal. The inside of the structure looked like the nursery on the seed-ship, with hundreds of sleepers sprawled out on the floor. I saw about forty aliens and their families sitting on the lids of their sleepers with their meager belongings scattered about them. Some sat on the floor, scratching symbols and circles into the metal floor and even on the plastic dividers that separated some of the sleepers. Most of the others, however, seemed to be doing the same thing — waiting.

“We place everyone here when they first arrive. They must wait while we process them and find a more stable environment for them inside Toll Town,” Tang informed me.

“Process?”

“We work very hard to remove every record of them inside the central computer. This makes it harder for their Guarantors to catch them,” Tang answered.

“What do their Guarantors do?”

“Different methods are used. Some Citizens send their runaway a screen scroll. They then scan for the location of the discarded message and send a search party to that location. They drag the person back only to enforce the severest penalty entitled to the Guarantors.”

I looked around me at the aliens waiting here. I’d seen these faces before, many times throughout Orbis. They were the faces working in the trading chambers, the faces loaded down with packages following Trading Council members — the faces of my friends slaving away at Odran’s.

I noticed one small creature with a bio-wrap around his damaged arm, or tentacle — I couldn’t tell which. Both of his legs were encased in a glass and metal machine that looked very similar to Odran’s tank. The alien’s mother seemed to be crying uncontrollably.

“Why is she crying like that?”

“Her oldest child was stained by their Guarantor. We could not allow her to bring him. The staining makes it very easy for the Citizens to track their laborers. She was forced to leave her child behind.”

“What happened to the young one?” I asked.

“His skin is very valuable to some of the Citizens.”

“They cut his skin off?”

Tang raised his hands motioning me to be quieter. “Medical attention is a big part of the process,” he whispered. “Some Guarantors treat these people worse than machines, especially the ones they get for free.”

“Free? But we’re repaying our parents’ debt.”

“Yes, but some Citizens get workers in a trade, or a Citizen may pass into the cosmic stream and leave their possessions — including their workers — to their children.”

“You mean when a Guarantor dies?”

“Yes,” Tang replied.

“Don’t the Keepers stop this?”

“They don’t know most of what goes on anymore. There are simply too many Citizens and too many of us.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off the young alien. “My Guarantor lives inside a similar device,” I said.

“Odran suffered the exact same fate. Did you not know?”

“Odran was a knudnik?”

“Yes, but he has grown corrupted. Worse than most Citizens you can find on Orbis. I thought Odran’s plight would have softened him to our cause, but I’m afraid his heart is as thick as this stone that holds back the cooling-tank water.”

“Thicker,” I mumbled. “Just be glad Odran doesn’t know you are here.”

“We have no fear of Odran,” Tang replied.

I could not imagine Odran and this alien sharing anything in common. In fact I couldn’t imagine Odran having a single thing in common with
anyone
in this room. I looked across the sea of sleepers and tried to imagine these aliens in a happier time, before they decided that life would be better on Orbis. How could all these people be so blind to the real Orbis? How could my parents be so blind? I wished they were here at this very moment so I could ask them why — why am I here?

“There doesn’t seem to be a word for . . . for
what
we are,” I said. “What we are to
them,
I mean. Everyone uses the word
knudnik,
but I know that’s a slang word. What do the Citizens really call us?”

Tang said a word that did not translate.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Different cultures have different expressions for the labor arrangement that exists on Orbis. Some cultures, like yours, try to use the word
slave,
although that is not completely accurate. Initially, work on Orbis is a voluntary process. People want to come here. They sacrifice willingly. In other cultures the ‘sale’ or ‘trade’ of one’s freedom for the pursuit of money is simply unthinkable. The idea is so alien to them that there isn’t even a word for it.”

“I wish I could live there,” I said.

“But in some cultures, like here on the Rings of Orbis, it’s perfectly normal,” Tang continued. “To them you are merely an object to possess, for whatever reason. In their minds, you belong to them until your work rule is complete. What they call you is of little importance. Most Citizens call their workers by the task they perform, as they would any commonutility device. If you don’t like this, they really don’t care.”

I walked through rows and rows of sleepers and saw many aliens anxiously waiting to run away. Some even looked happy to me. The deep sadness I often saw in the trading chambers seemed to be replaced here with hope.

“For some it may only get worse,” Tang warned. “They are not equipped to be on their own, and I am afraid there exists far more dangerous threats to their well-being than the Trading Council.”

I couldn’t imagine what those threats were, but I had learned long ago to never doubt anything on the rings.

“I want to help, Tang, but I have to do it out there,” I said, and pointed up. “I never want my sister or my friends to end up broken like this. I can’t imagine that my parents would have brought us here if there was even the chance this might happen.”

“I’m afraid there is not much you can do from out there, but in time I will understand,” Tang replied. “Come. Toll is waiting.”

More food vendors lined the street that led back to the water portal. We stopped when one alien asked Tang for a moment of his time. A nearby vendor was graciously offering up sacks of toonbas, and I thought of my sister.

“Would you mind if I took some for my sister, Tang?” I asked, but he was busy in conversation.

He won’t mind,
I thought, and accepted a pouch of the treats from the vendor. I tucked them inside my vest. I knew Ketheria would love them.

Toll was waiting for us at the water portal. Tang looked at the Samiran, and then hung his head. They must have spoken of this arrangement before. They were simply waiting for the right time. It made me feel uncomfortable knowing that they had planned this meeting. Was everything an elaborate scheme? Showing me the lights, telling me how to bypass the security? Even the story about my father?

“There is one more thing,” Tang said, and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a small, transparent digi. He tapped the silicon sheet and a picture blinked on the screen. I recognized Toll. The man sitting on top of him looked familiar, too.

It couldn’t be.

I looked at Toll and then at Tang. He closed his eyes. “Yes, it is,” he said.

My father?

I stared at the picture again. The man sat on top of Toll the same way I did. He was a big man, bigger even than Charlie, with thick, dark hair and massive shoulders. He looked human, very human, even with the Space Jumper’s belt around his waist and the helmet resting on his lap. I couldn’t help but stare at the photo.

“Is this really him? Is this my dad?”

There was a photo of my father in the files on the
Renaissance,
but it was only a headshot — a rank-and-file photo file for the ship’s records, nothing more. Even though this digi was small, it showed what my father must have been like. I stared at his eyes and the slight grin on his face. My father looked strong and fearless to me.

“I’m afraid that digi must stay here,” Toll said.

“You will not be able to explain where you got it,” Tang added.

I looked at both of them.
But what about Ketheria?
She deserved to see this, too. “I want to show my sister,” I protested.

“I’m sorry,” Tang said knowingly.

“We must go now,” Toll said. “The others will begin to worry.”

My fingers would not release the digi. I concentrated on it. I wanted to burn the image into my brain. I looked at my father sitting atop Toll as if they were friends, good friends. Odran was wrong. I was right to trust Toll. I handed the photo back to Tang.

“Thank you,” I told him. “But now I have a million more questions.”

“Good,” Tang said. “Then I know I will see you again, my new friend.”

“You will.”

I climbed back onto Toll in a daze. I finished pulling on the protective suit, and Toll slipped into the water. Before I went under, I got one more look at the city.

I sprinted down the stairs of the cooling tank. I knew I couldn’t tell a soul about Toll Town — I couldn’t even tell Ketheria about the digi I’d seen of our father — but the excitement of knowing what I’d seen kept my feet moving all the way back to the dormitory.

No one noticed me enter. Most were huddled in groups with their backs to me.

I saw Theodore. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“I told them they shouldn’t do it,” he replied.

“Do what?”

“Play with the food.”

“Don’t let him get away!” another kid shouted as a small alien sprang up and tore across the dormitory floor. It was pink with at least eight arms or legs, but no eyes. Two long tentacles sprouted from one end of the thing and were flickering about in the air.

“What is that?” I asked.

“That’s what we feed to the Samirans,” Theodore said.

“Not anymore,” someone else replied.

“But that was on the work order,” I said. “If Odran finds out . . .”

“Switzer said that as long you can talk to that big fish, we don’t have to do our chores,” another kid said.

“Well, Switzer’s not in charge,” I snapped, reaching down for the alien as it scrambled past. It wriggled from my grasp, ran up my arm, and socked me in the chin. “Ow!”

“That’s nothing,” Theodore said.

“We have to put them back,” I said. “Come on — help me get them back to wherever they’re supposed to go.”

The other kids were laughing at me as I tried to round up the creatures. They were fast! I was never going to catch them by myself. I looked around for Max’s help, but she wasn’t there. Neither was Ketheria.

“Where’s Ketheria?”

“She’s with Max,” he said. “Switzer and Dalton gave out a bunch more orders and then they left. Max waited a bit before she took off after them.”

“She didn’t take a rope with her, did she?”

“Yes, how did you know?”

“Theodore!”

He jumped off his sleeper and then straightened out his sheet — twice. Then he mumbled “You don’t think she would have —”

“And by herself,” I yelled. “Why didn’t you go with her?”

“I had chores to do,” he argued, looking around at all the mess.

“You didn’t want to go down that hole again,” I said, and Theodore stared at his feet.

“What about Ketheria?” I asked.

“I think Max needed some help with the —”

“Come on!” I said, and grabbed Theodore by the vest. I pointed at one of the boys. “Round those things up and put them back where they came from.”

“No,” he said.

I had no reply. I wasn’t going to beg. I heard another kid snicker.

“What are you going to do? Zap me with the enabler, too?” he taunted me.

Still I had no reply. I stood there staring at the kid.
Is this how it starts?
I wondered. First we refuse to work, then the Citizens start to punish us — we grow resentful and then end up in Toll Town?

“No, I’m not,” I said. “But Odran will.”

I dragged Theodore out of the room and through the building faster than a light drive. It took me a little time to get my bearings, but I finally found the stairs that led down to the tunnels.

“Maybe they didn’t go there this time,” Theodore said, but I knew he was only trying to get out of going down to the tunnels.

“Just stay close,” I told him.

I charged down the stairs, each step lighting up as I went. I chose the center tunnel, still running. I couldn’t believe Max would take Ketheria. Was she crazy? What did she think Switzer had found down there? Max’s curiosity really got the best of her sometimes, I thought. I only hoped Switzer wasn’t trying to escape. Not with my sister.

“Ketheria!”

When I found them, my sister and Max were tying the rope to a metal grate over the open tunnel. There was no sign of Switzer or Dalton.

“What are you doing, Max?” I snapped.

“Hey guys, good timing,” she said.

“Good timing? Are you crazy, taking Ketheria down there?” I said.

The girls looked at each other.