Exiles of colsec v1 0, p.2
Exiles of colsec (v1.0), page 2
“That’s it, then!” Cord said. But then his face fell. “Except I don’t know how to…override… what it was you said.”
“That is not the problem,” GUIDE said. “The problem is that space freighters are not constructed for planetary landings.”
Freighters were loaded and unloaded from orbit, in space, GUIDE explained. If this freighter were diverted, towards Klydor, it would not land. It would burn up in the atmosphere, or crash.
Cord stared at the quiet glow of the screen, again feeling himself beginning to shake. “You’re… you’re saying it’s a choice between two different ways of dying!”
“That cannot be computed,” GUIDE told him softly. “There are many random factors. In either case, there is a chance that at least some of you might survive. But chance is not computable with accuracy.”
Cord’s mind felt battered. For a desperate moment he wanted to be back iii his casket, safely asleep and in his dream. Or was all this another dream, a nightmare, from which he would waken to find himself in the Antarctic prison colony? But he shook himself, fighting the urge to escape into childishness, or madness.
“You should wake the others,” he told GUIDE. “They should have a say in how they are to die.”
“Psychological profiles say that the decision would not then be made,” GUIDE replied. “It must be made by only one. Please inform me of your decision.”
Cord’s vision blurred as he fought his inner battle, to make sense of what he had been told, what he had to do. For several moments the area was again still and silent, as that battle went on. And then a strange clear thought entered Cord’s mind.
The freighter belonged to ColSec, carrying some kind of cargo to some other distant, colonized planet. If Cord and the others remained where they were, and died before the freighter reached its goal, ColSec would probably not blink an eye at the loss of twelve lives.
But if the freighter crashed on Klydor, ColSec would lose something that mattered. It would lose two valuable spacecraft, and the freighter’s cargo.
If I have to die, Cord thought fiercely, I want ColSec to suffer a little too.
And anyway, a further thought came, I would die properly, a quick and blazing death, on my feet rather than like a sleeping baby in a casket. The uncle would approve of that.
“We’ll take the freighter to Klydor,” he said at last, his voice low and hoarse. “If you can show me how.”
At once streams of figures and symbols began to appear on GUIDE’S screen. And the computer’s voice seemed almost gentle.
“There is no need,” GUIDE said. “I have begun the awakening of another of your number, who can programme the override.”
Cord turned slowly. A casket next to his own had begun to open. The occupant was hidden from him by the raised lid, but Cord knew what that person would be going through. The pain, the emptiness of mind, the slow return to awareness, and to fear….
But in a shorter time than Cord would have imagined, the occupant of that casket emerged, wearing muddy-brown trousers and tunic like those supplied to Cord. And despite the shock that still clawed at his mind, after what he had learned from GUIDE, his first reaction was a childish feeling of chagrin—because she was a centimetre or two taller than he was.
For all his pride in his powerfully muscled, athletic body, Cord had always been self-conscious about his height. He was not tall, and the breadth and solidity of him made him look even shorter. But at least the girl didn’t seem interested in his appearance, or in him at all. She was staring, wide-eyed, around the chamber, and especially at the computer screen.
Cord saw that she was slim and tanned, with a rich gleam in her short, tawny-blonde hair. Her face was unremarkable, even plain, but made nearly pretty by her large grey eyes, and by the shaky smile that she at last turned towards Cord.
“I’m Samella Connel,” she said. “Have we arrived?”
“Cord MaKiy,” Cord said, trying to keep his voice steady. “I have to tell you, we’re not at Antarctica. We’re. …”
“I know,” the girl cut in, astonishingly. “We’ve been in suspended animation, going through translight to some planet.”
Cord’s mouth dropped open. “You know? How. .. ?”
Samella shrugged. Her shakiness seemed to be fading rapidly. “The ColSec people talked, and I listened. They didn’t seem to notice, or care.” Her gaze drifted past Cord, towards the jumble of data on the computer screen. “What’s going on? Why are you and I awake, and not the others?”
“I… it’s…” Cord stumbled. Then he waved a hand helplessly at the computer. “This machine can tell you better than me. It’s called GUIDE.”
And the soft expressionless voice of GUIDE told Samella what was happening.
As it spoke, her eyes filmed over with tears, and she began to tremble. “Then we’ve come all this way to die?” she said at last, her voice faltering.
“That cannot be computed,” GUIDE said.
“Is there nothing we can do,” Samella asked, “to free the shuttle? A manual release? Repairs?” “You cannot leave this area,” GUIDE said. “There is no equipment on board for humans to enter vacuum.”
Samella sagged, and turned blindly towards Cord. For a moment she stared unseeingly at him, and he watched silently as she fought her own inner battle against shock and mind-twisting panic. With relief and growing respect, he saw in a moment that her trembling was ceasing, her eyes refocusing. She’s tough, he thought. And just as well.
“I’m glad it wasn’t me who had to choose,” Samella said to Cord at last, her voice firmer now.
“I wish it hadn’t been me,” Cord said truthfully. “I suppose… I chose to crash on the planet just so ColSec would lose something too.”
For an instant there was a glint of approval in Samella’s grey eyes, a small reflection of the flame of hatred that still burned within Cord. “I’m glad of that, too,” she said. Then she took a deep breath. “I’ll get on with the reprogramme.”
Cord watched, uncomprehending but impressed, as her slim fingers began to flash over the computer keys. After several minutes, she stepped back with a small sigh, as the screen cleared itself.
“It’s done,” she said, half to herself. “Klydor, here we come.” Then she looked thoughtfully at the computer. “GUIDE, can you predict our chances of surviving the crash?”
“That cannot be computed,” GUIDE said again.
Samella frowned slightly. “Random factors? But you’ll know our velocity and angle of impact and so on. Do you know about the planet’s surface?” “Details of the planet’s features are in my data banks,” GUIDE said.
“So,” Samella asked, “what kind of terrain will we come down on?”
“The freighter will descend,” GUIDE replied, “at a flat angle, to minimize impact, into an area of dense vegetation.”
“That’s something,” Samella said, her eyes brightening. “Then what are the random factors?”
“There are several. How the atmosphere will affect the freighter, since its hull lacks heat-shielding. Whether the freighter will roll, placing the shuttle beneath it when it crashes. Whether the shuttle’s hull will resist an impact of unknown force. Whether…”
“All right,” Samella broke in. “Now set accuracy aside, and give an estimate of survival probability.”
The words sounded oddly formal, and Cord guessed that it was some kind of standard instruction to a computer. He wasn’t sure he really wanted to know the answer, but he listened with wary interest.
“Understood,” GUIDE said calmly. “Chances of survival for all humans on the shuttle, 12 to 15 percent.”
“As low as that,” Samella whispered.
“Chances of survival for eleven of twelve hu-mans,” GUIDE went on, “17 to 20 percent. For ten of twelve, 20 to 26 percent. For.. .”
The quiet voice continued to roll out the dismal figures. And yet the percentages steadily rose, and a vague feeling of hope stirred within Cord.
“Chances for five of twelve,” GUIDE was saying, “48 to 52 percent. Chances… .”
“That’s enough,” Samella broke in. She glanced wanly at Cord. “There’s probably a very good chance that one person would survive. But I wouldn’t want to be that person, alone on an alien world.”
Cord wasn’t sure he agreed—but then he was used to a lonely life in a hostile environment. “You’d be alive,” he pointed out. “And you’d have GUIDE.” “Chances of GUIDE computer surviving the crash intact,” the computer put in, “40 to 43 percent.” Cord subsided, feeling oddly troubled that the computer could so coolly predict its own destruction. Of course it was only a machine, but….
“Anyway,” Samella was saying, “it’s all statis-tics. There are too many random factors. Those figures are really saying that some of us may have a chance—but not much of one.”
Cord nodded, swallowing hard. If this girl could be so cool, in the face of approaching death, he was determined to do the same.
“What was all that,” he asked as calmly as he could, “about the freighter and the… atmosphere?” “Freighter ships don’t ever leave deep space,” Samella explained, “so they don’t have heat shields, like the shuttle has. When this freighter hits the planet’s atmosphere, it’ll heat up, and maybe bum—” Her mouth trembled for a moment before she regained control. “And I don’t know if the shuttle’s heat shields could handle that. Or how long it would be before the heat affected the freighter’s spacedrive.”
Cord blinked, mystified. “How would it affect it?’’
To his amazement, he saw a small wry smile tug at the corners of Samella’s mouth. “It could make the drive explode. And then we wouldn’t crash. We’d just make a nice bright light in the sky over Klydor.”
3 World of ColSec
The long moment of silence that followed was broken at last by the calm voice of GUIDE. “The freighter will enter the planet’s outer atmosphere,” it said, “in one hour, eight minutes and forty-three seconds.”
The two young people looked at each other.
“I suppose we could get into the caskets just before entry,” Samella said. “It might improve our chances.” She gave Cord another of her crooked half-smiles. “I’m glad you’re not turning into a blubbering wreck.”
To his surprise, Cord found himself smiling back at her. He was also surprised to realize that he had begun to feel calmer, almost fatalistic, about what was to happen in little more than an hour. And with that feeling came gratitude, for he knew that his calmness owed much to the quiet control of the slim girl who had joined him.
“If you think about it,” he said slowly, “we might not have had much of a chance anyway, on an alien planet, even if we had landed safely.”
Samella nodded. “Could be. The ColSec people said it’s pretty wild.”
“I wish I could have heard some of what they said,” Cord replied angrily. “I feel so… ignorant!”
“Do you?” Samella looked interested, and Cord found himself explaining by telling her about himself.
He began haltingly, but she was an ideal listener, silent, involved, absorbed. So his shyness eased, and he became almost eloquent as he described the wonders of the remote land where he had grown up, all the excitement and danger and happiness of his life with the beloved uncle.
And finally he brought the story to its sombre climax, with the death of the uncle, and the wild explosion of vengeful violence that had branded him a criminal, and brought him at last into the clutches of ColSec.
Samella was silent for a while when he finished speaking, looking at him with vast empty distances and sadnesses in her eyes. But then she blinked and came back to the present.
“And I always thought,” she said, half to herself, “that the Highland barbarians were just a story— made up by one of my fathers.”
Cord had bristled slightly at being called a barbarian, but her final words made him stare. “One of your fathers?”
She grinned. “I lived in a communal family. Lots of adults, lots of kids, no one knowing or caring who was whose, because we all belonged to each other.” The grin faded into bleakness. “Or I thought we did.”
“Tell me,” Cord said gently. “It’s your turn.”
Samella shrugged, took a deep breath, and began.
She had been bom, she said, in the flat dust’ bowl region to the north of the American Segment. A place once called Minnesota, or Manitoba—no one was sure which. The communal family—nearly thirty of them—lived their jumbled lives together in a huge tumble-down farmhouse, totally isolated in the midst of the arid plain.
It was a wretched life of bitter poverty, scratching for survival in the almost lifeless soil. Yet there was great happiness, too, Samella said—the freedom, the warmth of love and belonging. Or so, through her childhood, it had seemed.
“What happened?” Cord asked quietly.
Samella looked at the floor, her eyes filling with tears. “They sold me.”
Cord stared, aghast, as she went on. A dealer had come to the farm, a dealer in human beings— offering money to anyone who would sign a contract that would make him or her an “indentured worker,” nearly a slave. Whoever owned the contract could require the worker to labour for almost no pay, out of which the worker could try—more or less hopelessly— to repay the original sum of money and regain his or her freedom.
That had been three years earlier, when Samella was thirteen. Her family had had a bitter winter of near-Starvation, and the money had been too tempt’ ing. To save the rest of them, they sacrificed her.
In her near-slavery she had been refold by the dealer to a company in a giant urban complex known as Minneapolis. There she had been trained in ultra’ modem electronics and computers. And she had shown an amazing natural aptitude, swiftly becoming expert. Too swiftly, for her own good.
“Some of the other indents were jealous of me,” she explained. “So they got together and accused me of stealing. I wouldn’t have known how—or what to do with anything stolen. But they were believed. I was tried and convicted—and sent to ColSec.”
Cord could taste her bitter pain as if it were his own. “And then you found out you weren’t going to Antarctica,” he said. “Did everyone know that but me?”
“No,” Samella assured him. “Most of the younger prisoners had a history of street crime and violence, so they were kept drugged, like you were. But they didn’t waste drugs on me. And they didn’t care what they said in front of me. They knew I wouldn’t be telling anyone.”
“So the world doesn’t know what ColSec has done with us,” Cord said.
“If they know,” Samella replied, “they don’t care. But ColSec doesn’t tell the world just how far they’ve reached into space to create colonies. And they don’t advertise the fact that they send kids out. Young criminals—like us.” He^mouth twisted. “They reckon that we’re adaptable enough to handle strange new things. But mainly, we’re expendable. If we get a colony going, then ColSec can come along and claim it. If we get killed off somehow—ColSec just shrugs and sends some more. There are always plenty more.”
“How can they get away with it?’’ Cord burst out.
Samella looked at him wryly. “You really don’t know much about the world, do you?’’
Cord glowered, but he knew she was right. The uncle had known a lot about the world, but rarely spoke of it. So Cord knew only vaguely about the Virus Decades, a century before, that had wiped out much of Europe and Asia and eastern America. And he had only a dim idea of the Organization, formed by rich and powerful people, that had taken charge of the wreckage of human civilization, and dragged the world out of its new Dark Age.
But at least Cord knew how the Organization now ruled the world, through its huge, almost self’ governing sections. AgriSec, Media Sec, EnergSec and more. And ColSec.
Colonization Section, with its own spacefleet operating out of Antarctica, where the prison colony serviced the spaceport. ColSec, searching non-stop for resources and raw materials, beyond the damaged and depleted Earth.
And of course Cord knew how ColSec could get away with their ruthless colonization methods. Simply because it was part of the Organization, which held the whole world in its steely, repressive grip.
The people of the Organization’s world were regimented into flat, grey, empty lives, almost like robots. Wherever they lived, they dressed the same, spoke the same language, lived the same way—obeyed the same laws, that were enforced by the harsh cruelties of the Civil Defenders. Under those laws, people lived in fearful obedience, not daring to question or resist, not daring even to be different.
Many times, Cord remembered, his uncle had mourned the loss of so many of the old Highland ways—even the unique speech patterns. So the world of the Organization had some effect even on the most remote areas, the poor and empty regions that were usually left alone because they were of no use.
Samella’s voice broke into these swarming thoughts. “I suppose I didn’t know much, either, when I was on the prairies. But at least you and I had a taste of freedom, which is more than most people get. And it could have been worse. We could have grown up in the inner cities.”
When Cord looked at her questioningly, she continued.
“In some of the oldest cities, where the centres are really poor and ruined, there are gangs of kids. They live wild and rough, like—outcasts, or rebels. They’re the biggest problem that the Civil Defenders have got.1’ She smiled her crooked smile. “I don’t suppose they’re all as bad as people say—but they give the CeeDees a hard time.”
“I knew none of this,” Cord said blankly. “Neither did I, once,” Samella said. “The CeeDees keep it quiet, so people don’t get the idea that it’s possible to fight back. But some of the biggest gangs get on the TV news now and then. Like the Streeters, who just about own the centre of the Chicago-Detroit complex—called Limbo. And in your part of the world, there are tunnels and things underneath old London, called the Bunkers, full of kids who are really wild.” She gestured towards the ten silent caskets nearby. “Some of them, in there, will be kids like that. They might not be nice company, even if we make it to Klydor.”
