22

Things remained good all through winter. Orion was grateful many times that he slept in the heated
dorm, after a long, cold day of work. Winter was good in another way as well; the work days were shorter. It
got dark faster, and it was expensive keeping the lights on in the whole complex for too long. So Blackmoor
had it figured as to how long he could leave the lights on and and slaves working and still make some money.

He got no complaints from the slaves.

Spring came, which meant longer days, but it also meant warmer weather. By mid spring it was hot, as
was normal for this region of Plundaar, a region Orion sadly knew better than the one he lived in early in his life.

Spring went well enough, as did the summer, the following winter. Orion had all but forgotten how it had been
those two blissful months at the rat's house. But he never forgot her.

Orion turned ten in the fall. Hyder was thirteen, Tamarin sixteen, nearly seventeen. Business for Blackmoor
was bad, and he had even had to sell many of his slaves. And he was not happy about it. Slaves like Orion took
the brunt of his anger, and all the young cat could do was try and avoid him...and not screw up. Of course he
and the others had not been eating well lately, as Blackmoor had cut down on expenses.

"I hate this place," the child growled as he and Hyder worked in the junkyard.

"I hate it too!" came Tamarin's voice from across the yard. It was a small yard, and he'd been listening
to them talk.

Hyder nodded. 'Yeah, me three." He was becoming a handsome young adolescent. Not even Blackmoor's hellpit could take that out of him.

"He could at least let us eat more..." Orion scowled and kicked a megacondenser, then yelped when it
hurt his foot, Scowling at it, he kicked it again, careful not to hurt himself this time. He hiked up his breeches,
which were threatening to fall down again. he'd lost weight, and they had been too big to begin with, There
were holes in the knees, and the bottoms of them were mostly hole. The left leg had nothing at the calf but a
thread of fabric attached to the hem of the pants.

Hyder looked at his friend, then down at the offending megacondenser, then scowled at it and gave it a
kick of his own. the two boys looked down at then device, then both laughed. "Well, feel better?" Hyder asked.

Orion shook his head with a wry grin. "Yeah...I guess so. But I bet it doesn't."

The next day, Hyder and Orion were sent to work in the mines, for no reason at all. Orion had not
refused the order, but was shaking the whole time he was in the little mine. and as he got bigger, it seemed smaller and smaller.

"Why?" he asked Hyder,. "W-we didn't do anything wrong."

"Yeah I know but he's been in a pissy mood." Hyder scowled. "Jatiirk."

"What did you say, wretch?!" One of the taskmasters kicked the young hyena, nearly knocking him
to the ground. Totally surprised, Hyder spun around. "Wh-what? I didn't say anything..."

The simian narrowed his eyes. "I thought I heard you talking about your master in words that young
cubs shouldn't be using," he sneered contemptuously.

Hyder shook his head. "No, sir, I was calling Orion a jatiirk." Orion shot him a look, but he ignored it.

"Well, hoo hoo...all right,. But keep it down, brat!"

"Yes, sir!" Hyder said, but made a face when the taskmaster wasn't looking.

Orion laughed and whapped his young friend lightly upside the head. "Creep."

"Hey it's better than getting beaten for it."

Noting the lack of teasing in his friend's voice, Orion nodded grimly. "Yeah...he would've too."

"I know."

The boys were silent for much of their workday, but when they got back to the slave's dorm, they
talked. After the taskmaster locked them all in for the night, Tamarin slipped over to the other two, and
dragged a spare cot over as well. Even the strong young simian looked ragged and tired. "He's gonna kill us he
keeps this up." They'd all been worked hard.

Orion snorted. "No," he said bitterly. "He wouldn't even kill us...h-he just wants us miserable."

Hyder nodded. "Yeah." He bit his lip and looked around, making sure none of the other slaves was
listening. The majority of them were sleeping, they had been worked just as hard in the past days and weeks.
"I-I...I've been thinking of escape," he confided in a tone almost too low to be heard.

Orion and Tamarin looked at him in shock. "Hyder, no..." Orion said in a horrified whisper, now also
paranoid that they might be heard. "W-we cant escape, he'd find us, and..." Oh gods, he didn't want to think of
heat Blackmoor would do to them if he ever caught them trying to escape. Tamarin was silent.

But Hyder was crying quietly. "I mean ti!" he exclaimed in his soft tone. "I-I never got treated this
badly before, and...I;m scared, Orion. I'm scared he's gonna kill us sometime. And...for the first time, I've been
thinking about my whole life." The young hyena bit his lip. "I'm thirteen, Orion...I'm a teenager now. And...I
been a slave all my life. I don't want to be a slave anymore!" He punched his cot. "Orion you remember when
we were talking about what we'd do if we ever weren't slaves anymore?" The cub nodded. "Well I want to do
it! I-I want to be free like others are!"

Neither of the others said anything for a long time, not being used to Hyder acting this way.

"Wh-what...what would he do to us if he caught us?" Orion asked, his voice shaking.

"I know," Tamarin said quietly.

This time Orion and Hyder looked at him with some surprise.

Tamarin but his lip, then the young man lifted his left foot so the others could see it in the dim security
light. There was a large P on it, standing for potinn...it was the Plundaarian word for escape or escapee.
Then he showed him his other foot, and there was a long white scar running the whole length of it. "Th-that's
what he did?" Orion asked, wincing at the sight.

"You mean you tried to escape?" Hyder asked. The three young slaves spoke in hushed tones, all thoughts of sleep forgotten.
The young man nodded. "Yeah," he said. "That miserable damtadd caught me outside the city limits.
He..." The normally stolid Mutant's voice faltered a little bit. "that...that was just to mark me and make it hard
to run. he...he did other things."

"Like what?" Orion asked, feeling bad for his friend. Hyder listened with the same horrified fascination...an there was admiration there too. Tamarin had been courageous enough to try and escape!

Tamarin shrugged. "A lot of things. When you escape it's not always the same. he focuses on what you
hate and are afraid of. I was only eleven...I am still terrified o the jorick ants." He looked down and
inadvertently drew his knees up to his chest, making him look younger than his sixteen years. "H-he tied me
down in the jorick pit for a few hours."

Orion gasped, and Hyder's eyes widened. "But...those are deadly!" Hyder said.

Tamarin was shivering. "I know...he stood above me the whole time while I screamed bloody murder.
He had a decontaminator,. you know the handheld ones that kill lice and stuff with an energy beam. H-he made
sure they didn't get dangerous to kill me." Tamarin stared hatefully at he ground. 'He beat the crap out o me
too...his whole punishment lasted for days. then I went back into training until that damned Monkrion decided I
was ready again...then I started all over."

Hyder and Orion were staring at him, both shocked at what Blackmoor had done. Both of them had
been stung by the viscous little ants before, and a bite from just one of them hurt! Neither could imagine what
it would be like being stung over and over again...

"W-we can't d-d-o it..." Orion whispered. Hyder said nothing.

But then something occurred to the hyena, and he said to Tamarin, "Then...if you tried again, this would
make a second escape attempt. Blackmoor...he'd kill you."

Orion blinked. he had not been thinking of that. The punishment for a second escape attempt was
death. A slow, painful one. He'd seen them before in passing, and to think of Tamarin in there... He shuddered.

"I know," Tamarin said quietly, and then said something that scared Orion. Would he be that desperate
in a few years as well? "But I don't care. Hyder, I'm older than you are...I'm barely an adult. I've been in here
since I was a tiny child, and...I;m with you. I-I don't want to be a slave anymore. And...if I get caught, then better off dead. At least then I'd be free."

The haunted look on Tamarin's face made Orion want to cry, and he saw that Hyder felt the same way.

The hyena's expression hardened, as if his mind had been made up. "I'm going to try," he said. and looked at
Orion. He put a hand on his shoulder. "You don't have to come, Orion. I...know how Blackmoor is towards
you. he...he might kill you the first time.'

Orion shook his head. "No way. I said it, and I meant it, he'd rather make me miserable, hurt me bad..." He bit his lip, wondering which one was worse.

Hyder smiled sadly. "You don't have to go, hekti. I understand.

But this time, it was Orion who had made a decision. "No...I'll go." He looked at the ground.

"M-maybe...maybe my parents are still alive..." He ha not mentioned them in over two years...he had been trying not to think about them.

Hyder nodded, and squeezed the young cat's shoulder before drawing his hand away. "Okay....now...how
do we do it?" he looked to Tamarin. "How did you get out of the compound?"

"Not in a way we could use," Tamarin said. "I... just bolted during a delivery of parts to one of the
hangars. I didn't have any chains at that point, and I ust kind of snapped. They did not notice me at first, but
then send up a hunt for me." he shrugged. "They found me that day."

"The deliveries..." Hyder bit his lip. "We usually work the hangars...we can keep an eye on them, make
sure we know when they are leaving and stuff..." He sounded pretty scared. When talking about freedom, the
plan seemed pretty worth it. but when they started talking about how, it brought home that they intended to
go ahead with it. And it was scary.

"We can talk in the workyard out there. We know all the places we can go and not be heard," Tamarin
suggested. "The hangar workyard I mean. all the piles of stuff."

"O-okay...then when we get out back out, we watch."

The decision having been made, they three lay down on their cots, and Tamarin moved to his own cot.
Orion did not know about the others, but he was too nervous and keyed up now to sleep. And so he lay awake
nearly until morning.

Chapter 23

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