The City
The train sped on through the night, and hours rolled away into the dark as they raced inexorably onwards towards the Kheelian City. It was well after dawn but still early in the morning when the guards came for Ben again.
"Jebett. Dinad," Ben greeted the Kheelians with a respectful nod. The two guards were watching him, both their faces set and serious. "Have we arrived?"
"We're making our approach to the City now," Jebett confirmed. "I need you to come with us."
"Certainly. Where are we going?" Ben asked as he stood up.
"Kika has decided that it would be best if we unload all the passengers and their belongings off the train before we allow the Lawkeepers onboard to fetch you. We would like for you to wait in the Guards' lounge until then."
"Of course," Ben agreed, not that he had much choice. He let Jebett rebind his hands behind his back and give him a quick pat down search again - a now familiar ritual, though she was notably gentler than before. Finding nothing of concern, Jebett stepped back and then held out the hood that Kika and Dinad had covered Ben's head with before. Then she hesitated.
"Do you wish for your face to be covered?"
"There seems very little point," Ben observed, dryly, "When almost every sentient on this train is already carrying a poster with my face on it."
The Kheelians conceded to that and led Ben out of his cage for what he very much hoped was the last time. Even though he had been well-treated and not in discomfort, the nature of the confinement had hardly been dignified.
With Jebett leading and Dinad holding onto his arms, Ben and his jailors made their way out into the main carriage. This time, however, they turned right, towards the front of the train into the area Ben hadn't yet seen. He looked around cautiously as they walked, quite aware that he had not yet been able to determine whether Skywalker had any more accomplices still lying in wait on the train. Cautiously he reached out with the Force even as he scanned the carriage ahead, but felt no sense of threat. Most of the feelings that came to him from the surrounding sentients was simply overwhelming relief that the extended journey was over at last. Most of the creatures they passed, all quadruped Kheelians or Dhosana at this end of the train, were too busy gathering their bags, belongings and wayward children to pay much attention to the trio passing by; no doubt the absence of the black hood covering his head helped them draw less attention. But Ben still saw more than a few eyes drawn to the uniforms of the guards, and whispers followed them along the train. He didn't observe anyone paying undue attention, but he was nonetheless rather tired of being an object of spectacle all the time. Anonymity was much more to his liking than infamy.
They squeezed their way through five more carriages until they finally reached the guards' lounge, which was the largest of the staff areas Ben had yet seen, filling most of one whole carriage but for the narrow passageway along one edge. He took in the room with a quick, shrewd glance. There were a few sitting mats spread around on the floor, the usual racks of maintenance equipment and control panels, and even a small dining table. The far end of the carriage was closed off by a curtain; the sleeping area. Ben spotted a number of personal items and odd knick-knacks scattered around: a spare uniform jacket hanging from a peg, a few framed pics on a shelf, datapads, trailing green plants in ceramic pots, a hand-painted teacup, a fur brush. There were even long strings of blue and gold flags draped over the door and windows that Ben recognised as Kel-Marr decorations. Clearly the train was a home away from home for the quadruped guards, much as Ditto's little quarters had been for the Twi'lek. Ben took it all in at a glance, but he couldn't see his confiscated satchel anywhere.
Jebett asked Ben to sit near the far wall under a long bank of windows, all of which were shuttered against the night. Jebett uncuffed Ben's left hand and then used the free loop of the binders to attach his right wrist to a solid metal bar that formed part of the window surround. They would be arriving into the station in around one turn, Ben was informed, and it would take another few turns until all the passengers were disembarked. In the meantime, Ben was to wait here. He was mildly surprised when Dinad found a spare sitting mat and brought it over to him, and Jebett too returned soon after, bringing him a cup of Kheelian tea and a few hard biscuits. The change in the attitude of the guards from yesterday couldn't have been more pronounced, but even their more kindly demeanors still did little to help. Whether or not Jebett and the others had been persuaded by Rooka's statements and now considered the possibility that Ben might be innocent, the matter was still out of their hands. Ben had been arrested for a crime, and the Jedi were coming to claim him.
Or, as he now knew, not in fact Jedi at all, but someone else entirely. He had called them bounty hunters before as a throwaway remark, but maybe it was closer to the truth than he had realised. His enemy - this man who had called himself Skywalker - he had told his men to take Ben alive, said that he had plans for him. Ben couldn't even begin to guess what those might be, but he certainly knew that being taken alive couldn't mean anything good. He had spent most of the night searching his fragmentary recollections for anything that might give him some insight into the fake Jedi and their disquieting intentions, but he had come up with no answers and there was no time now for further rumination. He would just have to do everything in his power to thwart his enemy's plans, and that meant putting his own plan into motion. The first part of that was getting off this train, free to act.
Ben was pulled out of his thoughts when the curtain that closed off the sleeping quarters was pushed aside and the Dhosan guard Malleyo came in, yawning. He acknowledged his colleagues with a solemn nod and Ben with a faint frown.
"Good," Jebbet greeted him. "You are awake."
"I felt the deceleration kick in," Malleyo said, pulling on his uniform jacket and loping over to the refreshment supplies. "I cannot speak for the rest of you, but I for one will be very pleased when this journey is over."
"It has not been the easiest run," Dinad agreed, glancing in Ben's direction before he turned away and began gathering up datapads and documents, presumably pertaining to shipping manifests or passenger lists. "But it will be over soon. We are about fifty divisions from the hub; I am going to head down to Compartment G and mark off the fresh goods for unload..."
The guards continued the conversation for a little longer, distributing tasks amongst themselves in a practised and efficient fashion. Ben paid only sufficient attention to determine that Kika and Ditto were already elsewhere on the train prepping for their arrival into the City, and that nothing was happening that might disrupt his plans. His escape plot was already precarious at best and the last thing it needed was any more surprises.
Suddenly, Ben's attention was caught by a yellow light in a panel over the door that began to blink on and off. At the same moment, an electronic chirping issued from equipment nearby. The noise sounded to Ben like a proximity alarm. The guards all rose, though none of them seemed unduly concerned. Dinad stretched and scratched. Jebett wandered over towards the control panel.
"What's that?" Ben asked, gesturing towards the yellow light.
"That was the boundary marker," said Malleyo, as the alarm went silent. "It means we have passed out of the Scarred Plains and into the bounds of the City."
Ben slid the cuff along the metal bar until he could stand up. "The City? We've arrived?"
At the control panel, Jebett adjusted a lever, and a rapid series of clunks and thuds began to sound from behind Ben's head, seemingly inside the train wall itself. All along the carriage the night shutters over the windows began to creakily retract.
The first crack of blue light which burst into the carriage was blinding, and they all shielded their eyes against the glare. Ben blinked aside watering vision and turned towards the glass, curious for his first sight of the Kheelians' fabled metropolis. Jebett and the other guards came over to the window too, slowly, as though drawn by some compulsion. Surprisingly, none of them seemed glad to be home.
The last of the shutter panels folded away. "There," Jebett said, simply.
Ben looked out, but nothing had prepared him for what he saw.
The City was dead.
Covering the massive hill before them was mile upon mile of old blackened stone, crumbled towers and desolate streets, all broken and ragged and ruinous. Building after building after building on that hilltop, all sealed within the cold blue light of an energy dome. Like a dead insect within a bell jar, the remains of its devastation lay displayed before them. Black and empty windows like a thousand sightless eyes stared unseeing down on the train as it snaked its way past the silent wasteland of shattered stone and blasted structures. Not a single living thing was to be seen, nothing moved in those empty streets. Nothing but ashes and dust, drifting in the breathless air. The train skirted the energy dome, pushing unrelentingly on through that landscape of despair. They passed beneath a shattered viaduct, and Ben saw through the shimmer of the energy barrier the spires of some ancient sanctuary, clawing up at the sky like the broken ribs of a giant's corpse. Something that had once been alive, had once been beautiful, now hollowed out and picked clean by scavengers until all that remained were scorched and brittle bones. Ben looked on in disbelief at the cold and silent ruination. The others stood beside him, wordless.
Until now, Ben had only seen the impact of those ten thousand days of war on the planet's peoples and in the deep roots of their fears - of conflict, of technological advancement, of disharmony - though he had seen it over and over amongst Kheelians and Dhosana alike. A fear that had caused the Kheelians to expel words of violence from their very language, a fear that kept the Dhosana as willing hostages in lands that were alien to them. Scars from cultural trauma ran deep and would take generations to heal. But it seemed as if the physical rubble of their former homes may endure even longer, the core of it preserved in all its ruined imperfection beneath that blue shield, even while the outer city crumbled to dust.
Even as he watched, the image before Ben's eyes shifted and blurred. The broken arches and crumbling red domes grew taller and shimmered into spires of jade and crystal, breathtaking pinnacles of sea-green stone, the towers of some other alien city piercing upwards between elegant open boulevards. He blinked and now the streets were crawling with vehicles. Tanks. The ground shook with the stamp of mechanical feet and the skittering of dwarf spider droids; all around were screams of blaster fire, of soldiers, of civilians shot down in the streets and trampled where they lay. Red and blue bolts that sliced through the smoke-filled air, an outgoing tide of white-clad figures that rushed past him and on, and all around the shards of shattered blur crystal fell from the sky like a rain of glass.
He blinked again and the sight, whatever it was, was gone as if it had never been. The movement beneath his feet was only the train, the ruins before his gaze those of the Kheelian City, the shimmer of crystal blue only the energy dome that preserved it. The ruins drifted past the window and at his side, the guards stood and watched the City go by in a muted quiet, a silence that felt sacred and unbreakable. But even that too must pass. The train gave a brief shudder and, slowing even more, the floor began to angle as the track sloped down. Soon the view from the window, the crumbling grandeur of the old city's desolation, began to slide from view as the train line passed downwards into a steep-sided gully.
The last broken silhouettes of that haunting skyline finally vanished as the ground rose up either side of them and covered the windows with darkness, and around Ben the guards suddenly relaxed as if released from a stasis field. Malleyo glanced once in Ben's direction and then looked away.
"We honour the vanquished dead," he explained, softly. An obligation, then, to look on those ruins and never to forget.
The guards turned away, murmuring softly, moving about their tasks. Ben just stayed staring at the dark window where his own wide-eyed reflection flickered against the transparisteel. The combination of surprise and dismay had robbed him of words. Shaarm and Pakat had spoken of the City and its universities, its libraries, space ports, markets and culture. A living, breathing settlement. Not of ruins. He had been utterly unprepared for the devastation he had just witnessed, for the catastrophic loss of life it implied. Why hadn't his friends told him, warned him of what was to come, of the scale of the annihilation to which he would have to bear witness? It was like nothing he had ever thought he would see or experience, to be touched by war on such a devastating scale...But then there had also been that brief, disorienting flash of something he had seen, some other city, some other war, layered over the surface. Blaster bolts and tanks and screams of the dying, and he had stood in the very midst of it all. Calm as the centre of the storm.
In the reflection of the glass he saw Jebett standing nearby, watching him.
"Where are all the people?" Ben asked, gesturing helplessly towards the window.
"They endure," said Jebett, and just at that moment the train, which had continued down into the dark, began to level out. A couple of lights flashed outside the window and then the rock wall beside them peeled away. There was a wash of cold blue light coming from the left, the way they had come, reminiscent of the energy shield around the ruins, but filling the rest of his view were sparks and glimmers like the glittering of minerals in rock. They flickered as far as Ben could see, miles away into the dark. A colossal cavern had opened up before them, lit by those points of light to a warm glow that blended with the flickering blue to give shape to the massive underground city within. In the centre of the cavern, two enormous pillars of red stone reached up to an unseen roof high above. At their roots were clustered dozens of massive rocky stalagmites, the largest reaching up perhaps a hundred metres into the air, and nearly as wide at the base, and glittering with a million lights.
The sheer size of the cave was so overwhelming that it took Ben a moment to rationalise what he was seeing - flecks of white and yellow glinting from the stalagmites weren't lights but windows , millions of windows and doors cut into the stone like vast anthills. And all around at the base of the stalagmites were streets and houses and walls, all cut from that same red hued rock and then repaired or extended or widened with metal or plastic or a patchwork of dozen other materials. There were even flashes of green amongst the red, gardens or fields perhaps beneath domes of glass. And then, as the train slowed again, now travelling barely faster than a landspeeder, Ben started to make out the people; Kheelians and Dhosana, and bipeds too, of every colour, shape and description, merging into the crowds that filled the streets. Here were the people: working, breathing, living. Here was the City.
As Ben took in the sight of the prodigious cavern and the vast city that it contained, he was aware of the chime of the tannoy system and then behind him, Jebett's voice echoed down the train.
"Gentle passengers, we are approaching the City Hub. For a pleasant and speedy disembarkment, please follow the signed markers to your carriage exit and have all hand possessions and accompanying children with you. If you have registered luggage or goods, we invite you to make your way to the zone designated by your ownership tag, where your containers will be unloaded for you. If your tag is showing a red indicator, there has been a minor delay with your goods. Please wait at your zone where a member of staff will soon be available to speak with you."
Ben tore his eyes away from the view and looked back to Jebett as she released the speaker button. All the other guards had left the compartment already while Ben had been distracted, heading off to their various tasks.
"It may take several turns to disembark all the passengers," Jebett informed him. "After that, the Lawkeepers will arrive. You will need to wait here until after that. As often as we can, one of us will check on you, but if you are in need of anything you should tell me now."
Ben shook his head. More than anything he needed her to leave. "No, I am quite well, thank you."
Jebett nodded and headed for the door, only to turn back at the last moment, oddly hesitant. Ben managed not to make any outward sign of his frustration. "I hope," Jebett said, "that you have not been uncomfortable while in our custody. None of us wish for you to feel you were mistreated."
"Not at all. You were as hospitable as possible, given the circumstances. I just wish I could hope that my future jailors will be as courteous."
Jebett narrowed her eyes briefly, as if she thought he was being mocking, but in the end she merely nodded. Feeling slightly churlish, Ben added, "I know these events have not been easy for you or your colleagues, and for that inconvenience I apologise."
"You need not wait here alone," she said, instead of answering. "I shall send for your lawspeaker to-"
Ben shook his head. "The one that claimed to be a lawspeaker, Marcovee, turned out to be fraudulent, I'm afraid. Nothing more than an ambitious journalist that I want nothing more to do with."
"Oh. I see," said Jebett, sounding surprised. "Are you sure?"
"Quite sure. Anyway I doubt I will have much use for a lawspeaker, as it seems I am to be handed over to those trying to kill me without any investigation or trial."
Jebett bristled slightly. "That is not my fault."
"I didn't say it was, merely stating a fact."
Jebett looked at him in silence. At last she said, "I believe your companions intend to go directly to the Judiciary after they disembark to plead for a stay of extradition. They may yet be successful."
"Yes," said Ben. "They may."
Jebett nodded, unhappily, and finally left. The door to the corridor slid closed behind her, and Ben heard the lock click shut. Alone at last, but he was not ready to make his move just yet. No use risking one of the guards coming back here too soon, for some forgotten item or other. He had to wait until they were too busy to return.
He turned and looked back out of the window again for several long minutes. The train was still moving, following a curving course around the edge of the cavern and as the view from the compartment window shifted Ben could finally see back across the cave to its immense mouth. The opening was sealed from the outside by a shimmering energy shield that covered its entire aperture, letting in nothing but muted blue daylight that glowed across the City, across the people forced underground. The motion of the nearest buildings though the window slowed and slowed again, and by now he could barely perceive any movement or vibration through the floor. Beyond the compartment door Ben could clearly hear the chatter and movement of a crowd of passengers as the other travellers moved around the train getting ready to leave it. The transport hub must be close.
By now, five minutes had passed and there was still no sign or sound of any returning guards. That would have to be long enough. Ben's window for escape was narrowing and he didn't have any more time to waste.
Time to go.
Ben quickly popped his right thumb out of joint with a practiced move and slid his hand out of the binder cuff like he had the previous night. It took just seconds and then his hands were free and the binders left dangling emptily from the window frame. Freedom felt good. But he wasn't out of the woods yet, and there was no use getting complacent - that part of the escape was always going to be the easiest.
Without wasting another moment, Ben darted to the door and gave the electronic lock the same treatment he had given the doors yesterday; a quick burst of Force energy and the lock mechanism sparked as the components inside fused shut. If the worse came to the worst that may buy him a few more minutes.
Ben began a quick but methodical search of the room and it didn't take long to encounter the first hurdle in his plan. His confiscated bag, clothes and other possessions definitely weren't here. He'd thought that the guards would bring all his things here from Kika's office so the Lawkeepers could take custody of everything as evidence. But there was no sign of any of it, and there was nothing he could do about that. On the up side, if his things remained in Kika's office then that probably meant no-one had looked at his possessions closely in the last few hours and therefore Pakat's perhaps ill-advised reclamation of Ben's lightsaber may have gone unnoticed. He just wished he could still have had his 'saber with him now, and his satchel too and its other meagre possessions - his identity card, data pad, food, the painting Ooouli and Tika had made for him...But it was too late for all of it now.
A note. He needed to leave a note. He glanced around for a datapad and saw a few sheets of flimsi dumped on the control panel. When he grabbed one he realised they were all copies of the wanted poster the false Jedi had been handing out. He turned his own picture face down, and quickly snatched up a stylus to write on the back. There was no time to say everything that needed to be said, and he had no words to say it even if he had all the hours in the day. In the end he settled for a few short sentences, sketching out the complex Kheeli characters on the paper as quickly as he could.
Shaarm and Pakat,
I am sorry that our journey had to end like this. I do not wish for any blame to fall on you for my actions, particularly when you knew nothing of them. The fault lies with me. You will not see me again.
Goodbye.
Ben W.
A cold and heartless separation, but then that was how it was meant to seem. He would do what he could to absolve his friends of any hint of blame, and they must not be implicated in his forthcoming escape. With any luck, they would never even read this note; its tone and sentiment was for the authorities alone. Ben folded the flimsi in half and leaned it against the window by the dangling binder cuff, where it would be immediately apparent to anyone walking into the room. One task down. Now the next.
It was the work of a moment to locate the access hatch in the ceiling that led to the roof crawl space, as it was right in the centre of the room. Ben pulled a small table over and jumped up onto it, reaching for the hatch above. The latch slid aside and the door swung down, showing the cramped dark crawlspace beyond. Thankfully, a return to that hellish experience was not part of the plan this time except as a diversion. If the other guards thought he was hiding in the crawl space it might delay them from finding him for a little longer.
Leaving the open hatch and the table below to set the scene, Ben jumped down and headed instead for the curtain at the far end of the compartment. The information Ditto had provided last night was correct; the long room beyond held six bunks, each hidden from the others behind a short privacy screen, as well as half a dozen sitting mats and a row of long cupboards down one wall. A single window in the centre of the wall looked out over the cavern city; rocky houses and streets rolling by, and towering behind, seeming barely to move, were those massive stalagmite structures. Ben darted past the window and headed straight for the end of the compartment and the tall lockers. It took a few firm Force shoves but he managed to slide the last unit aside, and sure enough, set into the floor, was another hatch. One that, if Ditto was correct, would open directly onto the guideway track below.
The timing would have to be perfect. If he tried to escape the train before it was stationary, the magnetic field in the guideway would still be active. The electromagnetic pulses themselves wouldn't be strong enough to do him any harm beyond a few skin burns - unless he had any medical implants, prosthetics or shrapnel in him that he didn't know about, of course, in which case the magnetic field would violently rip the foreign matter out of his body. Not a pleasant thought. And if the train was still moving too quickly when he opened the hatch, the suction between the train and the guideway beams would instantly drag him down beneath the train and to a very unpleasant death. He had witnessed that effect at close range already.
On the other hand, a few seconds after the train came to a stop the mag field would be switched off, the magnetic levitation would cease, and the train would drop down to rest on the guideway beams. And if his rough estimate was right, when the train dropped, the hatch in the floor would end up resting on the surface of the guideway and then he'd either lose his escape route or his life as he was crushed beneath the train. It was a small window for success - seconds at most - and the stakes couldn't be higher.
And unlike the roof panels, there was no convenient handle for accessing the hatchway this time; the cover was bolted into the floor, obviously not meant to be used for anything more than occasional maintenance. His lightsaber would have made short work of the bolts but, despite Pakat's best intentions, Ben had known he couldn't keep the weapon. It would have been found the moment the guards did one of their routine body searches, and then his whole plan would have been over before it began. So he had handed it back to Pakat to safekeeping, and now, mourning its loss like he would a limb, he would have to rely on the Force alone for his escape.
He shifted until he could get a line of sight on the window and also place his palm on the hatch, feeling for vibration. The view outside rolled past, slower and slower, until Ben could pick out details on the rock structures they passed; individual windows, wall murals, lines of drying clothes. Then the train finally passed into the station itself and a long platform appeared along the side of the window. The Kheelians hurrying along it were now moving faster than they were, and somewhere down the train a bell rang to signal their final approach. The time had come.
Ben closed his eyes, holding his hand out over the panel. He didn't really know what he was doing but he had moved objects with the Force before. Admittedly none so large as this, nor as firmly bolted down. He tried to concentrate, feeling for the shape of the panel with his mind. It was difficult to focus; the deceleration fuelling the sense of those precious seconds ticking away, of knowing that his enemies had driven him into this desperate trap, despite everything he did. He couldn't get hold of the bolts; they were too small, too solidly anchored into the durasteel floor.
Frustration suddenly overwhelmed him with a burst of ugly emotion: helplessness, fear and anger, anger that raged like a fire...The deep burn of that sudden rage flared up in him, offering a tempting strength, power right at his fingertips. He just wanted to live, and live in peace, was that so much to ask? Instead he was hounded endlessly, forced into trap after trap, beaten and locked up and afraid. Stripped of his family, his possessions, his identity, and for what? Why couldn't they all just leave him alone? The panel creaked and shuddered beneath his fingers and for a second he felt just a touch of the power he could command and realised that if he embraced it, even for a second, he could tear this train apart with a thought. But he also knew, with crystal clarity, that it was a power which could only destroy, a fury and a terror that sapped at his composure, blinded him to any nuance, any control. And if he gave in to it he knew there would be no turning back.
With a supreme effort, Ben calmed his mind. He let himself acknowledge the storm of raging emotion, drawing the feelings deep into himself, and then, with an abrupt breath, he let them all go. The crushing burn of the fury and the cold ice of fear began to dissipate, crumbling away like dry earth in water, until they dissolved away into nothing. The storm had cleared, leaving behind a still, quiet place inside his mind. There was no emotion now, only peace. Ben centred himself, and then with a single calm command, closed his fist. The bolts popped from the panel, spinning away across the metal. The panel buckled, pulling loose from the hatchway below. Ben raised his hand and lifted the panel free, shoving it to the side.
The compartment filled with light, with a rush of wind that pulled at his clothes and hair, the creak of machinery and the hum of the electromagnetic rails below. Ben gripped onto the edge of the hatch and blinked into the light. Below, the ground rolled past, grey duracrete. But even as he watched, their speed continued to slow until he could make out individual cracks and scratches on the ground surface. Ben wedged his feet into a foothold below the edge of the hatch, gripping tightly onto the rim. There was a screech of mechanics somewhere far up the train and the floor gave another jolt as they decelerated. Ben turned, looking down at the ground below. Their speed was little more than a crawl now.
It was now or never. And this 'now' was where things were going to get really tricky.
Ben braced his arms against the edge of the hatch and kicked his legs out across the gap until he was suspended above the ground half a metre below. With a twist he reached back above him with the Force to grasp hold of the locker he had previously pushed aside. Ben gritted his teeth, almost groaning aloud at the effort, but at last the unit began to move as he dragged it back across the hatchway above his head. Metal screeched on metal. Finally the locker slid back into place, blocking his escape route, and, he hoped, hiding the hole in the compartment floor. It wouldn't hold up against intense scrutiny, but it might fool a casual glance.
Arms burning from the effort of holding himself wedged into the hatchway, Ben held his breath, waiting, waiting...Then at last, with a slow drawn-out groan, the train finally, with impossible slowness, came to a stop.
Ben let go. The was a short drop, and then he thudded face down onto the duracrete; he had landed right in the centre of the guideway between the shimmering magnetic rails. The thrum of the electromagnets was indescribably loud and his skin prickled with what felt like intense heat. Looking up all he could see was the massive weight of the train, held in levitation just centimetres above his head. The machinery issued a screeching groan that was audible even above the hum of the rails. The levitation system would power down any second.
Ben threw himself to the side, rolling for the nearest guide rail. He scrambled for the top of the rail - it was hot beneath his hands - and he pushed with the Force, kicking his legs up, rolling up over the rail and down. He dropped into a narrow, dark space on the far side of the rail and then the thrumming hum of the guideway changed in pitch as the electromagnets powered down. With a drawn-out groan of overtaxed machinery, the colossal weight of the train sank down onto the rails with a booming rumble that seemed to echo on and on. Ben turned his face away at the last second as a rush of hot air blasted over him. And then, at last, the noise died away and everything went still.
Cautiously, Ben looked up. He was lying in the gap between the reverse of the guide rail and the edge of the raised platform, perhaps two metres above him. The train, like a gargantuan black snake, curved away in both directions, still and silent at last. But even as he watched, wide walkways unfolded themselves out from intervals along the train, ramping down onto the platform. The nearest was perhaps half a dozen metres away, and Kheelians were already starting to stream down the walkways between the train and platform. If just one of them glanced to the left along the train, they would see him lying there beside the rails, and that would be bad. Very bad.
It was only then that Ben realised his mistake. When he had crawled out from under the train, he had been supposed to go to the east side of the track, away from the passenger platform. That was the side where the goods and luggage were unloaded. As soon as Ditto enacted the next part of the plan, the distraction, Ben would have been able to escape through the relatively empty cargo platforms to the goods ramps and out. That was what they had planned last night. But in his haste to get out from under the train Ben had miscalculated and somehow he had rolled the wrong way. Now he was trapped on the wrong side of the train, right below the passenger platforms, replete with guards, lawkeepers, civilians - thousands of watching eyes. Including, maybe, more of Skywalker's bounty hunters.
Ben pressed himself against the side of the platform, trying not to draw any attention with undue movement. His thoughts whirred. He could lay here until the train was emptied, by which point his escape from the guard's room would have been noticed and the hunt would be on, or he could trust in Ditto's distraction and make his best attempt at escaping out though the front of the station when the time came. It would have been easier to make a decision if he knew what the distraction was going to be. Ditto had just said he would come up with something, something that would keep the guards occupied once the train halted so that Ben could get away across the cargo bay. Well, there was no getting to the other side of the train now. It was out through the front of the station, or lie here to be caught. No choice at all.
But Ditto's distraction, when it came, proved that Ben had put his faith in the right place. He had been lying pressed back against the platform edge, trying not to even breathe loudly, when a sudden sharp crack of sound, almost an explosion, echoed around the station. Startled screams erupted all around. Reflexes Ben didn't even know he possessed had him reaching instantly for his missing lightsaber and at the last second he managed to resist the impulse to leap up onto his feet, instincts driving him to get between the civilians and the danger. Then there was another loud, echoing bang and a third, and then Ben managed to focus enough to categorise the sound - fireworks, not artillery fire. All around, Kheelians on the platform and walkways were turning to look towards the source of the noise, and Ben didn't waste another moment.
He rolled out from under the platform, jumped to his feet and leapt up. He landed in a crouch on top of the platform just metres behind a pack of distracted Kheelians. Ben took in the area at a lightning glance and ducked in behind a pallet of tall crates. Then he waited two heartbeast and stepped smoothly out from the other side and set off walking at a steady but seemingly unhurried pace, all the time projecting a firm order of don't look here, don't notice me, through the Force.
There was another cacophony of bangs and cracks and Ben allowed himself to turn and look towards the sound, matching the actions of other passers-by. The fireworks, no doubt left over from one of the Kel-Marr celebrations, were bursting out of a broken crate near the front of the train: green, blue and gold sparks exploding against the low station roof and filling nearby air with a haze of smoke and the cavern with deafening echoes. The sudden sense of fear that had gripped the passengers dissipated as parents comforted scared children and pointed to the rockets. Screams were quickly replaced by a buzz of relieved voices and even laughter.
Ben kept the train at his back and walked quickly away, not letting his attention waver from his immediate surroundings. There were dozens of Kheelian and Dhosana passengers nearby, as well as a few humans and a Twi'lek or two, but no-one seemed to be paying him the kind of undue attention that might suggest they had noticed him jumping onto the platform. For now, all eyes were on the crate of exploding fireworks and on the two unfortunate workers standing helplessly nearby. Ditto had done a superb job and if Ben had managed to be on the correct side of the train, no doubt his escape route would now be clear. But he hadn't, and although Jebett had warned that the process of unloading the train might take hours, the platform was already quicky filling up with onlookers. Ben quickly wove his way through the passengers, following the flow of the crowd towards what he guessed must be the exit. The stone roof was lower here, perhaps only fifteen metres high and in the direction they walked it began to slope up as the rocky cave opened up before them towards the city.
Ben kept his pace even and his head down as the towering quadrupeds around him bustled towards the exit, but no matter how unobtrusive he was, he didn't exactly blend in. Then he spotted them; a ragtag group of a dozen humans, including the family group he had seen a few days ago in the canteen, had just left the train. All were wearing what he had come to realise was standard for manual workers in the region: sleeveless jackets, tunics and heavy boots in earthy greens, greys and oranges, and all with headscarves pulled in around their shoulders. He regretted again the loss of his own scarf along with all his other possessions, but at least his worn and somewhat ragged clothes shouldn't stand out in this crowd. Ben turned his face away as the group passed by as if examining a nearby sign detailing cargo shipping charges, before quickly falling in line just behind the group. Anyone searching for one lone human would, he hoped, overlook a group travelling together. Though if security guards were checking papers at the gate he was going to be kriffed regardless, given that his ident card had been confiscated by the train guards. But Kheelians and Dhosana pressed in on all sides and the crowd was too thick now to turn back.
The flow of the crowd slowed as they approached the large gate at the exit. Beyond lay the City. He was nearly free, but just then Ben felt the faintest whisper from the Force. He glanced around, quickly, searching for the cause. Through the mass of bodies on his right, something caught his eye. A pack of Kheelians were moving swiftly against the flow of the crowd towards the train. He could make out that four were wearing identical uniforms: fitted jackets and trousers of pale mint green, trimmed with deep red. These could only be the officers from the Lawkeepers. They were deep in conversation with a fifth Kheelian, the head train guard Kika. As Ben watched, two more Kheelians, a male and a female in civilian clothes, marched up to the group, and Ben would have recognised them from the animosity in the set of the female's shoulders alone. He held back a sigh. Shaarm and Pakat were supposed to be staying out of the way, ensuring they could not be considered complicit in his escape once it was discovered. The last thing he had instructed them to do was not to draw attention to themselves. He hoped Shaarm knew what she was doing.
The humans in front of Ben stopped walking as the density of the crowd thickened. He was perhaps a hundred metres from the gate. Ben flicked a surreptitious glance over towards the Lawkeepers again. They seemed intent on their conversation with Shaarm and no-one was yet looking in his direction. The lack of urgency about them made him think his escape from the train had not yet been noticed. The noise of the crowd was too loud to hear their words, but he saw Shaarm nod, decisively, and then she and Pakat were trotting away. Going to petition the Judiciary as Jebett had suggested, perhaps? Shaarm glanced back once as they left but Ben knew she couldn't have seen him through the press of passengers. The rest of the Lawkeepers brushed through the throng and on towards the train. Sharm and Pakat disappeared, and he felt a brief sense of loss. For all his planning and schemes, he did not know when he would see them again.
Focus!
The crowd began to move again. Ben shuffled along, keeping close to the humans ahead, keeping his head low in case of security cameras. They were reaching the gate when he saw two Kheelian guards leaning against the wall, talking. Neither seemed to be paying any attention to the stream of passengers, but then Ben spotted the row of barriers across the exit. It didn't seem that anyone was checking identity papers; instead, exiting passengers were dropping their travel chips into a slot to release the barrier, letting them pass out into the street. But Ben didn't have his travel chip either; that too had been confiscated.
The tide of sentients around him flowed on, drawing him closer to the gate. There were perhaps only twenty passengers now between Ben's group and the front of the line. Immediately to his right, Ben realised that a Kheelian beside him had stuffed his travel chip carelessly into a pocket and the corner was sticking out. It would be the work of a moment for Ben's small hand to lift it free, and the other passenger wouldn't even notice the loss until it was his turn at the gate. But stealing it didn't feel right, not when Ben had no idea how much trouble he might be condemning the innocent passenger to. No. Another way would present itself.
In the end it was a far simpler matter than he feared. The big, straggling group of humans seemed to be travelling together under one travel chip and they all bundled through in a rush, clutching children and luggage. When the barrier closed at their heels, Ben just gestured to the family ahead.
"I'm with them," he said, in Basic. He barely even had to use a Force suggestion. The Kheelian guard waved the barrier open without even looking up.
Ben stepped through into the City of the Kheelians. Buildings of red stone edged the wide street that stretched away in both directions. To his right, perhaps a klick away across the flat rooftops, he could see the distant stalagmite mountains, windows blazing bright, and those two towering pillars that touched the roof high above. To his left, far, far away, was the cave mouth. He could go anywhere. He was in the City, and he was free.
Now to keep it that way.
The street that ran past the station was broad and busy, clattering with pedestrians and handcarts, and lined with two- and three-storey buildings which appeared to rise seamlessly from the rocky ground as if hewn from the cave floor itself. Running down the centre of the street, set into the rock floor, were two broad, parallel platforms, each three or four metres across, like long grey ribbons. The surfaces of both platforms were moving seamlessly in opposing directions at perhaps twice a Kheelian's walking speed. Sentients were hopping on and off each as the conveyor moved, carrying the City dwellers either up towards the tallest structures in the cave - the stalagmites and the rock pillars that must form the City's core - or in the opposite direction away towards the distant cave mouth, miles and miles distant.
Now for the next stage of his plan. Ben had to stay hidden and out of sight until the hue and cry had faded, and he had to do it alone. Regardless of the note Ben had left on the train indicating he was breaking all ties with Shaarm and Pakat, the Lawkeepers would have someone watching them anyway, if they were smart. Ben had no doubt Skywalker and his crew would be watching too. They all had to believe Ben would make no attempt to find his friends again if he was to keep them safe, and his pursuers diverted elsewhere. Of course he had no intention of truly abandoning them, and they knew to wait until Ben made contact. The longer his trail was cold for, the better. But he had to break that trail first, and that meant putting as much distance between himself and the train station as possible before his escape was noticed. The outer reaches of the City would be the place to go, far away from the core.
Ben crossed the road with a smooth, confident pace as if he knew precisely where he was going and hopped onto the moving conveyor platform between a group of Kheelians each carrying a large water barrel and a pair of Dhosana in familiar blue doctors' robes. The conveyor whisked them all away and the station building slowly disappeared from view.
As the platform travelled, Ben looked around, gathering as much intel as he could. It was clear that he wouldn't stand out here as a human as much as he had in Thet or Tszaaf. While Kheelians were by far the most populous demographic, and Dhosana perhaps being one in every ten quadrupeds, he saw plenty of other species too going about their business. Here there was a dozen humans loading crates onto a speeder, there a gaggle of Rhodian teenagers or a family of Twi'leks haggling outside a storefront. Even as the conveyor carried them on seamlessly through the crowds, the sheer busyness of the City was a little startling after long weeks of near solitude and quiet out in the villages, and it was hard not to stare at the multitude of new sights in front of his eyes. The cavern itself was a marvel; Ben guessed from its size that perhaps it was the magma chamber of some vast extinct volcano. From the buildings swiftly passing by he could see the stone looked volcanic, hard and glassy in texture, but with a pale red hue, giving the streets a soft rosy tone. And while the roads themselves seemed to have been carved to a set grid design, no two buildings they passed were the same. Some had been extended or raised up to higher storeys with stone blocks, or by the addition of steel scaffolding and prefab plastoid panels, and everywhere the artistic nature of the Kheelian people shone through, with the red stone of the buildings being carved with intricate geometric patterns or painted with murals in bright, vivid colours. Technology and handcraft were side by side wherever he looked, with stores advertising their goods by holoprojectors or painted sign boards, shops selling datapads and microelectronics rubbed shoulders with those displaying handmade paper or wicker baskets or plants. At one point a distant sound above him made him look up, and he saw high under the cavern roof flocks of dark shapes wheeling through the air. Could there be birds living here too? A complete ecosystem within the cave itself. Remarkable.
When he felt that he had put enough distance between himself and the train station, Ben stepped off the transport and took the next random side street which did not have a conveyor platform embedded in it. His goal was to stay out of sight after all, and losing himself amongst the side streets away from the main transport routes seemed like the way to do it. Ben wove his way through the streets, selecting turns that would take him away from the main City and onwards towards the cave mouth. The ray shielding across the cavern's vast aperture gave the distant daylight a soft, faintly flickering blue aura, like the reflections of a sun off a rippling lake.
At one point he spotted a flash of pale green and red ahead as three Kheelians in Lawkeepers' uniforms approached down the street. They were moving quickly, with clear purpose, but didn't seem to be looking around them as they hurried along. Perhaps they were engaged in some completely unrelated business, but it was more probable that they were heading for the conveyors and thence on toward the station. Ben didn't let his pace or his expression shift as they approached, doing nothing to draw their attention, and the three hurried by him without a second glance.
He might have avoided being spotted this time but he needed a disguise, or at the very least a scarf. Almost every biped he'd seen, down to the smallest child, was wearing a headcovering of some sort. He didn't know if it was fashion, modesty, practicality or religion, but his own bare-headedness would certainly making him stand out. That was the last thing he wanted, particularly as he had also begun to realise from looking at the other humans around that the natural colour of his hair was not common. The dye Pakat had made for him days ago had long since faded out, letting that burnt coppery-auburn show too clearly, and even his beard was growing back in fast. From the glimpse of his reflection he had seen in the train window, he was looking far too close to the man in Skywalker's wanted posters.
At last, when he estimated that he was several klicks from the train station, Ben let himself slow his pace, and started to pay more attention to his surroundings. This was the vaguest part of the plan he had conceived last night. Find a way to fit in. Stay out of sight and keep his head down. Avoid the Lawkeepers and Skywalker and try to build a life here until it was finally safe enough to find Shaarm and Pakat, and go home. There was no use trying to escape the City. Outside the cave mouth was the impassable wasteland they called the Scarred Plains - land so poisonous, he had been told, that it would be a quick death sentence for any trying to cross it on foot. Apart from the space port, the train was the only way in or out, and that would certainly be watched. Hiding here was his only option, and he had told Shaarm, Pakat and Ditto to wait at least five days before they should expect Ben to try and contact them. He doubted five or even fifty days would be long enough for Skywalker to abandon his search; the man had proved himself to be far more relentless and tenacious than that. But perhaps it might just be long enough for the Lawkeepers and the bounty hunters to lose Ben's scent. But he needed resources and he needed a place to go, and that meant he needed work. It would be harder now than he had ever thought, alone, with no ID or address, and now with the Lawkeepers on his tail, but he'd started from scratch before and he hadn't even had the Force then to guide him. He'd just have to do it again.
In this part of the town, the larger merchants and warehouses were beginning to give way to cafes, small stores and specialist craftworkers, with residences confined to the upper floors. Children played in the streets or clustered in open schoolyards, plants cascaded down from windows and over the lip of every roof, and Kheelian artists trailed fresh paint over bare red stone. Construction work and music competed for sound; the soft tones of flute and whistles were met by buzzing of vibrodrills and hammers as new panels were fitted to the extension of a workshop. Somewhere an animal was barking. A few enterprising salespersons, or perhaps those without access to more permanent venues, had taken their business to small carts or stalls in the street itself, and they filled the air with their hawks and calls and the eye-watering spice of hot tarvaroot. As unappetizing as the smell was to Ben, it did remind him that it had been too many hours since he'd eaten anything substantial. Still, as he was once again left with nothing more than the clothes on his back, there was no way to rectify that situation yet. And he still urgently needed a headscarf.
There was only one solution in the end and that was theft; he would rather have made his way honestly but until he found some sort of work there was no alternative. Deciding that theft from a trader was slightly less morally objectionable than stealing from an individual, Ben detoured into a straggling marketplace which had grown up around the intersection of four streets. He quickly identified a prosperous-looking cloth merchant's stall that sprawled across the pavement, and as he brushed past, Ben used a touch of the Force to slip a folded bundle of grey cloth into his hands and then inside his coat. No-one even looked up. Realising that now he had crossed this line he might as well make the worst of it, Ben also used the same method to lift two cooked phuff tubers from another stall, and walked away with his spoils, no-one any the wiser.
Drapping the scarf over his head and round his shoulders in the manner of the other humans he had seen, Ben walked on, chewing the orange tubers. They were as tasteless whole as they were turned into bread, but at least they weren't actively poisonous. Thank the Force for small mercies. Ben passed what looked like a school, then a factory, and dodged between half a dozen ragged Dhosana children running after a ball in the street. As he turned a corner, Ben heard music and paused to listen. A Twi'lek boy no older than ten was plucking at a stringed instrument while a young woman perched in a window sill beside him, surrounded by a cascade of green vines with blue flowers, singing along in a low soft voice. Ben didn't think he knew the language but perhaps he had heard the song before, for the sense of the words became clear in his mind; she sang of oceans and tides, of driftwood cast up strange shores, and of how nothing is ever truly lost, not even to a relentless sea, if someone is left to search for it. It put Ben in mind of white stones and black mud, of a crumbling city of green crystal, of shipwrecks and blaster fire, the sound of waterfalls and the hum of his 'saber. He thought of a voice that said, "you just gotta trust me to get us home."
Ben startled back to himself as the song came to an end. The singer on the window sill winked at him and then gestured to the bowl of currency chips on the floor below the wall. Ben held up his empty hands helplessly to show his lack of funds and she rolled her eyes with a long-suffering look. He smiled at them and walked on.
Over the next hour, he looked around for anywhere that looked like he might find work, but so far he had barely seen any other bipeds at all actually working in this area. All of the employees in the workshops or cantinas he had passed had been Kheelians, and though the area seemed to be a mix of work and domestic buildings, nowhere had he seen anywhere that looked like it might offer him employment. The streets in this part of the City had narrowed and taken on a more organic, winding feel. The buildings too were smaller and narrower, and displayed more repairs and piecemeal alterations that made him think this part of the town was older. Perhaps it even pre-dated the destruction of the Kheelian metropolis on the ground surface a few hundred metres above their heads.
His academic musings were halted as his eyes fell upon precisely what he had been looking for this whole time. Written in white chalk on the wall outside a small factory were the Kheeli characters: 'jobs inside.'
Rather than use the customer entrance, he made his way down the alley at the side of the stone building to the workshop at the rear. Its loading bay door was wide open showing a dozen Kheelians hard at work inside using vacuum formers and hand tools, and at the end of the assembly was a raised platform where another group were packing finished items - plastoid casings for some sort of equipment - into crates. The whole factory was busy with the clatter of machinery and voices, and the smell of hot plastoid and engine grease.
A Kheelian nearby was holding a clipboard. Ben approached him.
"Pardon me-" he began, in Basic.
The Kheelian barely glanced at Ben. "No," he said.
Ben frowned. "The sign out front said you had jobs available."
"Not Pechnar jobs," said the Kheelian in strongly accented Basic. "Go away."
"I'm a hard worker," Ben insisted. "And I'm good with machines. I can be useful."
He didn't mention that he could also speak Kheeli. It was too rare a talent amongst humans and one that, for all it could be useful, would certainly make him stand out.
"Pechnar be too small to work machines," the foreman said. "You are a liability."
"Then let me pack boxes."
The foreman glanced at him. "If one Pechnar gets work here, hundreds more will come. No-one in the district will be hiring you."
"Well, you know anywhere that does hire Pechnar?" Ben pushed. "I just want to work."
The foreman looked up from his papers again and sighed. "Green District," he said. "The farms. They always need labourers. Now get lost."
"Thank you," Ben said. "Sorry to waste your time. Please, forget I was ever here."
A slight pass of Ben's hand, a brush of the Force, and he knew that the foreman's would do just that. The Kheelian's eyes glazed over. He turned away without a word and wandered back into the factory. Ben took to the street once more.
He had already worked out from the coloured flashes painted on posts at every intersection that he was currently in Red District. A few more careful inquiries had him directed towards Green District, which seemed to be the agricultural sector of the city, situated beside the space port near to the cavern's mouth to make the best use of the natural light. Ben rode a conveyor two klicks to the west, watching that scarce and valuable light change as the daylight beyond the ray shield faded into evening and the electric lights all around began to glow more brightly.
It was clear as soon as he arrived in Green District why it had its name. The district occupied a broad swathe of the cave floor, perhaps four klicks across, and as soon as he approached, Ben could see fields of crops stretching out on both sides of the conveyor and road, as well as orchards of fruit trees, grazing livestock, water towers, and huge biodomes glowing with electrical lights, all scattered with large farm warehouses, irrigation pipes, mills and food processing plants. Despite the onset of evening, the area hummed with activity. He could see distant harvesters in the fields rolling along on caterpillar tracks or repulsors, land speeders and wagons moving to and fro bringing in produce, and, as he got closer, teams of labourers both quadruped and biped, heading in a ragged line in from the fields toward home.
It was hard to tell which of the ramshackle collection of buildings which faced onto the district's main street would hold an administrative centre, or where he might find anyone to ask about employment. With no better plan in mind, he headed for the busiest area, a large gateway out of which hundreds of farm workers and labourers were spilling into the street. They were no doubt heading back towards the conveyor and their homes.
Ben loitered by the gate but no-one even glanced at him until he stepped into the path of the nearest biped, a dusty and sweat-stained Rodian who was hurrying past with a bag on his back. The Rodian paused with a frown.
"Hey," Ben said, adopting a twist of Outer Rim accent into his voice. "Looking for the boss?"
"You mean Baar?" the Rodian answered, impatiently. He gestured over his shoulder through the gate as he stepped around Ben and carried on walking. "Through there. Out by the algaculture ponds."
Ben followed the gesture through the gate and out into a wide yard. A stream of sentients stomped tiredly by but no-one gave Ben so much as a second glance. He weaved his way across the yard, which was filled with agricultural machinery in various states of repair, and came to a wide raised road crossing fields of tall silver wheat. A few hundred metres away it connected to another road in a network of raised causeways that led out into the distant farmlands. The routeways were crawling with activity: labourers on foot, distant herds of beasts, and teams of mud-caked groundcars pulling hoversleds that were packed with crates of produce. Ben asked around for Baar and was eventually directed a few hundred metres down the road to the algae farm - twenty long, open tanks under a structure of scaffolds, work platforms and floodlights.
When Ben found him, Baar the farm boss was, to his surprise, a human. That he was in charge was clear from the way he was presiding over a bitter argument between a Kheelian and a Dhosan standing in front of a dented hoversled. The craft looked like it had broken free of the truck pulling it and jackknifed off the road, smashing into one the scaffolding supports which held the work platform over the algae tanks.
Whatever the cause of the crash was, the drama was clearly all over. Trucks and pedestrians continued to move on past the wrecked sled, and even the dozen Kheelians standing on the scaffolding above the tanks were turning away from the minor diversion and back to their work, scooping blooms of bright blue algae off the water surface with long-handled nets. The rising stench was unbelievable.
The man Ben assumed was Baar barked some orders at the two arguing quadrupeds, who grudgingly abandoned their grievance and began to push the sled back towards the farm buildings. The human gave a scowl at the newly-dented scaffold post and then turned back to observing the algae tanks.
As Ben approached, the solar spectrum floodlights gave him a good look at Baar. The man was in his late fifties, powerfully built with broad shoulders, tree-trunk arms, and a clear paunch. It was the solid, strong build of a man who did long hours of physical labour followed by just as many of heavy drinking, but could probably lift an armoured assault tank single handedly without too much trouble. Every inch of his ruddy face and shaved head was covered with tattoos, apart from the patch of his chin bearing a short grey beard and the area of scar tissue that covered the right side of his head where his ear was missing. The man watched Ben approaching with a distinctly sour expression.
"Who're you?"
"Are you Baar? I was told you might have work, sir. Anything you can give me."
Baar looked Ben over, critically, and rubbed a broad hand over his tattooed head.
"Not much use for bipeds out here. Quaddies are better. Stronger. You work a farm before?"
"Yes. In my youth," Ben said.
"Drive a harvester, can you? What was your last trade?"
"Dockwork. On Corellia."
"Offworlder, eh? Show me your hands."
Ben held them out. The man snorted, and turned away.
"We've no work for you here. Know how to read and write? Try the Spires, or the factories in Red District."
"I tried; no-one will hire humans."
"You're breaking my heart," Baar growled, turning back to his inspection of the tanks. "Leave."
Ben hesitated, wondering whether to try a Force suggestion - risky, given the number of onlookers, very risky - when he heard a faint sound that sent a little frisson of warning through him. The sound of metal under stress.
Ben glanced towards the sound, pinpointing its origin in a moment: the scaffold post that the sled had crashed into. He crouched to look, and saw a stress fracture splintering up the post. The whole thing could buckle any moment, and when it did, the entire scaffolding would probably collapse, sending the workers above crashing into the tank below.
No-one else had noticed. Baar had walked further off and was talking to a nearby Kheelian, pointing across the tanks.
"Sir!" Ben called with alarm. "You have to get your workers down from there."
Baar turned to Ben with a scowl. "I said get lost!"
"The support post is cracked," Ben said, urgently. "It's going to collapse. Look!"
To his credit, Baar didn't argue but followed him straight back to the impact site. Ben pointed to the fracture, and as soon as he saw the damage, Baar scowled, swore once, and then immediately began to clear the area.
Ben stood aside out of the way as the algae workers were evacuated and a repair team with welders was summoned. The post was replaced with a startling efficiency but by the time the scaffold was declared safe once more the light from the cavern mouth had faded out completely to the black of night behind that perpetual shimmering shield. The fields were far more empty than before, and the workers were almost all gone.
Baar, who had stayed by the tanks the whole time holding the scaffold post while the Kheelian mechanic repaired it, finally turned back towards the main farm complex. He saw Ben still loitering by the roadway and sighed.
"Why are you still here?"
"I saved your workers from serious injury just now, and protected your crop. You owe me, don't you think?"
Baar leaned over him, threateningly. "Don't push it," he snarled and then heaved a heavy work bag over his shoulder and turned to walk away up the road. Ben quickly followed. They walked in silence for several minutes.
"You got sharp eyes," Baar admitted, grudgingly, without looking down at Ben. "I'll give you that."
"I'm skilled," Ben said, "and I'll work hard, I swear. I just need a chance to prove it."
"What the hell are you doing out here harassing me for work rather than going through the Offworlder Registry Office?"
"I don't have an Ident card."
The man glanced at him then: a quick, shrewd look. "Well, least you're honest," he muttered.
They reached the farm buildings, lit orange by the low energy floodlights. A few workers remained, still mending machinery or stacking crates into warehouses.
The man turned to Ben impatiently. "Be here tomorrow morning," he ordered. "Early. I might have an opening, but there's plenty of other folks wanting the work, so no promises if you ain't fast. And the pay will be shit on account of you being an illegal."
"I'll take it," Ben said, without hesitation. "Thank you."
"I said no promises," said the man, and he stomped away.
Well, that was something. A chance, maybe, if Ben could scrape together enough confident bluster to conceal how far he'd lied about his previous agricultural experience. But if he could do it, this job might just be the start of something more. The start of forging a life here for himself, his first independent steps.
First though, he had to get through tonight.
There really didn't seem any better place to try catch some sleep than here on the farm itself. Even if the fields were patrolled by security droids Ben had a much better chance of evading them here than he did the Lawkeepers back on the city streets. And he'd be right on the doorstep tomorrow morning. It was cold though and growing colder, and he didn't dare try and break into one of the farm buildings for shelter, not when he would be risking everything if he was caught. He could cope with the cold until he had a better option.
As soon as no-one was looking, Ben turned away from the main gate and darted off the road back into one the fields. He dropped down the bank from the causeway and headed out, weaving between the thin, towering stalks of the silver crop. The stalks were wider than his wrist and at least two metres taller than him, and he headed deeper into the foliage until he could only just see the distant lights of the farm buildings to keep his bearings.
It was a cold and uncomfortable place to sleep with no bed, no blanket and no dinner. Night came on quickly once the sun had set outside, and a chill wind whipped around the cavern-city. The dense growth of plant stems sheltered him from the worst of the wind, but all around the silvery seed heads at the top of each stalk were sent rustling and whispering in the wind, and its soft susurrus sounded like the waves on the shore, drowning out the blare and hum of the City all around. The smell of the cold, wet earth and the leaf mould through the dark reminded him strongly of the flight to Thet on the night of the narm attack. How long ago that seemed.
After a while the blazing gleam of the city began finally to dim as its citizens turned towards sleep. Looking up through the whispering seed heads from where he lay, Ben saw a fainter scatter of lights begin to glow above him, brighter and brighter. There were a million shimmering pinpricks spread across the cavern roof far above, colonies of bioluminescent insects, or fungi perhaps, clustering on the cave roof. The sight wasn't quite like stars and the sound around him not quite like the hum of hyperspace, but it was close enough.
Ben realised that he was, for the first time in a long while, truly alone. His last thoughts before he drifted into sleep were of the children back in Thet, of Shaarm and Pakat somewhere out in the City, of Grandmother and Chana he didn't know where. The family that he had caused to be divided, scattered like leaves in the wind. Stars, he hoped they were all safe.