Chapter 22
Slavery n. 1, the condition of a slave; bondage. 2, the practice of enslaving humans. 3, drudgery.
- Webster's Dictionary, Old Earth
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"Hey!" Dylan shouted with panic, pulling on his restraints.
Adoniram, however, simply used the sharp silver knife it to cut through the blood soaked rags covering Harper's feet and then replaced it in its sheath. He then pushed Harper's legs and feet forward until they were submerged in the river up to his ankles and walked away.
For a long time, Harper took deep gulps of air as he worked to calm himself. He half leaned, half sat on the rock, his hands still bound above him, and let the cool water wash over his abused feet. Dylan also took several big breaths, glad Harper hadn't seen that knife come out and hating how helpless he felt.
Finally, Harper couldn't stand the fearful doubt and uncertainty of the darkness any longer and he timidly tried his voice again.
"Dylan?" he called softly.
"I'm still here, Mr. Harper," Dylan answered quietly, and he saw Harper turn his head toward the direction of his voice. "I'm about twenty feet behind you and to your right. The Nietzscheans have gathered for dinner, so we're alone for now."
"Where am I?" Harper asked next, trying to get his bearings. Dylan described his position.
"Are you all right?" the captain asked once the young man had calmed down a bit.
"Yeah, I was just confused. Still new to this never-ending darkness thing, remember?" he joked, but Dylan didn't miss the hint of bitterness in his voice. "The water actually feels really, really good on my feet," he added. "Although it wouldn't have killed the Uber to tell me what he was doing instead of leaving me, literally, in the dark. And he didn't have to string me up to a tree either!" He shook his head, jerking his arms slightly to make his point. "I would have sat here just fine. What do they think I'm gonna do, hobble off and escape blind and in chains?"
"Mr. Harper, sometimes I'm not sure our Nietzschean friends even think at all," Dylan returned wryly, sitting back down now he knew Harper was safe for the moment.
The cool water soothed and cleaned his lacerated, swollen, throbbing feet, and Harper relished the small comfort, even letting his eyes slide shut. Consequently, he was startled when about an hour later none-too-gentle hands shook him awake and dragged his feet out of the pleasant water.
Adoniram had come up too quickly for Dylan to give the engineer a warning so the captain simply watched as he released the chain binding the boy to the tree and removed his poor feet from the stream. Still showing no emotion or pity what-so-ever, he drew a can from his vest, shook it, grabbed one of the kid's feet, and liberally sprayed the whole limb. The substance came out bright yellow and Dylan could tell from Harper's expression and small yelp of pained surprise that it didn't feel pleasant at all. One foot done, he swiftly sprayed the other before pocketing the can once more and lifting Harper clean off the rock by his shirt and his hair. He carried the squirming engineer over to Dylan, dumped him on the ground, threw a wad of cloth at the captain, and then swiftly switched the lead chain from Harper's wrists to his ankles, securing him to the pole for the night.
"Wrap the boy's feet tightly in those rags, my dear Captain. They're all the shoes he'll ever get. For three days he will ride. After that he walks, crawls, or gets dragged, I don't care which. A slave is a slave. I make no exception for disability, aliment, or," he gave Dylan a meaningful look, "supposed rank. Disobey me again, question me again, hold us up again and I will beat you both until you keep up and shut up. And I feel no shame in telling you I will enjoy every minute of it." With that, he threw them a second water bottle and strolled off.
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Harper had quickly learned that, while riding did allow his feet a short reprieve to heal, it was really no huge gift. The wagons were old and designed for carrying boxes and crates, not people. They had neither shocks nor pads, and Harper realized there was a reason the other slaves drove them while the Nietzscheans rode on horse-back. In addition, the guards still acted like they expected him to make some miraculous run for freedom at every turn and insisted on tying him up tightly. He was forced to sit in the very back of the wagon he'd walked behind, his sore back pushed up against the side and his feet stretched out before him. His hands, never released from their permanent chains, were stretched above and behind his head and bound to a wagon bow while his legs were locked to the wagon bed by a ring through his ankle chains. It left him with room to squirm but not much else, and he was helpless to brace himself against the jars and jolts of the moving wagon. By the third day his feet were slowly healing but the rest of him was black and blue, and his already painful hands were throbbing from the mistreatment. Semi-healed cracked ribs also reminded him of their condition. Worst of all, just to show who held the power, each day as he rode he'd been gagged. Darkness was bad enough, but to be trussed up and unable to move or communicate made it ten times worse.
Dylan could see the frustration on his friend's face as he struggled and mumbled around the dirty rag tied through his mouth and so he tried to keep him updated on where they were and what was going on as he walked behind. He also urged the boy, despite his discomfort, to try and sleep as much as he could. His body needed rest to finish healing and fortify him for the long, long days of hard work ahead.
So Harper slept when he could and Dylan talked when he couldn't, and as evening of his third day riding – their sixth on the trail – rolled around, Harper was almost glad he'd be allowed to walk again. Anything to get out of that wagon, stretch sore muscles, and get that gag out of his mouth!
Like usual, they were led to their pole and chained up before receiving their pitiful rations. As soon as the guard left, Dylan undid Harper's gag.
"Pth! Pthhh!" Harper spat violently on the ground, pulling a disgusted face. "Not only was that mean, nasty, and uncalled for, gagging me like that, but it tasted fouler than a Nightsider's crusty socks!" he ranted in a whisper. "And," he added, holding up his better hand and turning in the direction he assumed Dylan was at, "before you ask, no, you don't want to know how I know that."
"I believe you," he said with a grin. "Don't let them get to you, though. They're just bullies, really. It's just another way for them to feel powerful."
"Bullies with the power of life and death over us," Harper muttered, then shook his head and added louder. "I know, Boss, believe me I know. Still, I wish they'd take these blasted chains off," he complained, shaking his wrists angrily. "I can hardly remember what it feels like to touch my head and my knees at the same time!"
"Nietzscheans and their power kicks," Dylan muttered with a roll of his eyes. Though he didn't say it, he too hated the ever present fetters. His own wrists were now bruised and raw. At least his feet were protected by his boots, he remembered, glancing at Harper's shins, bruised from the shackles, healing scabs from the cruel wires winding up and down them.
"So, how are the feet?" the captain asked to change the subject.
"Eh, better than they were, I'm sure. Of course, everything from the waist down is pretty much numb from that stupid wagon anyway. They could've fallen off and I wouldn't even know."
"Guess it's check-up time then," Dylan teased lightly.
"Yes, sir, Dr. Dylan, sir," Harper threw back. Modesty and embarrassment long since abandoned, or at least well hidden, Harper quickly shucked off his shirt and turned away from Dylan, exposing his back. "You know, I'd like this much better if you were Trance."
"Because she's pretty or because she'd give you a lollipop?"
"Um, both?" Harper said with wide-eyed innocence.
Dylan laughed.
"That's what I thought," he said with a smile. "Pretty collection of bruises you've added the last couple of days," Dylan then said, getting down to business and quickly examining his friend's back.
"Just practicing for when we get to this slave camp, you know. I'm sure they won't be my last."
"Sore and stiff?"
"Yeah, a little, but I'm betting you are too, so no biggie."
"Turn around," Dylan asked and Harper complied. "I'm worried about your chest; that burn won't stop oozing."
"And I already told you it probably won't for a couple of weeks," Harper said. "Remember, done this before. Don't worry about it."
Dylan sighed, but helped Harper put his shirt back on anyway. "How are the hands?"
"Still here." Harper slowly flexed his right hand in response. "One's good, one we'll just ignore."
Next, Dylan unwrapped the boy's feet and washed them using the water Dr. Kesler had left for them by the pole. He hadn't been to talk with them or check on Harper since that first night but he had left them water for washing when he could, and Dylan often caught him watching them as he tended to Harper, nodding his approval to Dylan.
"You gonna be able to walk on these tomorrow?" Dylan asked skeptically, eyeing the scabbed, red feet.
"Do I have a choice?"
"Probably not."
"Then yeah, I'll be okay to walk."
Dylan rewrapped his feet and left hand and announced he was done.
"All right, tough guy, now it's your turn," Harper said quickly, stopping him from dumping the water.
"What?" Dylan was startled.
"Hey look, I know what happened three days ago. I'm blind, not deaf, and I was raised on Earth. I know the sound of a whip when I hear it. Now you might be big and strong and have a dandy immune system, but you're still hurt and those marks still need to be cleaned. I should have done this before, but this is the first night since it happened that Barty's brought us water."
"I'm fine, Harper, really," Dylan protested.
"And you're not my captain anymore, so I don't have to listen to you," Harper shot back. "So lose the shirt, buster, and turn around."
"Bossy, aren't you?" Dylan rolled his eyes as he pulled his shirt up around his shoulders. He didn't dare take it all the way to his wrists for fear one of the guards would see the precious item he still carried hidden around his neck.
"Well, I learned from the best," Harper smirked as he awkwardly patted the ground around them until he found the bucket and rag.
"Me, Mr. Harper?"
"Naw, Beka."
Harper soaked the cloth in the water and rung it out as best he could with one hand. Then he reached out tentatively until he felt the captain's back. For a moment, he hesitated, feeling slightly uncomfortable, but then he let his fingers lightly trace one of the raised welts left by the whip, brushing the smooth skin around it.
"You've never been whipped before, have you?" he asked softly, amazement in his voice, the smooth, unmarred skin telling his fingers what his eyes couldn't see.
"No," Dylan admitted. He felt Harper's fingers continue their tentative exploration of his back and sneaked a glance over his shoulder. The kid's face was an open book of astonishment, confusion, and sadness.
"Not even at High Guard School or military training or whatever it was?"
"No. The Commonwealth was supposed to be civilized; they didn't hold with floggings."
A sudden thought dawned on the captain and he glanced at his engineer again. Just as he had been horrified at the sight of Harper's scars and had no context to deal with a way of life that allowed that sort of continuous abuse and pain, he realized Harper had no idea what to think of a life without it.
"I'm still sorry they did this, Boss," Harper said eventually, remembering the cloth he was holding and starting to clean the wounds.
"Don't worry about it, Harper." Dylan told him firmly. "I figured this wouldn't be a picnic when I signed up. Besides, don't think I've never been roughed up before. There were and are a fair amount of people in this universe who don't exactly like me."
"True," Harper agreed, his voice back to its nasal self. "But there'd be a darn sight fewer of them out there if you'd just learn to shoot first and apologize later, you know."
"Ah, and now you sound like Tyr."
"Ugh! Don't even joke about that! My reputation is at stake here!"
They bantered back and forth some more, ignoring the hard reality of their situation until Harper reached for the water bucket to rinse the rag again and misjudged its position, knocking it over. He swore darkly and with vehemence.
"Hey, it's all right!" Dylan urged, pulling his shirt back down and turning to face his friend. "You were mostly done anyway."
"Wouldn't have happened if I could freakin' see it! Stupid, no good, worthless eyes!"
He threw the rag to the ground and drew his knees up to his chest, hugging them with his chained hands. Dylan realized Harper wasn't adjusting to his blindness as well as he'd thought; he was just a very good actor.
"I'm blind and worthless. I get you captured, sold into slavery, chained up like a dog and whipped, and then I can't even do a simple thing like this without making a mess. I'm just a liability, Dylan, and you should have spaced me ages ago." He hugged his knees tighter and started to rock slightly.
"Harper, stop it!" Dylan cried, grabbing his friend's shoulders gently. "I'll heap loads of anger and blame on the pathetic excuse for a man who did this to you, but I will not, I repeat, I will not blame you! Besides, if I recall right, it was me who got us into this, not you!" he tried to tell him, but Harper wasn't listening and went right on.
"You should leave me here and go! You're High Guard and you're Dylan Hunt; I know you've got a way to escape and you're just not using it because I'm so pathetic and helpless. You should just go!"
Dylan didn't know what to do, how to get through to his young friend. Finally, he took the boy's right hand and pulled it toward him. "Feel this, Harper," he ordered, placing the younger man's hand on his leg shackles and the longer chain connected to them. "Do you feel them? I'm just as stuck here as you are and that is totally my own doing. And when we do escape, which we will, you are coming with me, because not only are you my crewman and engineer, you're also my friend! I don't leave friends behind, okay?"
"But I'm blind, Boss!" Harper sobbed, pulling his hand away and hugging his knees again.
"I know."
"I feel so helpless and scared," Harper added quietly.
"Harper, so do I. I hate seeing you like this, and I hate it even more that I can't do anything to help you."
"At least you can see," Harper murmured.
They sat silently for a while, Harper still rocking slowly as he tried to get a grip on himself again.
"Harper," Dylan said after a bit, "you need to eat your supper, such that it is." He took the boy's hand again and opened it, placing a granola bar and two sticks of jerky on his palm.
"I'm not hungry."
"Liar. Now eat it."
Harper forced his rations down along with some water and then resumed his rocking position. Beside him he heard Dylan sigh but he said nothing and the sound of his chains told Harper that he'd settled back against the pole. Still, Harper knew he wasn't sleeping. He could feel the captain watching him.
Suddenly, the chains clanked sharply. "Harper," Dylan's voice warned, "the guard is coming."
"Good evening, little slave," the voice Harper had begun to associate with the name 'Javan' spoke from directly above him. Instinctively, he ducked his head. "Antsy are you? Well rested from three days of riding in luxury? Time to put all that pent-up energy to use and start learning your new-" he stopped and Harper suddenly felt cold fingers brushing the collar around his neck "-or old place in life?"
Hands released his leg irons from the cumbersome lead chain and then pulled him to his feet by the slave collar.
'Tonight, you work as a slave."
Javan dragged him roughly away by the metal collar, Harper tripping over his feet and trying not to choke. He heard wood popping and the tangy scent of smoke got stronger, telling him he was being brought to the circle of Nietzscheans lounging around the fire. He could also hear them laughing at him as he stumbled to a stop.
"Our boots are dusty from the trail," Javan continued. He shoved a can and something soft into Harper's hands. "You will clean them."
Harper just stood there, not sure what to do and too afraid to move when he couldn't see the fire or the Ubers.
"Now!" the voice said and Harper was shoved to his knees. "And you will respond when you are spoken to. You will address the speaker properly as 'Master'."
"Yes, Master," Harper muttered through gritted teeth, his temper simmering.
"What was that? I didn't quite hear you…"
"Yes, Master," he all but spat.
"Good." Harper could hear the smile in the guard's voice. "We will make a trained dog out of you yet. Now, get to work!"
Still on his knees, Harper used his crippled hand to brace the new items against his chest and his other hand to explore them. A can, smelled like boot polish, and a rag. Sighing, he spent several minutes trying to open the can, listening as the Niets talked and laughed at his struggles. Can finally open, Harper knew instinctively that he was kneeling at the feet of a seated Nietzschean. Silently cursing his eyes, his fingers, his chains, and the whole Nietzschean race, he fumbled around until he found a boot and then awkwardly started to clean and polish it. While he worked, the guards' words floated down around him, and his face burned with shame and anger as he listened.
"Scrawny little thing, isn't it?"
"Slow and clumsy, too."
"If you ask me, Felix should have left it hanging on that cross."
"It's supposed to live and suffer as an example to the rest of the Kludges. That's why Felix left it blind and crippled."
"Still, I say he's getting soft. Kludges are getting too many ideas, forgetting their places. Time to thin the population out a bit – weed out the trouble-makers and have a fine show. I remember once when I was patrolling the Kludge ghetto in Miami back on Earth, a bunch of them decided to rebel. My captain ordered every male over ten rounded up and then killed them, one by one, in front of the rest. Each one got a different technique, too. Took a whole week. I still remember one little brat I broke on the wheel - screamed for his mother for days before a Magog finally finished him off."
As Harper worked, the Nietzschean continued swapping "heroic" stories. Tears of rage threatened to spill out of the engineer's broken eyes as he was forced to listen to their sick boasting, wishing for a way to block the sounds from his ears.
Still chained to the pole, Dylan was livid. He stood with his hands clenched tightly as he watched the Nietzscheans and their game of cat-and-mouse. Too far away for the light of the fire to really reach him, he still heard every word and had a clear view as they taunted and toyed with his engineer. Harper would finish one pair of boots and then he would have to crawl blindly until his searching hand found a new pair, the Nietzscheans never offering help. Sometimes the can or lid would get away from him and he would have to grope on his hands and knees for it. Usually, just before his fingers could touch it, a Niet would reach out and kick it, sending it skittering off again. That wasn't the only cruelty, however; feet stuck out and tripped him, boots pushed his backside as he searched and sent him sprawling. Only when his struggles sent him dangerously close to the fire did someone intervene. Grimly, Dylan understood that Harper was not there to clean their boots; the men were bored and Harper was their entertainment, plain and simple.
"Hey, slave," one of the guards suddenly addressed Harper. "Why aren't you singing?"
Harper was too surprised to reply until a man rapped him sharply on the head.
"Singing?" A harder knock. "Master?" Harper added grudgingly.
"Yes, you should be singing. You should be so happy your pathetic little life was spared and you get to serve as a slave instead that you should be bursting with song like a good little mudfoot."
Dylan could almost hear Harper's teeth grind despite the distance between them.
"Yes, little slave, give us a song now!" the other guards joined in the taunting as they laughed.
A look passed over Harper's face and Dylan tensed. Even from far away, he knew that look; it was the look Harper got when he was about to do something rash and foolish and he knew it but was too angry to care. Still kneeling on the ground, his fingers black from the boot polish, streaks of it smeared across his face and clothes, Harper raised his head and started to sing, softly but unwaveringly.
"Oh say can you see, by the dawn's early light, what so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad strips and bright stars…"
Stunned, for a moment the Nietzscheans just sat there. Then, almost as a group, their faces contorted with rage. The one who had requested a song slapped Harper hard across the mouth, shutting him up. He swung back for a harder hit, fist clenched, but a hand stopped him.
"I'll handle this," Adoniram said, stepping into the circle from the shadows. Harshly, he dragged Harper from the circle by his chains, pausing by the fire to pull a thin stick from the abandoned pile of kindling. A short way from the group, he threw Harper to the ground face down and jerked his shirt up to his neck, standing on his wrist chains to immobilize the boy.
"I do not tolerate insolence in slaves!" he roared. "You will learn that, one way or another!" With that he brought the switch down hard on Harper's still healing back: once, twice…
"Count them!" he ordered, kicking the young man in the side and starting over.
"One," Harper ground out through the anger and a mouthful of dirt. "Two…"
Dylan clenched his hands and bit his lip each time the wood stung skin and Harper spat out a word.
"Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty."
Adoniram threw the stick aside and grabbed Harper by the hair, dragging him the rest of the way to their pole and dumping him in a tangled mess of shirt, chains, and limbs by Dylan while he reattached his leash.
"I'm warning you for the last time, boy! And I can be much more inventive with punishments back at the camp!"
Dylan waited until the Nietzschean captain was out of hearing range before he spoke to Harper who was stubbornly untangling himself and gingerly righting his shirt.
"That was incredibly stupid!"
"And yet, somehow, incredibly satisfying."
"Harper, don't give them a reason to beat you! You're already sporting enough injuries that by rights you should be confined to a bed on med-deck!" Dylan scolded, reaching over and lifting his shirt to examine the boy's back again, not bothering to ask permission. Yet, even as he scolded him, Dylan couldn't help feeling a twinge of gladness and a small swell of pride. This was sounding much more like the Harper he knew, not the sad, lost, rocking figure of a couple hours ago.
"I'm okay!" Harper said angrily, jerking his shirt back down and leaning out of Dylan's reach. "It was just a stick; it probably hardly broke the skin. I'm not a kid, stop coddling me! Besides, what if it had been you out there, listening to that crap and kneeling at their feet, licking their boots? What would you have done?"
"Probably something a lot stupider," Dylan admitted.
"Exactly."
Harper shifted around, trying to get semi-comfortable for the night before he spoke again.
"You sure better be thinking about that escape, though, Boss. I refuse to spend the rest of my life in chains as the Uber's whipping boy and clown."
"Believe me, I'm working on it, Mr. Harper. You just stay alive and in one piece, and I'll work on the rest."
And glancing at his friend, blind and hurting, Dylan knew Harper might have the harder end of that deal. Oh, why was it never easy?