Chapter Thirty-one
News
Elizabeth Cutler
For a while at least, we have no plans and no set destination. We head roughly north, with some vague idea that Canada still has huge stretches of wilderness in which we can lose ourselves, but it's a vast distance for two people on foot, especially when they're trying to stay hidden, avoiding large population centers and government outposts, and earning their way as they go. We know that a long, long time will have to pass before we get anywhere near it – if we ever do. Meanwhile, we're just earning a living (sometimes barely) and trying to stay free.
Malcolm has maps and a compass, but these are more for the purpose of avoiding cities than steering for them. We rough it, staying in line shacks and trappers' cabins, remnants of a bygone era that can still be found dotted around the landscape.
Railway lines are a good guide, indicating level ground and offering easy crossings for rivers and ravines. Out in the wilderness, trains can be heard a long way away, and we become attuned to the slight, silvery sounds of vibration in the tracks that say a locomotive is traveling on it.
Now and again, when we pass near small towns where the doings of the outside world are remote and vagrants are common enough to attract little interest, we risk going in. Sometimes people will want jobs doing, especially when there's a fence to be mended or a tractor to be repaired, and these days you'd struggle to see the immaculately-groomed Head of Imperial Security in a Malcolm who's let his hair and beard grow, and who wears the same set of clothes day in day out till he gets the chance to rinse them out in a stream or a lake and leave them hung out on bushes to dry while he changes into an equally shabby outfit. Not that I'm any better; I've only one dress myself, a patched old blue mid-calf thing that my grandmother would have thought old-fashioned, and a raggedy pair of jeans and a blouse to change into, and I wear a hat woven out of reeds because the sun is fierce and my fair skin burns easily. Malcolm, luckily for him, simply goes brown – further changing his appearance.
One of our best finds early on is a place where they're erecting a new barn. Like most of the outlying towns it's struggling to survive, but if they're to keep their hay safe and dry over winter it has to be under cover and the old one's falling apart.
Just as used to happen in the old days Trip used to tell us about, the neighbors all come together to help. A few trees are felled to provide the wood, a local sawmill cuts the planks at cost, and then everyone pitches in – and a helping pair of hands whose owner seems to know what he's doing is more than welcome.
We're gruffly warned beforehand that they can't afford to pay us anything, but that if we're willing to work for simple bed and board they'd be glad of the help. I'm obviously no use at carpentry, but I'm more than happy to help out baking bread and making butter. The latter is still done in the old way, by hand in a churn, and I'm embarrassed by how soon I become exhausted by the effort required to keep the heavy wooden churn turning. Still, I help out with making pastry instead, and quickly get the hang of producing nicely filled apple pies. The apples are small and wizened, stored on shelves since the previous autumn, but they're still sweet. When lunch time comes the cooks carry the food out to the men working on the barn, with jugs of tart cider and home-made ale, and we all retire into the shade of the chestnut trees down by the river to rest and eat.
That's when we hear that Trip has finally been put on trial.
Nobody seems even slightly curious about us, or perhaps it's simply the dignified country respect for privacy that prevents anyone from asking questions. Some of the men go down to the water and splash their overheated bodies to cool down; seeing him slathered in sweat, I know Malcolm would like to do so too, but shortly after that disastrous episode with the goose in the arroyo, he'd finally confessed to me that he's aquaphobic.
I was glad he did, because although neither of us knew it, Grandmother explained there are places out here where a person can get caught in a flash flood on a perfectly cloudless day because there's been a thunderstorm upstream, and with nothing to soak up the water, it just rushes down. It's not common, but it's not unheard of either. If this happened to us, it would be important for me to know he can't swim very well and is likely to freeze in a panic. Now I know, I'll be better able to react appropriately if it ever happens.
I know he wouldn't expect me to risk my life help him (though of course I would), but at least now he can add empty watercourses to the list of hazards.
But as well as his problem with aquaphobia, he's nervous of exposing his torso. The scars on it are more visible than ever now he's gotten so tanned, and might cause curiosity. Curiosity of any kind is something we avoid.
There's not much conversation at first; people are too tired to talk. But news filters in from the outside world. Just like back in Rainbow Wells, newssheets are passed from hand to hand until everyone has seen them, and even here people are interested in the movers and shakers of the Empire.
"See that Commodore guy's finally gotten sentenced," someone says sleepily.
"Shame," someone else comments.
I'm lying with my head on Malcolm's ribs. His breathing doesn't change.
An English accent would be far too noticeable out here. When he finally speaks, his tone one of near-indifference, you'd think he came from Florida. Despite all the early struggles, he persevered with trying to mimic Trip's accent until he got it right. Now he's able to switch from Irish to Scottish to Floridian every time we roll into a new place to make it harder for Imperial Security to track him. He even keeps a file on my PADD to record which accent he uses where, just in case we ever go back to somewhere we've been before. "Didn't even know the guy was on trial."
"Court martial," the first speaker corrects him, a bit sharply.
"Ok, court martial." He yawns agreeably and puts his hands behind his head, cushioning it. "Ain't never done me no good."
"Done good for a whole lotta people," a third snaps. "My cousin's wife works in a bank an' she says it was all above board an' legal what he did with the money. Didn't keep nothin' for himself."
"Sorry, sorry." Malcolm quickly becomes apologetic. "Didn't know I was treadin' on toes. Thing is, we've been out o' the loop so long we haven't heard much about it, other'n he'd been arrested. Took it for granted he'd just been caught with his fingers in the till."
"Be a whole better place if he was in charge of the whole thing 'stead of bein' locked up in a prison cell, if you ask me!"
That statement is going too far. With wary glances at us, this fourth speaker is shushed. She's old, so old she could be defended as half-witted, but who knows who we are, and to whom we may report what we hear? There are those in authority who won't accept age or mental infirmity or any other excuse for talking what could be construed as sedition.
"I don't know about that," says a middle-aged man with iron gray hair who bears a passing resemblance to the old woman. "The Emperor has made some changes for the better. Fired half his cabinet and replaced 'em with people who actually know something about what he put 'em in charge of. Don't know about the rest of 'em, but ol' Wainwright an' that Jackson fellow have fixed it so I can get paid more for my crops and keep more of what I get for profit. How do you think I can afford to build this new barn?"
Whether he's worried about guilt by association or trying to protect the old woman by showing no one takes her seriously, I don't know, but she isn't having it. "Already woulda been built if Tucker'd been in charge!"
"Well, Mama," a woman who looks a lot like the man says, "he wasn't in charge, and while his heart might have been in the right place, he broke the law. He was lucky to get away with it for as long as he did."
Confronted with an argument she cannot dispute, the old woman backs down, but not without a parting shot. "We was all lucky."
"So, you say he's been sentenced?" I ask, keeping my tone as close to idle curiosity as I can. "When's the execution?"
"Ain't goin' to be executed. Seems like Empress Sato commuted it to a life sentence."
Malcolm's arm is around my shoulders; unobtrusively he delivers a tiny pinch that warns me off the subject. To pursue it would undoubtedly appear as though we're trying to provoke a debate that could include incriminating comment, and we know what we need to know, though learning that Hoshi was the one to issue the commutation makes me curious to know what other powers she retained and just how much autonomy Austin has allowed her with them. Maybe she and Austin share the decision-making process, or maybe it's her privilege to announce their decisions, but only with his approval or at his command.
The conversation wanders idly off to local matters, and after a rest, work begins again.
When the barn is finally completed, a couple of days later, we are warmly thanked. A few other people in the neighborhood find us work under the same terms, and we're offered a shower, a bed, and the use of a washboard and tub at someone's house, but an overheard suggestion that the local tax assessor may visit shortly is enough to spook Malcolm into leaving.
"They act as information gatherers as well as money gatherers," he says shortly as we hike off into the woods, weighed down with gifts of food that were pressed on us as we left by people who could ill-afford the generosity. "Believe me, anyone they spot who's not a local will be reported and investigated."
"You don't think anyone will talk about us?" I ask anxiously.
"Unlikely." He slants a wry grin at me. "For the most part, the people in these outlying communities see no particular reason to make the authorities' job easier in anything. And I think I did a decent enough job with the accent. I dropped the name 'Panama City' into a conversation once, so if anyone does talk they'll most likely assume I came from around there."
"But with the reward…"
"You'd think it was a done deal, wouldn't you? But surprisingly not. Rebels on the run tend to accumulate sympathy. It was often remarked on with a good degree of frustration in planning meetings that the more wanted a man was by the authorities, the more people seemed to regard it as their civic duty to hide him, and a lot of the people out here who are barely squeaking by on the sweat of their brows are too proud to accept a government handout. Even if it is a reward for capturing a wanted fugitive and enemy of the state."
I giggle. "Really?"
"Yes. Really. The human urge to thumb their noses at the institution is apparently still alive and kicking."
"Bet it's the first time you've been glad about it."
He aims a playful smack at my ear, but then his expression turns grim and I know he's thinking, just like I am, about the news we haven't been able to discuss until now: that Trip has been tried and sentenced.
I guess that in some ways it's not just a surprise but a relief that Hoshi and/or Austin stepped in to commute the sentence to life imprisonment – there certainly won't be any suggestion of remission. That he was found guilty was inevitable (imperial trials are usually staged to establish how guilty you are, not whether or not you may be innocent, and technically, Trip did break the law, as did we all) and the punishment for a felon of Trip's rank was never in any doubt. Nevertheless, almost everything depends on the conditions of his imprisonment.
"Fucking bastard," Malcolm mutters savagely, after a while.
"Who?"
"Burnell. Whether it was really Hoshi's idea or not, it wouldn't have happened without Austin's permission. Didn't he even think how he'd feel about being locked up for life? I wish he'd left well enough alone."
I want to protest about this, but I can't. Still, I want to try to find some good in the situation. "At least while he's alive there's some hope of being rescued…"
"Liz, don't be naïve! You've no idea what some of the prisons are like. The top security facilities have more than twenty layers of defences. They have their own power source, their own water supply, their own pretty damned everything. They have constantly changing encryption on every lock. You need three codes supplied by three officers to get into a cell, and each of them has orders to shoot the other two if they even suspect an attempt to break someone out.
"They'll know how much sympathy he had. They'll know the release of the financial records will make him look like a hero. They'll know exactly what a coup for the resistance it would be if someone could spring him. So believe you me, he'll be buried so deep in one of the best that you couldn't dig him out with an earth-mover if you dropped an ICBM on top of it." He swallows. "He'll never see daylight again."
In a futile attempt at consolation, I slip my hand into his. A new anxiety has gripped me.
"Malcolm, you're not thinking…"
"Of having a go? Of course I bloody am. And if I thought I'd a hope in hell, I would. But unfortunately for me, I wouldn't have.
"I put Burnell in charge of Jupiter Station because he's bloody brilliant. He wouldn't need the brains of a potato to realize he should go through everything I designed about the prison Trip's in and change it, but with Austin doing it, it won't just be a prison for Trip, it'll be a trap waiting for me."
"You designed…?"
He puts his head down and groans. "Of course I did. There were prisoners now and then that it wasn't expeditious to execute immediately – they had to be held securely until it was safe to kill them. So as the Head of Imperial Security I made sure they were held bloody securely."
The bitter injustice of it all sticks in my craw like a fishbone; I can only imagine the depth of the guilt my lover is feeling that his designs are now being used to stop any hope of rescuing Trip from life imprisonment.
"Hoshi mustfeel some kind of debt towards him," I say inadequately. "Surely she'll consider asking Burnell to release him in a few years?"
A crooked smile tells me I'm still being naïve. "Love, Hoshi will have far more pressing concerns on her plate than Trip Tucker from here on in. For all that Austin might feign love for the cameras, I know he wouldn't hesitate to throw her into the Imperial meat grinder the first time she crosses him."
=/\=
Malcolm's conditioning among the Pack made him one of a team when it came to hunting. Now he has to hunt solo, and for all that I suspect he enjoyed being a predator again, he wasn't very good at it at first. Even now, we have a hungry day now and then. Still, his skills did improve significantly while we stayed with Grandmother, and her lessons ensure that we survive as we pick our way slowly northwards, following secretly marked trails she told us about. Sometimes these are hard to find, and a couple of times we're close to despair that we've lost them completely, but we keep pressing on, and sooner or later we pick up the route again.
For most of the time, it still keeps company with the railroad. There isn't much freight these days, but the landscape was battered into obedience, and the bridges are still there. Likewise the line shacks, and we get into the habit of cleaning out the places we stay and laundering the bedding and stuff we find there. Obviously we have no credit chip. What little we earn along the way we have to take in trade, and it has to be light enough for us to carry and keep hold of for emergencies so we don't have to endanger the Capshaws by calling them to tap into our account at the mercantile, but there are things you can do, like rinsing out old sheets and blankets and laying them out to air, and gathering fresh desert grasses to pad a mattress. Malcolm has put together a few old tools and puts his carpentry skills to good use again, patching up walls and roofing where he can without too much difficulty, and we start to take pride in leaving each place in better shape and better supplied than we found it.
The year ticks onward, and we've fallen into the way of vagrancy now. We still avoid the big towns, but now and again we risk going into a small one – mostly to earn a few supplies to top up our dwindling store, and to put out feelers for what's going on in the larger world outside.
One day, after a day spent helping out a baker in return for a couple of yesterday's unsold loaves and some ends of ham, we're sitting on a rickety bench on the veranda outside, eating our spoils and watching a news feed on the television. As sometimes happens, we're not allowed in the house (It's been surprising to me how many people don't mind helping vagrants, but some are more welcoming than others, and I can't really blame them), but the window's open and we can see a story about some refugees being forced into a camp in one of the old wastelands left over from the last global war. Much is made of the risk caused by land mines in the area, not planted by the Imperial forces, but also left from the war. They're unstable, unpredictable, and you never know where one is going to turn up.
Naturally, the refugees don't want to live there, but the authorities say there's nowhere else for them to go. And the Empire has a short way with non-cooperative citizens.
The area concerned isn't so very far away from us, which is why it's being featured on the local news coverage. The presenter is making a big show of being shocked, but I'm guessing that as soon as filming's over he'll pack up and go home, and never give another thought to the hundreds of people who are going to live out the rest of their lives in fear of every step they take.
Malcolm is, of course, intensely interested. Well, it's ordnance, and for all that he's taken up a trade as an amateur carpenter these days, nobody's pretending that's what he'd rather be doing.
I check carefully to see that the baker and his family are nowhere within earshot. "We should go."
I see the light of longing in his eyes, but he rubs his bearded chin doubtfully. "I don't know, it's risky. There seems to be a lot of media attention."
"That won't last. A month from now, hell, a week from now, people will have forgotten. And it'll take most of that time for us to get there." I look at the presenter, who's winding up the report with this faux look of concern on his face and probably already thinking about the chilled wine waiting in the fridge at his condo, where there are absolutely guaranteed to be no pieces of UXO waiting to blow his legs off at the first misstep.
"It's a big job."
"It looks like it was made for us." I've already noted the joke of a medical center, with four beds and not even one permanent doctor; and as for reliable supplies for the sick and wounded – including anyone unlucky enough to step on a landmine – well at a guess, they're not going to be on the top of anyone's priority list. "With your ordnance training and my medical skills, we're both needed."
He's tempted, but unconvinced. "Could be a trap."
Obviously he's talking sense, but who the hell would imagine the ex-Head of Imperial Security would give a single serious thought to helping the hopeless refugees in that death-trap? As for me, I'm not vain enough to think anyone would be interested in me, except perhaps as bait for him if it came to that.
"Do you really think they'd go to that much trouble just for us? Put all those poor people at risk just on the off chance we might be interested enough to get involved – even assuming they know we're still alive and in the district?"
"After what we did, Liz, it isn't vanity to say 'yes'." Even now, he's wary. His eyes are rarely still, scanning for danger, and he stares down the road at movement in the trees until a deer steps into view, its presence a clear indication that there's nobody near. At this, he relaxes – as much as he ever does – and looks back at me, frowning.
I put my free hand on his wrist and give it a squeeze."Still, love, we're needed."
Malcolm sighs and nods. "We should go."
What do you think? Are Mal and Liz walking into a trap? If not, what do you expect the camp to be like? Will they be able to help the refugees? If you have been enjoying this story, please leave a review.
