Planet of Pain (15 page)

Compared to the others he was positively regally dressed, in a pale blue, ankle-length caftan and brand new spacer boots. The effect was spoiled somewhat by the large sweat stains under his arms and across his chest, but it was clear he was a person of some importance, or thought he was, for he had his own personal bodyguard; two big men who stood just behind his chair, grim and silent, sticks at the ready.

‘My name's Boss,' the fat man said in a voice high as any girl's. ‘Obey orders and you'll survive. Fail to obey and you'll wish you'd never been born.'

He paused to dab his face once more, and as he did so there was a sudden shout off to the left. Jo turned and saw a guard lash out with his stick at one of the female prisoners, who cried out and fell to the floor, curling into a ball. Two other guards ran up and the trio began to beat the poor woman, who shrieked as she rolled this way and that in a futile attempt to evade the blows. Ten seconds later it was all over, and the men dispersed leaving their victim whimpering and twitching on the floor.

Shocking though the assault had been, what was even more disturbing was the reaction of those around. No one, Nina's party excepted, seemed to take the least notice of the incident, and certainly none of the other prisoners went forward to help the woman.

‘Shift supervisors to me!' Boss screeched, and three individuals came out of the next cabin and hurried forward. One, a grey-haired old woman wearing a dirty vest and shorts three sizes too big for her, scrutinised the newcomers keenly, eyeing their coveralls in a greedy, covetous fashion.

‘What's the tally?' the fat man asked, wiping his face yet again.

‘Seven short here, Boss,' the old woman said quickly, with a gap-toothed grin.

The other two, both men, said ‘six' and ‘seven' respectively, and the fat man seemed to consider this information.

‘You two,' he said, pointing at Bel and Stella, ‘white shift.'

The old woman cackled, seized the pair of them by the arm and dragged them away. Bel looked back at Jo in consternation, but the old woman was surprisingly strong and obviously determined not to lose her prizes. The trio disappeared into one of the tunnels.

‘You—' As the fat man pointed at Jo, Malka gave a wordless cry. She was staring off to the right at a large group of prisoners, male and female, who were passing by. They had exited one of the tunnels and were heading wearily towards another; and among them was a man – a man who turned at Malka's cry and stared back open-mouthed. He left the group and came forward, but then stopped short, fearful and uncertain.

‘You two know each other?' Boss asked with a cunning glint in his eye, and the man regarded him apprehensively, saying nothing. ‘Crewmates, is it?' Boss persisted. ‘Or maybe it's more than that? Listen, if you're married or something, I can put you on the same shift, even in the same gang. That way you can stay together. If it's just crew, tough shit: I'll split you up quick as spitting.'

‘He's my husband,' Malka blurted, ‘Benedikt Vesely. I'm Malka Vesely, his wife.'

The fat man smirked. There was more malice than humour in the expression, and Jo feared Malka's admission would only bring her further misery, but Boss's next words seemed innocuous enough.

‘Okay; blue shift.' He nodded at Jo. ‘You too.'

Jo and Malka were led away by a middle-aged man. Benedikt Vesely, looking anxious still, tagged along behind, refusing to take Malka's offered hand, to her obvious consternation.

Jo's hopes that they would go in the direction the grey-haired woman had taken were soon dashed. Instead they followed the big group down a different tunnel entirely, and Jo had a sudden and terrible premonition that she would never see Bel again. It was obviously irrational, the product of her fear of this place, but she couldn't seem to shake it off. She found herself moving closer to Malka, the only familiar face in sight, though Malka had eyes only for her husband.

At the far end of the tunnel, past a row of louvered ducts blowing just slightly cooler air into the place, was a double door, keyed open. Beyond that a wide corridor stretched straight ahead. There were more doors here, the ones to the left also keyed open, those to the right closed. The group they had been following now began to split up, passing through the open doors on the left. Jo glanced in as the supervisor led them past, and saw rooms full of people and little else.

The corridor ended at another set of double doors, but before they reached them they also went into a room on the left. There were prisoners in here too, perhaps a score of them, with slightly more men than women. There wasn't a single item of furniture in the place, so the people sat on the floor with their backs to the wall, or lay propped on their elbows. The appearance of their shift supervisor with a pair of new recruits drew sullen, even angry looks from some, though Jo couldn't imagine what threat or problem the two of them posed. Malka seemed oblivious to this apparent hostility, and when the supervisor told Benedikt to take care of her, and he nodded and reached for her finally, she threw her arms about his waist and hugged him tight, moaning in delight.

The supervisor then turned to an unhappy-looking young woman sitting nearby. ‘Ruth,' he said, jerking his thumb at Jo, ‘you've got this one. Show her around and explain the routine.'

A flash of resentment replaced the glum expression, and then the young woman sighed and rose to her feet. ‘Come on,' she muttered. She went out of the room and turned left, walking quickly, and Jo had to run to catch up. ‘Dayrooms on the left,' she said, waving her arm in that direction, ‘five of ‘em, one to a gang. We're gang four. Dorms on the right, showers and latrines at the far end.'

Sure enough, beyond the second set of double doors was a shower/toilet block with a long row of spray nozzles along the far wall and rows of latrines at the ends, left and right. Disturbingly, nothing was partitioned off. There wasn't a cubicle or modesty screen anywhere in sight, so whether it was taking a shower or sitting on the toilet, you did it in public.

‘Like I said, showers and latrines, okay?'

‘Did the supervisor call you Ruth?' Jo asked, and the young woman glanced at her warily, and nodded. Jo gave her a friendly smile. ‘Hi, my name's Jo… Lieutenant Jo O'Donnell. I'm a pilot, off a scout ship, actually. Are you a spacer too, or did they capture you on a base?'

‘Why do you want to know?'

‘No reason. Just being friendly, I suppose.'

‘I don't need a friend,' Ruth said. ‘You don't either, not in this place.'

‘I don't? Why not?'

‘People die here. Badly. Better if it's strangers dying than friends.'

Jo understood and even had some sympathy with the philosophy. Cutting yourself off emotionally from others was a form of self-protection. There was a downside, though: you had no one to lean on when things got tough.

‘You can use the latrines anytime,' Ruth said.

‘That's good.' Jo glanced in again, looking at the showers longingly, and she was suddenly acutely aware how gritty her scalp felt, and how hot and sticky she was inside her coveralls in all the heat.

‘Showers don't work all the time,' Ruth said, obviously reading her mind, ‘only when we come off-shift.' Jo sighed and nodded. ‘But you're in luck,' the young woman added. ‘We just came off… see?'

She held out her arms, which were covered in dust, every part of her was covered in dust, in fact – face; hair; the tattered dress she wore, with a piece of string for a belt. All the others had looked the same, so Jo just assumed it was the normal state around here.

‘They'll sound a bell soon, and we'll line up in the corridor here,' Ruth went on. ‘Whatever you do, don't drink the water. It's recycled and it isn't safe. You only drink the water that the orderlies bring round, like the food. We don't have cooking facilities here: it's all prepared in limb two.'

‘Limb two?'

Ruth sighed as if she'd been given an imbecile to tutor. She squatted down and traced lines in the dust on the floor with her finger. ‘This is the hub,' she said, drawing a hexagon. ‘You've just come from there. It's where Boss and the beasties hang out.'

‘Beasties?' Jo said. ‘Oh, you mean the guards.'

‘Guards, right. Here's limb one… that's the tunnel leading to the big storeroom and the dock where the shuttles land. It's the only entrance to the complex, so you had to come in that way.'

‘We did.'

‘Right. Here's limb two.' She drew a line to represent the next tunnel clockwise around the hub. ‘Limb two is support… kitchens, medical and suchlike. Limb three is where green shift live, and limb four is where we are right now. We're blue shift, in case you didn't know.'

‘Blue shift, gang four,' Jo said, to show she'd been paying attention.

‘That's it. Limb five is white shift. The last one, limb six, gives access to the lower levels. That's engineering, mostly; and the mine, of course.'

‘The mine's where we work?'

‘Yeah. I'll tell you all about it when we go on-shift. Right now you've got plenty to think about without that. So, where was I? Oh yeah, food and water. You remember what I said about that?'

‘Only eat and drink what the orderlies bring?'

‘That's right. And there's something else you should know about the showers. Water's under strict ration here, even the recycled stuff. There's no natural water on Paradise, so it all has to be shipped in. You get thirty seconds in the showers, then it cuts off. You've got to get as clean as you can in that time. You wearing anything under those coveralls?'

‘Er… pants,' Jo said, a little taken aback by the question. ‘No bra.'

Ruth nodded. ‘Some of the women here seem to want to keep their pants. I don't bother; it's just something else to get dirty. The ones who do generally use them as a washcloth. It means their pants get a rinse through at the same time. There's no chance to wash your clothes properly, of course, which is why we're all wearing filthy rags.' She tugged at the ruined dress, her lip curling derisively.

‘Another thing about the showers,' she went on. ‘There's usually a few beasties in there with us, making mischief. They might try to distract you, so you miss your turn.'

‘Distract me how?'

Ruth shrugged. ‘Sometimes they grab your tits. You're not exactly lacking in that department, I notice, so there's a good chance they'll try that. Or they might go lower down. It's not easy getting washed when some bastard's got his finger inside you, believe me.'

‘I don't understand,' Jo said, bemused. ‘Why would they want to make you miss your shower? It sounds so pointless.'

‘I guess it is,' Ruth said. ‘It's just a bit of fun to them, I suppose. They do it all the time so you'd better be ready, is all I'm saying.'

Jo shook her head in dismay. As if this place wasn't bad enough, the guards wanted to play juvenile pranks into the bargain. She wondered what the officers were doing while all this was going on. Sergeant Vaughan would never have allowed such tomfoolery.

‘Okay,' Ruth said, ‘that's about it. There's nothing else to see apart from the mine and the dorm, and as I said, you'll see the mine tomorrow when our shift starts. We aren't allowed in the dorms for another eight hours, so you'll have to wait a while to see in there. Not that there's much to see, mind, just a row of bunks. There's a spare one under mine; you can have that if you like.'

‘Thanks. Why aren't we allowed in now?'

‘It's just the way things work around here. Eight hours in the mine, eight hours in the dayrooms, during which we get a shower and the main meal, then eight hours sleep. They bring breakfast just before we go on-shift, and the whole thing starts over again. It never varies—'

A bell sounded and there was a mass stirring of bodies. People began to drift out of the dayrooms and line up, calmly and in an orderly fashion, in the corridor outside the shower block. Jo and Ruth joined the queue, and everyone started to take off their clothes.

‘You've remembered about the pants?' Ruth said as she stripped off her dress.

Jo nodded. She felt rather self-conscious as she undressed, though no one else seemed overly concerned at being naked. Ruth folded her dress and set it down on the floor next to the wall. All the others were doing the same, so Jo followed suit, laying down her coveralls but retaining her pants to use as a washcloth.

As they were waiting to go in guards started arriving in twos and threes. They walked slowly down the line, commenting openly on the woman lined up along the wall, discussing their physical merits and shortcomings in jocular tones. It was obvious they were enjoying themselves hugely, unlike the objects of their scrutiny, most of whom looked embarrassed or apprehensive or both.

One of the guards had positioned himself at the head of the queue, though he appeared to be on official business as he refrained from baiting the prisoners. ‘First batch,' he called out, and those at the front quickly filed in and everyone else shuffled up. The guard counted those who passed, allowing twenty in at a time, and Jo, directly behind Ruth, just made it before he dropped his arm to halt the line. Twenty prisoners, twenty showerheads, and still no sign of water.