The Price of Freedom (4 page)

She finished the seam, then moved around to the other side of his body. Once again she attacked the rough threads of his garment, determined to preserve the fabric. She would wash it and stitch it back together for him.

When both sides were cut, she gathered a deep breath and started to pull the fabric off his limp body. Fortunately, she was able to get the pants off without moving him too much, although she did have to reach one arm under his back to lift his lower body slightly. She kept her eyes averted from his genitals, embarrassed by how much she wanted to look at him. The air was chilly, and before her eyes small bumps rose on his leg. He was cold, she realized. She needed to get him covered.

She looked around the storeroom and found a blanket, folded neatly beside the pallet Bragan had made up for himself. She brought it back out to her patient, and draped it across his upper body and groin. In doing so, she couldn't help but notice the smooth length of his soft penis. Even at rest, it was much larger than her husband's had been. What would it look like fully aroused, she wondered? A shiver passed through her at the thought. Blushing, she forced herself to look away. Then she attacked his lower legs with her water-soaked rag.

His feet were huge. That was her first thought—so much bigger than her own. Her husband's had been smaller than this, too. This slave was tall, she remembered, from when she'd seen him the barracks.

Much taller than any of the Pilgrim men. Around each ankle were vicious scars. The manacles used to restrain him must have caused them, she realized. She trailed one finger along the ridge of twisted skin, a mixture of old, white scars over-laid with newer red ones. He had suffered a long time. She shuddered, thinking of the pain those scars represented.
Don't think about it
, she reminded herself.
There's nothing
you can do about that. It's just the way things are.

Both feet clean, she started working her way up. His calves were lean and tight. The tiny hairs bristled at her touch as she washed him. The further she moved up his body, the more mesmerizing she found her task. His skin was smooth, but still much rougher than hers. She shivered, wondering what was wrong with her. It was hardly cold. She felt hot and restless. If anything, she wanted to loosen her collar and get some fresh air.

By the time she reached his knees she had grown short of breath. There was something about the feel of his skin that made her feel almost lightheaded. Each muscle in his leg was sharply defined; not an ounce of extra skin to be found anywhere.

All too quickly she reached the point where she had to move the blanket aside, exposing his groin.

She tried not to look at his penis, moving briskly and efficiently. But her eye kept catching on it, and she just had to find something out…was it as soft and smooth as it looked? Glancing behind her quickly to make sure no one had magically appeared to watch her, she touched the length of it. The skin was incredibly soft. Much softer than she would have dreamt possible on a man as hard as this one. It was longer than her hand, and she allowed her fingers to drift down the length toward the smooth head.

Tracing the flared tip, she realized that it was changing slightly. He was hardening under her touch, and she jerked her fingers back in horror. But when she looked at his face, she realized he was still completely unconscious.

Of course, touching him was wrong, but when would she ever have another chance like this one?

For all she knew he would never wake up again. And if he didn't, she would be dead in two weeks.

Startled by her own daring, Bethany reached toward his penis again, lifting it gently with her fingers. She stroked it up and down several times, and was rewarded by the sight of it growing longer and harder under her ministrations. To her fascination, the head turned dark red, and then a small bead of moisture welled from the tip.

She was feeling fluttery, her breath coming quickly. Under the harsh fabric of her tunic, she could feel her nipples peaking. They were so sensitive that they almost hurt as she leaned further across the man to examine his face. The fabric of her dress was intolerably rough. She shook her head, trying to regain control of herself. But instead she leaned in closer to his face, studying it. It remained completely blank, but his lips looked so soft and inviting she couldn't prevent herself from wanting to touch them again.

Without pausing to consider her actions, she lowered her lips to his, kissing them gently. She brushed against them once, twice, then sat up and pulled the blanket over his body. Flushing deeply, she took a few deep breaths and sat back on her heels.

She knew what she had done was wrong. She sat there, examining her feelings for a few minutes, and realized that she didn't regret her actions one bit. In fact, just thinking about touching him excited her in a way that was totally different from anything she'd ever felt with her aging husband. This man was young, and strong. He was sick, but he was still more interesting than any of the Pilgrim men she'd ever met. Saving him had been the right thing to do. A sensation of calm came over her. Whatever happened in two weeks, she wouldn't regret her decision.

* * * * *

It took more than an hour to ferry all three carts of food to the barracks at the end of the slaves'

work cycle. It would be cold by the time the men came in from the mines, but that didn't really matter. It was still food, and they would be hungry. She had their dinner ready and waiting by the time they arrived back from work, escorted by several Pilgrim men she had known in her childhood. Of course the men didn't even bother to acknowledge her presence now. Several of the slaves looked toward the storage room with vague curiosity, but none seemed inclined to go over and visit. They seemed too tired to care about their fallen comrade.

Bragan came over to check on him as soon as he pulled off his pressure suit and stowed it in a locker. She could see the fatigue in his face, but the doctor still took his time while checking his patient over. Bethany searched his face anxiously for some sign of what to expect.

"There's no real change," Bragan said, sitting back on his heels. "He's dehydrated, though, and if he doesn't wake up soon he never will. Of course, if we had even the simplest of equipment here I could do something about that, but I don't even have a way to get fluids down him as it stands."

He sat back and sighed heavily. "I'm too old for working in the mines. Usually I don't have to do the heavy labor, but they've got me substituting for him right now." He gestured toward the man with his chin.

"I'm going to get my food now. Is it all right if his bunk mate visits him for a minute, before the lock they barracks down for the sleep cycle?"

"Sure," Bethany said. She stood and stretched tiredly. "It's been a long day. You must be eager to sleep."

"That's the truth," Bragan said. He stood and walked out of the room. A few seconds later a tall, muscular man with deep black hair came in. His face was streaked with dirt, and he scowled at Bethany.

She shivered, and suddenly realized she was alone with him. His eyes roamed up and down her body, stripping her naked, then looked away from her dismissively.

"How is he?" he asked in a low voice.

"Bragan doesn’t know how he's doing," she replied. To her disgust, her voice cracked. There was something about this man that scared the hell out of her, but she stood her ground, watching as he knelt beside the man and touched his face with surprising gentleness. Then he stood again and walked out of the room without speaking. Bethany exhaled heavily, and sagged against the wall. It was all too much, she thought. Far too much for one day.

She shook herself, then turned to her patient and made sure he was tucked in for the night. She went back out into the main room and started hauling the empty food carts back to the kitchen. The few men who weren't in the barracks watched her with blank eyes as they patched their pressure suits and checked their equipment. Finally, her work completed, she watched in silence as the guards locked the men in. Then, walking behind them as a good woman should, she made her way out the main door of the slave compound and into the tunnel connecting it to the main habitation bubble. Another cycle was over.

* * * * *

That night as she slept, she dreamt again and again of the man's injuries. Each time they were slightly different. At one point, his leg was crushed, and he was crawling toward her, one hand outstretched and pleading for help. Another time he was blind, stumbling through the mine, trying to find her. She tossed and turned as dream after dream hit her, buffeting her with their intensity. Every time his injuries were worse and she never managed to help him. All the dreams ended the same way, though. Her father, leading a group of Pilgrim guards, would drag them to an airlock. The doors would slide shut and the air would be pumped out with a wheezing, hissing sound. Then, their lungs bursting within them, she and the slave would die.

Chapter Three

One cycle after the mine collapse

Logan had trouble sleeping that night, his mind spinning with possibilities. If removing Jess' implant worked and Jess survived, they had a whole new hope for survival. If Bragan could remove one in an oxygen tent in the mines, he could remove more. They could escape.

He forced himself to stay in his bunk, conserving his energy despite the restless tension that filled him. When the wake-up sounded, he jumped to his feet. Time to find Bragan. The doctor came into the main barracks to get his food a few minutes later, and Logan pulled him to one side.

"How is he doing?"

"He's doing great," Bragan said. "He woke up in the night. Seemed a little confused and in a lot of pain, but I managed to get some water into him. I told him about the implant, too."

"What did he say?"

"He was glad we'd done it," Bragan said, wiping one hand across his forehead nervously. "Started talking about escape right away, about rescuing his sister. I was relieved to hear it, I have to admit."

Logan nodded. No point in rubbing it in.

"How long was he awake?"

"For about an hour, on and off," Bragan said. "He woke up several times during the night. We've decided that we'll keep him 'unconscious' for several days. That way he'll be completely free to listen and spy on them without any suspicion. He'll report what he finds out through me, and together we can come up with a plan."

"That's great," Logan said, grinning fiercely. "I want you to take out my implant today. We'll switch partners in the lift. I know someone who owes me a favor. He'll cover for us."

Bragan stared at him.

"I won't do that," he said. "It's completely irresponsible. For one thing, I'm not a surgeon. We don't even have any anesthetic. There's a good chance I could kill you!"

"I don't need anesthetic," Logan said coldly. Bragan laughed.

"You think you’re pretty tough, don't you?" he asked. "Well I won't do the surgery without some way of sedating you. You think you don't need any pain killers. You're wrong. Even the slightest movement during the surgery could be disastrous, and then I'd have a body on my hands. Not only that, you need to be able to work the next day. There is no way you'd be able to do that without some kind of medication. Even
with
medication, you'd be doing well to be up and walking around."

"How did you get the alcohol?" Logan asked. "Wouldn't that work?"

"It's a very poor substitute and I doubt I could get any more," Bragan said. "And what little I do have needs to be saved for emergencies"

Logan smiled at him, baring his teeth.

"I think you should reconsider," he said. "I know what I'm capable of handling. Life could get very unpleasant for you if you refuse to help me with this."

Bragan shrugged.

"Life is already very unpleasant for me," he said. "And you can't force me to do anything.

Remember, if I don't like you all I have to do is agree to the surgery. You have no way of controlling what I do inside that tent. I could have you dead in seconds, and don't think I wouldn't do it. No anesthetic, no surgery."

"What about the girl?" Logan asked suddenly. "She seems to like you. Can you convince her you need pain medication for Jess?"

"I
do
need pain medication for Jess," Bragan said. "And I've already asked her about it. She says she can't help, but I'll keep working on it."

"Do that," Logan said. "And be prepared. If we're going to do this, you'll have to operate on all the men eventually. And we'll have to do as many as possible before the escape attempt. I'm starting to put a plan together, but we'll need Jess on the outside to help us. That means we have less than two weeks to pull this off…"

* * * * *

Third cycle after the mine collapse

Beth brushed out her hair and braided it quickly before leaving her room. It was strange, getting used to her new schedule. She was waking up just as everyone else got ready to sleep. But in many ways she enjoyed that. The less she saw of her father, for one, the better.

She was early, but she needed to get breakfast for the slaves before they left for the mine.

Fortunately she wasn't responsible for actually cooking it—that was done in the communal kitchen which served most of the station. Still, carting enough food for a hundred men took quite a bit of time. She was also eager to check on her patient. Would he show any improvement after resting?

For the past three days she had checked him carefully each morning, wishing desperately to see some sign that he might wake up. He was getting painfully dehydrated; at least that's what Bragan told her. She actually thought he was looking quite well, given his situation. According to Bragan, there was little hope for him if he didn't wake up within the next day. Her hands trembled momentarily as she raised a hand to open the apartment door. If the man died, would Boze have her killed immediately? She glanced around the room. It was bare, gray, anything but comfortable. At the same time, it was her home. Would this be the last time she saw it?

As she stood there, a woman padded softly out of Boze's room toward the fresher. It was Moriah, a young widow who worked in the kitchens. Beth stared at her, shocked by her presence. What had she been doing there?

Moriah seemed equally horrified to see Beth. She was caught, and she knew it. Regardless of Boze's stature as station leader, Moriah's punishment for being caught in his apartment would be terrible if she were discovered. Beth tried to think of why the woman would do such a foolish thing. Moriah raised one hand tentatively, pushing a lock of black hair behind one ear. She fingered the side of her neck softly, and then Bethany saw it. An ugly bruise, red and new, circled Moriah's throat. A wave of nausea came over as she realized Boze had forced the girl.

Walking quickly across room, she silently took Moriah into her arms. The woman trembled; silent sobs shook her body.

"He says I have to marry him," she whispered into Beth's shoulder. "I don't have a choice. He says I could be pregnant already, and if that happens while I'm unmarried we all know what will happen to me."

There was nothing to say, so Bethany simply held her a moment longer. Then Moriah pushed away from her and wiped her eyes.

"We need to get to the kitchens," she said. "I'm supposed to help prepare the slaves' meal tonight. If I'm late, someone might suspect. Will you help me leave? If you can check the corridor to make sure no one is out there, I can slip away…"

"Of course," Bethany said quickly. "I'll check for you."

They crept softly across the room, and Bethany opened the door. She stepped out into the corridor and looked carefully each way. No one.

"It's safe to come out," she whispered, and Moriah crept out behind her. Quickly, the younger woman scuttled down the hallway toward her own apartments. She had a child, a daughter less than a year old, Bethany remembered. Hopefully someone she could trust had been with her. Another wave of nausea came over her as she realized it was entirely possible that Moriah had been forced to leave the baby all alone. Forced to do so by Bose, her own father.

She started toward the slave complex to pick up the food carts. It was better not to think about these things. They were entirely out of her control. The day guards were still on duty, lounging outside the main entrance to the complex. The men had been locked in the barracks the cycle before, so there was no reason to leave anyone stationed in the main room or the mine. The two men opened the locked and barricaded doors for her without comment, closing them behind her with a loud, clanging noise.

She made her way quickly down the short corridor into the main room. To one side was the tunnel leading to the mines, but all she could think of was checking on the slave. Opening the storage room door, she flicked on the light and moved quickly to his pallet. Bragan groaned, rolling over to cover his eyes with his arm.

"Couldn't you knock first?" he moaned.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I didn't mean to startle you. How is he doing this cycle?"

"He's fine," Bragan muttered. "I'm going back to sleep. I've still got several minutes before I need to be up and I'm going to use them."

She nodded, and stepped over the sleeping man to check on the slave. His name was Jess, she reminded herself. Bragan had told her the cycle before. Calling him by name was infinitely better than "the slave". He was lying in the same position she had left him, looking so weak and pale that it scared her.

How could he still be alive? He hadn't had any food or water for days, yet when she checked his pulse; it was still strong. She gave a sigh of relief for that—she had at least one more day to live. She shook her head, clearing away the morbid thoughts, then stood and left the storeroom.

There was no time to waste. She had to get the carts to the main kitchen. They would wake the slaves in less than an hour, and the food had to be ready for them. Pushing the first of the three large carts, she made her way back through the main room and down the corridor. The guards let her back through the re-enforced doors, and she walked briskly toward the communal kitchen area.

Unlike her father's apartment or the slave complex, the kitchen was a sea of activity. All around her, women and young girls were chatting and laughing together as they cleaned up from the last meal of the day. The kitchen was usually like this, at least as long as the kitchen supervisor, a stern and humorless woman named Magda, wasn't around. She usually left just as the evening meal was being served. For many of the women—Bethany included—hours spent in the kitchen following that meal were the most pleasant on the station.

She didn't have many female friends here. She had left so many years ago to be married that few of the girls she grew up with were still around. Most had moved to various other mining stations to be with their husbands. As a widow without children, she didn't fit in the rest of them. Some of them scorned her, but others looked on her with kindness. She might not have friends, but certainly she wasn't among enemies in the kitchen. At least not in the evening, when the younger women worked.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Moriah. She was wearing a high-necked tunic which completely covered the bruises Bethany knew were on her neck. Moriah shot her a quick smile, and Bethany gave a sigh of relief. If someone had caught her sneaking out of the apartment she wouldn't be smiling.

Pushing the cart over toward the big kettles at one end of the kitchen, she steadied it as two of the women poured nutritional gruel into the large tubs. As soon as they were full, she headed back with the cart. It was heavy now, but she didn't allow herself to think about it how hard it was to push. She still had two more trips to make before she ate her own breakfast, and then it would be time to wash everything again.

* * * * *

She was back. Jess forced himself to lay utterly motionless, in the same position he had been when she left him earlier. It was hard to ignore the smell of the hot food she had wheeled into the main room.

Her name was Bethany. Her presence had filled his senses from the moment he'd awakened three days earlier. Everything about her seemed beautiful to him—amazing. Bragan seemed to have no appreciation for the beauty of her name when he'd mentioned it, yet Jess repeated it to himself over and over like a mantra. Bethany. He loved her clean smell, loved listening to the soft songs she would hum as she cleaned and worked. He also loved the occasional touches she gave him, checking his forehead or wiping his face as he feigned sleep.

Bragan said she was an outcast among her own people. He seemed to feel she could be trusted, and the story of how she'd saved his life was certainly amazing to Jess. Still, he wanted her to believe he was unconscious for another day. The longer he was incapacitated, the more likely he was to learn valuable information. Bragan had often tried to spy on the guards at night, but he was too tired to stay up much.

Fatigue could kill a man in the mines. Jess' injury had given him the perfect excuse to rest all day and plot all night.

He waited quietly she wheeled the heavy carts of food in to the men. He could hear their activity.

Fifteen minutes to eat. Then they were pouring out of the barracks and suiting up for their work in the mine. Another day, just like all the others before it.

Bragan stopped in, followed by the woman. Jess lay still as he took his pulse, then spoke to the woman.

"He seems to be stronger," Bragan said cautiously. Jess held back a snort of amusement. He was better all right. Last night he and Bragan had talked for an hour, planning his slow process of "recovery"

and the escape they hoped would follow. In all honesty, he was still weak. But there wasn't any reason he couldn't have gone back to the mine in a day or so.

Instead, they were going to keep him out for almost the entire two weeks. It was a delicate balance.

If he were too sick the Pilgrims would give up on him. But he couldn't go back to work until the last minute. He needed every moment of precious freedom to plan and plot the escape. If things went well, he would be free in less than two weeks. Free or dead.

Jess was relatively certain that if he could come up with a decent escape plan, the men would follow him. Logan was covering his end; already they had ten volunteers who wanted their implants removed. If everything went off just right, that might be enough. They were willing to risk death to get out. But up to this point, no one had been able to find an avenue of escape that had even a chance of success.

He was determined to do it, or die trying.

The men had left for the mine now. She was moving around in the room, and he could hear the rattling of the carts. He was so damn hungry—Bragan had promised to leave him some food in his locker. He had to wait until the men were all in the mines and she was gone to get it, though. The carts rattled again, and he could hear her washing the trays. It seemed like forever… he imagined the tiny bits of porridge left on them, being washed into the station's recycler. They would be used again, perhaps for dinner that night. But he needed food now…