Humanity in the Deep

Kat soldered the last wire in place and screwed the radio shut.

She looked up and tried to ignore the guards standing over the five of them as they worked. Corwin, his daughter, and Bruce worked on the nuclear electric cable. She and Isaac worked on the radios.

The two weeks they had been there had been comfortable at least. Two weeks of helping them. Two weeks of pretending they liked the slaves and were so grateful they were willing to make radios. She was still not sure if they honestly could not tell how disgusted they were with idea of slavery, or if the locals were just toying with them.

All they had the slaves do was dance for them. It was the best thing they could think of that would show they were using the slaves. The fact that they had to get a translator from Tyra to even talk to them meant they couldn’t even have a conversation.

She looked at Isaac and said, “Radio test.” He still wore the same sullen look from when they took Camie away.

He was in pain. A pain she understood too well. He and Jacklyn had taken to sleeping together. Not sex; she thought they just didn’t want to be alone.

He reminded her of one of her psychology courses. One expert writing on sudden, long-term, high-stress situations said that most people either learned to bear the stress to work while under it, or they just broke and lost all will to live.

“Radio test Issac,” she reminded him gently with her hand on his arm.

He looked up from the radio he was working on, picked up a completed one and said, “Test, one, two, three.” Into it.

Kat listened and heard it clearly.

At least, that time, the clock was synced. Without that working, the radios would not know what frequency to listen to at any given time. When they were working correctly the radios would rapidly shift frequencies and encryption. Encryption that would be all but impossible to break with just an electronic computer.

“Thank you,” she said to Isaac with a hand on his arm while looking at the guards.

She had hardly started the next radio when two guards approached her. The first motioned with his gun, the other kept both her and the other guard covered.

They wanted her to go with them.

---

Kat never got used to having guns trained on her.

Leading her across the factory, they passed several rooms with large numbers of people working in them. Most looked ragged and underfed.

They passed by some windows and she saw a patrol go by outside. They wore heavy armor and one had a large tube that she thought was a rocket launcher.

Arriving at what must have been the other side of the factory, she was let into a room she assumed to be an office. She saw Tyra sitting behind a desk. He had a comp; the only one she had seen on the planet except the one they were given to help make the radio’s.

She was pushed into a chair by the guard who then loomed behind her.

Tyra kept going through papers for five minutes, ignoring her, then looked up, and threw her a translator.

Corwin had been taken to see him a few times but no one else had.

Can’t be that bad if he wants to talk.

He started talking and the translator kicked in a second later and echoed it back in English. “Isaac is not doing well. What does he need?”

Thinking of Camie, she just stared at him.

In a commanding voice, he said, “Answer the question.” He motioned and one of the guards put his hands on her shoulders, holding her down on the chair.

Keeping her voice steady, she said, “He was in love with Camie. The one who was left behind.” The translator beeped, she guessed the word love was why. The translation program was not good at abstracts.

Trying her best to ignore the guns, she quickly said, “He valued her life more than his own. I don’t think the translators know the word for that.”

She was going to explain more but his look of angry confusion stopped her.

“What was she doing for him? Sex? Drugs? I can get him anything he needs.

“Or is this because he’s a child?”

They had been called children before. They assumed it was a problem with the translation or an insult. No one really thought it was worth the risk of asking.

Well, no time like the present.

“Your people have called us adult children. What does that mean?” She really hoped she was not offending him.

“It means you still are affected by the compulsions.”

He didn’t look put out, so Kat took that as a good sign.

“What are the compulsions?”

“They stop children from being able to act rationally. Children aren’t able to tolerate others being in pain, among other things.”

Emotions... he’s talking about emotions.

She swallowed slowly and looked at Tyra, thinking back to when they beat up Camie. The look of total shock when Isaac moved to attack suddenly made more sense.

“I assumed the information we were sent was incorrect. Finding one adult child is a rarity, six would defy reason. But we are getting off point. How can we fix Isaac so he is more productive?”

“Can you get Camie back?”

He laughed. It was anything but pleasant.

“No. She’s the leader’s now. He wanted one of you on hand, to speak your language, answer questions, things like that. I hear he has taken a liking to her. It’s not even worth asking.

“Now if he wants a woman, even one that looks like Camie, I can arrange that.”

Thinking quickly, she said, “I think...I think I can take care of it,” She said as quickly as she could. She had to get out of there.

“See that you do.” And with a wave of his hand, she was taken back out of the room.

“Its clinical name is sociopathy. You would remember that if you paid more attention in history or in practical psychology,” Corwin told Kat.

Kat was back near their sleeping quarters, where the nuclear-electric cable was being made.

She was trying to manually calibrate the extruder, the bit that was supposed to wind the various parts that make the nuclear-electric cable work, then magnetically fuse them. She was using a wristcomp to display what the output mag field should be.

She was not doing a good job but was slowly getting better.

Corwin was on the other side of the prototype, working on the input.

She had just finished briefing him on her meeting with Tyra. They were talking low to not be overheard by any listening devices, or the half dozen or so men with guns in the room.

She replied softly, “Does knowing they’re sociopaths help us?”

“Maybe, it does mean we can’t trust the slaves. We can’t take them with us.”

Kat looked at them. They looked haggard and pathetic. It was hard to think of them as threats.

“Even if we could talk to them, we could hardly trust anything they would say. Sociopaths don’t care about anyone but themselves. They can’t. They would give us away in a second if it would give them an advantage.”

Corwin put a hand on her shoulder and said, “A mad dog on a leash is still a mad dog. I feel sorry for them, but we must put our own people first.

“More interesting are the guards you saw out the window. You don’t carry heavy artillery to keep prisoners.”

“Maybe they really are here to guard us from something.” Kat said hopefully. That was what Tyra maintained, but they found it hard to believe.

He said, “Tighten up the secondary field; it’s too loose.”

They had to get away. She said. “There has to be a way to get more information about them.”

“How grateful do you think he was?” Corwin asked quickly.

Thinking back, she said, “Very, I get the impression he is bending over backwards to make us happy. Still, think we’re missing something. It’s not like making a radio is hard.”

“I don’t think they work together well. Look at them.” Kat looked at the guards standing in the corner of the room.

“They never stand together, they never laugh, they hardly ever talk. I thought it was professionalism but now I’m not sure. You think we could get a translator full-time if we say it would help Isaac?”

Kat thought back and kicked herself for not thinking of that when she was talking to Tyra.

“I’d be surprised if he didn’t at least let us have it longer. We could just tell him he wants to talk to the slaves,” Kat said.

“We wouldn’t have to trust them. We would just be asking for basic information about this area,” Corwin said. “Maybe spin it as he is just lonely and wants someone to talk to. God knows that’s true enough.

“In any event, we need to get going or we may never leave. With luck, in a few months, the Erikson will be gone and we’re going to be on it. The least we need to do is send a signal. I doubt we can do that from in here.”

“It’s not like the ones watching us know what we’re doing.” She remembered when a guard almost electrocuted himself on a radio she was troubleshooting.

“The power we would need to push through meters of concrete would be insane, to say the least.

“Even if they knew where we were and the layout of this place, the odds they could land and get us out of here alive is infinitesimal. As I’m sure you know better than I do.”

He looked off into the distance. “No, it’s our job to get away from here. To get to somewhere we can call them. They will have to find a way to get us off planet.”

---

Kat put another meter of cable into the tester and closed the heavy lid.

She clipped the voltmeter to each end then slowly turned a heavy nob. A small amount of uranium was exposed to the cable. The voltmeter shot up, then dropped to zero.

Well, it’s progress.

Isaac looked better at least, not that she could see much through the heavy goggles they were all wearing. What with the ‘earthling sensitivity to bright light’ and all.

Half an hour later, she heard a loud crash outside and all but two of the guards left.

If the slave was to be believed, the unincorporated were attacking. The unincorporated were from a bordering city that had no leader and no organization. Apparently, bands of them got together to attack sometimes.

She almost shook with excitement when she looked at Corwin, who gave a slight nod.

That was their chance. She knew she should be afraid, but fear was never really a strong motivator for her.

The guard said something, then motioned with his rifle.

They all slowly backed to the door of their room they were housed in. She kept wanting to look back at the center table but resisted.

A few seconds later, she heard Corwin softly say, “Flashbang:... three.”

She closed her eyes as hard as she could.

Everyone else did the same as the room flashed so bright, she could see it through the goggles and closed eyes.

Getting to her feet, she ran at the guard closest to her. He was pointing his gun toward Corwin. Kat ran as fast as she could.

There were several shots, which must have been from the other guard. Ignoring them, she kneed her guard in the balls and punched him in the head.

She didn’t stop until her hands were bloody and the local stopped moving.

When she finally looked up, she saw that the other guard was on the ground and bleeding from his head. He looked like he was out cold. Corwin was at his feet, in a pool of blood and with a hole through his back, right through his heart.

The others were standing in shock. After calmly picking up the guns from both guards, Kat shot the one in the head who had killed Lt Corwin. She then shot the other in the head twice, just in case.

That shook everyone out of it.

They had both known the plan was risky. They had known that one or both would probably die. But still, seeing his corpse made her feel sick.

Pushing the grief to the side, she slung one gun on her back. She had a duty. If Corwin couldn’t do it, she would have to.

She put the guard’s extra ammo on. Bruce grabbed a bag and stuffed the radio inside and pushed it at Isaac.

In a quiet but level voice, Kat said, “We’re leaving,” as she handed Bruce the second rifle, hoping that he wouldn’t have to use it. He had never shot a gun before.

Jacklyn was in shock after seeing her father killed.

Kat walked up to Jacklyn and slapped her hard on the face.

She would be damned if she would let Corwin’s daughter die there.

“Jacklyn, put all the food that will fit in one of the boxes.” She pointed to one of the small crates in the corner.

“Your father did not die for nothing! We need to get to the unincorporated city if we want to live.”

When she hesitated, Kat spoke louder and said, “Go!” and Jacklyn went.

“Isaac grab all the water you can carry.”

While he was doing that, she and Bruce tied up the slaves with some large wire.

They were lucky the locals had agreed to store their food and water in their workspace. Another of Tyra’s rewards.

As Jacklyn and Isaac scrambled to get the food and water, Bruce said, “This is everything I can carry. We really should be going.” He had a box with the radio and parts that might be useful.

Kat said, “We will.” She grabbed the translator, the wristcomp that was intact, and the one they had taken apart for its NEG to power the flashbang. The pea-size NEG was ruined, but it was well worth it.

She was itching to leave, but she had talked it over with Corwin. If they didn’t take enough supplies, there was no point in leaving.

The last thing she grabbed was all the coins both guards had on them. Bruce had gotten the slaves to tell them about their money. Digging around their pockets, Kat was surprised when she found much more than just walking around money. It was months of pay if Kat was right about the denominations.

Seeing that everyone else had the stuff they were told to get she said, “Isaac, Jacklyn, you’re behind me. Bruce, take up the rear.” She then held her rifle like she knew how to use it and marched in the direction of the nearest window. If they were right, everyone would be busy repelling the raid.

---

Their little group made it out of the spaceport without much trouble. Everyone was fighting, it was easy to sneak out back.

After an hour of walking, buildings and roads began looking worse and worse. Roads quickly became unpassable except on foot. Few buildings looked to even have entire roofs; Kat wondered how many decades or centuries it had been since they were built.

“It certainly looks like the slaves described,” Bruce spoke up softly from behind Kat.

“I just hope it’s as lawless as they said, give us a fight chance.”

Corwin had been afraid at first that they would stick out like sore thumbs, but from what she could tell, carrying guns was normal. Those few that were out at night just ignored them. Most of the people she saw looked half-starved. Kat was more afraid of her skin color drawing attention, but that would only be a problem once the sun came up.

She felt dead on her feet and Bruce looked worse. Jacklyn and Isaac looked the same, they had the same haunted looked in their eyes they had started with. Although, none of them had complained. She had told them to be quiet and they had listened.

Bruce walked up beside her and quietly said, “I think that will do.” He pointed to a large building which looked like it’s second story had collapsed.

Kat said, “I’d like to get further inside.”

“So would I, but we have been seen by enough people as is. We need to be inside well before sunrise. We also need to be fresh enough to stand watch.”

Sighing and looking around, she saw no one. Walking into the building, she saw that it probably had two stories at one point but only a small part of the second story was left; most of the first story was open to the elements. It was mostly clean, no bodies or anything to rot.

“There’s a basement, Kat, this will do fine,” Bruce called out from to Kat’s left.

“We stay here then.”

Isaac and Jacklyn collapsed in the basement after putting down their loads. Bruce looked more tired than they were, but he asked, “You want me to take first watch?”

“I will, but let’s see if we can send a signal first.”

Bruce pulled out the radio. He then took the small parabolic dish out of his pocket, slipped it on and said, “It’s good. Just need the wristcomp.”

Kat handed it to Bruce.

Carrying the radio, they went upstairs to the first floor, then up to the remains of the second floor. Fortunately, they, and more importantly, the camera, on the wristcomp, could see the stars. In a few seconds, it said it was ready to transmit.

“Here goes everything,” he said as he hit transmit. The message they had typed in, plus what little information they had on where they were staying, was sent out several hundred times to the Erikson.

---

Roger was dead tired. The council had more work than they had hours, so he was doing as much each day as he could.

At the start and end of each day, he tried to make the rounds, do what he could to help morale. The current day was scheduled to be filled with council meetings.

Among other topics, the council was discussing how to deal with the ever-present problem of their shortage of people. They had lost too many marines when boarding the gas giant station. Not to mention the nova and the local’s raid. Truth was, they were barely holding on. Adrian was saying that they were going to run into major morale problems with the marines, which was nothing he had not said before. He was trying to get the council to authorize a draft to drum up more marines.

The captain’s comp beeped, surprising Roger, he hoped it was nothing serious.

Patel spoke on his headset for a few seconds then stood up, interrupting Adrian.

“I do apologize for the interruption but astrometics has received a signal from the local’s home world. It’s from our people. Four of them, including Mrs. Loke, are alive and free of the authorities.”