The Price of Freedom (Saurellian Federation 2)

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…

Finally, she finished. She loaded the carts up and then rapped on the outer door. The guards on the other side opened it, letting her out. He heard the door slam shut, and slowly raised himself from the pallet.

Opening the door slowly, he peeked out to make sure the room was empty. It was.

He crept over to Bragan's locker. Nothing. He pawed through the contents, and then he found it. Damn, but the man was resourceful.

There was an empty blast casing, the type the Pilgrims used to form the plastic explosives used in the mining. They were careful never to allow the slaves access to the explosives, of course. All the blasting was done during the slaves' sleep cycle.

But the forms they used sometimes got lost. There was a bounty for returning them, an extra ration of food at night. But many of the slaves kept them, using them for other things.

Bragan had filled this one with porridge.

It was cold and gelatinous. It wouldn't flow out freely, so he dug his finger in, digging at it and stuffing it into his mouth. Nothing had ever tasted better in the history of time. Nothing.

All too soon it was gone. Bragan had warned him he needed to be cautious about over-eating, and his stomach was full. Hunger satiated, he was suddenly aware of the low, painful throbbing in the back of his neck. There was nothing they could do about the pain. He gritted his teeth, willing himself to ignore it.

Quickly, he cleaned out the empty tube and put it back in Bragan's locker. They would need it again that night.

He crept back to the storage room, uncertain of how much longer he had before she returned. He needed to find a way to time the guards' movements during the work cycle. The bastards had to have a weakness, and Jess was going to find it.

* * * * *

Bethany ate her own small bowl of porridge in the kitchen. The kitchen crew was cleaning up the last of the main evening meal, as well as preparing special food for the blasters returning from the mine. They worked in two shifts, blasting by day and guarding the slaves by night. Of course, the elders, such as her father, weren't directly involved in the mining efforts. That would hardly be appropriate for their dignity.

There were also groups who traveled between settlements, and a very small number who traveled to Discovery Station, where the ore was processed.