Federations

He wants nothing more to do with religious fanatics. Now this one PEACE survivor presents him with an unpleasant problem.

Theowane runs her fingers over the access controls. “Ready,” she says. She keeps her voice low and her eyes averted.

Amu stands to his full height in front of the escape pod. “Open it.”

As the hatch cracks, a hiss of air floods in, equalizing the two pressures. Then comes a cough, then sputtering, annoying words. A young boy wrestles himself into a sitting position and snaps his arms out, flexing them and shaking his cramped hands. “What took you so long? You’re as bad as PEACE.”

Theowane steps back. Amu blinks, but remains in place. The boy is thin, with dark shadows around his eyes. His body appears bruised, his hands raw, as if he has been trying to claw his way out of the escape pod.

Amu can’t stop himself from bursting out with a loud laugh. The boy whirls to him, outraged, but after a brief pause he too cracks a grin that contains immense relief and exhaustion. With this one response, he proves to Amu that he is no PEACE convert.

“Why didn’t you let yourself out?” Theowane asks. “Isn’t there an emergency release inside?”

The boy turns a look of scorn to her. “I know what’s in the air on Bastille, and in the water. I couldn’t see where I was. It might be bad to be cramped in this coffin for hours—but it would be plenty worse to take a shower in sulfuric acid.” He pauses for just a moment. “And speaking of showers, can I get out of here and take one?”

• • •

After the boy has cleaned and rested himself, Amu summons him for dinner. The other prisoners on Bastille have expressed their curiosity, but they will have to wait until Amu decides to make a statement.

“Dybathia,” the boy says when Amu asks his name. “I know it sounds noble and high-born. My parents had high expectations of me.” He stops just long enough for Amu to absorb that, but not long enough for him to ask any further questions.

“I ran away from home,” Dybathia says. “It took me a week to make it to the spaceport. When I got there, I slipped onto the first open ship and hid in their cargo bay. I didn’t care where it was going, and I didn’t plan to show myself until we were on our way into hyperspace. I figured anyplace was better than home, right?” He snickers.

“It turned out to be a PEACE ship. They wouldn’t let me off. They kept me around, constantly quoting tracts at me, trying to make me convert. Do my eyes look glazed? Am I brain-damaged?”

Amu allows a smile to form, but he does not answer.

Dybathia says, “They shut off their servo-maintenance drones and made me do the cleaning, scrubbing down decks and walls with a solvent that should have been labeled as toxic waste. Look at my hands! The captain said monotonous work allows one to clear the mind and become at peace with the universe.”

Theowane breaks into the conversation, “Why were you the only one who got to an escape pod?” Amu looks up at her sharply, but she doesn’t withdraw the question.

Dybathia shrugs. “I was the only one who bothered. The rest of them just sat there and accepted their fate.”

This rings so true with Amu from his memories of his parents that he finds himself nodding.

• • •

Dybathia looks at the mind-scanning apparatus; this will be the most dangerous moment for him. The device is left over from the first days of Bastille, when human supervisory crews had established the colony. That month had been the only time when non-prisoners and prisoners cohabited the planet; as a precaution they had used intensive search devices and mental scanners, which had remained unused since those other humans had turned Bastille over to the Warden.

“You do understand why we have to do this?” Amu asks.

Dybathia sees more concern on the face of the leader than he expects. This is going better than he had hoped. “Yes, I understand perfectly.” He flicks his gaze toward Theowane, then back to Amu. “It’s because she’s paranoid.”

Theowane bristles, as he expects her to. She makes each word of her answer clipped and hard. “Your story is too convenient. How do we know you’re not an . . . assassin? What if you’ve been drugged or hypnotized? We can’t know what the Praesidentrix might do.”

Knowing it is imperative for him to allay their suspicions, Dybathia submits to an intensive physical search that scans every square centimeter of his body, probes all orifices, uses a sonogram to detect any subcutaneous needles, poison-gas capsules, perhaps a timed-release biological plague.

They find nothing, because there is nothing to find.

“The psyche assessor won’t hurt you,” Amu says. “Just stick your head within its receiving range.”

“How does it work?” Dybathia asks. He frowns skeptically. “How do I know this isn’t one of those machines to condition prisoners? I don’t want to end up like a PEACE convert.”

“Explain it to him, Theowane.” Amu smiles at her, as if he knows how it will rankle her.