Page 11 of Origin (Deridia #13)

Ellion had given little thought to what transport might mean. Another ship. Pods, maybe, although he was certain Hana would have said if they had to endure something as awful as that. They lined up with the other prisoners. Was a little surprised when a few even joined their group.

They wore grim expressions, which likely matched his own. He gave Hana a curious look, and she leaned in as close as she dared. “Some come out, others go in,” she murmured, almost too low for him to hear. She did her best not to look at them and kept her hands firmly on the sheets of paper she’d finished the day before.

All neatly written. The numbers big and bold. She even added a note of congratulations for making it through their prescribed punishment. She hoped they’d be well in the future.

He wasn’t certain those were the things he’d want to hear after a stint in the tunnels, but he said nothing. It obviously made her feel better to write it, and he doubted any of them would read it in any case.

He hadn’t been outside the outer walls yet.

He’d pestered Hana for details the night before. About landscape and buildings. Would they see any other compounds? Because there were more. She’d said that? Or was it a guard?

The days were blurring together. What he knew and what he imagined were not as crisp as they should have been.

A problem, to be sure. Especially when—no if —Hana ever tired of his questions.

“It’s... open,” Hana explained, clearly not used to having to describe something as simple as what lay beyond the walls. She couldn’t equate it to something from their home world, because he wouldn’t remember it. “Flat. Seen nothing like it. I can’t speak for the whole world, of course, but our portion is just...” her hand smoothed the air, demonstrating her point. “It’s like being plunked down somewhere forgotten. Or where no one found it in the first place.” She’d shaken her head and picked at her meal, and he wondered if he was ever going to stop distracting her long enough for her to eat properly. It would be a shame for her to lose any of her softness.

Those thoughts were inappropriate, and he pushed it down as best he could. She was his friend. He could admire her, but he didn’t need to think about plush curves and how she might feel against him.

He’d belatedly realised that what he was craving was a hug. A silly sort of thing to want, most especially when he’d no way of knowing if he was used to receiving them before.

But he wanted one. From her.

To feel grounded and real.

“It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen,” Hana’d continued, obvious to the turn of his thoughts and his efforts to control them. “There’s a river. They follow that to the fields. Irrigation, you know. Or, because no one knows how to do that efficiently, they dump water here and there and hope it sticks long enough for the plants to grow.”

Her book would know. The ones that weren’t hers. The ones that were sitting locked in an office, doing no good to anybody except the one woman who’d positioned herself so she might read them.

She’d share the knowledge with them, if they thought to ask. She’d share anything at all.

Except for her meal, she’d explained when he escorted her behind the line into the kitchen. Where a tray was shoved at her, steam curling. The only welcome she got.

She hastened out, murmuring her thanks. There would have been apologies along with it, he was certain. But perhaps those had died out from being poorly received, so now it was only thanks and make her way out as quickly as possible.

He eyed it, only because he was curious. That was her food, earned by taking on a role nobody else wanted. Even so, she felt the need to explain why she couldn’t share it with him. “The first night, someone stole it. I wasn’t going to say anything, but the guards noticed. Beat him bloody. Told me I’m the only one that gets to eat it, or else the consequences will be the same.”

She swallowed, the memory not a pleasant one. Some might have revelled in it just a little. A swift and thorough revenge against having something unjustly taken.

But not Hana.

She was bothered and did not hide it.

“He still here?” Ellion asked, glancing about the room. “The one that took it?”

She blinked. Looked even worse, which was something. “No.”

Ellion gave her a searching look. “I thought part of the trade-off was lifetime sentences.”

She swallowed. Took a sip of her drink. Not water. This sparkled. Bubbled. An odd thing to be sure. “There was a brawl a week later. He took a blow to the head which didn’t mix well with the one he’d already had.”

She picked up what appeared to be some sort of bread. Round. Soft. Not the hard, flat thing that needed to soak in the gravy to become pliable enough to chew.

It wasn’t a complaint. The food filled his belly, and he liked the company he kept. Even the people in line seemed too tired from the new work orders to cause any trouble just for the sake of it. The room was as quiet as it could be, filled with people scraping metal utensils against metal trays. When voices were kept low until it was a subtle drone that mixed into a pleasant sort of nothingness.

“That wasn’t your fault,” Ellion assured her, just in case she needed to hear it.

She shrugged, making a deliberate effort to take a full bite and avoid anymore of his talk.

Should he press her? Make sure she understood that the man made a choice, and the consequences were beyond what he expected, but they were still his to bear?

He didn’t.

He let her eat. Let her grow quiet and pensive, and wished he could reach out and grasp her hand, just to remind her she wasn’t alone. That he did not blame her, even if she insisted on blaming herself.

He hadn’t pressured. He’d said what was needed, and it was up to her to decide to believe him or not.

They’d sat quietly.

Walked quietly, too.

Until she’d turned on him when he insisted on escorting her to her dormitory. He was being ridiculous, according to her. She’d been here far longer, and she wouldn’t have him following her to the lavatory afterward, and she hadn’t had her wash yet and most certainly would not bother her in there.

“No,” he agreed. “But I need one of my own, so what would be so wrong about being nearby if you need me?”

Her hands were on her hips again. She was readying for a fight, and he wasn’t sure how they’d started one, but he would not yield. He had proof on a piece of paper in his pocket that this was his job, and he would do it how he saw fit. There was no stipulation that his role began at breakfast and ended at the evening meal.

Her wishes mattered. Her sense of modesty as well.

But not more than her safety.

Surely she could see this was practical. What she’d wanted.

“Ellion,” she began, and he usually liked the way his name sounded on her lips, but now it was dripping with something indulgent. Like he was something to be endured rather than reasoned with. “You will not be with me every moment. You need to rest the same as anyone. And you’ll be doing it in your dorm. And if I need the lav in the middle of the night, I will not come to fetch you!”

Her cheeks were flushed, and it was obvious she found the entire conversation mortifying.

“It’s not the middle of the night now,” he reminded her, trying equally hard to be patient with her stubbornness as she was with his.

Her lips thinned. Her eyes flashed.

Then she closed them tightly, which really wasn’t safe because people were still mingling about. The ones that had finished their eating. The ones coming in from their shifts, brushing past and casting annoyed glances as they kept too near the doorway.

Instinct warned him about what he was about to do, but he quieted it. They were friends. They’d agreed on it. She was his boss second.

So he took her gently by the arm to lead her away from the comings and goings. He would have dropped it immediately if she’d given the slightest hint his touch was unwelcome, but rather than pressing her lips together, she allowed him to lead her slightly away.

“Do you need to pick up a change of clothes?” he asked. Perhaps it was wrong to insist. Or perhaps she doubted his motivation and thought he intended to ask her to wash with him. Did such things have to be clarified between friends?

New friends, though. He didn’t know her history. Didn’t know what she’d seen or been asked to endure, whether here or in the prison she’d known before.

“This is excessive,” she complained. But she turned on her heel and started for her dorm.

“Noted,” Ellion agreed. “I will compromise with you. And I won’t even check your cupboard for cameras.” He walked a little fast so he might catch her eye. “See how reasonable I can be?”

She gave him a pointed glance, eyeing him from head to toe. “That wasn’t the word I would have picked.”

She did not elaborate, choosing to keep it to herself, but he supposed it was less than flattering. She was simply too polite to share it with him.

“Charming, then,” he supplied. Determined to win a smile from her. The last thing he wanted was for her to be truly cross. For regret to push in. He wanted her favour, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit it, if only to himself. “Persuasive.”

“Presumptuous,” she countered. “Pushy would be another.”

He clicked his tongue and shook his head. “I don’t like those as well. Pick a different one.”

Her lips twitched, so he decided he was winning. “Impossible,” she decided, and her eyes were crinkling and there was no hiding the amusement in them, so blew out a long breath and shook his head.

“I suppose I’ll take that. But only because I’m generous.”

She snorted out a laugh before she covered it up with the back of her hand. “I’ll add that to your list of attributes,” she teased. “See how long it takes for the good to outweigh the bad.”

He hummed, because there was nothing malicious in her tone, despite her best efforts to remain serious. He could be a horrid man for all he knew. A liar and a cheat, his crimes blazoned on his forearm for any with the knowledge to read it. Or maybe he was a good man that had been mixed up in something awful, and this state of not-knowing was a boon. That he didn’t have to live with the weight of it. The guilt.

He tried to imagine what crime he could see Hana committing. Failed utterly. She seemed too kind a person to steal. If she was a liar, she was the best he could imagine, so earnest was she in everything she said, and most especially what she believed in.

He wanted to ask.

Didn’t. Not when he’d just smoothed things over again.

She indulged his need to follow her about. All the way to when she was going to tuck into bed, and insisted he do the same. Better to be rested the night before, she explained. Didn’t bother to mention that it was because she had trouble sleeping afterward, but he could see that in the set of her jaw. Would it bother him? He couldn’t know.

She felt things deeply. Had a great compassion for others, not just for him.

He felt for her. Cared about her. But he could not pretend that it was a sentiment that extended to every person in the compound.

The others in their group shuffled about, heads alternating between looking up at the sky as if it was the last time they might see it and staring at the ground. Picturing what it would be like to go below the surface? He’d spent too long the night before preparing himself. Trying to conjure every horrid thing he could imagine, so nothing might surprise him. His work was different. Hers was to engage with the prisoners.

He was to look for dangers. Keep her safe.

Make sure no one turned grabby or hostile.

He’d considered taking his utensil from breakfast to help in the endeavour. The edge was curved, but with enough force, it could do some damage.

He’d put it back. If they wanted him to work with a weapon, they would have provided one. And the last thing he needed was to earn a shift down in the tunnels. Convenient, though. Just keep him there, stamp an allotted time, and he’d see Hana when he was done.

He rubbed at the back of his neck. The wait was a terrible thing, and he knew he’d be back later that day.

If he’d seen transportation like the ones that moved toward them, nothing in his mind suggested it was the case. These were hovering solar panels, with cages rather than tops and walls. They’d get blown about depending on the speed, but he supposed they were practical, so no one preferred to brave the wilds of the planet than endure any more time in the prison itself.

The farm workers were crushed in tight, and he was more than grateful that was not his destination. Their group was so few that they could sit away from one another, the cage door clamouring behind them as it was locked by a guard. They did not sit, but stood on the open panel, hooking a spine on the cage wall to stabilise themselves. He saw no controls. Nothing to suggest how they were programmed to drive. But suddenly they were moving, the gates opening, and they were beyond the walls.

Hana sat with her backs to the others in the cage, her face pressed close to the bars so she could soak in everything that passed.

It was... foolish. Extremely. Any of them could have attacked her. Bargained with her life to be released by the guards outside. She should be out with them. Shackled, if need be, rather than placed in a cage where anything might have happened to her.

“Beautiful like I said, isn’t it?”

She thought he’d be able to notice? When he stood behind her, facing the others around them, making sure none of them made any moves. A couple glanced at him. At her. Panicky at the edges, the others resigned. Had they been before? It was obviously not enough of a deterrent to keep from committing another offence.

Or were some contracted to work for a season, regardless of behaviour?

Would he?

The thought was a sobering one.

She’d made her choices because of what she’d seen. Being ostracised was better than the heavy farm work. Whatever he was about to witness.

“Beautiful,” he agreed, forcing his eyes to take in at least a little of the scenery beyond. There was the river, but they turned away from it. She sighed when they did it. She turned her head to glance at him, and he stopped staring at the others.

“You can sit,” she suggested. “There’s a ways to go.”

He could refuse. The craft was smooth, seeming to have little trouble with the varied terrain. It was safe enough to stand. Preferable, even, if there was going to be a scuffle.

“Not just yet,” he said at last, and watched her shrug.

“Suit yourself.”

As if there was no danger. Nothing to hold her attention other than the world outside.

Except... maybe things were different now. Because she had him to look out for her. Maybe before she’d been an anxious huddle, unable to appreciate the view as she so obviously desired because she had to watch out for herself.

But now she had him.

The thought warmed him far more than it should.

It seemed better not to talk. It was one thing to share a quiet conversation during mealtimes when there was other chatter to drown out the specifics of their words. It was quite another to engage when others had little else to do but listen.

He couldn’t quite account for why he wanted things to be private between them, but he couldn’t deny the anxious looks he cast down to Hana every few minutes. Willing her to remember not to mention his unfortunate amnesia. Not to talk about the office. Cameras. Certainly not his number.

They were needless worries.

Her attention was solely fixed on the landscape beyond. Where the vibrant greens and blues by the river leeched away, to sombre browns and golds of grassy plains.

They’d gone further than he’d expected. His legs weren’t tired, not exactly, but he could see why Hana had suggested he sit.

“How long you got?” one prisoner asked the other, extending a foot to nudge the other. The response was not a gentle one, the other lurching to the side, obviously not expecting either the touch or the attention.

His eyes darted to Hana, as if she was the one that had given the allotment.

Or the one that could confirm the accuracy?

Ellion shifted, putting himself more firmly between them.

“A week to start,” came the answer. “They’ll assess my attitude after that.”

This time, he glanced toward the guards outside before he shuddered and tucked his head back down.

Young, but weary. A whole life ahead, with little hope of anything good coming of it.

The thought disturbed him because it felt too near the truth. Or maybe too near to something lived rather than observed?

He rubbed at the mark on his arm, although Hana told him not to whenever she caught him at it. She didn’t chide him for it now, and that almost worried him more.

It was one thing if she was simply enjoying the view. It was quite another if she was lost in her own head.

He wanted to ask if she was all right.

Didn’t dare.

“I’ve got double that,” the first man—boy?—offered, although no one had asked. “You been before?”

“I have,” came a gruff voice from the opposite side of the cage. “It’ll go better if you keep your mouth shut. You can start practicing now.”

Ellion didn’t know if that was true or was simply to cut down the chatter, but it was effective. None of the others dared to join in, and Hana did not offer any insight. She had some. Would have given any if asked.

But they wouldn’t.

Didn’t.

Not even when the plains became punctuated with rocky boulders. When the boulders opened to what appeared to be a cave, but Ellion was rather sure it was the opening to a tunnel.

The craft itself fit, but just barely. The cage scraped against hard rock, sparking in an alarming manner, most especially when that became the only source of light they had at all.

Hana was humming something under her breath. Something lilting and soft, and he could feel her rocking against the back of his legs. Soothing herself.

She was frightened.

It was dark enough that he could kneel down and comfort her. Whisper that he was there, she wasn’t alone this time. They’d do the work and be done, and she’d get to see open fields and a nice river. He might even be able to enjoy it once.

But the darkness also could be used against them.

Against her.

So instead, he stood firmly. Let her rock against him, feel him steady and immovable. Absorb what comfort she could while he stood watch, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dark.

A torch.

Not artificial, like... his mind grew fuzzy, like a memory had come, but faded too quickly for him to catch it.

But the light had been bright and almost white.

Not this flickering bit of captured flame, sending out shadow and hints of smoke that threatened to choke them in the confines of the tunnel.

Still, they were moving.

Almost crushed someone along the way when they did not hear the approaching craft.

Or...

Ellion swallowed.

No, they had done it on purpose. And a guard had pulled them out of the way in time, and...

They moved along before he could make out anything else.

They slowed further.

When the tunnel itself opened into a larger space. There were too few torches to make out the total size. It left him on edge, not knowing the full breadth of their surroundings. Smaller was better. Easier to calculate the variables. This...

The guards hopped to the ground. The cage door opened.

“Out,” the translator buzzed in his ear. Was it better to be first or last?

Hana was already moving. First it would be.

Her legs weren’t quite steady as she moved, and he grabbed hold of her arm before she had a chance to stumble. “You going to make it?” he murmured into her ear.

She drew in a breath and shrugged her shoulders.

Not the answer he was hoping for.

He wanted to say more. To tease the fear out of her. But they had a job to do, and that would have to wait. He helped her down, and she led him to stand against a wall. A wall was good. Hard-packed earth and stone behind them. Solid and where no one could jump out. Fewer places he had to look.

More orders because one prisoner refused to move. Kept mumbling about darkness, and the guard would give an angry retort about how they provided torches for their inadequate eyes, and where was their gratitude?

In the end, the guard had to go in.

The hard sound of a club against bone.

A prisoner dragged from the recesses of the craft.

Crumpling, dead, by the time he made it out into the tunnels.

“Stop killing the workforce,” the translator grumbled, when the other guard moved forward and shoved at the killer.

“Well, tell them to follow orders and I won’t have to!” It wasn’t a huff, but more of a rasp. Air through the palps at their mouths. “Shouldn’t be so stupid fragile.”

Ellion wondered how these sudden deaths figured into the experiment. The paperwork involved. Did they bother to lie about the circumstances? Or was this estimated into the cost of success?

Hana still made that soft humming beneath her breath, and he wondered how sensitive the guards might be to sound. He stood a little closer to her, hoping to quiet her without actually having to say it. She was frightened. He knew that. She would care that someone had been killed, that she would never draw up his paper to bring him out again. He wasn’t the young one with only a week’s sentence. He was a faceless, nameless man that had sat to their right and not uttered a single word.

But he would be remembered.

Would it help her to tell her so?

“Take his number,” one guard instructed.

To Hana. Who was staring and not quite moving, and they were already in a hostile situation and his job was to protect her. “Hana,” he breathed, not wanting to appear as if he was interfering, but needing her to focus. “You need help with his arm?”

She blinked. Swallowed. “Sure,” she managed, her throat tight and her eyes glazed.

Ellion knelt, waiting for them to argue with his participation, but they did not seem to care. She was the one to unlace his sleeve. To push it upright. He merely held the lifeless arm upright so she could access it better.

“Can you see well enough?” Ellion asked, knowing they’d have to move the body rather than risk bringing a torch close enough to be helpful. She sniffed, and he hoped she wasn’t that close to crying. This had happened before, surely. A morbid thought, but a realistic one.

“Yes,” she acknowledged, and didn’t read the number aloud.

“Got it?” а guard asked, and she nodded quickly. “You will fill out the form when we return. He tried to escape. Yes?”

She was shaking. Not badly, but enough that Ellion could see even in the dim light surrounding them. “An accident,” she murmured, and there was a strain in her, a tension that said it went against everything in her to offer that agreement.

But she would do it. Because that was the deal she made, even if it cost her a very great deal to keep her part of it.

“We move on,” that same guard insisted. “Now.”

They used their clubs to point. Ellion stood first, moving to Hana and grasping her elbow to help her to her feet. She took a few breaths and was steady on her feet, glancing at him briefly before she shuffled after the others.

He wanted to tease her. To pull a smile from her lips and make all of this disappear, if only for a moment.

But it all felt too weighty. Too heavy to be relieved for the moment.

Later, he decided. He wasn’t sure what it might look like, but he would make things for her better afterward. He could not offer her better food to comfort her. Maybe he could break the timer on the showers so she could soak away the day and have a good cry in privacy.

Then have it discovered and be right back here for a week for his troubles.

Not that, then. But... something.

That was a far better use of his thoughts than to wonder why he wasn’t overly bothered by seeing a dead man. It wasn’t as if he enjoyed it. There was a sadness in it at the waste. An acknowledgement of the life that was gone. But it felt...

Known.

Was he a killer, then? He tried to picture it. Couldn’t. Which was just as well. He wanted to defend them both, but he had no intentions of bettering their situation by clearing out his dormitory one by one. Might be nice, though. Not murdering everyone, of course. But having a space of his own. A large one. Where he could invite Hana. And they’d sit on their own. Talk. Without worrying about anyone else coming in and bothering them, guard or otherwise.

Silly fantasies, he knew. Because they would never be afforded such luxuries again. Or ever? Had he known a home before? A big one? Maybe even had a friend there. Or... someone more?

His eyes burned with the smoke from the torches.

He didn’t know what they were using to keep them lit, but it obviously wasn’t the cleanest burn. They could all suffocate down here, and then there would be no one to falsify records.

His eyes narrowed. He glanced at the back of the guard’s head. Another followed behind.

They twisted through tighter tunnels until one opened into a larger corridor. “Stop here,” the guard at the back called. He moved off toward a group of... would they be considered guards? If this was their home, then he couldn’t know if they all served the same function. But there were people, too. Prisoners. With tools in their hands as they worked at punching through dirt and rock. Others shovelling it into carts. Others pulling those carts, presumably to the surface.

Hard, miserable work.

A punishment, indeed.

The other prisoners were shoved toward their new work station. A foreman of some sort stepped forward, covered in dust and grime as he started on a speech he’d obviously given many times before. He didn’t ask after skills. About previous injuries or bad backs and knees. They likely would all have them after too many hours of this sort of work.

Hana was pushed next. Not as hard, but enough for her to stumble slightly. “Start here.”

She nodded, and Ellion followed her as she approached the group of prisoners. Plastered on as much of a smile as she could muster. “I need to see your numbers, please,” she explained, delving into her pocket for her papers.