Escape From Altera Ch 03

[Note: This is not a "sexy story". It is a mix of WW II "The Great Escape" and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Achipelago"... set in outer space)

Chapter 3: Labor Reform Camp 94

I have to admit that I wasn't in the best of moods. Maybe it was the torture talking. Or maybe it was the still unconfirmed knowledge that the information I had revealed under interrogation had led to the destruction of our fleet, and perhaps even the loss of the entire war. Or possibly it was the starvation diet, or even the fact I was crowded into a very tight truck compartment with 20 other people. It was hard to say what was simultaneously aggravating and depressing me more.

Still, packed into the truck, I had my first contact with anyone outside of my interrogators and the military judge since I had arrived on this planet. Which made me wonder exactly which planet this was.

I tried to ask one of my fellow captives. But I didn't have much luck. None of them, it seemed, spoke League English. We were so tightly packed into the truck that I was sandwiched between two fellow prisoners who hadn't bathed in a while. They all seemed to be Slurian civilians. Political prisoners?

They were talking to themselves in Slurian, but that didn't help me. After an indeterminate amount of time, the truck stopped. We must have arrived. Armed guards opened the truck, and I was relieved to have some fresh air. But it was bitterly cold. I wasn't dressed for winter and the wind ripped through my thin shirt and trousers. I grabbed my jacket more tightly. At least the Slurians had given me back my military uniform before I had left the prison. It had been an odd measure of kindness that I never fully understood.

As I hopped out of the truck, I saw nothing but snow as far as the eye could see, aside from several other trucks behind and in front of us. I quickly figured out this was not our final stop, but was a bathroom and food break. Everyone did their business quickly and then we lined up for some half frozen bread. There was nothing to drink. Prisoners scooped up snow and put it into their mouths. I, being incredibly thirsty, had no other choice but to do the same. I put a small amount in my mouth and winced. The snow stung my tongue as it started to melt.

No one was eating their bread as they shoveled snow into their mouths. I soon found out why. In only a few minutes, we were herded back into the compartment and sealed in, with nothing more to drink.

Once we were back inside the relative warmth of the compartment I tried to bite down hard on the bread, but it was so cold it was solid like a block of ice. I hurt several teeth biting down. After that I soaked it in my mouth to warm it up, so it would be chewable. Eventually I got it down.

This pattern continued for several days. The truck hovered a few feet above the ground as we moved across the countryside. If we were going so far, I wondered why we didn't just fly there.

No one had tried to escape during any of our rest breaks, but perhaps that was unremarkable; in this snowy wasteland, not dressed for the weather, where would one go?

The interior of the compartment had poor ventilation, and it was difficult to breathe. But at least I was reasonably warm, surrounded by all these bodies. Still, it wasn't comfortable; when we lay down to sleep, there was always someone on top of me, and the floors were none too clean.

To my delight I finally found someone who could speak English, albeit poorly.

"You Richman," said the prisoner.

"The name is Took," I said.

The prisoner didn't say his name.

"Can you tell me where we are?" I asked.

"Inside truck," said the prisoner.

"Ha ha," I said dryly. "I mean, what planet?"

The prisoner looked at me oddly. "Altera."

"Altera."

Altera.

The Death Planet.

The penal colony for Slurian slaves. It was notorious. This was the ice planet where the Slurians operated many of their labor camps. I had heard of Altera. Our information was very sketchy about it, mostly because no one had ever escaped to tell about it.

"How long are you in for, Richman?" the prisoner asked.

"31 years," I said. "Actually, it was 30 years, but I got an additional year for insolence. You?"

The prisoner laughed.

"What's so funny?" I asked. "Were you sent here for insolence too?"

"You were sentenced 31 years?" said the prisoner.

"Why, is that a relatively short sentence?" I asked hopefully.

"You be dead in two," he laughed.

"I don't think that's so funny," I said.

It must have been close to a week later before we got to our destination. At first, I thought it was another bathroom break. When we got out, I saw nothing in all directions. But then I noticed the guards motioning us forward, and saw, beyond the first truck, a small building of some kind. There were at least several hundred prisoners here; how were we all going to fit in there?

And then I saw that the road had ended by the building. We had stopped here because there was no more road left.

The wind-swept snow was all around us. We were lined up, and we were made to march, away from the building, the last outpost of civilization, into the wilderness. What was happening? Where were we going? My heart sunk as we left that little building far behind us. Ahead of us was nothing but snow. I was freezing cold.

The guards were shouting something. One of them came up to a prisoner next to me, and shoved him, shouting to him, and then motioned to me.

The prisoner, in broken English said, "Walk to the left, walk to the right, you will be shot."

I opened my mouth to ask what that meant when the march commenced again. The cold wind was incredibly fierce. It chilled me to my very bones. I pulled my flight jacket as tightly as I could about myself.

I tried to cheer myself by thinking that we were probably just being marched over the hill. But as we climbed it, I saw another set of hills, and then another, and another after that.

Two hours into the march I realized that we were in this for some time to come. How did they expect us to survive in this weather? The guards had winter coats, and even they shivered in the cold. Inevitably, it took a toll on the prisoners, none of whom were dressed for it.

On the first day, several prisoners dropped into the snow during the march. Sometimes fellow prisoners would hurriedly try to help them up. Those that didn't get up were dealt with by the guards. From time to time I saw someone drop out of formation. A guard would go up to them and a moment later I would hear the distinct whine of blaster fire.

They didn't care whether we lived or died. I felt myself freezing but actually considered myself lucky. Most people didn't even have jackets; my flight jacket provided me with some protection. In retrospect, it may have saved my life.

We stopped for the night in a small thinly wooded valley. We were given the same frozen bread ration again, but at least here we could have all the snow we wanted. It was much more bitter melting it in our mouths when we were in the cold outdoors. The guards lit fires and posted sentries on the perimeter. We huddled together to try and stay warm, but it was impossible to do.

I had a nightmarish night, the cold preventing me from falling asleep for more than a few moments at a time. In the morning, several of the prisoners didn't wake up. They had frozen to death. Other prisoners fought to steal their pitiful possessions, and in moments there were several naked corpses on the snow. I can't say I approved of what the others did, but I understood their motives; an extra shirt or layer of trousers could mean the difference between life and death.

The guards checked off names from a datapad, and in moments had us going again, simply leaving the bodies behind, exposed to the elements.

For the next two days my teeth were chattering. The cold was bad enough, but we were only provided with 6 slices of bread, once per day; that was hardly enough for these kinds of marches.

On the beginning of the third day, I periodically started to sneeze, and knew I was getting sick; if I caught a fever, that would be the end of me.

Finally, though, at the end of the third day, we saw something in the distance. At first, it looked like a tiny black dot on the horizon, but as we got closer to it, it grew bigger in size. Soon we saw it was a camp, a series of primitive buildings surrounded by barbed wire and watchtowers.

We had arrived.

We were processed in a dimly lit hut that had no internal heating but was infinitely warmer than the outdoors if only because we weren't exposed to the elements. We were each handed a winter jacket, a pair of pants, and gloves, which would have been nicer to have before we had started this march. But the redcaps clearly didn't care who lived and who died.

The winter jacket wasn't as substantial as what the guards wore, but it fit nicely over my flight jacket and would provide additional warmth. The pants also happened to be my size, but the gloves were too small—they were so tiny that I couldn't fully fit my hands into them. I tried to go back to exchange them, but when I attempted to go back in line a stern faced Redcap blocked my way.

"These gloves are too small," I said.

The Redcap just stared at me. I might as well have been speaking Tirian to him.

I showed him the gloves, and my hands. Surely he would understand. "See?"

The Redcap just shoved me back.

We were led into the chilly outdoors again. It was cold! Even though I now had two jackets—the flimsy camp jacket over my own, and the flimsy prison trousers over my own, and a pair of gloves too small, I still felt like I was freezing. We spent nearly an hour standing around. I tried to ask my fellow prisoners what was going on, but none I could find spoke any League English.

Finally, an important looking man stepped onto a stage, flanked by guards. This, I assumed, was the camp commander or some sort of senior guard.

The Slurian stood in front of the shivering masses. He looked like a tough fellow, a Redcap with a scar across his face. I saw from his shoulderbars that he was a colonel. He took off into some kind of speech, and while I didn't understand what he said, his tone was clear in conveying a clear sense of contemptuousness for his charges.

At the end of his speech ,we were dispersed to crude wooden barracks which contained rows and rows of beds. The "beds" were little more than wooden shelves constructed of planks of rough wood. Every time I moved to an empty shelf, someone was quicker and stood in my way. Finally I found an empty shelf, one of the last ones.

I soon found out why this one was available. It was by the door. Every time the door open, an arctic draft came in.

I looked more closely at my "bed". The wooden boards were coarse and foul looking. There wasn't even a pillow, sheets, or blankets, though I noticed that some people had put skins over their shelves to soften them up. I hardly had time to contemplate redecorating when a Redcap came in and said, "Tuch! Tuch, tuch!"

I looked curiously in his direction. The guard looked at me quizzically.

"Tuch?" he said.

"Have you come to tuck me in?"

The guard looked at a datapad. "Idaaho Tuch," he said.

"Took," I said. "That's me."

The guard didn't know what I was saying, but seemed to understand my acknowledgement, because he yanked me by my arm out of the barracks. It didn't take very much guesswork to figure out where I was being taken, as a few moments later I found myself in the Colonel's office. It was almost as austere and depressing as our barracks; I idly wondered if his posting was a punishment for him too.

But at least it was heated, by a crude stove in the corner. I found myself just laying back and enjoying the relative warmth, and was distracted when the Colonel looked up at me. "You are Idaho Took, the spy?" he asked in uncertain English.

"I'm Idaho Took," I said. I was too weary to argue the other point.

"I am Major Colonel Alexi Tromov," said the Colonel. He stared at me appraisingly. "You have been sentenced for your crimes to serve your term here at Labor Camp 94." He paused, then continued. "It is rather unusual to have one of your kind here. We don't often get foreign spies." He looked me over, as if I were a new kind of entrée he had never seen before.

"It's probably even rarer to get a foreign spy who doesn't speak Slurian," I commented.

The Colonel gave a nasty smile. "Yes, you make joke. We see how much you are laughing after a week here. I tell you what I tell other prisoners. Obey, and you live, for now. Disobey, or try to escape, and you will be shot. You will receive no special treatment. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Colonel Major," I said, with a straight face.

He glared at me. "It is Major Colonel." He gestured curtly to the guard, who took me out.

We were roused at the crack of dawn the following morning. We were fed a small bowl of hard green peas. This was my main diet for three years, I got to know these green peas very well. I later learned they were called kem. Kem was absolutely tasteless. There was water (cold) to go with the kem, which was tasteless too. That was one of the things I would miss most at Labor Camp 94; the loss of taste. I was given a steady diet of little else other than kem and watery kem soup; I soon forgot what other things tasted like.

After that hearty breakfast, I was put into a work detail that was marched out of camp. The guards gave the same warning I had heard repeatedly when we had been marched to the camp. "March one step to the left, one step to the right, and you will be shot." What did that mean?

It was only later I understood. They meant that if you took one step out of line, even a stumble, that you would be killed.

The march began. As we walked, I watched everything around me. The area immediately around the camp seemed absolutely deserted. Given the three days it had taken us to march here, and the complete absence of roads, I could believe how isolated this area must be.

We were well guarded as we marched through the woods. But even if I could get away, where could I go, in this cold wilderness? Without food, or directions, I would be dead from exposure or hunger within days, or even hours.

We were led to a rockface which contained a lift over a vertical shaft. The guards gestured us to get on and we did. The lift went plunging down hundreds of feet below the surface. I nervously eyed the rock walls around us.

We went down for several minutes before it stopped. We were in a mine, deep in the bowels of the earth.

I had heard about the death mines of Altera, but I never knew whether to believe the stories or not. The stories said that they worked the miners to death by overwork and starvation. Workers were completely expendable.

We were given helmets with lights on them and laser drills. I was surprised at the last, until I saw that the drills had been adjusted so that the beam extended only a few inches beyond the discharge point; the bulky devices could hardly be used as range weapons. They were also almost too heavy to pick up and aim.

I grew more and more uneasy as we were herded deeper and deeper into the tunnels. The walls were getting narrower and narrower and the ceiling lower and lower. What if there was a collapse? The Slurians wouldn't bother to dig us out, I was sure.

Finally we were assigned a rock wall to work on. The guard said something unintelligible (in Slurian) and the prisoners started to work. When I didn't go with the rest of them, a guard came up to me and said something menacingly.

I shrugged my shoulders.

The guard pointed to a shiny substance in the rock wall.

"Oh," I said. "All right." Now I understood. They were after the shiny metal. I raised the heavy drill and started to work. Periodically a team pushing a hover cart came by and collected the rock we cut out.

We were allowed only one short break during the day; when the workday was done and we came out, it was already almost dark outside. Not that daylight meant much on this planet; it seemed to be continually overcast here.

I was exhausted when we got back to the camp. And hungry, too. But all that awaited me was another small bowl of kem and a glass of water. My stomach was growling menacingly. How did people survive on such a starvation diet?

The answer, of course, is that many of them didn't. You would think the Slurians would take at least minimal care of their slave labor force, so they could survive to do the necessary work. Perhaps the Slurians had so many prisoners that a few more or a few less here and there didn't matter to them. Or perhaps the lives of prisoners were worth so little to them that they simply didn't care.

I went through several more days of this. One time a rockfall came crashing down mere inches away from my feet. It was just a lucky thing I wasn't hit. I didn't know what happened to prisoners who were too injured to work, but I could guess; for one thing, the camp didn't have a hospital, not a real one, just a room where the injured could lie and then get better, or not.

I was minding my own business the following day, eating my kem in the mess hall when suddenly I felt someone standing behind me. I slowly turned.

A mean looking prisoner stared at me.

"Gumah borah," he said.

My exhausted mind didn't even try to process this one. "Gumah borah to you too."

"Your food," he said, in broken English.

"What about it?" I asked.

"You have had enough, Richman. Give,' he said.

"I'm not finished," I said.

Suddenly there was a second and third man standing behind the newcomer, and they all looked rather unfriendly.

"You give, now."

I sighed. I really was tired. "You really want it?"

"I really want it," said the prisoner, reaching for my bowl.

"You got it," I said, landing a punch on his forehead. He cried and fell back.

Both his companions moved forward to attack me. They had the advantage of numbers, but I had the advantage of strength. Yes, I was exhausted, but I had only been at the camp for a few days. My attackers had been toiling at slave labor with only a near-starvation diet for years, and were much weaker than I was.

One of them tried to grab my arm, and I sent him flying to the ground. The second landed a punch on my shoulder, but it only took a few seconds more to take care of him. In seconds, all three were on the ground.

Not taking my eyes off them, I sat down to finish my meal.

It wasn't until I got outside that I was confronted. I was surrounded by a dozen or more prisoners. Several of them held wicked looking homemade knives.

I said nothing.

One of them stepped forward. He was a tall man, wearing an elegant fur coat. "So, you are the new Richman," he said, in accented English.

"I'm not rich," I said warily. At the time I was too tired to think about the subtlety of his statement—the new Richman? What had happened to the old one?

"You are League," said the man. "You have five hovercars and holographic television. You have mighty skyscrapers and plentiful food, and you have thin blonde women lining up to fuck you every day."

"That's not true," I said. "I mean, the wipers on my hover cars don't work, my skyscrapers are among the shortest in town, and I'm too poor to afford blondes, I have to use brunettes instead." Just what sort of propaganda had these people been exposed to?

"You are Richman," he persisted.

"At the moment, I don't have much in the way of riches," I said.

"That ok," said the man, and he actually laughed slightly. "My name Antonio. We can help each other, you and I."

"Really?" I said.

"You need protection," said Antonio. "There are people in the camp who will hurt you."

"There are?" I said.