Paws and Planets (14 page)

As Peter Howard
left his bridge for the last time, intent on seeing how his family
was faring before he departed, he turned and looked back. Camilla
caught his eye and waved. The bridge looked so empty and forlorn as
if it knew it was being abandoned and somehow managed to fill his
senses with an aura of acute sadness. He knew he would never
return.

Peter’s
away-team was long gone by the time Camilla completed her final
checks and keyed in the ship’s deactivation codes. The stun-gas did
its work. The noise and rioting in the convict blocks had stopped
as soon as the gas took effect. The ship’s batteries would continue
to run for some time before they too ceased to become effective. It
had been estimated it would take almost a week before the desert
sand clogged up and covered the solar power panels that enabled
them to recharge.

As she walked
down the ramp that final time and her booted feet hit the hot sand
she was racking her brains as she went through a last minute mental
check-list. Had she remembered everything that they would need?
They had stripped the ship of items that could be carried easily,
but had to leave the bulky and heavier objects behind.

The smaller
members of the livestock community had been trussed up and had left
with the trucks. The larger animals such as the adult cows and oxen
would have to remain behind, there was no room for them on the
convoy vehicles and they were far too slow walking on the hoof.
Water and feed had been left for them. It was hoped that they would
make their own way to the river. The six horses (two of whom were
in foal) were being ridden to the river by their handlers, they
should be able to keep up with the convoy, if not, they would be
let loose to fend for themselves; there was no other choice.

As she squinted
through the haze at the clouds of dust in the distance that were
the only evidence of the convoy’s passing, she could only hope that
they could get far enough away before the angry prisoners woke.
Shelley Lambert had forecast a mild sandstorm over the next
twenty-four hours that would obliterate any tracks, not that it
would be difficult for the prisoners to work out where they had
gone.

One vehicle
remained beside the ship, its engine purring sweetly. Technically,
the vehicles had the power to keep going indefinitely, the
batteries would recharge each day via their internal solar panels.
Not too much of a problem in this sun, but the mechanics did not
know how the desert sand would affect the engines themselves. She
worried about Peter and his team in the large jeep and mobile
driller out on their own many miles in the other direction and
hoped they would make it to the rendezvous. Camilla hefted her pack
on top of the other boxes and packages on the back seat and climbed
into the front. She had a job to do. She sat up straighter and
indicated to the driver to set off. Until the Captain returned it
would be up to her to get them all to safety. Although tempted, she
did not turn and look back at the
Electra
as they sped away,
her home for the last fourteen years. The ship represented the
past; Camilla intended to look towards the future, convicts or no
convicts.

The only
casualty within the convoy as it made it’s ponderous way towards
the river was inanimate – a truck filled with foodstuffs cropped
from the ship’s fresh produce area had stalled whilst cresting a
large dune and flatly refused to go any further. Its contents were
distributed amongst the other vehicles and the truck abandoned.
They did not have time to stop and fix it. For the occupants of the
remaining trucks it made for a tight squeeze, but there were no
complaints. Even the children were on the whole, as silent as
children could be, they were affected by the tension transmitted by
the adults who were very well aware of the fact that they must get
as far away as possible before darkness fell. They had no doubts
that they would be hunted down. The convicts would make for the
river too, it being the only potentially habitable place within
striking distance of the ship.

A false trail
was laid under the directions of Camilla. It led to the south and
it was hoped that some at least of their unwanted ex-shipmates
would head in that direction. The prisoners would also be on foot,
the only suitable vehicles having been taken already and the other
ones disabled.

After an
arduous journey they reached the river and after a night spent
beside the riverbank, the convoy headed north, moving as fast as
they could through the rough terrain. Because they kept taking
detours away from the riverbank where rocks and thick foliage made
vehicle passage impossible, the six horses were more than able to
keep up. The riders probably saw more of the countryside than those
in the trucks. They had travelled a good distance by the end of the
third day.

Camilla
speculated on what was happening back at the ship. The sleep-gas
should have worn off by now.

* * * * *

It had. The
convicts had woken from their enforced sleep.

Elliot Murdoch,
de facto leader of Block A, rubbed his eyes groggily as he regained
consciousness. He felt woozy and not a little sick and lay on his
bunk for a few minutes trying to work out what had happened.
Realisation did not take long.

“Stun-gas,” he
muttered, just before he began to retch, this being the normal
human reaction to a gas dose. The sound alerted another of the
inmates who was keeping a watchful eye outside Murdoch’s cell door.
In the cellblocks friends guarded each others’ backs at all
times.

A face loomed
above Murdoch, who with a start reached for the knife that he
always hid on his person. He had used it more than once during the
last twelve years.

As he
recognised Smith’s voice, his hand relaxed. Smith was a friend, not
like other members of the criminal fraternity incarcerated with him
in Block A.

“So you’ve
woken up at last,” Smith announced. “Not before time. They must
have stun-gassed us to keep us quiet. I’ve got some men working on
the doors. There’s no sign of the guards.”

“If they have
gone and left us,” Murdoch growled, “I’ll make them pay for it.
They’ll have taken all the best stuff for themselves too, I
guess.”

He raised
himself to a sitting position and swung his legs off the bunk,
dislodging the story discs he had been listening to when overcome
by the gas. They fell to the floor with a loud clatter.

“Get the doors
open
now
. I want to know the worst.”

The doors were
prised open and the occupants of Block A, as predicted by Peter
Howard, spilled out into the desert sun. So much for the
calculations that they would remain incarcerated for at least twice
that long. The hot sun gradually drove them into the shelter of the
ship and they spent the remaining daylight hours roaming through
its holds and corridors, hunting in vain for the guards and crew,
helping themselves to any possessions left behind.

“They’ve all
scarpered. Every last one,” growled an irate Murdoch that night. He
was leader of Block A by virtue of his immense strength and sheer
bloody-mindedness. An assassin by trade and proud of it, he owned
most of the brains in his carefully selected coterie. He had run
his block like a martinet. From the guards’ point of view, Block A
had been the least bothersome of them all. After the initial
eradication of those whom Murdoch perceived as a threat to his
emerging power base (this happened during the first few months of
their journey when a number of bodies were presented to the guards
for disposal) he had organised the remaining men incarcerated with
him with military precision. The men of Block A obeyed him (and his
cronies) with almost mindless respect, but it was a respect born
out of fear.

Smith wondered
if he should venture a comment.

“Least they’ve
left us some food, at least enough to be going on with. Do we
unlock the other doors now?”

“Later. Make
sure those inside understand that we’re in charge first. Don’t want
to have to fight them off.”

“Hold G has
managed to break the seals of the inner doors,” Smith mentioned.
“They may well be out by morning.”

“Strengthen the
power to the outer ones,” he ordered , “but they don’t matter, I’ve
always wondered why they were shipped out with us. Mostly pen
pushers and paedophiles.”

His lips curled
with dislike. These latter were normally segregated for their own
safety from other long-term prisoners, being considered the lowest
of the low in the convict hierarchy. Murdoch fully agreed with this
dictum.

“Weak minded
the lot. They’ll soon realise what’s good for them and do what
they’re told.” He paused for a moment then added in a voice full of
venom, “or else.”

Smith grinned,
showing an untidy set of brown and mismatched teeth and beckoned
two of Murdoch’s inner circle over. He was very well aware of what
‘or else’ meant. A man who possessed little if no morals, Smith was
a killer, pure and simple. He enjoyed watching men die.

The men
approached at the trot. If Murdoch gave a person a task to perform,
it was best to obey on the instant. There were plenty more to take
their place.

“No weapons,”
announced the one in front. “They’ve taken the lot and all the
suitable vehicles from the hold. The engineering section is a mess.
They’ve done something with the power-core as well, don’t know
what.”

“I didn’t
expect anything else,” spat Murdoch. He had been right. They had
abandoned them here to fend for themselves. He promised himself
that revenge would come soon or his name wasn’t Elliot Murdoch.

“They’ll have
fled to the river,” he said. One of the first things Elliot Murdoch
had done when he had woken was to demand a map of the surrounding
area. “We must make plans.”

With that
pronouncement he turned and headed back towards the ship, fully
intending to sleep well that night, ensconced in the Captain’s
quarters he had appropriated for himself. They were spacious and
comfortable. Not for him the narrow hard bed back in his cell.
Murdoch fully intended to grasp all the luxuries he could on this
world, luxuries that he had missed since that day when he had been
arrested by the security police.

Lying on the
rumpled bed, he amused himself for a considerable time before he
fell asleep looking through the rack of holos left by Captain Peter
Howard and his family. One attractive looking female he noted in
particular.
Perhaps, she is a relation, his wife?
Elliot
Murdoch had been deprived of female company for so many years now
that even the thought of a woman made his senses roar and his heart
beat faster.

* * * * *

The convoy of
trucks and other vehicles, carrying just under a thousand men,
women and children, had reached a pleasant spot many miles
north.

They rested
each night by the riverbank, the lapping of the waters lulling
tension and frayed nerves. The youngest slept above ground inside
the trucks and guards patrolled the perimeter.

They had
brought every weapon with them. The guards had their stunner
batons, designed not to kill but to render the victim unconscious.
One had to be within striking distance of the target for them to be
of any use and they had unfortunately, a limited life-span outside
the confines of the ship where they had been kept, when not in use,
in the recharging slots in the guards’ ready room. The ship’s power
had kept them in a constant state of readiness. They could not be
recharged now. When their power was exhausted they would be of no
more use than a large heavy stick. The knives and forks from the
kitchen areas were being sharpened and other implements fabricated
out of scavenged parts of the ship’s hull, lightweight and durable,
these might well be of more use than anything else they
possessed.

Eighteen
laser-rifles were in the hands of trustworthy ex-crew. The
remaining two had gone with the away-team. Unlike the batons, these
were lethal weapons and could and would be recharged using the
portable solar panels housed in the trucks. These eighteen rifles
were the only weapons that could fire a killing shaft of energy
over large distances whether to defend against predators (of which
none had been seen as yet) and the marauding convicts, but eighteen
was not many to defend one thousand against twenty thousand. If,
no, Camilla corrected herself, when it came down to it, they didn’t
possess enough sustainable firepower to hold off these men. They
would have to find another way and more importantly find someplace
to defend. She had high hopes of reaching the hills in the north
before it was too late. They should be able to find a defensible
spot there. Her thoughts were grim as she did her rounds, checking
the guard. Many of who she might loosely term non-combatants were
arming themselves too. As Anne Howard prepared herself for bed each
night she fingered the knife her husband Peter had given her before
he left with the away-team.

“Keep this with
you at all times,” he had advised as he had planted a tender kiss
of farewell on his wife’s forehead.

She had looked
at him, a questioning expression on her face.

“Is the danger
from these men that great?” she had asked nervously. “You’ll be
back with us before the convicts find us won’t you?”

His look had
not been encouraging.

Her eldest
daughter, Jessica who was fourteen and could not be fobbed off
without an explanation had questioned her mother about it as their
truck had left the ship and during their journey to the hills. Anne
told her the truth; there was no point in being evasive. She was
both proud and distressed to see that by nightfall of the third day
Jessica too had found herself a knife. The girl had explained to a
worried Anne that she was keeping it thank you very much and felt
much safer with it than without. Cherry and Joseph, being nine and
seven respectively were considered too young for a weapon. Their
need was not so paramount. Both Anne and her eldest daughter knew
what would happen to them if they fell into convict hands. Most
women in the convoy did as well and were taking precautions; most
with their men-folk’s support; some without.