Planet of Pain (14 page)

‘Franklin,' Ames said, inevitably.

Bel's face was pale but determined as she went with them, and again Jo counted the fearsome strokes. Ten, Bel managed, before number eleven drew a tormented gasp from her lips, marking the limit of her resolve. Gasps became wails, abruptly truncated as Bel bit back her utterances as best she could in a gesture of defiance, but a gesture it remained for her pain and distress were only too apparent.

Then it was over, and now, finally, it was Jo's turn. Her legs were shaking badly as she mounted the steps with a sergeant on either side. She knew everyone would see it – the mini-cams were tracking her all the way – and she hated herself for her weakness. In front of her was the stool; its feet bolted down, and beyond the stool a sea of faces. She faltered, and Vaughan's grip on her arm tightened.

‘Steady,' he muttered.

The padded seat felt cold against her belly. As the straps were being fastened, the cameraman in front moved still closer, pushing his mini-cam almost in her face. She didn't want this; the last thing she needed right now was a whole vessel of men seeing her fear at close quarters, but crawling off and hiding wasn't an option, so she looked straight into the camera lens, wondering if Danny was watching and what he was thinking. One thing was certain; Snake would be glued to the screen, a grin on his face. Kazarian as well, probably. The other women would be made to watch too, via the big wall screen in the dayroom. After this no one would be giving the Leaguers any trouble.

As he secured her wrists, Sergeant Vaughan leaned close and whispered in her ear. ‘We're in deep shit. The ship's being pulled into a black hole. Twelve hours from now we'll all be dead.'

For a moment her brain refused to take it in, and when it did she just couldn't believe it. Hazard avoidance was one of the first things they taught in nav class; and black holes, capable of swallowing whole star systems, let alone puny little ships, were the deadliest hazard in the universe. It had to be some sort of weird joke on Vaughan's part. But the sergeant was nodding grimly, looking utterly serious, but as Jo was framing a question he moved away, leaving her bewildered and more afraid than ever.

Major Ames was giving the order to proceed, but her mind was still occupied with black holes and imminent disaster. Twelve hours, Sergeant Vaughan said; but it couldn't be true. All these men, all these officers especially, wouldn't be here enjoying the show if the ship was caught in a gravity sink and they were just half a day from annihilation. They would be doing something, or trying to do something, surely?

The corporal's rod sliced across her buttocks, catching her out. She wasn't prepared for it, even though she'd known it was coming. Especially she wasn't prepared for how much it would hurt. The second one was even worse. It went beyond pain: it was agony, pure and simple. By rights she ought to be screaming, but her brain was caught in a time warp and was refusing to accept that the beating had started, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

More strokes followed, and Jo hung on to the stool and gritted her teeth, as Stella had done. The reality of the situation was coming home to her finally, but still the beating wasn't the foremost thing on her mind. It was the image of a black hole, or rather the sim she'd been shown at the Academy. It was vast and voracious, sucking in everything that strayed too close, be it star or starship, and crushing it down to pinhead size. One navigational error, human or system, and you were dead. You couldn't even use hyperdrive to jump out, as the enormous gravity would twist the jump field into knots. She'd been afraid of black holes then, in class, and she was afraid of them now. The pain of the beating, dreadful though it might be, was merely a backdrop to her fear.

She hadn't been counting the strokes, but it must be ten by now, surely? Nine or ten and still she hadn't cried out, which was a miracle. Another cut scorched across her burning buttocks and she yelped, as though just thinking about keeping quiet had somehow broken the spell. But at least she hadn't disgraced herself by shrieking right from the word go.

Belatedly she began to count in her head, starting at ten. The next few strokes were appalling. Pain began to swamp her, filling her mind so that even the prospect of imminent death seemed less and less consequential. Despite all her efforts to bear the punishment bravely, as Stella had done, her cries grew ever louder and more wretched.

Then, when her count reached twenty-four, the beating stopped. She waited, dreading the last six. She couldn't imagine why the corporal would pause in this way. He hadn't done it with the others, and it seemed unbelievably cruel that he should do so now. But then the two sergeants were unfastening the straps and the truth finally dawned on her. The punishment was over. Her count had been out by six strokes, which meant she must have stayed silent for the first fifteen. Unbelievable.

‘Gutsy performance, O'Donnell,' Vaughan said quietly. ‘As good as I've seen, and I've seen a few.'

At some distant point in the future, she supposed, that might be good to know. Right now she was suffering too much to care what the man, or anyone else for that matter, thought about her. Her behind felt as though someone had sliced her flesh with a razor and poured acid into the cuts.

‘Oh, and about that black hole…' he added as she hobbled off the platform, hanging onto their arms, ‘…grit on the lens.'

She turned and stared at him. It was a spacer euphemism, its origins lost in time, for an observational error. He was saying the whole thing was a false alarm, and as she was digesting this the four of them were told to pick up their clothes and move off. They limped down the aisle amid an excited buzz from their happy audience. Some of the men called out to them, and there was even a smattering of applause.

They were taken to the sickbay, where an orderly proceeded to spray their buttocks with gel foam. Jo, remembering the treatment they'd received aboard
Dauntless
following their interrogation, expected the pain to vanish instantly, but after a second or two she realised with consternation that nothing much was happening.

‘It's still hurting,' she complained. ‘The idiots forgot the anaesthetic.'

‘They didn't forget,' Bel said. ‘It was a punishment. I guess they figure it's supposed to hurt.'

‘Antibiotic and tissue-regen only, major's orders,' the orderly confirmed. ‘You'll sting for quite a while, I'm afraid.' He showed them to a ward with a dozen or so beds, none of which were occupied, telling them they were allowed to rest, and they took him up on the offer gratefully – facedown, of course.

Nina lay with her head turned away, groaning faintly, while Stella, amazingly, was soon snoring softly. Sleep seemed like a very good idea, but Jo doubted she could manage it. Even without the pain, something was niggling away at her brain.

‘Bel,' she said at last, ‘what did you say to Sergeant Vaughan?'

‘What?'

‘As you were coming off the platform you said something to him, and he looked at me. What was all that about?'

Bel gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘I asked him to help you. I thought he might have a quiet word with the corporal; you know, go easy on you. He didn't do a thing, though, did he?'

She sounded resentful, which Jo found remarkable. Why should Vaughan do them any favours? And more significantly, why would Bel expect him to? Jo began to wonder exactly what had transpired while Bel was trading sexual favours for information – apart from the obvious, of course. She suspected the two of them had become closer than Bel was admitting.

‘Actually, he did help me,' she said. ‘He told me we were heading into a black hole and had just twelve hours to live.'

‘A black hole?' Bel echoed, bemused. ‘And that helped?'

‘In a way, yes. It gave me something else to think about. Something else to worry about.'

Bel frowned and shook her head, clearly not getting it. But it had made a difference, at least at the start. The first half of the punishment had just flown by. The second half was another matter, but that was hardly the sergeant's fault. He'd done what he could and she was grateful to him for it. When she saw him again – if she saw him again – she would tell him so.

 

 

 

 

They were given a few hours to recuperate somewhat, after which time the four of them, stiff and in considerable pain still, were transferred to a supply ship en-route to Paradise. A fifth woman joined them at the departure hatch: Malka Vesely, who was being kicked off the ship, and it was more than just her constant pestering for news of her husband, Sergeant Vaughan explained when Nina asked what was going on. There had been numerous complaints from her ‘clients' over her general lack of cooperation, culminating in an outright refusal on her last assignment. Though he didn't say precisely what it was the young woman had refused to do, it had been the final straw. The seniors were fed up with her, he said, hence the decision to ship her out, but considering the nature of her ‘crime' it seemed to Jo and the others an outrageously harsh sentence.

Vaughan was looking pretty glum, in fact, but Jo doubted Malka was the cause. He was worried about them, Jo could see in his eyes, and Bel especially. Jo thanked him for the black hole ruse and he nodded and wished her luck. He wished all of them luck, his eyes on Bel as he spoke, and Jo knew they were going to need it.

The last thing the sergeant did before they left the ship was call for their collars to be deactivated, after which he removed them. Where they were headed, he said, collars were redundant. No one ever escaped from Paradise.

 

The trip, though uneventful, was not a happy one. They were held in the brig with just a few uncommunicative guards for company, and a visit to the sanitation block became the highlight of the day. They jumped four times in all, and spirits inevitably sank as they moved ever deeper into League territory. Even the normally irrepressible Stella seemed subdued, and Jo was certainly feeling low. The only good news was that the tissue regeneration gel worked a minor miracle, and the four who had been flogged were well on their way to a full recovery by the time they docked, with their wounds healed and the scars fading fast.

On arrival they saw nothing of the planet itself. They were ferried down to the surface in a pod whose cargo was mixed grain, according to the labels on the crates. When the hatch opened they found themselves in a warehouse of sorts, with drums and crates stacked everywhere, and mechanical handlers already moving in to unload the pod.

Heat was the first thing Jo was aware of. Heat and a dry, dusty, acrid taste to the air that had more than one of them coughing within seconds of leaving the pod.

Six men were waiting for them. Guards, she assumed, though they were a strange, scruffy-looking lot to be sure. Their black uniforms were stained and creased, with missing buttons and even missing rank badges. They seemed a different breed entirely from the League personnel aboard the ships, who were at least tolerably well turned-out, whatever other failings they might possess. Strangest of all, however, were the weapons these men carried. There wasn't a gun or a stun baton in sight; they were armed instead with short, heavy sticks.

‘You lot come with us,' one of them growled. ‘Don't dawdle and no yakking, you hear?' He slapped his stick into the palm of his hand in a threatening fashion, and with him leading the way, and his companions pressing close on either side and at the rear, they left the warehouse and entered a tunnel. It was manmade, the walls and ceiling clad in steel panelling that was grey underneath but streaked white, seemingly with dust. The gripsteel floor was covered in a thick film of the stuff, which was stirred into fog-like clouds by the boots of the guards as they jogged along. Gravity was somewhat higher than the 1g ship standard, which didn't help their progress, and with the heat in addition to contend with, Jo wasn't the only one who found herself struggling to keep up.

‘Move it, blondie!' one of the guards snapped, swiping Jo smartly across the rump with his stick, who gave an involuntary yelp. Something about the voice made her glance back, and she realised with a shock that it wasn't a man at all, but a woman, the baggy uniform and pulled-back hairstyle proving a most effective disguise. Even as Jo was digesting this fact they came out of the tunnel into a big chamber, six-sided with a high domed roof. For a military establishment it had an astonishingly ramshackle appearance. Portable work cabins had been set down here, there and everywhere. They were two, three, even four-high in places, laid out with no apparent plan or forethought so that the net effect was that of a shantytown. Beyond the cabins she saw other tunnels radiating out from this central space like the spokes of a wheel.

There were more guards here, no smarter in appearance than the escort detail. There were other people too; women with a cowed look about them, scantily clothed in rags, or not clothed at all, busy at work on menial tasks. Prisoners, many with bruised bodies, or the angry stripes that told of a flogging.

Jo and the rest were hustled forward to a double cabin, in front of which, sprawled back on a recliner, was an enormously fat man with a shaved head. His face was shiny with perspiration, and as they lined up before him he mopped it with a large white cloth.