Prince of Luster (11 page)

Marcos carefully pushed himself into a sitting position. The light blanket on his body fell to his thighs and exposed a great deal of his torso to the cool cave air. His skin stung, and he winced, but he quickly decided that any day above ground was a good one. All thoughts of death were gone. He’d gotten this far with her help. He could go the distance.

“You said you’re called Marcos. Unfortunately, that’s all I know about you. Well … I know you’re supposed to be a merchant. That’s what Prometheus called you.”

“P-Prometheus?”

“That’s the slug leader who attacked you.”

“D-Doesn’t … s-sound like a Limaxian name.”

“It isn’t,” Nova confirmed. “I think he went by the name of Garstid when he first arrived. Being the leader of the slugs, he thinks he’s above humans. Using a human-sounding name is a way of making fun of us. It’s just another way to show us who’s master.”

Marcos sat still as she picked up her cloth, dipped it into a bowl of water, and began to reapply it to his body. It hurt badly, but he closed his eyes for a moment and willed himself to accept her help. “I didn’t h-hurt you?”

Nova shook her head. “It’s all right, Marcos. Don’t worry about knocking me against the wall. You were having a horrible nightmare. I don’t hold it against you.”

The cold of the cave, combined with the cool cloth, made him shiver worse. “How long?”

“How long have you been sleeping?” she asked as she readjusted the blanket over the lower half of his body. “Almost two days.”

He stared at the scars over her bald head for a moment and realized he must look much the same, likely worse. The skin of her hands and forearms looked soft and normal. It seemed that just the upper part of her body had been scorched by the plasma, as the telltale scars ran across her cheeks and neck. The long caftan she wore gave him no clue as to how badly she might have originally been burned.

After turning to fill a cup with hot vegetable broth from the fire pit, she hesitated. “I know. I’m not all that attractive, but I’m alive.”

Marcos lowered his gaze, ashamed at having been caught staring.

She lifted the cup to his lips and let him sip some of the hot broth.

The soup actually tasted good. It made his throat feel better when he swallowed.

“Good. You’re doing much better than I would have expected. But then, I don’t know how you survived at all. You’ve been burned quite badly.” She paused. “I was running away when it happened to me. Just my head, back, shoulders, and a few spots on the front of my body were exposed.”

“W-what did you do?”

“Nothing. Just like you,” she angrily responded. “Slugs went into the marketplace and fired at everyone just to make an example of us. Many of the miners and merchants here tried to fight back when the slugs first landed. But we had no real weapons. My father and mother, the head constable, and many of the miners and merchants from work co-ops were killed. Anyone I ever cared about is dead. I survive only because I hide in this cave. My father thought we might have to have a safe place to stay secluded, so he prepared this cave for us. Only he and my mother never got here.”

“I’m sorry, Nova.”

“You’ve nothing to be sorry about. It was the slugs and the governor who killed everyone. But you … what you did the other day was one of the few brave things I’ve seen on this planet. I saved you because I think you must be a very good person. You wouldn’t have risked your life for complete strangers otherwise. And a good man doesn’t deserve to … well … nobody deserves what … ” Her voice trailed away.

“Listen to me,” he croaked. “Enforcers will come—”

“No they bloody well won’t!” she shot back. “They’re as bad as the slug pirates, Adaman Forrell, and the traitorous constables he’s paying to keep us in line. They can all rot. Especially the king of Luster and his Constellation League enforcers. My greatest hope is that the slug warships hiding behind the moons beyond our planet will ambush the enforcers whenever they care to show up again. And that the two sides kill each other off. Maybe then Delta Seven can have some peace, and the people here can stop dying.”

Marcos stared at her, speechless for the moment. How could he judge a woman who’d been through what was likely years of subjugation and pain?

“I’m sorry, Marcos. You’re a victim here just like everyone else. It’s the enforcers, Forrell, and the slugs I hate. I didn’t mean to take my anger out on you.” She gently stroked one of his cheeks and smiled at him.

“I’ve never heard anyone say they hated the king or enforcers before,” he quietly responded.

“You’ll come to hate them, too, when you have to live like an animal. Just waiting for the next time Prometheus decides to hunt out some slaves for the mines.”

“I don’t understand. Please … tell me what’s going on here.”

She took a deep breath and refilled his cup with some more hot broth. “My father and some of the other miners discovered a vein of the richest gems you can ever imagine. When the first lot went up for sale, an outer-world merchant purchased the entire shipment for an exorbitant price. We thought that finding gems of such value would be the end of hard times. And it might have been had the slugs not seized the merchant’s ship in space, found the gems, and tortured him into telling where he got them.”

“What happened to the merchant?”

“It’s said that Prometheus killed him. I believe he’d do it to keep the gems’ source a secret. He and his minions arrived here and took over not long after that. He has Adaman Forrell’s complete cooperation. All the governor has to do is answer vid-calls from deep space and placate enforcers when they arrive to take on fuel or ask a few questions. He just tells them everything is all right. They believe him, don’t do an inspection, leave, and don’t return for months. I heard the citizens’s communication center was broken into and someone tried to get a message out, but we’ve always believed Forrell monitors everything and garbles transmissions even as they’re being sent. If they’re not sent by him, that is. It’s likely he’s had the real person responsible for sending messages killed. I don’t know.”

He breathed easier and actually posed a question without sounding like some kind of reptile was lodged in his gullet. “A-and you say the slugs use the c-citizens as slave labor? To mine the gems?”

She nodded. “Slugs are lazy. They won’t work for anything. That’s why they resort to stealing and pirating. And putting so many of us in the mines is why there are so few of us left. When anyone gets injured, there’s not any medical help. If the miners die, they’re tossed into that pit where you were dumped. New people are dragged out of their homes and sent to the mines to work, and most are never heard from again.”

“Why is there no medical help? Incubation units could heal your wounds.”

“Forrell wouldn’t order new units or repair the old ones when they broke down. You see … if you know you can be cured of the burns, you won’t be so frightened of the slugs and what they can do using the plasma. And as long as they can keep us all afraid of being burned, we won’t fight back.”

“Eventually, more people will be needed to mine,” Marcos reasoned. “What happens when no one is left but the sick, injured, or those who are too old or young to work?”

“They’ll kidnap people from nearby colonies on other worlds.” She shrugged. “Occasionally, ships arrive with supplies, or merchants like you show up. Some are allowed to leave so that suspicion is averted. But they all leave with the story that this planet isn’t worth visiting, and that the gems mined here are inferior. That rumor has spread, so we don’t get visitors except on rare occasions. Those merchants allowed to leave are only shown what Forrell wants them to see. But any outer-worlders who ask too many questions, or make Adaman or Prometheus uncomfortable, get thrown in the mines, or they’re even killed. If they have crews aboard their ships, those crews get killed or enslaved as well. I’m sure any record of their being here is eradicated. No matter what space charts and flight plans might say, no one questions the governor of an entire colony when he says he’s never allowed a ship to land. Nobody wants that diplomatic nightmare on their hands.”

He slowly shook his head in disgust.

“Most of the strangers coming to this planet are drifters. Like you. If they have any families or friends, no one seems to care enough to come looking for them.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“Over two years now. At first, the colonists met in secret to talk about rebellion. Information was passed around about what was happening. That’s how we initially figured out what was going on between Forrell and the slugs. But after the last mass plasma attack on the population, no one talks to anyone anymore. No one does anything to bring the wrath of Prometheus down on their heads.”

“Help will come, Nova.”

“Even if it does, it’ll be too late. There are already too many dead. And nothing will bring my mother and father back. Nothing will bring back the man I would have married, my friends, or their families. I’ll hate the enforcers forever for not inspecting this planet more closely, and for believing Forrell’s lies. They’ve left us here to die.”

Marcos couldn’t explain the complexities of the political world to someone who was fighting for her life. He could have told her that enforcers couldn’t forcibly invade a world and inspect its holdings without starting an interplanetary incident. His presence on Delta Seven was technically against the policies agreed to by many worlds. He was spying for his government.

But that information might just get him killed. And while he knew this woman was risking her life to help him, he didn’t yet know just how far he could trust her. Especially if she found out what and who he was.

“I’m going to find a way off this planet,” Nova told him. “Or I’ll die trying.”

“Maybe we can help each other.”

She smiled. “I thought someone as brave as you would think the same thing. But I don’t know much about you, Marcos. Except, of course, that you’re certainly not one of Forrell’s henchmen.”

“In case I didn’t say so when my condition was worse, my full name is … it’s Marcos Orlandis. It’s like you said. Not many who come here have much of a life, or they’d be bidding for better gems in other places and selling them to larger planets. I’m not a wealthy man or I’d have never come to this place. That’s for sure!”

“But you have family. I heard you praying to your Creator when you were lying in the pit. I couldn’t hear all you said, but most of it had to do with hoping you could see them again.” She lowered her gaze for a moment. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. But I didn’t even know you were alive when I went to find you. I … I went to pray for you.”

Touched by her kind explanation, Marcos’s guilt dug deep into his heart. For now, the lie about who he really was had to remain. He couldn’t tell her everything about his family, or the truth about who he really was would become obvious. The number and names of all siblings must be withheld, with the exception of a very few family members whose names were so common as to be nondescript. His father and brother had monikers that were quite well used. But he
could
say enough about his ancestry and their zeal to see him back to assure her all wasn’t lost. “I have a family. I didn’t tell Forrell anything about them. And my brother will come looking for me, Nova. Count on it!”

“Is your brother a merchant, too? Were you in contact with him before you arrived? Will he know where you are?”

The anxious look on her face was almost heartbreaking. He knew she wanted to hear that someone might come and stop the madness. Though he hated to do so, he had to expand on the lie. There was no other choice. At least until such time as he could convince her that the Constellation League and his father hadn’t neglected Delta Seven on purpose.

“My brother knows exactly where I am. He’s in the same business as I.”

Nova leaned forward and carefully hugged him. “Then, there’s finally some hope. For both of us.”

As she fed and tended him, he cursed himself for not telling her exactly why he was on the planet. But Nova might tell others, and he couldn’t face the anger of a mob who felt the same as she. He’d never be able to explain the politics, or the fact that the enforcer fleet and its crews were at half force since the Warlord conflict had ended.

Losses of manpower and equipment couldn’t be replaced overnight. It would take another year of building ships and training crews before things were back to normal.

Money wasn’t the issue; time to resupply the fleet with trained crews
was
. And if news of
that
got out to certain inhospitable planets, those wishing to take advantage of the situation would do so. His father was in no position to offer a galactic defense against rogues, pirates, and any evil opposition that might want to take over every defenseless planet. Petty dictators had already warred with the planets that made up the Constellation League. For many years, battle had been a way of life. Peace had only come to the enforcers and the League planets a few years ago. And Delta Seven had been one of the outer-worlds that hadn’t so much as sent one man or woman to train as an enforcer crewmember. It had preferred to stay neutral and had steadfastly remained so during the fights.

Now, the citizens of this small planet needed help. And while he could forget the past and yearn to aid this colony, there weren’t enough ships and crews to do the situation justice, and the others belonging to the League equally needed help. And
they
were and always had been staunch allies. When help was allotted, they’d demand first call, and rightly so.

Still, Nova, and probably the other citizens of Delta Seven, wouldn’t understand any of that. They were being brutally slaughtered, and a weapon was being used on them that had been universally banned. His father had suspected Delta Seven needed help and was doing what he could. And in such a way that no one would know.

Marcos felt sympathy for Nova and her world, but he also felt the need to defend what he knew to be the truth. To do so, he’d have to choose the time carefully. He knew Darius would come. All he had to do was survive until then.