Exiles of colsec (v1.0), page 4
As Cord’s jaw tightened, the angry looking girl broke in. “Why don’t you yecks ease off for a min?” she snarled, then turned back to Cord and Samella. “I’m Heleth—troop called the Vampires, from the Bunkers, old London.” She waved a stubby hand at the wrecked shuttle. “What’s been happening here?” “We’ve crashed,” Cord told her bluntly. “On a planet called Klydor.. .”
He was interrupted by a scornful laugh from the short boy. “You’re jerkin’ us, fats. Antarctica, that’s where this is.”
Anger flashed in Cord’s eyes. “I’m telling you— it’s another planet, where ColSec sent us. Use your eyes—did you ever see a forest like this on Earth?”
The tall boy looked around, frowning. “Jeko, it’s s’posed to be all ice and snow, Antarctica…”
The shorter one, Jeko, snorted. “Maybe. So we crashed, gettin’ there. They say there’s lots of jungles and stuff south of the American Segment.” He grinned jeeringly at Cord. “Me, I never saw a real tree in my life, fats. How should I know about forests?”
“There’s a computer in the shuttle,” Samella put in quietly. “Go ask it where we are.”
Heleth had been staring wide-eyed at Cord since he had answered her question. Now she wheeled, with a muffled snarl, and stalked back into the shuttle. The two youths followed her, still with mocking grins, and Cord and Samella stepped up into the airlock and went after them.
They stood quietly, watching, while GUIDE’S soft voice spoke, and the arrogance of the threesome began to crumple. Heleth still looked furious, but her hands had begun to shake, and she was gnawing her blackened lower lip as if to keep it from trembling. The tall boy turned pasty grey, and sagged, while Jeko looked like he was about to cry or scream or both, his face twisting with shock.
When GUIDE had finished, Jeko whirled to face Cord, madness in his eyes. “You decided!” he screeched. “You got us into this!”
He leaped forward in a manic rush, one fist slamming in a vicious karate punch at Cord’s midriff. Cord could not have hoped to avoid it. But by reflex he tautened his stomach muscles against the impact. It was as if Jeko’s fist struck solid teak. Cord staggered back a step, but nothing more.
And before Jeko had even registered that his furious punch had had no effect, Cord grasped him by his tunic, and the belt of his trousers and flung him with effortless ease, five metres across the floor, to crash painfully into his tall companion.
Both of them tumbled to the floor in a flurry of limbs and yells. But they were up again at once, in fighting crouches. And Jeko had snatched up one of the narrow shards of metal from the shattered for-ward wall of the shuttle, gripping it like a knife.
But before anyone could move, Heleth sprang forward, dark eyes flaming. “Put the blade down, you Limbo yeck!” she yelled. “You heard the computer! We’re alive because this fell’ saved us! Saved us! You want to chop him for that?’’
The tall boy hesitated, then straightened slowly. “The chuck’s right, Jeko,’’ he said.
Jeko glanced at< him, and some of the fighting madness went out of his eyes. “Maybe,’’ he snarled. “But who needs it? Who wants to be alive, alone on a place like this?’’
Samella glared at him scornfully. “Stop crying for yourself. Alive is always better than dead. And you’re not alone here—unless you’re going to use that blade on all of us. There’re five of us, on a planet we know nothing about. We have to be together, not fight each other.”
“Jeko. . the tall boy began.
“Yeah, I know, Rontal,” Jeko said sourly. “This chuck’s right, too.” A flick of his wrist flung the metal shard away, clanging on to the floor, and Jeko looked Samella up and down. “Where you from, chuck? What’s your troop?”
“No troop,” Samella said. “I was an indent, in Minneap’. And the name’s Samella. And this—” she glanced at Cord with a crooked smile—“is Cord, who’s a barbarian from the Highlands.”
Cord opened his mouth to protest, but Heleth interrupted, with a sudden, merry, gap-toothed grin. “Another Brit? There’s a turn. Never saw one of you folk before.”
“What’s the Highlands?” asked Rontal, the tall youth.
“Far north from old London,” Heleth told him. “A wild land full of wild folk. Even CeeDees don’t go there.” She turned her grin on Jeko. “You tangled with the wrong fell’, Jeko.”
Jeko studied Cord for a moment, then unexpectedly smiled. “Seems,” he agreed. “And he’s not so fat, neither.”
Samella giggled at that—and then suddenly they were all laughing, even Cord, though he tried hard to remain stern. And as the laughter echoed around the metal-walled interior of the shuttle, it seemed that some of the fear and shock and tension that had existed in that area began to evaporate, to drift away like the mist among the alien trees outside.
Finally the laughter subsided, and the five young people looked at each other.
“Seems I got to say some sorries for what happened,” Jeko said at last. “Got a case of the means, wakin’ up to all this.” He waved a hand at the wreckage, and the smashed caskets, then looked at Cord. “That make it right between us?”
Cord blinked, a little confused by the slang, but nodded willingly.
“Right.” Jeko beamed. “And I didn’t even say who we are. But you know I’m Jeko, and this’s Rontal.” He reached up to touch the silvery S embedded in his forehead. “Free Streeters from Lim-bo. That’s “We know,” Samella broke in with a smile. “But not any more. Now you’re like us—free citizens of the planet Klydor.”
“There’s a turn,” Heleth said. “A little troop of our own, on a planet of our own.”
“Not ours,” Rontal growled. “ColSec’s.”
Heleth’s statement had struck an echo, deep within Cord’s being. But Rontal’s remark left them all in sombre silence, until Jeko looked around, worriedly.
“So what do we do,” he asked, “on this planet?”
Cord stared at him, and at the similarly concerned expressions on the faces of Heleth and Rontal. And then he understood. Though these kids were tough and smart and dangerous, they were city kids— from parts of Earth that were civilized, even though that civilization was shattered and crumbling. Here, on a wild planet, their urban knowledge and street-wise skills were just about useless. They were bewildered, and lost.
“What we do,” Cord said bluntly, “is survive. And for that, to start with, we need three things— food, water, shelter. We’ve got the third, here in the shuttle. Now we’ve got to go and explore, see if there’s water in the forest that we can drink, and anything that we can eat. ”
“Sounds good,” Jeko said, nodding.
But he and the other two were still looking at Cord, expectantly. And then Cord realized the fur-ther truth. They had spent most of their lives in gangs—troops, as they called them. And gangs had leaders. They were waiting for Cord to lead them.
No, he thought. Not me. In the Highlands there are no leaders, no followers. I wouldn’t know how to lead if I wanted to. Or how to be led.
But Samella, at least, was not willing to give Cord the total power of decision-making. “I was thinking,” she said quietly, “that we should look through there.” She pointed to the crumpled hatchway leading to what was left of the shuttle’s forward section. “Maybe some of our supplies survived the crash.”
Cord agreed readily. But then he paused, a memory jolted by her words. “Samella, didn’t GUIDE say there were four others who lived through the crash?”
Samella was shocked. “Of course… I completely forgot!”
They surveyed the jumble of caskets. Before, only two of the less damaged caskets had stood open—Cord’s and Samella’s. But now the lids on four others were raised. Three of them had held Jeko, Rontal and Heleth—but the last one was just as empty.
“Must have wakened up before us,” Heleth said, “and went off somewhere.”
“We didn’t see anyone when we were out,” Cord said with a frown. “Whoever it was must have gone into the forest when we were on the far side of the clearing.”
“We’d better go out and look,” Samella said. Cord nodded, then remembered. “Some of us can go,” he said. “What about your headache?”
“It’s gone,” she said, looking surprised as if she too had just remembered it. “It stopped when we got back into the shuttle.”
“Could be something in the air out there,” Cord said thoughtfully. “Maybe you should stay here while we make a search.”
At first Samella demurred. But then Cord explained to the others, and they agreed that there would be no point in Samella risking more pain. So she agreed—partly because she had thought of some-thing else.
“I suppose if I stay behind, I can find out a few things,” she said. “GUIDE told us that he had all the details of the planet in his data banks. I can find out how much of that information survived the crash.”
“That makes sense,” Cord said. “Ask it about food and weather, things like that. And if there’s anything dangerous in the forest.”
Jeko grinned. “Fell’, there’s nothin’ out there more dangerous’n a couple of Limbo Streeters.” “Except a Bunker Vampire,” Heleth said sharply. They all laughed again. And then Cord—careful to give no signal that might be seen as a leader’s order—moved towards the airlock. The other three fell in behind him, as if they had been waiting for him to move.
They emerged into the clearing, and Cord was pleased to find that he had been right about the time of day. The mist had thinned to only a few wisps, and one edge of the sky was painted a luminous orange. There was a sun, and it was rising. But still, Cord noted, the forest was entirely silent—no birdsong or rustling of small creatures, maybe no life in there at all, except the trees.
So he was both watchful and a little excited as they moved across the clearing. And the others were also excited, fascinated by the alien landscape, but at the same time keeping up a stream of merry chatter that answered many of Cord’s unasked questions. He learned that the Streeters were each sixteen, and that Heleth was a year older. He learned that Jeko descended from people called “nisei”, who were Americans but somehow also a kind of Asians—and that Rontal would once have been called a “black”. But that word seemed more suited to Heleth, whose facial darkening was not paint, Cord found, but something put under the skin. It was all interesting, though for Cord it all raised as many questions as it answered.
But then they reached the edge of the clearing, and the silent dimness of the forest put an end to their talk. Watchful, a little awed, the three of them peered in among the trees. And Cord saw that the other three were glancing at him, as if waiting to be told what to do.
He had no idea what to do about that. He didn’t want the responsibility, nor did he want any-one else to be responsible for him. He wanted the Highlands way, the free co-operation of equals, among people who most of the time went their own way. But how could he explain that to three kids from the close-knit city gangs of Earth?
He was still pondering the problem when the sound ripped through the silence around them.
Back in the shuttle, Samella had screamed.
6 The Leader
Cord reached the shuttle in a furious sprint, hurdling the fallen trunks of trees, so that the scream still seemed to be echoing within the interior as he leaped through the airlock, the others on his heels.
Samella was standing stiffly in front of the smashed screen of GUIDE. And she was facing a person who made Jeko and the others look almost ordinary.
A tall, broad-shouldered, bony man, with a shock of pure-white hair. Yet the face was youthful, despite its angular narrowness. It was also just about the ugliest face Cord had ever seen. Greyish-white skin, seeming more pallid because of a smear of lurid green tattooing on the hollow cheeks. Narrow, glittering eyes set deep in cavernous sockets. A wide mouth with thick, fleshy-red lips, and a flattened nose that seemed hardly a nose at all.
Cord saw all those details in one startled glance as he came to a halt. “Samella?”
“Sorry I screamed.” Samella seemed nervous, but in control of herself. “He… he startled me.” “Scared you out of your pants, is what,” the bony man said, grinning. The grin showed prominent, sharp canine teeth, almost like fangs.
“He’s a Crusher,” Rontal breathed from behind Cord.
Cord halfturned, puzzled, as the bony man smiled again.
“Smart kid,” he said. “Recognized the tattoos.” Cord became aware that Samella had moved to stand next to him. “The Crushers are a special combat team, set up by the CeeDees—the Civil Defenders,” she told him in a low voice. “If anyone sets up a group to resist the Organization, the Crushers are sent in. It happened a couple of years ago, in some oilfields west of where I lived.” Her voice hardened. “They say the Crushers didn’t leave a single person alive.”
“Another smart kid,” the bony man said, still grinning evilly. “I was there, in those oilfields. Somebody starts trouble, Crushers go in to stop it.” “By torture and killing,” Samella said coldly. The grin vanished. “Crushers are trained for killing, sweets,” the man said, his voice sharp. “Best in the world. Don’t you forget it.” But as Samella met his gaze defiantly, the grin suddenly reappeared, as if a switch had been thrown. “But I’m not a Crusher now. Past year, I been battle chief of the Death Angels, the toughest, meanest troop in Quake City on the west coast. They call me the Lamprey, ’cause when I grab, the fell’ stays grabbed.”
Cord heard the hiss of breath through Jeko’s teeth as the man called the Lamprey identified him-self. And the man turned his evil grin towards the sound.
“Figured you’d have heard of the Angels, kid.” His glittering eyes swept over the faces of the two boys, and their scarred scalps. “Streeters from Liim bo, right?” He giggled suddenly, an eerie sound that started and stopped abruptly. “Only troop that has to carve their initials on their heads, so they don’t forget who they are.”
Jeko nodded nervously. “Yeah. I’m Jeko, he’s Rontal.”
But the Lamprey’s gaze had swung away, towards Heleth. “And you, shorty. What’s the black face for?”
Heleth blinked, also looking nervous. “Heleth, from the Bunkers, old London. The black is a sub-skin injection, for camouflage in the tunnels.” The Lamprey giggled again, as if she had made a joke, and then looked at Cord. “How about you, chub? What’s your troop?”
Cord glared. “Cord MaKiy, and I have no troop. I’m from north Britain, the Highlands.”
The ugly grin twisted into a sneer. “Never heard of it.” He looked at Samella. “You from these Highlands too, sweets?”
She shook her head coldly. “Minneap’. And no troop, either. I was an indent.”
The Lamprey’s high giggle rose. “What a bunch of dulls.” Ignoring Cord’s glower and Samella’s tightened mouth, he glanced at the airlock. “So now we know who we are, time to find out where. When I woke up I went out, for a look-see—and this place’s got to be the back-end of the earth.”
“It’s not Earth,” Cord said bluntly. “It’s another planet, called Klydor.”
Every muscle on the Lamprey’s lean body went taut. The sneering smile narrowed into a grimace, and the glittering eyes were like hot coals in the sockets of a skull.
“Planet?” The word was a strangled yell.
“No one’s had a chance to tell you,” Samella said quickly. She turned to the computer console. “GUIDE, tell the. .. the Lamprey where we are.”
As GUIDE’S soft voice obligingly began, Cord watched the Lamprey’s face, fascinated and repelled. Emotions seemed to flow over it, swift and changeable as water over rock. One moment he would be glaring, snarling, hands clenching into fists. The next second he would be showing his teeth in his evil grin, or bursting into one of his eerie giggles. And then the sudden rage again. .. .
As he watched, Cord realized with a nerve twisting certainty that the Lamprey was insane.
The others realized it as well, he saw, and were glancing at one another nervously. But at the same time Cord could see that Heleth and the Streeters were impressed by the Lamprey, even in awe of him.
Then GUIDE finished the quiet recital, and the Lamprey swung away, shaking with fury. “They can’t do that!” he raged. “They got no right! ColSec sends no-hope kids into space—not ex-Crushers! Not me!”
Cord was startled to realize that the existence of ColSec’s callous methods was not news to the Lamprey—that his fury was simply at being included.
Then he was startled again when Samella spoke, her voice sharp with distaste.
“But you’re here,” she said. “With us no-hopers. Just another ColSec exile.”
Cord braced himself, because the Lamprey’s face was vicious and hate-filled, and Cord was sure that he would leap at Samella. But then, slowly, the bony body relaxed, and the thick lips stretched in another grin.
“Not for long, sweets,” he said. “When ColSec gets here, they’ll see they made a mistake, sending me with you dulls. Till then, we just make the best of it. Right?”
“Right,” Jeko said eagerly. “That’s what Cord said. We got to survive.”
“Cord said we should explore the forest,” Heleth added. “See what we can find to eat, and that.” “Cord said,” the Lamprey repeated, in a tone that Cord did not care for. “You set up as the leader of this troop, MaKiy?”
Cord met his gaze steadily. “There is no leader. We don’t need a leader.”
“Wrong,” the Lamprey snarled. “You need. And you got. The Lamprey’s here.”
“What if we don’t want you?” Samella asked angrily. “Anyway, if we have to be led, it should be by someone who knows wild country, like Cord does. It’s all forest, outside.”
The Lamprey stared at her witheringly. “You wouldn’t be stupid enough not to want the Lamprey, sweets. And I’ll tell you why. First, I’m some over twenty, older’n any of you. Second, I was a Crusher, smarter and harder than all of you together. Third, I was a leader, with the Death Angels, where I reckon all of you were followers, in your troops, or nothing. Right?”
