Escape (44 page)

Jilly's wolvin took a few dozen more leaping bounds, then slowed to a trot. She frowned, wondering what was wrong; they were still at least half a milé-astrom from the dome. Then her wolvin stopped altogether, refusing to go any further. She gave it a gentle kick in the ribs, but it just growled at her.

“What's wrong with him?” Jilly called out, looking around for Lystra Deswin. She found him and Ferrel both a few micró-astroms ahead of her and to one side, already dismounting. Lystra gave no reply, but Ferrel's thoughts cut into hers:

They know better than to get too close. We'll have to go the rest of the way on foot.

Jilly slid off her mount with a frown and patted his neck affectionately before catching up with the others. They were already walking purposefully toward the dome. Jilly cast her gaze up, up
 
.
 
.
 
.
trying to see the top of the dome, but she couldn't. Either it was too high, or she'd reached the limit of her newly-enhanced eyesight.

When they reached the base of the dome, they found a ring of lighted green arrows around it. Since Lystra Deswin didn't seem to know what the arrows signified, they decided to follow them. The surface of the dome was entirely opaque, glassy, and black, like tetrillium shielding. Jilly supposed that it might actually be tetrillium shielding. The whole point of the dome was to protect whatever was underneath from a direct asteroid impact. No material or structure was strong enough to do that apart from tetrillium, which when powered would act like a transducer and dissipate the heat and kinetic energy. There were no signs of civilization either inside or out of the dome. But the dome itself was a sort of sign.

A big sign.

After about five minutes of walking around the imperceptibly curving base of the dome, the lighted arrows disappeared, and the smoothly curving dome curved inward. In the recessed area another light shone, illuminating a glassy black door. Jilly stepped up to it and placed her hand against the palm scanner.

A concealed speaker issued a noisy
blaat,
and a computerized voice addressed them:

“Your biometric profile is not registered. Municipal and federal law mandates that no member of the Constantic order shall gain admittance to Shoni cities. Conversely, no Shoni citizen may trespass in the Forsaken Lands without an authenticated writ of approval. If you are an outworlder, and have somehow found yourself in the Forsaken Lands by mistake, please dial triple zero for assistance and wait to be served by the next available
—
”

Jilly punched the zero key on the keypad below the scanner three times, cutting off the recording.

“You have reached the Crater City Patrollers Department. We are sorry that no one is currently available to take your call, please wait for assistance.”

An annoying melody began wafting out of the speakers, and Jilly turned to the others with a thin smile. They gazed back at her with matching grins, causing her smile to dissapear beneath a frown. Unsettled, she turned back to the door. After what seemed like an eternity of waiting, the music disappeared and a voice spoke:

“Lieutenant Devorlin speaking, how may I help you?”

Jilly explained that they were tourists come to visit Da Shon, who had accidentally gotten in the middle of the recent battle between the planetary defense fleet and the Union Sentinels. That much was true, more or less, but the next part was an outright lie.

“We were forced to crash-land in the Forsaken Lands, and
—
”

“You crash-landed?”

“Yes, as I was saying
—
”

“Please stay where you are. I'll send an officer to to escort you inside immediately.”

A noisy
click
came through speakers, signifying the end of the conversation, and Jilly turned to the others with a shrug. “That was easier than I expected.”

* * *

When the glossy black door finally opened, it opened to reveal a dozen patrollers, all dressed in gunmetal gray combat armor with weapons at the ready.

Ferrel's hand dropped to his belt where his neutron pistol was crudely holstered.

“Drop your weapons!” came an authoritative voice, filtered through helmet speakers. “Slowly.”

Ferrel's eyes narrowed, but he complied, followed by Jilly, and finally Lystra Deswin, who unslung his rifle and tossed it to the ground at his feet.

A pair of patrollers crossed the threshold and grabbed Jilly roughly by the shoulders.

“Hey!” she yelped in response to the bruising force.

Ferrel snarled menacingly and grabbed one of the patroller's wrists. “Let her go,” he whispered.

The patroller's voice issued calmly from his helmet speakers: “I would advise you the same. The three of you are under arrest. Resisting would be
 
.
 
.
 
.
unwise
.”

Ferrel contemplated this with an unsettling grin. “Very well,” he conceded. “What are the charges?”

“Terrorism.”

“But we're not terrorists!” Jilly exclaimed.

“Save it for the judiciary.”

Another pair of patrollers squeezed through the open door and took hold of Ferrel and Lystra Deswin. Ferrel gritted his teeth as they fastened restraints around his wrists, but Lystra just went on smiling, as if nothing could make him happier than going with the patrollers. Another patroller bent to carefully collect their weapons, and then they were shoved roughly through the doorway, and it closed automatically behind them with a noisy
clang
.

On the other side of the door they found themselves in a dark alleyway, the sides of which were littered by stray refuse. The building walls which formed the alley rose ever higher to either side, with gouts of steam or exhaust fumes (Jilly couldn't tell which) occasionally misting out from vents just above the street level. The air was dank and foul-smelling, but much warmer than it had been outside the dome. Glowing windows provided dim white, blue, and yellow illumination higher up the walls of the buildings, and bridges periodically crossed the gap from one building to the other.

Gaudy advertisements hanging beneath the bridges burst out with noisy, overenthusiastic voices as they drew near: “Come to the Pleasure Emporium, where our live, nude dancers will make you leave your worries at the door!”
 
.
 
.
 
.
“If it's legal, and you can drink, smoke, inhale, or inject it, you'll find it at the Drifters' Lounge!”

Jilly frowned. They certainly hadn't chosen to enter the city by the classiest entrance. Craning her neck around, she saw that the inner side of the dome disappeared just above the level of the door. Instead of the blank, curving alloy of the dome, she saw a clear dark sky of glittering stars. It was a hologram, it had to be, but the illusion of an infinitely distant sky that she knew to be only micró-astroms away was remarkably unsettling. It was like she'd stepped acrosss the threshold from one world, straight into another. She imagined that in the planet's normally gloomy day cycle, the inner side of the dome would display a bright and cheerful skyline, the likes of which Da Shon never saw.

One of the patrollers behind Jilly grew annoyed with her gawking and shoved her roughly forward. She stumbled, and another patroller laughed, a hiss of static escaping his helmet speakers.

Ferrel snarled warningly, and one of the patrollers walking behind him cracked his gauntlet into the back of Ferrel's head. “Shut it!”

The alleyway ended up ahead, and they emerged in a busy square. The street was crowded with pedestrians, all enjoying the seedy nightlife of the city. A heavy, ground-shaking base rattled out from the variety establishments in the square. Advertisments prattled; people laughed; and a horrible drifting stench of garbage and moldering, unwashed streets seemed to light Jilly's nostrils on fire. She noticed a remarkable number of pedestrians wandering in and out of the entrance to the afore-heralded
Pleasure Emporium
. Those coming out invariably wore the silly, drunken grins of the temporarily satisfied. They'd be back.

To all sides, buildings rose in a dizzying display of light and color, and when Jilly looked up, she saw not an artificial gap of starry blackness overhead, but a blurry melding of those lights, as though the buildings grew together higher up. The square was dominated by an old, cracked fountain which still ran with inky-black water, intermittently lit by a few flickering blue lights. The fountain was ringed with railings, and only accessible by bridges, which Jilly assumed to cross a moat of water. As they marched through the square, however, they came parallel to the railings, and Jilly looked down
 
.
 
.
 
.
down
 
.
 
.
 
.

And drew back from the railings with a suddenly spinning head. Those bridges crossed an indefinitely deep urban chasm, ablaze with whorls of light and color that eventually disappeared into a haze of mist, or possibly steam. Catwalks crisscrossed the chasm endlessly, with tiny bobbing heads weaving along them.

Crater City was huge. Jilly shook her head, as though to clear it, and wondered briefly how such an enormous place could exist, how much it must have cost to build, and why anyone would have bothered. There were far easier worlds to colonize. Besides that, why build
below
ground, why not simply build higher? She was about to ask those questions when Ferrel's thoughts drifted into hers.

The city was built in a crater. They didn't have to dig to build below ground. They had to build just to reach what you're thinking of as the ground.

Jilly nodded slowly, then turned to the nearest patroller. “Where are you taking us?”

“To the Tekasi Detention Center.”

“You can't take us there! We were in a crash. We need medical assistance.”

“We can take you anywhere we want.”

“My friend has been showing signs of a concussion. And any one of us could have internal injuries.”

Overhearing the conversation, the patroller at the head of the group spoke: “Orders are to take you to the Detention Center. We have medics there who can examine you and treat your injuries.”

A long silence stretched, and the patrollers led them from the square and down another, wider alley than the previous one. In the middle of the alley lay a set of tracks, with what looked like tram cars, two separate lanes of them, lying in wait. The tramway was separated from the alley by guardrails, and traversed by the occassional pedestrian walkways. The patrollers led them to the furthest tram, opened the guardrail and then the tram. They were shoved roughly forward, and forced to stand inside the tram car. There were only seats for eight.

A pair of patrollers took the foremost seats and began adjusting the controls. The tram car's engines hummed to life and the doors swished shut. Jilly frowned, wondering how the tramway worked. There were only two lanes, and each car was separate from the others, so it was hard to imagine how people could avoid traffic jams when one or more of the trams stopped along the tracks.

As the tram started forward, Jilly idly considered that question to keep her mind off of the more troubling matter of how to get away from the patrollers and check in to a med center to treat whatever was ailing them before it was too late. The tram accelerated quickly, and soon pedestrian walkways were wooshing past overhead and Jilly saw the crowded street blur into streaks of drab color.

Suddenly the tram switched tracks, narrowly avoiding a collision with another tram, which had stopped up ahead to let off passengers. Jilly blinked in horror.

“We almost hit them!” she exclaimed. The words had barely left her mouth when their tram shot sideways again and narrowly avoided getting hit by an oncoming vehicle. “We almost hit them, too! Are you trying to get us all killed?”

One of the pilots began chuckling. He turned in his seat, his hands raised. “Look no hands!”

She gaped at him.

He gaped back. “What the kefick's wrong with your eyes?”

So he was the first to notice.

“I told you we're not well. We need medical attention. Quickly.”

The patroller's eyes narrowed fractionally, while the others turned to look. He appeared to think it over for a second, then he shook his head and smiled. “Nice try. What are you, members of some kind of daimonic cult?” The patroller nodded to Ferrel. “He has the same ocular filters as you.”

“Yeah. A cult. Something like that,” Jilly muttered, her gaze sliding worriedly out the windows of the tram.

“Hum. Well, as for the tramways, you can relax. It's all automated. The computer knows exactly where all the other trams are, how fast they're moving, and how fast we're moving. It takes all the variables into account and makes the necessary course and speed adjustments to avoid collisions.”

Jilly blinked at the man, wondering how he could be so stupid. “What if two trams stop beside each other and there's no time to stop? What if one is stopped and another is passing at the same instant your tram decides to pass? What if someone threw something on the tracks, or a segment of the tracks were damaged?”