World of Fire (Dev Harmer 01) (17 page)

19

“W
E CALL IT
the Ordeal,” Thorne said. “If a miner gets out of line, offends a colleague, brings disgrace on the pit folk community, whatever, this is how he or she can earn back trust.”

They had gone deep into the main access tunnel, walking for several minutes. Dev sensed an excitement among the miners, the eagerness of an audience about to witness a spectacle. He hadn’t a clue what Thorne had in store for him, but he was sure it would be difficult and most likely unpleasant.

“The longer you hold out, the greater the respect you gain,” Thorne continued. “I went through it myself, not because I did anything wrong, but in order to prove my worthiness to be union leader. I can safely say that no one in living memory has lasted as long as I did.”

“Does it involve boring people senseless with a pompous, self-aggrandising monologue?” said Dev. “Because I can see how you’d win at that.”

“I doubt you’ll be so witty five minutes from now, Mr ISS Man.”

“My friends call me Dev.”

“I’m going to stick with ‘Mr ISS Man.’”

“My point exactly.”

One of the miners sniggered, until Thorne shot him a dirty look and he stopped.

“Now, you don’t have to take part,” Thorne said to Dev. “I’ll understand if you chicken out once you realise what you’ll be facing. But then we’ll all know you’re a gutless coward and the strike will carry on.”

“Well, when you put it in such an even-handed way like that, how can I refuse?”

They came to a T-junction, two lesser tunnels leading off at right angles from the main one.

“Left down this haulageway,” said Thorne. “Not much further now.”

They took another left into a large chamber, a workshop where items of mining equipment were parked. Alongside a couple of transportation carts, there were several fearsome-looking exoskeleton rigs fitted with tools for ripping, drilling and shearing. Most of them hung in cradles, partially dismantled, in the process of being mended or serviced. Pistons and hydraulic cables stood exposed, robotic muscles and veins.

A handful of mechanics were toiling away with blowtorches and screwdrivers. Thorne swanned in and told them to drop what they were doing and leave.

“You shouldn’t be working anyway,” he said. “You may not be proper miners, but what about pit folk solidarity? I’d hate for people to start thinking you’re scabs.”

The mechanics took the hint and, duly cowed, shuffled out.

“Should I do this?” Dev murmured to Kahlo.

“If you ask me, you’ve gone too far to back out now. At least, not without losing face.”

“Do you even know what the Ordeal is?”

“I’ve heard rumours.”

“And?”

“They’re not good ones.”

“Well, it sounds to me like it might be something that’s against the law. Just saying.”

“My jurisdiction has its limits. Miners prefer to resolve their own problems when they can – keep it within the community.”

“But if it means hurting me...”

“You think I can arrest all these people? On my own?”

“Then I guess I’ll just have to stick or fold.”

“I really wish I could help you, Harmer.”

“So do I.”

“Come here,” Thorne ordered, and Dev ambled over to join him on a hoist platform above a vehicle inspection bay.

“Stand there. Like so. Legs apart.”

Dev straddled the platform’s two runners.

“Arms out. Parallel to the ground.”

Dev extended his arms.

“I hope you’re not going to tickle me.”

“No.”

Thorne nodded to two miners, who together went to fetch something from the rear of the workshop. They brought over two sets of chains attached to steel trays.

They fastened the chains to Dev’s wrists so that the trays hung free, suspended a few inches above the platform. He now resembled a human pair of scales.

“I didn’t realise this was what you were into, Thorne,” he said. “I don’t mind a bit of bondage myself, but we ought to set a safeword first.”

Thorne ignored him, evidently feeling the time for joking was past.

That was when Dev spotted flecks of a dark, crusty substance on the trays. It was, by the look of it, dried blood.

He too reckoned the time for joking was past.

“Okay,” he said. “What happens next?”

“You stay like that,” Thorne replied. “Don’t lower your arms. Either of those trays touches the platform, it’s over.”

“Hmmm. They’re pretty heavy, but I think I can cope.”

Already his arms were beginning to ache. Each tray-and-chain combo must have weighed thirty pounds.

“How long did you go for?” he asked. “So I know the target I have to beat.”

“Fifteen minutes, twenty-seven seconds.”

That was doable, Dev thought. His host form seemed to have sufficient strength.

“But,” Thorne added, “this is only the start.”

“There’s more?”

“Much more.”

Thorne beckoned, and one of the miners came forward with a socket wrench in his hands. Before Dev could object or even prepare himself, he swung it hard. The wrench hit Dev square in the midriff, knocking the wind out of him.

He staggered, just managing to remain upright.

The miner tossed the wrench into one of the trays. Dev, still gasping for breath, stiffened the arm on that side to compensate for the extra weight.

Another miner stepped up, this one carrying a sock stuffed with nuts and bolts.

Dev tensed his abdominal muscles. The blow, when it came, was swingeing. Fire exploded all across his belly.

The makeshift cosh went into the empty tray. Dev hauled up his other arm to steady the tray.

“Tell your people,” he said to Thorne through gritted teeth, “they hit like schoolgirls.”

Thorne laughed. “You can end this any time. Just let either or both of your arms drop. That’s all it takes.”

“What’s the time so far?”

“I started a stopwatch on my commplant. Fifty-eight seconds. Fifty-nine. Your first full minute.”

Dev stared hard into Thorne’s eyes. “Bring it on.”

A miner stood in front of him, a piece of chain wrapped around his fist. It was the tall, ginger-haired man who had made the ‘SS’ quip.

“Nobody likes a smartmouth,” he said, and delivered a piledriver punch.

Dev bit back a groan of agony. “Nobody likes a ginger either,” he managed to say.

The miner looked as though he might hit him again, but apparently there were strict rules in force. One blow only per turn. The chain joined the wrench in the right-hand tray with a rattling
clank
.

A fourth miner came onto the platform to clobber Dev, and a fifth, and a sixth, each using some implement they had found lying around the workshop. The trays gradually filled up, becoming heavier.

Dev withstood the punishment. He kept his arms out horizontal, even as his shoulders knotted and grew sorer. The trays dipped and wavered, but didn’t drop.

He wasn’t doing it for the sake of industrial relations. He couldn’t have cared less about strike action or Anoshkin Energiya.

This was about him and Ben Thorne.

The union leader had thrown down a gauntlet. He had settled on humiliating Dev as a method of restorative justice. But if Dev outlasted him, beating his Ordeal record, then Thorne would surely go down a few notches in his co-workers’ estimation. Dev’s only real chance of victory lay in hanging on through the pain so that he could humiliate Thorne in return.

His commplant signalled an incoming call. Kahlo.

Harmer.

Little busy right now.

He glanced across the workshop, meeting Kahlo’s gaze. There was that peculiar frisson you got when you were holding a commplant conversation with someone you could physically see, that sense of disjuncture. You could hear the voice. Why wasn’t the mouth moving to match? The face making the appropriate expressions?

Don’t do this to yourself.

No choice.

Quit. Thorne’s done enough to you. Let him have this.

You mean let him win? If you knew me better, you’d know that isn’t an option.

Fine. Be like that.

Thanks for the concern, though.

Not concern. I just hate stubbornness for stubbornness’s sake.

Someone whacked Dev with a piston rod. It was a good shot, dead centre of his solar plexus. The pain was sickening.

Ben Thorne smiled and dropped the piston rod into a tray.

“Seven minutes,” he said. “Almost halfway there. Give in. Those trays aren’t getting any lighter. Nor are our blows. If you let it go on much longer, you’ll be pissing blood for a week. Trust me, I did.”

“I think I just felt a butterfly’s wing brushing past my stomach,” Dev said. “Did you see it go by?”

Another minute passed, and another. Oddly, it was the pain from his shoulders that became hard to tolerate, more so than the pain from his battered belly. His trapezius muscles had gone into excruciating spasm, and stabs of agony were shooting up the back of his neck into his skull. It was like wearing a yoke made of red-hot iron.

Both trays were now laden with tools, spare parts and pieces of scrap metal. They must have weighed at least fifty pounds each.

Dev’s left arm sagged. The tray came perilously close to touching the platform. He raised it, trembling.

Something with a sharp edge bashed him just below the waistline. A stripe of blood appeared across the front of his overalls.

“He’s had enough on that side,” Thorne declared. “Let’s try the back instead.”

Dev braced himself as the blows slammed against him from behind, one after another.

“How – how many...?” he croaked.

“Minutes? Ten and three quarters,” said Thorne.

Less than five to go.

He could do this.

He could do this.

Dimly, through a kind of greasy throbbing haze, he saw Kahlo. Her eyes were urging him to relent, not to stick it out any more.

But there was still a point to prove. It wasn’t enough just to undergo the Ordeal. Thorne had to be defeated. Pride was at stake, and more. A principle. Men like Ben Thorne had to be shown up for the preening, puffed-up little pricks they were.

Some of the miners seemed to be developing sympathy for Dev. They were no longer hitting him quite as forcefully as before.

Others, though, were redoubling their efforts. They wanted him to weaken, to crumple, to fall.

One unusually savage blow made him bite his tongue by accident. He spat out the blood.

Another caught him between two ribs, injuring an intercostal muscle. It felt like a heart attack.

“Thirteen minutes,” said Thorne. He was trying to keep his tone of voice neutral, but there was evident aggravation in it. Dev was only two and a half minutes away from beating his time.

Unfortunately, Dev felt about a minute and a half away from blacking out.

Someone yelled, “It touched. Did you see that? A tray touched down. I swear.”

“No, it didn’t,” said someone else. “I was watching. Nearly, but not quite.”

Dev, grimacing with the strain, wrenched both arms back up to horizontal. Each tray felt as though it was carrying a ton. His arms, his shoulders, his head – all were shuddering uncontrollably with the burden.

In the military, Dev had endured hazing rituals, or ‘corrective training’ as it was known. On the whole these had been penalties for minor infractions – arriving late for drill, a spot of dirt besmirching his uniform – and had involved running laps and doing press-ups until he puked, or being doused with water and made to stand outdoors in subzero conditions.

On one occasion, though, he had fallen asleep near the end of a combat simulation exercise lasting forty-eight hours. He was supposed to be guarding a munitions depot, but he was so exhausted after nearly two days of endless marching, live-firing, trench digging and reconnaissance that he could barely keep his eyes open.

An instructor caught him napping and decided an example should be made.

“If you nod off and a Plusser crab tank comes crawling over the hill,” the instructor said, “you’re toast, your munitions depot is toast, and your regiment is probably toast, too.”

Dev couldn’t resist pointing out that a crab tank, noisy as it was, would wake him up, giving him plenty of time to raise the alarm. Doubtless he shouldn’t have said this, but he was in trouble already, so what had he got to lose?

“All right, a fucking stealth manta, then,” the instructor said testily. “Now, squat down on your haunches. No, lower. Ladies and gentlemen...”