Eugene Lambert - The Long Forever

Now we know the hangings were faked so the kids could be spirited away afterwards. Like the ones in here.

I open my eyes and the redhead lad is next for the cup.

For maybe the thousandth time I reach inside my jacket, making out like I’m having a scratch. Feel the cold and reassuring metal of my snub-nosed blaster. When we were loaded aboard, the freighter crew couldn’t be bothered searching us. They’ll have figured their Slayer buddies would’ve taken care of that. Didn’t even find Sky’s leg brace, which would have taken some explaining.

‘Don’t!’ she hisses. ‘What if they’re watching?’

‘I’m sick of this,’ I whisper. ‘I say we bust out now. If we wait any longer, you’ll be too sick to back me up.’

She shakes her head, sending her white dreads flying.

‘No. We wait. I’ll be fine.’

‘You keep saying that; what if you’re not ?’

That’s my big worry. All us nubloods feel like crap, but we’re not getting worse. Sky is though. I grew up with a healer for a mother, so I know ill when I see it. Sky won’t admit it, but whatever’s hurting us is hurting her much worse. See, she’s only pureblood and weak already from the darkblende poisoning that’s slowly killing her. And that boiled buzzweed she takes for her lung pain doesn’t seem to help with this, so how much more can she stand?

‘We stick to our plan,’ she snarls.

Our plan? Hers, more like. Sky’s betting that we’ll be taken to the same place they took her sister, Tarn. Her plan is to keep our heads down until the freighter lands and unloads us, before shooting our way clear. Yeah right. Me, I’m for busting out the first chance we get, jamming my blaster in the pilot’s ear and making him take us some place safe. And this way we could give these other nublood kids a chance too.

But Sky won’t have it. Says they aren’t our problem.

‘I don’t like the way you look,’ I whisper.

‘Find someone cuter then.’

‘That’s not what I meant, and you know it. You –’

A violent lurching sensation shuts me up. My seeing goes all strange. Everything around me streaks away, smeared out to an impossible distance. For one heart-stopping second I swear our star freighter has slammed into something. But a few frantic blinks later everything snaps back. Something has changed though. That awful prickly feeling scratching at my skin is gone.

Sky lets out a sob of relief . . . so it’s not just me.

‘What just happened?’ I gasp.

‘Whatever it was – I’ll take it,’ she says.

The other kids are swapping startled looks when a loud metallic snick jerks our heads round. It’s followed by a soft sucking sound and then a soft breeze that’s there one second and gone the next. Beyond the thick mesh caging off this part of the cargo hold, a rust-streaked hatch set into the forward bulkhead slides slowly open. Two men clamber inside through it, hauling a large dark something between them.

That something . . . is a man.

Slumped, unresisting, his head hangs down, hiding his face from me. But I see the matt-black uniform.

A Slayer!

Sky stays sprawled where she is, squirming to see past kids in the way. ‘Are they bringing us food?’

‘No, another prisoner. A Slayer. In a right state too.’

The black uniform is torn and filthy and he’s clearly taken a fierce beating. His legs kick feebly as the crewmen drag him closer before dropping him. His head hits the deck with a loud thwack . Slayer or not, I can’t help wincing.

One of the crewmen unslings a killstick and waves it at us. ‘Back up, away from the cage door.’

‘You heard him,’ the other growls. ‘Shift yourselves.’

Sky and me, we’re already at the back of the caged area. Kids nearer the door haul themselves slowly and grudgingly to their feet before shuffling back towards us. The unarmed crewman unlocks the cage door and swings it open.

‘Won’t get a better chance than this,’ I whisper to Sky, slipping the words out of the side of my mouth.

‘No!’ Her cold claw of a hand clamps round my wrist.

While the guy with the killstick covers him, his buddy grabs the Slayer by his heels and drags him inside the cage. The man’s head leaves an ugly red smear behind on the deck plates. I’m raging, but Sky’s still got hold of me. The crewman dumps the Slayer, retreats and clangs the cage door shut again. Gives it a tug to check it’s secure.

‘Some company for you,’ he jeers.

‘What we need is food,’ somebody calls out.

‘Eat this guy then,’ the crewman says, and laughs.

They both clear off, and the hatch shuts behind them.

Sky lets go of me at last.

‘Great!’ I thump my head into the hull behind me.

Meanwhile, the nublood kids gather round the face-down Slayer. I see clenched fists and angry looks. One mean-looking lad growls something about it being time for payback and kicks the guy in the ribs.

I hiss out a breath and clamber to my feet. ‘Hey! Quit that!’

Growler boy sneers. ‘What do you care?’

‘Yeah, back off,’ a tall girl with a pox-marked face snarls.

I don’t need this. Twelve of them, only one of me, and I’m supposed to be keeping my head down. But now I get my first good look at the Slayer. I see the way-too-long-for-a-Slayer blond hair, matted with blood.

‘Oh, no way. It can’t be!’

I barge past the kids, drop to my knees and roll him on to his back. Stare in disbelief at the battered face.

‘What the frag are you doing here?’ I hiss.

2

CHANGE OF PLAN

Murdo! Still in the captured and patched Slayer gear he wore the night he marched us over to be thrown inside the loading cage. But what’s he doing here? We left him behind on Wrath. Unless they caught him? Crap! Does this mean they’re on to Sky and me too? Nah. Can’t be. The crewmen didn’t even glance at us when they threw him in.

I’m working on winding my gob shut when growler boy grabs hold and hauls me to my feet.

‘Mate of yours, is he? This Slayer?’

I’m collecting hard stares from the rest of the nublood kids too. And now that lurch thing happens again. We all stagger. By the time my eyes quit playing the fool again, the prickly skin feeling is back with a vengeance.

The kid holding me seems unfazed; he shoves his face at me. ‘You and your sick friend over there – who are you?’

We haven’t told them yet, or why we tricked our way into the cage and off Wrath, in case somebody squealed. Early on, one kid asked us where we’d appeared from. Sky told him a made-up ident camp name. And lied about us being shipped into the No-Zone weeks earlier to slave away on fetching and carrying inside the Slayer dome, until it came time to ship us off-world. Since then we’ve kept ourselves to ourselves and our mouths shut.

‘What do you mean?’ I say, stalling.

He’s half a head shorter than me, but much broader and stockier. And I’m pretty sure his name is Cam. The way he carries himself tells me he knows how to use his fists; the harsh look on his face says he likes using them.

He jerks his head at Murdo, who still hasn’t moved.

‘You know that Slayer, don’t you?’

‘How about you let go of me?’

‘How about you tell me why you’re mates with a Slayer?’

He shoves me a step backwards, and his mates crowd round too, peering at me suspiciously. Behind them, I catch a glimpse of Sky struggling to stand up.

‘You’re asking for it,’ I snarl. ‘Let go of me, or –’

‘Or what ?’ Cam gives me a harder shove that slams me back against the bars of the cage, rattling them.

That does it. I’ve had enough of being pushed around.