Eugene Lambert - The Long Forever

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Electric Monkey,

an imprint of Egmont UK Limited

The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN

Text copyright © 2018 Eugene Lambert

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

First e-book edition 2018

ISBN 978 1 4052 7737 2

Ebook ISBN 978 1 7803 1697 0

www.egmont.co.uk

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Stay safe online. Any website addresses listed in this book are correct at the time of going to print. However, Egmont is not responsible for content hosted by third parties.

Please be aware that online content can be subject to change and websites can contain content that is unsuitable for children. We advise that all children are supervised when using the internet.

Egmont takes its responsibility to the planet and its inhabitants very seriously. All the papers we use are from well-managed forests run by responsible suppliers.

To Paddy and Maureen,

to Kyle and Sky,

to my wonderful readers,

and last but not least,

to all my fellow identical twins.

Also available in the trilogy

THE SIGN OF ONE

INTO THE NO-ZONE

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Electric Monkey, an imprint of Egmont UK Limited The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN Text copyright © 2018 Eugene Lambert The moral rights of the author have been asserted First e-book edition 2018 ISBN 978 1 4052 7737 2 Ebook ISBN 978 1 7803 1697 0 www.egmont.co.uk All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Stay safe online. Any website addresses listed in this book are correct at the time of going to print. However, Egmont is not responsible for content hosted by third parties. Please be aware that online content can be subject to change and websites can contain content that is unsuitable for children. We advise that all children are supervised when using the internet. Egmont takes its responsibility to the planet and its inhabitants very seriously. All the papers we use are from well-managed forests run by responsible suppliers.

Dedication To Paddy and Maureen, to Kyle and Sky, to my wonderful readers, and last but not least, to all my fellow identical twins.

Front series promotional page Also available in the trilogy THE SIGN OF ONE INTO THE NO-ZONE

PART ONE: EVASION PART ONE EVASION

1: FEELING GRIM

2: CHANGE OF PLAN

3: BUSTING OUT

4: MURDO’S STORY

5: DECISION TIME

6: DIVERSIONS

7: SHANGLO BACKWATER

8: BLAST FROM THE PAST

9: CHASING THE DEAL

10: SO CLOSE, SO FAR

PART TWO: TEMPTATION

11: MAROONED

12: SURVIVAL

13: OPPORTUNITY

14: KYLE AS RINGER

15: IN THE CAGE

16: ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

17: ONE LAST FIGHT

18: AN UNEXPECTED OFFER

19: INITIATION

20: A LUCKY BREAK . . . OR NOT

21: BUST UPS, BUZZING SKULLS

22: MARAUDERS AND SCREAMERS

23: A HARD DOCKING

24: A HARDER CONVERSATION

25: THE PLEASURE ZONE

26: A WALK AND A TALK

27: SOME NASTY SURPRISES

28: TIME TO CHOOSE

PART THREE: REDEMPTION

29: SUCKING ON EMPTY

30: TELLING AND SHOWING

31: RETURN TO THE ARK

32: FROM BAD TO WORSE

33: HARD NEWS ALL AROUND

34: HANGING OR BAIT

35: SUICIDE SQUAD

36: THE BAIT IS TAKEN

37: TRAPS, TWISTS AND TURNS

38: A FINAL BETRAYAL

39: FROM DARKNESS INTO LIGHT

EPILOGUE: SIX STANDARD-MONTHS LATER

Back series promotional page

PART ONE

EVASION

1

FEELING GRIM

‘Is your friend no better?’ one of the other prisoners asks.

‘What’s it look like?’ I say, real short.

I shouldn’t be bad-tempered. The girl was just asking. But Sky’s getting sicker so fast she’s scaring me. That, and I’m lightheaded with hunger and choking with thirst. My skin is sore too, horribly prickly, almost as if it’s trying to crawl off. It’s like that healing itch us nubloods get when we’re recovering from an injury, only loads worse.

Which is weird, because I’m not injured.

A dozen kids are stuck in this caged-off part of the star freighter’s hold with us. All idents, nubloods like myself. They’ve got the skin-crawling thing too, but you’d hardly know looking at them. They’re ident camp veterans, the toughest of the tough, and well used to suffering.

‘Why haul us off-world only to let us starve?’ I mutter.

Sky’s green eyes are sunk into her face. She stifles a cough. ‘Relax. They’ll feed us. We’re worth less dead.’

I hope she’s right. We haven’t seen our captors since we were loaded aboard. How long ago was that? At least three days, to be gnawed at by hunger so bad. One thing’s for sure, we’re not on Wrath any more. We’re off-world. In space. Tunnelling through the big cold empty.

Where to? Guess we’ll find out when we get there.

I lick my dry lips, imagining what I’d see if I could look back the way we’ve come. A scatter of stars, one of them the sun I squinted up at for sixteen years. Even if this freighter’s drive is as shagged as the rest of it looks, we’ll already be a good few light years on our way; too far to see the brown speck of Wrath, our barren little dump world.

Did I do right by coming with Sky? Don’t know.

All I know is that with every breath I take, I leave Colm further behind. If my twin’s still alive. By now he’ll have led the attack on the Slayer spaceport we found hidden in the heart of the No-Zone. Knowing him, he’d be fool enough to lead from the front and get himself wasted.

At the back of the cage a pipe drips water into a little plastic beaker. When it’s full the girl watching it so intently will drink it down. It’s her turn and fairer than passing it around. Some kids take bigger gulps than others. Must be getting close too, because she licks her lips and nods to the waiting youngsters to get ready. While she drinks, they get to cup their hands under the pipe so no drops are wasted. I’m after the redhead lad. Three more beaker-fills between me and a few mouthfuls of brackish water.

At the rate the pipe drips it’ll keep us alive . . . just.

Sky says it’s set like that on purpose, to keep us weak.

I squeeze my eyes shut and try to forget how thirsty I am. Flashes of light spark on the back of my eyelids, in time with the vicious prickling of my skin. Somehow I end up thinking about that Peace Fair I went to, where this all began. Seeing idents for the first time. Wondering which one was evil. Missing the Cutting ceremony, but watching the Unwrapping in the middle of a baying crowd. Everyone straining to see as the bandages came off. Which twin would show the impossibly quick healing, the telltale sign of the nublood monster? The sickening executions that followed. Nooses around children’s necks. The bang of the trapdoor as it fell open. The drop. A bar-taut rope twitching as a young life kicked itself away. Never for one moment suspecting that I was an ident myself. Worse still, that I was the one with the monster nublood pumping in my veins.