Chapter Four
The night passed by, at one point the house above me was roughly searched. My finger hovered near the trigger of my pistol as I waited for my hiding spot to be discovered. The moment never came though.
The remaining hours of the night had drifted by, until I heard movement above and the floor was pulled up with a creaking protest. I eased off on the trigger at the sight of faces made thin by little food and too much work.
I holstered the gun and accepted the hands being offered down to me. Stiffly I rose up and looked around at the gathering of mostly older people.
Daylight shone through the mud brick windows brightly. Most of the working age people would already have been at hard labor for several hours by now. I’d slept longer than I thought I had.
Looking around at the gathered faces I felt guilt for the food I had eaten the night before. The sea of faces parted for a younger woman who came straight to me.
She was crying and I guessed that she was some relation to or perhaps even the wife of the man I had shot. She came so close that we were almost touching and then she did a curious thing. She let her head fall forward until her forehead pressed into my chest as she continued to cry.
It was the act of a sister or a close loved one and yet I was a stranger among these people. Stranger perhaps, but family for sure.
I could see my great-grandfather in these people. I was of their blood and they seemed to sense it. My arms closed around the woman before me protectively as I let her cry even as a group all the older people around drew closer to lay aged hands on me.
The desperation in their eyes was beyond denying and the hope I saw reflected in their eyes as they stared at me seemed unjustified. Unjustified or not I would do my best to free these people. My people.
God help me though I didn’t have a clue as to how to go about it. All I knew was that I needed a partner, presumably in order to steal something.
The crying woman drew back and the group hug seemed to be at an end. Perhaps the oldest looking man I had ever seen stepped close to take my hand in his feeble grasp.
Aged eyes stared at me unflinchingly from a face that was etched with the passage of time and sights best not seen, “Welcome home.”
Hesitatingly I asked, “You know me?”
“Yes, when I look at you I still see my great uncle.”
Swallowing I looked into the eyes of a flesh and blood relation out of the past and asked, “What can I do to help?”
“Come.” The old man said before proceeding to lead me up a flight of rickety looking stairs.
I followed behind him prepared to catch him, if need be, as he laboriously made his way up the narrow stairwell. The stairway ended in light and gaining the top of the stairs I looked out on a rooftop garden that overlooked the surrounding perimeter of mud brick buildings that constituted the slave quarters.
Moving further out onto the roof I looked up the valley to the upper city. I’d seen it the day before, but now my distaste for it knew no bounds.
“Have you seen those who oppress your people?”
I nodded, “Tell me of them anyway. What are their weaknesses?”
He shrugged and seemed at a loss to name any before stating, “Vanity perhaps. Militarily they have none that I know of.”
“How did all this happen? I know nothing of the past.”
He nodded, “I thought as much. Much time has passed. I was but a young boy when the world, as we knew it, ended.”
“How old are you?” I asked wonderingly. I knew my great-grandfather had been well over a hundred years of age when he had died, but an exact age had never been given to me.
He shrugged, “I’ve stopped counting the bitter years of my life. Long have I wondered why I have persisted to this day, but now I begin to see. El Elohim is gracious to have allowed me to see the end of my people’s bondage even as I was there for the beginning of it.”
“The war is not over yet old one. I am but what you see, a man of flesh and blood. I possess no army or advancements in technology.”
His age eyes rose to mine and he leaned his hand forward to squeeze my arm, “You possess something better than an army. You yet have the unbroken spirit of our forefathers. I fear it has all but been beaten out of those who survive to this day. With the passage of another hundred years we will all be as cattle trained to the cart, with knowledge of nothing but what our masters tell us.”
Gesturing to the collection of broken down slave quarters around us he said, “Behold your army! We are yet strong, but we have no leader. You will help us?”
“Yes.” I affirmed, but then I said, “I do not wish to be a leader to my own family’s demise though. Tell me why you have not rebelled before. There must be twenty of you to every one of them.”
He nodded and with deep sadness said, “Oh but we have rebelled my son. Once there were a hundred to every one of them. Now they keep our population firmly in check. They slaughter our newborn sons and take our daughters in order to breed more of their kind.”
The muscles of my jaw bunched at the imagery that his words evoked, “How long has this been going on?”
“The last rebellion was over thirty years ago. Since then they allow one in every three boys to live and they take two out of every three girls born to us.”
Bile rising in my throat I asked, “How come there aren’t more of them?”
He turned his old eyes to the city of tall stone spires and massive pyramids and said, “Once they were very active in seeding more of their kind through the use of our women, but now they use the women more for sport than for procreation. The few pregnancies that do come to full term give birth to individuals often more similar to their mothers than their beastly fathers. It has been rumored that the strength of their blood has been depleted and the reason why there are few new births is that they do not wish to expose their weakening powers. Perhaps this too is a weakness, but we cannot wait for them to peter out as a reproducible kind. If it were to reach that point they would kill us all out of spite before allowing any full-blooded human to go free. Their hatred for us is of old.”
“Where did they come from?”
“Earth the same as we all did. A place called Egypt was the place of the great exodus that brought our people here to this world. Not this moon, but the planet you see in the sky destroyed before you.”
I looked up into the sky to behold the massive planet of fire and ice that I had escaped from. The old man went on, “We were slaves then to. There was a revolt by the slaves and most of the beast men were killed. Those few that remained managed to escape to other worlds where they set up new kingdoms. As a people, who shared a common similarity of once being a slave, the former slaves of this world came together and took over control of the planet. Hundreds of years passed and our numbers spread out across the breadth of the planet. The beast men and others of evil likeness tried to come back many times, but we fought them off. Our world became a beacon of hope in the galaxy for enslaved people everywhere. Revolts were spawned on many slave worlds because of our success. My ancestors even went so far as to go off-world and help the revolts be successful. We were unstoppable. We won every battle we faced, it seemed, whether in the spirit or in the flesh. Their hatred of our humanity has always been great, but so has our hatred for them for having once enslaved us and still yet again to this present day. Some believed the war would soon be over against them as there were fewer and fewer of their kind to face in open battle or to hunt down. It was the beginning of an era that promised unparalleled peace.”
Tears slipped down the old man’s face and wiping at them he said, “Then they did the unexpected. Somehow they changed the mechanics of how our planetary system worked. The harmony of our two suns was broken and the lesser of the suns was pulled into close orbit with the larger one. Massive earthquakes of unparalleled power swept throughout the land. Entire cities were leveled and coastal cities were swept out to sea by great waves and gravitational disruptions caused by the moving together of the two suns. For the first time our people saw night. Always before there had been daylight constantly. The planet’s course changed and it listed off to the one side and now half lays buried in ice, while the other half burns continually under the heat of both suns. Our world was destroyed without even a fight on our part.”
“How many died?”
“Billions.” The old man quivered out emotionally. Looking to me he said, “You have to understand it was not just our own people, but the escaped slaves of countless worlds, as well, that helped make up our population. Those few of us who survived the planetary disturbances were picked off the surface and transported here to once again serve as slaves. Daily we have to bear witness to the former greatness of our people and its current destruction as we slowly orbit around our old home. Our world was destroyed by hatred. Our beast masters are ever vindictive in their treatment of us. To know and constantly be reminded of the freedom that once was ours, but now lies in ruin is a daily torment that has driven many of us to madness, such as the man you helped escape a painful death yesterday. The stakes are bathed with a certain kind of acid that cauterizes human flesh in order to prevent an individual from bleeding out and so often a person will survive for days impaled and in unimaginable agony as their loved ones are forced to watch. Now you are here and despite the knowledge of what will happen to us should we fail, we are yet a people who yearn to be free. You offer us hope. Hope that the unexpected can yet be achieved. Thank you for what you did. Your presence here is an inspiration. There were rumors of small bands of our people escaping the planet’s destruction, but never have we seen living proof before you came to us.”
“I’ve been away from Earth for a few years now. Why have I never heard of any of this?”
“It’s said that the surrounding worlds were purged of any record of our former greatness and more than one generation has passed by since the downfall of our world. Much is lost with the passage of time. Indeed we have become a forgotten people, until today. El Elohim has remembered us. Tell me your name.”
“Taran Collins”
“The last name must have been an assumed name taken once back on Earth, but Taran is familiar to me. You are not the first to be named so. Taran you strike me as a man of experience in matters of war. What do you think of our situation?”
I sighed, “Not good. They have technology on their side and you at best have clubs and spears. There can be no advantage of a surprise attack, because they monitor all of your bodily movements within the valley.”
“How so?”
I waved my hand dismissively, “Not important. Just believe me that they are. The only thing I see going for us is numbers.”
“You’re wrong there. We now have you.”
“They’re probably not far from figuring that out. I can’t stay here.”
He nodded, “I thought as much, but how will you escape? You saw what happened yesterday.”
“I did, but just the same I have to try. What do you know of the planet’s surface? What’s your name by the way?”
“Royan.”
“Royan what do you know?”
“Well nothing other than that it’s destroyed.”
“Not quite. Hazardous yes, but not destroyed. I just came from there yesterday. I tracked a thief to the planet through a gateway portal and she seemed to be purposeful in coming there. Do you know of any hidden colonies or camps on the planet’s surface?”
“No, I don’t! We’ve only been told that the planet was dead of all life.”
“Oh no, it’s got life all right!” I said touching my side that still hurt terribly. More than anything it itched, but I dared not scratch at the new skin forming beneath the scabbed over surface.
It was a miracle that I hadn’t come down with so much as even a fever from the whole ordeal. The volatile sand must have burnt things good.
“Tell me, how did they get the one sun to leave its orbit?”
“No one knows. I once overheard a conversation by two of the lesser hybrid beast men in which both professed a lack of knowing as well, but the one said he’d heard there was a device channeling the power of the sun into a different dimension whatever that means.”
“Fascinating. Tell me where might such a device be kept?”
“I would say the grand palace and more directly probably the grand temple. The grand palace is slightly separated from the larger pyramidal works in the valley bottom. It’s further up on the hill that looks out over the valley. It is the most heavily guarded of all the building complexes in the valley. The remaining beast men of the old order reside there. Very rarely do they leave.”
“Why is that?”
“We don’t know. The people who are taken to serve them have to stay there and they never return to us. All we know about the oldest of their kind is that there are five of them. There was a sixth, but he died several years ago. That pyramid farther to the left is his.”
In total I saw six pyramids arrayed about the upper city. Four were built and two were a work in the process of being completed.
“What’s going to happen when those two remaining pyramids are completed?”
“Some say that is the day we will all be put to death, because once the last pyramid is completed that there will be no further use for us. I fear indeed that is what will happen if something is not done.”
“Not going to happen Royan. I need some clothes in order to fit in better and then I will make my escape from the city.”
Royan gestured back the way we had come and I made my way off the roof garden.
Some things were a bit clearer now for me. The path to victory however was not.
I at least had an inkling now as to what might need stolen. Now how to convince my escaped thief to join in and fight for a noble cause?
I had my doubts, but God had never led me astray yet and I would be faithful to do what I had been given to do.
Moving about within the slave city I soon realized that my presence was common knowledge. Although they made an effort to not show it they gave evidence of their excitement in partly hidden smiles and whispered words. God help me not disappoint them!
*****
Ornan, the man assisting me, led the work ox out of the corral to me. Doubtfully he said, “I do not understand how you plan to escape. Hundreds have tried and all have been caught and killed!”
I took a tight grip on the lead rope of the old ox and smiled as I said, “An old indian trick from the world I was born on. I’m hoping it will work in the present as it has in the past.”
I brushed my side up against the ox as close as I could get and then I let it have a little leeway to move forward. The animals of the slaves roamed the valley freely with there being no stipulations raised against them.
Keeping the ox beside me I matched it step for step, as I bent down, in order to not be spotted by hybrid guardsmen. Few guards came to the slave village and those that did weren’t unused to the oxen moving about on the plain of the valley bottom.
With each step forward I used the ox’s heat signature to mask my own as I made my way forward across the open pasture towards the forest edge. Before I’d done this stunt I’d looked around for about an hour and finally spied the device that I felt sure was the heat scanner. I’d made sure before I had begun this walk to keep the ox between me and the scanner.
Once we reach the forest the ox seemed hesitant to go further, but with urging it lumbered onto a game trail and ambled along at a pace that was gratingly hard to bear because of its slowness.
Finally I felt I was far enough away and I ditched the ox, which promptly headed back toward the valley. I brushed at something on my arm and came away with a tick. With disgust I threw it into the brush and then busily I shook and brushed at my borrowed wardrobe to dislodge any more of the unwelcome guests.
The ticket to freedom had still come at the cost of some of my blood, I noted grimly, as I dislodged a tick from my calf with the blade of my knife. That done I hurried on and within an hour I was back at where I had appeared on the moon the day before.
Staring at the planet in the sky before me the question of how I was to get back there hit me hard. I had no idea how to engineer such a feat.
Unlike the pillared enclosure on the planet’s surface there was nothing in this clearing to suggest of technology or even of civilization.
“I need some help God.”
I waited listening, but all I heard was the breeze whistling through the trees around me. On inspiration I went with the breeze and to my surprise just past the clearing the forest abruptly broke off along a sheer cliff that plummeted down several hundred feet.
The breeze from the forest blew strongly at my back now, even as another breeze blew up the face of the cliff to ruffle my hair about. I felt an urge from within telling me that this was the way to travel off-world.
Looking down into the gorge littered with rocks I said, “You can’t be serious?”
The breeze strengthened, as if in answer, and I had a hard choice to make. I had to trust God if I was going to take one more step to free the remnants of my people. I had to free them and just as inexplicably I had to trust God in order to do so.
I jumped.
Air rushed by me and then I was rushing by rocks and trees and into darkness and light. It was too much to keep my eyes open and so I shut them, but the vision they had afforded me while open had been mesmerizing.
The air turned cold and I opened them to see ground coming in closer to my field of vision. Icy ground.
I landed and slid several feet forward on the ice as the wind dissipated at my back. Looking up I watched the air current that had brought me here swirl away with almost an iridescent color to it that was steadily fading, until all I saw was the darkness of the night.
The moon I had just come from glowed brightly in the distance of space. The mysteries of travel by wind and flame were just that. I doubted if I would ever learn the secrets of such long distance travel through seemingly ordinary elements of nature.