Charon: A Dragon at the Gate

CHAPTER TWO Transportation and Exposure

Except for the regular meals there was no way to keep track of time, but it was a fairly long trip. They weren’t wasting any money transporting prisoners by the fastest available routes, that was for sure.

Finally, though, we docked with the base ship a third of a light-year out from the Warden system. I knew it not so much by any sensation inside my cloister but from the lack of it: the vibration that had been my constant companion ceased. The routine still wasn’t varied; I suppose they were waiting for a large enough contingent from around the galaxy to make the landing worthwhile. All I could do was sit and go over my data for the millionth time and occasionally reflect on the fact that I probably wasn’t very far from my old body (that’s how I’d come to think of it). I wondered if perhaps he didn’t even come down and take a peek at me from time to time, at least from idle curiosity—• me and the three others who probably were also here.

I also had time to reflect on what I knew of the Warden situation itself, the reason for its perfection as a prison. I had not, of course, swallowed that line whole—there was no such thing as the perfect prison, but this one had to come close. Shortly after I was landed on Charon and started breathing its air I would be infected with an oddball submicroscopic organism that would set up housekeeping in every cell of my body. There it would live, feeding off me, even earning its keep by keeping disease organisms, infections, and the like in check. The one thing that stuff had was a will to live, and it only lived if you did.

But it needed something, some trace element or some such that was present only in the Warden system. Nobody knew what and nobody had been able to do the real work to find out, but whatever it needed was found only in the Warden system. Whatever it was wasn’t in the air, because in shuttles run between the worlds of the Diamond you breathed the purified, mechanically produced stuff to no ill effect. Not the food, either. They’d checked that. It was possible for one of the Warden people to live comfortably on synthetics in a totally isolated lab like a planetary space station. But get too far away, even with Warden food and Warden air, and the organism died. Since it had modified your cells to make itself at home, and those cells depended on the organism to keep working properly, you died, too—painfully and slowly, in horrible agony. That distance was roughly a quarter of a light-year from the system’s sun, which explained the location of the base ship.

All four worlds were more than climatologically different, too. The organism was consistent in how it affected an individual on each planet, but—possibly due to distance from the sun, since that seemed to be the determining factor in its life—it did different things depending on which world an individual was first exposed. Whatever it did stuck in just that fashion even if you later went to a different world of the Diamond.

The organism seemed to be vaguely telepathic in some way, although nobody could explain how. It certainly wasn’t an intelligent organism; at least it always behaved predictably. Still, most of the changes seemed to involve the colony in one person affecting the colony in another—or others. You provided the conscious control, if you could, and that determined who bossed whom. A pretty simple system, even if nobody had yet been able to explain it.

As for Charon, all I really knew about it was that it was terribly hot and rainy. I cursed again not having been fed the proper programming to fully prepare me—learning the ropes would cost time, possibly a lot of it.

Almost three days—eight meals—after I’d arrived at the base ship there was a lurching and a lot of banging around, which forced me to the cot and made me slightly seasick. Still, I wasn’t disappointed. The disruption meant that they were making up the consignments and readying for the in-system drop of these cells. I faced the idea with mixed emotions. On the one hand, I wanted desperately to be out of this boring little box. On the other, when I next got out of the box it would be into a much larger and probably prettier box—Charon itself, no less a cell for being an entire planet And while it would be more diverting, challenging, exciting, or whatever, it would also be, unlike this box, very, very final.

Shortly after the banging about started, it stopped again and, after a short, expectant pause, I again felt a vibration indicating movement—much more pronounced than before. I was now either on a much smaller vessel or nearer the drives.

Still, it took another three interminable days—nine meals—to reach our destination. Long, certainly, but also fast for a sublight carrier, probably a modified and totally automated freighter.

The vibration stopped and I knew we were in orbit Again I had that dual feeling of trapped doom and exhilaration.

There was a crackling sound and a speaker I’d never even known was there came to life. “Attention all prisoners!” it commanded, its voice a metallic parody of a man’s baritone. “We have achieved orbit around the planet Charon in the Warden system,” it continued, telling me nothing I didn’t already know but probably informing the others, however many there were, for the first time. I could understand what they must be going through, considering my own feelings. A hundred times mine probably, since at least I was going in with my eyes open even if no more voluntarily than they.

“In a moment,” the voice continued, “the doors to your cells will slide open and you will be able to leave. We strongly recommend you do so, since thirty seconds after the doors open they will close again and a vacuum pump will begin sterilization operations within the cells which ~ would be fatal to anyone who remains.”

Nice touch, I thought. I couldn’t help wondering whether anybody would choose death.

“Immediately after you enter the main corridor,” the voice continued, “you will stand in place until the cell doors close once again. Do not attempt to move from in front of your cell door until it closes or automatic security equipment will vaporize you. There will be no talking in the corridor. Anyone breaking silence or failing to obey orders precisely will be dealt with instantly. You will receive further instructions once the doors close. Ready to depart—now!”

The door slid open and I wasted no time in stepping out. A small white box, complete with marks for feet, showed you where to stand and I did as instructed, galling as all this was. There was something about being totally naked and isolated on a ship controlled only by computer that humbled you more than was right. It produced a sense of total futility.

I could still look around and I saw that I’d been right. The ship was basically a long sealed hall along the sides of which little cells had been attached. I looked up and down and counted maybe ten or twelve prisoners, no more. The cream of the crop, I thought sourly. A handful of men and women—mostly men, it seemed—naked and bedraggled, beaten now, about to be dropped off and left. I wondered why they had been chosen rather than wiped, considering the transportation costs alone. What had the computers and psych boys found in these dejected specimens that dictated they should live? They didn’t know, that was for sure. I wondered exactly, who did.

The doors snapped shut. I waited expectantly, as the air was pumped out, to hear the scream of someone who hadn’t moved fast enough, but there was no hint of melodrama. If anyone had taken that way out, the fact was not evident.

“At my command,” the voice barked from speakers along the ceiling, “you will turn right and walk slowly in single file, as far forward as you can. There you will find a special shuttle that will take you to the surface. You will take forward seats first, leave no empty seats between you, and immediately strap yourselves in.”

I heard some muttering from a few of my fellow prisoners, and instantly a brief but very visible spurt of light shot from a side wall. It did not strike anyone but hit with an audible hiss just in front of the offenders’ feet. They jumped slightly at this demonstration of power. All the grumbling and mumbling immediately ceased.

The voice, which had paused for this digression, now took up its instructions with no reference to what had taken place. None was needed.

“Right turn—now!” it commanded, and we did as instructed. “Walk slowly forward to the shuttle as instructed.”

We walked silently, definitely in no hurry. The metal floor of the corridor was damned cold—at least the shuttle would be preferable to this damned refrigerator.

The shuttle itself was surprisingly comfortable and modern, although the seats weren’t made for naked bodies. I sat about three rows back and attached the safety straps, then waited for the rest to enter. My first impression had been close, I noted. The shuttle itself could seat twenty-four, but there were only eleven of us, and only three were women.

The hatch closed automatically, followed by the hiss of pressurization. I felt a violent lurch and knew we’ were free of the transport and on our way down.

The shuttle was much too modern and comfortable for mere prisoner transport, I told myself. This had to be one of the interplanetary ships regularly used for transportation between the worlds of the Warden Diamond.

The overhead speakers crackled, and a much nicer female voice that actually sounded human came on. It was a great improvement.

“Welcome to Charon,” the voice said, sounding for all the world like it meant it “As has no doubt been explained to you, Charon is your final destination and new home. Although you will be unable to leave the Warden system after debarking on the planet, you will also no longer be prisoners. Rather, you will be citizens of the Warden Diamond. Confederacy rule ended the moment you entered this shuttle, one of a Fleet of four shuttlecraft and sixteen freighters owned in common by the Warden Worlds. The System Council, a corporate entity fully recognized as internally sovereign by the Confederacy, has a seat in the Confederacy Congress. Each of the four worlds is under a separate administration and the government of each planet is unique and independent. No matter who you are or what you have been or done in the past, you are now citizens of Charon and nothing more—or less. Anything done prior to this moment is past history that will neither be remembered, filed, or ever again referred to. Only what you do from this point on, as citizens of Charon, Warden System, will matter.”

It—or she, I wasn’t really sure—paused for that much to sink in. The contrast between the attitude and tone taken now and what we’d all been subjected to previously was enormous. But if she expected me to believe that the powers-that-be on Charon didn’t know anything of our past she had a very low opinion of my intelligence.

“We will arrive at the spaceport at Honuth in approximately five minutes,” she told us. “You will be met there by representatives bringing clothing and then taken to an orientation center where all your questions will be answered. Please be prepared for hot, wet weather and for a level of technology below what most of you have come to expect. This is still very much a frontier world, with even more restrictions than on any frontier world you have ever known. But please don’t be unduly upset by that. Charon is not without its comforts. Again, welcome to Charon.”

Although the lid was off, nobody really said much for the rest of the trip. Part of the reason was that we were still conditioned by our recent imprisonment; the rest was nerves, mine included. This was it, I told myself. Here we go.

There were a few bumps on the way down, particularly once we were firmly in the atmosphere; but, overall, the ride was smooth and efficient. Then came a level-off, a slow descent, and a glide right up to and into the dock.

In less than a minute I could hear the airlock door mechanisms operating, and the indicator moved from red to orange to green. Following a pneumatic hiss, the doors rolled back.

For a moment, none of us moved, but finally those nearest the hatch stood up and walked out the open door. Sighing, I did the same.

The docking area was small but quite modern and fully air-conditioned. Walking along the glassine tubelike egress arm, I could see Charon, which did nothing to improve my spirits. It was raining like crazy, so heavily I could hardly see a thing.

The terminal was quite small but nothing like the log hut I had been expecting. The air-conditioning was positively chilling. Two very ordinary people, a man and a woman, waited for us. They were both dressed in pullover black shirts and briefs and wore thick, rubber-soled sandals. They looked more like a couple that had just gotten rained out at the beach than officials of a planetary government.

“Welcome to Charon,” the woman said, and I recognized the voice as the same one in the shuttle. Remote controlled from the ground, then. “Please step over to that table, pick out clothes and sandals in your size, and put them on,” she instructed in a businesslike tone.

Part of my briefing had included Park Lacoch’s sizes, but I quickly discovered that all the men’s clothing was too large and that I would have to go to the women’s section to outfit myself. It didn’t really matter—ft all looked the same anyway—but I did get some idea of how Lacoch developed his nasty complex and bad identity problem.

The modified beachwear was apparently standard attire, at least here—where was it? Honuth, that was it. I wondered if the stuff was waterproof.

I dressed and was standing around waiting for the others to get similarly set when the fact really hit me. I was here, on Charon—and even as that first blast of air-conditioning had hit me, my body was being systematically invaded by an alien organism that was to be my permanent jailer.