Shadowline - Starfishers Triology - Book 1

Seventeen: 2844 AD

The old man's name was Jackson, but Deeth had to call him master. He was an outcast even among the descendants of escaped and discarded slaves. He lived in a fetid cave three miles from the animal village. He had parlayed a few sleight-of-hand tricks and a sketchy medical knowledge into a witch-doctor's career. His insane temper and magic were held in awe by his client-victims, who were an utterly mean, degenerate people themselves.

In less than a week Deeth knew that Jackson was a thorough fraud, that he was nothing but a lonely old man enraged by a world he believed had used him ill. His career was an attempt to get back. He was a sad, weak, pathetic creature, incontestably mad, and in his madness was utterly ruthless. Hardly a day passed when he did not torture Deeth for some fancied insult.

He brewed a foul grain beer in the rear of his cave. There were hundreds of gallons in storage or process. Deeth had to keep a full mug ready at all times. Inevitably, Jackson was partially drunk. That did nothing to dampen his free-wheeling temper. But what Deeth found most repulsive were Jackson's hygienic standards.

He came near retching often that first week. The old man refused to do more than stand and aim aside when he voided his bladder. He never bathed. The cave was more fetid than any animal's den.

He kept Deeth on a ten-foot leash knotted to choke at a tug. The boy soon learned that chokings had nothing to do with his efforts to please or displease. The old man yanked when he felt a need for amusement.

For him the sight of a small boy strangling was the height of entertainment.

Having identified a breakdown between cause and effect, Deeth abandoned efforts to satisfy Jackson. He did what he had to, and spent the rest of his time in sullen thought or quick theft.

Jackson made no effort to feed him. Indeed, he flew into a rage whenever he caught the boy pilfering from their meager larder. Nearly every meal cost Deeth a choking or beating.

He learned to endure in Jackson's cruel school. He began to learn the meaning of his father's and Rhafu's admonitions about taking the long view, about thinking before acting.

His initial lesson was the most painful, degrading, and effective. It came as the result of his first ill-considered attempt at flight, undertaken in sheer animal need to escape an intolerable situation.

His third night in the cave, after he had recovered from the immediate trauma of the station's destruction, but before he had become accustomed to maltreatment by the old man, he remained awake long after Jackson sent him whining to the moldy leaf pile designated as his bed. Jackson, seated in a rude homemade chair, drank and drank and eventually appeared to slip away into drunken sleep.

And Deeth waited, forcing himself to lie still despite a heart-pounding eagerness to be away. Hours trooped by in regiments. The last tiny flames of the cookfire died, leaving a small mound of nervously glowing embers.

He rose quickly, quietly, tried to untie the knot at his neck. His shaking fingers would not cooperate. He could not work a single loop of the tangle free. He crept softly to the old man's chair. The nether end of his leash was knotted around its leg.

The smaller knot, though only a simple clove hitch, defied him for several minutes. Jackson's proximity petrified him. His fingers became rigid, shaking prods.

He kept reminding himself that Rhafu had gone raiding at his age, that he was the first-born son of a Head, that he was heir-apparent to one of the oldest and greatest Families. He should have more courage than a common, possessionless Sangaree hireman. He made a litany of it, running it over and over in his mind.

On Homeworld he had been taught to give fear a concrete character, to make it an object to be fought. His choice of object was obvious. The old man was such a malign presence, so filled with evil promise...

The knot came free. He sprinted for the cave mouth. The rope trailed...

The loop around his throat jerked tight, cut off his wind, and snapped him to a halt. He went down, clawing wildly at his neck.

Jackson, good foot firm on the line, cackled madly. He seized a cane and began beating Deeth, pausing to jerk the neck loop tight whenever Deeth worked it loose enough to gasp.

Jackson's amusement and strength finally faded. He tied Deeth's wrists together and passed the rope through a natural grommet in the cave roof. Up the boy went.

He hung like a punching bag for two long days. Jackson subjected him to every torment his dim mind could imagine, including a foul wanting-to-be-loved, ineffectual homosexual pederasty. And through all those endless hours he whined, "Thought you'd leave poor old Jackson here alone, eh? You Sangaree whelp, don't you know you can't outwit a real man?"

Deeth was petrified. How could the old man know?

Eventually he would learn that Jackson was a reject slave who had understood his frightened outburst the night of his capture.

Through the pain and despair came the knowledge that he would have to degrade himself further to survive. He had to ingratiate himself lest the old man reveal his origins in the village.

When Jackson performed a kindness it was for profit or by oversight. Whichever applied, he never mentioned Deeth's background.

Hanging, aching, despairing, Deeth had time to reflect on the teachings of his elders. He began to understand the meaning of patience.

The old man did not break him. Maybe Deeth did not crack because the idea was too alien. He could not do what he did not know how to do.

On Homeworld they had a saying, "He's Sangaree." It meant, "He's a real man," only more so. It had overtones of unyielding determination and absolute inflexibility.

Deeth was Sangaree.

The old man tired of abusing him. He left Deeth down, seized him by the hair, hurled him into his pile of leaves. After an admonitory cane whack he bound Deeth's hands behind him and secured the nether end of the rope to the grommet, above Deeth's reach. Then he resumed his residence in his chair, chuckling into his filthy beard.

Deeth lay awake night after night, nursing his hatred and wounded ego. He nurtured his patience and determination to have his revenge.