Sten wondered what he wanted. Probably he had just discovered their rations were issued in uniform packs and felt that was military. But why was he not ruining Colonel Virunga's meal?
"Yes?"
"May I enter?"
Sten waved him in. Cristata closed the door behind him.
"I understand you are the individual in charge"—Cristata shuddered a bit—"of the escape attempts."
Sten mumbled neutrally. Could Cristata be a Tahn agent? Not a chance.
"My beings have decided that I should be the one to reserve an area."
" You want to escape?"
"Why not? How else can I remove myself from this abhorrence of uniforms and regulations? There are four of us who plan to depart this place of testing for freedom."
"How?"
"We are constructing a tunnel."
"A tunnel?" Sten looked at Cristata's slender, delicate fingers.
Cristata caught his glance. He extended the armor gauntlet of his wrist, and muscles bulged—very hefty muscles, Sten noted. The fingers retracted, and thick claws slid out.
"In my necessities in dealing with the material world," Cristata said, "I function as a mining engineer."
Sten grinned. "The Tahn don't know that, of course,"
"I thought, since they forced me to obey their ludicrous orders, there was little sin in not disclosing my mammon-profession and the excavating implements the Great One gave my race."
"Where are you planning to go out?"
"We have removed a section of paving from the ground level of the east wing. We plan to dig directly out from there."
Sten mentally pictured Koldyeze. "That is going to be a very long tunnel. That's just about the farthest point from the cliff edge."
"That is also our observation. We estimate, and have prayed for guidance to be correct, the location gives us a place unlikely to be examined too closely."
"How long until you go?"
"Soon, I think. The digging has been easy, and since we are tunneling under the foundation of the cathedral most of the way, not much shoring has been necessary. At the moment I estimate we are nearing the inner wall."
Sten was jolted. The progress was incredible. "Clotting great!"
"I wish you would not use obscenities in my presence."
"Right. Sorry. What support do you need?"
"None."
"None? Assuming that you get out, what comes next? You aren't exactly—no offense—a look-alike for any Tahn I've seen."
"We shall proceed directly into open country. There we propose to dig a shelter and slowly make the fanners of the area aware of our presence."
"What makes you think they won't dump you for the reward?"
"You must have faith," Cristata said. "Now... may I return to my dedications? We have four new sick ones in the bay."
"Sure. Let us know if you'll need a diversion or anything."
"I doubt it."
"Oh. Yeah. May your, uh, Great One be with you."
"He is."
And Cristata ambled out.
Platoon Sergeant Ibn Bakr was perfect, Kilgour thought, especially considering the still-underfed state of the prisoners. He marveled at the infantryman's bulk and repressed the urge to check the man's teeth as if he were buying a Percheron or to look at his pads to make sure he could support the full weight of a howdah. Ibn Bakr could, Alex thought, have fit into any combat livie as the ultimate hero/crunchie, or maybe the hero's first sergeant.
"Mr. Kilgour," the bulk said.
Clottin' hell. H can e'en talk.
"I want to volunteer for the committee."
The word "escape," of course, was never spoken by anyone unnecessarily under threat of bashing.
"An' we accept, lad," Alex said heartily. He had fond dreams of maybe finding three more like the sergeant, and they would just rip the old pinnacle off the cathedral and use it as a battering ram through the gates. All the gates. "We'll be needin't a braw tank like you. Digging... carrying... holding up the world."
"Umm... Mr. Kilgour, that wasn't what I wanted to do."
Alex's dreams wisped away. "Aye?"
"I assume," Ibn Bakr went on, "that we'll be altering uniforms to look like civvies, screwsuits and that, right?"
"You want to be a clottin' seamstress!"
"Is there something wrong with that?" The ham that hung at the end of Ibn Bakr's arm knotted into a fist.
Kilgour, deciding the sergeant might be a handful even for a heavy-worlder like himself, regrouped. "Nae a' all, nae a' all."
"I can do needlepoint, knitting, crewel, petit point, cross-stitch, featherwork, lace, Carrickmacross, quillwork, broidery anglaise—"
"Tha'll do, Sergeant. Ah'm appalled—tha's nae th' word—o'erwhelmed ae thae talents. Be standin't bye, an' we'll hae materials f r ye in a wee bit."
The sergeant saluted and left.
Kilgour stared after him and sighed mightily.
The evening formation stunned the Imperial prisoners. They had assembled at the siren blast, counted, and stood warily, staring at a five-meter-high stack of plas crates nearby and wondering what new Tahn screwing the crates presaged.
Camp Commandant Derzhin had taken the count from Colonel Virunga and said he had an announcement. It was short and shocking.
"Prisoners, the Tahn find your work to be acceptable."
Clot, Sten thought. We'd better step up the sabotage program.
"As a reward, I have authorized the issuance of your Prisoner's Aid parcels. That is all. Colonel Virunga, take charge of your men."
Virunga saluted like a being in a trance.
The prisoners were equally amazed.
"I din' know there was parcels," somebody muttered ungrammatically.
Sten knew what they were; in the three-plus years of captivity, a softhearted camp officer—who had been quickly shipped off to a combat unit—had issued the boxes once.
Prisoner's Aid was a neutral society, overseen by the ostensibly neutral Manabi and intended to give POWs on both sides some rights, some method of appeal, and most importantly support. The Tahn ignored the first two goals of the society but encouraged the latter. Each parcel contained supplementary rations, vitamins, minerals, and replacement clothing for ten prisoners. Sten wondered if the kindly little old ladies—that was how he pictured them—ever realized that those scarves, gloves, and tidbits in the parcels almost never reached the prisoners they were meant for. If the parcels were not sidetracked by the Tahn supply system itself, the prisoner guards would ensure that the prisoners never saw them. The one parcel that Sten had seen had been most thoroughly picked through long before it was sent into the gates.
"Food," someone whispered.
The formation swayed forward a little.
Virunga blinked back to awareness only seconds before his military formation turned into a food riot.
"Formation! Ten-hut!"
Military discipline took over—at least for a moment.
"Three volunteers... break down... parcels. Cristata... Kilgour... Horatio!"
Lay Reader Cristata muttered but evidently decided that task was allowable and waddled forward, Sten and Alex behind him.
"Sir," Sten said. "Request that—"
Virunga interrupted him. "Quite right... forgot... task. One more being! Sarn't Major Isby!"
The supply specialist swung out on his crutches toward Virunga. In an age when few injuries were permanent, Isby was a man with only one leg. That he had lost it through medical inattention was one atrocity to be chalked up to the Tahn. But it could be explained away as an excusable oversight during wartime. There could be no explanation for not providing him with a new one. The only war crime trials the Tahn were counting on would be overseen by them.