“Five years,” Bragan replied. “Five long years. It’s been hell.”
“I’ve never met a slave who was a doctor before,” Calla said, attempting to draw him out. “Were you born into slavery?”
“No, I wasn’t,” he replied. His eyes darted nervously around the room. “Are you sure we aren’t going anywhere?”
“Very sure,” Calla replied. “I’m curious about how you came to be here, though.”
“I was enslaved for breaking the law,” he said. Calla caught her breath–she’d never heard of such a thing. Usually criminals were executed. Bragan must have sensed her confusion, because he gave a harsh laugh. “My crime was I sometimes removed slave implants illegally. Runaways, that kind of thing. When they caught me, I guess they figured the punishment would fit the crime.”
Unable to stop herself, Calla, nervously reached around to feel the back of her neck, to the spot where her implant had been. There was no scar; her surgeon had been good.
Bragan watched her closely, then gave a sympathetic smile.
“I guess you know what that feels like,” he whispered. “Does anyone know?”
Calla glanced back at Sarai. The woman was watching them closely, although she doubted she’d been able to hear Bragan’s comment. “No,” Calla whispered back. “Only the one who did it, and he’s far away from here. Are you going to tell?”
“No,” Bragan said. “I’ve learned something from my time here. Slaves have to help each other. It’s the only way any of us will ever survive. Why are you here?”
“I’m here because I’m looking for someone,” Calla said. “I need some information from you.”
“What kind of information?” Bragan asked, grinning wryly. “I’m don’t really have much to offer at this point, I have to admit.”
“I need to know about the revolt,” Calla replied. It was her moment of truth. “You mentioned the leader was named Jess. Can you describe him to me?”
“Why do you want to know?” Bragan asked suspiciously. Calla took a deep breath.
It was time to tell the truth; she had to know for sure.
“Because I think he may be my brother,” Calla replied. Bragan’s face froze.
“What’s your name?” he demanded in a harsh whisper.
“I go by Devora,” she replied, twisting the cloth in her hands. It was so hard to talk about her old life. “But I used to be called Calla.”
Bragan looked stunned. He just stared at her for a moment, then broke into a smile.
“That’s why you look familiar. Jess had a hologram of the two of you together that he showed me. He kept it on a string around his neck.”
Calla’s breath caught in her throat. Jess had been here, so close.
“Where is he now? What happened?” she asked desperately.
“He’s gone,” Bragan said. Strong emotion flickered across his face. “He was going back for you. How did you get here?”
“I escaped,” she said, tears building in her eyes. “I escaped and came to rescue Jess.
I guess he had the same idea. Can you tell me how it happened?”
“I will, but you can’t give the information to those men,” Bragan said. A cough took him by surprise, and his body doubled over, spasming, for a minute. When it finally stopped, Calla gave him another drink of water. “Sorry about that, asthma,” he muttered. “I got it from living here in all this dust… You’ll have to be patient with me.
I’ve been here a long time, and after the others left I started hallucinating a lot. It’s hard for me to tell what’s real anymore.”
“I give you my word, I’m real and I won’t tell anyone,” Calla said, closing her eyes briefly. It would be one more lie to Seth, but she’d gone too far to stop now. Remember, she told herself firmly, Seth is a pleasant interlude, but Jess is your family. Don’t forget your priorities.
“Jess hadn’t been here that long,” Bragan told her. “But he was angry. Angrier than a lot of men who’ve been here for a year or more. He and another man, Logan, started talking. It wasn’t too long after that they came to see me. They knew I’d been a doctor, and they wanted to know if I could remove their implants.”
Bragan stopped speaking, apparently lost in thought.
“Bragan, do you need some more water?” Calla asked him after a moment. He looked at her, startled.
“Sorry, I forgot where I was,” he said softly. “You know, I warned them it was dangerous, even with the right equipment and anesthetic. There was a good chance they’d die. They were willing to take the risk, though, and I was willing to do it for them. I had gotten to the point where I didn’t really care if I lived or died, but I really liked the thought of Jess and Logan taking out some of those damn Pilgrims. Cruelest human beings I’ve ever met.”
“I know,” Calla said. “Jess and I belonged to one.”
“Well, these ones were worse,” he said. “They liked to use the energy whips on the slaves, and sometimes they’d get drunk and decide to go hunting. Then they’d pick someone, give him a pressure suit and sent him out without any food and water. They’d stalk him and kill him like he was nothing.”
“Slaves aren’t human to Pilgrims,” Calla murmured darkly.
“No, we aren’t,” Bragan agreed. He paused to collect his thoughts, a far-away look coming into his eyes. “I did Jess and Logan, and they both lived. But that wasn’t good enough for them. They wanted to escape, but they wanted the others to escape with them. And they wanted to destroy the base before they left. They didn’t want any of the miners to be able to ever hurt another slave again.
“So they started organizing. Ultimately all the men agreed, they were willing to risk death to escape. It’s not like they had any hope here, after all,” he said. His tone had become strangely smooth, almost sing-song as his story progressed. “So one by one, I took out their implants. Some of them died–quite a few actually–but they disposed of the bodies in the mine. Made ‘em look like accidents. It wasn’t hard to fool the Pilgrim bastards. They never did give us enough credit for our intelligence.
“The ironic thing is that in the end, there was nobody to take out my implant.
They’re wrapped around the spinal nerves, you know, so you can’t just cut them out.
They offered to try, but I didn’t see any point to it. So they decided they would escape, then come back with a doctor to free me if they could find one. I told them it was foolish, but they wouldn’t listen. Of course, they haven’t come back yet, either. I figured I’d wait until I couldn’t take it any more, then kill myself. I don’t know what I expected to happen.” He paused, licking his lips. “Can I have another sip of water?”
“Of course,” Calla said quickly, raising the cup to his lips.
“So they planned and waited,” he continued. “One day, a bunch of the miners left to go to another base, some kind of meeting. When they’d gone, Jess and the others overpowered the men watching us. There were only two of them, and about fifty of us.
They were so smug–they thought they could kill us with a touch of a button. You should have seen the looks on their faces when they realized the implants weren’t working! It was beautiful to see, although I wasn’t very close. I had to stay away, you know, because my implant was still active.
“When they realized their emergency activation wands weren’t going to work, that’s when they got scared. Then they started screaming, and one of them actually got down on his knees and begged for his life. This was the same guy who, just a week before, had killed a slave for walking too slow. Bastard.
“They killed him, of course, and they killed the other guard too,” Bragan got a hard look in his eyes. “I still think they let them die too quick, but Jess and Logan were pretty clear from the start. They’d kill the Pilgrims, but they weren’t going to torture them. Said they wanted to be better than them or something, I don’t know. Anyway, once the guards were dead it was easy to take over the base. There were hardly any men left; they took all of them out and shot them.”