“A trooper talked to us on the way in,” Ryan said. “He told us about this third gender business. What do you know about it?”
“The women, the officers, had some genetic engineering done before they came over from our Earth,” Gabhart said. “The men are scared of them, and with good reason.”
Gabhart’s lips, which were crusted over with a mass of scabs, cracked and started bleeding a thin line down his chin. Though his eyes were almost shut, and his voice was losing its power, he kept talking. “When I first arrived at Ground Zero, the troopers spoke to me because I used to be one of them. They talked out of earshot of their officers, of course. As far as the she-hes are concerned, the male troopers are expendable, like us slaves. They take better care of the troopers, of course, because they’re more difficult to replace, you know, because of the training and so on. It’s the same old story. Everything is a product. Everything has a price.”
“Do you think the troopers would turn on their officers if given the chance?” Ryan asked.
“No way of telling that, Shadow Man. These are conglomerate mercenaries, not FIVE regular army. Their allegiance is to themselves, first and foremost. I’d say they’ll stay loyal to the officers as long as they think they might end up paying for a rebellion with their own blood. If the odds change, and it looks like there’s no penalty, it could be a different story.”
J.B. and Ryan had a dozen other, critical questions that needed answering, but before either could speak, Gabhart’s head drooped his chest and his mouth went slack.
“Fireblast!” Ryan said.
“He’s not dead, just unconscious,” Krysty told him. “I can see him still breathing.”
“From what Mildred told me,” Ryan said, “he may never wake up. He’s on his last legs. If he comes out of it while we’re gone, J.B., get as much info as you can from him.”
“Gotcha.”
Ryan and Krysty picked axes from the pile at the bottom of the cart. The tools had wickedly curved points at one end; the other end was flat, more like a hammer. The reason was obvious. That way, two axes could be used to split apart pieces of nuke ore too big to lift: one acting as a wedge, the other as a sledge. They also each took one of the roughly woven bags.
“Be careful, Dad,” Dean said.
“Always, son. You, too.”
He and Krysty stepped into the nearest side shaft. The opening was as wide as Ryan’s arm span, and a couple of feet taller than the top of his head. It looked as if it had been hacked out with a laser. There were no tool marks on the walls, just smooth glass; it almost looked polished. And the floor, walls and ceiling all met at near right angles. Inside the shaft, the level of available light dropped even more.
“Look at our badges,” Krysty said.
They were definitely glowing brighter. But they weren’t bright enough to light up more than twenty feet of tunnel ahead.
They had only walked thirty or so yards when the darkness in front of them began to dance with green lights. From deeper in the fissure, three slaves appeared, single file, dragging the loaded ore bags behind them. Their badges were like tiny beacons on their chests. The blurry circles of light they cast bounced and quivered as they walked.
Ryan and Krysty put their backs against the wall, their axes ready to fend off a sudden attack. No words were exchanged. Not even a nod to acknowledge one another’s existence.
After the slaves had passed, Ryan and Krysty stood there, staring at the glass wall opposite. Their badge lights penetrated the solid mass, allowing them to see deep inside. There were shadowy, mysterious shapes, distorted by folds and masses of bubbles, obscured by irregular, unidentifiable pieces of large and small debris.
“Gaia knows what all’s in there,” Krysty said.
“Yeah,” Ryan said, “it’s a treasure chest of busted-up shit.”
Around a tight turn that would have blocked an ore cart, they came across the first of much smaller intersecting tunnels, obviously hacked by hand. As they approached it, a man’s head and shoulders popped out of the narrow hole in the wall. Before they could reach him, he had scrambled out with his ore bag. Growling like an animal, he threatened them with his ax, the pointed tip of which was worn into a tiny mushroom, like an expended bullet.