Finally, when enough members of the native generation had reached an age when they
could take care of themselves, the formal split developed. The native-born people left the
village and went off to form their own culture-one that, to them, made more sense than
their parents’. They cooperated with nature on Gastonia rather than fighting aggressively
against it; they found an ecological niche as hunters and nomads. Their numbers grew as
they adapted to this world more and more over the years; they now numbered well over
a hundred thousand people, divided into hundreds of small tribes that ranged over the
continent.
More and more exiles came, but they, like their predecessors, were tied to the ways of
the civilization they’d known before coming here. After a while, though, it became
painfully obvious that any children they had would follow the pattern of the first children,
and leave when they were old enough. Rather than let each generation of newborns
make the same mistakes over again, a pact was arranged between the villagers and the
nomadic tribes: any children born in the village would be given over to the tribes
whenever one of them passed by that way. It was hard for any parent to simply hand his
child to a stranger and never see it again, but everyone in the village knew that the child
would have a better and a freer life than they themselves could ever hope for.
In general, the contacts between the villagers and the tribes were few and reasonably
pleasant-but every so often, someone would get out of hand. In this case, it was
Voorhes and his rowdy friends. There was currently a shortage of available females in
the village, and this half dozen had decided to do something about it. Learning that one
tribe had been camping nearby, they staged a raid to kidnap some of the women. The
only one they had managed to catch was Katanya, who was too small and weak to fight
off all six. She had resisted furiously, and been beaten unconscious for her efforts. She
was back in the village when she came to, she managed to break free of her bonds and
run away, but one of the men saw her and started the chase. Vonnie had ended it, and
Katanya was very grateful.
The implications of all this were enormous. There were many thousands of good, decent
people living here on this hostile prison planet, condemned to a primitive existence
because of something their parents-or, in some cases, even their
great-grandparents-did. Yvonne had never been a strong believer in visiting the sins of
the fathers upon the children; she preferred to let people’s actions stand or fall on their
own merits. The native Gastonians must know of the Empire’s existence from their
dealings with the villagers. What did they think, she wondered, of a government that
totally ignored their existence and left them to the mercies of this harsh world solely
because of their ancestors’ crimes?
One thing was certain: Vonnie planned to have a long talk with Jules about this, and to
stress in her report to the Head that something should be done about this blatantly unfair
situation.
She did not discuss the matter with Katanya, though; in her identity as Florence Brecht,
she had no authority to do anything about the problem. She merely questioned the girl as
an interested newcomer to Gastonia, and filed the answers away for future reference.
They came at last to the great wall around the garrison, the Empire’s only official
presence on this planet. Vonnie had to walk almost a kilometer along the wall’s perimeter
before she found what she’d been told was there-the “dispensary” door, the only opening
in the wall through which any of the exiled traitors could pass. Vonnie opened the door
and stepped inside with the wounded girl.
The room was small and dimly lit. There were a couple of booths in which patients could
sit facing a trivision screen. There was another door on the opposite side of the room
leading to the interior of the garrison, but there was no knob or any other way for a
patient to open it from this side.
A mechanized voice blared out of a hidden speaker in the walls. “Take a seat before the
screen, and state your name and medical problem.”
Vonnie placed Katanya in one chair and then sat down in the adjacent one. The screen
before her lit up to show a very bored looking nurse seated at a desk. “My name is
Florence Brecht,” Vonnie said. “I don’t have a problem myself, but I brought someone
who does.”
The nurse looked at her screen and saw the image of the injured girl. “What’s her
name?”
“Katanya. No last name.”
The nurse punched that into her computer and waited for a response. “The records don’t
show any prisoner by that name.”
“That’s because she isn’t a prisoner. She was born here, and both her parents were born
here. She’s a native Gastonian, so she’s not on your records. But she is in need of
medical help. She’s got a dislocated shoulder and multiple facial bruises and lacerations.”
The nurse seemed a bit flustered for a moment, wondering what to do, but finally the
healer’s instincts in her won out over the bureaucrat. “Have her lean back in the chair as
comfortably as possible and place both her arms on the armrests. I’ll do an analysis.”
Katanya did as requested, and watched on the screen as the nurse inside the garrison
pressed a number of control buttons. The chair was a passive body sensor, capable of
examining a person in it from scalp to sole, taking readings on the major bodily systems.
It was, Vonnie realized, a most ingenious system. It allowed doctors to make diagnoses
of their criminal patients without having to be physically present-and without allowing
prisoners the opportunity to seize a doctor and use him as a hostage in a potential
escape attempt.
The sensor system confirmed Vonnie’s amateur diagnosis. “Florence Brecht must leave
the diagnostic chamber,” the nurse said, “at which time the girl Katanya will be allowed to
enter the dispensary for treatment.”
“I’d like to wait outside for her,” Vonnie said. “About how long will the treatment take?”
“Two hours,” replied the nurse.
Yvonne told her new friend to trust the people here, that they would help her. and that
she herself would be waiting outside if anything went wrong. Then she left the room and
waited outside the wall in the cold evening air. The sun was setting by this time, but the
area was not dark; the expanse of land immediately around the wall was lit as bright as
day to prevent any sneak attacks at night by groups of exiles.
She had no way of telling how much time had elapsed, but it did seem less than two
hours later when Katanya emerged again from the dispensary. Her arm was in a sling
and the worst cuts on her face had been bandaged, but she appeared to be in much
better shape than when she’d entered. Her eyes were more alert and she was able to
walk without assistance.
She approached Vonnie with a sincere expression of gratitude on her face. “Thank you
very much for all you’ve done for me,” she said. “I won’t be going back to the village with
you, though. I have to return to my own people before they leave the area-and maybe
stop them from launching a vendetta against the village for my kidnaping.”
Vonnie watched the girl walk away until she vanished into the darkness beyond the
well-lit area around the wall. Then, with a shrug, the DesPlainian began to make her own
way home. It would be a rough walk in the dark, and there was a small danger of her
being attacked by some wild animal, but she had been on Gastonia long enough to think
she could face up to any ordinary dangers the planet could offer.
She speculated as she walked, though, that every time she thought she understood
Gastonia, something new always popped up like a jack-in-the-box to surprise her.
I wonder, she thought, what new surprises are waiting ahead for us.
Chapter 9
The Blizzard
The next night, as Vonnie was walking home from work, a voice called to her from out of
the shadows. “Gospozha Brecht.”
Vonnie was instantly suspicious. Vendettas were entirely too common a phenomenon on
Gastonia, and she had beaten Voorhes twice. It would not be one millimeter above the
man’s moral level to have her waylaid in some alley. “Yes?” she asked warily.
“I’d like to talk with you for a moment.” The voice was barely audible, the man behind it
obviously trying to remain secret.
“Come out and talk, then. I won’t stop you.”
“You’ll have to step into the shadows with me. I have my reasons.”
“I’ll just bet you do.”
As she peered into the shadows between the buildings, she could see the outlines of the