“You might expect this of the blacks,” the planter said. “But no, the blacks work, or they go to the bush and live there—not like civilized men, perhaps, but they live. Not these. They wait to die. It was a cruel day when their sentences ended.”
“Yeah, sure,” Mark said, but he made sure the planter didn’t hear him. There was another group sitting on benches near a small open square. They looked as if they had not moved since morning, since the day before, or ever; that when the orange sky fell dark, they would be there yet. Mark mopped his brow with his sleeve. Heat lay across Whiskeytown so that it was an effort to move, but the planter hustled him along the street, his short legs moving rapidly through the mud patches.
“And what happens if I just run?” Mark asked.
Ewigfeuer laughed. “Go ahead. You think they will not catch you? Where will you go? You have no papers. Perhaps you buy some if you have money. Perhaps what you buy is not good enough. And when they catch you, it is not to my nice farm they send you. It will be to some awful place. Run, I will not chase you. I am too old and too fat.”
Mark shrugged and walked along with Ewigfeuer. He noticed that for all his careless manner, the fat man did not let Mark get behind him.
They rounded a corner and came to a large empty space. A helicopter stood at the near edge. There were others in the lot. A white jacketed man with a rifle sat under an umbrella watching them. Ewigfeuer threw the man some money and climbed into the nearest chopper.
He strapped himself in and waited for Mark to do the same. Then he used the radio.
“Weather service, Ewigfeuer 351.” Ewigfeuer listened, nodded in satisfaction, and gunned the engines. The helicopter lifted them high above the city.
Whiskeytown was an ugly sprawl across a plateau. The broad streets of Tanith’s capital lay on another low hill beyond it. Both hills rose directly out of the jungle. When they were higher, Mark could see that the plateau was part of a ridge on a peninsula; the sea around it was green with yellow streaks. The buildings on the other hill looked cleaner and better made than those in Whiskeytown. In the distance was a large square surrounded by buildings taller than the others.
“Government House,” Ewigfeuer shouted above the engine roar. “Where the governor dreams up new ways to make it impossible for honest planters to make a profit.”
Beyond the town were brown hills rising above ugly green jungles. Hours later there was no change—jungle to the right and the green and yellow sea to the left. Mark had seen no roads and only a few houses; all of those were in clusters, low adobe buildings atop low brown hills. “Is the whole planet jungle?” he asked.
“Ja, jungles, marshes, bad stuff. People can live in the hills. Below is green hell. Weem’s beast, killer things like tortoises, crocodiles so big you don’t believe them and they run faster than you. Nobody runs far in that.”
A perfect prison, Mark thought. He stared out at the sea. There were boats out there. Ewigfeuer followed his gaze and laughed.
“Some damn fools try to make a few credits fishing. Maybe smart at that, they get killed fast, they don’t wait for tax farmers to take everything they make. You heard of Loch Ness monster? On Tanith we got something makes Earth nessies look like an earthworm.”
They flew over another cluster of adobe buildings. Ewigfeuer used the radio to talk to the people below. They spoke a language Mark didn’t know. It didn’t seem like German, but he wasn’t sure. Then they crossed another seemingly endless stretch of jungle. Finally a new group of buildings was in sight ahead.
The plantation was no different from the others they had seen. There was a cluster of brown adobe buildings around one larger whitewashed wooden house at the very top of the hill. Cultivated fields lay around that on smaller hills. The fields blended into jungle at the edges. Men were working in the fields.
It would be easy to run away, Mark thought. Too easy. It must be stupid to try, or there would be fences. Wait, he thought. Wait and learn. I owe nothing. To anyone. Wait for a chance—
—a chance for what? He pushed the thought away.
* * *
The foreman was tall and crudely handsome. He wore dirty white shorts and a sun helmet, and there was a pistol buckled on his belt.
“You look after this one, ja,” Ewigfeuer said. “One of the governor’s pets. They say he has brains enough to make supervisor. We will see. Mark Fuller, three years.”
“Yes, sir. Come on, Mark Fuller, three years.” The foreman turned and walked away. After a moment Mark followed. They went past rammed earth buildings and across a sea of mud. The buildings had been sprayed with some kind of plastic and shone dully. “You’ll need boots,” the foreman said. “And a new outfit. I’m Curt Morgan. Get along with me and you’ll be happy. Cross me and you’re in trouble. Got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You don’t call me sir unless I tell you to. Right now you call me Curt. If you need help, ask me. Maybe I can give you good advice. If it don’t cost me much, I will.” They reached a rectangular one-story building like the others. “This’ll be your bunkie.”
The inside was a long room with places for thirty men. Each place had a bunk, a locker and an area two meters by three of clear space. After the ship, it seemed palatial. The inside walls were sprayed with the same plastic material as the outside; it kept insects from living in the dirt walls. Some of the men had cheap pictures hung above their bunks: pinups, mostly, but one had the Virgin of Guadalupe, and in one corner area there were charcoal sketches of men and women working, and an unfinished oil painting.
There were a dozen men in the room. Some were sprawled on their bunks. One was knitting something elaborate, and a small group at the end were playing cards. One of the card players, a small ferret-faced man, left the game.
“Your new man,” Curt said. “Mark Fuller, three years. Fuller, this is your bunkie leader. His name is Lewis. Lew, get the kid bunked and out of those prison slops.”
“Sure, Curt.” Lewis eyed Mark carefully. “About the right size for Jose’s old outfit. The gear’s all clean.”
“Want to do that?” Curt asked. “Save you some money.”
Mark stared helplessly.
The two men laughed. “You better give him the word, Lew,” Curt Morgan said. “Fuller, I’d take him up on the gear. Let me know what he charges you, right? He won’t squeeze you too bad.” There was laughter from the other men in the bunkie as the foreman left.
Lewis pointed out a bunk in the center. “Jose was there, kid. Left his whole outfit when he took the green way out. Give you the whole lot for, uh, fifty credits.”
And now what? Mark wondered. Best not to show him I’ve got any money. “I don’t have that much—”
“Hell, you sign a chit fur it,” Lewis said. “The old man pays a credit a day and found.”
“Who do I get a chit from?”
“You get it from me.” Lewis narrowed watery eyes. They looked enormous through his thick glasses. “You thinking about something, kid? You don’t want to try it.”
“I’m not trying anything. I just don’t understand—”
“Sure. You just remember I’m in charge. Anybody skips out, I get their gear. Me. Nobody else. Jose had a good outfit, worth fifty credits easy—
“Bullshit,” one of the cardplayers said. “Not worth more’n thirty and you know it.”
“Shut up. Sure, you could do better in Whiskeytown, but not here. Look, Morgan said take care of you. I’ll sell you the gear for forty. Deal?”
“Sure.”
Lewis gave him a broad smile. “You’ll get by, kid. Here’s your key.” He handed Mark a magnokey and went back to the card game.
Mark wondered who had copies. It wasn’t something you could duplicate without special equipment; the magnetic spots had to be in just the right places. Ewigfeuer would have one, of course. Who else? No use worrying about it.
He inspected his new possessions. Two pairs of shorts. Tee shirts, underwear, socks, all made of some synthetic. Comb, razor and blades. Soap. Used toothbrush. Mark scowled at it, then laughed to himself. No point in being squeamish.
Some of the clothes were dirty. Others seemed clean, but Mark decided he would have to wash them all. Not now, though. He tucked his money into the toe of a sock and threw the rest of his clothes on top of it, then locked the whole works into the locker. He wondered what he should do with the money; he had nearly three hundred credits, ten month’s wages at a credit a day—enough to be killed for.