Enjoy this free ebook! Write me and tell me what you thought 
of this book (at Steve2 "at" allreaders.com)! 
Feel free to save this at any time in your hard drive 
by clicking on "file" in the upper left hand corner than 
"save as" so you can finish reading it at your leisure.


Escape from Altera

By Steven Gordon


  Foreward



	It was a time of war.

	The United League of Planets was at war with the Slurian Union. 

	Again. 

	Even before the war was over it was being referred to on the 
League side as "The Second Slurian War". (The Slurians called it "The 
Second War of Liberation".) The League, a relatively democratic group 
of free societies, had been attacked once again by the brutal Slurian 
dictatorship. 

	As war went, it was massive. Thousands of spaceships squared off 
against each other in space; millions of soldiers fought over planets 
that had the misfortune to be at the front lines. Millions perished, or 
were wounded, or captured. 	

	The League kept their prisoners under strict detention. Slurian 
prisoners never starved, never froze to death, and were provided with 
at least minimal medical care. Their treatment, while exemplary, was 
within the guidelines set by the Graftonite Accords.

	But the Slurians, while a reluctant signatory to the Graftonite 
Accords, never observed any of the terms. They looked down on prisoners 
as cowards, or simply a commodity, another source of expendable slave 
labor. Since the Slurians had ultimate confidence in winning this war 
(as they did all their wars), they felt there were little or no 
consequences to working their prisoners to death. After all, the 
Slurians treated their own people this way; why should foreigners be 
treated any better? As a result, prisoners were treated the same, or 
even worse, than Slurian civilians in labor camps. 

	This was the state of affairs as the war raged on...





Part I:   Idaho J. Took's Story



                                                       Chapter 1  Out 
of It



From the Personal Log of Battle Lieutenant Idaho J. Took



	My hands are still shaking. It's been several months since I've 
been released from the military hospital on Erratta, but my hands are 
still shaking. Just thinking about it gives me the shivers. I was a 
prisoner of war for nearly three years. I saw men, both League and 
Slurians, die by the hundreds. These weren't anonymous blips killed by 
a long distance missile, or even people killed in close quarters 
battle; these were people who dropped off through starvation, or 
exhaustion, or exposure to the elements. They were murdered, or 
executed.

	I had taken several sets of notes of my experiences but they were 
repeatedly confiscated by the camp authorities; finally when I reached 
Mount Perm I was able to write a set of notes that I was able to 
smuggle out with me. At first, when I was in the sickbay on the Glory 
and even later, in the military hospital on Greenfields, I could hardly 
think. I was suffering from starvation, exposure, and half a dozen 
illnesses. I had terrible nightmares. Now, I've started calming down. I 
thought I could finally write about it. Now that I get the shivers 
again, maybe I was wrong.

	But I don't want to wait to write about it before I forget; I 
mean, I can never forget the gory details, but it's the little details, 
the faces, the people, that I don't want to forget. So let me once 
again try to start and tell what happened. 



	It started a little over three years ago, in what was to become 
the pivotal battle of Bangor. It turned out to be one of our biggest 
victories in the war against the Slurians; the Second Slurian War, that 
is. We were losing the war with the Slurians; they had, once again, 
surprised us, luring our politicians, and by extension, our military, 
off guard. We were struck, off balance, by superior forces, and were 
losing ground rapidly.

	That's when they put Battle Admiral (now War Admiral) Norman 
North in charge. He started to turn things around immediately. But it 
wasn't until Bangor that the tide was turned.

	Unfortunately, I never realized that Bangor was the turning 
point. I participated in the Bangor campaign; I was with one of the 
squadrons making a feint deep in Slurian space. My job was to convince 
the Slurians that the Glory was where it wasn't.

	Unfortunately, I was shot down. It wasn't until years later that 
I learned how successful my mission had been, how the Battle Admiral 
had crushed the Slurians, how he had finally been promoted to War 
Admiral for his efforts. My Slurian captors, trying to paint the worst 
picture of everything, told me that the Battle Admiral's fleet had been 
destroyed and that their fleets were conquering League space left and 
right; I wasn't so weak from torture as to believe everything of what 
they told me, of course, but I didn't know quite what to believe, 
either, and fear of my "failure" haunted me for nearly all of my 
captivity.



*******************************************************************



	I remember being on the Glory. That's Battle Admiral North's 
ship, a relatively new command carrier, a combined battleship and 
fighter carrier, one of the best and most renown in the fleet.

	We had just received our mission briefing. The mission we had 
been assigned was dangerous; but that was why, in the Battle Admiral's 
own words, he had sent my squadron in.

	"Iday," he said, putting an arm on my shoulder, "It's a dangerous 
mission. You have to penetrate deep into Slurian space without being 
detected. If their heavies catch you, we won't be there to back you 
up." He looked me deep in the eyes to emphasis the seriousness of the 
situation. 

	But I already knew that. I stared back at him. "And you've picked 
me for this one-way mission because...."

	"You're a survivor," said the Battle Admiral, not flinching from 
my gaze. "If anyone can survive, you can."

	"You shouldn't believe everything my public relations expert puts 
out over the hyperwave.," I said.

	The Battle Admiral gave me an odd look, the type he often does 
when I crack a joke. I'm never sure if he finds it amusing or not.

	My squadron was sent out in specially retrofitted Harmony-14's. 
Normally, we would have taken our Wildcat 122-A's, but Harmony fighters 
could carry more fuel internally and could carry larger external fuel 
tanks. On the downside, however, they weren't nearly as capable 
fighters as the 122-A's.

	"But your mission isn't to blow anything up," the Battle Admiral 
had said. "I mean, you'll blow a few things up just to get noticed, but 
your primary mission is to get noticed."

	"And to survive," I had added. But I was already having second 
and third thoughts when I saw the battered hull of the Harmony-14. Our 
entire squadron was being shipped out to the battlecruiser Royal Line, 
which would carry us as close as possible to  the infiltration zone.

	Two days later, we launched. A silent squadron of 12. We were 
forced to keep radio silence, which I think made my nerves worse. 
Normally I like to chatter with the squadron. This time we could say 
nothing. Occasionally one of the other Harmony 14's sidled up to me, 
and I exchanged hand signals and worried glances with a wingman.

	They all knew what the odds were. But they also knew our mission 
was vital. We had to convince the Slurians that we were in the area 
around Volvograd.

	We jettisoned our external fuel tanks before we got in-system. It 
was important that we looked like short-ranged fighters. A normal 
squadron of Harmony-14's without external tanks wouldn't have a 
cruising range much more than a Wildcat's. It would have been more 
credible to use Wildcats, but Wildcats, with their smaller external 
tanks, couldn't get out this far.

	We picked up the battlestation in orbit around the second planet 
fairly quickly. That would do. I broke radio silence, ordering the 
squadron in.

	I would've preferred to squeeze off one shot and then leave, but 
that would have been uncharacteristic of a real attacking force. So I 
lashed into the battlestation with my lasers, carefully avoiding the 
barrage of fire coming out towards me. It really wasn't much of a 
danger, not to a skilled pilot; those defending lasers couldn't really 
hit anything so small, so fast.

	I was having such a good time blasting away that I almost didn't 
notice the pursuing force until they were on my short range sensors. In 
all fairness to me they must have come up from the planet's surface; a 
large number of cruisers, destroyers, and smaller craft. Good. 

	After this attack, the Slurians should be convinced that the 
fleet was nearby, and divert even more ships to this sector. After all, 
how could short range fighters have come this far on their own?

	"Break off," I said. Our mission was over. How successful it had 
been would only be determined in an after-battle analysis. For now we 
had to evade pursuit and make our way to a gas giant two systems over, 
where a refueling tanker was waiting for us.

	We headed out of orbit, splitting up in different directions, so 
the Slurians couldn't follow all of us. Unfortunately, I was one of 
those they chose to follow.

	One especially speedy destroyer was closing. It must have been 
the Slurian's own version of a fast attack destroyer. It started firing 
on me; I took evasive action.

	Suddenly, there were four blips behind me.

	Fighters. Badger 17's. And they were catching up even more 
quickly.

	I had to turn and fight. I've analyzed that decision at least a 
million times in the past three years. I still think it was my only 
choice.

	I spiraled behind one fighter as a second got behind me. I 
quickly lined up and got my shot, but just as I was spinning away I 
felt a jolt, and the ship spun out of control.

	Spinning wildly, I attempted to regain control while all the 
controls flickered around me. I regained control, pulled out of the 
spin, assessed the damage, and spun again to evade pursuers, all in the 
space of two seconds. The Battle Admiral's faith in me was well placed; 
you don't get to be the squadron leader of a "B" squadron if you're not 
a top pilot. Not on the Glory you don't.

	The damage wasn't fatal, but it wasn't good; one of the Harmony's 
four engines had been knocked out.

	That meant I would never be able to outrun the Slurians. Sure, I 
could do some fancy moves to keep them off my tail, but not for two 
solar systems. I checked my scanner. I was still close to Volvograd. 
Well, that was it then; I'd have to go to ground. 

	I didn't bother to radio my wingmen; they all had orders to go 
their separate ways; it wasn't until three years later that I learned 
how many of them had survived (eight).

	I winged into the Volvograd atmosphere, madly zigging this way 
and that, leaving a squadron of undoubtedly very frustrated Slurian 
Badger pilots behind me. My wings started to glow with the heat as I 
came in on a steeper angle than I should. 

	I'd like to say that in the few seconds that I took to enter the 
atmosphere that I checked my scans and considered the best place to 
eject over. Unfortunately things were moving a little too quickly even 
for me.

	All my instrumentation was flashing wildly, systems were failing, 
the Badgers were closing, and the ground was coming up too quickly....

	I leveled the Harmony out and it groaned; and I did a sudden 
horizontal U turn into a nearby cloud cover. The Badgers followed; it 
would be impossible to lose them on sensors; but perhaps I could get 
out of visual range, just for a few seconds.

	I set the autopilot and then, taking a deep breath, pressed the 
eject button.



	I was being shot into the air at fantastic speeds. My blood was 
rushing. And then, below me, I saw the planet's landscape. I cringed 
inwardly. Isn't that odd, an ace pilot like me, being afraid of 
heights?

	But of course, I hadn't activated my emergency gravitator yet. 
Nor did I for several seconds.

	My emergency gravitator was fitted in my backpack behind me. They 
hadn't figured out how to make full fledged gravitators small enough to 
fit into such a small space, so what I had was a "gravitator light", 
with limited power, that should slow me down sufficiently so that my 
impact wouldn't be too hard... as long as I didn't activate it for more 
than two minutes; that was the trick; the gravitator only had enough 
slowing power for two minutes.

	I grimaced as I watched the ground closing. Waiting a few seconds 
more, I activated it.

	Nothing happened.

	Then, slowly, my descend started to slow. Then I noticed the fall 
becoming more gradual.

	I didn't want it to get too gradual; if the gravitator ran out of 
power, I would fall straight to the ground without any braking power.

	My altimeter said I was still 200 feet over the ground when my 
gravitator gave the 15 second warning beep. Gulping, I turned it off.

	I started to plunge down to the ground again.

	I meant to turn it back on at 100 feet, but I was falling so fast 
that it kicked in at about 70 feet. The ground was still coming too 
fast.... I was still falling as I hit the ground.

	Ooof! My feet hit with a mighty jolt and I felt a tremendous pain 
in my legs as I rolled to the side, as I had been trained to do.

	I lay there for a second, fearing the worst.

	Then I spoke my first words on Volvograd. "I'm fearing the 
worst?" I said to myself. "I'm already on a planet crawling with 
Slurians, with no way home; how much worse can a pair of broken legs 
be?"

	Cautiously I sat up, and then tenderly stood up. I winced as I 
flexed my legs. I was bruised, but nothing was broken.

	"There," I said. "Maybe this day won't turn out so badly after 
all."

	Suddenly a pair of Badger 17's streaked through the air.

	"Time to celebrate later," I muttered. I grabbed my emergency 
supply pack and started walking rapidly, the best I could do for the 
moment on my weakened joints.

	I was in an area of great open spaces. There was no sign of 
civilization anywhere around me. There was some woods in the distance. 
That looked like a good destination.

	A Badger flew overhead, so low that I was forced to duck. 
Undoubtedly he was radioing all his little friends. As it overflew a 
second time the wind knocked me to the ground.

	As I stood up I realized the Badger hadn't fired on me. They 
wanted me alive; probably for interrogation. Well, that was a good 
thing; I wanted me alive too.

	As I reached the trees I could already see a pair of shuttles 
getting ready to land on the green, not a half mile away. 

	I had perhaps a ten minutes head start, no more.

	I started running.



	Ten minutes isn't much time to escape capture in an open field. 
But in a forest ten minutes one can blend into the forest, if one is 
good enough, and fast enough.

 	I was.

	An hour later, puffing for breath, I took a break behind a tree, 
giving my abused legs a break. Does it sound improbable that I escaped 
from my pursuers? They had come quickly in response to my sighting, so 
they probably weren't equipped with search parties--there was only a 
pilot in each shuttle and a minimal crew in each ship. Such a small 
number of people could hardly comb the forest for me. 

	By now, of course, more reinforcements would have arrived. My 
primary duty was not to get captured; if I were interrogated and 
revealed the real location of the Battle Admiral's fleet, all our plans 
would be lost. Actually, I hadn't been told the exact location our 
fleet would be attacking from, but I did know enough to tell the 
Slurians where the fleet wasn't; and if they made me talk, all our 
efforts would have been wasted.

	I had to evade capture then, for at least two days, maybe three. 
After that the battle would be joined, and it wouldn't matter what the 
Slurians learned from me; it would all be old news. 

	The sun was setting and it was starting to get cold. I noticed a 
small path in the forest, and peered through the dim light as best I 
could. I couldn't see anyone. Should I take the path? I could go more 
quickly that way than trying to blaze a path through the forest, which 
was more dense in this area. I decided to take a risk and take the 
path.

	I walked quickly, alert for the slightest sound, of a snapping 
twig or plant squashed underfoot. I heard sounds of animals in the 
forest but thought I could distinguish them from real people. I walked 
quickly, too quickly, and had to stop myself as I entered a clearing.

	There was a small farmhouse at the edge of the clearing, and a 
barn. There was a light in the farmhouse.

	I immediately thought of the barn. I knew I couldn't hide out 
there; that would be the first place the Slurians could look.

	But there could be food there. I had enough concentrated rations 
to last a week, but could always use more. More importantly there could 
be local clothes there I could use to blend in with the population; my 
uniform would give me away immediately. If I could dress like the 
locals perhaps I could go into one of their cities, find a ship and 
escape.

	The wonderful image in my mind was so persuasive that I didn't 
realize I was daydreaming until I was close up to the barn. I heard 
some small noise from the house but none from the barn. Drawing my 
blaster I cautiously entered.

	I found some livestock in the barn, a pair of cows that had seen 
better days and a few scrawny chickens, but no food. What I did find 
was a shirt and a pair of overalls.

	I made the fateful decision to put them on. This was another 
point in time I thought much of in retrospect; would things have been 
different if I hadn't put on civilian clothes? There's no way to know 
for sure now.

	I slipped into the Slurian clothes and buried my own under a pile 
of hay. By the time they were found I would be long gone.

	The Slurian clothes were made of a rough material that itched, 
and they didn't look all that clean. Well, they would have to do.

	The sun was starting to set and it was getting cold. A gust of 
cold wind blew by me as I stepped out of the barn. It would have been 
tempting to try to spend the night there, out of the elements, but I 
wasn't a total fool. 

	I continued on the path.  As I walked I could occasionally see 
farmhouses in the distance. When the last bit of light from Volvograd's 
distant sun faded, and all I had was the dim light of the stars to 
navigate, I decided to take a break. 

	I took a ration bar out of a pocket. It had an unnatural 
chocolately taste to it, as if someone tried to make something other 
than chocolate taste like chocolate. Biting back my nausea, I took a 
drink out of my water flask. 

	Water. That would be a problem, even before my food ran out.  I 
had passed a stream before I had arrived at the farmhouse, but in my 
haste had simply run past it. Well, there would be others.

	I snapped out of my daydreaming when I heard a crackle in the 
forest. I turned around and peered as best I could into the dark 
forest. Nothing.

	Then I heard another snapping sound, and then another, as if 
someone were walking through the forest. Someones, by the sound of it.

	I immediately ducked behind a bush. Peering through a few 
strands, I saw a squad of people walking down the path, carrying rifles 
and wearing goggles. Soldiers.

	At least, they must be soldiers, unless the local farmers took to 
wearing night vision goggles at night. 

	I resisted the impulse to run; night vision goggles or no, they 
couldn't see me through this bush.

	I slowly watched them pass, and then headed in the opposite 
direction.



	I had no clear idea what I was doing.  The standard protocol for 
a pilot who's forced to eject is to activate his homing beacon for 
pickup. Since I was several billion miles inside enemy territory, that 
didn't seem to be a feasible option.

	The secondary protocol was to try to hole up until rescue. But, 
as I've mentioned, since I was REALLY deep inside enemy territory, that 
protocol didn't hold too well either.

	Beyond that it was up to my Tookish imagination to determine what 
to do. This planet was inhabited by the Slurians, therefore it must 
have a spaceport. Spaceports must have spaceships. Spaceships, 
especially small ones, could be stolen. All I would have to do is evade 
capture, pass for a Slurian, locate the spaceport, break in, steal a 
ship, evade pursuit, and get back to League space.

	"Easier said than done," I said, speaking for almost the first 
time since I had arrived on this planet. "Maybe I should simply wait 
for the Battle Admiral to conquer the planet."

	The Battle Admiral. The attack. It was scheduled to start in two 
days. I had to evade capture for at least that long.

	I walked in the forest for as long as I could, but eventually 
exhaustion took its toll. I decided to lay down in a small clearing, 
just for a few minutes. Just a short rest.



	I felt something jabbing into my arm. I opened my eyes, blinking 
in the harsh sunlight, to see three figures pointing long things at me. 
They looked like blaster rifles. They looked like Slurian soldiers 
holding blaster rifles.

	I tried to think of something to say in Slurian. Unfortunately, 
my Slurian vocabulary, never very robust, didn't extend much beyond 
"Yes!" "No!" "Very good!" and "Pretty, pretty!". But I had to try 
something. Maybe I could pass as a civilian.

	One of the soldiers babbled something to me, undoubtedly in 
Slurian. I slowly started to get up.

	The soldier repeated what he was saying. I think he was expecting 
a response. I considered my options.

	"Nyet," I said, in flawless Slurian, hoping it was a yes or no 
question.

	The Slurians looked puzzled. Obviously, it wasn't.

	I tried mumbling something incoherent to them, trying to act like 
a disgruntled farmer who simply decided to spend the night in the 
forest. I slowly turned away and took a step.

	Several blaster muzzles poked into my back. I froze. A hand 
frisked me, pulling out my blaster hidden in my jacket.

	My obviously League made blaster.

	"You got me, fellas," I said, in English. No point in pretending 
anymore. "Which one of you is going to take me to the General 
Secretary?"

	One of the soldiers barked a command.

	I shrugged, looking puzzled. The soldier slammed the butt of his 
rifle against my face. I fell to the ground.

	Another soldier yanked me to my feet.

	The soldier who had hit me barked again, pointing with his rifle.

	I rubbed my sore jaw and glared at him. "You realize this is 
going into my report to the Human Aide Society."

	The soldier jabbed me with his rifle.

	"All right, all right," I sighed, and started walking.

	The Slurians walked around me in a protective cordon, weapons 
raised. One of them turned to me, and grinned. "You out of it. For you, 
war over," he said, in broken English.

	"We'll just see about that," I said, with false bravado.

	It wasn't until three years later that I realized he was right.





Chapter 2:  Interrogation



	"Took. Idaho J., War Admiral, 5408224," I said, for something 
approaching the 50th time. I had always wanted to be a War Admiral; if 
I were going to lie, why not lie in style?

	By the way they were growling at me, my interrogators obviously 
didn't believe me. Or understand me. Not one of them spoke a word of 
System English. Which was good; it would buy me some time.

	"Geblah blah!" one of them said accusingly. He wore the uniform 
of a Major of the feared Loyalty Police, with the trademark red 
bordered cap. 

The Loyalty Police. They were answerable to almost no one. All 
Slurians, regular army included, feared the Redcaps. 

	"Blah blah!" I responded.

	I received a slap across the face which stung.  Maybe my accent 
was off.

	It had been several hours since I had been brought into a nearby 
military base. Several hours. I must have been on this planet at least 
24 hours. I knew in a general way that the attack was scheduled to 
occur in two to three days. All I had to do, then, was hold out for 48 
hours. After that, I could tell them the truth. After that it would do 
no good.

	It should be easy; it might take them days just to find someone 
who spoke English.

	"Geblah!" said the Major. A newcomer entered the room, a 
redhaired fellow wearing a Colonel's shoulderboards.

	"Sorry, I only speak League English," I said, with an 
ingratiating smile. "Don't they teach you anything in school nowadays? 
It's that public education system, you know."

	The Colonel stood close to my chair and stared at me.

	"My, that's a nasty scar you've got down the side of your face, 
chief," I said. "Did your laser shaver malfunction?"

	The Colonel glared at me.

	"This is great," I said. "I can insult you all I want and all you 
can do is stare at me. If we can just keep this up for another day or 
two everything will be perfect."

	"I am afraid we do not have that kind of time," said the Colonel, 
speaking in flawless League English. I jumped. The Colonel smiled.

	"Yes, of course we understand your language," said the Colonel. 
"I myself spent several years working for a Congressman on 
Greenfields," he said, now taking on a subtle Greenfields accent.

	I looked at the face, and then the uniform. This was no ordinary 
Loyalty Policeman.

	The Colonel picked up a datapad. "Took, Idaho J., Battle 
Lieutenant, attached to the Command Carrier Glory, Battle Admiral 
Norman North commanding. Last known position: in charge of Beta 
Squadron, also known as "Took's Tigers". 74 non-cumulative years of 
combat flying experience."

	I said nothing, but my face must have betrayed me.

	"You see, we are not without our resources," said the Colonel. He 
started to pace around my chair.

	I still said nothing.

	"My report says you are one of the Battle Admiral's most valued 
pilots. But it also says you are a joker, a foolish one," said the 
Colonel, standing behind me. He clamped his arms on my shoulders, and 
reached down close, so his mouth was next to my left ear.

	"I do not suffer fools lightly."
	I gulped, and then he was walking around to face me again. "We 
are aware of the imminent attack of your fleet. We know the details."

	"Then you won't be needing me," I said, starting to get up.

	One of the husky guards standing by my chair raised his blaster. 
I slowly sat back down.

	The Colonel looked bored. "We just want some confirmation. What 
is the Glory's current location?"

	I said nothing. Obviously he didn't know where the Glory was.

	The Colonel leaned down so he was at eye level. "Don't make me 
ask twice."

	"Took," I said. "Idaho J. Battle Lieutenant, 54-"

	I yelled as I was shot in the back by a blaster. It was set to 
low, or else I would have stopped feeling anything, but my left 
shoulder blade felt like it was on fire.

	That was just the beginning. For the next few hours I was 
tortured mercilessly. I was shot repeatedly, beaten, shot, and 
interrogated. But my answers were always the same. 

	"Took. Idaho J-" I would rarely get to my serial number before 
the attack would begin again. I ached all over my body. I thought I 
would pass out from the pain.

	"I will ask again," said the Colonel. "Where is the Glory?"

	"I... I..." I gasped, trying to stall for time. The Colonel 
nodded. The guard raised his blaster.

	"Stop!" said a new voice. It came from behind me, so I couldn't 
see who it was. 

	But the Colonel could. His face whitened. Even in my debilitated 
state, a small piece of my brain found this interesting. Who could get 
this kind of reaction from a Redcap?

	A man in an all black uniform stepped into view. The uniform was 
made of some kind of material that stood up on its own, and came 
complete with high collars. My mind blinked; where had I read about 
such uniforms before.

	"Major," gasped the Colonel, saluting.

	Since when did a colonel salute a major? Especially a Loyalty 
Officer. Who did even the Loyalists fear?

	The Major, the man in black, said, "What have you been doing?"
	"Interrogating-"

	"Fool!" said the Major. "You will kill him before you get 
anything useful." The Major turned to look at me. He stared with cold 
eyes.

	"My hero," I mumbled.

	The Major grabbed my jaw. "You think I have come to rescue you, 
Idaho Took? Do you know where I am from?"

	I shook my head; like the rest of my body, it hurt. I couldn't 
think straight.

	"Then obviously you have never heard of Special Tasks."

	Special Tasks. The elite infiltration and assassination unit of 
the Slurian Secret Police. Even the Redcaps were afraid of them.

	I looked at the Major with obvious fear in my eyes. I found 
myself trembling.

	"I see you have heard of us," said the Major pleasantly. His eyes 
flickered to the Colonel. "Leave us."

	The Colonel left without saying another word, taking his guards 
with him. Now, if I could untie myself from the chair, all I would have 
to do is overpower the Special Tasks Major to escape.

	"What shall we talk about?" said the Major, giving a small smile. 

	"How about the weather?" I croaked.

	It was then I noticed that the Major was carrying a small case. 
He opened it, taking out something. "Unfortunately, I do not have time 
to banter with you. Even more unfortunately, we are not near one of our 
interrogation facilities, so I must make do with cruder means."

	"There's a lot of unfortunate events going around lately in the 
Slurian empire, isn't there?" I said.

	The Major leaned close to my face, and stared me in the eyes. For 
a moment he said nothing. Then, suddenly, he whipped his hand into 
view. Before I could cry out he had pressed something against my neck. 
I cried out as I felt a hiss.

	In a matter of seconds, I felt my mind grow numb. Suddenly, I was 
unable to concentrate.



	It seemed like hours passed. Meaningless words were said to me; I 
said meaningless things back. I had no idea what was going on. Finally, 
after an undeterminable time, I slowly felt the pain returning to my 
head, and things started to clear up slightly.

	The Special Tasks Major was sitting there, entering words into a 
datapad. After a few minutes he looked up, and smiled as he noticed the 
expression on my face.

	"Ah, I see you've returned," said the Major. "I could have 
finished this report outside, but I couldn't leave without thanking 
you."

	"Thanking...?"
	"For the location of the Glory. As well as your fleet's tactical 
plans," said the Major.

	"You're lying," I said. "I don't know the exact location of the 
Glory."

	The Major looked at his pad. "But you know where it was, and 
where it won't be. When you left it, the Glory and its accompanying 
fleet were near pulsar SR-52, waiting to launch an attack, were they 
not?"

	 I said nothing, but I suppose I looked shocked, because the 
Major gave a smile, and nodded.

	"Your flight was simply a ruse to convince us that the Glory was 
nearby, as if we wouldn't notice that the Glory was using atypically 
long range Harmony fighters," said the Major pleasantly. "Of course now 
we know the real truth."

	I was simply numb.

	"Thank you," the Major continued. "You've been most cooperative." 
He pressed a button on the desk. "Unfortunately, my ability to reward 
you is most limited."

	I heard booted feet coming in the room behind me. The Major 
looked beyond me. "Take special care of him." And then he left my field 
of vision.

	The Colonel stepped into view, smiling wickedly. "Be assured, we 
will."



	They knew where the fleet was.

	I had told them where the fleet was!

	Don't panic, I told myself. Don't panic. I lay on the hard wooden 
board in a small cell. I didn't know the exact location where the 
attack would occur; my only mission had been to convince them that the 
attack would occur here, at Volvograd. But now they knew that was a 
ruse, and they also knew where the Glory had started from, if not where 
it was actually going to attack.

	What had the Battle Admiral said? That the attack would take 
place in two or three days after I arrived at the diversion point. Let 
me think. I had eluded capture for about a day after I had been shot 
down. The 5,000,000 credit question was, how long had it been since I 
had been caught? I wasn't sure.

	If 48 hours had passed, then it would be too late; the fleet 
would already be underway, and/or about to attack. But it didn't feel 
like two days had passed; had the Slurians been tipped off in time?

	If they had, then I would be single handedly responsible for the 
loss of the entire fleet. 

	I tried to get some sleep, but couldn't; but it wasn't the pains 
of low intensity blaster fire torture that kept me awake.

	It was only a few hours later when the guards came for me. 
Another interrogation session? What more did they need?
	"Come!" they said, each grabbing me by one arm. They force 
marched me down the corridor. What was the hurry?
	Before I knew it I was in a groundcar, surrounded by guards. The 
groundcar seemed to be moving unusually quickly. They definitely seemed 
to be in a hurry.

	"What's going on?" I asked.

	The guards looked away and said nothing.

	I was taken to a landing strip where a shuttle awaited us. I was 
hustled aboard and even before we had reached our seats the shuttle had 
taken off. As I momentarily stumbled to the ground I tried to figure 
out what was happening. Had the Battle Admiral's attack been 
successful? Were the Slurians now in full retreat?

	Even if the attack had been successful, the attack was planned to 
take place at least two sectors away. It was very unlikely that a 
victory there would have any immediate effect here. No, that couldn't 
be the reason for all the hurry.

	We were taken to a ship where I was kept in solitary confinement 
for several days. Food was brought to me at regular intervals. Despite 
my best efforts to provoke the guards, no one said anything to me.

	An indeterminable time later I was bustled into the shuttle again 
and we started to descend. Since I wasn't in the pilot's section I 
couldn't see where we were going but I did notice the more relaxed 
attitude among the crew. Whatever had bothered them on Volvograd wasn't 
an issue for them here.

	As the shuttle landed and I was taken to the exit ramp I felt a 
strong gust of cold air. I instinctively shivered and my eyes stung as 
I tried to refocus. 

	The environment around me was white. There was snow everywhere; 
on the ground, on top of the buildings, in the air. We had landed in 
the middle of a snowstorm  on... where?

	The Slurians were notorious for locating their prison and labor 
camps on inhospitable worlds. Perhaps this was one of them.

	I was put into a groundcar and taken for a short drive. In short 
order we arrived at what looked like a military base. I was put into 
solitary again.

	It was several hours later when the guards called on me again. I 
was taken to an office where another Redcap awaited me. This time it 
was a Major, but a woman. Even from behind the desk I saw that she was 
attractive. Blonde, with a good figure. She glanced up at me and nodded 
for me to take a seat.

	"So here we have the famous League spy," she said, in accented 
English.

	"I get good press," I said, hoping to throw her off-balance 
immediately.

	She stood up and moved around the desk, and I saw that she really 
did fill her uniform quite well.

	"You find me attractive?" she said, obviously noticing my stare.

	"Are you asking me out?" I asked. "Maybe we could go out, get a 
cup of borsch-"
	My words were cut off as the Major slapped my face.

	"Do not toy with me, League swine!" she said, her eyes flaring. 
"Your name."
	"If I'm famous, don't you know it?"

	She slapped me again, harder. "Your name." 

	That really stung.

"Idaho J. Took."
	"Your rank."
	I let her lead me through all the basic details. She started 
asking mundane details about my personal life, the names of my parents, 
where I grew up, where I went to school, when I enlisted in the space 
forces, things like that. I was too tired to resist. There didn't seem 
to be any harm in telling her these things, and I had to husband my 
strength for the important things.

	Her questioning got more and more specific. What was the first 
ship I had been posted to? What had I majored in in the academy. I 
still didn't see any harm in telling her these things, but wondered 
where she was leading with this.

	After an undetermined time the questioning stopped.

	"Take him back to his cell," the Major said.

	"That's it?" I said, getting up uncertainly.

	"For now," said the Major.

	I was taken back to the cell, where a cup of water and three 
tasteless slices of bread awaited me. This, evidently, was dinner.

	The next morning I was summoned back for another interrogation. I 
noticed the Major was asking the same questions again: Name, rank, etc.

	"Perhaps I can save some time if you just check your notes from 
yesterday," I said hopefully.

	"Silence!" she said, slapping me across the face. "Are you 
telling me how to do my job?"
	I looked down, admiring her tight fitting pants. "No, just making 
a suggestion."

	"You are in no position to make suggestions," said the Major. 
"Now, what was your mission?" 

	"To attack Volvograd," I said. That should have been obvious, by 
now.

	The Major slapped me again. "Your real mission."

	"That was my real mission-"

	"You are a spy. What was your mission here?" she demanded.

	"I'm a talent scout for a holomodeling agency." I asked. "Are you 
looking for a new line of work? I think you have the legs for it."

	She slapped me again. "You think this is a joke?"

	I smiled genially. 

	"You think because I am a woman I will go easy on you?"
	I said nothing.

	She more closer to me. She matched eyes with mine. Slowly she sat 
down in my lap, her legs straddling mine. She put her arms around me. 
She moved her lips close to mine.

	"Is this what you would like?" she asked.

	I wet my lips nervously. "Well, I was thinking of some 
candlelight, maybe some soft music-"

	Suddenly she banged her head against mine, hard. 

"Ow!" I cried as I felt waves of pain. 

She slowly stood up. 

	"Things will not go so easy for you, spy," said the Major.


	After another break I was called back again for interrogation.

	"Let us start again," said the Major. She started asking me about 
my life. I answered her questions, but stumbled a few times. 

	"I thought you said you were 24 years of age when you entered the 
space forces!"

	"I did," I said.

	"You just said you were 25!"
	"Did I?" I said. "Well, my birthday was right around then and-"

	The Major caught me up on a number of discrepancies. I had said 
so many things that there were bound to be minor discrepancies; but 
that's what they were, all minor. Every time I said something slightly 
different, she would jump on me,

	"You can't even keep your lies straight!" said the Major. "You 
said earlier you had six months of simulation training, and now you say 
a few!"

	"A few, yes, that means six," I said. "What's the difference?"

	"More lies!" Another slap.

	I had several more interviews like that, where the Major quibbled 
over minor points. But her anger at those "discrepancies" of my past 
was nothing compared to her rage when she questioned me about the 
present.

	"You are a spy!" she charged, not for the first time. "What was 
your mission?"
	"To find out if you are a natural blonde," I said. 

	Slap.

	I started to get grinded down by these tiring sessions. They 
seemed to be asking the same questions over and over. The only reason I 
could think that they were doing this was to wear me down.

	And the Major was getting tougher on me.

	"Do you know what we do to spies?"

	"I am not a spy."

	"You are a spy, and you can be shot," said the Major.

	"Under the Graftonite Accords-"
	The Major slapped me. "The Graftonite Accords only apply to 
prisoners of war! You are a spy!"

	I said nothing.

	"Aren't you?" the Major insisted. "You were caught in civilian 
clothing. You are not a Slurian national. The only people who wear 
civilian clothing are Slurian nationals and spies!"

	"I'm not a spy," I said, suddenly panicking. "I changed clothing 
in order to avoid capture. When I landed-"
	"Irrelevant!" said the Major. "You were dressed as a civilian, 
you are a spy. I can order you shot right now!" She noticed my grim 
expression, and spoke more definitively. "If you do not cooperate I 
will have you shot!"

	I started to tremble inside. I knew she meant it.

	"If you do not cooperate, your next session may be your last. 
Think about it! Guard!"

	I was taken back to my cell. As I collapsed into the plank/bed, I 
certainly had a lot to think about. I hadn't realized the risks of 
assuming civilian clothing. Would they really shoot me?

	That begged another question. Why were they being so tough on me? 
The Special Tasks people had already obtained the most important 
information; they must have known that I was a pilot, not a spy. The 
Glory had long since gone into battle; whatever had happened, had 
already happened. There was no longer any useful information he could 
give. Then why were they interrogating me so brutally?

	Perhaps the only way they could kill me was if I admitted I was a 
spy. But if I refused to say I was a spy, I'd still have a chance of 
being treated as a prisoner of war. It wasn't a great fate to look 
forward to, but it was better than being dead.

	So in my next session with the Major I continued to resist. But 
she only got tougher. When I entered her office I sat down, as I had in 
the past.
	The Major looked up, matched eyes with one of my guards. The 
guard kicked me behind the knee, sending me sprawling to the ground.

	The Major nodded, and one of the guards pulled me up.

	"I did not give you permission to sit," said the Major, her face 
giving a beautiful scowl. "Your name?"
	"Took, Idaho J.," I gasped through the pain.

	"Rank?"
	"Battle Lieutenant."
	She went through all the basic questions.  Then she moved onto 
more detailed questions.

	"What was your mission?" She asked, for the millionth time.
	"To attack Volvograd," I said.

	The Major nodded, and one of the guards struck me. I fell to the 
ground again. After a moment's pause, the guard kicked me. The pain was 
immense. These were no girl slaps.

	"What was that for?" I cried.

	"I did not give you permission to lie down," said the Major. "Now 
get up."
	I slowly got to my feet.

	"Again, what was your mission?"
	I half looked at the guard and wet my lips. "I told you, to 
attack-"
	"Unacceptable!" said the Major. "You are a spy. You must have had 
a hidden purpose in coming here."

	"I am not-" Suddenly a punch in my back sent me sprawling.

	"What was that for?" I said, struggling to get up.

	"For contradicting me," said the Major.

	This went on for a very long time. The Major wanted to know who I 
was spying for and what my mission was. As I was not a spy and had no 
mission the interview turned out to be very long and painful.

	After an undeterminable time the Major slammed her fist on the 
desktop. "Lies, lies, all lies!" Her expression changed. "Perhaps it 
would help if you had a more comfortable chair?"
	A new chair was wheeled in. This one had metal armrests and all 
sorts of electrical devices attached to the headrest. The Major looked 
pleasantly at me for a reaction. I obliged by slowly shaking my head.

	I was lifted by two giant guards and carried struggling into the 
chair. They strapped me down and fitted something against my head. I 
felt the hum of power as one of the guards turned a knob. Suddenly the 
chair started to vibrate.

	"Let us start with setting two," said the Major.

	The guard operated a control and I felt/heard a funny kind of 
scratching sound in my head.

	"Now, let us begin again," said the Major. "Your name."
	I answered her questions, but the scratching sound/feeling grew 
distracting. As the interrogation continued the Major turned up the 
intensity, so it was all I could do to concentrate.

	"When did you graduate from the academy?" she asked, for the 
millionth time.

	"Ah...." I said, trying to concentrate. The scratching feeling 
was very loud in my head now.

	"Answer!" said the Major.

	"How do you expect me to concentrate when you have that thing 
burning into my brain!" I snapped.

	The Major slapped me. "It's meant to prevent your lies! Stop 
trying to formulate evasions and answer my questions! Admit you are a 
spy!"

	"I am no spy."

	"Liar!" she said, suddenly striking my face. Then she paused. "We 
know more about you than you think, Idaho J. Took. Does the name 
Clifford Croft mean anything to you?"

	"Clifford Croft?"

	"Do not pretend you do not know it," said the Major. "You have 
met him before, yes?"
	"Once or twice, maybe," I said.

	"So you admit it!" The Major shrieked. 

	"So?"

	"He is a spy. You associate with him. You are a spy."

	"I happened to cross paths with him during an investigation," I 
said. "He talks to a lot of people. That doesn't make them all spies. 
He probably even talks to Slurians; that doesn't make them spies 
either." Suddenly, my tired mind caught up with what I was saying. "Oh, 
ok, the Slurians he talks to probably are spies."

	"What was your mission?" The Major demanded.

	"I had no mission," I said, blinking rapidly. "I mean, no non-
military mission. I'm a soldier, not a spy. Ask the Special Tasks guy 
who interrogated me at the-"
	At the mention of the words special tasks the Major looked 
enraged. "We have nothing to do with them! Whatever happened between 
you and them was between you and them! Do not mention them again unless 
you wish to be disciplined!" 
	The interviewing process went on and on. The device didn't seem 
to prevent me from lying, but it did prevent me from thinking clearly. 
Answering a simple question became a struggle. Finally, when my answers 
totally stopped making sense, I was disconnected from the device.

	"You are pitiful," said the Major, curling her lip. "Take him 
away."
	I collapsed into a deep sleep the minute I was brought back to my 
cell. I never noticed the hardness of the wooden plank.

	It seemed like only minutes had passed, however, before I was 
called back for another interrogation.

	"Again?" I said wearily?

	"What do you mean, Idaho Took?" said the Major.

	"You just had me here five minutes ago."

	"That was eight hours ago," said the Major, giving a small grin.

	I think they were messing with my perspective of time to help 
disorient me. Now, in retrospect, I'm not sure how long those 
interrogations lasted or how many there were once they started using 
the chair. All I vaguely remember is saying the same thing over and 
over. But I don't think the Major was satisfied, because she continued 
to slap me and accuse me of lying.

	"Face it," I said wearily. "I'm not a spy."

	"You are a spy! What are the battle plans of the Glory?"

	"If I were a spy, I wouldn't know that," I said. "Only a military 
officer would know that. Are you now saying I'm a military officer and 
not a spy?" The buzzing in my head was intense as I tried to 
concentrate on what I was saying.

	The Major gave a deep laugh. I sat there dully watching her.

	"You do not know, do you? We no longer need the Glory's plans," 
said the Major. "Your fleet is destroyed. The Glory is burning in 
space. Your precious Battle Admiral is dead."

	I looked at her to try to gauge the truthfulness of her 
statement.

	She nodded. "It was all because of you. You gave away their 
position. You caused the deaths of thousands of your fellow officers 
and crewmembers."
	"No!" I shouted.

	"Yes!" the Major cried. "Now our fleets are crashing through 
League space, liberating wide sectors of territory. And we have you to 
thank!"

	"No!" I cried again.

	"Admit your guilt!" said the Major. "Admit it!" She watched me as 
I melted down. In retrospect I could see that this was the climax she 
had been building towards, all the days of wearing me down, all the 
torture, and this was she had been building to; to try to break me with 
the knowledge that I had led to the destruction of my own fleet. 

	But something tough inside of me resisted. "No..." I said weakly.

	The Major looked at me, obviously disappointed. She spat on me, 
and said, "Take this feeble creature back to its cage."

 

	There were no interrogations for the next several days. I took 
that as a good sign and stewed in my cell. The food was very simple, 
bread and water, neither of which was very tasty. But slowly I began to 
regain my strength.

	Suddenly the guards came for me and, wearing leg irons and 
manacles, I was taken to a different room in the complex. A courtroom.

	A man speaking heavily accented English shook my hand. "You are 
Idaho Took, the spy?"

	I nodded at the first part, then quickly shook my head at the 
second part.

	The man ignored the contradiction. "I am Suli Andrichev, your 
state appointed defense counsel."

	"You're on my side, and you introduce yourself by calling me a 
spy?"

	"I think the best legal strategy is to admit your guilt," said 
Andrichev.

	The presiding judge, a stern looking man wearing the uniform of a 
Slurian Colonel, complete with medals, banged the gavel into order. 
Great. A military trial.

	The man spoke in Slurian, but a helpful translator at his side 
spoke in Standard English  a few seconds after the judge did.

	"Case number 958089308, State versus the Idaho Took spy. Idaho 
Took, you have been convicted of espionage and spying against the 
Slurian Union. How do you plead?"

	"Guilty, your honor," said Andrichev.

	"Just a minute," I said. "I'm not pleading guilty."

	The translator translated my remarks. The military judge looked 
pained. He said, through the translator, "What is this? You cannot 
plead one way while your lawyer pleads another."
	"I reject my counsel, your honor, I wish to defend myself."

	The judge consulted one of his assistants for a moment. He seemed 
unsure how to deal with this minor unscripted turn of events.

	Finally he said, "You may do so, but I warn you that you would 
benefit from experienced counsel," said the judge.

	"It's a risk I'm willing to take," I said. It was actually no 
risk at all. What could be worse than this state lawyer?

	"You are relieved," said the judge.

	Andrichev showed a pained look on his face and nodded. He turned 
to me one last time. "I don't advise this."

	"Why do you care so much?" I asked. "Do you get a commission for 
every client who's convicted?"

	"For every case I represent, yes," said Andrichev.

	"I guess that means you won't be able to buy as much borsch this 
month," I said pityingly.

	"Enough," said the judge, banging his gavel. Andrichev left the 
room.

	"How do you plead?" The judge asked.
	"Not guilty, your honor," I said.

	"You will not address me as your honor; this is not the corrupt 
League justice system. You will address me as respected chairman or 
sir," said the judge through the interpreter.

	"Yes sir," I said.

	"Now, do you have anything to say before judgment is confirmed?"

	"Yes," I said.

	The judge waited. "Well?"

	"Doesn't the prosecution present its case first, so I know what I 
need to rebut?"
	The judge sighed. "Haven't you been listening? You have already 
been convicted in absentia. It is up to you to prove your innocence."

	"How can I prove my innocence when I haven't heard the case 
against me?"
	The judge spoke as if he were explaining to a child. "The 
evidence is classified, you could not be present for it."
	"I see," I said, and I really did. This really was a show trial.

	"Now, do you have anything to say before your sentence is 
confirmed?"
	I paused. Nothing I said would make any difference.

	"I repeat, do you have anything to say?"
	"Just one, sir," I said. I pointed to the judge's medals. "You 
got those through mail order, right?"

	The translator blanched but translated my remarks. The judge 
looked confused and spoke to the translator again. Then the judge 
looked enraged.

	He slammed the gavel. 

	"Your guilt has been confirmed. You are hereby sentenced to 30 
years in a labor reform camp for your espionage," said the judge. "And 
one additional year for insolence." 

The guards motioned for me to stand up.

31 years? In a Slurian labor camp? I was stunned.

	"You can't do that!" I said, as the guards started to drag me 
away. "I'm a prisoner of war! I'm a prisoner of war!"

	But to them, it didn't make any difference.





Chapter 3:  Labor Reform Camp 94



	I have to admit that I wasn't in the best of moods. Maybe it was 
the torture talking. Or maybe it was the still unconfirmed knowledge 
that the information I had revealed under interrogation had led to the 
destruction of our fleet, and perhaps even our loss in the war. Or 
possibly it was the starvation diet, or even the fact I was crowded 
into a very tight truck compartment with 20 other people. It was hard 
to say what was simultaneously aggravating and depressing me more.

	Still, packed into the truck, I had my first contact with anyone 
outside of my interrogators and the military judge since I had arrived 
on this planet. Which made me wonder exactly which planet this was.

	I tried to ask one of my fellow captives. But I didn't have much 
luck. None of them, it seemed, spoke League English. We were so tightly 
packed into the truck that I was sandwiched between two fellow 
prisoners who hadn't bathed in a while. They all seemed to be Slurian 
civilians. Political prisoners?

	They seemed to be talking to themselves in Slurian, but that 
didn't help me. After an indeterminate amount of time the truck 
stopped. We must have arrived. Armed guards opened the truck, and I was 
relieved to have some fresh air. But it was bitterly cold. I wasn't 
dressed for winter and the wind ripped through my thin shirt and 
trousers. I grabbed my jacket more tightly. At least the Slurians had 
given me back my military uniform before I had left the prison. It had 
been an odd measure of kindness that I never fully understood.

	As I hopped out of the truck I saw nothing but snow as far as the 
eye could see, aside from several other trucks behind and in front of 
us. I quickly figured it this was not our final stop but was a bathroom 
and food break. Everyone did their business quickly and then we lined 
up for some half frozen bread. There was nothing to drink. Prisoners 
scooped up snow and put it into their mouths. I, being incredibly 
thirsty, had no other choice either. I put a small amount in my mouth 
and winced. The snow stung my tongue but started to melt. 

	No one was eating their bread as they shoveled snow into their 
mouths. I soon found out why. In only a few minutes we were herded back 
into the compartment and sealed in, with nothing more to drink. 

	Once we were back inside the relative warmth of the compartment I 
tried to bite down hard on the bread, but it was so cold it was solid 
like a block of ice. I hurt several teeth biting down. After that I 
soaked it in my mouth to warm it up so it would be chewable. Eventually 
I got it down.

	This pattern continued for several days. The truck hovered a few 
feet above the ground as we moved across the countryside. If we were 
going so far I wondered why we didn't just fly there. 

	No one had tried to escape during any of our rest breaks, but 
perhaps that was unremarkable; in this snowy wasteland, not dressed for 
the weather, where would one go?

	The interior of the compartment had poor ventilation  and it was 
difficult to breathe. But at least I was reasonably warm, surrounded by 
all these bodies. Still, it wasn't comfortable; when we lay down to 
sleep, there was always someone on top of me, and the floors were none 
too clean.

	To my delight I finally found someone who could speak English, 
albeit poorly.

	"You Richman," said the prisoner.

	"The name is Took," I said. 

	The prisoner didn't say his name.

	"Can you tell me where we are?" I asked.

	"Inside truck," said the prisoner.

	"Ha ha," I said dryly. "I mean, what planet?"
	The prisoner looked at me oddly. "Altera."
	"Altera."  Altera. The death planet, the penal colony for Slurian 
slaves. I had heard of it. This was the ice planet where the Slurians 
operated many of their labor camps. I had heard of Altera. Our 
information was very sketchy about it, mostly because no one we knew 
had ever escaped from the planet to talk about it.

	"How long you in for, Richman?" the prisoner asked.

	"31 years," I said. "Actually, it was 30 years, but I got an 
additional year for insolence. You?"

	The prisoner laughed.

	"What's so funny?" I asked. "Were you sent here for insolence 
too?"

	"You were sentenced 31 years?" said the prisoner. 

"Why, is that a relatively short sentence?" I asked hopefully.

"You be dead in two," he laughed.

	"I don't think that's so funny," I said.

	It must have been close to a week later before we got to our 
destination.  At first, I thought it was another bathroom break. When 
we got out I saw nothing in all directions. But then I noticed the 
guards motioning us forward, and saw beyond the first truck a small 
building of some kind. There were at least several hundred prisoners 
here; were we all going to fit in there?

	And then I saw that the road had ended by the building. We had 
stopped here before there was no more road left.

	The wind swept snow around us; we were lined up and we started 
marching into the gentle hills, beyond the building. I was freezing 
cold. 

	The guards were shouting something. One of them came up to a 
prisoner next to me, and shoved him, shouting to him, and motioning to 
me.

	The prisoner, in broken English said, "Walk to the left, walk to 
the right, you will be shot."

	I opened my mouth to ask what that meant when the march started. 
Boy was it cold!

	I tried to cheer myself by thinking that we were probably just 
being marched over the hill. But as we got over it I saw another set of 
hills. 

	Two hours into the march I realized that we were in this for some 
time to come. How did they expect us to survive in this weather? The 
guards had winter coats, and even they shivered in the cold. 
Inevitably, it took a toll on the prisoners, none of whom were dressed 
for it.

	On the first day several prisoners dropped into the snow during 
the march. Sometimes  fellow prisoners would hurriedly try to help them 
up. Those that didn't get up were dealt with by the guards. From time 
to time I saw someone drop out of formation. A guard would go up to 
them and a moment later I would hear the distinct whine of blaster 
fire.

	They didn't care whether we lived or died. I felt myself freezing 
but actually considered myself lucky; most people didn't even have 
jackets; my flight jacket provided me with some of protection; in 
retrospect, it may have saved my life.

	We stopped for the night in a small thinly wooded valley. We were 
given the same frozen bread ration again, but at least here we could 
have all the snow we wanted. It was much more bitter melting it in our 
mouths when we were cold in the outdoors. The guards lit fires and 
posted guards on the perimeter. We huddled together to try and stay 
warm, but it was impossible to do.

	I had a nightmarish night, the cold preventing me from falling 
asleep for more than a few moments at a time. In the morning, several 
of the prisoners didn't wake up. They had frozen to death. Other 
prisoners fought to steal their pitiful possessions, and in moments 
there were several naked corpses on the snow. I can't say I approved of 
what the others did, but I understood their motives; an extra shirt or 
layer of trousers could mean the difference between life and death.

	The guards checked off names from a datapad and in moments had us 
going again, simply leaving the bodies behind, exposed to the elements.

	For the next two days my teeth were chattering. The cold was bad 
enough, but we were only provided with 6 slices of bread, once per day; 
that was hardly enough for these kinds of marches. 

	On the beginning of the third day I periodically started to 
sneeze, and knew I was getting sick; if I caught a fever, that would be 
the end of me. 

	Finally, though, at the end of the third day, we saw something in 
the distance. As we got closer we saw it was a camp, a series of 
primitive buildings surrounded by barbed wire and watchtowers.

	We had arrived.



	We were processed in a dimly lit hut that had no internal heating 
but was infinitely warmer than the outdoors if only because we weren't 
exposed to the elements. We were each handed a winter jacket, a pair of 
pants, and gloves. The winter jacket wasn't as substantial as what the 
guards wore but it fit nicely over my flight jacket and would provide 
additional warmth. The pants also happened to be my size, but the 
gloves were too small-they were so small that I couldn't fully fit my 
hands into them. I tried to go back to exchange them but when I 
attempted to go back in line a stern faced Redcap blocked my way.. 

"These gloves are too small," I said.

			The Redcap just stared at me. I might have well been 
speaking Tirian to him.

I showed him the gloves, and my hands. Surely he would understand. 
"See?"

	The Redcap just shoved me forward. 

	We were led into the chilly outdoors again. It cold! Even though 
I now had two jackets-the flimsy camp jacket over my own, and the 
flimsy prison trousers over my own, and a pair of gloves too small, I 
still felt cold. We spent nearly an hour standing around. I tried to 
ask my fellow prisoners what was going on but none I could find spoke 
any System English.

Finally an important looking man stepped onto a stage, flanked by 
guards. He seemed strutting and self-important. This, I assumed, was 
the camp commander or some sort of senior guard. 

	The Slurian stood in front of the shivering masses. He looked 
like a tough fellow, a Redcap with a scar across his face. I saw from 
his shoulderbars that he was a colonel. He took off into some kind of 
speech, and while I didn't understand what he said, but his tone was 
clear in conveying a clear sense of contemptuousness for his charges. 

At the end of his speech we were dispersed to barracks. The "beds" were 
little more than a wooden shelf. Every time I moved to a shelf someone 
was quicker and stood in my way. Finally I found an empty shelf, one of 
the last ones.

I soon found out why this one was available. It was by the door. Every 
time the door open, an arctic draft came in.

I looked more closely at my "bed". It was a simple wooden shelf. There 
wasn't even any pillow, though I noticed that some people had put skins 
over their shelves to soften them up. I hardly had time to contemplate 
redecorating when a Redcap came in and said, "Tuch! Tuch, tuch!"

	I looked curiously in his direction. The guard looked at me 
quizzically.

	"Tuch?" he said.

	"Have you come to tuck me in?"

	The guard looked at a datapad. "Idaaho Tuch," he said.

	"Took," I said. "That's me."

	The guard didn't know what I was saying but seemed to understand 
my acknowledgement, because he yanked me by my arm out of the barracks. 
It didn't take very much guesswork to figure out where I was being 
taken as a few moments later I found myself in the Colonel's office. It 
was almost as austere and depressing as our barracks; I idly wondered 
if his posting was a punishment for him too.

	The Colonel looked up at me. "You are Idaho Took, the spy?" he 
asked in uncertain English.

	"I'm Idaho Took," I said. I was too weary to argue the other 
point.

	"I am Major Colonel Alexi Tromov," said the Colonel. He stared at 
me appraisingly. "It is very unusual to have one of your kind here. We 
don't often get foreign spies." He looked me over, as if I were a new 
kind of entrée he had never seen before.

	"It's probably even rarer to get a foreign spy who doesn't speak 
Slurian," I commented.

	The Colonel gave a nasty smile. "Yes, you make joke. We see how 
much you are laughing after a week here. I tell you what I tell other 
prisoners. Obey, and you live, at least for the present. Disobey, or 
try to escape, and you will be shot. You will receive no special 
treatment. Do you understand?"
	"Yes, Colonel Major," I said, with a straight face.

	He glared at me. "It is Major Colonel." He gestured curtly to the 
guard, who took me out.



	We were roused at the crack of dawn the following morning. We 
were fed a small bowl of green peas I later learned was called kem. Kem 
was absolutely tasteless. There was water (cold) to go with the kem, 
which was tasteless too. That was one of the things I would miss most 
at Labor Camp 94; the loss of taste. I was given a steady diet of 
little else other than kem and watery kem soup; I soon forgot what 
other things tasted like.

	After that hearty breakfast I was put into a detail that was 
marched out of camp. The guards gave the same warning I had heard 
repeatedly when we had been marched to the camp. "March one step to the 
left, one step to the right, and you will be shot." What did that mean?

	It was only later I understood. They meant that if you took one 
step out of line, even a stumble, that you would be killed.

The march began. As we marched I watched everything around me. The area 
immediately around the camp seemed absolutely deserted. Given the three 
days it had taken us to march here, and the complete absence of roads, 
I could believe how isolated this area must be. 

	We were well guarded as we marched through the woods. But even if 
I could get away, where could I go, in this cold wilderness? Without 
food, or directions, I would be dead from exposure or hunger within a 
few days.

	We were led to a vertical shaft. The guards gestured us to get on 
and we did. The lift went plunging down vertically into the ground. I 
nervously eyed the rock walls around us.

	We went down several hundred feet before it stopped. We were in a 
mine. 

	I had heard about the death mines of Altera, but I never knew 
whether to believe the stories or not. They said that they worked the 
miners to death; and that if they didn't die through exhaustion, 
prisoners eventually died in mining accidents.

	We were given helmets with lights on them and laser drills. I was 
surprised at the last, until I saw that the drills had been adjusted so 
that the beam extended only a few inches beyond the discharge point; 
the balky devices could hardly be used as range weapons. They were also 
almost too heavy to pick up and aim.

	I grew more and more uneasy as we were herded deeper and deeper 
into the tunnels. The walls were getting narrower and narrower and the 
ceiling lower and lower. What if there was a collapse? The Slurians 
wouldn't bother to dig us out, I was sure.

	Finally we were assigned a rock wall to work on. The guard said 
something unintelligible (in Slurian) and the prisoners started to 
work. When I didn't go with the rest of them, a guard came up to me and 
said something menacingly.

	I shrugged my shoulders.

	The guard pointed to a shiny substance in the rock wall.

	"Oh," I said. "All right." Now I understood. They were after the 
shiny metal. I raised the heavy drill and started to work. Periodically 
a team pushing a hover cart came by and collected the rock we cut out.

	We were allowed only one short break during the day; when the 
workday was done and we came out, it was already almost dark outside. 
Not that daylight meant much on this planet; it seemed to be 
continually overcast here.

	I was exhausted when we got back to the camp. And hungry, too. 
But all that awaited me was another small bowl of kem and a glass of 
water. My stomach was growling menacingly. How did people survive on 
such a starvation diet?
	The answer, of course, is that many of them didn't. You would 
think the Slurians would take at least minimal care of their slave 
labor force so they could do the necessary work. Perhaps the Slurians 
had so many prisoners that a few more or a few less here and there 
didn't matter to them. Or perhaps the lives of prisoners were worth so 
little to them that they simply didn't care.

	I went through several more days of this. One time a rock deposit 
came crashing down mere inches away from my feet. It was just a lucky 
thing I wasn't hit. I didn't know what happened to prisoners who were 
too injured to work, but I could guess; for one thing, the camp didn't 
have a hospital.

	I was minding my own business the following day eating my kem in 
the mess hall when suddenly I felt someone standing behind me. I slowly 
turned.

	A mean looking prisoner stared at me.

	"Gumah borah," he said.

	My exhausted mind didn't even try to process this one. "Gumah 
borah to you too."

	"Your food," he said, in broken English.

	"What about it?" I asked.

	"You have had enough, Richman. Give,' he said.

	"I don't think I'm finished," I said.

	Suddenly there was a second and third man standing behind the 
newcomer, and they all looked rather unfriendly.

	"You give, now."

	I sighed. I really was tired. "You really want it?"

	"I really want it," said the prisoner, reaching for my bowl.

	"You got it," I said, landing a punch on his forehead. He cried 
and fell back.

	Both his companions moved forward to attack me. They had the 
advantage of numbers but I had the advantage of strength. Yes, I was 
exhausted, but I had only been at it for a few days; my attackers had 
been toiling at slave labor with only a near-starvation diet for years, 
and were much weaker than I was. 

	One of them tried to grab my arm, and I sent him flying to the 
ground. The second landed a punch on my shoulder, but it only took a 
few seconds more to take care of him. In seconds all three were on the 
ground.

	Not taking my eyes off them, I sat down to finish my meal.

	It wasn't until I got outside that I was confronted. I was 
surrounded by a dozen or more prisoners. Several of them held wicked 
looking homemade knives.

	I said nothing.

	One of them stepped forward. He was a tall man, wearing an 
elegant fur coat. "So, you are the new Richman," he said, in accented 
English.

	"I'm not rich," I said warily. At the time I was too tired to 
think about the subtlety of his statement-the new Richman? What had 
happened to the old one?

	"You are League," said the man. "You have five hovercars and 
holographic television. You have mighty skyscrapers and plentiful food, 
and many thin blonde women for recreational procreation."

"That's not true," I said. "I mean, the wipers on my hovercars don't 
work, my skyscrapers are among the shortest in town, and I've always 
been short on the thin blonde women for recreational procreation." Just 
what sort of propaganda had these people been exposed to? 

 "You are Richman," he persisted.

	"At the moment, I don't have much in the way of riches," I said.

	"That ok," said the man, and he actually laughed slightly. "My 
name Antonio. We can help each other, you and I."

	"Really?" I said.

	"You need protection," said Antonio. "There are people in the 
camp who will hurt you."
	"There are?" I said.

	"Yes. We can protect you, Richman."

	"In return for..."

	"Nothing much," said Antonio. "Your obedience. And a small food 
tax."

	"A small food tax," I said. So that's how it worked. The strong 
stayed strong by forcing the weak to give up part of their food 
rations.

	I eyed the gangsters with their knives. It was time to be 
diplomatic. "May I think about it?"

	"Of course," said Antonio. "Think about it all you like. Until 
breakfast tomorrow."

	He and his gang melted away.

	What was I to do? I couldn't even ask anyone's advice because no 
one else spoke League English (or would admit to doing so). The minute 
I lay down on my plank bed I tried to consider my options. Could I 
complain to the camp guards? I wasn't so naïve to think that would do 
any good. 

	I started to consider other options, but despite the hardness of 
the plank in my back and the lack of a pillow I was exhausted. Before I 
knew it I heard the shouts of the guards, telling us to get up.

	"What?" I said, unaware of what had happened. Suddenly, I 
realized I had fallen asleep. It seemed like only a few minutes had 
passed.

	We were being lined up for breakfast. What was I going to do?
	I was going to resist, that's what, I groggily decided. I could 
barely survive working in the mines on the limited rations we were fed; 
if my rations were cut even further, I would surely die. 

	I stood in line eyeing my companions warily as the cook slopped 
something into my bowl. I looked at it closely. Kem gruel. I started to 
move to a table to sit and eat, when four burly men surrounded me.

	"Gebarlnopla," one of them said.

	"Good morning to you too," I said warily.

	Without saying a further word two grabbed my arms and the other 
two grabbed my bowl. I struggled wildly as they scooped some of the 
contents out of my bowl, paused, and scooped some more.

	"For resisting," one of them said in heavily accented English. He 
nodded and the guard dumped me and the bowl on the ground. Fortunately 
I caught it before it spilled over. 

	I got up and dusted myself off. My morning portion had been 
reduced by half. I sighed and moved to take a seat. But no sooner had I 
sat down then two other burly prisoners surrounded me.

	"What?" I said, looking up.

	"Tax," said one of them.

	I pointed to my bowl. "I just paid the tax!"

	"That for Antonio group," said the one, in broken English. "We 
with Baroshikov group."

	I got up, intending to fight for my remaining ration, when one of 
them tripped me, sat on me, while the other went for his bowl. When 
they allowed me to get up again, my bowl was empty. I could hear howls 
of laughter in the background.

	I felt hungry and worn out. How would I possibly survive now?

	As I was wearily marched to the mines I tried to think what the 
Battle Admiral would do. After a moment of muddled thinking, I realized 
that Battle Admiral North would never have permitted himself to be 
captured in the first place. And besides, this was not a matter of 
military strategy; this was a matter of survival.

	Survival. Instinctively, the name of Clifford Croft came to my 
mind. He was a senior operative with the Column, the League's elite 
undercover security service. We had crossed paths once or twice, and I 
had seen Croft survive some difficult situations like this. What would 
Croft do in a situation like this? My tired mind drew a blank. 

	The lack of sleep and food took its toll on me in the mines. 
Twice my flagging attentions almost caused me to drop the heavy laser 
drill on my foot. A mine cart traveling behind me sideswiped me, 
sending me to the ground. A guard rushed up, brandishing an electrowip. 
He yelled something. I struggled to move.

	He struck out with the electrowhip, and a painful current lashed 
through my body.  I yelped and instinctively sprang up.

	"Glablurblurinosh!" the guard yelled.

	"All right, all right, I'll nosh, I'll nosh," I said, painfully 
raising the laser drill.

	At the end of the twelve hour work shift I stumbled back to camp. 
Feebly I wondered how I was going to protect my dinner ration. If I 
didn't eat tonight there was no way I was going to survive the next 
day.

	Sure enough, when I trudged out of the mines that night and 
received my kem ration I immediately felt a hard object in my back.

	"We do this easy, or sharp?" a voice hissed.

	To weary to resist, I handed over my bowl.

	My assailant emptied some of my kem in another bowl.

	"Good boy," he said in accented English, handing me back the 
bowl. Barely half the original contents remained. I could swallow it 
all in a few good gulps. I tried to eat it slowly, but then thought 
about the other gangs. I swallowed it all in seconds. It was barely 
enough to whet my appetite. I felt light headed. I didn't know if I was 
going to keel over from hunger or exhaustion.

	All I know is that I have no memory returning to the barracks or 
even collapsing on my shelf. I didn't even feel the hardness of the 
rough wood underneath me.

	The thing that did wake me up was a persistent tugging at my 
feet. At first I thought that I was dreaming, but as I opened my eyes I 
saw people crowding around me, and one of them was tugging at one of my 
fleet issued boots!

	I tried to get up to resist but two of the bandits held me down 
while the third pulled off one and then another boot, not particularly 
caring what he did to my feet in the process. When they let go I heard 
laughter as they raced out of the barracks.

	I sat up weakly. Now what did I do? If I went outside without my 
boots, I would surely get frostbite. I looked around in the dim light 
generated by a wood burning stove on the other side of the barracks. 
Someone, perhaps my assailants, had been kind enough to drop some rags 
on my bed.

	"Rags? What am I supposed to with rags?"
	"You rap them around your feet, Richman," said a voice.

	I was startled; I hadn't been aware that anyone else in the 
barracks knew League English.

	I sat up and grabbed the rags, least they be stolen too. I tried 
wrapping them around my feet over my fleet issued footclothes but they 
kept unwrapping.

	"No, not like that," said a heavily accented voice in the gloom. 
A man dropped down from an upper bunk and wrapped one of them for me, 
tucking in the ends. He waited, looking at me. "You do other."

	I tried my best to imitate him. It wasn't as neat, but it didn't 
become unraveled.

	"Thanks," I said, looking up. "What's your-" but when I looked 
up, he was gone.

	My feet were freezing the next day. I tried to petition the 
guards to get a fresh pair of shoes, but only got a blaster rifle butt 
for my troubles. After my half breakfast and half dinner I collapsed on 
the wooden shelf again. I couldn't feel sensation in my toes. Were they 
frostbitten? I found I was too tired to care.

	In the middle of the night I felt someone tugging at my jacket. 
Not my prison jacket, but my fleet jacket underneath. 

	That was the last straw. I fought to get up, even knocking over 
one of my attackers.

	"Stop this!" I yelled. "What are you all, some kind of Bugsy 
Spagetti characters?"

	The bandits, who had been trying to hold me down, stopped as if 
electrified.

	"Bugsy Spagetti?" one of them said, in heavily accented English.

	I must have looked almost as surprised as they were. "You're all 
a bunch of thieves."

	"You know Bugsy Spagetti?" one of the bandits said.

	"Know him?" I said, my mind foggy.

	"Know Bugsy Spagetti story?" said another.

	"Story?" I said groggily. "Well, I've read a few of his novels."

	"Do it!" said the first bandit.

	"Do what?" I said.

	"Tell Bugsy story."

	"What?" I said.

	"Tell Bugsy story. If one we not heard, you can keep coat."

	Oh.

	I really wasn't a big Bugsy Spagetti fan, and it had been at 
least a decade since I had read one of his books. He was a hack writer 
who had written several hundred holographic novels about the lives of a 
particular group of gangsters. His books were all formulaic, relying on 
a recipe of blasters, sex, violence, and betrayal, and it was rumored 
that he had a staff of ghostwriters constantly grinding out new ones. I 
had read one or two of his books out of curiosity, but really didn't 
remember much of the details.

	I tried my best to remember the one I did. "Vincenzio's 
Betrayal," I said, looking for a reaction.

	I was greeted by cautious smiles. Evidently, they didn't know 
this one.

	I started telling the story. What I didn't remember I used my 
imagination to substitute for. The gang started to get bored when I got 
into plot details, so I would frequently digress into shootouts and sex 
scenes to keep them interested. After three "chapters", one of the 
bandits stopped me. 

	"Enough," said the bandit. "Must get sleep. You continue 
tomorrow."

	One of the bandits moved to take my coat, but the head bandit 
said something rapidly in Slurian, and the bandit recoiled.

	I dropped off to sleep the minute my head touched the platform 
shelf.

	Evidently entertainment was a valuable commodity here. Well, that 
made a certain amount of sense. There were no holovids here, no 
performances or even news from the outside world, as far as I could 
see. Anything that could bring a distraction from the misery of the 
camp would be valued, just as clothes and food were.

	This continued for four more days. The story kept the wolves at 
bay. Indeed a rumor started that I was the author himself, Bugsy 
Spagetti, and I did nothing to dispel the notion. More and more of the 
barracks would listen in every night. I noticed one particular thin 
bearded man watching me keenly; he had a different, more sophisticated 
look that stood out from the crowd, but we never talked.

As for me, I was just glad to keep my fleet jacket, but my feet were 
still freezing, and the cumulative lack of sleep and food was doing me 
in.

	Finally I resolved to do something about it. At dinner one night, 
I quickly swallowed all my food in two gulps before the jackels could 
steal half of it.  Two of them were on me immediately, but I pushed 
them away.

	One of them glared at me, as if to attack, while a third stepped 
forward. It was Antonio. He looked at me, and at his men, taking in the 
situation immediately. He muttered something in Slurian to one of his 
men. Then he looked to me.

	"Better sleep lightly tonight, Richman," he said.

	I panicked after dinner, seeking out the bandits who were 
listening to my nightly stories. They wouldn't help me. All my stories 
would buy was immunity from them. 

	I sought out one of the guards, tried to explain my problem. He 
either didn't understand or didn't want to, giving me a shove towards 
the barracks.

	I felt the eyes staring at me as. They all knew.

	"Can anyone help me?" I said. There was silence. "I've been 
entertaining you every night. Surely that's worth something."
 	Again there was silence. Everyone looked away. In the distance I 
could see the thin bearded fellow watching me curiously, but he said 
nothing.

	No one would help. I settled down in my shelf for the night . My 
hand tightly gripped an object in my fleet jacket. My eyes were wide 
awake,  watching.

Several minutes passed in silence. My eyes adjusted to the dim light 
from the distant primitive wood burning stove. My eyes were on the 
entrance to the barracks.

	Nothing happened for a few minutes. And then a few more minutes 
passed. Maybe Antonio had been making an empty threat.

	The barracks door swung open. Two, three, four men entered. They 
scanned left and right, until they saw me. They headed my way. 

	As the first one got close to my bunk he reached down to grab me 
and pull me out of there. At the same time I pulled the hand from my 
pocket and thrust out. The thug, used to compliant victims, wasn't 
expecting that. I stabbed him in the shoulder with a sharp rock, the 
only weapon I could find on short notice.  He howled and drew back.

	The other thugs drew short but wicked looking homemade knives, 
made out of bent and twisted blackened metal. I gulped. There was no 
way I could dodge three of them.

	The thugs closed in...

	"Stop!" said a clear voice in accented English.

	The thugs turned to see the thin bearded man. They stopped 
moving. Why were they afraid of him?

	The man turned to me. "Your name and origin?" he said in the same 
accented English.

	"Bugsy Spagetti, from the League," I said. Perhaps this was a big 
Bugsy fan.

	The bearded man stared at me. "You are not Bugsy." It was a 
statement.

	I grimaced. He knew. "But I can tell his stories!"

	"I am not interested in his stories."

	The jackels turned to me, a pure look of delight on their faces.

	"But you are from the League?"

	"Yes," I said, not sure where this was going.

	"Have you seen many worlds?"

	"Many," I said. "I was a pilot."

	The man stared at me for a long moment. So did the thugs, as if 
they were waiting. Then the man turned to Antonio and spoke a single 
word. "Nyet."
	That prompted a long string of invective from Antonio. His thugs 
turned to face the thin bearded man.

	The thin man gave a thin whistle. A giant stepped forward. A huge 
man clad in fur skins. He looked down on the thugs like one about to be 
given new playthings.

	Even though Antonio's men outnumbered this giant, they were 
plainly cowed. Antonio spoke a few words to the bearded man, who 
nodded. Antonio motioned for his thugs to leave. In a  moment they were 
nothing but a memory.

	"I have just saved your life, Richman," said the bearded man. 
"Now you must repay me."

	I opened my mouth to ask what he meant by that, but the bearded 
man had already turned away. The giant gently grabbed me by the 
shoulders and propelled me after the bearded man. He took me to a large 
bunk with luxurious furs draped over it. He motioned me to sit on the 
edge of it. The giant simply sat on the floor, making him a few feet 
less taller than me.

	"I am Kerensky. Your name?"

	"Idaho Took."

	"Idaaho Tuch," said Kerensky. "An interesting name." 

	There was a pause.

	"What is it you want?" I said, eyeing the nearby giant uneasily.

	"Information," said Kerensky.

	"I have no military information," I said guardedly. Suddenly it 
occurred to me that these might be plants, put here by Slurian military 
intelligence.

	Kerensky gave a laugh. "I have little interest in that. I want to 
learn about your worlds. Your cultures, your societies, your economies. 
Even as 'liberated citizens' we get very little unfiltered information 
about your culture, and in here we get even less. What world were you 
born on?"
	"Greenfields," I said.

	"Then tell me about it."

	I spent the next hour describing life on Greenfields, even though 
it had been decades since I had been there for any length of time. 
Kerensky listened attentively, peppering me with questions, taking in 
every word. When I started to falter, my head bobbing, he looked me 
over. "You are very weak."

	"I have been on half rations since I got here," I said. 

	"You will not survive long in the mines," said Kerensky. He 
looked me over with an appraising eye. "If you are to survive long 
enough to tell me what I want to know, we will have to get you to 
hospital."

	"There's a hospital?"
	"Do not get hopes up," said Kerensky. "Prisoner hospital simply 
shelves, like these, with few medical supplies, no trained doctor. But 
prisoners get full rations, no work. Perhaps we get you in."

	A third man appeared out of the darkness, and said something 
sharply to Kerensky. Kerensky said something sharply back to him. The 
new man looked disparagingly at me. 

	At this point I decided that I would have to learn Slurian. I 
simply was at a tremendous disadvantage. I was smart enough to know, 
however, that this new guy didn't care much for me.

	"Is very difficult to get into hospital," said the new man. "Only 
10 prisoners can be in hospital at any given time. Will have to trade 
many favors to get you in."

	Kerensky said something sharply to the new man. The discussion 
seemed to be over. Kerensky gestured with his head, and the giant 
escorted me back to my bunk.

	As I lay down the giant looked at me, and said, "Tuch?"
	"Took," I said.

	The giant pointed to himself. "Sasha."

	Sasha? This giant had a girl's name?

	The oddness of the situation didn't prevent me from falling 
asleep immediately.





Chapter 4: Establishing an Equilibrium



	Early the next morning I hobbled over to the hospital, a smaller 
version of the barracks building we were housed in. The walls on the 
inside were white, and the place looked cleaner than the barracks, and 
the wooden shelves had sheets on them, but otherwise it looked much 
like our barracks. There were no scientific equipment, no examining 
tables, no medicines I could see.

	Kerensky spoke and then argued with someone in charge, from the 
looks of it a fellow prisoner wearing a tattered white lab coat. I 
would have loved to have understood what they were saying, but all I 
could see was that they were arguing. The man in white was pointing to 
the beds and shaking his head, and Kerensky argued more furiously. 
Finally Kerensky dug into a pocket and shoved over something small 
wrapped in white cloth. 

	The man, without even looking, shook his head. Kerensky took out 
a second white clothed package.

	The man considered, waiting. 

	But Kerensky didn't produce a third cloth wrapped object.

	Finally, the man nodded, and pointed to one of the beds.

	Kerensky turned to me. "It's done."

	"What was that all about?" I said, as Kerensky led me to one of 
the bedding areas.

	"He was just arguing about the price," said Kerensky. "I could 
only afford to put you here for two days, not more. Then you must be 
fit."

	"Fit?"

	"For work in the mines, and to tell me more," said Kerensky. "I 
have spent a lot on you, you had better be worth it."



	And so, for two days, I rested! As long as I kept to my bed no 
one bothered me, except during the periodic inspection by the Redcaps. 
They didn't seem to inquire too closely about my illness, leading me to 
believe that they, too, had been paid off. Some of the patients here 
were genuinely ill, and some of those moaned quietly from time to time, 
but I was so consumed with exhaustion that I blotted them out of my 
mind.

	And the food! A full serving of the tasteless kem, plus parts of 
a long unidentifiable bitter root. I shuddered as I bit into it, and 
actually spat it out on the ground. Another prisoner scooped it off the 
floor like a pelican and swallowed it whole in his mouth.

	He was right. Any food, however vile tasting, was better than 
nothing. Gritting my teeth the next time, I broke the root up into 
small chunks and forced myself to eat it. It settled uneasily into my 
stomach.

	

	Two mornings later after breakfast I was ejected, deemed "cured", 
though I had received no examination or treatment, and sent back to the 
mines. I endured another grueling day of mining, but nearly 48 hours of 
almost continual sleep and increased food rations gave me more 
endurance. I knew however, that I would not survive for long in the 
mines under any condition. Prisoners were expected to work six and a 
half days a week, and the half day of "free leisure" could be partially 
or totally consumed by punishment detail or mandatory state lectures. 
But if one were very, very lucky one might get five or six extra hours 
of sleep on Sundays, between inspections and head checks.

	I was curious to see what would happen at dinner that night. 
Would Antonio and his thugs ambush me, or was I still protected? I 
found that answer immediately after I received my bowl of kem when I 
found Sasha, the giant with the feminine name, standing at my side. He 
motioned me to a far off table, where Kerensky and someone else sat.

	Kerensky's dining companion made a disparaging remark as I sat 
down.

	"In English, for our guest, Valonikov" said Kerensky sharply.

	The man glared at me. "I think we have wasted a lot of time and 
effort on this one."

	"If he gives me the information I want, neither will be wasted," 
said Kerensky mildly. But however softly he said it, the man, 
Valonikov, looked rebuked.

	"Now," said Kerensky, "Tell me more about your League worlds."

	I spoke rapidly, trying to prove my worth to him. He seemed 
fascinated by everything, our economic system, our culture, even the 
latest fashions on August. We talked into the night, and for several 
nights after that. Kerensky seemed satisfied with the answers to his 
questions, and all went well.

	Until one night, as I was turning in, Valonikov said to me, "I 
think your time is just about up, Richman."

	I stiffened. "What do you mean?"

	"The Professor has learned nearly all he needs to know from you. 
Soon your time will be over."

	"What do you mean?" I said again.

	Vannikov gave me a condescending stare and walked away, laughing 
softly.

	The next morning I asked Kerensky what he meant. He gave 
Valonikov a sharp glare, but said, "I am protecting you, but protection 
comes at a price. As long as you give useful information, you are 
protected."
	"And once I tell you everything I know?"

	"Then you will be on your own again," said Kerensky. 

	Oh oh. Then I would be chased by the gangs again, beaten up, and 
half starved to death. I couldn't allow that to happen.

	That night I told more details about life on League worlds. For 
the first few days everything was going well. But I noticed that 
Kerensky's questions, formerly coming in rapidfire, were becoming less 
frequent. At times he looked bored. Valonikov would give me sly 
glances. I knew my time was running out.

	Kerensky wasn't interested in "popular literature" such as Bugsy 
Spagetti. What else did I have to offer him?

	I noticed the topics that excited him the most were discussion of 
League politics and economies. When I first told him how everyone was 
able to vote in free elections, he scoffed.

	"Come now, we have heard that before. It is all League 
propaganda. Your large corporations decide the results of your 
elections in advance."

	And then I spent a half hour arguing with him to convince him 
that the League really did have a participatory democracy. He also had 
trouble believing other facets of life-that there were no internal 
passports, that people could travel freely, that anyone could start any 
business they liked without permission, even post their thoughts freely 
on the interstellar information network.

	"And they would not be insulted, if they offended your 
President?"

	"More likely they would get their own show," I said. And then 
that sparked an idea.

	In my discussions with Kerensky I started asking him questions, 
challenging his assumptions and beliefs about political systems. I did 
it in a gradual way, still providing more information than I received, 
but over the next few days we spent more time arguing politics, 
culture, and economics, than we did discussing the nature of the League 
Worlds.

	Valonikov noticed it immediately. He even said, in plain English 
for me to hear, "He has told us all he knows. Let us be rid of him 
now."

	Kerensky paused for a long moment.

	I gulped. 

	Then he looked at me, and nodded.

	Valonikov gave a low whistle and Sasha the giant appeared.

	"You have told us much of what you know," said Kerensky.

	"I can tell you more!" I said desperately, eyeing the giant 
behind me.

	"That will not be necessary," said Kerensky. "Sasha!" He spoke 
rapidly in Slurian, and then, in English, "Idaaho friend. Protect."

	The big blonde giant looked down impassively at me. 

	"Sasha protect," he said in a deep voice. He extended a big hand. 
Cautiously I extended mine. He grabbed it carefully without crushing 
it, shook it.

	I looked curiously from the giant to Kerensky.

	"You have smart mind," said Kerensky. "Very rare here. You may 
join group."
	"If I am to join your group, I have one condition."

	Kerensky raised his eyebrows at my audacity.

	"I'll continue to teach you about my world, but I want you to 
teach me your language."
	Kerensky looked impassive for a moment. Then he broke out in 
smiles. "Agreed, Idaaho, agreed."
	"Call me Iday," I said.



	Over time I learned a lot about my associates. Most of the 
prisoners were organized into gangs which protected and extorted from 
them at the same time. A few, like Kerensky, had the protection of 
strong individuals like Sasha.

	Kerensky, as it turned out, had been a professor at Sluria 
Polytechnic, one of the leading universities on Sluria. A professor of 
political philosophy, I enquired?

	No, a leading subatomic physicist. For many years Kerensky had 
worked on top secret classified weapons programs for the Slurian Union. 
A hero of the revolution, he had been decorated numerous times. It was 
only when he started to question the political system that he got into 
trouble. First he was banned from classified work, and then repeatedly 
arrested and harassed. The Slurians gave him many chances to "reform" 
himself, but he refused. So they sent him here, effectively a death 
sentence.

	Valonikov was quite the opposite. He was a common thief who 
Kerensky had befriended. Each helped the other, in their own way.

	And Sasha? Much to my surprise, Sasha was really an intellectual; 
not only that, but a professor of political philosophy! I admitted my 
disbelief to Kerensky. "How could this silent giant be a professor of 
political philosophy?"
	"Size means nothing," said Kerensky coldly. "And he was not only 
silent. Before they took his family away and sent them to camp, he was 
not silent."

	"What happened to his family?"

	"They are here," said Kerensky.

	"Where?" I said.

	"They are here," said Kerensky. He spoke no further on the 
subject.



	Things started to stabilize after that. I was no longer harassed 
by other prisoners. I could fall asleep at night on my shelf without 
fear of being robbed. I had the luxury of eating my entire portion of 
kem.

	But it wasn't enough. My feet, wrapped in thin rags over my 
footclothes, were freezing. Kerensky got me a pair of work shoes two 
sizes too large with a large gash in the left foot. I used rags to make 
the fit tighter and to seal up the gash as best I could. That helped 
some.

	But the work was still killing me slowly. Digging in the mines 
was wearing me out. If I didn't work fast enough, a guard would slash 
me with an electrowip, and then kick my prostate body, telling me to 
get back to work. And the work was dangerous-every day or two a 
rockfall would injure or kill a group of prisoners. All the guards 
seemed to care about was making their quota.

	And if that wasn't enough, the kem diet wasn't enough to sustain 
me. I was literally starving to death on full rations.

	"Naturally," said Kerensky one night at dinner. "That's why the 
average lifespan for mine workers is about six months."

	"For the hardy mine workers," Valonikov sneered.

	I looked at Kerensky's bowl. He seemed to have more kem, and even 
a few roots in his bowl. He caught my gaze.

	"Workers are fed based on their jobs," said Kerensky. "I work in 
administration, have an easier job, and get more food."

	"How do I get a job in administration?"
	Kerensky gave a laugh. "They are highly sought after."

	"What about another job, like... working in the kitchen?"
	Kerensky gave a deeper laugh. "That are the most sought after 
job."

	"Then what is available?"
	"Officially? You must stay where they put you. But perhaps I can 
get you something else."

	"Something else" turned out to be a job on the construction gang. 
The work, while still labor intensive, wasn't nearly as badly as work 
in the mines.  I was sent to work in a group with another prisoner 
named Kolya, who instantly befriended me. He didn't speak any League 
English, but by now I knew enough Slurian to get a rough understanding 
what was said around me. 

	We were working on constructing a new building for administration 
under the watchful eyes of the guard, when Kolya pulled me aside and 
said in Slurian, "What are you doing?"
	"Working," I said.

	"No Richman," said Kolya, laughing. "Is time for some tufta." He 
pulled me farther inside the partially completed structure.

	"Toughta?" I said.

	"Tufta," said Kolya. 

"What does Tufta mean?"
"It is.. business word. It means they pretend to pay us, we pretend to 
work."
"But if we don't work, we'll get beaten by the guards!"

	"Look, Richman," said Kolya, peering out of the structure and 
pointing where we could see out. From our angle, the guards could not 
be seen, nor could they directly see us.

	"Won't they come and investigate?"

	"That is why we bang this," said Kolya, picking up an iron rod 
and banging it at irregular intervals.

	"What if they don't see us?"

	"That is why every few minutes one of us must go into view and 
pretend to work."
	"If we don't work, won't we eventually get caught?"
	Kolya laughed. "You have much to learn, Richman."

	Kolya became my teacher. He showed me how to build hollow walls, 
to build with fewer beams than the plan called for, and to get things 
done in the quickest and most sloppiest ways.

	"But won't it be obvious that this building was poorly built?" I 
asked.

	Kolya laughed again. "Of course! But plan only calls for 
building, not well built one. Is expected that everything is poorly 
built here."

	Kolya also adopted a waste-not, want-not attitude, selling some 
of the "excess" work materials on the camp's black market to generate 
some income. The guards, who might've been blind to our lack work, 
surely were aware when we carried goods off-site. When I saw Kolya hand 
a guard something wrapped in cloth I didn't ask questions.

	Gradually I started to accumulate some small measures of 
prosperity. I obtained some cloth rags to put over my wooden shelf to 
make it a bit softer. It wasn't as luxurious as the furs that a few of 
the gang leaders had, but it was something. I even managed to gather up 
enough rags to bundle up in a small pillow!

	Worried that my little bits of rags would be stolen, I talked to 
Kerensky. He confirmed that all your possessions should constantly be 
carried around to prevent theft. But he said not to worry about 
beddings.

	"Simply mark them in a small way, and if someone steals them, I 
will send Sasha to do the laundry."

	I nodded. "You know, I'd love to get my boots back."

	"And I would like a pleasure cruise around Sluria."

	The message was clear; being a member of Kerensky's group didn't 
entitle me to get help righting past wrongs.

	But meanwhile my Slurian was improving, and my health was stable. 
I suffered from a series of minor colds, and I always felt the chill of 
the wind, even through my two jackets, but I started to feel that I 
could survive from day to day. With Kolya's help I worked less than 
half a day every day, leaving much time to loaf, and think.

	Once I could speak basic Slurian I started talking to the other 
prisoners. It was both fascinating and chilling to learn how they had 
been plucked out of society to be sent to the Alteran death camps. 
There were some obvious dissidents like Kerensky, of course, but many 
others were sent here for little or no apparent reason.

	Some common criminals-rapists, thieves, and murders were mixed in 
with us. But one man I met was sentenced for ten years for making a 
joke about the ruling Govitbureau. Another man was serving a twenty 
year term for not reading the party newspaper one day. Really!

	It came about like this: the man (whose name I think I will 
wisely withhold, for his own safety),  came into a communal dining hall 
and struck up a conversation with his immediate boss. He made an 
offhanded remark about farm production and praised the Minister of 
Agriculture. The problem was that the Minister of Agriculture had been 
sacked the previous day and declared an enemy of the state, bent on 
sabotage. The man had been too busy to read the party newspaper that 
morning and as a result was sent to Altera for praising an enemy of the 
state. I began to see how current events could be a life or death 
situation here.

	Others were sent here for the crime of "economic sabotage", which 
meant underperforming ridiculous work quotas, accidentally damaging 
work equipment, or simply being unlucky enough to be selected to be a 
scapegoat for others' failures. Did your laser drill break during 
mining? Was this the third time this had happened this season? That 
might be economic sabotage. 

	Did a groundcar you serviced crash, injuring a party member (or 
worse yet, a member of the Loyalty Police?). You could be charged with 
attempted assassination. You might not even make it to Altera.

	Did your work unit consistently underperform its work quota? Did 
your coworkers, under the helpful pressure of the Redcaps, identify you 
as the saboteur? Welcome to Altera!

	Were you related to someone who was a convicted saboteur-a wife, 
husband, brother, father or son? Perhaps you were complicit as well. 
Welcome to Altera!

	I even had the curious experience of meeting someone whose crime 
had been not lying enough about work output. This fellow had been an 
economist in administration, charged of reporting progress of the work 
units in his section. He falsified the results to show that the work 
units were barely making their work quota (while the actual result was 
much worse). After a few years of doing this he got caught: the center 
sent Loyalty Police in to audit him, and they found out what he had 
done.

	Why had he gotten audited? The center got suspicious when they 
saw that this group of work units were just meeting quota, while other 
work units in the same area were reporting that they were regularly 
exceeding or even meeting double their quota. In other words, this 
fellow got arrested for not telling a big enough lie!

	Once they were sent here prisoners' lives meant nothing. Few 
prisoners survived long enough to serve their sentences, and the 
authorities clearly didn't care, as long as a fresh flow of prisoners 
replaced them. This was how the Slurian system worked. By using slave 
labor, the system kept costs down. Funneling the dissidents into the 
system was only an incidental benefit. I was told that life at other 
labor camps wasn't as harsh as it was on labor camps on Altera, but 
that conditions at prison mines and factory and farms around the 
Slurian Union could hardly be considered a picnic either.

	And on top of it all the Slurians expected us to "reform" 
ourselves, by attending their weekly political lectures on Sundays.

	At first I laughed it off. We only had half a day off on Sundays-
why would anyone choose to waste a precious hour of it listening to a 
political lecture from a Redcap? Attendance wasn't even mandatory.

	But Kerensky warned me that most of the camp attended. He told me 
that careful note was made of who attended and who didn't, and that the 
Redcap guards paid "special attention" to those who didn't attend.

	So I attended. The first few weeks I had no idea what was going 
on, but gradually as I learned Slurian it started to make sense. Well, 
actually, "making sense" might be the wrong way to put it, because what 
political officer Captain Sergei Olov said made no sense of any kind.

	"Communitarians," he said, using the official Slurian term, 
"witness the generosity of the great Slurian Union! Though you have 
committed vile crimes against the Community, you have been given a 
chance to reform yourself through work. The State has generously 
provided you food, clothing, and shelter, and a productive use for your 
time to repay your debt to the Community."

	"But you must not only reform yourself through labor, you must 
reform the very corrupt thought patterns that brought you here in the 
first place. Who here wants to be a good member of the Community?"

	Everyone wearily raised their hands.

	"You want to be good community members, but you must reform your 
thoughts, and then your actions will follow. Your selfishness is what 
brought you here-"

	And on and on and on. But it got a little bit interesting when 
Captain Olov started to describe the wonders of the Slurian system.

	"Our system takes care of everyone, the poor, the sick, the 
unwell, while creating an industrial economy that rivals any economy in 
the galaxy! Unlike the greeders of the League, we don't leave people to 
die of hunger on the streets-"

	At that point I raised my hand. Questions were encouraged, though 
few if any were asked.

	Captain Olov looked at me. "Yes, a question? Identify yourself."
	"Idaho Took," I said.

	Olov looked startled, then a strain of recognition crossed his 
face. "Yes, the Greeder spy. Would you like to make a political 
confession?"

	"Uh, maybe later," I said. "I just want to make a tiny correction 
to your comment."

	"A correct?" Olov looked puzzled.

	"About people dying in the streets," I said. "It doesn't happen. 
No one dies of hunger in the League."
	"Of course they do," said Olov. Then a thought struck them. "Or 
perhaps you are being literal. It is well known that your disposable 
worker class is often taken to death camps, left there to die."

	"You mean death camps where they are given little food and 
clothing, and worked to death?"

	Kerensky looked up at me like I was crazy.

	"Ah, you admit it!" said Olov.

	"Yes, I admit it," I said. "We have death camps on our coldest 
ice worlds, where we regularly work prisoners to death, and feed them 
nothing but small bowls of kem."

	The smile immediately disappeared from Olov's face. "I would 
watch what you're saying, spy. I can see it will be a long road to 
reform your thoughts."

	He returned to his lecture. "As I said, our Communitarian system 
has created the strongest economy in the galaxy-"

	I raised my hand again.

	"Yes, spy?" said Olov, a bit wearily.

	"If your economy is so great, how come you are a net importer of 
food, and why is the industrial output of August alone greater than 
half your entire-"
	"Lies! All lies!" Olov screamed. "Guards! Have the spy taken to 
the therapy room!"

	Two Redcaps came over and grabbed me. They lead me forward to the 
entrance to the room, where Olov stood.

	"Perhaps a few days in a therapy room will help you become a 
positive force in the community," said Olov.

	"Uhhhhh," was all I could think of to say.

	They dragged me to the detention center, a sinister lockup area, 
where they gave me a single order. "Strip."

They couldn't mean what they said. It was incredibly cold!

Perhaps they were giving me new clothes....

But when I stripped down to my undergarments they simply pushed me into 
a cell. The cell was incredibly small, with not enough space to stand, 
and barely enough space for me to sit in. It was completely dark. The 
floor was damp. Shivering, I felt around the walls of the cell. They 
were damp too! I also felt a cold breeze. How could I feel that, in a 
sealed cell? My hands grazed the low ceiling. There was a small shaft 
in the ceiling, big enough to stick my hand in. That's where the 
freezing air was coming in. They were purposefully piping in cold air 
from the outside to torture me!

My teeth clattering, I sat in the dark. At some point I fell asleep, 
only to wake up freezing a few minutes later. The cold prompted me to 
have fierce nightmares.

I had no sense of the passage of time. It seemed like I was in there 
for days. And they weren't even looking in on me or feeding me! Were 
they starving me to death?

I tried to calm down. I decided to take a trip in my mind. I couldn't 
move more than four inches in any direction, so I moved four inches 
forward. Closing my eyes, I dreamed I was in August, enjoying the 
technological wonders of the League's capital. Then, moving four inches 
left, I imagined I made another trip, to Greenfields, wandering around 
the places I grew up. Then I moved four inches backwards to go to 
Karis, and then right to Aridor, making trips to other places, like 
Tiria and London II. The cold didn't seem to be quite as intense as I 
imagined other places.



	The light blinded my eyes as the door opened. I think I had been 
asleep because I felt groggy. I heard a screamed order to get out, and 
I crawled out on my hands and knees. I vaguely remembered getting 
dressed, and was mildly surprised to find that my flight jacket hadn't 
been "appropriated" by the guards. Then I was brought back to my bunk, 
and I didn't remember any more...

	...although, perhaps I imagined it, but I thought I heard 
Kerensky over me, saying, "Stupid Richman... very stupid."





Chapter 5 Fighting Back



	"I am very disappointed," said Major Colonel Tromov. He paced 
back and forth in front of us as we stood at attention in the 
blistering wind and snowfall. 

	"You lazy dogs have not been meeting you work quotas," said 
Tromov. Actually, he said something a little more severe than lazy 
dogs, but the entire concept doesn't translate well from Slurian.

	He marched back and forth in his fashionable Redcap boots. While 
we were shivering he certainly wasn't, with his triple insulated 
military parka. 

	"I was sent here to reform you, to make you into good 
communitarians," said Tromov. He paused. "Perhaps it is my fault. 
Perhaps you have taken advantage of my laxity and goodwill. It is 
painful to do so, but work time on Sundays will be increased an 
additional two hours a day. Also, no care packages will be distributed 
this month. That is all."

	We were dismissed, and I saw Kerensky shaking his head. "I guess 
the guards are hungry," said Kerensky. "Someone must have bribed him 
pretty big to get our care packages."

	"We get packages?"

	"Certainly," said Kerensky. "The Slurian Union is a highly 
communitarian society, remember."

	"I remember, I remember," I said. "How would I go about sending a 
letter?"



	Corporal Zyto Filitov was the labor camp's "postman". Could it 
really be so simple as writing a letter and handing it in?

	No. First, of course, one had to get access to a datapad to write 
a message. The "post office" only had three datapads, and these were 
reserved months in advance for the use of the other prisoners.

	I looked at the three datapads in the room. None were in use. I 
pointed this out to Corporal Filitov, who simply harrumphed and turned 
away.

	But by now I was learning the ways of the system and easily 
bribed Filitov for access to a datapad to write a letter. My "business" 
of selling stolen construction materials with Kolya had taken off and I 
now had a small supply of Slurian currency.

	"All right. You may have five minutes," he said generously.

	I quickly sat down and started typing. I had decided in advance 
to write to my mother. Knowing the letter would probably be censored, I 
wrote



Dear Mother,

It is Idaho. I am alive and well. I just want to let you know that I am 
a prisoner of war being held by the Slurians. Please contact my unit 
and let them know I am ok. If you can, please send food and warm 
clothing as soon as possible to this return address. I promise to do 
better and not to get caught in the next war.



Your loving son,

Iday



	I wrote the address and turned it into Filitov. He casually 
looked at it, and then at me. "Nyet," he said.

	"What do you mean?"

	Filitov crossed off all the sentences except the first two.

	"What's wrong with the rest?" I asked. "What's wrong with saying 
I am a prisoner of war?"

	"You are not a prisoner of war," said Filitov. "This is not a 
prisoner of war camp. This is a camp for thought reform. You are a spy. 
You are not a military prisoner. Furthermore, you are not allowed to 
give military information."

	"What military information?"

	Filitov gave me a stoney stare. "Telling your mother to relay 
this information to the military."

	"But-" I was about to say that my mother probably would anyway. 
But if I said that then this irritating Slurian bureaucrat might not 
let me send any letter at all.

	"What about requesting food and warm clothing?"

	"That was your cleverest line of all. You are surreptitiously 
conveying the propaganda that we do not provide you with everything you 
need!"

	I licked my licks. "What if I just asked for a care package in 
general... would that be all right?"
	Filitov considered, then nodded.

	I turned back to the datapad.

	Filitov barred me.

	"What?"

	"Datapad is booked up months in advance."

	Sighing, I paid another bribe.

	

Dear Mother,

It is Idaho. I am alive and well. I just want to let you know that I am 
being held by the Slurians. If you care to, feel free to send me a 
package at this return address. 



Your loving son,

Iday



	I kept it short in the hopes that it wouldn't be rejected. But 
Filitov only shook his head again.

	"What now?"

	"Your letter says nothing nice about the Slurian Union."

	"What does that matter?"

	"You are using community resources to send this message. You 
should at least show some gratitude to something in the community."

	"You want me to say something nice, about here?"

	Filitov looked adamant.

	I thought for a moment. "All right."

	After another bribe, I started again. I got stuck in one part, 
though; what could I say that was nice about this place? Finally, I 
started writing again.



Dear Mother,

It is Idaho. I am alive and well. I just want to let you know that I am 
being held by the Slurians. The cross country skiing is great here. If 
you care to, feel free to send me a package at this return address. 



Your loving son,

Iday



	Filitov looked at the message. I cautiously held my breath. Then, 
he nodded. But he started typing vigorously, changing my message.

	"Hey, what are you doing?"
	"Must change wording of message. You are convicted spy; you may 
be attempting to use key words to send out code. I will change words 
but keep meaning," he assured me.



I got a look at the final text:



Dear Female Parent

It is Idaho. I am very well and prospering. The Slurians are holding me 
for my crimes. They are very gentle and patient with me. The cross 
country skiing is also very good. 



Your obedient son,

Iday



	"You took out the part about sending the package!" I said.

	"That was not necessary to put in."
	"And what's this about the gentle and patient part? I never said 
that!"

	"You must have a more positive attitude," said Filitov. He 
pointed to the door. My audience was over.



	Well, at least my mother would find out I was still alive. If the 
message got through. I was still skeptical as to whether they really 
would transmit the message.



	But a few weeks later I DID get a reply. I was handed a paper 
printout which read:



Dearest Idaho;

I am so very glad to hear from you. Your.  I am.  Heard from War. Sent 
a package.



Your,

Mother



	I showed the message to Filitov. "Was the transmission garbled?"

	"No," said Filitov. "Came through clearly. But rest was 
censored."
	"What could my mother possibly tell me that would be censored?"

	But Filitov simply gave me a stony stare.

	"Well, what about my package?"
	"Tuesday."
	"But you have it now!"

	"Packages are given out on Tuesdays," said Filitov firmly.

	As I left the post office I pondered my mother's message, reading 
it again over and over. I felt good that she and the rest of my family 
knew I was still alive. I reread the words. "Heard from War". 
Obviously, she was trying to tell me something about the war. But what?

	It was a funny sentence, even though it was censored. You don't 
hear from a war, you hear about a war. Maybe she was writing that she 
heard from the war front, or a war correspondent. Then I looked more 
closely at the words.

	The word War was capitalized. 

Now, anyone could have done that for emphasis, but not my mother. A 
journalist for nearly 200 years, she was a stickler for such details. 
She wouldn't capitalize the word war in general unless it were part of 
a proper name.

	A proper name. Maybe War was a person. War could be some part of 
someone's rank. 

War Captain. Did I know any War Captains? No.

War Major. 

War Commander. 

War Admiral. 

No, still didn't ring a bell.

Some military official had told my mother something important. But who 
and what?

	I raced through my memories a second time. Did I know any 
officers with the War rank? Not closely. Perhaps she was referring to 
some military spokesman. But why bother to mention him by name?

	And if the war was really going badly for the League, why would 
the Slurians censor what she had to say?

	That was my first inkling of hope.



	I went back to the post office on Tuesday and collected my 
package. It had been opened, of course, but a number of items were 
missing. I knew this because my mother had been thoughtful enough to 
provide a list. 

	I didn't bother complaining to Filitov and simply went through 
what was there. Heavily enriched nutritional crackers. A tin of pears. 
Winter gloves! I wonder how the guards had missed those. I guess their 
gloves were good enough for them. I tried them on over my homemade 
mittens. My hands instantly warmed up.

	So did my morale.

	After that I was never in danger of starving to death. I received 
packages on an irregular basis, and was able to scrounge for food on 
the camp's black market. While I was still malnourished and underfed, I 
had a relatively easy job and my main enemies were cold, and 
repression.



	The repression! The guards were worse than cruel. The head guard 
was a burly master sergeant named Kilikov. He treated us like sacks to 
be moved around and put to work. He would on rare occasion assault a 
prisoner, but usually he left that work to his subordinates. He turned 
a blind eye to all the beatings, humiliation, and torture that went on 
in the camp.

	The torturer in chief was Sergeant Maxim Korky. Despite the cute 
name, he was one of the most brutal of the guards. He carried around an 
iron club and every day would hit at least one prisoner with it, 
sheerly for fun. The prisoner, who would be hit for any or no reason, 
would invariably suffer broken bones or internal injuries. Sergeant 
Iron Club was feared by all.

	Another official who wasn't exactly a profile in humanity was 
Corporal Ivan Ushenko. He liked to humiliate the prisoners. He would 
have a prisoner stand in front of a big pile of snow, scream "Beaver!" 
and expect the prisoner to burrow into the snow mountain using only his 
hands. Any part of the prisoner which was not submerged would get hit. 
Prisoners who didn't burrow quickly enough out the other side would 
suffocate.

	Another of Ivan's favorite games was even worse. He would take a 
prisoner to a pool of water covered by thin ice, and scream, "Fish!". 
The prisoner would be expected to dive into the frigid water, and Ivan 
use his electrowip to snare the prisoner, like a fishing rod, if the 
prisoner came out too quickly. More than one prisoner died in the 
frigid water.

	Another variant on the game was "Rabbit" where prisoners had to 
hop through snow that was very deep; if they weren't nimble enough, 
they would sink in.

	And of course, the most common torture was exposure to the 
elements. Prisoners would be stripped down to their undergarments and 
tied to the gate. If they were let down in time usually only their 
extremities would be frostbitten.

	Beatings were the rule rather than the exception and the 
authorities usually looked away. Whether this was part of the 
institutional sadism designed to keep the prisoners down or simply a 
matter of disinterest on the part of the authorities was never made 
clear to me.

	Everyday when we stood at lineup we had to fight to prevent 
ourselves from trembling to see who would be made an example of that 
day. No one knew who would be picked.

	I was told that it was possible to bribe the guards but that it 
wasn't easy. Some guards like Ivan wouldn't accept bribes. I mostly 
kept out of their way, accepting minor beatings when I had to.

	Another dangerous game we were forced to play were the foot 
races. At irregular intervals, we were called out to race the other 
prisoners around the perimeter of the compound. This in and of itself 
wasn't the dangerous part; the dangerous part was that the prisoner to 
arrive in last place got beaten up by the guards.

	But even this sadism was insufficient for Ivan. Most of the 
prisoners knew they were safe as long as they weren't in the back of 
the pack, and so didn't run very feverishly; so Ivan changed the rules 
and dictated that the last few prisoners would be beaten. He never told 
in advance how many a "few" could be--it could be five, it could be 
ten. And the prisoners were forced to run in smaller groups so that 
there was a greater chance they would be in the last five or ten. 

That only increased the terror, which, of course, was Ivan's foremost 
goal. The sadist loved seeing the look of fear on our faces. He 
scheduled runs right after work shifts, ensuring that we would have to 
run when we were most tired. More than one prisoner simply collapsed 
into the snow from exhaustion in midrace, and more than a few died from 
exhaustion or the beating that followed.

	When that game ceased to be amusing, Ivan thought of others. At 
times he forced two prisoners to fight. A prisoner would be forced to 
batter his opponent senseless. But Ivan wouldn't be satisfied until 
there was "blood on the snow." If he wasn't sufficiently satisfied, 
both prisoners would be beaten. Many times friends were purposely 
forced to fight each other.

	But the situation touched me most personally when Kolya was 
killed.  He was tapped to play a game of "Rabbit" with Ivan and he sunk 
into a huge snowdrift. His body was never found.

	I decided at that point that Ivan had to go. I spoke about the 
matter with Kerensky.

	He shook his head. "You are fool, Idaaho Tuch," he said. "You 
will never succeed. Even if you do, do you know what they will do to 
you?"

	"I'm not thinking of killing him myself," I said. 

	Kerensky looked puzzled.

	"I was hoping that the Slurian guards would help."

	Kerensky shook his head. "You do not have enough to bribe a guard 
to kill another guard."
	"That's not what I mean," I said. "Who of all the officers hates 
Ivan?"

	Kerensky shrug his head. I handed him some of my hard earned 
(stolen) credits. "Spread some money and find out."

	Kerensky came back with the answer two days later.

	"Lieutenant Kirshenko."

	"Good," I said.

	"What do you plan?" said Kerensky.

	"The less you know, the better."

	To make my plan work, I needed the services of three prisoners--a 
forger, someone who worked in administration, and a thief.

	I found the thief first, a man named Raffen. He was a criminal 
inmate, sentenced here for a wide variety of theft and armed robbery. 
Unlike the others, he didn't haggle over price, only the job itself.

	"Who you want me to rob?" he said bluntly.

	"No one," I said with a smile.

	"Then what you paying me for, for charity?"

	"I don't want you to take something from someone, I want you to 
give something to someone."
	Raffen looked at me suspiciously. "Who?"

	I looked around. There was no one about. "If I tell you, you have 
to agree to do it."

	"Nyet."

	"All right," I said. "But if I tell you, and you tell anyone 
else, I'll kill you." By this time I had gained some rough edges in 
prison.

	Raffen just looked at me.

	I told him who the intended target was and what I wanted done.

	"What is on this thing you want me to plant in his pocket?" said 
Raffen.

	"You don't need to know that," I said.

	Raffen looked at me.

	"Job is risky," he said.

	"I'm sure there are a few doze