The Long Black (The Black Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  It was big enough that Morgan’s back slipped, throwing off her whole body. Her right ankle rolled inwards, exploding in pain.

  Morgan screamed, biting her lip to stop herself, hard enough that her teeth cut into it. She could taste blood, but the pain of her torn lip didn’t register above her screaming ankle. She froze, half expecting to hear the men coming back, to have heard her.

  The ankle certainly felt sprained, but it was hard to be sure. Thankfully, it didn’t feel like it was broken, but that was all she was willing to assume at the moment.

  Turning about she propped her rapidly swelling ankle up on her other leg. In an attempt to distract herself and because she was still trapped, Morgan went back to work on the panel.

  When the panel had shifted, whatever it was holding it in place had shifted as well. So, Morgan had more wiggle room to work with. She worked it back and forth, moving it in and out, coaxing the blockage to shift. At last it fell to the floor with a muted thump, letting Morgan see that it was one of the longer attachments for Daddy’s largest power-spanner. Finally, she wasn’t trapped. Morgan reached out the opening and shoved the tool out of the way. . . and promptly closed the panel again. There wasn’t anywhere to go, after all. There were some bandages in the main room she could put on her ankle, but she didn’t see any way to get to them without hurting her ankle worse. This was especially true with all the stuff littering the floor of the tool room, making even crawling out imprudent.

  Gingerly, Morgan straightened herself out, tucking the pillow between her legs with the bulk under her injured ankle before balling up the sheet under her head. A few tears dropped onto it, and Morgan blinked furiously. There was nothing to do now but wait. Steadying her breathing she tried to tune out the pain. It took time, but at last she managed to get back to sleep.

  ***

  The sound of the door opening and tools and furniture being shifted about didn’t wake Morgan up this time. The hand on her shoulder did the job right quick though. She started awake, her body moving before her brain had even had a chance to understand the signals it was receiving. Luckily such a response had been expected. One hand kept Morgan from banging her head against the ceiling as the other kept a firm grip on her shoulder. Of course this left no hands to keep her ankle from hitting the back wall, even if they had noticed its swollenness. Morgan clenched her teeth tightly as the pain woke her up the rest of the way. The lingering drowsiness helped damper it somewhat, at least.

  “Easy, Baby Girl. It’s just me,” Momma said, scooping Morgan into a hug. She had lain on the floor in front of the tool rack, her knees bent so she could fit in the cramped space. “Are you all right? What happened? Did they find you?”

  “I’m all right,” Morgan said. “I’m all right,” she repeated the words, for emphasis.. She returned the hug tightly. Momma started pulling her out into the room. “Careful,” Morgan amended as she was jostled about. Morgan didn’t, however, loosen her grip. “My ankle.”

  “Oooh,” Momma said as she released Morgan from the hug and moved so she could look at the ankle. “Sprained, maybe. Let’s have a look at it.” Standing up, Momma helped Morgan slide out into the room, then hoisted her up onto her back with Morgan’s head resting against her shoulder and her legs dangling to either side of her.

  It was Morgan’s first chance to see everything that had happened. The room was in more disarray than she had expected. She couldn’t see a single tool where it was supposed to be, and the floor was littered with the fallen instruments. It didn’t look like Momma had bothered to pick any of them up, settling instead for scooting stuff out of the way to make a path from the door to the hidden hidey-hole.

  Momma grunted. “You’re getting big, Morgan. You grow any taller and I won’t be able to do this anymore.” Morgan didn’t reply, content for the moment to hug Momma tightly, the smell of sweat and corn soup comforting as they slowly made their way out into the main room.

  Carefully, Momma put Morgan down on the table in the main room, with the injured leg carefully placed so the ankle was just barely hanging off the edge. Out in the light of the main room it was easy to see that the ankle was not only swollen but had turned red. In a day or so it was going to be a spectacular bruise.

  “Sit tight while I get the medicine,” Momma said, ducking under the clothes and bits of cloth hanging from the ceiling next to the table.

  “Can’t you just wrap it?” Morgan asked, grimacing.

  “Not if you want it to heal quickly, or for it to be stable enough to walk on in the morning.” Momma pulled a small jar of Quicknit ointment from the back cabinet. There wasn’t much there besides some vitamin D shots, bandages, and pads. Morgan added a wrinkled nose to the grimace. Most of her least favorite things, all in one cabinet.

  Momma applied some of the ointment to her hands, resting them gingerly on Morgan’s ankle. “At least it won’t sting like it does with cuts,” she said with a small half smile.

  “I think moving my ankle will make up for that on its own.”

  “Deep breath,” Momma told Morgan, giving her a bare two seconds before starting.

  Morgan had learned the hard way not to bite her lip to keep from crying out for this part, clenching her teeth as the ointment was rubbed into her skin, each movement of her ankle a fresh stab of pain.

  Her comments to the contrary, Morgan knew the pain was worth it. The ointment was one of the critical things traded for from other worlds, a real miracle drug designed to substantially speed up healing and prevent infections. It even – once given some time to work – dulled the pain. Every family was provided with some, though using it on unimportant things was a serious offense.

  If the ointment had the rest of the night to work on her ankle, Morgan actually would be able to go to her job, as long as she was careful.

  “All right, done,” momma said, holding her sticky hands out so she wouldn’t touch anything. “Now let’s do the little things. No sense wasting it.”

  Morgan pushed up the sleeves of her nightgown the rest of the way up, pointing Momma to a few thin cuts on her arms. “Just some small ones from the corn leaves today,” she said, pointing out a couple more on her legs once momma finished with her arms.

  “Right, now your back,” Momma said, rubbing the last of it in as Morgan pulled up the back of her nightgown. No cuts there, for the moment anyway, but the ointment would help her tense muscles at least a little bit, as well as her lungs.

  With that done, Momma wrapped Morgan’s ankle quickly and efficiently. They all had plenty of practice at it, after all.

  “Okay, let’s get you back to bed.” Momma put the rest of the bandages back into the cabinet. As she closed the door Morgan could see her hands trembling, her shoulders slumping as she rested her forehead against the smooth plastic.

  Instead of picking her up Momma helped Morgan onto her uninjured foot, the pair of them shambling over to the bed alcoves as Morgan hopped and leaned against her mother.

  Instead of going all the way down to Morgan’s room they stopped at her parents’.

  “Your daddy won’t be home anyway, so let’s put you in here for tonight.”

  Morgan was starting to feel drowsy again, a side effect of the ointment, so she just nodded.

  Morgan got settled on one edge. Momma leaned down, kissing her on the forehead.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  A few minutes later she returned, changed and cleaned up. She lay down next to Morgan.

  “Come here, Baby Girl.” She scooted over, pulling Morgan up against her, hugging her tight. “If you want to talk about it we can.”

  “I’m tired, Momma,” Morgan said, shaking her head. “Just stay here, please.”

  “Of course,” Momma said, kissing the top of Morgan’s head, “I’ll always be here for you.”

  Morgan drifted off just a minute or two later, listening to Momma’s heart.

  CHAPTER 03

  Nano-fabrication may have freed society from most of its wants,
but we can hardly ‘cure’ ourselves of the need for raw materials. The dangers of mining likewise. So do we prefer working in space where a single suit tear can kill, or underground where you’re fighting gravity and cave-ins?

  - Suhana Anand, owner of Khan mines, planet Shanti.

  MORGAN COULDN’T SEE the sides of the tunnel around her, close as they were. The dim light of her helmet lamp barely showed her the tunnel floor right in front of her. The batteries were almost dead, but ‘almost’ meant nothing to the Tinny who worked as quartermaster for shaft 3B. Until the batteries were completely exhausted, she would receive no new ones.

  If that meant she’d have to crawl through several kilometers of connecting tunnels with no light. . . well, it wasn’t any concern of his. Still, at least it wasn’t Thirty-Four in charge of supplies.

  Failing batteries or not, right now time was her most precious resource. If she didn’t get down to the field generator and fix it – and get back out – within four hours total she’d not get any food.

  It was getting harder and harder to get around fast enough. It felt like the tunnels were getting smaller, but in truth it was her that was growing. For now she managed, though it did mean more cuts and scratches on her arms and legs where they stuck out of her already too-small coveralls. Of course, it was hard to tell the difference sometimes since she got so many through the coveralls too.

  About the only good thing about her current task was that crawling in the smaller access tunnels meant she was off her still-tender ankle as much as possible. She could walk on it, albeit gingerly, but couldn’t do so for long or put her full weight on it.

  At last she reached the end of the tunnel, the wireless generator gleaming under the light of her lamp.

  Looking it over, Morgan heaved a sigh of relief. A bit of the tunnel roof had fallen, knocking a couple of the arrays out of alignment. It was no wonder the workers in the shaft had lost power to their tools. This would be an easy fix, leaving her with plenty of time to get back out.

  Morgan had done similar repairs more times than she could remember. Practiced hands nudged the components back into their precise alignments with hardly any conscious thought. Next was a gentle tightening of the connections to keep them that way. Finally a swift smack on the main housing got the whole thing going again. The generator was old, far older than her, and was grumpy in the best of times.

  She had barely finished returning her tools to her belt when a blast wave hit, throwing her into the roof of the tunnel. The impact knocked the wind out of her. Morgan couldn’t even begin to bring her hands up to brace her fall and she cracked her head on the floor.

  Instantly she was plunged into darkness as her lamp broke.

  “No. No, no nooo,” she groaned. Her head was swimming, her thoughts scattered to the far corners of the tunnels. Frantically she blinked, wanting to believe that it was her eyes and not the light that had failed.

  Closing her eyes Morgan forced her breathing to slow. She reminded herself that she had been here before, and gotten out safely. The blast had come from in front and below of her and not the way she had come. If the tunnel here hadn’t collapsed, she could retrace her steps. Probably. She knew the forks to take to get out, even in the dark. She just needed to stay calm and take it slow.

  Feeling about, Morgan found the generator. First she checked to make sure it was working and then used it to orient herself in the tunnel. Okay. The first turn would be to the right.

  Before moving away from the generator Morgan felt to make sure her tools were still secured, her helmet’s mask filter still sealed properly. Only then did she move down the tunnel, her right hand dragging along the wall. She inched along, her heart thudding in her chest almost drowning out her soft gasping sobs.

  It wasn’t long before she cracked her knee on a piece of debris on the tunnel floor. She stopped for a moment to rub the injured body part. Her hand felt sticky when she pulled it away. She didn’t dare stop, nor take her other hand off of the wall. One turn taken. Then another. She stumbled into pieces of rock thrice more before she reached the third, and her whole body ached.

  She was just past the sixth branch when a tiny pinprick of light appeared in front of her. She ignored it, concentrating on the wall passing by her hand, the floor under her. She had heard stories from the other tunnel rats that had gotten lost in the dark. Many of them talked of seeing lights that weren’t there. Tricks born of fear, they said. She had only heard of one person who had followed the lights and gotten out. Morgan hadn’t seen the lights herself before, but she wasn’t about to let any hallucination distract her.

  But the light got bigger, until she could tell it was another helmet light. Still Morgan kept on, ignoring pain and light and fear equally.

  It wasn’t until the light fell on her and she heard a voice call out her name that Morgan’s determination waivered.

  She stopped, wondering if she’d be able to start going again. “Jane?” she croaked out, recognizing the voice.

  “Morgan! You’re alive, I can’t believe it.” It was Jane, though Morgan couldn’t see any of her past the still blinding light.

  “Why?” Morgan managed to get out, knowing full well that the Tinnys wouldn’t have bothered to send anyone to look for her.

  “They wanted me to see if you’d fixed the generator before the accident.”

  Of course. The Tinnys wouldn’t bother sending a rescue party for a worker, but they would send someone if they needed to check on the equipment. It was a dangerous duty but, given the slim chance of turning it into a rescue, they usually could get volunteers.

  “I’m real sorry, Morgan, but I have to ask. Did you finish?”

  “The explosion, or whatever, was right after I finished,” Morgan answered, sagging against the side of the tunnel. She blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the light.

  Jane let out a big breath. “Oh thank the Father. Let’s get you out of here then.” Morgan could hear Jane pulling something off, then fiddling with some clasps and latches. “I grabbed a litter before I came down. I didn’t dare hope I’d get to use it. . . ” Jane trailed off.

  “I can still move.”

  “Yeah? You don’t look so good, Morgan. Let me pull you to the shaft. Save your strength for the climb back up.”

  “The lift isn’t working?”

  “Not until they clear everything. The gossip is someone forgot to turn off one of their detonators when the generator went out, and when it started up again suddenly. . . ”

  “It’s my fault?” Morgan asked. Given the timing she wasn’t really surprised.

  “No, of course not,” Jane forcefully said. “I. . . think they know who left his stuff on, though. That’s why they sent me in. To find out.”

  She had the litter folded out, helping Morgan roll onto it. It was a very basic design, essentially a tough pad big enough for a tunnel rat to lie down on, as long as they kept their arms folded across their chest. It attached to a loop of cord that clipped onto a ring on the back of the puller’s coveralls. Not the smoothest ride, but it was better than nothing. “

  Jane started crawling, forcing Morgan to repress a grunt as she jerked forward. Still, the chance to rest was nice.

  “Was anyone hurt?”

  “Besides you? I don’t think so. They were waiting for the power to start up again before sending anyone back down.” Jane was trying to keep her movements smooth, even succeeding a little bit. “Now be quiet. I’m not as good at remembering the turnings as you.”

  ***

  Her arms and legs shaking terribly from exhaustion Morgan pulled herself off of the shaft’s ladder and onto the main landing of the entryway. Her cuts had only stopped bleeding because they were stopped up with dust and dirt, and her helmet’s filter had worn out some time previously.

  While the hub was technically still part of the tunnel system it was a far larger chamber, with permanent lights hung on the support beams and even a few vertical shafts that connected to the surface for
ventilation. The air still smelled of dust and metal, but at least it was fresh.

  The bunker like building that served as the taskmaster’s office had a prominently displayed shift clock. Right now it told her that she had been down there for six hours. Given how slow they’d gone getting out they had actually made very good time.

  For the moment the majority of the workers were milling about, unable to work but unable to leave because of the Tinny guards sitting dourly by the mine cage that went rest of the way back up to the surface.

  The shaft finished closing behind them, and Jane and Morgan pulled the masks off of their helmets, depositing them in the recycling chute next to the entrance. Morgan pulled off her broken light, clutching it in one battered hand.

  Leaning on Jane the pair of them staggered over to the office window. No one moved to help the girls, not with every official eye on them. They pressed their thumbs against the scanner mounted to the wall, triggering the automated time keeper.

  “Morgan 28431. Job complete.”

  “Jane 28445. Job complete.”

  “You are two hours late, 28431. Report to the foreman. 28445, you are early, report to the dispensary, extra food has been authorized. When you are done report back for your next assignment,” the computer terminal droned at them. They removed their thumbs, a partial bloody print left behind by Morgan’s. It wasn’t the first.

  “Thank you, Jane,” Morgan said, stopping in front of the hermetically sealed door of the office.

  “You’d have done the same for me. Good. . . good luck with the tin man." Jane walked away briskly. The computer tracked how long it took for them to eat and return for the next job.

  Morgan knocked, and was surprised when it opened straight away.

  “Well, shit,” Officer Thirty-Four said as he looked down at her.

  Morgan had far too much experience dealing with the petty tyrants to react. She just stood there, waiting for him to continue.