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

  “And you were part of that?”

  “I was. Oh, I had no idea how bad it was for the common miners. How could I? I’d never met one, much less seen them at work. But I knew that our vaunted equality was a lie. My mistake was thinking it was because of the necessity of mining, and not by design.”

  “I don’t understand. What does this have to do with why you ended up in the mines?”

  “It’s simple really. After my work on the train was finished I started pushing for time to work on the drones. I was told we didn’t have money for it, a thousand excuses really, and I got suspicious. I started digging, but I was sloppy. They were watching me, and eventually I was denounced as ‘working against the people.’

  “There was an ‘accident’ in the train yard, a few people even died. I was blamed, stripped of my position, and sent out here to fix machines, but never make new ones.”

  “And Momma?”

  “We had just been married when this happened. They gave her a choice. Stay with me and be exiled too, or quietly get a new husband.”

  “What?” Morgan couldn’t wrap her head around that at all. Marriages on Hillman lasted until death, and remarriage only happened if the surviving partner was still young enough to have more children.

  “As far as the party was concerned, I was dead.”

  “But she chose to stay.”

  “She loved me, and I loved her. But I was selfish. I wish I’d been strong enough to let her go, to not ruin her life along with mine.”

  “How was that your fault?”

  “If I had just left it alone we’d be living on the station, and you would have grown up learning things instead of crawling around in the dirt and adding to your collection of scars. Every injury you’ve had, every bit of abuse from the Tinnys, it’s all my fault. It’s my fault that you’ve barely had enough to eat, and that all you had to look forward to was getting married to someone you barely knew and watching your own children suffer in the mines.”

  Morgan didn’t know how to respond to this. How could she even begin to imagine what her life would be like as the daughter of a party member living on Hill Station?

  One question did make its way to the forefront of her mind forcefully. What would that girl think about the miners, the tunnel rats? Like the Tinnys did? Worse? Would she hate them as much as Morgan hated the ‘essential workers’ and the comrade managers?

  “Am I right to hate the comrade managers?”

  “What?”

  “Everyone in town, some of the Tinnys even, hate the people hiding up on that station. Are they wrong to feel that way?”

  Daddy was quiet for a minute, stroking his chin as he thought about how to answer.

  “Some of them are good people. They just don’t see how bad it is outside of their little circles. Others know what’s going on and hate it, but are afraid of losing what they have. That said, no, the miners aren’t wrong.”

  “Then why would I blame you for what they did? Would it really be better to be pampered on the backs of people like us, like Jane?”

  “You only say that because you don’t know what you lost out on. You’ve been doing hard labor for ten years already. On Hill Station you’d have another ten years of school before you’d even start to worry about marriage or a job.”

  “And what kind of job would I be looking forward to? An engineer like you?”

  “Probably not.” He shook his head. “No, definitely not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Did you ever wonder why all the Tinnys are male? Any job with even the potential of contact with the common man is barred to women.”

  “What?”

  “As much as they look down on the miners they’re also afraid of them. Almost all of their stories deal with evil, lazy, or degenerate miners.”

  “Daddy, I think we’re better off away from these people.”

  He sighed, resting his head on his hands as he ran his fingers through his hair.

  “I don’t deserve you, Baby Girl.”

  A metal rumble penetrated the car from the far end.

  “That’s the other car’s door. Quick, back into the kit.”

  Morgan clambered back into the box. It helped that she’d already done it once, but her aching limbs made it harder, so it took just as long the second time as it did the first.

  Getting the trays settled back in above her was easier this time, and it was a good thing too, as Morgan could hear their car’s door opening as the lid snapped into place. Whoever it was didn’t say anything, but just clomped along and sat down a ways back from them.

  “Hello,” Daddy said, his best amiable tone plastered on. “I don’t know about you, but I’d forgotten how long this trip is. I think I’ll follow your buddy’s example and take a nap.”

  His words were as much for Morgan as the Tinny out there Morgan couldn’t see. Sighing – quietly – she nestled her head the tiny bit more against her knees possible and closed her eyes.

  CHAPTER 04

  Altruism and selflessness is bred into us – literally coded for at the genetic level. This of course makes sense biologically, to perpetuate the species. It also makes sense theologically as an example and call to our higher selves, and to remind us that even as a father loves his children so does God love us.

  - Presiding Bishop Alfonso Guzman, dean of Science, Zion Institute of Technology (retired).

  “YOU NEED TO STAY QUIET, Morgan. We’re almost there.”

  Morgan had still been somewhere between simple sleep and the brutal unconsciousness resulting from the tremendous forces of the shuttle ride out of Hillman’s heavy gravity well. As such she didn’t register the words her daddy had said, but his voice was reassuring as she awoke. The box opened at last, letting in a wave of fresh air and light. Unfolding from the tight space, Morgan slumped against the wall. She waited for feeling to come back to her extremities, rubbing her arms and legs while her father’s head darted back and forth keeping watch. She felt different, like a great weight had been taken off of her back. It was weird, but definitely a good kind of weird.

  “We’re not on the shuttle.” Morgan was surprised the station was kept on lower gravity than the planet, but she supposed people from other places came here too. Anyone not born on Hillman would have a hard time just moving about, let alone working.

  “No, this is the station. Too many cameras and eyes to risk letting you out until now. You slept the whole way up?”

  “I must have.” Morgan took a moment to look about, taking in the smooth metal walls and equally smooth metal floor beneath her thick soled boots. The room or hallway they were in was a few meters wide and curved gently in each direction. It was long enough that she couldn’t see around the corners to where it ended. There were some square sections of wall next to her that looked like they could be removed, but they were too small to be doors.

  “I don’t see a ship,” Morgan said, gesturing at the room. “Why did you open the box, is it close?”

  “This is as close as I can get you. I managed to cut the primary circuits for the security in this section of the station while working on repairs.” Daddy patted the small pair of wire cutters on his tool belt. “I told them I had shorted something out and graciously offered to fix the problem myself. That got us to this corridor.”

  Slipping his power spanner out of his tool belt, Daddy started removing the bolts on one of the small panels.

  “And from here?”

  “From here you can crawl through the service ducts to the tertiary docking bay where an independent freighter is offloading supplies in return for a cargo of heavy metals and local wood. They’ll also be taking on some perishables – food and water.

  “Will there be a lot of people? Won’t they see me?”

  “You can do this, Baby Girl.” He had finished with the bolts, tugging the panel off to reveal the low passage beyond. The panel was larger than the passage it hid. For someone larger than Morgan it would be a tight fit. “It’s right, left, str
aight three times, then a right. No different than in the mines. Once you’re there, listen for a bit before opening the panel. There should be enough crates and containers to keep you hidden from view. If you can, just sneak onto the ship directly. If you can’t, find a crate – one of the ones away from the wall – and get inside.”

  He handed her the spanner, then pulled his backup from his belt.

  “Do you remember what turns to take?”

  “Right, left, forward, forward, forward, right. What about the Tinnys?”

  “They’re watching the shuttle docks. They’re not trusted to be near the departing ships any more than I am. We need to hurry, Baby Girl. Give me a hug goodbye.”

  Hugging him somehow was much more final than saying goodbye to Momma had been, and Morgan started crying. She blinked back the tears, trying to appear strong. Daddy grabbed her chin in his strong hand and pulled her eyes up to look into his, also glistening with tears.

  “Don’t be afraid to cry, Morgan. Where you’re going they won’t be looking for the slightest sign of weakness. Just be brave, and work hard and you’ll have a good life.” He kissed her forehead. He nudged her into the passage, giving her hand one final squeeze. As he released his grip he slipped a small bit of plastic into her hand.

  Looking at it Morgan realized it was a data chip.

  “What is this?”

  “That is my life’s work. The research that ended up causing my exile. I don’t know if it will do you any good out there, but I want you to at least have it. Now you need to hurry, Morgan.”

  “I love you,” Morgan said as he pushed the panel back into place.

  Morgan heard the thump of his head against the metal, the panel slightly muffling his voice. “And I love you, Morgan, more than life itself.”

  Morgan forced herself to turn away from the panel as Daddy wasted no time replacing the bolts. It felt weird scooting and crawling along such a smooth surface, but Morgan hardly noticed it. The new sensation was lost amongst all the other strange new things she was experiencing.

  Navigating the narrow passage was easier than the tunnels had been. For one thing, it was exactingly straight with no lower bits to bang her head on. It also had lighting at regular intervals on both walls. The light was dim compared to the room she’d come from, dimmer even than her helmet lamp in the mines back home. But unlike her helmet lamp, the light covered the whole passage and her eyes adjusted quickly.

  Six intersections came and went quickly, and at last Morgan found herself in front of another panel. She stared at it for several seconds before the flaw in the plan really registered.

  The bolts were on the other side.

  It was even worse than that, the bolts were on the other side and the panel was larger than the opening of the passage, so she couldn’t even get to the back end of the bolts.

  Morgan willed herself to be calm. The urge to panic was tempting, an outlet for her frustration and all the aches and pains she was trying to ignore. Her poor body was still dealing with the mine explosion on top of spending so many hours crammed in a box.

  Deep, regular breaths.

  Okay.

  What could she do?

  Judging by the panel she had seen, the metal was about as two finger widths thick, so pretty sturdy. It’d have to be, given that she was on a space station and dealing with the vacuum of space was a real possibility.

  Of course if she was going to try and force her way out, the question wasn’t how strong the panel was, but how strong were the bolts?

  Not that the answer to that question was likely to help her. The bolts had to resist the same forces as the panel, after all.

  Morgan took a moment to shake her head. Who had designed this? What reason could they have had to make it so hard to get out of these passageways once in them? The answer probably came back to the same reasoning behind the train system – keep people from leaving – but at what point were placating these fears outweighed by problems the solutions caused?

  There had to be a way out of here. What would workers do if they were cut off from where they had entered, or if someone closed the panel up thinking it left open by mistake?

  She hadn’t seen anything that would suggest the bolts were powered; Daddy had opened them with a hand tool, after all. But if there wasn’t any physical access from the inside. . .

  Morgan scooted back from the panel a bit and started feeling around the walls and ceiling directly adjacent to it. There wasn’t anything immediately obvious, but these passages had to be used for something didn’t they? In the mines they mostly just went from point A to point B, but the tunnels were surrounded by mostly solid rock. This was an artificial station; the interior spaces had to have machines and other things the station needed to work. Didn’t they? The one constant of machines was they needed maintenance and repair, so there had to be a way to access them.

  Several minutes of fruitless search later Morgan was wondering if panicking wouldn’t be more useful after all.

  She had seen the access spaces on the train. They’d been right beneath her feet, open and obvious under the grate floor. So why was everything hidden so thoroughly here? Even without the bolted close panels she couldn’t imagine the party members ever stooping – literally – to use these passages. So why hide them?

  Figuring out what parts could come off was easy. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made up of square sections set flush with each other, designed to be removed. Figuring out how to unlatch them, that was hard. There wasn’t any space between the panels for a lever or catch. The whole surface was patterned with rectangular markings, disguising whatever catches there were handily.

  Reduced to just poking sections more or less at random, Morgan was finally rewarded with a quiet click as one of the rectangular sections slid in on the left side of a panel immediately adjacent to the hatch, on the left side. Poking it on the other side of the same panel yielded another click and the panel fell forward. Morgan yanked her feet back just in time, leaving nothing but the metal floor for the panel to land on, which it did with a loud dull clang.

  Morgan sucked a breath in, pressing one ear to the closed hatch and listening. Did anyone hear her? If they did, would they be suspicious? She couldn’t hear anything besides the pounding of her heart, and really, what were her options if they had heard her? She was quite stuck at the moment.

  Turning back to the finally open section of wall Morgan grimaced. There were pipes and circuits all right, some of it far enough back that she wouldn’t be able to even reach them, but none of it looked connected to the hatch right here, it all looked like it just went past here on its way somewhere else.

  There was still one thing worth trying. Reaching in as far as she could with her left arm Morgan felt around the very edge of the space, flush against the sealed hatch. As with any task involving feeling around in the dark, it was frustratingly slow and haphazard. But then her fingers brushed up against a small mechanical box. Working her fingers around the edge, Morgan was rewarded with a rounded opening – and the back end of the hatch bolt. While this did tell her that there probably was some way to open the hatch from the inside – the bolt housing had some wires running from it, for one – this didn’t help her much.

  Having access to the actual bolt itself, even if only the backend? That Morgan could work with.

  That wasn’t to say it was going to be easy.

  The common method for removing a bolt without a head was to drill a hole in the top then insert a bolt extractor. That wouldn’t work here for several reasons, the important ones being she didn’t want to leave evidence she’d been here if she could avoid it, and the slightly more pressing reason being she didn’t have a bolt extractor.

  But she did have her father’s spanner. It was a much more sophisticated tool than the junk she’d used in the mines. One of the useful things it had was a powerful electromagnet on the extendible tip. Daddy hadn’t used it when he’d opened the other hatch, but he’d had ready access to the b
olts.

  All Morgan had to do was get the spanner tip on the bolt, without touching the surrounding metal, and then turn on the magnet without jostling it. After that it would be a simple matter of putting the tool in reverse and pushing the bolt out.

  Assuming this hatch was like the other one, it was eight sided with two bolts per side. And of course she wouldn’t be able to actually see what she was doing, given the angle of the panels and the conduits.

  Sixteen bolts by feel, each requiring precise positioning.

  Nothing for it but to get to work.

  Without taking her fingers off of the bolt she scooped the spanner off of the floor. Morgan looked back and forth between her arm, buried up to her shoulder in the cavity of the wall, and the hand holding the spanner.

  Well, that wasn’t going to work. Doing her best to memorize where the bolt was in the wall, Morgan pulled her arm out. This would be easier if she could use both hands, so first she tried getting her right arm in far enough to find the bolt again. She kept pushing farther in, until she’d actually gotten most of her head and shoulders stuck into the cavity, but she couldn’t quite reach.

  Sighing, she stuck her left hand through the carry loop of the spanner and reached back in. She found the bolt quicker this time, but lost it when she tried to get the spanner in position.

  The second attempt didn’t go any better, but the third time she got it on. The switch for the magnet was thankfully easy to get at.

  Letting go of the spanner she checked on the alignment of the head on the bolt. It was close, but not close enough.

  Adjusting it was painstakingly slow, as she thumbed off the magnet, nudged it ever so lightly, turned it back on, then checked again. Three times and it was close enough – not centered, but at least not touching anything but the bolt.