Red Sky: Chapter 13
Hades was standing in the center of the prison block and called out three numbers. We had just returned from the cafeteria and were back in our cells. I wiped sweat from my mud-soaked face as I watched the three inmates escorted from their cells.
I knew one of them. 71 was the malevolent inmate with a sly smile who had told me to ask Com about his past during my first week on the moon. I had lost track of him over the weeks and months of work in the mine. He had drifted from our table and disappeared from my thoughts until he showed up again on this night when Hades called out his number.
The walk of the three inmates seemed to last forever. I remember it lasting forever. Hades was in no hurry. He stood on the floor of the prison block holding a rope, coiled in his right hand. I wiped sweat from my brow again. It was no use.
The three inmates were told to kneel when they reached Hades. Nobody had ever been forced to kneel before as they were put into the box.
“The warden is not pleased. Discipline is down. Production is down. For production to improve, discipline needs to be improved.” Hades said this to those of us above as much as the three inmates kneeling before him.
“The warden asked me to be creative.” The rope unfurled.
“I had a friend bring this to me from Earth. It’s been in my family for generations.” The rope moved, writhing back and forth on the floor. It stopped and was raised and then lowered to the floor with a loud crack. It was an old-fashioned whip like cowboys would use in ancient fables.
“After tonight, when you go to the box, you will feel this first. Fifteen lashes the first offense, double each time after that.” Hades paused. He looked up with his smile. He looked down to the kneeling inmates. He started with the first two.
“23571, 13331. You are here because you have mined no ore this week. No ore for four days. Four whole days!” Hades shook his head, disappointed. “This is unacceptable. This is more than unacceptable. It is high treason. We are in the middle of a war. The future of humanity is at stake and the Qalladium you mine is our most precious resource. It allows us to fight this war. It allows us to keep you safe, to keep your families safe back on Earth. If you refuse to mine or are unable to mine, then you are a traitor to the Federation and we do not need traitors here.”
“Are you a traitor!” He screamed at 71.
“N---n----n----o,” 71 stuttered. Hades raised his right hand, the whip high in the air. “What did you say?”
“No, sir,” 71 answered a second time.
The whip cracked on the ground next to 71. Another snap, closer to 71. A third snap struck 71 across the knees. He cried out.
Hades moved down the line to the last inmate. He was Cyclops’ partner. I had nicknamed him Isosceles because his head was a little lopsided.
“18214, you have mined well.”
The ends of Isosceles’ mouth curled as if by reflex.
“But the cell is not your property. You are only renting here.” I swear Hades laughed at his own joke. “The ore in the mine is only one of our rules. We have others.” Isosceles’ smile went away.
“You have defiled your cell. The cell walls are made of rock. Rock that is similar to the rock in the mine. Some of you may have realized you can chip away at this rock if you possess the right tools. Some of you may be tempted to chip away at this rock once you smuggle tools back to your cell. What you should know is the outside of this building is made of a metal you cannot break through. That no tool can break through.”
“We are not stupid. The men who created this prison are not stupid. When this prison was made we ensured there was no escape. And even if you could tunnel out, which you cannot, where would you go? We are alone on this moon. You would die of hunger or worse. There is no way off this moon!”
“You are here for five years. If you put in the work for the Federation, you can go back to Earth. You will not succeed if you try to escape. You will only make me mad if you try to escape. You do not want to make Hades mad!”
Hades nodded to a contingent of guards and the three inmates were stood up and escorted to the far wall. Three doors were opened. The inmates were stripped of their clothes. They were not thrown in directly. They were held outside, naked and vulnerable, waiting for the guards who in turn waited for Hades. We were all waiting for Hades. The show wasn’t over yet.
“I said we needed discipline.” Hades cracked his whip.
“I said I needed to get creative.” He cracked it again.
“Tonight, three inmates will be put into solitary.” He paused and looked at the three naked inmates along the far wall. “Only two will come out.”
The inmates were pushed into their boxes, their coffins. They fought back and were paralyzed by their collars. Frozen, they were each put into a box knowing it would mean death for one of them. The doors shut like a ghost’s scream and there was silence once again.
Hades stood in front of the exit. He was watching us in the cells above, gauging the effect of his performance. The other guards walked towards him.
“Discipline.” Hades said one last time. “If there is discipline you will be treated well. If there is no discipline, we will create discipline.”
The guards walked out of the cellblock and the lights turned off. There would be no shower for the night. Most of the inmates climbed into their beds. Some of us stayed standing, our eyes on the far wall. I foolishly wondered if Hades was going to keep his promise. Perhaps, it was an empty threat. Maybe it was only a way to scare us. Hope is a difficult thing to give up completely even when there is no reason for it. We always find a way to believe. I hoped it was an empty threat.
*
The next day in the cafeteria no one wanted to mention the events of the previous night. We avoided the topic, all of us in complete denial. We knew it could have been any one of us. Every inmate had either hit a dry spell or marked up their cell wall.
“Look at Zero.” Ray pointed to the guard nicknamed Zero because he had no distinguishing features. “He used the lance on me yesterday.”
“How do you know it was him?” I asked. Except for Hades with his red-striped helmet, all of the guards wore the same black helmet with darkened visors when they were outside or in the mine.
Ray grinned. “You can tell by the shoes.”
I looked up at the guards walking back and forth above. I couldn’t tell much difference through the grates of the walkway.
“They may all look the same to you, but they’re different. Believe me.”
“They’re different sizes, so you can tell the ones with itty bitty feet from the ones with giant pontoons. And the wear and tear. You see Beetleface,” Ray drew my attention to the infamous Beetleface on the other side of the cafeteria. “He keeps his shoes shiny and clean like he’s ready for a surprise inspection. I bet he polishes ‘em every day. He’s used the lance on me more times than I can count. The bastard. He’s by the book. If it’s not in the manual he won’t do it. If it is, he’ll give it to you and sometimes twice.”
“Look at Ginger.” He pointed to a red-haired guard. “His shoes are the most battered. And he’s the nicest one. Oh, he’ll use the lance on you, but he hesitates, maybe a second, just enough to get yourself straightened out, to get up from the ground or pick up the pace. He may not be nice, but he’s more willing to look the other way. And you can tell all of that by the shoes.” Ray was very proud of himself.
“Interesting,” I said.
“I didn’t come up with it,” Ray said. “Com did. He’s the one who figured it out.”
“When I first arrived, I studied them every day for months.” Com said. “I memorized their faces and the way they moved their bodies, the way some of them walk or stand. But once we we’re outside, they’re so mechanical, they’ve been trained not to betray themselves.”
“The uniforms are identical, so that didn’t work. But the shoes. They all have a different relationship with their shoes. Their personality comes out in them.”
I looked up again to the guards on the balcony. There were six of them on duty. I tried looking at their shoes. But it’s not normal to look at shoes. My gaze fell to their faces. I knew most of their names by then. Not just Beetleface and Ginger, but Noseless and Beak and Bug Eyes and Big Shoes and Zero, too.
I was surprised at how young some of them looked. They didn’t look like the inmates who’d been hardened by time. Half of them looked like new recruits straight out of basic training, probably no older than nineteen or twenty when they first started working on the moon. I wondered how they were chosen. Was it a desirable alternative to fighting on the front lines or, maybe the opposite, a punishment because they weren’t considered skilled enough to serve in the Interstellar Fleet. They were stuck on the red moon just like we were, far from Earth and their families. For a second, I felt some compassion for them. For only a second. Then Goodwell appeared in a holo and all of my good feelings disappeared. I thought of Hades and the whip and the box. I thought of all the hours in the mine and my three by three cell and suddenly I had no more compassion for them than they had for me.
*
There was a whipping post in the center of the prison block that night. With no body attached to it, it looked innocuous, standing alone in the center of the floor like a post misplaced during construction. Some of the inmates didn’t even notice it that first day. Eventually, we would all notice. After the first whipping, it would be the most prominent marking in the prison.
Two inmates were released from the box on the fourth day. The third inmate, 23571, the malevolent one with a sly smile, was left inside. To my surprise, they let Isosceles out. Trying to escape seems like a worse crime than going four days with no ore.
“Goodwell doesn’t want to lose productivity.” Max said. “The ore is the most important thing here. Remember that. The war must not be going well if they’re using such desperate measures. We’re going to have to work extra hard in the mine this week.”
Something in me bristled at the way Max accepted Hades’ tactics. Hades killed one of our fellow inmates so we would work harder. That didn’t make me want to work harder. It made me want to get revenge. But I was still a newt and Max had treated me well. If he wanted to work harder in the mine, I would. I repeated Ray’s mantra of keeping my head down and surviving the five years. Just survive. Unlike that poor malevolent bastard in the box, survive.