S. M. Stirling - Draka 02 - Under The Yoke

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Under The Yoke by SM

Stirling

CHAPTER ONE

… enlargement of our standard lines in domestic,

supervisory and recreational Items for the intending settler in

the new territories. Our Agency has had agents on hand for

every auction of choice items; stock your kitchens and servants'

quarters from the best hotels and restaurants of Europe. And

while Settlement Directorate issue may do for field-hands and

machine-tenders, when it comes to the strawbosses.

interpreters and drivers you will need for your plantation or

enterprise, our breaking-and-training establishments are

unmatched for price and quality. Why go to the expense of

importing your serf cadre from the dregs of the Police Zone?

And amusement? From the snowy blond of Sweden to the

olive of Italy, the fruits of conquest are yours to pluck. From

peasants to aristocrats, from the illiterate to the ballerinas and

university students of Paris, wench or prettybuck. your fantasy

is our reality. Whether your desire is sjambok-broken docility

or a wild Finn you can tame yourself. Stevenson & de Verre has

it! Chemo-conditioning and polygraph testing ensure

unmatched reliability for our product, reared in and tailored to

local languages and custom, from Seoul to Lisbon! Don't waste

precious time and capital training your own;

consult our brochures, and contact your local representative for

further information.

Advertising flier of Stevenson & de Verre.

Labor Agents, included in:

Settler Information Kit No. Ill

Settlement Directorate, European

Area, 1948 ed.

LYON, PROVINCE OF BURGUNDIA

REGIONAL HQ, SECURITY DIRECTORATE

DETENTION CENTER XVII

APRIL, 1947

"Pater Noster, qui est in caelis …"

"Shut up, slut-bitch!" The guard raked her hard-rubber

truncheon along the bars in frustration, then stalked off down

the corridor.

Sister Marya Sokolowska lowered her head and fought to

recapture the Presence; a futile effort, it could not be forced.

Enough, prayer is more than feelings, she chided herself, while

habit droned the sonorous Latin words and told the beads of her

rosary. The words were a discipline in themselves; faith was a

matter of the intellectual will more than subjective sentiment.

And the others relied on her: even Chantal Lefarge the

communist over in the corner was joining in; it helped remind

them they were human beings and not animals-with-numbers,

that they were a community, linked one with the other.

Something easy to forget in the ten-by-twelve brick cube of cell

10-27, under the Domination of the Draka. Though she was the

only Pole here, and the only religious.

Covertly, her eyes followed the guard as far as the grill-door

would allow. The building had not been designed as a prison; the

Draka had taken it over when Lyons fell, back in '45. Before

then… a school, perhaps, or some sort of offices. Then the

Security Directorate had come, and cordoned off as many square

blocks of the city as need dictated; knocked doors and built

walkways between buildings, surrounded the whole with

razor-wire and machine-gun towers, put in bars and

control-doors. It was a warren now, brick and concrete, burlap

and straw ticking, the ever-present ammonia stink of

disinfectant. Lights that were never dimmed, endless noise. The

tramp-tramp-clank of chain gangs driven in lockstep to

messhalls or to their work, maintaining and extending the

prison-complex. Far-off shouts and screams, or someone in the

cell across the corridor waking shrieking from a nightmare.

Mornings were worst: that was the hour for executions, in the

courtyard below their cell. The metal grille blocked vision but not

sound; they could hear the footsteps, sometimes pleading or

whimpering, once or twice cracked voices attempting the

Marseillaise, then the rapid chattering of automatic weapons

and rounds thumping into the earth berm piled against their

block's wall… The nun finished the prayer and came to her feet,

putting solemnity aside and smiling at the others. Together they

rolled the thin straw-stuffed pallets up against the walls, each

folding her single cotton blanket on top and placing the cup and

pan in the regulation positions. There was nothing else to do; it

was forbidden to sleep or sit after the morning siren.

Conversation was possible, if you were careful and very quiet, a

matter of gesture and brief elliptical phrases, and it helped break

the terrible sameness of each day. Newcomers brought in fresh

tidings from the world outside, and bits of gossip passed from

hand to hand, on work details or at the messhall… not as

elaborate as she had expected, there were too many informers

and turnover was too high. This was a holding and processing

center, not a real prison; a place to sit and wait until they took

you away. Terrible rumors about what lay beyond: factories,

labor camps, bordellos, medical experiments such as the

Germans had done during the Nazi years… but no real

information. For herself, it was not so bad; she had much time to

meditate, and the others to help, and what came after would be

the will of God, Who would give her strength enough to meet it,

if no more.

Marya crossed herself and moved a careful half-pace closer to

the bars. Good, the guard had gone around the corner. She was

just a trusty, a prisoner like the rest of them, with no key to open

cell doors. She could mark an individual or a whole cell down

and inform the real guards, the Security bulls and retired

Janissaries who ran Block D, Female Section. That could mean

flogging or electroshock or sweatbox for all of them, you never

knew. But the guard would be reluctant to do that; it was unwise

to have more contact with the bulls than you had to. A prayer

was not enough provocation; a real racket might be, because

then she would be in danger of losing her position and being

thrown back into a holding pen, which meant being quietly

strangled one night. Seven to one was bad odds.

God forgive them all, Marya thought. For them too the

Savior died. She herself would probably get nothing more than a

whack across the kidneys with the rubber truncheon at mess call.

Not for the first time, she reflected that Central Detention was

like being inside a machine. Not a particularly efficient one,

more like an early steam engine that gasped and wheezed and

leaked around its gaskets, shuddering with loose fittings and

friction. But it used the Domination's cheapest fuel, human life,

and it was simple and rugged and did its work with a minimum

of attention; she had been here six months and rarely even saw

the serf guards and clerks who did the routine management,

much less one of the Citizen-caste aristocracy of the

Domination…

There was an iron chung-chung from the landing down at the

south end of the corridor; the main door to Block D, two stories

up the open stairwell. A sudden hush caught the cells along the

narrow passageway, an absence of noise that had been too faint

for conscious attention, then a rustle as the inmates sprang to

stand by their bedrolls. The nun moved to her own and assumed

the proper posture, feet together, head bowed, hands by sides.

She could feel the sweat prickle out on her palms, wiped them

hurriedly down the coarse cotton sack-dress that prisoners were

issued. Suddenly the familiar roughness itched against her skin,

and she forced her toes to stop their anxious writhing in the

sisal-and-wood clogs.

A whimper. Therese; she had never been strong, or quite right

in the head since they brought her and Chantal in. A slight girl,

dark and too thin, who never spoke and slept badly. The nun had

had medical training, but it was nothing physical; the abuse that

had made the elder Lefarge sister strong with hate had broken

something in Therese. Perhaps it could never be healed, and

certainly not here. Eyes met across the cell, and someone

coughed to cover the quick squeeze of the shoulder and whisper

of comfort that was all they had to offer.

Pauvre petite, Marya thought; then with desperation: much

too early for the bulls to be down looking for amusement. And

they had never picked cell 10-27. Holy Mary, mother of God,

please…

The guard pelted down the corridor and dropped to her knees

by the stairs from the landing. Marya's bedroll was nearest the

door; she could see boots descending the pierced-steel treads.

Three sets, composition-soled leather with quick-release hooks

rather than eyes for the lacings. Draka military issue, the

forward pair black and the other two camouflage-mottled.

Quickly, she flicked her eyes back to her toes. A Citizen! Could

they have found out? Silently she willed the boots to pace by, on

down the corridor. Not praying, because this could only mean

bad trouble and the only words her heart could speak would be:

somebody else, anyone but me.

Marya swallowed convulsively, thick saliva blocking her

throat. Even Our Lord asked that the cup pass from him. But he

had not wished it on anyone else. Nor would she.

The lock made its smooth metal sound of oiled steel and the

cell door swung open. She could feel the breeze of it, smell leather

and cloth, gun-oil and a man's cologne.

"Bow, you sluts!" the guard barked, hovering nervously in the

corridor. The eight inmates of cell 10-27 put palms to eyes and

bent at the waist.

"Up, stand up." A man's voice, cool and amused, speaking

French with a soft slurred accent. "Present, wenches."

Marya jerked erect and bent her head back to show the serf

identity-code tattooed behind her left ear, one hand holding back

the long ashblond hair that might have covered it.

The position gave her a good look at the three men. Their

armed presence crowded the cell, even though there was room in

plenty with the inmates braced to attention. Two were common

soldiers, Janissaries from the Domination's subject-race legions

with shaven skulls and serf-numbers on their own necks. Big

men, young, thick heavy-muscled shoulders and necks and arms

under their mottled uniforms. Both carried automatic rifles;

ugly, squared-off things with folding stocks and snail-shaped

drum magazines; there were heavy fighting-knives in their boots,

stick-grenades clipped to their harness, long machete-like

bushknives slung over their backs. Dark men, with blunt features

and tight-curled hair and skins the color of old oiled wood;

Africans, from the heartlands of the continent where the

Domination began. Their people had been under the Yoke for

generations, and the Draka favored them for such work; they

looked at the women with indifferent contempt and casual

desire.

The third was an officer, a Citizen. In the black tunic and

trousers of garrison uniform, with a peaked cap folded and

thrust through his shoulder-strap; Marya understood just

enough of the Domination's military insignia to know he was a

Merarch, roughly a colonel. A tall man, leopard to the

Janissaries' bull strength. Tanned aquiline features, pale gray

eyes, brown hair streaked with a lighter color, a single gold

hoop-earring. No more than thirty, with white scar-lines on his

hands and face, one deep enough to leave a V in his left

cheekbone. A machine-pistol rested in an elaborate holster along

his thigh, but it was the weapon in his hand that drew her eye. A

steel rod as thick as a man's thumb with a rubber-bound hilt,

tapering along its meter length to the brass button on its tip; a

cable ran from the hilt to the battery-casing at his belt. An

electroprod.

The tip came towards her face. Sweat prickled out along her

upper lip as she fought against the need to flinch. Marya knew

what it could do; the 'prod was worse than a whip, as bad as the

sweatbox. The Draka used it to control crowds; the threat was

usually as effective as an automatic weapon, and less wasteful.

Too many times and you could start having fits. Applied to the

head it could cause convulsions, loss of memory, change you

inside… She closed her eyes.

Metal touched her chin. Nothing. Not activated. She opened

her eyes, and the Draka nodded with approval.

"Spirited," he said. "Sound off, wench."

"Marya seven-three-E-S-four-two-two, Master," she recited,

fighting off a flush of hatred that left her knees weak, on the

verge of trembling. She would not show it, not when it might be

mistaken for fear.

The man in black flipped open a small leather-bound

notebook with his left hand. "Ssssa; 34, literate, languages

French, German, English, Polish…"He raised an eyebrow. "Quite

a scholar… advanced accounting… ah, category 3m73, religious

cadre, that would account for it." The electroprod clicked against

the crucifix and rosary that hung through the cloth tie of her

sack-dress. Made from scraps of wood, silently at night beneath

her blanket. "Nun?"

"I am a Sister of the Order of St. Cyril, Master."

The Draka flicked the steel rod against her hip, hard enough

to sting. "You were. Now you're 73ES422, wench." He read

further, pursed a lip. "Suspicion of unauthorized education? Ah,

that was six months ago;

Security must have been dithering whether to pop you off or

send you to the Yanks with the Pope and the rest." He shook his

head and made a tsk sound between his teeth. "Headhunters,

typical."

Marya felt herself pale. "The… the Holy Father has been

exiled?"

Two more cuts, harder this time. "Master," she added.

He turned without answering, scanning the others. "You," he

pointed.

"Chantal nine-seven-E-F-five-seven-eight, Master." Marya

could see the film of sweat on the other woman's face, and knew

it was rage, not terror.

Calm, keep calm, she thought. Suicide is a mortal sin.

The Draka stepped over and looked her up and down, smiling

slightly. She had dark-Mediterranean good looks, long black hair

and a heart-shaped face, a full-curved body under the coarse

issue gown. "At ease," he said, and the inmates straightened and

dropped their eyes again; the officer chuckled as he watched the

dark woman glaring at his boots and consulted the notebook.

"Twenty years, literate, numerate, French and English…

ex-bookkeeper, member of the Communist Party…" He caught

the hem of her gown on the end of the electroprod and raised it

to waist height, and murmured in his own tongue: "Not bad

haunches, but these Latins run to fat young."

Marya understood him, with difficulty; the English her Order

had taught her was the standard British form. The Domination's

core territory in Africa below Capricorn had been settled by

Loyalist refugees from the American Revolution, speakers of an

archaic eighteenth-century southern dialect, and it had mutated

heavily in the generations since. He paused, let the cloth fall,

tapped the steel rod thoughtfully against one boot.

"Shuck down, wenches," he said after a moment.

There was a quick rustle of cloth as the inmates stripped; the

prison gowns were simple cotton sacks with holes for arms and

heads. Marya undid her belt, pulled the garment over her head,

folded it atop her bedroll, slipped off the briefs that were the only

undergarment and folded them in turn, stepped out of the clogs

and stood in the inspection posture, hands linked behind the

head and eyes forward. The dank chill of the place seemed

suddenly greater, raising the gooseflesh on shoulders and thighs,

making her wish she could hug herself and run her palms down

her arms.

When she had been arrested, it was only chance that the

secret school was not in session and the children gone. All

unauthorized education was forbidden, under penalty of death;

they would have penned her and the children together in the

room and tossed in a grenade. Alone, she would have died there

and then if any evidence had been found. Two of the mothers

had been with her, and there was no room in the police van; the

green-uniformed Security Directorate officer had drawn her

pistol and shot them both through the head as they knelt, to save

the trouble of calling in for a larger vehicle. And inside Central

Detention there had been no interrogation, no torture; only the

cell and the endless monotony spiced by fear, until she realized

that her gesture of defiance was not even worth investigating.

There had been a speech for her batch of new inmates. Very

brief: "This is a bad place, serfs, but it can always be worse. We

ask little from the living, only obedience; from the dead,

nothing."

Beside her Therese was weeping silently, slow fat tears

squeezing out from under closed lids and running down her face,

dripping from her chin onto her breasts. Most of the others were

expressionless, a few preening under the dispassionate gaze; the

Draka nodded and turned to the guard.

"This one and that one," he said, flicking the prod toward

Marya and Chantal. "Put the restraints on them."

Marya's stomach lurched as the guard's rough hands turned

her around and pulled her arms behind her back. The

ring-and-chain bonds clanked, fastening thumbs and wrists and

elbows in a straining posture that (breed the shoulders back; you

could walk in them if you were careful, but they were as effective

as a hobble when it came to running. Not that there was

anywhere to run; and anything at all might be waiting beyond

the iron door. Cell 10-27 was a bad place; of cold and fear and a

monotony that was worse than either, grinding down your mind

and spirit. Now it seemed a haven… The one thing you could be

certain of in the Domination was that there was always

someplace worse.

The guard shoved the two women roughly toward the door of

the cell. Marya staggered, turned and bowed awkwardly.

"Master," she said. "Our things?"

"You won't be back, wench," the Draka said, stretching. The

Janissaries chuckled; one reached out and grabbed the weeping

Therese by the breast, pinching and twisting. She folded about

the grip in a futile shrimp-curl of protection, mouth quivering as

she sobbed.

"Yo" be needin' us'n, suh?" he said. "Mebbeso we-uns stay

here fo' whaal?"

The officer laughed, and Marya could feel Chantal quivering

behind her. Therese was her younger sister; they had been swept

up together for curfew-violation. Distributing leaflets, probably,

but they had been clean when the patrol caught them and might

have gotten off with a light flogging if Chantal had not attacked

the squadleader when he started to rape Therese… The nun

forced herself between the other woman and the soldiers,

pushing her back against the bars, hearing the quick panting

breath of adrenaline-overload in her ear and a low guttural

sound that was almost a growl. Madness to attack three armed

men with hands bound, but a berserker does not count the odds.

Even worse madness if by some freak she could hurt one of their

captors; that would mean impalement, a slow day's dying

standing astride a sharpened stake rammed up the anus. And

not just for her; the Draka believed in collective punishment, to

give everyone a motive for restraining the wilder spirits.

Innocents would die beside her.

The Draka laughed again, reaching out and playfully rapping

the Janissary across the knuckles with the electroprod. "Na, no

rough work with Security's property," he said. "Besides, I know

you lads; once you had your pants down you wouldn't notice even

if one of the others pulled the pin on a grenade and shoved it

where the sun don't shine. Then think of the paperwork I'd have

to do."

The dark soldier released the woman and saluted. His officer

returned the gesture, then grinned and clapped him on the

shoulder. "But no reason you shouldn't hit the Rest Center until

we're due; consider yourselves off-duty until…" He looked at his

watch "… 20:00 hours. Report to the depot then. Off you go; I

think I can handle the wild French wenches alone."

"Yaz, suh!" the serf soldiers chorused. Their clenched right

fists snapped smartly to their chests before they wheeled and left.

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S. M. Stirling - Draka 02 - Under The Yoke

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