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Authors: Edwina Currie
Tags: thriller
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The dark-skinned man backed away, his face working. Outside the sun blazed; in the dank hospital, the air hung chill with death.
He waved helplessly at the flies that buzzed over the corpse. Already the orderly was disconnecting the drip lines; what remained on the stained bed was a disintegrating collection of organic molecules, not a human being.
Yet this had been his friend, someone he had learned to trust, to care about. That had been against the odds; for a prison official to befriend an inmate was most unusual, and probably forbidden. Even here in Kashi, on the edge of the unknown, somewhere between the borders of the enlarged Union and the vast brooding might of China.
Not that he, Ranjit Singh Mahwala, was the usual run of warder, any more than the dead man was a typical convict. His friend had been a cool, dedicated man, a political prisoner, who had lifted the lids on Ranjit’s eyes and guided him as to the true nature of the programme, the Union, and what its leaders were attempting to do. Those discussions, under cover of prisoner re-education, had been a revelation. Answers had been summoned for many of the tangled dilemmas in the Sikh’s brain: not least, the white child born of his brother’s wife, and the pinch of green powder that was added to every prisoner’s daily diet.
And then this man, with his tattooed thumb, his whimsical smile and his passion for truth, had sickened; here in the desert steppes the latest medical science did not reach, though genuine efforts had been made. But saving a lifer was hardly a top priority. Only one blood transfusion had been sanctioned by the Minister and it had been insufficient. Ranjit suspected that the prisoner’s name was significant. He was obviously a high-bred NT and had once, he told Ranjit, been in government himself. They were probably happy to see him dead.
Who would mourn? Not the hospital staff. Not the other guards. Indeed, he would have to hide his own grief. He was surprised he felt so bitter, both over the loss and the discoveries, those insights he had gained in recent months from the dead man.
The corpse was being stripped. In the grey indoor light it lay waxy and limp. At the small of the back was the partly healed scar, a purple crescent, over the kidney area. That had been the cause of it. And Ranjit was certain no permission had been given.
Suddenly a terrible misery flooded his soul. If he returned to duty and carried on as before, he would be perpetuating the system that had given rise to such wrong-doing. He was a trained soldier, allocated to the furthermost ends of the Union’s empire; he had believed implicitly in his role as a peace-keeper. Attending to the prison had not been in his original brief, but the shortage of staff willing to serve in this godforsaken spot had required it. So he had obeyed orders, as he always did.
Not any more.
A blindness seized him: a fury, a self-hatred and loathing the like of which he had never before experienced. With a choked cry he fled from the ward and, once outside, climbed into his hoverjeep and shoved it roughly into gear. It rose, shivered, and flew off, leaving a cloud of dusty particles in its wake.
And when he saw the wall ahead of him, he did not waver or turn aside, but opened the throttle as full as it would go, and prayed for forgiveness.
Lisa woke with a start, her eyes staring from their sockets, her heart pounding. What was that?
In the distance the faint unearthly scream lingered, the echo of a ghostly cry from somewhere across the ether.
Or perhaps it had been only in her mind.
She let her body flop back, quivering all over. The sheets were limp with sweat; she must have been tossing hotly for ages. She scrabbled to retain the distorted visions that, seconds before, had seethed in her head, but they were like dew in the dawn, barely visible and insubstantial, and slowly vanished.
A child; a baby. Nothing so strange about that. She had dreamed about
The dark-skinned man backed away, his face working. Outside the sun blazed; in the dank hospital, the air hung chill with death.
He waved helplessly at the flies that buzzed over the corpse. Already the orderly was disconnecting the drip lines; what remained on the stained bed was a disintegrating collection of organic molecules, not a human being.
Yet this had been his friend, someone he had learned to trust, to care about. That had been against the odds; for a prison official to befriend an inmate was most unusual, and probably forbidden. Even here in Kashi, on the edge of the unknown, somewhere between the borders of the enlarged Union and the vast brooding might of China.
Not that he, Ranjit Singh Mahwala, was the usual run of warder, any more than the dead man was a typical convict. His friend had been a cool, dedicated man, a political prisoner, who had lifted the lids on Ranjit’s eyes and guided him as to the true nature of the programme, the Union, and what its leaders were attempting to do. Those discussions, under cover of prisoner re-education, had been a revelation. Answers had been summoned for many of the tangled dilemmas in the Sikh’s brain: not least, the white child born of his brother’s wife, and the pinch of green powder that was added to every prisoner’s daily diet.
And then this man, with his tattooed thumb, his whimsical smile and his passion for truth, had sickened; here in the desert steppes the latest medical science did not reach, though genuine efforts had been made. But saving a lifer was hardly a top priority. Only one blood transfusion had been sanctioned by the Minister and it had been insufficient. Ranjit suspected that the prisoner’s name was significant. He was obviously a high-bred NT and had once, he told Ranjit, been in government himself. They were probably happy to see him dead.
Who would mourn? Not the hospital staff. Not the other guards. Indeed, he would have to hide his own grief. He was surprised he felt so bitter, both over the loss and the discoveries, those insights he had gained in recent months from the dead man.
The corpse was being stripped. In the grey indoor light it lay waxy and limp. At the small of the back was the partly healed scar, a purple crescent, over the kidney area. That had been the cause of it. And Ranjit was certain no permission had been given.
Suddenly a terrible misery flooded his soul. If he returned to duty and carried on as before, he would be perpetuating the system that had given rise to such wrong-doing. He was a trained soldier, allocated to the furthermost ends of the Union’s empire; he had believed implicitly in his role as a peace-keeper. Attending to the prison had not been in his original brief, but the shortage of staff willing to serve in this godforsaken spot had required it. So he had obeyed orders, as he always did.
Not any more.
A blindness seized him: a fury, a self-hatred and loathing the like of which he had never before experienced. With a choked cry he fled from the ward and, once outside, climbed into his hoverjeep and shoved it roughly into gear. It rose, shivered, and flew off, leaving a cloud of dusty particles in its wake.
And when he saw the wall ahead of him, he did not waver or turn aside, but opened the throttle as full as it would go, and prayed for forgiveness.
Lisa woke with a start, her eyes staring from their sockets, her heart pounding. What was that?
In the distance the faint unearthly scream lingered, the echo of a ghostly cry from somewhere across the ether.
Or perhaps it had been only in her mind.
She let her body flop back, quivering all over. The sheets were limp with sweat; she must have been tossing hotly for ages. She scrabbled to retain the distorted visions that, seconds before, had seethed in her head, but they were like dew in the dawn, barely visible and insubstantial, and slowly vanished.
A child; a baby. Nothing so strange about that. She had dreamed about
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