Page 12 of Mutant Mine

During my years imprisoned on Earth, I knew that there was no safe way for my brothers to rescue me. False hope is a fool’s game, and I am no fool. So, I put all thoughts of freedom from my mind, and did what was necessary to survive in that particular… ecosystem.

But this transportation through deep space is a single weak point in the vast mechanism of justice — and weakness creates opportunity. Exactly the sort of opportunity that my brothers will have been waiting for.

They would never have been able to retrieve me from a fortified Earth prison. But a ship like this, crewed by weak, stupid men who rely on the strength and intelligence of their machines? A ship all alone, so far out in uninhabited space?

Perhaps the time has come to indulge in a foolish dream or two.

It does not seem so foolish, since I find that my cell is open, and I can step outside.

* **

THE MEN AREpanicking, running like cockroaches, all through the ship. I can feel their small vibrations.

These prisoners have become acclimatized to violence and fear. Many speak no other language now. The ones who are marauding through the corridors, leaving a trail of blood behind them, do not concern me. But others — just a few — are standing still, taking stock, thinking. They are the ones I will need to take care of.

It should not be difficult to place myself in control. I expect the marauders will kill the Captain soon; a fine trophy for them. And once he is gone, there is unlikely to be another man aboard except me who knows how to pilot a government starship. Who will say no to the only leader who can fly them to freedom?

But first, I must deal with another matter: the little bird.

Officer Finch.

I knew at once that she was a woman. It is so long since I have seen beauty of any kind. And she spoke with the condemned men; gave them her name, as if they were human beings just like any other.

Why is she here?I thought.What a brave, stupid little bird.

I have been painfully aware of her presence ever since. It is a new, uncomfortable feeling… It aches in my chest and needles at the edge of my consciousness, as if I have misplaced something important.

There is so much about my own mutated DNA that I do not understand. Does this strange, urgent hunger come from the unearthly half of me? Am I drawn to her by some quirk of my biology? Or am I just a man, with the desires of a man?

Either way, it is infuriating. Ridiculous, even. I have seen the emotion in her face every time she looks at me. Shecannot help but look, but I do not pretend that her gaze holds anything except fear and revulsion.

I wondered, just for a moment, when I stripped naked and saw how she stared… But that was only morbid curiosity. She will never have seen a creature like me before. No one has.

She fears me because of that oaf’s death, too. She spoke to me in a tone of such disgust:

“What did you do?”

I wished to answer her:Nothing. I did nothing to him, except tell him the truth.

Respect is powerful currency in prison. It is how you avoid having to fight every day to stay alive. On Earth, my peace was hard-won: the early days of my sentence were brutal, so that all the days which followed could be calm. But if the men heard that they could disrespect me as openly as Zoriandor did, without repercussions, I would have lost that peace. I would have been forced to buy it back with blood.

So I whispered to him that when we met in the mines of Chronus, with no barriers between us, I would have no choice but to make an example of him. A painful, public death, for all to see.

How much better might it be to die quickly, in the privacy of his cell?

It truly was the kinder end to his story. And it meant that I would not need to prove myself again once I arrived on Chronus. Word would already have spread that I could kill a man without ever laying a finger on him.

The little bird did not understand any of that.

But this is not the moment to reflect on the dark water between us. Here and now, Finch is indanger.

The air rolls and shifts over my skin. I cannot see in the dark, any more than a normal man — but I can hear and feel vibrations so sensitively that the ghost of an image forms inmy mind.

There are bodies all around us. Many are moving fast. Two are standing still, alert. Another, smaller figure is frozen in place.

“Where’s the other guard?” says one man to the other. “He must be here somewhere.”

At the sound of their words, I can feel a cry trembling in the girl’s chest, ready to burst out. She is beginning to draw breath already, although she may not even know it herself.

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