Keshona Far Freedom Part 1

surround me now. If I can somehow get you to help me." Fidelity paused. "However, I understand that would likely put you in great danger. The Fleet may punish you for failing to report our location to them. I don't want that to happen."

  "Jeepers, Ruby, darlin'! Lighten up! It ain't the end of the universe just yet. You still gotta go potty, ain't you?"

  "Immediately, if not sooner."

  "Keep on moving, then! If you came through a gate then you're important people! How would the Fleet be chasing you? Most of the time they just try to scare the crap outta you. Must be some kind of misunderstanding." Olivier stopped. "Put the kid down for a moment and step into my office over here." He led Fidelity to the far side of a pile of boxes. "Did the bastards rape you, Ruby? I can arrange some severe punishment through a few senior officers I know."

  "They never touched me, Olivier."

  "Then what...?"

  "I must have humiliated them. I took their guns away and knocked one unconscious. I was certain they were going to kill another person who came with us from Earth. I am... quite able, Olivier, to protect myself, but I can't always predict consequences. You must turn me in. Forget the astronomy request."

  Olivier remained shocked and silent for a few moments until thoughtfulness replaced the shock. He seemed to resume speaking in the middle of his thoughts. "Yeah, well, Tough Guys can be really obnoxious and so deserving of punishment. You on the level, Ruby? I can't quite imagine you doing anything violent."

  "I'm not lying to you! I don't want to be responsible for anything happening to you! I already have enough blood on my hands."

  "I ain't gonna doubt you, Ruby. You just kinda caught me by surprise. Let's take it one thing at a time. To the toilet first."

  Fidelity was grateful Olivier seemed so calm and rational. They rejoined Rafael and Samson and walked more slowly for Rafael's benefit.

  "You said you used to be a 'Tough Guy,' Olivier?" she asked. "Did you ever crew one of the Fleet ships?"

  "Made one trip," he said proudly. "Just a kid. Thought I was real tough."

  "Can you tell me why the ships seem to jump?" she asked.

  "Where did you see the Fleet? That's supposed to be impossible!"

  The memory had returned to her more than once when she spoke the name of the lost ship - Titanic - to herself. Fidelity had begun to retain most of the details. "A long time ago I saw them attack a big ship. I counted about ten thousand small spherical ships! They could appear and disappear like magic. After studying the images I recorded, I decided the ships could jump from point to point in space, covering great distances instantly."

  "Jeepers! There hasn't been a sortie that big for over two hundred years!"

  "It was a ship called the Titanic. I had friends aboard her. There was nothing left when the Fleet departed."

  "You saw the Titanic raid?" Olivier stopped again to face Fidelity. "Nobody lives that long! Not even Union people. My ancestors, seven or eight generations back, came on the Titanic!"

  "Does everybody in Oz come from Union space?" she asked.

  "Darn near. Over two hundred years! Jeepers! This might change a few things," he added cryptically.

  Olivier led them to the toilet facilities. When they came out, a large crowd of Olivier's fellow workers had gathered to stare at them, all of them wearing the drab gray coveralls of laborers. Most, but not all of them, suffered obvious physical disabilities. Fidelity had cleaned the yellow dress as well as she could and now wore it again. She carried Percival's loaned clothing neatly folded. She held one of Samson's hands, Rafael held the other. She looked for uniformed officers of the Fleet but saw none. Olivier gave her an appreciative inspection and gestured to follow him through the crowd. They entered a cafeteria and the crowd of perhaps a hundred came in behind them and took seats.

  Olivier climbed onto a table to address the assembled warehouse workers. "Lookouts posted? Good. Shut up and listen!" The workers eventually settled down, with a little help from other men who received hand signals from Olivier. "Ok, let me repeat a few things, to make sure the late arrivals and the lame-brained all have the right information. This young lady - which, it turns out, ain't as young as she looks - took out two lieutenants just a few hours ago. Now that I see her bare shoulders, I see she ain't no weakling. News from the sups' warning net says she disarmed both tough guys before they could pull a trigger. Now, some of you newer guys may take her actions the wrong way. You may still feel like you're in the Fleet, just taking a break from all the fun. You can go on believing that. I know why you feel that way, and I know you're lying to yourselves. Do whatever you feel you should, if you dare. I think we veterans of being broken and damn-near useless should feel admiration and respect for this lady. We've had time to think on our past lives and ambitions and sort of put things into better perspective. Because we're broken, we don't fit into our old life of sups or our second life as Fleet. We aren't liked by either bunch. In fact, we don't have much of a life. Don't know what we'd do without our music... Anyway, I know I have a kind of special feeling for Ruby, and for this moment in time. Additional big fact: she says she actually saw the Titanic Raid!"

  The quiet men erupted into a loud babble of angry voices, most of them obviously disbelieving what Olivier had told them. Olivier waited a few moments then held up his arm and waved for attention and silence. When they ignored him, Olivier signaled for his helpers in the crowd to urge the others to get quiet.

  "It ain't impossible!" Olivier shouted at the quieted men. "This lady is from the Union, where they have Mnro Clinics. Maybe it's improbable. But how did she even know that the Titanic was taken out by our ships? Which, by the way, she described exactly! She and her friends came here through a gate. You know that nobody but very special people can use a gate. So, they're special to somebody and I can only think of one possibility."

  The men erupted loudly again but sounded different, not as angry, but still argumentative. Fidelity was unable to hear anything identifying whom Olivier suspected of sending her and the others to Oz, except the word them was repeated many times.

  "We're lucky they still feed us entertainment from the Union through a gate," Olivier continued when quiet returned. "So, ask yourselves why she is here. It could be a really big thing for everyone. I don't mean you should all get religion. But it might be a good time to think about your own miserable lives, all the mistakes you made, all the good choices you could never make because you never had a chance to make them. And I ain't telling you what's a good choice and what's a bad choice here. Sometimes you got to go with your gut and hope to get lucky. I, for one, am feeling real lucky today! This is one beautiful day! I ain't turning her over to the Fleet!"

  Olivier made a fist with his one hand and shook it before stepping down. After a second of dead silence someone gave a whoop and bedlam erupted from the crowd of gray-clothed men in the cafeteria. Fidelity scanned the crowd, and all of those she could see seemed fanatically in support of Olivier. But in support of what? She couldn't see any benefit to these men in aiding her. She could only see pain and death.

  "Do you know what you're doing?" Fidelity asked severely when Olivier came down from the table.

  "I'm hungry, Ruby! I ain't had breakfast yet. You guys want something to eat? The food ain't too bad here. I'll pay."

  "You're very kind, Olivier," she replied. "But are you just going to wait here for something bad to happen?"

  "There's strength in numbers." He smiled crookedly. "Also, we all used to be tough guys, Fleet, no good, rotten bastards. We get some respect. A lot of us even kind of miss the games. Oh, and every one of us has a weapon. So, are you hungry, too?"

  Fidelity was hungry, and Samson and Rafael also were. The food was good enough, although she could hardly think about food. Samson ate everything on his plate.

  "Music!" Olivier shouted. He was finished eating. He slammed his empty coffee cup down.

  "Music!" others echoed. Recorded music boomed from somewhere and a great number of the broken ones beg
an to sing boisterously, Olivier included. Their mood was infectious, and the cafeteria thundered with their voices. The song had many verses and the lyrics were like a pirate's anthem, the final verse ending in a shout of defiance.

  "Ah, the good old days!" Olivier sighed. "Well, maybe not that good! We always had to fight, always had to die. It gets better the farther away the memories are." He looked around at the men, all of them watching him, waiting for something. He looked back at Fidelity and cocked his head to one side, regarding her. "You know anything worth singing, Ruby? It'd be nice to hear a woman's voice around here, for a change."

  "She's a great singer!" Rafael declared.

  "Is she, now?" Olivier wondered. "Can you really sing, Ruby? Really sing? Us broken guys are tough music critics. What stuff do you sing? How about opera?"

  "I don't know about opera," Fidelity said. "I used to sing jazz and blues."

  "That's almost as old as opera, maybe older. I've got perfect pitch. Let me hear a C-major scale."

  Fidelity cleared her throat and sang the scale.

  "You've got the tubes, lady!" Olivier declared. "Do you know Un Bel Di?"

  "You're joking!" Fidelity cried, strangely shocked, both by the man's presumption and by the meaning that title had for her.

  Olivier shrugged innocently.

  Something was triggered in that lost continent that was in her mind. She took a