Darkin 3 - Chapter 1

Chapter 1 – Bonds without Realization

The first time Pru laid his pale, darkin eyes on the human child was in the library. He’d just come inside, ranting in his head about his new responsibilities. Though the youth was past his twenty fifth year, he still had the physical maturity of a child. That was the problem with being unshed this long. He griped about that, too, as he walked. If he had shed, then he wouldn’t be stuck on Earth for the remaining seven years.

Pru consoled himself with the idea that he might shed anytime, ignoring the lack of signs. If he shed, then he could convince his younger sibling, who had long since moved on, to take him under her wing for a while. As it was, he was stuck on the first farming planet to have come up with the idea of camps.

Brought to Earth because of his ishhip’s experience with this world; kept here an extra ten years because of his domhip’s requirement to serve as camp leader. Thirteen of the twenty years passed with plodding monotony. The only positive about the whole thing was Pru’s current role helping his keptisch parent, Kelp.

Kelp, at least, took the time to understand Pru’s view of life and ker oddly mellow mood made ker Pru’s favorite. Kelp did what ke could to make their time enjoyable, but after thirteen years, nothing was enjoyable anymore. There were no other darkin children. All of the assigned personnel were either too young or too old for children his age. There were no toys; linkpads didn’t work to their full capacity, and energy to run them was limited; and the physical limits of the camp stopped Pru from being able to explore the world. Pru had been immediately reduced to barbaric hand-written notes and pathetically dull toys of this world to keep him company.

The only enjoyable pastime in the entire place was reading. Learning the nuance of languages kept him entertained despite his general disdain for the servant race. The parallels to his own darkin history often had him comparing manuscripts from both peoples, although he’d learned quickly never to bring up that topic to anyone.

The library became his favorite spot within the camp and Kelp did what he could to ensure that it was expanded often. This was his destination when he noticed the pair of tiny feet sticking out from under a plush chair.

A normal darkin, curious to the bone, Pru stopped and knelt to get a better look. The skin gave the creature away as human, but instead of white or or deep black, like he was accustomed to seeing, the child’s deep golden-brown skin held him enthralled. Pru’s pale pink eyes traced further until he could just see the edges of almost black hair. Curiosity drove him around the side of the chair where the tiny creature squeaked in fear and tried to squirm away. She had obviously taken a bit of time to burrow herself into her hiding place and only managed to extricate herself part of the way before she was solidly stuck.

At the sound of her piteous cry, something inside the darkin child shifted. “I will not hurt you.”

Pru leaned down to retrieve the book she had been looking at, judging her too young to actually read the thick volume, and felt a tremor of surprise as he turned it over. It was a darkin volume; children’s stories complete with illustrations. She must have been pouring over the details of the images. Pru couldn’t blame her. The artist for this particular volume was a friend of his family and Pru had watched him paint into each image a level of detail seemed impossible.

“Please. I’m sorry. I didn’t hurt it.” Her tiny voice was a whisper, oval eyes filled with fear.

Pru knelt further, pushing his long limbs underneath himself as he looked at her. “What is your name?”

“Amelia.”

“Your face is unfamiliar.” Kelp had responsibility over the servant labor pools and though she was too young to be of much use, Pru should have at least seen her.

Amelia’s head dropped to the ground and she began sobbing in earnest. Looking around, fearful of being overheard, Pru gathered her into his arms and hurried for the cover of his room. No one would bother him in his room. Most of the adults tried to pretend he didn’t exist anyway.

“Amelia, calm down.” Pru made it a command and, surprisingly, she started to quiet. “Why are you crying?”

“I want my mommy back. The police lady said that they were gone forever and she didn’t want to turn me over to the camps but she had to. You’re going to eat me, aren’t you?”

Pru’s jaw hung, but he clamped his mouth closed, afraid his teeth would only add to her concern. “Humans are not part of our diet anymore, who told you that?”

“The boy told me. He said I’ll be first because I’m little.”

Pru put an awkward hand on her tiny shoulder. “No. You will not be eaten. Be obedient and you should be fine.”

Amelia wiped away a dirty tear with her shirt sleeve. The smudge that was left behind accented her deep eyes. Pru felt something shift inside him again—a strange connection—he wanted her to be safe.

Shaking his head against the feeling, the young darkin turned away. “You need to bath. When did you arrive? Where have you been sleeping?”

“I don’t know.”

She was too young. He had to remind himself of that. Pru had a strange urge to brush the long lock of tangled hair from her face but he ignored it. “Well, we need to get you bathed and find you a proper bed. I think the children’s wing is full right now, but we have a few moving into the adult wing soon to start working. For now, you can sleep on my floor, but you have to be utterly silent.” He held a finger to her lips and made his face as intimidating as possible.

Amelia’s face lit up with a smile, “You’ll protect me?”

Grudgingly, Pru nodded, “I’ll do what I can, but in exchange you must listen to everything I tell you to do.”

Her tiny head bobbed enthusiastically making the unshed child wonder what he’d gotten himself into. Shaking his head, he turned and picked up the book he’d accidentally taken from the library. “Do you know how to read?”

Her face fell.

Laughing, the darkin boy folded himself once more and gestured for her to come closer. “I’ll teach you.”

At least this would provide a diversion for a while. Maybe he could even improve her worth and gain a little praise from his domhip for once.

* * *

David dropped to his knees. He couldn’t blink. The sounds of gasps and slight uproar around him were lost in the pounding of his own heart. How was this possible? The moment replayed like a hall of mirrors reflecting back at him with a vile triumph:

“This is the third time you have stood in my courtroom for the same offense. Do you think that our legal system is something to be mocked? You have served two years in jail and have done countless hours of service for your crimes and yet you have learned nothing!”

David rose, trying one last time to defend himself despite the warning coming from his legal representation, “Your honor, you don’t understand. I didn’t do it this time. I was framed.”

“Framed?” The judge glared down at him, white wig hanging rumpled over one shoulder, “Framed by whom? For what gain? When you were a child it was overlooked with mild warnings, but you are a man now. There is no excuse for petty thieving.”

“I didn’t!” David had no witnesses to defend him; no proof of any kind, and the pattern was too strong to ignore. “I swear to you that I learned my lesson. I have worked honestly.”

“Yes, your work history has been entered into evidence, but you were fired more than three weeks ago and can show no other legitimate work since that time.” The judge shook his head. “Enough. Your guilt is undeniably obvious. For one such as you, there is really only one option left to us. We have tried every method of rehabilitation known in our legal system. If you will not learn on your own, then there is nothing more we can do for you.”

What did that mean?

The judge knocked his gavel against the hard wood of his pulpit to calm the slight stir in the crowd. “You, David Loftridge, are hereby sentenced to the darkin camp. You have proven that you cannot live among your own species without breaking the laws. We shall see how you fare in their care.”

The gavel pounded three more times, but David no longer heard it. Other countries had begun using the darkin’s ten-year call as incentive for obedience, but not France. The camps dotted Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Africa. No one knew what happened inside, but going in was a death sentence of sorts.

David, like the rest of the world, understood that the darkin were a race to be feared. With ships larger than Corsica; they could take millions of humans as if it didn’t faze them in the least; they disappeared into empty space and all attempts to track them failed. For fifty years the darkin had been pillaging slaves from the planet, but only in the last ten had Earth settled on a way to meet the quotas without alienating and creating massive unrest among their respective people.

The camps.

The camps had started as voluntary, but as soon as the darkin caught wind of it they took over, effectively cutting off control. The initial volunteers were generally the aged or infirmed. They either sought for freedom from the disease and pain or saw it as a way to save their loved ones from a fate worse than death.

There were rumors that humans came back, but so far as David knew, only one human had ever returned and the recorded footage from someone’s cellphone showed that her escape was both short-lived and brutally dealt with. The escapee was identified as an orphan taken ten years previous, but she hadn’t aged a day. She’d been overjoyed at the thought of freedom. Putting those facts together had given Earth an odd sense of disquiet. That they could torture us was already known, but the level of that torture had not been fully understood until the footage was released. She fought back, damaging both guards, in her bones snapped audibly, and they growled and hissed over her as she begged for mercy.

David stared at his hands. The calluses he had so recently acquired seemed to mock him. Six months of excruciating work to avoid the very judgment he was facing anyway. That time could have been spent like he had always spent it: he could have been idle and made more money; he could have been lazy and eaten ten times better. If this was the price for living by the rules, he could understand why some of his friends mocked him for even trying.

By the sheer numbers that were taken every ten years, David wouldn’t live long. Replenishment was the most likely use for so many.

A hand touched his shoulder and he pulled away, expecting darkin fingers and a pale green face. The officer he face watched him warily. His eyes were cold and gave warning as he stepped closer.

Was death a better option? It was a valid option. All he needed to do was fight a bit and they were sure to just shoot him, but was that what he really wanted? His mind moved sluggishly. He needed time to grasp this but time was not in his favor. Multiple officers closed in, prepared for a fight.

For the first time in more than twelve years, David wanted to just sit and sob. As overwhelming as it was, he’d never let that show. The shock of the verdict overwhelmed every other sense.

David pulled away from a second officer as he came into range and then from a third. They had him surrounded. Should he fight? He had street smarts and some training, but maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. He could always seek death later. Like the woman who escaped all those years ago, he could try that route. There was little doubt that she’d been killed for her attempts.

Yet the unknown was terrifying. It was almost easier to accept death now rather than walk into that path. Countless volumes had been written about what the darkin were capable of; what torture they could inflict; what possibilities for slavery existed. Each one was more gruesome and descriptive than the last. The horror attached to that fiction was now attached to the darkin themselves in most minds. David was no exception.

With a quick turn of thought, he began to fight. David toppled the table into the room, scattering two of the officers. His lawyer’s papers spilled in every direction and the lawyer himself sprawled backwards away from the fight, eyes wide, glasses askew. He looked at David with pitying horror. David could almost imagine that he would have fought too had the same sentence been given to him.

David kicked again in the opposite direction landing his heel directly into the gut of one officer. The man turned green and stumbled backward. Two others took his place pulling out clubs as they came.

“Stop fighting.”

“I’m innocent. You sentence an innocent man to a lifetime of slavery. You will all burn in hell for this!” As he screamed the final words, the group of officers rushed in as a unit, burying him in bodies. David’s head cracked against the tile floor sending his senses reeling.

The world spun as he continued to struggle, but it was over quickly with him in chains. Still he fought them as they led him from the room. No one said a word.

The group of officers dragged him to a waiting transport and shoved him inside. The container rocked as he hit the back wall. Two other men sat chained to the sidewall. They watched with benign expressions. Perhaps they had already fought and lost; perhaps they didn’t know the destination of this truck. Either way the officers closed and sealed the door and that was the end of that.

As David’s panic rose, he cursed his parents for dying. All of this had started with their death. Left alone in the world he had no other choice except petty thievery. The unfortunate part was his age. Too young to work, too old to be considered by any of the urchin gangs. Instead, he was an outcast picked on by both sides. The difficulty had made him strong. He didn’t rely on anyone because no one could be trusted. The best thing was to take advantage of everything and everyone. If an opportunity presented itself, he took it. He’d even survived in jail with this method. Except that he had made enemies along the way, and apparently one hated him enough to do something about it.

David fought back his frustration. Whatever happened he would stay true to the ideals that had served him well over the years. He would find every advantage. Use it all to carve out a place. This time, he would try to avoid enemies, but that was the only promise he made. Everything else was up for grabs.