Careering through space, a dull sub-dwarf star, Blister, orbited round its companion, the spectacularly massive, red hyper-giant, Ansel. The rarity of that unbelievably vast body of fast-burning hydrogen was equal only to its precariousness, for such massive stars were prone to dangerous nova-like collapse. More than half of the rocky bodies, held in thrall to the twin-sun's endless dance, orbited scorchingly close, less than one AU, from their parent stars; the larger ejecting massive quantities of plasma in the form of violent solar winds; the lesser, seemingly innocuous, instead produced abnormally high levels of ultraviolet radiation.

Anselhome. To see it from space, it appeared hostile, worthless and dead. Still, mankind had chosen to come here, burrowing into the regolith for protection from the deadly gaze of those suns. It might have been little more than a cold lump of rock, but the immense gravitic forces of the binary system kept the little world in a state of perpetual volcanic turmoil. Minerals from the core were compressed, heated, recombined and spewed forth continually, upwards and outwards to the desolate surface of the planet. Valuable resources for those prepared to endure the hardships necessary in order to retrieve that bounty.

Yet against all the odds, Man was not the only complex collection of amino-acids that existed on this hostile world.

Deep in the great rifts, the shattered caldera's of extinct volcanoes, life could be found. A form of lichen, that astounded astrobiologists, existed in the depths of canyons, where volcanic gasses formed a trace atmosphere; sheltered in shadow and smoke, pushing the boundaries of evolutionary possibility, Xanthoria Radiodurans flourished.

The presence of human life had only served to benefit Anselhome's only native organism. Mining and refining added still more gasses and particulate to the thin atmosphere, while the waste, carved from the tunnels and cast aside by the inhabitants, provided ideal raw materials and shelter on which the Lichen could thrive.

In recent years, military demands on Anselhome had led to more surface construction than there had ever been before. Artificial magnetic fields, generated in order to protect these structures and the people and equipment they contained, also provided perfect conditions for the blackish-orange Xanthoria, known to the inhabitants as 'Rock-rust,' to grow.

In a matter of months, 'Rock-rust' had been transformed from a marvel of the endurance of life, to nothing more than a terribly tenacious weed. It broke down the outer structure of walls and roofs, risking their atmospheric integrity; it thrived on warm pipes and vents where water vapour condensed and evaporated. From there it spread steadily, interfering with vital life support functions.

Oberseer Vreck believed that tidiness and order bred obedience. He also believed in fighting like with like. Armed with scrapers, sledges and shovels, the most stubborn and troublesome of his prisoners were forced into the laborious and dangerous task of ridding the base of Rock-rust. It could be dangerous work. When Blister was obscured by Ansel, the levels of ultraviolet radiation dropped to safer levels for the workers. However there was always the risk of a catastrophic flare from Ansel, damage to the sub-standard suits they were made to wear, rust-rot and, of course, simple victimisation by those soldiers set to guard them. Amongst these unfortunate labourers, Oriene now toiled.

Scrape, Scrape, Shovel, Dump. Scrape, Scrape, Shovel, Dump. The repetitive task absorbed all of her attention, she lacked the energy to do much more. There was no escape from Anselhome, only misery, malnourishment and endless monotony. With her jaw set firm, helmet misted with her sour breath, Oriene concentrated on getting through another day. She did not wish to be put back to work in the refinery.

She was currently working on the lower spike of a sensor or communications relay. Every bit of stone and steel had to be scrubbed down daily to prevent the build up of Rock-rust. If the conditions were right, within a single day, a patch of the hardy lichen could easily spread itself over several feet. It proved impervious to most chemical cleaning agents, the only real way to control it was by physically removing the stuff from wherever it was not wanted. 
The suit's ancient comm-relay crackled and hissed in her ear.

All remedial citizens return Home. Report to your designated community-facilitator.

Decontamination procedures will be followed by one hour of reorientation. Deviance from proscribed treatments will be punished. Glory to Governor Stane! Glory to the Confederacy!

Like a zombie, Oriene dropped her tools onto the sled, dragging it back across the ruddish surface towards the incinerator chute, into which she tipped her days efforts. At the mouth of the access tunnel, a guard took their equipment from them, inspecting it closely to make sure nothing had been tampered with or removed, before ushering them down the steps and into the air-lock.

Within the facility, they stripped out of their suits, placing them in the trolley driven by a blank-faced colonist in grey overalls, before stepping into the decontamination tank. Though she kept them closed, the chemical spray stung Oriene's eyes and the inside of her nose. On stepping out, they were dispassionately inspected by another colonist, marking each 'Remedial Worker' off on his data-slate, before dressing in their community clothing. The men were given a dull orange jump-suit. The women, a matching pastel-yellow blouse and a knee length skirt. They also wore checked kerchiefs to cover their proscribed, shoulder-length hair, while the men wore a form of orange flat-cap over their crew-cuts.

At first glance, Oberseer Vreck's 'Angels-Home Community' did not appear like a conventional prison, either civilian or military. At the very worst, it appeared like the cheapest form of down-port travellers hotel, or the headquarters of some demented cult. The walls were cheerfully coloured, according to which part of the facility you happened to be in. The refectory and reorientation areas were green, apartments were a light blue, corridors were a rosy pink and work-areas were orange or yellow. Every wall was decorated, either with holo-screens that churned out Confederacy Propaganda, or with 'inspirational' art-works – bland, stylised tableaux and brash militant sculpture. Every area also sported the framed, benevolent, smiling face of the Oberseer and the stern gaze of the newly-appointed Governor Stane.

Oberseer Vreck believed in reform, he believed that difficult citizens could be re-educated as productive members of the Confederacy. If they could not be re-educated, they could be intimidated, if not intimidated they could be punished and, if punishment failed...one more body would not be noticed. There were ten 'Villages,' each consisting of a hundred 'Remedial Citizens' and led by a 'facilitator' who reported directly to the Oberseer. The villages were masterminded by Vreck, designed as model Confederacy homes. Each bloc consisted of a common area surrounded by ten, two room apartments. Each apartment was assigned to one man and one woman. They were expected to live together as though they were married. Abuse and injustice were rife, emphasised still further by the apparent benevolence of the community environment; for almost anything could bring a penalty in Angels-Home, from taking a 'Negative Attitude' to stealing food, to outright insubordination. Maintaining the appearance of a 'Normal Life' as proscribed by the Oberseer's 'Code of Values,' was vital. If a man appeared too weak, or a woman too wilful, there were always consequences. For those that remained impenitent, there was always work in the mines, the refinery, or at the incinerator facility.

Everyone in Angels-Home knew nobody returned from the Incinerator.

When she had first been discharged from the Infirmary, Oriene had soon found her way to both the mines and the refinery. What remained of her shattered spirit was ground down, piece by piece, like so much ore. She found little or no solidarity in Angels-Home. The inmates were scared and paranoid. As well as punishment, there were rewards for those that informed on their fellows. After one, daring escape attempt and then nearly killing her first 'husband,' there was little fight left in her by the time she returned from her second stint in the Mines, but she would've surely found her way to the incinerator facility if it had not been for Vasily. He treated her with quiet respect and, though they were assigned to the same apartment, he never attempted to take liberties with her.

"Not worth the trouble” he had said, and Oriene had smiled, genuinely, for the first time since her arrival.

Vasily was an unassuming figure, silent and sallow faced, the thin stubble of his hair greying slightly. Despite being over six feet, he managed to go relatively unnoticed, even his manner of speaking involved a personal mastery of understatement. Had he been cruel, or even kind, Oriene might not have survived in Angels-Home. As it was, his obfuscatory aura soon wore off on his new 'wife.' Vasily had suppressed all personal feelings long ago. He turned a blind eye to the oppression within the camp, but he also never sold a single person out for any reason. Once, in their apartment, she had commended his integrity, but he only laughed quietly and shook his head, his eyes darting warningly to the picture of Vreck that gazed at them, benevolently, from the far side of the room. So Oriene learned to be cautious and detached; later, in return, she would teach him how to hope again. He never talked about his past, but something in his demeanour suggested to her that he had lost pretty much everything that he had held dear. It was no wild guess, almost everybody in Angels-Home had a similar story to tell. She gathered that he had been some sort of engineer but, barring that, she could get nothing out of him.

It had been nearly two months since Oriene had been repatriated to 'Humility' Village. She had regained some strength, though the rations they received barely kept the inmates on the right side of starvation; it helped to prevent resistance and, she supposed, to provide extra motivation for potential informers. Rolph Bolsson was the Facilitator assigned to Humility. He was a corpulent individual, existing in stark contrast to the anaemic frame of the Oberseer, it was obvious that he himself never went hungry. It was Facilitator Bolsson's habit to sing rousing sweordish songs as he went about his duties. Even when his decisions condemned someone else to death, he maintained a cheerful disposition. Right now he was whistling to himself as his 'charges,' as he liked to call them, lined up for inspection. Like the others, Oriene stared blankly ahead, exhausted from her day's labour. She ignored his ludicrous polemics, the lascivious looks he cast the women and even at the youngest boy, Carl, who shifted uncomfortably from toe to toe as the Facilitator's gaze crawled over him.

"We Haf a good day today, yes? The Oberseer is so fery pleased with you, we are to be treated to a fiewing of a new holo about Gofenor Stane's glorious military career! Naturally, it will be in Pure Sweordish, so I hope you haf all been practising! Are we all smiling? Good!”

It hurt to smile, but they knew they had no other choice.
------------------------------------------------------

The next day, Oriene was assigned a solo-clean by Facilitator Bolsson. One of the large waste chutes serving the entire colony had started to develop rock-rust. Along with a guard assigned to watch her, she travelled very close to the lowest levels of the complex, where vast caves and canyons were used to dump all the waste Anselhome produced. Below this, lay only the Incinerator and the geo-thermal plant from which nearly all the settlement's power was derived. It was a primitive but effective power source. The poor prospectors who first made their homes in the glare of Ansel and Blister found that utilising the volcanic energy beneath them was far cheaper than the construction and maintenance required for a standard fusion reactor.

Waste Chute Fourteen protruded from mid-way along the Great Gorge and about half a kilometre up one of its sheer sides. The emergency hatch for the chute was five hundred metres up yet again, as the chute was maintained in the near-vacuum of the planet's surface, it had to be accessed via an airlock. After checking its integrity, Aurora was ushered in to the airlock by the guard with a wave of his carbine. She ignored his dumb, leering expression as she stripped down to her underwear in order to put on the antique suit stashed in the storage-locker.

“No more than two hours,” he warned. “Or there'll be consequences...” She nodded dumbly. “Don't keep me waiting, babe...” he grinned, pulling the lever which sealed the door with a definitive hiss.

Checking her tools were secured onto the safety line, Oriene let out a ragged sigh as the chamber depressurised, then hit the door release and stepped out, pushing off down into the chute.

Drifting under micro-gravity, five hundred metres down in the dark, Oriene felt as if a great weight was lifted from her temples, shoulders and chest. She was alone, utterly alone. No eyes, no cameras, no whispered voices or crackling tannoy. She felt like she was sinking into warm oil, drifting into a dream-like state until a faint tug at her waist alerted her that she had reached the end of the guard-rail. She half-hung, half floated in void. Anselhome was tidally-locked to its Primary star, thus the location for its main settlement had been the narrow rim of that irregular world, trapped in eternal sunset, or sunrise, depending how one looked at it. The Great Gorge was seven hundred kilometres long and, in places, nearly two kilometres deep. Here, at its shallowest end and on the cusp of the planetoid's light and dark sides, the bottom half of the canyon remained in near-total darkness while Waste Chute 14 hung just in the half-light above. It was enough. The bottom of the shaft was covered with Rock-rust, thriving on the warmth, waste, trace gases, and moisture that were continually ejected through it.

It took her nearly the full two hours to finish cleaning the chute. She was reluctant to return, but knew better than to delay. One good push-off from the guard rail sent Oriene upwards at a steady pace, out-with the settlement's AG-fields and unburdened by much more than his suit, a man could achieve escape-velocity with a good running jump on Anselhome.

The guard was waiting, impatiently as she re-entered the Airlock. When it had repressurised, he opened the inner door and stood, arms folded, inspecting her sweat-streaked body as she removed the vac-suit.

"Good timing... just enough for a little R & R...” he winked, stepping forward, arms outstretched. She shyed back, deliberately avoiding hostility, wearily raising her hands in supplication.

“Please... dont....” she began, but the guard simply chuckled to himself.

“Who's gonna stop me? You want to go on incinerator duty?”

“Please...just....just let me get back to Angels-home.”

“Oh, you can go home, but first you got a few other duties to peform..” he slung off his carbine and combat-jacket and began to loosen his belt. Oriene took another step back, shifting towards the door, but he backed her into the corner of the airlock, forcing her against the wall him as he frantically worked at his trousers, groping her breasts with his free hand.

“Please...” She tried again, before a rough hand was forced over her mouth.

“Minni en tala, tík!” he growled, in Sweordish.

Tears in her eyes, she struggled against his bulk, trying to pull herself away. One searching hand found the safety rail, she wrapped her arm around it as the fingers of her other hand located the emergency door release. With a sudden hiss, a blaring of warning sirens and flashing emergency lights, a roaring wind sucked her suit, the tools and the soldier's discarded equipment out into the darkness. Oriene found herself horizontal, hanging from the guard rail while her assailant let out a surprised yelp, nails clawing across her bosom as he tried to keep a hold of her sweat-slicked body. Somehow he got a hold of one of her ankles, hanging on for dear life. She panicked, if she didn't close the hatch soon, the entire area would be automatically sealed. She saw the look of terror on the guards face.

"NO! Plea...” He began, struggling to grab her free leg. She kicked as hard as she could and felt the cartilage of his nose give way beneath her heel. As his grip loosened, the pressure-differential plucked him from his place and he let out a hoarse scream, fading to a breathless gasp as he was sucked down into the airless space of Waste Chute 14.

With a groan, Oriene hit the switch as hard as she could. The door sealed and the lights and sirens ceased as the roaring and popping in her ears abated. She lay, cold, bruised and sobbing, on the hard gantry. After a time, she ran out of tears and sat, shivering silently in the corner of the access chamber. That was it. She was dead. She had killed a prison guard, there was no way they would let her out alive. Her mind raced. It was like waking from a dream by having her head dunked in icy water. Her brain was truly active for the first time in months, a situation had arisen and once again she had no choice but to take action or perish. Her teeth were chattering, so she pulled out the other suit from the locker and put it on, feeling its internal heating elements warm her half-frozen flesh. She needed to find the body, make it look like an accident.

It was her only hope.

Finding her attacker's body and the missing suit took longer than she thought. Once in the gloom of the canyon floor, she had only a small circle of illumination from the helmet's lights with which to search through the rubbish and debris. Eventually she located him, he lay crumpled over some old, burnt out piece of equipment, puffy flesh frozen stiff, his eyes crystallised and bloodshot. She stripped the body, unceremoniously, replacing the guard's uniform with the suit she found near by. Before replacing the helmet, she smashed it on the blackened edge of the machinery. Satisfied, Oriene was about to turn and leave, when something caught her eye. The equipment that had become her assailant's final resting place was clearly part of an old communications system. Moving his nearly-rigid leg aside, she reached down and pulled out a small piece of equipment, shining pristinely in the shell that contained it. She scrutinised it for a moment between her thumb and forefinger and then, without quite knowing why, she slipped it into her utility belt. Without another look back in the direction of the body, she ascended the cliff face, pulling herself up with silent ease.

On re-pressurising, Oriene was quick to access the airlock security log. This place was deep in the bowels of Anselhome and therefore one of the oldest parts of the city. Subsequently, the equipment was both thoroughly ancient and largely automated. it was not a stretch of the imagination that something could have malfunctioned. She altered the records to suggest that the lock had de-pressurised suddenly and of its own accord. For good measure, she placed a handful of rock-rust into the mechanism while the door remained open. When she had wiped everything down and was satisfied, she activated the emergency alarm and slumped against the bulkhead to wait.

When a security team arrived, two of the men were left to watch her while the other three suited-up and went to look for the body. Oriene was uncertain her plan would work, as she nervously fiddled with her suit, she came upon the piece of equipment she had pulled out of the wreckage in the canyon. She glanced up at the guards but they seemed more interested in their own conversation. Concealing it with her gloved hand, she cleared her throat.

“um.... would you mind if I got out of this suit and put my uniform back on? Its really hot standing about with this on inside....”

The guards bought it completely and stood there, grinning like schoolboys as Oriene removed the vac-suit and slipped her loathsome clothes back on. As she was doing so she turned her back to them, as though from modesty. She bent down to pick up the pale yellow garments, giving them a good view of her behind as she did so. Distracted, they were not looking for the device when she scooped it up along with her blouse and skirt. As she slipped them on, she concealed the cool, metal object inside her bra.

Though she was questioned repeatedly, the council of community facilitators could find no wrong doing in her actions. She told them she had been unable to open the airlock door when she returned. When the Guard was good enough to suit up and try the door manually, the de-pressurisation mechanism malfunctioned, He was sucked out, cracked his face plate on the half-open door, and narrowly missed taking her with him. Oriene thought the tears she cried, lamenting she had been too weak to hold onto him, had been particularly convincing.

Vasily was not yet returned from his work duty when she was returned to Humility Village. She wrapped the device in a strip of plastic and hid it beneath the rim of the toilet. When she was able to take a look at it, she saw her initial instincts had been correct. It was an old laser-transponder, just the sort of thing that could be used to send or receive a coded message, if one knew how. Somewhere in the back of Oriene's mind a plan was forming but, for that smouldering ember to become a flame, she knew she would need help.

Vasily and Oriene faked intercourse beneath the covers of her bunk once every week or so. Unsurprisingly, It was Vasily's idea, he didn't want their voyeuristic captors to presume him 'deviant' in any way. Oriene agreed it was the smart thing to do, though in all honesty, once she had grown used to the older man's company, she wouldn't have objected to the real thing had he tried it on, but Vasily seemed to have a sort of horror of any intimate contact at all.

No wonder... She thought, with disgust, every time she stared at her face in the mirror and the lightning-strike scar that marred it, who would want to touch me now?

At any rate, the airlock incident had dashed any such thoughts or feelings from her mind. Still shaken by her experience, she was unable to even think about playing their little game for several weeks afterwards but, on hearing what had really happened, Vasily did not insist.

Some weeks later, after they had both finished their shifts, Oriene was washing her face when she recalled the transponder and, faking sickness, leaned over the toilet-bowl and carefully extracted it from its hiding place. When she came out from the bathroom, naked and smiling, Vasily raised his eyebrows and chuckled as she nodded and slipped into bed next to him. Midway through their usual manoeuvrings and noise-making, she placed a finger to his lips and produced the device, mouthing the word Transponder. Just as quickly, it was gone. He had stopped moving and was staring open-mouthed at her in disbelief. Afraid he might give her away, Oriene clawed his back viciously, eliciting a loud cry from his lips as she pulled him close to her and whispered in his ear.

"We just need parts. two standard vac-jacks, some high-res cabling, a .2 fusion cell...."

As a 'Model Citizen,' Vasily had obtained a degree of trust. He had been put to work in one of the fabrication units where his engineering skills were considered useful and where, by virtue of his good behaviour, he had remained. Oriene knew he would know what to look for, and how to get it. He would not betray her, the gamble was simply whether he would help her or not.

She stared at him with that fierce earnestness that had lain dormant for too long within her. He was still gaping, remaining as if frozen for what seemed like minutes, though it was merely seconds before he broke into the most sincere smile Oriene had ever seen him give. Then, just as unexpectedly, he kissed her warmly on the lips.  She had her reply.

-----------------------------------------------------------

It took three weeks for Vasily to acquire all the parts, passing them on to Oriene in the shower, she had been concerned they would be damaged by the chemical sanitation or the subsequent, discomforting means by which she smuggled them back into Humility Village, but she cleaned them as best as she could, assembling them stealthily beneath the bed sheets. Sneaking them out again was relatively easy, her left hand enduring a painful ten seconds of exposure to vacuum as she removed her glove, it became so swollen that she was barely able to pull it back on after she had connected the transponder to the array. In the inspection afterwards, she blamed the bruised limb on a faulty or poorly fitted seal. The doctor present frowned in irritation, but after a cursory inspection, passed on without further questions.

She barely closed her eyes during her sleep-cycle, massaging her swollen hand and daring to believe that the Erisian distress signal might be picked up by someone still committed to the cause. On her next shift, fear gripped her. What if the transponder, or the array, were faulty? What if they had been discovered? She hacked her suit's comms, tuning them to the correct frequency, feeling a wave of relief wash over her as the familiar sequence of bleeps echoed inside the helmet's speakers.
It had worked.

Another month passed by. There was no daring rescue, no attack or prison revolt, but Oriene's toil seemed easier, her heart felt lighter than it had in a long time. That simple act of defiance, the knowledge that even now, a distress signal was beaming, travelling constantly into space at twelve million miles a minute, without the knowledge of Vreck, Stane or any of the Sweordish authorities on Anselhome, filled her with hope and bolstered her battered will.

It was in the middle of the third month after she had planted the transponder that they came for her. She and Vasily were entangled, passionately, when the door slid open and the guards stormed in, roughly pulling them apart. She struggled and screamed, but it was no use. Facilitator Bolsson stood in the door way, a cruel smile creasing his rotund features.

“Once a terrorist, always a terrorist, yes, Ungfrú Deline?”

“I don't know what you're talking about! I've done nothing wrong!” She protested, twisting futily in the guard's grip.

“Oh no?” His expression became smug as he held up the unmistakeable collection of wires and components that made up the laser-transponder.

“I've never seen that before!” She insisted. Bolsson sighed.

“Oh come come, Oriene, we know you were assigned to cleanse the array where this was found, fery clefer of you, I must say, but the game is up. I haf to say, I haf been anticipating this for some time...” He said, with unrestrained pleasure in his voice.

“No, stop!” She yelled, struggling as she was dragged towards the door, “Please...” she looked helplessly back at Vasily. He looked at her strangely, then angrily shook off the guard who was restraining him.

“Wait!” He yelled. It was the first time she had ever heard him raise his voice. "It was me. I did it.” Bolsson stopped, turning to gaze, with pitying coolness at the older man.

“I appreciate your desire to protect your woman, but I am not a fool, when haf you effer been assigned to cleansing duties? You are too faluable to us, Herra Karketchin.” Vasily matched the Facilitator's gaze, unblinking and stoic.

“Oriene didn't know what it was. How could she? She doesn't have the expertise. I built it, I tricked her; I told her it was to get a message to my family...”

“Vasily, don't do this...” Oriene began, tears forming in her eyes. He ignored, continuing to look confidently at Bolsson, who sighed.

“This is all fery touching, but I am a busy man. Take them both,” he said to the captain of the guard, “put her in the holding cell. We will interrogate him first.”

------------------------------------------------------------

Vasily was thrown, roughly back into the cell, Aurora caught him as he fell. His face was a bloody mess.

"Vasily!” She exclaimed, in alarm, cradling his prone body. After a moment, he groaned, looked up at her and smiled, revealing gaps where the guards had either knocked out or extracted several of his teeth. “You stupid frackin' Vac-head! What do you think you are doing?” She hissed, fiercely.
He frowned and pulled her close to him.

“They're probably listening..” He whispered, his lips brushing her ear. “Its no use, I've already explained that it was me. I didn't give you away. When they ask, you tell them that I broke down, said I missed my wife, Mirelle, and my boy, Sasha. I remembered you complaining about cleaning the array and you agreed to help me. Thats all you know.”

“You never told me you had a family!” She whispered, her eyes glistening. “You need to live, for them at least!” He shook his head again, smiling weakly.

“What good would it have done? They think I'm dead... it would be better for them if I was.”

“Don't say that!”

“Orrie... its too late. I will go to the Incinerator, for sure but Bolsson, he has no respect for you. Tell him exactly what I told you; he will think you were merely a weak woman, that I took advantage of your foolish, feminine sympathy. You will most likely end up in the refinery, but you will live!” She shook her head, ferociously.

“I won't leave you!” She said, determination in her voice. Vasily coughed, spitting blood and fragments of tooth.

“Then you are a fool. Please, Oriene, what will your death achieve?”

They heard the sound of footsteps approaching, the clank and whirl of the wheel-lock as the guards marched in, grabbing Oriene. She fought them, biting and screaming, but they dragged her away from Vasily.

“Oriene... if you want to help me, stay alive! If they ever let you out, find my wife and son, tell them what happened to me!” Vasily cried, one arm reached out, imploringly, towards her. Tears blurred her vision as the door was slammed shut.

In the end, she did as she had been told. He had been right, Bolsson accepted her story, sneering at her weakness and sentencing her to three month's hard labour in the refinery.

She never heard from Vasily again.

The refinery was terrible work, worse even than the mines. They worked in sweltering conditions, surrounded by a miasma of noxious fumes without any special protection, the rations they got were thinner even than those in the Angel's Home 'villages,' and they were cramped together in poorly-ventilated bunk-rooms that stank of sweat, smoke and the metallic bite of ozone. After a week, she had developed a hacking cough, after a month she suffered from dizzy spells, a near constant headache and, occasionally, blood would run from her nose. Oriene began to realise that she was unlikely to survive the refinery. She might have given up, if not for her thoughts of Vasily and what he had given up for her. Still, her strength was failing, she did not believe she could continue any longer, then the Doctor arrived.

Her salvation came one day as she was removing samples from a vat of boiling mercury. She felt sick and dizzy. Her hair had started coming out in huge clumps. She was vaguely aware of the sound of and argument near to the entrance of the refinery.

“...absolutely impossible! I assure you, Doctor, these people are perfectly well!”

“Oh yes? That isn't what this report from my predecessor suggests.”

A short man in a white lab-coat was marching down the catwalk, a look of disgust on his face as he scanned the sullen faces of the workers. They glanced up as he passed by, but as soon as they saw the Facilitator, puffing as he followed close on the white-coated man's heels, they dropped their gaze, quickly turning their attention back to their work.

“They receife the proscribed requirements for nourishment and recouperation, I haf made sure of it!” The man stopped, just metres away from the vast chemical vats over which Oriene toiled; she had paused to watch the commotion, peering over the edge of the bubbling crucible, but ducked away when they paused. The man turned on his heel to glare at Bolsson.

“Oh yes? I would argue that fifteen fatalities in six months suggests otherwise!”

“The Oberseer...” Bolsson began, but was quickly cut off.

“Oberseer Vreck, as I'm sure you know, relishes efficiency. I see nothing efficient about killing off your workers through neglect and lack of safety gear. Besides, some of these prisoners...”

“We prefer the term, 'remedial citizens'...”

“...These remedial citizens, then! Many of them have potentially useful information that may be required by the Confederacy at some point. Dead men Don't talk, Herra Bolsson!”

“You don't need to explain my job to me, Doctor Gudrunsson!” Bolsson snapped.

“Then don't tell me how to do mine! I need to inspect everyone working in this facility, including your guards, who appear to have little more protection than the workers. Vreck wants a report by tomorrow, I don't want to tell him your inefficiency led to...”

“Fine!” The facilitator said, throwing his arms in the air, “Do what you must.” He spun on his heel and marched away.

Later, they were all lined up while the Doctor examined all the workers. Standing for hours in line, Oriene began to feel light headed again. She barely felt her head strike the grimy steel floor. Lights flared in her eyes, she blinked, and suddenly she was lying on a table. She heard voices, but they sounded distant, as though over comms, or underwater.

“....its impossible! All RC's are sterilised when they are sent here! Command's official stance is that rebellious elements should be prevented from being able to reproduce!”

“...understand. Nevertheless, its true. She's three months in...”

“...issue, then? Remove it!”

When she fully regained consciousness, she was lying on a gurney-like bed, stark white lighting shining down from above. Her eye drifted round the room, gazing at the machinery next to her and the screens surrounding the bed. Her gut hurt, she looked down the length of her body, saw her belly, bloated, distorted. She screamed.

She recognised the Doctor from the facility as he rushed in, scanning her vitals quickly on the machine. She struggled upright as best she could, ripping the tubes from her arms before she felt the briefest sting in her neck and her vision blurred..

When she awoke again, her stomach was still sore, but the swelling had gone down somewhat. The Doctor was leaning over her, a look of concern on his face. He had a thick beard that neatly bisected his head into two parts, like a glass of Solmanni Stout, black and white. When he saw she had come round, he smiled, apparently relieved.

“I'm sorry about before, you panicked, it was necessary to sedate you.”

“What have you done to me....?” She began, groggily trying to struggle upright, but finding herself restrained. As she tugged at her bonds, he appeared suddenly embarrassed.

“I was afraid you might hurt yourself. Don't worry, Oriene, I'm here to help you. CCSS, right?”
She stopped struggling and stared at him before glancing around the room with suspicion.
“Its okay, its safe to talk here. No guards, bugs or recordings.”

Oriene frowned, her head was fuzzy, she found it difficult to think straight between the drugs, her own physical weakness and the pain in her stomach.

“Who are you and what have you done to me?” she said, at last.

“I'm sorry, it was necessary. You were in bad shape, as soon as I realised who you were, I had to make up some excuse to get you out of the refinery. Don't worry, the swelling will go down soon, I bloated you with saline solution to convince Bolsson of my diagnosis. He thinks you're pregnant.”

“What?!” She stared at him, incredulously but he simply shrugged.

“It was all I could think of at the time when I realised who you were. If I said it was just malnutrition and exhaustion, You would've been shot on the spot, if I claimed it was a highly contagious disaease, he would've had all the refinery workers euthanised for safety. Oberseer Vreck is a family man; his reputation would be spoiled if a pregnant woman was worked to death in his prison camp. This also gives us time, at least six more months. Long enough for you to get your strength back and for me to think of a way to get you out of here.”

“You... got my message?” She said, surprised and a little suspicious. He stared back at her with utmost seriousness from beneath his thick, dark eyebrows.

“Not everyone on Anselhome was happy about giving up to the SWC without a fight. Most of the people here are miners and prospectors, they liked their freedom but they never had to fight for it before.” he shrugged. “In the end, most of them valued their safety over their freedom. I can't blame them...” he leaned closer, almost whispering, as if he didn't quite trust his assessment of his own security. “but some of us support the Erisian cause. Don't worry, I'm going to get you out of here.”

He continued to nurse her back to health; it was important, he said, because she would almost certainly have to be transported in low-passage and in her weakened state, the chance of dying from cryomortis was high. As the months passed, and Oriene recovered, she came to know a great deal about her unlikely saviour. His name was Onund Gudrunsson, well into middle-age, yet still of such impressive stature that he looked thoroughly out of place squeezed into a lab coat. As she watched him go about his work, his slab-like hands surprisingly delicate as they stitched minor wounds and mixed formulas, she kept expecting him to explode out of his scrubs, smashing his surgery up with ape-like savagery; for all his gentleness, he seemed to have a deep-seated rage, certainly a powerful passion that better suited his physical appearance than the trappings of his trade.

He explained, in his quiet, slightly clipped Imperial, that he had always imagined being a doctor would involve helping the truly vulnerable and needy; instead, after his compulsory residency as a military doctor, he spent several years on a parochial back-water, treating bored housewives for their 'anxiety,' farming injuries and the scuffed knees and split lips of the local branch of the Sword-Scouts. He had more or less been black-balled for higher position, he said, due to his reputation, an excess willingness to give treatment to enemy combatants. When an opportunity finally arose to be part of a team performing 'relief' work on Entrope, he took it.

Oriene had grown curious when she learned that this all took place back when her parents were alive, when her icy home-world's multiple governments had still been locked in constant struggle with one-another and the Interstellar community was co-operating to bring aid to the densely populated border world. At that time, he explained, it was Confederation Policy to retain a concerned appearance in regards to Entrope; it was thought that being seen to take greater responsibility for the planet would help in legitimising their claim, should the issue of sovereignty arise again. The sudden emergence of global political awareness was unexpected and contrary to what the SWC wanted, but he had stayed, anyway, during the revolution. When the Confederation began to evacuate its citizens living on the planet, in anticipation of their 'liberation' of Entrope, Onund revealed, shamefully, that he had abandoned its people with the rest. He travelled to Winston, where he thought he might be able to continue to do some good, but as the war over the occupied territory led to further restrictions and increased surveillance, his ability to help anyone was curtailed. All doctors were expected to limit themselves to treating the military and other Sword World citizens; as it was war, and local decisions had been superceded by the military high command, sympathy to insurgents was automatically seen to be either unpatriotic or out-right subversive. Instead he used his position, as Chief Medical Officer on Winston, to feed information to the Erisian-led rebellion. When the rebels were finally crushed, he decided to apply for a transfer to Anselhome, where he had heard a rumour of the atrocious conditions that certain political prisoners were being held in. He met with people he knew to be sympathisers, arranged free care for the miners who, though recognising Sword World dominion, had none-the-less been overworked and oppressed by their occupiers, and did what he could for the prisoners of the several facilities that operated on the barren little world. Oriene's distress signal was unexpected, but it motivated him to seek a transfer to the Angel's Home 'Community.'

The plan was elegant in its simplicity. at the appointed time, Oriene was to 'die' in child-birth. A liberal application of blood and a dose of Narcosamine, the same compound used for preparing interstellar passengers for low-travel, would be sufficient to convince the Facilitator. He would want to keep it quiet, the body, like any other, would be sent to the incinerator. Someone died every other week, so switching the bodies would not be difficult, Onund explained. She was disturbed by his seemingly casual attitude to the deaths of the prisoners but, when she raised the issue, he became deathly quiet, the colour draining from his cheeks, his eyes blazing. He produced a data-slate and slapped it down in front of her.

“What's this?” she asked.

“Read it.” He said, sharply. She began with the title.

“Caged Truth: The Case for Correct and Ethical Treatment of Prisoners in Occupied Systems, by Dr. Onund Gudrunsson.”
She looked back up at him in surprise.

“How long have you been writing this?”

“Five years.” the Doctor replied, “but I've been collecting data for a long, long time. Every injustice I've had the misfortune to witness since I travelled to the Entropic Worlds is in here, along with photographic evidence, video footage and interviews with prisoners, guards, other doctors...” He sighed, as if in relief, looking down fondly at the slate in Oriene's hands, then back up at her face, she glanced in surprise between Onund and the text, her mouth moving slightly as she read.

“You know, at the very least, they'll fire you?” she said, at last, her tone gentle. He nodded.

“I handed in my notice two weeks ago. I'll be heading back to Gram to present it to the Medical Council and High Command.”

“You think they'll listen?” she asked, trying to hide the incredulous note in her voice. He shrugged.

“Probably not. Even if they did, they have little power outside of war-time but I still have to try.” He leaned over her, so she was unable to avoid his piercing gaze. “I can't save everyone, Oriene, not on my own. No-one can, but I never, ever, forget a death. They're all in here. Every last one.” He tapped the slate. “If I can't make the authorities listen, I'll try local government. I'll raise support, if I can, wherever I can, do you understand?”

There it was, that fierceness, the passion she had seen in Gudrunsson when she first spoke to him was radiating from him now. She nodded, biting her lip in embarrassment at her accusatory attitude.

“So... when will you leave?”

“The transport arriving with my replacement docks in twelve hours.”

“So soon? What about me?!”

“We'll both be on it. There was no other way I could guarantee getting you off-world.”

“but, if they catch you...”

“They won't. don't worry.” He cut her off, firmly. “Now, you should relax, I need to apply the Narcosamine now, it takes some hours to fully take effect.”

As the slow sleep began to take hold, she watched Onund, earnest as always, reviewing his report, making minor changes, finishing final paperwork. Every time he glanced in her direction, she found herself smiling and, every time she smiled, she felt her eyes grow heavier. She could hear her heart beat, and as the steady rhythm slowed, so her thoughts grew quieter, simpler and finally, stilled.

-----------------------------------------------------

Captain Trigvasson was stressed and tired. First he had a passenger, another doctor, no less, harassing and criticising him about his crew's eating habits and exercise routine. Then there was the issue of the new security codes and a whole cluster of procedures that so-called 'Governor' Stane had instituted, seemingly in less than two months. Now he had reports that one bank of his Cryo-pods had malfunctioned and jettisoned into space, just as they completed jump prep. He didn't like to factor in the cost of the loss; his only, admittedly weak, consolation, was that it would cost less than would loosing the prisoner transfer contract that he had worked so hard to secure.
Sighing, he reluctantly gave the command to jump.

Onund Gudrunsson heard the malfunction alert go-up and watched through the large porthole in the observation room as the ten pods shot away, comet-like, from the vessel's starboard side. In one of those rapidly vanishing specs of light, the Entropian girl, Oriene slept. He imagined the deep, dreamless sleep of cryostasis was exactly what the girl needed and allowed himself a slight, sad smile. It felt good to save even just one person, the Doctor reflected; if he was stripped of his rank, barred from the practise of medicine or arrested for sedition, at least one person would know what he had done, appreciate why he had done it. He hoped the tip-off to those space-jacking rogues paid off. The pod signal would activate soon, it would not be hard to find. At any rate, he prayed she would be found and would be left unharmed or rather, he imagined there was no damage a few smugglers could do to her that had not been done already.

Fly free, Oriene Madre-Deline ap Entrope. May the stars keep you safe...