Tomarkus and the Betrayed Planet

3. The Mad Rush

Siren and the clamor of footsteps startled Ariet awake. He sat up, rubbing his eyes. His cell was open. Prisoners were running in the corridor outside, but towards the left this time, in the direction opposite to the Cibum-hall. Without wasting any further time, the sato came out of his cell and started searching for the kiro he had seen the previous day. All the nearby cells had been vacated and he tarried for long—as he had found the previous day, Carcerem was murderous for laggards.

Running behind the others, he took a sharp turn to the left at the end of the corridor. As he advanced, he felt feeble waves of hot air against his face every now and then. He saw a pack of fugits waiting outside an open gate. Whatever lay beyond the gate was completely obscure. Then, suddenly, a strong gust from the other side of the gate pushed him back and nearly made him fall. Ariet couldn't see anything in the dark, but he heard a sound like that of a big fan blowing air, and it was coming closer and closer.

Ariet felt propelled forward by the crowd. In front of him, prisoners were disappearing into the dark beyond the gate. Where were they going?

A wild hope filled him: was MOX going to let them all go free because of dueso shortage? There was only one way of finding out. He followed the others into the dark.

Soon, he found himself on a quivering platform. He was standing over an elevator, which had a massive fan at the base for thrust. The platform, carrying nearly 40 prisoners, started speeding upwards, its force pressing them into its base. The elevator rose in a long vertical tunnel that was pitch dark. The tunnel was a direct route connecting the two extremes of Hydus—Carcerem and Mortem.

Hydus, a gigantic multi-story city, home to all fugits except MOX officials, was built entirely beneath the ground and descended in stories deep below the desert. Mortem, the crystal dome, was at its very top, while Carcerem lay 118 stories below, at the bottom of Hydus.

As the surface approached the heat and light in the tunnel soared and, within a few moments, the sato found himself in the desert that stretched in all directions around him like an ocean of maroon clay. Dumping everybody on the pavement, the elevator hurtled back into the ground.Almost at once, Ariet had trouble breathing. Dueso was extremely low in the desert. To make matters worse his body felt like it was aflame; he had never experienced such scorching heat on the planet before.

Panting for breath, he shaded his eyes and looked up at Citris. It was bright and violent, exactly as Ariet had seen it on screen. It shone in the sky, the star around which Tomarkus and twenty-one other planets orbited. It was the first time he was looking directly at the giant star, and he was left dazed and weakened by its brightness and sizzling heat. The entire desert smoldered like it was on the verge of melting.

Nearly a hundred paces away from the sato, others had started climbing the sandhill before them. The prisoners trudged into the desert listlessly, but when Ariet set foot on the clay, it felt as though he had stepped into an oven. Crying out in pain, he leapt back onto the pavement, which was tolerably hot.

The others were disappearing from sight over the dune, but he couldn't muster the strength to follow them. Soon, they were gone, leaving him alone, at a temperature of around 80°C, surrounded by the bare land.

The sato knew he had very limited time to save himself. Hot gusts of wind seared his skin and his vision was getting blurred. The thought of dying alone in the desert finally overcame his inertia and he started hopping up the hill after the others, moaning in pain and breathing heavily. The stained footprints of dried blood and purple flakes of flesh of those who had gone before him served as his only guide as he staggered up the dune.

What was a giant crater was doing in the middle of a desert, Ariet thought as he finally crested the dune, and saw the depression that was far bigger than even the ones created by meteorites. Looking closer, he saw that the crater was built to harness energy from the sandstorms, and had numerous rotors planted on its wall. The colossal energy generated by the crater was enough to power the whole of Hydus.

But where was everybody? Ariet couldn't see anyone at first, but when he moved a little closer to the edge he saw prisoners at the base of the craters like ants working in their big colonies. The footprints which the sato was following ended near a slide sculpted over the slanting wall. This was clearly the means of reaching the base.

Ariet sat on the slide and gave himself a little push. Sliding at top speed, he reached the end of the slide and was unceremoniously flung off it like a wood log. Getting to his feet, the sato dusted off his gaban which had turned multicolor, maroon and brown.

He had barely regained his bearings, when a guard, dressed in a silver armor above his cobalt blue suit with a torture stick hooked at the side, lumbered over and dealt Ariet a sharp blow on the neck which sent him to his knees. He couldn't breathe for a moment, and felt as he was going to die.

'Clean the rotor, else I'm gonna shred you in pieces,' shouted the guard, frowning at others who had stopped to look at the poor sato.

Ariet stayed down, holding his neck, until the monster was gone. A black bruise had appeared on his silver neck. He managed to get to his feet and staggered towards the jumbo fan. Fellow-prisoners narrowed their eyes in sympathy as he passed by. Picking up a brush from the heap, he got to work.

Edges covered under layers of maroon clay were no joke to clean, especially when the prisoners had no solvent at their disposal. The cleaning was exhausting, and Ariet would have died if it were not for the rotor above him, which shielded him from the light.

The constant rhythm of scrubbing made him fall asleep out of exhaustion. He was balanced precariously on the ladder, which he had climbed upon for cleaning upper segments of the rotor. A noise roused him and his eyes shot open, but it was too late. He fell hard on the ground, jarring every bone in his body. He lay there groaning, with his eyes closed, semi-conscious. The sound of a scuffle nearby finally brought him to alertness.