The CRES code

Chapter Nineteen - The Fugitives

     They saw more priests hurrying towards the church and the three hibernators hid in the darkness of a narrow alleyway as they went past. When it was safe they carried on, moving as fast as they dared in an attempt to avoid notice. A gang of cutthroats appeared in their path. Their leader began to demand something but Loach ploughed straight into them, slashing with his knife. One man went down, blood pouring from a wound to his stomach, and the rest fled.

     Loach paused for a moment to rifle through the fallen man's pockets. Randall, who had started to run on, still holding Jane by the elbow, paused and looked back. "Come on!" he hissed urgently. "We haven't got time!"

     "Have you got a plan then?" asked Loach. "Is your plan simply to run blindly until they corner you in a dead end?"

     "I just want to get as far away from that church as fast as possible."

     "So do I, but we need a plan and we need money." He found a few coins and tucked them into a pocket. Then he unbuckled the thug's knife and sheath and belted it around his own waist. He tested the knife's edge with his thumb. It was very sharp. A much better weapon than the kitchen knife he'd brought from the hibernaculum.

     "We're in a walled city," Loach continued, handing the kitchen knife to Randall. "The only way in or out on foot is through the gates, and they're closed at night. By the time dawn comes the priests will have told the guards to be on the lookout for us, so we need another way out of the city."

     "Have you got an idea?" asked Randall.

     "Just one. As luck would have it, this is also a harbour town. We can stow away on a ship. Sailing ships have to sail with the tide. If we're lucky, it'll be high tide before dawn and the ships will be setting sail before the dock workers have been told to look out for us."

     Randall nodded. "Makes sense," he said. "But if that's the only way out of the city the priests will block off the docks as fast as they can, so we have to hurry!"

     "Right. I'm finished here." He stood up and the three hibernators left the dying man behind them, only Jane glancing back as Randall pulled her away.

     They headed west for a couple of hundred metres, to put distance between them and the church, before turning south, towards the docks. They ran from street to street, keeping a constant watch for people out and about in the middle of the night and crouching down out of sight whenever they saw one. "So am I your prisoner now?" asked Jane in a hushed voice as they hid beside a busy tavern, waiting for a couple of drunken revellers to stumbled away down the street.

     "Not at all," said Randall in an equally low voice. "I'm sorry I treated you roughly, but we had to move fast. You're free to go if you want, but if you leave us the priests will find you pretty quickly."

     "They'll disable your head phone," added Loach. "Leave you penniless and alone on the streets of the city. You'll have to make a living serving beer in a tavern or something. You'll end up married to some brute of a man who'll treat you like dirt. Women in this kind of society have almost no rights. They're the property of a man. First their father, then their husband."

     "We know almost nothing about this society," pointed out Jane. "Maybe women have full equality here."

     "So leave us and find out if you want. We can't stop you leaving us. We'll have to sleep sometimes. If you really want to leave we can't stop you sneaking off in the middle of the night."

     "And if I stay with you? What then?"

     "Then you get to be Queen of the solar system one day," said Randall. "Maybe pretty soon."