Free Red Cells by Jeffrey Thomas Page B

at a time. Let us call our home office. I’m sure they’ll listen and can let you out of this pocket one way or another, even if they have to ferry all of you out in our transport pods!”
    “The Director warned us about this unit.” Lupool shifted her alabaster arm. Now she pointed at Stake, as if she recognized him at last. “The Director warned us that you would tell your leaders to come here and kill us.”
    “He only wanted to get you to kill me so I wouldn’t find out what was going on.”
    “You would find out…and tell your leaders…”
    “But our leaders are the only ones who can help you!”
    “Lies…you are trying to trick us…”
    “It was Cirvik who was the liar,” Stake told the ghostlike statue, “not us!”
    Under his breath, Ploss said, “I ought to give you to the thing to calm it down, make it back off and restore power.”
    Stake looked at the man sharply. “You had better be kidding me, Ploss.”
    The looming security chief glared at him. “What if I’m not? I have to think of the greater good.”
    “There’s nothing good about sacrificing people to these things!”
    “Chief,” Hurley said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you do that.”
    Ploss switched his glare to his underling, but said, “Back down, Hurley—I was only speaking hypothetically.”
    “You aren’t like Cirvik,” Stake said, “I know you’re not. And neither is Conant. More sacrifices isn’t the answer. We have to keep reasoning with them. That’s why they’re speaking through the chapel right now. However angry they are, they’re fighting to be rational.”
    Lupool suddenly snapped her head to one side, as if she had detected a sound the men couldn’t hear. In a flash, the interior of Raloom’s head reverted to the Buddhist temple, Buddha seated on his lotus flower with his head turned to the side in the same way. Then static, and back to the Christian church, Jesus with his head turned in the same direction and his eyes now staring open.
    Ploss’s wrist comp beeped and he lifted his arm to answer it. Over the Choom’s shoulder, Stake saw the prison’s head of maintenance systems, Klaus, smiling on the wrist comp’s screen as he announced, “I just called Conant, Chief. Good news: I overrode the firewalls, and put up new ones of my own. Full power restored. Better than that, I’ve cleared communications. Conant is sending out a distress signal right now…help will be on the way. Colonial Forcers, and more pods to evac the prisoners if need be.”
    “Shit,” Stake muttered.
    “Good thing you kept the monster distracted in the chapel, guys.”
    Jesus threw back his head then, his mouth elongated in a howl, but the three men only heard an ear-piercing screech like feedback. And then the vidscreen walls, floor and ceiling of the chapel turned entirely to grainy, hissing snow.

 
     
     
    Fourteen
    Abandon Ship
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    At all times, four transdimensional pods were docked at the Trans-Paxton Penitentiary, but each one could only carry fifty passengers maximum. There were over three thousand inmates, and then the staff. Stake figured it would take about seventy pods of this size to evacuate the whole prison in one go. He supposed it had never been too much of a concern, evacuating dangerous criminals in the event of an emergency. Then again, the pods could make multiple trips to and from Punktown’s Theta Transport Station, and more importantly there were the pods the Colonial Forcers would be arriving in any minute now. Hurley said there would be eight pods carrying four hundred soldiers.
    Ploss had gone on to join Conant and Dr. Zaleski in the operations center, while Hurley had escorted Stake to the recreation yard. This would be a staging area for the first group of prisoners to be evacuated back to Punktown. Men from Orange Block were already filing in, under the eyes and guns of only organic guards. Hurley had told Stake that Klaus and his team had been ordered to