Hercules 500 Read online

  In fact, she suspected that the main reason they wanted to carry her was because she held them back when she tried to walk.

  The light had dimmed considerably when Anika woke late in the afternoon and discovered the forest around them had thinned. Perking up immediately, she sat up a little straighter and looked around.

  The forest had thinned, she discovered, with human help. There were stumps interspersed between the trees, enough that it was clear an effort was in progress to collect the resources of the forest or to simply beat it back.

  “You want to walk a while?” Chance, who’d been carrying her, asked.

  “Yes, please.”

  He leaned down to set her on her feet and held her arm while she worked out the kinks and cramps. When she was able to focus beyond her pain again, she saw that they’d nearly cleared the forest. Not too distant from their current position, there appeared to be a wall going up. She had no idea what the purpose might be, but it looked really big for anything except, maybe, a government building.

  It was very crude, though, she thought a little doubtfully.

  There were cracks between the trunks that had been set upright in the ground that were damned near big enough to be ‘windows’. It didn’t appear that the people working on it had done a lot more than lob off branches and then stick the pole in the ground.

  Well, they’d whittled the top to a fairly wicked point.

  She was no wiser about the purpose when they finally reached it and then walked around it. It wandered for a fair distance in a somewhat wobbly/straight line and then ended with a pile that hadn’t been erected and a trench in the dirt.

  There was a garden on the other side of the wall as crude as the wall itself and littered with more stumps. The ground seemed to be fairly fertile, however, because the plants that had been sown into the ground looked to be thriving.

  The garden seemed to cover a good bit of ground so, instead of trying to go around, they carefully walked between the rows.

  There were small, crude wooden cabins dotting the landscape beyond the garden. The ground around them had been mostly denuded of plants. It took Anika a little bit to spot the dirt road that had been cut between the cabins—mostly because there was little to delineate it from the ‘yards’ of the cabins.

  They were almost abreast of the furthermost cabin when they spotted the first people—two men who froze almost mid-step at the sight of them.

  There was nothing friendly about their expressions, but Anika smiled and waved anyway. “Hello! We’re a little lost ….”

  The two men flicked a look at her and then scanned the three men with her more carefully.

  “Mainstreet’s that way,” one of the men said, jerking a thumb in that direction, and the two men hurried away.

  Frowning, the four of them exchanged uneasy, questioning looks.

  “That was weird as fuck,” Cole muttered.

  “And not very friendly,” Anika said unhappily.

  It didn’t get better, unfortunately. As they moved closer to what had been pointed out as ‘mainstreet’ they saw more and more buildings. Here and there they even saw a few buildings that looked as if they’d been constructed by professionals and out of materials that were carefully produced. By and large, though, the place mostly consisted of pure out shanty’s that appeared to be made of odds and ends, materials collected from a landfill, and crudely constructed cabins like the first they’d seen.

  They were directed after several inquiries for lodging to the ‘boarding house’. This at least looked to be one of the better constructed buildings, but the proprietor was no friendlier than anyone else they’d met.

  “We need a couple of rooms,” Anika announced when they’d reached the desk.

  “Ain’t got but one available.”

  Anika blinked at him, her jaw sliding to half mast. “Only one?”

  “Yeah. Had a few other strangers come out of the woods yesterday. Guess you’re part of that same group?”

  For some reason, Anika just didn’t want to give the bastard any information. “I guess we’ll take the room, then.”

  “Two hundred credits.”

  That announcement literally rocked Anika back on her heels. “What?”

  He shrugged. “Take it or leave it. Don’t matter to me.”

  “But …!”

  “We’ll take it,” Cole said tightly. “I need a bath.”

  “Bath’s at the end of the hall.”

  That time Cole was shocked speechless. “What?”

  “You’re saying …?” Anika began, outraged to discover that the bastard wanted two hundred credits for one frigging room that didn’t even have a private bath.

  “Down at the end of the hall. Guests are requested to limit their time in the bathroom.”

  Anika narrowed her eyes at the bastard, but Cole had offered his ID to pay and collected the key. He fixed the man with a hard stare once he’d run the credits. “If you want to live long and prosper, make damned sure there aren’t any additional charges against my credits.”

  The man studied him uneasily and finally nodded.

  Taking the key, Cole led the way to the stairs since they’d been informed they were on the top floor at the end—opposite the fucking bathroom. He paused when he’d put one foot on the first step and turned to yell a question at the proprietor, who was heading out the backdoor. “Where can we get something to eat?”

  “Here. If there’s anything left. Down the street at Mammie’s if we ain’t got nuthin’ to suit you.”

  The room had two beds, they discovered to their surprise—fairly large beds, although they still looked like they would be cozy for two.

  It seemed almost too uncomfortably intimate, which was absurd given the fact that they’d all slept together the night before in the sleeping bag.

  Anika dismissed it with an effort and announced her intention of heading down to the bathroom to use the facilities.

  All three of the men trailed her and looked it over skeptically.

  “This lock is a joke,” Cole declared, disgust in his voice.

  “I will stand guard,” Chance announced.

  No one challenged him and he looked a little doubtful, as if it had occurred to him that maybe he’d been manipulated into something he didn’t really want to do, but he took up a position outside the bath when Anika shooed them off.

  She didn’t linger. The shower had adequate water pressure but the water was barely lukewarm, so it certainly wasn’t a delight.

  She still felt better when she got back to their room.

  She was disapproving when she discovered they meant to head directly to this place called Mammie’s until they pointed out that they might not get fed if they didn’t head straight there.

  It was a near thing, in point of fact.

  Mammie was in the process of closing up when they got there.

  Very reluctantly, she let them in. She disappeared into the back while they found a table and seated themselves and then reappeared with four steaming plates about the time they’d decided she’d slipped out the back and abandoned them.

  Anika didn’t know about the others, but she was pretty outdone about the service. The woman hadn’t even asked what they wanted.

  Which, she supposed, meant there was no choice.

  The food wasn’t actually recognizable, but it smelled appetizing and it tasted even better.

  By the time they’d polished off the ‘whatever’ they were served, they were all in a far better mood than when they arrived.

  Which was a damned good thing when they got the bill.

  It seemed the practice was to charge twice or three times, or more, what the same product or service cost on Earth.

  There hadn’t been a damned thing said about inflated prices, or price gouging, in any of the data about the new colony!

  The four of them exchanged angry glances and then Sebastian offered his ID to pay for the meals.

  “How many MREs have we got left?”
Anika asked quietly as they left.

  Enough for three days,” Sebastian offered, “… if we split them as we have been and we only eat twice a day.”

  Anika frowned. Each time they’d had to pay for something, they’d been offered the opportunity to ‘put it on their bill’.

  Was that an indication that Cole had hit the nail squarely when he’d suggested this entire enterprise was just an opportunity for the company to basically enslave everybody that fell for the ‘colonization’ scheme?

  It certainly seemed to be.

  If they hadn’t had some credits left they would have added considerably to their passage debt in under half a day.

  Anika didn’t know about the others—except Chance, of course—but she was going to be forced to use every bit of her tiny nest egg in very short order and then everything she had to have would be added to her debt.

  It was a terrifying thought.

  “We need to get out of here. I say we go to the land office right away and head out of here first thing in the morning.”

  Nobody argued, but they discovered the land office was closed for the night when they got there.

  With no choice, they headed back to the boarding house.

  Cole announced a claim to one of the beds as soon as they entered the room.

  Chance promptly suggested Anika take the other.

  Anika could see Cole’s point considering what he’d paid to have a roof over them all for the night, but she really hated taking the only other bed and leaving Chance and Sebastian to sleep on the floor.

  Until she actually lay down on the bed.

  “Oh my god! I think the sleeping bag on the ground was more comfortable.”

  Of course, Sebastian had ripped the sleeping bag nearly in half to get them out of it, but it still had most of its padding and Cole and Sebastian had divided it between them.

  Chance sat up immediately. “You may sleep here if you would prefer.”

  “Suck up,” Cole muttered under his breath and then rolled over and put his back to the group.

  Anika could see the struggle Chance made to ignore the provoking comment. “No! It’s ok. I guess it’s better than having to worry about getting eaten by something. It just isn’t terribly comfortable.”

  “I am not convinced we are safer here,” Sebastian said in a rumbling voice from the position he had taken in front of the door. “I will stand guard while you sleep.”

  Anika was about to protest that he needed sleep like the rest of them when Cole seconded him.

  “Good idea. I agree. People haven’t just been unfriendly, they’re suspicious and downright hostile. It reminds me of some of the worst areas of the city where the gangs rule and tyrannize everyone.” He shook his head. “I don’t think they’re just hardened from living on the frontier. There’s something going on here … and it ain’t nice.”

  The discussion made Anika uneasy enough she didn’t sleep well at all and was more than ready to get up when the first fingers of dawn began to creep into the room. She was desperate for the bathroom by that time having ‘held’ her water all night. Sebastian cleared the way, literally.

  There was a line up outside the door to the bathroom. He shoved them aside, broke the door in and removed the occupant, and then pushed Anika inside.

  She was embarrassed and uncomfortable, but she couldn’t ‘hold’ it anymore.

  She got some really nasty looks when she came out, but she noticed nobody gave Sebastian a nasty look.

  Shaking it off, she returned to the room with Sebastian to help collect their belongings and the group headed downstairs.

  Sebastian, Chance, and Cole ‘watered’ the road from the porch of the boarding house.

  Rolling her eyes, Anika tried to pretend she was blissfully unaware of their behavior. She headed down the steps in the direction of the land office they’d found the night before.

  “That was very unsanitary,” Anika said disapprovingly when the guys joined her.

  Cole snorted. “Is there anything about this place that says ‘sanitary’ to you?”

  “They should have more bathrooms,” Sebastian responded.

  “It goes in the ground anyway,” Chance said, shrugging.

  “Good point.”

  Thankfully, the land office was open. They went in and examined the maps of available land lots.

  The clerk, a representative of the company, obviously, was the first person they’d met that was even almost cordial. “These are all the lots that are still available in this area.”

  Anika lifted her head and stared at him. “What about … uh … somewhere else?”

  He looked vaguely affronted. “Like?”

  “Maybe about a hundred miles from this place?” Cole suggested.

  The man frowned. “I don’t have anything from that far away. I guess if you don’t like this area you’ll need to head to Capitol City.”

  The four of them moved away from the desk. “What are you thinking?” Anika asked Cole.

  He shook his head. “I haven’t seen anything around here that’s made me feel like I’ve just got to settle around here.”

  Anika nodded and glanced at Sebastian.

  He frowned. “It may not be better elsewhere,” he finally said.

  Cole shrugged. “I doubt it’ll be worse. It’s worth checking it out before we settle on something, I think.”

  Anika agreed, but she was curious to know if there was anything significant in the way he’d phrased it. Was he assuming they would all settle close together?

  And did she like that idea?

  Well, the guys were the only people on the planet that she knew … except her mother.

  “I need to find out where my mother is. Not saying I mean to take a land lot directly beside hers, but certainly close. She came out so she could be here for me and her grandchildren.”

  “Ah! No escaping the mother-in-law,” Cole muttered under his breath.

  Anika gaped at him in outrage and then narrowed her eyes at him. “Well! She isn’t your mother-in-law and she isn’t going to be!” she snapped. “And you don’t even know her!”

  His lips tightened. He struggled with his temper. Finally, he apologized.

  That didn’t take any of the sting out of it as far as Anika was concerned. She stalked back to the desk and asked the clerk to locate her mother’s property.

  She didn’t know whether to be ecstatic or unnerved when she discovered her mother had taken a land lot just two settlements over.

  She gave Cole the evil eye when she informed the guys that she would be heading for the settlement closest to her mother’s property where she could at least rest and get her bearings before she decided on a land lot. “I’m sure she’d welcome everyone if you guys want to come, too.”

  Sebastian looked like he wanted to beat Cole to a pulp, but he apparently discarded the notion when Anika and Chance left the land office abruptly.

  “We are leaving now?” Sebastian asked.

  Anika glared at him before she realized it was Cole that had pissed her off. “The guy at the desk said there was a …. I can’t remember what he called it, but you can rent animals to ride. They don’t have any kind of bus or car service this far out.”

  It wasn’t that hard to find the place. It stank to high heaven.

  Anika stared at the ‘things’ in the fenced area with a great deal of dread.

  They seemed gentle enough, but they were huge things.

  A man looking to be around middle age met them at the entrance to the building beside the fenced area.

  Anika wondered if he actually was middle aged or if the planet had aged him.

  In less than five minutes, she was done talking.

  The price he demanded was more than twice what it would have cost to rent one vehicle on

  Earth that would carry all of them.

  The bastard shrugged and walked off. “Guess you’ll be walkin’ then.”

  It was just as well, Anika thought, that she had
n’t been given a weapon. She might have been tempted to blow the bastard’s head off.

  Whirling around in a fury, she stalked off.

  Chance was directly beside her. Sebastian and Cole fell into step shortly behind them.

  “We will not take the beasts?”

  “It’s only ten miles to the next settlement—straight down this road,” Anika ground out. “I’ll walk.”

  “You are pregnant,” Sebastian, who’d carried her more than anyone else, pointed out.

  Anika dismissed that. “This isn’t like trying to walk through that jungle. It’s straight and level.”

  Filled with rocks and pot holes, but there wasn’t a lot of vegetation to trip over.

  Anika’s pure fury at the attempt to rob her sustained her for several miles. By the time the town had disappeared behind them, though, she was in need of a few moments rest.

  She sat down on the nearest rock and fumed.

  Chance handed her the canteen.

  “I could head back and pick up a couple of those dacasses,” Cole offered. “It wouldn’t be too bad riding double.”

  “I refuse to be a victim,” Anika growled. “We’ve already come almost a quarter of the way. We can get something in the next settlement.”

  “We don’t have any guarantee that it won’t be as bad or worse there,” Cole pointed out.

  It didn’t improve her opinion of him.

  “Look! I’m sorry I made that stupid remark about your mom,” he growled, not sounding the least bit repentant.

  She narrowed her eyes at him.

  “I really wouldn’t mind having her as my mother-in-law,” he added cajolingly.

  Anika’s heart jerked reflexively. She felt her face heat. It was really irritating how easily a good looking man could manipulate an idiot woman. “You’re so humorous,” she muttered, getting to her feet.

  “You’re sure you don’t want me to go back and get a couple of beasts?”

  Anika relented. “Yeah, I’m sure. This won’t be fun, but I just refuse to let the bastard ‘win’. We can get to the next settle before dark, I’m sure. Maybe it will be worse. Who knows? But at least we’ll be dealing with somebody besides that arrogant asshole!”