Refugee by Piers Anthony Read Free Book Online Page A

The only place to go was another dome city, in the other half of the planet, the Dominant Republic, where there would be no charge outstanding against the Hubris family. But I knew from my school studies that the Dominant Republic was just as hard on peasants as Halfcal was—and we had no connections there. No job, no friends, no residence. If they admitted us at all, which was doubtful, we might just be worse off than we were here.
    There was a silence, as each of us turned the grim reality over individually.
    “Jupiter!” Spirit exclaimed.
    My father glanced questioningly at her.
    “We can emigrate to Jupiter,” she explained. “We can bubble off from Callisto and float to the big planet where everyone is welcome and everyone is rich, and be happy ever after.”
    My father did not suppress her foolish notion directly; that was not his way. Instead he asked her leading questions, letting her find her own way toward the truth. “What bubble did you have in mind?”
    “Well—” she faltered. “There are tourist and trade bubbles, aren't there? And big freight bubbles.” She turned to Faith. “You've taken Contemporary Economics in school, haven't you? Don't bubbles go through the whole Jupiter System all the time?”
    “Yes,” Faith said. “But the moons of Jupiter are mostly Latin, while most of the commerce is done by United Jupiter, which is mostly Saxon. We don't speak the same language—that is, our people speak Spanish and theirs speak English—and they don't like our governments, what with the Saturnian bias of Ganymede and the dictatorships of Europa and Callisto.”
    “ We don't like our governments!” Spirit blurted. “That is why we want to leave!”
    “And we, the Hubrises, do speak their language,” I put in, warming to Spirit's notion as I got into it.
    “That's the big advantage of the schooling we had. Faith and I can write it, too.”
    “But Charity and I cannot,” my father pointed out. “Still, the Colossus of North Jupiter does claim to accept freedom-seeking refugees, and there are many Latins settled there. We could probably find some bubbles there that conduct much of their business in Spanish, or at least are bilingual. But that's academic; the Halfcal government would never grant us leave to emigrate.”
    “Why not?” Spirit demanded, “They want to get rid of us, don't they? They should be happy to help us on our way.”
    My father shook his head. “Not so, child. They have assorted international agreements and covenants that restrict free emigration, and in any event Halfcal would hardly care to advertise that its own people are eager to leave. They may want us gone, but they won't let us go.”
    “I always knew our government was crazy,” Spirit said, pouting.
    “There's a way,” I murmured hesitantly.
    All eyes centered on me. “What, flap our arms and fly there?” Spirit inquired skeptically.
    That angered me. I made a motion of sticking someone in the posterior with a pin, and Spirit jumped, and that diluted my anger, for she always did play our little games well. “A bootleg bubble,” I explained.
    “There's one hiding in Kilroy Crater, in the Valhalla complex, right now, just waiting for a full load.”
    My father whistled. “You children have sources of information the government lacks?”
    “Well, it's just gossip,” I admitted. “But I believe it.”
    “The government knows about it,” Faith said. “They just don't care. They consider it pirate business.”
    Pirate business. That suggested volumes. Callisto had first been settled by Spanish-speaking colonists five centuries ago, who brought in slave labor to work in the first plantation domes. Then French-speaking buccaneers raided Halfcal and used it as a base for their operations. The name of our great city, Maraud, is a legacy of that period. In due course the slaves revolted. There were massacres, and finally, two centuries ago, the buccaneers were expelled. But their influence remained in