The Omega Cage by Steve Perry Read Free Book Online Page B

turned blue. He clenched his fists to control himself. Easy, Dain . He knew Stark had some reason for showing him this. He wouldn't let the man's sadistic little show get to him.
    "Perhaps you're wondering why I arranged this little entertainment," Stark said.
    "Quite simple, really. You need to know what happens to people who don't cooperate with us."
    "So now I know," Maro said.
    "Oh, yes. Now you know."
    In the yard, Scanner was puzzled. "Nobody ever got pulled to watch a wipe before, far as I know. There's something strange going on here."
    Maro nodded at Scanner's droud. "Can you find out what?"
    "Maybe. If I'm careful." Scanner shrugged. "Not for a few days, though. Our shift works the garden tomorrow."
    "I ran a tractor when I was a kid," Maro said.
    Scanner laughed. "Tractor? That won't come in very handy. Everything here is done the hard way. I hope you've had experience with a rake or a hoe."
    "You're joking. Even the most backward world—"
    "—has machinery," Scanner finished. "But this is Omega, remember? We're not just backward—we're last."
    "I guess so."
    Scanner grinned. "Cheer up—at least you get to see outside. You'll find it interesting, I assure you."
    With the dawn, Maro was awakened by a clanging gong. He was hastily herded into formation along with a hundred other prisoners, marched through the main ground gate and along a rutted dirt road for a half-klick to the west end of the Zonn wall. Ten guards, armed with laser-aimed automatic shotguns, rode along with them in three small, wheeled electric trucks.
    As they marched, Maro asked Scanner, "There many of those vehicles around?"
    "Maybe a dozen, but forget it. Nothing that moves on the ground would get more than a few klicks away. There are no roads except the ones right around the prison. Between the swamps and the deserts, a truck would be about as useful as a pseudopod."
    Something screamed then, an inhuman howl of rage. Maro twisted just in time to see a four-legged beast the size of a big dog charging from a thick stand of brush directly at the line of prisoners. A dot of red light appeared on the thing's fur suddenly, and then the shotguns went off. One of the guards near Maro had jumped from the truck and now stood wide-legged, his weapon held at hip level, firing on full auto. The roar was continuous.
    The dog-beast stopped as if it had run into a solid wall. Blood gouted from its fur and its snout and eyes vanished as if wiped away by a steel claw. Several shotgun blasts had connected, and in an instant the thing was nothing more than a mass of red fur and gore.
    After the shotguns blasts, the silence seemed all the more deadly.
    Maro looked questioningly at Scanner. "Bush dog," the latter said. "Nasty critters—not scared of anything. The jungle is full of them. Also full of snakes, T-birds, dragonbats, creepers, suck vines and shrats—that's what they call a little beast the size of a rabbit that looks like a cross between a shrew and a rat. Meaner than a wolverine. Then there's the insects, spiders and poison thorns. Something to think about, my friend. The guns and guards aren't to keep us from running when we're in the field; they're to protect us. On a good day we'll get maybe half a dozen bush dogs attacking, as well as some T -birds— T as in teeth—a dragonbat or two, and the shrats."
    "You're serious," Maro said.
    "Oh, yeah. The plants you don't have to worry about much—we're working in a cleared area—and the bugs are kept down by low-voltage zap fields. But the animals don't have enough sense to be afraid. I watched a pack of dogs come at us one at a time, once. Each one watched the one in front of it get blown away, and yet each one made his run."
    "This doesn't sound promising."
    Scanner grinned. "Now you see a little more clearly why there hasn't been a general exodus of prisoners seeking their fortunes in the hospitable Omegan landscape?"
    Maro exhaled. "Yeah."
    Juete massaged his naked back as Stark lay face down on