To The Stars

The tray did not come free in his hand until the token dropped. Jan shuffled behind Fryer, accepting the brimming bowl thrust at him by the perspiring kitchen assistant. Further on there was a great mound of chunks of dark bread and he took one. This was dinner. They seated themselves at a table bare of any condiments or tableware.

“How do I eat it?” Jan asked, looking dubiously at his bowl.

“With a spoon you always carries — but I’ve an extra knowing you’re new at this.”

It was a lentil stew with vegetable bits floating in it. Not bad tasting, devoid of any real flavor of anything. There were lumps in it that looked like meat, but certainly didn’t taste like it.

“Got some salt in my pocket if you want,” Fryer volunteered.

“No thanks. I doubt if it would make any difference.” He ate some bread which, though half stale, had a sound, nutty flavor. “No meat in the meal?”

“No. Never on the dole. There’s chunks of soy immo here, all the protein you need they say. Water at the fountain over there if you want to wash it down.”

“Afterward. Is the food always like this?”

“More or less. People earn a bit of money they buy bits of things in the shops. If you’ve no crumble then this is it. You can live on it.”

“I suppose that you could. But I don’t really see it as an inspiring regular diet.” He shut up as a man came in, shambled over, and sat at their table.

“Bit of trouble, Fryer,” he said, looking at Jan while he did.

They stood and moved against the wall to talk. Jan ate another spoonful then pushed the bowl away from him. A lifetime eating this? Nine out of ten workers were on the dole. Not to mention their wives and children. And this had been going on around him for all of his life — and he had not been aware. He had lived his life on an iceberg, unaware of the buried nine-tenths beneath the surface.

“We’re going back to the car, gov,” Fryer said. “Something’s come up.”

“Anything to do with me?”

“Don’t know. Word just passed for us to get there as soon as we could. No idea of what, except it’s trouble. Plenty of it.”

They walked hard. Not running, that would draw attention, but solidly and steadily through the clutching snow. Jan had glimpses of lit shops with their displays hidden behind steamy windows. He wondered what they sold, and realized they were as alien to his experience as the shops in the market he had visited on the shore of the Red Sea.

At the rear of the garage once again, Jan held the flashlight so that Fryer could find the right key in its dim light. They went into the shed and on into the garage itself.

“I’ll be winged!” Fryer said, flashing the light across the barren floor.

“My car is gone!”

A far brighter torch flashed in their eyes and someone said, “Just stand right there and don’t move. Watch where you put your hands.”

Eleven

Jan had no thought of moving, could not have moved if he had wanted to. The shock of all this, first his car gone, then the sudden confrontation. The game was up, he was caught, it was all over. He stood, frozen with the dreadful realization.

“Back to the shed, Fryer,” the man said again. “Someone here you don’t know.”

Fryer went out docilely enough. and the man with the flashlight followed him; Jan could only make out his outline as he went by. What was happening?

“Jan, I must talk to you,” a familiar voice said as soon as the door had closed. The small light was still in his hand and he brought it up and picked Sara’s face out of the darkness. “We didn’t mean to give you a fright,” she said, “but this is an emergency.

“Fright! It was nothing like that. My heart stopped, that was all!”

“I’m sorry,” she smiled, but the smile instantly vanished. “Something very bad has happened and we may need your help. One of our people has been captured and we cannot let him be identified. Have you heard of Slethill Camp?”

“It’s a work camp in Sunderland, the far north of Scotland in the Highlands. We are fairly sure that we can get him out of the camp, that is easy enough, but we don’t know how to get him out of the area. That is when I thought of you and your saying you go up there for cross-country skiing. Could he ski out of there?”

“He could if he knew the area and knew how to ski. Does he?”

“No, I don’t think so. But he’s young and fit and could learn. Is it difficult?”

“Very easy to learn the basics. Very bard to be very good. Do you have anyone who could show him what to do Sudden realization struck him and he turned the light back on her face. Her eyes were lowered and she was very pale.

“Yes. I’m going to ask you to help,” Sara said. “It bothers me not only for the danger you will be put in, but because we should not even be mentioning this sort of thing to you. If you decide to work with us, yours could be the most important job in the entire resistance. But if this man is not freed it might very well be the end of everything.”

“It’s that important?”

“It is.”

“Then of course I’ll help. But I must go home for my equipment—”