How he wished he could say yes to that. “No. They sold us. Sonagis is a mining planet.”
Her face showed horror. “Mining? Isn’t that dangerous?”
Too dangerous.Both his uncles and many others that had survived the Gorlites taking of the ship had died in the mines, either from the creep-lung or the rot, or from simple starvation and overwork. Many who had lived had been broken.
Clara leaned back in the chair. “How did you get away?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Talon was young, but he loved ships from the moment he drew breath. He was always on the bridge and watching as the ship flew. Father indulged him. He allowed him to fly at times when we were far past systems and in pure space. One day a small craft landed very near the mines. Talon, Marik, Jeval, and I decided to make a break for it. We, and a few others who had flight experience, seized the ship and ran as fast as we could.”
Clara’s eyes rounded. She whispered, “That’s so…that’s so incredible.”
Renall wasn’t sure why he was telling her that. It was not something he was comfortable talking about, in truth. “It was desperation.”
Clara said, “And brave too.”
He found he could barely breathe. Something sprang up between them, something warm and so different from anything he had ever known. Uncomfortable now, he lifted the walls and said, “I’ll let you continue with your game.”
He strode away quickly, but the past dogged his footsteps. It was a long way from the mines to the hall. They’d spent a century gathering the first part of the credits that had gotten them to the larger ship they’d had to have to work the stripping crews. It had taken another to show a real and viable profit. But there were still far too many moments in his life when he was terribly afraid he would awaken in his filthy crib in the mine shafts to discover that all of this was just some fever-induced dream.
