City Without Suns Read Online Free PDF Page A

descended to level one, the lowest inhabitable level about three quarters of the way down the ship.  Within that section, Eon suspected what was about to transpire.  Extermination, a practice formally used as a last resort for the most grievous offenders and the terminally ill. Lately, it has become a form of recreation administered by the police for the sadistic entertainment of the commoners and elite alike.  The dead man had been taken somewhere else.  The two other patients remained.
    The one that was asleep struggled and tried to fight the patrol.  He was struck hard straight in the face repeatedly until he was limp.  The one that tried to petition Eon for his release was similarly beaten into submission.  Eon stood at a safe distance and observed from his limited point of view, formed in a world where civility and human rights are foreign concepts.  His instinct was to keep separation and prepare to run if needed.
    They turned from the main corridor into a chamber as Eon watched from outside, creeping closer to see through the small window in the door.  The patrols, like hunters focused on a kill, did not bother turning to notice Eon was still there.  The chamber led to an air lock, where the abused and injured victims were stripped naked and left in the center of the floor.  The patrols shut the second door, sealing the lock.  From behind in the chamber, a set of cameras were capturing the event, undoubtedly being monitored from other sections of the ship.  They began to evacuate the air.  The committers of unconfirmed and unknown transgressions struggled for breath while their assailants laughed.
    The men gasped for air as a door behind them slid open. While they were still cognizant, the humiliated and naked men were released, and their helpless bodies shot into the outside vacuum of space.  I can only imagine their terrified expressions were captured for the viewing pleasure of audiences scattered around the massive vessel.  Punishment like that was used as discouragement to keep any would-be criminals at bay, but the laughter of the patrols demonstrated that their actions were more for amusement than rule enforcement.
    Eon did not linger.  He put distance between himself and the patrols and was quickly out of their sight running back toward our room along the main corridor.  He paused when he noticed the third patrol returning to the upper levels, the one who had taken the dead one away from the room minutes earlier.  He did not want to run past and be mistaken for a fleeing prisoner from the detention area.
    Eon spotted a nearby ladder tube and climbed into the ceiling to the next floor.  He found another tube, and he ascended one more floor inward toward the center of the Gambler cylinder.  For safe measure, he continued several floors up, where he was a little bit less heavy from the smaller radius of rotation.  Eon traversed the hallway on a detour attempting to make his way back to the room undetected. 
    His effort for stealth came to an end when he arrived at an unused laboratory where an older man was opening containers and cabinets.  Their eyes met.  Eon bore no insignia, which normally made him an outcast, but in this instance he naively and incorrectly felt trusted by the stranger who likewise seemed at home in the lower levels. 
    “Hey, man, you know where we can find some extra food?  They won’t let me out of here to get any grub,” the older man pleaded with wide open eyes bulging from their sockets.  He must have been old enough to be at least sixty Earth years old, which would make him a former senior member of the original crew.  He was turning his head rapidly to look in all directions in paranoid fashion.  A band clamped down on his wrist indicated he was in detention, but he had apparently fled that detainment and become one of the occasional fugitives roaming in close proximity to our quarters.
    Eon shook his head. 
    “Unsatisfactory!” exclaimed the deranged