Hellhole Read Online Free Page B

fixed his attentions on young Antonia, she had been swept away, and her parents had not objected because they liked the young man. Jako was utterly focused on Antonia whenever they were together.
    Four months later, Jako asked Antonia to marry him, and her surprised parents told him to wait, explaining that she was too young, although they encouraged him to continue to court her. Despite being upset by the delay, Jako swore that he would prove his devotion to her. Antonia remembered her father smiling at the promise. “I hope you do exactly that, Mr Rullins. Just give it time.”
    Jako, however, seemed to feel an urgency that Antonia found bewildering. Whenever they were alone, he tried to convince her that they should just escape somewhere, get married, and live their own lives. He was so earnest and optimistic that she almost said yes, but his intensity worried her. Although she loved Jako, she saw no reason to hurry. “We’ll still be together in a year, and then we can have the grand wedding I’ve always dreamed of.”
    But Jako didn’t want to wait. He grew edgier and more possessive, though he still played the part of a gentleman. A month later, after the pair came home from one of their frequent dates, her world ended in blood and lies . . .
    Over the next two years, Antonia learned to mistrust everyone around her. Jako taught her to be that way while the two of them were on the run. Then she escaped from him, too. With a new appearance and identity, she ran to the main Aeroc spaceport, completed an application in the colonization office, and signed aboard the next stringline ship heading for the Deep Zone planets. She didn’t care which one.
    The ship was bound for Hellhole.

    “Anything to see out there?”
    Antonia turned irritably. Next to her stood a grinning, good-humored man she’d noticed on the voyage out from the Sonjeera hub. She feared that he had somehow recognized her or tracked her down, but the man seemed cheery with everyone, blithely jabbering away, pleased with his choice to go to Hallholme.
    “All the ports have the same view.” She hoped he would get the hint and go away. He didn’t.
    “My name is Fernando – Fernando Neron. We’re about to start a great adventure! And your name is?”
    Though on her guard, Antonia realized that being too reticent would only raise suspicions. Besides, she’d have to get used to going by her assumed identity, so she decided to start now. “Antonia Anqui,” she said. “Let’s hope it’s an adventure instead of an ordeal.”
    “Did you hear that, Vincent?” Fernando waved to another man who had been quiet during the entire trip. “She says she hopes it’s an adventure instead of an ordeal!”
    “I heard her.” The other man nodded, more courteous than open and friendly. He had seemed preoccupied throughout the journey.
    During the four-day stringline crossing, Antonia had kept to herself. Their private sleeping cabins were so tiny and claustrophobic that most passengers spent their days in the passenger pod’s common room, which forced them to get to know one another.
    Very few of those aboard seemed pleased with their situation. One group, an isolationist religious cult called the Children of Amadin, avoided their fellow passengers even more than Antonia did. The cult members were easily identified by square-cut hair – both men and women – and their baggy, pale blue uniforms, which did not look as though they would hold up in a dirty wilderness environment. Another oddball religious group, looking for the promised land on Hellhole . . . or at least someplace where people would leave them alone.
    A group of convicts – men and women sentenced to exile on Hallholme – was kept in a separate compartment; the Constellation liked to wash its hands of such problems and let the Deep Zone administrators deal with them. Other travelers aboard the pod were commercial representatives and government officials, engrossed in their own business and