Mungus: Book 1 Read Online Free Page A

head.
                  “What’s wrong with going down to Mungus?” the younger man asked.  He leaned toward the bald man.
                  I shut my eyes behind my sunglasses and tried to not let my tired mind dwell on what they were talking about.  I wanted to sleep and I had heard the same conversation hundreds of times.
                  “There’s nothing wrong with it, I would just never do it.”
                  “Why’s that?”
                  The bald man chuckled again.  “I just have a hard time believing that when those seven years are up that you will be getting the freedom that they promised.”
                  “But it’s in the contract…”
                  “I’ve read the contract,” the bald man said.  He began to raise his voice, “It’s the contract that made me so skeptical.  Have you read the whole thing?  You’re not allowed to communicate with anyone on the ship once you enter Rumus.  You don’t think that that sounds weird?  You don’t think that that’s a clue that they’re probably not going to be honest with you?”
                  The younger man began to raise his voice too.  “No, I don’t.  That kind of thing makes sense if you’re trying to establish a nation.  And excuse me for having a family and wanting to be with my kids.  I would have to separate with them if I wanted to stay and help to build Terra.”
                  “Are you serious?  Have you been listening to what’s been going on around you?  Tons of families are getting split up.  Don’t think that just because you signed a ‘family request form’ that you are going to get to stay with your family.”
                  At this I opened my eyes and looked at the bald man as he continued to rant.
                  “The Jones’s, do you know them?  Cindy and James got split up.  The Mickelson’s whole family got divided.  The Lee’s seven-year-old daughter was taken from her parents and sent down to Mungus alone.  The Burkner’s dad got split up from them…”
                  The young man was getting red in the face.
                  “Geoff Spinner got separated from his kids, he’s still on the ship and they’re down there.  Mickey Jones’s wife is down on Mungus and they signed one of those contracts.  Arnold…”
                  “Shut up!” the younger man hollered, flailing his hands in the air as he talked.  “Just shut up.  I don’t care.  I don’t care what you think.  If I wanted advice, I would have asked you, but I didn’t.  Leave me alone, I want to sit in here in peace.”
                  The bald man looked at me and made a comical wide-eyed face as if to say, “that guy’s crazy,” and the room grew quiet.  There was a thick tension and no one was talking.  The younger man was panting with anger and people sat still and seemed to be careful not to breathe the wrong way.  I tried to remain as quiet as possible.
                  Saul laughed hard and slapped his knee.  The noise made me flinch in the silence, but Saul was as happy as could be.  Apparently something that he had read in his comics was funny and he let out a joyful giggle.  After he laughed, everyone in the room giggled before becoming quiet again.  People didn’t talk after that, but Saul’s laughter had taken some of the tension out of the room.
                  After fifteen more minutes of the heat soaking into my body and the UV lights humming, the intercom crackled overhead and then a woman’s voice spoke across the ship, “Jasper Rowlings, Vancil Jones, Gregory Marshall, Cathi Akin, Michael Thomas and Brenda Hall, please report to the loading dock.  Thank you.”  The intercom cracked and it was quiet once again.  I had been hearing intercom announcements for the past