The Skies Discrowned Read Online Free Page A

fingers crooked to catch the vent. Instead, they cracked against unyielding concrete.
    He fell back to the floor, strangling a curse. His hands stung, and he could feel blood trickling down one finger. Bit of a miscalculation, Rovzar, he told himself.
    He pulled himself to his feet and got ready to jump again, this time only intending to brush the ceiling with his fingers, to feel for the vent. This is what I should have done to begin with, he thought.
    After four jumps, muffled by his rubber-soled shoes, he found the vent. His next leap gained him two fingerholds and in a moment he had got a firm grip with both hands. Now what?
    Why, he thought, I’ll bring my legs up and kick the plate until it comes loose, and then I’ll pull myself up into the hole and be off. Right-ho. He drew his legs up, and with a sort of half flip he kicked the plate with one toe. It made hardly any noise, but he was disappointed at how weak the blow was. This time he got swinging first, and then used the momentumof his pendulum motion to emphasize the kick as he flipped again and drove his heel at the grille.
    With an echoing clang of broken metal his foot punched completely through the grille. The recoil of the kick wrenched his hands free, but he didn’t fall back to the floor; instead he hung upside down, his foot caught in the twisted wreck of the vent.
    Shouts echoed eerily through the corridors, and the prisoners below Frank whimpered in uncomprehending fear. An alarm added its flat howl to the confusion. Frank, dangling from the ceiling, pulled at his trapped foot, hoping to be able to return to his cot before the guards arrived. Footsteps thudded in the corridor, and immediately the lights in Frank’s cell flashed on, blinding him. The will to move left his body and he relaxed, swinging limp from the mooring of his foot. He heard the door rattle and squeak open, and then something hard was driven with savage force into his stomach and consciousness left him.
    Frank came back to wakefulness by degrees, like a length of seaweed being gradually nudged to shore by succeeding waves. First he was aware of a hum of voices and a sense of being carried about. None of it seemed to demand a response.
    Then he dimly knew he was sleeping, but it was a deep, heavy sleep, and he did not want to wake up yet even though it sounded as if some people were up already.
    Abruptly, a cold finger and thumb pried his right eyelid open. Frank saw an unfocused sea of bright gray.
    “This kid’s okay,” came a loud, gravelly voice. “Throw him over there with that clown who set his bed on fire.”
    Frank had groggily assumed that the voice was speaking figuratively when it said “throw,” but now unseen hands clamped on his ankles and wrists. “Wait, wait—” Frank began mumbling. “Heave
ho!”
called someone cheerily, and Frank found himself lifted from whatever he’d been lying on and tossed sprawling into the air. His eyes sprang open wide and he grabbed convulsively at nothing. He saw the concrete floor rushing up at him and he managed to twist around in midair so that he landed on his hip instead of his head. The sharp, aching pain of the impact was his first
clear
sensation of the morning.
    Laughter rang loud in the room, and Frank looked up from where he lay to see what sort of people were amused by this. A Transport captain and four guards returned his gaze with a mixture of humor and scornful contempt in their
eyes
. All of them wore pistols, and two of the guards held coils of rope.
    “Take these two jerks first,” said the captain, pointing in Franks direction. “And tie their hands.” The man exited and the four guards walked over to Frank and rolled him over onto his face, then quickly and securely tied his wrists together behind him. They left him lying there and moved on to someone behind him.
    “Get up now,” one of the guards said. Frank struggled to his knees and then stood up. His stomach was a collage of pain and numbness, and