Chapter 13: Arrival

After a while the space ship started to bounce about as though being buffeted by a severe storm. The prisoners' cages swayed and some almost tipped over, but were saved by their being packed fairly closely together. Jacqui wondered what was happening, but her near neighbour said she shouldn't worry, it was only the usual effect of landing on a planet with an atmosphere.

Then there was a tremendous crash followed by complete silence.

Her neighbour said, "It's a good thing we're not paying passengers. Landing a passenger ship like that is a sacking offence because some old biddy will have had a heart attack by the time you open up for disembarkation".

"Not a bad landing," said a voice from the loudspeaker, "considering this is only a freighter with no passenger comforts to speak of. I am sure all our passengers will be pleased to know that we are now on Csadia and they will be unloaded in a matter of minutes."

Then another voice added sarcastically, "Captain Courageous and his crew thank you for choosing Prison Transport Spacelines and don't expect to see you again. We hope those of you who participated in the in-flight entertainment enjoyed themselves. Please form an orderly queue for customs and immigration formalities."

The doors of the hold opened and Jacqui's neighbour remarked, "No landing formalities at all apparently. It normally takes hours before you are allowed to open the ports and start to offload the freight; even longer to get approval for disembarking passengers. It is ironic that prison should be so much more efficient than the rest of the Government."

Jacqui couldn't see anything outside because the sunlight was so bright that it dazzled her, but she could feel the hot arid atmosphere blowing a light haze of sand into the space ship. If they were kept outside for any length of time it was going to be really unpleasant, she thought. The cages were all moved off the ship but sure enough they were left out in the sun. The only concession to the prisoners' welfare was that they had their back to the prevailing wind, though that might have been a pure accident.

When she had grown used to the brightness and recovered her sight enough to look round, Jacqui had a terrible attack of nerves. There were no people around and no buildings. She could see for a tremendous and very frightening distance in every direction except where the small terminal building stood. She had never in her life been able to see much more than a hundred yards without a building intervening and the corridors of her home area were deliberately made to twist and turn to avoid long vistas. Outside her apartment there was almost always somebody else visible and often there were dense crowds.

Worse still, all she could see was sand and more sand. Not only were there no buildings and no people, there was nothing but arid sand with a few low outcrops of rock. In the very far distance, it must have been several kilometres away, she thought she could perhaps see some buildings, but she wasn't sure and it hurt her eyes to try to focus so far away.

Next to the area where she had been dumped there were some cages identical to the one she had arrived in, but they only contained cartons of some unknown contents rather than people. Those were being loaded on to the space ship even as the prisoners were being unloaded.

Jacqui braced herself for another unpleasant interview with a Guard, who would doubtless demand favours for anything he did, or didn't, do to help her get back to Earth. Just as the porterbot started to move her into the terminal building she caught sight of her first Csadian human. An unprepossessing man in dingy overalls climbed into the hold of the ship. She didn't see any more as she was among the first to be put in the reception hall of the Terminal, but it was a relief to know that there were people here, if only maintenance men.