First he had to abstain from drinking water for several hours, until the effects of the drug at least partially wore off. Then he headed towards the sub-levels, determined to leave the dome and look for fresh water outside.
He walked down the corridors, observing the faces of passers-by and realizing with mounting horror that everyone's serenity and quiet mood were chemically induced. The drug slowed him down, too, but he still managed to descend into the sub-basement and open a security hatch with the circuit integrator he had obtained from Restal. Then he passed through a maze of service tunnels and old underground corridors, some of them dating back to pre-calendar times, wet and musty and covered in slimy vegetation. He waded through shallow streams several times, but the water was muddy and rank and not fit for drinking. When he finally emerged on a clearing outside the dome, it was daytime. The sun was shining brightly, almost vertically, on the parched grass, and the heat was oppressive. Roj knew about the seasonal changes in nature, even though most of the dome-dwellers no longer took any notice of them – and he realized it was summer: a warm, dry season due to which his quest for drinking water was going to be additionally difficult.
He clenched his fists, firmly deciding that he would rather die of thirst than return to the dome to drink drugged water. Half-instinctively, he headed east, towards a hilly terrain and the mountains looming misty in the background.
At one point, in the distance, he spotted a single trooper patrolling the area: luckily, the man was not looking in his direction at first, and by the time he did, Roj had managed to find some cover among dry bushes. He dropped to the ground and kept still until the trooper walked away.
He spent several more hours walking, tormented by increasing thirst. He checked his chrono: it was now twelve hours since his last drink of water. He was beginning to experience severe symptoms of dehydration: headache, dizziness, muscle cramps. His mouth and throat were parched. Several times he tried to chew on the stalks of greyish summer grass, but there was hardly any juice in them.
Finally, reaching the first slopes at the foot of a mountain, he heard a faint rumbling noise. Stumbling, he hurried towards it, and on the other side of a hillock spotted a small pond and a clear stream filling it with water. He almost threw himself into it, plunging his head and torso into the water, drinking greedily. It was the best water he had ever tasted. He drank and drank, and then, exhausted, he rolled onto his back on the soft grass on the shore and fell asleep in the mild heat of the summer twilight.
*
"Roj?"
He opened his eyes lazily, enchanted by the quiet of nature. He didn't sense any threat: the youthful voice calling his name merged with the sounds of his surroundings, the rustling of vegetation, the buzzing of night insects, the soft sighs of nocturnal wind.
"Roj, wake up! It's dangerous to stay here."
He opened his eyes fully, finally recognizing the girl's voice and her face, hardly visible in the moonlit darkness. She was a member of Ida's activist group, a Delta girl he knew from the time of their peaceful protests. "Loree?" he muttered. "How come you're here?"
"Not now," she said, tugging at his arm. "We're in the open. There are patrols. Come on, I'll take you to safety."
He got up, then changed his mind and turned towards the stream to drink some more. He ran to catch up with Loree. They reached a hidden plateau and he saw an entrance into an old tunnel. Loree turned on a torch and took him inside, down a corridor and into a wider area that once could have been an underground train platform. There were people there: dressed in all kinds of torn rags and old-calendar style clothes, sleeping in niches, cooking meals on an open fire, talking in small groups. Some of them lifted their eyes and observed the newcomer inquisitively, but seeing Loree, they felt reassured and resumed their activities.
"They're Outsiders!" Roj exclaimed. He had never seen them before. He was delighted to see so many people living out of reach of the Federation's control. No wonder contact with them was strictly prohibited, he thought: they represented a viable alternative to tyranny.
"Yes – I've been living with them for more than a year now," Loree said. "After Ida was arrested, and after that terrible false confession that they forced her to make, I knew there'd be no point in staying in the domes any longer."
"So this is where you've stayed, ever since?"
"No – we keep changing location, every month or so. The Federation wants to wipe us out completely. The Outsiders are massacred, or sold into slavery on the frontier worlds. Our settlements are razed to the ground. In the domes, no one knows that this is going on. My group has been lucky to avoid it so far."
Roj's face darkened. "It's time we stop avoiding the Federation, Loree, time to stop running and start fighting back."
Loree nodded. "He wants to fight, too... He has changed."
"He?"
"Come," she said, smiling, and took his hand. "I'm taking you to meet Bran Foster."
*
He and Bran Foster talked for hours; discussing politics, strategies of resistance, their ideas of a just society. Roj discovered that he liked the old man much more than he would have guessed. He had always considered Foster a moderate; but exile and persecution had radicalized him, too. When Roj proposed guerrilla tactics, Foster did not oppose.
"Precise strikes," Roj explained. "Carried out by small, well-trained groups. We'll blow up communication relays. Arms depots. Factories producing assault ships. Everything that makes the empire tick. And also," he added, thinking of his father and of Ida, "I want to strike at the Rehabilitation Centre in our dome. Free all the prisoners undergoing treatment there."
"Very well," Foster said. "We'll discuss it in detail the next time we meet. Now it's time for you to return to the dome, before anyone notices you're missing."
"Return? No, I want to stay here with you."
"I know," Bran said and placed a fatherly hand on Roj's shoulder. "But we need people in the domes working for our cause. You will be able to bring us news, learn things we cannot know from here. Stay inside, Roj. Pretend for as long as you can that you're a loyal citizen. Recruit more people. Alert them about the tranquilizers in food and water. Find a way to neutralize them."
They parted and established the time and place for their next meeting. Roj left the Outsiders' shelter, feeling more hopeful and optimistic than ever.
He returned to the valley from which the lights of the dome were visible in the distance. The darkness was thinning; it was close to dawn. Passing through a sparse forest, Roj suddenly felt weary after all the excitement of the previous day. He sat on the dry summer grass, leaning against a tree to rest.
He felt the cold metal of a gun muzzle press against the back of his neck.
"I told you to stay out of this," a familiar voice behind him said. "Idiot Alpha brat."
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