The Hourglass by Casey Donaldson Page A

needed help. Sarah had no idea why the guards thought
that they would possibly require help. The tasks themselves were painfully
simple. Sarah and Finn were assigned to assess the patency of metal tubes that
arrived in front of them via the conveyer belt. The others were doing something
equally benign. Sarah glanced around the room. Nearly everyone was working with
some obscure piece of metal or plastic. It could have been put together to make
anything.
    The third and
final person on their section of the conveyer belt was called Boulder. Boulder
was a boy of about fifteen who, according to him, had been on the ship for a
number of months already. Boulder, like his namesake, was short and stocky.
Boulder mainly cared about Boulder.
    Sarah was bored
after five minutes. The metal tubes were cylindrical, approximately twelve
centimetres long, three centimetres in diameter and were open ended. They also
had a hole towards one end of the tube. Besides that they were utterly
unremarkable. Their job was to pick up each piece and check that the tube was open
at both ends and was devoid of irregular shapes. After a while Sarah started
picking up and putting down the cylinders automatically, without even looking
at them. This earned her a slap across the back of the head by a passing guard
who had crept up on her while she was daydreaming. After that she made sure
that she at least appeared to look at the tubes.
    “Do we do this
all day long? Every day?” she asked Boulder.
    “Yup,” he
drawled, not even looking up.
    “How can you
stand it?”
    “I imagine I’m
not surrounded by idiots.”
    “Hey!” Sarah’s
and Finn’s indignant cry rang loudly throughout the hanger. A few heads turned
in their direction.
    “Shut up,”
muttered Boulder, his head over his work and barely moving his lips. “Don’t
draw so much bloody attention. Idiots.”
    They quickly
went back to work. After a minute or so the stares faded and the heads
reluctantly turned back to their work.
    “Why not? What
will happen if we do?” muttered Finn. Sarah glanced at him quickly. His head
was now also bent over his work. It was like he hadn’t spoken. There was a
pause and for a moment Sarah thought that Boulder wouldn’t reply.
    “What will
happen is that people will notice you,” he replied, speaking as if to a child.
“Look the frag around. Is there anybody here who you would want noticing you?”
    Sarah couldn’t
help herself. She glanced around the room. At the same time, almost as if he
had heard Boulder’s words and wanted to give them weight, a guard on the far
side of the room smacked his truncheon against one of the prisoner’s legs,
causing him to yelp out in pain. Another prisoner used the distraction to throw
a sharp, pointed piece of metal at a third prisoner. It hit her in the face and
drew a small bead of blood. She quickly wiped it away but didn’t say anything.
Boulder was right, Sarah thought. She didn’t want to draw the attention of any
of these people.

Chapter
Ten
    Factories and Friends
     
    After their
third straight hour of sorting through the tubes Sarah felt her eyes starting
to close involuntarily. She shook herself awake and sought out a distraction.
    “So what did you
do Boulder?” she asked quietly, head bowed over her work.
    “Mind your own
business.”
    “So what did you
do Finn?” she asked, her voice not changing at all.
    “I told you,”
replied Finn, “I got on the wrong side of a soldier.”
    “Yeah but what
does that involve, exactly?”
    “I’m not going
to tell you.”
    “What?” asked
Sarah, looking up at him and feeling somewhat hurt despite herself. “Why not?”
    He winked at
her. “I like to be surrounded by a bit of mystery.” He said it light-heartedly
but his light brown eyes were sad. He didn’t hold her gaze but instead went
quickly back to work. Sarah found herself staring at him. His eyes had glazed
over and his jaw clenched as if recalling an unpleasant memory. His gaze