Children of the Dark World

by Will Townsend

  “Granted. I’ll have the paperwork done in an hour and I’ll hide it until you set out for the belt. I don’t want anyone to know about this yet.”

  “Wait a damn minute admiral…” Ming said, finally recovering from the blindside hit that had just landed on him.

  “Sit down and finish drinking my scotch,” the admiral growled. “I want to talk to both of you at any rate.” Ming sat back, feeling a little guilty knowing the admiral knew they were drinking, which was, strictly speaking, forbidden on space vessels. “I believe those protocols were put in place to help you fail. Already corporate operatives are trying to convene a meeting of the Council. They’re spreading rumor so we have to take the offensive in a public relations campaign. I want you two to stay far away from the fracas.”

  “Gladly, we’ve the recordings from our suit recorders showing the initial attack and Dr. Alexeyev has recorders on all personnel on the surface.”

  “I know Callum. She did that at my direction. I want your ship ready to go at a moment’s notice”

  “What about the populace? They need a lot of supplies and materials.”

  “I’m working on that. I’ve got things in place that I started well before you left. You two just be ready to leave orbit when I say so.”

  “Roger, admiral. We’ll make preparations.”

  “This is Ngata, out.”

  The two men sat there for a few seconds, silent, each occupied by his own thoughts. Finally Farr sighed and addressed Ming.

  “I’m sorry Ming. I know you don’t want this, but I need someone I can trust and so does the Resolution and her crew. Unfortunately for you, you’re that man. If I make any request off ship we’ll be circling the Moon for months.”

  “I know that, but you’ve developed a real nasty habit of not consulting me before you put something into play,” he replied, his eyes narrow.

  “Well I couldn’t afford a ‘no’, but on the bright side I have to tell you everything now and I have to listen to your suggestions very seriously.”

  “You listened to my suggestions before,” he retorted.

  “Yes, but now I have to take them seriously because you’re my XO,” Farr said suddenly grinning. A smile slowly came to Ming’s face.

  “Alright, I’ll be your XO if it means moving this mission along and getting the hell out of Earth orbit. We won’t be safe from interference until we’re outbound. Now let’s finish these drinks. I need it twice as much as I did before.”

  “You know,” Farr said slowly as if thinking, “now that you’re my XO retaliating against your CO with a prank could be considered mutiny.”

  “You made me XO just to save your ass from a practical joke?” Ming snorted and Farr laughed and the rest of the afternoon mercifully passed uneventfully for the weary space travelers.

  —————

  The next two weeks were a blur as Farr monitored the reports from the surface. He was currently getting a situation report from Master Chief Wells and he was having a hard time believing the pace of operations.

  “You’re telling me they’ve repaired the damage to the ecosystem in just four days Chris? Maybe you shouldn’t be driving them so hard. They’re in pretty bad shape.”

  “I wish I could take credit for this and I know, I know, it isn’t possible that they could’ve repaired the damage this quickly. But you should see the way they work with each other. It’s like a colony of ants. As sickly as they looked when we arrived, I’d swear that they couldn’t work at all, but they go sixteen, eighteen hours without stopping. Men, women and children, it doesn’t matter. They’re never idle. They already have plans to repair the dome in Six and the lights should be back to normal in the dome in six hours.”

  “Wait a minute, how’re they going to work in the dome after that? The light’s too strong for their eyes.”

  “With these,” Wells said holding up a thin flexible black band. “You just wrap it around your eyes and it molds to the bone structure of your sockets.”

  “You’re a genius, Master Chief,” Farr said in a tone of admiration. Wells face wore a frown.

  “Once again, I wish I could take credit, but this came from that kid Eric that took you to Skorsson when he got nabbed. He drew it up on a slate tablet and I programmed the VPD’s and the first five thousand of them will be finished by tonight. Skipper, sometimes I think I’ve been everywhere, but I ain’t ever seen nothing like these people.” Wells called this his ‘dumb country accent’ and he only used it when something was totally beyond his understanding. This was only the third time Farr had heard it in the last decade. There was a knock on his door and Ming floated in. Farr motioned him to a chair.

  “Hello, XO,” Wells said with a sarcastic grin, noticing Ming in the room.

  “Too funny Master Chief, how about I lock up the Dirty Harry films?”

  Wells stopped grinning. Ming stared. Farr just chuckled.

  “Anything else Master Chief?”

  “No sir,” Wells said, still giving Ming the eye, “We’ll be finished making the VPD’s for the colony soon and I’ll bring ours back up. By the way, I haven’t forgotten I owe you two a butt chewing.”

  “I think the Dirty Harrys may just be in an unlocked case after all,” Ming said breaking eye contact. Farr coughed. “Thank you Master Chief, out.”

  “I don’t know who’s more vindictive, Wells or Ilsa,” Ming complained.

  “Ilsa,” Farr said flatly.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Watch.” Farr said tapping the communications queue again. “Dr. Alexeyev, this is Commander Farr.”

  “Commander, how are you doing?” Her smile was brittle. “Thank you for all of the wonderful work. I don’t believe I’ve slept more than three hours a day since I came down here,” she looked around her, her eyes unfocused. “It’s disorienting down here what with the constant darkness. I think I’ll set up shop in the dome when the lights come on.”

  “That’s a good idea. It is very disorienting,” Farr acknowledged. “The time I spent down there seems like a dream now. Do you have a situation report for me?”

  “I thought we were waiting until we’re underway to bother with those pesky reports?” she said innocently.

  “Doctor, I was willing to go three days with the shots and the attitude, just to let you vent your displeasure at my, shall we say, ill-advised tactic. But seven days using ancient needles was just a bit too long, don’t you think?” Farr smiled wanly at the doctor whose expression was shocked to say the least.

  “You knew?”

  “Knew what?” Ming said his eyes suddenly suspicious.

  “Yes, I knew that there were plenty of med spray inoculators onboard. I’m the captain of this ship, after all.”

  “Wells told you,” she accused.

  “Told you what?” Ming said his eyes narrowing.

  “In a way he did I suppose. I’ve known the Master Chief since I was a green ensign. He would never allow you to take all of them to the surface. He would’ve refused, medical emergency or not, and no order would make him flinch. It’s in his blood to take care of the ship and its personnel first. He’s incapable of doing anything else because he’s, well, the Master Chief. So no, he didn’t tell on you, but you just told on him.” Farr said with a devious smile.

  “What the hell are you two talking about? Are you telling me I didn’t need to be shish kabobed daily by Faye? Oh-h-h Ilsa, you’re going to pay for this one. My response will be epic, I can assure you. Chiefs will frighten new recruits for decades with tales of my revenge. I…” Ming said with fire in his eyes.

  “XO”, Farr said quietly interrupting him and Ming deflated on hearing his new title.

  “Alright, alright, has everybody gotten revenge out of their system yet? If so,” he said looking directly at the doctor, “we have a ship to run.”

  “Good,” Farr said, a wayward smile on his face. “Now doctor, could I have a sitrep please?”

  “Very well, captain,” Ilsa said in a
pleasant voice, “the medical situation here is actually quite stable. A few rounds of vitamins and everyone seems to be rolling along like nothing ever happened. I assume Chris has told you how hard they work. Well the increased food, supplemented by our stores seems to be just what…”

  “Don’t say it.” Ming said with a sour look.

  “, the doctor ordered,” Alexeyev said smiling sweetly.

  “Doc, how is this possible? I would swear just… ,” he looked at Ming.

  “Eighteen days,” Ming said in surprise.

  “Yes, just eighteen days ago they were starving and we anticipated a lot of dead people if we didn’t do something quick. Now, their working like demons.”

  “I can tell you this, and I’ve already discussed it with Chris, they seem to have an enormous amount of control over their bodies. I mean like the old Indian Fakirs or the Tibetan monks, but more so.”

  “The Foreman told me when I asked about that mental contraception thing, that they were in control of their bodies.”

  “Explain please,” Ilsa replied, in her clinical mode now. Ming relayed to her the conversation he’d had with the Foreman.

  “I wish you’d told me sooner,” she said crossly.

  “Sorry, I was busy getting my shots.” This earned him a glare.

  “That’s incredible, I’ve never heard of anything like that before. They willfully kept the Suits from procreating? They were driving them to extinction?”

  “Not exactly, it was more like they weren’t going to assist them in remaining a viable species.” Ilsa’s fingers were flying across her computer pad making copious notes.

  “Doctor?” Farr said calling her back to the real world.

  “Sorry, it’s just that the implications of this are staggering, it’s no wonder they’re healing so fast. I’ve heard of things like this in the past, but I’ve always taken the stories with a grain of salt.

  “I’m afraid you’re not going to have any time to do a serious study on their abilities. Admiral Ngata told us to make ready for a quick departure. We’ve been working on it the last two weeks and when the order comes we’re leaving. I’m actually informing you so you’ll be ready. Please don’t disseminate that to anyone other than the Master Chief,” Farr paused, “How much have you talked with Admiral Ngata?”

  “This is a subject best left for a face to face I think. We can talk about that and a few other things when I return to the ship. I was planning on coming up later today, but I’ll make sure all of our gear is ready for quick removal first and come back later tonight. At least the lander is getting a good shakedown.”

  “That it is,” Farr agreed. “Wells is thoroughly enjoying himself.”

  “I’ve got to get back to a couple of projects I have going on so I’ll see you later tonight. Out.”

  Farr and Ming dispersed as well for various duties about the ship, but Farr’s mind kept coming back again and again to what his people were saying about the Workers. Something was bothering him about their work pace. Finally, he returned to his cabin and displayed the various optical recordings from his crew. He called them up one by one and arranged them in a row across his display table and sat back to study the work being done. It was hours later when Ming tapped on his door.

  “Come in,” he said still absorbed with the different displays.

  Ming entered, his eyes drawn to the display table and the many open windows. “What’s this? Have you taken up voyeurism?”

  “Remember I told you that Wells said that they’re working like ants and accomplishing tasks at an incredible rate? They must have at least two dozen projects ongoing in just about every field of scientific endeavor.”

  “That’s impressive, but not exactly earth shattering. There are five thousand of them after all.” Ming said with puzzled admiration.

  “Sit down and look at this please,” Farr said, still intensely focused on the displays. Ming joined him and sat quietly for a half an hour watching the various displays as workers moved at a steady, efficient pace handling a myriad of tasks. After a while he gave Farr a quizzical look.

  “What exactly are we looking for?”

  “Something that’s not happening,” Farr said.

  “How long have you been staring at this?” Ming said regarding Farr with a quizzical expression.

  “Maybe four hours,” Farr allowed. “Something’s missing from this picture and I can’t quite put my finger on it.” Suddenly he turned toward Ming, allowing his eyes to break contact with the displays for the first time in hours. “Did you see that little gesture on the bottom display, third from the left? Where the two people stopped and touched each other on the cheek.”

  “Yes, but I saw a lot of that in the central room of the Workers. It appears to be a sign of affection, or at least, that’s what I took it to be. Do you read it another way?” Ming’s face was screwed into a puzzled mask regarding Farr.

  “Maybe, I don’t know,” Farr said sighing heavily, “Okay, they’ve got a couple of dozen projects proceeding simultaneously and everybody, and I do mean everybody is involved. That’s a very complicated schedule, thousands of people working on a variety of jobs,” Farr said closing his eyes as if he were working through the details in his mind.

  “Okay,” Ming said raising his hands in a gesture of ‘so what’. “So they’re all bucking for employee of the month, there’s nothing special about that. What’s bothering you, really?”

  Farr made an exasperated noise and cancelled all of the displays and rubbed his eyes.

  “Pretty much everything at this point,” he responded. “We stumbled onto a century old conflict under the surface of the Moon. We killed people in the tunnels and in the dome. We witnessed slavery and murder. And now, the whole thing seems like a dream.” He looked sharply at Ming, his face a mask of mixed emotions, mostly troubled.

  “I can’t seem to sort it all out when I look at these displays. The very same people who were screaming for our blood are now planting vegetables and trees and repairing the damage, some of which they caused over that century. The people who were enslaved and murdered are working side by side with them as if nothing happened. I just can’t make sense of this. That’s the straightforward answer and I thought by observing them I could find some indication of why they’re so unbothered by the last century. And why their former enemies just fall in beside them now that the biome is open. I mean we’re going to have to report the casualties and I’ve got to tell you if I was the officer sent here to do a follow-up, I might question whether violence had actually been necessary.”

  Ming regarded him for a full thirty seconds before replying. When he did his voice was measured and reasonable and he met Farr’s gaze directly.

  “I see what’s really bothering you and I understand your thought process, because I’ve already gone through this yesterday. I’ve already looked over the uploads from the team and I’ve seen the erstwhile Suits working hand in hand with their erstwhile slaves and, I’ve got to tell you, I don’t understand one bit of it. You’re asking yourself the same question I was yesterday. Were we so disoriented by the dark and a strange, alien landscape that we let paranoia run rampant and we overreacted to the situation?”

  “The answer to that question is no. You were right before when you said I was a cynic. I am and life’s made me that way. I don’t believe that justice always happens and that the right thing’s always done. I leave that to people like Lansing, Lao and you, because you’re good men. I’m just a man.”

  “So, being slightly paranoid and disturbed by the aftermath of the action in the dome, I recovered the suit recordings from our first encounter in the tunnels. I also searched the dome for recorders. They were common place on all colonies at the time and I found one that still worked. All of the rest are dead, probably have been for quite some time. The one that worked was on a one week deletion cycle and it recorded a portion of our ‘battle in the dome’ as the troops are now calling it. It clearly shows us being attacked by a huge fo
rce, all of whom I might add, were firing continuously at us and we’ve got the wounds to show for it. Let me bottom line this for you as your XO. Our actions were justified by the situation, as hard as that is to believe with all of the cooperativeness that’s broken out down below in the aftermath. But as that old man said, it’s their society, they can sort it out.”

  “The reason you’re beating yourself up about this is because you and I, and the Master Chief, are the only ones onboard this ship that know how this really goes down at any other place. Because we’ve seen it before, too many times,” Ming’s eyes were distant for a moment, remembering past horrors, but snapped back quickly and focused again on Farr. “We’ve seen the rage and the murder and the retribution. And I’ve got to tell you, I feel just as confused about this place as you. I can’t wait to leave and, between you and me, I don’t ever want to come back. Chris is just as confused as we are. We’ve already had this conversation when he walked me through it yesterday. Believe me, I needed it, and he set me straight. Now, I’m telling you, as your friend and as your XO, put it away. The only one accusing you is you and we’ve got a ship to take care of so we don’t have time for this.”

  Farr regarded Ming, his face slowly reverting to his ‘command face’. “You’re right I know. I’ll just chalk it up to the strangeness of this place and move on.” He hesitated briefly, nodded at Ming and said, “Thanks.” Ming nodded back and the situation was past. At that moment Faye, who was on watch on the bridge, hailed him.

  “Captain, Dr. Alexeyev’s on the commlink for you. She says it’s important.”

  “Thanks Faye.” Farr activated his link over the data table and Dr. Alexeyev’s face appeared in front of him.

  “What’s so important it couldn’t wait until you came back to the ship?”