Withûr We

by Matthew Bruce Alexander

  “So if it took humans tens of thousands of years the first time, how long does it take us?” asked Amina.

  “I hope not long,” said Alistair.

  “Two decades,” predicted Darion.

  “But until we advance farther, I am grounding all flights except for emergencies. The fuel for the aircraft is water. To get the fusion needed the water has to be purified to a degree we can’t manage, and impure water would destroy the engines. So we don’t fly for a while.

  “Now, Darion said it would be twenty years before we become a modern society. We need to talk about strategies to shorten that time span. There are no children here, and that is bad news for us.”

  Ryan Wellesley snorted. “That was the one nice thing about this place.”

  “That’s bad news for us,” continued Alistair, “because it means the savings rate will be lower. An economy grows when you produce and shrinks when you consume. If you earn money, meaning if you create something and put it in the market, then you get paid for it and can use that money to draw something else out of the market and consume it. When you earn the money but do not draw from the market, you have saved that money.”

  “And this saving can be lent to a businessman like me,” said Darion. “And these loans allow me to buy equipment to expand productivity.”

  “Spending simply consumes what has been produced,” Alistair resumed. “My concern is people here are going to consume what they produce and not save enough to expand production. We need to preach savings. With a bunch of Gaians whose creed is to leave the earth alone, this won’t be too hard.”

  At this point Giselle stirred in her chair, looking uncomfortable. “But you just said there are no children here. If people decide not to save… it makes sense in a way. Why spend your whole life working and not enjoying the fruits of your labor when you can’t even leave your savings to loved ones. I mean… you said value is subjective. If people want to consume, who are we to tell them to save?”

  “We’re not forcing anyone to save if they don’t want to. But we are perfectly free to encourage savings. It’s the only way to modernize in a reasonable span of time. Let’s try to instill some civic pride in saving and not spending. Make it a creed.”

  “I would expect you to want to leave people alone to do what they want,” said Giselle, a frown clouding her features.

  “I’m all for leaving people to themselves,” said Alistair with a note of exasperation. “But I think it’s important to modernize. After all, at some point the Incarcerator will be back and they will probably notice something amiss. It won’t take them long to find our busy little society. The more modernized we become, the more chance we have of defending ourselves, or negotiating some sort of treaty.”

  “That’s a good selling point,” said Taribo.

  “Any ideas you may have…” Alistair concluded, and then proceeded to the next point of business. “Now, the shaft on Odin’s Island…”

  “We have stopped exploration,” said Shukri. “Raja went down as deep as he could.” Raja nodded in confirmation. “He made it down, we estimate, eight miles. There was no sign of a bottom, and it became too hot. Until we can manufacture some protective suit, we cannot continue.”

  “Was there a change in the shaft?”

  “None,” said Akihiro. “But we have a strong suspicion we know what it is for.”

  “Go on.”

  “It probably leads to a station far below. Right on the edge of Srillium’s mantle.”

  “I told you before we should all be dead on this moon,” said Shukri.

  Akihiro continued, “There are grooves along the sides of the metal rungs. I believe there was once a platform that could take one up and down faster. We speculate the station was one of many used to inject an artificially fabricated metal into the core to create a field for the planet which protects us from Srillium’s radiation belts. There are certain artificial compounds which could do it.”

  “It’s our best guess,” said Shukri.

  “And nothing more can be done for now?”

  “Raja saw no sign of the station at eight miles down,” Faisa replied. “If it is much deeper, it would be too hot for a human to survive. We would need a protective suit to explore any farther.”

  “Well,” said Alistair, “that project is closed for now. Next order of business.”

  “There has been a murder,” said Santiago. “What we do about it is going to have – what are they? – ramifications.” Unfamiliar with it, he said the last word slowly. “One of our subscribers murdered one of the former warriors of the tribe he was a slave in. The warrior took his wife and used her as a concubine for the last six years. He took advantage of his chance for revenge. The man he murdered was a client of Duke and Wei Bai. We’re going to meet with the other firm and set the groundwork for a trial. The negotiations will set the standard for future cases.

  “This planet is filled with men from the warrior class who have committed many crimes against others.”

  Giselle interrupted with a snort, as if she considered it a gross understatement.

  “Their defense will be that they were forced to survive in the system as well as they could.”

  “That’s shit!” Giselle burst out. “You can’t hide behind that. A murder is a murder and a rape is a rape. He’s not going to hide behind that excuse.”

  This outburst made Taribo turn decidedly uncomfortable.

  “We were all placed in a difficult situation,” he began, but Giselle cut him off.

  “Yeah, it was real difficult for you!”

  “When a man must kill or be killed, you cannot blame him when he kills!”

  “That doesn’t absolve you from responsibility!”

  Alistair laid a gentle hand on Giselle’s shoulder, and he quieted Taribo with a look. Giselle, tossing her head back, spun her chair around and crossed her arms, presenting her back to Taribo.

  “This is exactly the issue we are going to be dealing with,” said Alistair. “We can’t escape from our history. Half the population are women who were forced into white slavery and men who were forced into general slavery. The other half were picked to be soldiers, to be part of the upper class. Had they rebelled they would have been killed and eaten like all the others who didn’t survive their first day on Srillium. We have to find the point where just compensation mollifies the first class without going too far against the second.”

  “If that point exists,” muttered Santiago.

  “There is a half of our new society with a very severe, very real grievance, but an aggrieved class does not often stop at a reasonable point of retribution. And if the old warrior class feels threatened… We are here to provide services traditionally monopolized by a State. As a private firm, we will provide them better and more efficiently, but that doesn’t mean we live in a healthy, happy, peaceful society. This issue, this murder, presents a danger for everyone. Society is a cooperation of individuals; we have to make enough of them feel that justice has been done. Absolving the warrior class of all guilt won’t do that, nor would it be actual justice, and allowing the former slaves to deal out vengeance to the extent of their hatred won’t work either. We have to find the right balance or we won’t survive as a society.”

  The ugly expressions on the faces of Giselle and Taribo did not fill the rest of them with any optimism.

  Alistair was moved to speak further. “We will find that balance.”

  This had no effect on the African and the woman from Arcabel. Alistair, seeing this, shook his head and mumbled a dismissal, dismayed but resolute. The meeting thus concluded, Taribo rose from his chair and shuffled out of the room. Giselle refused to budge from her position until he was gone.

  ***

  In the time when no houses were permitted, when no castles were built, when no structures of any kind graced the land, the tall canyon walls of Issicroy and the many interconnecting steps carved into them, and the narrow rope bridges spanning the canyon, were imposing and awe-in
spiring. Now, for a man who had destroyed Floralel, who now flew above the city in formation with five others, it seemed puny. The grandeur was gone, but the hatred Mordecai felt for it remained undiminished. A multitude of tiny dots poured out of the canyon walls to stand with those at work in the canyon, all gaping at the sky above. Mordecai malevolently smiled as he was gawked at. Never had so many Gaian craft come at once, much less so boldly zoomed over the canyon in formation.

  He circled back, leading his flying mates and, tilting down, streaked towards the canyon floor. The tiny dots at first did nothing, but as the craft drew closer without veering away, they scattered. Mordecai was no more than eight feet above the ground when he and his group tore through and the wind kicked up by their crafts knocked many of the fleeing forms head over heels. Horses panicked and bolted; carts and tents were overturned and trampled.

  By the time he circled around for a second pass, the crowd was gone, having taken refuge in the city caverns and leaving behind only the mess their panic wrought. Left without a tempting target, he ceased toying with the beleaguered Issicrojans. Settling his craft in the canyon, no more than fifty feet above the ground, he faced the wall. The Gaian flag at the temple entrance fluttered in the weak breeze. Lord Issicroy’s flag did the same, and the sight of it caused him to squint and grind his teeth.

  Insulated from the sounds and smells of Issicroy, ensconced in his air-conditioned cockpit, he fixed his sight on the flag he so abhorred. He pulled a trigger and a projectile shot out of one of the cannons recessed in his craft, flying straight and true to its target. There was no question of aim: the sensors on the inside of his windshield read the light bouncing off his eyes and the cannon fired at what those eyes focused on. The projectile left a small trail of wispy smoke and an explosion shredded Issicroy’s flag and sent fragments of rock into the air.

  Immediately, a barrage of like shots pummeled the city, and like bees from a hive knocked to the ground, the city dwellers poured out of the caverns, spilling onto the canyon floor. For several minutes the barrage continued. The canyon walls collapsed in large chunks, and a cloud of smoke and dust billowed out, filling the canyon and spilling over the sides onto the land above.

  Finally, Mordecai landed his craft and extended his exit ramp from the rear of the vehicle. Dust assaulted his eyes as he exited, and he coughed when the stuff got into his lungs. The bulk of the escapees were gone, running down or upstream according to whichever impulse seized them. Only a few stragglers staggered nearby. As the dust slowly cleared, he spotted a dark silhouette wobbling towards him. It was a man coughing terribly, and he lurched forward one more time before falling to his knees a few feet in front of the city’s destroyer.

  “Mordecai…” he breathed, and he stretched his arms out sideways as if in supplication.

  “Giuseppe,” Mordecai replied, startled.

  The man with the Italian moniker was a light brown color, his heritage drawn from all races. His hair was disheveled and of medium length, reaching the top of his shoulders, and a short beard, well trimmed, covered his cheeks and chin. When he pronounced Mordecai’s name, it bore an Italian accent, but when he next spoke in Mandarin, there was no indication he was not a native speaker of that language.

  “You won,” he said, marveling.

  “I won. I won and you were wrong.”

  “You won. You beat them.”

  There was a moment when neither one could think of anything to say. Mordecai folded his arms and looked down on the man as a king on a subject.

  “You are a chief again?”

  “Yes,” he declared with no little pride. “Soon,” he quickly amended.

  “Do you want me to work for you again?”

  The question hung in the dirtied air and Giuseppe coughed after asking it. Mordecai observed the man for another moment before turning his back on him.

  “Ansacroy is next,” he simply said.

  Giuseppe, conversant in the language of Mordecai’s mien and posture, rose to his feet and followed after as confidently as if he had said, “Come!” Both went up the ramp and disappeared into the aircraft, which moments later was in flight again, heading towards the coast.

  Chapter 76

  After several months the electric power plant was completed, a squat and solid structure made to withstand earthquakes. Around it several different shops sprouted up. Darion and a few competitors mined the areas nearby, and Darion sent a team of prospectors to the Birth Crater, banking on a rich supply of raw materials to be had there. A gold mine was established, and the iron coins disappeared, replaced by gold ones as the iron was put to different uses. The resources from the mines and the forests flowed into the shops around the powerplant, and in the powerplant the moving water turned the wheels and sent electricity flowing. Out of the shops flowed a stream of goods, most of them capital goods. This stream sputtered and coughed a lot at first, and some of the goods produced there were shoddy, but as time went by the artisans improved in their crafts, and the stream of goods became a torrent. The farms filled up with them, as did the logging and construction teams.

  The first harvests brought down the price of food, and the populace began to lose their gauntness. Ships were built and traders explored. Hundreds and even thousands flocked to the area, settling down within easy reach of the shops and the electric plant powering them. Other electric plants were planned, and all of it happened quite out of any one person’s control. Alistair ventured to guess that never in history had any population advanced so far so quickly from such humble beginnings. Even the first colonists to new systems had started with far more, and though it was true that much of what they were doing was retreading a path already well defined by others, and though they were helped along by devices taken from the Gaians, Alistair considered their accomplishments truly marvelous.

  Satisfied with how things were progressing and finding his coffers full of gold, he paid for the construction of a house. Several miles up the river from his electric plant there was an inland lake of five hundred square miles. Near the southern edge, his modest home was built. The top story was the bedroom, perhaps nine hundred feet square, and the veranda affording a view of the lake. The first story had a living room, a dining room, a kitchen and larder, and guest quarters. He never saw the place when he worked, but every so often he would take a few days to relax and inevitably went there, and Giselle went with him.

  He permitted himself one exorbitant expense, and that was the costly windows composing the entirety of the wall facing the lake and the veranda. Two sections of this windowed wall were now open, and a cool night breeze came through and caressed him as he lay with Giselle on the softest bed on the moon. The sound of waves tickled their eardrums, and the ruddy glow of Srillium filtered in and made fuzzy shadows with the furniture. They were both naked and a sheen of sweat was evident on their skin, though it dried as the breeze cooled them. Alistair lay on his back, right arm thrown back with the hand under his head. Giselle lay on her side, snuggled against him with her head on his shoulder and her left hand playing with the hairs on his chest. It was such a time that a person can’t help sighing, and since no single exhalation of breath could quite sum up one’s contentment, another sigh was sure to follow.

  “I’d never met an anarchist,” whispered Giselle as she stared over Alistair’s chest out the window. “Before you.”

  “There aren’t many of us.”

  “Santi?”

  “He never said if he was fully an anarchist or not.”

  “Why… I mean, what made you an anarchist?”

  “My grandfather was, I think. When I was a boy he used to read to me all the time, until he moved south to escape the cold.”

  “You lived in the north?”

  “A very cold north. My grandfather was something of a political agitator. I don’t know if he was an anarchist or not, but I read a lot of his books, and some of the authors were. My grandfather understood economics, more than anything. Something almost nobody else does.
”

  Giselle sighed. “It’s working. It’s actually working.”

  “We’ll see,” said Alistair. “In two days we are going to rule on the murder trial. If we fail, we’ll fail the day after next.”

  “How is the jury going to rule?”

  “Tomorrow I am going to submit my brief, and Duke will submit his. The jury will decide.”

  “Thousands of people will show up to hear the verdict. Not the verdict really, the punishment. That’s what they want to hear.”

  “That’s a pretty big fight if things get ugly.”

  “Who is on the jury?”

  “Four former slaves and four former warriors. Duke, Wei Bai and I were careful about that.”

  “It’s funny how things work out,” she said after a short pause. “I wonder if your grandpa had any idea when you were on his lap that he was shaping the mind of the leader of a revolution. What would have happened if he decided to play frisbee with you instead?”

  “What’s frisbee?”

  “It’s a game from Arcabel.”

  Alistair shook his head, staring all the while at the ceiling. “He died while I was off on Kaldis.”

  The last sentence elicited a solemn silence that Giselle held for a full minute. Her fingers stopped their play with his chest hairs, and she bit lightly at her upper lip.

  “What was it like on Kaldis?” she finally, tentatively asked.

  Their speech, at first whispers under the spell of the lake breeze, had grown louder with each successive reply, but now fell back into soft murmurs.

  “Kaldis was a lot of things.”

  She felt a spring of infinite compassion for Alistair, for she could read from his face every emotion in his breast. She felt his dark reluctance, and the myriad emotions it covered, and in this state where their emotions were exposed and raw, she slipped into her native language, Italian.

  “You can speak to me when you feel ready.”

  He turned his head for the first time and, with the ghost of a smile, said, “Honey, my Italian is pretty terrible.”