He started to walk toward the small group.
Somewhere behind him he heard Althea cry, “Viekko! What the bloody hell are you doing?”
It’s okay, Althea. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I promised to protect you. I can do this.
Althea was back at the tree line and, for a moment, it looked like she was ready to run after that stupid idiot. Thankfully Isra held her back.
Don’t go, Althea. Leave me to die. I can’t do anythin’ else for you, but I can do this. I can sacrifice myself.
There were shouts from the group in the distance and they started running toward him. They were wearing some sort of heavy brown coat that extended all the way to their ankles and had collars that extended as high as the top of their heads. They brandished batons and snares as they ran at him.
That stupid idiot with the white hat just stopped and looked at them. Damn it! He should do something. Anything! He should speak, draw his guns. Do a dance! Anything would be better than nothing. Instead he just stood there while the people from the city gathered around. He just stood there as one of the men hit him right below the ribcage with a baton.
Althea came running with her black medical bag in hand as Viekko sank to his knees. Damn it, Althea. Stay back where it’s safe. Leave me.
Viekko felt a jolt of pain across his head. He couldn’t see from where he stood, but one of the men must have clubbed him across the temple, right where it would do that imbecile the least amount of damage.
Isra and Cronus came running out now.
He wanted to call out, Stay back. Let ‘em take me. Let ‘em do whatever the khaykh they want to me.
He felt another crack of a baton, this time across his shoulder blades.
There was another flash of pain and he was back in his own body and lying face down in the grass. Some of the men grabbed him by his arms and pulled him to his knees. There was a painful bite of cords being tightened around his wrists to bind them together.
Althea’s voice came from somewhere behind him. “Please! Please! Don’t hurt him!”
The men lifted him to his feet and he could see Althea, Isra and Cronus running to where he was. One of the men stepped forward and raised his baton as if to strike.
Althea dropped to her knees and put her hands in the air. “Don’t hurt us. We are not here to harm any of you.”
Isra stopped and did the same thing. “We are members of the Human Reconnection Project. We are from Earth. We want to talk.”
The men spoke among themselves. It sounded similar to the language the old man used in the spaceport.
“Cronus!” said Isra impatiently, “Do as we do. On your knees. Hands up.”
Cronus was so far out of his element now that he couldn’t walk without step-by-step instructions. He fell to his knees like a puppet whose strings were cut and hyperventilated behind his mask as he put his hands in the air.
The men spoke among themselves again. Two of the men went to Althea, took the bag from her, lifted her to her feet and tied her hands. They did the same to the others, confiscating Cronus's backpack and Viekko’s other gun that Isra still had on her. One of the men searched Viekko’s coat and relieved him of his weapon as well. Once they were all secured, the men started leading them through the gates and into the city.
At least I was able to do something useful, thought Viekko. At least I wasn’t totally worthless.
And with that thought, his mind drifted away for good.
CHAPTER TEN
In a sense, scholars should be generous when looking at the failures of the Corporation. They were no more suited to rule the Earth than the Catholic Church was to rule the remains of the Roman Empire. Looking at the two, the similarities are striking. The Corporation, like The Church believed in a purpose that superseded the well-being of the people under its charge. Their true loyalty was to the institution itself which would, in turn, lead the world to true enlightenment. Thus, the institution, not the people, was to be nurtured and defended above all else.
The difference, of course, was that the Catholic Church believed in the spiritual whereas the Corporation believed in economics. But neither were worth the cost the world paid in human life.
-from The Fall: The Decline and Failure of 21st Century Civilization by Martin Raffe.
It’s true, Althea thought as they were paraded through the city. They are people. Just like the people who walked the market streets of London every day of the week. Just like the doctors and nurses who worked the hospitals of Johannesburg and the patients who came in seeking aid. The people here were stockier on average with finer features. Compared to the people outside the walls, they looked more…well, like humans on Earth. It was as if the city preserved a little more of what the original settlers arrived with. The men dressed in leather belted tunics with a heavy fur cloaks wrapped around their shoulders. The women and children wore long coats and hoods made of thick felt with simple, colorful designs kitted into the fabric.
The men who captured them outside the gates led them through the streets. Althea tried to look at their faces for any clue as to what might be in store for them, but the collar of the coat kept their faces hidden most of the time. The occasional glimpses revealed nothing but blank, stony expressions. Her arms bound behind her back made her feel exposed and caused every little hair on her body to stand upright.
The city looked ancient, old and forgotten like the ruins of Perth, Phoenix, or Kuwait City on Earth. But, whereas those cities had long been abandoned, people here lived inside the remains of the once great outpost. They made their homes in the crumbling skyscrapers and lived their lives on the cracked, decaying streets. It made Althea think of sea creatures swimming inside the remains of an old shipwreck or rodents and small mammals scurrying around in small ecosystems within bare, forsaken concrete walls. The people here inhabited a shell of something greater than them; something they couldn’t fully understand.
Everywhere Althea looked, people came out of their houses and shops to see them walk by. Children stopped playing their little games in the street and gawked. People came out of skyscrapers, they leaned out of windows and stopped in their tracks to watch mystified. The road they marched down was wide enough for at least three cars on Earth, but there were none here. Most people on the street were on foot although a few rode push scooters and a few of the children played with wooden bicycles or tricycles. Men and women pulled carts stacked high with food, cloth or other goods but there were no pack animals to be seen.
As they walked, there was an eerie silence all around them. Nobody cheered, or hissed, or anything. They didn’t seem afraid, but just watched with curious eyes as the men lead the shackled team through the streets. There were screens just about everywhere Althea looked, attached to light poles, the sides of buildings—even a few in the dark recesses of the old buildings. They were all dark and silent; relics of a long forgotten past.
Isra looked as if she was taking in the sights of the city with a certain air of polite interest. As if she might be on a diplomatic tour if it wasn’t for the ropes binding her hands. Viekko…well, he was so out of his mind he probably didn’t know where he was. Even Cronus didn’t look particularly worried but that was because his mind had taken him far past fear into paralyzing horror. He looked down as he walked as if acknowledging the world around him would make it real. Every once in a while, one of their soldiers would prod him with their baton to make him hurry.
The men lead them to a building near the center of town. Althea imagined that, at one time, it was the tallest building in the city with two towers ascending into the thick, misty Titanian air. Now, one of them was nothing more than a pile of twisted metal and concrete. The other was mostly standing, although it looked like a good stiff breeze could finish the job someday.
The men led them up a steep set of stairs into a building that connected the two towers on the ground floor. It was a much smaller, squat structure that could have served as the lobby for whate
ver was happening in the towers. At the top of the stairs, the men said a few words to each other and opened a set of wooden doors. They weren’t original—sliding glass doors would have fit the building much better—but those were likely destroyed and replaced long ago. Still, someone went to the trouble of carving small, elegant symbols into them. Even though none of the team gave the slightest hint of resisting, the men in the brown coats grabbed them roughly one-by-one and shoved them inside.
It felt like a completely different world in there. The city outside was drab, grey and crumbling as if all the color had faded over the years with the city. But in here, every surface was adorned with color. They walked through a wide hall on rich, red carpeting. Paintings and sculptures decorated every available space along the walls. And there were lights, real electric lights. They looked poorly made and cast a sickly orange glow over the hall, but it was electricity. Somehow its presence made the place feel less alien.
Isra looked impressed even if she didn’t say anything.
Here in this palace, Althea felt they had crossed into another social caste. Unlike the women outside, the hooded cloaks the women wore here were covered from the collar to the floor in vibrant colors and intricate designs. As they walked through the building, Althea saw some women wearing something closer to dresses in bright reds and yellows. A few wore jewelry in the form of gold and silver necklaces, rings, and brooches, although it looked restricted to a select group.
The people formed small clusters of five or less and were deep in conversation until the men led Althea and the rest of the team past them, at which point they would stop and watch them go by with an air of smug amusement. Althea’s sick, twisting feeling of foreboding grew.
More soldiers opened a set of double doors for the group. One of their captors shoved Althea through the doorway so hard that she lost her balance and fell face first into the rich, soft carpeting. As she got to her feet her eyes met Cronus's eyes for a moment and Althea saw a fear that had lapsed into sadness. The idea of the condemned being marched to their execution popped again into Althea’s mind.
There was music when they first entered. A strange kind of metallic lilting like from a harpsichord or a hurdy-gurdy. There was also conversations between the fifty or so people clustered in the chamber, both of which ceased when they got a look at what had just been shoved through the door.
The room was immense and extravagantly decorated. Descriptions in Althea’s mind shot way past ‘lavish’ and planted firmly on ‘gaudy’. The walls were angled so that her eyes were naturally drawn to a large, curved indent in the wall opposite the doors. There was a man on a throne but he didn’t look like he was sitting as much as he been set and encased in gold like a diamond in a ring. The decorations around him were intricately designed to the point that it would take years to note them all. On a cursory glance, Althea could see that Saturn was a motif, along with other celestial symbols. The most striking thing sat just above the man’s head, the same Transplanetary Energy Corporation logo they saw on the kiosk at the spaceport.
She identified the man sitting in the throne immediately as the same face that warned them to leave back in the spaceport. If the people here equated power with how tall a person’s hat was and how many pointy claw-like things were sticking out of it, then this person was bordering on a god. It looked like someone poked a dozen or more boar tusks through an incredibly long beehive and set it on this man’s head.
The men in the long brown coats fell to their hands and knees to kowtow before the man in the ridiculous hat. They held that position for a few moments and lifted their heads to speak.
Althea leaned over to Isra. “Is anything they are saying making any sense?”
Isra cocked her head. “Yes and no. There are a lot of words with Latin and Germanic roots. I think they referred to us as the ‘people who fell from the sky’.”
The men in the long brown coats stepped back to stand close to their prisoners. The ruler looked over those assembled in front of him for a moment as if assigning a grade to each individual. Then he spoke. “You speak the… ancient language?”
His English was slow and deliberate as if translating on the fly but even this level of fluency shocked Isra. Finally, she stepped forward. “Yes. We do. My name is Isra Jicarrio. This is Althea Fallon, Viekko Spade, and Cronus. We have come from Earth.
The man nodded. “I am the Houston of Urbo Ligeia. You are lucky with the Kompanio. The Perfiduloi, the people who exist outside the walls, they would kill you and eat of your flesh if they see you. What is your business here?”
Isra stood up as straight as she could with her arms bound, “It is good to meet you Houston. You and your people. We have come to learn from you. To learn of your ways and culture. To find out how your society has developed in the many years since our peoples were one. We have also come to protect you. Something is happening that will be hard for you to understand. There are those who would take your land from you. They are here. On this planet.”
The Houston chuckled slightly and spoke to the assembled crowd in their own language. Whatever he said caused a wave of self-satisfied snickers throughout the crowd.
The Houston held his hand out toward the members of the Human Reconnection Project assembled in front of him, “You speak the language of the Kompanio. You arrive on boats of fire like the Kompanio, but you are not from Earth.”
Isra paused. “I am sure this must seem incredible. I cannot imagine what it must feel like to find people who claim to be from another planet. But you must believe…”
“If you were from Earth, the Kompanio would tell me. The Kompanio still talks to me. They did not speak of you.”
“Kompanio?” said Isra, rolling the word over her tongue. “I do not understand. What is Kompanio?”
Isra maintained a fixed neutral expression. If she was worried at all it didn’t reflect in her demeanor or her voice. Althea was a different story, however. Something dangerous was happening. She could see it in her quick glances around the room in the eyes of the nobles watching. Something in their eyes condemned them. She shivered as if a chill filled the room.
“Of course you do not understand,” the Houston answered. “You know nothing of Kompanio. You are Perfidulo. I see that. You may have come from the stars but you have not come to save us. You have come to destroy us. Again.”
The word ‘Perfidulo’ caused some frantic and hushed discussions among the nobles gathered around. They understood that word and it carried some hefty baggage judging from the reaction.
Even Isra started shifting uncomfortably at the sudden commotion around her. “Forgive me, Houston, I am confused. Kompanio. Perfidulo. I do not know what any of those mean. Believe that we did come from Earth. I would talk with you more about us if you would let me.”
The Houston grinned and said something to the rest of the crowd. He waved his right hand in a graceful flourish as he spoke as if trying to emphasize some grand point. When he stopped speaking everyone in the room gave the ruler a kind of muted laugh. Not a full belly laugh that comes when someone says something actually funny. More the kind of half-hearted laugh that happens when someone in power says something that was supposed to be taken as funny.
The Houston raised his hand and the laughter, such as it was, died down. “If you are from Earth, if you are Kompanio, then answer a question for me. When is the next departure for Earth? When will the ships return to carry our people back home?”
Isra sighed. “There is no such mission as of now. Your people, this city, it has been forgotten by the people of Earth. Something terrible happened many years ago. It is what caused the ships to stop coming to Titan. You are remembering a long forgotten past, but let us talk with you. We will listen and maybe we can discuss a transportation mission in time.”
The Houston sat back. “You are not Kompanio. You are not from Earth. The Kompanio would never forget its people. Earth is a paradise of perfection. Nothing bad could happen there.
Ilin Forporti Al la malliberejon. You will be punished for your lies, Perfidulo.”
Before Isra or Althea could say another word, the men with the batons and the long brown coats grabbed them by their bound wrists and started hauling them back toward the door.
Isra struggled briefly against the men. “Houston! You must believe us. Something terrible is coming to Titan. Your people are not safe! You need…”
Her words were cut short when one of the men hit her in the stomach with a baton. She crumpled to her knees before one of the men hauled her back to her feet. No one resisted after that but let the men lead them away. The music started up again as did the chatter of the nobles as the doors clicked closed behind them.
This wasn’t the first time Viekko woke up in some dark, stinking pit. In fact, laying on a hard, concrete floor with the smell of urine wafting in the air was vaguely familiar. He could just as well be lying in a gutter behind some Rio club. He might have been just coming to in his shitty apartment having failed to make it to bed. Then the memory of Titan flashed across his mind and he sat bolt upright.
“Oh good, you’re awake,” said Althea.
Viekko squinted in the dark. At first he couldn’t make out much of anything. As his eyes adjusted, however, he saw Althea curled up in a little ball in the corner. He took in the rest of his surroundings, such as they were. It was a jail, no doubt about that. The walls and floor were made of damp concrete and a barred door with a lock separated them from the outside world. He’d been in enough of them to recognize the tell-tale signs. Cronus and Isra were there as well. The group leader was laying on her side near the opposite wall while Cronus lie curled in a fetal position in the far corner wheezing through his breath mask. Both seemed to be asleep.
At that point, he realized that his mind was clear. No haze, no disconnect, no sign of triple-T withdrawal at all. Either he had been here so long that he’d completely recovered from the addiction, or…
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