by Walker, Jon
The captain grasps the rigging with his left hand and holds onto Mark’s back with his right, both to steady him on board and be ready to push him at the moment he should jump off. He yells over the thunder, fast wind, and pelting rain, “I got to time this just right. Once you jump off, try to move with the waves going in. The undercurrent will try to suck you back, so just dig in your feet when that happens, understand?”
Mark just nods yes to answer.
“Good, I won’t miss having you as a crewmember, since you are a shit fisherman, but I sincerely wish you luck. Hopefully, you are a better.. NOW!” Seeing the break he was looking for, Captain Reed stops mid thought to push Mark into the water.
Mark jumps into the salty, waist-high surf and feels his feet sink slightly in soft sand. He does his best to run towards the beach but takes only three steps before he is knocked down. The world goes black and quiet for a split second as his face is thrown down into the water. Mark has a moment of panic as the force of the wave holds him down and then tries to pull him backward. A stream of sand and small shells bounces against him as the undercurrent starts pulling back. Mark is able to pop back up to take a deep breath before he is hammered by another wave. At least this time he is better prepared and braces himself against the force, so once it passes over him he is ready to take a few steps forward before the third wave crashes down. Mark continues this exhausting, slow, stop-and-go pace for what feels like 15 minutes before he is close enough to run onto the beach. Bent over panting, Mark turns and looks back to see the Morning Dove only barely visible through the downpour when a bright streak of lightning momentarily illuminates the world. The ship seems to be heading straight into the storm.
After catching his breath Mark scans the area looking for a place to wait out the storm. He finally settles on a large, fallen tree that snapped over roughly a meter up its trunk, creating a natural shelter. The space under the tree is only partially protected, so after crawling under it the unrelenting rain and wind buffeting against him is merely reduced to a tolerable level. Mark curls up into a ball for warmth under the tree, for the first of many cold and miserable nights on the giant continent of Goliath.
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On a relatively secluded road along one of the small hills around Ararat, John Snider and Jarod Wu slowly walk and look out at the harbor as a tall mast ship with a white hull heads out into the sea. From their perspective, it is barely more than a large white dot disappearing into the distance.
John had to go to significant lengths to rearrange both of their schedules at the last minute so they would have a perfectly legitimate reason to be at this vantage point on this particular day. In his heart John knows it is a foolish and unnecessary act of ego to watch with his own eyes as this ship leaves on its mission. But sometimes, he admits to himself, you just need to indulge yourself to stay sane. Even a practiced paranoid like John knows the odds of anyone possibly watching him right now, and making a connection between his walk along this hillside and a ship several kilometers away, are infinitesimal. One of the best pieces of advice John ever received was that too much caution can be as big a mistake as too little caution. There are no truly safe choices for people like him on New Eden, just smart gambles.
After carefully and discreetly making sure there is no one within earshot, Jarod Wu quickly asks John, “So what are the chances you think any of this will succeed?”
Snider shrugs slightly as he formulates an answer, “After all this time searching... I would put the probability in the single digits, but the bet is still worth it for the possible leverage. Right now we are only out a few resources and four young idealists, who can be dangerously unpredictable and difficult to control anyway. If they fail, the main plan doesn’t change.”
Snider takes one last look at the ship before turning away. There is no time for daydreaming. He has real work to do.
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After a cold, wet and mostly sleepless night under the log, Mark wakes up with the sunrise. Fortunately, the rain has passed without doing any real damage to him. Mark does his best to stretch out his stiff and achy muscles while surveying the land. To his back is the open ocean. In front of him he can see a series of green hills that get progressively taller. At least it doesn’t look as unfamiliar as he feared. The flora vaguely resembles what he is used to on the frontier of Prime -- it's just a very soaked, lush, giant version of it.
He takes his supplies and walks inland for about 25 minutes until he finally finds a large, hollow tree. It is the first actual dry spot he has seen. Here Mark opens his backpack and lays out everything he has with him to assess what he is working with. Besides the clothes and raingear on his back, there is:
One highly illegal polymer crossbow. It was clearly jerryrigged from different parts of other equipment which were all different colors. It seems well built and cleverly designed, but it obviously wasn’t printed whole.
One quiver with 20 short bolts for the crossbow.
One bottle of large pills labeled “take one daily,” presumably vitamins.
One bottle with pills labeled “Antifungal/Antibacterial.”
Twenty dense bars with only the word “food” on them sealed in reusable bags.
One water filter.
Two collapsible bowls/pots.
One toothbrush.
Two firestarters.
Two small solar-powered lights.
One pair of gloves.
Two pairs of socks.
Two pairs of underwear.
One length of rope.
Two knives, one large and one small.
One water bottle.
Three spools of fishing line from the boat with several dozen large polymer hooks.
One tarp.
One blanket.
One small inflatable emergency boat that looks like it may have come down from the great slowship.
By far the most important items are a radio with very specific instructions on how to signal if – and only if – he finds Earth insects, and a set of extremely detailed hand-drawn maps of this section of the main continent. It is only while looking over the maps that Mark comes to truly realize the enormity of the challenge he volunteered for.
The maps are mostly a sea of red indicating the land has no cobalt. The red covers the entire coast, and tentacles of red reach inland. The majority of the parts that aren’t red are yellow, indicating they are bad prospects. There are only a few misshapen, light green blobs that signal possible targets. The first small spot of green on the route assigned to Mark is beyond the mountains ahead of him and over 400 kilometers across untouched wilderness. The last spot of green is over 1000 km from there. The farthest Mark has ever hiked was 21 km on an overnight camping trip with his dad.
CHAPTER 19
Prostitutes do their best to solicit Hank White as he walks by. “Need someone to make you a man?” “I'll blow you for just half a ration.” “Three hundred dollars or one day's vitamin ration for an hour to do whatever you want, boy.” They must be pretty desperate, Hank thinks to himself, if after looking at him, they think he could ever be a potential customer.
Walking past this section of Ararat, seeing these women’s desperation, Hank thinks again for the hundredth time about what reduced him to their same lot in life: Cows. Big, ugly, stupid, smelly cows. Idiot creatures that just stand around all day chewing and making the air reek. Because the director thought the world didn’t have enough of these smelly, doe-eyed beasts, his family was ruined.
His father’s sin was simply being too slow to give up his home since it was the land where the ashes of his parents, grandparents, and wife were laid to rest. Hank still remembers when the Public Safety officers told his family they were no longer in official "good standing" with the Public Health Department. His father spent the next three days in an angry, drunk stupor until all the liquor in the house was gone. After that he killed himself.
In his suicide note, his father claimed he did it so he wouldn’t be a burden on his th
ree children and so they would have the money to afford enough cobalt on the black market. Hank suspects the real reason is he couldn’t stand the idea of living as a defiant. He remembers how his dad would look down on them. There was the one time after a big rain storm his father took him to watch a group of beggars fighting over runoff coming from the cattle enclosure. His father’s face was filled with disgust and disdain as he watched the sickly beggars drink the cow shit-infused mud in the hope it might contain enough vitamin B-12 to buy them a few more weeks of life. His father made him watch them fight in the mud for 10 minutes until security guards chased them off.
While their lives were never going to be the same, the inheritance from their father should have kept them from complete destitution. For some reason, though, over the past few months the black market just dried up without warning. There is little spare cobalt to buy, and when there is some for sale, the price has spiked dramatically. Fortunately, his older sister was able to become a surrogate for the Mendes family. Young female defiants in need of cobalt can almost always sell their bodies one way or another to get spare rations, but if they were going to keep his 10-year-old sister alive, he needed to find some work.
Hank is short and scrawny with a slight limp. He is not particularly smart or good looking, so every place he has tried to find work in exchange for cobalt has turned him down. That's why he is on this road leading out of the city. He is off to see the shit king. Rumors are that the sanitation bureau is one of the few places still looking for defiants to work for cobalt. Hank is prepared to get on his knees and beg them for any help possible. He is ready to haul trash, clean sewers, do whatever it takes.
As Hank walks into the yard surrounding the processing plant he freezes, surprised to see Mr. Snider standing out there talking with workers. As Mr. Snider walks toward him with a warm smile Hank’s heart fills with hope.
Mr. Snider greets him with pleasant tone, “Can I help you, young man?”
For a moment Hank is at a complete loss for words. The plea he had been practicing over and over in his mind on the walk over is gone. When it seems like Mr. Snider is starting to lose interest, Hank panics and fumbles to say anything. “I need… It is just… Mr. Snider, sorry. I have a sister… so I’m looking for work. I will do anything if I…"
Mr. Snider gives him a warm smile and places one hand on his shoulder to interrupt him. “I think I can find you something.”
Hearing that, Hank stops talking. He just stares at Mr. Snider, the man who can so effortlessly save both his life and his young sister's, for a moment in shock before he breaks down in tears.
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Later that day on the frontier of Prime
A single motorcycle heads down the path to the Corvus farm. As soon as David Corvus hears the unexpected, high-pitched noise of the vehicle, he and the rest of his family go to the front porch to investigate. Once David sees that it is a man in a Public Safety uniform driving the motorcycle, he forcibly commands everyone else to go back inside so he can greet this official alone. The look of fear and seriousness on David's face convinces them to go inside without complaint, but it never takes much convincing to get people to hide from Public Safety officers.
His heart is pounding and his hands are clammy with sweat as David walks down the front steps. Kicking up a small cloud of dust, the motorcycle comes to a stop roughly 20 feet from David. Watching the Public Safety agent step off the motorcycle and remove his helmet, David feels the tiniest amount of relief. The agent doesn’t have his hand on a weapon, and his posture lacks the pompous swagger his kind normally exudes. It at least seems the man isn’t here to arrest him.
The Public Safety agent takes two steps forward and asks David in a formal tone, “Are you David Corvus?”
David responds simply, “Yes.”
Pulling out a small orange envelope, the Public Safety agent walks toward David. As he hands the note to David, he says, “Mr. Corvus, I regret to inform you your son, Mark Corvus, is presumed dead. His fishing vessel sank in the open ocean during a storm. Since he was an individual in good standing, the Directorate would like to thank you for your son’s contributions to the long-term survival of humanity and express our condolences.” The last line is said with the practiced precision of a rote formality. As soon as David takes hold of the note the agent gets back on his motorcycle to ride off.
David just stands there reading the small note with the attached death certificate. The simple, formal language is polite, direct, and generic. David imagines that with a few modifications the exact same letter has probably been used for the past hundred years. The language of the note might even date back to Earth.
The whole thing leaves David feeling profoundly empty. He was clearly warned that they might need to fake Mark’s death to accomplish his mission, but there could have been an unrelated accident. There is a good chance Mark is still alive, so David feels no need to mourn his son, but if Mark does die on his mission David may never know when or how. It might be next week, maybe next month, that his son could die and he would ignorantly go on as if nothing happened.
For a brief moment David thinks that possibility of never knowing what has actually happened to his son is the worst feeling there is. After a few minutes he is quickly dissuaded of that notion when he is forced to lie to his other children about the fate of their brother. That is a far worse feeling.
CHAPTER 20
Councilmember Leo Madison is standing on his top floor balcony enjoying a glass of bright yellow limoncello while surveying the work being done in his garden. He is wearing white linen pants and a lab-grown silk shirt printed with a complex geometric pattern. Within his line of sight half a dozen men and women in dirty work clothes are shoveling, swinging pick axes, or pushing wheelbarrows.
A fake cough from his butler prompts Councilmember Madison to turn around. Once the butler makes eye contact he says in a tone devoid of emotion or judgment, “Mr. Snider is here to see you.”
Councilmember Madison answers, “Good, he is here to report on the progress of the garden. Send him in.”
“Very good, sir,” the butler answers while stepping aside to let Mr. Snider through the balcony door and then departs to leave the pair alone.
John Snider, dressed in the standard brown uniform of his bureau and carrying a tube full of paper plans, walks to the railing to look at the work done so far.
Councilmember Madison asks, “So what is your assessment of the project so far, John?”
John answers in an extremely earnest tone. “Solid progress is clearly being made. Most everything is on or close to schedule. To me, it looks great.”
Councilmember Madison gives his backyard another look over before answering in a mildly peeved tone, “Really, because right now my entire backyard is just one massive patch of torn up mud and dirt.”
John merely shrugs apologetically, “If you want to put up something new, you need to tear down the old first.” This gets a small accepting tip of his glass from Councilmember Madison.
“I try to envision the potential, not just the current state,” John continues while lifting up his tube of papers. “If you would like to see how this demolition all fits into the plans, I will be happy to show you.”
Councilmember Madison downs the rest of his glass before answering. “Yes I would, but I really want to discuss how this project will look from other angles. Let's take my car to the other side of the valley to show you want I mean.”
Councilmember Madison leads John Snider down to his garage. From his stable of vehicles the councilmember chooses a sporty two-seat car. Most cars that belong to connected individuals are opulently designed for comfort, overwhelming luxury and to be imposingly large. Leo Madison’s tastes are more unique, and he has the resources to bring them to life. This particular car is small, low to the ground, and the interior is spartan by the standard of current automobile fashion. What really sets it apart is the special dynamic plastic material the entire shell is built from. With a comm
and he can change the color or opaqueness of all or part of the vehicle. When they approach the car, the front of the shell is clear to show the simple, elegant design of the vehicle is more than just skin deep. The engine and other mechanical compounds under the hood are chrome and plastic works of art all their own. After they get in and Councilmember Madison pulls out of the driveway, he sets the entire vehicle to a dark tinted grey. Cocooned in the councilmember's private toy it is safe to speak freely.
Councilmember Madison says to John, “I have been thinking a lot about how to proceed after our plan succeeds. I have some big ideas to get this planet moving in the right direction again. I want to bring back real tribunals that use actual evidence to decide who qualifies for vitamin rations and medical care, not just have them distributed at the whim of some spoiled brat at Public Health. Obviously, there will be a jubilee for any of your people you think deserve pardon for their help. It also goes without saying your valuable bureau will be upgraded back to a department when other less critical ones are demoted. Most importantly, the Council is going to need to be restructured so it is not stuck in the past. I want seats assigned on merit. It seems seats should be for those who have the knowledge, skills, and necessary resources to make a difference.” Councilmember Madison stops and indicates with a tilted head he wants to hear John’s opinion on the offer.
John takes a long moment before responding in a reassuring tone, “That all sounds quite reasonable. I’ve never been a fan of the current Council structure. And in fact, I have at least two subordinates who could make great contributions -- individuals with true vision who desire greater responsibility.”