The Sky Woman

by JD Moyer

Katja strode around the edge of the fire. She wielded a bloody longsword. A second sword was strapped across her back. Her eyes were cold and empty, with no trace of joy at seeing her brothers.

  “Katja!” yelled Trond.

  “Sister!” Esper cried.

  Confused, the giantess wheeled around to face the new foe. Katja’s blade sliced across her cheek. In the same smooth motion, Katja whipped back the blade and thrust it forward in a deep lunge. The point of the long blade plunged through the giantess’s left eye and into her brain. Her corpse toppled. Katja wrenched the blade out and stood before them in a relaxed stance, breathing evenly.

  “Katja,” said Esper softly, “are you all right?” The young woman looked paler and thinner than Car-En remembered, but not unwell. She thought of the black egg that Katja had ingested before the white-haired man had died. What had passed from his body into hers?

  “Speak to me, sister.” Esper said. And then, tentatively, “Is it really you?”

  “Of course it is her,” said Trond, but he didn’t sound sure. He took a step closer, squinting.

  “Why are you silent?” asked Esper. “Are you angry with us? Why did you leave the village? Mother fears for you. We feared for you.”

  Katja took a rag from her pouch and wiped it carefully up and down the long blade until the clean steel shone brightly.

  “What blade is that?” Trond asked. “That is fine godsteel. One of Jense’s?”

  Katja turned and walked away.

  “Sister, wait!” cried Esper. “What have we done to anger you?”

  “What will we tell Elke?” asked Trond. “Will you leave us at her mercy? You are not so cruel, sister. Not so cruel as that!”

  Car-En approached Esper and gently touched his arm. Katja was already ten paces into the beech woods.

  “I will follow her,” Trond said.

  “We will,” said Esper.

  “Wait,” Car-En said. “There’s something I need to tell you first.”

  Part Two

  The Crucible

  Chapter Seventeen

  Excerpt from ‘The Four Phases of Earth Depopulation’ by Lydia Heliosmith, age 17, written for Terrestrial Anthropology 1, 22.01.02719:

  Phase 1: The Late Corporate Age

  Phase 1 depopulation, from a peak of eleven billion in the late twenty-first century to just under seven billion at the end of the twenty-second, was gradual. The long droughts, devastating floods, and unpredictable storms of the Anthropocene resulted in suffering and some deaths, but the vast majority of the population drop was attributable to readily available birth control, near-universal literacy, and the high cost of raising children. Few nations made the choice to support parenting and child-rearing, thus creating economic disincentives for those who might have otherwise wanted to create and nurture new human beings.

  A forty per cent drop in the number of human beings on planet Earth, over the course of a single century, devastated the global economy. Young people were overtaxed and overworked to support the growing burden of the old and entitled (with the latter, larger group always voting to preserve their entitlements). By 2180, half of all major cities (those less able to employ and entertain – and thereby retain – young people) went the way of the industrial metropolis Detroit (East America), with a hollowed-out city center, decaying infrastructure, trees pushing through the asphalt, and entire neighborhoods abandoned to weeds and feral animals.

  A century of dismal economics brought a parallel psychological state. While the planet’s greenhouse ecology was in a permanent state of summer, the minds of its inhabitants endured an endless winter. The human socioeconomic operating system, corporate capitalism, had revealed itself as deeply flawed (a growth-based system in a closed world), but also inescapable. Governments were neither by nor for the people, but rather puppeted regimes of the rarified elite. Localized attempts at revolution created chaos and disrupted the status quo, but failed to reorganize and fundamentally improve economic and social systems. Some nations revisited Marxist ideas and experimented with planned state economies. These proved unsustainable, as did the few religious fundamentalist movements that managed to leverage terrorism into full-scale national dominance (Kandaharistan, Islamic Emirate of Hausa). Going back to the past (be it the nineteenth century or the twelfth) didn’t work.

  Technology continued to advance, but failed to solve social, economic, or psychological problems. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, every job that could be performed by an algorithm or machine was so implemented, including many ‘human’ jobs in education, healthcare, transportation, agriculture, and the military. Every product that could be copied was replicated for free (not only works of information, but also physical objects, including complex electronics, that could easily be printed at home). This was the science-fiction utopia envisioned in earlier eras, but instead of living bright lives of leisure, citizens were left unemployed, broke, and depressed. Societies found themselves unable – or perhaps unwilling – to deliver the dividends of massive wealth creation to the average worker (for whom there was little work left to do).

  Many nation states, with the bulk of their citizens impoverished and psychologically broken, deteriorated into tribalism and xenophobia. While floods and droughts created hundreds of thousands of refugees, religious and ethnic persecution created more. Some governments unofficially sanctioned the harassment, and while there were no repeats of the mass genocides of the twentieth century, many regimes flirted with fascism, indefinitely detaining, torturing, and often killing dissidents and minorities.

  As with the first Dark Age, not everywhere was equally bad. Some nations upheld values of democracy, egalitarianism, and scientific inquiry. Others proved that it was possible to encourage commerce while still keeping a lid on wealth inequality, corporate malfeasance, and pointless consumerism. These nations were rewarded with happier, wealthier, better-educated citizens who possessed a sense of civic ownership and responsibility. From these bright spots (the steady Scandinavians, the stubborn New Zealanders, the exuberant Indians, and dozens of youngish post-colonial nations in Latin America and Africa) came the sparks of the Revival.

  11.05.02727, the Stanford

  Adrian Vanderplotz buttoned the top button of his shirt and admired his own reflection. A few years earlier, at the age of fifty-five, he’d indulged in a rejuv. Instead of avoiding mirrors, he now sought them out. Most of his wrinkles were gone; only tasteful crow’s feet and faint smile lines remained. His skin was taut and smooth, his jawline straight, his pores barely visible, his gray hair reverted to black, his waist once again narrow, his arms and chest lean and muscular. Best decision of his life.

  He was tall for a ringstation denizen – one hundred seventy-five centimeters – though he’d be dwarfed by the immense brutes of Happdal. He often imagined what it would be like to interact with the strange humans of the ‘New Iron Age,’ as some put it. A catchy but idiotic term. He had to give Townes credit for discovering the anomalous tribes in the first place, but to refer to them as anything besides Survivalists was ridiculous. Penelope Townes was trying to jumpstart her career on the basis of a single lucky observation. Her ambition had always outsized her talent. Townes was a second-rate scientist, and history would eventually forget her entirely. Her star was already dimming, as Adrian’s successful election to Repop Council (which Townes had publicly opposed) had demonstrated.

  The brutes of Happdal. It had a nice ring to it. For now, Adrian would have to keep the phrase to himself. Car-En’s research project had a large fan base, bigger than any of the other field researchers, and many ringstation citizens had been following the project closely, reading and discussing each report as it was posted. People liked the Happdal villagers, even to the extent of idolizing them as larger-than-life characters (misplaced hero-worship of illiterate savages, in his own opinion). Car-En herself had no idea how popular her research had be
come. Her cult following included Academy members, thousands of citizens on the Stanford, and even a smattering among the other ringstations. Feed requests had come in from the Liu Hui, the Alhazen, even the Hedonark. Interest from the luxury space park concerned Adrian; it meant that Car-En’s reports had entertainment appeal. Citizens were living vicariously through the research, and worse, were getting attached to the villagers.

  This was problematic for a number of reasons.

  The most pressing problem was that Car-En’s reports had recently ceased, and the lack of information was generating controversy and attracting unwanted attention. He’d found a temporary solution, but it would only postpone the inevitable. Eventually it would become clear that the newest reports were incomplete, that key elements were missing. There would be questions.

  Adrian left his apartment, deciding to walk the park tube to Council Hall instead of descending to Sub-1 to take a tram. He preferred walking. Not only would he avoid the midday rush on the trams, but he enjoyed the airy 0.95G of the upper levels. It was why he’d taken an upper-level apartment in the first place. More light and less gravity. Gradual bone loss be damned – the rejuv had given him density to spare.

  The park tube was a semi-closed ecosystem, dimmer and moister than the open-air section of the main torus. The temperate rainforest atmosphere supported ferns, miniature redwoods, and spongy mosses, all tastefully landscaped to appear as wild as possible while still maintaining a clear pedestrian throughway. Adrian passed a young couple taking a stroll. An infant baby was strapped to the father. The mother smiled and said hello as they passed. Did he know her? No. He nodded and gave the woman a quick, tight-lipped smile. He hated friendly people, with their irritating leisurely niceties.

  The second – and thornier – issue with the popularity of Car-En’s research (and the Ringstation Coalition’s fondness for the recently discovered Earthlings) was a fundamental incompatibility with Adrian’s vision for Repop and the existence of illiterate, barbaric tribes roaming Eurasia. The first of the Earth settlers would need to focus their complete and undivided attention on sustenance, construction, and social organization. Worrying about the threat of invasion from sword-waving savages was not part of the plan. Europe had once endured three hundred years of Viking terror. That was quite enough.

  The department’s strict policy against Intervention was a bulwark against engagement. His pious colleagues took the sanctity of non-interference seriously, but Adrian couldn’t care less about cultural contamination. To him, Non-Interventionism was purely utilitarian, useful in terms of preventing relationships and emotional attachments.

  In ten or twenty years, the inevitable extinction of the dregs of the Remnant Age would be complete. Car-En’s most valuable finding concerned natural attrition factors; some unknown radiation source was causing premature death among the villagers, and they were too stupid to relocate. This was excellent news. While Adrian didn’t yet have enough data to calculate population growth or decline, it was possible that death from disease, combined with fatalities from skirmish raids (there was evidence of inter-village tension that could lead to warfare), might do Adrian’s job for him.

  Happdal and the nearby micro-settlements were not the only Survivalist groups to have endured the Remnant Age, but in terms of Adrian’s vision for Repop, they were the most worrisome. Ideally, the villagers would do themselves in. If not, there were plenty of other ways to get the job done. An engineered virus would be the obvious choice, but risky. Crop interference would be safer, but slower, and starvation might inflame the sympathies of both the Interventionists and the general populace. Biologically and culturally, the Harz mountain villagers represented a dead end. Extinction was their destiny. Adrian would simply nudge the process along, as necessary.

  Adrian Vanderplotz considered himself blessed in his ability to both see the big picture, the long view, and also do whatever was necessary to steer humanity in the right direction. Most people were too vain, too obsessed with how others perceived them, to make the hard decisions. Progress, when it did happen, always happened the same way. It was a simple formula. Someone saw what needed to be done, they acquired power, then wielded that power to change the world. He’d always seen himself in that role. A doer of historic proportions. The fact that there would be a few casualties was unfortunate but inevitable.

  He took a left turn onto a narrower trail that led to a glass exit portal. It slid open with a soft whoosh as he approached. The climate-control tube descended gently to the main level, where a second portal opened, depositing him in McLaren Park. From the exit pavilion he could see the arcing contours of Council Hall, and beyond that the gentle upward slope of the torus.

  About half of the Stanford’s main level was dedicated to public use, including sprawling parks, government buildings with vast concourses, and the Academy campuses. Residences for the Stanford’s approximately eighteen thousand citizens, most of them in high-density apartment buildings, took up much of the remaining space. Aquaponic farms (which, unlike the meat-growing vats on Sub-2, required sunlight) took up the rest. Originally the ringstation had been designed for ten to fifteen thousand citizens, but a 2.05 fertility rate, ever-increasing longevity, and a stubborn refusal by the Over Council to adopt any mandatory number-of-children limit, had led to the current situation. By no means was the Stanford anywhere near its maximum capacity, but it was conceivable that within a few decades citizens might start to feel uncomfortably crowded, and perhaps even undergo the rationing of certain necessities (which would come as a rude shock after centuries of plentitude).

  A surplus of ringstation citizens wasn’t the only impetus for the repopulation of Earth. Repop was primarily a philosophical movement (or, depending on your perspective, a matter of biological determinism, a species-level Manifest Destiny). Only via bizarre turns of history had a reservoir of humanity ended up orbiting in space around the home planet. Human beings belonged on Earth. Via miraculous feats of engineering and unprecedented levels of co-operation, a number of hairless apes had made a good life for themselves in lofty, artificial worlds, but there was no reason to leave the mother planet empty. Not anymore. The insanity of the Remnant Age (and Regionalism, and the Corporate Age before that) was over. That particular branch of the species had played itself out, right down to the nasty endgame. The more enlightened representatives of humanity – who had built the ringstations in part to escape the insane asylum below – had won out. Earth would be their reward.

  Adrian passed a few outdoor cafés and restaurants. It was a warm day, and more people were out than usual, sipping tall drinks, eating ice cream and sandwiches. Sunlight reflected in from the Stanford’s central mirror complex. The ringstation rotated on its axis in a position perpendicular to the Earth, in synchronous orbit. Adrian had watched, through Car-En’s m’eye, the illuminated ring of his home against the night sky, stationary even as the distant constellations shifted. During the day, sunlight struck the mirror complex and was reflected ninety degrees to radiate circularly through the dual layers of ozone-enclosing semitransparent alumina that made up the inner ring of the torus. Looking up, the ‘sky’ was an even white with the faintest tint of yellow. One could climb the outward-facing side of the torus and view Sol directly through shielded ports. Those who were not prone to vertigo (this group did not include Adrian) could climb the Earthside of the torus and take in the stunning beauty of the home planet. From the Stanford’s current equatorial orbit, one could see Africa, lush and verdant, and the southern two-thirds of Europe, all the way up to the glacial line.

  Some on the Repop Council favored direct and immediate contact with the European villagers, in the hopes that they could eventually integrate with future Repop settlements (or at least live side by side, peaceably, on the same continent). There were even some members of Adrian’s own department who agreed with this idiotic tack; those individuals were completely ignorant of Earth history. One could not ‘integrate�
� pre-literate (or, in the case of the villagers, devolved post-literate) groups with more advanced cultures adept at high-level conceptual thinking. The average ringstation citizen could read and write in multiple languages, was scientifically and mathematically literate, possessed cognitive sophistication and flexibility, was emotionally sensitive and self-possessed, and was socialized to understand and navigate complex institutions that simply did not exist at the lower levels of societal evolution. Earlier generations of anthropologists had naively elevated pre-literate cultures with notions of purity (the ‘noble savage’). The truth, with very few exceptions, was that life in pre-literate societies was filled with ignorance, violence, and cruelty (in Hobbes’s words, ‘nasty, brutish, and short’). Life without a state, especially without a legal system and a means of tempered, even-handed justice, meant that each individual was their own judge and enforcer. In times of peace and plenty, anarchic, stateless societies could function reasonably well. But in times of resource scarcity or social upheaval, everything went to hell. Without letters, there could be no institutions of law. Without law, there was no order.

  Integration would fail, and fail spectacularly. Adrian imagined a hypothetical case: a Repop settler would unwittingly violate some village taboo, and would then be subjected to the villagers’ concept of just punishment. How would the gentle populace of the Ringstation Coalition react to seeing one of their own hanged, or beheaded? Adrian chuckled aloud. If that bothered them, how would they react to a Repop settler being drawn and quartered, or flayed alive? Just last night he had read about an ancient Viking method of torture and execution: the rista orn (blood eagle). The torturer would cut a deep incision on either side of the spine, reach in, crack off each rib at its base, then pull the victim’s lungs out through the gaping wounds so that the organs of respiration were transformed into a pair of bloody wings. Finally, salt would be poured on the exposed lungs. The image both disgusted and excited him. Adrian wondered if the people of Happdal had somehow retained or resurrected this tradition.