Mineran Influence

by PN Burrows

  ‘The ammo uses a modified cordite propellant, very low explosion to compressed gas expulsion ratio causing a subsonic round. There’s no need for a noise suppressor.’

  He walked into the middle of the room, ‘But I get your point,’ he said, smiling. ‘I think you’ll like this.’ He simply stated ‘overlay of non-indigenous life forms within the perimeter.’

  A colourful transparent three-dimensional image flowed down from the ceiling around him, projecting a circular terrain complete with rivers, hills and several hundred moving red dots to symbolise the non-indigenous life forms.

  ‘Overlay indigenous humanoid life forms.’

  An orange dot appeared within a tiny ethereal building next to two red ones. The captain placed his hand near the buildings’ corners and stretched the image to enlarge it. He then circled the room containing the three dots and asked, ‘Identify.’

  ‘Three bipedal life forms are present in the selected area,’ a seemingly omnipresent but strangely familiar voice said. ‘Two Minerans and one human. In order of rank: Agent Erebus, identification number is classified, Captain Sophus, identification number 5973epsilon 6254theta 1235Chi and Sam Shepard, guest identification Gamma 701, his security status is classed as mostly harmless.’

  Sam looked at Captain Sophus. ‘Why do I recognise that voice?’

  ‘Native Film night this week was Pulp Fiction. We analyse your media to learn more about you and your cultural evolution. Your planet’s culture is multifaceted and evolves so quickly, it’s truly fascinating. Nik likes to change the audio theme of the AI, this week she’s Uma’s fictional character, Mia. We had a woman from Blade Runner for a whole year once. He loves your concept of what we should be like, he even maps out parallels.’

  Whilst this was going on, Reb had accessed a console and read the awaiting report. He looked up as Hus closed the holographic display down. ‘Apparently there are automated monitoring outposts out there and they can normally trace early research facilities via the specific gravitational disturbance they cause. Seems they ripple out from the epicentre, allowing triangulation. Nineteen instances are on record since the council’s formation. They were all eradicated within three hours. Mostly the buildings they were housed in were purged, but there have been instances where the laboratory was buried so deep inside the planet that the whole city, or in one case, the whole planet, was destroyed. It doesn’t say who enforces this and Bob isn’t saying either – I am afraid we are still in the dark.’ He stood up and looked at Sam. ‘Clearly someone has created a method and they have had long enough with it to be able to send Urser through. We do not know when from or where. We wouldn’t see the ripples as they haven’t happened yet. There is some data on symptoms, we saw some degradation on Urser’s fingers and we have the schematics to create a detector which I can pass onto the techs. Besides that...’ He raised and shrugged with his arms to indicate there was nothing else to do.

  ‘Nik’s forensics might come up with a few things. Age of the future Urser, for one, and any pathogens that might be in the blood to indicate which planets he recently visited,’ the captain said. ‘Reb, take Sam for some food, get him cleaned up and take him inside the mountain. Finish showing him what you set out to do.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  They didn’t go to the main canteen; Reb opted to walk to the local tavern instead. As they vacated what Sam assumed was the headquarters building, he looked back at it. It took up all of the central hub. It had small windows which were recessed back by about a foot. The glass looked thick. The door they exited from was the only doorway visible on this side – it was not so much an office building, more of a fortification, Sam realised.

  ‘A little out of place for such a laid back, back to nature area?’ he enquired.

  ‘Standard HQ design. It’s the same in every enclave.’ Looking back at the building, Reb replied. ‘Four levels above ground, thirty levels below. Nothing you have could scratch it, never mind crack it open. It can house, feed and look after every enlisted man here for two years. It taps into the earth’s mantle for geothermal energy and heat. The machine floor can manufacture anything as long as you feed it a schematic. No one stays there at the moment as most prefer the building they built themselves, only temporarily relocating for duty rosters or battalion manoeuvres. You can think of us as highly trained policing settlers, mostly we grow food and are at one with the area. Ultimately we are here to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands and the odd off-world assistance. That’s why I was here the other week, I’d required the skills of Apate for a few days and had just returned with her when you popped up.’

  They had walked a fair way down the street which was wide enough for four normal lanes, the houses set back a way with small ornate gardens. A larger building ahead had a tradition weather beaten sign outside declaring it to be the “Pig-inn Barrel”, with a faded picture portraying a large upright beer barrel. In the barrel stood a lean pig in the quasi-police uniform holding a double-barrelled weapon pointed forward. The end of the double-barrel resembled a snout.

  ‘Strange sense of humour for aliens?’ Sam’s inflection making it a question rather than a statement.

  ‘Policing InterGalacticaly. It’s a semi offensive nickname. It’s not very accurate as the force covers the whole of the unified universe. We take the small blessing that they don’t call us Puu.’

  ‘So you have pigs in space then?’

  ‘Evolution is amazing, Sam, so many permutations and designs, but with so many planets, repetition on similar planets is quite normal. Your pig looks similar to various species called “pig”. We gave you the name for the animal, well for most of your animals. Don’t forget, visually we look similar.’

  They entered the establishment through a heavy oak door, the warmth reminding Sam that he was still without a jacket and this place was consistently cold. The interior looked like any other local hostelry, only cleaner, larger and in good condition. Large oak tables with solid oak chairs and comfy-looking padded seats were scattered around the airy room. Sam could smell the aroma of freshly baked bread. His stomach grumbled to remind him that hadn’t eaten much in the last twenty-four hours.

  Reb led them to a table by the window and ordered both of them a large brunch. ‘Bob has arranged for you to have a room here for a few hours, you can freshen up and grab some sleep after breakfast.’

  Sam run his fingers through the stubble on his chin and nodded. ‘The AI called you Minerans, why?’

  ‘Our planet of origin is called Minera. When we settled here a long time ago we named it after our home. Earth was our first assigned planet and Minera was the first colony. There will be Minerans here forever, until your sun goes supernova. We choose, to a degree, where we are stationed, but all of our children must be born and raised back on Minera. They only leave the home world when they become of age and enlist.’

  Sam realised that he hadn’t seen any children. The hamlet shop, or should he say NAAFI, as that was what it had subconsciously reminded him of, hadn’t stocked anything for them. ‘Are you saying your whole race is sworn into service? And that you work for an all-powerful planet destroying government? If you think this is making me want to sign up, you are sadly mistaken.’

  A stout man with a metal torc around his neck arrived and deposited a tray of food on the table. Reb nodded in appreciation and continued talking to Sam.

  ‘Sam, you must understand firstly we are not like your planet. Our government’s first…’

  Sam interrupted Reb with a questioning look and by silently pointing at the barman and indicated to the collar around his neck.

  ‘Ah Emliton, huh, don’t panic he’s not a slave or anything like that. He suffers from narcolepsy.’ Seeing more confusion on Sam’s face he continued, ‘A sleep disorder, he nods off at the drop of a hat during the day. The neck band vibrates when his chin sags to wag him up, he made it himself. Em is the only non-comb
atant in the enclave, he more than makes up for this by being a master brewer and distiller. He also makes all of our ethanol and biofuel for the vehicles.’

  Picking up his plate and cutlery from the tray he continued, ‘As I was saying, the government’s first priority is to prevent corruption from within. Then it sorts out external corruption and only then can it try to govern the universe fairly and maintain order. Their sanctity is to remain pure, unadulterated and to be able to prove it, it has to have total transparency of its actions and goals. All government employees are financially audited every year. Income, expenditure, capital assets, holidays etc. From the Chief Exec. down to the lowest file clerk. No one is allowed to take bribes, secondary jobs or accept gratuities. They are audited for life to prevent delayed payments. It is all very strict and there are no second chances if you are proven to be corrupt or to have taken a bribe; you and your family are punished for life. The sentence is that all of your assets are ceased and you are all relocated to a colonial outpost. There are few luxuries on such outposts and none of the family members may hold a position of authority. The corrupt employee himself may also face more severe punishment. It has seldom happened to rogue government workers, but there are terraforming planets where the most heinous of criminals spend the rest of their solitary lives. They live in terraforming pods miles from anywhere with set tasks to complete every day to obtain food and basic luxuries such as music and reading material from the AI. It is a bleak existence, spending most of the day outside in an environment suit tending the terraforming plantations, never having enough oxygen to travel to the next pod. They will never see another living being again.’

  ‘Terraforming plantations?’ Sam enquired as he cut into a large, juicy, pork-filled sausage. He hadn’t realised he was quite so hungry. ‘These are good, by the way.’

  ‘All of the food we eat is grown here or at the other enclaves. It’s fresh, pure and unadulterated. It’ll be the best sausage you taste on this planet,’ Reb remarked, quickly changing topic, he continued, ‘We have the technology to terraform a planet mechanically. However, these systems require massive resources, and they pollute the planet as much as they terraform. The Overseer has given us a lot of technological advancements. One of them being the blueprints showing how to use natural vegetation from different planets to slowly change atmospheric types over the course of a thousand years of so. It can take several of these cycles to get to the atmosphere you require. It’s a long, drawn-out process. No right-minded person would have dreamt up such a scheme. It is very effective, it’s a fraction of the cost in money and it doesn’t use up any of the planets natural resources. It also acts as a humane penal system for lifers, they grow their own food and there is no escape. At the end you get a new planet for colonisation.’

  The serving man returned with another tray with a selection of refreshments: a coffee cafetière, a pig teapot and fresh juice. ‘I took the liberty of also bringing some fresh tea for Sam,’ he said. ‘Xenophon’s reports said that he noticed Sam normally favoured a strong breakfast tea.’ He placed a marble on the table in front of Sam. ‘Phon said to say he looks forward to meeting you in person. Apparently you have amused him.’ He walked off, taking the empty tray with him.

  Reb smiled as Sam picked up the marble. ‘I’d take that as a compliment, but he will get you back. Phon has turned into a bit of a joker, he’s spent too much time outside amongst your kind.’

  ‘Sorry, exactly who hasn’t read my file? The barman? Really?’

  Laughing, Reb picked up a slab of freshly baked bread that had been toasted until it had a uniform golden brown crust and then slathered in salted butter. ‘You could be fighting alongside anyone of them in the future. They have a right to know what makes you tick. Each and every one of them has a file that is open to all that serve here. Apparently Apate’s medical footage caused quite a stir. Most of them have never seen a naked human before, she was quite thorough,’ he finished, still smiling.

  Thinking back to his B&B and how he must have slept through God knows what, Sam said, ‘She’s a medic, then’.

  ‘No, she volunteered to plant the rather obvious camera and for expediency perform a medical examination for the doctor.’ Reb was clearly enjoying himself as he tried to hide his laughter by stuffing the toast into his mouth. ‘Look, we digress and you have to comprehend where we are coming from to make an informed decision.’

  Clearing his mouth with a swig of coffee he continued, ‘As you can imagine, there are not many civil servants who misbehave. In ISPAW, greed and power are not the motives of a good politician. That type of individual seldom makes it through the selection process. Why should they, they won’t earn any more money than they would as a serviceman.’

  ‘Serviceman?’

  ‘All of our wage systems are based around service pay. An individual who puts his life on the line and serves is worth more than a banker, statesman or, as is the case on your planet, a so-called celebrity or footballer. There are wage bands above this of course, but no one will ever receive three times more than the common soldier or police officer. Which brings us nicely to the requirements and criteria for an individual who wishes to register for any elected role in the government body. Whether it’s his planetary government or part of the Inner Sphere Parliament of Aligned Worlds, ISPAW, the individual has to have served as a serviceman in one of the forces and the length of time varies depending on his or her species. It varies from 10 to 25% of life span. For instance for you humans it would be approximately 18 years in service and you would have to have obtained the minimum rank of, er, what’s term you use, Warranty Officer or above.’

  ‘Do you mean Warrant Officer? It’s the highest non-commissioned rank in the British Army.’

  ‘Warrant Officer, yes that’s the one. Sorry, it is hard to keep track as you have so many separate armies for one small world. Consolidating them would be more economic, you know!’

  Laughing, Sam replied, ‘I don’t think that is going to happen, Reb. So what you are saying is that they all have to serve in the Army to come out as a gung-ho politician?’

  ‘Not exactly, there are also the other forces. Medic, Pyro and the Protection, the police. The terms served with these are greater as they are considered to the larger extent as non-lethal vocations. Then having gained suitable life experience and served the greater good they have to enrol in an academic institute to gain the knowledge to actually go into politics. The system pays for this so as to make it available to all, not just the rich.’

  ‘So are you saying that after they have proven themselves to be worthy by serving their county, well, planet, system or whatever, you then suck out their scruples and morals at some academy? You do know Britain’s suffered from all the Ruperts that have come out of Oxford and Cambridge. Different parties, same education and ideology.’

  ‘Very cynical, Sam, please do not judge us by your planet’s malfeasance and nepotism. You are, as I said before, a cesspit of corruption, on such a scale that we have not seen the like of in several millennia. That’s only because we are expanding outward and absorbing new systems and cultures. Internally we have not seen this level since the Overseer’s purge.’

  ‘Sorry, you mentioned this Overseer before, who’s he? How did he get all the power?’ Sam dabbed his mouth with the supplied napkin. He was comfortably full and feeling slightly tired. He stirred the tea in the pot, noting the aroma of the dark leaves as he did so. ‘Tea?’ indicating to Reb’s teacup.

  ‘No, thank you,’ picking up his coffee mug, ‘I’ll stick to the coffee. An astute question and one which I do not have a full and complete answer for. The truth is no one actually knows who he, she or they are. But they are powerful, more that you can comprehend. He, and we for some reason do call the Overseer a singular he, the Overseer was the name he chose and it seems to have male connotations. He brought order from chaos over 10 billion years ago. Most of the races were constantly at wa
r with each other, competing for habitable planets and resources. The death rate was astronomical and they began to develop weapons that could tear the fabric of space apart. Much like your own world, the ruling governments and corporations were all corrupt. Their only agenda was to gain more power and riches. Whole planetary systems were enslaved, extorted or eradicated. It was our darkest hour on record. Then “He” spoke. To everyone at the same time, through every communication device, in every language across the entire universe. “Cease or be destroyed.” Of course, he was ignored – who could face any of these mighty armies, let alone all of them? Within two hours of his message every combatting armada, army or fighting individual was gone, vanished, no wreckage, no distress signals, no survivors, nothing. Accusations flew across the galaxies. Governments were scared of each other, bigger threats were made between the races, each blaming the next, fearing their neighbour had an unknown super weapon. So, new bigger armadas were made. The more aggressive races started to use new untested weapons, terrible devices that turned space in upon itself and ripped systems apart. There are areas of space that we cannot traverse, even now. The Overseer spoke again and upon being ignored, four heavily populated home worlds of the major antagonists and their armies vanished – and I mean disappeared. There should have been colossal wreckage, fragments of shattered planets spinning out in all directions, new asteroid fields and radiation. But no, it was like someone had just plucked them all from space like you pick an apple from a tree. This was power on an unheard of scale. Governments took notice and listened this time; they didn’t want to be the next planet to simply vanish. The Overseer laid down the rules over the following centuries. Rules that we still adhere to today. He set up the ISPAW as the self-governing body; no race that joined the council could go to war with another. Any new race that we met on our expansion outwards was to be offered membership, left alone if non-spacefaring or isolated and annexed. Certain tech was prohibited like time travel, though this list is itself secret and only known to a small few as not to encourage people to investigate the topics. Each system is self-contained but has a seat on the Sphere’s council. No system is allowed to use the council for self-gain. A few have tried over the eons and were dealt with swift and demonstrative punishment from The Overseer. We have never seen him, but every so often when someone steps out of line... They fear him, and that maintains order.’