Dadr'Ba

by Tetsu'Go'Ru Tsu'Te

  P’Ko realized that Sh’P’Po/Lo’Ri was good at getting information out of people, better than P’Ko was at preventing it. P’Ko tried to divert the conversation and move the topic from P’Ko to Lo’Ri. P’Ko asked if Lo’Ri wasn’t a girl’s name? To which Lo’Ri replied, and patted P’Ko on the thigh, “yeah, but it was given to me a long time ago, and I’ve grown attached to it.” Sending P’Ko a clear signal verbally, physically and psychically, that Lo’Ri was moving his conversational dominance into a whole new realm.

  P’Ko did his best to ignore Lo’Ri’s advance, but it didn’t stop Lo’Ri. Lo’Ri went on to talk about how “I” could “really” use a friend among the Mi’Nr’s and how “we” would make a “great” team. Lo’Ri and P’Ko would need to keep their friendship private “just between the two of us” and that Lo’Ri knew of some “ways” to help keep their relationship secret. So that the “others” who wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t find out.

  With P’Ko’s help, Lo’Ri could help P’Ko, his family, and even his Mi’Nr friends. Lo’Ri asked what P’Ko wanted out of life? Credits, nice clothes, bio-mods, vacations, perhaps a better apartment for his family in Nu’Tn.

  Lo’Ri went on to say that aside from making “good” things happen that a friend with connections to the CA could help prevent “bad” things from happening too. The threat underlying the statement was clear, that if P’Ko didn’t agree that bad things were in store for himself and everyone around him.

  All this was too much for P’Ko and P’Ko went silent, he stared out the window. But this didn’t stop Lo’Ri, who seemed to sense that he’d achieved a goal. Putting his hand on P’Ko’s shoulder said very softly “I know it’s difficult, but you don’t have to worry, we can be very discreet.”

  Then after a long pause, watching P’Ko carefully as P’Ko stared out the window, “I understand, you need to let this all soak in, but don’t worry, you’re my friend, and I’m going to look out for you.”

  P’Ko could sense the deception oozing out of Lo’Ri and had to practice one of his martial arts mind-clearing meditation techniques to control a sudden feeling of nausea, and to keep from striking out at Lo’Ri.

  Lo’Ri must have been successful with his technique, or he wouldn’t be as practiced and confident with it as he projected psychically. Lo’Ri’s method must work most of the time against U’Te’s, which would explain why Lo’Ri used it against P’Ko, but P’Ko couldn’t imagine it working against a Mi’Nr, a Mi’Nr would sense right through the deception.

  P’Ko sensed Lo’Ri setting next to him gloating in self-satisfaction thinking that he had turned or trapped P’Ko into becoming some pawn or instrument to be used at his or the CASS’s bidding.

  They descended the mining tunnel to the lower levels, passing through the atmospheric control locks, the gravity increasing substantially and the temperature decreased significantly. P’Ko could feel the growing pressure on his joints and his muscle tension firm up in reaction. He also felt a difference in his breathing and wasn’t sure it was due to the gravity or to the change in the atmosphere.

  The environment outside the shuttle was becoming increasingly hostile, the puddles the shuttle was splashing through were ammonia or possibly methane, by the time they arrive at the mining camp the puddles will likely be nitrogen or oxygen.

  Even with his bio-mods survival without an eSuit would be measured in minutes. P’Ko began to doubt the wisdom of not wearing the eSuit the CA provided, what would happen if the shuttle broke down and its environmental system failed, how fast could P’Ko get to his duffel and dig out the eSuit and put it on?

  The supply shuttles AI (Artificial Intelligence) performed flawlessly, and the machine seemed to run quieter and smoother the deeper they got. There was no hint of the biting cold outside; the shuttles evacuated carbon foam insulation and its unique tri-layer windows, developed, tested and used over hundreds of years, tuned to perfection performed flawlessly.

  The driver optional, optionally remotely operated, autonomous shuttle, guided itself smoothly and without hesitation, fed by hundreds of sensors, the system learning the peculiarities of the route from many supply runs over centuries of operation.

  P’Ko distracted himself from his fellow passenger by watching the AI deftly negotiate a switchback. He wished that he could drive, it’s got to be very different than driving the VR (virtual reality) vehicles that are available online.

  There’s no way to simulate the continuous changes in the environment and those effects on the driver; that vary depending on what zone and level they’re on and its resultant gravity. Track conditions are not constant, or predictable, but vary depending on the length of the tunnel and the location of circulation vents or condensing stations.

  Ever since he heard Su’Zi describe what it’s like driving Jm’Pr, he’s been anxious to try. Even though this supply shuttle is a massive brick of a vehicle and the AI running it is optimized a hundred different ways, P’Ko had the urge to reach over and press the manual override, which would bring up the manual controls allowing him full and total control and subjugate the AI to advisory mode only. Then, he would try to better the AI’s performance.

  P’Ko’s imaginings were interrupted as the shuttle pulled up to and slowly through the portal airlock to the active portion of sector three’s T’Bm loading bay. They were now inside the far end of the T’Bm, moving slowly down the freshly made tunnel.

  A light frost flashed across the shuttle’s windows as moisture of the climate controlled air from inside condensed, froze, then disappeared as the window system adjusted to the new environment. Some frost remained on the edges of the exterior panels of the shuttle as P’Ko and Sh’P’Po exited the cargo laden shuttle now setting significantly lower on its suspension.

  P’Ko wobbled a little as he stepped down to the deck. It was his first experience at this G, around twice that of Nu’Tn, he felt a little top-heavy, and he felt like his feet were stuck in mud, it would take some getting used to. Sh’P’Po hopped out with relative ease, his exoskeleton suit automatically compensating, pre-calibrated to Sh’P’Po and the G load. He landed with a noticeable thud, his suit’s systems, an intricate system of sensors, gyro-stabilizers, pumps and contraction panels kept Sh’P’Po upright without the slightest hint of wobble.

  P’Ko noted that Sh’P’Po while unable to walk or even crawl without the suit probably couldn’t fall while wearing the suit, even if he tried. P’Ko thought of martial arts, never far from his conscious mind and noted that the exoskeleton and eSuit, inability to fall would be a handicap in a fight.

  Although Sh’P’Po seem to move with ease, P’Ko could see and hear that Sh’P’Po’s breathing was labored, his blood pressure and breathing assisted by the exoskeleton and eSuit.

  The thought of fighting Sh’P’Po helped P’Ko gain back some control of his thoughts and emotions and feel less subordinate to Sh’P’Po, the D’En, the CASS spy.

  The shuttle had entered the loading bay through a single ramp and door, which then opened up to a loading dock that could accommodate two supply shuttles side by side, one side a loading dock which the shuttle was marrying up to and the other was a dual function loading dock/vehicle maintenance bay.

  P’Ko found himself on the far side of the bay from the vehicle maintenance area. P’Ko could see some movement underneath behind one of the oversized ATV’s (all-terrain vehicles) used by the Mi’Nr’s. He his gaze drawn toward the vehicles DU’s (drive units), noting the DU’s used up in Zone Two are puny in comparison.

  P’Ko’s focus was pulled away by some alarm sounding on the loading dock ahead of him, and his curiosity about the tools and lifts in the maintenance bay would have to wait there would be plenty of time for that later.

  P’Ko turned to find up on the dock, a large, stout four-legged security bot sounding off fiercely. It bounced lightly back and forth on its front legs in spite of the heavy gravity, its long sharp metal teeth glaring.

  P’Ko turned to find Sh’P�
�Po, who didn’t seem to show any concern for the bot already pulling his gear from the shuttle’s storage locker beneath the rear deck. Reluctantly P’Ko followed suit. They walked over to the stairs at the far end of the loading dock.

  The shuttle had already docked, and the robo-lift had already started to offload the shuttle’s cargo.

  P’Ko, though at first fearful of the vicious security bot, noticed that it was clearly focused on Sh’P’Po as it stood its ground at the top the stairs as they approached. P’Ko began to relax a little, yet wondered how this approaching face-off between Sh’P’Po and the security bot would end.

  A loading dock door opened, and three Mi’Nr’s strode onto the dock, two in front and one trailing far behind. P’Ko stopped and pretended to adjust his gear and fumbled with some of the straps, creating as much distance between himself and Sh’P’Po as possible.

  Sh’P’Po stopped at the bottom of the stair looking up at the security bot, his hand resting on a pouch attached to his belt, was his hand quivering? P’Ko couldn’t tell for sure.

  The three Mi’Nr’s didn’t call off the bot until they were beside it and Sh’P’Po started up the stairs. They clearly didn’t like Sh’P’Po. P’Ko shouldered his bag and walked over to the stair.

  Sh’P’Po was speaking with the three as P’Ko approached. The apparent senior of the three addressed P’Ko “Welcome. I’m Ve’Ln[85] the Su’Pr (Superintendent) here at Bo’R three; you can call me Su’Pr Ve’Ln. You must be P’Ko, we’ve heard a lot about you, you got here at a good time for training, things are running smoothly.” P’Ko sensed that the statement was for Sh’P’Po’s benefit as much as his.

  Su’Pr Ve’Ln turned and introduced the other two. “This is An’Ja[86] the chief mechanic who will be your section supervisor and T’Mo, who is your sponsor and the cleanup crew lead.” “T’Mo, why don’t you take P’Ko and start his in processing? An’Ja and I will help Sh’P’Po with his inspection.”

  P’Ko followed T’Mo through the door the three had just come through and down the central corridor past the lobby and a conference room to the crew’s quarters.

  T’Mo showed P’Ko to his quarters and asked for the uniforms and eSuits that the CA had issued to him. Saying they needed to be “inspected” that the “quality control” from the CA is not on par with that of the mining community.

  T’Mo pointed towards a cleaned and pressed used eSuit neatly folded on one of the two chairs of his new home. Asking him to get settled and change, that he’d return in half hour and take him on a tour of the T’Bm.

  P’Ko handed T’Mo the crisp new uniforms and eSuits still in their wrapper, and picked up the eSuit setting on the chair and looked at it carefully. It was worn thin in a few places but had been patched and reinforced. The fresh seals around where the arms and legs had been lengthened stood out against the rest of the suit, giving it a striped look.

  P’Ko looked closer at the eSuit he held, and saw that someone had spent some serious time and care making it for him. All the seams were done by hand using a unique stitch that was stronger and more flexible than a machine stitch. He thought of his mother as he scrutinized it, recognized and understood how much thought had to go into it and how difficult making this eSuit must have been. He knew how hard his mother worked as a tailor, and how hard she worked and how little she was appreciated.

  T’Mo nor the other Mi’Nr’s that greeted P’Ko had reached out to him psychically.

  Now T’Mo, seeing P’Ko’s actions, guessing disappointment added: “the tailor and her assistant did their best estimating your measurements. It should work well enough in the cold areas in and around the T’Bm. I wouldn’t recommend it for continuous use or venturing very far from shelter. After your CA supplied eSuits are checked out, they’ll be returned to you, and you’ll need to go to the tailor and have them properly fitted.”

  T’Mo turned to leave.

  P’Ko stopped T’Mo, saying and feeling his words. “Wait, I know quality when I see it, this was made with outstanding care and workmanship. Please thank the tailor and her assistant for me.” T’Mo, psychically surprised, with a startled look on his face. Paused a fraction of a second smiled and replied as he left, “No, you’ll meet her soon enough, and you can thank her yourself, she’d appreciate it more coming from you direct.”

  P’Ko’s quarters consisted of a single room on the T’Bm’s upper deck. It is slightly larger than his room at his parent’s apartment, but with an arched ceiling. He had a small bathroom and a small sitting area large enough to host one or two visitors. He, or rather his parents would be allowed to keep his room in their apartment for him while he is in apprentice status. Once he completes his apprenticeship, his parents will have to give up the extra bedroom and move or have their apartment reconfigured.

  P’Ko took the opportunity to message Su’Zi, his parents, and Mi’Ka that he had arrived, and he’d send more info about his first day later. He then began familiarizing himself with the controls for the room and syncing them with his TaC-B.

  Then he put on the eSuit that had been altered, the arms and legs were a little too short. Thankfully the body length was right, and it fit well across the chest and shoulders, but was loose in the middle and around the arms and the thighs.

  T’Mo returned and took P’Ko on a tour of the T’Bm; their first stop was the medical bay. T’Mo introduced P’Ko to the resident med-tech who showed P’Ko some of the equipment in the bay, most of which necessitated remote doctoring, by a doctor zones and sectors away, with the MedTech only performing what they are instructed to do by the remote physician. The MedTech had P’Ko lay on an exam table while he demonstrated how the diagnosis and scanning equipment operated. Then gave P’Ko’s a “sample” body scan and a vaccination, described as something that would help him adjust to his environment.

  What followed this was a very thorough tour of the T’Bm. P’Ko was introduced to all the crew, with only a few laughs and jokes about how he looked in the ill-fitting eSuit. That was quenched when T’Mo cautioned them not to get on the wrong side of Dr’Zi[87], the tailor that made P’Ko’s eSuit, she has a way of getting back at anyone that offends her.

  Then they had lunch in the T’Bm’s small mess deck with that part of the crew that was rotating out[88]. P’Ko was famished; he soon realized that just existing in this zone took more energy, and it was compounded by the fact that he skipped breakfast, and was too embarrassed to mention it to T’Mo.

  They continued the tour and near quitting time met in the conference room with Dr’Zi, Bo’R three’s tailor, who came over from the camp to take P’Ko’s measurements to make the necessary alterations to P’Ko’s CA issued eSuits. She offered P’Ko a fifty percent discount on his first order, which he gladly accepted. The significant alterations would take almost all of his remaining graduation credits, but P’Ko was glad that his savings would remain intact. He wasn’t concerned, as he didn’t plan on spending any credits down here in a T’Bm.

  They finished up back in the dining area, this time with the whole crew present; P’Ko was introduced once again and received a guarded warm, but not enthusiastic welcoming.

  After dinner P’Ko was exhausted, he had spent his first full day in gravity that was roughly twice what he had spent his entire life in, and it was a concerted effort the whole day, not to let it show. He had aches and pains but was confident that those along with his fatigue would slowly go away as his systems adjusted to the new baseline.

  P’Ko hadn’t seen Sh’P’Po since they parted that morning, and was glad for it. He settled into his room, barely taking the time to unpack and slept like a rock in his new home.

  Chapter 36, Chn’Gi Reads Or’Gn’s History

  Chn’Gi lay naked, soaking in the warm tub, away from the prying eyes of the surveillance cameras scattered through the rest of her quarters, the scented bath emollient making her skin feel smooth and slick against it.

  Under the eerie glow of her “reading light,” Chn’Gi figure
d out how to use the reader and found that the data cartridge was part of a sequential backup of Dadr’Ba’s historical archive.

  The reader, being a data storage diagnostic device, was designed for verifying and viewing samples of the data that had already been indexed and sorted during the recording process, so it was slow. The thing lacked the processing speed and bandwidth for data mining of bulk media, the high density, highly compressed data cartridge held a petabyte. It was like trying to find a particular star in a far away galaxy using the naked eye.

  Just when it was beginning to seem an impossible undertaking and Chn’Gi began worrying that she might have to go back to Lu’Gs and part with more of her precious paper to get help finding what she was looking for, she got a break through. She found the cartridge’s metadata index. Using the metadata index, she was able to manually scan the entries and hyperlink to the raw data.

  However, even with the index, the search was time-consuming, there were thousands of metadata sets, each containing hundreds of elements. The puny device couldn’t even sort and she dare not risk exporting it to a real computer, the CASS with its data crawling search routines would surely detect her activity. But the way was clear, given time she’d have her answers.

  With the deliberate focus of a scientist on the path to discovery, Chn’Gi dove into the task of tedious organization and study. Soon she gathered data points linking them together in a far scattered mesh, as she amassed ever more data points and matrixed them into her data set, she was able to outline the history of her people. The more she learned the more she came to understand why the CA might want to eliminate the past, to outlaw it, to forget the past.

  The CA council, especially the Commander and the CASS Director, should already know this history. Even without psychic abilities Chn’Gi sensed that they telegraphed their suspicions plainly enough. If what she suspects is true, it’s no wonder the CA is so concerned about O’M and she wondered if all ToG survivors knew.