by Aer-ki Jyr
He stood up with the other Human staying alert beside him and throwing a blue orb into what was left of the ceiling. It fragmented and blew out, with a few pieces raining down on both of them and harmlessly bouncing off their shields. The stronger Human used his telekinesis to lift the other upwards through a jump that returned him to the open access port on the ship above, then once his companion was safe there he moved off through the broken settlement in search of the now scattered people to search their memories and find any trace of the other Humans rumored to have been discovered here within the past few weeks.
10
Esna sat beside Rammak on the platform-like speeder they’d been riding on for several weeks now, passing through long, straight, underground roadways that gave her a chance to nap and then zigzagging through broken buildings and caves that didn’t. They’d stopped at two of his supply caches already, finding a wealth of scavenged goods and interesting tech that the Calavari had started to explain to her, but it was one of his ‘camps’ that they were approaching that held her interest.
It was at the end of another long straight shot with the speeder gliding along so smoothly it would have felt like they’d been standing still if not for her helmet’s nightvision, for there was a windscreen on the front of this speeder and an optional cab enclosure that Rammak never used. Esna immediately knew when they were approaching his camp because there were little guide lights popping up. He’d told her that such things were not normal and that he’d individually placed all of them over the years at all of his hideaways to catch his attention and make sure he didn’t fly past his destination on accident…as had happened a few times before.
Right now he was navigating using a pair of nightvision goggles that were far more advanced than Esna’s helmet, though when he’d let her inspect them she could only get one eye in. The Calavari’s head was so wide both lenses were too far apart for the Human to use, but even with the one she could see as well as if it was daylight, which was fortunate, otherwise they surely would have crashed by now, flying at speed through these pitch black remnants of a time long past.
She still couldn’t believe that Rammak was from that age, though there was nothing she’d seen yet to contradict his story. How could someone live to be 1204 years old?
He’d explained the reasons why, citing a bunch of training stuff she didn’t understand, though the basic idea was that if your body healed faster than it took damage you could live forever and that ‘old age’ was just a myth. Rammak had said it was just microdamage…stuff you couldn’t see with your eyes, like getting tired or thirsty or sore. Nothing so big as an injury, but little stuff that supposedly did damage and accumulated over time…hence the young ones didn’t have it because they hadn’t been around long enough to rack up enough for it to begin to show as ‘age.’
It sounded too good to be true, but Rammak did look like a young Calavari. He had no age spots, no sagging skin, no flapping nose. His muscles were taught, trim, and huge. He was in better shape than any Calavari she’d ever seen, and had he not told her he was 1204 she would have sworn Yammar was way older.
The thought of Yammar and Innit made her cringe…both at the thought of leaving them behind and because it felt like she was beginning to forget about them. The memories of them and even Teren were starting to feel faded, and a part of her was glad for that. She wasn’t tearing up every other minute and her heart had calmed down. Numbed up was probably more accurate, but she wasn’t in constant agony like she was when Rammak found her.
But at the same time she felt guilty for not still feeling that way. Her brother was gone and there was nothing she could do to help him, so she ran it through her head for probably the 200th time thinking about how she could get back to Yammar and Innit, if they were still alive, but now that she’d actually seen their pursuit she knew that if they turned around they’d be bringing trouble back with them on top of whatever they already had to deal with.
If they were already dead because of her…
Esna didn’t want to think about that, so she focused on the possibility that they were alive and what she could do to help them. As the guide lights flicked by on the walls the same conclusion worked its way into her brain.
Stay away and draw attention as far from the farm as you can.
That was all she could do and she was doing it, so Esna guiltily pushed thoughts of them and Teren back into a quiet corner of her mind and looked ahead, trying to see where the lights were leading them.
A few minutes later it turned out to be nothing more than a simple doorway on the side of the road-like tunnel. Everything was still dark save for a pair of tiny lights above the doorway, but when Rammak stopped them and walked inside he apparently found the light switch, for the doorway lit up casting a wide swath of illumination back out into the tunnel and onto her and the speeder.
“Park it,” Rammak said, letting Esna lower the landing gear and power it down before she joined him inside. They walked through a short hallway then her breath caught in her throat as the chamber beyond opened up into a huge chasm filled with plants in huge pods.
“I had to move a lot of these here one at a time, but this and a few other facilities like it across the planet are what keep me fed without having to rely on others.”
“Why do you still go into the settlements then?” she asked, but her eyes were on the clear, squarish domes, each of which was lit internally.
“I didn’t want to give my identity away, so most of what I’m wearing I acquired from others. Now though, that’s going to change for the both of us. We’re going to camp out here for a few days, but before you get to sleep I want to show you something.”
“I’m not tired,” she said, still in awe at the motley assembly of the plant pods. They were stashed everywhere in the lumpy room. “What did this used to be?”
“A civilian theatre. There were seats on those tiers that I pulled to make room.”
“Why not just use the original bilo…thingies.”
“Bioharvests,” he corrected her. “I would have, except there were only pieces left and no available power. It takes a lot of light and heat and automated maintenance to get these plants to grow this big this fast.”
“How long has it been since you were here?”
“Over a year. I’ve got one auto harvest chamber working, but the rest I have to farm personally. That’s going to take some time, but the food cube production is pretty quick.”
“You have those machines here too?”
“Yes.”
“How come they survived?”
“This planet used to have a population of over 400 billion. It takes a lot of bioharvest facilities to feed that many, but none of those I found were intact. I’m just glad enough was left for me to repurpose.”
“400 billion?” she said, jaw dropping. “On just this one planet?”
“Star Force’s population in total was measured in the quadrillions.”
“What’s a quad…illon?”
“A trillion is 1000 billions, and a quadrillion is 1000 trillions.”
“No, you are making fun of me,” she said sternly. “There’s no way there could be that many people.”
“Some planets have over a trillion people of their own. Not Calavari, we’re too big, but some of the smaller races can. Fully established Kiritak colonies ranged from 1 to 7 trillion, based on the size of the planet and available surface area. Oceans are harder to populate than land, but get a big planet that’s all land and you could see 7 trillion Kiritak on it. I know of at least five that were like that.”
“What’s a Kiritak?”
“Their race is actually called Kiritas, and they’re about as tall as your leg. Very good, very fast builders. The Kiritak were a subfaction within Star Force that had no civilian population. They were all workers that built colonies to mine, grow, and produce supplies to export to other worlds and they knew how to build compact, efficient cities that could hold so many Kiritak that they’d be fil
ling up thousands of jumpships per day with cargo on a regular basis.”
“Jumpship?”
“You said your father brought you here on a ship?”
“Yes.”
“Did it fly between stars on its own?”
“Yeah. What ship doesn’t?”
“A jumpship is a big ship that carries other ships, and it moves a whole lot faster. Cargo jumpships don’t carry other ships, just supplies, though they do have their own fleet of dropships and transports to unload it all once they reach a planet.”
“How big?”
“Ours looked like long tubes and ranged in size, but 20 miles long was typical.”
“Miles?” she asked, aghast.
“I said they were big.”
“You also said they were fast.”
“A good portion of their size is engines.”
“If you say so…”
“Some things you have to see to understand.”
“Do you have any pictures?”
Rammak raised an eye ridge, for there was no hair anywhere on his head, or body for that matter. His skin was nothing but tough and smooth orange that got shiny when wet with sweat, though it did wrinkle up a bit when he gave her that curious look.
“I don’t know. I haven’t tried to access any computer systems in a long time. It’s possible there are some records left, but I didn’t salvage anything intentionally.”
“Why not?”
“It’s stuff I already know.”
“Oh, right. I guess you wouldn’t. I…what the hell?” she said, walking over to the clear wall of one of the pods and putting her armored hands up against it as she looked inside. “That’s huge!”
“They’re called apples. That tree is probably at least a century old by now.”
Esna looked up to the top and saw that it was curled over where it hit the ceiling of the pod where the lights were just above, but everywhere below on the branches were huge red pieces of something edible.
“Can we eat one?” she asked, looking at him.
“They’re used as a component in some of the foodstuffs, but you can eat them raw.”
“How do we get inside?”
“You don’t. There’s no oxygen in there.”
“How? Don’t plants make oxygen?”
“The pods pull it out and put carbon dioxide back in at higher levels than normal and at a higher pressure. The plants like both and grow larger because of it. I have to vent the chamber before going in, but when I harvest some of these I’ll let you get a bite of one.”
“Why are there some on the ground?”
“I don’t get here often enough to harvest them all, so some fall off on their own and decay.”
“Gross.”
“Cutting up a living being and eating its body is gross,” Rammak countered.
“Why do you have a problem with that? Everything has to eat something.”
“Yeah, and they’re called plants…not people.”
“If they don’t talk, they’re not people.”
“Can you talk with your mind?”
“What?”
“There are some races that say if you can’t talk with your mind, you’re not people. In which case they’d have no problem killing and eating you.”
“I can talk.”
“With your mouth. Some races can speak mind to mind. Just because you can do something that others cannot doesn’t mean they aren’t people.”
“So none of the food cubes you’ve ever eaten have been meat?”
“No. Star Force doesn’t kill to eat. We protect against people who do.”
“Meaning me?”
“A sad irony there.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes.”
“So why’d you save me? Or would you have saved me if you’d known?”
“You’ve grown up on a messed up world. As long as you don’t try to kill something from here on out we’re not going to have a problem.”
“And if I do?”
“I’ll stop you, little one.”
Esna frowned. “This is that important to you.”
“Death before dishonor.”
“What’s the point of living if you have to be bad to do it?” she asked, guessing his meaning.
“And killing others to eat them is bad,” Rammak finished as they started to walk on. “Not to mention inefficient.”
“Crops are harder to grow,” she said, following him. “The animals store them up in their bodies over time, far more than we can keep in the fields.”
“As you can see,” the Calavari said, pointing all four arms at the surrounding pods as they walked through the narrow spaces between them, “we’ve solved that problem.”
“How many people could all this feed?”
“Far more than me, but I’ve never had anyone to share it with.”
“Do you sell it?”
“I’ve given it away at times, traded on occasion, but I didn’t want to attract the attention that a vendor gets.”
“Where do you get the water from,” she said, looking inside and seeing mist falling down on some of the plants. “These must gobble it up.”
“This location had intact water tanks and recycling facilities. I added atmospheric generators and I’ve never had too little. Keeping the air contained means you don’t lose water except to the plants.”
“How do you know so much about farming if you were a soldier?”
“This is simple stuff we all learn in the maturia.”
“That was your teaching family?”
“Yes.”
“And they taught you how to farm and be a soldier?”
“We learned the basics of everything, then chose what we wanted to learn more about later.”
“What if you didn’t want to learn?”
“Then you went civilian and did whatever you want.”
“What kind of jobs did they have? The civilians, I mean.”
“Nobody had to work to live, Esna. People worked if they wanted upgrades, but everyone had food, clothing, and a home when they graduated from the maturia. Nobody was forced to work in order to eat.”
Esna put a hand on his arm to stop him walking, then looked up at him as he turned back.
“What do you mean?”
“Star Force is an empire built on skill. Those who want to work carry the responsibility, those who don’t are supported by them.”
“Why tolerate the freeloaders?”
“Because we know that the best workers are those that choose to be.”
“But if everyone can just be lazy, why would anyone work?”
“I’ve never wanted to be lazy, but I assume that people would get bored after a while.”
“Bored is a luxury as far as I’ve known.”
“What you’ve known comes from a messed up planet. You didn’t grow up in civilization, you grew up in barely constrained chaos. When we have places like this that can grow as much food as we want, why would we make people pay money for it?”
“To get rich.”
“Other than some civilians, we don’t have rich people. Our credits are only used for luxuries. The power of the empire comes from its resources, and those responsible enough to maintain them share. As a Commando, I never got paid. All the advanced positions don’t get paid either. We don’t need credits.”
“You work for free?”
“Yes.”
“And you like it that way?”
“We earn our position and skills. That is far more valuable than credits.”
“Credits are your burgos?”
“Yes.”
“So who decides how much people get to eat?”
“Our food is served in big rooms that are open all day. You come in and eat as much as you want.”
“Can you take it with you?”
“Some of it. Or you can buy special foods if you do have credits from working a job. Some people made special foods as their job, buying ingredients like these
,” Rammak said, pointing at the pods around them, “and selling the foodstuffs for a profit. Nobody had to eat them, but if they liked them better than the regular foodstuffs they would.”
“So the regular stuff didn’t taste so good?”
“No. It always tasted good. But the number of items never changed. If you wanted something new you’d have to go to the private vendors.”
“But nobody ever starved with the free food?”
“No. Never.”
“That’d be nice. Did you feed the livest…people who didn’t talk too?”
“In a lot of cases, yes.”
“Didn’t they grow out of control? Population I mean.”
“It’s a simple matter of separating males from females for most races. You can control the population numbers without killing any of them.”
“That’s a lot of fences to put up.”
“This planet was mostly city, and Star Force doesn’t have a problem with largescale building projects. They looked at such things as a challenge. They also would have laughed at you saying ‘fences.’”
“Sometimes you say ‘they’ and sometimes you say ‘us.’ Which is it?”
“I’m a Commando. I train and fight. Others build. So sometimes I speak of them and sometimes I say us. We’re different and yet still all Star Force…and that’s where I need to get to work.”
Esna saw the direction he was pointing and followed him around the corner of a large, rectangular pod that had short grasses in it, then up a staircase to a blocky room that she could not see into.
“This is the auto harvester and it keeps harvesting and resetting this pod on its own, then storing the grain in here,” he said, opening a door and walking in. When Esna followed she saw huge clear bins filled with tiny white specs.
“Looks like they’re about to run over.”
“We need to move some of this to the processing center,” Rammak said, grabbing a nearby cart and hitting a button that activated the anti-grav. “I’ll fill three, then you push one behind me.”
“What about the third?”
“I can handle two.”
“Right. More arms,” she said as he opened a chute and the grain began to spill into one of the deep carts that came all the way up level to Esna’s face. She stared at it, realizing how much time it would have taken Yammar and Innit to grow the same amount of julai and wanting to stick her hand out into the stream, but she didn’t. She just watched as the cart filled up and barely made a dent in the huge container that it was coming from, then the next two brought it down about a third before Rammak took off with one cart in front of him and another behind.