by Strong, Ray
Meriel slept, and in the middle of her dream, she heard a tiny fairy say, “We’d like so very much to be your family.”
And she heard correctly.
***
General Subedei Khanag’s flagship was small and fast. Like his fleet, it was functional rather than comfortable. He sat in the command chair on the empty bridge, scrolling through holos of children working in the mines and organ recyclers. The stench of oil and sweat and urine in the Stim dens had not left his nose, nor had the sweet smell of the rotting food thrown into them. And the iron taste of blood in his torn mouth from the beatings had not left his tongue, because these were not the holos of children whose lives he had destroyed. These were his own memories of the Stim den on mining colony RF33, where his parents sold him for drugs.
He rubbed his forearm—tattoos covered the tracks of the needles and IVs that had delivered escape for a decade and death more than once. Between his prayers for more Stim, he had prayed for salvation, and the Archtrope of Calliope had answered his prayers. He had pulled Khanag away from the mines and shown him a different life, a life with a purpose—to carve out a utopia for the forsaken, like himself, and his son.
A high-priority message interrupted his thoughts, and a holo appeared on the bridge in front of him, a holo of a large man in silk robes who was lying on a couch with a bowl of grapes before him while a beautiful and scantily clad woman massaged his shoulders.
Khanag bowed his head. “Arrangements are final, your eminence,” he said. “All is in order.”
The archtrope waved the young woman away and leaned forward. “I am sorry for your loss, General.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
“Your son was a good soldier and worthy in our flock,” the archtrope said. “She and the orphans will be his slaves in paradise.”
“After I am through with them.”
“Yes, your revenge is assured. We will have a service here—
“Thank you, your eminence.”
“—private, of course, discretion is still necessary considering our…upcoming ventures. Speaking of which, you have the technician?”
“Yes,” Khanag replied.
“Show me.”
Khanag snapped his fingers to a uniformed crewman. “Bring him,” he said, and the crewman disappeared. Khanag dipped his head again. “It will be just a moment, your eminence.”
“You’ve come far, Mouse,” the archtrope said.
Khanag shuddered to dispel the memory of his past that the use of his old street name resurrected.
“Yes, Prophet. But recent events have exposed what was hidden. The media is powerful. Do we still proceed?”
“Our friends own the media and will never publish an…unflattering article.”
Khanag nodded. “And what about the orphans?”
“Yes, exposure makes them expendable now. But they would be useful as converts. No?”
“Avatars would be more easily controlled.”
“But we have a new future to offer them. I want their souls, not their images.”
“Our guest arrives. We must be discreet,” Khanag said and waved his hand to defocus the hologram.
Khanag’s crewman entered holding the arm of a much smaller man and brought him in front of Khanag.
“Ah, there you are. I hope your accommodations are to your liking, Mr. Matsushita,” Khanag said.
“What about my family?” Warren Matsushita asked.
“Why, they are safe of course. Do not fret.”
“I want to talk to them,” Matsushita said.
“I’m sorry, Warren. May I call you Warren?” Khanag asked but continued without pause. “You know that is impossible to speak to your family right now. They’re on vacation, Warren, at our expense. A treat for them for your being so helpful. They’re perfectly safe. I will have a video sent to you. Now to business. You can fix our little prize now, yes?
“If you have the parts I asked for, yes I can fix it.”
“Wonderful,” Khanag said. “And the controller?”
“I don’t need it. I can operate it from the box itself.”
“Excellent,” Khanag said.
“And if I help you, the Archers will release my family?”
“Yes, of course, of course, not to worry,” Khanag said.
But Warren looked at Khanag’s cold eyes and did not believe him.
“The Haveners will not be able to fix it?” Khanag asked.
“No, they don’t have the parts or the technology to make the parts,” Matsushita said. He knew that without that edge he would be useless and disposable, like his family.
“Thank you, Warren,” Khanag said. “I must beg your leave now, but you will join me for dinner later, yes?” he asked and waved his hand to dismiss him without waiting for a reply. When the technician was out of sight, Khanag cleared the display, and the archtrope reappeared.
“He’ll do. Proceed,” the archtrope said.
“Yes, Prophet. Out.”
***
After Khanag signed off and the holo went dark, a man in a business suit stepped closer to the archtrope: Edward Siede, Editor in Chief of GNN, the Galactic News Network.
“You still have the family of the tech?” Siede asked,
The archtrope had taken interest in a new woman. “Who?”
“The tech that helped build the Blackout-Box,” Siede said. “And his family.”
The archtrope frowned. “The admiral has them—a trade for cooperation, a joint mission.”
“You’ve lost your leverage,” Siede said with a smirk but then squinted. “No. That’s not quite right. You have a different plan.” He nodded slowly. “You want Khanag on the surface.”
The archtrope nodded. “And his men. Our partners are powerful and would interpret passivity as weakness. We must secure our own territory and some of theirs with which to bargain.
Siede frowned. “You should drop Khanag, Jim. His fanaticism is dangerous.”
“Your ignorance betrays you,” the archtrope said. “Some people you cannot buy with money or threats of death. The fleet is loyal to him. He is my champion, and I will have no other.”
“But if he fails?”
The archtrope dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. “There are other gladiators and other coliseums. The galaxy is mine already, as is the future.”
“For now,” Siede said. “The Tiger story is already getting legs. What will we tell them?”
“Anything remotely plausible. Anything but the truth.” The archtrope took a bunch of grapes from a bowl and gazed at his harem. “Just keep repeating it.”
“I fear this story is bigger than we can contain.”
“Our friends in the media will contain this,” the archtrope said and flipped a grape into his mouth. “We number their children in our flocks.”
Siede sneered. “And you will return their husks for a large donation when they have outlived their usefulness,” he said and shook his head. “And what will you do when there are no more people to steal from, when only the innocents are left for you to enslave?”
The archtrope glared at Siede and bared his teeth. “They are never innocent; they are human. They are beasts that cannot control their lusts and must be…” His chin trembled and he took a breath. “They must be guided for their own good.” He looked directly at Siede. “And watch your tone, or I fear you may outlive your own children.”
Siede’s eyes widened in fear.
The archtrope relaxed his face and smiled. “Now, now, Edward, my old friend,” he said and put his arm around Siede. “Not to worry. We are allies in a joint venture, no?” He opened his arms to free the robes from his forearms and expose tattoos from the Stim dens: tattoos similar to those of Khanag. “What you speak of is in the future, and there are many entertainments yet to enjoy.” Attendants moved to make him comfortable.
“Dismiss your whores, Jim,” the man in the suit said. “I’m not interested.”
The archtrope smiled wickedly. �
�They are not for you, infidel. Now, let’s see how GNN news should present our coming victory and new homeland.”
***
Songlines
“See, Merry, it’s not like your stunners,” Sandy said and adjusted the sight on the pellet gun braced against Meriel’s shoulder. They lay side by side in the dirt with Becky a few feet away pretending to shoot at varmints with a strange looking device. Meriel took aim and fired a few shots with the pellet gun.
Sandy continued with pride in her voice. “This has some recoil, so tuck it into your shoulder more. And it takes a while to reach your target, so you gotta lead it a bit.” Sandy smiled. “You got a disadvantage ’cause you’ve got two eyes.” She tapped her eye patch. “So you gotta forget your left eye is even there.”
Meriel fired a few shots until she could hit the clump of dirt she aimed for. “What about something heavier for the bigger beasts?”
Becky turned to join Meriel and her sister. “Something heavier would likely kill ’em,” Becky said. “They don’t want to hurt us usually.” She pushed the toy weapon under her belt in the small of her back and struck a pose with her hands on her hips as if she had vanquished the wild beasts and returned the planet to its proper order with children at the pinnacle of power.
“I read about that. Haven’s food chain is orthogonal to humans.”
Sandy nodded. “Ortha…right,” Sandy said. “If they eat us, they get sick. But sometimes they forget when they get hungry, and they bite first. And the little ones like to collect shiny things.”
Becky narrowed her eyes and frowned. “Yeah, like Mom’s earrings. Papa says not to kill things just ’cause they’re stupid, but no one wants to get bit. So they need remindin’ we’re not food, and we have to stop ’em from comin’ back.”
Meriel aimed at a lump that looked like an armored beaver.
“No, no!” Becky said. “That’s not a varmint. That’s Dumpy.” She whistled, and the beast waddled awkwardly toward them. Becky held out some indigenous plant to tempt it, but right behind it stalked a bigger varmint.
“Now would be a good time,” Becky said. Meriel shot and missed the bigger animal, but the dirt bloom from the ricochet scared it off.
Meriel gave the pellet gun to Sandy and rose to her feet. “What’s that brown patch by the house?” she asked. “It doesn’t look like the native plants.”
“Papa calls it grass,” Sandy said. “Every few months he plants it again, but it just turns brown.”
“Uh-huh,” Meriel said absently to Sandy and turned to Becky. “Hon, what’s the toy you were playing with?”
Becky took the device from her belt and handed it to Meriel. “It was Mom’s,” Becky said quietly.
The device was a light-blue ring about twenty-five centimeters around with a black bar across the major diameter. The bar appeared to be a natural hand grip, fitted with a trigger and colorful buttons and sliders that could be manipulated individually by the fingers. An indented segment left room for the wrist and oriented the plane of the torus along the axis of the forearm.
“Mom left it in a bag with lots of stuff that Papa says is dangerous,” Sandy said. “But he says this is OK.”
“What does it do?” Meriel asked.
Becky and Sandy shrugged simultaneously, “It doesn’t really do anything except buzz,” Becky said.
“You push that here,” Sandy said, “and it glows in the dark.”
It was well made and did not appear to be a toy. She pulled the trigger and felt the vibration in her hand. Dumpy accelerated his waddle toward them.
“Dumpy likes it,” Becky said.
“Yeah, he thinks it’s a girl…or a boy…or, I dunno,” Sandy said.
Meriel turned the device over and squinted at a long string of numbers and letters etched faintly along the inside circumference. They seemed vaguely familiar, and she squinted.
“Sandy, do you know what the numbers—” Meriel began.
“Hey, stranger,” a voice behind them said.
Meriel turned and squinted into the midday sun to see John.
“Shh,” Becky said. “Don’t ask Papa about the grass, or he’ll get mad.”
“Ahem,” Becky cleared her throat and put out her hand. Meriel smiled and put the toroidal device into it.
“For someone living in our house for weeks now, we don’t see much of each other,” John said and hugged Meriel.
Little Becky frowned and returned her hands to her hips in a pout. “She’s spending time with the other people who live there, Papa.”
“You’re sounding jealous, cowboy,” Meriel said.
“Maybe a little. Maybe you could tuck me in at night, too.”
“Sorry, John,” Meriel said. “Is lunch break over?”
“No. They turned the evaporators off,” John said. “We’ll need to shelter in the soil-processing facility.”
“Not today,” Becky said. She took Meriel’s hand and pulled her to her feet. “She’s coming with us.”
John smiled. “Aren’t you tired of her yet?”
“Nope,” Sandy said, and the girls led Meriel away.
Meriel shrugged and looked at John with an expression that said, “What can I do?”
***
“Shush, now,” the teacher said to quiet the class as Sandy and Becky led Meriel to the back of the classroom. On their way they passed drawings which represented the highlights of Haven’s short history: the first landing, the first successful harvest and the attacks by BioLuna. Meriel slowed to see more colorful pictures of spaceships and laser beams and bloody bodies. One of the pictures depicted a damaged merchant ship bristling with weapons. Fantasy, she thought and then saw the title below—the Tiger—and she realized the wall was filled with pictures of how children saw the recent attack by Khanag. Not so different, she thought, but then noticed the silence. She turned to see all of the children and the teacher watching her and smiling. And to each side, Becky and Sandy beamed up at her.
Meriel blushed at the attention. “Oh, excuse me,” she said and went to the back of the classroom while Sandy and Becky went to their seats.
“OK, class,” the teacher said. “Remember, the best of your essays will be presented at the Harvest Fair next week.” She looked at her link. “Whose turn is it, now?” “Eddy, please.”
A young boy went to the front of the class and fidgeted with a link the size of a folder.
“Our first years…,” Eddy began.
“Is that the title of your essay, Eddy?” the teacher asked while fiddling with a console on her desk.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and the teacher waved her hand for him to continue.
“Our first years on Haven were a disaster. The FTL ships that brought us here broke down on the way, and the life-support systems failed. We had to leave for the surface, but we didn’t know how to grow things here yet, because the dirt has too much copper in it.”
“And why is that, Eddy?” the teacher asked.
“Well, they think that an asteroid flew close by Haven millions of years ago.”
“A comet, dear. Haven life has adapted to it, but the copper is harmful if we don’t remove it. Why is that? Class?”
Sandy raised her hand but spoke without being called. “Because Earth plants can’t grow well near it.”
“That’s right, Sandy. Continue, Eddy.”
Rattling glass brought the kids running to the windows. Meriel followed and stood behind Sandy and Becky and watched a wall of grayish brown—hundreds of feet high—creep toward them. The dust cloud stretched across the entire horizon, and within it, the occasional bolt of lightning flashed.
“Back in your seats, children,” the teacher said. “Show me your masks.” The children held up their goggles and handkerchiefs as did Meriel. “Continue, Eddy.”
“Well, they planned to take two years to get the hydroponic-food systems working on the surface, but that didn’t work. Two of the shuttles crashed when they tried to bring the food systems to Haven. Peop
le got hungry.” Eddy played with the pad in his hands.
“Go on, Eddy,” the teacher said.
“Ah…our leaders—”
“President Steward, God rest his soul,” the teacher interrupted.
“Our leaders assigned hundreds of teams to different plots of ground to experiment with soil treatments and crop species to find out what would grow best. After a year they figured out more efficient ways to leach the selenium and copper from the soil.” He had clearly copied that part, and the teacher looked at him over her glasses.
“Eddy, do you know what ‘leach’ means?” the teacher asked.
Eddy blushed. “Ah, it’s a little bloodsucker on Earth? My dad calls politicians leeches.”
“No, dear. That’s a leech, l-e-E-c-h. You mean l-e-A-c-h. Leach means to dissolve out by percolation through the soil, which is one of the steps in removing the selenium and copper. Leech and leach are homophones, words that sound the same but have different meanings. Continue, please.”
“Lots of people helped by fertilizing the plants because the bugs here don’t like ’em,” Eddy said. “The end of the second year was a good harvest. That’s when the leaders sent away for animal embryos, and we had the first Thanksgiving Fair.”
Eddy stopped, apparently done.
John had told Meriel a more complete story. The colony was not saved by the leaders or the white-coated scientists who optimized nutritional output from the sophisticated hydroponics systems shipside. People got hungry, and while the leaders dawdled trying to figure out what to do, the colonists acted on their own. Thousands of technicians with calloused hands and dirty jeans who had a feel for growing things—people more concerned with hungry kids than control—left the ships for Haven and began experimenting. As with so many industries, science followed practice, and the scientists were smart enough to collect data and offer advice when they could and not try to control the explosion of creativity. With so many individuals experimenting, they quickly learned the simplest processes that would remove the impurities.
The windows rattled again as the dust cloud reached the farm, and the schoolhouse shuddered from the wind and thunder. Dust seeped through the cracks around the windows and doors in little streams and puffs, and Meriel felt the dryness in her throat. She waved her hand near her opposite arm and watched the hairs stand up due to the static electricity in the air, a condition they would never tolerate onboard a spaceship.