Fitted up with full apparatus, Tom caught a glimpse of himself in the polished hull of Kara’s ship. “I look like a mobile oil refinery,” he muttered, as he felt his way outside.
In and out of view through the rolling heavy gases, were the blackened stumps of trees. Nothing else living or dead remained. A breeze thinned the fumes slightly. Across a small valley, Tom noticed great steaming vats of liquid linked by conveyor belts. Mining machinery moved ponderously around, loading hoppers with shovels of ore.
“This is really Skagos? What happened?” Tom spoke into the communicator.
“Right before we left the planet,” came Kara’s answer, slightly muffled by the shower she was taking inside the cylinder, “the energy drain disappeared, along with the Skagans.”
Tom’s face darkened as he tried to remember something he seemed to have forgotten. “I think I know. Did I see an explosion?”
“Possibly.” Kara continued hastily. “Now that ships could land safely, the Consortium moved in, first performing exploratory digs, and then deciding to process the planet. It was discovered to be rich in deposits of the highly coveted Silenite-TN ore, used in a lot of beauty products. They removed the Smorgs by poisoning the ale—apparently, it tasted no different—and then their subsidiary, The F.B.T. Mining Company, arrived in with heavy equipment.”
“FBT?”
“Freakin’ Big Tractor, or something... I don’t know, or care.”
“Right,” said Tom, not believing her.
“All they had to do,” she continued, “was strip off the topsoil to get at the ore. They use the cheap purification process you can see parts of here, and poisoned the atmosphere. If you look closely at the mining equipment, you will see the Consortium logo we have grown to know and love.”
“What, that insignia of a planet with a bolt through the middle?”
“A screw.”
“I’d love one. I’m on my way back.”
“No you moron,” said Kara, “that bolt is called a screw in most normal places. You see, the Consortium is so powerful they don’t mind advertising the fact that they are screwing everybody.”
“And the Skagans have gone, you say?”
“Most of them. There are thought to be a few left, hiding in the hills somewhere, but the miners aren’t bothered with them and I expect the gasses have seen them off, by now.”
“Shame. I never did get to meet one. From what I’ve heard, the women are something spectacular.”
“Stick with me, and we might yet fix you up.”
“I thought I was on a promise with you... if I helped.”
“Of course. Help me, and I’ll see you are not disappointed.”
“Okay, I agree it’s messy here, but I still don’t see anything companies aren’t doing on Earth. They get away with it because they have the money and pay off the people in charge. Earth is managing nicely thank you.”
“So far.” Kara sighed, and was towelling her hair dry as Tom re-entered the cylinder. “I had hoped to spare you this one, but if you insist, then we have to visit your Earth, in the year 2260.”
* * *
“Notice anything?” Kara and Tom stood in the main street of a small industrial town in Lancashire. Tom scratched his head. There were people shuffling about, through knee-deep piles of plastic sheets, cigarette packets, FabSalwch and pizza boxes, and discarded black bags, which may have contained dog excrement. The people had blank stares, and were moving like zombies, with a mechanical precision, silently ignoring each other. Several of them had green fungus growing through rents in their clothing, others had bleached hair, falling out in handfuls, showing patches of grey skin. The air stank of death and corruption.
“The clothes are a bit different,” said Tom brightly, not believing what he was seeing, “but everything else appears normal.”
Kara shot him a scathing glance. “Come into this pub then.”
Tom was already halfway through the door, and kicking the litter back out into the street. “She’s paying,” he said to the bartender. He noticed that the man wore a uniform combining the styles of waiter and Consortium trooper. “Two of your best ales.”
They sat down in the deserted saloon. “Some of the trophies around the walls look like famous political people from my time. Those heads are an excellent likeness.”
“Yes, they are the heads of governments, which were cut off in the revolution the Consortium started a couple of centuries ago.”
“You mean they are real?”
“Why do you think this place is called the ‘Politician’s Head’?”
“I thought it was a cut above the average.”
“We will try The Fathers-of-the-Chapel Arms next.”
“Ugh, no thanks—this is bad enough.”
The publican interrupted, by insolently bringing two drinks to their table. “Thirty-five thousand dollars, you scum,” he said.
“Take my Galacticredit?” Kara passed him her card. He took it suspiciously to a machine on the bar, and swiped it over the surface.
A whirring chewing sound came from the machine. “Credit good,” it droned, and punched out a small piece of plastic, with a caption that said, “Please dispose of thoughtfully.”
“We don’t get many people in here from your part of the cosmos,” said the publican. “Are you here on business or pleasure?”
“Yes, thank you,” said Kara, and gave him a knowing look.
“Sorry, ma’am,” he muttered. “Hush hush, of course…” They exchanged a conspiratorial wink.
Tom tasted the liquid. “Ugh. That’s like a shag on a beach!” he spluttered. “Is this a ‘Sewaters’ pub?”
“Shag on a beach?” Kara raised her eyebrows.
“Yes, er, f’king near water.”
“Purer than any water you can get now,” said Kara. “Cleaner and better processed. This is about the best pint you can find anywhere on the planet.”
“What (on Earth) has happened?”
“This was all caused by OrcommNE—kind of complicated—do you really want to know?”
“It is, will be, was, my planet, so it might help.”
“Are you sure you want to know?”
“Go on, please.”
Kara took a breath. “The organisation needed cheap labour to build their new range of self-aware home-help machines.”
“Yes?”
“Infiltrated governments in twenty-first century, and started increasing prices of most luxury goods, and applying so-called ‘stealth’ taxes to many others, including a wealth of speed cameras to extort cash out of anyone rich enough to travel. Add to this an influx of migrants, and the outsourcing of all other jobs, but keep food and drink prices relatively static.”
“Sound economic thinking.”
“Anything sticking out of the mouth, generating fumes, is totally banned, people can afford fewer luxuries, so spend more of their time in pubs, drinking away their depression and cravings.”
“I think I might like it here.”
“Then a lot of the pubs are shut down, or relocated to out-of-the-way places, so that people always have to drive there.”
“Cut down on the noise I suppose.”
“People get dependent on beer.”
“I can’t imagine that.”
“In come draconian drink-driving laws...”
“The cads.”
“And take everyone’s money off them, in fines and tax.”
“Exactly like home...”
“...so beer is made weaker and people drink more and more, and spend more and more on lower alcohol varieties.”
“Purgatory.”
“Luxury goods suppliers go out of business, because nobody can afford to replace anything. Car-boot sales die out because nobody can travel after they’ve had two-hundred points on their licence, for such crimes as blinking and breathing while driving, and all shops become charity shops. Eventually, there is nothing to spend t
he money on, but beer and other people’s castoffs. Tax is then increased on beer, and the car workers go on strike for more money that is not available, because nobody is buying cars. People have to use taxis and spend even more money. Taxi firms controlled by...”
“...OrcommNE. Now I begin to understand.”
“No you don’t. What OrcommNE did next was to take over the breweries, and replace the manufacturing processes with an imported beer essence from the planet Begot 10, where it is a by-product of a life stimulant production process. This is mixed with lots of water, and carbonated with a mixture of compressed air and soap powder. Thus beer production costs next to nothing.”
“The devious creatures.”
“Having produced a source of free labour by destroying all generation of income, and flooding the labour market, it is a simple matter to introduce factories to do anything they like. Any money paid to the workforce is returned as soon as the pubs open. Thus people work for virtually nothing, spending what cash they have on getting to work, beer price goes up and up, living standards come down and down, people work longer, drink more beer, die quicker, etcetera. All in all, this gives the results you see before you.”
“So what happens to all the wealth produced by planets like mine?”
“That’s something we have to find out. I’ve booked us on a tour of Orcomm, on the pretext we are suitably qualified for a job with the company. They will show us around. The tour starts about one hundred and fifty years ago on the planet, Saprist-E.”
“We’d better hurry then; don’t want to be late.”
Sightseeing tour
Tom is offered a job.
Kara is too clever for her own good.
T
he cylinder materialised in a broom cupboard in Orcomm Central, flattening a can of ‘Rosepong’ air freshener and making the room smell nice. Kara checked her watch. “Good, we are twenty minutes early.”
“Early? Early for what?”
“You'll see. Follow me and do as I do.”
“I'll have to practice that walk.”
Kara screwed up her face. “Get changed.”
Dressed in brown boiler-suits, embroidered with the names, Kara Ndroy-D and Two-Dan Appain, Kara and Tom emerged cautiously into a thickly carpeted, sumptuous corridor—it was so sumptuous that the carpets covered floor, walls, and ceiling too. This they followed into a huge atrium. Kara strode confidently up to reception. A sign over the desk proclaimed, “You don’t have to be crustacean to work here, but it click click whirr buzz rattle.”
“Names, scum?” prompted the four-armed, four-eared, forewarned mutant behind the desk, as it scanned a handwritten list.
“Down there.” Kara pointed to the two final names, added in a different handwriting.
The mutant looked them up and down suspiciously, and then typed their assumed names on a keyboard. “Twelve clicks early,” it accused, as the machine threw out new badges, gold embossed with their names and small portraits. “Clip these on, and go and wait in the demonstration area.”
They went into the room indicated. “How did they know we were coming?” asked Tom. “Wow will you cop a load of some of these things…”
“I popped in last night, and added them while no one was looking,” said Kara. “Being able to monkey around with Time has its advantages, as you probably know.”
Tom glared at her. She grinned back.
“What is this place?” he said after an indignant pause.
“The main showroom, the display area for priceless objects from all over the galaxy.”
“I know some of these,” said Tom. “Look, Swiss watches, glass figurines, faceted lava-lamps, and one or two pottery owls. The other stuff, I don’t recognise.”
“The machine, there, is a holographic display unit, which produces physical holographs—very popular amongst business tycoons who haven’t time to develop personalities—and the tiny coloured bottles contain real youth serum. Have a shot of that and you’ll never age.”
“Is that what you’re on?” said Tom, reaching out.
“For Phoist’s sake don't touch anything,” whispered Kara. “The amount required to pay for a single breakage would bankrupt a planet.”
“I wonder if they take Visa,” muttered Tom. “I only want to look. I might find a souvenir.” He had picked up a highly-detailed platinum figurine of a naked lady doing something strange with a violin, when the room echoed with a deep, husky, woman’s voice.
“Right, all you potential recruits, shift your asses and get to the assembly points. You have five milliclicks, starting now.”
“Yes, do shift your arse!” Kara dragged Tom with a crowd of other browsers through a rapidly closing door. They joined a group back in the centre of the reception area, and the door snapped shut behind them. A few recruits, who had failed to get out, hammered on the thick glass between the rooms. They were quickly silenced as a dense green gas poured from concealed vents.
“That demonstrates two points,” continued the husky voice. “The first is that our security procedures are, ahem, fairly, effective.” In the showroom, two Consortium soldiers in face-masks were clubbing a life-form which appeared to be immune to the gas, “and secondly, that you must obey at once, without question, or we kill you.”
There was a pause, long enough for the observers to appreciate the spectacle on the other side of the glass.
“At the end of this tour,” continued the voice, “our selection processes mean that half of you will be dead…”
There were cries of indignation from some of the recruits.
“Sorry, perhaps we forgot to mention that in the information pack. I would therefore advise everyone to pay the strictest attention to everything we say and do. Random tests will be conducted as the tour progresses. Anyone who wants to leave, right now, is free to go.” There was a thunder of feet as more than half the people in the room disappeared through the exits.
“I don’t like the sound of this,” whispered Tom to Kara. “Can we go, while we have the chance?”
She smiled sweetly. “She said ‘half would be dead’. What do you think has happened to those who scarpered early? That’s improved our odds straight away. Anyway, what’s a little death between friends?” She squeezed his arm in a way that was uncharacteristically reassuring, but turned away and muttered to herself. “They can’t do anything serious to you anyway. Half of you is already dead... from the neck up, at least.”
“I heard that... oh.” Before Tom could protest, he was distracted by a dazzlingly beautiful girl, who emerged from a door behind the reception desk. Her soft dark hair shimmered round pale, porcelain features, and the white trouser suit she was wearing flowed around her perfectly-formed body like a breeze around a willow tree. She parted her rosebud lips to show perfect teeth, took a breath so prettily that it made elegance seem an inadequate description, and introduced herself to the assembly.
“Right, you excrement,” she bellowed like a supercharged foghorn. It was the husky voice they had heard over the address system... only louder, “Appain, Feinseirblit, Griosclanu, Ndroy, Oifigan, Siopan, follow me. The rest of you morons wait here for your own designated hostesses to arrive.”
“Come on,” whispered Kara. “This is our group.”
The first team filed out quickly, and bunched together, tightly.
“Okay garbage,” continued Husky after a short walk found them in a small conference room, “you are here today, because you wish to become executives with Orcomm, North Eastern section, and live the full life of luxury that affords. You will know little about the Company at the moment, apart from the salaries published illegally on TwitFace, but on this tour you will learn many of its secrets. This is why, regrettably, you must join us or be terminated after, before or during, the tour.” She paused dramatically for the statement to be assimilated. “Anyone who wants to leave at this stage, please make yourselves known.” There was an ominous click from the rifle of a
black-leather-clad soldier, standing in the doorway. Nobody moved. “Good.” Husky smiled a perfect smile. “We appreciate commitment.” She regarded each of the recruits in turn. Tom shuddered, when her gaze fell on him, but then she looked away, and pointed to a display that had appeared on the wall.
“Orcomm was formed nearly three hundred years ago, by the great philanthropist, Oilflig Phoist, Seventeenth Earl of Aminopyralid, on the planet, Glenforbis.” Here she paused again and scanned her students. Oifigan started clapping self-consciously. Husky stared at Tom. He joined in, followed quickly by the others. Husky smiled. “Very good; you are learning. Oilflig is our inspiration and spiritual leader.”
She held up a hand to quieten the room. “The turning point in his career came when he borrowed a prototype time-machine from a bunch of meddling hoydens who left it parked near his college during a graduation party…”
Tom shot an accusing glance at Kara. She shrugged, implying that it could have happened to anyone,
“…and used it to transport himself forward in time. He obtained plans for the first ever organic computer from an insignificant little man on a planet we now use for training battle-troops, and then posted himself backwards in time again, thereby getting a good start ahead of the competition.”
Several of the recruits nodded sagely.
“Since then, sales of sentient processors have been legion, and are now installed as control systems in most of the galaxy’s civilisations. They do all the administration and control, while the inhabitants get on with complaining about the benefits system and making new laws and complicating processes... Yes, er, Feinseirblit?”
“Sorry miss?”
“You looked as though you wanted to say something. Out with it. I won’t bite, you know.”
“When you said ‘complicating’ processes, did you mean ‘complicated’ processes?”
“No, I did mean ‘complicating’. As you probably know, a process can be made very efficient and simple. As soon as you get people involved, they take that process, and work on it until it is unusable... hence ‘complicating’. Of course this doesn’t bother the Sentient. They are content that the people are occupied doing worthless tasks, and leaving them to get on with the real work.” Husky took a breath. “Oh, yes, we know that people everywhere are basically stupid, so we exploit it. Don’t feel bad about that. When people are content, or very poor, the more offspring they have. Exploitation is more efficient than motivation, when the labour market is infinite. That is when we start to reap the benefits of the system, as the Sentient starts channelling cash and resources into Orcomm Central... with me so far?”
The Legend of Dan Page 17