by CJ Birch
“It was named after the umquashi god of war. Avokaado defeated two hundred thousand enemies with only a rock and a shield.”
Sarka laughs out loud. The man has the tact of a five-year-old. The last thing we should be doing is insulting the religions of armed strangers.
I try to explain. “Where we’re from, an avocado is a fruit that grows on trees.”
But the little man doesn’t get mad. Instead he shrugs his broad shoulders and presses a code into the lift. “And where I am from, Avokaado is a great warrior who died a hero’s death defending the people he loved.” He pats the bulkhead like a beloved pet. “It fits, the name.”
“And what exactly are you fighting for?”
“Fighting for? Nothing except to be left alone.” We reach our destination, and he waves his blaster toward the door. Sarka ducks into a smaller corridor with large windows on each side of a hallway that seems to stretch into infinity. From here we can see the bulk of the ship. It’s shaped like two bulbous rumps. Each section must have hundreds of levels, each with its own ring of windows and circling passages. This corridor connects us between the two sections. Beyond the ship, the stars dot the expanse of space, the pattern so different than what I’m used to. It’s like we’re trapped in the dark with only pinpricks of light to show our way.
And as he leads us through the stars, he recounts how his people have been fighting a war for over two hundred years.
The illya, we learn, procreate by harvesting the essence of other species and blending them with their own. It’s the result of a deadly disease that wiped out most of their people thousands of years ago. The harvesting is fatal and coerced. I’m not exactly sure what he means by essence. Blood? And for almost a thousand years the species of this galaxy suffered unspeakable losses. They banded together to stop the illya and formed the Varbaja—the recruiters.
We’re about halfway across the walkway by this point, and I want to ask how the war’s going, but that seems a little rude.
But I don’t need to worry about being rude when Sarka’s around. He asks the question instead. “You guys close to defeating them yet?”
Tup stops. His face has taken on that look people get when they’re about to barf propaganda. “We have right on our side. That’s all that matters. With the help of people like you, the war will be won. Maybe not today or even tomorrow. But someday.”
So this righteous army depends on reluctant recruits? Sounds a little like getting your essence harvested without permission.
When we make it to the other side of the walkway, I’m struck by the difference. It’s hard to explain, but everything seems harsher. The lights, the colors. It’s almost like stepping from a daycare center with its warm, welcoming colors into a morgue and all its sterility. The other section must house the living compartments—the side that focuses on keeping all these soldiers alive. There is no doubt we’ve reached the military side.
Several soldiers jog past chanting something that refers to shoving their weapons somewhere indecent. My anxiety ratchets up several notches while Sarka calms. He’s spent most of his life in one army or another, so that makes sense. He’s come home.
As much as I don’t want to fight someone else’s war, I would rather not leave Sarka alone in a place like this. I don’t trust him. Knowing him, he’ll have his own army and a ship if you give him a few days. Sarka’s always been good at recruiting people to his cause. When I was a kid, I used to watch him talk to his men. Before a big raid or maneuver he would gather everyone in the main dining hall and rally the troops. He was hypnotic.
As an adult I recognize him for what he is, charismatic. But at the time, I was as swept away as everyone else. It helped that he was my father and I worshipped him. But even then I could tell that he was different, that he was somehow better than his men because of how he could rouse their courage and loyalty.
My mom tried to keep me away from all that. I get it now. Back then I would have to sneak out to watch, and it always felt worth it.
Tup directs us around a corner and into a large empty room. A man dressed in black is standing near a small computer station. He’s taller than Tup, but we still dwarf him by at least a foot. His hair is so white it’s translucent in places. Next to his rich brown skin, the effect is even more jarring.
“Welcome, friends.” He spreads his arms wide. I take a step back. Nothing good ever came of being welcomed by a stranger unless they wanted something from you. And like a sudden sharp jab I realize Sarka told me this. I was ten and wanted to know why we weren’t friends with anyone who flew Union ships. It’s not the most cynical statement I’ve carried with me all these years, but certainly the most memorable.
Growing up I’d always heard talk of the Union fleet, Union officers. Everything bad was always about the Union. At the time I didn’t know it was bad, but it was a word I’d come to recognize as other. As in, not us. Naturally that made me curious about anything Union. After I pestered Sarka enough about it, he finally told me the story of when he first encountered the Union after humans migrated to the Belt.
After the wars, the final disputes over the dregs of resources left on Earth, humans embarked on the Great Migration. As far as important in our species’ history goes, the only other migrations as great were when humans crossed the Bering Strait and when they left Africa.
Each migration would change our species forever. No longer were we encased in the protective electromagnetic field of our planet. Instead we’d been cast out like disgraced house guests who took advantage of our host’s hospitality.
Sarka had been part of those last armies, and as he told it, their welcome was not that of returning soldiers. The Union didn’t offer them a place among the ordinary population. They could either work in the mines on Epsilon or start their own colony on Zeta. Currently Zeta houses the prisons and a few rogue outposts of those who don’t want anything to do with the Union.
They had been heroes on Earth. But as soon as they weren’t needed, they were outsiders, pariahs, reminders of everything humans had lost. Sarka chose a third option. He formed his own army, which became known as the Burrs.
The Union has a very different version of events. They said the soldiers revolted and refused their invitation to join the Union. I suspect the truth is somewhere in between. It’s interesting that I’ve never heard of any ex-Earth soldiers living on the Belt. Surely some would have taken the offer.
Ash once told me her grandfather led the migration, back when he was a young man. It’s strange to think of my father as a contemporary of someone long dead. But that’s also the curse of the Burrs. Their programming during the war had a nasty side effect. They don’t age as quickly as most people, if at all. My father is over a hundred and sixty-five years old and doesn’t look much more than sixty. Some may see it as a blessing, but if the life you’re living is shit, why would you want to live forever?
“Welcome,” the man in black says again. The word echoes through the chamber.
Tup pushes us into the room with the blaster. “This is Rowlf. He’ll guide you through intake. Listen to him and everything’ll go okay.”
“That doesn’t sound like a glowing endorsement,” Sarka says, low so only I can hear.
As soon as we step into the room, the door behind us snaps shut. Great. We’ve entered crazy land and there’s no way out. I feel a little like I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole and the guy standing in front of me is the Mad Hatter about to serve tea made of strychnine.
“This way.” He beckons us to come closer, and more than anything that gesture sends a creepy shiver down my spine.
Whatever’s about to happen is not going to be good.
Sarka swings his giant fist toward Rowlf’s head. Instead of hearing the crunch of bone and flesh, something unexpected happens. Sarka’s fist goes straight through the man’s head, and he staggers forward from the momentum.
Rowlf keeps that calm smile plastered on his face, hands still folded under his bowling-ball stomac
h. “This isn’t our first time recruiting unknown species. We find it easier to process your intake remotely.”
Sarka’s breathing so loud it’s drowning out Rowlf, who is taking way too much pleasure in this. He must encounter people like Sarka a lot—the overly proud full of anger, frustration, and uncontrolled aggression. I put a hand on his arm to calm him down. He’s looking around like he might find some way to make Rowlf appear in person or possibly something harder than his fist, as if that’s going to help.
I personally don’t care if Sarka hyperventilates to death, but I’m not going to make us look like idiots. “Slow and steady wins the race,” I say.
He turns to me with eyes so blue they look like two crystals sitting on his pale face. He looks ready to beat me. His fists are still clenched, and he sounds like a lion huffing paint. Slow and steady wins the race. He used to tell me that. It’s from a book my grandmother read him as a kid. He didn’t have the book anymore, but it’s something about a rabbit and a turtle racing. The turtle, who shouldn’t win because he’s much slower than the rabbit, does win, only because the rabbit gets cocky. The turtle wins because he keeps going, slow and steady, never giving up.
It was no secret to me or those I grew up with that I inherited Sarka’s temper. When I would get angry or frustrated, he would pull me aside and tell me, “You don’t win by rushing or getting angry. You win by remaining calm and biding your time. It will come, and if you’re too wrapped up in your own anger, you’ll never catch your moment.”
With a spark of recognition, he visibly cools. And like that, the arrogant veneer is back in place.
“Shall I repeat the procedure?” Rowlf asks.
Sarka folds his arms. “No. We heard you the first time. What’s the option if we refuse?”
Rowlf smiles, showing a line of gums where teeth would usually sit. He must eat a lot of soup. “We didn’t give you an option. This tracker is for your protection. It lets us know if you’re in trouble. It can monitor your vital signs and dietary requirements. Since we began using the Isims, we have cut down on our fatality rate by twenty percent.”
If it was possible to eye-roll with your whole body, Sarka would have been the first person to achieve it. His fingers dig into his arms and his eyes dart around the room. There is no way to escape. I checked as soon as we walked in and saw only two doors, one on each side of the room, with no handles, which is only one of the reasons I suspect they lock from the outside.
We’re not going to find a way out of here. If Sarka refuses, this won’t end badly for just him. It’ll be bad for both of us.
“Suck it up, buttercup. Let them inject it and we can remove it later,” I say.
He leans over and, with a venom I’ve never seen, points to the back of his neck and whispers, “Oh, yeah? The last time someone ‘injected’ me with something for my own good, it programmed me to kill, and as you’re probably aware, they only come out of corpses.” The large pink scar on the back of his neck isn’t from when the military inserted the mind knot. It’s from trying to remove it.
A few months ago, they implanted one in Ash. Dr. Prashad said she’d never survive its removal. The mind knot, created to help control soldiers, entangles itself in a person’s central nervous system. Removing it would be like detaching their spinal cord from their brain stem and severing all functions.
“You have no idea what they’re going to put in us. It could very well be benign.”
“Exactly. We have no idea what they’re going to put in us.”
“What do you think will happen? If we refuse, they’ll pump some sort of knockout gas in here, put it in anyway, along with who knows what, and then all of a sudden we’re labeled troublemakers.”
“Oh, boo-fucking-hoo to that. Who gives a shit?”
I’m astounded this man has evaded the Union fleet for as long as he has. “Do you want to spend the rest of your life fighting other people’s wars?” He doesn’t answer, but he’s at least quiet. “We want to get out of here, and the only way to do that is to stay on their good side. If we cause problems, we’ll never escape. I for one want to get back to my ship.” And Ash.
“I…” He looks over at Rowlf, who’s been watching this entire hushed exchange with that same creepy toothless smile from before. “What if whatever they put inside me reacts badly with the mind knot?”
“Your mind knot’s still active?”
“Of course it’s still active. It’ll always be, until the host dies. Only it’s dormant because it’s not within range of any central computer.”
Rowlf waves a small tablet at us. “How’s it coming? We need this room for a decontamination soon.”
I nudge Sarka toward Rowlf. “Okay.” He gives me a death look but still manages to say, “We’re ready when you are.”
“Good. Please step over to the station in front of you.” From the floor, two metallic pedestals rise. “Please place your bare arms, wrist down, on the top.”
I roll up my sleeve and rest my wrist on the cold metal.
“Thank you. This will hurt.”
Holy mother of Christ. I pull my wrist away and stare at a crescent-shaped scar on the underside. Below it is a faint purple glow. It reminds me of branding cows. We used to do it to our cattle on Delta to make sure no one stole any of our herd. I’d like to think we were a little more humane about it. Kate always said they didn’t feel a thing. Now I’m not so sure. Sarka rolls down his sleeve and gives me another death stare.
“When this goes tits up, I’m blaming you.”
I do my own fair impression of a full-body eye roll.
“This way, please.” Rowlf is nothing but sunshine now as he motions us to step through the opposite door of the room.
We spend the rest of the morning? afternoon? several hours at least, making our way through what everyone calls intake. After the branding, they separate us to go through something resembling twentieth-century delousing. First they make you strip down to nothing. A strange robotic arm extends an orange thong. My modesty is an odd thing for slave masters to concern themselves with. After I decline the thong, they paint me from the neck down in foul-smelling purple stuff that burns away after a few minutes. I’m guessing it’s supposed to kill anything living on me. Incidentally, it also removes my body hair. People pay good money for this service on Alpha. The experience, I’m sure, is better on Alpha.
After the foul purple stuff, I’m coated from head to toe in a clear gel that pours from spouts in the ceiling. It smells antiseptic and does a good job of stinging the back of my throat. I try not to breathe it in.
The shoulder where the avian gouged me is especially painful. Before I’m herded to the next section, a second, fatter robotic arm drops from the ceiling and straps my arm in place before poking me with a syringe. A third drops and rolls liquid on the injury, which hardens. I’m told the cost for this medical procedure will come out of my first paycheck. I haven’t even joined their army and am already in debt. Great.
After delousing, I’m taken to a stall. The back shuts and a dark-green beam scans my body. After a few minutes a small slot near the front slides open, and I’m presented with clothes. It’s a variation on Tup’s uniform. This is all too prison-ward for my liking. I feel like I’ve been charged with an offence I didn’t even know I’d committed. The material is darker than any I’ve ever seen, hard in all the right places, and I suspect it doubles as armor. When it shifts between my fingers it almost shimmers. What other capabilities does it have? Hartley would kill to get ahold of this stuff. When I slide it on, the fabric fits like a second skin and breathes surprisingly well.
After I’m clothed again, Sarka and I reunite in a small room with two rows of desks facing a large screen. His new uniform is an improvement of the ragtag outfit he’s been sporting. This one doesn’t have any patches, nor does it smell like cabbage and dust. His face is even more taut than usual, which isn’t a good sign. It means he’s stressed, and a stressed Sarka is a dangerous Sarka.
&nbs
p; “Calm down.”
“What?” His voice is gruff and hard. “These people are strange.”
“I know. Very contradictory.”
“Why bother with all the pleasantries? It’s not like they’re asking our permission.” He runs his hands down his sleeves, admiring the fabric. If they had asked, I get the feeling he’d say yes.
“I was thinking more about the orange thong,” I say.
“I figured that was to protect your junk.”
“Huh. It didn’t seem like enough fabric to offer protection.” I’m now wishing I hadn’t refused the thong. Who knows what that purple stuff actually was.
“How much fabric do you need?”
The screen in front of us lights up, and a small, and I mean tiny—like the size of a teapot—woman flashes on screen. Her hair is green and sweeps into a spiral bun on top of her head. Her pale white skin is smooth and flawless. The four teeth I can see in her mouth taper into sharp points that make her smile, which has most of the real estate on her face, appear sinister.
I lean over to Sarka and whisper, “Why do I keep feeling like I’m Alice in Wonderland.”
“Did you think all aliens would look like you?”
“No. Of course not.” Yes. A little.
He points to the screen. “At least they’re not flesh-eating octopuses.”
“Gee, thanks for that nightmare.”
“Please be seated,” the tiny woman says. She introduces herself as Veera and directs us to turn on the tablet sitting at each desk.
A logo pulses blue and then fades. I think we’re about to be indoctrinated.
“Welcome to basic training,” Veera says.
My screen glows blue for a moment. A small dot blinks on and off, followed by a short diagram of how to sit in a chair and pull it up to a desk. When they say basic, they mean it.
Sarka points to his tablet. “That was helpful. I was worried I was doing it wrong.”
“Over the next few days you will both be assessed and placed in the division best suited to your talents. In order to make this process as smooth as possible, we request that when asked questions, you answer as truthfully as possible. We understand how disorienting this procedure can be, but for the good of everyone, it’s in your best interest to cooperate.”